Ontological Defense of Presentism Concerning Time versus Eternalism

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Philosophy and Wisdom. Faculty of Islamic Sciences and Research. Imam Khomeini International University. Qazvin. Iran

2 pDepartment of Philosophy and Wisdom. Faculty of Islamic Sciences and Research. Imam Khomeini International University. Qazvin. Iran

Abstract

In this article, the authors have tried to resolve the conflict between two theories on time, namely presentism and eternalism, based on an analytical-descriptive research method. According to presentism, only time and identities of now are present and real, and the past/future have no reality or existence. On the other hand, eternalism seeks to explain the idea that all times, past/present/future, have equal reality and are existing. Presentism is based on theory A and eternalism is based on theory B concerning time. According to theory A, the categories of past/present/future are inherent to time and the passage of time is justified on their basis. According to theory B, the categories of time are arranged according to before/after/simultaneous with, and are sufficient to explain the passage of time. Important drawbacks have been leveled against presentism, the most important of which are the problem of individual propositions, the absent objects, and the relationship between present and absent objects. In other words, how can presentism talk about past and future objects that do not exist as per their presupposition? Presentists have attempted to resolve these problems by means of paraphrasing solution of the past/future statements and by the idea that times are similar to the possible worlds. Finally, two important arguments in defense of presentism are provided: the principle of reality intuition and the appeal to the principle of metaphysical parsimony. According to these arguments, first, presentism is more consistent with intuition, and second, metaphysical parsimony considerations show that it is wrong to unduly multiply objects in metaphysical theories. Presentism is therefore a better idea than eternalism concerning time.

Keywords

References

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