Abstract

A philosopher who embraces the block universe maintains that ordinary physical objects are 4-dimensional, that there are no persisting 3-dimensional objects. The block universe is popular because it is thought to be required by modern physics; because it is thought to present the solution to traditional difficulties regarding the possibility that physical objects enjoy identity through time and through change; and because it is an alternative to admitting that events undergo temporal becoming, that events change with respect to being either future or present or past. McTaggart and other philosophers have argued that temporal becoming is incoherent, and temporal becoming is thought to be committed to such views as that language cannot be detensed without loss of meaning and that propositions change their truth values. I believe, and will argue, that propositions do not change their truth values. I believe, for instance, that when I report the present time by asserting "It's two o'clock now", I assert a proposition which can be asserted truly at any time. But it is a mistake, a very common mistake, to suppose that this view is incompatible with temporal becoming. Moreover, it is a mistake to suppose that temporal becoming is incoherent; or that Einstein's physics is incompatible with an ontology of persisting 3-dimensional objects; or that difficulties regarding the possibility that physical objects enjoy identity through time and through change require us to reject an ontology of persisting 3-dimensional objects. It seems to me that an ontology of 3-dimensional continuants, which is committed to temporal becoming, is prima facie preferable to the block universe which, I believe, requires us to deny the reality of physical change. I hope to show that this ontology can escape the charges made against it