Higher-order being and time
Journal article, Peer reviewed
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Date
2024Metadata
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- Department of Philosophy [266]
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Abstract
Higher-order metaphysicians take facts to be higher-order beings, i.e., entities in the range of irreducibly higher-order quantifiers. In this paper, I investigate the impact of this conception of facts on the debate about the reality of tense. I identify two major repercussions. The first concerns the logical space of tense realism: on a higher-order conception of facts, a prominent version of tense realism, dynamic absolutism, turns out to conflict with the laws of (higher-order tense) logic. The second concerns our understanding of the positions occupying this logical space: on a higher-order conception of facts, an attractive interpretation of the central tense realist notion of ‘facts constituting reality’ becomes unavailable. I discuss these results in the context of the more general project of higher-order metaphysics and the (meta)metaphysics of time, drawing out their implications for the nature of the disputes both between realists and anti-realists about tense and between different tense realist factions.