Abstract
This paper defends the possibility of admitting occurrents in a presentist ontology. Two ways of doing so are proposed, the first one involves Meinongian presentism. By using the notion of non-existent object and coherently modifying some mereological principle, it is argued, the presentist can allow for occurrents. The second proposal involves ex-concrete objects. Ex-concrete objects, i.e. objects that are contingently not concrete, have been used by Linsky and Zalta (Philosophical Perspectives, 8 (Logic and Language), 431-458, 1994), Williamson (2002) in the modal metaphysics debate, by Orilia (Philosophical Studies, 173 (3), 589-607, 2016) in the presentism-eternalism debate, and by Longenecker (Synthese 195 (11), 5091-5111, 2018) in the debate about material constitution. I argue that, just by admitting ex-concrete objects, it is possible to have occurrents even for the presentist. Of course, in order to do so we must modify our definitions of occurrent and continuant. Nevertheless, I argue that my theory is metaphysically sound, at least for the presentist persuaded by the intuitive claim that there are occurrents, which otherwise she must reject.
Highlights
Two of the main theses in the metaphysics of time are eternalism and presentism
I suppose that the presentist has at least four possibilities here: first, she can explain how events are not really occurrents but continuants, namely she has to reduce them to continuants; second, she might hold a view such as that defended in Prior (1962), that is, she might be eliminitavist about events; third, she might endorse some deflationist account of events à la Kim (1966); fourth, she can consider them as legitimate in her ontology
I will consider three objections, which I think are compelling. Some of these objections and the answers I propose apply to Meinongian presentism with occurrents (MEPO), but since I argued that ex-concrete presentism with occurrents (EXPO) has clear advantages over MEPO my talk about these objections will be restricted to EXPO
Summary
Eternalism holds that past, present and future are ontologically on a par On this account, past, present and future entities exist. I suppose that almost every eternalist thinks that occurrents exist; disagreement arises on whether they should admit continuants in their ontology. Almost every presentist allows for continuants; after all it seems the natural way to go if you hold, as the presentist does, that everything that exists exists at the present, unextended moment. The first way makes use of non-existents, I propose a theory that I call Meinongian presentism with occurrents (MEPO).
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