Presentism and the Experience of Time

Abstract

Abstract:Presentists have typically argued that the Block View is incapable of explaining our experience of time. In this paper I argue that the phenomenology of our experience of time is, on the contrary, against presentism. My argument is based on a dilemma: presentists must either assume that the metaphysical present has no temporal extension, or that it is temporally extended. The former horn leads to phenomenological problems. The latter renders presentism metaphysically incoherent, unless one posits a discrete present that, however, suffers from the same difficulties that the instantaneous present is prone to. After introducing the main phenomenological models of our experience of time that are discussed in the literature, I show that none of them favors presentism. I conclude by arguing that if even the phenomenology (besides the physics) of time sides against presentism, the latter metaphysical theory has no scientific evidence in its favor and ought to be dropped.

Adynamism in Physics: The Block Universe vs Barbour’s Relational Strategy

“…In other words, what are the types of constraints imposed by the metaphysical view married to relativity? While many scholars have dealt with this issue from a variety of angles (see e.g., Dainton 2010;Huggett 2010;Dorato 2015;Dorato and Wittmann 2019;Callender 2017), it is worth emphasizing that this article does not discuss the ways to reconcile experiential time with physical time. My point is both more general and more specific, which is to say that the block view should strip off any element of dynamism, including experiential time when it is accounted for in dynamical terms.…”