A presentist asserts that 'Caesar was stabbed in 44 BC' is true. What philosophical problem does this create for presentism?
ANo problem — the statement is obviously true and presentism has no difficulty explaining it
BThe statement must be false under presentism, since its subject no longer exists
CIf only the present exists, then the entity the statement is about (Caesar, the stabbing) no longer exists, raising the truthmaker problem: what in the present world makes this past-tensed statement true?
DThe problem is epistemic: we cannot verify claims about the past without present evidence
This is the truthmaker problem for presentism. A true statement needs a truthmaker — something that makes it true. If only present entities exist, then Caesar, the event of the stabbing, and the Rome of 44 BC are all non-existent. Yet 'Caesar was stabbed in 44 BC' appears to be about those things. Presentists have proposed solutions — presently existing tensed facts, causal traces, or abstract propositions — but none is universally accepted. The point is that the naive intuition that only the present exists immediately generates a deep question about the ontological basis of truths about the past.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
Special Relativity poses a serious challenge to presentism. Which statement best explains the challenge?
ASpecial relativity shows that time travel is possible, making it unclear what 'the present' refers to
BSpecial relativity abolishes absolute simultaneity: what counts as 'now' is frame-dependent, so there is no single objective present — and therefore no unique set of presently existing entities that presentism requires
CThe challenge is that special relativity is a physical theory and metaphysics must be derived from physics, not from intuition
DSpecial relativity proves that the past and future are equally real, which directly settles the debate in favor of eternalism
Under special relativity, simultaneity is not absolute — two events that are simultaneous in one reference frame are not simultaneous in another moving frame. If 'the present' is defined as the set of all events simultaneous with now, then different observers have different presents. There is no frame-independent set of simultaneously existing things. This threatens presentism, which requires a unique, objective present whose contents are the only existents. Presentists must either reject this interpretation of relativity, posit a metaphysically privileged frame that physics doesn't detect, or reconstruct presentism within relativistic spacetime — each option carries significant costs.
Question 3 True / False
Presentism is committed to the A-series conception of time, on which past, present, and future are real dynamic properties — not merely the B-series ordering of events by earlier-than and later-than.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
True. Presentism is the most radical A-theory: it holds that the present is not just a privileged temporal position but the exclusively real one. The A-series treats pastness, presentness, and futurity as genuine flowing properties of events. The B-series, by contrast, treats all times as equally real and ordered only by the fixed relation earlier-than/later-than. Eternalism — the rival of presentism — is a B-theory. Presentism's commitment to the A-series is what motivates both its intuitive appeal (we experience the present as special) and its philosophical difficulties (explaining how the A-series flow is possible and what makes past truths true).
Question 4 True / False
Presentism's appeal to currently existing abstract objects (tensed facts or propositions) as truthmakers for past-tensed statements fully resolves the truthmaker problem, making the debate with eternalism largely settled.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
False. The appeal to presently existing abstract objects is a proposed response to the truthmaker problem, not a resolution of it. Critics argue that positing abstract tensed facts — 'it is now a fact that Caesar was stabbed in 44 BC' — simply relocates the mystery: what makes a present abstract fact be about a past concrete event that no longer exists? Trace theories (grounding past truths in present physical effects) face the problem that many past truths leave no surviving traces. The debate between presentism and eternalism remains technically sophisticated and unresolved precisely because neither side's responses to these objections are universally accepted.
Question 5 Short Answer
Explain the truthmaker problem for presentism in your own words: what is the problem, and what resources does the presentist have to respond?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The truthmaker problem asks: if only present entities exist, what makes past-tensed statements like 'Caesar was stabbed in 44 BC' true? A true claim seems to require something — a truthmaker — that makes it true. But if Caesar no longer exists, neither does the stabbing event, so there is no obvious present entity that the statement is about. Presentists have proposed two main responses: (1) presently existing abstract objects such as tensed facts or propositions that hold now but are about the past; (2) causal traces — present physical records, memories, and effects — that ground truths about what caused them. Neither is without objection: abstract objects raise questions about how they relate to concrete past events; traces cannot cover cases where all physical evidence has been destroyed.
The problem reveals that presentism is far more demanding than its initial intuitive appeal suggests. Accepting that only the present exists forces a systematic account of how modal and temporal discourse can remain meaningful — an account that must compete with the simpler eternalist position that past events exist in their own region of four-dimensional spacetime.