•  756
    A defense of presentism in a relativistic setting
    Philosophy of Science 67 (3): 586. 2000.
    Presentism is the view, roughly speaking, that only presently existing things exist. Though presentism offers many attractive solutions to problems in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind, it faces threats from two main sources: McTaggart and the special theory of relativity. This paper explores the prospects for fitting presentism together with the special theory. Two models are proposed, one which fits presentism into a relativistic setting (the cone model) and one which…Read more
  •  696
    The Puzzle of Change
    Philosophical Perspectives 10 119-136. 1996.
  •  56
    The identity of the past
    In Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry Silverstein (eds.), Time and Identity, Mit Press. pp. 95--110. 2010.
    This chapter discusses the obstacles faced by presentists after denying the existence of past and future individuals. Presentism must still account for the manifest facts about the past and the future, but problems may arise when the presentist attempts to provide an account of the past. There is nothing in the presentist’s ontology on which to base truths about the past. Also, there is a problem regarding singular truths about past individuals; if past individuals do not exist, then they do not…Read more
  •  12
    A Defense of Presentism
    Dissertation, Princeton University. 1988.
    The dissertation is a defense of presentism, the thesis that only presently existing things exist. Many arguments against presentism, including those of McTaggart and Mellor, rely on the claim that the tenses are indexicals. In the first chapter I argue that which aspects of language are indexical depends on what there is. In particular, I argue that if presentism is true, the tenses are not indexicals. I base my response to McTaggart's argument for the unreality of tense on the claim that the t…Read more