McTaggart's paradox and temporal solipsism

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 79, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 32-44

  Craig, W Lane ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84949115532     PISSN: 00048402     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713659176     Document Type: Article

References (83)

1. J. Ellis McTaggart, 'The Unreatity of Time', Mind 17 (1908): 457, 74.
2. David J. Farmer, Being in Time: The Nature of Time in Light of McTaggart s Paradox (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1990).
3. D. B. Mellor, who in his Real Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 4-5.
4. Mellor despairs of convincing A-theorists on the basis of the famous paradox and tums to other arguments (Real Time II [London: Rautledge, 1999], p. 79).
5. An examination of his arguments, however, reveals that they are but different versions of McTaggart's Paradox.
6. A similar paint has been made by Rogenvaldur lngthorsson, 'McTaggart and the Unreality of Time', Axiomathes 3 (1998): 287-306.
7. Mellor, Real Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 89-90.
8. L. Nathan Oaklander, 'Zeiticovici on Temporal Becoming', Philasaphia 21 (1991): 329.
9. Robin Le Poidevin, Change, Cause, and Cantradicdan: A Defense of the Tenseless Theoty af Time (London: Maemittan, 1991), P. 30.
10. Michaet Dummen, 'The Reality of the Past', Praceedings af the Aristotelian Society 69(1968-1969):
11. who pointed out that while on a tenseless theory of time there could exist such a collection of all the facts there are, on a tensed theory there is no such consistent totality, since what facts there are changes from one moment so the next.
12. This assumption comes to the fore even more ctearty in his tater comment on this passsge. tn response to the objection thst one shoutd say, not that it is a past fact that WWI is present, but that it is a past fact that WWt was present, which is not contradictory, Le Poidevin answers,
13. To this t would repty: "what, then, do peopte mean when they say that the past is reat, but the thture not? After all there witt be future states of affairs, so the future witt be reat, just as the past was reat.
14. Wherein ties the asymmetry? The answer must be that, atthough the dinosaurs (for exampte) are extinct, they are stitt reat to the extent that it is they and their properties which make statements about dinosaurs tme, not present evidence in the form of fossils.
15. Robin Le Poidevin, 'Lowe on McTaggart', Mind 102 (1993): 168.
16. Although Le Poidevin's characterisation of the reatity of the dinosaurs coutd be given an acceptabte sense by the presentist (viz., by taking 'make' tensetessty rather than as present-tense), stitt it is clear that he intends to assert the equivalence of their ontotogicat status with that of present day existents otherwise there would be no asymmetry of past and tlature existents; future things and their properties woutd make future-tense statements about them tme, which renders the future as reat as the past.
17. Wittiam Lane Craig, Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom: The Coherence of Theism: Omniscience, Studies in Intellectual History 19 (Leiden: E.J. Britt, 1991), pp. 150-3).
18. To say that the past and future are unreal is not to assert that the Principte of Bivalence faits for future-tense propositions or statements anymore than for paat-tense propositions
19. David J. Butter and Thomas R. Foster, 'The New Paradox of Tempomt Transience', Philosophical Quarterly 42 (1992): 358-359;
20. Stanialaw Semczuk and Witotd Strawinski, Nijhoff tntemationat Phitosophy Series 30 (Dordrecht: Ktuwer Academic Pubtishers, 1991), p. 1-15;
21. Shorter 'The Reality of Time', Philosophia 14 (1984): 324.
22. Shorter overlooks, however, the possibility of relativising A-determinations to the A-series rather than the B-series.
23. McTaggart's Paradox and the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics', Analysis 58 (1998): 122.
24. Le Poidevin, Change, Cause, and Contradiction, p. 36.
25. C. B-Theorist Paul, Horwich's comment on Dummett's presentism: if there is no time-neutral body of absolute facts, there is no contradiction. Thus, by denying the assumption of this totality, McTaggart's objection can be sidestepped' (Paul Horwich, Asymmetries in Time (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980), p. 2).
26. Bertrand Russell as a derisive description of the presentist view that only the present exists (Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948), p. 181).
27. Lawrence Sklar, 'Time, Reality and Relativity', in Reduction, Time and Reality, ed. Richard Bealey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 140).
28. On the Elimination of Newton's Absolute Time by the Special Theory of Relativity', in Recent Advances in Relativity Theory, 2 vols., ed. Mogens Wegener (Palm Harbor, FL: Hadrooic Press, 2000), I: 47-66.
29. Jeremy Butterfield, 'Prior's Conception of Time', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 84 (1983-1984): 193-209.
30. Can Ontology Do without Events?' Grazer Philosophische Studien 7/8 (1979): 188-189;
31. Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, Clareoduu Library of Logic aud Philosophy (Oxford: Clareodoo Press, 1974), pp. 44-9.
32. John Bigelow, 'Worlds Enough for Time', Nous 25 (1991): 1-19;
33. Philip Percival, 'Indices of Tmth and Temporal Propositions', Philosophical Quarterly 39 (1989): 190-9;
34. Richard M. Gale, 'Lewis' tndexical Argument for World-Relative Actuality', Dialogue 28 (1989): 289-304;
35. Palle Yourgrau, 'On Time and Actuality: The Dilemma of Privileged Position', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (1986): 405-17;
36. Graeme Forbes, 'Actuality and Context Dependence t', Analysis 43 (1983): 123-8.
37. Le Poidevin, Change, Cause, and Contradiction, p. 38.
38. Quentin Smith, Language and Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 192.
39. Robert Merrihew Adams, 'Time and Thianeas', Midwest Studies in Philosophy (1986): 321-322.
40. who admits that by regarding the existentiat quantifier as disjunetivety tenaed the presentist has the resources to reproduce etassical togie conaistent with his commitment to the non-existence of non-preaent entities, but comptains that the increased comptexity is acceptabte onty if supported by atrong enough metaphyaicat intuitions.
41. think we can safety aay that the intuitiona backing presentism are enormousty strong.
42. That Adams himaetf feets these intuitions is evident from the fact that he cannot bring himsetf to tet the exiatentiat quantifier range over future individuata, consiatent with a B-theory of time, so that he is teft with the incoherent hatf-way theory enunciated by CD.
43. Broad in his middte period.
44. Michaet Woods, 'Existence and Tense', in Truth and Meaning, ed. Gareth Evans and John McDowett (Oxford: Ctarendon Preas, 1976), pp. 248-62.
45. See Adams's discussion of names for future individuats in 'Time snd Thisness', pp. 322 8
46. where he csutions sgsinst inferring the present existence of singutsr propositions shout future individuats from the fsct thst we can entertain, assert, or believe them: 'For perhaps the retations of entertaining, asserting, and betieving can obtain between thoughts and utterances occurring at one time and propositions existing onty at a tater time' (p. 323).
47. Transtemporat retations, he suggests, coutd exist timetessty or as a whote in an extended period of time without existing at any instant during the period (p. 320).
48. L. Nathan, Oaktander's book Temporal Relations and Temporal Becoming (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 984), pp. 5-22.
49. F.M. Christensen, Space-like Time (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), p. 128.
50. James Cargite, 'Tense and Existence', in Cause, Mind, and Reality, ed. John Heit, Phitosophical Studies Series 47 (Dordrecht: Ktuwer Academic Pubtishers, 1989), p. t66
51. whose question, 'tf t refer to x, does not x have the property of being referred to?' reveats the tacit assumption that the properties referring tax and being referred to byy must be possessed by x andy at the same time, which begs the question.
52. No reason has been given why these properties cannot be possessed by x and y respectivety in succession.
53. Wotterstorff, 'Ontotogy without Events', pp. 190-2.
54. They are made up whotty of properties, which, being sempitemat, can be referred to at any time.
55. Thus, being abte to refer to past and future individuats, though impossibte, is not necessary for stating the truth conditions of sentences about them.
56. Contrast Adams, 'Time and Thisness', pp. 319-20.
57. On the other hand, Roderick Chishotm, The First Person (Minneapotis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp. 125-6;
58. Referring to Things that No Longer Exist', in Acdon Theory and Philosophy of Mind, ed. James Tombertin, Philosophicat Perspectives 4 (Ataacadero, CA: Ridgeway Publishing Co., 1990), p. 554
59. proposes to sotve the probtem by positing some aempitemat entity contemporaneous with both referent and referee which did have (or witt have) the property of being such that there exists an x such that x is F.
60. For the A-theorist who is a theist God witt nicety fitt the rote of the sempitemat entity.
61. Jonathan L. Kvanvig, 'Adams on Actualism and Presentism', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 5 (1989): 297.
62. Smith, Language and Time, pp. 166-9.
63. Peter Van Inwagen, 'tndexicatity and Actuatity', Philosophical Review 89 (1980): 406.
64. Le Pnidevin, Change, Cause, and Contradiction, p. 37.
65. Van Inwagen, 'tndexicality and Aetuatity', P. 404;
66. Quentin Smith, 'The New Theory of Reference Entaits Absotute Time and Space', Philosophy of Science 58 (1991): 411-16.
67. Alfred J. Freddoso, 'Accidental Necessity and Logical Determinism', Journal of Philosophy 80 (1983): 264.
68. Accidental Necessity and Power over the Past', Parjfic Philosophical Quarterly 63 (1982): 54-68.
69. For a discussion see my Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom, pp. 83-90, 179-90.
70. If one does not accept that propositions are tensed, then one could reformulate the metaphysical primacy of the pure present in terms of non-propositional, present-tensed features of reality (e.g., God's de se knowledge of what He is creating).
71. Adams fails to appreciate the above point when he complains that on presentism 'the facts about the past and future must have their whole ontological basis in the present' so that the ontological basis of the fact that a battle was fought at Waterloo 'is not something that is or was a battle
72. Adams, 'Time and Thisness', p. 322).
73. can only understand Adams to mean that on the presentist view the grounds for the truth of 'A battle was fought at Waterloo' is the present fact that a battle was fought at Waterloo, which is not itself a battle.
74. But while there surely is such a tensed fact or state of affairs corresponding to the above statement, such a fact is not ultimate, but obtains because a purely present-tense fact-o battle is being [aught at Waterlao-did obtain, and the ontological basis of that fact was a battle.
75. M.J. Cresswell, 'Modality and Mellor's McTaggart', Studio Logica 49 (1990): 163-70.
76. Le Poidevin, Change, Cause, and Contradiction, P. 35.
77. The infinite regress of temporal attributions Southern Journal of Philosophy
78. See Quentin Smith, 'The Infinite Regress of Temporal Attributions', Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 (1986): 383 96; idem, 'The Logical Structure of the Debate about McTaggart's Paradox', Philosophy Research Archives 14 (1988 89): 371-9.
79. Smith, 'Infinite Regress of Temporal Attributions', p. 386.
80. See also Smith, 'Logiest Structure', pp. 373-4.
81. See David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Bssit Btsckwett, 1986), pp. 93, 98, 137.
82. Van tnwsgen, 'tndexicatity and Actuatity', pp. 415-17;
83. Ptantinga, Nature of Necessity, pp. 114-20.