Abstract

The article deals with the problem of how works indexical reference to temporal moments (especially to the present) in the philosophy of Leibniz. Leibniz refutes Newton's and Clarke’s theory of absolute time: since there is no sufficient reason to consider the universe as having being created at one absolute moment rather than at another, temporal moments can be individuated only through their reciprocal relation. What then distinguishes reference to the present from reference to the past and to the future? There is a dilemma here: either the difference is real and the principle of sufficient reason seems to fail (given that the relational theory gives only the relational position of temporal moments), or the difference is only ideal. The author shows that the so-called “causal theory” of time does not solve the dilemma and concludes thus that the Leibnizian theory of time might have been better grounded.