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The minimal A-theory

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Abstract

Timothy Williamson thinks that every object is a necessary, eternal existent. In defense of his view, Williamson appeals primarily to considerations from modal and tense logic. While I am uncertain about his modal claims, I think there are good metaphysical reasons to believe permanentism: the principle that everything always exists. B-theorists of time and change have long denied that objects change with respect to unqualified existence. But aside from Williamson, nearly all A-theorists defend temporaryism: the principle that there are temporary existents. I think A-theorists are better off without this added commitment, but I will not argue for that in any great detail here. Instead, I will contend that a very tempting argument for temporaryism is unsound. In the first half of the paper, I will develop the Moorean “common sense” argument for temporaryism and dispute its central premise, namely that temporaryism is the best generalization from our ordinary beliefs about creation, destruction, coming to be, and passing away. I will argue that given the pervasive vagueness in our ordinary beliefs and the background commitments of all A-theories, temporaryists cannot claim to have the common sense view because no party can accommodate most of our common sense beliefs. In the second half of the paper, I will propose a permanentist A-theory that explains all change over time as a species of property change. I call it the minimal A-theory, since it dispenses with the change in existence assumption. As we’ll see, the permanentist alternative performs well enough in explaining our ordinary beliefs, and it has better prospects for answering three objections commonly levied against A-theories.

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Notes

  1. Hirsch (2009) and Hofweber (2009b).

  2. Quine exegesis is no easy matter, but van Inwagen (1998) does an able job linking this methodological principle back to Quinean doctrines. Sider (2009) gives updated arguments for the principle. In the change debate, we see it explicitly assumed by A-theorists—Zimmerman (1998, p. 210) and Crisp (2004, pp. 16–17)—as well as B-theorists—Sider (2001, p. 17).

  3. Examples of A-theories can be found in Prior (1998), Zimmerman (1998), Crisp (2003), Markosian (2004), Merricks (2007), Broad (1923), Adams (1989), Forrest (2006), and Williamson (2002).

  4. In Chapt. 4 of Sullivan ((2011), I develop an A-theory that dispenses with tense operators in favor of tensed predicates. But the operator-free A-theory is irrelevant to the arguments of this paper since it presupposes permanentism.

  5. We find versions of the temporal parts theory in Russell (1915), Quine (1950), Smart (1963), Lewis (1986), Price (1996), and Sider (2001). The view is sometimes called “four-dimensionalism.”

  6. Thomson (1983), van Inwagen (1990), and Gibson and Pooley (2006). Gibson and Pooley give a relativistic gloss on what it is for an object to have a time-relational property. The views are sometimes called “endurantist B-theories.”

  7. Williamson coins the terms “temporaryism” and “permanentism” in forthcoming work. I learned them at his 2010 Mesthene Lecture at Rutgers, “Actualism Versus Possibilism, Contingentism Versus Necessitism.” We can imagine an (albeit strange) A-theorist who thinks that temporarily there are only permanent existents. He might prefer temporary existence to be expressed as \(\neg\square\forall x\square\exists y(x=y). \) With minor amendments, all of the arguments to come should work equally well against this weaker form of the principle, and for ease of exposition, I will use the form above.

  8. Frege and Russell seem to be the founders of this camp, because they argue that the content of a “tensed” sentence or thought must refer to a proposition with an explicit time reference. See Frege (1997, pp. 331–333) and Russell (1978, p. 32).

  9. For example: Williamson (1998, 2000b, 2002, 2010).

  10. Zimmerman (2008, p. 211).

  11. Markosian (2004, p. 48).

  12. At least neo-Quinean formulations of presentism entail the temporary existence principle.

  13. For example, Broad (1923), Adams (1989), Tooley (1997) and Forrest (2006).

  14. Lycan calls arguments of roughly this form plausibility comparison arguments and argues that they are the most charitable interpretation of the original Moore. See Lycan (2001). Like Lycan, I take “common sense” to mean (roughly) highly plausible for many people.

  15. If you think “no brain in vat knows she has hands” is not commonsensical enough, we can break down the assumptions even further, perhaps: “Brains in vats don’t have hands” and “If Sullivan knows she has hands, then Sullivan has hands.”

  16. There is, of course, an equally good way of expressing “No mere brain in vat knows Sullivan has hands” as \(\neg\exists x(B(x)\wedge K(x,\alpha)).\)

  17. “Frosty will be destroyed.” and “The Sun came to be.” employ more fine-grained tense operators than □ but entail sentences that obey the more general schema.

  18. For example, see Sider (2001, pp. 212–215).

  19. For versions of the logic objections, see Williamson (1998) and Sider (2001, pp. 76–78). For an overview of options for handling the objection, see Sullivan (2012).

  20. Williamson gives this argument in Williamson (1998, p. 265), though the point has been in the literature since Prior. For replies to the problem of past singular terms, see Prior (2003, pp. 16–17) and Markosian (2004). Prior thinks names for merely past or future objects are tacit descriptions. Markosian treats them as Fregean senses. Another approach treats them as names for uninstantiated essences. Inspiration for versions of the essence semantics can be found in Plantinga (1974) and Adams (1989, pp. 29–31).

  21. Sider gives a nice presentation of this problem in Sider (2001, pp. 25–35). For an extended discussion of presentist answers to the motion problem, see Zimmerman (Forthcoming).

  22. The argument of this section roughly follows a style of argument Sider uses on behalf of the temporal parts theory of change in Sider (2001, pp. 120–139).

  23. Lewis and Fine are leading proponents of supervaluationism. See Fine (1975) and Lewis (1993). Most supervaluationists concede that “candidate” is also vague, and so they adopt higher order supervaluations as well. There are multiple precisifications for “candidate denotation” in a given context.

  24. See Williamson (1994).

  25. See also Evans (2002).

  26. See Barnes (2010) and Baker (2007, pp. 121–141).

  27. It isn’t even clear we should quantify over quantum “objects.” We’ve yet to settle the category for waves and fields.

  28. Compare to the paraphrases that would seem appropriate for “All stars gradually redden” and “One snowman will gradually yellow.” We’d regiment these as:

    $$ D_{L}\left\{\begin{array}{l}\forall x(Star(x)\rightarrow\neg\square\triangle(Rx\vee\neg Rx)).\\ \exists x(Snowman(x)\wedge\neg\square\triangle(Yx\vee\neg Yx)). \end{array}\right. $$

  29. Some physicalists go even further, assuming unconditionally that everything is essentially spatiotemporally located.

  30. An objection in this spirit (directed at B-theorists) can be found in Yourgrau (1987).

  31. Zimmerman (1998, p. 212).

  32. Prior (1998, p. 80).

  33. Russell (1978, p. 29).

  34. For example Dorr argues for a “no brute necessities” principle—metaphysical theories should try to reduce or eliminate primitive necessity claims. Many essentialist claims are brute necessities. See Dorr (2004, 2008).

  35. For details on this proposal, see Sullivan (2011).

  36. I am grateful to Dean Zimmerman for suggesting the limited essentialist view and still uncertain as to whether he could become a poached egg.

  37. Quine (1953, p. 4).

  38. Schaffer (2009, p. 362). Emphasis is mine.

  39. Fine (2009) and Hofweber (2009a).

  40. The account is developed most fully in a trilogy of papers: Williamson (1998, 2000a, 2002).

  41. For example, Lowe and Merricks think that objects come into and out of existence, but it is a primitive matter when they begin and when they end. See Merricks (1998) and Lowe (1996, pp. 41–43).

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Tom Donaldson, Andy Egan, Ben Levinstein, Ned Markosian, Ted Sider, Brad Skow, Jason Turner, Jenn Wang,and Dean Zimmerman for advice on drafts of this paper. I have also benefited extensively from feedback from audiences at Rutgers, Notre Dame, the 2011 Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, and a reading group at the University of Virginia.

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    Meghan Sullivan

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Sullivan, M. The minimal A-theory. Philos Stud 158, 149–174 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9888-5

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