Emanuele Tullio

The Argument from Presented Experience contends that the B-theory of time comes with the unacceptable implication that a person is presented with an experience comprising all the experiences occurring within her lifetime. A popular way of rejecting the argument is arguing that experiences are had relative to times and not simpliciter. I argue that a powerful version of the argument directed against the combination of perdurantism and the B-theory can be suitably formulated even if it is conceded that experiences are had in a merely time-relative fashion.

According to Perdurantism, persons are identical to maximal aggregates of appropriately interrelated temporal parts. Within the Perdurantist framework, an epistemic concern arises, targeting the perduring persons’ belief that they are persons, suggesting that, ultimately, they are not in a position to know that they are persons as opposed to temporal parts. Despite the consideration it has received over the years, this concern has not yet been converted into a full-fledged objection. This paper aims to address this gap by exploring the possibility of formulating a coherent Epistemic Objection against Perdurantism. We shall examine several epistemological principles around which such an objection might be built, arguing that none of them, in the end, allows a plausible formulation of the objection. As a result, we shall conclude that the burden of proving that in a Perdurantist setting persons are not in a position to know that they are persons rests with the objectors.