Fine’s McTaggart: Reloaded

Abstract

In this paper I will present three arguments (based on the notions of constitution, metaphysical reality, and truth, respectively) with the aim of shedding some new light on the structure of Fine's (2005Fine's ( , 2006 'McTaggartian' arguments against the reality of tense. Along the way, I will also (i) draw a novel map of the main realist positions about tense, (ii) unearth a previously unnoticed but potentially interesting form of external relativism (which I will label 'hyper-presentism') and (iii) sketch a novel interpretation of Fine's fragmentalism (which I contrast with Lipman's 2015, 2016b, forthcoming).

The Invisible Thin Red Line

“…14 14 This is a feature also of the Loss (2017) interpretation of fragmentalism. Lipman (2015) maintains adjunction for conjunction, but not for co‐obtainment (which can be seen as a second, non‐standard, form of conjunction), for which also the converse rule of simplification does not hold (that is, from the fact that ϕ co‐obtains with ψ , we cannot infer that ϕ .).…”

“…A full discussion of differences and similarity between Lipman's proposal and the view exposed here is beyond the scope of the present paper. For another interpretation of Fine's view, see Loss (2017) and Simon (2018).…”

Fine’s Trilemma and the Reality of Tensed Facts

“…2) for a general presentation of presentism's problems. It may be argued that the kind of theory that Fine labels ‘presentism’ doesn't only include what is commonly known in the literature as ‘presentism’, but also other classical A‐theories of time, like the growing‐block theory and the moving‐spotlight theory (see on this Loss ). But, as Fine himself has argued, there are other problems seemingly surrounding any presentist theory in Fine's sense, as the apparent inability to provide an adequate account of the passage of time (Fine , pp.…”

“…Here and in what follows I am drawing on the analysis of Fine's argument I present and defend in Loss ().…”

“…In this case, content‐fragmentalists could say (loosely following Loss ) that although f is the fact that p and f is the fact that q , it is not the case that f is the fact that p and q (so that p and q belong in this case to two ‘fragments of content’ not ‘cohering’ into a single content).…”