A defence of presentism
In Chapter 1, I argue that there are only two tenable theories of time: the tenseless theory, and presentism. The tenseless theory currently dominants the philosophy of time, whereas presentism has been neglected. The aim of the Ph.D, is therefore to develop and defend presentism, given that it is what I take to be the only serious rival to the tenseless theory. Chapter 2 specifies some conditions that any satisfactory theory of time should meet. I argue that previous attempts at formulating presentism have violated at least one of these conditions. I then develop a suitable metaphysics and semantics for presentism that meets the conditions. Chapter 3 meets further philosophical problems that presentism faces, such as McTaggart's argument, how to treat transtemporal relations, how names for past objects can have any meaning without a referent, and how it is possible to hold that future contingent statements have indeterminate truth-values without having to reject the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle. Presentism has also come under attack from arguments from the special and general theories of relativity (STR and GTR, respectively). Chapter 4 deals with the implications of STR, and argues that,
Bourne, C.
A defence of presentism. In Chapter 1, I argue that there are only two tenable theories of time: the tenseless theory, and presentism. The tenseless theory currently dominants the philosophy of time, whereas presentism has been neglected. The aim of the Ph.D, is therefore to develop and defend presentism, given that it is what I take to be the only serious rival to the tenseless theory. Chapter 2 specifies some conditions that any satisfactory theory of time should meet. I argue that previous attempts at formulating presentism have violated at least one of these conditions. I then develop a suitable metaphysics and semantics for presentism that meets the conditions. Chapter 3 meets further philosophical problems that presentism faces, such as McTaggart's argument, how to treat transtemporal relations, how names for past objects can have any meaning without a referent, and how it is possible to hold that future contingent statements have indeterminate truth-values without having to reject the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle. Presentism has also come under attack from arguments from the special and general theories of relativity (STR and GTR, respectively). Chapter 4 deals with the implications of STR, and argues that,
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