Synthese

, Volume 191, Issue 14, pp 3427–3446 | Cite as

Presentism, truthmakers and distributional properties

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Abstract

Presentists face a challenge from truthmaker theory: if you hold that the only existing objects are presently existing objects and, moreover, you agree that truth supervenes on being, then you will be hard pressed to identify some existent on which a given true but traceless claim about the past supervenes. Cameron (Philos Books 49:292–301, 2008, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, In: D Zimmerman (ed), 2011) aims to meet this challenge by appeal to distributional properties. So, to give a simple example, the truth that you were once a child supervenes on you presently instantiating the property of being initially a child and then an adult, a property distributed over time. I argue that a presentist ought to deny that distributional properties can serve as truthmakers.

Keywords

Time Presentism Truthmakers Distributional properties 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Paul Audi, Andrew Bailey, Michael Barnard, Troy Cross, Foad Dizadji-Bahmani, Michael Flood, Alice Kelly, Bernie Linsky, Ioan Muntean, Howard Nye, Joshua Peachment, Tim Put, Jason Raibley, Alex Stiles, Allison Thorton, Chris Tweedt and the audience at a paper delivered at the APA Central, February 2013.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Philosophy DepartmentUniversity of AlbertaEdmontonCanada

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