It seems to me that the presentist can only de re refer to past (or future—but that's less of a problem) individuals if there are haecceities or the identity of indiscernibles is true.
Couldn't you treat it like referring to fictional entities ("Sherlock Holmes")? Of course, that would raise the problem of how to distinguish between actual past individuals and genuinely fictional ones.
I don't think we succeed in referring to fictional entities, except maybe in a highly underdetermined way.
Well, we succeed in doing something in the neighborhood. Talking about them, maybe. Anyway, if the analogy works at all, it just shows that there are way too many problems with presentism.
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Couldn't you treat it like referring to fictional entities ("Sherlock Holmes")?
Of course, that would raise the problem of how to distinguish between actual past individuals and genuinely fictional ones.
I don't think we succeed in referring to fictional entities, except maybe in a highly underdetermined way.
Well, we succeed in doing something in the neighborhood. Talking about them, maybe.
Anyway, if the analogy works at all, it just shows that there are way too many problems with presentism.
Post a Comment