Debates in The Metaphysics of Time (Oaklander)

Debates in the
Metaphysics
of Time
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The Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Philosophy, edited by Barry Dainton
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The Bloomsbury Companion to Metaphysics, edited by Neil A. Manson and
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The Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophy of Science, edited by Steven
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A Critical Introduction to the Epistemology of Memory, Thomas D. Senor
A Critical Introduction to the Metaphysics of Time, Ben Curtis
Metaphysics A Critical Translation with Kants Elucidations, Selected Notes,
and Related Materials, Alexander Baumgarten, translated and edited by
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Time: A Philosophical Introduction, James Harrington
Debates in the
Metaphysics
of Time
EDITED BY
L. NATHAN OAKLANDER
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For Linda
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction x
PART ONE Metaphysics and Time

Is there a Coherent Debate in the Metaphysics of Time?1
1 Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique L. Nathan
Oaklander 3
2 Motion and Passage: The Old B-Theory and Phenomenology
Yuval Dolev 31
3 Two Metaphysical Perspectives on the Duration of the Present
Francesco Orilia 51
Temporal Succession, Temporal Becoming, and the

Analysis of Change71
4 Temporal Succession and Tense Erwin Tegtmeier 73
5 Becoming: Temporal, Absolute, and Atemporal M. Oreste
Fiocco 87
6 Temporal Predicates and the Passage of Time M. Joshua
Mozersky 109
PART TWO Consciousness and Time129

7 Physical Time, Phenomenal Time, and the Symmetry of Nature
Michael Pelczar 131

8 Extensionalism, Atomism, and Continuity Geoffrey Lee 149
viii Contents
9 Flow, Repetitions, and Symmetries: Replies to Lee and Pelczar
Barry Dainton 175
PART THREE God, Time, and Human Freedom213

10 Divine Events Joseph Diekemper 215
11 Instants, Events, and God Brian Leftow 233
12 Foreknowledge and Fatalism: Why Divine Timelessness Doesnt
Help Alan R. Rhoda 253

13 Defending the Isotemporalist Solution to the Freedom/
Foreknowledge Dilemma: Response to Rhoda Katherin A.
Rogers 275
Index 291
Preface
T
he origin of this collection of original essays is both unusual and amusing.

Colleen Coalter, the Philosophy editor at Bloomsbury, asked me to write
something for the back cover of a book on metaphysics that Bloomsbury was
going to publish and I was happy to do so. Evidently, Colleen liked what I had
written and as a result a few months later she asked me to give my opinion on
a proposal submitted to her for publication. I agreed to do it, read the proposal
and filled out the questionnaire regarding it. After answering the obvious
questions, I came to the end and the last question was whether there were
other topics for which a book was needed. I answered that question as
follows: An anthology on the philosophy of time itself or a larger one relating
time to other issues in philosophy (metaphysics, philosophy of religion,
philosophy of mind) would be useful for classroom use and for professional
philosophers. Colleen was interested and I volunteered to edit the anthology.
I gathered together philosophers many of whom I have known for some time,
and all of whom I greatly respect, and the result is this book. The 13 original
essays collected here are in one way or another connected to the philosophy
of time, and indeed make explicit the importance of time in metaphysics,
phenomenology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of religion.
As in most of the anthologies that I have edited or co-edited, my wife, Linda
Galang Oaklander, has been an invaluable aid in formatting the manuscript
and references, and reading my introductions. This collection is no different. I
also wish to thank Linda for compiling the index.
L. Nathan Oaklander
Ann Arbor, Michigan
USA, January 2014
Introduction
W
hat is the debate in the metaphysics of time about? What is or are

the central issues? The chapters in this book address both questions.
McTaggart set the stage for much of the contemporary discussion by distinguishing the A-series whose terms are past, present, and future, and the
B-series whose terms are earlier/later than and simultaneity. From these
two series there arose, starting with Gales terminology, the A-theory,
and the B-theory. A-theorists are those who claimed that the A-series was
the essence of time from which the B-series could be derived, and the
B-theorists are those who maintained that the B-series is ontologically fundamental and from which the A-series could be derived. The chapters in this
volume reveal that the discussion has broadened considerably since then,
so that it is not particularly helpful to approach the issue(s) by characterizing
the debate as between the A-theory and the B-theory, or for that matter as
between presentists and eternalists, or tensed and tenseless views of time.
The chapters that follow contain several different analyses of time that cannot
be easily classified into any of these dichotomies, nor should they be.
In the first section of this book the question is raised as to whether there
is a coherent debate in the metaphysics of time? Dolev argues that the usual
way in which the debate is framed for example, does only the present exist
or does the past, present, and future existis ultimately incoherent because
the metaphysical theories that give rise to them are unintelligible because
they depend on empty notions such as tenseless relations and the moving
now. He believes that by coming to this realization, a systematic dissolution
of the traditional philosophical questions concerning time is brought about
(Dolev 2007: 60). The results are anti-metaphysical perspectives regarding
time and realism, as the subtitle of his book, Time and Realism: Metaphysical
and Anti-Metaphysical Perspectives, makes clear.
Oaklander demurs. It is, naturally, a tough pill to swallow: the implication
that the value of traditional metaphysical questions concerning time rests on
providing the necessary steps to the anti-metaphysical perspective, and that
once those steps have been climbed the ontological debates that gave rise
to those questions and tenseless and tensed theories is to be discarded.
Rather than swallow it, Oaklander criticizes the arguments Dolev gives
against tenseless relations and argues that they do not establish that they
Introduction
xi
are empty notions, but rather are objects of acquaintance that can ground the
dynamic aspect of time (see also the chapters by Tegtmeier and Mozersky in
this volume). Oaklander further argues that a more fundamental debate than
that over whether what Dolev calls the ontological assumption that centers
the debate on whether there are ontological differences between past,
present, and future objects, is that which concerns the ontological status of
temporal relations. Naturally, Dolev defends his thesis regarding the need to
transcend ontology against Oaklanders critique, and goes on the offensive by
criticizing the notion of the specious present and offering his own account
of experience of motion and change that appeals to the mind-independent
property of presentness, and not to succession.
Orilia takes up Dolevs view of the present as well as his overall stance that
A- and B-theories of time must be transcended before offering his own analysis
of time that he calls moderate presentism since it adopts eternalism with
respect to moments of absolute time, but presentism with regard to events or
states of affairs. Orilias own analysis, he claims, is best suited to explain the
important phenomenological fact that the past is closed and the future is open,
and resolve the Augustinian paradox regarding the duration of the present. His
critique of Dolevs account of the present is intended to demonstrate that there
are reasons to believe Dolev endorses an incoherent mixture of A-theoretical
and B-theoretical claims (Orilia, this volume, p. 60), and thus does not effectively transcend either of the views he claims are ultimately unintelligible.
Tegtmeier embodies his account of succession and time in the framework
of his more general ontology of facts, things, and forms. He presents a purely
relationist account of time that seeks to ground our experience of time and
tense, including its dynamic aspects in temporal relations. In the course of his
discussion he criticizes Aristotles presentism, Donald Williams four-dimensionalism, and McTaggarts distinction between the A-series and B-series that
has thrown discussions on the philosophy of time off the track by arguing
that time requires change when in fact being the subject of change is not the
hallmark of the temporal. Time contains change and so cannot itself change.
Fiocco offers a rather novel account of time. He claims that if there is real
dynamism or novelty in temporal reality, then it must come about through
becoming. He distinguishes temporal becoming which is the coming to be
of events or objects at a moment, absolute becoming which is the coming
to be and immediately ceasing to be of moments, and atemporal becoming.
Fiocco says that since a moment neither comes to be at a moment nor
changes when it ceases to exist and is replaced by a new moment, it comes
into being outside of time. For that reason, a moment is an atemporal entity
and undergoes atemporal becoming.
While Tegtmeier and Fiocco talk about change in their chapters, Mozersky
defends an analysis of it that applies to temporal change or becomingthe
xii Introduction
change of an event or time from the future to the present and into the past
and to ordinary change of say, an apple, from green to red. On the face of
it, both types of change involve a single event, object or time having incompatible properties, which is contradictory. To avoid this problem, Mozersky
defends the view that ordinary monadic predicates, such as is green or is
present, are two place relations that hold between objects and times, and
the contradiction vanishes. For there is no incompatibility between x being
green at t1 and x being red at t2 or between e being present at t1 and e
being past at t2 where the relations in the change of tense are the temporal
relations is simultaneous with and is earlier than respectively.
Although Tegtmeier, Fiocco, and Mozersky do not directly address
one another in their chapters, there are important areas of agreement
and disagreement. For example, Mozersky and Tegtmeier argue against
presentism and absolute becoming whereas Fiocco argues for those views
and against Mozerskys tenseless B-theoretic world-view that all events past,
present, and future exist equally in the B-series. Mozersky and Tegtmeier
agree that there is a sense in which time passes (although Tegtmeier prefers
to characterize the phenomenon as succession), and has a dynamic aspect,
but they disagree over the proper analysis of temporal relations. Tegtmeier
implicitly criticizes Mozerskys (by criticizing Donald Williams structurally
analogous) view that temporal relations are ordered pairs of objects and
times.
In the chapters by Lee, Pelczar, and Dainton, the topic of time is approached
via the phenomenology and ontology of temporal experience. What makes
the chapters so stimulating and fascinating is that there are a few basic issues
that are dealt with differently, but getting clear on what is the issue exactly
is also approached in a unique fashion by each of the authors. Rather than
summarize the different ways in which each of the authors expresses the
issue, and critique Daintons response to it, I shall offer my own account of
what I take to be common to all three and the problems they are attempting to
solve. Traditionally, the problem is how can a person perceive in the present or
presently perceive the duration of, say, that whistle of a train as it speeds by,
or a succession of rapidly changing notes on a keyboard. The problem seems
to be that the present has no scope during which something could have a
duration or change. This is a problem of perceiving a change or continuation
in a single unified act of temporal consciousness. There is, however, also the
experience of flow from one unified temporal consciousness to the next that
presents a different problem of unity or rather continuity. As we hear a series
of notes that are not presently given, but are given as forming a melody over
a successive series of presently given tones, our experiences are unified in a
way that my experience of the alarm going off in the morning is not unified
with your experience of the one oclock siren in the afternoon. How do we
Introduction
xiii
account for the continuity of the experiences of the former and discontinuity
of the experiences of the latter? As the authors of this section demonstrate,
what makes this tricky to explain briefly is the radical disagreements over
what forms of continuity do in fact exist in our streams of consciousness.1
Lee first briefly argues for atomismthe view, most notably, but not
exclusively, that momentary (or very brief) experiences (without distinct
experiences as temporal parts) can have contents that appear to possess
duration and successionand then Lee replies to objections that Dainton
has raised against it. Pelczar, on the other hand, criticizes Daintons extensionalismthe view that the experience of flow or succession we immediately
experience over short intervals, and the continuity of our experience over
longer intervals, requires both that our experiences and their contents are
extended and that temporally extended experiences overlap by sharing
partswithout presupposing atomism. Dainton responds to Lees defense of
atomism, gives additional arguments against it, and defends himself against
Lees and Pelczars criticism of his version of extensionalism.
What is also important to note is that issues in the metaphysics of time
are relevant to the analysis of temporal consciousness. Thus, for example, it
seems that if you are a presentist then you must be an atomist, and if one
adopts the extensionalist viewpoint then one cannot be a presentist. Dainton
argues, however, that an extensionalist can still maintain that If the continuity and flow which exist in our experience are themselves physical features
of this universe, then this very real form of passage is also a feature of the
universe (this volume, p. 202).
In Part III, on God, Time, and Human Freedom, Diekemper and Leftow
begin by debating the questions of whether there are instantaneous events or
are events necessarily temporally extended entities? Do temporally extended
divine events necessarily exist, and is, therefore, God temporal? In the first
section of his chapter, Diekemper argues that events cannot be instantaneous, and defends that view against four objections raised in earlier articles
by Leftow. In the second section, he argues that divine events exist and hence
God is temporal. In his chapter, Leftow gives several original arguments for
instantaneous events, one of which connects with presentism, critiques
Diekempers arguments for divine temporality, and replies to Diekempers
objections to instantaneous events.
The chapters by Rhoda and Rogers are also concerned with God and time,
and also address the issue of whether or not God is temporal or timeless,
but that is not the main issue, as in the previous debate. Rather, the main
concern is with the traditional problem of the possibility of reconciling divine
foreknowledge with human freedom. Rhoda argues that God is temporal,
but even if God were timeless it would not solve the issue and in fact would
prevent reconciling the two. Moreover, he argues that the only way of avoiding
xiv Introduction
fatalism and of reconciling divine foreknowledge and human freedom is by

adopting a particular version of the open future theory, according to which
there are many possible futures, but they all exist. How he arrives at this view
and why he rejects all versions, including Rogers version of eternalism, forms
the content of his chapter. Rogers defends the view she calls isotemporalism, that shares with eternalism and four-dimensionalism the view that
all objects in the linear temporal sequence that constitutes the history of the
world exist equally, regardless of whether these objects are past, present or
future. Like the typical B-theorist, Rogers holds that past, present, and future
are subjective in that they depend on the perspective from which an event is
viewed. If I am at t1, then t0 is past and t2 is future, and from the perspective
of t2, t0, and t1 are past, t2 is present, and t3 is future. She argues that in such
a world God can see everything that he has created at once, including the
choice that a person has made on the basis of their own freewill. Thus, the
direction of explanation of why God knows what we will do is not that God
knows it or causes it, but rather God knows what free actions we engage in
because we freely choose them. Gods knowledge is explanatorily dependent
on our choices rather than the other way around. Rhoda argues that given
Gods timelessness and the principle that truth supervenes on being, Rogers
view of time does not avoid fatalism. This debate draws together debates in
the metaphysics of time, Gods relation to time and creation, and freewill.
The topics discussed in this book, and the chapters on those topics, draw
our attention to the cutting-edge work being done in the philosophy of time
and related topics. The give and take provides the reader with at least two
sides of an issue and leaves the discussion open for readers to arrive at their
own conclusion. It demonstrates the importance of time in contemporary
debates in metaphysics.2
Notes
1 Here and elsewhere in this Introduction I am grateful for helpful comments
by Barry Dainton.
2 I wish to thank Francesco Orilia for his comments on a earlier version of this
Introduction.
Reference
Dolev, Y. (2007), Time and Realism: Metaphysical and Antimetaphysical
Perspectives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
PART ONE
Metaphysics
and Time
Is there a Coherent
Debate in the
Metaphysics of Time?
1
Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical
Realism: A Critique
L. Nathan Oaklander
n Time and Realism: Metaphysical and Antimetaphysical Perspectives, Yuval

Dolev (2007) argues that the metaphysical debate between tensed and
tenseless theorists (presentists and eternalists; A-theorists and B-theorists) in
the philosophy of time is ultimately incoherent.1 His perspective is unlike those
who argue that these views are indistinguishable because the apparent debate is
either based on semantic confusions centering on the equivocal uses of the word
exist, or on the indistinguishability of tensed-transition and tenseless-transition.2
Although Dolev believes that working through the metaphysics of the tensed and
tenseless views is indispensable if we are to arrive at a proper understanding of
time, he argues that the debate must ultimately be transcended by recognizing
that both views rest on a common threadan ontological assumptionthat
cannot be sustained. The ontological assumption is that tense concerns the
ontological status of things (p. ix); which implies that the central question in the
philosophy of time is whether past, present, and future objects are ontologically
on a par, being equally real, or are there real ontological differences between
these tense determinations? For example, does the present have a reality that
the past and future do not have? Dolev argues that these queries depend on
the metaphysical theories that give rise to them and since those theories make
use of terms, such as, tenseless relations and the moving now, that are
themselves unintelligible and empty notions, the theories and questions they
give rise to and sought to answer are also unintelligible and empty. He believes
that by coming to this realization, a systematic dissolution of the traditional
philosophical questions concerning time is brought about (p. 60).
The aim of this chapter is to defend the metaphysics of time against Dolevs
attack. My response to Dolev is to demonstrate that his understanding of the
DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME
debate, as centering on the reality of past, present, and future events and
things, while typical, is not sufficiently sensitive to the more fundamental
ontological differences between the disputants in the metaphysics of time.
For that reason he fails to consider a third ontological alternative to his characterization of the tensed and tenseless views. With the emergence of this
third metaphysical theory of time, we shall see that Dolevs main arguments
against the coherence of traditional metaphysical questions concerning time
can be refuted. First, a few words about ontology.
Ontology has as its subject matter everything that exists or all the entities
there are, and its aim with regard to that subject matter is to determine what
categories or most general principles of classification there are, and then
to say something about the relations between those categories. Of course
ontology does not consider each existent one by one, but is concerned
primarily with the most general categories (for example, things, relations,
qualities, identity), founded on the most ubiquitous phenomena. Its aim is to
specify to what category or categories certain general classes of phenomena
belong, and then to say something about that category.3 Thus, to answer the
ontological question What is the nature of time? is to give an inventory of
all temporal entities, or rather, of the category or categories of entities they
belong to. Certainly, time is a basic and ubiquitous phenomenon and thus
is within the purview of ontological explanation. What then are the temporal
phenomena and on what category or categories are temporal phenomena
based? Before addressing those questions I want to briefly consider aspects
of C. D. Broads conception of philosophy and relate it to the ontology of time.
This background will set the stage for a consideration of Dolevs critique of
the metaphysics of time, and my critique of Dolev.
According to Broad, one aspect of the subject matter of philosophy
critical philosophyconsists of the analysis and definition of our fundamental
concepts, and the clear statement and resolute criticism of our fundamental
beliefs (Broad 1923: 18). In our everyday dealings with the world, we make
use of general concepts and apply them without having a clear idea of their
meaning or their relations. Common sense constantly uses concepts in
terms of which it interprets experience, for example, when it talks of things
of various kinds; it says that they have places and dates, that they change,
and that changes in one cause changes in others, and so on. Thus it makes
constant use of such concepts or categories as thinghood, space, time,
change, cause, etc (1923: 15). For ordinary purposes it does not matter that
we are not clear about the precise meaning and relations between and among
the concepts we employ, but for the purposes of determining what entities
fall under these concepts their meaning must be clear and unambiguous.
The second task of critical philosophy is to take those uncritically accepted,
deeply rooted beliefs that we employ in ordinary life and in the sciences, to
Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique
state them clearly and then to subject them to criticism. Of course, in order to
state clearly our deeply held beliefs such as that events pass or flow through
time from the future to the present and into the past, or that every change
has a cause, we must first know exactly what is meant by times flow or
passage, the notions of past, present, and future, and the concept of change
and cause. Thus, the critical examination of beliefs presupposes an analysis of
the notions employed, and they too must be subject to critical examination.
Only in that way can we have some degree of certainty that we have arrived
at the truth.
Russell once expressed the sentiments involved in Broads notion of
Critical Philosophy in the following passage:
The process of sound philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in
passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite
sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and
analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we start from, and is,
so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow.
(Russell 1918/64: 17980)
For Broad, the process of arriving at the real truth of which that vague
thing is a sort of a shadowthat is, the proper analysis or description of a
concept, and the phenomena on which that concept is basedis facilitated
by making use of what Broad calls The Principle of Pickwickian Senses.
According to this principle, the proper analysis of a phenomenon or a concept
may not be what common sense implicitly and unknowingly takes it to be,
since the implicit analysis, if in fact there is one, may be subject to dialectical
difficulties and not hold up to critical examination. The Pickwickian sense of
a concept, although perhaps not intuitive, has the advantage that it is quite
certain that there is something that answers to it, whereas with the other
definitions of the same entities this cannot be shown to be so (1924: 93).
Broad gives as an example, Whiteheads Pickwickian definitions of points,
and moments in which it is certain:
() that they exist; () that they have to each other the sort of relations
which we expect points and moments to have; and () that there is an
intelligible and useful, though Pickwickian, sense in which we can say that
volumes are composed of points, and durations of moments. (Broad
1924: 95)
Similarly, the existence of certain phenomenological facts that need an
ontological ground may be accounted for by a set of facts that might not be
what common sense implicitly takes them to be, but they may be the best
we can get and entirely suitable to account for the phenomenology of the
situation. In other words, the principle allows that even if an analysis is not
the one that is implicitly assumed by common sense (assuming with Broad,
for the moment, that there is an implicit ontology in common sense), we can
still accept that there exist entities that fall under the concept or ground the
phenomenology, and justify the application of the concept.
Broad uses the concepts of the self and matter to explain an error that
can come about from failing to see the distinction implied by The Principle
of Pickwickian Senses between our ordinary concepts, beliefs, and phenomenological data on the one hand, and the analysis or proper description of
those concepts, beliefs, and data on the other. One such error occurs in the
following passage where Broad notes that questions such as Does matter
exist? or Is the self real? cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. He
continues,
Unquestionably there are facts in the world to which the names matter
and self apply; and in that sense they are names of something real. But
it is vitally important to distinguish between facts and the proper analysis
or description of facts. The words matter and self, as commonly used,
do suggest certain theories about the facts to which they are applied.
These theories are never clearly recognized or explicitly stated by commonsense; and, on critical analysis, they are often found to consist of a number
of propositions of very different degrees of importance and certainty. E.g.,
I think there is very little doubt that the word self, as commonly used,
implies something like the Pure Ego theory of the structure of those
entities which we call selves. Hence anyone who rejects the Pure Ego
theory is, in one sense, denying the reality of the self. But, if he offers
an alternative analysis, which does equal justice to the peculiar unity which
we find in the things called selves, he is, in another sense, accepting
the reality of the self. Whenever one particular way of analyzing a certain
concept has been almost universally, though tacitly, assumed, a man
who rejects this analysis will seem to others (and often to himself) to be
rejecting the concept itself. (1924: 945)
According to Broad, however, that would be a mistake. We must distinguish,
Broad says, between facts, what I shall call common-sense facts, and the
proper analysis or description of those facts, what I shall call ontological
facts. There are, undoubtedly, common-sense facts to which the term self
applies, that is, there are selves commonsensically speaking, and it may be,
as Broad suggests, that a particular ontological analysis of the self is tacitly
accepted (though never clearly recognized or explicitly stated) by common
sense. However, if upon critical examination it is seen that there are reasons
to reject that analysis and if an alternative analysis of the self can be given
that accounts for all of the common sense and phenomenological facts that
need to be accounted for, such as the unity of the self, then one can accept
that the concept of the self has an application and thus that the self exists.
Thus, it is a mistake to assume that if one rejects what is tacitly assumed by
common sense (or a specific ontological analysis), one is thereby rejecting
the concept and denying that there exist entities that fall under that concept.
Broad gives an example of this mistake in the following passage:
Thus, James raises the question: Does Consciousness Exist?, and
suggests a negative answer. But really neither James nor anyone else
in his senses doubts the existence of certain facts to which we apply
the name consciousness. The whole question is: What is the right
analysis of these facts? Do they involve an unique kind of stuff, which
does not occur in non-conscious facts; or is their peculiarity only one of
structure? To deny the first alternative is not really to deny the existence of
consciousness; it is merely to deny an almost universally held theory about
consciousness. (1924: 95)
In this passage, Broad is drawing a distinction between the common-sense
facts or pre-analytic data and the ontological facts or the ground of that data;
a distinction that is at the heart of Broads doctrine of Pickwickian senses.
He believes that failing to recognize it can easily lead to unprofitable discussions (1924: 95).
In his book, On Philosophical Method (1980), Hector-Neri Castaeda articulates in detail something like this distinction.4 However, whereas Castaeda
speaks of protophilosophical data and philosophical theories that compete
in trying to elucidate these data, Broad seems to believe that common sense
contains or implies an articulate, although perhaps unacceptable, ontological
theory of various phenomena. Indeed, his doctrine of Pickwickian senses
is meant to highlight that the correct philosophical analysis of a category is
intended to be taken in a sense other than the literal one implicit in common
sense.
Of course, one may question, as I do, whether common sense or intuitive
beliefs about the self, matter, consciousness, time, or whatever, actually
reflect an implicit ontology at all, and even if they do, whether that has
ontological significance.5 However, regardless of whether or not ordinary
concepts and beliefs have an implicit, unrecognized ontology, Broad and
Russell are surely right in maintaining that the difference between the
phenomenological data and pre-analytic, common-sense facts, on the one
hand, and the analysis of that data or the ontological facts that are their
ground, on the other, is important and useful in arriving at the real truth that
underlies the vague facts we start off with. In other words, even if common
sense has an implicit theory about the meaning of a concept it employs, that
does not imply that the proper ontological analysis of those facts is implicit in
or given by common sense. In addition to overlooking a third metaphysic of
time, one of the major pitfalls in Dolevs critique of tenseless relations and
more generally his anti-metaphysical stance regarding the philosophy of time
is his failure to properly recognize Broads Principle of Pickwickian Senses
and, more broadly, the distinction between common sense and ontology that
follows from it.
To begin to see what is involved in these claims and to defend them, I
shall first turn to a brief discussion of temporal phenomenology. There are
two aspects of our experience, thought and language of time that philosophers of time have taken to be of crucial importance. Broad refers to these
features as the extensive and the transitory aspects of time. The extensive
aspect of time consists of the fact that any two experiences of the same
person stand to each other in a determinate temporal relation of earlier/later
than or simultaneity.6 The transitory aspect of time consists of the fact that
events or experiences that are once wholly in the future keep on becoming
less and less remotely future, eventually become present, and then cease
to be present, recede into the immediate past, and then keep on becoming
more and more remotely past. I should add that when some philosophers
talk of the transitory aspect of time they also have in mind the idea that time
is dynamic, that time involves a flow or flux from one event to another one,
and not a static relation between them. Broad claims, regarding the transitory
aspect:
There is no doubt that the sentences which I have just been quoting [e.g.,
Thank God (on the theistic hypothesis) thats over now!] record facts
and that such facts are of the very essence of Time. But it is, of course,
quite possible that the grammatical form of these sentences is highly
misleading. It may dispose people to take for granted a certain view of the
structure and the elements of these facts and this view may be mistaken
and may lead to difficulties and contradictions. (1938: 267)
This passage is ambiguous because the notion of fact is ambiguous.
At the level of common sense it is a facta common-sense factthat
events, including experiences, stand in the relations of earlier/later than and
simultaneous with, other events. It is also a common-sense fact that events
which were once in the future become present and then recede into the
past. At the pre-analytic level of common sense, the existence of such facts
is ontologically neutral in that it may suggest a certain ontological analysis,
but it does not commit one to that analysis. Thus, when Broad says that the
facts recorded by sentences such as I am going to have a painful experience

at the dentists tomorrow, are of the essence of time, he may be using
fact to refer to a common-sense fact. In that case, no specific view of the
ontological analysis of the structure of that fact is required or implied based
on the grammatical form of the natural language tensed sentence used to
record it or the phenomena on which it is based.
However, when Broad says that sentences about the becoming of events
record facts that are of the very essence of Time, he may be using the notion
of fact in a metaphysically loaded sense. In that case, tensed sentences
in a metaphysically perspicuous language represent ontological facts that
are the result of philosophical analysis about the essence of temporal reality.
Without prejudging what Broad takes the structure and the elements of the
ontological facts of time to be, we can use these two notions of fact to
both clarify one understanding of tenseless relations and tenseless time
found in Broad and Russell (hereafter called the B/R theory), and demonstrate that Dolev fails to consider this version of tenseless time in his
critique of the traditional problems of the metaphysics of time.
In his first writings on time, while under the influence of Russell (1915),
Broad claimed that the experience of succession is the foundation of all other
awareness of temporal phenomena; that all the common-sense facts about
time can be grounded in ontological facts based on the extensive aspect of
time. Consider this passage from Broads encyclopedia article on Time,
Temporal characteristics are among the most fundamental in the objects
of our experience, and therefore cannot be defined. We must start by
admitting that we can in certain cases judge that one experienced event is
later than another, in the same immediate way as we can judge that one
seen object is to the right of another. A good example of the immediate
judgment in question is when we hear a tune and judge that of two
notes, both of which come in our specious present, one precedes the
other. Another direct judgment about earlier and later is made in genuine
memory. On these relations of before and after which we immediately
recognize in certain objects of our experience all further knowledge of time
is built. (1921: 143)
By taking the relation of before and after (or earlier than/later than) as fundamental and indefinable, and claiming that all further knowledge of time is
built from those relations, Broad is asserting that temporal relations must
be taken as simple, unanalyzable entities of ones ontology. To say that they
are simple and undefined implies that they are irreducible and so cannot be
analyzed or reduced to the non-relational temporal properties of pastness,
presentness, and futurity of their terms and for the early Broad (and Russell)
10
there are no such mind-independent or mind-dependent monadic temporal

properties.7 It means, moreover, that temporal relations can exist even if their
terms do not have non-relational temporal properties. In the TENSEless (B/R)
theory, time consists solely of relations. Of course, there are other temporal
entities. The terms of temporal relations, and the ontological facts that have
temporal relations as constituents, may also be called temporal in virtue of
their connection with temporal relations which are thereby the only intrinsically temporal entities in this relational ontology of time. On the B/R theory,
there are no temporal individuals, such as moments or time points; there are
no monadic temporal TENSED properties; and there is no absolute becoming
understood either as the coming into and going out of existence of objects
or events, as the donning and doffing of TENSED properties, or in any other
way, for example, the accretion of facts.8
When Broad asserts that all further knowledge of time is built up from
the relations of before and after, we should not take him to be denying
the reality of passage or the transitory aspect of time, nor need he be
interpreted as claiming that the passage of time is an illusion, but rather
to be claiming that the common-sense fact that time passes or flows can
be grounded with ontological facts involving exclusively temporal relations
between events including mental events. Dolev claims that phenomenology
preempts ontological issues before they can rear their head (p. 10), but for
some, and I would count Broad among them, ontology and phenomenology
go together. Phenomenology provides the subject matter of ontology; it does
not preempt ontological issues since different ontological theories may be
claimed to comport with the temporal phenomena.
The B/R theorist can agree that the passage of time involves an experience
of the flow of successively existing events (Paul 2010: 334), or as Donald
C. Williams once put it, we are immediately and poignantly involved in the
jerk and whoosh of process, and the felt flow of one moment to the next
(Williams 1951: 4656). What I am suggesting is that when Broad and Russell
appeal to the experience of succession and characterize that relation as
the simple and unanalyzable ground of all further knowledge of time, it is
consistent with such a view and the phenomenological data to maintain that
the ground of the flow of successively existing events, and the felt flow from
one moment to the next, is in these B/R TENSEless relations alone. On this
interpretation of Broad and Russell, TENSEless relations are dynamic and not
static, and the ontological ground of the extensive and transitory aspects of
time is built up from those relations. In this version of the TENSEless view,
although not in some others, it is a mistake to claim that in the TENSEless
view, TENSE is a mind-dependent illusion. In this regard, the B/R view is
a third metaphysical alternative distinguishable from other versions of the
tenseless view.
11
Thus, for example, Laurie Paul sets herself the task of explaining how the
existence of a static, four-dimensional universe of a series of changeless
events standing in unchanging temporal relations can explain the flow of
successively existing events responsible for the animated character or flow
of change (Paul 2010: 334). Paul responds by arguing that even in the static
universe of the four-dimensionalist, the reductionist can provide an account
of how temporal experience could arise from the way the brains of conscious
beings experience and interpret cognitive inputs from series of static events
(2010: 339). Her explanation goes something like this:
When we have an experience as of passage, we can interpret this as an
experience that is the result of the brain producing a neural state that
represents inputs from earlier and later temporal stages and simply fills
in the representation of motion or of changes. Thus, according to the
reductionist, there is no real flow or animation in changes that occur across
time. Rather, a stage of ones brain creates the illusion of such flow, as the
causal effect of prior stages on (this stage of) ones brain. (2010: 352)
Paul is claiming that our experience of passage is an illusion, and therefore
while time seems to pass from one moment to the next it does not really do
so: it is just a mind-dependent phenomenon with no objective reality.
Pauls B-theoretic move is to make transition something that does not exist in
the world. In her version of the tenseless theory, there are durationless events
that are temporally related, but there is no objective transition or becoming.
Thus, the tenseless view is called the static view of time because the
experience of dynamism does not represent any flow from one time to another
since there is none. The assumption of this line of reasoning is that the only kind
of objective flow is A-theoretic or TENSED. Actually, Pauls view is that transition
is a double illusion. First, it is not a feature of the static events that cause it,
and furthermore, we are not really aware of transition. Temporal phenomena
seem to pass, but passage as we experience it is different from how it seems,
if that makes any sense. The experience of flow between events just gives the
impression of being filled in. There is no figment as Dennett would say (Paul
2010: 353n. 33). Thus, the second illusion consists of the fact that what appears
to be the experience of transition is not really the experience of transition at all.9
Barry Dainton criticizes Paul and adopts a weaker (less illusory) form of the
experience of passage, compatible with a different version of the tenseless
view. He maintains that our experience of the dynamic aspects of time are
fully real experientially, and they do possess dynamic qualitiesthe flux and
flow we find in our experience is not an illusionbut what is an illusion is the
belief that these features of experience represent a mind-independent reality
that contains metaphysical, that is, A-theoretic passage. Dainton claims that
12
if our universe is of the Block variety then it is certainly the case that no
form of M-[metaphysical] passage existsthis holds by definition. But we
can be certain that E [experiential]-passage exists, as certain as we are of
anything and we can conclude from this that our universe contains at least
one significant form of passagethat certain regions of it have an inherently dynamic intrinsic nature. And this result holds even if our universe is
entirely devoid of any form of M-passage. (2012: 132)
Like Paul, Daintons assumption is that if mind-independent (metaphysical)
passage exists, then it must be A-theoretic or TENSED. Nevertheless, he
claims that
There is thus a substantial difference between the position that I have
been recommending, and what is being advocated by Paul. I agree that
E-[experiential] passage exists in the realm of appearances, and that to the
extent that these appearances misrepresent the (non-dynamic) external
physical reality they can in this respect be construed as misleading or
illusory. Nonetheless, the appearances in question are nonetheless fully
real experientially, and the experiences in question really do possess
dynamic characteristics. In this sense, there is nothing in the least illusory
about the flux and flow we find in our experience. (2012: 133; emphasis
added)
In asserting the appearancereality distinction with regard to temporal
passage or dynamism, Dainton is clearly assuming that our experience of
passage is TENSED in an A-theoretic sense, and for that reason misrepresents the (non-dynamic) external physical reality (2012: 133).
The B/R theory rejects both the strong (there is no passage phenomenologically or ontologically) and weak versions of the tenseless view (there
is experiential but no mind-independent passage) since it affirms that we
do experience passage and that in so doing we are directly aware of mindindependentalbeit B/R-theoretic and not A-theoreticpassage. Thus, the
B/R theory rejects the assumption that if metaphysical or experiential passage
exists then the TENSED theory in some form must be true. As we have just
seen, Paul and Dainton believe that assumption, but there is an alternative.
Recalling our earlier discussion of Broad and Russell, we can say that
the vague truth that we start off from is that time has a dynamic character.
There is a flow, flux or whoosh to time and that is something that is given
to us in our immediate experience. This experience is open to many different
ontological interpretations, but the real truth that underlies the experience and
is its ontological ground is the existence of unanalyzable temporal relations
between temporal objects. The B/R theorist who is a phenomenological
13
realist will reject the view that our experience of passage is an illusion or an
appearance that misrepresent the non-dynamic external physical reality
(Dainton 2012: 133). The experience of the dynamic aspect of time is not the
experience of a mind-dependent object that misrepresents a static reality, but
is the perception of a mind-independent reality that is grounded in a temporal
(dynamic) simple B/R relation that is different from all other relations. Thus, it
is a mistake to claim that there is a distinction between the succession as we
experience it and succession as it is in itself; the former being dynamic and
illusory, and the latter static and real. In our experience of the phenomenon
of succession which grounds the dynamic aspect of time, we are directly
acquainted with a TENSEless B/R-theoretic mind-independent feature of
reality. To think otherwise is to assume that the dynamic aspect of time given
in experience is founded on the subjective appearance of ontological TENSE,
and it is that which a B/R theorist will deny.10
There is more that can and should be said about the B/R account of the
transitory aspect of time, and the various phenomenological data that are
connected with it, for example, the different psychological attitudes toward
past, present, and future events. Enough has been said, however, to see
how the B/R theory I have described is a third metaphysics of time distinguishable from the tensed theory and both Pauls and Daintons versions of
the tenseless view. With this background, we are, therefore, ready to turn to
Dolevs critique of the metaphysics of time.
The overall structure of Dolevs argument against tenseless time can be
stated as follows: Dolev construes our ordinary concept of time, as well
as our experience and language of time, as inescapably and indispensably
tensed. He also maintains that the tenseless theory, while maintaining that
tense is an indispensable and inescapable mode of thought, experience and
language, denies the reality of temporal passage and past, present, and
future, claiming that it is an illusion. He concludes that the tenseless view is
in a way self-refuting (p. 99); that the notion of purely tenseless relations is
empty (p. 95) and that the tenseless view is unknowable.
We shall see, however, that Dolevs arguments against the coherence of
tenseless relations fail primarily for two reasons. First, they ignore Broads
Principle of Pickwickian Senses, since he confuses the pre-analytic data, or
common-sense facts, with the ontological analysis of them. This error manifests
itself in an equivocation of the notion of tenseless relations. Second, Dolev
does not consider the B/R analysis of TENSEless temporal relations. For those
reasons his overall argument that the metaphysical theories and the queries they
give rise to are empty, since the notion of tenseless relations is unintelligible,
can be set aside. To establish his conclusion he would have to establish that the
same arguments apply equally to B/R relations, and that he does not and cannot
do. To see why, I shall next turn to his account of tenseless relations.
14
Dolev initially defines tenseless relations as follows: In general

tenseless relations are defined to be relations of succession: we give the
tenseless relation between events e1 and e2 when we say that e1 is later
than, or earlier than, or simultaneous with e2 (pp. 45). This way of defining
tenseless relations suggests that the copula is tenseless, that is, does not
involve grammatical tense or ontological TENSE. For that reason, the meaning
of tenseless cannot be cashed out in terms of is now, was or will be
(as some have claimed)11 since a tenseless sentence is not omnitensed, but
literally without tense. To interpret tenselessness as omnitensed would make
Dolevs claim that there are no purely tenseless sentences about events
trivially true, and it would support the thesis that relations of succession are
permanent. Critics of the tenseless view often argue that since e1 is earlier
than e2 is always true it follows that the fact in virtue of which it is always
true is eternal. Since to be eternal is to be everlasting or to always exist
or to have endless duration, it is concluded that tenseless facts are eternal
facts and so are permanent. That, however, is a mistake, since temporal
relational facts do not exist at any time; much less do they exist at every
time.12 Nor does tenselessness mean the same thing as timelessness
since the terms of the tenseless relation of earlier than are not timeless
entities like numbers, but temporal objects like particulars. Furthermore,
the copula involved in sentences expressing TENSEless temporal relations
is tenseless, but temporal, because it is asserting that one temporal object
is earlier than another temporal object.13 So, just as is now is a temporal
copula (although a tensed one), is earlier than is a temporal copula as well
(although a tenseless one). Leaving these distinctions aside, in so far as
Dolevs initial characterization of tenseless relations is simply meant to be
relations of succession without ontological implications, his description is
unproblematic.
Dolev makes other remarks about tenseless relations that are more
controversial. He says that Such relations, we are told, are easily recognized: their conspicuous hallmark is that sentences describing them are true,
if true, regardless of when they are tokened (p. 94). Indeed, he claims that
the tenseless view is sustained by the straightforward distinction between
tenseless and tensed sentences tenseless sentences state tenseless
relations, namely, relations of precedence, succession, and simultaneity (p.
79; emphasis added). Thus, Dolev views tenseless relations as sustained and
recognized by certain facts about the sentences describing or stating them.
These claims clearly show that Dolev assumes that the bases of the
notion of tenseless relations are tenseless sentences, but that is incorrect.
The existence of TENSEless temporal relations as entities in the ontology of
time is recognized by our experience of time, and not by the language that
philosophers may use to express that experience. For that reason, Dolev is
15
mistaken in claiming that the notion of a TENSEless relation depends upon a

language from which tense has been eliminated. The language that philosophers use to express temporal relations between and among events starts
from phenomenology and then attempts to ground that phenomenology in
an ontology that can account for it. To consider and further clarify his remarks
concerning tenseless relations, I want to discuss his account of the debate
between tensed and tenseless views of time.
Dolev explains what he takes to be at issue between the tensed and
tenseless views in the following passage:
We all know that the American Revolution preceded the French Revolution.
We supposedly all know, or at least ready to admit once it is explained
to us, that this fact constitutes a tenseless relation between the two
events. Indeed, tenseless theorists take it for granted that there are
such tenseless relations. Their quarrel with tensed theorists concerns
the question of whether in reality the only type of temporal relations are
tenseless relations, or whether there are in addition, also tensed relations.
The point of contention concerns the exclusivity of tenseless relations, not
their existence. (p. 79; emphasis in last sentence added)
Before proceeding to criticize the contents of this passage, I shall explain
Dolevs notion of a tensed relation. He says that The location of an event
with respect to the present is referred to as the tensed relation of the event
Now we may ask: are tensed relations part of reality, is there a present with
respect to which events really stand in a temporal relation, or is it the case
that, as was claimed about color at one time there is no present outside
our apprehension and so nothing for events to have a tensed relation to?
(p. 5). A tensed relation is a temporal relation (presumably earlier/later than)
between the present and past and future events, but what is the ontological
status of this relation? Is it an entity in its own right over and above the terms
it relates, or is it grounded in the non-relational properties of its terms? And if
it is an entity, does it depend on its terms having TENSED properties? Dolev
clearly believes that the tensed view is committed to (non-relational) TENSED
properties, since he treats the tensed view as maintaining that tensed
properties of events must be included in our conception of reality (p. 39),
and The difference between the tensed and the tenseless accounts is that
in the former truth conditions are non-relational, whereas in the latter they
are relational (p. 21). However, as we shall see, these remarks concerning
tensed and tenseless relations render his account of the difference between
these two theories of time problematic.
Dolev claims that the American Revolution preceded the French
Revolution states a tenseless fact whose constituents are a tenseless
16
relation and two events, but surely that the American Revolution preceded
the French Revolution does not constitute a tenseless relation between the
two events, but a tensed relation since the events related are past in relation
to the present. Furthermore, given Dolevs characterization of tenseless
relations as those described by sentences with an unchanging truth value,
it follows that the American Revolution preceded the French Revolution
is a tensed sentence, since it has a changing truth value: false before the
American Revolution and true after the French Revolution. Therefore, the fact
constitutes a tensed relation between events, and the sentence describes a
tensed fact, not a tenseless one.
Dolev claims that there is a basic agreement between the tensed and
tenseless views and in so doing his characterization of the debate begs the
question against the tenseless view and misses the ontologically fundamental issue between them, an issue that is more basic than the ontological
assumption he rejects. Clearly, no tenseless theorist, including the B/R
theorist, would accept that the ontological fact that the American Revolution
preceded the French Revolution constitutes a tenseless relation between
two events, since the sentence expressing this fact is tensed and therefore
from an ontological point of view reflects that the terms of the relation have
the TENSED property of pastness. Thus, Dolevs characterization of tenseless
relations assumes that the ontological analysis of them is that they are
relations with TENSED determinations, and that the tenseless facts temporal
relations enter into exist in time since the sentences that express them, for
example, the American Revolution preceded the French Revolution, change
their truth value. In so doing, his characterization of tenseless temporal
relations renders the tenseless view contradictory and so in the debate with
tensed theorists begs the question against it.
Furthermore, to assume at the outset that the tensed and the tenseless
views agree on the existence of tenseless relations and only disagree about
the existence of tensed relations is to misunderstand the metaphysical
dispute in the philosophy of time, since in the B/R theory, TENSEless
relations are universals whose terms are particulars that do not exemplify
TENSED properties (pastness, presentness and futurity), and the facts they
enter into are timeless in just this sense: though they do not exist in time
since they do not exemplify temporal relations, time (temporal relations) exist
in them. No tensed theorist could accept that time contains a conjunction
of such ontological facts. Hence there is a fundamental dispute about the
existence of, and not merely the exclusivity of, tenseless relations that
Dolev fails to see by overlooking the B/R account.
Admittedly, if by tenseless relations Dolev means the common-sense fact
that events stand in temporal relations, or even more neutrally, that sentences
such as the American Revolution preceded the French Revolution are true,
17
then both the tenseless and the tensed views agree, pre-analytically, that there
are tenseless relations.14 However, they would disagree about the analysis of
tenseless relations or the ontological facts they involve, as well as the relation
of those facts to time. Of course, if Dolev then shifts from common sense to
the ontological ground of the pre-theoretical data, and claims that the tensed
and tenseless views disagree with regard to the existence of tensed relations,
then what he saying would be true. That is, the tensed and tenseless views
agree commonsensically that there are temporal relations and disagree ontolo
gically over whether or not there are TENSEless or TENSED temporal relations
and facts. However, once common sense and ontology are kept separate, it
should be clear how and why these views do not even partially agree.
In Chapter 4, Tense Beyond Ontology, Dolev gives his main arguments
against the tenseless view. He reasons that since tense is inseparable and
ineliminable from language, thought and experience, the notion of tenseless
relations remains empty (94); there is not one fact we can point to as
truly tenseless (94); there is not a separable concept of tenseless time, and
indeed, tenseless relations are something we-know-not-what beyond the
veil of perception. In what follows, I shall consider his arguments for these
radical theses beginning with the claim that since tense is ineliminable from
language and all factual utterances are always infused with tense (p. 92)
there are no tenseless facts.
My first response to Dolevs argument against tenseless facts is that
it equivocates on the notion of factual utterance when he says that all
factual utterances are always infused with tense (p. 92). If a factual utterance
is one that states a common-sense fact, then even if in ordinary language all
common-sense facts are infused with tense, it does not follow, given Broads
Principle of Pickwickian Senses, that all ontologically factual utterances are
infused with TENSE. On the other hand, if by factual utterances Dolev
means utterances that state ontological facts, then what he is saying is
either false or begs the question of whether from the ineliminability of tense
in ordinary language, thought, and experience it follows that all factual utterances in a metaphysically perspicuous language are infused with TENSE.
Dolev argues that the ineliminability and indispensability of tense in
ordinary language, thought, and experience is evidence that TENSE is ineliminable from all factual utterances and hence from the ontological facts they
describe. In other words, if there are no factually tenseless sentences then
there can be no TENSEless facts. How then does he argue that all purportedly
tenseless sentences are in fact tensed? He considers two sentences that are
or contain tenseless sentences and argues they are tensed: John Kennedy
was assassinated in 1963 and Event e occurs in 2007. His argument
against both is that they involve dates, and dates assume a prior understanding of tense. Thus, he says:
18
Consider again the sentence Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. To

understand itfor such a sentence to transmit knowledgeone must
know what 1963 refers to. It is not enough to know that these numerals
indicate a counting that starts at a certain chosen point in time, that 1,963
years separate between that point of origin and the assassination. This
tenseless fact is a useless fact to anyone who does not know when the
point of origin is with respect to the present. (p. 91)
Of course, Dolev is correct that Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 presupposes the concept of tense since it is a tensed sentence! The question,
however, is whether present tense is necessary and indispensable to understand dates and our ability to act and communicate successfully. If so, then
presumably that is because reality is TENSED; that TENSE must figure in
some way in the fact that event e occurs at time t, or that e1 is earlier than e2,
and thus that there are no TENSEless facts. Dolev argues that, If one never
knows the present date, then one can never use information about the dates
of events to act successfully (p. 91). Thus, for example, it is not sufficient to
know that the meeting starts (or tenselessly occurs) at 1 pm to know that I
need to take action to go to the meeting which starts now, that is, that it is
now 1pm, and that the further knowledge involves the time possessing the
tensed property of presentness. Since the tensed thought is indispensable to
timely action, tensed facts or relations are indispensable too.
However, tensed thoughts are not indispensable. Admittedly, knowing the
TENSEless fact that the meeting starts at 1 pm is not sufficient to get me to
act, nor is the clock reading one oclock sufficient, but I can know it is time
to act by being conscious of perceiving the clock striking one, and judging
that this perception of the clock is roughly simultaneous with the start of the
meeting. In other words, I can know what event or time is present without
knowing that the event or time has the TENSED property of presentness.
Similarly, I can understand that the date 1945 is the date of my birth without
taking that date to be in a tensed relation to the present. I can understand
today is the date of my birth by judging reflectively that the date of my birth
is 69 years earlier than this thought (of being born in 1945), and the date of
my birth is 1945 simply means that the event of my birth is simultaneous
with the 1945th revolution of the earth around the sun since the birth of Christ
or some other suitable event.
Dolev is perfectly aware that there are tenseless theorists such as Mellor
who agree that tense is ineliminable from ordinary language (and commonsense facts), but deny that therefore TENSE is a feature of reality since the
ontological facts that ground tensed sentences in ordinary language can
be given in terms of tenseless sentences that express TENSEless facts.
Nevertheless, Dolev objects that the purported tenseless sentences are not
19
purely tenseless, since they presuppose a tensed context. Thus, he argues

that the token-reflexive account, according to which the truth condition of
x is present is the fact that x is simultaneous with the utterance x is
present or x is simultaneous with this utterance does not eliminate tense.
As he puts it:
The problem with the token-reflexive account is that, contrary to the
supposition of those who rely on it, the sentences and relations employed
in handling tensed relations are not themselves purely tenseless. It is true
that Todays date is February 15, 2007 can be explained by saying that
the date of the tokening of this sentence is February 15, 2007. But that is
only because the context makes it clear that the phrase this sentence
refers to the sentence tokened now. Before the tenseless formulation is
tense-ized by the context, it cannot do anything by way of clarifying the
original sentence. (pp. 923)
Is Dolev correct that the use of the phrase this sentence or this perception
refers to the sentence or perception tokened now and thus cannot be part of
an analysis that eliminates tense or TENSE? I think not. In fact, Smart (1963:
194) has already replied to this line of thinking by noting that it is simply a
dogmatic rejection of the analysis in terms of token-reflexiveness. On this
analysis now is elucidated in terms of this utterance, and not vice versa.
This elucidation, notes Smart, relies on taking a token of this utterance
(or this token) as referring to itself directly, that is, without recourse to
properties that identify it, and thus, in particular, without recourse to a tensed
property of presentness or nowness. Dolev and other objectors (Broad 1928;
Gale 1967; Ludlow 1999) appear to claim precisely the opposite, but I agree
with Smart (1963: 195) that it is not at all evident why the objector should
think that an utterance like this utterance cannot be directly self-referential.
We hear a token of the form this utterance and simply understand that
this token utterance is the one referred to. That Dolev thinks otherwise
and insists on bringing TENSE into the picture may well be a byproduct of
a presupposed allegiance to the tensed theory, but the B/R theorist will of
course disavow this.15
Dolev also argues that there are no tenseless facts on other grounds,
namely, that we have no notion of purely tenseless relations or facts since
tensed and tenseless concepts are inseparable. Thus, he claims that
we need to have some grasp of temporal succession in order to understand sentences about the present; and vice versa, we need to have some
mastery of tense to understand succession. To understand the tensed
sentence What you are hearing now is the sound of thunder we need
20
to know that the explanation refers to the sound that is simultaneous,

or cotemporal, with it [the sentence What you are hearing now is the
sound of thunder.] And we are made to understand the succession report
Thunder comes after lightning on occasions in which we can associate
these words with sounds and sights that are experienced now. (p. 92)
In other words, Dolevs point is that since our experience of the relation
of succession is tensed, there is no fact that we can point to as truly
tenseless (p. 94), and the notion of tenseless relations remains empty.
Again, we must distinguish the pre-analytic data and temporal phenomena
from the ontological analysis or fact that is its ground. Even if our concept of
succession (or objects experienced in succession) is inseparable from objects
that are experienced now, and in that sense the concept of succession is
inseparable from the concept of now, it would not follow that there are no
TENSEless relations in reality. For the ontological ground of the presentness
of objects experienced is simply that they are presented in perception.
In a specious present one experiences a temporal relation but does not
experience the property of presentness. As Russell once put it,
Succession is a relation which may hold between two parts of one
sensation, for instance between parts of a swift movement which is the
object of one sensation; it may then and perhaps also when one or both
objects are objects of immediate memory, be immediately experienced,
and extended by inference to cases where one or both of the terms of the
relation are not present. (Russell 1915: 213)
Thus, for Russell (as for Broad), temporal phenomenology is mind-independent
since we are acquainted with the (TENSEless) relation earlier than when we see a
rapid movement or hear a sequence of two tones, and there is no tense involved.
Dolevs argument that we cannot conceive of tenseless relations is based
on the thesis that our experience is intrinsically tensed, that is, that we do not
have non-tensed experiences. This view has been echoed by Jonathan Tallant
when he says:
Our experience of this earlier and later structure is intrinsically tensed.
That is to say that when I experience the extended nature of the specious
present, when I experience temporal priority, it is as a part of the now.
There are B-theorists [Falk] who have explicitly acknowledged this: I for
one cannot have non-A-perceptions (Falk 2003: 221). (Tallant 2007: 152)16
There are, however, two problems with this argument. First, I do not accept
the claim that one cannot have non-A- (TENSED) perceptions. We do not
21
experience the property of presentness when we perceive a present event

or a succession of rapid events. When we have an unreflexive awareness of
a present event, we are in fact experiencing nothing more than the occurrence of the event; we are not apprehending the irreducible property of
presentness. Clifford Williams supports this very line of argument by means
of a spatial analogue.17 Williams writes: There are occasions, perhaps quite
numerous, when we unreflexively experience, simply as existing, objects that
happen to be in the proximity of our locations, without also experiencing them
as being here (1992: 370). Just as it is the case that we do not experience or
apprehend the hereness of objects when we unreflexively experience objects
that are here, so it is the case that we do not experience the presentness
of events when we unreflexively experience present events. In other words,
to experience something as now does not imply that what is experienced is
TENSED or has the property of presentness, but only that it is experienced
as presented.
Second, and more importantly, it is simply not the case that our experience
of the earlier and later structure is intrinsically tensed, that is, somehow
founded on A-properties or A-facts. Since the now is, for Russell, what is
simultaneous with this, where this is an object of perception, it is consistent
to say that I experience temporal priority as part of the now without that
implying that the temporal phenomena, that is, the experience of succession,
is intrinsically tensed, or founded on tensed properties or facts. All that is
required, as in fact occasionally is the case, is that we can unreflectively
perceive a durational present within which a rapid succession or change can
occur.18
Dolev continues his attack on the intelligibility of the tenseless theory by
arguing that in the tenseless view tense is an inescapable global illusion and
thus tenseless reality is an unknowablewe-know-not-what (p. 94). In the
tenseless view, as Dolev characterizes it, nothing is in reality past, present or
future, and thus our experience of time is an illusion; it belongs to how we
experience things, but not to how they are. As Dolev also puts it, in relation
to time our experience is quite unlike what we experience (p. 29); although
time is TENSEless, our experience of time is TENSED.
Dolev claims that events we perceive are tensedly located and that to
be tensedly located is for them to possess tensed attributes (pp. 4, 97).
One could no more perceive objects as lacking TENSE than one could
perceive objects as lacking color. Indeed, he construes the tenseless view as
maintaining that tense is analogous to color, that is, a secondary quality that
exists in the mind, but not in reality. Consider the following passage:
Tenseas ubiquitous in experience, thought, and language as, say,
colorgives rise today to questions of the sort that troubled early modern
22
philosophers concerning the so-called secondary qualities: does it belong

to the things perceived or only to our perceptions of things? Or, more
generally, is reality tensed, or does it only appear tensed to us? (p. 4)
As Dolev interprets it, the tenseless view denies the existence of TENSED
properties and so must claim that although we cannot help experiencing
TENSE, we mistakenly believe it exists in reality. For that reason, the defender
of tenselessness will argue, we perceive events as though they are tensely
located, But this is nothing but the way the inescapable global illusion of
tense manifests itself (p. 100).
Dolev argues that this account of temporal experience renders tenseless
time an unknowable something we-know-not-what behind the veil of
illusions. For in the case of tense, there are no conditions that we are aware
of that would present us with a nontensed reality that could be the backdrop
against which how things appear could be labeled an illusion (p. 102). In
other words, since tense is an inescapable illusion, we cannot, under any
circumstances, have access to veridical perceptions, and so are stripped of
the condition that must obtain when one is subject to an illusion. Thus, there
is a fundamental dissimilarity between the sense in which seeing the road
as having a puddle is an illusion and seeing the presently setting sun is an
illusion. In the one case we know it is an illusion because we can compare
it with cases where a puddle on the road is real and cases where the reality
is seen and known to be different from the appearance, but in the case of
TENSE we cannot do that because TENSE is an inescapable illusion. To put
the point otherwise, if all we perceive is an illusion, then the notion of an
illusion becomes meaningless because we need to be able to compare the
illusion with reality, and in the case of TENSE we cannot do that because we
have no experience of a TENSEless reality.
Dolev summarizes his argument in the following passage I shall quote at
length:
But, as before, this conclusion [that tense is an illusion] is self-refuting:
conceiving veridical perceptions as unattainable in principle nullifies the
logical condition presupposed by any talk of illusion. Non-tensed reality
is the only source of terms required for describing how things are, a
description that is a necessary backdrop against which how things appear
can be labeled an illusion. But if tense is an inescapable illusion, we
never access this non-tensed reality, and so are stripped of the condition
that must obtain if we are to call tense an illusion. So if tense is an
inescapable illusion, we have no means for saying that it is.
Tenseless theorists help themselves to both ends of the stick: they
acknowledge, and even insist, that tense is an inescapable mode of
23
thought and experience, which veils tenseless reality from cognition and
at the same time, they offer a theory that reveals the tenseless truth
behind the veil. This cannot work. If tense is truly inescapable, then there
is no way we can remove ourselves from our heads and take our invariably
tensed minds for a stroll in the hidden tenseless fields of reality. And if,
on the other hand, we can understand that reality is tenseless, then tense
is no longer inescapable. Either way, tense cannot be thought of as an
illusion. (p. 102; emphasis added)
The conclusion of this argument is truetense cannot be thought of as an
inescapable illusion or appearancebut that does not constitute a refutation
of the tenseless view understood as the B/R theory. An illusion or appearance
is a mind-dependent object of perception, but the B/R theorist does not
recognize TENSED properties as mind-independent or mind-dependent
properties of experience since to do so is to give them ontological status
even mind-dependent entities are existentsand that is something the B/R
view is not willing to do.
Thus, Dolev sets up a false dilemma when he asks if tensed properties
are real (that is, mind-independent) or if tensed properties belong merely to
the way we perceive thingspure appearance, like secondary qualities and
hence mind-dependent? Our experience of the present is not the experience
of a mind-independent TENSED property, but it is not the experience of a
mind-dependent non-relational TENSED property either. Nor is it correct to
say that TENSEless reality is veiled behind the appearance of TENSE and so
a something we-know-not-what. In the B/R view, the perceptual now is
mind-dependent only in the sense that we would have no idea of it without
our perception of objects, but it does not follow that the objects we perceive
do not contain real mind-independent time, that is, parts that occur in
succession.
In summarizing the arguments of this chapter, I would say that Dolevs
critique of the tenseless view and his attack on the metaphysics of time is
based on two errors. First, he overlooks the implications of Broads Principle
of Pickwickian Senses by confusing the common-sense facts regarding our
ordinary concept of time with the ontological facts that, in the tensed theory,
are their ground. For that reason, Dolev assumes that if one rejects TENSED
properties, as the B/R view does, then one must also reject the concept of
time and the common-sense fact that time has a transitory aspect. In other
words, Dolev blurs the pre-analytic data or common-sense fact, for example,
that we can perceive an event as present, with a particular ontological analysis
of it, and concludes that if one rejects the ontological analysis then one must
reject the common-sense fact as well, or that since the common-sense fact
is unassailable the TENSEless ontological analysis is thereby refuted. Thus he
24
argues that since ordinary language, thought, and experience time is tensed,
an analysis that denies TENSE is incompatible with the language and concept
of time, and the facts of temporal experience. This, however, is to misunderstand the dispute by confusing one theory about the correct ontological
analysis of time with the concept of time itself. Moreover, it rests on the
false premise that ordinary language, thought, and experience is inescapably
TENSED.
Second, Dolev overlooks the B/R version of the tenseless relations by
taking the tenseless and tensed views of time to agree about the existence of
tenseless relations and in so doing he misunderstands the ontological nature of
the dispute. Recall that Dolev claims that there is a basic agreement between
the tensed and tenseless view regarding the nature of temporal relations. He
claims that both the tensed and tenseless views have in common the belief
in tenseless relations. What then does he means by tenseless relations? If
tenseless relations are B/R relations then since B/R relations are temporal
relations between terms without TENSED properties, his claim that the
tensed and tenseless views both believe in tenseless relations implies that
there are no tensed relations, and that therefore the tensed view is false. On
the other hand, if tenseless relations are also tensed relations (as Dolev
implies in his characterization of the dispute) then temporal relations obtain
between terms with TENSED properties and the tenseless view is false. For
these reasons it is preferable and more accurate to treat the issue between
tensed and tenseless (including the B/R) views not as about the exclusivity
of tenseless temporal relations but about the ontological statusthe
existence and natureof temporal relations, and their relation to time.
Once we recognize a third metaphysical view of time, the B/R theory, then
we can see that the ontological status of temporal relations is a more fundamental issue than the ontological assumption that Dolev claims undermines
the legitimacy of traditional metaphysical questions concerning time. Are
temporal relations analyzable in term of the TENSES or are TENSEless
temporal relations simple and unanalyzable or analyzable in terms of say
(non-A-theoretic) causal relations? The question of whether past, present,
and future, or present and past, or only present events and things, exist is
parasitic on this more fundamental question regarding temporal relations. If
the B/R view is right, then temporal relations are universals whose terms
are temporal objects none of which are intrinsically past, present or future,
that is, none of which exemplify TENSED properties, and in that sense, past,
present, and future objects do not exist. If the ground of temporal relations is
founded upon one of its termsa strong version of internal relationsthen
only the present exists. If temporal relations are founded upon the coming
into existence and continued existence of what did not previously exist, then
the past and present exist. If there can be temporal relations only if their
25
terms have TENSED characteristics, then past, present, and future exists
and so does the moving now. So there is a debate over what he calls the
ontological assumption, but that debate depends on the more fundamental
issue of the ontological status of temporal relations. Since Dolev fails to
recognize that debate, and the B/R version of TENSEless time that is at the
heart of it, his arguments do not establish that both theories are untenable
or that we dont really know how to understand either theory (p. 60), much
less that there is no genuine dispute in the metaphysics of time.
Notes
1 Henceforth, following Dolev, I will just use the tense/tenseless distinction to
characterize these views.
2 For a discussion of these arguments and others surrounding the question
of the genuineness of the so-called presentist/eternalist debate, see, for
example, Dorato (2006), Savitt (2002, 2006), Callender (2012), Crisp (2004a,
2004b), Ludlow (2004), Oaklander (2001, 2008, General Introduction, vol.
I, 111, 2012), Clifford Williams (1996, 1998a, 1998b, 2003), Lombard (1999,
2010), Meyer (2005), Sider (2001, 2006), Deng (2010), and Burley (2006).
3 See Tegtmeier (2012) and Grossmann (1992).
4 My thanks to Francesco Orilia for this reference.
5 In correspondence regarding the distinction between common sense and
ontology, Erwin Tegtmeier commented that The discussion in the analytical
philosophy of time (as well as in other parts of analytical philosophy) seems
to me unscientific. It does not take into account whole theories (in this
case ontological theories) and it is unaware of the ontological alternatives.
It is much too coarse. [Gustav] Bergmann would say that it is ontologically
inarticulate and merely metaphorical. One could call it folk philosophy of
time. The only technical component of it is mathematical logic (including
set theory and the physics of time). Imagine folk physics thinking about
mass without the context of a physical theory and starting from common
conceptions or coarse-grained classifications. Imagine a discussion and
a decision about the classical and the quantum theory of mass based on
vague conceptions and without taking into account the whole of classical
mechanics and the whole of quantum theory and their precise details.
6 This is somewhat inaccurate for two reasons. First, Broad also includes the
fact that every experience has some duration as one aspect of the extensive
aspect of time. Second, he claims, given that our experiences overlap it is
not always true that there is a definite temporal relation between any two
of them. Having mentioned these qualifications, we can, however, safely
ignore them in what follows.
7 The denial of A-properties as monadic is, of course, compatible with
A-predicates being meaningful. The early Broad and Russell gave their
meaning in terms of the token-reflexive of the psychological approach.
26

According to the former, if I utter a token n of now in uttering it is now
raining, the sentence token can mean that rain is simultaneous with the
utterance of n. According to the latter, to say that an event e is present
means that e is simultaneous with this where this is an object of perception
or the perception of an object. I shall have something more to say about
both of these analyses when we consider Dolevs arguments against
tenseless time.
8 For further explanation of the B/R theory, its difference from some versions
of the B-theory, and a defense of the legitimacy of the dispute against some
who attempt to debunk it, see Oaklander (2012).
9 For a criticism of this aspect of Pauls view, see Barry Dainton (2011: 3889;
and 2012: 1303).
10 For these reasons, I find Pauls view that there is no passage a peculiar
position to take since in countenancing inputs from earlier and later
temporal stages (Paul 2010: 354; emphasis added), Paul is already
acknowledging tenseless relations. Thus, unless Pauls temporal relations
are unlike B/R relations, her denial of the animated or dynamic character of
change in our experience, which, on the version of the tenseless view I am
suggesting, is grounded in primitive temporal relations, makes no sense.
For if passage exists in reality in the form of inputs from earlier and later
temporal stages, then any explanation of our experience as of passage that
results from those inputs cannot demonstrate that passage does not exist
phenomenologically or mind-independently since it assumes B/R-theoretic
passage.
11 See, for example, Dorato (2006), Savitt (2002).
12 Dolev makes this error when he uses the permanence of tenseless facts
in his support of arguments that Schlesinger and Prior give against the
tenseless view (see Dolev 2007: 3940). For a discussion of this error with
regard to Priors Thank Goodness argument, see Oaklander (1993).
13 Since ersatz presentism takes temporal relations to be between times
construed as abstract objects, the B/R view is not compatible with
presentism, contrary to Rasmussen (2012).
14 Francesco Orilia has pointed out that this may be problematic because the
presentist is an A-theorist but he may not want to agree pre-analytically
that there is a relational fact e1 before e2, because it may seem to commit
him to the existence of a past entity, namely e1. See also Crisp (2005). I
would reply that since by tenseless relations Dolev means relations of
succession at the pre-analytic level, even a presentist cannot deny them
since they are committed to the view that events come into and go out of
existence successively.
15 For a recent defense of the token-reflexive account of tense, see Orilia and
Oaklander (forthcoming 2014).
16 For a critique of Tallant (2007), see Oaklander and White (2007).
17 C. Williams (1992). See also Oaklander (2004c).
18 Sean Power (2012) argues that for the B-theorist, the present is not
specious since it is a present duration during which change can occur.
27
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2
Motion and Passage: The Old
B-Theory and Phenomenology1
Yuval Dolev
The old B-theory resurfaces
ately a new tone has been heard among B-theorists, marked mostly by
being unapologetic. The founding fathers of the theory got it right, goes
this recent campaign, and the onslaught they encountered, which resulted in
the emergence of the softened new B-Theory, was ungrounded. The crux of
the criticism against the B-theory was that it clashed with experience, specifically in that it turned tense and passage into illusions. Obviously, once it had
been established that reality as it is portrayed by a theory is unlike what we
thought it was, the theory finds itself on the defensive. Why should we believe
a theory that is not corroborated by experience, or even worse, actually runs
against it? And so the next generation of B-theorists went back to the drawing
boards and devised an ingenious twist to the plot. Reality is indeed tenseless
and, yes, passage is an illusion. But, they claimed, there is nothing mysterious
about this illusion or about its existence. It can be accounted for and even
shown to be an outcome, a blessed outcome, of evolutionary processes.
To act successfully we need to be equipped with A-beliefs, beliefs in which
events are located with respect to the present. Reality is tenseless and there
are no A-facts, so such beliefs cannot be grounded in A-facts. But that does
not mean they are false or groundless. There are B-facts, tenseless relations,
which endow A-beliefs and A-utterances with their meaning and truth.
With the manifold of A-beliefs in place and solidly anchored to the
unchanging, stable ground of B-facts, we can enjoy its uses, position
ourselves at the right places at the right times, time our actions so that they
32
are efficacious, but without having to carry the metaphysically superfluous

baggage of A-facts. The new theory offers, as Mellor puts it (1998: 23), a trade
in of tensed facts for tensed beliefs, an exchange which allows us to confine
tense to the only place in which it is neededour heads. Tense is indeed an
illusion, but one we live with happily, even thankfully.
Note, however, that the new B-theory acknowledges the existence of a
substantial gap between how things appear and how they are in reality
they appear to be tensed, but in reality, as conceived by the theory, they are
tenseless. And as effective as accounting for this gap may be, it is inevitably
accompanied by an apologetic undertone.
That is not how things stood when the B-theory was expounded originally,
claim contemporary thinkers such as Dieks (2006) and Oaklander (2012)2.
The theorys theses were perhaps surprising but were certainly not viewed
as conflicting with experience. Tense and passage were never said to be
illusions. Rather, they were shown to be something other than what nave
understanding makes them out to be. Instead of the notion that passage and
tense consist of something that passes, some moving Now, the B-theory
offered an explanation of how they originate with tenseless relations.
But something went wrong. An attendant thesis to the original theorys
tenseless ontology was that a tenseless language, one which corresponds to
how things really are, can be devised. Soon enough, however, it became clear
that a tenseless language is bound to remain an unrealizable fantasy, and the
original theory was abandoned for the sake of the new one, which embraces
tense as part of language while denying it ontological status. Thus, a theory
purporting to harmonize with experience was displaced by a new version in
which the absence of such harmony is admitted but shown to be harmless.
Now we are witnessing a revival of the original spirit of the B-theory. The
new wave consists of renditions of the theory that pride themselves on
meshing perfectly with experience. Accusations claiming the existence of
gaps between how the theory conceives reality and how reality is experienced are flatly rejected. There is even a re-evaluation of the feasibility of a
tenseless language3. This chapter is devoted to Oaklanders defense of the
old B-theory.4 Oaklander calls the theory he defends the B/R theory (after
Broad and Russell, who pioneered the view), and I will follow suit.
In the B/R theory the world is dynamic, just as it appears to be. Temporal
relations are indeed tenseless, but they are not static. Oaklander reverts to
capital letters to distinguish the old B-theorys dynamic TENSEless relations
from the static tenseless relations of the new B-theory. Here, too, I will follow
him. In the new B-theory we are subject to a constant and inescapable illusion,
not to say, errorthat of taking the world to be dynamic when in fact it is a
frozen block. Thus, the bulk of the effort expended by new B-theorists goes
into accounting for how a static tenseless world gives rise to the dynamic
Motion and Passage: The Old B-Theory and Phenomenology 33
experience of flow. The old B-theory, and Oaklanders B/R theory, will have
none of this. The task is not to offer excuses for the theorys deviation from
how we experience temporal relations, but to show that what we actually
experience are TENSEless relations.
To further explain this, Oaklander invokes what he calls, again following
Broad, The Principle of Pickwickian Senses:
According to this principle, the proper analysis of a phenomenon or a
concept may not be what commonsense implicitly and unknowingly
takes it to be, since the implicit analysis, if in fact there is one, may be
subject to dialectical difficulties and not hold up to critical examination.
The Pickwickian sense of a concept, although perhaps not intuitive, has
the advantage that it is quite certain that there is something that answers
to it, whereas with the other definitions of the same entities this cannot
be shown to be so (1924: 93). (Oaklander 2014: 5)
Experience is not faulty. But uncritical appeal to it may lead to unwarranted
conclusions. Thus, nave, pre-critical common sense may tacitly acquiesce
to the notion that only the present is real and mistakenly construe the
ontology underpinning our temporal experience as consisting of A-facts,
of a moving Now that renders ontologically superior the events it visits.
It is not that experience introduces us to a kind of ontological hierarchy in
which present events are ontologically distinguished from those that are not
present. It is that common sense, tacitly or explicitly, gleans such distinctions
from experience.
But critical examination, which goes beyond common sense, reveals
that no such distinctions are to be found in experience. Critical examination
does not encounter the properties of presentness, pastness, or futurity in
experience or in the events experienced, at any rate, not the tensed properties
championed by common sense. Our experience of passage is not an illusion.
But it is not what common sense is prone to make of it. One should shun the
errors of pre-critical thinking but remain a realist about passage by construing
temporal relations as dynamic TENSEless relations. By prompting us to be
realists in this way, critical examination earns us the real truth that underlies
the vague facts we start off with (Oaklander 2014: 78).
Let me at this point digress for a moment to assess Oaklanders criticism
of my analysis of the tenseless/tensed debate.5 Oaklander levels two principal
charges against me: one, that I fail to recognize the Principle of Pickwickian
Senses; and second, that I overlook a third metaphysics of time, the old B-theory.
I am more than willing to admit to the second charge. My target in Time
and Realism as well as other publications was indeed current views, namely,
the A- and the new B-theories. I still hold that everything I said about the new
34
B-theory and about the nature of the Anew B-theory debate stands, and
there is nothing in what Oaklander writes that indicates he would disagree.
But it is now emerging that the old B-theory, thought falsified and forgotten,
was eulogized prematurely and must be re-engaged. The bulk of what follows
is devoted to the old B-theory. My conclusion will be that despite its merits, it
too is untenable, and that my former claim that the AB theory debate must
be superseded by a phenomenological inquiry is revalidated.
As for the first charge, I must reject it. I have not and do not defend a
common-sense view of time, when this is taken to denote some nave view
that remains on the level of pre-critical, vague conceptions. I, too, think
that critical examination leads to a better understanding of time, and that,
as will be seen, on some issues this new understanding deviates significantly from our nave, pre-critical thinking. But I disagree with Oaklander
that the Pickwickian principle distinguishes between commonsense and
ontology. Why ontology? Why must that be what the Pickwickian principle
contrasts common sense with? The contrast should be with any analysis
that promotes our understanding of the concept. And it certainly must not be
with any phenomenologically unviable analysis, as the one suggested, I will
argue, by the old B-theory. Thus, to reject the old B-theory is not to reject the
Pickwickian principle, but to favor a different analysis of time as the source
for the clarity that is absent from the common-sense apprehension of it. As
I hope to show, far from indicating a failure to appreciate the significance of
the Pickwickian principle, I think the alternative I propose is a good example
of how to implement it.
Before proceeding, let me note that Oaklanders specific objections are
all offshoots of one of the above two main criticisms. To give an example,
when Oaklander says that to assume at the outset that the tensed and
the tenseless views agree on the existence of tenseless relations and
only disagree about the existence of tensed relations is to misunderstand
the metaphysical dispute in the philosophy of time (p. 16), the reason he
gives is that the B/R theorys TENSEless relations cannot be part of such
an agreement. In other words, the agreement I pointed out indeed exists,
but only between the tensed and the tenseless theory (the new B-theory),
and not with the TENSEless theory. Oaklanders objection, then, is that my
analysis overlooked TENSEless relations, a fault, it must be said, it shares
with new B-theorists, who are thus also guilty of misunderstanding the
metaphysical dispute in the philosophy of time. In what follows I respond to
these kinds of charges by responding to Oaklanders two chief criticisms.
Oaklander claims that on my construal of the tenseless view, the relations
that supposedly obtain between events are not even temporal. Events turn
out to constitute a C-series, not a B-series. Oaklanders critical remarks about
Laurie Pauls position suggest that he indeed believes that the new B-theory
can hardly be called a theory of time because the static relations it takes
to obtain between events are not temporal. By contrast, the axes around
which the B-theory revolves are dynamic TENSEless relations. My analysis,
he states, begs the question: it targets tenseless relations that are not even
temporal and then proceeds to criticize the tenseless view for not succeeding
to capture the essence of time.
Needless to say, Oaklander continues, this maneuver cannot be effective
against the old B-theory. Dynamic TENSEless relations grant us, as part of
reality and not merely of how we experience things, all the temporality we
are familiar with from experience.
But, of course, whether or not the old B-theory delivers the goods is the
key question here. We need a theory of time that is phenomenologically
viable, one which does not harbor gaps between the way things appear to us
and the way they really are. So the question is whether the original B-theory,
in contrast with its successor (and, as I argued at the time, with the A-theory),
offers an account of time which harmonizes our experience with reality. If it
does, then this theory is very attractive indeed, and it would be difficult, and
superfluous, to come up with a reason to reject it.
The old B-theory, the specious present

and phenomenology
But can a theory that denies that some events have the objective property of
being present cohere with experience? I will argue that the answer is No.
The first thing to note when we turn to assess how the old B-theory fairs
phenomenologically is that, in contrast with the new theory, the old theory
does not flat-out deny that some events are objectively present. Its relations
are TENSEless, not tenseless, they are dynamic, not static. Specifically, some
events occur simultaneously with ones experience of them, the simultaneity in question being a TENSEless relation. And here is the crucial point:
according to this theory there is nothing more, phenomenologically speaking,
to experiencing the presentness of an event than experiencing its TENSEless
simultaneity with the experience. Likewise, to undergo a series of experiences that TENSElessly succeed each other just is to experience passage.
But, it turns out that in order to give the theory phenomenological viability,
another element is required: the so-called specious present. The history of
the specious present, from its introduction by E. R. Clay and its appropriation
by James, to its current revival, for example in the work of Dainton, has
been relayed often enough. Oaklanders invocation of the specious present
follows Russell and Broad. For them, the specious present is the arena for
36
experiencing times dynamism. It is in the specious present that, for example,

a chain of musical notes is apprehended as a flowing unity which constitutes
a tune. But why is a specious present required for the experience of precedence, for the experience on which all further knowledge of time is built,
to use one of Broads formulations which Oaklander rehearses approvingly
(p. 9)? Why cant two notes be experienced as TENSElessly following each
other without the specious present?
Supposedly, because to experience them separately is not to experience
them related, not even temporally. To experience B temporally succeeding
A is more than just experiencing A and experiencing B; it is to experience
the temporal relationship between them. But to experience them related, A
and B have to somehow be experienced together. An account of how this is
possible consists of two stages: first it needs to be stated what unifies the
elements of the succession; then it needs to be explained how whatever
unifies them executes the unification. Concerning the first stage, one option
is that it is by being co-present in consciousness that A and B are experienced
together, for example as constituting a tune.6 Thus, by adopting the specious
present, the B/R theory addresses the first part of the challenge posed by the
experience of succession, motion, and change, and whats left is to explain
how a present fulfills the task of unifying temporally distant events. Moreover,
it may initially appear as though the B/R theory embarks upon a phenomenologically more promising track than its new successor, for it delivers an
account of change that is dynamic and in which the present and transience
play a vital role. The new B-theory, in contrast, is forced to incorporate change
into a tenseless world that is static, a mission that verges on the oxymoronic.
But the truth is that the specious present fails precisely on the point which
it is supposed to bolster, namely, phenomenology. The reason, in a nutshell,
is that there is nothing specious about the presentor, at least, nothing in
or about experience attaches so much as a sliver of speciousness to the
present. Before elaborating this claim, let me make two notes. The first is
that once the specious present becomes part of the old B-theory it can no
longer be maintained that TENSEless relations account for the experience
of passagethey do so only when augmented by the specious present,
which otherwise would not immediately appear as a natural component of a
B-theory of time. A truly tenseless theory should not be tainted by a present,
real or specious.
The second note concerns the aforementioned question as to how the
elements of a succession are unified. It turns out that in most of its versions,
the specious present is a contraption designed to perform magic, namely,
conjugate what are unconjugable, distant events, for example, blending
together the distinct notes of the sequence ABCD into a tune. The
specious present was invented so that there is something that will tolerate
what actual motion and change do not, namely, the coexistence of phases
of the succession. The notes ABCD are temporally distant and so cannot
coexist in reality, but they can be co-conscious in the specious present,
where they constitute a melody rather than a sequence of independent
notes.
How does this magic happen? How does the temporal gap keeping these
notes apart in reality vanish when they arrive at the theater in which they
are heardat the specious present? There are various models that purport
to explain this. Here is a brief sketch of two. In what Dainton calls the
awareness-overlap model, to which Broad subscribed at some time, there
is a distinction between phenomenal contents and the acts of awareness in
which these contents are apprehended. To hear ABCD is to undergo a
series of acts of awareness, one including AB, another including BC, and
so on. On the level of content, the notes are separated, but they are brought
together in the act of awareness. How? Nothing is said. The model is rejected
for other structural difficulties, such as that the same content is apprehended
by more than one act of awarenessB figures both in AB and in BC. But
the more troubling problem is that to simply state that the temporally distant
contents A and B become co-conscious in AB is to sweep under the rug
rather than solve the difficulty for which the specious present was introduced
to begin with.
In the two-dimensional model, to which Broad turned later, the same experiential contents linger throughout the succession of acts of awareness, but with
a decreasing degree of, what Broad called, presentedness. Thus, the content
A is not temporally confined to a point but rather spreads in time far enough
so as to overlap with B, albeit with diminished presentedness. Temporally
distant contents such as A and B are conjoined by overlapping. There are
many structural problems with this model as well (cf. Dainton 2010: 111). Here
I would just like to remark that there is no phenomenological evidence that
such spreading of contents takes place, and no sign of the existence of the
property of presentedness with its varying degrees of intensity.
My point is that when we look inside the specious present and inspect the
mechanism which is supposed to explain how succession is perceived and
how the experience of flow and passage is created, we find more questions
than answers. But this state of affairs is tolerated precisely because this
present is specious. Speaking of the two-dimensional theory, Dainton notes
that since the posited additional dimension is located within consciousness
rather than the world itself, it is not open to the objection that we have no
reason to believe that such a thing exists (p. 110, emphasis added). In other
words, because it is specious this present can allow for things that the world
itself cannot. For example, in it unjoinable contents can be joined.
The perception of change and motion seems to confront us with an
38
antinomy: it can be achieved only if temporally distant contents are apprehended together. The solution is to create a specious zone that is not subject
to the conceptual and logical constraints our descriptions of the world itself
must respect, and let perception of change take place there. Seen in this
light, as the only solution of an antinomy, we can almost say that the present
must be specious.
Unless, that is, there is another way to account for the perception
of motion. If there is one, and shortly I will argue that there is, then the
specious present had better be abandoned, at least by those guided by the
conviction that when doing metaphysics, phenomenology must constantly be
consulted. As was just illustrated, the route leading to the specious present
is not phenomenological but conceptual, or logical. First, one determines
that there is no such thing as presentness in the world itself, for example
on account of McTaggarts argument, or of special relativity. Or one surmises
that the real present does not cohere with experience, for example
because the real present is a volumeless point whereas the experienced
present is extended. Then, one concludes that there really is no choice but
to posit an experienced present which is specious. In other words, the
speciousness of the present is the product of a derivation, and not of any
reflection on the temporal aspects of experience. Indeed, it is acknowledged
despite everything that can be gleaned from a phenomenological study of
experience.
Positing entities on the basis of conceptual analysis is a legitimate mode
of reasoning, of course, which emulates something we are familiar with
from scientific investigation. Specious entities often become central to
a theory. Electromagnetic potentials7 are a famous example. The neutrino
started its career as a somewhat specious particle, the existence of which
was contested by leading physicists such as Bohr. The devastating difference
between the specious electromagnetic potentials and the specious present
is that we have no expectation to encounter the electromagnetic potentials
in experience, whereas the specious present not only figures centrally in
a theory that is supposed to be in as much harmony with experience as
possible, but is in fact introduced into the theory precisely for the sake of
rendering it harmonious with experience.
Unlike its new successor, the old B-theory will not castigate flow or tense,
or any component of our experience, as illusory. But then comes the branding
of the present as specious. True, calling the present specious is not as bad
as calling it an illusion, but it is in the same spirit. We dont speak of specious
successions, or volumes or shapes or sizes, though in all these cases, and in
many more, arguments regarding the speciousness of these things can be,
and have been, put forth.8 In general, where possible, we refuse to admit a
distinction between how things are experienced and how they are in the
world. But such a distinction is precisely what is implied by tagging the

present as specious.
For a theory that purports to be phenomenologically attuned and attentive,
this is a troubling issue. The old B-theory is seeing a renaissance because
thinkers such as Oaklander are not satisfied with the gap that exists between
the new B-theorys description of reality and how reality is experienced, a gap
expressed by the assertion that tense and passage are a myth, or an illusion.
A theory which allows such a gap can hardly be a theory of time: Tenseless
becomes Timeless in such a theory. My claim is, however, that in the
end, because it relies on a phenomenologically alien, artificial constructthe
specious presentthe B/R theory suffers from the same weakness.
Can the distinction between common sense and the Pickwickian sense
of a concept be of help here? I think not. The Pickwickian understanding of
a concept is not supposed to clash with experience, but to clarify it. On the
contrary, it is the common-sense conception that is supposed to generate
uneasiness, that is supposed to discord with experience, in a manner that
will trigger a critical examination and inspire a more refined, more accurate
and phenomenologically more satisfactory Pickwickian understanding of the
concept. But in our case, a new and no less disturbing uneasiness surfaces
when the common-sense conception of tense is replaced by a theory that is
structured around a specious present.
To summarize, Oaklander charges me with directing my criticism at a
version of the B-theory, the new B-theory, which, by his lights, is indefensible. In fact, what Oaklander says about the new theory is more lethal than
anything that emanates from my criticism, for according to him the new
theory cannot count as a theory of time at all. But that is why, according
to Oaklander, my criticism of the B-theory fails: it begs the question by
targeting tenseless relationsthose of the new theorythat are damned
and untenable from the outset. Tenseless relations must be understood in
the way they were conceived originally, in the B/R theory, as dynamic, and as
consisting of everything temporal we find in experience. However, as I tried to
establish, this view of the old theory cannot be sustained once the phenomenological oddity of the presents supposed speciousness is exposed.
Natural realism about tense

Still, the TENSEless relations plus specious present theory may be the best
account of time and of experience we have. Indeed, it is, I believe, superior
to any other version of either the A or B theories. I wish, however, to outline
the alternative I have been advocating, and to argue that it reflects experience
better than all the theories making up the AB debate. To introduce it, let me
40
briefly discuss a version of the specious present doctrine that has not been
mentioned so farDaintons overlap theory.9 The important advantage of
this theory is its simplicity. It does not get entangled with repeated contents
that are experienced many times over, or with contents that linger and
form a second temporal dimension, or with other architecturally contrived
complexes. It even manages to free itself from the cumbersome distinction
between phenomenal contents and acts of awareness that apprehend these
contents.
The key to the models simplicity is the realization that the apprehended
event and the event which is the apprehending are both extended in time and
run concurrently. In this theory, acts of awareness are themselves spread in
time, and they partially overlap. Thus, seeing a light fade consists of many
extended experiences, each overlapping with those immediately before
and after it. The problem of repeated contents that afflicts the awarenessoverlap model vanishes because the acts of awareness which form the
seeing of a light fade overlap, with each phase of the lights fading figuring in
many of them, rather than being replicated many times over so as to be part
of each of them. And there is no need for a second dimension, for example of
diminishing presentedness, or of retentions, because each act of awareness
is spread over time and so covers many of the phases of the lights fading.
The alternative I defend has a similar structure. In particular, it shares
the idea that the event and the experience thereof run concurrently. But it
differs on two basic, and related, issues: on my proposal the present is not
specious, and, just as there is one event being apprehended, there is just
one act of apprehension and not many. Let me explain. Daintons theory, like
other specious present theories, is engaged with explaining how successive,
that is, temporally separated, contents that cannot be brought together
nevertheless figure together in consciousness. Their so-called solution for this
enigma is the specious present, which sustains extended and overlapping
acts of awareness, a present which, by virtue of its own unity, bestows unity
upon these acts of awareness. The internal structure of the overlap model
is simpler and sturdier than that of other versions of the specious present,
but its function is the sameto constitute a zone which, by being specious,
allows what the world itself doesnt, namely, the coexistence of things that
in reality do not coexist. Note that here too the argument for speciousness
is logical or conceptual, rather than phenomenological; it is not that studying
experience leads to the presents speciousness in a positive way, but that the
non-speciousness of the present is ruled out conceptually.
But perhaps there is something wrong with the way the challenge is set up,
namely, with the notion that the task facing our analysis of the experience of
motion is that of uniting elements of a succession, or, to revert to this term once
again, of undoing an antinomy? Because Dainton, too, becomes knotted with
the antonymous nature of united successions, he, too, resorts to the presents
speciousness. If, however, the antinomy is removed, the impetus to conceive of
the present as specious is also eliminated. To be more exact, remove is not
what needs to be done with the antinomy, for, as I will suggest, the antinomy
was never there to begin with. Setting up the conceptual challenge as that of
negotiating successions is, I wish to propose now, already phenomenologically misguided. The experience of motion does not consist of a perception of
succession nor is it derived from a succession of perceptions. Succession plays
no role in the perception of motion, or, for that matter, in motion itself. Seeing
the cat cross the lawn does not consist of having a succession of perceptions,
nor of perceiving succession. The experience simply does not break down to
components that have to then be reunited. Hard as we try, when we scrutinize
our experience we seek in vain for past bits that somehow coalesce with
present ones to form the perception of motion.
Here is what we do find. The first thing we find when focusing attention
to experience are events that are experienced as present, by which I mean
that we find tensed properties that belong to the events we experience,
and not merely to how these events are experienced. Then, if we attend to
them, we find that our experiences of these events are themselves present
events.10 Of course, so as not to beg the question, I am not at this point
assuming anything about this present, for example that it is real rather than
specious.
The second thing we note is that a part of an event is a separate event.
But the partwhole relationship is not one thing but many. Rivers have parts,
as do cars, sentences, vector spaces, communities, and laws. Sometimes
things are dividable into their parts, sometimes they are not. Let us return
for a moment to Freges contextuality principle. A sentence, even though it
is composed of words, is the basic unit of meaning. And the meaning of a
sentence is not the aggregate of the meanings of its words. The individual
words in isolation do not have meanings. But this principle is easily expanded.
Take the conjunction Inflation is rising despite the lowering of interest.
Formally, this is a conjunction. But despite does not mean and, and the
meaning of the sentence is not captured by, or reducible to, the meaning
of the conjuncts making it up. In the proper context, this sentence has a
unity that is lost when it is broken down into its components, which are also
sentences. The same can be said of paragraphs and essays. The musical
analogies are ready at handa melody is not a collection of notes, and so on.
Events are made up of parts which are also events, not in the way that a
car is made up of parts but rather in the way that paragraphs are made up
of sentences, or symphonies are made up of parts, and parts of symphonies
from phrases. Moving from an event to its part is a matter of changing
contexts and not of taking apart.
42
This observation carries with it a consequence that turns out to be far

reaching for our inquiry, namely, that present events have parts that are not
themselves present. Thus, there is no contradiction between saying that the
orchestra is now playing Beethovens 3rd Symphony and saying that the third
part of the symphony will only start in ten minutes. The first statement is
about one event and the second is about a different event. That the second
event is part of the first is immaterial, for the temporal attributes of these
events, at least those relevant to the current discussion, do not pass down
from the mother event to the part or from the part up to the mother event.
This deserves further clarification. The thesis is not that there is a context
in which the playing of the symphonys third part is a present event and
another context in which it is a future event. Rather, in all contexts in which
the playing of the symphonys third part figures at all it invariably appears,
and is referred to, as a future event. There are no contexts in which it figures
as a present event, only contexts in which it does not figure at all, as when
it is proclaimed that the concert is being broadcast on the radio or that it is
being conducted by so and so. That the playing of the symphonys third part
will be broadcast on the radio and conducted by so and so are separate statements that pertain to a separate event, a future eventthe playing of the
symphonys third part.
Of course, with times passage contexts change, and half an hour from
now the orchestra will be playing the symphonys third part, which will then
be a present event. But at the moment there is no context in which that event,
the playing of the third part, can be correctly spoken of as present. This is as
simple as it is absolute: just as we cannot now hear what will be heard 30
minutes hence, so we cannot now say or think what will be said or thought
30 minutes hence (there is a familiar analogy that is useful in explaining this:
I understand perfectly well what John is saying when he proclaims I am
hungry, but I can never say what he says with this sentence). The notion
that the playing of the symphonys third part can in any way be thought of or
spoken of as a present event is simply a mistake.
Let us add another, related point, namely, that the individuation of events is
a matter of context. Reality does not break down into events; rather, different
contexts capture different events. That does not mean that we make the
world, that cutting reality up into events is arbitrary, or a matter of choice, or
anything of the like. Recognizing the inevitable, inescapable, irremovable role
of contexts is not tantamount to relinquishing realism, or to rendering events
mind-dependent in any way. Contextualism of this kind is not an extravaganza anymore than an oven is in the case of bakingit is a prerequisite. And
let us recognize that different contexts pick out different present events, and
that some present events are parts of other present events. The symphony
is being broadcast live on the radio, but only its second part, which is being
played now, is broadcast live on TVthe first part of this sentence refers to
one present event, the second part to another present event, which is a part
of the first present event.
Now, everything said thus far about events applies to those events that
are our experiences. There is a context in which we are hearing the orchestra
play Beethovens 3rd Symphony, and another in which we are hearing it play
the symphonys second part. In both, the hearing of the symphonys third
part does not figure at all. In both contexts it is neither past nor is it not past.
It may be tempting to say of the first context that in it we are hearing the
orchestra playing Beethovens 3rd Symphony in its entirety. But that would
be dangerously misleading, for it could be taken as tacitly referring to the
symphonys parts and as implying that we are hearing the orchestra playing
all the parts of the symphony, (together, we might add in accordance with
the aforementioned successionist theories). We avoid this mistake by
rehearsing that what we experience are present events, period, not in their
entirety, and not not in their entirety. Turning attention towards a part of an
event means shifting contexts and focusing on a different event, which may
or may not be present. Again, that we are not yet hearing the playing of the
symphonys third part does not in any way clash with the fact that we are
now listening to the symphonynot in its entirety and not to a part of it: the
partwhole relationship is simply not applicable here.
The upshot of all this is that phenomenology does not point to successions playing any role in the experience of change or motion. In particular,
such experiences do not consist of, and are not underpinned by, successive
bits of experiential inputs somehow being integrated so that they can figure
together. Earlier bits do not need to linger, either by having their presentedness gradually diminish, as in the theory held by the later Broad, or in
the form of retentions, as in Husserls theory, or of memory traces, as in
the cinematic model held by several new B-theorists. What is true of those
events that are our experiences is also true of what we experience. Events
in the world as well as the acts of consciousness by which these events
are apprehended are extended in time. Events indeed have parts, but they are
not made up of their parts in the way that a car is made up of parts. Rather,
they are distinguished from their parts by contexts. We can focus on an event,
or on one of its parts, but we do not need to bring parts together so as to
form the event. It is not that events enjoy a unity that ties together their parts.
It is that the question of how an events parts combine to form it cannot be
coherently posed.
So my view shares with Daintons overlap model the contention that events,
in particular those that are our acts of awareness, are extended in time, and
that the events we experience and our experience of them run concurrently.
But I hold the overlap model to be motivated by the phenomenologically and
44
conceptually ungrounded presupposition that events consist of parts that

are somehow brought together to form a unity. If the present does not have
to constitute an extraterritorial safe-zone where the impossible construction
of successive parts that are hopelessly separated into an indivisible unity
occurs, then it no longer has to be shrouded in the shadows of speciousness.
Which brings us to our final, and main, topicthe reality of tense. After
concluding that there is no need to demote the present to speciousness, what
can we say about its reality? Let me start by stating again in what sense it is
not real. The reality of the present does not consist of any kind of ontological
supremacy that present events enjoy over events that are not present. Tense
does not consist of ontological hierarchies. Thus, the manner in which the
various versions of the A-theory analyze tense cannot be accepted.11 But nor
is it the case that all events are equally real, or exist in some tenseless
sense. These locutions, too, place events in an ontological hierarchy, only one
in which they all occupy the same stratum. Tense cannot be analyzed in terms
of reality claims of any kind.
In the approach I have been advocating, phenomenology should come
before metaphysics. We have to understand tense through its phenomenological manifestations, by which I mean the manners in which it exhibits itself
emotionally and cognitively. For example, an analysis and description of the
anxiety before a bungee jump (an anxiety of a very peculiar flavor, which is
felt, notice, only with regard to future experiences of a certain kind) can serve
as a component in our understanding of what the future is. The experience
of deliberating, for example where to go on vacation, provides input of a
different character to our conception of the future. It is not that we have
a theory telling us what the future is and then go on to adjust our emotive
dispositions and cognitive practices to it; rather, we learn what the future
is through our emotive dispositions and cognitive practices. The same goes
for the present and the past, and also for the differences between them. A
study of how our emotional and cognitive dispositions towards an event or
an experience alter as the event shifts from being future to being present,
and alter again when it becomes past, contributes crucial ingredients to our
understanding of the nature of the past, present, and future.
Let us say more about the present. To be present is to be something that
can be experienced by someone properly situatedI will speak of being
experientiable. This calls for many clarifications. Does being experienced by a
cat, or an ameba, count? Does being experienced indirectly, for example, by
means of a particle accelerator, count? What about very distant things that
are happening now but cannot be experienced? And what are the kinds of
things that can be experiencedobjects, such as apples? Properties, such
as sweetness, hardness, greenness? Events and states of affairs? Also,
experientiability applies to all events, at the moment of their occurrence. So
how are events of one moment distinguished from those of other moments?
Doesnt our characterization reduce tense to a vacuous tautology, namely,
that everything is present when it happens?
It is not possible within the span of this chapter to delve into these issues.
While they are important and undoubtedly difficult, more pertinent to our
topic is the following question: How can tying presentness to experienciability be the basis for a conception of tense according to which tense is an
objective property of events rather than a feature of how we apprehend
them? This proposal seems to make presentness explicitly dependent upon
human experience. But then, how can it presumably be a form of realism?
Would it still be the case under this view that in a lifeless universe some
events would be present while others would not?
The answer is yes. Let us distinguish between the assertion that the qualitative attributes of our experiences play a role in the formation of the means
with which we conceive tense, and the claim that our experience is constitutive of tense. Only in this latter claim does the explicit connection between
presentness and experientiability render tense experience-dependent. My
contention is, rather, that while tense is not some kind of private, subjective
quale, presentness cannot be grasped or analyzed in complete detachment
from how it is experienced. The experiencer cannot be removed from how
she conceptualizes tense, not because she makes it, la Goodman, but
because she is an irremovable component of the interaction that generates
the terms with which the conceptualization is executed. Certain elements of
the fundamental structure of reality, and specifically tense, while utterly not
dependent on any observer, are nevertheless given only in terms of how they
would influence a properly situated observer.12 In a lifeless universe no one
would be experiencing the motion or the whiteness of the snow falling on Mt.
Washington, and there would be no one for whom the snow would be falling
now. Still, this event would be present, just as the snow would still be white
and in motiona suitably situated observer would experience the falling of
the snow as present just as he would experience the snow as white.
To further explain this, allow me to invoke an analogy I first made in
Time and Realism and have been reverting to since. Notice first that being
present is different from being, for example, green or sweet or audible, in
that the tense property is shared by the thing being experienced and by the
(perhaps hypothetical) experience. When I see the cat cross the lawn, the
cats crossing of the lawn and the act of awareness consisting of my seeing
it cross the lawn are co-present, but my seeing the grass green does not
involve any greenness of my experience, and there is nothing sweet about
my experience of eating ice cream. The thesis I presented at the time was
that the tensed properties of our experiences figure as standards for tense
terms, analogously to the way that, say, the standard meter rod is a standard
46
for the meter. The presentness of my present experience of seeing the cat
cross the lawn serves me in much the same way that the meterhood of
the standard meter serves me. The former is my handle on tense, the latter
on distances. In a lifeless universe there would not be a standard meter.
The making of standards is a human act, without which there is no talk or
thought of distances. But the distance from the earth to the moon would still
be 300,000 kilometers. Here, too, a feature of the fundamental structure of
reality is given in terms that are inextricably entangled with human experience
and action. But once the term is there, we can use it to discuss reality as it
would be if no humans were part of it. In the same fashion, it can be asserted
that in a lifeless universe the snow over Mt. Washington would be falling now.
Much work has been done to explain why acknowledging the role
experience has in fleshing out the objective properties of objects and events
does not entail an abandonment of realism. One argument in defense of
this takes bivalence13 to be the hallmark of realism. Thus, when inquiring, for
example, whether the dispositional theory of colors deserves to count as a
form of realism, the test is to check whether on this theory bivalence applies
to sentences reporting the colors of objects.14 Likewise, in my analysis,
bivalence applies to tensed descriptions of events and so it constitutes a form
of realism about tense. Together with the above comments concerning the
applicability of tense to reports about events in a lifeless universe, this observation should help remove any residue of subjectiveness that may still be
clinging to the analysis of presentness in terms of experienciablity.
Before concluding, let me return to Oaklanders criticisms again. Oaklander
accuses me of not being sufficiently sensitive to the more fundamental
ontological differences between disputants in the metaphysics of time. This
charge is prompted by the claim I made at the time that the A/B theories
share what I called the ontological assumption, which, roughly, states that
time and tense must be fleshed out in terms of reality claims and ontological
hierarchies. As already indicated above, I argued that this assumption must
be transcended, that tense cannot be explained in terms of reality claims,
and that an alternative approach is required. Oaklander contends that the
real dispute is not about the ontological assumption and its attendant
ontological hierarchies, but about the ontological status of temporal relations,
a contention derived from the reintroduction into the discussion of the old
B-theory.
I dont think this shift of focus proves any kind of insensitivity on my part
to the fundamental issues in the metaphysics of time. Moreover, I dont think
that reviving the old B-theory renders the questions my analysis concentrated
on irrelevant. On the contrary, because it is presented as an ontological theory,
in assessing it, it is crucial to ascertain whether it, like its successor the new
B-theory, is committed to the thesis that all events are on an ontological par.
If it is, then it is subject to the criticism I have put forth against this thesis. If it
is not, then I am not sure why it counts as a tenseless theory at all. In such a
case it seems to me that the TENSEless theory no longer needs the crutches
of a specious present and can merge with the view I have been defending.
Oaklander also attributes to me the claim that there is no genuine dispute
in the metaphysics of time. I should stress that I have always maintained
that, to the contrary, the debates in the metaphysics of time are genuine
not only in the sense that they are prompted by real bewilderment, but also
because they constitute invaluable and unavoidable steps along the quest for
clarity about time. My claim was and still is that they are not the final destination of this voyage, only stages, albeit crucial stages, along the way.
Conclusion
The view I have been defending has much in common with the old B-theory
(and very little with the new one, or with any of the versions of the A-theory).
In both, phenomenology is of crucial importance. In both, presentness does
not consist of some monadic relation, such as being real.15 Both reject
static pictures of time, such as the block universe picture.16 In both, finally,
the present has a vital experiential role. Oaklander would probably even agree
that tense and passage are objective, provided that they are construed as
features of TENSEless relations, which, in his onotolgy, are the only thing
they, or, indeed, any temporal attributes, can be. And the agreement goes in
the other direction as well: I could accept that tense and passage are what
TENSEless theorists say they are, as long as they amount to what we know
from experience. So where is the disagreement?
The significant difference is that in the old B-theory the present is specious
while I maintain that being present is as much a property of events as, say, their
duration or special location. I think it is uncontroversial that the presentness of
an event (or its pastness or futurity) strikes our pre-reflective sensibility as an
objective feature of the event itself. The disagreement is about how tense should
be conceived by our mature, elaborate and nuanced understanding of time.
I tried to show that the conclusion that the present is specious is arrived at
through conceptual arguments, and not via a phenomenological study. If these
arguments were conclusive, and in the absence of an alternative, it would have
been appropriate to invoke the Pickwickian principle and accept the presents
speciousness as a profound product of a meticulous study of time.
But, as I have tried to show, a phenomenologically based understanding
of tense, which strives to remain faithful to the fact that tense and passage
experientially appear as features of reality and so is reluctant to relegate
48
them to the realm of the mental or the spurious or the specious, is in fact
available. If my conception of tense is viable, then there is little justification for
preferring a theory which introduces into our understanding of time phenomenologically extraneous elements and whose depiction of reality does not
square comfortably with experience.
The alternative I propose does not signify a return to our nave conception
of tense and passage. To repeat, the notion that to be present is to be real,
or to exist in some special manner, has no place in it. But our understanding
that tense is objective, and belongs to events rather than merely to how
we experience them, is maintained in it, as I believe it ought to be in any
Pickwickian understanding of time we arrive at.
Notes
1 I wish to thank Nathan Oaklander, whose classical work on time has
enlightened the writings of so many, and conversations with whom have
always been inspirational, in more than one way.
2 Dieks and Oaklander, it should be noted, are engaged in very different
projects. Yet they do share the insistence that the B-theory is faithful to
experience.
3 Cf. Do we really need a new B-theory of time?, 2014.
4 I discuss Diekss position in Relativity, Global Tense and Phenomenology,
in Cosmological and Psychological Time (forthcoming, Springer). Also, with
the exception of a few cursory remarks, this chapter does not discuss the
arguments for the B-theory, such as McTaggarts or the argument from
relativity, or the arguments for the A-theory.
5 As expounded in my Time and Realism.
6 The cinematic, retentional, and extensional theories propose a host of very
different manners of fleshing this out.
7 Prior to their materialization as physical entities following the
Bohm-Aharonov effect.
8 Sometimes in a skeptical vein, but also in the course of phenomenological
studies, as in the work of Husserl, Merlau Ponty, and others, who, of
course, were not claiming that objects dont have real size and shapes, but
were using such claims as part of their investigations.
9 Not to be confused with the awareness-overlap model discussed above.
10 I am ignoring the cases in which the event experienced and the
experiencing are spatially, and therefore temporally, separated by significant
spacio-temporal intervals.
11 Time and Realism, esp. ch. 3, presents a host of arguments in defense of
this claim.
12 I, for one, tend to hold that this is true of all aspects and features of reality.

What it is like to see the color of objects, but also their size and shape, or to
experience the duration of events and their spatial properties, figures in the
inception of the terms with which we think and speak about these things.
13 While Putnam and Dummett represent the two opposing sides of the
realismantirealism debate, they agree that fleshing out the positions in
terms of mind-dependence/independence will not do and that a semantic
characterization of both positions is indispensible.
14 Setting aside a host of other but unrelated issues, such as vagueness.
15 Though I am not sure that framing the analysis of tense in terms of monadic
versus relational properties is helpful.
16 Though, again, I think it is misleading to subject temporality to the static
dynamic dichotomy. Events, just like time itself, are neither dynamic nor
static. A bus moves, and a picture on a wall may be described as static, but
not events, or states of affairs, or moments of time. Future events become
present and present events past: that is what times passage comes down
to, but there is nothing dynamic (nor static) about times passage or about
events.
References
Dainton, B. (2001; 2nd edn 2010), Time and Space. Durham: Acumen.
Dieks, D. (2006), Becoming, relativity and locality, in The Ontology of Space
Time. Boston: Elsevier, 15776.
Dolev, Y. (2007), Time and Realism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mellor, D. H. (1998), Real Time II. London: Routledge.
Oaklander, L. N. (2012), A-, B- and R-Theories of Time: A Debate, in Adrian
Bardon (ed.), The Future of the Philosophy of Time. New York: Routledge,
124.
(2014), Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique, in L. Nathan
Oaklander (ed.), Debates in the Metaphysics of Time. London: Bloomsbury.
Orilia, F. and Oaklander, L. N. (2013), Do we really need a new B-theory of
time?, Topoi, Special Issue on Time and Time Experience, edited by
Roberto Ciuni and Giuliano Torrengo. DOI 10.1007/s1124501391796.
3
Two Metaphysical
Perspectiveson the Duration
of the Present
Francesco Orilia
Introduction
n his intriguing book Time and Realism (2007), Dolev criticizes some A- and
B-theories discussed in current analytic metaphysics of time and proposes
his own stance on temporal matters, whose basic tenets we also find in his
rejoinder (2014) to Oaklander (2014) in this volume.1 This stance benefits in
Dolevs opinion from giving up the ontological assumption that undermines
the analytic debate and thus Dolev thinks that he is engaged in phenomenology rather than ontology. To be sure, he urges us to pay more attention
than has hitherto been done to data and approaches provided by so-called
phenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas (p. 213), but
nevertheless there are good reasons to consider Dolevs positive view as
an ontological or metaphysical theory of the kind one already finds in the
analytic marketplace (for present purposes, we need not distinguish between
ontology and metaphysics). In order to substantiate this claim, I shall show
how ontological commitments of the eternalist variety can be extracted
from Dolevs anti-Augustinian account of the duration of the present. Dolevs
insistence on phenomenological data is commendable, but among such data
we find our deep-seated feelings that the past is gone and the future is open,
which are in tension with eternalism. Presentism is best fit to accommodate
such feelings and Dolevs views on the present can be resisted in favor of
the Augustinian line that sees it as durationless, thereby avoiding eternalism
52
and making room for presentism. Yet, a durationless present has a number
of problems in store for presentism, at least as traditionally understood. I
shall thus end up proposing a moderate presentism, which makes some
concession to eternalism and yet preserves the gone past and the open
future.
Some terminological clarifications

Dolev claims (p. 3) that his work points to resolutions for some of the central
issues that traditionally make up the metaphysics of time, however,
not by offering a metaphysical theory in which answers are given and
explanations expounded, but rather, in the tradition of philosophers such
as James and Wittgenstein, by working through these issues to the point
at which the intelligibility of the theories generated in response to them
begins to falter.
The theories in question are identified by Dolev as the tensed or presentist
and the tenseless or eternalist views (p. viii n.2). Dolev has in mind a big subdivision into two broad perspectives, which are often labeled as the A-theory
and the B-theory, roughly because in the former the so-called A-properties,
past, present, and future, have an essential and irreducible role, whereas in
the latter B-relations, such as earlier and simultaneous, come to the fore. To
use the adjectives tensed and tenseless to qualify the A-theory and the
B-theory, respectively, is also appropriate, because, roughly, in the former,
but not in the latter, tenses are accorded a crucial irreducible role in our effort
to express what time is all about. The labels presentist and eternalist, as
used by Dolev, may, however, be misleading, for, according to a widespread
use that they have, (i) there can be an eternalist of the A-theoretical variety,
and (ii) presentism may refer to a doctrine that not all A-theorists endorse
(Zimmerman 2005).
In the use of eternalism that I have in mind, this word refers to a position
according to which the ontological inventory, all that there is or exists,
includes past and future events or states of affairs2 just as it includes the
present ones; it includes, for example, the present event of my writing these
words, the birth of Napoleon and (let us suppose) the birth of the first child of
2020.3 The B-theorist can hardly avoid being an eternalist in this sense, for in
her view the presentness of an event is a merely perspectival matter, pretty
much like the being here of a place in my vicinity. An event is present in this
weak sense, presentw , we may say, only in that it is simultaneous with some
Two Metaphysical Perspectives
53
other event such as the tokening by a subject of certain words (e.g. now
or a verb in the present tense) or the subjects having certain thoughts or
sensations. And, similarly, other events are past or future in an analogously
weak sense, inasmuch as they are earlier or later than present events. In
this perspective, the pastnessw or futurityw of an event does not cancel the
event from the ontological inventory, just as New York is not canceled from it
because of the mere fact that I cannot classify it as here, while I am in Italy.
In sum, we may say, to be a B-theorist amounts to being a B-eternalist, and
vice versa. Dolev considers in detail two representatives of this view: Mellor
(1981, 1998), and Parfit (on the basis on an unpublished draft).4
An A-theorist, on the other hand, may or may not be an eternalist.
According to the A-theorist, the presentness of an event is an objective
matter. That an event is present in this strong sense, presents , we may say,
has nothing to do with its simultaneity with other (mental) events. Had there
not been any thinking subjects, the events that I am observing right now,
the leaves moving, the suns shining and so on and so forth would have still
been present. An A-theorist is also an eternalist, if she insists that (i) when an
event ceases to be present, it does not go out of the ontological inventory,
but merely changes from being present to being past, and (ii) when an event
happens to be present, it has not simply popped into existence, but has
merely changed from being future to being present. Dolev discusses a view
of this kind, a moving now theory, in the version defended by Schlesinger
(1980, 1982, 1991).5
The A-theorist who is an eternalist, the A-eternalist, we may say, will
typically add that present events are somehow privileged, that in some sense
they are more important, perhaps even more real than past or future ones. For
this reason, the A-theorist may be called a presentist.6 Dolev, I think, is using
the label presentism in this sense (p. 5) and thus classifies Schlesinger as a
presentist. But it is much more common nowadays to use this label in another
way, according to which a presentist is a non-eternalist A-theorist who claims
that only what is present exists and thus that no past or future events are
to be found in the ontological inventory.7 Dolev calls this view (or at least
something in its vicinity) solipsism of the present moment and discusses
it (in 3.2) not by focusing on its typical representatives (such as Prior and,
more recently, e.g. P. Ludlow and C. Bourne), but rather on the Dummett of
The Reality of The Past (see Dummett 1978: ch. 21). To avoid confusions,
I keep in line with the dominant terminological trend and disallow the term
presentismfor moving now A-eternalist views such as Schlesingers. I thus
reserve it for a standpoint according to which only present events exist. My
usage is a bit more liberal than the usual one, according to which this term
refers, we may say, to typical or traditional presentism, that is, the view
claiming that everything, not just every event, is present. If this is accepted,
54
my moderate presentism counts as presentism (otherwise my use of

moderate should be taken like fake in fake diamond).8
Ontology and the ontological assumption

As noted above, according to Dolev, the very intelligibility of the A- and B-theories
of time is questionable. This is because they suffer from inner tensions that
ultimately depend on an ontological assumption, which they both share. Here
is his explanation of what this assumption amounts to (pp. 89):
[T]here is an ontology here waiting to be fleshed out, or, what amounts
to the same, the idea that reality claimsclaims to the effect that events
and objects are or are not realare the key to the philosophical understanding of time. I will call this idea the ontological assumption the
shared assumption is that if there are real differences between the past,
present, and future then they are ontological differences.
Thus, the ontological assumption is the claim that events and objects,
depending on whether they are past, present or future, may or may not be
real, so that the key problem in the philosophy of time is deciding whether
past, present, and future objects and events differ in terms of reality: (i)
they are equally real (B-eternalism), (ii) they are all real although perhaps in
different ways or degrees (A-eternalism), and (iii) the present is real and the
past and future are unreal (presentism).9
According to Dolev, the ontological assumption traps the supporters of
all these approaches in an ontological debate, which must be somehow
transcended by abandoning the assumption in order to make real progress in
our understanding of time. This leads to a post-ontological or phenomenological view bereft of the ontological assumption. Such a view is, according
to Dolev, neither an A- nor a B-theory, and captures, as we may say in Sellars
terminology, both our manifest and scientific (relativistic) images regarding
time much more closely than A- or B-theoretical approaches can ever aspire
to do. Such approaches should be viewed merely as stages or phases (Dolev
2009: 2; in Hegelian fashion, I would add) wherein no truth in the full sense of
the term can emerge, for the theses of one stage are contradicted by those of
the other, in such a way that one feels trapped in inconsistency. These stages
are, however, necessary in order to reach a superior enlightened phase that
supersedes them and in which real truth emerges. Thus, according to Dolev,
we must go through the ontological debate in which the supporters of the Aand B- theories are involved in order to have access to the more satisfactory
55
post-ontological phase.10 I shall argue below that Dolev does not ever get
to a post-ontological phase, as he proposes his own ontological theory. But
before moving to this, let me briefly explain why I am not convinced by how
Dolev reviews the debate in order to justify the need to turn to an allegedly
post-ontological phase.
Dolev criticizes both A- and B-theories in a general way ( 4.2), because of
the fact that they share the ontological assumption. But basically he objects to
insisting on a word, real, that allows for different and contrasting meanings
and is often employed in ordinary language in a way not altogether in line with
typical philosophical usages. However, as we shall see below, this problem
is easily circumvented, once we clearly focus on the main task of ontology.
Moreover, when Dolev turns his attention to specific A- or B-theories, (i) it is
not clear that his criticism of them really depends on attributing to them the
ontological assumption, and (ii) the selection of theories from the debate is
too incomplete and idiosyncratic to license any conclusion about a need to
dismiss all sorts of A- and B-theories (Meyer 2009; Tallant 2009). In particular,
Dolevs criticism of B-eternalism focuses on the new B-theory,11 according
to which, roughly, reality is tenseless, although language and thought are
tensed, and tries to capitalize on the inner tension that this duality generates
in a view of this sort. However, the B-theorist, despite what is typically
assumed nowadays, may well dwell on the old B-theory, according to which
both reality and thought and language are tenseless (Orilia and Oaklander,
forthcoming 2014). Thus, even if the tension that Dolev tries to bring to the
surface could not really be resolved (but see Oaklander 2014), the B-theorist
can eschew it at the outset.12 Moreover, Dolevs criticism of the A-theory
focuses only on Schlesingers A-eternalism and Dummetts presentism. The
former assumes possible worlds (differing from each other as regards which
moment in them is present) in accounting for the moving now in a way that
most A-theorists would find questionable and unnecessary, while the latter
is a highly heterodox version of presentism. Whereas the typical presentist
tries to respond to the truthmaker objection to presentism by positing entities
that can work as truthmakers of our intuitively true assertions about the past
(Magalhes and Oaklander 2010: Part IV, Sect. 3), Dummett argues that many
such assertions may well be neither true nor false. Thus, I do not think that,
through criticisms of these specific theories, Dolev can show that the debate
must be superseded in order to reach a post-ontological view that is neither
A nor B.
But is it desirable or even feasible that we reach a post-ontological view,
a view about time that is not ontological? I do not think so. The key issue
in ontology is, as Quine teaches us, what there is, or, equivalently, what
exists or has existence.13 In addition, one may also inquire on the issue of
whether what exists, or some of what exists, is mind-dependent or objective
56
(mind-independent). In the ontological investigation of time, both issues

have center stage. As we have seen, the presentist argues that only present
events exist, that is, there are only present events. In contrast, according to
the eternalist, there are also past and future events. And, within the eternalist
camp, there is disagreement over whether events are (mind-dependently)
pastw, presentw or futurew, as the B-eternalist has it, or (objectively) pasts,
presents or futures, as the A-eternalist claims. The word real can cause
misunderstandings because it is used in relation to both types of inquiries,
since, in philosophical usage, is real can simply mean is or exists, but
it can also mean is mind-independent. But, once equivocations due to
this double use are set aside, the issues are sufficiently clear. Hence, in the
following I shall avoid the use of realas equivalent to mind-independent.
With this proviso, I shall go on to argue that Dolev has a definite ontological
position in that he is committed to the existence of past, present, and future
events. Whether he is an A- or a B-eternalist is, as we shall see, less clear.14
But, in any case, according to his world-view, there are events that the
presentist would not acknowledge in her ontological inventory.
Dolevs post-ontological perspective on the

duration of the present
It may be wrong to deduce Dolevs positive view of time from his critique of
the A- and B-theories, since, as we have seen, he regards them as stages
that must be superseded, but I suppose it can be legitimately done on the
basis of what he says from the allegedly post-ontological perspective of his
Chapter 5. And therein Dolev commits himself to an ontological standpoint,
namely eternalism. I shall now discuss Dolevs account of the duration of the
present in 5.1 to support this claim (some reference to the subsequent
5.2, dealing with the presence of experience will also be relevant).
Dolev takes his clue from a reconstruction by Gale (1968: 4) of the famous
argument by Augustine about the duration of the present (Confessions, Book
XI, Sect. 15). This is usually taken to address the issue of the length of the
present, understood as a moment of time, with the conclusion that it is a
durationless (pointlike) instant (see, e.g. Dainton 2000: 120): a year cannot
be present as a whole, because, if we are, let us suppose, in May, it is at
best this month which is present, since the period JanuaryApril precedes
it and is thus past rather than present, whereas the JuneDecember period
follows it and is therefore future and not past; similarly, for the month, the
week, the day, and so on, until one reaches the durationless instant and can
no longer apply this line of reasoning. In contrast, Dolev extracts from Gales
57
reconstruction of it a retrenchability argument (following Westphal 2002)

that is meant to show that the length of the present, whether understood as
a time (occupied by certain events) or as an event or sum of events (occupying
a time), is a contextual matter. This is possible, claims Dolev, after having
removed several hidden assumptions underlying it, which belong to the
ontological framework (p. 120). In particular, Dolev has in mind the presupposition that the present is ontologically privileged in that only the present
exists, since the past now is not and the future is not yet. Once this is
given up, argues Dolev, the only reason why it may not be appropriate to call
a year (and the events within it) present is that the context makes it more apt
to focus, say, on a monthly period; similarly for the month, the week, and
so on. In other words, whether a certain time or event is present or not is
a merely contextual matter. Let us consider more details of the picture that
Dolev proposes and then contemplate the ontology that emerges from it.
A crucial notion of this picture is cotemporality, which unfortunately is
never explicitly defined. One might surmise that cotemporal is used as
synonymous with simultaneous,15 but it is not so, because the latter is
used for events that occur at the same time and thus presumably have
the same duration, whereas the former may apply to events of different
durations: Events or states of affairs can be cotemporal without being equal
in duration (pp. 1412). From the examples offered by Dolev, we can, I think,
infer that he takes two events to be cotemporal if one of them occupies a
time interval included in or coinciding with the time interval occupied by the
other. Thus, a dogs barking may be cotemporal with a broadcasting of news
on TV, because the time occupied by the latter includes the time occupied
by the former. But the dogs barking can also be simultaneous with a bells
ringing, because they occupy the same time interval. As we shall now see,
Dolev appeals to cotemporality, as so understood, in order to clarify what
presentness, in his opinion, amounts to.
Events are said to be present in relation to our first-hand experiences
(or immediate experiences, as Id rather say), which work as standards in
assigning A-properties to time and events, pretty much as the standard
meter in assigning a length to other objects.16 Thus, by focusing on a certain
immediate experience, e (say, my experience of hearing a certain sound),
I take a certain event, for example the bells ringing, as present, because
it is cotemporal with e (pp. 1401). Or I take the long and complex event
consisting of the current Olympic Games as present by taking it to be
cotemporal with my experience e of watching on TV, for instance, a certain
soccer match in the Olympic program. Similarly, I can take another event, for
example the Battle of Waterloo, to be past, because it ended before e or e.
Derivatively, presentness and other A-properties can be assigned to times, to
the extent that they contain events with such A-properties (pp. 1245).
58
However, these A-properties do not accrue to events and their times

intrinsically, but in relation to a context determined by goals and interests
(pp. 1223). Thus, given a certain context, one can take as present either an
entire soccer match or the second half of the match (and, derivatively, the
times of their occurrences). But no such choice is inherently privileged. Given
the appropriate context, claims Dolev, a present event can be of whatever
duration (and, derivatively, a present time can be of whatever length). For
example, a nine-year-long event such as the current Mars probing, or even
some gigantic cosmic event taking millions of years, can be taken to be
present (cotemporal with some experience working as standard). One could
think that, of the immediate experiences, it is possible to say that they
are present tout court, independently of any context. But Dolev argues (p.
139) that even for them we need a context, just as we need an appropriate
context to say that the standard meter is one meter long (and this context
makes sense only because the meter in Paris has already been established
as a unit of measure).
From this perspective, the Augustinian argument simply shows that, by
repeatedly asking appropriate questions, one can keep changing the context
in such a way that, from the standpoint of the newly chosen context, the
interval that counts as present is smaller than the one that counted as present
in the previously chosen context, until one finally gets a context according to
which the time is simply a durationless instant. But since no context is privileged or more real than any other, the argument at most shows that, from
the point of view of a certain context, the present is pointlike, not that it is
pointlike in an absolute sense. In essence, Dolev is taking very seriously the
well-known fact that in ordinary life we use present and, similarly, now,
in relation to events or times of different lengths.
By taking ordinary life so seriously, Dolev thinks that he is transcending
ontology, so as to offer a post-ontological (phenomenological) perspective
on time, which is meant to be radically different from the one emerging from
the A- and B-theories. But I think that it is not the case that Dolev is really
presenting an alternative, or at least not a coherent one, since, in taking so
seriously this use of present, he is reproposing eternalism, although he
seems willing to place it neither in the A- nor in the B-theoretical camp (hence
the suspicion that his proposal is not in the end fully coherent).
Let us see first why Dolev counts as an eternalist (whether of the A- or
B-variety). As we saw, the basic point in attributing to someone an ontological
position such as eternalism is to look at her ontological commitments. And
Dolevs account of the duration of the present clearly shows that he is
committed to the thesis that there are the events typically acknowledged by
the eternalist and rejected by the presentist. For example, suppose that I am
now watching a live broadcast of a certain soccer match that is part of the
59
Olympic Games and is taking place, let us suppose, a week after the inauguration of the Games. Then, there is, according to Dolev, an event such as the
one consisting of the whole occurrence of the Olympic Games (it can even
count as present, given the appropriate context). But this event is made up
of course of many other events, for example, let us suppose, the event e1,
consisting of athlete As winning the first race of the Games in their first day,
and the event en, consisting of athlete Zs winning the last race of the Games
in their last day. Clearly, Dolev is committed to there being such events.
Indeed, as is evident also from Dolevs most recent reflection on a comparable example (2014: 42), in his view they may even all count as present,
given the appropriate context.17 Nevertheless, since e1 occurs before my
watching the soccer match, and en occurs after it, they can hardly be present,
at least from the point of view of a presentist, who will classify them as past
and future, respectively, and will not acknowledge that there really are such
things. She will admit at most that there are descriptions such as the victory
of athlete A or true propositions such as that athlete A won (it remains to
be seen what these descriptions refer to and what makes such propositions
true, according to the presentist). Not so, however, from the eternalists point
of view and similarly not so from Dolevs point of view. Since these examples
could be multiplied ad infinitum, clearly Dolev is committed to precisely the
same events as an eternalist and thus it is fair to classify him as such.18
Depending on whether, according to Dolev, the pastness or futurity of
events such as the victory of athlete A and the victory of athlete Z are merely
pastnessw and futurityw or (also) pastnesss and futuritys, Dolevs eternalism is
either a B- or an A-eternalism. There are reasons, as we shall now see, in favor
of both options.
In favor of an attribution of A-eternalism, one could note that Dolev
explicitly insists (p. 128) that his contextualist approach to the present does
not make the present mind-dependent and that an event happening now,
such as the merging of two clouds, would be present even if there were no
experiences working as standards, just as Mount Everest would still be 8,847
meters high even if nobody had selected the Paris rod as standard (p. 143).
Moreover, one could remark that his criticism of Schlesingers A-eternalism in
4.6 could be easily dispelled. The problem individuated by Dolev is that this
position is self-contradictory, because, on the one hand, it claims that only the
present is real, but, on the other hand, it also takes past and future events as
real in that (i) they can work, as I would put it, as truthmakers of sentences
about the past or future,19 and (ii) as the moving now proceeds, unreal future
events become real (p. 109). The problem is not serious, however. We can, for
example, distinguish degrees of reality or different senses of the word real.
On the other hand, in favor of an attribution of B-eternalism, one could insist
that the reason offered by Dolev for the compatibility of his contextualism and
60
the objectivity of the present is not convincing. Dolevs point is that, once
a context is set, so that, for example, the whole soccer match that I am
watching (rather than, say, its first half) turns out to be present, its duration,
as measured by a non-mental entity such as a clock, is an objective matter
(p. 128). But this is in line with what a B-theorist would say: what is objective
is that the soccer match and, say, the movement of the clocks hands from
position x to position y are simultaneous, which is perfectly compatible with
denying that these two events are objectively present, in opposition to the
A-theory. Moreover, Dolevs account of relativity theory at p. 201 is definitely
B-theoretic: simultaneity and copresentness are frame-dependent and thus
not transitive, so that there is not a single present but only presentness in a
frame of reference.20
My final diagnosis is that Dolev endorses an incoherent mixture of
A-theoretical and B-theoretical claims.
A presentists perspective on the duration of

the present
Thus, it is not clear whether we should attribute to Dolev an A- or a B-theory
and perhaps he would say that this is as it should be, since his postontological view supersedes both (see, e.g., p. 13). But whatever we make of
this, he is definitely committed to eternalism. Now, given Dolevs just desire
to save the phenomenological data about time, this is seriously problematic,
since eternalism is in tension with two most important such data, namely
our deep-seated feelings that (i) the past is gone, so that whatever agreeable
or awful events have turned up they are no longer around with their pleasantness or dreadfulness, and (ii) the future is open, so that, depending on our
free choices, agreeable or awful events can be brought about. If eternalism
is true, the terrible pain that Arthur suffered from years ago somehow still is,
the ontological inventory contains it. In other words, there is the unpleasant
event of Arthurs being in pain and thus the world, we may say, is affected by
a certain degree of unpleasantness, in spite of the fact that Arthur exclaimed
with relief, thank goodness, its over. In contrast, if presentism is true,
Arthurs relief is well justified, for the unpleasant event no longer exists and
the world is, at least to that extent, a better world. Similarly, if eternalism is
true, there is, let us suppose, the pleasant event of Rodericks getting an A in
his homework due next week. We may not know which of the two propositions, that Roderick gets an A and that Roderick does not get an A, is true.
But in fact one of them is definitely true, because there is its truthmaker.
Given our supposition, it is the proposition that Roderick gets an A that has
61
a truthmaker, namely the event of Rodericks getting an A. If, in a compatibilist fashion, we see free will as merely depending on a causal connection
between certain intentions and volitions and certain subsequent events, we
can still say that Rodericks success in the homework depends on his free
choice of working hard for it, but certainly non-compatibilist accounts of free
will, which presuppose that neither of those two propositions already has a
truthmaker, are doomed at the outset. Vice versa, if presentism is true, no
such truthmakers are around and the way is open for viewing these propositions as somehow undetermined, with elbow room for non-compatibilist
accounts of free will and more generally for our feeling that the future is open.
Presentism is thus able to save the gone past and the open future by
acknowledging only present events in its ontology. This feature of presentism
is in my view especially valuable and most crucial to motivate this view. We
saw, however, that Dolevs interpretation of the Augustinian argument and
his consequent account of the extension of the present leads to a forestalling
of presentism in favor of eternalism. I shall thus look back at the Augustinian
argument to see whether one can support a different, more traditional,
account of the argument, one that does not lead to eternalism.
The traditional interpretation of the Augustinian argument, which takes it
as aiming to establish that, strictly speaking, only a durationless instant can
be present, must certainly be squared with the linguistic fact on which Dolev
tries to capitalize, namely that we can use present and now to refer,
depending on the context, to temporal intervals of various lengths. We can
do this by distinguishing, in Chisholms well-known terminology, between a
strict and philosophical and a loose and popular sense of these words.
Just as in a loose sense we can call identicaltwo twins who look alike,
although in the strict sense of identity they are not identical, we can
similarly call present in a loose sense, say, a minute, although in the strict
sense of present it is not present. The Augustinian argument must then be
understood as having to do with the attribution of presentness in a strict and
philosophical sense.
But why is the presentness of a durationless instant, as opposed to that
of, say, a minute, strict and philosophical? As I see it, the reason is that only
in the former case is this presentness compatible with these two intuitive
principles (at play in the Augustinian argument):
(P1) Whatever is past or future is not present.
(P2) If something temporally precedes or follows what is present, then it
is past in the former case, and future in the latter.
The incompatibility in the latter case emerges because the attribution of
presentness to a minute, effected, say, at its 30th second, seemingly involves
62
the attribution of it to all its parts and thus, for example, to the part going up
to its 29th second, which temporally precedes the 30th second and should
then be, by (P2), past, and, by (P1), not present.21
In sum, it seems that the principles (P1) and (P2) cannot be retained
without also buying the Augustinian argument in its traditional interpretation.
On the other hand, they had better be saved, if possible, for they are part of
our pre-theoretical data about time, and in general it is preferable to have,
ceteris paribus, a philosophical theory that preserves the pre-theoretical
data. Of course, there is nothing wrong, in the appropriate context, to use
present in ordinary life to speak of a minute or an hour, but in the philosophical effort of constructing a theory about time, it is legitimate to propose
that, strictly speaking, presentness complies with (P1) and (P2) and thus
cannot be attributed to an extended interval.
In sum, the principles (P1) and (P2) support the traditional interpretation of
the Augustinian argument and thus defuse Dolevs account of it, which, as we
saw, leads to eternalism. However, once we combine them with presentism,
some serious problems arise. First of all, (P1) and (P2), given presentism,
imply that there are no extended intervals of time.22 As repeatedly noted by
Augustine, this is very puzzling, for we measure such intervals (Confessions,
XI, 16, 21) and, we can add, we also refer to them with dates such as the
year 2013 or February 2013. Moreover, (P1) and (P2), given presentism,
imply that there is no instant preceding or following the present one, since an
instant simply ceases to exist when it becomes past. But this is puzzling too,
because, as also noted by Augustine, the present is a present time, and not
eternity, in so far as it passes into time past (Confessions, XI, 14). In other
words, the present instant is an instant of time, because it becomes past and
this becoming past should perhaps be looked at as a sort of transformation,
rather than as a failing to exist. And in fact we seem to be able to refer to past
instants with dates such as June 23, 2013 at 3 oclock.
Further, it has been noted that, given presentism, the Augustinian argument
seems to imply that experiences are durationless and can only occupy a
durationless instant (Dainton 2000: 120; Le Poidevin 2007: 79). Given the
Augustinian argument, only a durationless instant is present and, according
to presentism, there are only present events. Thus, presumably, all events
occupy a durationless instant. But experiences are themselves events and
thus they must all be durationless. This, however, is perplexing, for our experiences typically appear to involve a duration, with an earlier and a later part. For
example, if we look at a moving billiard ball, we seem to have an experience
of movement involving, in one fell swoop, the impression of a ball first in a
certain position and after in another position.23
Finally, independently of the Augustinian argument, which focuses on
intervals and instants rather than events, (P1) and (P2), given presentism,
63
seem to force us to deny that there are dynamic events and to acknowledge
only static events (Orilia 2012a). Following Casati and Varzi (2010), the former
are those that, intuitively, require an extended interval of time, such as the
movement of a ball from one place to another, whereas the latter are those
that, intuitively, do not require an interval and, at least in principle, can occur
at an instant, for example a balls being precisely at a certain position in space.
Dynamic events are problematic, given presentism, (P1) and (P3), because
they seem to involve an earlier and a later part. For example, if there is the
event of a billiard ball moving from place p1 at time t1 to place pn at time tn,
then presumably there is the earlier static event of the balls being, say, in the
intermediate position p3 at time t3, followed by the later static event of the
balls being in a successive position p4 at time t4. But the earlier static event
is past and not present in view of (P2) and (P1) (suppose the ball is presently
in p4) and thus non-existent, if we accept presentism. And, if we accept
presentism, the dynamic event as a whole can hardly count as existent, since
it would have non-existent parts.
What can we make of all this? I propose to deal with these issues by
advancing moderate presentism, which retains the basic intuition of typical
presentism, according to which only present events exist, but is prepared to
acknowledge past and future durationless instants in addition to the present
one and thus, one may say, extended intervals, as somehow made up of such
instants. Such moments of time (instants and intervals) should be conceived
of in a substantialist, Newtonian, fashion, and not as somehow arising from
classes of simultaneous events (Russell 1914; Whitehead 1929) or mereological sums thereof (Pianesi and Varzi 1996), as the opposite relationalist
account has it. For otherwise the idea that there are only present events
would be immediately given up. If, for example, the instant referred to by 26
October 1860 at 12.30 p.m., Italian time were nothing over and above a class
or mereological sum of events, including, inter alia, the event of Garibaldi and
King Vittorio Emanuele IIs meeting in Teano, then our ontological inventory
should acknowledge this past event. If we want to deny that there are such
events and yet admit that there are past (and future) instants, we have to see
instants as items over and above the events that occur at them. The idea then
is that the present instant is the instant at which, objectively, events occur,
the present events (the only ones that there are), whereas the past and future
instants are those that precede and follow the present instant, in a temporal
order somehow primitively given in such a way as to give a direction to time
(as perhaps a substantialist eternalist may have it). Such past and future
instants are, we may say, empty, since events no longer or not yet occur at
them. The becoming present of a future instant is then not its coming to be,
but, as hinted above, a sort of transformation from its being empty to its
being such that events occur at it. Similarly, the becoming past of a present
64
instant is its becoming empty, after having hosted events. In contrast, events,
in keeping with the crucial intuition of presentism, are not subject to a transformation, to becoming present after having been future and past after having
been present. They are rather subject to absolute becoming; they come into
being when a certain property is exemplified by an object or a relation is jointly
exemplified by some objects.
Let us now briefly see how we can deal with dynamic events in the light
of these additional resources.24 Consider again the balls moving from position
p1 to position pn. We can now say that, at any time during this movement,
the ball is not only exemplifying present-centered properties such as, say,
being in position p3, but also past-oriented (time-indexed) properties
such as having been in position p2 at time t2 and (time-indexed) futureoriented ones, whose nature I now turn to explain, by focusing for illustrative
purposes on the balls presently being in position p3 at time t3 in the course of
its movement.
We can understand future-oriented properties in two ways, depending on
whether or not we take it as fully determined at t3 that the ball would then
be in p4 at time t4. If it is fully determined, then the ball has at time t1 the
future-oriented property of going to be in p4 at time t4. On the other hand, if
we do not take it to be fully determined at t3 that the ball will be in p4 at time
t4, the future-oriented property that the ball has at t3 is a mere propensity, a
property such as being potentially in place p4 at time t4. We can conceive of
it as a property that the ball exemplifies in so far as, roughly speaking, it is
storing (say, by having been pushed) some kinetic energy leading in a certain
direction. Having this property does not necessarily result in its being in p4 at
time t4, since, for example, there can be an intervening obstacle.
According to this perspective, dynamic events, rather than being discarded,
are, we may say, supervenient on static events, involving present-centered
and past- and future-oriented properties, all occurring at the present instant.
Thus, for example, there is the dynamic event of our moving ball in so far as
there are (now, at t3) static events such as, inter alia, the balls having been
in p2 at t2, the balls being in p3, and the balls being potentially in p4 at t4. Or,
if one wishes, a dynamic event is a conjunction of static events of this sort
and thus a conjunctive event.
In this way of dealing with dynamic events, moderate presentism should
perhaps be prepared to make another concession to eternalism and admit
in its ontological inventory past objects; following Williamson (2002), they
could be viewed as ex-concrete objects, objects that used to be in space and
were thus concrete, but are no longer in space. For it seems we can observe
dynamic events involving the ceasing to be of objects, their turning to be
ex-concrete. For example, our billiard ball could for some reason explode in
reaching position p3. Be that as it may, admitting ex-concrete objects allows
65
moderate presentism to deal with the notorious problem of the truthmaking

objection to presentism in a way that is not open to typical presentism.25
For example, suppose it is now true that Arthur, who passed away long ago,
suffered from a headache at noon on May 4, 1956. This proposition has a
truthmaker, that is, the event consisting of Arthurs having had a headache at
noon on May 4, 1956, since Arthur, albeit ex-concrete, presently exemplifies
the past-oriented property of having had a headache at noon on May 4,
1956: after becoming ex-concrete, an object does not lose the past-oriented
properties that it has accumulated as time goes by, and, we may add, it
can even gain new present-centered intentional properties, such as being
observed (think of a star exploded long ago and yet in our firmament) or being
admired (think of Arthur Prior). But it cannot have present-centered physical
or mental properties such as having a certain mass or a headache.
Let us finally deal with the issue of the apparent duration of experiences.
From the perspective of a presentism that takes the present as a durationless
instant, we can deal with this, by appealing to Husserls retentions, impressions, and protentions. This is in contrast with Dolevs (2014: 43) misgivings
about Husserls approach, but in line with Dolevs recommendation to pay
attention to phenomenologists, which is not at all in tension with doing
ontology. The idea is that an experience, while occupying, as any other
event, a durationless instant, may well look extended because it involves
not only impressions, but also retentions and protentions (Dainton 2010:
6.3). With past-oriented, present-centered and future-oriented properties in
our ontology, we can understand retentions, impressions, and protentions
as mental representations of three kinds of static events: objects exemplifying past-oriented properties (the balls having been in p2 at t2), objects
exemplifying present-centered properties (the balls being in p3), and objects
exemplifying future-oriented properties (the balls potentially being in p4 at t4).
Conclusion
Any theory has its own ontological commitments and in theorizing about
time there is no exception to this. It is thus impossible to be engaged in
post-ontology or mere phenomenology, nor should this worry us, as long
as we have the appropriate canons of rigor and avoid equivocations. Thus,
Dolev himself has his own ontological, or metaphysical, theory of time, which
commits him to eternalism. Eternalism, however, cannot easily accommodate
our feelings that the past is gone and the future open. Presentism is best
suited to this task, and moderate presentism can accomplish it without the
difficulties of typical presentism.26
66
Notes
1 Unless otherwise indicated, page and paragraph references in the following
are to Dolevs book and my attributions of views to Dolev are mainly based
on it. However, occasional references to Dolev (2014), and to another work
by Dolev (2009) will also be appropriate.
2 I treat event and state of affairs as synonymous (I think this is basically
in line with Dolevs usage, at least as regards the issues discussed here).
3 To call a view of this kind eternalist is not of course meant to imply that
such events are eternal in the sense of being everlasting, i.e. existing at all
times (see Oaklander 2014).
4 The version of the old B-theory discussed by Dolev (2014) in this volume is
another representative.
5 One should not be misled into thinking that A-eternalism is simply
B-eternalism with a moving now superadded, so to speak, to a temporal
series of times or events resulting from B-relations, in such a way that
we could get B-eternalism back, by taking the moving now away. For
A-eternalism is in the first place an A-theory and thus considers A-properties
essential for there to be time at all. Thus, from the perspective of
A-eternalism, since the exemplification of A-properties by times or events
is dependent on the moving now, without such a moving now there would
be no temporal series. To put it otherwise, the B-series would not be a
temporal series.
6 And in fact there are A-theorists, such as W. L. Craig and Q. Smith, who
classify themselves as presentists, even though they are best viewed, given
my preferred terminology, as A-eternalists (Zimmerman 2005).
7 There may be qualms over this way of classifying approaches. For example,
Oaklander, in private correspondence, has commented thus on this matter
(with reference to the B/R theory, discussed in Oaklander 2014 (basically,
a B-theory, as I see it); B and R remind us of Broad and Russell,
respectively):
[This classification] assumes that both eternalists accept the existence
of temporal relations and just debate over the ontological status of the
present, but that is potentially damning for the B/R theory (since the
A-eternalist would deny that without the privileged now we have temporal
relations) or damning for the A-theorist eternalist, since temporal relations
(of the R-theoretic stripe [B-relations, or at least akin to them]) cannot
obtain with terms that have A-properties. Thus, if the temporal relations
that R-theorists accept is common to both forms of eternalism, then
A-theoretic eternalism must deny temporal relations and so morphs into
true presentism.

I think that the B-theorist would insist that a privileged now is not required
for the instantiation of temporal B-relations, and the eternalist A-theorist
would argue that she can understand temporal relations in way that does not
imply presentism. For present purposes, however, I think that we can put
these issues aside, since they do not hinge on what I want to focus on here.
67
8 It should be noted that the presentist, whether traditional or moderate, does

not deny that, e.g. the birth of Napoleon or (perhaps) the birth of the first
child of 2021 existed (was in the ontological inventory) or will exist (will be
in the ontological inventory). The point of the presentist is that they do not
exist now. However, to the extent that she is committed to the truth now of
the past tense proposition that Napoleons birth existed and the future tense
proposition that the birth of the first child of 2021 will exist, she owes us an
account of what makes these propositions true compatible with her view of
what the ontological inventory contains now. More on this later.
9 There is a fourth option seriously considered in the current literature, namely
that the past and present are real whereas the future is unreal or branching.
But since Dolev does not discuss it, I have neglected it here.
10 In an ideal reconstruction, I myself would rather distinguish (following
Castaeda 1980) a phase dedicated to the collection of pre-theoretical
data, which typically involves puzzles and thus conflicting intuitions
(protophilosophy), a subsequent phase of theory construction
(symphilosophy) where any apparent protophilosophical contradiction
is removed, and finally a phase of intertheoretic comparisons
(diaphilosophy).
11 Mellor, on whom Dolev focuses, is a typical supporter of the new B-theory.
The fact that Dolev also discusses Parfits unpublished version of the
B-theory does not alter the basic fact that Dolevs misgivings about the
B-theory ultimately derive from his focusing on the new B-theory.
12 In his rejoinder to Oaklander (2014), Dolev (2014) has now taken up the old
B-theory as well, or at least Oaklanders attempt to revive it, and claimed
that the ontological assumption afflicts it as well, to the extent that, in
Dolevs words (2014), it is presented as an ontological theory. I cannot
engage in a full discussion of this here, but it should be evident that my
points against Dolevs misgivings regarding the ontological assumptions also
apply to his criticism of the old B-theory.
13 I basically side with Meyer (2009: 97) when he urges that in looking at the
A vs. B dispute we should not worry about how real is used and should
rather concentrate on what exists, according to the parties.
14 Thus, I do not have Meyers (2009: 9, n. 7) impression that Dolevs
sympathies simply lie with the B-theory. Meyers impression may seem to
be confirmed by this explicit claim by Dolev (2014: 47): The view I have
been defending has much in common with the old B-theory (and very little
with the new one, or with any versions of the A-theory). Yet, as we shall
see, there are significant A-theoretical elements in Dolevs standpoint.
15 The occurrence of these terms at p. 92 may suggest this. Dolev also uses
another related term, copresent, in discussing relativity theory, but seems
to take it as equivalent to simultaneous (see p. 201).
16 The standard meter is one and public, whereas experiences are many and
private; thus, Dolev prefers to say that the latter work as quasi-standards
(p. 140).
17 It may be objected that in making such assertions I am attributing to
Dolev a view that is not really his, for he has explicitly disavowed the
68

phenomenologically and conceptually ungrounded presupposition that
events [such as the Olympic Games] consist of parts [such as the victories
of athlete A and athlete Z] that are somehow brought together to form a
unity (Dolev 2014: 434). Yet, Dolev himself speaks of events in part/whole
terms: some present events [the second part of a symphony, broadcast
live on TV] are parts of other present events [the whole symphony,
broadcast live on the radio] (Dolev 2014: 42).
18 This is confirmed by what Dolev says of past and future objects and events,
e.g., in relation to memory at p. 153, to future contingents at pp. 187204,
and to relativity theory at p. 202. And also by what he says of time passage,
which is understood as the becoming present and then past of future
objects and events, with the proviso that this does not imply their turning
from being not real to being real and then to not real again, since the
ontological assumption has been given up (pp. 1645). The fact that there
are, in Dolevs opinion, the objects and events subject to this becoming is
sufficient to nail him to the eternalists ontological commitments, in spite of
his refusal to use the words real or not real for them.
19 In Dolevs terminology (p. 109), there are conditions obtaining at any time,
past, present, or future, as truth conditions, as that the obtaining of which
establishes the truth or falsity of sentences.
20 This is B-theoretic up to a point, because, given a space-like separation
between two events, even B-relations linking such events are frame-relative.
But this is a problem (underestimated, in my view) for any approach that
wants to reconcile relativity theory with the B-theory and I shall set this
issue aside here.
21 It is not clear to me whether Dolev would agree or disagree with the idea
that the attribution of presentness to the minute implies an attribution of
presentness to all its parts. In favor of the second hypothesis there is his
claim that present events have parts that are not themselves present
(Dolev 2014: 42). In favor of the first hypothesis, there is his claim that
some present events are parts of other present events (Dolev 2014: 42).
Be this as it may, I understand that one could insist that the being present
of the minute does not imply that all its parts are also present, but only that
a certain instant within it is such. But this is another way of saying that only
a durantionless instant is, strictly speaking, present, which is what I am
pressing.
22 Since, as we saw, they cannot be present and thus do not exist, according
to presentism.
23 Dolev (2014: 423) tries to exploit the durational character of experiences in
order to support his conception of time, but he does so by also claiming that
experiences, and more generally events, do not have successive parts that
somehow form a unity. In contrast, it seems to me that our experiences,
e.g., as of a fast moving object, do appear to have successive (earlier and
later) parts. There is no room to try a diagnosis of this disagreement here.
24 See Orilia (2012a) and Orilia (2014) for some additional details.
25 By appealing to ex-concrete objects, moderate presentism can also deal
with intertemporal relations such as causation, in a way that is not open to
69
traditional presentism (Orilia 2012b: 6.7). Reasons of space prevent me

from going into this here.
26 I wish to thank L. Nathan Oaklander for his valuable advice and his
comments on a previous version of this chapter.
References
Casati, R. and Varzi, A. (2010), Events, in E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Spring 2010 edn), http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/spr2010/entries/events/.
Castaeda, H.-N.(1980), On Philosophical Method. Bloomington, IN: Nos
Publications.
Dainton, B. (2000), Stream of Consciousness. London: Routledge.
(2010), Temporal Consciousness, in E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 edn), http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/fall2010/entries/consciousness-temporal/.
Dolev, Y. (2007), Time and Realism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(2009), Time and ontology: a reply to Meyer, Iyyun. The Jerusalem
Philosophical Quarterly, 58, 292300.
(2014), Motion and Passage: The Old B-Theory and Phenomenology, in L. N.
Dummett, M. (1978), Truth and Other Enigmas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Gale, R. (ed.) (1968), The Philosophy of Time. New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Le Poidevin, R. (2007), The Images of Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Magalhes E. and Oaklander, N. (eds) (2010), Presentism. Essential Readings,
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Mellor, D. H. (1981), Real Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1998), Real Time II. London: Routledge.
Meyer, U. (2009), Yuval Dolev, Time and Realism (The MIT Press, 2007), Iyyun.
The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly, 58, 92101.
Oaklander, L. N. (2014), Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique, in L. N.
Orilia, F. (2012a), Dynamic events and presentism, Philosophical Studies, 160,
40714.
(2012b), Filosofia del Tempo. Roma: Carocci.
(2014).This Moment and the Next Moment, in V. Fano, F. Orilia and
G. Macchia (eds), Space and Time. A Priori and A Posteriori Studies. Berlin:
De Gruyter, 17194.
Orilia, F. and Oaklander, L. N. (forthcoming), Do we really need a new B-theory
of time?, Topoi, Special Issue on Time and Time Experience, edited by
Roberto Ciuni and Giuliano Torrengo. DOI 10.1007/s1124501391796.
Pianesi, F. and Varzi, A. C. (1996), Events, topology, and temporal relations, The
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Schlesinger, G. N. (1980), Aspects of Time. Indianapolis: Hackett.
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(1982), How time flies, Mind, 91, 50123.

(1991), E pur si muove, Philosophical Quarterly, 41, 42741.
Tallant, J. (2009), Review of Time and Realism: Metaphysical and
Antimetaphysical Perspectives, by Yuval Dolev, Analysis, 69, 2, 3724.
Westphal, J. (2002), The retrenchability of the present, Analysis, 62, 410.
Whitehead, A. N. (1929), Process and Reality. An Essay in Cosmology. New York:
Macmillan.
Williamson, T. (2002), Necessary Existents, in A. OHear (ed.), Logic, Thought
and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 23351.
Zimmerman, D. (2005), The A-theory of time, the B-theory of time and taking
tense seriously, dialectica, 59, 40157.
Temporal Succession,
Temporal Becoming, and
the Analysis of Change
4
Temporal Succession and Tense
Erwin Tegtmeier
The phenomenon of temporal succession
here are phenomena and there are analyses of the phenomena applying
scientific theories. That holds also for ontology. The phenomena of
interest for ontology are elementary and ubiquitous. The ontologist applies
his theories of categories to analyze the phenomena. The succession of
two tones and the succession of two light signals are elementary examples.
There are, of course, longer successions but they can be derived from pair
successions. However, if one considers longer temporal successions one
feels led forward step by step. Looking backward by remembering after
having followed through the longer succession, I may express the impression
by saying that time passes. That may apply even more where the longer
succession is a successive change of some material object.
There are two alternative ontological analyses of temporal succession
based on different views of time. According to the absolutist view of time, it
consists of time points; according to the relationist view, time is nothing but a
group of relations. Consider a temporal succession from e to e. The absolutist
analysis would be that e is located at time point t1 and e at time point t2, and
that in the order of time points t1 comes before t2.The relationist assumes an
earlier relation between e and e. That is his entire analysis.
The phenomenon of tense

Traditionally, the phenomenon of temporal succession has been closely
connected with that of tense. Tense consists primarily in distinguishing and
74
singling out some objects as present and thus having a division between
present objects and non-present objects. It is roughly a division between
objects which present themselves in perception and those which do not. The
non-present objects have to be apprehended by other kinds of mental states.
Obviously, the division between present and non-present does not involve a
temporal succession. That division has as such nothing to do with temporal
succession. But it succumbs, so to speak, to temporal succession. It is
drawn into the phenomenon of succession. There arise more presents which
succeed each other. Only by taking into account the temporal succession of
presents are the other tenses of past and future discovered. They become
accessible by the mental states of memory and expectation.
As to the ontological analysis, there is again the opposition between the
absolutist and the relationist. According to the absolutist, what is distinguished as present is a time point or a time interval. The relationist takes
objects or events to be present. Both face the question: What makes those
entities present? The simplest answer which suggests itself is a property of
being temporally present.
Is there a property of being temporally present?

The best answer would be to refer to a non-relational property of being present.
There is reason to conclude that there is no such (non-relational) property. The
reason is epistemological. We easily and with certainty recognize that the objects
we perceive in our vicinity are temporally present.1 Nevertheless, we are unable
to discern a property which all those objects share and which could be called
presentness. No property of presentness is given to us. Hence, what allows
us to realize so easily that those objects we see near us are present must be
something else than a property and something else other than such a property.
As has frequently been pointed out, it is a semantic mistake to assume
that now stands for a single property like all ordinary adjectives. Now is
an indexical, and indexicals do not always stand for the same. What linguists
emphasize is that the reference of indexicals depends on the utterance of the
respective sentence and its circumstances.
The semantic considerations suggest the assumption of relational property.
For the absolutist it is the property of being localized at the time point at
which a certain utterance of now is located, and for the relationist it is the
property of being simultaneous with that utterance.
Thus tense has to do with simultaneity to an utterance. That is a relevant
phenomenon because perception and effectuation are normally restricted to
roughly simultaneous objects.
75
Temporal succession as existential passage

Aristotle is a temporal absolutist but his temporal continuum is an undifferentiated whole. Therefore, he needs to introduce time points to explain
the phenomenon of succession. He draws on nows (presents) to furnish
such points. Thus he relates succession to tense. Aristotle grounds the two
phenomena together. Whence their fusion in much of traditional and contemporary philosophy of time.
Aristotle holds that a present has zero duration and extension and is like
a point. There are many present or now points and the temporal continuum
Aristotle assumes allows for infinitely many points. It has the potential for
infinitely many points. Aristotle analyzes tense in terms of present points
(now points) which cut the continuum of time into two halves which are
the past and the future. He conceives of the present points and thus of his
time points as two-sided boundaries which are designed to avoid difficulties
about zero extension.
Aristotle distinguishes between the now points which all differ from each
other and a seemingly persisting now which is always the same.2 However,
he holds that a general now is a mere abstraction of that which makes all
now points now points and he does not countenance a persistent now which
moves across time or some series of events. Aristotle is a presentist who
holds that no two different now points exist together. The existence of a now
point excludes the existence of all other now points.
How does he ground succession? Not only by relating to now points and
thus to time points. Aristotle adds a changing existence of the now points.
In the way of ordinary presentism, he assumes that no two time points exist
together and that existence passes between times. The latter is presumably
designed to generate the order of time points and the direction of time,
and that role would justify Aristotles assumption of a passage of existence.
One could therefore say that Aristotle analyzes temporal succession as a
passage of existence between now points which are points on the temporal
continuum. But what does this passage mean in ontological detail? There
are two time points and their existence, and wherein consists the passage
according to Aristotles ontology? It cannot consist of anything else than the
relating of existence to time points. More precisely in a symbolized way: t1
(E,t1) and -(t2 (E, t1)) (E symbolizes existence); in words: t1 exists at t1 but
not at t2. Two points can be made about this kind of ontological analysis. First,
the order of time points is presupposed and not grounded. Therefore, the
passage of existence between now and time points does not add anything
to the ontological analysis of advancements such as that between tones and
flashes of light. It leads back to the same time points in terms of which they
76
can be analyzed without detour via tense. Second, temporal succession is

understood as a kind of change, namely existential change.
Obviously, Aristotle would not agree with the absolutist analysis of tense
suggested by the semantics of temporal indicator words. In Aristotle, tense
has not only a selective but a constitutive role. The structure of the temporal
is clearly taken to be furnished by tense, although Aristotle would insist that
the structure is inherent as potentiality to the temporal continuum. Tense
is, according to Aristotle, an objective matter and a matter of existence and
non-existence.
Aristotle is aware of the grave difficulties of presentism and of an
ontological analysis of time derived mainly from tense.3 He is to a certain
extent at a loss, having to realize that time is composed of two parts which
do not exist (the past and the future) while the part which exists (the present)
is merely a boundary. The latter makes the present more dubious since the
question arises as to how there can be a boundary for what does not exist.
Temporal succession as passage of the present

While Aristotle relies on a tense-oriented analysis of temporal succession in
spite of its grave difficulties, because of his view of the temporal continuum
McTaggart embraces certain of those difficulties as a means to show that time
is unreal. There are also two other contrasts between Aristotle and McTaggart.
First, McTaggart starts not from an absolutist but from a relationist view of
time, which is Russells view. Second, McTaggart assumes a persistent and
moving now. He seems to take for granted that there is such a now and not to
care about the skepticism of the tradition with respect to it. The moving now
plays a crucial role in his argument for the unreality of time. That argument
continues to exert a strong influence on the contemporary philosophy of
time. Although no one accepts the conclusion of that argument, everyone
adopts McTaggarts pattern of the problem and the alternative solutions,
particularly his distinction between A-series and B-series, which leads to the
allegation that a theory of time is either an A-theory of a B-theory and to the
ill-conceived characterization of Russells view of time as eternalism just
because it is in terms of facts and because facts do not change. Naturally,
facts do not change. Facts must not be assumed to be changing since change
is based, according to fact ontologies such as Russells, on facts. Moreover,
facts do not have any duration, hence they cannot last eternally (have an
infinite duration). The influence of McTaggart illustrates the point that even
the philosophers of time who hold in contrast to McTaggart that tense is not
essential to time agree that time is static without a moving present.
77
The concept of eternalism originates not only from McTaggarts misguided

argument that a Russellian temporal series cannot possibly change, but also
from the traditional tense-oriented view that time as a whole is an eternity
divided by a present which serves as a boundary into the past and the future.
It is correct, of course, to claim that Russells analysis is not presentist and
that it rejects the assumption that only what is present exists, but it would
be a misinterpretation to say that according to that analysis what exists does
so eternally. Rather, the Russellian analysis require a separation of time and
existence.4
The phenomenon of temporal succession is mostly designated as the
passage of time, particularly if longer and many parallel successions are
considered. One could also say the passage of the present. Thus, I would
argue that the term passage of time suggests McTaggarts analysis of the
phenomenon. I used the term temporal succession because it seems
to me more neutral with respect to the alternative ontological analyses.
McTaggart prefers to view the passage of time as the moving of the present
and therefore he is reliant on a persisting now. He needs a non-relative
now. He needs a now which is not relative to utterances or mental acts. If
the nows were relative then he would not have one and the same now but
several different nows. Hence, one wonders whether he really succeeds in
determining such a now. He is disappointingly elusive at this crucial point.
Moreover, he is not consistent. On the one hand, he explains that being
present is simple and undefinable.5 On the other hand, he holds it to be
a relation to an entity X outside the A-series of events.6 The latter implies
that being present can be defined in terms of the respective relation and
X. McTaggart does not even give examples for objects which are second
relata X for the relation of being present. I guess he has in mind objects X
which overlap the first relatum temporally on both sides, which thus begin
earlier and end later than the first relatum. Take as an example a climbing
of a mountain as a first relatum, and the mountain as a second relatum of
McTaggarts presence relation. McTaggart would argue that before climbing,
the climbing was not present, during the climbing it was present, and after
the climbing it was not present for the mountain. Since the climbing thus
stands in McTaggarts relation of being present for the mountain and does not
stand in it (before and after the climbing) there is clearly a contradiction. And
that is just what McTaggart is getting at. After having argued that the present
and the two other tenses are essential to time, he arrives at the conclusion
that time is contradictory and therefore cannot be real. Initially (The Nature
of Existence II: 9), McTaggart announced that he would put forward a new
reason for holding, like Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, that time is unreal.
Now, from the contradictoriness of an analysis or a theory follows that it
has no model, that is, nothing in the world corresponds to it. But it does not
78
follow that the phenomenon with which the analysis or theory is concerned
does not exist. Rather, the analysis or the theory might be inadequate or
wrong. This conclusion is more reasonable in the case of time since temporal
phenomena are crucial and ubiquitous in our world. Moreover, as C. D. Broad
and others have emphasized, temporal succession and duration are distinctly
given to us in introspection and perception and can therefore hardly be
doubted.7
Of course, there are ontological analyses and theories of time which
are free from contradictions. However, McTaggart rejects non-presentist
ontologies of time. Are there then presentist ontologies of time which
are consistent? Indeed there are, for a long time: Aristotles, for example.
Aristotle does not run into the contradictions McTaggart uses to argue against
the reality of time because he holds that only the respective present exists.
That excludes the movement of a persistent present. McTaggart did not really
take into account the central tenet of presentism (that only the present exists)
although he is a presentist in so far as he insists that tense is essential for
time.
An implicit moving present

McTaggart works towards a moving present and needs a non-relative present
for an argument against time. But there is also an ordinary and a scientific
view of temporal succession on a larger scale which implies a moving and
non-relative present. I mean the concept of development, including the development of the whole universe.
Compare two statements: 1. The development of the universe reached
stage s, and 2. The development of the universe reached stage s at time t.
The second statement relates the stage to time. We have an aversion against
the time relativity of developmental stages and we prefer the non-relative
statement 1. We have a general aversion to the temporal relativization of attributions. For example, we would not want to say that a certain leaf on a tree
is yellow at the present date and we would not even say that it is yellow now.
Rather, we would insist that the leaf is simply yellow. We insist although we
know very well that the leaf has not been yellow and will no longer be yellow
and that it is only temporarily yellow.
From an ontological point of view, I would agree that attributions are not
time relative. Relativity of attributions to time would turn properties into
relations and would not even be possible in an ontology without time points.
However, if attributions are taken to be of persistent and changing particulars,
as is customary and common sense, then past and future attributions of
79
particulars have to be invalidated by McTaggarts moving present or by a

structurally equivalent entity. Otherwise, Parmenides contradiction of change
threatens. What the persistent moving present would do (if it existed) is
to set off exactly one member of a temporal series and suppress all the
other members. That is how a competition and contradiction with the other
members is avoided and, it is purported that the ultimately contradictory
attribution of incompatible tenses to the persistent and changing particular
is all right. The ontologically tenable solution would be to attribute not to the
changing particular but to its temporal parts.
However, neither commonsensical thinking about attributions nor the
scientific concept of development is meant to involve a moving present and
a crucial role of the tenses. It is just an unnoticed implication. Moreover,
scientists applying the concept of development clearly think of the temporal
phenomenon indicated not in terms of a passage of time but in terms of
a temporal succession. They should realize that there is no outstanding
(present) stage of development and that all stages are equally related to time.
For the relationalist, with respect to time, that means they are simultaneous
to some event of time measurement. The insight to be acquired with respect
to the concept of development is that there is no absolute stage reached but
only a stage related to a certain date, a stage at a certain date. A development
is, of course, also a temporal succession.
McTaggarts mistakes and his fundamental error

The customary view of the development of the world involves the same
fundamental mistake as was made by McTaggart in his attempt to improve
Russell. He wanted to mobilize Russells temporal sequence by running a
present along it. If one analyzes what McTaggart proposes completely, one
arrives merely at another temporal sequence. I mean the temporal sequence
of being present of the members of the Russellian sequence a1, a2, a3,
where a1 is earlier than a2 and a3, and a2 is earlier than a3. McTaggart
pretends to mobilize that sequence by another Russellian sequence, namely
by p(a1), p(a2), p(a3), where p stands for being present. The mobilizing
Russellian sequence would then be the fact that p(a1) is earlier than p(a2)
and p(a3), and that p(a2) is earlier than p(a3). McTaggart does not realize that
he offers nothing but another sequence to mobilize a sequence because
he compares what does not match, namely the Russell ontological analysis
with his own indications concerning the movement of the present which
he avoids transforming into an explicit ontological analysis. He argues that
Russells sequence is not temporal because it does not change. However, as
80
soon as his indications are turned into ontological analysis his sequence does
not change either. McTaggart also misunderstands Russells characterization
of the relation of temporal sequence as an order relation. He relies on the
customary opposition of order and dynamism, although Russell defines an
order relation as a relation which satisfies the conditions of asymmetry and
transitivity. That is in no way incompatible with being dynamic.
The view I called the customary non-presentist view is, of course, not
due to a misunderstanding of Russells temporal sequence. It may be due
to an attempt to re-enact in the mind the development of the world by
moving mentally along the sequence of its stages. Nevertheless, this attempt
commits the same mistake as McTaggart.
There are two reasons why I consider McTaggarts view of temporal
succession mistaken. First, the impression of dynamism of the A-series
which McTaggart emphasizes arises from incomplete analysis. The sequence
of A-determinations is not analyzed. If it were analyzed, it would turn out to
be a B-series. Second, McTaggart commits what I would call the discursive
mistake.
Let me explain. When we want to grasp a series we mentally run through
it, maybe also physically. One could call it the method of discursion. We apply
it not only to temporal series but to series of all kinds. Naturally, the running
through is also a series. It is a temporal series and it is clearly different from
the series to be grasped. It would be a mistake to identify the two series and
it would be just the mistake I called the discursive mistake.
McTaggarts mistakes are ultimately rooted in his error concerning the
essence of time. It is not only a misunderstanding of Russells temporal
series but more deeply the misunderstanding of temporal succession as a
change. In his criticism, McTaggart uses the premise that the mark of time
is change. This premise is fundamentally false. Being subject to change is
not a hallmark of the temporal as McTaggart presupposes. On the contrary,
temporal attributes are the exception. Temporal attributes are the basis of
change and therefore must not change themselves. An ontological analysis
of temporal change reduces it to an absurd relating of time to itself and
reveals that temporal change does not exist. It can also be shown that
McTaggarts moving of the present, if analyzed ontologically, turns out not to
be a change.8
One can understand Aristotles as well as MacTaggarts as well as the
customary implicit mobilization of succession by means of tense as a
misguided attempt to view temporal succession as a change. Tellingly, the
contradictions arising from the transitions of presentness which McTaggart
uses to discredit time are after all merely a case of Parmenides contradictions of change (which contemporary analytic philosophers attribute to David
Lewis).
81
A Russellian temporal series

According to his principle of acquaintance (which demands all entities
assumed in an ontology must be empirically given), Russell introduces his
temporal relations ostensibly by examples. These examples show that those
are dynamic relations if anything is dynamic. Imagine someone is practicing
the musical scale. First a c-tone, then a d-tone and then an e-tone sounds.
What we hear, according to Russell, when we hear the c-tone preceding the
d-tone is the relational universals of occurring earlier than together with
its relata. We hear nothing else. Let us assume that we dont recognize the
first tone as a c and the second as a d. Thus we hear only a temporal fact
which as such is a dynamic fact which analyzes a case of the phenomenon
of succession. Since it consists in addition to the tones of a relational
universal, this relational universal must be the dynamic constituent. If the
fact is dynamic, which one can take for granted, the relational universal in
it must be dynamic, too. Now, Russell introduces the relational universal as
the one which holds between the two tones in the fact of our example. One
can conclude that the relation occurring earlier than is clearly designed
to analyze the phenomenon of temporal succession. Let the three tones
succeed each other so quickly that one hears that the c-tone occurs earlier
than the d-tone and earlier than the e-tone, and (without having to resort to
memory) that the d-tone occurs earlier than the e-tone. Thus one hears the
conjunctive fact E(c, d) & E(c, e) & E(d, e).
Universals, relational universals, facts, and conjunctive facts are categories
of Russells ontology. It is an application of these categories to categorize
what is heard in our example as a conjunctive fact. Since there is a law for
E according to which it fulfills the conditions of asymmetry and transitivity,
the conjunctive fact is a seriesa Russellian temporal series. Russells
ontological analysis of the successions of the whole universe is that it is such
a conjunctive fact with a very great number of conjuncts.
Now, the succession is wholly based on the E-relation. Looking again at
the example by which E was introduced supports this ontological view. There
is no point in running through a Russellian E-series because it results in
exactly the same series. Thus the discursive mistake is transparent. It shows
itself to be a mistake immediately.
To see that the E-relation is sufficient to ground the succession, one has
to take into account that the Russellian view of time is relational. According
to this view, time is nothing but a group of relations. It is directed against
the absolutist view, mentioned already, that time is a continuum of time
points. If time is viewed as a continuum of time points, a mobilization, a
running through that continuum may seem necessary to do justice to the
82
phenomenon of temporal advancement. Strictly speaking it is not. One has

merely to introduce relations between the time points.
The 4-D view

Mostly, the Russellian view is equated with the 4-D view. But there are
fundamental differences. The former offers an explicit ontological analysis
and is based on a complete ontology. The latter is hardly connected with
an ontology. The former is based on a relational analysis of time; the latter
implies the opposite, namely an absolutist view of time.
An influential advocate of a kind of 4-D view was D. C. Williams with
his paper The myth of passage. In his analyses of temporal successions,
Williams aligns himself with the mathematical theory of manifold which
takes space and time to be a set of points. Time is understood as the fourth
dimension of such a point space.9 Concrete entities get their temporal determination by being localized in the fourth dimension. Our example of the three
tones, c, d, and e, would be analyzed by Williams 4-D view by localizing c at a
time point t1, d at a time point t2, and e at a time point t3. No temporal relation
between the tones is called into play. A relation between the time points
which orders them is, however, involved. It is not a universal, of course, but
a set of ordered pairs. Hence the 4-D analysis is markedly different from
the Russellian. Moreover, in contrast to the latter, the 4-D analysis does
not attach great importance to the accordance with what is given to us in
perception. It assumes time points but, obviously, time points are not given
to us in perception. All perceptions of temporal locations are relative to some
anchor object such as a time signal. Hence, a relation which would order time
points according to the 4-D theorist could not be given to us in perception
either.
McTaggart diagnosed a Russellian E-series as non-temporal, as merely
extensive and not transitory (to use C. D. Broads terms). That was a misunderstanding. But his diagnosis would be true of the 4-D view as advocated by
Williams who writes that Time flows only in the sense in which a line flows
or a landscape recedes into the west. That is, it is an ordered extension. And
each of us proceeds through time only as a fence proceeds across a farm:
that is, parts of its being, and the fences, occupy successive instants and
points, respectively.10
By contrast, the Russellian relation E is clearly a relation of transition which
is temporal and definitely not spatial. It does definitely not hold between the
intervals of a fence. E is transitory in a sense in which only temporal relations
can be transitory.
83
Mathematics and ontology

There is also a methodological difference between the 4-D and the Russellian
view: the former applies a mathematical theory (especially set theory and
general topology), the latter an ontological one (Russells logically atomistic
ontology). From an ontological point of view, several of Williams positions
and solutions are unsatisfactory. He adopts the customary conception of
becoming (that is emergence or passing away) as a transition between
non-existence and existence. He writes (to quote more extensively what was
referred to in part above):
Time flows only in the sense in which a line flows or a landscape
recedes into the west. That is, as an ordered extension. And each of us
proceeds through time as a fence proceeds across a farm: that is, parts of
our being, and the fences occupy successive instants and points, respectively. There is passage, but it is nothing extra. It is the mere happening of
things, their existence strung along in the manifold. (Williams 1951: 105)
By theory of the manifold Williams means set theory, I suppose. What
he then states is that the reality behind the myth of passage is nothing but
what the set theorists call serial order. It entails that all serial orders exhibit
a passage. His phrase their existence strung along in the manifold implies
that in the case of a temporal passage where the manifold is an ordered
temporal extension the date of a thing (i.e. the respective time interval in
which it is located) is its span of existence and that it does not exist outside
of the interval. It implies also that in Williams sense of passage there is a
passage into existence and passage out of existence.
It seems that Williams could not escape completely the deeply rooted
customary presentist thinking, though he explicitly rejects presentism. The
presentist leftover still leads to the contradictions of becoming as transition
between non-existence and existence which cannot be resolved by the introduction of temporal parts since before the emergence and after the passing
away of an object there is nothing of which temporal parts can be temporal
parts.11
Another case in point is Williams analysis of the sense of a series.12 He
wants to defend the 4-D view against the objection from Broad that it cannot
ground the direction of time. He argues that it can easily be grounded by
the ordered pairs and that to see the directions of the ordered pairs a;z and
z;a one has merely to take into account the numerical identity and diversity
of terms. However, while the spatial order of the symbols on paper is clear,
that of the particulars they represent is a mystery. Ordered pairs are not a
84
philosophical paradigm, as Quine suggests, but rather a gap in the explanatory structure of set theory. They are no ordinary sets. That is why some set
theorists (Kuratowski and Wiener) wanted to reduce them to ordinary sets. At
any rate, ordered pairs do not satisfy the standards of articulateness required
in ontology.13
Russell assumes in his ontological analysis of order in relational facts order
relations such as being the first relatum and being the second relatum.
These relations hold between relata and facts. As was mentioned already,
series are analyzed ontologically as conjunctive facts in a Russellian ontology.
Now, the direction of a whole series is aggregated from the order relations
for all the relational facts of which the respective conjunctive fact consists.
From Russells analysis of the direction of a series follows that Williams is
right to claim that all series have directions. However, that implies that the
direction of a temporal series cannot explain the transitory character. That is
done in Russells ontological analysis by the specific temporal relation E.
One cannot argue, of course, that ontology is always preferable to
mathematics. It depends on the problem to be solved. With respect to such
a simple and fundamental problem as the explanation of the phenomenon of
temporal succession, ontology seems to me the appropriate science.
Notes
1 The temporal sense of present has to be distinguished from the spatial
sense. It is common knowledge today that we can be sure about the
temporal presence of the spatially present (i.e., near) only.
2 Aristotle (1987): 218a.
3 Ibid.
4 As I argued in 1997 and in 1999.
5 McTaggart (1927: 19f).
6 Loc. cit.
7 See Broad (1921).
8 See also Tegtmeier (2012).
9 The 4-D view goes back to Minkowskis representation of Einsteins Special
Theory of Relativity in terms of a spacetime. The Minkowski space has
in contrast to the three-dimensional Euclidean space a fourth time-like
dimension.
10 Williams (1951: 105).
11 See Tegtmeier (1999).
12 Williams (1951: 108).
13 See Tegtmeier (1995).
85
References
Aristotle (1987), Physics, in J. L. Ackrill (ed.), A New Aristotle Reader.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Broad, C. D. (1921), Time, in J. Hastings et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics. Vol. 12. Edinburgh and New York: T. & T. Clark and Scribners, pp.
33445. http://www.ditext.com/broad/time/timeframe.html
McTaggart, J. M. E. (1927), The Nature of Existence II. Cambridge: The
University of Cambridge Press.
Tegtmeier, E. (1995), Ein vernachlssigtes ontologisches Problem der
Relationslogik, in J. Brandl (ed.), Metaphysik. Neue Zugnge zu alten Fragen.
Sankt Augustin: Academia, pp. 8395.
(1997), Zeit und Existenz. Tbingen: Mohr.
(1999), Parmenides problem of becoming and its solution, Logical Analysis
and Philosophy of History, 2, 5166.
(2012), McTaggarts error: temporal change, Revue Roumaine de
Philosophie, 56, 8996.
Williams, D. C. (1951), The myth of passage, Journal of Philosophy 48 (15),
45772, reprinted in R. Gale (ed.) (1967), The Philosophy of Time. New York:
Anchor Books, pp. 98116; ref. to this repr.
5
Becoming: Temporal,
Absolute, and Atemporal
M. Oreste Fiocco
Introduction
here are two conspicuous and inescapable features of this world in which
time is real. One experiences a world in flux, a transient world in which
things constantly come into existence, change and cease to be. One also
experiences a stable world, one in which how things are at any given moment
is permanent, unchangeable. Thus, one can contemplate in silencethen
be startled by a flash and accompanying boomthen return to silence, and
although the flash and boom are gone, it seems indubitable that something
remains unchanged, at least in so far as it must be true that a flash and boom
precede this silent moment.
There is transience and permanence. Yet these two features of the world
seem incompatible. However, focusing on one can yield only an objectionable
metaphysics of time to the extent that the other, itself a compelling feature
of the world, is neglected. The primary purpose of this chapter is to sketch
a metaphysics of time that embraces both features. Given a certain view of
the nature of reality and of the structure it contains, from a basis of uncontroversial claims about time and change, I show that utter stasis and continuous
dynamism can both be genuine and objective features of reality.
Crucial to this undertaking is the notion of becoming, that is, coming into
existence. I distinguish three distinct phenomena of becoming: temporal,
absolute, and atemporal. The last is the least familiar of these; it is the
phenomenon of coming into existence outside of time. Although the idea that
there are things that do not exist in time is not unfamiliar, it is largely taken for
88
granted that if anything comes into existence, it must do so in time. Indeed,

I suspect many think that the idea of a thing coming to be outside of time is
simply incoherent. It would be if becoming were a processbut it is not. In
this chapter, I articulate and defend the notion of atemporal becoming. It is
by means of this notion that one can develop a fully satisfactory metaphysics
of time, one that honors both transience and permanence and finds for each
its proper domain within the world.
A discussion of the fundamentals of the metaphysics of time requires an
explicit account of what time itself is. So I begin with such. Making clear the
nature of time per se enables me to distinguish time from temporal reality
and to present the two generic positions regarding temporal reality. I then
propound an account of atemporal reality, the world outside of time. Having
laid this foundation, I consider the undeniable phenomenon of temporal
becoming, which underlies the flux in the world, and discuss attempts to
situate this phenomenon in different accounts of temporal reality. I maintain
that the only feasible way of doing so is by recognizing absolute becoming.
Absolute becoming, however, seems to compromise the patent stability of
the world. This leads to the key notion of atemporal becoming. After illuminating this phenomenon, I defend its place in a fully satisfactory metaphysics
of time.
Time and temporal reality

As a prologue, I make a brief statement of the view of the world in itself
reality as it is prior to any conceptualization by thinking beings or their linguistic
or social interactionsthat underlies the present discussion. Although I
believe there are strong reasons for accepting this view, I leave its defense
to another occasion; it is feasible enough for present purposes. I believe that
the world in itself contains a great variety of individual substances, instances
of genuine kinds of thing, and ways (both universal and particular) that these
things are. Each entity has a nature determined by what it is and stands in
relations to entities of the same and other categories. These relations and the
constraints thereby placed on their relata is the structure in reality. All features
of the world have an ontological basis in this structure and, in so far as they
admit of explanation, are ultimately explicable in terms of it. This picture is
robustly realist, then, about distinct categories (including substances, kinds,
properties, and modes), the structure in the world and explanation.
A metaphysics of time is a theory of the peculiarly temporal features of
the world, those that arise given that time is real. I maintain that a distinction
between the world in time and the world outside it is crucial to a fully
Becoming: Temporal, Absolute, and Atemporal
89
satisfactory metaphysics of time. In order to get purchase on this distinction,

one needs an account of the nature of time itself. With such an account,
one can articulate the relations between time and other entitiesand see
past the mere spatial connotations of in and outsideto acquire a better
sense of the worldly structure associated with temporality.
What time is
Discussions of time are contentious. In so far as there is here a subject,
though, there is some common ground from which discussion arises, certain
phenomena that motivate inquiry and are thought to go together. The most
conspicuous phenomenon associated with time is change. Change is an
incontestable feature of the world. Moreover, what change is is uncontroversial: an entity changes if and only if it in itself is one way at one moment
and an incompatible way at a distinct moment. Everyone who recognizes
change can accept this account; it is neutral on any substantive issue.
Change is thought to require time. Although there has been debate
regarding whether there could be time without changeand some accept
there could1no one maintains that there could be change without time.
Thus, that change requires time seems a truism. I suspect some accept it
because, in light of the foregoing account of change, they accept that there
could be no moments without time; or perhaps they just conflate time, itself,
with times, that is, moments. The former is more insightful. Regardless,
however, of why the truism is accepted, it leaves open what time itself is.
Despite interest in time throughout the history of Western philosophy,
there is very little discussion of time per se. This claim is perhaps surprising,
but when one recognizes that investigations pertaining to time tend to focus
on issues attendant on timelike change, becoming, tense, persistence,
temporal experiencerather than time itself, one can see its truth. Some
ecumenical account of time is needed, then; some account that illuminates
these issues and unites the different factions all of whom take themselves
to be investigating the metaphysics of time. In light of these considerations,
I provide an account of time per se: I submit that time is a thing, namely
the thing in virtue of which any entity changes.2 An entity might have, by
its very nature, the capacity to changebut without time itself it could not
change. Time is, therefore, the thing that makes change possible. It does so
by yielding the moments required for change. Time itself is distinct from any
moment or collection of moments.
This brief account of time itself has at least two benefits. It makes explicit
the connection whereby change requires time and it also provides the
ontological basis of a phenomenon, to wit, change, the complexity of which
90
seems to be ill-suited to be taken as primitive. There is, in the structure of

the world, some explanation of how change occurs and this explanation is
rooted in time. Time itself is simple and essentially existent; by its very nature
it must exist.3 Some might object to this account of time itself because of
the hypostasis it requires. One should recognize, however, that this sort of
objection is based on ontological scruples, pertaining to parsimony or perhaps
an aversion to abstracta, rather than on any consideration arising from the
metaphysics of time itself. Indeed, there is nothing objectionable about this
account from the perspective of the metaphysics of time; it is wholly neutral
in regards to any controversial issue. Therefore, in an attempt to propound
a fully satisfactory metaphysics of time, I consider the proposed account of
time per se to be not only acceptable but also illuminating.
What temporal reality is: The world in time

If time is the thing that makes change possible, there could be many entities
that exist in virtue of time, for example, any moment that exists (or has any
being whatsoever); any properties that are borne primarily by moments (e.g.
being present, being past, being future) and any relations that are borne
primarily by moments (e.g. earlier than, later than, simultaneous with).
Moreover, there are things that do not exist in virtue of time yet are intimately
related to it in that they require a moment at which to exist, for example, any
entity whose very nature includes the capacity to change. Such a thing is a
temporal entity and exists at a moment if it exists at all. Temporal reality is all
that exists in virtue of time and every temporal entityit is the world in time.
Note that despite being included in temporal reality, a moment itself is not
a temporal entity, for no moment exists at a moment and so is not a thing
that could change. Time itself is neither a temporal entity, for it exists at no
moment, nor included in temporal reality, for nothing, including time, exists
in virtue of itself.
I think the existence of time, as characterized above, is highly plausible
(if not beyond dispute) and that it is this notion of time that those who
accept that time is real accept. Similarly, I think the existence of temporal
reality is highly plausible (if not beyond dispute). Anyone who bothers with a
critical examination of time, then, recognizes both time and temporal reality.
However, one needs to recognize the distinction between the two: time is a
particular entity; temporal reality is a collection of entities (including concrete
particulars, moments, temporal properties, temporal relations) essentially
related to time. So with these ecumenical notions of time, temporal reality
and changethere is a good deal of common ground in the metaphysics of
time.
91
Yet, as noted above, discussions of time are contentious. One might

accept the existence of both time and temporal reality as characterized and
yet disagree about the extent or contents of temporal reality. For example,
the metaphysics of time that I ultimately propose herein is one in which no
more than a single moment of time ever exists (in any sense) and only the
temporal property being present and the temporal relation simultaneous with
are instantiated. Such a view is determined by a number of controversial
considerations. I do not think it an exaggeration, however, to maintain that the
source of all the contention in the metaphysics of time is a single ontological
issue: whether things come into or go out of being simpliciter. Disagreement
on this issue leads to two generic positions regarding the nature of temporal
reality.
Those who deny that a thing comes into or goes out of being simpliciter
believe that at no moment does anything that exists in time absolutely fail to
be a constituent of reality. This is not to say that in this view each thing always
exists, for there can indeed be moments at which a thing does not exist.
However, even at these moments, that thing EXISTS (tenselessly) relative to
some other moment. Each thing has a permanent, tenseless existence at any
moment at which it ever exists. This leads to a position regarding temporal
reality in which all the many moments of timeand everything that exists at
themare equally real; it is a view in which temporal reality is ontologically
homogeneous. Proponents of this position are called B-theorists, eternalists,
block theorists and, somewhat misleadingly, tenseless theorists.4
Those who believe that a thing comes into or goes out of being simpliciter
accept that something, which in no way exists, can come into being at a
moment or that a thing can cease to be in every way and, hence, bear no
properties or stand in any relation to anything (including any moment). This
leads to a view of temporal reality in which there are ontological differences
in the world in time. Given that this position is based on difference, it admits
of a variety of more specific views, the unifying feature of which is the supposition that temporal reality is ontologically heterogeneous. For example, the
view that there is but one moment and nothing before or after it; the view
that there are many moments of time with different ontological statuses;
the view that this moment and what is prior to it have the same ontological
status though what is subsequent to this moment does not exist at all, all
posit ontological heterogeneity in temporal reality. Presentists, A-theorists,
growing block theorists and, perhaps, tensed theorists5 represent this
generic position on temporal reality.
In both positions, a thing exists at the moments at which it exists. The
key distinction between the two is the ontological status of a thing at some
moment, m, at which it does not exist. In the former position, although it
does not exist at m, it does EXIST (tenselessly) at some other moment;
92
in the latter position, at m, it does not exist at all, in any wayit is not a
constituent of reality. In light of this pivotal difference, it is perhaps clear what
would motivate one to adopt the position that temporal reality is ontologically
homogeneous: ones experience of a stable world, in which how things are at
any given moment is permanent and unchangeable. Likewise, the motivation
for the position that temporal reality is ontologically heterogeneous is ones
experience of a world continuously in flux, in which how things are at any
given moment is transient.
These two positions regarding the nature of temporal reality are incompatible. The position one adopts presumably turns on whether one regards
permanence or transience as the dominant feature of a world in which time
is real. But since both are irrefragable features of ones experience, to neglect
either can lead only to an objectionable metaphysics of time. Fortunately, the
appearance of a dilemma here is based on a false assumption. This is the
assumption that how the world is, given that time is real, must be accounted
for entirely by an account of temporal reality. This is false. There is more to
the world than the world in timewhat more there is provides the means of
presenting a fully satisfactory account of a world in which time is real.
Atemporality
I have discussed the notions of time and of temporal reality in some detail
in order to make clear the notion of atemporality, of existing outside of time,
that is, without temporal reality. As mentioned above, this notion is, I believe,
of the utmost importance to a satisfactory metaphysics of time.
The world outside time

A straightforward account of atemporality emerges from the foregoing. If a
thing is in time, then it is related to time in a suitably intimate way. One such
way is to be related as to partake of the very nature of time. Since time is
just the thing that makes change possible, doing so by yielding moments, it
is plausible that what it is to partake of the very nature of time is to exist at
a moment. Hence, existence in time is existence at some moment. Every
temporal entity, that is, every entity whose very nature includes the capacity
to change, exists in time.
Since everything is related to everything else in some way (if in no other, at
least in being similar with respect to being real), a thing outside of time does
not fail to be related to time. Rather, such a thing is outside of time in that it
fails to be related to time in a suitably intimate way; it fails to partake of the
93
very nature of time. Since, again, time is just the thing that makes change
possibleby yielding momentsa thing that fails to exist at a moment
clearly fails to partake of times nature. What it is, then, to not exist in time,
to exist outside of time, is to exist but at no moment. As such, an entity
that exists outside of timean atemporal entityfails to meet a necessary
condition of change and so cannot change. An atemporal entity is just as real
as a temporal one, but given their respective relations to time, the former is
immutable whereas the latter is mutable.
An attempt to reject atemporality altogether

One might reject this notion of timelessness, or any other, because one
might maintain that all entities are capable of changing in some way and,
hence, exist at some moment. If this is correct, there simply are no atemporal
entities and, a fortiori, no atemporality (and no atemporal becoming).
The claim that every entity is capable of changing is plausible only if one
counts as change the gain (and corresponding loss) of any property contrary
to one a thing has at some moment. If one were to do this, one would
hold that when Xantippe goes from being wife to widow upon the death
of Socrates that she has undergone a genuine change. This, however, does
not accord with the uncontroversial account of change introduced above, for
the properties being a wife and being a widow do not characterize Xantippe
in herself. The putative change that Xantippe undergoes upon the death
of Socrates needs to be distinguished from the sort of change Xantippe
undergoes when, say, she stands up after sitting. In the latter case, the
change arises from the gain of a property that is incompatible with one that
Xantippe has in virtue of how she herself is. In the former case, the change
does not arise in virtue of Xantippe herself; rather, in a clear sense, the
changeso-called Cambridge change of a Cambridge property6has
crucially to do with something entirely distinct. In this context, one in which
the bone of contention is the mutability of all thingswhether it is compatible
with the nature of each thing to changethe latter notion of change, the
uncontroversial one presented above, is clearly the operative one.7
Bearing this notion in mind, there are some thingsfor example, numbers,
properties, propositions, moments themselvesthat, in so far as their natures
are understood at all, seem to be incapable of change. It certainly seems that
things of these kinds are not one way at one moment, then an incompatible way
at another in virtue of how they themselves are. Indeed, I am aware of no consideration that even suggests that such things can undergo genuine change.8 In
what follows, then, I take for granted that there are atemporal entities, things that
exist without temporal reality, as real as anything else, but not at any moment.
94
Two views of timelessness (neither of which is adequate)

So there is no good reason to think that everything must or can change.9
Nevertheless, one might still resist the proposed account of atemporality.
There are traditionally two notions of timelessness. In one, an atemporal thing
is eternal: it is supposed to exist outside of time, that is, at no moment. In the
other, a timeless thing is sempiternal: it exists unchanging at each moment.
Thus, one might acknowledge that there are immutable things, but maintain
that such things still exist in time in the sense provided above: they exist
unchanging at every moment.
The capacity to change, however, is such a basic feature of an entity that it
is plausibly regarded as partially definitive of a things nature and so, in this way,
essential to anything that has it. Thus, it is of the very nature of a mutable thing
to be capable of changing, in that it is not possible for that very thing to exist as
the very thing it is and yet lack the capacity to change. A mutable thing must
be a temporal thing in that it must exist at a moment if it exists at all. Similarly,
for those things that are incapable of changing, it is of their very nature to be
incapable of changing. Nothing mutable is possibly immutable or vice versa;
a fortiori, nothing mutable becomes immutable (or vice versa). Temporal and
atemporal entities are necessarily mutually exclusive types of entity.
This is important for it provides grounds for rejecting the claim that
atemporal entities are sempiternal, timeless yet existing at moments. If
one assumes that an entity that exists at a moment is ipso facto susceptible
to change, then it follows immediately that no atemporal entity can exist at a
moment. If one forgoes this assumption, alternative considerations support
the same conclusion. If an atemporal entity is essentially immutable, it is
not immutable because it exists outside of time. Rather, it fails to exist at
a moment because, by its very nature, it is not susceptible to change. If,
however, one assumes that an atemporal entity exists unchanging at every
moment, one is left to account for why it exists at a moment if it cannot
change. The assumption that it exists in time is entirely gratuitous. The
simpler view, in that it does not require one to account for what would be
a perplexing feature of atemporal entities, is the one in which atemporal
entities just do not, by their very nature, exist at moments. Perhaps those
who accept sempiternal entities maintain that such things exist among the
temporal entitiesthat is, at momentsbecause they see no other way
to understand timeless structure in the world. But the preceding account
of time itself provides the means to do so: timeless things exist, yet at no
moment(s), for they are not related to time in a suitably intimate way.
There is, then, little motivation for maintaining that an immutable,
atemporal entity exists at all moments. This does not mean, however, that I
95
think the traditional notion of eternal existence provides an accurate account

of atemporality. This notion brings with it the idea of essential existence, in
that an eternal entity is supposed to be one that must exist by its very nature.
It would be inappropriate to say that such a thing has always existed, for this
is to characterize an atemporal entity with a temporal notion. But it is apt to
say that such a thing has no origin; it simply has to be.
I want to clearly distinguish essential existence (and, thus, eternal
existence) from timeless existence, for I believe there are things that are
timeless that nevertheless have origins. Such things do not exist essentially,
yet they exist, so they do, in a literal sense, become. However, they come
into existence outside of time. Each is an example of atemporal becoming.
Becoming: Temporal and absolute

I fully admit that the notion of atemporal becoming likely sounds incoherent.
The purpose of this chapter, though, is to show that not only is it coherent,
but that atemporal becoming plays an important role in the metaphysics
of time. Before expounding this phenomenon, it is helpful to discuss a
vexed, but more familiar, one, namely temporal becoming. As observed at
the outset, one of the conspicuous and inescapable features of a world in
which time is real is a certain dynamism: one experiences a world in flux
in which things constantly come into existence, change, and cease to be.
Temporal becoming is standardly supposed to underlie this dynamism. An
adequate account of this phenomenon makes clear the need for atemporal
becoming.
Dynamism: Change, temporal becoming, and novelty

Change is indubitable. Since there can be no change without dynamism,
both positions regarding the nature of temporal realitythat it is ontologically homogeneous and that it is ontologically heterogeneousmust provide
some account of temporal becoming. In so far as temporal becoming is a real
phenomenon, it has an ontological basis among the things that exist and the
relations in which they stand. However, no thing is in itself dynamic, and no
entity in isolation of every other thing changes. Certainly no property itself
changes, nor any moment; even a paradigmatic mutable entity, a concrete
individual substance, which obviously has the capacity to change, is not in
itself dynamic. The dynamism in the world comes not from any thing, but
arises from the relations in which entities stand. (Recall that in the operative
account of change, change occurs when a substance bears incompatible
96
properties at distinct moments.) Therefore, dynamism and the phenomenon

of temporal becoming that underlies it are structural features of the world.
This is apparent when one recognizes that temporal becoming is the
coming into being of some entity at a moment. Since change requires
a temporal entity, assuming (as seems plausible) that no mutable, that
is, temporal, entity is essentially existent, it follows that change requires
temporal becoming. If change is the mark of dynamism, this shows why
temporal becoming is supposed to underlie the dynamism in the world.
As intimated by the discussion above, incompatible accounts of temporal
becoming can be regarded as definitive of the two opposing positions
regarding the nature of temporal reality. In one position, at any moment
before a thing comes into existence at moment m, it EXISTS10 (tenselessly)
at m; in the other, before a thing comes into existence at a moment, it is in
no sense a constituent of reality. Both positions, then, provide some account
of temporal becoming; moreover, partisans of both positions can accept the
very same notion of change. However, in considering the dynamism in the
world, one must consider more than merely temporal becoming and change.
It is universally acknowledgedembraced by partisans of both positions on
the nature of temporal realitythat there is an especial impression of novelty
arising from being in a world in which time is real.
This impression of novelty has traditionally been characterized as a sense
of flow or passage. Thus, D. C. Williams asserts that we are immediately
and poignantly involved in the jerk and whoosh of process, the felt flow of
one moment into the next,11 and J. J. C. Smart maintains that certainly
we feel that time flows.12 Tim Maudlin states that there is a manifest fact
that the world is given to us as changing, and time as passing.13 Bradford
Skow characterizes the impression by observing that Of all the experiences
I will ever have, some of them are special. Those are the ones that I am
having NOW. All those others are ghostly and insubstantial,14 and Laurie
Paul observes that I feel the cool breeze on my face. I feel the freshness
of the cool breeze now, and, as the breeze dies down, I notice that time is
passing.15
This impression of novelty is crucially associated with the dynamism
in time. A full account of this dynamism and, hence, a fully satisfactory
metaphysics of time, needs to include not only accounts of temporal becoming
and change, but also some account of this special sort of novelty. Although
partisans of both positions regarding the nature of temporal reality agree that
there appears to be a further dynamic feature of reality, they disagree on
what is needed to account adequately for it. It is one of the most disputatious
points in the metaphysics of time whether the position that temporal reality is
ontologically homogeneous has the means to do so. A pivotal question, then,
is how one who thinks that the world in time is ontologically homogeneous
97
accounts for the impression of novelty, the phenomenon that, combined with
temporal becoming and change, yields the experience of a world in flux.
Novelty and ontological homogeneity of temporal reality

If there are many moments of time and everything in temporal realityall
the many moments and anything that exists at any one of themhas the
same ontological status, nothing in time is genuinely novel. Every mutable
thing EXISTS (tenselessly) and is always a constituent of reality, in the sense
that at every moment each temporal entity EXISTS at some moment. Since
there is nothing novel in reality itself, one must account for the impression of
novelty by citing some interaction between a thinking being and a permanent
feature of the world. Any novelty must be projected onto the world by ones
subjective experience of it, presumably as one encounters a permanent thing
or moment for the first time. Therefore, one must account for novelty in terms
of the changes in thinking beings who EXIST (tenselessly) at moments.
As is clear from their proposals to account for the impression of novelty,
this point is recognized by proponents of the ontological homogeneity of
temporal reality. J. J. C. Smart suggests that it is ones confusion regarding
how certain predicates in natural language (like is past, is present, and is
future) work that is the basis of this novelty.16 D. H. Mellor suggests that it
is ones different beliefs at different moments that is the subjective truth
in the metaphysical falsehood that time flows.17 In the same vein, Laurie
Paul suggests that the impression of novelty arises from the way brains of
conscious beings experience and interpret cognitive inputs from series of
static events.18
But this approach does not seem feasible. Grant that it is some mental
(or neuro-physiological) state of a thinking being that is the basis of the
impression of novelty. This impression is distinctive in that it marks a
particular moment as special (as novel). It can only do this, though, if no
other moment is marked in the same way. However, assuming temporal
reality is ontologically homogeneous, nothing in time is any more or any less
real than anything else. This includes not only every thinking being, but also
every mental state of every thinking being. If this is so, and the impression
of novelty is inexorable, then at every moment at which one exists, one has
the impression that that moment is novel. In which case, for any thinking
being there are many moments marked as novel; indeed every moment at
which one exists presents itself as novel. Thus, the mental state underlying
the impression of novelty cannot be the source of ones sense that there is
something special about this moment, now; for one has the same state (or a
relevantly similar one) at every moment at which one EXISTS, and one EXISTS
98
at many moments. An explanation of ones sense of the novelty of a particular

momentthis one, nowis still needed.
The problem here indicates a much deeper problem for the position that
temporal reality is ontologically homogeneous. The position does not present
an accurate account of how one experiences a world in which time is real.
Consider again Pauls account of the sense that time passes. At moment
m1, one feels the freshness of a cool breeze; at m2, the breeze has died
down to the extent that one no longer feels it. If both moments of time are
equally real, one both FEELS a cool breeze (at m1) and FEELS no breeze (at
m2). One does not feel the breeze and feel no breeze simultaneously; nevertheless, both experiences are as real and so should be equally arresting. But,
of course, one HAS no such odd and conflicting experience of a breeze and
no breeze.
Nota bene (and this point cannot be stressed enough): It makes no
difference that one experiences the cool breeze at m1 and feels no breeze
at m2, for both moments are equally real and one is just as much at one
moment, experiencing the cool breeze, as one is at the other, experiencing
no breeze.19 (Nor does it make any difference if it is merely a temporal part
of one at each moment, if a temporal part of a thinking being is sufficient
for that thinking being to be at and experiencing a moment.) Yet at most a
single moment is ever salient to one (in the familiar way). Even if one posits
some sort of mental (or neurophysiological) mechanism that at each moment
dampens ones experience of every other moment, one must account for the
fact that one experiences each equally real moment, in order, as if new. So
the need for an account of the basis of the impression of novelty is urgent,
but given that in this position, such an account can only be in terms of the
states of thinking beings in time, one does not seem forthcoming.
Therefore, it seems that if one accepts that temporal reality is ontologically
homogeneous, one must posit something extraneous to any thinking being
some objective feature of temporal realityas the basis of the undisputed
impression of novelty and the means of a plausible account of the phenomenology of being in time.
Novelty and passage

What the preceding section reveals is that there can be temporal becoming
and much change in the worldand even a sort of ceasing to be in time,
viz., EXISTENCE at some moments, but not at othersand yet there fail
to be any real dynamism. The temporal becoming and change accepted by
those who think temporal reality is ontologically homogeneous is consistent
with an utter lack of novelty, both in the world itself and in ones experience
99
of it. Many have conceded this point and in light of it have proposed that
temporal reality includes a phenomenon whereby the things in time, primarily
moments, gain and lose intrinsic properties in an orderly way, independently
of any thinking being. This sort of objective change, traditionally regarded as
true passage in time, is supposed by some to be the basis of the impression
of novelty.
The inclusion of objective intrinsic temporal properties among the things
in temporal reality has long been thought to be the definitive feature of
the position in opposition to the one in which the world in time is ontologically homogeneous. Although this is indeed the difference between some
(problematic) versions of the so-called A-theory and the B-theory of time, it
is a mistake to think that this difference is the basic one in the metaphysics
of time. If one accepts that an entity must exist in order to be any way
whatsoeverincluding past, present, and futurethen a view in which
every moment and anything that exists at that moment has some intrinsic
temporal property bears a greater affinity to the position that temporal
reality is ontologically homogeneous (it entails it) than the one that posits
ontological differences in the world in time.20 This point is noticed by some,21
but overlooked by many.22
In this view, the objective basis of novelty in temporal reality is the
continuous gain and subsequent loss, by moments, of the intrinsic (temporal)
properties, pastness, presentness, futurity. It is crucial to recognize that
nothing bears any one of these properties permanently. Thus, a moment
that is future momentarily takes on the property of being present and then
bears the property of being past (and subsequently, perhaps, the properties
associated with being further and further past). This is the traditional notion
of the passage of time; it is explicated in terms of literal change.
This account of the dynamism in temporal reality is illustrated by several
familiar metaphors: the moving spotlightjust as a spotlight illumines
a particular (unchanging) area as it courses over a building, presentness
illumines a single moment; a projected filmjust as one (unchanging)
frame of a film is shown as it passes the projector bulb, one moment is
shown as it momentarily bears the property of being present; a flip-book
just as one views as animated a series of static drawings as they quickly pass
by, one views a sequence of unchanging moments as each takes on the
property of presentness before becoming past. The images are well worn, as
is the underlying idea: there can be dynamism in a sequence of unchanging
things, if each, in succession, temporarily bears some special feature.
But one need only state the well-worn idea to raise concerns about its
coherence. In any coherent account, what it is for something to have a
feature temporarily is for that one thing to have the feature at one moment,
m1, and for that very thing to fail to have it at a distinct moment, m2. But
100
moments themselves cannot undergo this sort of change. Even granting

that a moment exists at itself, no moment can exist at a distinct moment, a
fortiori, no moment can have any propertytemporal or otherwisetemporarily. The incoherence of this view can be drawn out even more starkly. If the
objective basis of novelty in temporal reality were the continuous gain and
subsequent loss, by moments, of intrinsic temporal properties, then, given
that no moment can exist at a distinct moment, a moment would have to
have a given feature (say, presentness) temporarily in the sense that it has
that feature at m and subsequently fails to have that feature at m. But this is
contradictory in two ways: nothing can both have and fail to have a feature at
m; moreover, something at m cannot be subsequent to something at m.
Any view in which equally real moments are supposed to change leads
to contradiction. This is the key insight of McTaggarts discussion of the
metaphysics of time and the significance of the paradox named for him.23
McTaggart thought, incorrectly, that contradiction here shows that time is
unreal. Rather, it shows that an account of the nature of temporal reality, to
wit, one in which it is ontologically homogeneous, is incompatible with this
account of the dynamism and the undisputed sense of novelty associated
with being in the temporal world.24 One might try to introduce a higherorder temporal dimension to resolve the incoherence, but this leads to an
infinite regress of temporal dimensions. Even if such a regress is in itself
not problematic, it cannot solve the problem here, for such a structure could
include no novelty. The present task is to provide a plausible account of the
ontological basis of the novelty of being in time.
Hence, the too familiar images of the passage of time are entirely
misleading. In each casethe spotlight, the film, the flip-bookthere are
things that persist at different moments with different propertiesa particular
portion of a building, a frame on film, a drawing. Each thing has temporarily, in
the standard sense, some property, though perhaps merely a relational one.
One cannot make literal sense of these metaphors in the case of a series of
moments; moments do not persist and change requires persistence.
This important point can be made in another way. Each of the familiar
metaphors employs some process. Any sequence of changes that is appropriately considered a process requires the persistence of some entity
through some stages of the process. (There can be different persistent
entities at different stages of the same process, but persistence is required
nonetheless). Therefore, a process is something that occurs in time, over time,
that is, at distinct moments. But the objective basis of novelty in temporal
reality cannot be something that occurs at distinct moments. One has the
full impression of novelty at each momentrather than partial impressions at
distinct momentsand so the ontological basis of the dynamism in the world
cannot be any process. Nor can the objective basis of novelty be something
101
that occurs at a single moment, for if temporal reality is ontologically homogeneous, everything that occurs at a single moment is static and permanent.
Even if temporal reality is ontologically heterogeneous, what occurs at a
single moment is static. But if the objective basis of the experience of novelty
cannot occur at distinct moments, nor at a single moment, then it cannot
occur in time at all. In so far as there is an objective basis of the experience
of novelty, then, it must be something that is not temporal yet happens to
moments.
Absolute becoming
If there is real dynamismnoveltyin temporal reality, it cannot come
through process, the mere change of equally real things that exist at different
moments, nor can it come through the moments themselves taking on and
shedding intrinsic temporal properties (or properties of any sort). Change
itself cannot provide the ontological basis for the sort of dynamism that
partisans of both accounts of the world in time acknowledge. If one insists
that novelty come through change, one demands more from change than can
possibly be given. There is nothing more to change than the account provided
abovea sequence of changeless moments with the same persistent entity
at bothand such change can be fully accommodated by both accounts
of temporal reality. One who takes the novelty in temporal reality seriously
need not think that there is anything more to change.25 However, one must
accept that there is, in a sense, more to temporal reality than a sequence of
moments all of which EXIST (tenselessly).
If there is an ontological basis to the certain appearance of novelty, it arises
through moments in time coming into and going out of existence completely.
A moment comes into being, lasts but an instant, and then ceases to be
entirely. It does not cease to be relative to some other moment even as it
REMAINS a constituent of reality. It ceases in every sense to be a part of
reality. This phenomenon of coming to be is absolute becoming. The name
and original articulation of the notion comes from C. D. Broad.26
As observed at the end of the preceding section, the objective basis of
novelty needs to be something that is not temporal yet happens to moments,
despite their incapacity to change. Absolute becoming provides the means
of accounting for what happens to them: they come into being despite previously existing in no sense. Given this phenomenon, there is literal novelty
in temporal reality and not merely new acquaintance with something that
EXISTS (tenselessly) at many moments. Absolute becoming is not the coming
to be at a moment, which is temporal becoming, but rather the coming to be
of a moment. This is no process and yet the source of dynamism and novelty.
102
Therefore, the dynamism in the world is a structural feature: it is not found

in anything in itself, rather it is found among the things that exist, in the
relations they stand to one anotherincluding failing to relate in any sense
whatsoever (which occurs when, for example, a moment ceases to be a
constituent of reality). Given absolute becoming, a moment comes into being
and ceases to be, immediately replaced by a wholly novel moment. In so far
as one must recognize absolute becoming to account for the impression of
novelty in the worldand its objective ontological basisone must reject the
position that temporal reality is ontologically homogeneous. Thus, the world
in time is ontologically heterogeneous.
Atemporal becoming
Although each moment lasts but an instant, before ceasing to be a constituent
of reality, it does not follow that what exists at each moment goes out of
existence with each moment. Familiar concrete objects persist through
time, so literally the same one can exist at different moments. What it is
for a mutable entity to come into being is for it not to exist (or EXIST) at
any moment, then to exist at one. Regardless of ones account of temporal
becoming, what it is for something to come into existence in time is for it to
come to be at a moment. Existence at a moment is the mark of a temporal
entity.
Yet each temporal entity, which has the capacity to change, presumably
can be destroyed and, hence, cease to be. Consequently, everything that
exists in time eventually ceases to be. If this is so, there appears to be
no lasting stability, no true permanence in the world. This, however, is
problematic. After all, there are two conspicuous and inescapable features of
this world in which time is real. Just as much as one experiences a world in
flux, one experiences a stable world. The phenomenon of absolute becoming
might be the ontological basis of genuine novelty in the world, but, if this
is so, the indubitable permanence in the world seems to be lost. One who
acknowledges absolute becoming must account for the stability of a world in
which time is real. It remains to be seen, though, whether a view that accepts
that temporal reality is ontologically heterogeneous has the means to do so.
I believe the phenomenon of atemporal becoming reconciles radical,
continuous novelty in a world in which time is real with abiding permanence.
If temporal becoming, coming into being in time, is to come to be at a
moment, then atemporal becoming, coming into being outside of time, is to
come into being, but not at a moment. A thing that comes into being outside
of time is an atemporal entity. Above, it was noted that the mark of a temporal
103
being is the capacity to change; the mark, then, of an atemporal entity is

immutability. An atemporal being is one that does not and could not possibly
change. It comes into being outside of time because, by its very nature, it is
the sort of thing that cannot change.
What must be noted immediately is that coming into existence is not
any sort of change. An entity that comes into being is not first one way
non-existentand then a different wayexistenthaving persisted through
some change. Becoming is no sort of process; a fortiori, atemporal becoming
is not either. Of course, once an atemporal entity comes into existence it
cannot change. But the crucial point to recognize is that there is no contradiction in saying that a thing that comes into existence does so outside
of time, that it undergoes no change in coming to be and, therefore, is an
atemporal entity.
Note that it is a mistake to try to time, as it were, the coming into existence
of an atemporal entity. It might be tempting to say that the existence of some
new kind of thing comes into being simultaneously with the coming to be of
the first instance, some individual substance, of that kind. Temptation here
should be resisted, for this way of regarding the situation is misleading and
confusing. The coming to be of the two entities, the new kind and its first
instance, is not simultaneous, because what it is to be simultaneous is to
occur at the same moment. In this case, however, one entitythe individual
substancecomes to be at a moment, the otherits kindcomes to be, but
at no moment at all. It is literally false that the two origins are simultaneous.
I fear that some will suspect chicanery. One might insist that coming
to be seems like a processsomething must change when a novel entity
exists though it did not beforeso the notion of atemporal becoming is just
double-talk. I maintain, however, that any suspicions here must be based on
unexamined and too coarse notions of becoming and process (and perhaps
non-existence). The phenomenon of atemporal becoming articulated above
is based on explicit and plausible accounts of change, time, and temporal
becoming. Therefore, it seems to be a genuine phenomenon.
Atemporal entities
An atemporal entity is one that exists immutably outside of time. Such an
entity might lack an origin or, as argued above, an atemporal entity might
have an origin: it might come into being outside of time and EXIST (tenselessly) immutably. Examples of the former might be the number 2, God and
the property of being self-identical or being real. Examples of the latter might
be things like the property of being good or being salty or the kind water or
platypus or microwave-oven or fan of the New York Yankees.
104
In the present context, a particularly relevant kind of atemporal entity

that has an origin is a simple fact. I have discussed simple facts in detail
elsewhere, so I provide here only a very brief account of them.27 Simple facts
are mereologically simple and ontologically independent entities that are
both the truthmakers for every true representation and also provide, in many
cases, the ontological basis of the structure in the world. Examples of simple
facts are the simple fact that there is no tiger in my office (at m), the simple
fact that I am not eight feet tall (at m), the simple fact that the branches on
the tree outside my window are moving in the breeze (at m) and, importantly,
the simple fact that Aristotle is a philosopher (at m), where m is a moment
that no longer exists. Such entities are of crucial importance because they are
the ontological basis of the permanence in a world that also includes absolute
becoming and radical novelty.
In such a world, every moment and every mutable entity at some point
ceases to be. However, there are simple facts that come into existence to
ground every true account of every moment and everything in time. Given
atemporal becomingand the existence of simple factsone who accepts
that temporal reality is ontologically heterogeneous, and so can adequately
account for the experience of novelty, can also account for the indubitable
permanence in the world. Things, the temporal ones, come and go, but some
things, the atemporal ones, abide.
Conclusion
Reality is structured: it is, in itself, a world of natured entities standing in
relations. The proper understanding of these entities and their natures and
relations enables one to see that there is time and change and mutable
things; there are also immutable things, entities not intimately related to
time. The proper understanding of process and its ontological basis, absolute
becoming, enables one to distinguish temporal becoming from atemporal
becoming.
Atemporal becoming is the phenomenon that reconciles the two seemingly
irreconcilable features of being in a world in which time is real: there is flux
and transience and there is stability and permanence. Every truth about some
changing feature of the world is grounded by an unchanging and immutable
entity in the atemporal world (viz., some simple fact). So transience is in the
temporal world, permanence in the atemporal world. Reality includes both
the temporal and atemporal.
I believe the pressing sense that reality is both transient and permanent,
and the inability of the two general positions regarding the nature of temporal
105
reality to account for this sense in themselves has been the source of much, if
not all, of the contention in contemporary discussions about the metaphysics
of time. If one takes the beginning of the modern development of the
metaphysics of time to be McTaggarts seminal argument for the unreality of
time, one sees from the outset the struggle to provide a satisfactory account
of the dynamism in a world of static moments.
What has been neglected in the metaphysics of time is the notion that
there is more to the world than the world in time, and the initially perplexing
phenomenon of atemporal becoming. The preceding discussion is my attempt
to redress this neglect and thereby sketch a fully satisfactory metaphysics of
time, one that embraces both of the conspicuous and inescapable features of
this world in which time is real. Thus, one can contemplate in silencethen
be startled by a flash and accompanying boomthen return to silence, and
although the flash and boom are gone in every sense, there is something
that remains unchanged, a simple fact regarding the flash and boom that
no longer exist. This fact, having come into existence outside of time, is as
permanent and stable as a thing could be.28
Notes
1 See, for example, Shoemaker (1969); for an opposing view, see Lowe (2002:
2479). Time without change is consistent with the account of time per se I
am about to present.
2 A thing is certain ways because of what it is and via this nature contributes
to the structure in reality. I make no distinction between thing, entity,
existent, or being; any difference in usage is merely stylistic.
3 In brief, the argument for this claim is that since change is actual, it must be
possible; the thing that makes it possible therefore must exist.
4 The tenseless theory is a misleading name for this position because it
is based on a semantic thesis that is actually compatible with the other
position on temporal reality about to be presented in the text. For a
discussion of the tenseless theory, see Mellor (1981, 1998).
5 The tensed theory is a misleading representative of this class of views
because it is based on a semantic thesis that is actually orthogonal to the
key ontological issues. See the previous note.
6 These terms come from Peter Geach (see Geach 1969: 712) in (perhaps
backhanded) acknowledgment of the Cambridge philosophers, like
McTaggart and Russell, who employed the notions.
7 Note that there can be real changes that are relational. Changes incurred
when a thing takes on a part that it did not have or when it simply moves
are, in both cases, in virtue of how that thing itself is (how it is composed or
where it is located).
106
8 Quentin Smith argues that all entities, including abstract ones such as
propositions, exist in time (see Smith 1998: 15761). However, his argument
for this is based on the claim that an object undergoes genuine change
when it changes with respect to its Cambridge properties. He is explicit
about this (Smith 1998: 148). So he maintains that when I cease to believe
a certain proposition, p, this is a change in p. But clearly what grounds this
change is some difference in my mental states, not in how p is in itself.
9 Given this real distinction between the world within time and the world
without, I must disagree with Chisholm and Zimmerman, who maintain
that there is no reason to take tenselessness seriously (Chisholm and
Zimmerman 1997).
10 In the context of any discussion of the homogeneity of temporal reality,
all verbs must be read as tenseless. I only put select verbs in ALL CAPS
in order to emphasize their tenseless reading, but this does not mean the
other verbs in that context are not tenseless. This point should be borne in
mind throughout this chapter.
11 Williams (1951: 4656).
12 Smart (1980: 3).
13 Maudlin (2007: 135).
14 Skow (2009: Section IV).
15 Paul (2010: 333). For further recognition of this impression of novelty, see,
for example, Schlesinger (1982: 501, 515) and Mellor (1998: 667).
16 Smart (1967).
17 Mellor (1998: 66). Mellor (1981: 116) characterizes change in ones beliefs as
the psychological reality behind the myth of passage.
18 Paul (2010: 339).
19 For related discussion of this point, see Fiocco (2010).
20 Hence, I disagree with Laurie Paul when she maintains that the nexus of
a philosophical debate over the ontology of time is whether the temporal
properties of now and passage exist (Paul 2010: 338).
21 See, for instance, Skow (2012: 223), where Skow asserts that his A-theory
of time is a version of eternalism.
22 For a prominent example, see the work of D. H. Mellor (1981, 1998).
23 See McTaggart (1908).
24 Thus, Skows view, which explicitly combines the ontological homogeneity
of temporal reality with changing moments, seems problematic. See
Note21.
25 Pace Laurie Pauls claim at Paul (2010: 334).
26 See Broad (1938: ch. 35, vol. II). For discussion of the notion, see Savitt
(2002: 159ff.) and Fiocco (2007). Savitt interprets Broads account of
absolute becoming very differently than I do.
27 See Fiocco (2014).
28 I would like to thank Michael Brent and Nathan Oaklander for their
interesting and insightful comments on a draft of this chapter.
107
References
Broad, C. D. (1938), An Examination of McTaggarts Philosophy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, R. and Zimmerman, D. (1997), Theology and tense, Nos, 31,
2625.
Edward, P. (ed.) (1967), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Macmillan.
Fiocco, M. O. (2007), Passage, becoming and the nature of temporal reality,
Philosophia, 35, 121.
(2010), Temporary intrinsics and relativization, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly,
91, 6477.
(2014), On Simple Facts, Res Philosophica, 91(3).
Geach, P. (1969), God and the Soul. London: Routledge.
van Inwagen, P. (ed.) (1980), Time and Cause: Essays Presented to Richard
Taylor. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Le Poidevin, R. (ed.) (1998), Questions of Time and Tense. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lowe, E. J. (2002), A Survey of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Maudlin, T. (2007), The Metaphysics within Physics. New York: Oxford University
Press.
McTaggart, J. M. E. (1908), The unreality of time, Mind, 18, 45784.
(1998), Real Time II. London and New York: Routledge.
Paul, L. (2010), Temporal experience, Journal of Philosophy, 107, 33359.
Savitt, S. (2002), On Absolute Becoming and the Myth of Passage, in Craig
Callender (ed.), Time, Reality and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge
Schlesinger, G. (1982), How time flies, Mind, 91, 50123.
Shoemaker, S. (1969), Time without change, Journal of Philosophy, 66, 36381.
Skow, B. (2009). Relativity and the moving spotlight, Journal of Philosophy,
106, 66678.
(2012), Why does time pass?, Nos, 46, 22342.
Smart, J. J. C. (1967), Time, in P. Edward (ed.), The Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. New York: Macmillan.
(1980), Time and Becoming, in P. van Inwagen, Time and Cause: Essays
Presented to Richard Taylor. Dordrecht: Reidel, p. 315.
Smith, Q. (1998), Absolute Simultaneity and the Infinity of Time, in R. Le
Poidevin (ed.), Questions of Time and Tense. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 13583.
Williams, D. C. (1951), The myth of passage, Journal of Philosophy, 48,
45772.
6
Temporal Predicates and the
Passage of Time
M. Joshua Mozersky
Introduction
raditionally, advocates of the tenseless, B-theory of time deny the reality

of temporal passage (e.g. Smart 1963, 1980; Mellor 1981, 1998; Horwich
1987; Price 1996). I argue that this is a mistake. B-theorists should accept that
time passes not only because there is overwhelming evidence that it does,
but also because the B-theory provides the best resources for making sense
of the passage of time. I defend this view via a consideration of the puzzle
of change: how is it possible to make sense of a single object having incompatible properties at different times? I present and defend a solution to this
puzzle that neednt worry B-theorists and allows for a coherent and satisfying
theory of change, persistence, and temporal passage.
The logical form of temporal predicates

Consider the temporal predicates x is past, x is present, and x is future,
which I shall refer to as A-predicates. Assume that the variables take
individuated entities, such as events or times, as values. Let us begin with
a simple question about these predicates: are they one-place (monadic) or
are they many-place (relational)? If the former, then their logical form is as
follows:
(A) F(x), G(x), and H(x);
110
if the latter, then their logical form is:

(B) F(x, y), G(x, y), and H(x, y),1
which I shall refer to as B-relations.2 How might we decide between these
two options? A useful place to start is with a consideration of the nature of
change.
The concept of change can certainly appear puzzling. On the one hand,
change requires difference: if x changes from F to ~F, then x is no longer
exactly the same before and after the change. On the other hand, change
requires identity: if x changes from F to ~F, then it must be x that is both
F and ~F; if distinct entities are F and ~F respectively, then nothing has
changed. Yet identity and difference appear to conflict with each other. If x
= y, then x and y cannot differ in any way (Leibnizs Law); but, if x changes
from F to ~F, then it seems that whatever it is that is F cannot be identical
to whatever it is that is ~F. Hence, change appears to be impossible (see
Hinchliff 1996).
We can generate a similar puzzle with A-predicates. The reason for this is
that if these predicates are to model time, then if anything satisfies a given
A-predicate, it must also satisfy the others (let us ignore the complication of
a first or last moment of time, as this will not impact the arguments here).
If some event is, say, present, it does not remain present for eternity; it is
eventually past and something else is present, and so on. But then one and
the same entity must be both F (present) and ~F (past), and the conflict
between identity and difference arises for anything that satisfies A-predicates.
I propose that the solution to the puzzle of change and the decision
between (A) and (B) are the same. So, let us start with change. Suppose
some object, x, goes through a change, say from being (entirely) blue to being
(entirely) green. If we let F(x) = x is blue and G(x) = x is green, and
assume that F(x) entails ~G(x) (and vice versa), then the formal description of
this change appears to be the logically impossible:
(1) F(x) &G(x).
In other words, when ordinary predicates are understood monadically, attributions of change are outright contradictions.
One can, however, reconcile identity and difference while avoiding contradictions in one fell swoop. The trick is to assume that ordinary predicates,
such as x is blue and x is green, are two-place relations that hold between
objects and times. In that case, the logical form of the predicate x is blue is:
(2) F(x, t)
Temporal Predicates and the Passage of Time
111
and the logical from of the predicate x is green is:

(3) G(x, t).
Given this, the proposition that some object has changed from blue to green
is:
(4) ( x)(F(x, t1) &G(x, t2)).
Notice that in (4) it is one entity, x, that satisfies both relational predicates, so
identity through change is preserved in this description. Furthermore, in (4)
x is blue at one time, green at another, so difference is represented. Finally,
note that (4) is consistent since two otherwise incompatible relations can be
combined without contradiction if they relate an entity to two different times.
So, the problem of how to coherently describe change has been resolved.
Returning to A-predicates, we can engage in a similar line of reasoning.
Suppose that some event, e, is present, then past. How are we to represent
this? If A-predicates are monadic, our choice would seem to be (1) again,
which is a contradiction because F(x) entails ~G(x) and G(x) entails ~F(x).
Let us, then, try an analogous solution: e is past will be understood as a
relation between an entity and a time:
(5) F(e, t).
Similarly, e is present will be:
(6) G(e, t).
Now the change an event undergoes from being present to being past can
be expressed as follows:
(7) ( e)F(e, t1) &G(e, t2).
This proposition is logically consistent and reconciles identity and difference.
Accordingly, (B) is to be preferred over (A) and we may conclude that
A-predicates are relations. It appears that the simple question with which we
began has been answered.
This argument may look familiar. It is, with one important difference,
very much like McTaggarts argument against the coherence of the A-series
(McTaggart 1908, 1927). The important difference is that McTaggart thought
that propositions such as (7) preserve identity and logical consistency at
the cost of difference; in other words, he believed that neither (4) nor (7)
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represent change. Hence he took the argument against (A) to be an argument

against the existence of time on the grounds that time entails change. But
why follow McTaggart here? I turn next to three lines of reasoning intended
to indict (4) and (7) as unsatisfactory accounts of change.
Objections to the relational theory

McTaggart
The first objection, which is noted above, is due to McTaggart who argued
that propositions such as (7) and (4) are not truly representations of change
because their truth-values are unchanging:
The fact that [a poker] is hot at one point in a series and cold at other points
cannot give change, if neither of these facts change It follows from
what we have said that there can be no change unless some propositions
are sometimes true and sometimes false. (McTaggart 1927: 15)
B-relations have temporally stable extensions. If x is blue at t, then x is blue
at t in a temporally insensitive way: it will not one day become false that x is
blue at t because events in time are not variable in that way. So McTaggart is
right that a proposition of the form of (7) is, if true, a tenseless truth. Must we,
however, follow McTaggart in concluding that (7) cannot represent change? I
dont see why we should. Even if a representation does not itself change, it
does not follow that it is not a representation of change.
Heather Dyke has very importantly drawn attention to what she calls the
representational fallacy (Dyke 2008), which is, roughly, the attempt to read
off features of non-linguistic reality from features of our linguistic representations.3 I think she is right to be suspicious of such reasoning. There are
many instances in which features of our representationsfor example, the
presence of wordsfail to be features of what we represent. In general,
therefore, a property of a representation isnt necessarily a property of that
which is represented.
McTaggarts suspicion of (7) appears to rest, however, on the even more
dubious inverse of the representational fallacy. One would only follow
McTaggarts argument that (7) does not accurately represent change if one
were to suppose that a property of what is represented must be a property of
the representation. In this particular case, McTaggart assumes that the world
can exhibit change in properties only if propositions about that world change
their properties, in particular their semantic properties. This is, however,
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simply not credible for, if generalized, it would entail that any representation
of a red item must itself be red, or any story about evil must itself be evil, or
that a picture of a living person must itself be alive, and so on. There is no
reason to suppose that there is anything like a one-to-one correspondence
here.
What we may conclude is that McTaggart had good reason to insist that
the only coherent conception of A-predicates is relational, but wrong to
assume that this meant the unreality of change.
Lewis
It has been argued that the relational account is incompatible with the idea of
intrinsic change. David Lewis gives forceful expression to this concern:
Persisting things change their intrinsic properties. For instance shape:
when I sit, I have a bent shape; when I stand, I have a straightened shape.
Both shapes are temporary intrinsic properties; I have them only some of
the time. How is such change possible? I know of only three solutions
First solution: contrary to what we might think, shapes are not genuine
intrinsic properties. They are disguised relations, which an enduring thing
may bear to times. One and the same enduring thing may bear the bentshape relation to some times, and the straight-shape relation to others. In
itself, considered apart from its relations to other things, it [i.e., a changing
object] has no shape at all. And likewise for all other seeming temporary
intrinsics; all of them must be reinterpreted as relations that something
with an absolutely unchanging intrinsic nature bears to different times. The
solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics is that there arent any
This is simply incredible If we know what shape is, we know that it is a
property not a relation. (Lewis 1986: 2034)
One can identify three complaints in this passage: first, that the relational
solution reduces objects to loci of unchanging intrinsic natures; second, and
relatedly, that the relational view entails that nothing is temporarily intrinsic
to an object; and third, that it is simply unbelievable that, for example, an
objects shape could be a relation between it and a time. I address each of
these in turn.
Concerning the first objection, it is hard to see why expressing ordinary
change by way of propositions of the form of (4) above reduces x to
something that has an unchanging intrinsic nature. Perhaps the thought is
that if, for example, shape is a relation between x and t, then x in fact lacks a
shape. But just because it is only meaningful to predicate some shape of x if
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there is some time or other at which x has that shape, it doesnt follow that x
itself is somehow shapeless. One has to keep in mind that we are concerned
here with relations between material objects and times, and if there is no
time at which x is shaped, well, then x has no shape. For a material object to
have a shape is for it to be shaped at some time or other, and this does not
entail that the object lacks shape. It simply entails that shape predications
only make sense in reference to a time at which the shape is exemplified.4
So, in other words, it is truly x that has a shape in the relational view; it is just
that the having of its shape is not something that can be rendered sensible
without reference to some time or another. Hence, I think that the relational
view does not render objects featureless.
If this is right, then the reply to Lewiss second objection is as follows.
It is true that ascriptions of shape, size, color, mass, and so on, are necessarily relative to times. This, however, is compatible with shape, size, color,
mass, and so on, being intrinsic to objects because according to (4) above it
is precisely the object, x, and not something else that has shape, size, color,
mass, and so on, at a time. In particular, it is not the objecttime pair that
is, say, round, or large, or blue, and so on. Suppose, for comparison, that
John is inside a house. This is a relation between John and a house, and the
relation requires the existence of both, so in that sense one might want to
say that the pair instantiates the is inside of relation. Nevertheless, in this
pair it is John who is inside; the Johnhouse pair isnt inside of anything.
Now, of course, this isnt an intrinsic property of John, so the comparison
is misleading in that respect. However, the point I am trying to emphasize
is this: the fact that x stands in relation R to y doesnt entail that there is
no asymmetry, with respect to R, between x and the pair <x, y>. So, even
though xs being blue entails that there is a t at which x is blue, and in this
sense can be said to entail that the pair <x, t> instantiates the is blue at
relation, this is all compatible with it being x that is blue rather than the pair
<x,t> (how could such a thing be blue anyway?).5 I think we can see that this
is sufficiently intrinsic if we examine this concept in a bit more detail.
Lewis writes that A thing has its intrinsic properties in virtue of the way
that thing itself, and nothing else, is (Lewis 1983: 197). It is important to
note that, according to the relational theory defended above, although x is red
at t in virtue of standing in the is red at relation to t, xs being red doesnt
depend on the way that t is. It depends, rather, on there being a t at which
x is red. Lewis in fact defends an analogous position, for in his view (Lewis
1986) for x to be F is for x to be F in some world or other. Lewis does not,
nor should he, conclude on that basis that for any F, xs being F depends in
part on the way xs world is and so isnt intrinsic. To be F is to be F in some
world, for Lewis, even if F is intrinsic. Analogously, in the relational view, for
any material object to be F is for it to be F at some time, even if F is intrinsic.
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Here is more from Lewis:

The intrinsic properties of something depend only on that thing; whereas
the extrinsic properties of something may depend, wholly or partly, on
something else. If something has an intrinsic property, then so does any
perfect duplicate of that thing; whereas duplicates situated in different
surroundings will differ in their extrinsic properties. (Lewis 1983: 197)
I think, however, that the first sentence is wrong. Since to be a material object
is to occupy space and time, all properties of material bodies depend on space
and time for their instantiation; material bodies would not exist without space
and time. Nonetheless, there is still a difference between those properties
that are properties of the object (its being round) and those that are not, or
not wholly, of the object (e.g., its being to the left of something).
It should be added, moreover, that in the relational view of predication, a
perfect duplicate of a material object would not differ intrinsically from the
original object. What follows from the relational view is that for an object and
its duplicate, any specification that the object or duplicate is F must make
reference to time, that is, to when the object is F. This is in fact a strength
of the relational view, for we dont want to commit to an account of material
objects that does not tie their descriptions to spatial and temporal locations.
An object is material only if it instantiates its predicates at some time (place)
or another and this will be true of both an object and its duplicate.
So, the relational view appears to be compatible with the distinction
between those predications that describe an object itself and those that do
not. The distinction depends on whether one needs to specify a time/place
in describing the object or whether one needs also to specify other objects.
If one insists that even in the former case, the concept of something being
intrinsic to an object has been destroyed, then my reply is Let us lay this
concept to rest in peace, for it has become impossible to suppose that any
predication ever captures anything intrinsic about a material object without
denying that material objects are necessarily related to at least one time (and
place); that is, without denying something that is essential to materiality. The
relational account has an alternative understanding of intrinsic close at hand.
As for Lewiss third objection, I think that the sting is taken out of it by
the foregoing considerations: the relational theory of temporal predication
seems less bizarre once we realize that it doesnt render objects featureless
or lacking intrinsic characterizations. Whats more, it captures something we
want any theory of objects to capture, namely that it makes no sense to
predicate anything of a material object without entailing that there is some
time at which that predicate is instantiated. I conclude that Lewiss concerns
are not telling against the relational theory.
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Mellor
D. H. Mellor argues that the relational account of predication fails because:
relations generally do not require the entities they link to share locations
in space and time. My being taller than Napoleon, for example, is quite
consistent with his dying before I was conceived; while my conceptions
being later than his death positively requires it. (Mellor 1998: 934)
So, argues Mellor, x is blue at t cannot be a relation between x and t
because if x is blue at t then x must exist at t but R(x, t) does not entail that x
coexists with t. As a result, Mellor argues that predicates such as x is blue
are monadic but that temporal predications must include a temporal operator,
for example:
(8) At t: Fx.
If x changes from F to ~F, then:
(9) At t: ~Fx.
For Mellor, the operator indicates the location of a fact (that x is F and ~F
respectively). In this way, consistent descriptions of change are possible.
As Mellor himself observes (Mellor 1998: 94), some relations do entail
sameness of temporal location; his example is x is simultaneous with y.
But, we should note, there are very many relations that entail temporal (and,
in many cases, spatial) coincidence or overlap. Here are just a few examples:
x is in (physical) contact with y, x is above y, x is beside y, x is talking
to y, x is at y, and so on. So in some cases the fact that x stands in R to
y entails that x and y overlap temporally; in other cases it does not. It is,
therefore, hard to see why Mellors words in the quotation above count, in
any decisive way, against the relational view of predication. What appears to
be the case is that some relations are spatial- or temporal-overlap entailing
and some are not, but that this difference is not the result of logical form.
Mellor presents a response to this sort of challenge:
But it is no answer to say that changeable properties too are relations
which entail this [i.e., sameness of temporal location]. For what makes [a
is F at t] entail that a is located at t, if not the fact that, as I argued in 3,
Fs being a non-relational property requires a to be located wherever and
whenever a is F. (Mellor 1998: 94)
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This is an interesting suggestion, but ultimately fails as an argument against

the relational view. The reason for this is that the argument in 3 to which
Mellor alludes is that the gain or loss of any of xs real properties must have
its first effects on, in or at least near x:
The birth of another child to my parents is not a change in me, because
its first effects are neither on nor near me In short, real changes of
properties need effects, and for them to be changes in the things to which
we ascribe those properties, that is where their first effects must be.
(Mellor 1998: 878)
Notice, however, that es first effects are at/on x (where e indicates an
event that is a change in x) is a relational predicate, and if it can entail that e
and x are co-located, then so can x is blue at t, or x is green at t entail
that x and t are co-located.
Perhaps Mellor has in mind that there is something about causation that
does the essential work here, that is, that it is only because e is the effect of
the gain or loss of a property of x that e and x are co-located. This does not
strike me as plausible because causally disconnected events or objects can
coincide or overlap. However, even if we accept this line of reasoning, nothing
prevents the advocate of the relational account of temporal predication from
helping herself to a similar story. That is to say, the relationalist can argue that
it is because becoming blue has its first effects, say at t, on x that x is blue
at t entails that x and t are co-located; this is fine and doesnt change the
fact that x is blue at t is a relational predicate.6
Mellor also makes the following, further point:
The causal test for properties is related to another one, namely that a
things properties should be detectable just by inspecting that thing.
(Mellor 1998: 88)
However, as my argument above entails, there is no way to inspect
something without inspecting it at some time or other. Hence, there is no
way to detect anything about some object, x, independent of time. The fact
that everything manifested by some object is manifested relative to a time in
no way excludes the possibility of that objects properties being detectable by
inspection of that object alone.
It is simply a mistake to treat relations to times as akin to relations to
other objects in this respect. It makes perfect sense to suppose that a
material object, x, is red independent of its relations to any other objects in
the universe, that is, that it would still be red even if they did not exist; this
may turn out to be physically impossible,7 but it is a coherent supposition.
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What is not coherent, however, is to suppose that x is red independent of its

relations to time, for that would entail that x could be red even if there were
never a time at which it is red (or that we could inspect it for color but not at
a particular time), which is absurd.8
We can extend these observations to temporal operator accounts of
predication in general. In indicating a temporal location, the operator
Att in At t: Fx sets up a relation, in particular the relation of temporal
co-location, between t and x, or between t and that fact that x is F.9 At
t, in other words, indicates the time at which x is F. Since there will, in
general, be some times at which x is F and some times at which it is not,
the formula:
(8) At t: Fx.
will be satisfied by ordered pairs, <x, t>, of objects and times, which is
another way of saying that (8) expresses a relation.10 There is simply no
getting around it: temporary predicates, including A-predicates, are relational
in form.11
The passage of time

I have argued that the relational account of temporal predication leads to a
coherent and satisfactory account of change. If I am right, then change is
compatible with a tenseless, or B-theoretic, world-view. It seems to me to
follow from this that the passage of time is itself compatible with a tenseless,
B-theoretic world-view. I propose the following: time passes if and only if
first one thing (or a set of things) happens, then another. Temporal passage
is, in other words, the ordering of events by the B-relation, x is earlier
than y. People age and die, species arise and fall, fruit ripens and rots, and
planets orbit stars. All of this is describable in the tenseless, relational view
of temporal predication.
Most authors who defend a tenseless, B-theoretic account of time,
however, deny that time passes; for example:
It is clear, then, that we cannot talk about time as a river, about the flow of
time, of our advance through time, or of the irreversibility of time without
being in great danger of falling into absurdity. (Smart 1949: 485)
There is no real passage of time. What we refer to by the passage of
time is an illusory feature of conscious experience. (Prosser 2007: 81)
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My present thesis would resolve the antinomy by rejecting the extra idea
of passage as spurious altogether. (Williams 1951: 462)
There are many other examples one could mention (e.g. Smart 1963, 1980;
Mellor 1981, 1998; Price 1996). I think that this is a mistake. We all have
overwhelming evidence that time passes: I am now typing on a computer but
earlier today I was not; I used to carry my daughter on my forearm but she
is now too big for that; 25 years ago nobody had a smart phone while today
they are ubiquitous; and so on. Accordingly, the denial of temporal passage
lends unneeded credibility to the opponents of the tenseless, relational view
of time. So the question I want to address next is: Why do B-theorists reject
the passage of time?12
I think there are two reasons. The first is that many B-theorists accept
McTaggarts view that only the A-series can explain passage. Mellor, for
example, writes:
One author, however, I will acknowledge: J. E. McTaggart, who proved the
unreality of tense and of the flow of time. (Mellor 1981: 3)
What is wrong with McTaggart is not his attack on times flow but his view
that change requires it. (Mellor 1998: 72)
Here we see a move from the tenseless view of the world (i.e., the denial
of the tensed view) to the unreality of the flow of time. But such a transition
can now be seen to be unnecessary and unmotivated. If the passage of
time required monadic A-predicates, then there would indeed be no passage
of time. But what authors such as Mellor overlook is the possibility of a
tenseless, B-theoretic temporal passage to be equated, I argue, with the
temporal ordering of events.
The tenseless, B-theoretic world-view is one in which the sum total of
events, objects, and processes is unchanging (which is why the extensions of
temporal predicates are not temporally variable). This, however, is compatible
with change:
change is always variation in one thing with respect to another, the
totality of absolute facts about those functional relations remaining forever
constant. (Horwich 1987: 25)
Horwich is right: the existence of genuine change does not require the totality
of facts to change with respect to time. Therefore, the passage of time does
not require such change either.
Michael Dummett disagrees:
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Now if time were real, then there would be no such thing as the
complete description of reality. There would be one, as it were, maximal
description of reality in which the statement The event M is happening
figured, others which contained the statement The event M happened,
and yet others which contain The event M is going to happen. (Dummett
1978: 356)
The problem is that this argument presupposes that real change or passage
requires absolute (i.e., non-relational) A-predicates to apply to events. Without
this assumption, then what M is happening or M is now expresses is a
temporally invariant relation between M and a particular time, and this relation
is expressible at other times. As I have argued above, the non-relational
account of A-predicates is untenable and I see no reason to cling to its ghostly
apparition, that is, to the idea that without it nothing really changes.
The second reason that B-theorists deny temporal passage is that they
think of it as a kind of motion, a motion whose rate is indefinable. Here, for
example, is Smart:
Contrast the pseudo-question how fast am I advancing through time?
or How fast did time flow yesterday?. We do not know how we ought
to set about answering it. What sort of measurement ought we to make?
We do not even know the sort of units in which our answer should be
expressed. I am advancing through time at how many seconds per?
we might begin, and then we should have to stop. What could possibly fill
the blank? Not seconds surely. In that case the most we could hope for
would be the not very illuminating remark that there is just one second in
every second. (Smart 1949: 485)
A more recent variation is due to Huw Price:
Indeed, perhaps the strongest reason for denying the objectivity of the
present is that it is so difficult to make sense of the notion of an objective
flow or passage of time. Why? Well, the stock objection is that if it made
sense to say that time flows then it would make sense to ask how fast it
flows Some people reply that time flows at one second per second, but
even if we could live with the lack of other possibilities, this answer misses
the more basic aspect of the objection. A rate of seconds per second is not
a rate at all in physical terms. It is a dimensionless quantity, rather than a
rate of any sort. (Price 1996: 13)
There is, however, nothing in the relational account of change that entails
that temporal passage must be thought of as a kind of motion. Our
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language is perhaps a bit misleading here. We speak of the passage of

time as though some single, individuated entity, Time Itself, is changing or
moving, when in fact what is really going on is that changes occur within or
with respect to time. So, the passage of time strikes me as a summary
concept that refers to the ongoing processes of change that constantly
occur, in order, with respect to time.13 The only thing all these processes
have in common is that they involve events related by is earlier than; it
is this relation and not the concept of motion that captures the essence of
temporal passage.
Suppose that a person begins the day with nervous energy, becomes
stressed as the day progresses, and then feels a late afternoon bout of
sadness before feeling happy and relieved in the evening. What could the
rate of this change possibly be: so many moods per hour? Even if there is
no answer to this question (perhaps moods are not divisible in the requisite
way), it is obvious that this person has undergone various emotional changes
over the course of the day. So, it is not essential that there be a well-defined
rate of change in order for change to occur (and we certainly dont need to
know that there is such a rate in order to correctly conclude that change has
occurred).14
In sum, passage neednt be a kind of motion nor explained in terms of
monadic A-predicates in order to be real. There is, therefore, no conflict
between the tenseless, B-theoretic world-view and the reality of temporal
passage.
On two rival views: Temporal parts theory

and presentism
The relational view of temporal predication, change, and passage that I
defend above differs in important respects from two popular philosophical
theses: presentism and perdurantism. First, the relational view ontologically
commits to more than one time (e.g. (4) above) which conflicts with the
presentist proposition that, necessarily, all and only that which is present
exists. Second, in the relational view, when an object changes it is numerically the same object before and after the changefor example x in (4) above
takes the same object as its value in both placesand this conflicts with
the perdurance view that objects persist in virtue of having distinct temporal
parts that are located at different times. Let me make a few brief remarks on
presentism and perdurantism in turn.
Arthur Prior sets up one of his many defenses of presentism by noting the
need to make room for a concept of temporal passage:
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I believe that what we see as a progress of events is a progress of events,

a coming to pass of one thing after another, and not just a timeless
tapestry with everything stuck there for good and all. (Prior 1996: 47)
I have argued, however, that the relational view is perfectly consistent with
genuine and objective change as well as temporal passage. So there is no
need to appeal to the coming into (and passing out of) being of events to
make sense of the passage of time. This is a good thing, for I consider such
a process to be deeply mysterious. I also prefer a view that allows past and
future times, objects and events to serve as the referents and truthmakers
of propositions about the past and future, since this strikes me as the most
straightforward way of making sense of thought and talk about the past and
future (I discuss this issue in Mozersky 2011). The relational theory allows for
all this.
Others defend presentism on other grounds. For example, Craig (1998)
argues that presentism is the only way to solve the apparent contradiction
entailed by A-predication.15 The arguments above suggest otherwise. Others
suggest that presentism is the common-sense view (Markosian 2004;
Zimmerman 2008). Note, however, that the relational account defended
above is based on the proposition that objects persist through change,
then uses rather straightforward logical considerations to draw conclusions,
including that the passage of time is real; I submit that there is little to offend
common sense here.
In short, by committing to the reality of change and passage, avoiding
McTaggarts contradiction and cohering with common sense, the relational
view allows one to resist many of the arguments used to push one toward
the presentist ontology. As I mention above, I take this to be a consideration
in favor of the relational view.
According to perdurance theory, on the other hand:
change over time is the possession of different properties by different
temporal parts of an object. (Hawley 2001: 12)
It is worth noting that in this kind of view the primary bearers of predicates
are temporal parts of objects, not objects; x is F at t in virtue of having a
temporal part, p, located at, and only at, t such that p is F. I find perdurance
theories to be less extravagant than presentismno mysterious coming
into existence from nothingbut the former still incur the disadvantage of
committing to entities, namely temporal parts, that are unfamiliar. Is the
commitment to such entities necessary?
Sider argues that one reason for believing in temporal parts is that it solves
the puzzle of change:
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The temporal parts account of change is that incompatible properties are

had by different objects, different temporal parts of the whole. Change
is therefore no more remarkable than the variation of a road with some
bumpy stretches and some smooth stretches. (Sider 2001: 93)
This is by no means the only or even the central argument Sider provides for
a temporal parts ontology, but the relational view does remove a motivation
for the view by providing an alternate account that has what I believe to be
the distinct advantage that objects retain their strict, numerical identity as
they change. Sider adopts stage theory according to which later temporal
parts of an object, though numerically distinct from earlier ones, are the
object at later times (they are temporal counterparts). So, he does not take
perdurantism to be the denial that objects persist. However, as the quotation
above makes clear, his view is still the denial that there is a single material
object involved when, say, an apple changes color. Hence, his view does, I
think, retain a curious consequence that the relational theory avoids. Again,
I see this as an advantage of the relational view, which does not move us
to reinterpret our ordinary way of thinking about persistence in terms of
numerical identity; a way of thinking that is, I think, reinforced regularly by our
interactions with the world.
I take it that the foregoing considerations suggest that the relational view
retains a comparative advantage over presentism and perdurantism as a
result of its relatively minimal metaphysical and revisionary commitments.
It is, in short, an economical, plausible, and satisfactory account of change,
persistence, and passage that lacks the drawbacks of its competitors and
ought, therefore, to be preferred to them.
Conclusion
A seemingly simple question about the nature of temporal predicates,
answered through a consideration of the puzzle of change, has led to a
number of interesting conclusions. First, that any predicate of a material
object that indicates a changeable feature of that object expresses a relation
between the object and a time. Second, that the logical form of predications
of time, tense, and change is tenseless. Third, that the passage of time is real
and also tenseless, describable by relations whose extensions are temporally
invariant. In sum, in so far as one believes in genuine change and temporal
passage, one should accept the tenseless, B-theoretic world-view.16
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Notes
1 For simplicity I shall let two-place predicates stand for relational predicates
in general; the difference between two-place and higher-order relational
predicates is of no relevance here.
2 Following McTaggart, I will assume here that A-predicates order a set of
events as an A-series; B-relations order a set of events as a B-series.
3 Savitt (2002) also points out the need to distinguish properties of a
representation from properties of that which is represented.
4 What about abstract objects, such as geometric squares? Wouldnt they
have shape but not at any time? I think that the right thing to say is that
geometric squares dont have shape but, rather, are shapes. If, however,
one were to insist that they have shapes, such shapes are essential to
their objects and so cannot be temporary intrinsics and hence cannot be
implicated in the puzzle of change.
5 Thanks to Donald Baxter for raising this issue.
6 Temporal parts theories (more on these below) explain how an object, x,
is, say, red at t, by positing the existence of a red temporal part, p, that
is located at t. Such accounts are, therefore, committed to the idea that
some relations are existence entailing and are not, accordingly, in a position
of relative advantage over the relational view with respect to the issue of
explaining what it is for an object to exist/be located at a time.
7 It is possible, for example, that physics will discover that being red involves
molecules on the surface of an object entering into quantum entanglement
with particles on the far side of the galaxy.
8 It might be argued that the phenomenal form of temporal predicates such
as x is red is monadic, expressing a non-relational property of the apple.
Perhaps, but I have doubts. First, I am convinced by the foregoing that for an
apple to be red is for it to stand in relation to time; so, when we notice an
apple, we notice something that is related to time. Second, for an observer
to notice the color of an apple is for her to stand in relation to time, so the
experience itself is best understood as a relation between an observer and
a time. I doubt, therefore, that there is a monadic phenomenal predicate
or property available. Suppose, however, that there is. Then what follows, I
think, is that this predicate constitutes an incorrect representation of the apple
(rather than, say, of the experience of the apple). If our experience of the
apple convinces us that x is red is non-relational, then our experience is, I
believe, misleading. I am willing to accept that experience is misleading in this
way, but I dont think it gives us any reason to doubt the relational account
of temporal predication anymore than the fact that experience convinces us
that the sun rises gives us reason to doubt the heliocentric model of the solar
system. Thanks to Nathan Oaklander for suggesting I clarify this point.
9 Indeed, it is hard to think of a more paradigmatically relational term than the
preposition at.
10 If times are substantive entities whose existence is independent of that of
any events, then B-relations relate substantive entities in general. If times
125
are simultaneity classes of events, then B-relations will typically relate

classes, though in some cases they will relate substantive entities such as
objects to such classes. Either way, the logical analysis above goes through
since the logical form of the relations is permissive with respect to the kinds
of entities that satisfy them. Thanks to Nathan Oaklander for suggesting I
clarify this.
11 Could temporal operators be functions from propositions to truth-values?
Perhaps, but in that case propositions lack truth-values when considered
independently of time. In other words, it would be impossible to express
something determinately true or false about a material objects properties
without reference to time, in which case the essential features of the
relational account will transfer.
12 Notable exceptions include Beer (1988) and Oaklander (1984, 2004). What
follows is in broad agreement with these works; indeed, it is very much
indebted to them.
13 In this respect, it is like the term natural selection, which is a general
phrase that refers to the processes by which inherited traits result in
differential rates of survival and reproduction in a given environment; there
neednt be any single process that occurs in all cases.
14 My principal goal in the foregoing is to defend the notion of temporal
passage without appeal to monadic A-predicates or the concept of motion.
Accordingly, I identify the passage of time with the existence of B-relations
between times and events. Since B-relations share a logical form with other
tenseless relations, such as x is red at t, it might be thought that my
account is incomplete for it lacks an explanation as to what differentiates
B-relations from other logically similar relations such that the former but not
the latter determine that time has passed. At least part of what is required
here is an account of the direction of time. One of the ways in which
B-relations differ from, say, color relations is that the former are directed.
Now, this is not the place to outline an account of the direction of time, but
I think the view defended above has the strength of being compatible with
various accounts of direction: however one fills in the theory of temporal
asymmetry, the logical form of temporal relations will remain as outlined
above (the pairs related by B-relations are ordered pairs, after all). Indeed, I
think the account here is compatible with all manner of ontological views on
the nature of B-relations, from nominalismthat is, the view that relations
are identified with sets of ordered pairsto more robust views in which
the B-relation has ontological standing in addition to the relata. If, say,
nominalism is correct, then it is an ontologically basic fact that some entities
are ordered by the asymmetric x is earlier than y relation and others are
not; nothing will be added by positing the existence of a relation in addition
to the ordered pairs. Indeed, perhaps the asymmetry of the relation is
primitive as well. If, on the other hand, an ontology that recognizes relations
in addition to the relata turns out to be the best account of the temporal
asymmetry, then the logical structure of the account defended above will
not be overturned. So, I think that whichever way these debates turn out,
the essence of the relational account can be preserved. Thanks to Nathan
Oaklander for bringing these issues to my attention.
126
15 To be precise, Craig defends the claim that only presentism can solve
McTaggarts paradox within the context of a tensed theory of time. He
rejects a relational solution in part because it leads to a tenseless theory.
I think, however, that his approach puts the cart before the horse: let us
first give the best account of change and persistence and only thereafter
worry about whether the world is tensed or tenseless, rather than accepting
or rejecting solutions to the puzzle of change on the basis of a position
on the tensedtenseless debate. I recommend this in part because
metaphysical theses such as presentism are substantial: they ask us to
believe that events come into existence from nothing and then pass back
into nothingness; they ask us to believe that propositions about the past can
be true even if nothing past is real; and so on. Better, I propose, to solve
philosophical puzzles prior to taking on such commitments, if at all possible.
16 Some of the material from this chapter was presented at Queens
University, the University of Connecticut (Storrs), and a meeting of the
Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association. I would like
to thank audience members, my APA commentator, Michael Tooley, and
L. Nathan Oaklander for their suggestions and comments.
References
Beer, M. (1988), Temporal indexicals and the passage of time, Philosophical
Quarterly, 38, 15864.
Craig, W. L. (1998), McTaggarts paradox and the problem of temporary
intrinsics, Analysis, 58, 1227.
Dummett, M. (1978), A Defence of McTaggarts Argument Against the Reality
of Time, in Truth and Other Enigmas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, pp. 3517.
Dyke, H. (2008), Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy. New York:
Routledge.
Hawley, K. (2001), How Things Persist. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hinchliff, M. (1996), The Puzzle of Change, in J. E. Tomberlin (ed.),
Philosophical Perspectives 10: Metaphysics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 11936.
Horwich, P. (1987), Asymmetries in Time. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lewis, D. (1983), Extrinsic properties, Philosophical Studies, 44,197200.
(1986), On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.
Markosian, N. (2004), A Defense of Presentism, in D. W. Zimmerman (ed.),
Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Vol. I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.
4782.
McTaggart, J. M. E. (1908), The unreality of time, Mind, 17, 45774.
(1927), The Nature of Existence, Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1998), Real Time II. London: Routledge.
Mozersky, M. J. (2011), Presentism, in C. Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook
of Philosophy of Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 12244.
Oaklander, L. N. (1984), Temporal Relations and Temporal Becoming. Lanham,
MD: University Press of America.
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(2004), The Ontology of Time. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Price, H., (1996), Times Arrow and Archimedes Point: New Directions for the
Physics of Time. New York: Oxford University Press.
Prior, A. N. (1996), Some Free Thinking About Time, in J. Copeland (ed.), Logic
and Reality: Essays on the Legacy of Arthur Prior. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 4751.
Prosser, Simon (2007), Could we experience the passage of time?, Ratio, 20,
1, 7590.
Savitt, S. (2002), On Absolute Becoming and the Myth of Passage, in
C. Callender (ed.), Time, Reality and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge
Sider, T. (2001), Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smart, J. J. C. (1949), The river of time, Mind, 58, 48394.
(1963), Philosophy and Scientific Realism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
(1980), Time and Becoming, in P. van Inwagen (ed.), Time and Cause: Essays
Presented to Richard Taylor. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, pp.
315.
Williams, D. C. (1951), The myth of passage, The Journal of Philosophy, 48,
45772.
Zimmerman, D. (2008), The Privileged Present: Defending an A-Theory of
Time, in T. Sider, J. Hawthorne and D. W. Zimmerman (eds), Contemporary
Debates in Metaphysics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 21125.
PART TWO
Consciousness
and Time
7
Physical Time, Phenomenal
Time, and the Symmetry
of Nature
Michael Pelczar
Introduction
stream of consciousness is a series of experiences whose adjacent

members relate to one another as my present state of mind relates
to the state of mind I was just in, rather than as my first mental state this
morning related to my last mental state last night, or as my present state
of mind relates to the state of mind that you were just in. The exact nature
of this relationship is debatable; here, I am not offering an analysis of the
concept of a stream of consciousness, but merely drawing attention to the
phenomenon that I wish to discuss.
A typical human stream of consciousness extends over a period of hours,
from one episode of dreamless sleep to the next. I wake up, eat breakfast,
brush my teeth, take a shower, get dressed, walk to campus, check my
e-mail, walk to the lecture theater, give a lecture, drink another cup of coffee,
and check my e-mail again. I am conscious the whole time, and the experiences I have at each stage of my morning belong to a single stream of
conscious experience.
But there is, for me, no such thing as an experience as of waking up,
eating breakfast, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, getting dressed,
walking to campus, checking my e-mail, walking to the lecture theater, giving
a lecture, drinking a cup of coffee, and then checking my e-mail again. I
have no experience characterized by both shower-taking and lecture-giving
132
phenomenology. The shower-taking qualia and the lecture-giving qualia all

contribute to a single stream of consciousness, but not by contributing to a
single experiencea single conscious state of mind.1
Innocent as it seems, the fact that the experiences that make up a stream
of consciousness do not all belong to a single, extended experience gives rise
to a serious paradox. But to see how, we first have to inquire more closely
into the way in which successive experiences in a stream of consciousness
relate to one another.
Suppose you are standing before the mirror in your bathrobe, brushing your
teeth, having the sort of experiences you normally do during this part of your
morning routine, when suddenly you find yourselfor so it seems to you
chewing on a piece of beef jerky while riding horseback through a cactus
forest. (Maybe your toothpaste is laced with LSD.) Overcoming your initial
shock, you begin to suspect that you are dreaming, and decide to appreciate
the desert landscape while it lasts.
Now lets modify the example. As before, you are brushing your teeth, and
your conscious state of mind is what it usually is when doing so. This time,
however, your tooth-brushing state of mind gets interrupted by a mental
state phenomenally identical to the state of mind that Wyatt Earp was in on
a certain October afternoon in 1881: same visual images of cactuses, same
auditory sensations of jangling spurs, same cognitive and proprioceptive
qualia, same sense of self, and so on. The mental state is not characterized
by any feeling of puzzlement or surprise, since no such feeling characterized
Earps state of mind on the afternoon in question.
The sequence of experiences just described is not a stream of consciousness.
Rather, it is as if you had been suddenly annihilated and someone having a
totally different kind of experience created in your place. The horseback-riding
experiences occur immediately after the tooth-brushing experiences, and are
even generated by the same brain as the tooth-brushing experiences, but they
are not, for all that, co-streamal with the tooth-brushing experiences.
Why not?
The reason is that there is no phenomenal overlap between successive
experiences in the second scenario, whereas there is such overlap in the
first. Two experiences phenomenally overlap just in case one is completely
characterizable (in terms of its phenomenality) as an experience as of a
sequence of states or events X Y, and the other completely characterizable
as an experience as of a sequence Y Z (for some X, Y, and Z). When there
is a phenomenal overlap between two experiences, the phenomenal content
of one of the experiences is partially offset towards the future relative to the
phenomenal content of the other experience.
Let us call any series of experiences all of whose adjacent members
phenomenally overlap a phenomenally integrated series. The experiences
Physical Time, Phenomenal Time
133
that you have in the first scenario, but not the second, form a phenomenally integrated series. In both scenarios, you begin with an experience
of moving your toothbrush right then left. But in the second scenario, this
experience is followednot by an experience as of moving your brush left
then chomping on jerky, butby an experience that exhibits no toothbrushrelated phenomenology at all. In the second scenario, there is no Z such
that you have (1) an experience as of brush-right then brush-left, and (2) an
experience as of brush-left then Z. There is no experience in this scenario
that possesses both tooth-brushing and horseback-riding qualia: none of
the tooth-brushing states of mind contains any hint of horseback riding,
and none of the horseback-riding mental states contains any trace of toothbrushing. That is why it is, phenomenologically, as if someone brushing
his teeth had been annihilated and someone riding a horse created in his
place.2
A paradox
The fact that phenomenal integration is necessary for co-streamality poses
a challenge to attempts to account for the stream of consciousness in a
phenomenologically realistic way. Suppose that I am listening to someone
play scales on the piano, and suppose (somewhat unrealistically) that the only
conscious experiences I have while listening are auditory experiences of the
various notes being struck. Naively, we might try to represent my stream of
consciousness in this situation as follows:
(1) (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti)
where Do designates an experience as of the note C being struck, Re
an experience as of D being struck, and so on. This representation is naive,
because it does not capture the phenomenal integration of the series of
experiences it attempts to represent. (1) might equally well represent the
series of experiences I would have if I was first in a mental state indistinguishable from that of someone who hears only a solitary C, and then in a
mental state indistinguishable from that of someone who hears only a solitary
D, and then in a mental state indistinguishable from someone who hears only
a solitary E, and so on.
A seemingly natural fix is to represent my auditory stream of consciousness
like this instead:
(2) (DoRe, MiFa, SoLa, Ti)
134
where Do Re represents an experience of C followed by D, Mi Fa

an experience of E followed by F, and so on. But this will not do either. For
while it is true that my stream included an experience of C followed by D as
well as an experience of E followed by F, it also included an experience of D
followed by E; but this latter experience goes unrepresented here.
Very well then: lets just insert a new element into the series, to represent
the D-followed-by-E experience (as well as the other, similar experiences that
(2) omits):
(3) (DoRe, ReMi, MiFa, FaSo, SoLa, LaTi)
Problem solved?
No. What we have now represented is not the stream of conscious experience
that I had while listening to the scales, but the stream that I would have had if
I had heard someone play the following sequence of notes: CDDEEFFGGAAB.
In fact, (3) doesnt even succeed in representing that (counterfactual)
stream! This is for the same reason as (1) fails to represent my actual stream:
(3) fails to capture the phenomenal integration of the series of experiences I
would have if I heard someone playing the stutter scale. To get an adequate
representation of the stutter-scale stream, we could try:
(4) (DoRe, ReRe, ReMi, MiMi, MiFa, FaFa, FaSo, SoSo,
SoLa, LaLa, LaTi)
Its clear where this is going. In order for the experiences I have while hearing
the scales to belong to a single a stream of consciousness, they must
constitute a phenomenally integrated series. But in order to constitute a
phenomenally integrated series, it seems my experiences must include many
that I simply do not haveand even if we suppose that I did have such experiences, we still wouldnt have a stream of consciousness, without positing yet
further experiences, ad infinitum.
Of course it would be different if, while listening to the scales, I had just a
single, lengthy experience: an experience as of C followed by D followed by
E followed by F followed by G followed by A followed by B. But I had no such
experience. (Or, if I did, we need only consider a longer stretch of time over
which I listen to the player play the scales repeatedly, perhaps for an hour.)
And so we have a paradox. In order for our experiences to occur as parts of
(lengthy) streams of consciousness, our experiences must be phenomenally
integrated, without collectively constituting a single (lengthy) experience. But
when we try to describe a stream of consciousness in a way that respects
these constraints, we end up badly misdescribing it as including many experiences that it does not, in fact, include.
135
This is what Barry Dainton calls the problem of repeated contents. The
problem is as important in its own way as the famous Eleatic paradoxes
of motion and change. There is even a structural similarity between the
paradoxes. What generates the Arrow Paradox, for example, is the seeming
need for the arrow to traverse infinitely many intervals of time and space in
order to make any progress along its path. What generates the paradox of
the stream of consciousness is the seeming need for the mind to traverse
infinitely many experiences in order to make any progress through its stream
of consciousness.3
Grappling with Zenos paradoxes has led to valuable insights into the
nature of time, space, and the infinite. As we shall see, grappling with the
paradox of the stream of consciousness stands to yield valuable clues to the
relationship between spacetime and experience.
Daintons theory
Dainton solves the problem of repeated contents by supposing that the
pairwise phenomenally overlapping experiences that make up a stream of
consciousness also overlap in the literal sense that they have experiential
parts in common. For example, according to Dainton, my Do Re experience
has two briefer experiences as parts: (a) an auditory experience as of C,
and (b) a slightly later auditory experience as of D. Similarly, my Re Mi
experience comprises (c) an experience as of note D being played, and (d) a
slightly later experience as of E being played. Butand this is the key idea
behind Daintons theoryexperience (b) is one and the same experience as
experience (c). So the Do Re experience and the Re Mi experience have
between them only three basic constituents: an auditory Do experience, an
auditory Re experience, and an auditory Mi experience. Since I do not,
by this account, have two experiences as of Re, the account escapes the
problem of repeated contents.4
Daintons solution to the problem of repeated contents relies on the
idea that some of our experiences are extended in time, consisting of
successive, briefer, and (ultimately) temporally basic experiences none of
which have successive experiences as parts. In Daintons terms, a stream
of consciousness consists of overlapping sequences of diachronically
co-conscious experiences, diachronic co-consciousness being the relation
by virtue of standing in which a number of successive experiences constitute
a longer, complex experience.5
Daintons proposal conflicts with what Dainton (following Izchak Miller)
calls the Principle of Simultaneous Awareness or PSA. This is the view that
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each of our conscious experiences is temporally basic, and in fact strictly

momentary, having no objective duration whatsoever.6
While the PSA has a certain initial plausibility, there are, Dainton argues, no
obviously compelling reasons to accept it. A less extreme view is that some,
but not necessarily all, of our conscious experiences, including presumably
our simplest or most basic experiences, are as the PSA says (perhaps erroneously) all experiences are. It may be that consciousness is wholly present
at some moments of my waking life, but that I also have extended experiences comprising the contents of successive waking moments. This position
is consistent both with the PSA and with the existence of diachronically
co-conscious experiences.7
I believe that this more moderate viewthat our temporally basic experiences have no objective temporal extentis true, and that its truth has
unexpected implications for Daintons theory of the stream of consciousness.8
From here I proceed as follows. In the next secion, I give an argument
(based on some remarks from Bertrand Russell) in support of the more
moderate view described above, which I shall call Russells Thesis. In
the section after that I anticipate and address the main objection to this
argument. I will follow this by arguing that Russells Thesis, when combined
with Daintons theory of the stream of consciousness, entails a violation of
an otherwise universally observed symmetry of nature connected with the
so-called reversibility of fundamental natural laws.
Russells Thesis
In a paper from 1914, Russell writes:
Two events which are simultaneous in my experience may be spatially
separate in psychical space, e.g. when I see two stars at once. But in
physical space these two events are not separated, and indeed they occur
in the same place in space-time. Thus in this respect relativity theory has
complicated the relation between perception and physics.9
Here Russell claims that the phenomenal events that characterize any
moment of ones conscious mental life are confined to a single point of
spacetime; let us call this Russells Thesis.
While Russells argument for the thesis is not entirely explicit, it clearly has
something to do with the relativistic structure of spacetime. In a relativistic
context, if it is possible correctly to describe a given pair of events as occurring
simultaneously at some distance from one another (in terms of a given inertial
137
coordinate system or frame of reference), it is also possible to describe

those events as occurring in temporal succession (in terms of a different but
equally good frame of reference). This is in contrast to classical Newtonian
physics, in which two spatially separated events are simultaneous in terms of
one frame of reference only if they are simultaneous in terms of every frame
of reference. We can put this by saying that simultaneity is absolute in a
Newtonian context, but not, except in special cases, in a relativistic context.
In relativistic spacetime, two events occur absolutely simultaneously (i.e. are
assigned identical time coordinates by every inertial coordinate system) only if
they occur not only at the same point in time, but at the same point in space.
I reconstruct Russells argument for his thesis as follows:
R1. If consciousness is in spacetime, each of my temporally basic experiences instantiates its qualia absolutely simultaneously.
R2. Properties that get instantiated absolutely simultaneously get instantiated at the same point of spacetime.
R3. So, if consciousness is in spacetime, each of my temporally basic
experiences instantiates its qualia at a single point of spacetime. (R1,
R2)
R4.
Any experience that instantiates its qualia at a single point of
spacetime is a point-event (an event confined to a single point of
spacetime).
R5. So, if consciousness is in spacetime, each of my temporally basic
experiences is a point-event. (R3, R4)
Let us call this the Relativistic Argument. Russell seems to regard its first
premise as evident from introspection. There is certainly something to this.
When I look at a banana, I have a conscious experience that is simultaneously
characterized by a certain phenomenal shape, a certain phenomenal size,
and a certain phenomenal color. My experiences simultaneous possession
of these phenomenal properties is moreover absolute, in the sense that the
experience instantiates the properties simultaneously according to every
complete and accurate description of the world. If you were to describe
me as having first an experience as of the bananass shape, followed by an
experience as of its size, and only then an experience as of its color, you
would badly misdescribe my experience of the banana.
R2 says that absolutely simultaneous property instantiations are confined
to a single point of spacetime. As Russell points out, this is a direct consequence of the fact that in relativistic spacetime, absolute simultaneity entails
spatial and temporal co-location.
There are two ways you might try to dispute this fact (short of denying
the relativistic structure of spacetime). First, you might argue that conscious
138
experience occurs in physical time, but not in physical space, and therefore
not in spacetime (and not, a fortiori, in relativistic spacetime). (By physical
time I mean the time in which physical events take place; it may be that
there are non-physical events that occur in physical time.)
But an event (whether an experience or anything else) cannot occur in
physical time except by occurring in physical spacetime. A description of
events purely in terms of physical time is an underdescription of events,
not only because it does not tell us how the events relate to one another in
space, but also (and partly because of this) because it does not tell us which
events occur absolutely before, after, or simultaneously with which others.
The statement that event E1 occurs at the same time as event E2 does not
convey whether the simultaneity of E1 and E2 is absolute or merely relative;
for that, we need to know whether E1 and E2 occurred at the same place (in
addition to the same time).
A description of physical events in purely temporal terms therefore fails to
specify any absolute temporal structure for those events. To say that experiences occur in physical time but not in physical space would therefore be to
claim, implicitly, that there was no fact of the matter concerning the temporal
relationships between our conscious experiences and ordinary physical
events. But this would be as much as to say that conscious experience does
not occur in physical time at all.
A different objection to R2 is that conscious experiences might occur in
physical spacetime, but in a non-relativistic way. Granted that our experiences
occur in spacetime along with physical events, why should we think that the
relativistic conception of spacetime applies to our experiences?
But if phenomenal events occur in the same spacetime as physical events,
it must be possible for a phenomenal event to coincide with a physical event.
This is particularly so in view of the fact that physical events occur throughout
spacetime (e.g. as components of the cosmic microwave background).
Consider two spatially separated, and supposedly absolutely simultaneous,
phenomenal events, A1 and A2, and a pair of physical events, B1 and B2, with
which the phenomenal events respectively coincide. Then A1 is absolutely
simultaneous with B1, and A2 with B2. But then it must also be the case that
B1 is absolutely simultaneous with B2, since A1 is absolutely simultaneous
with A2, and absolute simultaneity is transitive.
The upshot is that if spatially separated phenomenal events can be
absolutely simultaneous, spatially separated physical events can be absolutely
simultaneous too. Since separate physical events cannot be absolutely simultaneous, neither can separate phenomenal events.
The final premise of the Relativistic Argument (R4) states that any
co-instantiation of qualia at a point in spacetime is a conscious experience.
This is just an a priori truth about consciousness. It can be expressed as a
139
conditional: if some qualia are co-instantiated at a point in spacetime (or by

the contents of a point in spacetime), then that point contains conscious
experience. One should accept this conditional, even if one rejects its
antecedent.
The now of experience

If the Relativistic Argument has a vulnerability, it is R1: the claim that a
temporally basic experience instantiates its qualia absolutely simultaneously
(assuming that temporally basic experiences occur in time).
One cannot very well object to R1 that a temporally basic experience might
instantiate some (or all) of its qualia in temporal succession. Any experience
that instantiates qualia successively is, de facto, not temporally basic, since it
has non-simultaneous experiences as parts or phases (corresponding to the
successive qualia instantiations).
The more serious objection to R1 is that it relies on a dichotomy, allegedly
false, between (1) some qualia getting instantiated in temporal succession,
and (2) those qualia getting instantiated absolutely simultaneously (and so
at a single point of spacetime). There is, one might claim, a third option:
(3) the qualia get instantiated by the same objective temporal sequence of
point-events, not by successive point-events, and not by a single, solitary
point-event.
Call option (3) serialism. A serialist disputes R1 on the grounds that
every experience is a temporal sequence of intrinsically non-experiential
events. He claims that the instantiators of qualia are not point-events or
the contents of individual moments of time, but whole temporal series of
point-events.
Serialism is antithetical to what I would like to call the Presence Principle.
This is the principle (tacitly assumed by Russell in his discussion) that in
order for consciousness to exist in time (or spacetime), there must be
moments (at least one moment) whose contents are sufficient for conscious
experiencethat is, whose contents are such that there is something that
its like for someone, or something, for those contents to exist. According to
the Presence Principle, consciousness is sometimes (indeed, often) wholly
present; according to serialism, consciousness is never wholly present.
Which is right?
A gladiator lies in the dust. He has, let us suppose, a conscious visual
experience as of the Colosseum: the flying banners, the jeering throng, the
Emperors wavering thumb. Call this experience V. According to the serialist,
V is an instantiation of qualia by some objective temporal sequence of
140
non-experiential events, say e1, e2, and e3. But what, according to the serialist,
is the gladiators state of mind shortly before e3 occurssay, when e2 takes
place?
Suppose that the gladiator had died at e2, or between between e2 and e3.
Would he have had V? Not according to the serialist: according to him, the
e1-e2-e3 event-sequence is what instantiates the qualia that characterize V
(if anything does). But this event-sequence does not exist in a hypothetical
scenario in which the gladiator does not live long enough for e3 to occur. So,
the serialist has to say that the gladiator does not, in that hypothetical scenario,
have V, and therefore does not have the same quantity and quality of conscious
experience as the actual gladiator (who makes it past e3 and who does have V ).
But now suppose that at or around the time that e2 takes place, but before
e3, the gladiator poses himself the question: Am I having V?or, as he might
more naturally put it: Am I having this experience? How should he answer
himself? Assuming that e3 does eventually occur, he does have V. But when
he asks himself whether he is having V, he might have reason to believe that
e3 will not occur (he knows the Emperor has always given the thumbs-down
in the past). On this basis, he will judge that he is not having Vhe will judge
that he is not having the experience, even though he is having the experience.
This is odd. But the serialist may argue that in reality, there is not enough
time between e2 and e3or for that matter within the whole [e1, e3] interval
for the gladiator to pose himself any question, or perform any other mental
act. Our thought processes unfold at a slower pace than our conscious visual
processes, and this prevents us from ever getting into the dubious cognitive
condition attributed to the gladiator in the preceding paragraph.
But even if evolution has not equipped us with cognitive machinery fast
enough to form thoughts between the successive events that constitute an
experience (on the serialist view), it might have done so; or, if not, we might
bring our cognitive machinery up to speed by artificial means.
Suppose that the gladiators cognitive capacities are greatly enhanced.
Suppose that his cognitive centers gain high-bandwidth access to real-time
information about the low-level states of his perceptual centers. And suppose
that he benefits from cognitive enhancements that allow him to process this
information as it streams in. His experience-producing perceptual centers
themselves are left alone.
This fast-thinking gladiator can make deliberate judgments between e2
and e3. So what does he judge then? Presumably this depends on what information he has. But if he has information implying that it is unlikely that e3 will
occur, then, if he is rational, he must (assuming the truth of serialism) judge
that he is not having V, even though he is.
One might insist that all this cognitive enhancement (high-bandwidth
access to microphysical brain-activity, high-speed information processing
141
capabilities, and so on) would have phenomenological repercussions. That is

probably right; at least, one would expect the cognitive enhancement to come
with some novel cognitive phenomenology, and possibly novel perceptual or
proprioceptive phenomenology too. But this additional phenomenology need
not prevent the gladiator from having the conscious experiences he would
have had without the enhancement, or experiences much like them. For
example, it need not prevent the gladiator from having more or less ordinary
visual experience.
Serialism therefore appears to entail that it is possible to become rationally
less confident that you are having conscious experience, or a given kind
of conscious experience, just by acquiring additional information about a
conscious experience that you are, in fact, having. But this is unacceptable.
Gaining more information about a conscious experience that you are having
cannot make you rationally less confident that you are having a conscious
experience of that kind. The fundamental argument for the Presence Principle
(and against serialism), and the linchpin of the case for Russells Thesis, is
that if you reject the Principle, you must say, wrongly, that one can become
rationally less confident that one is having (say) visual experience, just by
gaining more information about some visual experience that one is, in fact,
having.
The law of experience

Our conscious mental lives are teeming with a huge variety of experiences.
But within this teeming variety we can discern a considerable amount of
order. By and large, it is possible to interpret our experiences as perceptions
of a universe of objects behaving, and events unfolding, in accordance with
certain lawsthe laws of physics.
The possibility of interpreting our experiences this way is more obvious
in the case of some laws than in others. We can hardly help interpreting our
experiences as including perceptions of spatiotemporal continuants. If we
think of the existence of such continuants as a law of nature, we can say that
our experiences are obviously interpretable as perceptions of a world that
conforms to this law.
Our experiences are also interpretable as perceptions of a world that
conforms to the Einstein Field Equations. The possibility of interpreting them
thus is far less obviousotherwise, it would not have taken people so long
to interpret them that way.
Between these two extremes, we have the possibility of interpreting our
experiences as perceptions of a world in which an objects resistance to
142
change in its state of motion upon application of some force is independent

of where, when, or in what direction the force is applied. And there are many
other intermediate cases as well, some closer to the law of continuants,
some closer to the Field Equations.
Not all experiences are interpretable as conforming to all, or perhaps
even to any, of these laws. Pathological experiences are possible, which,
considered in isolation, resist interpretation as perceptions of any lawlike
state of affairs. Still, taken all together as a collective whole, our experiences
do admit of interpretation as perceptions of a world that conforms to such
laws as those mentioned above.
We can think of this property of human experiences as corresponding to a
law in its own right, a law of experience. Our experiences conform to this
law by tending to occur in such a way as to admit of interpretation as perceptions of a universe that conforms to those other laws.
The law of experience is undoubtedly a law. But is it a fundamental law?
It is hard to see how it could not be, unless phenomenological states of
affairs reduce to purely physical states of affairs. If dualism is true, the law of
experience is bound to be fundamental (even if it correlates with some purely
physical law or laws), and if phenomenalism is true, the law of experience
is likely to be not just fundamental but architectonically central. But if physicalism is true, then presumably the order we find in our conscious experience
is not fundamental, but reduces to some purely physical feature of the world.
Like Dainton, I am deeply skeptical of physicalism. I will not rehearse
the well-known arguments against physicalism here, but only point out that
Russells Thesis poses an additional problem for the physicalist position.10
In a traditional conceptual setting, where we think of time and its determinations as absolute, the physicalist would naturally identify temporally basic
experiences with complexes of simultaneous physical eventssay, neuronscale events occurring simultaneously within a human brain. From here, he
might build up to more complex experiences, but at the most basic level, one
would normally expect a physicalistic experience to consist of a collection of
simultaneous physical events distributed throughout some spatially extended
network.
But if Russells Thesis is correct, then many of our most basic experiences are mere point-events. The traditional physicalist picture is therefore
untenable. (I take it that this is why Russell says that relativity theory complicates the relation between perception and physics.)
A physicalist might argue for an identification of temporally basic experiences with individual physical point-events. The connection of these individual
point-events to larger-scale physiological activity would have to be spelled
out, but as long as there is some exceptionless correlation between a given
kind of physical point-event and a given kind of phenomenally-individuated
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temporally basic experience, there is a basis (a physicalist might argue) for

equating the two.
However, this proposal requires us to accept that the world contains far more
experience than we ordinarily suppose. Any physical point-event that occurs
in the body of a sentient being can also occur outside of any such body. What
is distinctive about, for example, a human body, is not that it is made up of
distinctive sub-atomic events, but that the sub-atomic events that constitute
it relate to one another so as to form distinctive physical states and processes
extended in time and space. So if we are to identify various experiences with
physical point-events, we will have to identify them with events that occur, or
could occur, in rocks, plants, sausages, and other prima facie unconscious things.
Furthermore, it is likely that for every sub-atomic physical event that
occurs in the body of a bat (or any other creature), there occurs an exactly
similar sub-atomic event in my body. Here, the implication of the physicalists
proposal is that there occur in my body the same kinds of temporally basic
experiences as occur in the bodies of bats and other conscious animals.11
The appeal of physicalism was always its promise to make sense of
consciousness as something that explains various aspects of our behavior, by
construing conscious mental states as mediators of environmental input and
behavioral output. A theory that attributes consciousness to sausages cannot
possibly deliver on this promise.
Setting aside physicalism, it seems appropriate to regard the law of
experience as a fundamental law, like the fundamental laws of physics.
Now, the fundamental laws of physics all exhibit a certain symmetry.
In classical Newtonian physics, the fundamental laws of motion are timereversal invariant, in the sense that they would also hold good in a
time-reversed counterpart of our world, in which events occurred in the
opposite temporal order from that in which they actually occur, and with
opposite time-dependent properties from those which they actually possess.
The situation is different, but similar, in contemporary physics. There are,
it turns out, physical processes governed by laws that are not time-reversal
invariant. A time-reversed counterpart of our universe would not conform
to all the fundamental laws that govern our (actual) universe, since it would
violate the fundamental laws that determine the probabilities for various
forms of elementary particle decay.12
Nevertheless, the fundamental laws are invariant under a more inclusive
reversal of time, spatial position, and charge. In other words, even though a
merely time-reversed counterpart of our universe would violate certain fundamental laws, a counterpart of our universe that was reversed with respect to
time (as described earlier), space (as in a mirror reflection), and charge (with
positive charges replacing negative charges and vice versa) would obey the
same fundamental laws as the actual world obeys.
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In so far as our universe is governed by the fundamental laws of physics, it

is symmetrical in this way; the fundamental laws of physics are CPT-reversal
invariant. What about the law of experience?
If, as Dainton contends, our streams of consciousness consist of diachronically complex experiences (comprising simpler diachronically co-conscious
experiences), the law of experience is not CPT-reversal invariant. The reasons
for this are as follows.
Let us call the CPT-reversed counterpart of the actual world Unworld.
Unworld contains all the same temporally basic experiences as the actual
world, since each of these experiences is a mere point-event. If there actually
occurs a temporally basic experience as of a bird gliding from left to right,
then the same experience occurs in Unworld.
The situation would be different if temporally basic experiences were, as
the serialist maintains, temporally extended sequences of non-experiential
events; in that case, one could argue that a reversal in the temporal order
of those non-experiential events would involve a corresponding reversal of
the phenomenology of the experience that those events constituted. But
if, as Russells Thesis states, temporally basic experiences are confined to
individual points of spacetime, they have no temporal structure to reverse.
Now, in Unworld, our temporally basic experiences occur in the opposite
temporal order from that in which they actually occur in us. Suppose I am
watching a pendulum. And suppose that while watching, I have, among
others, a diachronically complex experience as of the pendulum moving from
A to B to C to B to A. This experience, we may assume, consists of four
temporally basic appearances: (1) an appearance of the pendulum swinging
from A to B, (2) an appearance of the pendulum swinging from B to C, (3) an
appearance of the pendulum swinging from C to B, and (4) an appearance of
the pendulum swinging from B to A (see Figure 7.1).
In Unworld, the temporal order of these four experiences is reversed.
Therefore, if I have a diachronically complex experience consisting of them, it
is an experience as of the pendulum moving first from B to A, then from C to
B, then from B to C, then from A to B.
Such an experience, considered by itself, might not be an experience as
of a physically impossible sequence of events. One could imagine that the
particles making up the pendulum decohere and recohere in astronomically
unlikely, but physically possible, ways. But in Unworld, all diachronically
complex experienceswhich means very many of the Unworlders experiencesare like the bizarre pendular experience just described. If, in the actual
world, I have a diachronically complex experience as of a ball rolling down
an inclined plane from point G through point H to point Ian experience
consisting of two temporally basic experiences (as of the ball rolling from G
to H, and as of the ball rolling from H to I), my counterpart in Unworld has
145
FIGURE 7.1
an experience as of the ball rolling from H to I and thenwithout any intermissionfrom G to H.
Considered as a whole, the Unworld experiences do not admit of interpretation as perceptions of a world of physical things conforming to the laws of
physics. As the foregoing examples illustrate, this includes even very simple
laws, such as those dictating that physical objects enjoy spatiotemporally
continuous existences.
Of course, Unworld does obey the laws of physics. In Unworld, pendula,
balls, and all other things obey fundamental physical laws. But if, as Daintons
theory requires, our streams of consciousness consist of sequences of
overlapping temporally extended experiences having successive temporally
basic experiences as constituents, Unworld does not conform to the law
of experience. Dainton must therefore regard the law of experience as a
fundamental law of nature that, unlike other fundamental laws, violates
CPT-reversal invariance.
Conclusion
I conclude that while Daintons theory of the stream of consciousness is
consistent with Russells Thesis (that our temporally basic experiences are
wholly present at individual points of spacetime), it combines with Russells
Thesis to violate an otherwise universally observed symmetry of nature.
One response would be to conclude that CPT-reversal invariance is not,
after all, sine qua non for fundamental lawhood. Its not as if this sort of thing
hasnt happened before. People used to think that all fundamental laws were
time-reversal invariant. Dainton might reason that since experiences must
occur in time, and since the only way they can do so without impossible
phenomenal repetition is by occurring as his theory describes, and since,
146
finally, his theory implies a violation of CPT-reversal invariance, we must

conclude that CPT-reversal invariance is violated.
On the other hand, if we want to say that the stream of consciousness
unfolds in objective, physical time without violating CPT-reversal invariance,
we have no alternative but to affirm the Principle of Simultaneous Awareness.
If all of our experiences are temporally basic, then there need be no violation
of time- or CPT-reversal invariance. We need only suppose that the objective
order of experiences in a stream of consciousness is phenomenologically
meaningless. And this is not an obviously unreasonable thing to say. For
surely the really remarkable thing about conscious experience, apart from its
very existence, is that it is possible to interpret the totality of it as comprising,
by and large, perceptions of a common, intelligible world of events in time
and space.
The idea that the objective temporal order of the experiences in a stream
of consciousness has no phenomenal implications may seem strange,
or even absurd. But here we should remember that we never introspect
more than one experience in a single act of introspection, unless it is by
introspecting multiple experiences that occur as phenomenal constituents
of a single, complex experience. The basic point is due to Susan Hurley. If
I can introspect multiple experiences in a single act of introspection, those
experiences must belong to a single experience. What would it be like, for
introspection to reveal to me that I had two experiences that did not belong
to the same state of consciousness? The answer is that there can be nothing
that this is like. For, if there were something it was like, then the introspected
experiences would belong to a single experience: an experience by virtue of
having which there was something it was like for me to introspect myself as
having the two experiences.13
Unfortunately, the suggestion that all experiences are temporally basic
takes us back to square one with the stream of consciousness, since you
cant construct a Daintonian stream with temporally basic experiences
alone, and Daintonian streams are the only ones described so far that
avoid the problem of repeated contents. A more radical way to preserve
CPT-reversal invariance that does not lead back to the problem of repeated
contents would be to suppose that conscious experiences do not occur in
time, or spacetime, at all, but function more like an atemporal subvenient
base for physical reality (the reality of things in physical time and space).
After all, if the temporal order of our experiences is phenomenologically
meaningless, why suppose that they have any temporal order at all? And if
experiences do not even exist in time, then repeated contents are impossible ab initio. Of course, it is far from obvious that a timeless conception
of experience ultimately makes sense; this is a question too large to pursue
here.
147
Daintons theory of the stream of consciousness has the great virtue of

solving the problem of repeated contents, being apparently the only theory,
among those that construe experiences as occurring in physical time, to do
so. The upshot of the present discussion is that the solution does not come
for free. Diachronic co-consciousness is not a minor technical innovation,
but a weighty metaphysical posit that requires us to see consciousness
as extending through time differently from all other temporal phenomena.
How this figures into the ultimate cost-benefit analysis of Daintons theory
remains, I think, uncertain, depending on large questions about the more
general relationship between time and consciousness. But whichever way
the balance of considerations finally tips, it is Dainton who gets the credit for
showing us how to work the scales.
Notes
1 The word experience has many meanings, and it might be that in one of
them, the statement that all my days sensations belong to a single experience
comes out true; presumably Michael Tye is using the word in some such
sense when he claims that all of the experiences in a stream of consciousness
belong to a single, temporally extended experience (Tye 2003: 108). In any
event, it is, I take it, uncontroversial that the qualia that characterize the
various phases of an afternoon of conscious mental life do not characterize
a single experience in the same sense as that in which the various qualia
that characterize each phase individually do so, and it is this latter sense of
experience that is relevant to our purposes here (see Dainton 2008: 713).
2 Phenomenal integration is necessary, but not sufficient, for co-streamality.
If I have a stream of consciousness consisting of successive experiences
I1, I2, I3, In, and my counterpart on Twin Earth has a phenomenologically
indistinguishable stream consisting of experiences T1, T2, T3, Tn, then
the series I1, T2, I3, T4, In1, Tn is phenomenally integrated, but it isnt a
stream of consciousness.
3 See Dainton (2006: 1412, 1569).
4 See Dainton (2006: 16277).
5 Might all conscious experiences consist of briefer successive experiences?
That is, might consciousness consist of temporally extended phenomenal
gunk? Elsewhere I argue not; here, I simply assume that human
experience has a logically atomic structure.
6 See Dainton (2006: 1315). Past proponents of the PSA include, apparently,
St. Augustine, William James, C. D. Broad, Edmund Husserl, and Michael
Lockwood.
7 For critical discussion of the PSA, see Dainton (2006: 1626, 17982).
8 By a temporally basic experience, I mean an experience that doesnt have
non-simultaneous experiences as parts.
148
9 Russell (1914: 130).

10 For classic arguments against physicalism, see Chapter 2 of Broad (1925),
Campbell (1970: 1001), Jackson (1982), and Chalmers (1996: 93140). For
Daintons skepticism, see Dainton (2006: 510).
11 It is also not obvious that there is enough variety among physical pointevents to reflect the phenomenal variety of temporally basic experiences.
This is connected with the so-called grain problem: see Lockwood (1993:
2756).
12 The experiments that originally established the violation of time-reversal
invariance are described in Lee and Yang (1956) and Christenson et al.
(1964).
13 See Hurley (1998: 1645), and for relevant discussion, Bayne and Chalmers
(2010: 51011, 5279).
References
Bayne, T. and Chalmers, D. (2010), What is the Unity of Consciousness?, in The
Character of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 497539.
Broad, C. D. (1925), Mind and Its Place in Nature. New York: Harcourt, Brace &
Co.
Campbell, K. (1970), Body and Mind. London and Toronto: Macmillan.
Chalmers, D. (1996), The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Christenson, J. H., Cronin, J. W., Fitch, V. L. and Turlay, R. (1964), Evidence for
the 2 decay of the K2 0 meson, Physical Review Letters, 13, 4.
Dainton, Barry (2006), Stream of Consciousness: Unity and Continuity in
Conscious Experience. New York: Routledge.
(2008). The Phenomenal Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hurley, S. L. (1998), Consciousness in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Jackson, F. (1982), Epiphenomenal qualia, The Philosophical Quarterly, 32, 127,
2336.
Lee, T. D. and Yang, C. N. (1956), Question of parity conservation in
weak interactions, Physical Review, 104, 1, 2548.
Lockwood, M. (1993), The Grain Problem, in Howard Robinson (ed.),
Objections to Physicalism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 27191.
Russell, B. (1914), The World of Physics and the World of Sense, in Our
Knowledge of the External World. London: George Allen & Unwin,
pp.10634.
Tye, M. (2003), Consciousness and Persons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
8
Extensionalism, Atomism,
and Continuity
Geoffrey Lee
Introduction: Extensionalism and atomism
temporal experience is an experience that presents to its subject states

of affairs that manifestly involve duration and change over time, such
as the temporal order of sounds, the velocity of moving objects, or the
duration of a brief flash of light in the visual field. There is a disagreement
about temporal experiences between extensionalists, atomists, and snapshot
theorists, which will be my subject here.
According to extensionalists like Barry Dainton, temporal experiences are
themselves temporally extended processes that play out over time, having
experiential stages that mirror the stages of the presented events (see Figure
8.1). For example, an extensionalist will typically think that experiencing the
temporal order of two sounds S1 and S2 involves first experiencing S1, then
experiencing S2, and a suitable relation holding between these experiences.
By contrast, atomists think that temporal experiences do not themselves
have temporal structure that mirrors the temporal structure represented in their
content. On this view, an experience of a temporallly structured state of affairs
like the temporal order of two sounds is itself temporally unstructured, in that
it does not have distinct experiences as proper temporal parts; for example, a
temporal order experience does not involve first experiencing one event and
then experiencing a second event (see Figure 8.2); it involves experiencing
both events at the same time, even though they are experienced as happening
at different times. For this reason, atomic temporal experiences might even be
instantaneous, although atomists neednt think this, as I will explain below.
150
FIGURE 8.1 The Extensionalist View
FIGURE 8.2 The Atomist View

Extensionalists and atomists both disagree with snapshot theorists, who
deny that we have temporal experiences. On their view, the stream of
consciousness is a series of photo-like presentations of properties of objects
like their shape, spatial arrangement, surface texture, color or illumination,
presentations that do not concern how the world is changing over time. In so
far as we are able to make accurate judgments about temporal features, this
involves a post-experiential process of comparing the snapshots, a process that
doesnt require actually experiencing the temporal features. I will set aside the
snapshot view here (for a defense of it, see Chuard 2011), as it is incompatible
with obvious phenomenological data. Take auditory experience, for example
most of the information in it pertains to how events are organized over time;
it is very hard to make sense of auditory experience without temporal content.
My aim in this chapter is to defend atomism, by responding to a number
of arguments against it that appear in the literature, particularly those
given by Dainton (2000, 2010) and Phillips (2010). Phillips (2010) argues that
Extensionalism, Atomism, and Continuity
151
atomism is incompatible with the kind of introspective knowledge we have

of how experience is changing over time. Dainton argues that atomists
cant adequately capture the sense in which the stream of consciousness
is continuous and connected over time. I will respond to these arguments,
among others. Elsewhere Lee (2014a) I give a detailed positive argument for
atomism and against extensionalism, which I will also briefly recap here.
Lee (2014a) also contains a detailed discussion of what exactly is at issue
between extensionalists and atomists. Here I will state more briefly what I
see as the main issues.
It is helpful to distinguish three closely related but distinct ideas that extensionalists may or may not subscribe to. In increasing order of strength, these
are:
The process view: Temporal experiences are experiential processes that
unfold over time by having shorter experiences as proper temporal parts.1
The mirroring view: The process view, with the additional claim that the
experiential temporal parts of a temporal experience are arranged in time
in a way that mirrors or matches the temporal structure represented in
their content.
The representation by resemblance view: The mirroring view, with the
additional claim that the correspondence between the objective temporal
structure of experience and the temporal structure in the experiences
content is explained by the fact that temporal properties are represented
by resemblancetime is used to represent time.
I treat experiences as instantiations of experiential properties by subjects (or
parts of subjects, like brain areas). So an extensional temporal experience
is a process involving distinct property instantiations at different times. In
many cases, these will be qualitatively distinct, involving different experiential properties, for example when you experience an object moving or
changing illumination, or hear the temporal relations between different
sounds. However, we can also have distinct instantiations of the same experiential property as different temporal stages; for example, this is presumably
what the extensionalist will say is happening when you have a qualitatively
constant experience as of an unchanging scene.
Not any old series of experiences can make an extensional temporal
experience. The process theorist thinks that the stages of a temporal experience
have to be unified, or co-conscious, in order to form an experience. So, for
example, if I experience one event, then undergo a complete brain reset,
and then experience another event, I will not have a unified experience as of
152
the temporal order of the events. What the relevant kind of unity is here
is a difficult question. Dainton assumes that this diachronic unity relation is
(at least) the same unity relation that holds synchronically between different
parts of a subjects field of awareness: they are experienced together in
a way that two random experiences enjoyed by different subjects are not.
It is controversial even in the synchronic case what the unity relation is (or
even whether there is a single relation here to focus on). I will grant Dainton
that there is such a relation. The fact that in his view it holds diachronically is
supposed to be a significant advantage over other viewsI will discuss this in
detail below.
The idea that temporal experiences are experiential processes is usually
held in conjunction with a commitment to the mirroring view (at least a
weak version of it)indeed I would interpret extensionalists as thinking
that the process view is true because mirroring obtains. Mirroring comes
in various strengths. Extensionalists typically at least believe in topological
mirroringthe view that experiencing A as happening before B requires
first experiencing A and then B. One could also subscribe to the stronger
Metrical mirroring thesis, that experiences of duration and rates of change
are mirrored by the duration relations between the parts of the experience
itself, so that, for example, an experience as of an event lasting 1 second itself
lasts 1 second. Dainton himself rejects metrical mirroring; a process theorist
who accepts mirroring for all experienced temporal features is Phillips (2010),
although his position on metrical content is qualified in his more recent work
(Phillips 2013).
The mirroring thesis is itself neutral on why mirroring obtains. If mirroring
obtains, one possible explanation is that the mirrored temporal features are
represented through resemblancetime in experience is represented by
time itself. Recent defenders of extensionalismincluding Daintondo not
in fact offer this as the explanation, so we probably shouldnt assume that
representation by resemblance is part of the view, even though it is a very
natural extension of it. This wont matter here, as I will be concerned only with
the weaker claim that temporal experiences are process-like.
Atomism is not a term used by Dainton in his influential taxonomies of
views in this area. I define atomism as the view that temporal experiences are
never process-like, a view which implies that the process view is false, and
therefore by implication, so are the mirroring and resemblance views. Atomism
needs to be understood carefully. For one thing, atomic experiences neednt be
instantaneous events. They might be realized by extended physical processes in
the brainindeed I would argue that all experiences are extended in this sense,
because experiences require extended processes like neural firings in order
to exist. Atomic experiences are atomic in the sense that they do not contain
shorter experiences as temporal parts. If an atomic experience is realized by an
153
extended process (like 40hz neural firing), then this process may have shorter
physical events as proper temporal parts, even if it doesnt have experiences
as proper temporal parts; for example, these shorter physical events may not
be sufficient for any experiences to exist. To be clear, if an experiential property
instantiation occurs fundamentally over a short interval in this way, we can say
that it has shorter experiential temporal parts in a derivative sense. For example,
if I am feeling a certain painful sensation over interval I, there is a derivative
sense in which I am feeling it at each time during I. The atomist can admit that
experiences have such derivative temporal parts. The process theorist thinks
that temporal experiences have temporal parts in a stronger sense than this.
This is obvious when the temporal parts are qualitatively varied, but even if they
are not, the idea of the process view is that experiential stages of temporal
experiences are distinct property instantiationsfor example, they are realized
by different physical events happening at different times.
Atomism encompasses a number of different views that Dainton contrasts
with extensionalism. Dainton himself focuses attention on retensionalists,
who think that atomic temporal experiences have a complex structure
involving memory-like retentional experiences, direct perceptual experience
of the present, and possibly also a protentional anticipatory awareness of
what is about to occur (Husserl is the most famous proponent). Atomists
neednt think that temporal experiences have this tripartite structure, however.
Dainton rightly complains that we have awareness of temporal properties that
is just as immediate as our awareness of static features like shape and
color, and that the retentional view cant account for this fact. A better version
of atomism would hold that there is a single kind of perceptual experience
that presents both non-temporal features and facts about how these features
are changing over time. Let us call this non-retentional atomism. Dainton
does acknowledge the possibility of such a view (versions of which have
been defended by Broad 1925 and Grush 2005), but it doesnt fall very
neatly in his taxonomy. To my mind, it is the most promising competitor to
extensionalism.
Defending atomism
A full defense of atomism would involve a positive case against the process
view and a defense of atomism against objections. Here I will focus more
on objections against the view, although it will be worthwhile to first briefly
describe the positive case for it (see Lee 2014 for more detail).
The reason why atomism is true is that temporal experiences are realized
by physical events in the brain that do not code temporal information in a
way that could realize an extensional experience; in particular, the neural
154
realization of a temporal experience does not have distinct temporal stages

corresponding to the allegedly temporally separated stages of the experience
itself. Rather, even if an experience involves being presented with events as
happening at different times and standing in certain temporal relations, the
experiences of these different events are each realized by neural events that
happen at the same time (or over the same short interval). We can infer from
this that the different parts of the temporal experience themselves happen at
the same time, contrary to the process view.
Why think that the different parts of a temporal experience are realized at
the same time? Information at the periphery of the perceptual systemfor
example, on the retinais typically represented in a form that is process-like.
For example, if A happens before B, then typically light from A will stimulate
the retina, and then light from B will stimulate the retina (although due to
different latencies in transmission from different sources, there is not always
such a neat correspondence between arrival time and transmission time,
something that the system is capable of correcting for, at least to a limited
extent). Theories of how temporal information is extracted from such inputs
typically assume that the point is to compare or integrate the different stages
of the input to get an explicit representation of temporal information that is
available all at once. For example, the retinal stimulation from event A might
leave a trace which is simultaneously compared with a trace from the retinal
stimulation from event B, to get a simultaneous representation of A before
B. This might in turn enable the subject to act on the basis of this temporal
information, for example by correctly pressing the A before B button, rather
than the B before A button.
The reason such simultaneous integration seems necessary is that
without it temporal information is not in a form that could cause appropriate
effects downstream of experience, such as verbally reporting the experience,
putting the information in memory, or pressing the appropriate button. The
fact that the content of experience is typically accessible in this way is the
main reason for thinking that temporal experiences are realized by the output
of such a process of simultaneous trace integration, rather than by earlier
events in the processing stream, such as those on retina, which do in some
sense code time by time. If this is right, then we get the result that these
experiences are not structured in time as the process theorist alleges, but
rather represent temporal information all at once, as the atomist thinks.
A fuller explanation and defense of this argument is given in Lee (2014a).
I will not pursue it here, instead focusing on the negative arguments that
might be given against atomism. Whereas the Trace Integration argument
is an empirical argument, these negative arguments tend to be based on
phenomenological observation and philosophical considerations. Although
such considerations are relevant to the debate at certain points, ultimately
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it seems to me that a debate about the timing of experience has to take

into account empirical evidence pertaining to the timing of the neural events
that underpin experience, and that these considerations have far stronger
weight than any phenomenological or philosophical considerations that point
in a different direction. That said, even if we have independent reason for
skepticism about the weight of such considerations, a satisfactory defense of
atomism should have something to say about them, and saying it is my aim
here.
The simultaneity argument and the multiple

presentations argument
One argument against atomism is that if temporally separated events appear
in your experience all at the same time, then they will appear to be happening
at the same timefor example, tones occurring in experience at a single time
will form a chord, or the different positions of a moving object would appear
smeared through space. This is contrary to the atomists claim that one can
perceive, at a single time, consecutive events as happening at different times.
This is obviously a question-begging objection, howeverthe whole point of
atomism is that simultaneously presented events need not appear as simultaneous. This only seems problematic if one assumes a mirroring constraint,
but the atomist rejects such constraints.
Another easily deflected objection is the multiple presentations objection.
Since the content of atomic experiences covers a temporally extended
portion of what is happening in the world, a single event may appear in
the content of a series of consecutive experiences in the stream, not just
a single experience. This is supposed to be counterintuitive because we do
not seem to experience the event over and over again. However, all that
multiple presentations really amounts to is the claim that you experience
the event for an extended period of time, longer than the duration of a single
experience (which presumably is the duration of the minimal amount of
neural activity sufficient for an experience to exist). There is nothing counterintuitive about this. It is true that the onset of an event may be presented for
more than a single moment, but this does not mean that the event will seem
to you to be starting over and over again; all the experiences you have present
it as starting only once (Tye (2003) makes the same point in response to this
objection.)
Phillips (2010) thinks that this response to the multiple presentations
objectionand atomism in generalrequires we lack introspective access
to how our experience is changing over timein this case, because we are
not aware of enjoying more than one experience of the onset of an event.
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He thinks that we have introspective awareness of the temporal layout of

experience in a stronger sense than this allows for, and that introspection
reveals that temporal experience does not in fact have an atomic structure,
but rather is process-like. Lets look at this argument.
Phillips transparency argument

Phillips thinks that we have introspective access to the temporal relations
between our experiences (Ill call this the introspectibility premise), but also
that experience is transparent: introspection of perceptual experience only
reveals the properties that external events are experienced as having, not any
psychological properties (the transparency premise). He thinks that we can
reconcile these two data by holding that we introspect the temporal features
of experience by introspecting the apparent temporal layout of external
events (the reflection premise). Thus, an experience as of A happening
before B also is an appearance that the experience of A happened before the
experience of B. Furthermore, he takes it as a premise that it is part of the
nature of experience that if experience appears a certain way to me, then it
must be that way (the infallibility premise). So if it seems introspectively as
if my experience of A happens before my experience of B, then these experiences really must be related in this way.
Clearly, if the apparent temporal layout of the world is an infallible guide to
the temporal layout of experience itself, then a strong form of mirroring (and
hence a process view) must be correct. Phillips argument is valid; atomists
must reject one of the premises.
The atomist could deny that by presenting a certain temporal layout, an
experience automatically seems to have a corresponding temporal layout
(the reflection premise); for example, they could deny that an experience of
temporal order automatically seems to have a corresponding temporal order.
An analogy with the spatial features of experience is relevant. If physicalism
is true, then experiences are physical events happening in spacetime and
therefore have spatio-temporal features like all other physical eventsfor
example, at a given time, an experience will be occurring in a region of space
with a certain size (for example a region of a brain). These spatial features
of experiences are obviously not made available to you by introspecting the
apparent spatial layout of the world; for example, an experience of a teacup
does not in any sense appear to occupy a teacup-shaped region. The atomist
could say something similar about temporal experience.
The spatial features of experience are not available to introspection at all
(this is presumably why people are sometimes tempted to say that experiences do not happen in physical space). It seems too strong to make the
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analogous claim that we have no introspective sense of our experiences as

events happening in time. We talk about the stream of consciousness, a
description that seems apt given the way experience seems from the inside.
Kant described time as the form of inner sense, again giving voice to the
intuition that we are introspectively aware of experiences as happening in
time. Admittedly, if the atomist denies the reflection premise, they must give
an alternative account of how we are aware of experiences as playing out
in time, or at least explain away the strong appearance that we have such
awareness.
Consider the option of denying any introspective awareness of experience
changing in time. It might be that at any given moment you are simply
enjoying the atomic experience you are having, and have no introspective
access at all to the atomic experiences that were happening at other times.
If you try to introspect the temporal relations between experiences, you will
only be able to attend to the experienced temporal relations between events
presented by your current atomic experience. Perhaps there is a tendency
to confuse these temporal relations with those that hold between experiences themselves, giving us the mistaken impression that we are aware of
experience itself changing, when really we are only aware of the external
world changing.
Although I think Phillips has not done enough to disarm this view, and
that the view is not obviously false, I also think it may be too strong. For one
thing, instead of denying introspectibility, the atomist could have a view that
rejects transparency, or a view that accepts reflection but denies infallibility; if
either of these options can be made to work, they will allow for introspective
awareness of experience changing in time.
Consider the latter option. The atomist could say that, after all, we can
become aware of how experience is changing by attending to worldly
changes (the reflection premise), but that the argument fails because
apparent external changes are not an infallible guide to experiential changes.
For example, it may very often be true that if you experience A as before
B, then you had an experience of A before you had any experience of B,
because A was detected before B, and the information that A occurred
was available before the information that B occurred was. This is something
that is perfectly consistent with atomism (although if atomism is true, your
experience of B may be accompanied by a further experience of A). There
may be exceptions to this rule of thumb,2 but if it is usually true, then we
can use temporal appearances as a rough guide to the temporal structure
of experience, gaining knowledge of experiential structure that is consistent
with atomism.
Phillips will reply that this alleged status as a rough rule of thumb is incompatible with the principle that there is no appearancereality distinction for
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experience. But in so far as there is a correct principle of this kind, it cannot

apply to all the properties of experience. Take spatial properties again: it might
be that experiences as of different regions of space are typically located in
distinct neural regions. If this were right, we could, after all, use the apparent
spatial properties of things as a reliable, but not infallible, guide to certain
spatial properties of experiences themselves. This obviously wouldnt conflict
with whatever the truth is behind a no appearancereality distinction
principle.
The other way the atomist could block the argument without rejecting
introspectibility would be to reject transparency. If transparency fails, then
even if we arent aware of the temporal features of experience via reflection,
the implausible conclusion that we have no awareness of experience changing
over time does not follow. In fact, a pretty strong case can be made that transparency fails in a way that is relevant here: we can be aware of our experience
changing in a way that does not go via awareness of external changes.
Consider shifting your attention from one object to another. These could be
covert attention shifts that do not require moving your eyes or other body
parts. And the scene you are looking at might not be changing at all. Still, you
experience a change as happeninga psychological change, not an external
change. Note that it is not merely that your experience changes when you shift
your attention: you have an experience of change happening. You can even
be aware of certain features of this change. For example, if you shift attention
back and forth between two objects at a certain rate, then you can experience
the rate that this is happening, just as if you perceive a light turning on and off
at a certain rate, you can be aware of this rate. The proponent of transparency
makes the mistake of thinking that perception is a kind of bare confrontation
with the world. However, perception involves actively shifting your attention
around the environment, and an awareness of this shifting contributes to what
it feels like to consciously perceive. We might compare such awareness of
psychological changes with the awareness of bodily changes that can occur
during touch. We can conceive of an analogue of touch that is more transparent than our actual sense of touch: a creature might get information
about the surfaces of objects by touching them, but the resulting experiences
might present the properties of the surfaces without ever making the subject
consciously aware of the process of exploring the surface of the object with
a part of the body; such bodily interactions with an object might be controlled
entirely sub-personally. Similarly, visual awareness could have been designed to
make you aware of the properties of external things without any experienced
sense of visually exploring the world through controlled changes in attention,
but this is not the experience we actually have.
Even if we are aware of attentional changes in this transparency-violating
way (the idea deserves further discussion, but I will not pursue it here), it is
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not clear that they exhaust our awareness of changes in experience. Below
I will consider another kind of experience we havethe experience of a
constant flowing change in our temporal perspectivethat is arguably also
inconsistent with transparency, and that might constitute another way in
which we are aware of experience changing over time (these experiences are
also part of my response to Dainton, which is why I will delay discussing until
later). Furthermore, as I already mentioned, it may be that there is something
right about the reflection premise: perhaps we can be aware of experience
changing, albeit in a fallible way, just by attending to external changes.
I think it is plausible that postulating these various forms of awareness
of experiential changes is enough to explain our introspective sense of a
stream of consciousness and the fact that we seem to be aware of the
temporal features of experience in a way that we are not aware of its spatial
features; no appeal to an infallible awareness of the kind Phillips postulates is
necessary.
To sum up, Phillips has not made a compelling case that external temporal
appearances are an infallible guide to the temporal structure of experiences itself: there are a number of plausible moves an atomist can make in
response. They can deny introspectibility, holding that we mistake awareness
of external changes for awareness of internal changes. Or they can deny infallibility, holding that awareness of external changes is a fallible, not infallible,
guide to internal changes. Finally, there is a good case to be made that transparency is false: we can be aware of experience changing in a way that does
not depend on awareness of external changes (as I said, I will discuss another
possible counter-example below). Even though I think that Phillips argument
can be resisted, I think it has the great merit of emphasizing that there is a
real puzzle accounting for the sense in which we are aware of experience
changing over time: it is really not obvious how, if at all, this happens (for
example, I am suggesting in this chapter that we should believe in a kind of
temporal introspection that violates transparency, but I will not be able to give
a full account of how exactly it is that such inner awareness exists).
Having looked at Phillips case against atomism, let us now move on to
consider the reasons Dainton gives for rejecting it.
Daintons continuity argument

Dainton argues that atomism cannot capture the sense in which experience
is continuous through time, whereas extensionalism is tailor-made to account
for this. The idea that experience is continuous is extremely ambiguous,
and to understand his argument properly, we need to first think about the
different meanings that we could attach to this.
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Experience could be continuous in the sense that it does not have any gaps
in time. If time itself is continuous, this means that a section of the stream fills
a continuum of moments from its beginning to end. This is weaker than saying
that experience is continuous in the sense that it changes continuously (i.e., it
can be represented as a continuous function from real numbers representing
times to sets of real numbers representing experience states). For example,
experience might change discretely, even if it is non-gappy. It is also weaker than
saying that experiences are instantaneous (not just that they exist derivatively
at instants), and that these instantaneous experiences form a continuum in
time. The stream could fill a continuum of time, without itself forming a precise
continuum in this way. For example, imagine a pain whose intensity is realized
by the firing rate of a single neuron (obviously in reality many neurons would be
involved). Each intensity is realized over a period of time (because a firing rate
is an average calculated over a period of time); nonetheless, the firing rate, and
hence the intensity of the pain, can increase gradually over time. In this way, the
temporal parts of an experience might be all temporally extended, but overlap in
time in such a way as to form a non-gappy covering of all the instants in a certain
interval of continuous time, without precisely occupying any of these instants.
It is an interesting question as to whether experience is continuous in any
of these senses (for some relevant empirical literature, see Van Rullen and
Koch, C. 2003; Van Rullen et al. 2011; Kline et al. 2004; Mathewson et al.
2009, 2011). Atomism is consistent with continuity in any of these senses,
but also with strong discontinuityfor example, it is consistent with experiences coming in discrete bursts that are separated in time from each other.
Some may think that it is obvious from introspection that consciousness is
not gappy in this way. However, it is not clear that a gappy structure would
be apparent introspectively; awareness of it would seem to require a higherorder quasi-perceptual monitoring of first-order experiences that is set up to
be sensitive to such gaps, and we may lack any such capacity. Furthermore,
the continuity intuition can be explained away as confusing the fact that we
lack an awareness of gaps, with our having an awareness of a lack of gaps.
The moral is that to discover whether experience is discretely gappy, we
need to figure out empirically what the temporal structure of neural states
underwriting experience is, not search for gaps introspectively.3
Daintons objection to atomism is not that it cant accommodate continuity
in any of the above senses. The kind of continuity that he is interested in (he
calls it strong continuity) involves a feature of experience that we allegedly
experience from the inside. It is a little hard to pin down what it is exactly,
but it involves a sense of the interconnectedness of experience over time,
of one experience flowing into the nexthe expresses this by saying that
consecutive experiences seem to be experientially connected. He quotes
William James as one source of the idea:
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My experiences and your experiences are with each other in various

external ways, but mine pass into mine, and yours pass into yours in a way
in which yours and mine never pass into one another. (James 1912: 47)
the parts of experience hold together from next to next by relations
that are themselves parts of experience. The directly apprehended universe
needs, in short, no extraneous trans-empirical connective support, but
possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure. (James
1912: xii)
One example Dainton gives to try to make this vivid is the case of hearing a
long continuous tone; ones current experience seems to flow directly from
previous experiences of earlier stages of the tone. Or when you apprehend a
melody, your experience of one sound or a portion of melody seems to flow
seamlessly into your apprehension of the next part of the melody.
Allegedly this strong continuity can easily be accounted for in Daintons
version of extensionalism. He postulates diachronic unity relations linking
together one moment of experience with the next. He thinks the unity relation
holds between all experiential stages that are sufficiently close together
in time, so that if we consider maximal groups of mutually co-conscious
experience-stages (i.e., total experiences), we will find that these form
overlapping blocks in time. Hence he calls his version of extensionalism the
overlap model (see Figure 8.3).
FIGURE 8.3 Extensionalism with Overlap

Supposedly the fact that total experiences overlap by sharing experiential
parts, and the fact that the whole stream is interconnected by diachronic
unity, gives us an explanation of the felt sense of continuity, connection,
and flow within conscious experience. On the other hand, on the atomic
view, consecutive experiences within the stream of consciousness are not
connected together by unitythey do not form larger experiential wholes
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(although see the discussion below). In this sense, there is a kind of

independence between your experience at one moment and the very next
moment for the atomist. Dainton thinks that this is implausible. One objection
is phenomenologicalit doesnt capture the felt flowing connectedness of
experience. Another is more metaphysical: if successive experiences are
independent in this way, then they are no more connected than experiences
in completely different streams of consciousness:
In the absence of experienced transitions between pulses, successive
pulses might as well belong in entirely different streams of consciousness.
(Dainton 2004: 17)
individual acts are totally isolated from one another. From a purely
experiential perspective, the successive phases of our streams of
consciousness might as well exist in different universes. (Dainton 2004: 21)
One way that the atomist could respond here is by saying that it is obscure
what Jamesian experiential flow is supposed to be, and so it is unclear what
exactly the atomist is allegedly failing to account for; pending clarification,
there is no real objection here. I think they can do better than this, however.
There is something intuitive about the idea of experiential flow, and there are
fairly well-defined ways to elaborate an atomist view in order to accommodate
it. Moreover, the atomist can challenge whether overlap extensionalism really
does itself accommodate the relevant phenomena here. Finally, the atomist
can also explain why their atoms are not totally isolated from one another
in an implausible way.
Let us discuss each of these points, beginning by addressing the
metaphysical worry. According to Dainton, consecutive atomic experiences
might as well be in completely different universes. I find it hard to see
a compelling worry here. The atomist should reply by detailing the ways in
which experiential stages belonging to a single stream may well be intimately
connected with each other in the atomic view, connections that wont
hold between experiences in different subjects, or in completely different
universes. As we will see, the atomist can even acknowledge a limited kind
of experiential unity across times.
First, what one experiences at a particular moment in time may well be
causally relevant to what one experiences a moment later, so the stages of
an atomists stream are at least bound by causation. To be clear, I do not think
that there is any a priori reason to think that there are direct causal relations
between experience stages. For all we know a priori, there is no top-down
feedback within perceptual processing, so that consecutive experiences can
be appropriately compared with consecutive images projected on a screen
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by a movie projector, which are not directly causally related to each other,
despite having correlated properties. In the experience case, if the images
are close enough in time, they may have overlapping causes at the input
end (because, as I mentioned above, perceptual processing integrates information that arrives over an extended interval), but unless the output of one
chain of perceptual processing feeds back into the next chain, consecutive
experiential outputs will not be directly causally related.
As it happens though, there is empirical evidence that there are such
feedback connections in perceptual processing. One reason for thinking this
is that there are neural connections feeding back within many different stages
of perceptual processing (see, for example, Lamme et al. 1998). Another is
that computational models that assume such feedback give good predictions.
Grush (2005) describes one such model in giving his emulation theory, in
which perceptual and motor control systems estimate the next state of the
world by comparing current input with a prediction of how the world will
evolve (based on previous estimations of the state of the world and reference
copies of current motor instructions), and creates a new model by computing
a weighted average between the prediction and the input-based estimate.
It is as if visual experience has a natural path that it will follow on its own
(like a ball rolling down a hill), and the role of external input is as an external
force correcting the direction it travels. If a model like this is correct, then it
is plausible that there are feedback relations causally linking adjacent stages
of an atomic stream.
Another kind of intimate connection that might exist between temporally
adjacent atomic experiences is overlapping realization. If an experience
is neurally realized by temporally extended neural activity, then another
experience close enough in time might be partly realized by some of the
same neural activity. Consider again the example of the intensity of a pain
being realized by the firing rate of a neuron. Because temporally adjacent
firing rates might be realized by some of the same neural firings, temporally
adjacent experiences of different intensity might be realized by some of the
same neural activity. Thus two experiences with different intensities may
overlap in the sense that they have overlapping realizers, even if they dont
overlap by sharing experiential parts (the overlapping neural activity may be
too brief to realize any experiences). In this way, stages of a stream of atomic
experiences that are close enough in time may not be completely metaphysically independent events.
Daintons response is likely to be that the existence of both causal and
realization connections between stages is not the same as the existence
of the kind of experiential connections that he thinks exist, and which the
atomist allegedly cant account for. In particular, he thinks we experience
the transition from one experience into another, in virtue of diachronic unity
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relations holding between them. I think the points I have made so far at least
show that different atoms are intimately connected in ways that make the
different universes complaint at least somewhat misleading. I now want to
argue that (1) there is a limited kind of diachronic unity between experience
that the atomist can acknowledge, and (2) that the atomist can explain the
sense of continuity that Dainton is gesturing at.
With regard to (1), recall that above I said that atomists probably ought not
to hold that their atomic experiences are instantaneousthey are best off
saying that they are extended in time, because they are realized by extended
processes like neural firings. If all experiences are extended in this way, this
makes it tricky to draw a sharp line between synchronic unity and diachronic
unity, suggesting a form of atomism in which synchronic unity inevitably
gives us a form of diachronic unity also. For example, suppose we believe,
as theorists like Bayne (2010) do, that synchronic experiences belonging to
a single subject at a single time are typically unified into a single field of
awareness (a weak version of what Bayne calls the unity thesis). If experiences are extended in time, the at a single time constraint is rather fuzzy.
How are we to interpret it? As meaning overlapping in time, or something
else?
Here is one way in which the unity thesis might work out in an
atomic view, with synchrony interpreted as temporal overlap (see Figure
8.4). Consider modality-specific sub-streams, such as visual experience
and auditory experience (I will assume that experience can be divided up
this way). Suppose it is usually the case that (1) visual experiences which
overlap in time with auditory experiences are unified with them, but (2) that
consecutive visual experiences (which may overlap in time, in virtue of being
realized over overlapping temporal intervals, as in the pain intensity/firing rate
case discussed above) are not unified. (1) is a kind of unity thesis, and (2) is
plausible, because the continuous updating of visual experience is likely to
mean that adjacent atomic visual experiences have incompatible contents,
even if they overlap in time.
Given this set-up, it is possible that a particular auditory experience,
such as A2 in Figure 8.4, will be unified with consecutive stages of visual
experience (V1,V2, and V3) that are not themselves unified and which do not
overlap by sharing experiential parts (even though they overlap in time).
If a simultaneous total experience at time t is a group of mutually
unified experiences that all happen during a period that includes t, then
the situation depicted would involve A2 being contained in three different
total experiences that occur over different intervals, total experiences that
contain different experiential elements (A2+V1, A2+V2, A2+V3). This shows
how, even in an atomic view, total experiences at slightly different times
can overlap by sharing experiential parts (the overlap is quite different from
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FIGURE 8.4
the kind postulated in Daintons overlap model, however). By implication,
the momentary stages of an atomic stream of consciousness may not be
experientially isolated islands, but may be connected to each other by a crisscrossing web of unity relations. That said, I should stress that the atomic view
is also compatible with a lack of any such diachronic connections, and further
empirical evidence may reveal that they do not exist. For example, if your
total experience is a series of discrete pulses, there may be no overlapping
realization or unity connections between stages.
I dont want to suggest that I think that these diachronic unity relations, if
they exist, would explain our sense of one experience flowing into the next. I
dont think they would. But then again I dont think Daintons diachronic unity
relations would explain the sense of flow either. I bring them up simply to
point out that even on an atomic view, there can be experiential connections
between stages that are similar to those that appear in the extensionalist view.
So, let us now turn to the question as to whether the atomist can explain
the sense of flow in experience. Before getting to that, one point that
an atomist should make here is that there are reasons in advance to doubt
whether the extensionalist can do any better than them in capturing this extra
sense of flow. Consider a total experience that involves apprehending, for
example, a section of music, including the temporal relations between various
sounds. The atomist and the extensionalist can agree about what the overall
content of this total experience is, and agree that it has as parts experiences
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of individual sounds and their relations, and agree that these parts are unified
as part of the complex whole. The main difference between the theories
involves the temporal arrangement of these parts (this is especially clear
in Daintons version, because he thinks that the unity relation that holds
diachronically is the same as the one that holds synchronically). Since, aside
from this temporal difference, atomic total experiences can be isomorphic to
extensional ones, it is not at all clear that there is any phenomenal fact that
can be explained by extensionalists but not by atomists. So if a feeling of
flow is not accounted for in the atomic view, this suggests that it is also left
out in the overlap model4.
Daintons view must be that the mere fact that, in the overlap model, the
relevant parts of temporal experience happen sequentially in time rather than
at a single time, gives a feeling of flow from one part of the experience to
the next, which would otherwise be absent. But this is problematic. First, it
is not at all clear why having a sequential rather than synchronic arrangement
in time would make any phenomenal difference at all, let alone why it
would produce a sense of flow (when we consider the kinds of features
that would explain flow we will see that this is especially clear). Second,
whatever phenomenal role is played by these temporal relations in Daintons
model has an analogue in the atomic view in the temporal content of an
atomic experience. For example, the temporal order of the parts of an extensional experience has an analogue in the presentation of temporal order in an
atomic experience. So if the mere temporal arrangement of an extensional
experience can explain a sense of flow, it is unclear why the corresponding
temporal content of an atomic experience cannot do the same work.5
So, it is unclear that extensionalists do any better than atomists in
explaining the sense of flow. What would explain it? It may be that it can
be fully explained in terms of our awareness of changes in external events, in
ways that I will describe immediately below. But if not, I would suggest that
this is because there is a kind of awareness of our experiential perspective
changing over time that is inconsistent with temporal transparency: I will try
to describe what I mean by this in more detail below.
As just mentioned, I think our experience of the continuity of external
events and processes is probably at least one source of the sense of flow.
External events may be experienced as continuing on from before we apprehended them, or at least we may lack an experience of them as starting when
we start to experience them. Take the simple example of experiencing a long
continuous tone. Your auditory systemindeed your perceptual system in
generalis designed to detect discontinuities in stimuli, and make them
perceptually salient to you. There is therefore a big perceptual difference
between experiencing a sound as starting, and experiencing a sound without
experiencing it as starting. There may also be such a thing as positively
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experiencing the sound as continuing on from before. All three of these can
easily be accommodated by an atomist, because they involve different conditions under which experience is veridical, and there is no reason why an
atomic experience cannot have the relevant veridicality condition.
The tone example is not an isolated curiositywe constantly perceive
processes that are not bounded in time at the point of apprehension. Much of
ordinary experience is of activities and processes that are already in motion;
more generally, even the unchanging state of a boring material object like a
teacup or muffin is an example of something continuing on from before that
we either do not perceive as bounded, or positively sense as continuing on.
Interestingly, it is not actually clear how an extensionalist will capture the
distinctions we are talking about here. Suppose, for example, that I have a
total experiencea maximally unified experiencethat presents a sound
as continuing on from before. What is the difference between this and a case
where the sound is heard as bounded in time? Daintons idea seems to be
that it is the fact that the beginning of the total experience is unified with a
prior experience of sound, rather than an experience of silence, that explains
the appearance of continuity. But this connection with earlier parts of the
stream is actually an extrinsic property of the total experience, whereas the
appearance of continuity is surely an intrinsic property of the experience,
having to do with how it presents a current sound as related to the past. This
suggests that the atomist may actually do better than the extensionalist in
explaining our experience of continuity.
Whether or not they have a response to this last point, the extensionalist
might object that Jamesian continuity is a quite different phenomenon from
an experience of temporal continuity in the world. Jamesian continuity is
a matter of feeling the flow from one experience to another, not from one
external state of the world to another. It is this that the atomist cannot
capture.
I suspect that theorists like Michael Tye, who often press the idea that
experience is transparent to introspection (for example, Tye 2002), will be
inclined to deny the phenomenological intuition here. They will say that
introspection only reveals how the world appears to be arranged, and so any
sensed flow or continuity must be an apparent feature of external events.
We have already discussed transparency, and noted that it may be subject
to counter-examples. I want to end by considering an additional kind of
awareness we have that would fit Daintons job description of an experience
of flow very nicely, and is an additional counter-example to temporal transparency. As we will see, flow in this sense is perfectly compatible with
atomism.
The relevant flow is best described as a sense of a constant change
in your temporal perspective, that is, of which events are presented by
168
experience as being in the present. It is related to the idea that we are aware
of time itself passingnot just in the sense that we are aware of temporal
relations between external events, such as temporal order and distance
relations, but in the sense that we are aware of a constant flowing change
in what is in the present. If there is an experience of this kind, it means that
there is a sense in which we experience time that does not just involve
perceiving relations like temporal order and duration between external events.
Now, I prefer a metaphysical view of time in which it doesnt literally involve
a moving presenta fortiori we dont perceive such a thing. Nonetheless,
it seems to me that we do genuinely have a sense of a constant change in
what is present, a sense which arguably helps ground the intuitions about
time that believers in a moving present have6 (I will not say any more about
the fascinating topic of the metaphysics of the moving now here). Supposing
this is right, what would account for it?
Let us begin by noting that our perceptual system does, in some sense,
present events as happening in the present. We automatically assume that
what we see is happening in the presentfor example, we make present
tense judgments based on experience, and act on the assumption that
perceived events are current. (This can be true even if we are also capable of
accommodating cases where we know that there has been a significant delay
between information transmission and reception at our sensory periphery.)
Slightly more contentiously, we have a conscious sense of events having
happened in the immediate past. For example, a briefly perceived event like a
bright flash of light in some way lingers in consciousness longer than the brief
moment when it is perceived as present. Or the presently experienced passage
in a piece of music is somehow experienced as having a particular musical
context (the phenomenology I am talking about is also at its most obvious in
cases where we are anticipating that an event will happen, and deliberately
attend to it when it does in fact happen). These phenomenological claims are
partially substantiated by evidence for the existence of short-term memory
mechanisms linking perception with other processes downstream. For example,
Pppel (2004) cites various pieces of evidence in favor of the hypothesis that
we have working memory representations in vision and audition that represent
temporal information from the last 23 seconds of perceptual experience: for
example, subjects are able to accurately reproduce visual or auditory information
perceived within the last 23 seconds, but their performance rapidly drops off
beyond this range. Perhaps these working memory representations form a
long specious present, which contrasts with a shorter temporal window of
events presented in vivid phenomenal awareness, and which gives us a sense
of the immediate past of events that are experienced as present.
If this is right, then we can think of perception as a conveyor belt of information, being first processed unconsciously, then appearing in phenomenal
169
consciousness as a presentation of a short temporal array of current events,

and then briefly lingering in short-term memory, still contributing to what
it is like for the subject, as a conscious sense of the immediate past. In
order to keep up with present events, notice that there must be a constant
updating of the information that is represented at each stagethe conveyor
belt has to keep moving, otherwise we wont keep up with the world. The
existence of these constantly updated conscious representations of what is
present and immediately past is perfectly consistent with the basic version of
atomism, and probably with extensionalism too (although maybe it is easier
for an atomist to accommodate a sense of what is immediately past as being
immediately past).
Now take note of the following important point: the mere existence of
these constant changes is not enough to give us a sense of the flowing
presentfor that, it seems that we need to be in some sense aware of the
process of updating occurring, not merely be such that it is in fact occurring.
Consider an experience of a brief event happening and then seeming to
quickly fade into the past. To get such a sense of fading, it will not be enough
that the representation of the event is in fact moved along the conveyor belt
from perception-as-present into conscious short-term memory, and then out
of consciousness entirely. This process will have to be one that we have a
higher-order awareness of. Simply having a series of first-order experiences of
external world events (whether atomic or extensional), even if they are accompanied by short-term memory experiences, will not give us this awareness.
That would only amount to a frozen sense of the layout of events from one
temporal perspective, not a sense of a constant flowing change of temporal
perspective. Arguably, to explain the sense of experience flowing from one
moment to the next, we need to postulate a higher-order awareness that can
be directed to the changing array of first-order conscious experiences.
Notice that, since first-order experiences, even if tensed, could not on their
own give us a sense of changing temporal perspective, it must be that this
higher-order awareness is inconsistent with transparency as articulated by
Phillips. If such higher-order awareness exists, then we are not stuck inside
our present perspective, aware only of how it presents the world, but have
a sense of this perspective itself evolving through time. (Note that there is a
difference between this awareness of temporal flow, and a mere awareness
that our temporal perspective has changed, of a kind that we might get from
episodic memory.)
I am not the first person to suggest that such a thing existsHusserl
held a similar position; furthermore, he may have intended it to explain the
sense of temporal flow (see Miller (1985) for an interpretation of Husserl
along these lines). I also do not say that the idea is without problems, or that
it is completely obvious that there is any need for such a thing. We might
170
FIGURE 8.5
wonder if these higher-order states are quasi-perceptual experiences that can

misrepresent first-order states, or stand in some other kind of relation to their
targets. We might also wonder if there is any independent reason for thinking
that they exist. These are important questions, but I will not address them
here. Perhaps pursuing them will reveal that I have misdescribed experiential
flow, or that the idea that it exists is an illusion. What I am saying here can
perhaps best be put as a dilemma. If there is a flow in experience that needs
explaining, it either has to do with a sense of external events continuing on
from before, or a sense of a constant change in temporal perspective of the
kind discussed here. The former can easily be accounted for by the atomist
in terms of the contents of first-order experiences, as explained above. One
might doubt that there really is an experience of the latter kind, but in so
far as there is, a story of the kind that I have just told, involving a higherorder awareness of changes in your temporal perspective, might be true.
Furthermore, this is a story that is perfectly compatible with atomism, and
extensionalists do not have an alternative story to offer that requires their
view to be true. This shifts the burden to the extensionalist to explain how
there is a kind of experienced continuity or flow between experiences that is
incompatible with atomism.
171
Conclusion
The main aim of this discussion has been to defend atomism against the
criticisms of it that appear in the current literature, especially those in
Phillips (2010) and Dainton (2000, 2010). I looked at Phillips (2010) argument,
suggesting that one or more of the main premises can plausibly be rejected
by the atomists. I then considered Daintons argument from Jamesian continuity, suggesting that, if anything, atomists are better placed to explain our
sense of flow and continuity in experience than extensionalists are.
Notes
1 These temporal parts need not be completely independent events capable
of existing on their own. What matters is that they are distinct events
capable of happening at different times; this may (or may not) be compatible
with various forms of mutual interdependence (for example, they might have
independent core realizations, but identical or overlapping total realizations).
For more discussion of various forms of interdependence between
experiences, see Lee (2014b).
2 Perceptual systems are able to recalibrate information in time to account
for discrepancies in transmission time from different sources. For example,
simultaneous taps on the nose and feet feel simultaneous even though
it takes longer for the signal from the feet to be transmitted to the brain.
Consider a case where your nose is tapped slightly in advance of your
feet. You might correctly experience this temporal order, even though the
signal from the feet does not arrive before the signal from the nose. Given
atomism, this makes it at least doubtful whether you experience the foot
tapping before you experience the nose tapping.
3 Interestingly, it is not clear whether extensionalism is compatible with such
a discrete gappy structure: the extensionalists commitment to mirroring
might suggest that if experience had this structure, events in the external
world would seem to also have a discrete gappy structure, which they
do not. I suspect that there are versions of extensionalism that avoid this
problem by adopting a sufficiently weak version of mirroring, so I wont
pursue the objection here.
4 One way to see this is, is to note that Overlap Extensionalism is (apparently)
completely consistent with strong transparency. So even if Overlap
Extensionalism is true, we may only ever introspectively apprehend
the worldly appearances provided by total experiences, not diachronic
connections between experiences themselves. In other words, it is not clear
why the fact that, on this view, total experiences overlap with each other, or
the fact they are spread out in time, is something that would be revealed by
introspection, or contribute to a sense of continuity or flow that is absent on
the Atomic picture.
172
5 It is true that the Atomist will deny that having an experience with a certain
temporal content is the same thing as having awareness of how experience
is changing over time. But as we saw above in discussing Phillips argument,
it is contentious to assume that ordinary temporal phenomenology, involving
experiences of events in the external world playing out in time, also involves
direct awareness of experience itself changing. If the idea of Jamesian flow
depends on such an assumption, then that atomist can reasonably say that
it is suspect.
6 We can distinguish two aspects to these intuitions : (1) an intuition that
the present moment is metaphysically special; and (2) an intuition that
there is a constant change in which events are highlighted as present. The
psychological phenomenon I am interested in is more relevant to (2). For
attempts to explain (1), see Butterfield (1984) and Callendar (2008). A recent
attempt to explain (2) (or something close to it), in terms different from
those I discuss here, is Paul (2012).
References
Bayne, T. (2010). The Unity of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Broad, C. D. (1925), The Mind and its Place in Nature. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Butterfield, J. (1984), Seeing the present, Mind, 93, 16176.
Callendar, C. (2008), The common now, Philosophical Issues, 18, 33961.
Chuard, P. (2011), Temporal experiences and their parts, Philosophers Imprint,
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Dainton, B. (2000), Stream of Consciousness: Unity and Continuity in Conscious
Experience. London: Routledge.
(2004), Precis of stream of consciousness, Psyche, 10, 1.
(2010), Temporal Consciousness, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford
Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/
entries/consciousness-temporal/
Grush, R. (2005), Internal models and the construction of time: generalizing
from state estimation to trajectory estimation to address temporal features of
perception, including temporal illusions, Journal of Neural Engineering, 2, 3,
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James, W. (1912), Essays in Radical Empiricism. New York: Longmans.
Kline, K., Holcombe, A. O., and Eagleman, D. M. (2004), Illusory motion
reversal is caused by rivalry, not by perceptual snapshots of the visual field,
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Lamme, V. A., Super, H. and Spekreijse, H. (1998), Feedforward, horizontal, and
feedback processing in the visual cortex, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 8,
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Lee, G. (2014a), Temporal experience and the temporal structure of
experience, Philosophers Imprint, 14, 3, 121.
(2014b), Experiences and Their Parts, in D. Bennet and C. Hill (eds), Sensory
Integration and the Unity of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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(2011), Pulsed out of awareness: EEG alpha oscillations represent a pulsedinhibition of ongoing cortical processing, Frontiers in Psychology, 2.
Miller, I. (1985), Husserl, Perception and Temporal Awareness. Cambridge, MA:
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Paul, L. (2012), Temporal experience, Journal of Philosophy, CVII, 7, 33359.
Phillips, I. (2010), Perceiving temporal properties, European Journal of
Philosophy, 18, 2, 176202.
(2013), Perceiving the passage of time, Proceedings of the Aristotelian
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Pppel, E. (2004), Lost in time: a historical frame, elementary processing units
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(2003), Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity. Cambridge, MA: MIT
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Van Rullen, R. and Koch, C. (2003), Is perception discrete or continuous?,
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9
Flows, Repetitions, and
Symmetries: Replies to Lee
and Pelczar
Barry Dainton
f the many commonplace observations that could be made regarding

ordinary human lives, there are two that are relevant to the issues with
which I will be dealing here. First, most of us spend most of our lives awake,
rather than asleep or otherwise unconscious. Second, during our waking
hours we are continuously consciouswe are experiencing continuously. For
the most part we are always aware of something or other, and more often
than not one of these somethings will be changing, in one way or another.
Given these two hard-to-dispute facts, it would be natural to suppose that
it would have by now proved possible to arrive at an account of the general
structure of our streams of consciousness that would command broad
assent. Indeed, one might think that nothing would be less obvious or controversial. After all, these streams contain the experiences which constitute
our conscious lives, and their basic structural features are comparatively
constant: what it feels like to be an ordinary awake-and-experiencing human
subject does not change enormously from one moment, or hour (or day or
month) to the next. But this is far from being the case. There are very different
accounts of the structure of our streams of consciousness on offer, and as yet
nothing approaching agreement as to which of these is closest to the truth
as the contributions of Lee and Pelczar to this volume attest. If the nature of
time itself is among the more intractable issues in metaphysics, the nature
of our temporal experience must count as among the most intractable issues
in phenomenology and the philosophy of mind.
176
Timeless experience
One basic division of opinion concerns the manner and extent to which
our experience really is temporal in character. A useful way of bringing the
(apparent) temporality of our ordinary experience into clear view is by trying
to imagine what it would be like to be a wholly timeless being.
In attempting just this, Walker (1978: 402) envisages a subject whose
sensory experience is restricted to the visual, and who sees a spatial array of
colored solids at differing distances.
Needless to say, this atemporal subjects visual experience is utterly
static and devoid of changethere can be no change without time. So too
is the subjects internal mental life: they do not enjoy an ongoing (and
hard to stop) inner soliloquy, they do not feel their stomachs rumbling or
their limbs changing position. Nor do they experience anything as persisting
or enduring. For someone to see an object remaining the same color takes
some time, and time is something Walkers timeless subject does not have.
Consequently, this subjects experience will be both static and stroboscopic:
it will consist of a single flash without discernible duration.
Variety is the
spice of life
viewpoint
FIGURE 9.1 Experience in a Timeless World
Flows, Repetitions, and Symmetries
177
This extreme brevity may not rule out the apprehension of meaning.
Walker suggests a timeless subject may be able to understand the meanings
of inscriptions on the blocks it sees (as shown in Figure 9.1). But since these
meanings must also be grasped all at once in a flash, the corresponding
messages must be short and simple (assuming the beings cognitive powers
are similar to our own). Also, it is not for nothing that Walkers subject is
confined to a wholly visual world. For it seems plausible to suppose that
auditory experience is essentially temporal; a sound that has no discernible
duration at all would not be a sound.
Now, our own experience is manifestly very different from that of this
timeless subject.1 We do hear sounds, and not just individual sounds but
whole seamless successions of them. On listening to a sequence of brief
notes of equal duration, CDEFGAB, by the time we hear the last note
B we will no longer be able to hear the initial note C, but we will hear each
note flowing into its immediate successor. We too can see static ensembles
of objects, but unlike the timeless subject, our experience is not confined
to frozen snapshot-like instants, even on those rare occasions when we are
gazing at an array of motionless objects. If we turn our heads quickly, we see
our surroundings zip by in a blur; if we turn our heads more slowly, we see
our surroundings slide by in a clear non-blurry fashion; if we dont turn our
heads (or move our eyes) we see the objects we are looking at continuing on,
in a way that is not available to the timeless subject.
We too can take in meanings in a glance (when looking at the inscription
in Figure 9.1, for example). But we can also apprehend meanings over time.
We do so when we listen to someone talking, or read through a lengthy
paragraph of text, or when our inner soliloquy is conducted in our acoustic
imaginationsas it often is.
Atomism v. extensionalism
When it comes to making sense of how our experience can be as it is,
we are confronted with the problem of explaining how our experience
can have those dynamic, time-consuming characteristics which differentiate it from the consciousness of a timeless subject. In responding to
this question, some have claimedfor example, Chuard (2010)that our
streams of experience are in fact composed of successions of momentary
phases whose contents are just as static (or frozen) as those apprehended
by Walkers timeless subject.2 This is a bold, even heroic, proposal, but it
is not a very promising one. Given the dramatic phenomenological differences between our own streams of consciousness and those of a timeless
subjecta subject whose experience is not stream-like at allthe claim
178
that fundamentally our experiences are of precisely the same sort is not a
plausible one, to put it mildly.
If we reject the claim that our experience is fundamentally timelessas
I propose to do herewe are left with the task of comprehending how our
experience can be both highly dynamic (over short intervals) and continuous
(over longer intervals) in the way it seems to be. Here too there are various
options and possibilities, but I want to focus here on just two: the extensionalist view that I have explored and defended on several previous occasions,
and the view to which Lee and Pelczar are both sympathetic.3 Following the
lead of Lee, I will call the latter atomism.
Both views fully acknowledge that over short intervals we are directly
aware of change and succession. So in the case of the sequence of brief
tones mentioned above, even though we dont apprehend the entirety of
CDEFGAB in a single unified experiential episodeby the time B
occurs we are no longer experiencing Cwe do hear each tone giving
way to its immediate successor. We hear the C-tone flowing into (or being
succeeded by) the D-tone, the latter flowing into the E-tone, and so on. If
this is the case, then our stream of consciousness must contain auditory
experience with the following contents: (CD), (DE), (EF), (FG)
Each of these is a unified episode of experiencea specious present
to use the usual jargonwith a dynamic content which appears to extend a
short way through time. I am assuming here that any two of these tones fully
occupy a single specious present, hence the brackets mark the outermost
boundaries of these unified experiential wholes.
But do these appearances correspond with reality? According to the
extensionalists they do: each of these episodeseach of these specious
presentsextends a short distance through time, in much the way it seems
to. Hence (CD) is a temporally extended experience, with briefer experiences as parts, and these include (at the very least) an experiencing of C and
an experiencing of D, with the latter occurring later than the former. C may be
experienced before D, but it is nonetheless experienced with D, as parts of a
single unified experience of C-being-followed-by-D.
According to the atomist, in sharp contrast, episodes such as (CD) do not
extend through time. They consist of momentary (or very brief) experiences
with contents which appear to extend over a short period (e.g., a second
or so), even though they do not in fact do so. Consequently, unlike their
extensionalist counterparts, atomist specious presents do not consist of a
succession of briefer experiences. Experienced duration and succession exist
in experiences which do not themselves possess duration and succession. In
effect, in this view the temporality of experience lies orthogonal to objective
temporality, as illustrated in Figure 9.2.
Extensionalism and atomism differ in how they situate experienced
179
FIGURE 9.2 Directly experienced succession as seen by the Extensionalist (on

the left) and the Atomist (on the right). Each rectangle represents a single specious
present.
temporal extension into objective time. But there is another important

divergence: the accounts they offer of the structure of streams of
consciousness are also very different. According to the atomist, a stream
consists of a succession of discrete momentary (or near-momentary)
experiences, each of which possesses apparent temporal depth. For the
extensionalist, a stream consists of a succession of temporal extended
specious presents which overlap by sharing parts, in the manner indicated
in Figure 9.3.4
There is more to be said about each of these theories, but this brief outline
is sufficient to reveal that we are being offered very different accounts of
temporal experience.5 How should we go about choosing between them?
FIGURE 9.3 Extensionalist specious presents overlap by sharing parts. Hence

in the case of the stream-phases (CD) and (DE) shown on the left, the D-tone
in the former is numerically the same as the D-tone in the latter. Atomist specious
presents, as shown on the right, are entirely distinct and discrete episodes of
experience.
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Repetitions
On various occasions I have argued that the extensional model has greater
phenomenological plausibility than rivals such as atomism. Lee disagrees,
arguing that phenomenological considerations do not provide us with a basis
for preferring one model over the other.
One issue is related to the problem of repeated contents. As Pelczar
makes clear in his excellentand in some respects novelpresentation of
the problem, the atomist is confronted with an awkward dilemma. In the case
of the auditory succession CDEFGA, the atomist could say that this
experience consists of just three specious presents (CD), (EF), and (GA).
But this uncomplicated proposal faces a problem. In reality, tone D is experienced as flowing into E, and F is experienced as flowing into G, but neither
of these transitions would be experienced under the current proposal. There
is an obvious solution to this problem. The atomist can fill the gaps by holding
that there are five specious presents not three: (CD), (DE), (EF), (FG),
(GA). Unfortunately, this move also proves problematic. Every transition
between notes is now experienced, but at the cost of too many notes being
experienced. The subject of this stream would experience CDDEEFF
GGA. A normal stream of auditory experience has been transformed into a
stream with a stutter, as Pelczar aptly describes it. These phenomenologically
unrealistic repetitions are an inevitable consequence of the atomists attempt
to capture all the experienced transitions which actually exist in streams of
consciousness.
In fact, as Pelczar points out, the situation rapidly goes from bad to
worse. In our actual streams, it is typically the case that every brief phase
of experience is experienced as flowing into the next. Given this, the
new specious presents just introduced, namely (DE) and (FG), should
themselves be experientially continuous with their neighbors. The only way
of achieving this within the atomists framework is by introducing yet more
specious presents, for example we will need a further specious present
(DD) to bridge (CD) and (DE). And since these new atomic phases will
themselves need linking to their neighbors, we are embarked on a disastrous
infinite regress.
The extensionalist model captures all the experienced transitions without
introducing any unrealistic stuttering. In the simple case envisaged, we
again have just five specious presents: (CD), (DE), (EF), (FG), (GA).
Moreover, instead of D (for example) being experienced twice over at
different times, it is experienced just once. This is because the D-tone in
(CD) is numerically identical with the D-tone in (DE), and similarly for the
Fs and Gs. For Pelczar, the one great advantage of the extensional model
181
lies in the simple and effective solution it offers to the repeated contents
problem.
For Lee, in contrast, the repeated contents issue is an easily deflected
pseudo-problem. Since Lee believes atomists should accept that our
streams of consciousness do not possess the same depth of unity as in
the extensional modela claim to which I shall returnhe has little to fear
from the threatened infinite regress. In the case of our example above, he
could hold that the experiencing of CDEFGA involves just five specious
presents, (CD), (DE), (EF), (FG), (GA), and argue that the additional
linking specious presentssuch as (DD) and (EE)are surplus to
requirements.
Even so, dont these five specious presents create an unrealistic stutter?
Isnt it implausible to suppose that in hearing this sequence of notes we hear
CDDEEFFGGA? In response, Lee has this to say:
all that multiple presentations really amounts to is the claim that
you experience the event for an extended period of time, longer than the
duration of a single experience There is nothing counterintuitive about
this. It is true that the onset of an event may be presented for more than
a single moment, but this does not mean that the event will seem to you
to be starting over and over again; all the experiences you have present it
as starting only once. (Lee 2014: 155)
Ones musical abilities do not need to be particularly acute to appreciate that
the sequence CDE sounds very different from CDDE. (Dont forget that
here and throughout we are assuming that the tones are of equal duration.)
Indeed, our ability to appreciate music depends in large part on our being
very sensitive to this sort of difference. A D-tone which is twice as long as
a particular C-tone sounds very different from a D-tone of the same duration
as that same C-tone. So on the face of it at least, and contrary to what Lee
claims, it seems that it does matter if the repeated contents problem leads
to events being experienced for extended periods of time.
In the second part of the passage cited above, Lee makes a further claim.
He suggests that the repeated contents are not presented as new, and so
will not be noticed by us. In the case of CDDE, the second D-tone exists,
but since the experience is presented to us as being the same experience
as the first D-tone, we experience D only as a single tone, not two.
We can, I think, agree that if the repeated contents are undetectableif
they are entirely invisible to introspectionthere is no longer any problem, at
least at the phenomenological level. But it is difficult to see why the additional
tones would be undetectable. Suppose someone plays the sequence of
notes CDDE on a piano standing a few feet away from you; the pianist is
182
sufficiently accomplished that the tones are all of precisely the same duration,
and volume. So far as its auditory properties go, the second D-note is intrinsically just like the first. Evidently, in these circumstances there are two easily
detectable D-tones present in your stream of consciousness. According to
Lee, when you listen to the three-note sequence CDE, you first experience
(CD) and a moment or two later (DE). So far as their auditory phenomenal
properties go, both D-tones are precisely the same. Given this, why would
the second D-tone be an entirely undetectable presence in your stream of
consciousness? Why wouldnt it be just as detectable as the second D in the
four-note sequence played on the piano?
There are in fact easily conceivable circumstances in which a repeated
content would be interpreted as being nothing more a re-presentation of the
original. Suppose, for example, that I have a digital sound recorder which
hasin effectdeveloped a regular stutter: after every second or so, the
acoustic content recorded over the previous half-second is duplicated by
the machine, and this addition content gets added to the sounds actually
recorded when the latter are played back. Since I am well aware of this
machines fault, if I heard the note sequence CDDE emerging from this
device, and durations of these notes is such that CD together last for a
second, I would naturally assume that the second D-tone is a product of the
recorders malfunctioning systems, and does not correspond to any actual
sound. So I would then (rightly) conclude that the sequence of sounds which
actually occurred consisted of the sequence CDE. Consequently, I would
hear the second tone as a re-presentation (or reproduction) of the initial
D-tone.
In a similar fashion, if my hearing were similarly afflictedby virtue of,
say, a malfunctioning cochlear implantI would make similar judgments
about what I was hearing: I would appreciate that only some of my auditory
experiences correspond with actual sounds in the environment. In scenarios
of this type there is a divergence between the character of ones experiences
and what one takes these experiences to represent; but in virtue of the fact
that the divergence is systematic and predictable, it is nonetheless possible
to arrive at an accurate picture of what is going on about one on the basis
of ones experience. But even though in these circumstances some experiences are not taken at face value, they are perfectly ordinary components of
streams of consciousness, and just as easily discernible introspectively as
any other experience. The second D-tone is experienced as a re-presentation
of the earlier D-tone, but it is a perfectly ordinary auditory experience in its
own right.
Lee claims that such experiences would be undetectable, invisible to our
introspective scrutiny. But as far as I can see, there is no reason to believe he
is correct. He has certainly provided us with no such reason.6
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In reply, Lee could argue that it is at least possible that the repetitions
exist, but go undetected by us. If Descartes all-powerful Demon could
get us to believe that 2 + 2 makes 5, couldnt the Demon also ensure that
we dont notice the repeated contents the atomists model of temporal
experience brings with it? And if an all-powerful Demon could manage this,
couldnt our own brains, or cognitive systems, manage to do the same?
If our experience is structured in the way the atomist suggests, perhaps
our brains have developed compensatory mechanisms, and ensure that
the duplicate experiences they themselves are creating are introspectively
invisible to us, and are not cognized or remembered. There is, after all,
a good reason why our brains would develop such mechanisms: in their
absence, our sensory experience would be a very unreliable guide to what
is going on around us.
This may all be possible, but it is not a very economical way for our brains
to function, to put it mildly. We would be justified in taking this scenario
seriously if the atomists model of temporal experience were the only
available option, but it isnt. The extensional alternative is simpler and more
economical: it brings with it neither the duplicated experiential contents,
nor the compensatory mechanisms which ensure that we are systematically deluded as to the experiences we are actually having, from moment
to moment. In the absence of countervailing considerations which favor
atomism, it looks as though the repeated contents problem does provide us
with a reason for favoring the extensionalists position.7
However, there is a further twist in the tale. The issue of whether it really
is possible for experiences in our streams of consciousness to disappear
without leaving any phenomenological trace is linked to another issue: the
sorts of continuity which exists in these same streams.
Sensible continuity
The fact that the extensionalists account of the structure of our streams of
consciousness does not give rise to the problem of repeated contents is one
reason for preferring it over atomism. A second reason is its ability to accommodate any distinctive continuity that is characteristic of our ordinary streams
of consciousness, or so I have argued previously. Once again, Lee demurs,
arguing that when it comes to experiential continuity, the explanatory and
phenomenological resources of atomism are precisely equivalent to those of
extensionalism. Once again, I am not convinced by his arguments, though
the issues here are admittedly rather more nuanced phenomenologically
speaking than in the repeated contents case.
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The phenomenological feature in question is the sort of continuity which

makes it appropriate to describe our consciousness as stream-like in the
first place, the sort of continuity which James calls sensible continuity.
This form of continuity is at its most conspicuous when we are perceiving
ongoing processes which are themselves continuous: when watching river
water flowing by, or listening to a sustained note played on a church organ,
or watching an ice skater gliding around the rink, or enjoying the feel of a hot
shower against ones skinthe examples can be multiplied endlessly and
easily. In such cases each phase of ones experience has a dynamic content,
but each phase also seamlessly flows into the next.
Sensible continuity is readily accommodated by the extensional model,
provided at least that the latter includes the form of overlap via part-sharing
mentioned earlier. We see the ice skater glide from X to Y and then from Y to
Z. The seamlessly flowing character of the whole experience is explained by
the fact that the second half of the first episode is numerically identical with
the first half of the second episode. Overlap by part-sharing supplies a simple
but effective underpinning for sensible continuity. If this form of overlap does
exist, there is no mystery as to why our streams of consciousness can be as
continuous as they appear to be.
Is sensible continuity so easily accommodated by atomism? On the face of
it, this seems unlikely. After all, the defining feature of atomism lies precisely
in its atomistic conception of the stream of consciousness. Streams are
composed of entirely discrete momentary (or near-momentary) experiences.
True, the contents of these momentary experiences are dynamic, and seem
to extend through a brief-ish interval of time. But it remains the case that the
atomic experiences themselves are self-contained, and so are not experientially connected to any earlier or later experiences in the same stream.
Lee thinks none of this matters. Why? Because he also thinks that Atomic
total experiences can be isomorphic to extensional ones in all respects save
their orientation with regard to ordinary objective time. A total experience is
a maximal unified episode of experience, possessing dynamic contents which
themselves possess apparent temporal extensionexperiences otherwise
known as specious presents. Lee invites us to take as an example an
auditory total experience which consists of the hearing of a short stretch
of music, consisting of a succession of notes experienced as a succession.
So far as the contents of this total experience are concerned, atomists and
extensionalists are in total agreement, or so Lee claims: Atomist and extensionalist can agree about what the overall content of this total experience
is, and agree that it has as parts experiences of individual sounds and their
relations, and agree that these parts are unified as parts of the complex
whole (2014: 1656) Since they agree on so much, it is difficult to see how
there can be any phenomenal fact or featuresuch as phenomenal flow or
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sensible continuitywhich can be explained by the extensionalist but not

by the atomist. The only difference between the two camps is whether the
contents of the total experience occur in parallel with ordinary time (as the
extensionalist maintains) or lie orthogonal to it (as the atomist claims). But Lee
cannot see how this difference in objective temporal orientation can have any
phenomenological significance at all, given thatas he nicely puts itthe
temporal order of the parts of an extensional experience has an analogue in
the presentation of temporal order in an atomic experience (2014: 166).
I think Lee is right about one thing. Take two streams of consciousness,
S1 and S2. These two streams are, let us suppose, as similar as can be, save
for the fact that S1 is a stream structured along extensional lines, and S2 is
a stream structured along atomist lines. If S1 and S2 were totally indistinguishable phenomenally, then both streams would be sensibly continuous in
the same ways and to the same extent. But can the two streams be phenomenally indistinguishable, given the dramatic differences in the way they are
structured? It is here that Lee and I start to diverge.
Structures and relations

To keep matters as simple as possible, let us return to Lees auditory total
experience which consists of a succession of several brief sound-sensations.
We will call it T-Ex1, and stipulate that it consists of three successive
auditory experiences which we will label S1, S2, and S3. We will
also suppose that these experiences are the initial phase of a stream of
consciousness which consists of six successive auditory sensations, with
S4, S5, and S6 following on from S3. Just as S1, S2, and S3 are sufficiently
brief to fit into a single total experience (or specious present), so too are S4,
S5, and S6. As this experienced succession unfolds, the atomist and extensionalist will both claim that the following sequences of total experiences will
occur. The initial T-Ex1 consisting of [S1-S2-S3] will be followed by a second
total experience (which we can call) T-Ex2 consisting of the experienced
succession [S2-S3-S4], which is followed by a third total experience, T-Ex3,
consisting of [S3-S4-S5], and then finally a fourth, T-Ex4, which comprises
[S4-S5-S6]. When viewed in this way see Figure 9.4 overleaf it may seem
just obvious that there is no phenomenological difference between the two
ways of construing stream-structure. In fact, this is far from being the case.
Consider first the atomists matrix on left of Figure 9.4, and the two
initial total experiences, T-Ex1 and T-Ex2. There is a good deal of apparent
overlap in the contents of these total experiences, but here appearances
are misleading. For the atomistas Lee fully acceptsthe reoccurrences of
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FIGURE 9.4
the S2- and S3-type experiences in T-Ex2 may derive from the same external
stimuli, but they are very definitely not the same token experiences as their
counterparts in T-Ex1. Since the S2- and S3-type tokens in T-Ex1 and T-Ex2
belong to total experiences which exist at different times, and which do not
overlap by part sharing, there is no option but to accept that they are numerically distinct.8 And the same applies to the S3-type experience in T-Ex3: since
the latter occurs in a different momentary (or near-momentary) episode of
experience to its counterpart in T-Ex2, it too must consist of a numerically
distinct experience (or part of an experience). Furthermore, in the case of the
S4 type, it appears in three distinct total experiences, existing as it does in the
final phase of T-Ex2, in the middle of T-Ex3, and the start of T-Ex4. Again, each
of these occurrences is a numerically distinct token experience in its own
right. In Figure 9.5, below I have used * and ** to register the numerical
distinctness of these (and similar) experiences.
The picture drawn by the extensionalist is very different. Here, the S2and S3-type sounds which occur in T-Ex2 are numerically identical with their
counterparts in T-Ex1, and similarly for S3- and S4-types in T-Ex3. In Figure
9.5 below, the experiences on the right that are shown in bold are not new
experiences, but the originals located in a succession of partially overlapping
temporal wholes.
FIGURE 9.5
187
When the situation is clarified in this way, no doubt the most obvious
difference between the two analyses of this short and simple stream of
consciousness lies with the number of times individual sounds get experienced. According to the extensionalist, there are six sound-experiences in total,
whereas for the atomist there are twelve. This difference is a further illustration, needless to say, of the repeated contents problem. There is no need
to dwell further on this here, so for now let us set it aside and concentrate
instead on another difference, one that is less obvious, but no less important.
Aside from its orientation in (ordinary) time, the initial total experience T-Ex1
is exactly the same on both accounts. It consists of a unified experiencing of
a succession of three tones, S1S2S3. In this three-phase succession, S2 is
experienced in two sub-phases, (S1S2), and (S2S3); in the first, S1 is experienced as flowing into S2, and in the second, S2 is experienced as flowing into
S3. As is evident, the fact that S2 exists in these two distinct sub-phases does
not mean that S2 exists twice over in T-Ex1. It doesnt; it occurs just once. This
is because the two sub-phases overlap by sharing a common part, namely (the
one and only) S2. Or to put it another way, the second part of the first sub-phase
is numerically the same experience as the first part of the second sub-phase.
We can see from this that there is overlap via part-sharing on the atomist
model too, or at least, there is within the confines of single total experiences (or
specious presents). Unlike the extensionalist, the atomist does not permit partsharing between successive total experiences. Does this confinement have
phenomenological implications? It does, but before turning to these I want to
bring to the fore one particular aspect of the part-sharing as it exists in T-Ex1.
Identity preservation
Consider again the two sub-phases (S1S2) and (S2S3). These occur in
succession, so we hear S1 being followed by S2, and S2 being followed by
S3. Now, in these two sub-phases it is a basic phenomenological datum
that the S2 which occurs in (S1S2) is numerically identical with the S2 in
(S2S3). This is a corollary of the fact that (S1S2) and (S2S3) are parts of a
single unified episode of experiencea fact that atomists and extensionalists
both accept. These identity-preserving successions (as we can call them)
have their counterparts in the spatial realm. Imagine looking at a picture on
a wall, and divide your visual experience at a given time into three spatially
adjacent phases, which we can label A, B, and C. The experiences consisting
of the spatial expanses (AB) and (BC) overlap by possessing a (spatial) part
in common, andin this case at leastthere is no doubt at all that the B
in (AB) and the B in (BC) is numerically the same experience. So much is
188
obvious; what we can now appreciateexplicitlyis that a closely analogous

form of overlap exists in the temporal case also.
However, what we can also appreciate is that there is a very significant
divergence between the identity-preserving (IP-) successions which exist in
the atomists way of construing our streams of consciousness and those
which exist according to the extensionalist. Figure 9.6 below depicts the two
sequences of total experiences we have been discussing, with the experiencephases which form parts of IP-successions now indicated by underlining.
FIGURE 9.6
Looking first to the atomists matrix on the left, only S2, S3*, S4*, and S5 are
underlined, because these are the only experiences (or experience-phases)
which occur in the midst of IP-successions. Recalling the typographic terminology, S1, S2*, S3**, and S4** are all orphans (i.e., they occur at the start
of the line, preceded by nothing), and S3, S4, S5, and S6 are all widows (i.e.,
they are at the end of the line, followed by nothing).
In the case of the extensionalists view of things, as seen on the right
of Figure 9.6, experiences S2, S3, S4, and S5 each occur in the midst of
IP-successions. S2 occurs in the center of the IP-succession T-Ex1. Why is
S3 also underlined in the T-Ex1? Because it occupies center-stage in the
IP-succession T-Ex2, and (as is now familiar), for the extensionalist these token
S3 experiences are numerically identical. Since the same applies to S4 and
S5, the only experiences which do not occupy center-stage in IP-successions
are the first and last. Hence there is just a single widow and a single orphan:
S1 and S6 respectively.
If we now ask Which of these ways of construing this stream of
consciousness best reflects the phenomenology? I think the answer is plain.
When we listen to a sequence of brief tones such as S1S6, we hear an
initial tone that is preceded by silence (or nothing at all), we then hear each
tone-phase smoothly sliding into the next, before hearing a final tone which
is followed by nothing. With the exception of the first and last tones in the
sequence, we experience each tone-phase (a) occurring just once, and (b)
occurring in the midst of an IP-succession.
189
This corresponds exactly with the extensionalists account, as depicted

on the right. It does not remotely correspond with the account the atomist is
offering. If our experience were as shown on the left, only one-third of the tonephases would be experienced as occurring in the midst of IP-successions. The
remaining two-thirds are either widows or orphans, that is, they are experienced as being preceded by silence or succeeded by nothing.
The atomist could respond thus: If the matrix on the left were an accurate
representation of the course of our experience then it would be unrealistic
phenomenologically. But it isnt. In reality, the repeated contents are not
experienced as such. Take the repeated contents out of the picture and the
problem is solved. For the reasons outlined earlier, I do not think it is plausible
to suppose the repeated contents would be undetectable. However, even if
we were to grant Lee this, the atomists predicament is scarcely any better.
In the matrix below, the repeated contents (those marked with *) arewe
can supposenot experienced; the contents which do get experienced are
in bold.
T-Ex1
T-Ex2
T-Ex3
T-Ex4
=
=
=
=
[S1S2S3]
[S2*S3*S4]
[S3**S4*S5]
[S4**S5*S6]
So in this case, the stream in question consists of S1S2S3S4S5S6.

As is apparent, if anything, omitting the repeated contents only makes
the atomists predicament worse. For although each of S1, S2 S6 is
experienced only once, only S2 in T-Ex1 is experienced in the midst of an
IP-succession (hence the underlining), and S4, S5, and S6 are each orphans
and widows: each of them is experienced in complete isolation from the
other tone-phases. This clearly fails to correspond with the actual character
of our streams of consciousness.
The situation is much the same if we take a different selection of contents
to represent our stream:
T-Ex1
T-Ex2
T-Ex3
T-Ex4
=
=
=
=
[S1S2S3]
[S2*S3*-S4]
[S3**S4*S5]
[S4**S5*S6]
A further possibility is depicted below:

T-Ex1 = [S1S2S3]
T-Ex2 = [S2*S3*S4]
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T-Ex3 = [S3**S4*S5]
T-Ex4 = [S4**S5*S6]
The latter scenario avoids repeated contents by taking the stream to be
composed of just two non-overlapping total experiences, one with content
S1S2S3, the other with content S4**S5*S6. There is still a problem
with a surplus of widows and orphans. But more seriously, there is now a
transition between tones which does not get experienced at all. The first
total experience ends with S3, and the second starts with S4, but there is no
experience of S3 flowing into S4. So once again we have a highly problematic
result: in this case, an unrealistic fragmentation of the stream in question.
I suggested above that in hearing a sequence such as S1S6, we
experience each tone-phase as (a) occurring just once, and (b) occurring in
the midst of an IP-successionwith (of course) the exception of the first and
last tones in the sequence. As is by now very clear, if this is the case, then it
looks to be impossible for the atomist to accommodate this basic phenomenological datum. In contrast, the extensionalist can accommodate it fully and
easily. If this is not already obvious, Figure 9.7 below makes it so. Here each
of the double-headed horizontal arrows indicates a different total experience
(or specious present), and the vertical arrows indicate the tone-phases which
are centrally located in IP-successions. Since these total experiences overlap
by part-sharing, there is no unrealistic repetition of contents.
Experiencing Discontinuity
By virtue of dividing our apparently seamless streams of consciousness
into experientially isolated fragments, the atomist both reduces the quantity
FIGURE 9.7
191
of experienced continuity these streams possess, andas a direct and

inevitable consequenceincreases the number of phenomenal widows
and orphans, that is, experiences which are either followed by nothing, or
preceded by nothing. Or so I have been arguing. A natural query at this point
might be: Yes, the atomist is committed to the existence of a great number
of additional widows and orphans, but is this a problem? Would their presence
make a phenomenal difference? Or to put it another way, are discontinuities
in experience really discernible in the way you are suggesting? I think the
answer to this is Yes, and so does Lee:
Take the simple example of experiencing a long continuous tone. Your
auditory systemindeed your perceptual system in generalis designed
to detect discontinuities in stimuli, and make them perceptually salient to
you. There is therefore a big perceptual difference between experiencing
a sound as starting, and experiencing a sound without experiencing it as
starting. There may also be such a thing as positively experiencing the
sound as continuing on from before. (2014: 1667)
There is nothing here with which I would disagree. However, Lee goes on to
suggest that the atomist is better placed to explain how discontinuities can
be experienced than the extensionalist. I do not think this is correct, but once
again exploring where Lees argument goes astray will prove useful.
To keep things as simple as possible, we will stay with Lees example of
a continuous sound, which well take to be a prolonged C-tone. From the
extensional perspective, a single total experience (or specious present) filled
with this tone, lets call it T, can be represented thus:
T = [CCC]
It seems to the subject of Tor so we can stipulatethat this C-tone is part
of an ongoing sound. It is here that Lee sees a potential problem. To reveal the
problem we need to introduce another total experience into consideration:
T* = [CCC]
Both T and T* are experiences of an exactly similar C-tone that appears to
extend over a similar short interval of time. However, the two experiences are
nonetheless different in character. Whereas T is (seemingly) an experience of
an ongoing open-ended sound, T* is not: this sound (or so we can stipulate)
doesnt seem to be continuing on from a previous tone, and its subject has no
sense that it will continue on either. Hence Lees query: how can the extensionalist explain the difference between T and T*, since they are intrinsically
192
just the same? For the extensionalist there is a difference between T and T*,
in that the former is unified with a prior experience of a C-tone, whereas the
latter is unified with a prior experience of silence, but Lee claims that this
connection with the earlier parts of the stream is actually an extrinsic property
of the total experience, whereas the appearance of continuity is surely an
intrinsic property of the experience, having to do with how it presents a
current sound as related to the past (2014: 167)
In reply, there are a number of points extensionalists can make. First
and most obviously, they will maintain that it is misleading to consider total
experiences such as T and T* in isolation. If these experiences form parts
of more extensive streams of consciousness, then the extensionalist will
hold that they are connected by experienced relations to earlier and later
stream-phases, and these relations play a key role in the experiencing of both
continuity and discontinuity. For example, T might find itself being experienced amid the sequence of sounds depicted in Figure 9.8 below.
FIGURE 9.8
In this diagram S represents an absence of auditory experience, so a period
of silence, and D the experiencing of a D-tone.9 Since the total experiences
overlap by part-sharing, only three C-tones are experienced during the period
depicted. As can be seen, the earlier phases of T are directly experienced
withand following on fromthe preceding period of silence, whereas the
later phases of T are experienced together with an emerging series of D-tones.
The continuous auditory experience is thus interwoven with the preceding and
succeeding stream-phases in a way that is not possible for the atomist.
A second point is no less important. Lee is right that as our experience
unfolds from moment to moment we often have a sense of where it is going,
and where it has come from. This general sense can vary in strength and
specificity, and have different sources. It can involve memories of what has
just occurred, or anticipations (involving our sensory imaginations) of what is to
come, or even conscious thoughts (e.g., This has been going on for a while).
But more often it involves no more than a feeling whichif we were asked to
193
put it into wordswe might describe as I had the impression that it had been
going on for a while/or had just started. In the absence of a widely used alternative, I will use the expression temporal intimations to refer to these varied
and often hard-to-pin-down (but nonetheless real) aspects of our experience.10
Lee is right that temporal intimations of this sort exist, but completely
wrong to think that extensionalists cannot incorporate them into their
account of the overall content and structure of our streams of consciousness.
I for one have previously argued (Dainton 2003) that we should recognize
that temporal intimations are aspects of our consciousness which exist
alongside (or pervade) our basic sensory experience.11 So in this respect
the explanatory resources available to the extensionalist and the atomist
are precisely the same. Consequently, even if we do consider total experiences such as T and T* in complete isolation, and ignore their experienced
relationships with earlier and later experiences, the extensionalist can also
appeal to temporal intimations in explaining the residual phenomenological
differences between them.
Phenomenal fulcrums
There is a further respect in which the atomists account is deficient with
respect to the extensionalists. To bring it out requires a small modification to
the scenarios we have been considering thus far.
We have been focusing on simple illustrative examples featuring total
auditory experiences divided into three sub-phases. Let us vary things
slightly, by supposing that the auditory experiences have a slightly longer
duration, so each occupies a half (rather than a third) of the total experiences
to which they belong. With this small adjustment made, now consider a brief
stream of consciousness consisting of a sequence of four auditory experiences, S1S2S3S4. Given the lengths of the tones, this will divide into
three overlapping sub-phases: (S1S2), (S2S3), and (S3S4).
Now, if you were to hear this sound-sequence, it is plausible to suppose
that it would take the form shown in Figure 9.9 below.
That is, you would first hear S1 flowing into S2; you would then hear S2
flowing into S3; and finally hear S3 flowing into S4. I think it is also plausible
to suppose that you would hear both S2 and S3 occurring in IP-successions.
That is, when you hear S1 flowing into S2, and S2 flowing into S3, it is
manifestly the case that the S2-phase which follows S1 is numerically the
same tone-experience as the S2-phase which flows into S3 (and similarly,
mutatis mutandis, for S2S3 and S4). At the very least, if people were asked
to characterize their experience of this succession of tones, this description
would strike most people as completely apt.
194
FIGURE 9.9
That said, it is important to recognize that we are now dealing with a fundamentally different form of IP succession. In the three-phase total experience
(S1S2S3) we encountered earlier, the S2 phase occurs between S1 and
S3, and all three phases belong to a single unified experience, and so are
experienced together as parts of a whole. In the sort of case we are now
consideringfor example (S1S2), (S2S3)the central phase S2 forms
the second half of an earlier total experience and the first half of a later (and
partially overlapping) total experience. But although S1 is experienced as
flowing into S2, and the latter is experienced as flowing into S3, it is not the
case that S1, S2, and S3 all form parts of a single unified experience.
However, despite this difference, it remains the case that S1, S2, and S3
do form parts of an IP-succession. For as just noted, if we were asked to
describe our experience it would seem very natural to say I experienced
S1 flowing into S2, and S2the very same S2flowing into S3. We can
call experiences such as S2 phenomenal fulcrums. These fulcrums bind
experiences belonging to distinct total experiences (such as S1 and S3)
into IP-successions. If phenomenal fulcrums didnt exist, our streams of
consciousness would not be continuous in all the ways they actually are.
The relevance of phenomenal fulcrums to our present concerns is straightforward. Whereas the extensionalist can easily acknowledge their existence
and importance, the atomist cannot accommodate them at all. In the case
of (S1S2) and (S2S3), the extensionalist will hold that the S2 in both total
experiences is numerically the same experience, and hence does in fact
occur in the midst of an IP-succession. There is no such possibility open
to the atomist. For, once again, since the total experiences in question are
completely separate and non-overlapping, the S2-type experience in the first
195
must be numerically distinct from the S2-type experience in the second. A

succession of this kindthat is, (S1S2), (S2*S3)lacks a phenomenal
fulcrum, and so does not constitute an IP-succession.
This is not to say that the atomist cannot accommodate some
IP-successions. If the contents are sufficiently brief, as was the case
with the three brief sub-phases of T-Ex1 above, then successions of the
identity-preserving variety can exist within the atomists framework. But this
possibility evaporates for contents with slightly longer durations. Is this very
plausible? Again, I suggest not. Identity-preserving succession is not just
confined to the contents of single total experiences in the way the atomist
alleges.
In order to explain the appearances here, what the atomist can doand
what Lee doesis appeal to temporal intimations, as we called them in
the previous section. We experience S1 flowing into S2 in the first total
experience, and S2 is accompanied by the intimation that this isnt the end/
another sound will follow this one. As I have acknowledged, intimations of
this kind do exist, and our overall experience would be significantly different
in their absence. But the atomist is asking a very great deal from these
subtle insinuations. In reality, if the atomist is correct, our consciousness
consists of brief discrete pulses, and so the flow of our experience is being
continually brought to an abrupt and complete halt, every second or so. We
dont notice these total interruptions because we experience subtle (and
often non-sensory) intimations that this is not the case. In contrast, the
extensionalist can accept that our sensory experience is just as it seems:
we experience S1 flowing into S2, and S2 flowing into S3 with no interruption. As we do so, we may well have temporal intimations as well, and
these contribute to our sense that our experience has been flowing and
will continue to flow. But these exist in addition to the sensory continuities
which exist in our streams of consciousness; they do not replace or wholly
constitute them.
Fulcrums and repetitions

These considerations are also very much relevant to the problem of repeated
contents that we looked at earlier.
As will be recalled, in the case of the auditory succession CDE we
encountered at the start, the atomist holds that this stream of auditory
consciousness consists of two atomic total experiences, with contents (CD)
and (D-E). This gives rise to a problem: how is it that we hear just three
tones [CDE], and not four [CDDE]? To avoid this unrealistic stuttering,
one option for the atomist is to claim that the second (repeated) occurrence
196
of the D-tone is introspectively invisible. A question that was raised earlier,

but postponed, was whether duplicates such as this D-tone could be made
to disappear from our streams of consciousness, that is, be such that
they exist, but are introspectively invisible. We are now in a better position
to address this question, and see why such disappearances are more
problematic than they might initially appear.
So far as appearances go, both atomists and extensionalists agree that
the experiencing of the succession CDE seems to unfold over two total
experiences: in the first we hear C flowing into D, and in the second we
hear D flowing into E. Given this, if my claims in the previous section are
correct, the experience of middle D-tone is a phenomenal fulcrum, that is, it
is an experience occurring in the midst of an IP-succession. As we have also
seen, IP-successions of this sort simply cannot be accommodated within the
atomists framework. For the atomist, this sequence of experiences unfolds
thus: (CD), (D*E). Even if we suppose the repetition of the D-tone goes
unnoticed, we still have a phenomenologically unrealistic result. We hear C
followed by D, but we do not hear that same D-tone being followed by E.
The experiencing of E is not phenomenally connectednot diachronically
co-consciouswith the experiencing of the preceding D-tone. But this is not
how things actually seem: we hear C flowing into D, and D (the same D!)
flowing into E.
There is a further aspect of the problem, one which is independent of
IP-successions. By rendering the D* inaudible, the atomist makes it impossible for us to experience a D-tone flowing into the E-tone. Since in the
envisaged case we do hear a D directly flowing into the E, this too is unrealistic. The only obvious way to remedy this deficitwithin the confines of
atomism, at least is by reintroducing D*, and allowing us to hear it. But
this is no solution at all: for we are now back with the problem of repeated
contents.
***
Returning to the bigger picture, Lee claims that atomists and extensionalists
can agree on what the overall content of a given total experience is, and also
agree that it has as parts experiences of individual sounds and their relations,
and agree that these parts are unified as parts of the complex whole. We can
now see that this is only partially correct. So far as individual total experiences
are concerned, both camps agree that it consists of a succession of parts that
are experienced as unified. But when it comes to the relations which exist
among the parts of different (but successive) total experiences, the accounts
we have been considering have very different tales to tell. As we have also
seen, the tale told by the extensionalist is both simpler and more plausible.
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Symmetries
Pelczar may admire the way in which the extensional approach solves (or
sidesteps) the repeated contents problem, but he nonetheless finds the
doctrine to be problematical, albeit in other respects. His main complaint
centers on symmetry.
The fundamental laws of our most successful physical theoriesmost
versions of quantum mechanics and general relativityare often said to be
time-reversible. To a first approximation, it is not difficult to grasp what this
means. If a sequence of physical events E1E2E3 En are permitted by the
laws in question, then the laws will also permit the time-reversed sequence
consisting of En E3E2E1. Imagine a video film depicting (say) the way
the balls on a pool table move over the course of a gameso as to focus on
the action as far as possible, the director of the film has ensured that only the
on-table action is visible onscreen. If this video were played backwards, the
movements of the balls you see onscreen is also physically possible. This is
a consequence of the time-reversibility of the laws of motion governing the
balls, along with all other physical objects in our universe.
However, as Pelczar points out, the symmetries at the level of fundamental
physical laws which actually obtain in our universe are rather more complicated than this simple illustrative example. The actual symmetry is known
as charge, parity, and time (CPT-) invariance. The CPT-invariance theorem
states, roughly, that our actual physical laws also apply to a universe in
which (i) time is reversed, (ii) charge is reversed, along with other quantum
quantities, and (iii) all spatial relations between material bodies are the mirrorimage of those which exist in our universe. The upshot of (ii) is that material
objects in our universe are replaced by their anti-matter counterparts in the
CPT-reversed world.
Hence Pelczars complaint. It is generally accepted that our basic laws are
CPT-invariant. However, if the extensionalist account is correct, the basic laws
cannot all be CPT-invariant. This is because the extensional theory is incompatible with temporal reversibility: in a time-reversed world, very peculiar
things would happen at the experiential level, things which would not happen
if the relevant laws were time-reversal invariant. So the extensionalist account
of temporal experience brings with it deep and revisionary commitments.
Pelczar concedes that this does not necessarily mean that the theory is false.
Sometimes commitments need to be revised, usually in order to accommodate new empirical data; it may be that the character of our temporal
experience is such that it requires revisions to current physical theories. But
if so, Pelczar is right to point out that this is a non-trivial step, one that isnt to
be taken lightly.
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The unworld case

But why think that the extensionalist is committed to a revisionary position
with regard to time-reversibility? It is here that Pelczars Unworld scenario
comes into play. The Unworld is a temporally reversed duplicate of our world.
Physical events in the Unworld are just like their counterparts in this world,
only their temporal orientation is different. But if the extensionalists account
is correct, the experience of Unworld subjects would be radically unlike our
own, or so Pelczar claims.
In setting up his scenario, Pelczar makes a number of assumptions. The
first cluster of assumptions concern the relationship between the experiential
and the physical. Pelczar finds physicalism implausible, so here works on the
assumption that some form of dualism is true.12 He also assumes, plausibly
enough, that even if our experiences are themselves non-physical, they are
related to physical events in our brains in systematic, law-governed ways. We
still lack a detailed understanding of the ways in which neural activity give rise
to our different forms of consciousness, but at a higher level of generality we
are nonetheless in a position to say something about these psycho-physical
laws. The laws are such as to ensure that, in general, the character of human
experience is such as to be interpretable as being of a world which conforms
to the laws of physics. So bodies move continuously when forces are applied
to them, conform roughly to Newtons laws of motion, and more precisely to
Einsteins, and so forth. Pelczar calls this high-level nomological constraint on the
psycho-physical relationship which exists between our own brains and our own
experiences the law of experience.13 He also claims that it is plausible to think
that this is a fundamental law, and as such that it will conform to CPT-invariance,
in the manner of the other fundamental laws governing the universe.
The second cluster of assumptions concerns the nature of our temporal
experience. Pelczar assumes that some of our experiences are temporally
basic, that is, they do not possess briefer experiences as parts. He takes
the extensionalist to be proposing that (a) our streams of consciousness
are composed of these basic experiences, and (b) over short intervals
temporally basic experiences can be unified into wholesby the diachronic
co-consciousness relationship. Pelczar also works on the assumption that
if temporally basic experiences exist in time at all, they must instantiate all
the phenomenal properties (or qualia) they possess absolutely simultaneously. More controversially, drawing on relativistic considerations advanced
earlier in his chapter, Pelczar maintains that the physical correlates of these
temporally basic experiences must be point-events in spacetime. There are
questionable elements in Pelczars defence of this last claimas we shall see
in due coursebut let us grant them for the time being.
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We are now ready for the Unworld case proper. Pelczar envisages
himself observing a pendulum swing back and forth. He sees it move
from A to B, from B to C, then (as it reverses direction) from C to B, and
from B to A. Let us suppose, following Pelczar, that the experiencing of
(AB), (BC), (CB), and (BA) are temporally basic experiences possessing
dynamic contentsin this instance, of a brief movement. Next we are
invited to consider the experiences Pelczars counterpart in the timereversed Unworld will undergo. Pelczar claims that his counterpart would
experience (BA), then (CB), then (BC), and finally (AB). Instead of
seeing a pendulum move smoothly back and forth, Pelczars unfortunate
time-reversed counterpart sees it moving from B to A, then leaping forward
to C before sliding back to B, then moving from B back to C, at which point
it vanishes, reappears at A, and moves smoothly to B. Evidently, if this were
the case, the envisaged temporal reversal has failed to reverse Pelczars
stream of consciousness. If his consciousness had been reversed, his
counterpart would have experienced the smooth succession (AB), (BC),
(CB), (BA), and so would not have experienced the pendulum moving
unpredictably and discontinuously.
Moreover, as Pelczar points out, this result generalizes to all experiences of
continuous motion: subjects in the time-reversed world will never experience
objects moving smoothly from one location to another. As a consequence,
their experience will not be such as to make it plausible that they live in a
world governed by Newtons laws of motion, let alone Einsteins. In which
case, the law of experience fails to hold in the time-reversed universe. Since
the law of experience is a fundamental law, it should be as time-reversible
as any other fundamental law, but if we adopt the extensionalists view of
temporal experience, it isnt. The extensionalists view thus comes with a
heavy cost: it requires us to qualify or reject what is otherwise a universal
symmetry of nature.
Analyses and alternatives

Pelczars line of argument is not only novel, but brings into play considerations relating to our basic physical theories that are not often considered in
the context of arguments relating to temporal experience.14 Even if it does
not succeedand for reasons which will emerge, I have my doubts on this
scoreit introduces welcome new challenges.
One obvious line of response open to the extensionalist is to question
an assumption that Pelczar relies on but does not defend. The fundamental
laws of physics may be time-reversible, but why assume the same applies
to the laws of psycho-physics, that is, the laws relating physical events
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to experiential events? Perhaps the psycho-physical laws are not timereversible; perhaps they only function properlythat is, so as to generate
perceptual experiences that are an accurate and reliable guide to our physical
surroundingsin worlds with the same temporal orientation as our own.
However, on reflection, Pelczars assumption does not seem unreasonable.
After all, if the basic physical laws are fully time-reversible, the actual world
and its time-reversed counterpart are completely indistinguishable in all purely
physical respects. Given this, it is not easy to see how the psycho-physical
laws could be different in the two worlds. If your brain states are physically
indistinguishable from those of your time-reversed twins, if at a given time
you are enjoying experiences with a certain character, so too will your twin.
Of course, the situation might be different if the physical laws privileged a
particular temporal directionas we shall see shortly, this may well be the
case in our world. In any event, there are other more pressing problems with
Pelczars scenario.
Let us return to the pendulums perceived motion. In the actual world,
Pelczar sees it moving from A to C via B and back again, and so has the
following four experiences:
(i) [A to B], (ii) [B to C], (iii) [C to B], (iv) [B to A]
If we follow Pelczar, then these experiences are non-physical occurrences,
but they also have distinctive neural correlates, that is, the physical states
which occur simultaneously with these experiences, and which are related to
them in a law-like way. We can indicate these thus:
NC1: [A to B]; NC2: [B to C]; NC3: [C to B]; NC4: [B to A]
If we assume the psycho-physical laws are deterministic, then all occurrences
of NC1 type physical states generates an experience that is qualitatively just
like Pelczars experience of seeing the pendulum moving from A to B, and
similarly for NC2, NC3, and NC4. To simplify, let us make this assumption.
Now, Pelczar suggests that his time-reversed counterpart will have experiences of precisely the same intrinsic character as those he enjoyed in the
actual world, but in reverse order:
(iv) [B to A], (iii) [C to B], (ii) [B to C], (i) [A to B]
Let us grant that a sequence of experiences with this disorderly character
is at least logically possible. It might also seem plausible to think that the
time-reversed counterpart must have experiences of this sort, given that their
brains go through this sequence of neural states:
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NC4NC3NC2NC1
Since we know in our world that momentary NC4-type neural states give rise
to a [B to A]-type experience, wont it do so in the time-reversed world as
well? And wont NC3-type states also give rise to a [B to C]-type experience?
As far as I can see, while this nomological arrangement may well be
possible, there is nothing in the least necessary about it. We are, after all,
currently working within a dualistic framework, and the relevant laws hold
between physical states and conscious states. Since conscious states are
not themselves physical, there is no reason to think there is any necessary
constraints on the kinds of experiences any given physical state can produce.
In which case, a nomological arrangement of the following sort is perfectly
possible:
NC4: [A to B]; NC3: [B to C]; NC2: [C to B]; NC1: [B to A]
So instead of brain state NC4 giving rise to a visual experience of the
pendulum moving back from B to A, it gives rise to a visual experience of the
pendulum moving from A to Band similarly for NC3, NC2, and NC1. Is there
anything which renders this psycho-physical correlation any more puzzling
or problematic than Pelczars alternative? I cannot see that there is; within a
dualistic framework, both options seem equally viable.
If time-reversed Pelczars brain operates under this nomological
arrangement, the experiences he enjoys when watching the pendulum swing
back and forth are not only perfectly orderly in their own right, but correspond closely with the actual movements of the pendulum. Evidently, this
nomological arrangement satisfies the criteria for being a law of experience
as Pelczar uses the expression. Moreover, we have every reason for
supposing that it is this nomological arrangement, and not the arrangement
Pelczar introduces, which would be in place in a fully and genuinely timereversed world. After all, this arrangement effectively reverses the direction
of subjects experiences, whereas Pelczars scrambles them hopelessly.
We have been working thus far on the assumption that some form of
dualism is true. There is at least one other view of the matterconsciousness
relationship which (in my view at least) is a live option: the position that has
become known in the recent literature as Russellian monism. This is a kind of
physicalism, but one which does not expel phenomenal properties from the
physical realm, nor attempt to reduce them to anything that is non-experiential
in nature. Instead, it accepts that phenomenal properties are both fully real
and wholly irreducible ingredients of the physical world itself. This is achieved
by holding that some parts of the physical world possess intrinsic qualities, of
an experiential kind, over and above all those properties that are recognized
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by current sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience.

The Russellian monist solves the problem of relating the experiential and the
physical by dramatically expanding the range of properties physical things
such as brainscan possess.
If we take this step, then our temporal experience, along with its intrinsic
dynamic character, also enters the physical realm. Our typical experiences
of continuous processes, such as a pendulum swinging back and forth,
have an immanent directedness: the experience seems to flow or unfold in
a forward- or future-directed way: we see the pendulum smoothly moving
from A to B, then from B to C, from C to B, and from B back to A. For the
Russellian monist, this intrinsically directional experiential flow is itself a part
of the physical world. There may be no intrinsic directionality in the physical
world as conceived by current (unaugmented) physics, but according to the
Russellian, this conception of the physical world is incomplete. Phenomenal
properties exist, and are fully a part of physical reality. And not only that: most
phenomenal properties (perhaps all) are to be found in experiences with a
dynamic flowing character, and this dynamism and directedness themselves
belong fully to physical reality.
One implication of incorporating the flow of experience into the physical
world is for the reality of temporal passage. Even if it turns out that we live in
an eternally real Block universe, the claim that in such a universe temporal
passage is wholly unreal looks more than a little implausible if Russellian
monism is true. If the continuity and flow which exist in our experience are
themselves physical features of this universe, then this very real form of
passage is also a feature of the universe.15
Less momentously, perhaps, but also importantly, there are also implications for Pelczars argument. If intrinsically directed experiential passage is
a physical feature of the universe, then in a fully time-reversed universe the
direction of this flow will also be reversed. The reason for this is straightforward: a universe in which all physical properties apart from experiential
continuity are time-reversed would only be partially time-reversed, given
that experience and its properties are themselves physical. In which case,
Pelczars experience of the moving pendulum in the time-reversed universe
would not be disjointed or chaotic. He would experience it smoothly moving
from A to B, from B to C, from C to B, and from B back to A. His experience
would be just as it is in the actual world, only unfolding in the opposite
temporal direction.
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Complications and conundrums

So Pelczars claim that adopting the extensionalist model leads to serious
problems with temporal reversibility looks to be unfounded; at the very least
the argument is inconclusive. He has overlooked two things. First, the possibility of an alternative form for the dualists psycho-physical laws to take.
Not only do the alternative psycho-physical laws not yield chaotic streams
of consciousness under temporal reversal, but they are the laws one would
expect to find in a fully time-reversed world. Second, Pelczar ignores the
possibility of the phenomenal being physical, in the way the Russellian monist
proposes. If the latters doctrine is true, then since experiential flow is itself
a physical process it too would be reversed (smoothly and completely) in a
time-reversed duplicate of our universe. Once again, the result is an orderly
rather than chaotic experience of motion.
I have been proceeding thus far as if Pelczars scenario is itself unproblematic. In fact, this is not entirely the case. The trouble lies not with
time-reversal itself, but firstly with the diachronic experiential structures
Pelczar assumes must exist, and secondly with this assumption that timereversal poses a problem only for the extensionalist.
In the perceived-pendulum case, as we have seen, Pelczar suggests
that in the actual (non-time-reversed world) he has four total experiences,
with overlapping contents(AB), (BC), (CB), (BA)as he watches the
pendulum swing first away from, and then back to its original position.
He also holds that the physical correlates of these four experiences are
themselves momentary, and hence the problem. If the neural correlates of
these experiences lack temporal duration, it is not obvious that the experiences themselves could overlap by part-sharing in the way they must,
according to the extensionalist (who, after all, is Pelczars target). Certainly,
if the Russellian monist is correct, and experiences are themselves physical
phenomena, then (AB) and (BC) would each be identical with a distinct
momentary physical state, and since momentary states cannot overlap by
part-sharing, it looks as though the experiences with which these states are
identical could not overlap by part-sharing either. Admittedly, the situation
is less clear-cut for a dualist. Perhaps the laws relating the neural correlates
of experiences with experiences themselves permit the experiences to
overlap even when the physical states which produce them do not (and
cannot). Given that Pelczar is himself (temporarily) working within a dualistic
framework, he may well have assumed precisely this.
In any event, it is difficult to see that the problem his scenario reveals
assuming it is a genuine problemis one that confronts only the extensionalist.
If we construe (AB), (BC), (CB), (BA) as the atomist does, that is, as
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discrete and non-overlapping, then if Pelczars time-reversed counterpart

stream of consciousness takes the form Pelczar predicts, namely (BA),
(CB), (BC), (AB), then the atomist is in trouble too! That said, since the
same remedies to this problem are available to both camps, the atomist may
not be unduly troubled by this fact.16
Another part of Pelczars discussion raises an issue that is both larger and
more difficult to resolve. Drawing on some brief remarks of Russell, Pelczar
maintains that the physical correlates of our experiences must be point-events
in space-time. Russell rightly observed that it is very natural to suppose that
the contents of our consciousness at any one time are simultaneous in an
absolute fashion. If when looking at a banana at a given time, I feel a pinprick,
my visual experience of the fruit and the jolt of pain are experienced together,
simultaneously, as parts of a total state of consciousness. It is difficult to take
seriously the idea that this simultaneity could be frame-relative, so that these
experiences are not in fact simultaneous from the point of view of someone
in motion with respect to me. Or as Pelczar puts it, My [total] experiences
possession of these phenomenal properties is absolute, is the sense that
the experience instantiates the properties simultaneously according to every
complete and accurate description of the world (2014: 137). But how are
we to reconcile this with Einsteins special relativity, according to which the
spatial and temporal distances between events vary from one (equally valid)
inertial frame of reference to another, and where the absolute simultaneity is
confined to point-events?
If spacetime has a relativistic structure, then Pelczar can see no easy
options. If the Russellian monist is correct, and our consciousness is itself
physical, then our consciousness itself at any given moment must be
condensed into a single spacetime point. If instead we assume some form
of dualism is true, the physical correlate of our consciousnessthe region of
the brain where mindbody causal transactions take placemust also be a
single spacetime point.
As Pelczar is well aware, the notion that our consciousness at a given
time occupies (or interacts with) no more than a single point-sized region
of the physical world is highly problematic. Certainly, consciousness being
thus concentrated is difficult to reconcile with the evidence that our minds
depend on neural structures spanning large tracts of the brain. Neither is it
obvious how all the complexity we find in our conscious states could exist
in a dimensionless point. That said, the proposal may not be entirely absurd.
Seth Lloyd has argued that it is possible in principle for black holes to carry out
complex computations in their interiors, and being singularities, black holes
are themselves point-like.17 But since we have no reason for thinking that
these very distinctive singularities exist within average human brainswhich
is just as wellthis does not provide us with very much assistance. Are
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there no alternatives to the condensing of consciousness that Pelczar would

have us embrace? Given our current ignorance concerning the key issue of
how activity in brains gives rise to consciousness in the first place, there is
little here that can be said with any confidence. Even so, there are alternative
possibilities which are worth exploring.
The first point to note is that the relativity of simultaneity only extends
to space-like separated events, that is, pairs of events that are sufficiently
far apart in space, or close to one another in time, that a signal would have
to be travelling faster than the speed of light to connect them. Light travels
fast: 186,000 miles per second, or 983,571,056 feet per second, or about
one foot per nanosecond. If a typical human brain is six inches in diameter,
light will traverse this sort of distance in around half a billionth of a second.
From this it follows that the temporal ordering of non-simultaneous neural
events in different parts of the brain that are separated by more than about
a nanosecond will be invariant, that is, the same in all reference frames. The
relativity of simultaneity can only have an impact on our experience if the
character of the latter can be influenced by neural processes occurring on the
sub-nanometre scale. It is far from obvious that this has to be the case. If
we suppose that the briefest discernible experiential events are of the order
of a thousandth of a second, these are separated by six orders of magnitude
from neural events whose temporal ordering is frame-dependent. There
is thus plenty of room, temporally speaking, for consciousness to depend
only on intermediate-level processes which exist within these six orders of
magnitude.
A second point to bear in mind is that causality is frame-invariant. If an
event E1 is a cause of E2, then E1 is earlier than E2 from the vantage points of
all inertial frames of reference. This immediately opens up one way of reconciling the absoluteness of phenomenal temporal relations with the relativity of
physical temporal relations. If the existence and character of consciousness
is dependent upon causal processes in the brain, then consciousness would
be as immune to relativistic effects as the underlying causal processes.
The frame-relativity of simultaneity does not render our computers incapable
of following their programs because any physically realized computation is
itself a causal process, the successive stages of which are successive for all
observers in all frames of reference. This fact may not be irrelevant to conscious
mentality. According to Chalmers familiar proposal (1996)subsequently
refined by Tononi (2008)consciousness is a non-physical phenomenon that
is nomologically correlated with computational processes in our brains. If this
hypothesis is along the right lines, then the relationship between our brains
and our consciousness would be largely immune to relativistic effects.18
Chalmers computational hypothesis is a form of dualism. What
if consciousness is itself physical, and in no way separate from the
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physical activity going on in our brains? Here too there are alternatives
to confining consciousness to point-sized regions. Being co-located at a
single spacetime point is one way of instantiating absolute simultaneity
within a relativistic universe, but there is another. The events located on the
same light cone can also be taken to be absolutely simultaneous. After all,
events on a light cone are connected by light raysor some other form of
electromagnetic radiationand from the frame of reference of a light ray
any spatial distance is traversed instantaneously. It is for this reason that
some presentists have argued that the surfaces of past light cones are
good candidates for the present moment in relativistic universes.19 Bearing
this in mind, the Russellian monist might well be tempted to suggest that
the phenomenal qualities which exist in momentary conscious states are
absolutely simultaneous because they are instantiated on the surfaces of
light cones. For this to be possible, at least some electromagnetic fields
some of those found in our brains, for examplemust possess intrinsic
natures which are experiential, and it is within these fields that our own
consciousness exists.
This is all highly speculative, it goes without saying. But then such
speculation is unavoidable, given that we know so little about precisely how
brains give rise to consciousness. In a similarly speculative vein, it would be
wrong to close off entirely a further possibility: that spacetime itself does not
possess a relativistic structure.
Since physicists have yet to solve the problem of reconciling quantum
mechanics with general relativitysince we lack a viable quantum gravity
theoryat present we cannot be sure what story physics will eventually tell
about the nature of space and time. But one thing at least is clear: physicists
are no longer completely hostile to the notion that there is in fact a privileged universe-wide plane of simultaneity, Einstein and his relativity theories
notwithstanding. There has long been tension between the relativity theories
and some aspects of quantum mechanics. The well-known phenomenon of
quantum entanglement, where a measurement made on one particle can
instantly affect the properties of another particle even when the particles
are far apart, does not sit easily with the non-absoluteness of simultaneity
the relativity theories bring with them. But it has not proved easy to devise
a theory which (a) has a preferred plane of simultaneity, and (b) matches
the empirical predictions of general relativity (in particular). This has recently
changed. The theory known as shape dynamics satisfies both (a) and (b).
Shape dynamics is, in effect, a reformulation of general relativity which has
the same empirical contentit makes the same predictions for observable
effectsbut also possesses a privileged temporal frame of reference. There
is one other significant divergence. In general relativity, time is relative, but
size is not; objects retain their size as they move through space, and it makes
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sense to compare the sizes of two objects even when they are separated by a
vast spatio-temporal interval. In shape dynamics, time is absolute, but size is
not: it makes no sense to compare the sizes of spatially distant objects; only
their shapes are invariant.20
One thing shape dynamics does not do is provide us with a way of
determining the preferred temporal reference frame locally, that is, by any
observable effects in a small region; the global simultaneity plane is determined by the distribution of mass energy across the entire universe. There is
thus room for the Russellian monist to venture another tempting speculation.
If consciousness is physical, and the simultaneity relation in consciousness
is absolute, might our consciousness not provide us with what we would
otherwise lack: evidence pertaining to the preferred temporal reference
frame that is both empirical and local?
Symmetries revisited
The notion that experience itself might provide us with a guide to the
preferred physical frame of temporal reference is in some ways an appealing
one, but it might also prove fanciful. Shape dynamics may not prove the
promising way forward in reconciling relativity and quantum mechanics that
it currently seems. Time will tell. In the meantime we can conclude only this:
there is more than one way in which physics and temporal phenomenology
can interact.
With this in mind, and by way of a conclusion, let us return to the symmetries in basic physical theories to which Pelczar has drawn our attention. As
I noted earlier, the symmetry which physicists believe applies to our world
is not simple temporal reversibility, but the more complex CPT-invariance
property. Intriguingly, it turns out that this more complex symmetry in
fact makes it possible for some physical processes to be non-symmetrical
temporally.
Since the 1960s, violations of CP-symmetries have been experimentally
detectedit turns out that neutral K-mesons dont decay into their anti-particles
at the same rates in both temporal directions. In 2001, the BaBar experiment
carried out at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center also discovered CP-violations
in B meson decays. These results can be accommodated by the CPT-theorem,
but there is a cost. If CP-violations exist in nature, so too must T-violations:
there will be some physical phenomena which are not time-symmetrical. To put
it another way, for some physical processes there will be a preferred direction
of time. This purely theoretical predication has only recently received empirical
confirmation: in 2012, the BaBar team found evidence that B meson decay does
not occur in precisely the same ways in both temporal directions.21
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The ultimate significance of these T-violations is at present unclear. It is

possible to argue, certainly, that since the temporal asymmetries that have
been discovered occur among exotic elementary particles, under very special
conditions, they have very little relevance to ordinary macroscopic events and
processes, many of which are wholly constituted of fundamental processes
that are fully time-symmetric. But it is also possible to argue that they are of
immense importance, at least with regard to the overall physical character of
the universe. Not the least of the as-yet unexplained mysteries confronting
cosmologists is why we live in a universe where there is vastly more matter
than anti-matter. If CP-invariance was never violated, under any conditions,
then there is no route recognized by current physics by which physical
processes could lead to more matter than anti-matter being produced in the
early universe. However, if some nuclear processes are not CP-invariant, if
some processes end up producing more matter than anti-matter (even by a
small amount), then matter-dominance is no longer a mystery, as Sakharov
pointed out in a ground-breaking paper in 1967. That said, the CP-violations
involving the weak force that have been discovered so far are insufficient to
explain the extent to which matter predominates anti-matter in our universe.
But since it is by no means out of the question that there are other sources of
CP-violations, this is by no means the end of the story. It may well turn out to
be the case that this type of symmetry violation is the origin of the universe
as we know it.
Although the precise relevance of this for our own experience is as yet
even more unclear, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, there
are nonetheless a couple of points worth noting.
I noted earlier that Pelczars claim, in a dualistic context, that psychophysical laws (relating non-physical experience to physical states) will be
time-reversible was a reasonable one, if it is the case that there is no
preferred direction of time in physical reality. But if, as seems to be the case,
there is a preferred temporal direction in the physical realm, then it is not out
of the question that psycho-physical laws might not be time-reversible. At the
very least, we no longer have a compelling reason for supposing they must
be. From the vantage point of the Russellian monist, the immediate implications are perhaps less obvious. Even so, we do know that our experience
possesses an intrinsic directional flow, and hence is a temporally asymmetrical phenomenon. If our fundamental physical laws themselves permit
temporally asymmetric phenomena, the Russellian will find it tempting to
suggest that this may not be a coincidence.22
209
Notes
1 I will not attempt here to adjudicate on the issue of whether or not Walker
has succeeded in describing a world (and subject) that is truly timeless. The
subject knows no change or persistence, and that is enough for present
purposes.
2 Hoerl (forthcoming) doesnt go quite this far but does suggest that our visual
experience of motion has this character.
3 See Dainton (2010) for an overview of a wider range of options.
4 These two competing views of the structure of a stream of consciousness
may well be a more fundamental difference between atomism and
extensionalism than their differing relationships to ordinary objective time.
For example, it may be possible for a stream of consciousness consisting
of overlapping specious presents to exist in the absence of any objective
time (e.g., some forms of idealism have this consequence). It may also be
possible, logically at least, for such a stream to exist in a single moment of
objective time. In the latter case, the stream would be subjectively extended
(seemingly for hours, days, or even longer), but objectively momentary.
5 To keep things as simple as possible, I will be focusing here on the most
straightforward form of atomism, the version where neighboring atomic
experiences in the same stream of consciousness are completely distinct
and discrete from one another. In his contribution to this volume, Lee
introduces interesting variants in which the (so-called) atomic experiences
are brief, but partially overlap by part-sharingthe overlap is partial because
it is restricted to experiences in different sensory modalities, rather than
entire stream-phases. I will leave for another occasion a discussion of
whether this model of temporal experience is viable, and whether it should
really be classified as a variant of extensionalism.
6 The situation would be very different if one were to hold that the content
and character of a subjects stream of consciousness are determined
entirely by the representational content of the experiences it contains,
where the latter content is (roughly) how one takes the external world to
be on the basis of the perceptual experiences one is having at the time. For
anyone who subscribes to this strong representationalism, the repeated
contents we have been considering here would not feature in ones stream
of consciousness, since their representational content is entirely discounted.
In this view, if a given sequence of sounds leads one to conclude that the
tones CDE have just been played on a piano, the only experiences one
has are of a C-tone, a D-tone, and an E-tone. This is why, I take it, Michael
Tye does not think the repeated content problem is really a problem. But
Tyes brand of representationalism is itself a contentious doctrine and I for
one do not find it plausible. When Lee suggests that he and Tye are making
essentially the same point when both claim that the repeated contents
(such as the duplicated D-tone) would not be invisible to introspection, it
is not clear that this is the case, because it is not clear that Lee is himself
committed to Tyes representationalism. Indeed, in his comments on Phillips
transparency argument, he suggests that there are reasons for rejecting
210

the claim that experience only reveals the properties that external events
are experienced as having, not any psychological properties.
7 Lee mentions empirical considerations which favor atomism, in the form

of the trace integration argument outlined in his chapter. Since I cannot
discuss this properly here I will restrict myself to one brief comment. It
may well be that our brains process some temporal information in the way
Lee describes (i.e. representing temporally extended phenomena in neural
representations that are not themselves temporally extended). But it does
not follow from this that the neural processes responsible for temporal
experience take this form.
8 If we assume that experiences are individuated by subjective character,
time of occurrence, and subject, then the experiences in question are
distinct by virtue of existing at different times. The same applies a fortiori
if we individuate by reference to subjective character, time of occurrence,
and neural realization (rather than by subject). The experiences in question
not only exist at different times, but their neural realizations also differ. Lee
is neutral between these options; I prefer the second. I noted earlier that
in his chapter, Lee goes on to consider whether there might be a version
of atomism in which the neural realizations of some co-streamal total
experiences do overlap. The result is an interesting halfway house between
the standard form of atomism and extensionalism. For present purposes
what matters is that for Lee, the partial overlap version of atomism is not
the standard form: in the latter, successive total experiences (along with
their neural realizations) do not overlap.
9 If the subject of these experiences is aware of these periods of silence,
then they are, presumably, having experiences of a non-auditory kind
during the period in questionif they werent, these silences would not be
featuring in streams of consciousness at all. With a view to keeping things
as simple as possible, these additional experiences are not depicted.
10 In his 1909 A Textbook of Psychology, Titchener calls them attitudes of
consciousness and writes that What precisely these attitudes are is
still a matter of dispute. They are reported as vague and elusive processes,
which carry as if in a nutshell the entire meaning of a situation We may
have, under the guise of an attitude, the consciousness that something is
real, that it is lasting a long time, that it is over more quickly than we had
expected, that it is the same as what came before, that it is incompatible
with some other thing, that it makes sense, that it is novel, that it is on the
tip of the tongue, that it will be difficult There seems literally to be no
end, till we have exhausted the resources of the language, to the catalogue
of possible attitudes (5056). Also see Findlay (1955). James also drew
attention to these aspects of consciousness in the Principlesand with the
recent resurgence of interest in cognitive phenomenology, they are once
again being given their proper due.
11 There I call them fringe feelings rather than temporal intimations, but the
intent is the same.
12 Pelczar falls short of endorsing dualism: he is also open to the possibility
that a form of phenomenalism is true, and hence that fundamentally only
211
experiences (and perhaps their subjects) exist. Phenomenalism may well be

more defensible than is often assumed, but to simplify the discussion I will
focus solely on the dualist option.
13 If phenomenalism is true, then the law of experience exists solely as a
constraint on human experience.
14 One notable exception is Lees own Consciousness in a Space-time World
(2007).
15 Or in other words, passageor one significant form of itexists, even if
the universe-wide creation and/or annihilation which are features of the
presentist and growing block metaphysical pictures do not exist. For more
on this theme, see Dainton (2012).
16 If the atomist holdsas Pelczar appears tothat the objective temporal
locations of a specious present are irrelevant to the subjective character of
the streams of consciousness to which they belong, then the option exists
of claiming that the (BA), (CB), (BC), (AB) sequence in the time-reversed
world would be experienced as the orderly and lawful succession (AB),
(BC), (CB), (BA). Even if this were the case, the dislocation between
the subjective appearances and the objective temporal locations of the
external causes of these subjective appearances would make timely action
problematicand hence there are other problems in store for the atomist
who is tempted by this line.
17 See Lloyds Ultimate physical limits to computation (1999).
18 In this connection it is also worth bearing in mind that while the digital
computers commonly employed in everyday life depend on global internal
clocks as they run through their programs, step by step, this is by no means
essential to computation per se: so called asynchronous computers do not
rely on central clocks. In clockless chips, the basic processing modules
only operate when there is some work for them to do, and not whenever
a central clock ticks; entirely local handshaking rules govern the flow of
data between modules. In an asynchronous computer, what is simultaneous
functionally need not be simultaneous temporally, and it is the former which
is directly relevant to experienceassuming, of course, that consciousness
and computation are linked in the way Chalmers and Tononi propose. See
Sutherland and Ebergen (2002) for an overview of asynchronous computing.
19 For more on cone presentism, see Hinchliff (1998).
20 For more on shape dyanamics, see Smolin (2013: 16471), and Barbour,
Koslowski and Mercati (2013). For a different approachfeaturing the
emergent block universesee Ellis (2006).
21 For full details, see Lees et al. (2012).
22 For helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, my thanks to
Nathan Oaklander, Geoff Lee, and Michael Pelczar.
212
References
Barbour, J., Koslowski, T. and Mercati, F. (2013), The Solution to the Problem of
Time in Shape Dynamics. http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.6264
Chalmers, D. (1996), The Conscious Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chuard, P. (2011), Temporal experiences and their parts, Philosophers Imprint,
11.
Dainton, B. (2003), Time in experience: reply to Gallagher, Psyche, 9, 12.
(2010), Temporal Consciousness, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/
consciousness-temporal/
(2012), Time and Temporal Experience, in A. Bardon (ed.), The Future of the
Philosophy of Time. New York: Routledge, pp. 12348.
Ellis, G. (2006), Physics in the real universe: time and spacetime, General
Relativity and Gravitation, 38, 1797824.
Findlay, J. N. (1955), The logic of Bewusstseinslagen, Philosophical Quarterly,
5, 18, 578.
Hinchliff, M. (1998), A defense of presentism in a relativistic setting,
Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science
Association, 67, 3, part II, supplement.
Hoerl, C. (2014), Do we (seem to) perceive passage?, Philosophical
Explorations, 10.1080/13869795.2013.852615
Lee, G. (2007), Consciousness in a space-time world, in J. Hawthorne (ed.),
Philosophical Perspectives, 21, 1, 34174.
(2014), Extensionalism, Atomism, and Continuity, in L. N. Oaklander (ed.),
Debates in the Metaphysics of Time. London: Bloomsbury.
Lees, J. P. et al. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. (2012), Observation of
time-reversal violation in the B0 Meson system, Phys.Rev.Lett., 109, 21.
Lloyd, S. (1999), Ultimate physical limits to computation, Nature, 406, 104754.
Pelczar, M. (2014), Physical Time, Phenomenal Time, and the Symmetry of
Nature, in L. N. Oaklander (ed.), Debates in the Metaphysics of Time.
London: Bloomsbury.
Sakharov, A. D. (1967), Violation of CP invariance, C asymmetry, and baryon
asymmetry of the universe, Pisma Zh.Eksp.Teor.Fiz., 5, 325.
Smolin, L. (2013), Time Reborn. London: Allen Lane.
Sutherland, I. E. and Ebergen, J. (2002), Computers without clocks, Scientific
American, August.
Titchener, E. (1909), A Textbook of Psychology. New York: Macmillan.
Tononi, T. (2008), Consciousness as integrated information: a provisional
manifesto, Biological Bulletin, 215, 21642.
Tye, Michael (2003), Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Walker, R. (1978), Kant. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
PART THREE
God, Time, and

Human Freedom
10
Divine Events*
Joseph Diekemper
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to approach the question of Gods temporality via a study of the nature of events. If events are necessarily extended
entities involving change, then there is no such thing as a non-temporal event.
And if God is necessarily the subject of such events, then he is necessarily
temporal. In the first section I will defend the essential temporality of events,
and in the subsequent section I will consider various ways of conceiving of
divine events, concluding that these necessarily exist.
The ontology of events

In this section I will argue that we do not have good reason to allow instantaneous events into our ontology, and therefore that events should be conceived
as essentially temporal and extended entities which involve change.1
Why think that events cannot be instantaneous? For the simple and
common-sense reason that events are, intuitively, processes of change.
Lombard (1986) has argued that events are processes of change; and
it certainly is integral to the common-sense concept of an eventor
happeningthat it involve change.2 But while common sense may be a
good starting point in metaphysics, it can only take us so far. Once we start
applying a little metaphysical pressure to a common-sense concept, we often
find that the concept cannot hold up under the strain, and that it requires
some revision. So even if we normally conceive of events as processes of
change, is this necessarily the case? Leftow (2002) has argued that events
216
need not be extended, and therefore that they need not involve change.
Clearly, change cannot occur at an instant, so if an event can occur at an
instant, then events are not necessarily processes of change. So Leftow
applies some metaphysical pressure to the notion that events cannot be
instantaneous, and concludes that this notion is mistaken. This paves the way
for him to argue that God can be the subject of an instantaneous, timeless
event; and this, in turn, helps to provide a coherent conception of Boethius
notion of the divine eternal present. Leftow brings four main points to bear
against the thesis that events cannot be instantaneous. I will consider these
in turn, and will conclude that the common-sense conception of events as
essentially temporally extended entities can hold up against the pressure
Leftow applies to it.
Instantaneous velocity
First, Leftow considers the case of motion (Leftow 2002: 26). We can take
any instantaneous slice of a given motion (such as my walking from A to B)
and claim that that slice is a temporal part of the event that is my walking
from A to B. There is, for example, an instant at which I am midway between
A and B, and my being in that position at that instant is a part of my walking
from A to B. But, according to Leftow, a temporal part of an event can only be
an event itself. Events only have events as temporal parts, and motions only
have movings (which are events) as temporal parts. Why think that my instantaneously being midway between A and B is a moving? Because, according
to Leftow, I have an instantaneous velocity at that point, and obviously only
objects that move have velocity. So the instantaneous slice of my motion is
an instantaneous moving and is therefore an event.
But is there any reason to think that instantaneous velocity, which is
introduced in a scientific context by special definition in terms of limits, is
an actual velocity possessed by an object at an instant? Suppose I reach
the midway point between A and B at time t. And suppose we measure my
velocity over increasingly smaller and smaller intervals of time ending at t,
and these measurements get closer and closer to 1 m/s. Further, suppose
that we measure my velocity over increasingly smaller and smaller intervals
of time beginning at t; and suppose that these measurements also get closer
and closer to 1 m/s. This, according to definition, yields an instantaneous
velocity of 1 m/s at time t. But note that the definition is given in terms of
intervals of time, and that it is over intervals of time that the velocity is actually
measured. Furthermore, notice that the definition treats the instant t not as
containing an event, but as the bounding point of intervals over which velocity
is measured. Although the definition is neutral with respect to the ontological
Divine Events
217
status of events, it nonetheless treats instantaneous velocity as a purely

theoretical concept derived from velocities measured over temporal intervals;
thus the definition does not support the inference from an instantaneous
velocity to an instantaneous moving. Given how instantaneous velocities
are defined, Swinburne (1994) argues that we should not think that they are
somehow discovered with the use of limits; rather, according to Swinburne,
an instantaneous velocity is just a limit of velocities measured over series of
intervalsintervals which are bounded by the instant to which the instantaneous velocity is, by definition, attributed (Swinburne 1994: 73).
If this is correct, then there seems little reason to suppose that instants
are temporal parts of events. In fact, it seems wholly implausible that some
contiguous set of instants of zero duration could somehow add up to an
interval or event of non-zero duration. If, however, instants are merely the
bounding points of temporal intervals, then there is no pressure to admit
instantaneous events into our ontology (other than, perhaps, as theoretical
entities).3
Succeeding events
So Swinburne endorses (what I am calling) the common-sense view, according
to which instants are merely the bounding points of temporal intervals, and
things happen over temporal intervals, rather than at instants. Leftow,
however, puts further pressure on the common-sense view by claiming
that the instantaneous moving, which he takes to be part of a motion, can
be thought of as the successful culmination of a process which leads up
to being at that location. And this, according to Leftow, sounds like an
event (Leftow 2002). The thought is that, in ordinary language, we speak of
reaching a particular place (such as my reaching the midway point between
A and B), where the reaching implies succeeding; and, according to Leftow,
a succeeding is an event. Thus, a perfectly legitimate answer to the question,
What happened at t? is, I reached the midway point between A and B at
t. So reaching there must be an instantaneous event which happened at t.
Leftow acknowledges that there is another way of describing the same
situation: perhaps reaching there only refers to the event involving changes
leading up to being there. But being there is not an event, it is a state
which terminates the events leading up to my being there (Leftow 2002).
So here we have two different ways of describing the same situation, one
of which characterizes my location at t as an instantaneous event, and
the other which characterizes it merely as the terminus of an event. How
shall we decide between these two characterizations? It is not clear that
ordinary language is going to help us adjudicate in these kinds of ontological
218
disputes. If we took the ontological commitments of ordinary language

at face value, we would have a far more bloated ontology than most of
us would be prepared to allow. Yes, we can say things like, it happened
that I reached that point at that instant, without offending the ear. But
just as most of us would not want to allow the existence of a property for
every predicate of language, we also should not affirm the existence of an
event for every linguistically proper use of the verb to happen. Events are
concrete particulars which serve as the relata of causal relations, and are
therefore more coarse-grained than mere facts, which have a one-to-one
correspondence with every true, linguistically correct description of reality
(i.e. a different description corresponds to a different fact). So just as one
and the same event can admit of several different descriptions, without
implying that more than one event is being referred to, so, too, not every
true, linguistically correct description which sounds like an event is an
event.4 What we should ask ourselves is what our fundamental theory of the
world commits us to; and while we should not avoid an abundant ontology
as a matter of principle, we should endeavor to reduce our ontological
commitments wherever doing so does not reduce the explanatory power of
our theory. Given this desideratum, does the explanation of my reaching the
midway point between A and B really require both the event of my travelling
from A to the midpoint of AB, and the event of my arriving at the midpoint of
AB (at t)? Or does is it only require that the former event terminate at time t?
I submit that the ontological parsimony of the latter explanation is, for that
reason, more virtuous.
There is a potential worry, however, with this line of argumentation. I
am claiming that my location at t is the terminus of an event involving my
walking from A to the specified location, and as such does not constitute
a distinct event. Can we not, however, conceive of a possible world which
consists only in my being at that location at t, and nothing else? And if such
a world is possible, then what should we say about the ontological status
of that instant? If it is just the terminus of an event which, ex hypothesi,
does not exist, then it appears that the instant also cannot exist.5 But would
I really wish to claim that the described world is not possible? My answer
is that there might be possible worlds in which objects admit of properties
and relations which never change, but that there is no sense in which
anything occurs in such worlds, and therefore no sense in which time exists
in such worlds.6 So if there is a world in which I am located at the midpoint
between A and B, but in which nothing ever happens, then there are neither
temporal instants nor events in that world (see Changeless instants,
below).
Divine Events
219
Coming to be
Leftows next point focuses on the notion of coming to be. He argues that
coming to be can only be a change if it is a change in the entity that comes
to be; but, since the entity that comes to be does not exist until the instant
at which the process of coming to be is complete, coming to be cannot be a
change in the entity that comes to be. Thus, coming to be is an instantaneous
event. Suppose, for example, that x comes to be at t. Prior to t, x does not
exist; subsequent to t, x already exists. So xs coming to be is not a change in
the individual x that comes to be. Thus t cannot be conceived as the terminal
instant of an extended event (i.e. xs coming to be), since there is no subject
of change prior to t. Therefore coming to be is an instantaneous event, since
t is the first instant of xs existence.
My response to this argument is to claim that it conflates qualitative change
with substantial change. Obviously xs coming to be is not a process of qualitative change, since x does not exist to undergo change during the process
of its coming to be. But clearly something is changing in the coming to be of
a new individual. For Aristotle, coming to be is a case of substantial change,
since it involves the coming into existence of a substance that did not previously exist. So what is the subject of change in a case of substantial change?
It is the matter of which x is formed. If x is a member of the substantial kind
K, then xs coming to be is a change in the matter which eventually constitutes xthat change being the instantiation of the substantial kind K. So xs
coming to be is not something which happens to x, but it is something which
happens to xs matter, and thus it is a temporally extended event involving
change. Of course, we could characterize xs coming to be as a process
involving substantial change, and at the same time characterize xs coming
to be (at t) as the successful completion of that process, and therefore as an
instantaneous event. Again, however, the latter is merely a linguistic characterization, and it is one that does no ontological work (given the argument in
the previous section).
Leftow considers three examples in this context: one is the first moment
of time, one is the coming to be of the universe according to Big Bang
cosmology, and the third is the coming to be of Michelangelos David (Leftow
2002: 278). Leftow takes all three examples to be of a par, and the notion
of coming to be to be a perfectly general one. However, given my response
to his argument, it is not clear that I can treat all three examples as involving
the same kind of event. It is one thing to analyze Davids coming to be as a
case of substantial change in Davids matter; it is another to analyze the first
moment of time or the coming to be of the universe as a case of substantial
changesubstantial change in what? Setting aside, for the moment, the
220
example of the first moment of time, I will focus first on the example from
Big Bang cosmology. According to that cosmology (and according to the
theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo), there is no matter prior to the
existence of the universe, and therefore no potential subject of change.
This entails, according to Leftow, that the universes coming to be is not
a change but an instantaneous event. There are two ways to consider the
metaphysics of this situation: one is atheologically, and the other theologically. Atheologically, either the initial appearance of the singularityfrom
which the universe expandedwas a contingent, yet uncaused, cause, or it
was an effect of some prior event (for example, the big crunch of an earlier
universe). Only in the former construal would it be true to say that the first
moment of the universe was an instantaneous event; since in the latter
construal, the appearance of the original singularity is the terminus of an
event whose origin is the big crunch of an earlier universe. But how plausible
is the former construal? If the scientific explanation for any event or state is
made by reference to its causal antecedents (a plausible assumption), then
the existence of an original, contingent, yet uncaused, cause would entail the
impossibility of explaining all that is causally downstream from the event. This
strikes me as a particularly unpalatable option for those engaged in atheological explanation, since it blocks a certain response to the cosmological
argument. Proponents of that argument will claim that atheists are unable
to ultimately explain existence. In response, atheists will say it suffices for
explanation to be able to explain any event in terms of earlier eventsthat
is as ultimate an explanation as is required. Clearly, this response loses its
force if there is a contingent, first cause.
Furthermore, although Leftow speaks in terms of the appearance of the
Big Bang singularity, and I have retained that language above for the sake of
argument, it may misrepresent the actual Big Bang cosmological models.
Halvorson and Kragh (2011) claim that in the singular spacetime models
which most closely model our universe, if t0 is the absolute lower bound of
the time parameter t, then as t decreases towards t0, t0 is an ideal point that
is never reached: the universe exists at all times after t0, but not before or at
time t0. Thus, in these models, there is no initial state of the singularity or
first moment of time, even though the universe is finitely old; there is only a
first interval of time. This would entail that, from the atheological perspective,
neither the Big Bang example nor the first moment of time example can
do the work that Leftow intends them to. In any event, given the context
of Leftows argument, as one in which conceptual room is being made for
the notion of a divine eternal present, atheological considerations are not,
perhaps, terribly relevant.
Considering the metaphysics of the situation from the theological
perspective, the appearance of the singularity is, once again, either an original
Divine Events
221
singularity, or it is an effect of some earlier cosmic event (big crunch, etc.). In

either case, however, God is the ultimate, necessary cause of whatever is the
genuine original singularity (we are assuming, for the sake of the argument
for instantaneous events, that there was such an entity). One question here
is how we should characterize the changeif, as I maintain, it is a change
involved in the first act of creation. It cannot be substantial change in the
Aristotelian sense, since there exists nothing material prior to the appearance
of the original singularity. Leftow considers and rejects the thought that the
first act of creation would be a change in the way things are, and I think he
is correct that this is too diffuse a notion to serve as the subject of change.
But what about God? Before his first act of creation he has never created
(trivially), so cant his first act of creation be a (relational) change in him? Well,
this description of the first act of creation entails that God is temporal, and
that is ultimately what is at stake here. Similar worries about circularity attend
the example of the first moment of time, since a first moment of time is
only plausible on the assumption that God is atemporal: if God is necessarily
eternal and temporal, and time is necessarily unified, then there could be no
first moment of time.
The lesson here is, I think, that the examples of creation ex nihilo and the
first moment of time (from the theological perspective) cannot be used to
demonstrate either the possibility or impossibility of instantaneous events.
One must assume a conception of divine eternity in order to employ the
examples in such a way, and the conclusions reached bear directly on the
nature of divine eternity.
Changeless instants
In the final argument I wish to consider, Leftow takes the occurrence of an
instant to be an instantaneous event which does not involve change. He
argues that the only way to deny this is to endorse the reduction of time to
actual events and their relations. According to Leftow, however, this reduction
has the consequence that nothing could have occurred at any time save
what actually did occur then, and this is not plausible (Leftow 2002: 32).7 I
will argue that the reduction of time to actual events and their relations can
avoid this alleged ramification, and thus that this should not be cited as a
reason to reject the reduction. And as Leftow acknowledges, if one were to
reduce time in this manner, then one can reject the claim that changeless
instants occur.8
I will start my argument by acknowledging agreement with Leftow on
his main point in this context. He argues that the reduction of time to actual
events and their relations (henceforth TR (Temporal Reductionism)) entails
222
essentialism about times. If times are nothing more than simultaneous sets
of events, then the events simultaneous with any given time t are essential
to t. Thus t does not exist in worlds in which the set of events which actually
comprises t does not exist. So, suppose in the actual world @ that I drive to
Donaghadee at t. Now suppose that in some other, very close possible world
w, I instead drive to Bangor, where my driving to Bangor is simultaneous with
all the events in w that my driving to Donaghadee is simultaneous with in @.
Since my driving to Donaghadee at t is an essential constituent of t, t does
not exist in w, and so it is not true in w that I drive to Bangor at t. So I agree
with Leftow that this essentialism about times cannot allow for alternative
possibilities to obtain at times that are transworld identical.
But shouldnt our metaphysics allow for this? Well, certainly our metaphysics
should allow for claims such as, I might have driven to Bangor at t, and
the question is whether essentialism about times can allow for that claim
without transworld identity for times. I think it can, by employing the concept
of a counterpart.9 A modal counterpart to an actual individual is an individual
existing in some other possible world which bears a relation of similarity to
the actual individual. The closer the world, the closer the relation of similarity.
The modal counterpart in w of actual time t is the time at which I drive to
Bangor instead of driving to Donaghadee (call it tw). So the claim, I might
have driven to Bangor at t is true in virtue of my driving to Bangor in w at
tw; and I think that this is all that is required to allow that things might have
gone differently. So although alternative possibilities cannot obtain at (strictly)
identical times, they can obtain at times that are otherwise identical to actual
times (otherwise but for the non-occurence of the event actually occurring
at that time). Finally, it is important to stress that this account of counterpart
times need not buy into the counterpart theory of modal realism. If one
endorses transworld identity for other kinds of individuals, and rejects modal
realism and the indexicality of actuality, then one may continue to do so while
acknowledging that there are counterparts to actual times.
What we have seen in this section is that the common-sense view that
events are processes of change can withstand the sustained metaphysical
pressure that Leftow brings to bear on it. And if events are processes of
change, then they are temporally extended entities; that is, there are no
non-temporal events. Assuming that one accepts the common-sense status
I have accorded the thesis that events are processes of change, then this
section provides considerable evidence in favor of the thesis.
Divine Events
223
Divine events
Given the conclusion of the previous section, if God is a subject of events,
then God is temporal.10 In other words, if divine events exist, then God is
in time. There are several concerns associated with the concept of a divine
event, but most of these stem from the worry that God can only be the
subject of an event in virtue of his interaction with creation, since it would be
inappropriate and overly anthropomorphic to characterize Gods mental life as
involving discrete, ordered events. Furthermore, the objector will note that
even if we assume Gods mental life to involve events, and take this to imply
that God is temporal, then we must say that God waited an infinite amount of
time before creation (since a temporal Gods life extends an infinite amount of
time into the past). Lacking some principled reason for why God would wait
an infinite amount of time to create, the objector concludes that it is absurd,
and that we should therefore reject the initial assumption. I will consider
three different responses to this set of concerns: the possibility of co-eternal
creation; the possibility of changeless time prior to creation; and the possibility that reflection on Gods nature as a person can answer the objections.
Co-eternal creation
According to the standard theistic view, God is the creator, but suppose that
his being creative is not an accidental property; that is, suppose that he is
essentially creative. Perhaps, then, he would not await an infinite amount
of time to create. The objector argues from the absurdity of God waiting an
infinite amount of time to create to the conclusion that he must be timeless.
But if God is temporal, and he does not have a principled reason for delaying
creation, then surely it is possible that he did not delay; that is, he must
always have been creating. Clearly, if we take the doctrine of creation ex
nihilo and Big Bang cosmology seriously, with their implications of a finitely
old universe, then our universe cannot be co-eternal with God.11 But this
hardly rules out co-eternal creation, since Gods creative activities could go
well beyond our own universe. If God is temporal, presumably he created the
heavenly places and its denizens (e.g. angels) before he created our universe.
But if his creative activities are to fill an infinite past, then there must surely
have been more than this. For this reason, the doctrine of co-eternal creation
seems to imply the existence of a multiverse: God has been creating other
universes for an infinite amount of time. If co-eternal creation can be made
sense of, then one could claim both that God is the subject of temporal events
(in virtue of his interaction with his creation), and that there is no puzzle about
224
why he waited to create. There are, however, some potential pitfalls to this
approach. For one thing, there is a concern about whether a temporal Gods
ontological priority can be confirmed unless he also has temporal priority over
his creation. Second, if God has always been creating, then perhaps there
are an infinite number of universes among the multiverse, and this seems
problematic. I will consider these two problems in turn.
First, I suppose the defender of co-eternal creation would urge us to get
away from thinking, first God existed, then he created, in order to affirm
his ontological priority over creation. It is not as though God came into
existence, then decided to create; he has always been existing, so (perhaps)
he has always been creating. Augustine attributes the doctrine of co-eternal
creation to the Platonists, though the context there is different, since they are
defending the view that the human soul is co-eternal with God (City of God,
bk. 10, ch. 31).12 But Augustine provides them with a helpful analogy: a foot
eternally planted in the dust. There is no temporal priority of the foot and the
footprint if they are co-eternal, but there seems to be no question that the
print was formed by the pressure of the foot: without the foot, there could not
have been a print. In this way, the creation might ontologically depend upon
God, even though some of the creation is co-eternal with God (again, even if
not our universe, then some universes, and presumably angels). Furthermore,
the Thomistic doctrine of creatio continuans could be employed here to help
preserve Gods ontological priority over a co-eternal creation. According to
this doctrine, Gods causing things to exist is a matter of him continually
sustaining them wholly by his power. If that power were removed by God,
then the creation would cease to exist. This seems to imply that the causal
relation between God and his creation is primarily metaphysical and not
temporally ordered from earlier than to later than, in which case, God does
not require temporal priority over his creation in order to have ontological
priority.13
The second worry, however, seems more problematic. If God has been
creating for an infinite amount of time, then this implies that his creation
is infinitely old. Since we have good reason to believe that our universe is
not infinitely old, and since, as I argued above, co-eternal creation implies
the existence of a multiverse (again, assuming that our universe is not
infinitely old), it also implies that there are an infinite number of universes
in the multiverse. The existence of a multiverse is difficult enough for many
theists to embrace, but even those who do, argue that the justification for
such ontological extravagance is that it can help explain how the creation
as a whole is the unique best possible world (i.e., the universe of goodmaking properties in all the universes, taken together, maximally outweigh
the bad-making properties of our universe).14 But if the multiverse is the
unique, best possible world, then it appears that it cannot be infinite, since I
Divine Events
225
take it that an infinite number of entities cannot be unique. So this gives us

little independent reason for embracing such an extravagant ontology as an
infinitely large multiverse.
Changeless time prior to creation

The second possibility is articulated by Swinburne (1994). He argues for
the possibility that God, prior to creation, was the subject of a single, undifferentiated eventperhaps a mental act of self-awareness. According to
Swinburne, during this pre-creation temporal interval there would be no
metric of time. This is because a metric of time is contingent and dependent
upon natural laws, inasmuch as measurement of temporal intervals requires
the regularity of law-governed physical processes. For Swinburne, this
means that the occurrence of events is sufficient for the existence, and
ordering relations, of time; but for there to be a fact of the matter about
the measurement of those relations, there must also exist laws of nature.
Thus Swinburne argues that as long as Gods pre-creation mental act of selfawareness did not involve any change throughout its duration, there would be
no fact of the matter about whether the event lasted an instant or an infinite
amount of time. So, we can have time before creation, without any absurdity
associated with how long God waited to create.
How can there be time with no succession of events, and no change
throughout the event in question? For Swinburne, the interval during which
the act of self-awareness takes place is still a temporal one, because it is
possible throughout that interval that some change take place. That is to say,
Swinburne endorses the modal reduction of time, according to which time
is reduced to relations between actual and possible events (as opposed to
relations only between actual events). I think this solution is problematic for
two reasons. In the first place, I reject the modal reduction, so in my ontology
there can be no time during the act of self-awareness.15 This means that if
I wish to avail myself of Swinburnes answer, I must affirm that time did not
start until the first moment of creation. This view, which is as difficult to
articulate as it is to believe, is the one adopted by Craig (2001). It is an odd
view, and considered problematic by many. Consider, in this view, that there
is no before God has created, since before is a temporal relation and, in this
view, God is timeless without creation. The view also renders Gods temporality an accidental feature of his existence (if we assume that he need not
have created).
But even if I were to endorse the modal reduction of time to which
Swinburne subscribes, and so avoid Craigs timeless sans creation
conception of divine eternity, there would still be a problem: I do not think
226
that the act of self-awareness by God which Swinburne considers is possible.

To see why, we need to look at a third possible response to the concerns
attending divine events before creation. This is the response that I favor.
The personhood of God

This response claims that Gods essential personhood requires that his
thoughts are dynamic, ordered events. According to this response, the best
way to interpret the concept of the Imago Dei (image of God), in which
the Bible claims human beings are made, is in terms of personhood.16 It is
therefore the category of personhood that we have in common with God.
Furthermore, there is good reason to believe, in this conception, that the
category of personhood is essentially relational. Emil Brunner (1952) argues
that the Imago Dei is not some intrinsic property which we have independently of our relation to God; rather, it entails a responsive relationship to
God. According to Brunner, inasmuch as God reveals himself to us through
Christ, Christ is the center from which we must consider the concept of the
image of God. What is this revelation? It is the revelation of the One who
imparts Himself to me in freedom, since as Holy Love He claims me wholly
for Himself (Brunner 1952: 55). Furthermore, since Christ reveals himself to
us in this way, his revelation of himself also provides us with a revelation of
ourselves: He is the One who wills to have from me a free response to His
love, a response which gives back love for love (Brunner 1952: 55). So as
Christ reveals himself to me, I learn something about myself: I am designed
to freely be in a loving relationship with him. According to Brunner, once we
realize the intimate connection between knowing God through Christ and
being known by him, we cannot but conclude that to be in relation to him is
part of our nature.
Thus, in creating human beings in his image, God has made us to reflect
his freely given love by freely responding to him in love. In being made in
Gods image or likeness, of course, our freedom is not just like Gods; his
freedom is unlimited, whereas ours is limited. Indeed, given that we are
made to respond in love to God, we have a responsibility to do so, and as
Brunner points out, responsibility involves a restricted freedom: it entails
that we must be free to choose to respond (since we do not hold creatures
who lack freedom responsible), but it also entails that we must respond
appropriately in order to fulfill our responsibility. I say respond appropriately, since Brunner takes it that every human being makes some response
to the relational nature of her existence, even if she does not recognize it
as suchthe unbeliever responds to the call by turning away from God. So
the responsibility to freely respond in love to God is part of the nature and
Divine Events
227
existence of every human being. Brunner says of this responsibility that it is

part of the unchangeable structure of mans being he has been made to
respondto God (Brunner 1952: 57).
When this Christ-centered conception of the image of God is characterized in terms of personhood, it entails that the personhood of both God
and human beings is fundamentally relational and loving, and of course this
is supported by the apostle Johns assertion that God is love (1 John 4.8;
emphasis added). In view of this conception of Gods personhood, we have
much more in common with God than the classical conception allows. The
classical conception claims that God is simple, impassible, and strongly
immutable; the relational conception of the image of God entails that he
changes in his relations with created persons and is, to some extent, affected
by those relations; and, of course, all of this entails that he is not simple. So
in the relational conception, concerns about excessive anthropomorphism
are often exaggerated and misplaced. We unacceptably anthropomorphize
God only when we project our finite attributes onto him. It is the infinity of
his attributes which distinguishes God from human beings, not the generic
attributes themselves. So, plausibly, God and human beings share not only
love, but also such attributes as creativity, intentionality, imagination, rationality, knowledge, power, goodness, and so on, but where Gods capacities in
realizing these attributes are unlimited, ours are limited.
Once we are freed from worries about anthropomorphism, then we are
able to take at face value the depiction of God in the Bible, where such mental
states as love, anger, pleasure, sorrow, regret, and jealousy are attributed to
God. So we should consider what Gods mental life would need to be like in
order to experience these mental states.17 If Gods mental life did not consist
of discrete, ordered events, then all of his experiences would be accessible at every time. So, at any given time t, he might be experiencing love
for a humble servant, sadness for a lost soul, anger at someone who had
led believers astray, and pleasure in a particular creative plan of his (and of
course, an infinite amount of other experiences). What sense can be made
of the claim that any person, whether they are infinite or not, can have all of
these experiences simultaneously? One begins to feel that what we must be
dealing with here is not a person, but merely an infinite knower. We can make
sense of an infinite being knowing everything at every time, but I would reject
that any sense can be made of any being experiencing all of their intentional,
emotional states at every time. And for those of us who believe in a personal
Godthe God of the Bibleit seems essential that we attribute such experiences to God.
If this is correct, it implies that God experiences emotions in a way that
is structurally similar to ours; and this entails that Gods mental life does not
just consist of static, propositional attitude states, but necessarily involves
228
the dynamic experience of events. Furthermore, as implied by the arguments

of Leftow (1991), in which he posits the pleasure of anticipation experienced
by God prior to creation (as an explanation of why God did not create sooner),
these emotional experiences need not depend upon Gods already having
created. We have every reason to believe that Gods inner mental life would
be wonderfully rich even prior to interacting with his creation. Think of Gods
experiences prior to creation by analogy with an author who savors the
working out of his story. Gods being omniscient does not make this analogy
incoherent, it just means that, unlike a human author, he does not need to
work it out. This, however, does not entail that he does not enjoy working it
out. And working it out requires thought processes that consist of ordered
mental events.
This analogy with an author suggests another way of interpreting the
doctrine of co-eternal creation. If we agree with the advocate of co-eternal
creation that God is essentially creative and has always been exercising
his creative power, and if we think that Gods inner mental life is far richer
than Swinburnes example of an undifferentiated act of self-awareness
would suggest, then there is scope to claim that, prior to the creation of
the universe, Gods creative power was exercised in his inner mental life.
Consider how much pleasure we, as persons, derive from the exercise of
our creative imagination; and then consider how much more the pleasure for
God must be in such an exercise. It is true, for human beings the creative
process can also often be both excruciating and cathartic, and these aspects
of the process would clearly not apply in Gods case; but it is plausible that
the pleasurable aspect of the creative process would apply in Gods case. In
this rendering of co-eternal creation, according to which it is the exercise of
his creative power in his inner mental life that is co-eternal with God, there
are no worries about ontological priority or infinite universes; but there are
also no worries about why God waited to create, because he did not wait.
Conclusion
In the preceding section I have offered some ways of thinking about Gods
mental life which, if correct, entail that he is necessarily the subject of events
both prior and subsequent to creation. It is Gods shared personhood with
ourselves that allows us to conceive of Gods mental life in this way. If the
essential temporality of events defended in the first section is also correct,
then God is necessarily temporal.
Divine Events
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Notes
* Earlier versions of this chapter were presented in conferences at Queens

University Belfast and Cambridge University, and I am grateful to the
audiences at those events for their stimulating and helpful comments. I am
particularly grateful to Brian Leftow for written comments on an early draft.
I would also like to acknowledge the John Templeton Foundation, whose
support made possible the research for this chapter.
1 Here I will be treating the question of whether events are necessarily processes
of change as equivalent to the question of whether events are necessarily
extended. This treatment assumes that there could be no temporally extended
unchanges. I argue for this assumption in Diekemper (unpublished manuscript).
2 Cleland (1991) also argues that events are processes of change, but her
account, unlike Lombards, allows for the possibility of non-spatial events,
since she does not identify material objects as the subjects of change;
rather, she identifies determinable tropes, which change in respect of the
determinate properties they exemplify, as the subjects of change.
3 On instantaneous events as theoretical entities, see Simons (2003:
377). In written comments, Leftow has cited, as grounds for endorsing
instantaneous events, the causal work done by such events in a presentist
conception of time. I grant that for presentism to be viable it probably
requires instantaneous events with causal powers, but I do not think
presentism is viable. See Diekemper (2005, 2013).
4 There are a lot of issues lurking in the background here, which I do not
have the space to address. Bennett (1988) and Lowe (1998) argue that
events should not be assimilated to facts, but Bennett thinks facts can still
play a causal role, as does Mellor (1995). Although Kim (1976) rejects fact
causation and does not assimilate events to facts, the result of his version
of the property exemplification view is that events are nearly as fine-grained
as facts. I assume, however, in view of how Leftow intends to employ
events, that he would agree to the categorical distinction between events
and facts, and that he would reject fact causation.
5 Thanks to Brian Leftow for raising this worry in written comments.
6 So if God is necessarily temporal, such worlds are not possible.
7 Le Poidevin (1993) makes the same point.
8 I argue in Diekemper (unpublished manuscript) that there are good, positive
reasons to reduce time to actual events and their relations.
9 I thank Dean Zimmerman for this suggestion.
10 It is another question as to what sense is God temporal. I address this issue
in Diekemper (unpublished manuscript).
11 Interestingly, however, Halvorson and Kragh (2011) report the observation of
Misner that the finite/infinite time distinction might lack intrinsic physical
or theological significance. According to Misner, even in spacetime models
that begin with singularities, the Universe is meaningfully infinitely old
because infinitely many things have happened since the beginning.
230
12 Cf. Zimmerman (2002: 78n. 17).

13 Halvorson and Kragh (2011) make this point in the context of reconciling
theism with a steady-state cosmology according to which the universe is
infinitely old, but the point also has application in the present context.
14 See Kraay (2010).
15 See Diekemper (unpublished manuscript).
16 Henceforth I will be assuming Christian theism.
17 I make no claim that, for example, Gods jealousy is just like ours, since his
jealousy is necessarily a righteous jealousy, and of course ours is inevitably
not. So, too, for his sorrow and regret, since these will be tempered by his
knowledge of his providential plan.
References
Bennett, J. (1988), Events and Their Names. Indianapolis and Cambridge:
Hackett Publishing.
Brunner, E. (1952), The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption,
Dogmatics, 2, trans. O. Wyon. London: Lutterworth Press.
Cleland, Carol E. (1991), On the individuation of events, Synthese, 86, 22954.
Craig, W. L. (2001), Timelessness and Omnitemporality, in G. Ganssle (ed.),
God and Time: Four Views. Downers Grove: Inter-varsity Press, ch. 4.
Diekemper, J. (2005), Presentism and ontological symmetry, Australasian
Journal of Philosophy, 83, 2, 22340.
(2014), The existence of the past, Synthese, 191(6), 1085104.
(unpublished manuscript), Events: Temporal and Eternal.
Ganssle, G. and Woodruff, D. (eds) (2002), God and Time: Essays on the Divine
Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halvorson, H. and Kragh, H. (2011), Cosmology and theology, in Edward N.
Zalta(ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter). http://plato.
stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/cosmology-theology/
Kim, J. (1976), Events as Property Exemplifications, in M. Brand and D. Walton
(eds), Action Theory. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 15977.
Kraay, K. (2010), Theism, possible worlds, and the multiverse, Philosophical
Studies, 147, 35568.
Leftow, B. (1991), Why didnt God create the world sooner?, Religious Studies,
27, 15772.
(2002), The Eternal Present, in G. Ganssle and D. Woodruff (eds), God and
Time: Essays on the Divine Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.
2148.
Le Poidevin, R. (1993). Relationism and Temporal Topology: Physics or
Metaphysics?, and Postscript, in R. Le Poidevin and M. MacBeath (eds),
The Philosophy of Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 14967.
Lombard, L. (1986), Events in Metaphysical Study. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Lowe, J. (1998), The Possibility of Metaphysics. Substance, Identity and Time.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Mellor, H. (1995), The Facts of Causation. London: Routledge.

Simons, P. (2003), Events, in M. Loux and D. Zimmerman (eds), The Oxford
Handbook of Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 35785.
Swinburne, R. (1994), The Christian God. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zimmerman, D. (2002), God Inside Time and Before Creation, in G. Ganssle
and D. Woodruff (eds), God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp. 7594.
11
Instants, Events, and God
Brian Leftow
Diekemper offers an argument for divine temporality with three premises:

(1) God is necessarily the subject of (mental) events before and after creation.1
(2) Events are necessarily temporal.2
(3) Only a temporal being can be subject to temporal events.
He rests (2) on the premise that
(4) Events are necessarily temporally extended changes.
I now contend that this argument fails. I do not advance a positive case for
divine atemporality: space constraints preclude this, and I do so elsewhere.3
I begin with Diekempers treatment of (1).
God
Let us take (1) as a conjunction of:
1a. God is necessarily the subject of mental events before creation.
1b. God is necessarily the subject of mental events after creation.
In favor of (1a), Diekemper suggests that before creation, God is like an
author savoring the working out of his story, a story he says God does not
need to work out.4 But if He does not need to work it out, He possibly has
the story without working it out.5 If so, He is not necessarily the subject of
story-working-out events prior to creation. And of course God doesnt need
234
to work it out. Even we can frame a (simple) story for ourselves in a single
flash. No matter what time you might suppose a perfect mind would need
to work a story out, a truly perfect mind would need less than that. So no
extended time, however small, is a time that would be needed: a perfect
mind could do this instantaneously. So this way to back (1a) fails. Diekemper
also mentions my old argument that a temporal God might spend time
pre-creation enjoying the pleasure of anticipating creating,6 but this wont
help him here. For there is no necessity that God act so; certainly I argued
none. As Diekemper mentions no other sort of pre-creation event, he simply
hasnt backed (1a). Further, (1a) is quite plausibly false. (1a) entails that there
necessarily is a before creationthat it is not so much as possible that
past time and the universes past are co-extensive. But Big Bang scenarios
in which time and the universe are finite and co-extensive pastward seem
eminently possible; so do views with an infinite past in which a universe has
always existed.
If (1a) is false, so is (1). So we could just stop here. But let us consider
Diekempers case for (1b), which hinges on Gods emotions. As he sees it,
God has many different ones, and if He did not shift from one to another,
at any given time (God) might be experiencing love for a humble servant,
sadness for a lost soul, anger at someone (evil, etc.) What sense can be
made of the claim that any person infinite or not, can have all of these
experiences simultaneously? One begins to feel that what we [have] here
is not a person, but merely an infinite knower. We can make sense of an
infinite being knowing everything at every time, but I reject that any
sense can be made of any being experiencing all of their emotional
states at every time.7
But if the personhood seems to Diekemper to go in one view, the infinity
seems to go in Diekempers. If we cant have all these emotions at once, that
is a function of our cognitive and affective limits. But anyone who thinks one
cannot feel love and hate for the same person at once has had a remarkably
tranquil life: for most people, mixed emotions are common. Now suppose
that I see before me my true love and the vile Dastardly Dick. I always react
emotionally to what I see. It makes perfect sense that I would simultaneously feel love for the one and hate for the other. I think I can, though I will
focus more on one, and the other emotion will be in the background; I might
for instance really focus on hating DD, then shift suddenly to concentrating
on my love, so that the hate for DD is a sort of afterglow in which the new
emotion is framed. If I cant do this, it is simply because I cant have both my
love and DD in the forefront of my mind simultaneously: if I so focus on my
love that I feel love for her, I dont focus on DD. But that is just a matter of
235
how human brains happen to work, as far as I can see. It is equally a matter
of our brains that I cannot think of all propositions at once, yet Diekemper
has no qualms about Gods infinity letting him do this, though in this case,
too, we cant imagine what it would be like to do it. If inability to imagine is
insufficient to convince us that God is cognitively limited, I do not see why it
should convince us that a God with the infinity Diekemper insists on would
have to suffer emotional limitation. I do not see why we should think that all
possible minds can foreground only some humans at once in the way that
evokes emotion.
Further, this limitation might entail that God cannot respond to events
perfectly. If Gods foreground attention is of limited capacity, it may be
possible that so many events happen so quickly that He fails to react to some
with appropriate emotion. Some events, after all, deserve not just sorrow,
but sorrow for a while. If your spouse of 30 happy years dies, you should not
get over it in five minutes. Suppose that event e at t deserves a minutes
sorrow and event e* at t plus one second lasts for 30 seconds and deserves
happiness: if God shifts to e* in time He short-changes e, and if He does not,
He does not give e* its due. Further, some events deserve emotion-based
intentional responses. But if God can feel only so many emotions at once or
over a period, He might not be able to form enough responsive intentions
in time: if I cannot at once love my love and hate DD, neither can I at once
form a love-based intention to help my love and a hate-based one to harm
DD. I thus suspect that even many temporalists would be uncomfortable with
Diekempers argument.8
In any case, appeal to successive emotional states doesnt give us reason
to accept (1b)s claim that God necessarily undergoes successive mental
events after creation. God could have made an emotionally simple world. He
could have made one whose only creatures were immortal happy clams, each
everlastingly just humming one note contentedly in its shell, all hums (and
clams) qualitatively identical. God could only sensibly react to such a world
with one kind of emotion: nothing emotionally relevant changes.9 We might
gradually become bored. Surely that is a defect to which God is not prey.10
Diekempers case is for a succession of kinds of emotion. But in clam-world,
God would not have different kinds of emotion, and so not have them successively. Diekemper might instead appeal to change in pleasure of anticipation
of various particular events, but if all that ever happens is qualitatively identical
clam-humming, and He has this now, it is hard to see why or how He could
thrill with anticipation of the next round.
We might also take as an argument for (1b) Diekempers claim that we are
in the image of God, that this image involves us essentially in relation to
God, and that the relational conception of the image of God entails that He
changes in his relations with created persons and is, to some extent, affected
236
by those relations,11, adding that the effect is in affect or cognitive state.

But if this is an inference from image to original,12 it is too quick. Two things
are relevant in thinking about images: the nature of the original and that of
the reflecting medium. Some media do not reflect accurately, and produce
systematically distorted images of the original. Why so sure that change and
affectedness in the image comes from the original, not the medium? We
might be funhouse mirrors, reflecting God in systematically warped ways.
That seems true in the moral sphere. Gods personhood is fundamentally
loving.13 Contra Diekemper, it is hard to believe this of ours as now constituted.14 And again, it is not necessary that God create persons, and so even
if this were a good argument that God now changes mentally, it would not
show that He necessarily changes mentally after creating. Thus Diekemper
fails to back (1b).
This does not, of course, entail that (1b) is false. If there necessarily is
time and time is necessarily the sort that passes, then arguably if God is
necessarily omniscient, his cognitive state necessarily changes before and
after creation, as He notes the ever-new time it is. But the claims about time
would require some metaphysical heavy lifting, and all it would get us is a
modalized version of the old argument from omniscience and immutability, to
which I reply elsewhere.15
(1) is not just plausibly false (via (1a)) but question-begging. It assumes that
there necessarily is time before creation, though atemporalists will rightly
insist that in their view time is a divine creation, and so as there is no such
thing as time before time, there is no such thing as time before creation.
Again, if an atemporal God need not have created, then if time is a divine
creation, there need not have been any time. Again, atemporalists are happy
to hold that in some possible world an atemporal God atemporally creates
only atemporal entities, for example a space without time; thus even if God
necessarily creates, an atemporal God need not have created time. The best
solution, I think, would be to substitute for (1) a simple claim that, 1c. God is
necessarily the subject of mental events.
But if (2) is in the offing, I wonder whether (1c) is quite neutral on divine
temporality. God is certainly necessarily the subject of token mental states.
An atemporalist can say this without fear, as states need not be temporal: if
there is a timeless Platonic number three, it is in the state of being prime.
If we take (2) seriously, then the difference between state and event is
precisely that between something neutral on temporality and something
essentially involving temporality. If so, one can legitimately demand rather
better support for (1c) than Diekemper provides for (1).16
I now turn to (2) and (4).
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Intuition and events

Diekemper thinks that (4) is the intuitive view of events.17 Not so: intuitively,
some events are extended and some arent. A runners winning a race is an
event. It is one we intuitively recognize: most of The Folk would call it an
event. It occurs as soon as the right part of the winners body reaches the
finish line. It does not take any time: as soon as the winner makes contact
with the plane extending upward from the line, it is over; the winner has won.
Winning occurs. It happens that someone wins. But it seems to us intuitively
that winning takes no time. How long did it take to win? makes sense if it
asks for the duration of a race, or of the crucial part of it when it was determined who would win, but we all think that this question makes no sense
asked of the winning itself. Winning is what ends the long event which is the
race. Any number of other things The Folk would call events are like thisthe
ceasing or beginning of many events and processes. The Folk would express
their intuitions in calling these things events. Intuition has a more complex
view of events, and that full complexity deserves philosophical respect.
Now the folk understanding of winning, just explicated, involves a tacit
idealization. The finish line is not a geometric straight line and does not have
the sort of sharp point-thick boundary from which a plane would extend
upward. It is thick, irregular, and vaguely bounded. So is the runners body. So
there is no such event as the leading surface of the runners body contacting
the plane of the finish lines closer edge. But my argument concerned what
folk intuitionthe sort we all bring to philosophyfavors. That folk intuition
favors the picture I sketched is confirmed by the fact that The Folk find it
intuitive that one can assign a single correct time to a racefor example,
that someone ran the 100 meters in 10.0 seconds. This supposes the Folk
picture. In the second picture, all one can say is that the runner ran it in some
time between (say) 9.99 and 10.01 seconds. In the second picture, the race is
won when some part of the runners body coincides with some part of a thick
zone extending upward from the thick finish line inscribed on the dirt. But in
the second picture, for any time at which some part of the runners body so
coincides, there is a prior time at which some smaller body-part or something
which is not definitely part or not part of the body did so. So it seems that any
assignment of a time to the run will have to be arbitrary. Tell this to The Folk
and they will be disturbed.
The second picture may not really get rid of instantaneous events anyway.
For perceivers judge winning: in the Olympics, say, the winner wins when a
judge sees or a camera sees the smallest visible part of the runners body
coincide with what the judge sees or the camera reveals to be the smallest
visible part of the thick zone extending upward from the finish line.18 This
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coincidence takes place instantaneously. First there is not a sufficient intersection to be visible, then all at once, there is: this follows from the fact that
the smallest visible parts are what is relevant, because the race is won as
soon as the intersection is visible.
Instants
Intuition, then, favors instantaneous events, and even the picture that
replaces what is initially more intuitive generates them. So, are there instantaneous events? A prior question is whether there are instants. I give a
simple argument for them, which Diekemper does not address.19 Consider
an object moving continuously, and a volume of space along its path shaped
so that the object exactly fills it.20 The object passes through the volume. It
does not stop there. There is a fact about how long it was there. If it was
moving continuously and the volume exactly fits it, it can only have been
there for an instant. So in whatever way there are times, there are zerolength times: instants.
What Diekemper does say about instants is puzzling:
there seems little reason to suppose that instants are temporal parts
it seems wholly implausible that some contiguous set of instants of zero
duration could somehow add up to an interval of non-zero duration. If,
however, instants are merely the bounding points of temporal intervals,
then there is no pressure to admit instantaneous events into our ontology
(other than, perhaps, as theoretical entities).21
Both extended parts and bounding points could be real. To call an entity
theoretical is to say what sort of reason we have to believe in it. It says
nothing at all about whether it is real. It may be that we do not literally observe
sub-atomic particles through an electron microscope, instead seeing only
patterns of their effects. If that is correct, electrons and quarks are theoretical
rather than observational entities, yet we all believe they exist. So to admit
a theoretical entity could well be to admit something fundamentally real, as
quarks may be. At page 218, Diekemper seems to allow that unless God is
necessarily temporal, my location at t could exist apart from the journey it
terminates, though (he claims) it wouldnt be an instant then. Whether God
has this character is a matter extrinsic to a bounding point. So it sounds like
Diekemper thinks that nothing intrinsic to bounding points rules it out that
they are real, independent entities in good standing, which have temporality
as an extrinsic property. Yet given the reduction Diekemper endorses,22 if
there are no instantaneous events or event-parts, there are no instants: denial
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of instants is denial of instantaneous events. So Diekemper should not think

that bounding points are really there, even as entities somehow dependent
on the periods they bound.
If denial of instants is to help Diekemper argue against instantaneous
events and for divine temporality, he needs an argument against instants
independent of the reduction noted above or of divine temporality. What he
gives us is an allusion to a Zeno paradox, that if we put any number of instants
(per impossibile)23 next to one another, the result will still have zero extent.
Even continuum-many instants could not in this way yield an extension. But
these days no one worth his salt thinks instants add up to periods this way.
If there are instants, periods are instants with distance-relations between
them. The relations, not their relata, account for periods extension: that is why
(in the paradox) without putting distance-relations between the points, we
dont get an extension. So it is no argument against instants that they cannot
account for extension apart from the relations. Further, even if the argument
was good, it would not rule out the existence of instants. It would merely rule
it out that they add up to periods. They might still be there, bounding the
items that add up. They might even count as parts of the periods: they would
after all stand in the mereological relation of overlap to them.
Even if instants are merely bounding points, if they are real bounding
points, that is enough (contra Deikemper) to create pressure to admit instantaneous events in most theories of events. If events are havings of properties
at times, or subjects having properties at times, or fillers of 4D regions, then
if there are instants, instants are as good a value of t in such accounts
as any other. Let me put the point more strongly: any theory that involves a
time in the constitution of an event generates instantaneous events if there
are instants to plug in for t. It would complicate the theories to restrict
the permissible values of t to extended periods, and such complication of
ideology would at least partly offset whatever parsimony one might gain by
rejecting instants. But one would not really gain parsimony this way. One way
to measure parsimony is at the level of fundamental kindsthat is the way
nominalism is more parsimonious than Platonism about numbers, though if
there are numbers at all, there are the same number of numbers whether
nominalism or Platonism is the true story about their nature. If we believe
in times at all, we could achieve equal parsimony of fundamental kinds
by treating intervals as constructions out of real instants rather than vice
versa: either way, times would come in one real fundamental kind. Further,
if instants are fundamentally real, there are continuum-many of them, and if
intervals are fundamentally real, then equally there are continuum-many of
them. So we have the same number of individuals either way.
Actually, then, there is no parsimony argument in favor of rejecting
instants. What should tip the scalein favor of themare two things, the
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simpler ideology of event-theories that do not include arbitrary restrictions

against instants, and that admitting instants leaves us less conflict with
intuition: rejecting instants requires us to deny events we intuitively think are
there, while the other move allows us genuine fusions of point-events, which
are what intervals are, and so preserves every event we believe in.
I now turn to some reasons to believe in instantaneous events.
Instantaneous events
Even if events were necessarily changes, as Diekemper thinks, they would
not necessarily be temporally extended. Diekemper has it that change
cannot occur at an instant.24 True, a process of change cannot. But the
change toward which it is a process, its terminus ad quem, the very last
bit of the process by which it arrives where it was going, can and does. It
is in and only in the last instant that the change-process gets to where it
was going. This last bit is as good a change as any other bit of the process,
since in it something comes to be different than it was at any point earlier in
the process. But if a change, then an event.25 Diekemper suggests that its
character as an event may be extrinsicmay depend on there having been a
process leading up to it, so that in a world one instant thick, the same thing
could be there but not be an event.26 That does not matter for whether it is
actually an event. It is also implausible: could a metaphysical category really
be settled extrinsically? Of course, if there are no instants, there is no instantaneous terminus ad quem event: but I await a better argument for that.
Again, the most natural account of occupation pairs parts with occupied
regions 1:1. So if there are instants, as I have argued, the most natural
account of occupation would have it that events have instantaneous temporal
parts paired 1:1 with instants they occupy.
Again, consider a possible world containing objects that can pass through
one another. Consider two such objects, concentric and of precisely the same
shape. The inner one is changeless. The larger, outer one begins to shrink. It
shrinks continuously and evenly, retaining its shape at all times. After a bit, it
precisely coincides with the smaller, then as it continues to shrink it is within
the smaller. The larger objects precisely coinciding with the smaller was an
event. It happened. But as the larger was shrinking continuously, this event
can only have occurred for an instant.27 So it seems that instantaneous events
are at least possible, which is all I need to defeat (4).
Here is a structurally similar actual-world case.28 Consider a car decelerating continuously from 10 mph to rest. Ask whether it ever travels at
precisely 5 mph. No would be hard to understand: how get from 10 to 0
while never passing through 5? Any reason to say no here would equally
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be reason to say no throughout the deceleration, with the result that the
car would have no particular definite velocity at any time during the process.
Further, if no is the right answer, then most moving items most of the time
have no definite velocity, since things are rarely if ever neither accelerating
nor decelerating. Instead, most objects mostly have only ranges of velocities
over periods of time: between t and t*, say, an object has a velocity between
n and n*, and that is the only fact about its velocity. Or perhaps objects just
have average velocities though never definite velocities of which they are
averages, and that is all that is true. Either would be a hard doctrine indeed.
Yet suppose that the car does at some time travel at precisely 5 mph. If its
deceleration is continuous, it can only do so for an instant. So, for an instant,
it travels at 5 mph. Traveling at 5 mph is a way of moving. Movings are events.
So here we have an instantaneous event. Further, it is an event in which a car
has a genuine instantaneous velocity.
Again, events have as temporal parts only smaller events. If for part of
the period of a supposed event nothing is going on, the event is not going
on during that supposed part, and no event has any part at a time at which
it does not occur. (Football games have half-time breaks, but these are not
part of the game; the game is not going on during the break.) If only events
are temporal parts of events, then if events have instantaneous temporal
parts, there are instantaneous events. Intuitively, events do have such parts.
A race is an event. The second-place finishers reaching the finish line takes
place during the race. It is part of the race. The event in which some part of
that runners body reaches the finish line (or reaches a position at which it is
judged to do so, in my alternate account) is instantaneous. So the race has
an instantaneous temporal part, and so there are instantaneous events.
My arguments so far do not depend on any particular view of time. But
theories of time in which time passes generate their own reasons to believe
in instantaneous events. Let us first consider presentism with an instant-thick
present. Consider an extended process. In this sort of presentism, only the
instantaneous bit of the process going on now is real. It is all there is to the
process. The rest has no place in reality at all. That surely seems enough to
distinguish it from the rest of the process as a part in its own right.29 But
processes are events, and events have only events as temporal parts.
Instantaneous events do causal work in presentism. For in presentism,
only what is going on in the present instant is available to be a causal relatum
or transmit causation. So if events are causal relata, instantaneous events are
causal relata. Extended past events can act only in a derivative sense, through
having had influence on what is going on now. Consider an instantaneous slice
of my walking, what Im doing at an instant during it. In presentism, there is
only this to cause later phases of the walking. On suitably broad principles
of recombination, an indiscernible universe could have begun at that instant,
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with me in that state of motion, and continued just as the actual universe
did. In this case it would not have been possible to explain my succeeding
motion by my motion over a preceding period. Only my motion at that instant
could do the explaining. But if this was an indiscernible universe, actually my
motion at that instant is also a cause, though not one which competes with
the prior periods motion for causal honors. The prior motion acts through it,
if there was any. But causes are either events or substancesfacts or states
of affairs are relata of explanation but not causationand my motion is not a
substance.
If what is going on at that instant is a cause, that is because it is a moving.
Plausibly its being fit to be a cause does not depend on there actually being
time following it. It is the other way around: because it is intrinsically fit to
cause motion, it does cause motion if there is time following it. But it is
fit intrinsically to cause motion only because it is, intrinsically, a moving
whether or not there is time following it. If all this is plausible, then plausibly
it would be a moving even in a world in which there was not only nothing
preceding it but also nothing following it.
Similar things to these are true in a growing block theory of time that
allows a present instant. In such a view, past and present equally exist, but
as causal processes are continuous, the past still has causal efficacy only
through the present, and the causal efficacy in another world begins only at
that present.
These are mostly new arguments. Diekemper discusses some older ones.
Temporal Parts
In the paper Diekemper discusses, my first argument for instantaneous
events is an actual-world case similar to the coinciding-object case above30:
let one object be me and the other a precisely me-shaped volume of space
into which I fit at one instant during a continuous walk. Then I come to
coincide with the volume, but again, can only do so instantaneously. So it
seems that instantaneous events actually occur. Here the premises are:
1. My walking has a part in which I just fill a particular region of space
for an instant.
2. Events have only events as temporal parts.
Diekemper denies neither premise, nor does he deny validity. Instead he

claims that my reason to think that what fills that region is a moving is that
it has an instantaneous velocity. That is wrong. My reason is just that it is
part of a continuous walking. Diekemper misreads the role of instantaneous
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velocity in my discussion. Having argued from (5) and (6), I brought up a

complication: on an at-at theory of motion, the distinction between being in
motion and being at rest derives from inclusion in a larger whole which is a
motion; intrinsically, an object at a place is neither moving nor at rest.31 My
response was that this does not deny that there are instantaneous movings.
It entails that being a moving is an extrinsic property of an objects being at a
place at a time. But extrinsic properties can be real. It would take an argument
to show that this particular one is not. Instantaneous velocity is something
Wesley Salmon brought into his exposition of the at-at theory; my only use for
the concept was to point out that Salmons use of it supports the claim that
in the at-at theory, there are instantaneous movings.
Thus Diekemper fails to address my argument. Nor does his discussion
achieve much in its own right. He reminds us that we measure instantaneous velocity by measuring velocity over periods.32 But this tells us nothing
about whether instantaneous velocity is a real property of instantaneous
events. We often learn about real properties at scales beyond our perceptual
discrimination by learning about related properties: we cannot see atoms,
but we can see electron microscope images. And if a property is extrinsic,
to learn whether an item has it, we have to look not just at the item, but
at the thing(s) to which the item bears (or not) the relevant relationsin
this case, surrounding periods. When Diekemper writes that the definition
treats the instant t not as containing an event, but as the bounding point
of intervals over which velocity is measured,33 he is about half-right. Yes, it
measures what is at the instant by treating its contents in terms of a limit.
But that does not imply that ts contents are somehow a non-event. The
definition is neutral about this. It defines instantaneous velocity in terms of
what we can measure, to let us compute it. Only a verificationist would infer
from a definition designed for computation that to say that the car has an
instantaneous velocity of 5 is simply to say that there are certain measurable
properties of intervals, such that their limit is 5. Diekemper writes that the
definition of instantaneous velocity does not support the inference from an
instantaneous velocity to an instantaneous moving.34 That is fine; I never
claimed that it did.
Success
My papers second argument appeals to success-events like winning.
Diekemper claims that parsimony rules against these.35 But my parsimony
argument above for instants repeats at the level of instant-fillers. Beyond that,
consider two possible worlds: in one, my journey toward a midpoint is open
toward that midpoint, and t. I never actually arrive. I wink out of existence
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by t. In the other, I arrive. It seems natural to say that in the second world,
something happens which did not happen in the first. The difference between
them is my getting there, and what is my getting there if not an event? It can
be a relatum of a causal relation: you can see me arrive, though you cannot
discriminate the case in which you do from the other-world case in which you
dont, and as argued above, my arriving can cause my further motion. It can be
a causal relatum even on the least favorable assumptions, 4D eternalism plus
an at-at theory of motion. Even supposing these, spacetime has timewise
slices a point thick. (Why not? Diekemper has yet to give us an argument
against real bounding points.) There could be an eternalist world beginning
with me at the arrival point and continuing with me moving, and there will still
be causal relations between my being at that point and what follows.
Coming to Be
Diekemper next addresses my discussion of coming to exist. He says that
clearly something is changing in the coming to be of a new individual. New
individuals might include discarnate souls or angels. All are immaterial; there
can be nothing changing for them. If they come to be, they simply appear:
first they are not here, and then, all at once, they are. A process of change
goes through mid-stages between origin and completion. There are no
mid-stages between non-being and being. There are no intermediate states to
be in. This is part of why Aristotelians distinguish substantial from qualitative
change. The change from these things not existing to their existing cannot
be a process. Nor is there any process on which it supervenes or with which
it is correlated.
Again, consider classes. If a material thing A comes to exist, so does {A}.
But the process that moves toward As existence is not gradually forming {A}
as it gradually forms A, and there is no correlated process of gradually forming
{A}. {A} simply appears when A does. Something similar is true if there are
tropes. Again, as I have noted,36 if there can be instants, there can be a first
instant of time. Anything, even a material thing, might begin to exist then
without a prior process of change, and of course without a process during
that instant.
Even if a material things matter gradually changes till a new individual
comes to be, the new individuals finally coming to be cannot be a process of
change in anything. It has to be instantaneous. Again, first the individual is not
there, then all at once it is, though that all at once had a gradual process of
material change leading up to it. Diekemper asserts that talk of instantaneous
appearances is just talkthat such events do no ontological work.37 On the
contrary, first, note that there is a real difference between closed and open
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intervals. The same interval which is open in one world can be closed by
something else in another. Since we can have the interval without the closing
thing, the closing thing has to be real and really distinct from the interval: it is
separable from it. More importantly, in the case of a process of coming to be,
unless this last distinct event happens, we do not get a new existent. Let us
do the two-world trick again. In one world, the process of change in xs matter
never terminates. The world lasts only as long as the process leading toward
x. We get no x. In the other, it lasts longer and we do get x. Again, we have a
new causal relatum. We can see x begin to exist in the one world, for we can
begin to see x. We cannot in the other. By virtue of this extra, instantaneous
event we have x in one world and not the other. That is ontological work with
a vengeance.
Moving to Diekempers atheistic treatment of the Bang singularity, I do
not think atheists balk at inability to give an ultimate explanation. On the
contrary, they are happy to do without one to precisely the extent that they
are happy to be atheists, as the desire to have one would push them toward a
cosmological argument for theism. Atheists who made the move Diekemper
suggests would not save themselves from theism. Even if there is always
an earlier event to explain a later, none of them, nor all together, answer the
question of why there are ever any events at all. That is a legitimate question
if it is an ultimate explanation you want. You dont have one if you cannot
answer it, and the quest for an answer takes us beyond the universe.
As to models without a real t0, in a way, I dont need to worry here. It is
surely possible that there be a physically real singularity. It is not a necessary
truth that physical universes are so well behaved as never to yield infinite
values in equations describing them. A possible universe with a first instantaneous event does as well for my purposes as an actual one, since Diekemper
claims that (4) provides us with a necessary truth about the nature of events.
Now to the theistic treatment of the Bang. Diekemper suggests that the
change involved in the singularitys appearance is in God. I do not see how
this would help. Given his approach to physical change, Diekemper needs to
show that the appearance of a singularity is, supervenes upon or terminates
a process of change in an underlying material subject. God is not material
and does not underlie the appearance of a singularity. Change in God might
accompany this appearance, but he needs a claim about the appearance
of the singularity, not about a change in God accompanying it. Further, it is
not clear that even an accompanying relational change in God would be a
process. If at first creation is not there and then all at once it is, the relational
change in him by which He comes to count as its creator happens all at
onceinstantaneously. If there is no first instant at which creation exists, the
picture is this: at every time, either it hasnt happened yet or it has already
happened; again, there is no process here. This problem is independent of
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any issue about whether God is temporal: even if He is, no change in him can
play the role needed.
There is also independence on the other side. One need not think God
atemporal to offer a first instant of time as an example, for one neednt think
God atemporal to posit a first instant of time. A deity in hypertime could
create a time with a first instant. Diekemper neither explains nor supports the
claim that time is necessarily unified; if he means it to rule hypertime out, he
needs an argument.
Changeless instants
Finally, we come to changeless instants. Diekemper wants to invoke
counterpart theory for times to avoid a move I make. That comes at a
price. What counts as a counterpart to what depends on which aspects of
similarity are most heavily weighted. If what happens during t* is otherwise
like what happens during t, things are straightforward. Both overall intrinsic
similarity and t*s relations to bits of actual history make t* the counterpart
of t. But overall similarity and relations to actual history can come apart:
suppose that in an otherwise close world, the events of t (including the
Bangor trip) are just as they actually were intrinsically, but are located a year
earlier, while events at t* are wildly unlike those at t. We can continue to
hold that t* is ts counterpart and the Bangor trip was a year earlier, because
we can weight similarity as context dictates, and say that in this context,
similarity with respect to distance from actual events before t weighs most
heavily. However, things might have wildly differed from actuality all the
way back through history. Let us consider what to say about times in such
worlds.
One option is to say that if the world was too dissimilar to ours, t has no
counterpartthat is, things did not happen at the times actual events did.
But that is very counter-intuitive. Intuitively, even if everything had been very
different and dinosaurs still ruled the earth, it would still now be the time we
call 2014. Another option is to say that all that really matters for preserving a
counterpart relation to t is distance from some actual event: but this will not
deal with worlds with no events in common with ours. We might suggest
that all that matters is distance from a beginning event: but then no time in
our world is a counterpart of any time in a world in which time/events never
began, and that is again counter-intuitive. Intuitively, it would still be 2014
years after the date traditionally assigned to the birth of Christ even if there
had been an infinite number of years before that. That is, intuitively, this very
year could have occurred in a world with an infinite past and no events at any
time which actually happened. It is not evident how the counterpart move can
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handle this, and I think it would be a fairly heavy price to have to deny that
this is possible.
Atemporal events
In sum, I do not see anything in Diekempers discussion to shake ones
confidence in my earlier arguments, and I have given new arguments
besides. So (4) appears false. So Diekemper gives us no reason to accept
(2). And (2) is not obvious. As I argue elsewhere, it is possible that there be
a second temporal series. If it is, events are not necessarily located in our
time. Further, the possibility of a second series only an instant thick cannot
be ruled out, on general combinatorial grounds: if things can happen instantaneously, they can happen instantaneously and not be part of an extended
temporal series. Diekempers denial of this is just table-pounding: he simply
insists that if nothing changes, nothing counts as happening, even if the
contents of what he insists is not then a time are exactly what they are
actually.38 Most theories of events disagree. And surely whether something
is an event is not determined extrinsically. It is a matter of ontological
category. Categories seem to be determined intrinsically. It is just what
I am intrinsically that makes me a substance. It is just what yellowness
itself is intrinsically that makes yellowness a property. Why would it not be
what my buttering toast is, just itself, intrinsically, that makes it an event?
Diekemper might insist that there is a necessary connection between
temporal bounding points and temporal intervals bounded, but even if
there is, it doesnt follow that there is a necessary connection between the
contents of the first and the contents of the second (unless Diekemper can
force his reduction of times to events on us), and in any case, this claimed
necessary connection is (so far at least) brute, unexplained, mysterious, and
so deserving of suspicion.
I submit, then, that there could be a temporal series without temporal
parts. So nothing about an atemporal events part-structure or lack of location
in our time is reason to call one impossible. And if events need not have
temporal extension, it is hard to see why they would need temporal location.
Events in an instant-thick time series would differ from the contents of
what tradition calls an atemporal present only modally: they could have had
a successor or a predecessor, but an atemporal beings life could not have.
I say that there are two kinds of events, those that can have successors or
predecessors, and those that cannot. To defeat this claim, someone would
have to show without begging the question that being an event a priori entails
being able to have a successor or a predecessor. I do not see how. Events of
the second sort do not pass away, for if they did, they would be succeeded
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by their not occurring. So they just occurperiod. Events of the first sort are
temporal. Events of the second sort are not.
You may want to protest: how could something happen but not be
temporal? I do not think that the concept of happening is thick enough to
yield anything relevant by analysis. Here we are in the realm of pictures. So
here is mine. Take it as given that lives are the sort of thing that happen. One
main source of medieval atemporalism, Boethius, introduces his concept
of eternality as a way of being alive.39 One sort of life, ours, is essentially
realized a bit at a time. It is a life dribbled out. This is biological life, which
consists of various sorts of processes going on. Theists think there is
non-biological life, for they accept that there is an immaterial intentional
agent, and anything that intentionally brings about its own actions has to
count as alive. Boethius suggests that one non-biological sort of life is not
spread out, but lived all at onceintensely, rather thinned by stretching
out. Someone alive this way lives all at once everything he ever lives. This
would be the briefest possible life if it passed away, but Boethius adds that
none of Gods life ever passes away. The events of Gods life can have no
successors. They just occurperiod. Because of this, God is outside the
order of time, the order of what passes. Really, now, what is so impossible
about that?
Notes
1 Diekemper (2014: 2278).
2 Ibid., p.21516.
3 Leftow (1991a).
4 Diekemper (2014: 228).
5 I am reading does not need to as implying does not necessarily.
Diekemper could reply, I suppose, that he means need purely in a
psychological sense, as referring to what does or doesnt drive God to act
so, and say that even if He need not, He necessarily wants to, and wants
this more than He wants anything incompatible. Well, he could say it.
Arguing it would be a tall order.
6 Leftow (1991b).
7 Diekemper (2014: 227).
8 And that is even apart from the list of mental states Diekemper is willing
to take as literally present in God, which is worrisome. Jealousy (ibid.,
p.227) isnt a good state. It doesnt matter who youre jealous of or why. It
is plausibly a vice. God has no vices. The case isnt quite so clear for anger
(ibid., p.227). It is often useful (e.g. when fighting for ones life), and we
think there are things we can justifiably be angry about (e.g., someones
beating up our child). But whenever we respond with anger, it would be
249
morally better (and often more effective as well) to respond without it. Gods
responses cant be morally sub-optimal.
9 If Diekemper were to insist that God could focus on only a given number
of clams at once and so would have to change the focus of his attention,
I would stipulate that God creates no more than that number. Were he to
point to the ever-varied whirl of the clams atoms, I would stipulate that this
is an Aristotelian world, not an atomist one.
10 Were Diekemper to carry his anthropomorphism so far as to say that this
world would bore God, I would reply that God can create short-duration
worlds, and this world lasts less time than it would take for it to bore him.
11 Ibid., p.227.
12 Diekemper could just mean to raise the sort of argument I bring up in the
texts next paragraph. But if that is his intent, he does not make it clear, nor
discuss the varied responses this argument has gotten since Kretzmann
brought it into the contemporary discussion. See Kretzmann (1966).
13 Ibid., p.227.
14 Ibid., p.227.
15 Leftow (1991a: 31548).
16 I have kept to the main thread of Diekempers argument in the text, but let
me note some other dissatisfactions with Diekemper on God. Diekemper
rejects the claim that God has eternally created. So do I, but some of what
he says against it puzzles me. He says that an infinity of entities cannot be
uniquebut there is just one hierarchy , {}, {{}}, and that hierarchy
has infinitely many members. He says that co-eternal creation would imply
an infinity of universes, but surely there could be just ours and another one
infinitely old. He says that if
co-eternal creation is the exercise of his creative power in his inner
mental life that is co-eternal with God, there are no worries about why
God waited to create, because he did not. Diekemper (2014: 228).

God did not wait to think creatively, true. But there still remains the question
of why God waited to create a concrete actual universe. That He thinks
creatively does nothing to address this. Again, it would not help Diekemper
make Swinburnes move to hold that time did not start till creation did (ibid.,
p.225). That would instead preclude Swinburnes move: no pre-creation
temporality, no temporally extended pre-creation divine awareness. I do not
see what is odd about time starting with creation (16): why would there
have to be a before creation? And I note that multiverse defenders might
well be happy with the claim that this is a rather than the best possible
world; that would do fine for theodicy, for instance.
17 Ibid., p.217.
18 Then just what time the race took is relative to the level of visual resolution
at which the judge judges. And it does take some time to win, for it takes
some time for that much of the runners body to first enter and then fully
occupy that region.
19 Leftow (2002).
250
20 My talk of volumes is neutral between substantival and relationalist

construals. The latter would work fine. I also do not assume that the
object or the volume have 0-thickness surfaces or absolutely determinate
mereologies. Objects with vague or extended boundaries can coincide with
regions with vague or extended boundaries. This requires that every definite
part of the object coincide with an appropriate definite part of the region
and that every thing not definitely part or not part of the object occupies
something not definitely part or not part of the region.
21 Diekemper (2014: 217).
22 Ibid., p.229n. 8.
23 As time-intervals are dense if there are instants, instants could not be
contiguous. Nor need they be to be parts of intervals.
24 Ibid., p.216.
25 This is not an entirely new consideration: winning is one such event,
terminating a process of racing.
26 Ibid., p.218.
27 This illustration might be indebted to Dean Zimmerman.
28 Leftow (1997).
29 One might think to avoid this by applying a non1:1 account of occupation,
in which events do not have parts paired 1:1 with sub-regions of the region
they occupy, but instead just bear a whole-to-partial-region occupation
relation to each sub-region (see Hudson 2008). But this would require saying
that the whole event is in some way there to bear the relation, and does
so, even though only part of it can fit into the region, but has no part to
fit into the region and nothing outside the region is in any way real (given
presentism). I cannot see how this could be.
30 Leftow (2002: 26).
31 There is also another sort of theory, in which being a motion is intrinsic
to what is going on at an instant. I did not mention that one because it is
obviously friendlier to my case.
32 Diekemper (2014: 216).
33 Ibid., p.216.
34 Ibid., p.217.
35 Ibid., p.218.
36 Leftow (2002: 27).
37 Diekemper (2014: 219).
38 Ibid., p.218n. 6. It should be clear that his footnotes invocation of divine
necessary temporality can do no argumentative work here, since that is
precisely the conclusion he is trying to argue.
39 The Consolation of Philosophy V, prose 6.
251
References
Diekemper, J. (2014) Divine Events, in L. N. Oaklander (ed.) Debates in the
Metaphysics of Time. London: Bloomsbury.
Hudson, H. (2008), Omnipresence, in T. Flint and M. Rea (eds), The Oxford
Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kretzmann, N. (1966), Omniscience and immutability, Journal of Philosophy,
63, 40921.
Leftow, B. (1991a), Time and Eternity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
(1991b), Why didnt God create the world sooner?, Religious Studies, 27,
15972.
(1997), Eternity, in P. Quinn and C. Taliaferro (eds), The Cambridge
Companion to Philosophy of Religion. New York: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 25763.
(2002), The Eternal Present, in G. Ganssle and D. Woodruff (eds), God and
Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 26.
12
Foreknowledge and Fatalism:
Why Divine Timelessness
Doesnt Help
Alan R. Rhoda
Introduction
he problem of divine foreknowledge and creaturely freedom or, more

generally, the problem of divine knowledge of future contingents, has
long been a matter of controversy. If someonesay, Godknows that
some eventsay, a sea battleoccurs tomorrow, can it be undetermined
today whether that event occurs tomorrow, and if so, how? Conversely, if
some possible future event is not now determined either to occur or not to
occurin other words, if it is a future contingentthen how can it be either
known to occur or known not to occur in the future? It seems that, until it
actually occurs, a future contingent lacks the definiteness required to be a
proper object of knowledge. At any rate, the problem is especially pressing
for theists, most of whom believe both that there are future contingents,
especially human libertarian free choices,1 and that God has always known
which future contingents are going to happen. Despite two millennia of active
debate, there is still no consensus about whether the problem can be solved,
and, if so, what a philosophically and theologically acceptable solution might
look like.2
In this chapter I analyze the problem as a specific instance of the more
general problem of fatalism, and I argue that, as with any (valid) argument
for fatalism, there are only two possible solutions. One solution is to say that
Gods foreknowledgefor purposes of argument I shall assume throughout
254
that there is Goddoes not single out any possible future, any unique and
complete sequence of post-present events, as the actual future. This is the
open future solution. While currently championed by some theists,3 many
believe this solution unacceptable, in large part because it categorically
denies the traditional view that God has advance knowledge of everything
that ever comes to pass.4 The other possible solution is to say that Gods
foreknowledge is explanatorily dependent upon the actual occurrences of
future contingent events.5 This is the preventable future solution, upon
which I will be focusing most of my attention. I consider the bearing of this
solution on both the doctrine of divine timelessness and matters of temporal
ontology. Since Boethius,6 divine timelessness has often been thought
essential to any acceptable solution to the foreknowledge/future contingency
problem. I argue to the contrary.
In the next section, I examine the more general problem of fatalism
and show that fatalism (the denial of future contingency) follows if and
only if there is a fixed or now-unpreventable future specifier. Since Gods
foreknowledge, as traditionally understood, is a future specifier, traditional
theistic anti-fatalists must hold that Gods foreknowledge (in so far as
it concerns future contingents) is not fixed but, rather, is explanatorily
dependent upon the actual occurrences of future contingent events. After
elaborating on this, the preventable future response, and clarifying the
key notion of explanatory dependence, I then consider its implications for
temporal ontology. I argue that, given that (contingent) truth supervenes
on being, the traditional conception of divine foreknowledge requires an
ontically settled or linear block future according to which there (tenselessly) exists a unique and complete sequence of future events. Next, I
examine the implications of preventable futurism for divine timelessness by
engaging with Katherin Rogers recent (2008) Anselmian response to the
foreknowledge/future contingency problem. Rogers proposal combines (1)
divine timelessness, (2) an ontically settled future, and (3) the preventable
future response. Pace Rogers, I argue that (1) and (2) are each incompatible
with (3). Hence, divine timelessness doesnt help the anti-fatalist. While it
does not itself entail fatalism, it blocks preventable futurism, which is the
anti-fatalists only hope for reconciling future contingency with a traditional
conception of divine foreknowledge.
The challenge of fatalism

To set up the problem of foreknowledge/future contingency with maximum
generality, we must step back and consider fatalistic arguments in general.
Doing so will give us a clear sense of what our basic theoretical options
Foreknowledge and Fatalism
255
are for rebutting so-called theological fatalism, the contention that divine
foreknowledge is incompatible with future contingency.
Roughly, fatalism is the doctrine that there is a precise way the future
is going to go and that there is now nothing that can be done about it. In
short, fatalism says that the future that is going to be isto use Priors apt
expressionnow-unpreventably going to be.7 By a future I mean an
abstract representation of a unique, complete, linear extension of the actual
past. For a future to be now-unpreventable is for it to be causally necessary,
or such that it obtains in all logically possible worlds8 having the same causal
laws and the same causal/explanatory history9 as the actual world as of the
present. Fatalism entails that there is only one causally possible future or, in
other words, that the future is causally settled. Fatalism thus entails that
there are no future contingents, no events that occur in some, but not all,
causally possible futures. Of course, if humans or other creatures possess
libertarian freedom, or if there is genuine causal indeterminism in nature (at,
say, the quantum level), then there are future contingents, fatalism is false,
and the future is not causally settled, but rather causally open.10
Only two substantive assumptions are needed to construct valid arguments
for fatalism. In terms of my opening characterization, they are simply (1) that
there is a precise way the future is going to go, and (2) that there is now
nothing that can be done about it. I call these, or rather their precisifications,
the specified future (SF) and unpreventability (NP) theses, respectively.
Concerning SF, since the fatalists conclusion is that there is only one
causally possible future, which future is therefore inevitably going to be
the actual future, the premises of any valid fatalistic argument must posit
something that singles out a unique possible future as the actual one. Let
us call that something a future specifier. For example, alethic arguments
for fatalism (or for what is often misleadingly called logical fatalism)11
begin by assuming or attempting to establish that there is a collection of
truths about the futurea complete, true story of the future, if you will
that specifies how the future is going to go. The existence of such a story
amounts to the futures being alethically settled. Alethic arguments for
fatalism then attempt to show that if the future is alethically settled then it
must also be causally settled. Likewise, epistemic arguments for fatalism
(or for what is often misleadingly called theological fatalism) posit a
complete, known story of the future. Usually this story is held to exist in the
mind of God. The existence of such a story amounts to the futures being
epistemically settled. Epistemic arguments for fatalism then attempt to
show that if the future is epistemically settled then it must also be causally
settled.
But clearly the mere existence of a future specifier is not enough to
warrant fatalism. A future specifier ensures that the specified future will
256
happen, but fatalism makes the stronger claim that it must happen in the
sense of being now-unpreventable. To see how the fatalist must try to bridge
this gap, consider that some facts are unquestionably fixed or now-unpreventable such that we no longer (and perhaps never did) have any say about
them. Plausible candidates include the laws of logic, mathematical truths, the
laws of nature, the basic principles of moral law, and the actual past. What
the fatalist proposes is that the fixed facts, whatever they are, collectively
constitute a future specifier. If so, then there is not merely a specified future
(SF) but an unpreventably (NP) specified future. From that, fatalism follows.
To see that fatalism follows from SF and NP, let us sketch out the reasoning.
Given SF, there is a future specifier, S, the existence of which entails a specific
future, F, that is,
(1) (S F).
Given NP, S is now-unpreventable, or such that it will obtain no matter which
causally possible future eventuates. Using N(X) to stand for <In all causally
possible futures, X>, we can write
(2) N(S).
Since the entailment in (1) is also unpreventableif it is logically necessary
that S F, then there cannot be a future in which S obtains and F doesntwe
can rewrite (1) using the N operator:
(3) N(S F).
Finally, we can represent the fatalistic conclusion:
(4) N(F).
(4) says that all causally possible futures are F futures, or equivalently, that F
is the only causally possible future.
All that remains is to show that (4) follows from (2) and (3) in virtue of the
following transfer of necessity principle:
(5) [N(p q) Np] Nq.
The validity of this principle can easily be established by comparison with
the transfer of logical necessity, that is, [(p q) p] q. The latter is
an axiom in every standard system of modal logic, and for good reason. If all
possible worlds are ones in which p q is true, and if all are ones in which p
257
is true, then there are no worlds in which q is false. Exactly parallel reasoning
underwrites (5) by substituting causally possible futures for possible
worlds. Hence, the inference from (2) and (3) to (4) via (5) is demonstrably
valid.
What we have here is a minimal valid recipe for fatalism: simply establish that
there is a future specifier among the fixed facts. Different fatalistic arguments
posit different future specifiers and use different strategies to establish their
fixity, but, in so far as they are valid, they all follow this basic recipe. Since the
inference from (2) and (3) to (4) is logically impeccable, anti-fatalists have but two
options for rebutting any given instance of this fatalistic argument schema. The
first is to deny SF, that is, to deny that any future specifier of the posited type
exists. This was Aristotles response to the alethic argument for fatalism,12 in
which a complete, true story of the future plays the role of the future specifier.
To deny SF in this context is simply to deny that there is any such story. The
future, in this view, is not alethically settled, but alethically open. Likewise, in
response to the epistemic argument for fatalism based on Gods foreknowledge,
one might deny SF either by denying Gods existence, denying or restrictively
qualifying Gods omniscience, or by arguing, as some theists do, that the content
of an omniscient Gods knowledge does not constitute a future specifier.13 The
future, in any of these views, is not epistemically settled, but epistemically open.
Analogous open future or SF-denying responses can be given to any valid
argument for fatalism.
The anti-fatalists second option is to deny NP. This was Ockhams response
to both alethic and epistemic arguments for fatalism.14 Ockham conceded to
fatalism the existence of at least two future specifiers: (i) a complete, true
story of the future, and (ii) Gods having knowledge of such a story. Contra
fatalism, however, Ockham maintained that because there are future contingents, the truth of that story and Gods knowledge of it are still preventable
in virtue of there being causally possible futures in which some things
actually true about the future are not true and in which some things actually
foreknown by God are not foreknown. Analogous preventable future or
NP-denying responses can be given to any valid argument for fatalism.
In this chapter I will not have much more to say about open future
responses. While that is the type of response that I prefer,15 my primary
goal here is to explore the tenability of a preventable future response to the
epistemic argument for fatalism, so to that task I now turn.
258
Preventable future specifiers and

explanatory dependence
Since the existence of an unpreventable future specifier entails fatalism, antifatalists must either deny that there are any future specifiers or maintain that
those which exist are still preventable. But what is it for a future specifier to
be preventable? More specifically, given that divine foreknowledge is a future
specifier, what is it for such knowledge to be preventable?
Let us begin by clearing away one possible misconception: unpreventability does not entail temporality. The fatalistic argument schema outlined
above only requires that an unpreventable future specifier exist. Whether it
is temporally situated or not is a further, and tangential, question. Thus, the
epistemic argument for fatalism does not depend on Gods literally having
foreknowledge (i.e., temporally prior knowledge of events), but rather on Gods
having unpreventable knowledge of the future, that is, of what we temporally
situated beings would regard as the future. While I will continue to speak of
Gods foreknowledge, as is customary in the literature, this should be understood in the latter, knowledge-of-the-future sense, which is neutral concerning
Gods relation to time. Consequently, the foreknowledge/future contingency
problem cannot be solved simply by appealing to divine timelessness or to
creaturely power of some sortcounterfactual, causal, or otherwiseover the
past.16 One major virtue of approaching the epistemic argument for fatalism by
first considering fatalistic arguments in general is that it allows us to sidestep
complications like the notoriously vexed hard fact/soft fact distinction,17
which is relevant only to fatalistic arguments that rely on the fixity of the past.
What matters for fatalism is not the temporal relation between future
specifiers and future events, but the explanatory relation between them. The
central issue is whether the posited future specifier is fixed independently
of the actual occurrences of future contingent events or whether it is fixed
(in part) by their occurrences. Thus, the preventable futurist must say that if
tomorrow I make a libertarian free choice between, say, vanilla and chocolate
ice cream, and choose vanilla,18 then God will have always (or eternally)19
known that I was going to choose vanilla, and he will have known that in
virtue of my so choosing. And if I should choose chocolate instead, as by
hypothesis I have the power to do, then God will have always known that I
was going to choose chocolate, and he will have known that in virtue of my
so choosing. Hence, my free choice to do this (rather than that) brings about
Gods having always known that I will do this (rather than that) in the future.
As Figure 12.1 shows, if it is a future contingent whether I choose
chocolate or vanilla ice cream tomorrow, and if it is causally necessary that I
do exactly one of those two things, then the set of causally possible futures
259
FIGURE 12.1
can be partitioned into vanilla futures, {fv1, fv2, }, and chocolate futures,
{fc1, fc2, }. Since a future specifier entails the coming to pass of its corresponding future, if a future specifier exists then it must specify either a vanilla
future or a chocolate future, and so it must either be a vanilla specifier, {sv1,
sv2, }, or a chocolate specifier, {sc1, sc2, }. But since which type of future
comes to passvanilla or chocolateis up to me and is brought about in part
by my free choice, which type of specifier existsvanilla or chocolateis
also up to me and is brought about in part by my free choice. And, clearly,
if something is brought about in part by my free choice, then it is explained
in part by my free choice. The core of the preventable future response to
fatalism is, therefore, simply this: for any given future specifier, its existence
is explanatorily dependent on, and brought about by, the actual occurrences
of the future contingent events that it specifies.20
The whole point of NP, the fatalists unpreventability assumption, is to block
this response by ensuring that the existence of the posited future specifier
is explanatorily independent of, and thus not even partly brought about by,
the actual occurrences of future contingent events. Consider, for example,
the openly fatalistic position of theistic determinism, the view that God is the
ultimate sufficient cause of all creaturely events. In this view, if God knows
that I will choose vanilla tomorrow, God does so not in virtue of anything I
do tomorrow, but in virtue of Gods having sovereignly decreed that I choose
vanilla and Gods having set in place causes sufficient to bring that about. In
this model, Gods knowledge is borne out by creaturely events, but never
brought about by them. The explanatory arrow runs from God to creaturely
events, and there is no explanatory arrow running in the other direction.
But despite what the example of theistic determinism may suggest,
explanatory independence is simply a denial of explanatorily dependence.
260
What is essential for fatalism is that the future specifiers not depend
explanatorily on future contingents. It is not necessary that future events
depend explanatorily on the future specifiers for, as Jonathan Edwards
famously pointed out, Infallible Foreknowledge may prove [i.e., establish] the
Necessity of the event foreknown, and yet not be the thing which causes the
Necessity.21 In other words, if a future specifier is explanatorily independent
of the actual occurrences of any future contingent events, then it entails the
unpreventability of the future that it specifies even if it doesnt itself render
that future unpreventable.
Finally, while the explanatory dependence of future specifier S on future
event E licenses a counterfactual, namely, <If E were not to occur, then
S would not have existed>, explanatory dependence is not reducible to
counterfactual dependence. In the first place, explanatory dependence is
transitive and (at least) anti-symmetric and non-reflexive,22 whereas counterfactual dependence is non-transitive,23 non-symmetric, and reflexive. In
the second place, if explanatory dependence were reducible to counterfactual dependence, then preventable futurism would fail as a counter
to fatalism. After all, fatalists themselves would insist that future specifiers are counterfactually dependent on the events they specify. It follows
from theistic determinism, for example, that if (counterfactually) I were to
choose chocolate over the divinely predestined vanilla, then God would have
foreknown (because he would have predestined) that I was going to choose
chocolate. The presence of a counterfactual arrow running from future events
to a future specifier is thus compatible with the fatalists insistence that no
relevant explanatory arrows run in that direction.
Having clarified both the core structure of fatalistic arguments and the
preventable future response, we are now in a position to consider what sort
of temporal ontology could underwrite the epistemically settled future that
Gods foreknowledge has traditionally been thought to entail.
From epistemically to ontically settled

I have already introduced three sensescausal, alethic, and epistemicin
which the future may be thought of as either open or settled. By way of
review, the future is causally settled just in case only one future is compatible
with the causal laws plus the causal/explanatory history of the actual world as of
the present, and it is causally open just in case multiple futures are compatible
with those constraints. Likewise, the future is alethically settled just in case
only one future is compatible with the complete collection of truths about the
future, that is, just in case there is a complete, true story of the future. And
261
the future is alethically open just in case multiple futures are compatible with
the collection of truths. Finally, the future is epistemically settled just in case
only one future is compatible with all that is known, and it is epistemically open
just in case multiple futures are compatible with the sum of all knowledge.
I now want to introduce a fourth sense in which the openness/settledness
of the future may be understood. Let us say that the future is ontically
settled just in case only one future is compatible with the concrete totality
of future events. In other words, the future is ontically settled just in case a
unique, linear, and complete sequence of future events exists. Conversely,
the future is ontically open just in case multiple futures are compatible with
the concrete totality of future events. Thus, if there are no future eventsas
presentists and growing-blockers would have itor if there exists a branching
array of future eventsas McCall (1994) would have itthen the future is
ontically open. Contrastingly, if some non-branching version of eternalism
is correct, such as the moving spotlight version of the A-theory or a linear
block version of the B-theory, then the future is ontically settled.
I introduce this distinction in order to ask whether an ontically settled
future is needed to underwrite an epistemically settled future. As is well
known, God is standardly conceived to be essentially omniscient. While there
is some debate about precisely how to analyze omniscience,24 I shall take it
to be the view that God essentially believes all and only truths, believes them
infallibly, and is immediately and fully acquainted with all of reality. It follows
that if there is a complete, true story of the future, then God knows it. An
alethically settled future, therefore, entails an epistemically settled future.
Conversely, since knowledge entails truth, if the future is epistemically settled
it is also alethically settled. Given an essentially omniscient God, then, alethic
and epistemic settledness/openness necessarily go hand in hand. Hence, we
can replace the question about whether an ontically settled future is needed
to underwrite an epistemically settled future, with the question of whether it
is needed to underwrite an alethically settled future. If it is necessary for the
latter, then it is necessary for the former. And if it is sufficient for the latter,
then it is also sufficient for the former.
The supposition that the future is alethically settled raises a question:
What makes this story of the future the true one? Truth, it is plausible to
suppose, supervenes on being.25 What is true is true in virtue of what is real.
This is especially plausible for logically contingent truths,26 of which truths
about future contingents are obviously a subset. If <I freely choose vanilla
ice cream tomorrow> is true, it seems proper to ask why that is true when
ex hypothesi <I freely refrain from choosing vanilla ice cream tomorrow>
has (we may assume) just as good a chance of being true instead. Since
contingent propositions cannot be true in virtue of themselves, something
else must be different about reality in virtue of which the first is true and not
262
the second. Hence, if there is a complete, true story of the future, then we
need an ontology robust enough to explain why this story is true as opposed
to any other that might otherwise have been true.
One way to ground an alethically settled future is to suppose that the
future is causally settled. If it is, then a God who knows the causal laws plus
the causal/explanatory history of the actual world as of the present will be
able to predict with certainty exactly how the future will go. So a causally
settled future, given an omniscient God, entails an epistemically settled
future. And since knowledge entails truth, it also entails an alethically
settled future. But it does so at the cost of giving up future contingency. If
we want future contingency, we need another way to ground an alethically
settled future.
So let us suppose that the future is causally open. In this case, the causal
laws plus the causal/explanatory history of the world as of the present leave
underdetermined which future is to be the actual one. Hence, if we want
to ground an alethically settled future, we will need something more in our
ontology. An obvious thought is to suppose that the future is ontically settled,
that is, to suppose that a unique, linear, and complete sequence of future
events exists. If that is so, then, since an omniscient God is fully acquainted
with all of reality, God would be fully acquainted with all actual future events,
and so the future would be epistemically and, therefore, alethically settled.
So unless theres some deeper incompatibility between a causally open and
an ontically settled future, this looks like an effective way to ground divine
foreknowledge of future contingents.
If, however, the future is neither causally nor ontically settled, then it is
unclear how an alethically settled future could be grounded. Assume that
the future is ontically open. In presentist and growing-block models, future
events and entities do not exist and so are not available to do any grounding,27
whereas in a branching-future model like McCalls, too many future events and
entities exist to single out any one future as actual. So given ontic openness,
future events and entities dont suffice for grounding an alethically settled
future. Let us now factor in non-future events and entities while assuming
that the future is causally open, that is, that there are future contingents. As
just noted, the causal laws plus the causal/explanatory history of the world
as of the present do not suffice for grounding because they underdetermine
which future is to be the actual one. But that underdetermination remains
even if we add in past, present, and even timeless events and entities that
are not part of that causal/explanatory history. Because such events and
entities have no explanatory bearing upon which future events occur, they
dont substantively contribute toward this causally possible futures coming
to pass rather than another, and so they dont suffice to explain its being true
that this causally possible future comes to pass rather than another. In sum,
263
then, given both causal and ontic openness, neither future events and entities
nor explanatorily relevant non-future events and entities nor explanatorily irrelevant non-future events and entities suffice, either individually or collectively,
to ground an alethically settled future. But then what else is there that could
provide such grounding?28
I conclude that, unless we are prepared to jettison the highly plausible
principle that (contingent) truth supervenes on being, our best hopeindeed,
our only hopefor reconciling an alethically and epistemically settled future
with a causally open one is via an ontically settled future. I now examine a
recent proposal along these lines.
An Anselmian solution?
Katherin Rogers (2008) has recently endorsed and defended what she cogently
argues to be Anselms response to the problem of divine foreknowledge and
future contingency. Her objective is to describe a model of reality and of
Gods relation to it that makes clear how the future can be both causally open
and epistemically settled (for God). She summarizes as follows:
Anselms solution rests on three premises: (1) the sort of necessity
which follows upon divine foreknowledge need not conflict in any way at
all with the most robust libertarian freedom because (2) God is eternal and
(3) time is essentially tenseless. (Rogers 2008: 146)
Each of these points requires some unpacking. I will take them in reverse
order.
By (3), the idea that time is essentially tenseless, Rogers means to
endorse a B-theoretical version of eternalism, which she prefers to call
four-dimensionalism (Rogers 2008: 158) so as to reserve eternal and its
derivatives for Gods timeless mode of being. More precisely, Rogers must
intend to endorse by (3) a linear block version of eternalism, such that the
future is ontically settled. She must intend this because eternalism alone, in
either an A- or B-theoretical interpretation, is not sufficient for her purposes.
This is because eternalismthe idea that all past, present, and future events
(tenselessly) existis compatible with a non-linear or branching future. In a
branching block version of eternalism, there would be no unique future for
God to know as the actual future. Hence, the future would be neither alethically nor epistemically settled.
By (2), Gods eternality, Rogers means that God is essentially timeless
(cf. Rogers 2008: 1467). From this it follows that Gods existence is essentially beginningless and endless, that God essentially lacks any temporal
264
properties, and that God is essentially immune to intrinsic change. Rogers is

far from alone in thinking that divine timelessness is essential for rebutting
the epistemic argument for fatalism. One common motivation behind this
thought is that divine timelessness allows one to sidestep fatalistic worries
about the fixity or accidental necessity of the past since a timeless
Gods knowledge isnt in the past. In addition, divine timelessness is often
thought to afford a model of how God can know future contingents in that
God, from a vantage point outside of time, is able to survey all at once the
entire sweep of history. Nevertheless, as I argued above, divine timelessness
is not sufficient for rebutting epistemic arguments for fatalism.29 And while
one might take it to be necessary on the grounds that a temporally situated
God couldnt possibly survey the actual occurrences of all future contingent
events, it is not immediately clear why a temporally situated God couldnt
have the requisite access to future events. In an A-theoretical version of
eternalism, for example, such as the moving spotlight theory,30 all future
events (tenselessly) exist and so are available for a transcendentally temporal
God to be acquainted with.31 In sum, pace Rogers, (2) is at most an optional
commitment of an Anselmian solution to the foreknowledge/future contingency problem.
Finally, in (1) the sort of necessity which follows upon divine foreknowledge
is, says Rogers, merely a conditional or consequent necessity (Rogers
2008: 158). It is the kind of necessity by which God foreknows <X happens in
the future> if and only if X happens in the future (i.e., in what we temporally
situated beings think of as the future). This necessity need not conflict with
future contingency because it is compatible with the explanatory dependence
of Gods knowledge upon the actual occurrences of future contingent events.
As Rogers repeatedly stresses, the arrow of dependency runs from future
contingent events to God:
It is the fact that the agent actually chooses what he chooses that produces
Gods knowledge of the choice, and so the consequent necessity involved
in divine knowledge is ultimately produced by the agent making the choice
Anselms position entails that God learns from us. He knows what we
choose, because we choose it. (Rogers 2008: 1756)
In summary, Rogers (following Anselm) proposes to solve the divine
foreknowledge/future contingency problem by supposing a linear block model
of time and a God outside time whose knowledge of future contingent
events in time is quasi-perceptual and thus explanatorily dependent upon
the actual occurrences of those events. One merit of this proposal is that
it directly challenges the epistemic argument for fatalism based on divine
foreknowledge by offering, in effect, an NP-denying or preventable future
265
response to fatalism. Another merit is that it provides us with a reasonably

clear model for how the future could be epistemically settled for God,
specifically, through Gods being acquainted with an ontically settled future.
Unfortunately, as I will now argue, Rogers solution does not work, for divine
timelessness and an ontically settled future are each incompatible with a
preventable future response to fatalism.
I develop my argument in three stages. First, I raise an objection
against divine timelessness based on the idea that divine choices entail
intrinsic change, and thus temporal sequence, in God. While the objection
is not conclusive, it is instructive, forand this is the second stage of
the argumentparallel reasoning shows that preventable future specifiers
cannot be atemporal. Hence, divine timelessness, when coupled with the
traditional idea that Gods foreknowledge constitutes a future specifier, not
only does not help solve the foreknowledge/future contingency problem, but
actually entails fatalism. Finally, in the third stage, I show that if an ontically
settled future must be temporally invariant, then it too is incompatible with a
preventable future response, and thus entails fatalism.
First stage: A problem for divine timelessness

Most theists have believed that God makes choices, including choices
about whether to create, about which (type of) world to create, and how
to respond to creaturely actions. But perhaps, as some have argued, the
inherent diffusiveness of divine love ensures that God creates some world or
other. And perhaps, as others have argued, God must create the best type
of world or at least one from among the class of best strongly actualizable
world types.32 Still, even if we grant all that, most theists would be inclined
to think that God must have had some open optionsfor example, the
option to create one more or one fewer hydrogen atoms in some far-flung
corner of the universe, or the option to make it such that humans perceive
an inverted color spectrum. For present purposes it does not matter what
the options are. As long as God has at least one open option requiring at
least one choice on Gods part, essential divine timelessness is ruled out.
This is because choices are inherently temporal events essentially involving
both a before state of contemplating the options without as yet having
settled upon any of them, and an after state of having decided upon one
of the options over the others. The relation between the two states cannot
be understood as one of merely logical priority, for the states are mutually
incompatibleone cannot be concurrently both undecided and decided with
respect to the same optionwhereas relations of merely logical priority
can obtain only between things that are mutually compatible, such as the
266
premises and conclusion of a valid argument. Moreover, the transition from

not yet having decided to having decided constitutes an intrinsic change in
the chooser. Hence, the relation must be one of temporal priority, of before
and after. Because intrinsic change is impossible for a timeless being, it is
impossible for a timeless God literally to choose and to remain timeless.33
An essentially timeless God therefore must not face open options. Rogers
seems to realize this. Affirming essential divine timelessness, she follows
Anselm in denying that God ever faces open options because God, being
the best, does the best (p. 185). This assumes, however, that there is such
a thing as a unique best that God can doa best strongly actualizable world
type (cf. Rogers 2008: 195). Rogers defends this seemingly implausible claim
with vigor, though in the end she claims only that it is not wildly implausible
or obvious madness to suppose that ours is the best type of world God
could have actualized (Rogers 2008: 205). Be that as it may, the incompatibility of divine timelessness and open options vitiates Rogers preventable
future response to fatalism.
Second stage: Open options and future contingency

As with choices, future contingency entails open options (of a sort), namely,
the different types of causally possible futures that hinge upon future
contingent events. The actual occurrences of future contingent events are in
fact analogous toand in some cases aredecisions between open options.
My freely choosing vanilla ice cream tomorrow over chocolate is a case in
point. Prior to my choice, both chocolate-futures (in which I choose chocolate)
and vanilla-futures (in which I choose vanilla) are causally possible. Both are
open options for me. But even when there is no agent per se, as in the case
of quantum-level indeterminism, we can still think of future contingents as
providing open options for a physical system, or even for reality in general.
Somehowwe need not know howreality chooses to go one way rather
than the other.
Now recall our discussion of fatalism. If we admit future specifiers, then
we avoid fatalism only by saying that which token future specifiers exist is
explanatorily dependent upon the actual occurrences of future contingent
events. This is the preventable future response to fatalism, which Rogers
endorses. But now we run into another problem for divine timelessness. For
if the existence of some token future specifier is explanatorily dependent
upon, say, my choosing vanilla ice cream tomorrow, and if my so choosing
is now a future contingent, then there are causally possible futures in
which that future specifier exists and causally possible futures in which that
future specifier does not exist. In other words, future specifiers that are
267
explanatorily dependent upon the actual occurrences of future contingent

events are themselves future contingentsthey obtain in some, but not all,
causally possible futures. This is a crucial point. It implies that nothing can be
both timeless and explanatorily dependent upon future contingents since the
temporality of the latter is inherited by anything explanatorily dependent upon
them. Hence, far from helping to solve the foreknowledge/future contingency
problem, divine timelessness precludes a preventable future response to
fatalism.
This consequence is one that Rogers sometimes seems to be on the verge
of grasping. Thus, as she puts it in one passage, Anselms position entails
that God learns from us. He knows what we choose, because we choose
it (Rogers 2008: 176). Later, in a footnote, she writes that God must wait
and see what created agents actually choose (Rogers 2008: 195n. 29). In
the preventable future response, this is exactly right, but if God learns from
us and must wait and see what we choose, then this introduces temporal
sequence into God. Just as divine choices entail a beforeafter sequence in
God, consisting of a not-having-yet-decided state followed by a having-decided
state, so also the explanatory dependence of Gods knowledge upon future
contingents entails a beforeafter sequence in God consisting of a not-havingyet-learned state followed by a having-learned state. Rogers comes closest
to realizing this when she writes that God cannot know what the created
agent chooses until (logically, not temporally) he chooses it (Rogers 2008:
150), but she wrongly supposes that the sequence can be merely logical
and not temporal. As explained above, merely logical sequences, such as
obtain between the premises and conclusion of an argument, require that
the termini be mutually compatible. In the case of learning, however, as in
the case of choosing, they are mutually incompatible. One cannot both have
learned something and not have learned it, either at the same time, or even
at the same timeless moment.
Third stage: Implications for temporal ontology

The future is ontically settled just in case a unique, complete, and linear
sequence of future events exists. If such a sequence does exist, it is a
future specifier. Hence, to avoid fatalism, the ontically settled future must
be preventable, such that whether this sequence of future events exists
or not is explanatorily dependent upon the actual occurrences of future
contingent events. But if a unique, complete, and linear sequence of future
events exists, it cannot exist now (because the events are future), and so
presumably it must exist tenselessly or sub specie aeternitatis. But then for
the same reason that divine timelessness (plus omniscience) precludes a
268
preventable future, it seems as if an ontically settled future does so too. As

we have seen, preventable future specifiers are themselves future contingents. It is doubtful, however, whether a tenselessly existing sequence of
events can be a future contingent. Future contingency seems to be an inherently tensed status because there invariably comes a time when the event
in question is either no longer future, or no longer contingent. The proverbial
sea battle tomorrow may now be a future contingent, but it wont be one
after tomorrow. At any rate, if a future specifier is explanatorily dependent
upon the actual occurrences of future contingent events, then whether a
token future specifier exists is something that reality must, so to speak,
wait and see to find out. Just as with the case of Gods foreknowledge,
there is a beforeafter sequence: the before state of realitys not being yet
determinate with respect to whether a sea battle occurs tomorrow, and an
after state of realitys being determinate in that respect. And since these
states are mutually incompatible, the sequence must be temporal, not merely
logical. This, however, seems to be incompatible with the supposition that
the sequence of events constituting the ontically settled future exists tenselesslyat least it does if existing tenselessly entails either atemporality or
temporal invariance.34 If this is right, then an ontically settled future cannot be
a preventable future, and thus entails fatalism.
Conclusion
Reflection upon fatalism has significant implications for both theology and
temporal ontology. I have argued that fatalism is entailed by the existence
of a fixed or unpreventable future specifier and that there are, therefore,
only two ways of resisting the fatalists conclusion. One can adopt an open
future strategy and deny that any future specifiers posited by the fatalist
exist, or one can adopt a preventable future strategy and hold that which
token future specifiers exist is explanatorily dependent upon the actual
occurrences of future contingent events. Traditionally, most theists have
thought of Gods foreknowledge as a future specifier, and so most theistic
anti-fatalists have been preventable futurists. They have thought of the future
as being epistemically and alethically settled but causally open. Because
(contingent) truth supervenes on being, however, such theists are also
implicitly committed to an ontically settled future because only thus would
there be adequate grounds for the complete, true story of the future that
God has traditionally been thought to know. Rogers Anselmian response to
the foreknowledge/future contingency problem embraces an ontically settled
future and tries to avoid fatalism by combining divine timelessness with a
preventable future response. Unfortunately, neither divine timelessness nor
269
(arguably) an ontically settled future is compatible with the preventable future

response, and thus, far from helping the anti-fatalist it actually lends support
to fatalism.
If my argument thus far has been successful, then to avoid fatalism we
must affirm a causally and ontically open future (or find a way to affirm
an ontically settled future without countenancing any temporally invariant
future specifiers). Given that (contingent) truth supervenes on being, such a
future must also be alethically and epistemically open. Hence, the traditional
conception of divine foreknowledge, which entails an epistemically settled
future, is untenable. My advice to anti-fatalistic eternalists and theists is to
be thoroughgoing open-futurists, to hold that the future is causally, ontically,
alethically, and epistemically open. I close by noting that it is in fact possible
to affirm eternalism and divine timelessness while being a thoroughgoing
open futurist. Start with McCalls branching model of time, according to
which all of the many causally possible futures exist in a branching array, with
nodes representing decision points for future contingents. McCalls model is
dynamic in that, as future contingents are resolved, unchosen branches drop
off or cease to exist. We can convert it into an eternalist model by setting the
dynamic component aside and holding that all events that are ever causally
possible (tenselessly) exist. The resulting static branching block model
of time would be causally, ontically, alethically, and epistemically open.35
A timeless and omniscient God could be fully acquainted with the whole
branching array of events. Of course, this model requires giving up the traditional idea that Gods foreknowledge constitutes a future specifier, but if my
argument is sound, that idea will have to go anyway on pain of losing future
contingency altogether.36
Notes
1 Most theists are deeply concerned to protect God against the charge of
being ultimately responsible for human wrongdoing. But this arguably requires
that humans occasionally have the ability to exercise libertarian freedom,
which in turn requires indeterminism and thus future contingency. Theists
who deny human libertarian freedom have a comparatively harder time with
the problem of evil, for if human moral responsibility is compatible with all
human behavior being (ultimately) determined by God, then it is hard to see
why an all-good, all-powerful God couldnt have and wouldnt have created a
sinless worldor at least a much less sinful one. See Rhoda (2010a).
2 Important recent studies of the problem include Craig (1991), Fischer (1989),
Hasker (1989), and Zagzebski (1991).
3 For example, Rhoda (2010b) and Tuggy (2007).
4 For example, Ware (2000).
270
5 This is the gist of Ockhams (1983) response to the foreknowledge/future

contingency problem.
6 Boethius (1973: bk. V, prose 6).
7 Prior (2003).
8 It would be more exact to speak of complete histories rather than
worlds, for the common assumption that each possible world essentially
includes a complete history (a past, present, and future) is problematic, for
reasons given in Rhoda (2010a: 284). Nevertheless, I will stick with the more
familiar term worlds.
9 The causal/explanatory qualifier is important for two reasons. First, to
say simply same history would beg the question against anti-fatalists like
Ockham (1983) who want to say both (1) that there are multiple causally
possible futures, and (2) that only one causally possible future is compatible
with the entire actual past. Second, the causal/explanatory order is, at least
arguably, not necessarily restricted to the temporal past. If backward causation
is possible, for example, then the causal/explanatory history of an event
may include future events. Alternatively, if there is a timeless God who
causally sustains a temporal creation or who provides enabling concurrences
for creaturely actions, then Gods activity is part of the causal/explanatory
history of creaturely events even though it isnt part of temporal history.
10 As I have characterized it, fatalism entails that there are not now any
future contingents. It does not entail either that there never have been any
future contingents or that it is metaphysically impossible that there be future
contingents. While most historical fatalists would endorse either or both of
those stronger claims, my justification for the weaker characterization is that
what makes fatalism disturbing to most is its implication that we have no
independent say in what course our own future will take. To learn, after
discovering that ones future is fated, that it hasnt always been fated or that
it is only contingently fated would provide no existential comfort.
11 The terms logical fatalism and theological fatalism, while common in
the literature, are misleading because they suggest that these are different
types of fatalism, when they are really just different ways of arguing for
fatalism.
12 There is some debate about the exact nature of Aristotles response to the
fatalistic argument. See Craig (1988) and Gaskin (1995) for discussion.
13 Open theists (e.g. Rhoda et al. 2006, and Tuggy 2007) and process theists
(e.g., Viney and Shields 2003) often take this line.
14 Ockham (1983).
15 I discuss both open future and preventable future responses in greater
detail in Rhoda (n.d.).
16 Of course, some formulations of the epistemic argument for fatalism (e.g.
Pike 1965) do presuppose that God has temporally prior knowledge of the
future. Appeal to divine timelessness clearly undercuts those formulations.
Divine timelessness may also have some utility against epistemic
arguments for fatalism in general, just in case it is less plausible that a
timeless Gods knowledge would be among the fixed facts than that the
271
corresponding knowledge of a temporally everlasting God would be. On

this point, see Zagzebski (1991, ch. 2). But this potential benefit of divine
timelessness will be nullified below, where I argue that preventability entails
temporality and thus that a God whose foreknowledge is a preventable
future specifier cannot be atemporal.
17 For a good discussion of the hard fact/soft fact distinction, see the
introduction to Fischer (1989). As Fischer (1994: 115) notes, [I]t is very
important to distinguish two sets of issues: first, temporal nonrelationality
and relationality (i.e. hardness and softness), and second, fixity and
non-fixity (i.e. being out of ones control and being in ones control). Despite
the amount of ink that has been spilled on the former distinction, it is the
latter that is the crucial one.
18 Suppose these are my only two options, and that they are mutually
exclusive.
19 In what follows, past tense expressions related to Gods knowing should be
understood in a manner that is neutral on the question of whether God is
timeless or not.
20 A similar point is made by Fischer et al. (2009: 255ff.) and by Finch and Rea
(2008: 11ff.). Explanatory dependence, in my usage, is a species of what
Lowe (2010) calls ontological dependence since it is a matter of what
accounts for the existence of a token future specifier.
21 Edwards (2009 [1754]: II.12).
22 Unlike asymmetry, which precludes the joint possibility of aRb and bRa,
anti-symmetry allows for their joint possibility, but only if a=b. To hold that
explanatory dependence is asymmetric and irreflexive is to rule out the
possibility of self-explanation. Perhaps we should rule that out, but I am
unsure about this, and so regard it as safer to view explanatory dependence
as anti-symmetrical and non-reflexive. At any rate, nothing in my argument
turns on this point.
23 Lewis (1973: 325).
24 For discussion of some of the issues, see Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (2002:
11126).
25 The truth supervenes on being (TSB) principle is weaker than its close
cousin, the truthmaker (TM) principle. TM says, minimally, that for every
truth there exists something that makes it true, whereas TSB only requires
that reality as a whole be appropriately different from what it would have
been had what is (contingently) true been false instead. The difference
between TM and TSB becomes clear in the case of negative existentials.
TM requires that for <There are no unicorns> to be true there must exist
somethinga universal unicorn-excluding state of affairsthat makes it
true, whereas TSB is satisfied by the non-existence of anything (e.g. a
unicorn) that would make it false.
26 One might suppose that logically necessary truths, and especially analytic
truths, need nothing to ground their truth. Or perhaps we should suppose
that such truths are their own truthmakers. Cf. David (2009: 153).
27 Some presentists say that what makes it true now that there will be a
272

sea battle tomorrow is simply tomorrows occurrence of a sea battle. Cf.
Craig (2000: 21314). But this is a transparent dodge of the grounding
requirement. If the future isnt real (as per presentism), then tomorrows
occurrence of a sea battle doesnt (yet) have any ontological status, and so
isnt (yet) there to make it true now that there will be a sea battle tomorrow.
28 It may be suggested that Molinism can come to the rescue. According to

Molinism, Gods knowledge of future contingents is grounded in Gods free
decision of which world to create, which decision in turn is grounded in
Gods middle knowledge of what every possible free creature would do
in any possible causally specified indeterministic scenario. But this merely
trades one grounding problem (what makes it true that this future is the
actual one?) for another (what makes these middle knowledge conditionals
true?).
29 More precisely, divine timelessness may be sufficient for rebutting some
versions of the epistemic argument for fatalism, specifically, those that
assume a temporally situated knower, but it is not sufficient for rebutting
epistemic arguments for fatalism in their most general form.
30 The locus classicus for the moving spotlight theory is Broad (1923: 59ff.).
31 Since all A-theoretical models of time admit some tensed facts (e.g., what
time it is now) as ontologically basic, an omniscient God couldnt know such
facts without intrinsic change, and therefore temporal sequence, in God.
Thus, when T1 is present, God would know <T1 is present> and not <T2
is present>. Later, when T2 is present, God would know <T2 is present>
and not <T1 is present>. Hence, the moving spotlight theory entails divine
temporality. But it also requires that the temporal sequence of Gods life
be distinct from, and transcendent over, the linear block time of creation.
Hence, it requires that God be transcendentally temporal.
32 Something is strongly actualizable if God can unilaterally cause it to be. If
there are future contingents, such as future human libertarian free choices,
then God cannot strongly actualize those events, for that would be contrary
to their status as future contingents. He can, however, strongly actualize
a world type by unilaterally fixing everything in it that does not depend on
future contingents, such as causal laws, initial conditions, and unilateral
divine interventions. The notion of strong actualization comes from Plantinga
(1974: 1723).
33 A proponent of divine timelessness can say that God eternally wills thusly,
but not that God chooses to will thusly.
34 I say seems to be incompatible because I am not convinced that my
argument here is correct. Nevertheless, I think the reasoning is plausible
enough and the conclusion significant enough that the argument deserves a
wider hearing.
35 I believe this model is more plausible than McCalls. Not only does it fit
well with the Everett many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
(cf. Vaidman 2008), but it also avoids an exceedingly odd consequence of
McCalls model, namely, that every time an indeterministic event occurs, a
huge swath of realityeverything in the branches of all of the nonchosen
causal possibilitiesis thereby consigned to oblivion. (On the oddness of
273
this, see Miller 2006). To my knowledge, however, no one has yet endorsed
a branching block model.
36 Portions of this chapter were presented to Notre Dames philosophy of
religion discussion group and at the 2010 Central Division meeting of the
Philosophy of Time Society. I benefitted greatly from comments received at
those venues.
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Vaidman, L. (2008), Many-worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, in
E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring). http://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/qm-manyworlds/
Viney, D. W. and Shields, G. (2003), The Logic of Future Contingents, in
G. Shields (ed.), Process and Analysis: Essays on Whitehead, Hartshorne and
the Analytic Tradition. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 20946.
Ware, B. A. (2000), Gods Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism.
Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Zagzebski, L. T. (1991), The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge. New York:
Oxford University Press.
13
Defending the Isotemporalist
Solutionto the Freedom/
Foreknowledge Dilemma:
Response to Rhoda
Katherin A. Rogers
lan Rhoda presents a thoughtful analysis of the dilemma of freedom and

divine foreknowledge critiquing the isotemporalist solution offered by
Anselm of Canterbury, a solution I have defended. Here I attempt to respond
to Rhodas criticisms. First, though, I believe it will be helpful to spell out
the Anselmian solution in more detail than Rhoda includes. I will move back
and forth between Anselm himself, and the Anselmian, that is, me, as a
follower of Anselm, engaged in developing and defending his solution in the
contemporary idiom.
Anselm is, to my knowledge, the first philosopher to develop a wellworked out, analytic, and systematic theory of libertarian free will.1 For
Anselm, a core requisite of the sort of free will worth wanting, the sort
which is needed for moral responsibility, is that ones acts of will be a se,
that is absolutely from oneself. In order to have aseity an act of will cannot
be causally or metaphysically necessitated by anything outside of oneself.
Anselm allows that an act of will which is causally necessitated by ones
character may be free in the way required for responsibility if one caused
ones character oneself through earlier, non-necessitated, a se acts of will.
The character-necessitated choice can be from oneself, if ones character is
from oneself. Indeed, the important thing in Anselms view is not isolated
choices and actions on the part of an agent, but the sort of person the
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agent becomes due to the choices he makes and the subsequent actions he
engages in.
By including or metaphysically necessitated above I mean to express
the thought that an act of will that is not causally necessitated may yet be
necessitated in a way that conflicts with aseity, if it is rendered necessary
by something other than the agent himself actually engaging in the act. For
example, contemporary Molinism holds that there are counterfactuals of
freedom, eternally true propositions about what any possible free agent
would choose in any possible situation. In the Molinist universe, it is eternally
necessary that the actual agent choose what the counterfactual of freedom
has him choosing, and the truth of the counterfactual of freedom is not
dependent on what the actual agent actually chooses. The Anselmian argues
that there are no robustly free libertarian choices in the Molinist universe.2 Or
conversely, if agents make a se choices, we do not live in a Molinist universe.
The point can be put another way by noting that Anselmian libertarianism
entails what I will call the grounding principle. Let us take as an example
of an Anselmian, a se choice, some agent, S, who chooses B at t2. The
grounding principle holds that the indispensable, originating event in the
causal process which results in anyones knowing that S chooses B at t2 is
the actual event of S choosing B at t2. And the truth of the proposition S
chooses B at t2 absolutely depends upon the actual event of S choosing B
at t2. All truth concerning, and knowledge of, an a se choice is grounded
in the actual choice. (This is similar to Rhodas point about explanatory
dependence (25860). I will cite Rhodas chapter to which I am responding
by page numbers in parentheses.)
Libertarians usually insist not just upon a choice being from oneself
somehow, but also that the agent confront open options. And Anselm is no
different. He is motivated by the puzzle of trying to allow created agents to
be able to choose a se in the universe of classical theism in which everything
that is is immediately kept in being by God. Where is there room for anything
to be up to the created agent? Anselms solution is to propose that, while
all that exists is immediately caused by God, all that happens is not. In a
free human choice, God causes the agent, the agents faculty of will, and
the motivations which move the agent to will. But sometimes the agent is
motivated by conflicting (divinely caused) motivations, both of which cannot
be chosen. For example, say that at t1 S is in what we can call the torn
condition, motivated to choose A and motivated to choose B, where the
choice of one over the other has moral significance, and the choice of one
precludes the choice of the other. In that sort of situation, Anselm holds,
the choice itself is absolutely up to the agent. (Hence the conflict between
causal or metaphysical necessitation on the one hand and a se choice on the
other.) In our example, it is S himself who makes it the case that S chooses
Defending the Isotemporalist Solution
277
B at t2. But had he not been confronted by the alternative possibilities, that
is, had he simply been motivated by one, God-given motivation, or by one,
overriding, God-given motivation more strongly than any other, he would not
have chosen freely. Or if, following the torn condition, he had been caused to
opt for one over the other by something outside himselfGod, a brain tumor,
a malignant neuroscientistsuch that the options were not really open, then
he could not make an a se choice. And if some truth about the universe
independent of what S actually chooses at t2like the Molinist counterfactuals of freedomhad rendered it necessary that S choose one way rather
than the other, then the choice could not be a se. Thus alternative possibilities
are a key aspect of Anselmian libertarianism. But note that alternative possibilities are necessary as a basis for aseity only for the created agent. For an
uncreated agent such as God, who exists absolutely a se, his acts of will are
from himself alone, so alternatives play no part in divine freedom.3
Anselms insistence on aseity, which entails the grounding principle, gives
rise to his version of the dilemma of freedom and divine foreknowledge. If
knowledge of a free choice is absolutely grounded only in the actual making
of the choice (as is the truth of propositions about the choice), how can God
possibly know at t1 that S chooses B at t2? Anselm addresses the question
in a later work, De Concordia, but he already had the pieces needed to solve
the puzzle at hand from his earlier discussions of the nature of God, especially
in the Proslogion.4 God is that than which no greater can be conceived. He
is simple and immutable. He has all possible knowledge in the most perfect
way possible and all possible power in the most perfect way possible. But
what does all this mean? Especially, what does it all mean concerning the
dilemma of freedom and divine foreknowledge?
Divine simplicity entails that God is not spatially extended, some here,
some there. And it entails that he is not temporally extended, some now,
some past and gone, some not yet. Yet he knows all that happens in all of
time and space. Gods knowledge is the best sort of knowledge, that is, direct
knowledge. He knows everything that is by immediately thinking it. It is his
thinking that makes whatever exists to exist. Gods thinking is his willing, and
he thinks and wills all that exists in one, simple act of thinking/willing. So, of
course, there is no change in God, since that would imply that his life consists
of temporal parts.
But what about foreknowledge? Well, if foreknowledge is logically possible,
then an omniscient being must have it. Just as that than which a greater cannot
be conceived must know all of space, and all that space contains, directly as
the immediate cause of the existence of all spatial things, he must know and
will directly all of time and all that all times contain. God is the immediate
cause of the existence of all temporal things at whatever times they exist.
(How in the world, then, is he not the cause of all human choices? Well, that
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is an interesting story which I have been trying to tell in various venues, but
here is not the time or place. Suffice to say that God causes all things with
ontological status, but the human choice is not a thing.)5 A certain theory
of time follows from this unpacking of the concept of a perfect being. Were it
the case that all that exists is the present moment and all its contentscall
this presentismsuch that anything that exists, including God, exists only at
the present moment, then Gods knowledge and power would be radically
limited. He could know and act directly only in the present moment, since the
present moment is all there is. He might remember the past and anticipate
the future, and he might do things now which would impact the future, but
his direct knowledge and action would be limited to the present moment.
And what a limited God that would be! Better to make the move that Anselm
makes and adopt the theory that all times, what to the temporal perceiver at
a given time seems to be present and past and future, are all equally real.6 As
Rhoda notes, I had used the term four-dimensionalism in my 2008 book,
but I have since adopted the term isotemporalism.7 It is preferable because
it captures the equality of ontological status for all times. God directly knows
and wills every moment of time and whatever existing things that moment
contains.8 Assuming this is logically possible, this is a picture that ascribes to
God much more knowledge and power than if we adopt presentism.
It is true that isotemporalism is phenomenologically bizarre.9 It feels to us like
all that exists is the present moment, for any given moment which is present to
a temporal perceiver. But that feeling is misleading. It is as if the spatial perceiver
were to feel as if only what he could perceive was actually existent, such that
what was here to him was all there was. Space seems to be less of a problem
for us. All of space is there, even if we have access only to what is here for
us. Well, isotemporalism makes the same claim for time. Even though, at each
moment, now for a temporal perceiver feels like all there is, in fact what is
then, the past, or yet to come, the future, is equally real. Isotemporalism
entails the absolute indexicality of terms like past, present, and future. What
is past or present or future is indexed to some particular moment in time. There
is no objective past, present, or future, since what is past, and so on, depends on
what moment in time you pick as the vantage point from which to consider the
time line. Rhoda defines a future as an abstract representation of a unique,
complete, linear extension of the actual past (p. 255). I would subscribe to this
definition regarding causally and metaphysically possible futures, that is, futures
which are causally or metaphysically possible extensions of the actual past. But
I consider the future to be not an abstract representation but rather just actual
reality occurring after some time understood as present or past. This is what
isotemporalism entails. Note that it does not entail that before, simultaneously
with, or after are subjective. It does not do away with the arrow of time. It
just says that all the sequentially ordered moments exist equally.10
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Rhoda labels my view of the universe a linear block. This is accurate, so

long as the whole block is understood to exist equally. It is not the case that
there is a past and present which are actual and a future which is merely
a representation. There is just the ordered series of equally real times. It is
linear because it is not branching. At the end of his chapter, Rhoda mentions
a branching hypothesis as a way of maintaining divine foreknowledge and
eternity, while rejecting fatalism. The thesis is that all of the many causally
possible futures exist in a branching array [and] all events that are ever
causally possible (tenselessly) exist a timeless and omniscient God could
be fully acquainted with the whole branching array of events (p. 269). The
Anselmian need not entertain this view, since, as I will try to argue, the
isotemporal solution does the job. But an alternative branching hypothesis is
worth mentioning here, since some metaphysicians seem to take it seriously.
Rhodas mention of a branching universe might bring it to mind, and the
Anselmian must reject it utterly. The thought is that, at points in the universe
when alternatives can be realized, such as is the case with libertarian free
choice, all of the alternatives are actually realized. In isotemporalism the
picture of this universe would be an actually existing block of branches,
where all of the branches actually and equally exist and contain all of the
actually and equally existing moments of time. So when our exemplary agent
S is in t1, it is causally and metaphysically possible for him to choose A and
causally and metaphysically possible for him to choose B. At t2 the universe
branches into a universe in which S chooses A and a universe in which S
chooses B. But then it is metaphysically necessary, due to the branching
nature of the universe, that a branch at which S chooses A exist and a
branch at which S chooses B exist. This renders Ss choice at each branch
metaphysically necessary, so it is not free in the Anselmian theory. And
remember that A and B, in order to provide the sort of options in which the
Anselmian is interested, must have moral significance. One option must be
morally better and one must be morally worse. In this branching hypothesis,
S must choose both the better and the worse option. But then the universe
is morally absurd and the whole point of insisting that created agents have
free choice is lost. The Anselmian universe is definitely a linear block.
I do not care for the term block since I think it conjures up a picture
of something static and unchanging. Of course the Anselmian believes in
change. Change happens when some x is one way at t1 and another at t2. Of
course the whole block does not change. That is as incoherent a thought
as suggesting that the entirety of space should be able to move from where
it is. Another difficulty with the term block is that it seems to suggest
finitude. Although nothing is really riding on it, the Anselmian, relying both
on revelation and physics, is happy to suppose that our spacetime continuum
has a temporal beginning; a t1 in the most absolute sense. But the Anselmian
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is committed to an old-fashioned, bodily afterlife. And bodies seem to exist

across space and time. So if an everlasting afterlife is embodied, then time is
everlasting. I admit to having no clue as to how time and space will work on
the other side, but I suppose (and this is the merest supposition) that time
will be not wholly unlike, or discontinuous with, time as we know it. Still, it
will go on forever, which doesnt sound very blockish to me. But I can live
with the term block so long as it refers to an isotemporal universe within
which all the ordinary change occurs and which is everlasting.
Divine eternity, then, consists in Gods immediately sustaining in being the
whole, unending, linear block, while he himself is not located at, or circumscribed by, any point or points in time and space. To put it another way, he
is wholly present to every point in all of time and space, and every point in
all of time and space is immediately present to him. And now the Anselmian
solution to the dilemma of freedom and divine foreknowledge should be
obvious. God knows that S chooses B at t2 in the linear block because t2
is immediately present to him. He sees S choose B at t2 eternally, that
is, as wholly present to all of time. The scare quotes around sees should
be taken seriously. Sees seems the best way to express the view, but it
should not be taken to suggest that Gods knowledge is quasi-perspectival.
God is not a perceiver in anything like the way we are. God, in his direct and
causal knowledge, is causing everything that has any ontological status in Ss
choice for B. It is just that he is not causing Ss choice for B. It is S alone that is
causing Ss choice for B. So the causal arrow representing the relationship
between Gods knowledge that S chooses B at t2 and Ss choosing B at t2
runs from the latter to the former. If some temporal believer, existing at t1,
should believe that God knows that S will choose B at t2, then what the
believer believes at t1 is true. And so it is acceptable to say that, At t1 God
knows that S will choose B at t2, so long as this locution is not taken to imply
the objectivity of past, present, and future, or to mean that God is a temporal
being who exists at t1 and not wholly and equally at all the other times there
are.
Anselm grants that divine foreknowledge does entail a sort of necessity
regarding Ss choice for B at t2. God knows at all times, including all times
before t2, that S chooses B at t2. That does entail that S cannot fail to choose
B at t2. It is, to adapt some of Anselms terminology, consequently necessary
that S choose B at t2. It is a consequent necessity because it comes after
or follows uponnot temporally, but in the sense of depending uponthe
positing of S choosing B at t2. But this consequent necessity is entirely
innocuous as regards free will. It is neither causal necessity nor metaphysical
necessity. It is the necessity that accrues to any actually occurring event. If
in fact x happens, then x cannot fail to happen. This is a logical point, not a
causal or a metaphysical point. In an isotemporal universe, propositions about
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what a free created agent chooses at any given time are true at every time,
even bracketing divine knowledge. And they have a consequent necessity.
But the truth of these propositions, as per the grounding principle, depends
upon that created free agent making that choice at the time he makes it. So
the existence of these true propositions does not conflict with the aseity of
the choices. Similarly, Gods foreknowledge does not causally or metaphysically necessitate Ss choice for B at t2, since it is Ss choice for B at t2 which
originates Gods foreknowledge. (Fore is in scare quotes because God
knows all times, and the events they contain, in one act of knowing. There is
no true before, during, or after for God. Or perhaps we could say it is all during
for God.) True, if S chooses B at t2, then S cannot fail to choose B at t2, but
since whether or not S chooses B at t2 is entirely up to S, the consequent
necessity involved in divine foreknowledge does not conflict with the aseity
of the choice.
Rhoda takes this solution to be a species of the preventable future
approach; the future is not causally closed and it is the actual event in the
future on which the foreknowledge depends. And in this he is correct. I
believe the term preventable future is misleading, though. In the Anselmian
theory, the future is no more preventable than is the past or the present.
What is future from the vantage point of some moment in time is ontically
settled at that moment, to use Rhodas terminology, in exactly the same
way as what is, from the vantage point of that moment, past and present.
The term preventable suggests that some possible future exists in some
way, and then is supplanted or superseded. In isotemporalism, while there
are, from any given vantage point in time, many causally or metaphysically
possible futures, there is only one actual future and it exists. There are many
causally or metaphysically possible pasts and presents as well, but only one
actual past and one actual present.
Indeed, the year 1500, which is future to Anselm in 1100, is just as fixed
in 1100 as it is in 2014. Actors before 1500 might be able to bring about
what happens in 1500 in a way which actors after 1500 cannot (barring time
travel), but no one can change the course of the future. This is true even if
presentism is the case, since in presentism there is no course of the future
to be changed. And it is true in isotemporalism since what happens, happens.
If S chooses B at t2, then S chooses B at t2. The course of the future can be
brought about, as S brings it about that S chooses B at t2, but it cannot be
prevented as we would normally think of prevention.11 Thus I prefer to stick
with the label Anselmian for the solution I propose.
And so to Rhodas criticisms of the Anselmian solution. Rhoda first attacks
the thought that God is timeless. He argues that most theists believe that
God makes choices. But a choice must be a temporal event. There must be
a time at which God is undecided about what to do, and then a subsequent
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time at which God has made his decision. The Anselmian, in accord with
most of the great medieval philosophers, responds that God does not make
choices under this description. Gods act of will is a single, immutable, and
eternal act. Divine timelessness is such a crucial great-making property that
there would have to be very, very strong reasons to insist that God makes
temporal choices, and hence is a temporal being. It is not clear, though, what
theological advantage is gained by supposing that God deliberates and then
chooses.
The image of God not quite knowing what to do is surely not biblical,
nor does it accord with the tradition of classical theism. Within that tradition
there are roughly two basic theses regarding whether or not God confronts
open options concerning what to do, including and especially what world to
create. Anselm holds that God inevitably does the best.12 In that case there is
no need to deliberate. God sees the best and does it in a single, immutable,
and eternal act. If we ask, Why did God create this world? the answer is
that he knew that it was the best. But being omniscient, he does not need to
deliberate about it.
The alternative, championed by Thomas Aquinas, is that God has open
options. Thomas makes the case in discussing the creation of the world, but I
take it that a similar point applies to other divine actionsall within his single,
immutable, and eternal act. Regarding creation, there is a set of possible,
well-ordered, worlds that God might create, or he might not create at all. As it
happens, he opts for one of the setour actual world. (I include the scare
quotes to indicate that this opting is not the temporal choosing Rhoda has in
mind.) If we ask, Why did God create this world, rather than a different world,
or no world at all? the answer is that there is no reason. Whatever reason
we might propose for God having made our worldlove, for examplewould
have equally been the reason for creating some other world, or for just sticking
with the internal, dynamic relationship of the Trinity.13 So, again, there is no
reason to deliberate, since God does not opt for one world over another on
the basis of some reason. He does not need to figure out what he ought to do.
Though there are options, in Thomass account, in the sense that there was
no reason why God must create our world rather than do something else,
there is no condition of Gods being undecided. God, in a single, immutable,
and eternal act creates our world and does all he does. So, whether he does
what he does because it is the best, or he does what he does, just because,
he does not need to weigh his options. Having to go in for deliberation is a sign
of radical imperfection.14 Only a very diminutive god would engage in making
choices under Rhodas description, and it begs the question against Anselm
to insist that the God under discussion is such a being.
Rhoda offers a second criticism that I fear I may not be understanding.
Rhoda uses the term future specifier to label anything that singles out a
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unique possible future as the actual one (p. 255). So, in the puzzle we are
concerned about, again using our chosen example, Gods knowledge at t1
that S chooses B at t2 would constitute a future specifier regarding which
causally and metaphysically possible futurethe one where S chooses A
or the one where S chooses Bis the actual future. At t1, and indeed at all
times, God knows that S chooses B at t2, and so it cannot fail to be the case
that S chooses B at t2. I have argued that the existence of this future specifier
is not in conflict with S making an a se choice at t2, since it is Ss a se choice
at t2 upon which Gods knowledge depends. Rhoda argues that this wont
work. He writes that:
future specifiers that are explanatorily dependent upon the actual
occurrences of future contingent events are themselves future contingentsthey obtain in some, but not all, causally possible futures. This is a
crucial point. It implies that nothing can be both timeless and explanatorily
dependent upon future contingents since the temporality of the latter is
inherited by anything explanatorily dependent upon them. Hence, far from
helping to solve the foreknowledge/future contingency problem, divine
timelessness precludes a preventable future response to fatalism.
I am not sure what the argument is here. Using our example, the future
specifier is Gods knowledge that S chooses B at t2. And it is dependent
upon S actually choosing B at t2. So far, so good. And this entails that Gods
knowledge that S chooses B at t2, which obtains in some, but not all, causally
possible worlds. That seems correct. If S at t1 really faces causally (and I
would say, metaphysically) open options, then it is causally possible that at
t2 he chooses A rather than B. Had he chosen A rather than B, then Gods
knowledge at t1, and always, would have included that S chooses A at t2. But
as it happens, S actually chooses B at t2. So it is not actually possible at t1
that S choose A at t2.
Rhoda holds that the temporality of S choosing B at t2 is inherited by
Gods knowledge at t1. I dont know what this means in the context. All
times exist equally, all times are immediately present to God, and God is
wholly present to each and every time. We might say that Gods knowledge
is temporal in that it is true, at any time, that God has the knowledge he
has. But this does not mean that Gods knowledge is circumscribed by being
in a specific moment in time, nor does it occur in some sort of sequence,
extended across moments of time. My suspicion is that Rhoda has not
appreciated the implications of isotemporalism (or four-dimensionalism as I
called it in my 2008 book). He writes as if the future were objective, not
subjective to a given, temporally limited, perceiver at a given moment in time.
I take a contingent event to be an event, such as Ss choice for B at t2, that is
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not causally or metaphysically determined (necessitated). In isotemporalism,

what might be future contingents when viewed from a certain moment in
time have the same status as present and past contingents when considered
objectively. If we take Ss a se choice for B at t2 to be a contingent event, by
my definition, then it is a contingent event whether t2 is being considered
from t1, and so is future, or from t2, and so is present, or from t3, and so
is past. If by a contingent event we mean one that actually might or might
not happen, consistently with all that actually happens at all the moments in
the isotemporal universe, then there are no contingent events in Anselms
universe. Actuality is all there, so to speak, in the isotemporal universe,
and actuality cannot be other than it actually is. The thought that only future
events can be contingent, and that they can be objectively contingent in a
way that past and present events cannot be, since the past and the present
are fixed in a way that the future is not, assumes a universe which is not
isotemporal.
Rhoda seems to grant the objectivity of the future. He writes that Future
contingency seems to be an inherently tensed status because there invariably comes a time when the event in question is either no longer future, or
no longer contingent. The proverbial sea battle tomorrow may now be a future
contingent, but it wont be one after tomorrow (p. 268). Here Rhoda seems
to be assuming that past, present, and future are objective, rather than
subjective, and so he begs the question against the isotemporalist. From the
perspective of the limited, temporal, human knower, the distinction between
past, present, and future is surely relevant. Quoad nos, our past and present
are fixed in a way that our future is not. But this is an epistemic point, not
a metaphysical point about what there actually is.
I fear that my own explanation of the Anselmian solution may be, in part,
to blame for Rhodas misconception. He notes that I write that, regarding
Gods knowledge of what created agents freely choose, God learns, and
must wait and see, and cannot know until the agent chooses. But, says
Rhoda, if God learns and waits, then there must be a time when God does
not know what the created agent chooses, and then a subsequent time when
he does know. So God cannot be timeless. And this would support Rhodas
assumption (if he is indeed assuming it) that the future is different from the
present and the past in some way that is relevant to the dilemma of freedom
and foreknowledge. And if God is not timeless and has access only to the
present moment, then isotemporalism is false. It is only the present that
exists.
My language, then, was perhaps infelicitous. I had intended only to insist
upon the claim (shocking to those who embrace an Augustinian or a Thomistic
approach to the issue) that the causal arrow regarding Gods knowledge of
the a se choice of the created agent must run from the choice to God and not
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vice versa. In the Anselmian account there is no time at which God does not
know that S chooses B at t2. T2 and all times are immediately present to God.
At all times at which the temporal universe exists, it is true to say that God
knows that S chooses B at t2, and there is no time at which this statement
is false.
Rhodas third criticism underscores the thought that he has not fully
grasped the isotemporal aspect of the Anselmian solution. (Or perhaps he
just finds it incredible. But in that case he needs to mount an argument
against it. As it is, he seems to assume that isotemporalism and its implications are false.) Rhoda writes that The future is ontically settled just in case
a unique, complete, and linear sequence of future events exists (p. 267). Yes,
the Anselmian says that. For any time you might pickt1, lets saythere is a
subjective future, t2, t3, and so on. And in an isotemporal universe, t2, t3 and
all that they contain exist in exactly the same way that t1 exists. If you pick
t2 as your vantage point, then t1 is past and t3 is future, but, again, in fact, all
exist in the linear block.15
Rhoda goes on: But if a unique, complete, and linear sequence of future
events exists, it cannot exist now (because the events are future), and so
presumably it must exist tenselessly or sub specie aeternitatis (p. 267).
If what Rhoda means by this is that time is isotemporal, past, present,
and future are subjective, and objectivelyfrom the Gods-eye point of
vieweach moment has the same ontological status as each other, that
is indeed the Anselmian understanding. Rhoda seems not to mean this
since he goes on to argue that reality must, so to speak, wait and see to
find out (p. 268) which future contingent events actually occur. It is in this
discussion that he notes how the future sea battle which was a contingent
event becomes no longer contingent once it has happened. The implication
is that he takes the future to be objectively open and the past and present
objectively fixed, begging the question against the isotemporalist.
What might it mean to say that the future exists tenselessly or sub specie
aeternitatis? Many philosophers, writing against solutions to the dilemma of
freedom and divine foreknowledge that appeal to divine eternity, seem to
suggest that those of us who hold to Gods timelessness understand future
events to exist in two ways: one at the time they occur and the other in
eternity. And then these critics go on to argue, as does Rhoda, that positing
a future event existing as fixed in eternity, on which divine knowledge can be
based, undermines the contingency of the actual event in the actual future.
And some proposed solutions do invite this analysis. As I interpret Boethius,
he holds that there is a sense in which future events could be said to exist
twice. Boethius assumes presentism and holds that God knows the future as
if it were present, and so he knows what will happen when the future comes
to be the present. How can God know a presently non-existent future? He
286
can know because he is the absolute cause of all that has happened, is
happening, and will happen. This includes human free choices. Boethius is
what can be termed a theist compatibilist: you choose freely even if God
causes your choice. And God knows in one, simple, immutable act all that he
has caused, is causing, and will cause.16 So Ss choice for B at t2 (it is not,
in this Boethian understanding, an a se choice) could be said to exist in two
ways. When t2 comes to be present, it actually exists in the present moment.
But it has always existed in eternity as part of the divine plan, as the object
of Gods knowledge. Of course, it is not Ss actual choice at t2 that exists
in eternity in this view. But in a perhaps too loose and analogical way one
might say that Ss (Boethian) choice exists in eternity. But if it is not Ss actual
choice, but a facet of the divine plan, which exists in eternity and grounds
Gods knowledge, then Ss choice is necessitated by something outside the
choice itself. If Rhodas understanding of future events existing tenselessly
and sub specie aeternitatis is rather like what I attribute to Boethius, then
Rhoda is right that this appeal to divine timelessness does not solve the
dilemma.
But, of course, the Anselmian solution does not suggest that a unique,
complete, and linear sequence of future events exists in a way different
from the unique, complete, and linear sequence of past and present events.
The universe is a unique, complete, linear sequence of all events at all times.
Perhaps there is a beginning moment, and perhaps the sequence stretches
infinitely into what is to us the future. (A complete infinity seems an odd
concept, but its a weird old world.) Each point in time, whether past or
present or future to some perceiver at some point in time, exists and exists
equally with all the other points.
So does the future exist now? Well, that depends on what you mean. Say
we are having our discussion across an extended stretch of time which we
can label t1. And suppose, from our vantage where t1 is our present, t2 is
some future time. Does t2 exist at t1? Yes and no. Yes, if we mean that it is
true to say at t1, T2 exists. It is true at t1, and at every point in time, that
the whole linear block universe exists and t2 is in it. No, if we mean to say
that t2 occurs at the same time as t1, that t1 and t2 overlap temporally. They
dont. T1 is at t1, and t2 is at t2. If this is puzzling, take the spatial analogy.
Every point in space exists equally. We liveas no one seems to doubtin
an isospatial universe.17 In the Anselmian account, God is wholly present to
every point in space, and every point in space is immediately present to God.
It does not follow that each point in space exists twice, once at its own point
in space, and once, non-spatially, in divine ubiquity. No, each point exists
once, at its own spatial location. Suppose I am in Newark, Delaware, and I
askanalogously to our question about the futuredoes Delhi exist here?
Yes and no. No, if I mean that Delhi occupies the same spatial location as
287
Newark. It is not that Newark and Delhi spatially overlap. But yes, if I mean to
say that Delhi does indeed exist somewhere in the spatial universe.
One way of justifying the claim that Delhi exists, even as uttered in
Newark, Delaware, is that you can get to Delhi from Newark. Drive up to the
(very different!) Newark, New Jersey, take the daily 8.30 p.m. flight, fly for
roughly 14 hours, and get off in Delhi. And once youre there, Delhi becomes
here to you. And so with isotemporalism. As all the time travel stories posit,
if you had the right means of conveyance, you could travel from what you
perceive as present to what is (subjectively) past or future. And when you get
there, what used to be (in your personal time line) past or future becomes
your present. That is what it means to say that all the moments of time exist
equally.18
But if the whole, unique, complete, linear block exists, and all events are
fixed such that it is the case, considered from any point of time, that the
events that happen at each and every point of time cannot fail to happen, then
could it be that that alone is sufficient to undermine free choice? No. Suppose
S makes an a se choice for B over A at t2. An a se choice is one absolutely
caused by the agent. It is neither causally nor metaphysically necessitated. In
the Anselmian account it is true that Ss making the a se choice for B over A
at t2 is fixed. There is no time at which it is not the case that S makes the
a se choice for B over A at t2, and so, by consequent necessity, S cannot fail
to make the choice. But it is S, the agent himself, who fixed it by choosing! If
this consequent necessity is among those species of necessity that conflict
with freedom, then no one is ever free. Consequent necessity holds for
every posited event. If A happens, then A happens. Whenever anyone at any
time chooses x, they render it the case that they cannot fail to choose x. If,
to choose freely, you must be able to choose in the absence of consequent
necessity, then you must be able actually to choose other than you actually
choose. But that is logically impossible. Surely you do not need to be able to
do the logically impossible to be free! The fixity entailed by the linear block
universe is just consequent necessity. It cannot and does not conflict with
the sort of freedom necessary to ground moral responsibility. Contra Rhoda,
the Anselmian solution to the dilemma of freedom and divine foreknowledge
stands, and we do not need to take the drastic step of abandoning either
robust human freedom or divine foreknowledge.
Notes
1 Rogers (2008).
2 In Rogers (2008: 14852), I noted a number of difficulties with Molinism,
but I did not mention the claim made here that Molinism entails the
288

metaphysical necessity of a choice, and hence conflicts with a se choice.
This is a thesis that I am currently attempting to develop.
3 To speak more correctly, God engages in one, immutable, simple, and

perfect act of will. But quoad nos there look to be multiple acts, and it is
legitimate, and sometimes helpful, to speak as if there are, so long as one
understands that in fact there are not.
4 In the Proslogion, see especially chapters 13 and 1821.
5 Rogers (2008: 11721), Rogers (2012).
6 Anselms clearest statement of this thought is in De Concordia, bk. 1, ch. 5.
See Rogers (2008: 17684).
7 Thanks to Catherine and Michael Tkacz for the term.
8 I do not insist that time is divided up into extensionless moments. Indeed
time seems to me more like a continuum. But it is easier to talk about
moments. Just allow that these moments may simply be locations on
the continuum.
9 I attempt to mitigate the bizarreness a bit in Rogers (2007: 1315).
10 I do not have any well-developed thoughts on how to analyze or explain the
arrow of time, but that is a separate issue.
11 This opens an interesting can of worms about what we normally mean by
prevention, but that need not detain us here. Likely we mean something
about what sort of effects were likely to result from certain causes had we
not stepped in, etc.
12 Rogers (2008: 185205).
13 Summa Theologiae I, q. 25, a.5.
14 Even Alghazali, who places God in time and has him making choices of a
sort, does not suppose that God must deliberate about what to do.
15 The temporal perceiver (barring time travel) doesnt get to pick his vantage
point in that there seems to him to be an absolute now, but we are doing
metaphysics and need not be bound by temporal seemings.
16 Rogers (2008: 111, 156). This seems to me to be ultimately incoherent.
How, if God is absolutely immutable, can he be causing x today and then y
tomorrow, as presentism would have it? Charity would, I think, suggest that
Boethius is an isotemporalist, in that that is the best way to address the
question at hand: How can an immutable God know and act in a temporally
extended universe, and foreknow free choices? But the texts, I believe,
support the interpretation that Boethius was not proposing isotemporalism.
17 This may be a little fast. Space is a peculiar phenomenon. But I think the
point can be made without worrying about the nature of space and spatial
extension.
18 An alternative analogy is the (old fashioned) film. The frames all exist equally,
even though one frame is earlier in the movie and one is later. At the earlier
frame one might say that the later one exists, when considering the whole
film, but that would not mean that the later frame exists twice, and it would
not mean that the later frame overlaps with the earlier frame. I suppose the
information on disks works the same waythere is a sequence recorded on
289
the disk corresponding to the sequence in the movie as viewedbut film is

easier to visualize.
References
Anselm of Canterbury (1998), The Major Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aquinas, T. (2008), Summa Theologiae. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/
Rogers, K. A. (2007), Anselmian eternalism, Faith and Philosophy, 24, 327.
(2012), Anselm on the ontological status of choice, International Philosophical
Quarterly, 52, 18397.
Index
4-D view 11, 82, 83, 263, 278, 283
absolute becoming 10, 64, 88, 101,
102
absolutist view of time 73, 74, 75, 76,
81, 82
A-eternalist 536, 59
Anselm of Canterbury 27582, 284
A-predicates 10911, 113, 11821
A-properties 21, 52, 57, 58
Aristotle 75, 76, 78, 80, 219, 257
atemporal becoming 11, 87, 88, 93,
95, 102, 103, 104, 105, 236 see
also temporal becoming
atemporal entity 93, 94, 95, 102, 103,
104
atemporality 92, 93, 94, 95, 233, 268
A-theory 35, 44, 47, 52, 53, 55, 60,
76, 99, 261
atomism 1505, 157, 159, 160, 164,
167, 16971, 1789, 180, 183,
184, 196
Augustine 56, 62, 224
Augustinian argument 51, 58, 61, 62,
264
B-eternalist 536, 59 see also
eternalism
Big Bang cosmology 219, 220, 223,
234
block universe, 12, 47, 91, 202, 254,
261, 262, 264, 279, 280, 286,
287
Boethius 216, 248, 254, 285, 286
B/R theory 25, 27, 35, 36, 48 see also
Btheory, tenseless theory of
time
branching hypothesis 261, 263, 269,
279
B-relations 52, 110, 112
Broad, C. D. 410, 13, 20, 23, 33, 36,

37, 43, 78, 83, 101
Broad/Russell theory see B/R theory
Brunner, Emil 226, 227
B-theory 31, 32, 336, 34, 39, 43,
46, 47, 52, 54, 55, 60, 76, 91,
99, 109, 119, 120, 261 see also
B/R theory, tenseless theory
of time
Castaeda, Hector-Neri 7
Chuard, P. 150, 177
counterfactual 134, 258, 260, 276
Craig, W. L., 122
critical philosophy 4, 5
Dainton, Barry 1113, 35, 37, 40, 41,
43, 135, 136, 144, 145, 146,
147, 149, 1513, 15967
divine eternity 221, 225, 280, 285
divine foreknowledge, 253, 254, 258,
263, 264, 269, 275, 277, 279,
280, 285, 287
Dolev, Yuval 325, 5165
Dummett, Michael 53, 55, 119, 120
durationless events 11, 51, 52
instant 56, 58, 61, 62, 63, 65
present 52
Dyke, Heather 112
Einstein, Albert 141, 198, 199, 204,
206
epistemically settled future 255,
2604, 269
eternalism 51, 52, 546, 62, 645,
767, 244, 261, 263, 264, 269
see also B-eternalist
experiential flow 162, 202, 203
explanatory dependence 254, 260,
264, 267
292 Index
fatalism 253, 25460, 2638, 279

four-dimensionalism see 4-D view
future contingents, 2535, 25864,
260, 2669, 2835
future specifier 25460, 2659, 282,
283
Hurley, Susan 148
instantaneous events 152, 217,
21921, 23742
velocity 216, 217, 241, 243
introspectibility premise 1569
isotemporalism 278, 279, 281, 2835,
287
James, William 160
law of experience 142, 144, 145, 198,
201
Lee, Geoffrey 178, 1805, 189, 1913,
195, 196
Leftow, Brian 21517, 21922, 228
Lloyd, Seth 204
Lombard, L. 215
McCall, S. 80, 113, 114, 115
McTaggart, J. M. E. 6, 7682, 100,
105, 11113, 119, 122
Mellor, D. H. 18, 32, 53, 97, 116, 117,
119
mirroring view 151, 152
multiple presentations argument 155,
181
Newtonian physics 63, 137, 143, 198,
199
now 20, 21, 75, 77
moving now 3, 25, 32, 33, 53, 55,
59, 76, 168
Oaklander, L. Nathan 326, 39, 46,
47, 55
Ockham, W. 257
ontological facts 7, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 23
ontology 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 32,
33, 34, 39, 47, 54, 55, 57, 58,
61, 65, 73, 78, 81, 82, 84, 122,
123, 125, 218, 225
temporal 254, 260, 268

open future 61, 254, 257, 268
overlap model 40, 43, 161, 165, 166
Parmenides 79, 80
passage 5, 1012, 313, 35, 37, 39,
42, 47, 48, 75, 77, 79, 83, 96,
99, 100, 109, 11823, 168, 202
A-theoretic 12, 13
experiential 12, 202
temporal 12, 13, 83, 109, 11822,
202
Paul, Laurie 1113, 35, 968
Pelczar, Michael 178, 180, 197205,
2078
perdurantism 1113, 35, 968
Phillips, L. 150, 152, 1557, 159, 169,
171
physicalism 142, 143, 156, 198, 201
Presence Principle 13941
presentism 514, 56, 605, 75, 76,
78, 83, 1213, 241, 278, 281,
285
moderate 54, 635
presentness 10, 1821, 33, 35, 38,
457, 52, 53, 57, 602, 74, 80,
99, 100
preventable future 254, 25760,
2648, 281, 283
Price, Huw 120
Principle of Pickwickian Senses 5, 6,
7, 8, 13, 17, 23, 33, 34, 39, 47,
48
Principle of Simultaneous Awareness
(PSA) 135, 136, 146
Prior, Arthur 121, 122
process view 1514, 156
reductionist 11, 139, 140, 141, 222
relational view (of predication) 11319,
1213
relativistic argument 137, 138, 139,
198, 2046
repeated contents 40, 135, 146, 147,
1803, 187, 189, 190, 197
representational fallacy 112
resemblance view 1512
Rhoda, Alan 275, 278, 279, 2816
Rogers, Katherin 254, 2638
Index
Russell, Bertrand 5, 7, 10, 12, 20, 21,
36, 75, 77, 7984, 136, 137, 139,
141, 142, 144, 145, 204
Russellian monism 2014, 206, 207,
208
serial reductionism (serialism) 139,
141
settled future 254, 2605, 2678
Sider, T. 122, 123
simple fact 104, 105
simultaneity 8, 14, 35, 53, 60, 74, 137,
138, 155, 2045, 207
Smart, J. J. C, 19, 96, 97, 118, 120
snapshot theorists 149, 150, 177
specious present 2, 20, 3540, 47,
168, 17881, 184, 185, 187, 190,
191
stream of consciousness 1316,
1457, 1501, 157, 159, 161,
165, 178, 182, 184, 193, 199,
204
succession 9, 10, 13, 14, 1921, 23,
368, 402, 7384, 99, 137,
139, 1779, 18490, 1936,
199, 225, 235 see also passage
temporal 19, 7384, 137, 139
Swinburne, R. 217, 225, 226, 228
temporal becoming 88, 95, 96, 97,
98, 101, 102, 104 see also
atemporal becoming
experience 11, 22, 24, 33, 89,
14956, 166, 173, 179, 183, 197,
199, 202
293
extension 83, 179, 184, 247

intimations 193, 195
ontology 123, 254, 260, 268
parts 79, 83, 121, 122, 123, 149,
151, 153, 160, 216, 217, 238,
241, 242, 277
passage see passage, temporal
phenomenology 8, 20
predication 115, 116, 117, 118, 121,
123
reality 9, 88, 903, 95102, 104
relations 1017, 24, 25, 32, 33, 46,
81, 82, 90, 151, 154, 156, 157,
165, 166, 168
tensed properties 10, 16, 21, 23, 24,
32, 41, 45
relations 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 34
sentences 9, 14, 16, 18
theory of time 12, 13 see also
A-theory; presentists
theistic determinism 259, 260
transitory aspect of time 8, 10, 13
transparency argument 1569, 166,
167, 169
truthmaker 55, 59, 60, 61, 65, 104,
122
Tye, Michael 156, 167
universals 16, 24, 81
Unworld 144, 145, 198, 199
Walker, R. 1767
Williams, Clifford 21
Williams, Donald C. 10, 82, 83, 84,
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PART ONE Metaphysics and Time

Temporal Succession, Temporal Becoming, and the

PART TWO Consciousness and Time129

Michael Pelczar 131

9 Flow, Repetitions, and Symmetries: Replies to Lee and Pelczar

Barry Dainton 175

PART THREE God, Time, and Human Freedom213

Help Alan R. Rhoda 253

he origin of this collection of original essays is both unusual and amusing.

hat is the debate in the metaphysics of time about? What is or are

fatalism and of reconciling divine foreknowledge and human freedom is by

n Time and Realism: Metaphysical and Antimetaphysical Perspectives, Yuval

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

facts recorded by sentences such as I am going to have a painful experience

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

there are no such mind-independent or mind-dependent monadic temporal

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolev initially defines tenseless relations as follows: In general

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

mistaken in claiming that the notion of a TENSEless relation depends upon a

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Consider again the sentence Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. To

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

purely tenseless, since they presuppose a tensed context. Thus, he argues

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

to know that the explanation refers to the sound that is simultaneous,

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

experience the property of presentness when we perceive a present event

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

philosophers concerning the so-called secondary qualities: does it belong

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

(2010), Time for a Change: A Polemic Against the Presentist/eternalism

Dolevs Anti-Metaphysical Realism: A Critique

(2006), Presentism and Eternalism in Perspective, in D. Dieks (ed.),

The old B-theory resurfaces

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

are efficacious, but without having to carry the metaphysically superfluous

Motion and Passage: The Old B-Theory and Phenomenology 33

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Motion and Passage: The Old B-Theory and Phenomenology 35

The old B-theory, the specious present

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

experiencing times dynamism. It is in the specious present that, for example,

Motion and Passage: The Old B-Theory and Phenomenology 37

DEBATES IN THE METAPHYSICS OF TIME

Motion and Passage: The Old B-Theory and Phenomenology 39