Colloquium by Istvan Aranyosi: Preteriception and the metaphysics of time

ABSTRACT:

In previous work (Aranyosi 2020, 2021) I put forward and defended a direct realist view of remembering, dubbed "preteriception", analogous to the naive realist view in the philosophy of perception. A common objection to any such view is that it involves a "weird metaphysics of time, namely eternalism, according to which not only the present but also the past and the future exist. In this talk, building on an analysis of existence I put forward in my 2013 book, I will defend eternalism and argue that it is less weird than presentism.