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McTaggart and indexing the copula

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Abstract

In this paper, I show how a solution to Lewis’ problem of temporary intrinsics is also a response to McTaggart’s argument that the A-series is incoherent. There are three strategies Lewis considers for solving the problem of temporary intrinsics: perdurantism, presentism, and property-indexing. William Lane Craig (Analysis 58(2):122–127, 1998) has examined how the three strategies fare with respect to McTaggart’s argument. The only viable solution Lewis considers to the problem of temporary intrinsics that also succeeds against McTaggart, Craig claims, is presentism. This gives us prima facie reason to be presentists. But there is a strategy Craig does not consider-indexing, or relativizing, the copula. In this paper, I show that to the degree that indexing the copula solves the problem of temporary intrinsics, it also shows the invalidity of McTaggart’s argument. The upshot: the copula-indexer needn’t affirm the unreality of time, nor need she embrace presentism.

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Notes

  1. The former comes from McTaggart (1908) and the latter from Lewis (1986, pp. 203–204).

  2. The view is first offered in Johnston (1987) and then further discussed in Lewis (2002).

  3. Lewis does not think that indexing the copula solves the problem of temporary intrinsics. He cites three criteria that a solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics must meet, and then shows that indexing the copula fails to meet the criteria. But, Lewis doesn’t argue for the criteria; the copula-indexer is, of course, free to reject them. And in fact, Lewis shows that she must.

  4. Indexing the copula is attractive as a solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics since it allows one to say that the very same object is both F and not-F (contra the perdurantist), that the object exists at two different times (contra the presentist) and that the F and not-F are genuinely intrinsic (contra the property-indexer).

  5. Haslanger (1989) and Lowe (1988) advocate indexing the copula adverbially, so that objects have properties ‘time-ly’. It’s not clear how to work out this strategy in detail, so I set it aside.

  6. I use brackets around declarative sentences as names for the propositions expressed by those sentences.

  7. Of course, both strategies require that t ≠ t*.

  8. I use ‘has P ’  for the present-tensed copula, and ‘has T ’  for the tenseless copula. The A-properties are being past, being present and being future. The B-relations are is earlier than, is simultaneous with, and is later than.

  9. This is admittedly just a section of his argument. McTaggart begins the paper by assuming that time is dependent on change. He then argues that there can be no change without an A-series, where an A-series is composed of events having irreducible A-properties. He then argues that an A-series is incoherent; this is the argument above. McTaggart concludes that there is no change, and therefore time is unreal. For a detailed treatment of the argument and a repository of citations, see Rea (2003, pp. 254–260).

  10. Though McTaggart doesn’t use this exact formulation, it is a premise in both Craig (1998)’s and Rea (2003)’s reconstructions of the argument.

  11. Some would say the latter is false, and some would say it’s true. But regardless of one’s stance on the latter, most everyone would say that the former is also true.

  12. Since the A-properties are incompatible, every event’s having T every A-property is a contradiction.

  13. Lewis (2002) would not like the second option. He is willing to go along with the copula-indexer’s instantiation relation story, as long as she doesn’t claim that the indexed instantiation relations are as fundamental or as natural as the tenseless instantiation relation. The copula-indexer could, of course, disagree. And if one denies that there is a tenseless instantiation relation, then all having-at-t relations are equally fundamental.

References

  • Craig, W. L. (1998). McTaggart’s paradox and the problem of temporary intrinsics. Analysis, 58(2), 122–127.

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  • Haslanger, S. (1989). Endurance and temporary intrinsics. Analysis, 49, 119–125.

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  • Johnston, M. (1987). Is there a problem about persistence? Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 61, 107–135.

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  • Lewis, D. (1986). On the plurality of worlds. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

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  • Lewis, D. (2002). Tensing the copula. Mind, 111(441), 1–14.

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  • Lowe, E. J. (1988). The problems of intrinsic change: Rejoinder to Lewis. Analysis, 48, 72–77.

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  • McTaggart, J. M. E. (1908). The unreality of time. Mind, 17, 456–473.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Andrew Bailey, Lindsay Mouchet, Mike Rea and Peter van Inwagen for comments and discussion. Special thanks to Mike Rea for a conversation that convinced me to write this paper.

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  1. University of Notre Dame, 100 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Bradley Rettler

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Correspondence to Bradley Rettler.

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Rettler, B. McTaggart and indexing the copula. Philos Stud 158, 431–434 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9679-9

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