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Presentism
Edited by David Ingram (University of York)
About this topic
| Summary | Presentism is typically taken as the ‘common-sense’ account of time, and is most easily characterized as the combination of two theses. First of all, the presentist holds that only the present time exists, or conversely that no non-present times exist. Alternatively, this ontological thesis is often formulated solely in terms of present objects, i.e. as the thesis that only present objects exist or that no non-present objects exist. This makes presentism the natural foil for eternalism, which holds that past, present, and future times (or objects) are ontologically on par. Second, presentism is typically understood as an A-theoretic account of time committed to an objective, changing present. This commitment to a dynamic account of time is shared with similar A-theoretic accounts such as the growing block and moving spotlight views of time. |
| Key works | Contemporary presentism can trace its roots back to the work of A.N. Prior, but the classic contemporary defense of the view is provided by Bigelow 1996. Bigelow presents a forceful statement of presentism’s common-sense motivations as well as a popular template for responding to some of presentism’s most pressing objections. Markosian 2004 provides a useful summary of objections faced by presentism and defends a number of responses. Keller 2004 is an excellent survey of one of presentism’s central philosophical problems, the truthmaking objection, and argues against a number of responses available to the presentist. Bourne 2006 provides a powerful book-length defense of presentism, while Crisp 2007 argues for a similar account. Bourne and Crisp offer what is termed an ‘ersatz’ account of presentism that represents a state of the art response to truthmaking objections to presentism. Merricks 2007 and Tallant 2009 contain interesting further discussion of presentism and the truthmaking objection. Presentism is also often taken to face a challenge from relativity. Putnam 1967 and Rietdijk 1966 represent the classic presentation of this challenge. See Monton 2006 and Wüthrich 2010 for further discussion of the relationship between presentism and contemporary physics. |
| Introductions | Good introductions include Crisp 2003, Miller 2013, and Ingram & Tallant 2022. |
Show all references
Related
Siblings
- Eternalism (381)
- Growing Block Views (141)
- The Open Future (352)
- Determinism (944)
- Fatalism (343)
- Temporal Eliminativism (83)
- Temporal Ontology, Misc (168)
Contents
560 found
Order:
| 1 — 50 / 560 |
- Presentism and the Experience of Time.Mauro Dorato - 2015 - Topoi 34 (1):265-275.Presentists have typically argued that the Block View is incapable of explaining our experience of time. In this paper I argue that the phenomenology of our experience of time is, on the contrary, against presentism. My argument is based on a dilemma: presentists must either assume that the metaphysical present has no temporal extension, or that it is temporally extended. The former horn leads to phenomenological problems. The latter renders presentism metaphysically incoherent, unless one posits a discrete present that, however, (...)
- The Present.Steven M. Duncan - manuscriptWhile the nature of the past and the future have received a lot of attention from recent analytic philosophers, the present has been somewhat neglected. I think the notion of the present is somewhat misunderstood and hope to rectify some of those misunderstandings in this essay. It is high time that this was done. Let's do it now!
- In Defense of Temporal Passage.Steven M. Duncan - manuscriptIn this paper, I endorse and defend the Common Sense View of Time (CSVT), i.e. Presentism plus the A-theory of time, by arguing for the objective reality of temporal passage.
- Momentum and Context.Hans Halvorson - manuscriptA sentence's meaning may depend on the state of motion of the speaker. I argue that this context-sensitivity blocks the inference from special relativity to four-dimensionalism.
- The Time Flow Manifesto Chapter 4 Metaphysical Time Flow.Andrew Holster - manuscriptIn the philosophy of time, the neo-positivist is focussed above all else on sustaining the view called the static theory of time, as the very foundation of their scientific metaphysics. This is the deeply held metaphysical conviction of almost all ‘modern philosophical-scientific’ writers on time. In fact it is hardly too much to say that the entire official modern 20th Century philosophy of physics rests on the assumption that the static theory of space-time is the only concept of time we (...)
- A Common-Sense A-Theory: Time’s Passing, Cross-temporal Relationships, Truthmakers.Alexander Jackson - manuscriptI propose a novel A-theory, and show that it attractively articulates our common-sense, pre-relativistic conception of time. This A-theory posits fundamental facts about how things were at a specific past times. It allows fundamental cross-temporal relationships. It treats time’s passing by positing fundamental facts like: four hours passed from 8am today until noon. First, I motivate my account of time’s passing. Second, I defend fundamental cross-temporal relationships. Third, I rebut arguments demanding present truth-makers for truths about the past. Author (MS) (...)
- Escape the Presentism–Eternalism Dilemma: Towards A Common-Sense A-Theory.Alexander Jackson - manuscriptI propose a novel A-theory that attractively articulates our common-sense, pre-relativistic conception of time. This A-theory posits fundamental facts about how things were at a specific past times. It treats time’s passing by positing fundamental facts like: four hours passed from 8am today until noon. It allows fundamental cross-temporal relationships. I show that the presentism–eternalism dilemma does not embarrass the proposed A-theory. There are two notions of existence in play: existence at a time and ‘-existence’. Neither features in the fundamental (...)
- Ultimate-Humeanism.Samuel John Andrews - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.Super-Humeans argue that the most parsimonious ontology of the natural world compatible with our best physical theories consists exclusively of particles and the distance relations between them. This paper argues by contrast that Super-Humean reduction goes insufficiently far, by showing there to be a more parsimonious ontology compatible with physics: Ultimate-Humeanism. This novel view posits an ontology consisting solely of the particles and distance relations required for the existence of a single brain. Super-Humeans impose conditions on what counts as an (...)
- Apocalypse now? Replying to doomsday arguments in temporal metaphysics.Patrick Dawson - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.Doomsday is the last moment in time. Nothing comes after. In the recent literature on temporal metaphysics, several theories have recently been challenged by arguments invoking doomsday. A shared premise in these arguments is that it would be a problem or drawback for a theory of time, if it failed to allow for moments of undetermined doomsday. In such moments, time ends without being determined to do so by the laws plus the state of the world at that moment. In (...)
- Time, Metaphysics of.Natalja Deng - forthcoming - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Metaphysics is the part of philosophy that asks questions about the nature of reality – about what there is, and what it is like. The metaphysics of time is the part of the philosophy of time that asks questions about the nature of temporal reality. One central such question is that of whether time passes or flows, or whether it has a dynamic aspect.
- The Affective and Practical Consequences of Presentism and Eternalism.Mauro Dorato - forthcoming - Argumenta.In the dispute between presentism and eternalism, the affective dimensions of the debate have been somewhat neglected. Contemporary philosophers of time have not tried to relate these ontological positions with two of the most discussed maxims in the history of ethics – “live in the present” vs. “look at your life under the aspect of the eternity” (sub specie aeternitatis)– that since the Hellenistic times have been regarded as strictly connected with them. Consequently, I raise the question of whether the (...)
- Précis of Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some.M. Oreste Fiocco - forthcoming - Analysis.This is a précis of M. Oreste Fiocco's Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some (OUP, 2024). The précis is published as part of a book symposium that includes critical papers by Michael Della Rocca, Fatima Amijee, Sara Bernstein and Ned Markosian, as well as a paper by Fiocco responding to his critics.
- Radical Ontology and the Limits of Inquiry.M. Oreste Fiocco - forthcoming - Analysis.In Time and the World, I undertake a wholly critical metaphysics, one that provides an account of the world – this all-encompassing array of whatnot – and what a thing (i.e., an entity, an existent, a being) is without making any assumption whatsoever about the world. Such an undertaking requires a novel method, original inquiry, which begins by confronting all this, the world, as merely the impetus to inquiry. The execution of a wholly critical metaphysics yields insight into literally everything (...)
- Review of Patrick Todd, The Open Future. Why Future Contingents are All False.David P. Hunt - forthcoming - Zeitschrift Für Theologie Und Philosophie.
- The Stoics on Time.Daniel Nolan - forthcoming - In Dominic Bailey, The Oxford Handbook of Stoicism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.The Stoics developed a fascinating and interlocking set of doctrines about time, and those doctrines stood in stark contrast to the theory developed by Aristotle and the Peripatetics. Some controversies about Stoic views of time centre on how to unpack their idea that time and the processes of the universe are cyclical. Other controversies concern their views of the nature of time, and its relationship to bodies: how are times divided, is there a present time, and are there any bodies (...)
- Presentism without Truth-Makers.Barry Ward - forthcoming - Chronos.We construct a presentist semantics on which there are no truth-makers for past and future tensed statements. The semantics is not an expressivist or projectivist one, and is not susceptible to the semantical difficulties that confront such theories. We discuss how the approach handles some standard concerns with presentism.
- The Moving Spotlight.Ross Cameron & Daniel Deasy - 2026 - In Nina Emery, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time. Routledge.We examine moving spotlight theories of time: theories according to which there are past and future events and an objective present moment. In Section 1, we briefly discuss the origins of the view. In Section 2, we describe the traditional moving spotlight view, which we understand as an ‘enriched’ B-theory of time, and raise some problems for that view. In the next two sections, we describe versions of the moving spotlight view that we think are better and which solve those (...)
- The Future is Already Here: How the Tenseless Theory of Time Grounds Our Obligations to Future Generations.William D. Cornwell - 2026 - Ethics, Policy and Environment.This article explores the ethical foundations of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent a global consensus on human and ecological well-being but lack a clear moral framework justifying obligations to future generations. I argue that the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights supports the notion of temporal justice and underpins SDGs. Although some philosophers contend that future generations cannot possess moral standing, a comprehensive understanding of the metaphysics of time demonstrates that they exist (tenselessly) as surely as (...)
- Time and Modality.Samuele Iaquinto - 2026 - In Nina Emery, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time. Routledge. pp. 261-269.This chapter offers a brief overview of the main analogies between time and modality. The first part of the chapter is devoted to the analogy between presentism and actualism. The second part explores the analogy between non-presentist theories and possibilism. The third part discusses the analogy between temporal and modal persistence.
- Presentism and Eternalism.David Ingram - 2026 - In Nina Emery, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time. Routledge. pp. 197–208.Presentism and Eternalism are competing views about the ontological and temporal structure of the world, introduced and demarcated by their answers to questions about what exists and whether what exists changes. The goal of this chapter is to give the reader a clear understanding of Presentism and Eternalism, and a sense of some considerations used to critically assess the views by briefly rehearsing some of the main philosophical problems facing them.
- (1 other version)Presentism.David Ingram & Jonathan Tallant - 2026 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Presentism is the view that only present things exist. So understood, presentism is primarily an ontological doctrine; it’s a view about what exists, absolutely and unrestrictedly. The view is the subject of extensive discussion in the literature on time and change, with much of it focused on the problems that presentism allegedly faces. Thus, most of the literature that frames the development of presentism has grown up either in formulating objections to the view (e.g., Sider 2001: 11–52), or in response (...)
- An Empirical Argument for Presentism.David Builes & Michele Odisseas Impagnatiello - 2025 - In Dean W. Zimmerman & Karen Bennett, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Volume 14. Oxford University Press. pp. 63–88.According to orthodoxy, our best physical theories strongly support Eternalism over Presentism. Our goal is to argue against this consensus, by arguing that a certain overlooked aspect of our best physical theories strongly supports Presentism over Eternalism.
- (1 other version)Properties and Relations.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 107-130.This chapter explores the metaphysics of properties and relations, offering a detailed analysis of competing theories. It begins with a discussion of nominalism about properties, which denies the independent existence of properties, replacing them with linguistic or conceptual constructs. The text contrasts this with realism about universals, arguing that universals ground similarities among objects. Trope theory is introduced as an alternative, positing that properties are non-repeatable entities specific to each instance.The chapter also examines the conception of properties as classes of (...)
- Essences and Dispositions.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 149-165.This chapter explores the notions of essence and disposition. Traditionally, these concepts have been understood as inherently modal: a property is essential to an object if and only if it is necessarily possessed by the object (assuming the object’s existence), while a property is dispositional for an object if and only if it is possible for the object to manifest it under certain enabling conditions. Regarding essences, contemporary metaphysical debates have often centered on the question: which properties, if any, qualify (...)
- (1 other version)Mereology.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 73-89.This chapter introduces and discusses the main principles and controversies in mereology, the study of the relations between parts and wholes, focusing on the principles governing composition and parthood. It begins by distinguishing between composition as a relation among entities and as an action, introducing the principle of Uniqueness of Composition, which states that a plurality of components forms at most one composite entity. The challenges to this principle are discussed through metaphysical frameworks such as perdurantism and endurantism, which address (...)
- Contemporary Metaphysics.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - Springer Nature Switzerland.This textbook is an accessible, readable, and comprehensive introduction to contemporary analytic metaphysics. It covers all the main topics, including those that are at the forefront of the most recent research. It begins by explaining what metaphysics is and introduces the most important conceptual devices needed to understand and appreciate the ongoing debates. The text follows with core metaphysical questions, such as properties, time, identity, mereology, and modality. It concludes with more specific domains of application, in which the previously introduced (...)
- Metametaphysics.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 19-35.This chapter explores the status and methodology of contemporary metaphysics, particularly its relationship with other philosophical and non-philosophical disciplines such as the history of philosophy and science. Many, if not most, of the questions addressed in this textbook have their roots in the history of philosophy. In this respect, we argue that contemporary metaphysics is in direct continuity with the historical tradition of philosophy, while its distinctive character arises from the systematic use of logic—a tool that has significantly advanced the (...)
- (2 other versions)Abstract Objects.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 219-233.This chapter explores the metaphysics of abstract objects, that is entities that transcend sensory interaction but turn out to be fundamental in many domains: for example, prima facie, we deal with abstract entities in mathematics, literature, and language. The chapter discusses the distinction between abstract (e.g., numbers) and concrete objects (e.g., chairs) according to the fourfold approach discussed by Lewis. The most prominent distinction criteria hinge on spatiotemporal location, causal efficacy, and abstraction processes.We discuss, moreover, the problem of a metaphysical (...)
- (1 other version)Modality.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 131-147.This chapter examines the modal dimension—the realm of what is possible and necessary—and some of its key metaphysical aspects. It begins by addressing Quine’s skepticism about modality, which posits that our attributions of modal properties to individuals, if meaningful at all, are always relative to a particular way of describing those individuals. This perspective aligns with a linguistic conception of modality, where what is possible or necessary is determined by the features of our language.In contrast, contemporary metaphysics often treats certain (...)
- Artefacts.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 251-264.Chapter 15 examines the metaphysical status of artefacts, focusing on their nature, existence, and distinction from natural entities. Artefacts are defined as objects intentionally created or modified by agents for specific purposes and functions. Traditional metaphysics often contrasts artificial with natural entities, attributing to natural objects an inherent principle of movement and persistence; artefacts, on the contrary, are considered reliant on external causes and human intentions. However, these distinctions are contentious, particularly when addressing hybrid cases such as non-intentionally produced objects (...)
- (2 other versions)Time.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 191-204.This chapter is about the metaphysical dimensions of time; it explores its dynamic, ontological, and topological aspects. The discussion moves to McTaggart’s distinction between the A-series (tensed, dynamic temporal properties like being past, present, and future) and the B-series (tenseless, static temporal relations like precedence and succession). Presentism, growing block theory, and eternalism are contrasted as ontological approaches, reflecting differing views on the existence of past, present, and future entities. Eternalism, aligned with the B-theory, is highlighted for its consistency with (...)
- (2 other versions)Identity.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 37-52.This chapter explores the relation of identity, focusing on numerical identity—the relation that each entity holds with itself—and distinguishing it from qualitative identity. It introduces the standard unitary conception of identity, according to which identity is governed by reflexivity (every entity is identical to itself) and the indiscernibility of identicals (identical entities share all properties). The indiscernibility of identicals is a scarcely controversial metaphysical principle and should be distinguished from the principle of substitutivity of coreferential expressions, which concerns language and (...)
- (1 other version)Grounding.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 167-190.This chapter examines one of the most prominent notions in recent metaphysical discourse: the concept of grounding. Broadly speaking, x grounds y if and only if y depends on x for its existence, nature, or truth. Interest in this relation arises, at least in part, from the idea that grounding might serve as a device (or perhaps the most effective device) for articulating a hierarchical view of reality—one in which reality is organized into layered ontological strata. Viewed through the lens (...)
- Tools.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 1-17.This chapter explores the methods and tools foundational to metaphysics, emphasizing argumentation, conceptual clarification, and the evaluation of metaphysical theories. The discussion begins by examining the role of common sense in metaphysical inquiry, not as evidence but as a starting point to identify problems. It highlights the interplay between common-sense beliefs and conservatism, where default assumptions are tentatively retained unless compelling reasons demand their revision.The chapter further analyzes the structure and application of arguments, distinguishing between deductive and non-deductive reasoning, and (...)
- God.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 235-249.This chapter examines metaphysical questions surrounding the existence and attributes of God, according to the concept of God endorsed by classical theism. There is a brief presentation of the more common proofs for God’s existence. Traditionally, these proofs are classified as ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments. The metaphysical requirements of the premises and their logical structure are discussed. In particular, an important theoretical device exploited in the most updated versions of the ontological argument is modal logic; the principle of sufficient (...)
- Structures and Structured Entities.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 91-105.The chapter explores the metaphysical concept of structure in composite entities. It begins with a discussion on how entities, both natural and artificial, have parts organized in specific ways, introducing key aspects of structure: order, repetition, and stratification. The chapter delves into how these aspects interact with the roles parts play within an entity’s structure, linking this to their functions.The impact of structure on the identity and existence conditions of composite entities is also discussed. In particular, mereological extensionality, universalism, and (...)
- (2 other versions)Persistence.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 205-218.This chapter investigates the metaphysical problem of persistence, that is the way in which entities exist and continue to exist at different instants of time. We take into account three major theories: endurantism (more akin to common sense), which posits that objects are wholly present at every moment of time; perdurantism, which views objects as four-dimensional entities constituted not only by spatial parts but also by temporal parts; and exdurantism (or stage theory), which considers objects persisting in time as series (...)
- Existence.Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato - 2025 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Ciro De Florio, Giorgio Lando & Vittorio Morato, Contemporary Metaphysics. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 53-71.This chapter explores the answers to the ontological question, “What exists?” through four distinct philosophical perspectives. The first perspective, proposed by Carnap and neo-Carnapian thinkers, considers the question nonsensical, arguing that it holds no meaning outside specific linguistic frameworks, within which it can be resolved using the framework’s internal rules. The standard view, championed by philosophers like Quine, asserts that “Everything Exists.” This view holds that existence is universal, expressed through the particular quantifier. The chapter explores some challenges affecting this (...)
- The presentist four-dimensionalist conception of the self in Guo Xiang’s commentary.Linhe Han & Xinyi Zhan - 2025 - Asian Philosophy:1-15.Guo Xiang 郭象 made an innovative development of the Zhuangzian no-self view. This paper analyzes Guo’s conception of the self through the lens of contemporary metaphysics, arguing that his rejection of the conventional understanding of the self for ordinary people corresponds with presentist four-dimensionalism. By asserting that the previous self is not the present self, Guo rejected the notion of an enduring self across time. This idea corresponds with the four-dimensionalist account of persistence. By claiming that the previous self has (...)
- Eight Arguments for First‐Person Realism.David Builes - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12959.According to First-Person Realism, one's own first-person perspective on the world is metaphysically privileged in some way. After clarifying First-Person Realism by reference to parallel debates in the metaphysics of modality and time, I survey eight different arguments in favor of First-Person Realism.
- Cross‐temporal grounding.Fabrice Correia & Giovanni Merlo - 2024 - Analytic Philosophy 65 (3):333-352.Cross-temporal grounding is a type of grounding whereby present facts about the past (for example that Caesar was alive) are explained in terms of past facts (for example that Caesar is alive) rather than in terms of other present facts. This paper lays the foundations for a theory of cross-temporal grounding. After introducing the general idea of a type of grounding connecting facts to past facts, we offer two arguments that past-directed facts require cross-temporal grounds—the ‘argument from intimacy’ and the (...)
- Two General Views of Temporal Reality.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 141-162.There are two generic approaches to accounting for all temporal phenomena, including _inconstancy_ and _constancy_. On one, the world in time is _ontologically homogeneous_. There are (infinitely) many, equally real moments with no peculiarly temporal thing distinguishing any one of these from any other. Each thing in time has a permanent existence: each moment exists without ceasing to be and whatever exists at any moment exists ceaselessly at all moments it exists. The key feature of the opposing approach to temporal (...)
- Against the Ontological Homogeneity of Temporal Reality.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 163-189.This chapter argues, by considering _temporal differentiation_, the phenomenon of the world going from one way (at one moment) to a different way (at a distinct moment), that temporal reality is not ontologically homogeneous. Temporal differentiation is indisputable; indeed, no one disputes it. There is disagreement only regarding what things, what structure, in the world is needed to account for the phenomenon. The chapter discusses the _passage of time_ as it has traditionally been understood and maintains there is no such (...)
- All This and Why It Matters.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 303-314.The _world_ in its entirety is _the things inside and outside of time_. The insightfulness of this answer turns on the account of what a thing is, and so this chapter considers again, from the perspective afforded by the preceding discussion, the method of _original inquiry_ and the discipline of _metaphysics_. Metaphysics is definitive; it can be undertaken once and for all, producing a universal theory that constrains all other inquiry. The generality of the discipline is the basis of its (...)
- Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - New York: Oxford University Press.This is a book about everything. Literally. It is also a book about how anything whatsoever happens. By answering the question what is a thing?, philosopher M. Oreste Fiocco reveals what it is to exist, what a being, any being at all, is. In this way, he illuminates reality as a whole and what it is to be real. Such profound matters require a special method of inquiry, which Fiocco introduces and elaborates. Any assumption about the world or anything in (...)
- Atemporal Reality and Constancy.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 273-300.The basis of the _constancy_ in the world is not to be found among anything significantly related to _time_. This conclusion reveals the importance of _atemporal reality_ to the metaphysics of time. This chapter examines _timelessness_, existence outside of—without—time. The account of time per se developed in preceding chapters enables a straightforward and non-metaphorical account of timelessness. There are indeed things that exist without, that is, outside of time. Although some of these atemporal entities exist without origin and, as such, (...)
- What Is All This?M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 3-30.This chapter introduces the present work, which begins by questioning what _the world_ as a whole is via the question of what a _thing_ (any thing at all) is. A novel method of _inquiry_ is needed to answer such general questions. This chapter also introduces this method: _original inquiry_. Original inquiry is presuppositionless in that it makes no assumptions about the world or what is in it. The feasibility of such inquiry is defended. Engaging in original inquiry reveals the significance (...)
- Against Mere Qualitative Heterogeneity in Temporal Reality.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 190-218.The world in time is _ontologically heterogeneous_: at least one moment is unique, bearing a temporal property or having some distinction that separates it from any other moment. On some accounts of such structure, this heterogeneity is supposed to be _merely qualitative_, a difference in the properties that moments or the things that exist at them bear. On others, the heterogeneity is more profound, a difference in what _exists simpliciter_ from one moment to the next. This chapter argues against accounts (...)
- Temporal Reality and Inconstancy.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 247-272.This moment, now, exists but for an instant, and is replaced by another moment, which stands in no relation to the former. This is suggestive of _presentism_, a somewhat notorious view. This chapter elaborates this book’s account of temporal reality by examining it vis-à-vis presentism. Although this account rejects what is standardly the definitive ontological claim of presentism, that _only present things exist_, regarding it as presentist is nonetheless appropriate. The account, which avoids all the problems usually associated with presentism, (...)
- Radical Ontology and Its Principles.M. Oreste Fiocco - 2024 - In Time and the World: Every Thing and Then Some. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 92-119.This chapter shows how the preceding account of a _thing_ illuminates the _structure in the world_. In particular, it makes clear that there are _necessary connections_ among things in themselves and reveals the apt notion of _fundamentality_. The chapter then presents an account of what _the world_ is. The world is not a thing per se; it is not one thing itself, just the plurality of all things. The main value of wholly critical metaphysics is the theoretical framework for all (...)
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