New Papers on the Present

Presentism is the view that only the present exists. Eternalism, by contrast, is the view that present, past and future objects and times exist. Philosophers have been divided for centuries regarding whether reality is an ever changing present consisting of objects and events coming into and out of existence, or whether reality is composed of all that did, does, and will exist. On the one hand, presentism and the associated dynamical view of time look closer to common sense and to the way we ordinarily think and talk about past and future objects; on the other hand, there are aspects of common sense talk that are more easily accommodated by eternalism, and, arguably, eternalism is a better ?t with contemporary science. In the last two decades in analytic philosophy both positions have been defended and the literature ?ourishes with arguments for and against each of them, along with a huge family of alternative proposals.

This proliferation of views and the many attendant discussions provides evidence for the importance of the issue in the contemporary philosophy of time. The present volume targets anyone who is interested in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, from those who are new to the philosophy of time to those whose studies are more advanced. It provides updated and re?ned research perspectives on topics such as the status of the present, the groundedness of truth, cross-temporality, the passage of time, and the methodological assumptions behind the debate between presentists and eternalists.
The book is to be read as a coherent whole and not as a series of disparate papers on a similar theme; it settles the terms and me-thelology oh the debate, weighs the costs and bene?ts of each posi-tion and considers the plausibility of alternative solutions. The papers offered are novel, and add to the literature on the philoso-phy of time, while at the same time they are written so as to focus on the core issues at play in the debate and not to get bound up in small technical side issues. This is why they are of general interest both to specialists in the philosophy of time and to those who are approaching these issues for the ?rst time. Bibliographies will be found at the end of each paper, and we hope they will constitute a helpful research tool for the reader.