Sven Rosenkranz

As Time Goes By offers an overview of different versions of tense realism, or A-theories of time, critically assesses those that have found supporters in the extant literature, and finally explicates and defends a hitherto neglected A-theory of time that combines many of the virtues that the B-theory claims for itself, while avoiding many of the vices that afflict more standard A-theories. Proceeding from certain general assumptions about time and its structure, the authors first provide an exhaustive classification of mutually exclusive realist views of tense in terms of precise criteria. They then critically review the more familiar of these views, such as presentism and relativism, in the light of desiderata any A-theory should satisfy, before showing how their favourite A-theory can satisfy all of these desiderata and how it escapes the McTaggartian trilemma recently expounded by Kit Fine. In the last part, the authors devise a systematic metaphysics for that view, give a reduction of times, and of the temporal order, in its terms, and provide a full semantics, statable exclusively in tensed terms, for both tensed and untensed language. The book closes by addressing and defusing the challenge that the authors' favourite A-theory is a B-theory in disguise.

It has recently been argued that purported evidential and zetetic norms issue contradictory verdicts and that such contradictions best be resolved in favor of zetetic norms. The paper argues that this line of argument proves unsuccessful. First, natural formulations of what one ought to do if inquiring into a given matter resemble anankastic conditionals that don't allow for detachment of normatively significant verdicts. Second, even if suitably reformulated, zetetic norms issue, at best, verdicts with a distinctly practical flavor that contrasts with the epistemic flavor characteristic of evidential norms. While there are conflicts between normative verdicts of different flavors, the phenomenon is familiar and, in the cases in question, doesn't force a zetetic turn, that is, a reorientation of epistemology that gives zetetic norms precedence over evidential norms.

It has recently been argued that purported evidential and zetetic norms issue contradictory verdicts and that such contradictions best be resolved in favor of zetetic norms. The paper argues that this line of argument proves unsuccessful. First, natural formulations of what one ought to do if inquiring into a given matter resemble anankastic conditionals that don't allow for detachment of normatively significant verdicts. Second, even if suitably reformulated, zetetic norms issue, at best, verdicts with a distinctly practical flavor that contrasts with the epistemic flavor characteristic of evidential norms. While there are conflicts between normative verdicts of different flavors, the phenomenon is familiar and, in the cases in question, doesn't force a zetetic turn, that is, a reorientation of epistemology that gives zetetic norms precedence over evidential norms.

This chapter responds to criticismsmade in Volume 8 of this series, in reply to another chapter of that volume. The initial chapter resurrected the Growing Block Theory (GBT) from its grave, devising a coherent formulation of it and arguing that its burial was premature. It aimed to show that GBT has the wherewithal to explain how we might easily come to know that we are living on the edge of reality posited by GBT. Braddon-Mitchell, in the reply, remained unconvinced. His objections are addressed here.

This paper clarifies what proponents of the Growing Block Theory (GBT) should and what they should not say, and what they consistently can say. Once all the central tenets of the view are on the table, discussion turns to David Braddon-Mitchell’s and Trenton Merricks’ recent eulogies for GBT, based on what is representative of a certain type of argument meant to show that GBT is internally incoherent. It is argued that this type of argument proceeds from a mistaken assumption about GBT’s core – i.e. that GBT works with an untensed notion of what, in the metaphysically most fundamental sense, there is. The upshot is that this type of argument misfires and that, for all that is presently known, we might be living on the brink of reality.

Epistemicism incorporates the thesis that vague discourse is governed by classical logic and bivalence. This classicist thesis has implications for the theory of reference. A natural response to the Sorites is that the classicist thesis should be rejected unless it is shown how those theoretical commitments can be redeemed. If this cannot be shown directly by appeal to the mechanisms of reference determination, epistemicism can only hope to be warranted indirectly by elimination of alternatives. Failure to achieve the former invites agnosticism about the existence of sharp boundaries. If such an agnosticism yields a coherent account of borderline cases and sustains a non-classical solution to the Sorites, this will also imply failure to achieve the latter. But then agnosticism about sharp boundaries is vindicated and epistemicism must be rejected. This chapter argues for this conclusion by devising an agnostic account of vagueness and by showing that epistemicism fails on both counts.

The paper explores a structural account of propositional justification in terms of the notion of being in a position to know and negation. Combined with a non-normal logic for being in a position to know, the account allows for the derivation of plausible principles of justification. The account is neutral on whether justification is grounded in internally individuated mental states, and likewise on whether it is grounded in facts that are already accessible by introspection or reflection alone. To this extent, it is compatible both with internalism and with externalism about justification. Even so, the account allows for the proof of principles that are commonly conceived to depend on an internalist conception of justification. The account likewise coheres both with epistemic contextualism and with its rejection, and is compatible both with the knowledge-first approach and with its rejection. Despite its neutrality on these issues, the account makes propositional justification luminous and so is controversial. However, it proves quite resilient in the light of recent anti-luminosity arguments.

In a series of recent papers, Crispin Wright has developed and defended an epistemic account of borderline cases which he calls ‘Liberalism’. If Verdict Exclusion is the claim that no polar verdict on borderline cases is knowledgeable, then Liberalism implies the view that Verdict Exclusion is itself nothing we are in a position to know. It is a matter of ongoing discussion what more Liberalism implies. In any case, Wright argues that Liberalism affords the means to account for the intuition that polar verdicts on borderline cases are equally permissible. Here I argue that Liberalism fails to deliver and that an account of borderline cases based on Verdict Exclusion fares much better when it comes to showing that our ordinary practice of reaching verdicts on borderline cases is fully legitimate: all it needs is a reassessment of the nature of the claims such verdicts express.

In this chapter we introduce the system of propositional tense logic that we will use throughout the book, clarify what it means to take tense seriously for the purposes of metaphysical enquiry, and clarify the contrast between dynamic and static conceptions of reality. In Sect. 1.1 we set out Arthur Prior’s operator approach to tense and distinguish between the grammatical and the logical notions of tense, which latter calls for a systematic regimentation of ordinary language. In Sect. 1.2 we present axioms governing non-metric temporal operators, including non-standard operators of the form ‘At t’. In Sect. 1.3 we use the notion of truth simpliciter to discern two broad types of metaphysical views that disagree on whether a complete description of reality requires the use of tense.

In this chapter we critically discuss the so-called epistemic objection against the Growing Block Theory of time and argue that it rests on flawed conceptions of tense and of the import of the theory’s main tenets. We show how the theory enables knowledge of the location of the edge of reality that it posits. After introducing the epistemic objection as it figures in the extant literature, we argue in Sect. 6.1 and Sect. 6.2 that this objection either rests on a gross misunderstanding of the theory’s conception of the past, or else on a gross misunderstanding of the way in which utterances, or judgements, with tensed contents are evaluated for truth and falsity. In Sect. 6.3 we provide a constructive response to the remaining challenge, viz. to show how we might know that we are not in the past of the growing block’s edge of becoming.

In this chapter we introduce the relations of temporal location and precedence, critically review McTaggart’s conception of the existential import of these relations, and devise axioms governing them that are acceptable to permanentists and temporaryists alike. In Sect 3.1 we critically review McTaggart’s characterisation of the B-series according to which B-series relations are permanent, distinguish between two relevant senses of ‘permanent’ as applied to relations, and show that depending on whether such relations are taken as existence-entailing, on either reading, temporaryists can consistently avail themselves of such relations. In Sect. 3.2 we clarify the relation of temporal location by laying down axioms for it, taking into account things in time of various kinds. In Sect. 3.3 we first provide axioms for the relation of precedence amongst times, and then use it to define a relation of precedence for things in time quite generally.

In this chapter we critically discuss the objection that since truths require grounds, the Growing Block Theory must take bivalence to fail for future contingents, while it proves at odds with the best account of such a failure. We challenge the version of the grounding requirement driving this objection, devise a better formulation, and show that the theory can retain bivalence and accommodate an interesting form of indeterminism. After rehearsing the objection in Sect. 7.1, in Sect. 7.2 we review different ways to articulate the grounding requirement, conclude that it should suffice that, for any tensed truth, sometimes there be grounds for it, and show how this requirement can be met by contingent truths about the future. In Sect. 7.3 we explicate a conception of the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past, consistent with bivalence and available to the Growing Block Theory but none of its rivals.

It is natural to assume that knowledge, like belief, creates a hyperintensional context, that is, that knowledge ascriptions do not allow for substitution of necessarily equivalent prejacents salva veritate. There exist a variety of different proposals for modelling the phenomenon. In the last years, the topic-sensitive approach to the hyperintensionality of knowledge has gained considerable traction. It promises to provide a natural account of why knowledge fails to be closed under necessary equivalence in terms of differences in subject matter. Here, we argue that the topic-sensitive approach, as recently put forward by Franz Berto, Peter Hawke, Aybüke Özgün, and others, faces formidable problems. The root of these problems lies in the approach’s prediction that a mere grasp of subject matter may help to provide insights into necessary implications that it would seem to require more substantive epistemic work to gain.

In this chapter we introduce the distinction between permanentist and temporaryist ontologies and present a non-classical theory of unrestricted quantification and identity that is compatible with either type of view. We discuss and defuse a recent objection that temporaryism cannot accommodate unrestricted quantification. In Sect. 2.1 we use temporal operators and quantification in order to articulate the core tenets of permanentism and temporaryism, and show that static conceptions of reality are committed to permanentism. In Sect. 2.2 we observe that classical quantification theory favours permanentism, and for reasons of neutrality, replace it by a quantification theory that, jointly with corresponding axioms for identity, yields a positive free logic. In Sect. 2.3 we reject T. Williamson’s argument meant to show that temporaryists should endorse the so-called temporal being constraint, lest they be accused of using restricted quantification when articulating their view.

In what follows, we will reply to the critical comments one by one in the order that seemed most natural to us, given the topics covered. Apart from the references section towards the end, our replies are conceived as pieces each of which can be read independently from any of the others (but not, of course, independently from the comments it responds to). We hope to have done justice to the critical points made by our commentators and to have come up with viable answers to the various challenges they raise.

Daniel Waxman (2022a) argues that the thesis, recently advanced in Rosenkranz 2021, that one has propositional justification for φ, if and only if one is in no position to rule out that one is in a position to know φ, has clear counterexamples. However, Waxman makes controversial assumptions about the notion of being in a position to knowthat I should and coherently can reject. On the alternative construal of the notion open to me, Waxman’s strategy to produce counterexamples founders. However, this line of response has repercussions for two further theses I defend, viz.that propositional justification and its absence each are luminous. It is shown what more needs to be argued in order to avert a corresponding threat to the latter.

The knowledge account of assertion construes assertion as subject to constitutive norms. In its standard version, it combines a wide scope obligation not to assert p without knowing p, with narrow scope principles specifying conditions under which it is permissible to assert p, where the notions of obligation and permission are duals and behave uniformly for variable p. It is argued that, given natural assumptions about the logic of ‘ought’, the account proves incoherent. The argument generalizes to accounts that substitute other factive notions for knowledge. A recent non‐standard version of the knowledge account employs proposition‐relative norms and circumvents the problem. However, it still leads to intolerable combinations of verdicts. Again, the problem arises because knowledge is factive, and it generalizes to other factive notions. It is shown that non‐factive accounts face none of the diagnosed difficulties and can do much of the explanatory work that the knowledge account is alleged to do.

Justification as Ignorance offers an original account of epistemic justification as both non-factive and luminous, vindicating core internalist intuitions without construing justification as an internal condition knowable by reflection alone. Sven Rosenkranz conceives of justification, in its doxastic and propositional varieties, as a kind of epistemic possibility of knowing and of being in a position to know. His account contrasts with recent alternative views that characterize justification in terms of the metaphysical possibility of knowing. Instead, he develops a suitable non-normal multi-modal epistemic logic for knowledge and being in a position to know that respects the finding that these notions create hyperintensional contexts. He also defends his conception of justification against well-known anti-luminosity arguments, shows that the account allows for fruitful applications and principled solutions to the lottery and preface paradoxes, and provides a metaphysics of justification and its varying degrees of strength that is compatible with core assumptions of the knowledge-first approach and disjunctivist conceptions of mental states.

Responding to the critical comments by the symposiasts Julien Dutant, Niccolò Rossi, Martin Smith, Daniel Waxman, and Yiwen Zhan, I further elaborate, refine, and defend the account of epistemic justification I advanced in my book Justification as Ignorance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). Central issues tackled here include logical omniscience and non-normal epistemic logics, the luminosity of epistemic justification, methods for telling what one is in no position to know, and the relation between doxastic and propositional justification.

Functionalism about mental phenomena must account for their multiple realizability. According to standard doctrine, this can be achieved by allowing our folk theory's realization formula to be multiply satisfied by distinct physical properties. If at all, uniqueness can then be restored by suitable relativization to populations or worlds. Recent arguments suggest that this is a dead end. Here the attempt is made to devise a novel type of functionalism that accounts for multiple realizability but rejects the standard doctrine and thus proves immune to those arguments. The distinctive feature of this novel type of functionalism is its use of plural quantification in ramsification, which allows it to retain uniqueness of satisfaction despite multiple realizability while respecting naturalness requirements on physical properties

The paper explores a structural account of propositional justification in terms of the notion of being in a position to know and negation. Combined with a non-normal logic for being in a position to know, the account allows for the derivation of plausible principles of justification. The account is neutral on whether justification is grounded in internally individuated mental states, and likewise on whether it is grounded in facts that are already accessible by introspection or reflection alone. To this extent, it is compatible both with internalism and with externalism about justification. Even so, the account allows for the proof of principles that are commonly conceived to depend on an internalist conception of justification. The account likewise coheres both with epistemic contextualism and with its rejection, and is compatible both with the knowledge-first approach and with its rejection. Despite its neutrality on these issues, the account makes propositional justification luminous and so is controversial. However, it proves quite resilient in the light of recent anti-luminosity arguments.