Presentism and Theories of Persistence

Abstract

    In this paper, I examine the combination of Presentism and theories of persistence. To do this, first I point out that the current most standard eternalist formulation of theories of persistence, the one based on spatiotemporal location, has three theoretical virtues: (1) it provides a clear understanding of “wholly present”, (2) it allows us to understand the opposition of these theories as substantive, (3) it adequately captures the explanatory nature of these theories. Next, I argue that various presentist formulations of theories of persistence fail to have some of these virtues. This means, I argue, that it is still unclear what it is for presentism that things persist and what it is for presentism to explain persistence.