A Defense Of An Ontological Presentism

This dissertation defends an ontological presentist point of view by examining the answers provided by presentism and eternalism on diifferent problems.First of all,the author makes a brief sketch over different theories on philosophy of time,focusing on claims and problems of presentism and eternalism specifically:the challenge posed against presentism from special theory of relativity(STR);the difficulties of providing truthmakers and fitting cross-temporal relations in a presentist framework;the problem of ensuring the actual occurrence of past events when they were once present;the counter-intuitive explanation of change from etermalism,etc.In chapter two,Considering the descriptive nature of physics theories indicated by problems like the motion of a single object and the interaction between objects,the author suggests that we should make a distinction between existence and the descriptions of existence,under which presentism can make a reconciliation with STR:we can't infer the relativity of existence from the relativity of various descriptions of it,the former of which is what makes the latter possible but does not depend on it.In so doing,we can spare room for the defending of presentism on the ontological level while admitting the relativity claimed by STR on the descriptive level.The reconciled presentism view fits with our common sense view as well as physical view over change and interaction fairly well while eternalism is stuck with these.The author emphasizes that this demarcation should be accepted by eternalists as they are making similar distinction concerning truthmaker and truthbearer in their own framework.What's more,eternalists can't coherently explain all the events in the world without such a demarcation.With the discussion of memory in chapter three,the author claims that,in a presentist framework,the physical bearings of our present memory of past events and the traces left in the present world by the past can ensure the actual happening of the past when they were once present,which also make the cross-temporal relations between events possible.On the other hand,the problem of cross-temporal relations between events is not satisfactorily explained in an eternalist's framework.As for the sticky problem of "making-true",presentism can appeal to the arguments of eternalism on this problem and thus has equal strength as eternalism does concerning it.Basing on the arguments in these two chapters,the author suggests that we should hold an ontological presentist point of view.Lastly,concerning the relation between time and existence in the presentist framework he is in favor of,the author makes a further explanation for it:arguing time to be the property of existence which is presenting itself in different ways.Further responses are made concerning possible objections:as part of the existence in the world,how our indirect,qualitative discussion and defense of an ontological presentism are possible.