Akiko Frischhut

To ‘find one’s true self’ or to ‘reveal one’s true self’ are common enough expressions. But what do we really mean by the ‘true self’? Does it play an important explanatory role in understanding ourselves? The aim of this article is to shed light on the intuition that people have a true self—in contrast to their more readily perceptible “everyday self”—and to see whether we can give a clear philosophical account of it. When it comes to characterizing the true self on the basis of these, I argue, our intuitions point us in two directions. The first suggests that the true self expresses a person’s essential nature. The second focuses on our own role in creating and maintaining a true self. I argue that both suggestions fail. Although the idea of a true self does not lack intuitive appeal, it is neither conducive to a convincing account, nor does it advance a theoretical understanding of ourselves as persons.

When we cook, by meticulously following a recipe, or adding a personal twist to it, we sometimes care not only to (re-)produce a taste that we can enjoy, but also to give our food a certain aftertaste. This is not surprising, given that we ordinarily take aftertaste to be an important part of the gustatory experience as a whole, one which we seek out, and through which we evaluate what we eat and drink—at least in many cases. What is surprising is that aftertastes, from a psychological point of view, seem to be analogous to afterimages, and thus have little or no epistemic import. In this paper we tackle this puzzle, and argue that we are right in treating aftertastes seriously. The moral is that both from a metaphysical and an epistemic point of view aftertastes should be categorized differently from afterimages.

The project of my dissertation was to advance the metaphysical debate about temporal passage, by relating it to debates about the perceptual experience of time and change. It seems true that we experience temporal passage, even if there is disagreement whether time actually passes, or what temporal passage consists in. This appears to give the defender of dynamic time an advantage in accounting for our experience. I challenge this by arguing that no major account of temporal perception can accommodate experiences of temporal passage such that we could infer passage from them. This shows that static theories of time are at no disadvantage in accounting for the phenomenology of temporality. The conclusion has far reaching consequences: for instance, an important motivation for holding an A-theory of time is precisely the psychological intuition that we experience temporal passage. By undermining that intuition, I undermine the motivation for holding an A-theory

To ‘find one’s true self’ or to ‘reveal one’s true self’ are common enough expressions. But what do we really mean by the ‘true self’? Does it play an important explanatory role in understanding ourselves? The aim of this article is to shed light on the intuition that people have a true self—in contrast to their more readily perceptible “everyday self”—and to see whether we can give a clear philosophical account of it. When it comes to characterizing the true self on the basis of these, I argue, our intuitions point us in two directions. The first suggests that the true self expresses a person’s essential nature. The second focuses on our own role in creating and maintaining a true self. I argue that both suggestions fail. Although the idea of a true self does not lack intuitive appeal, it is neither conducive to a convincing account, nor does it advance a theoretical understanding of ourselves as persons.

Does the A-theory have an intuitive advantage over the B-theory? Many A-theorists have claimed so, arguing that their theory has a much better explanation for the fact that we all experience the passage of time: we experience time as passing because time really does pass. In this paper I expose and reject the argument behind the A-theorist’s claim. I argue that all parties have conceded far too easily that there is an experience that needs explaining in the first place. For what exactly is an experience of temporal passage? One natural thought is that we experience passage in virtue of experiencing change, or in virtue of experiencing change as ‘dynamic’. Another is that we experience passage in virtue of experiencing events as (successively) present. None of these experiences, I argue, amounts to an experience of passage. Although there might still be other ways to experience passage, A-theorists would have to provide us with a plausible candidate experience. If there is such an experience at all, it won’t be one that qualifies as what we intuitively take to be an experience of passage. The ‘intuitive advantage’, it seems, has dissolved in any case

We develop a theory about the metaphysics of time and modality that combines the conceptual resources devised in recent sympathetic work on ontological pluralism (the thesis that there are fundamentally distinct kinds of being) with the thought that what is past, future, and merely possible is less real than what is present and actual (albeit real enough to serve as truthmakers for statements about the past, future, and merely possible). However, we also show that despite being a coherent, distinctive, and prima facie appealing position, the theory succumbs to what we call the “problem of mixed ontological status”. We conclude that the proponents of the theory can only evade these problems by developing ontological pluralism in a radically different way than it has been by its recent sympathizers.

Abstract- Presentism And Temporal Experience Intuitively, we all believe that we experience change and the passage of time. Presentism prides itself as the most intuitive theory of time. However, a closer look at how we would experience temporality if presentism was true reveals that this is far from obvious. For if presentism was really so intuitive, then it would do justice to these intuitions. In the course of this article I examine how presentism fares when combined with various leading theories of perception and temporal perception. I focused on two Central Questions. Can presentism, given theory X, account for experiences of change and duration? And can presentism, given theory X, account for experiences of time as passing? I argue that there is no possible combination which allows for an experience of time as passing. This result alone undermines the alleged intuitive advantage of presentism and with it the motivation for the view. Presentism, it remains safe to say, is not as intuitive a theory as its adherents like to portray it.

Is it the case that, in order to have a perceptual experience as of change, duration, or any other temporally extended occurrence at all, the duration of the experience itself must come apart from the apparent duration of what is experienced? I shall argue that such a view is at least coherent. The largest part of the paper will be concerned with an objection from Ian Phillips . The objection is interesting in so far as it is an argument from introspection. If it worked, it would give us a priori, non-empirical grounds for thinking that a cluster of views about temporal perception are wrong, or worse, impossible. I will argue, however, that the objection fails. Towards the end, I briefly explore the view that we have no introspective access at all to the duration of our experiences. I suggest that such a view may well be supported by some considerations about the phenomenal continuity of consciousness