Abstract
I argue that in Plato’s Parmenides 141a6–c4, things in time come to be simultaneously older and younger than themselves because a thing’s past and present selves are both real. As a result, whatever temporal relation is predicated of any of these past and present selves is true of the thing in question. Unlike other interpretations, this reading neither assumes that things in time have to replace their parts, nor that time is circular. I conclude that the passage is committed to a conception of the ongoing present and a rejection of presentism and endurantism in favour of a growing universe theory and perdurantism.
Note
This research has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement No. 758145, PROTEUS “Paradoxes and Metaphors of Time in Early Universe(s)”.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Viktor Ilievski, Silvia De Bianchi, Saloni de Souza, Carolina Araujo, the members of the Footnotes seminar and the anonymous reviewers for this journal for their helpful feedback and insightful discussion on earlier drafts of this paper. I am also in debt with audiences at the Sapienza University of Rome and the XII Symposium Platonicum organised by the International Plato Society in Paris in 2019 for their questions and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Gabriela Martínez Sainz for her support and patience.
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