Abstract
Here, I defend the view that there is no sensible way to pin a truth-maker objection on presentism. First, I suggest that if we adopt truth-maker maximalism then the presentist can requisition appropriate ontological resources with impunity. Second, if we deny maximalism, then the presentist can sensibly restrict the truth-maker principle in order to avoid the demand for truth-makers for talk about the non-present.
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Notes
C.f. Pereyra (2005), pp. 20–1.
I assume that non-categorical facts are hypothetical facts. Certainly, no further category is postulated by Sider. Likewise, Crisp (2007) treats non-categorical as hypothetical.
At least, someone looking to defend negative facts in light of the classificatory scheme may argue that we are.
In other words, the ‘is’ is to be understood as tensed-disjunctive.
The recalcitrant opponent might object that negative facts do make a difference to what there is, unrestrictedly. That is, unrestrictedly, there are not-penguins (though I’m assuming that we’re still opposed, as Beall is, to absences). But the presentist, on the other hand, does not claim that, unrestrictedly, there are dinosaurs. So, there is a difference to be had between negative and past-tensed facts. In reply, the presentist need merely note that, unrestrictedly, there are such things as having been dinosaurs. Sure, such things are really strange. But they’re still categorical on the grounds that they make a difference to how things are, unrestrictedly.
For instance, Lewis (1992, p. 216).
C.f. Armstrong (2004, pp. 5–7).
I’m happy to grant, here, that restricted truth-maker doesn’t tell us anything very interesting about either the nature of truth or about how we might do metaphysics. But since I’m not a maximalist I’m surely committed to both of these claims already.
For reasons to think that presentism is not troubled unduly by the, weaker, supervenience thesis, see Kierland and Monton (2007).
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Carrie Jenkins, Matthew Kennedy, Daniel Nolan, Roberto Loss, Ross Cameron, Robbie Williams, Peter Simons, Robin Le Poidevin, Katherine Tallant and two anonymous referees for their comments and criticisms.
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Tallant, J. Presentism and Truth-making. Erkenn 71, 407–416 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9188-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9188-4