| This dissertation concerns the consequences of supposing that the world is dynamic or "tensed", that is, the consequences of supposing that the most fundamental metaphysical facts---facts about what there is, and what properties and relations things instantiate---are subject to change. This assumption, I argue, generates a difficult but compelling conception of the past and future: the past once was, but is no longer, real; the future will be, but is not yet, real. This, in turn, leads to a limited argument for presentism, the view that only the present is real, as being the only dynamic conception of the world that does not have a redundant conception of past and future.;The conceptual core of the dissertation appears in Chapter 2, where it is argued that, given a dynamic world, we are committed to saying things about the past and future which cannot be captured in terms of how things are: not in terms of what exists; not in terms of what properties or relations things instantiate; and not in terms of any brute "tensed" facts about the current state of the world.;The remainder of the dissertation considers two ways we might complicate our understanding of ontology and ideology in light of this commitment. According to the first, which I reject, the commitment requires that we relativize our most fundamental ontological and ideological concepts, so that ontology concerns not what exists, full stop, but what exists as of a time, and ideology concerns not how things are, full stop, but how they are as of a time.;According to the second, which I endorse, the commitment requires that we come to grips with absolute ontological and ideological concepts whose extensions are, nevertheless, subject to change. I suggest that, against this background, an appeal to primitive tense operators is attractive, and the resulting view does not fall prey to some of the standard objections to such an appeal. |
