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Presentism: Essential Readings contains writings—classic and contemporary—that acquaint the reader with different versions of presentism, standard philosophical and scientific objections to presentism, and their attempted solutions. Detailed introductions to each part of the book make the discussions accessible to students and those unfamiliar with this fascinating and controversial philosophy.

In R. D. Ingthorsson’s provocative and carefully researched book, McTaggart’s Paradox, the author aims to demonstrate that “practically every writer is guilty of some or other of the misunderstandings of McTaggart’s paradox that I outline in this book”. The most dramatic misunderstanding that commentators make is the failure to realize that McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time depends on the principle of temporal parity: the thesis that all times, whether A times or B times, exist equally or co-exist. Since (...) temporal parity is also a central tenet of the B view, B-theorists cannot use McTaggart’s paradox to support their view as temporal parity also demonstrates that the B-theory cannot accommodate change or account for the temporality of earlier than and later than. Ingthorsson concludes that only if we reject temporal parity, the B view, and all versions of the A view except presentism, can we account for the intuitively plausible view, “the one that coincides with ‘the man on the street’ … that only those things exist that exist now, and that only those things will count as co-existing that are simultaneous with each other”. (shrink)