How to Be a Presentist
- Publisher's listprice GBP 68.00
-
30 702 Ft (29 240 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 10% (cc. 3 070 Ft off)
- Discounted price 27 632 Ft (26 316 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
30 702 Ft
Availability
Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
Not in stock at Prospero.
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 17 August 2026
- ISBN 9780197845714
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages304 pages
- Size 242x164x27 mm
- Weight 540 g
- Language English 0
Categories
Short description:
In the last 100 years, since Einstein published his special theory of relativity, the standard view among physicists and philosophers has been as follows: (a) physical reality is a 4-dimensional spatiotemporal manifold in which time is the fourth dimension, (b) past and future objects like dinosaurs and Martian outposts exist in the same way that present objects like tables and rocks do, and (c) temporally distant regions of the 4-dimensional manifold (e.g., the Jurassic Period) are exactly analogous to spatially distant regions (e.g., the Outer Solar System). This book pushes back against this orthodox view and defends the commonsense view that (i) physical reality is a 3-dimensional spatial manifold, and (ii) past and future objects like dinosaurs and Martian outposts don't exist at all. In doing so, Mark Balaguer defends presentism—the view that only present objects exist and that there are no past or future objects.
MoreLong description:
Presentism is the view that only present objects exist and that there are no past or future objects. In How to Be a Presentist, Mark Balaguer defends presentism against numerous objections, most notably, the ontological-commitment objection, the truthmaking objection, and the special-relativity objection. More specifically, this book argues that (i) presentists can respond to the ontological-commitment objection by endorsing a very general and systematic error theory about much of our ordinary and scientific discourse about the past and future; that (ii) presentists can plausibly and defensibly respond to the truthmaking objection by rejecting the relevant truthmaking principles; and that (iii) presentists can respond to the special-relativity objection not by endorsing the existence of a privileged frame of reference but by relativizing their view.
In addition to defending presentism against objections, Balaguer argues for two other substantive theses. First, he argues for the metaphilosophical (and anti-metaphysical) view that the question of whether presentism is true is an ordinary empirical question about the nature of physical reality and that this question can't be settled by a priori philosophical arguments. Second, Balaguer argues that presentists should reject the existence of time, times (including the present time), and temporal passage. From this it follows that presentists should reject standard versions of the A-theory—which is surprising because it's widely believed that presentism entails the A-theory.
The version of presentism developed in this book is a metaphysically thin, ontologically parsimonious view that can be thought of as an ordinary empirical hypothesis—a profoundly different view from other versions of presentism in the literature.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
PART I. METAPHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES
Against Trivialism
Against Necessitarianism
Anti-Metaphysicalism
PART II. IN DEFENSE OF PRESENTISM
FAPP-ist Error Theory
Truthmaking I: Backing Presentists into a Nothingist Corner
Truthmaking II: Nothingism to the Rescue
Truthmaking III: What Makes the Counterfactuals of Chapter 5 True?
How to Make Presentism Consistent with Special Relativity
Time Travel and Change
PART III. METAPHYSICALLY MINIMAL PRESENTISM
Metaphysically Minimal Presentism: Or: Presentism Without Time, Without Temporal Passage, and Without the A-Theory
