Presentism

There is no time like the present. Is it also true that there is no time but the present? According to presentism, the present time is special in the most fundamental sense because all of reality is included in it. What is past is no longer; what is future is yet to be. This philosophy of time, with roots as far back as Saint Augustine and beyond, is the focus of vigorous and widespread discussion in contemporary philosophy. Presentism: Essential Readings brings together for the first time the seminal works by both presentists and their opponents. Works by Augustine, McTaggart, Prior, Craig and others, address a wide array of issues concerning presentism. How can time pass if everything is present? Is there no future to come to the present; nor a past to receive the present? How can there be truths about the past? Generally a statement is true because of events in reality. But if presentism is correct, then the past would seem to lack a basis in reality. If only the present is real, how can things last? To persist seems to require that something exist at more than one time, but presentism holds that there is only one time: the present. The collected essays on presentism address these and other aspects of the debate—a debate that is just beginning. With explanatory introductions written by the editors, Presentism: Essential Essays will fascinate and stretch the minds of both scholars and novices alike.

Much has been written on presentism in the last two decades, but these writings are largely scattered throughout the philosophical journals. This volume collects together both classic and contemporary papers on presentism. It is organized in a dialectically satisfying way such that the reader is guided through both the motivations for adopting presentism and the objections facing it. Each section has a helpful introduction that identifies and clarifies the main issues to be tackled by the following papers, and raises helpful questions to steer the reader through them. There is a good balance between papers that defend and those that criticize presentism. Anyone interested in the philosophy of time, and presentism in particular, will find this a valuable resource.

Ernâni Magalhães is adjunct professor of philosophy at West Virginia University. L. Nathan Oaklander is David M. French distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan-Flint.