The Problem of Temporal Unity: an Examination of the Problem and Case Study on Ersatzer Presentism

Philosophia 47 (3):791-821 (2019)
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Abstract

This paper elaborates the problem of temporal unity for dynamic presentism and diagnoses the source of that problem in the dynamic presentist’s discarding the traditional C-series in its avoidance of McTaggart’s (1908, 1927) A-series paradox. This C-series provided the fixed structure of time which the transitory aspects of time then followed, and thereby unify those transitory aspects. It then considers ersatzer presentism as an ostensible solution to the problem of temporal unity by providing a new abstract C-series (namely an ersatz-B-series) for dynamic presentism. However, after a closer examination of the details of this proposal, it is found that the ersatz-B-series itself needs to be temporally variable to capture the transitory aspects of time that it is meant to track. Consequently, it cannot provide the fixed structure of time required to unify the transitory aspects of time into a temporal series. It is therefore suggested that dynamic presentists look for a more course-grained determiner of temporal progression to construct the presentist-friendly C-series required to unify their transitory aspects of time.

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Citations of this work

Duration Enough for Presentism.Robert E. Pezet - 2020 - Axiomathes 30 (4):391-421.
Duration Enough for Presentism.Robert E. Pezet - 2020 - Axiomathes 30 (4):391-421.
The Dead Past Dilemma.Robert E. Pezet - 2022 - Metaphysica 23 (1):51-72.

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References found in this work

Writing the Book of the World.Theodore Sider - 2011 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
The Nature of Necessity.Alvin Plantinga - 1974 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
The unreality of time.John Ellis McTaggart - 1908 - Mind 17 (68):457-474.
A World of States of Affairs.D. Armstrong - 1993 - Philosophical Perspectives 7:429-440.
Four Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time.Theodore Sider - 2004 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3):642-647.

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