David Ingram

This paper offers a way of thinking about (an ‘interpretation’ of) contemporary philosophy of time on which the distinction between dynamic (A-theoretic) and non-dynamic (B-theoretic) views cannot be understood independently of considerations relating to temporal experience. Starting with some insights contained in Simon Prosser’s work, I suggest that (a) temporal experience cannot transparently represent time as being either A- or B-theoretic, and that (b) A-theoretic terminology partly gets its meaning from ostension (‘this is what it is for time to pass’). Moreover, I suggest distinguishing between the (official) B-theory, which claims that the process thus defined does not exist, and a metaphysically much less committed ‘Meta-B stance’, which steps away from the As and Bs altogether. I then examine the dialectic in discussions surrounding the increasingly popular view that we do not have experiences as of time passing (‘deflationism’/’veridicalism’), arguing that this is best understood as making a Meta-B, rather than a B-theoretic, claim about temporal experience. The upshot is that an experience-based interpretation of the AB distinction is viable and helps one make sense of large parts of the literature on temporal experience.

Mereological nihilists typically employ a paraphrase strategy in order to mitigate the apparent absurdity of their denial of the existence of composite objects. I argue here that the nihilist's paraphrase strategy is incomplete, because no schema for generating nihilistically acceptable paraphrases of sentences concerning material constitution has ever been given. Nor can an adequate schema be arrived at by generalising things that nihilists have already said. I fill this lacuna in the nihilist's account by developing and defending a novel paraphrase schema that makes essential reference to the determinable‐determinate relation that holds between arrangement‐properties instantiated by the simples.

A ubiquitous assumption about composite material objects is that—if they exist at all—they are single things. This chapter articulates and defends manyism, which rejects that assumption. According to manyism, each composite object is simply its many parts. Since manyism accepts the existence of composite objects, it is distinct from nihilism; since manyism denies that composite objects are each one in number in addition to being many in number, it is distinct from the view known as composition as identity (CAI). What’s more, manyism is both coherent and attractive. Manyism is coherent because it can be underwritten by a defensible quasi-Quinean metaontology, and because it’s not analytic that objects are each one in number. Manyism is attractive because it shares all of the benefits of CAI without having to join CAI in objectionably positing many–one identities, and without incurring other serious costs.