Presentism and the Triviality Objection

The triviality argument against presentism

“…However, given Tensed Verbs, the natural language (English) verb 'to exist' in the sentence 'Everything that exists is present' must be either past, present, or future tensed-in which case, the standard definition must be read as expressing one of the following propositions: 12 (P1) Everything that exists now is present (P2) Everything that did, does now, or will exist is present But why should Presentists accept Tensed Verbs? Neither Ludlow (2004), Stoneham (2009), Meyer (2012, Tallant (2014) nor Sakon (2015) cites any evidence in its support. 13 However, there is some compelling linguistic evidence against the thesis.…”

“…(2) The sentence 'Everything that exists is present' must be read as expressing either the proposition that everything that exists now is present or the proposition that everything that did, does now, or will exist is present 9 Something like this argument is endorsed by Merricks (1995), Lombard (1999), Stoneham (2009), Meyer (2012, Tallant (2014) and Sakon (2015). I have also seen the argument endorsed by philosophers in other contexts.…”

“…Trivialists such as Stoneham (2009), Meyer (2012, Tallant (2014) and Sakon (2015) seem to base their acceptance of premise (2) on the thesis that Ludlow (2004, p. 30) calls 'Very Serious Tensism', and that I shall call Tensed Verbs:…”

“…Given Meyer's definition of 'exists temporally', his (P2) above is equivalent to our (P2). Similarly, here is Sakon (2015Sakon ( , p. 1090 (P2) For any x, if x has existed, exists, or will exist, x is present. (P2) is obviously false because there is an obvious counterexample.…”

Characterising Theories of Time and Modality

“… There is a distinct doubt about the substance of the traditional Presentism–Eternalism debate centred on the question of whether the copula ‘is’ in the standard definition of Presentism should be read as ‘tensed’ or ‘tenseless’ – see, for example, Crisp (), Ludlow (), Meyer (), Sakon () and Deasy (forthcoming in Synthese ). This is not the worry about the traditional debate that I have in mind here. …”