Presentism and Eternalism
Are dinosaurs and future Mars colonists just as real as you are now, or does only the present exist? This topic concerns ontological theories of time: which times and their contents are real.
Definition
Presentism holds that only present objects and events exist; eternalism holds that past, present, and future entities are all equally real; the growing block holds that the past and present are real but the future is not.
Scope
Covers presentism, eternalism, and the growing-block theory; the truthmaker problem for past- and future-tensed claims; cross-temporal relations; and the challenge that the relativity of simultaneity poses to a privileged present.
Core questions
- Which times and their contents exist?
- What makes claims about the past true if the past does not exist?
- Can presentism be reconciled with relativity?
- How do the rival ontologies handle cross-temporal relations?
Key concepts
- Presentism
- Eternalism
- Growing block
- Truthmaker problem
- Cross-temporal relations
- Block universe
Key theories
- Eternalism
- All times are equally real, forming a four-dimensional manifold; the present is no more privileged ontologically than the spatially here, a view congenial to the B-theory and four-dimensionalism.
- Presentism
- Only what is present exists; past and future objects do not, so presentists must explain the truth of statements about other times, as Bourne attempts with surrogate truthmakers.
- Growing block
- Broad's view that the past and present are real while the future is not, so reality grows as new events come into being and the sum of facts increases.
History
Broad articulated the growing-block theory in 1923. The presentism-eternalism debate intensified in late twentieth-century analytic metaphysics, especially around four-dimensionalism and the truthmaker problem, with relativistic physics frequently invoked against presentism's privileged present.
Debates
- The truthmaker problem for presentism
- If only the present exists, critics ask what makes true claims such as 'there were dinosaurs'; presentists respond with present-tensed surrogates, primitive tensed facts, or appeals to past-directed properties.
Key figures
- C. D. Broad
- Arthur Prior
- Theodore Sider
- Craig Bourne
- Trenton Merricks
Related topics
Seminal works
- broad1923
- sider2001
Frequently asked questions
- What is the block universe?
- The block universe is the eternalist picture on which all of spacetime and its contents, past, present, and future, exist as a single four-dimensional whole, with no objective passage and no ontologically privileged present moment.