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A Theory of Presentism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Craig Bourne
Craig Bourne*
Affiliation:
St. Catharine's College Cambridge, UKCB2 1RL
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Extract

Most of us would want to say that it is true that Socrates taught Plato. According to realists about past facts, this is made true by the fact that there is, located in the past, i.e., earlier than now, at least one real event that is the teaching of Plato by Socrates. Presentists, however, in denying that past events and facts exist cannot appeal to such facts to make their past-tensed Statements true. So what is a presentist to do?

There are at least three conditions that would ideally be met in a satisfactory solution to this problem:

  • a) It must preserve our views about which Statements are true and which false

  • b) It must be transparent what the truthmakers are for those Statements

  • c) It must accommodate the truth-value links between various times.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright ©The Authors 2006

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