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On the Puzzle of the Changing Past

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Abstract

In the intriguing article The puzzle of the changing past, Barlassina and Del Prete (Analysis 75:59–67, 2015) argue that, if one grants a platitude about truth and accepts a simple story that they tell, one is forced to conclude that the past has changed. I will suggest that there is a coherent way to resist that conclusion. The platitude about truth is in fact a platitude, but the story is not exactly as they tell it.

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Notes

  1. Barlassina and Del Prete (2015), p. 61.

  2. Barlassina and Del Prete (2015), p. 62.

  3. Barlassina and Del Prete (2015), pp. 63-64.

  4. Here it is taken for granted that the sequence of judgements is finite, which is quite plausible in Armstrong’s case. Although an infinite process of revision is conceivable, we can leave aside that possibility for the present purposes.

  5. Here the label ‘atemporalist’ is not intended to imply that the only option or the best option for an atemporalist is to accept (L) so construed. An atemporalist could reject (L), arguing that n 1,...,n n are all alike from God’s perspective. Torrengo (2015) defends such a view.

  6. To use Prior’s words, there are “traces of futurity” in (7), see Prior (1967), p. 124. Hazlett (2011) argues that it is in accordance with common sense to say that facts about the present, or about the past, may depend on facts about the future.

  7. Prior (1967) ascribes to Ockham the view that the past is not necessary for the reason considered, p. 121.

References

  • Barlassina, L., & Del Prete, F. (2015). The puzzle of the changing past. Analysis, 75, 59–67.

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  • Hazlett, A. (2011). How the past depends on the future. Ratio, 24, 167–175.

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  • Prior, A.N. (1967). Past, present and future. Clarendon Press.

  • Torrengo, G. (2015). Nunc pro tunc. The Problem of Retroactive Enactments. ms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Logic, Language, and Cognition, Department of Philosophy and Education, University of Turin, Via S. Ottavio 20, 10124, Torino, Italy

    Andrea Iacona

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  1. Andrea Iacona
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Correspondence to Andrea Iacona.

Additional information

The material of this paper has been presented in 2015 at the University of Padua, at the University of Barcelona, and at the University of Oslo. I would like to thank all the people who raised questions or objections on those occasions. I’m also grateful to José Diez and Giuliano Torrengo for the long and useful discussions we had on this topic.

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Iacona, A. On the Puzzle of the Changing Past. Philosophia 44, 137–142 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9678-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9678-3

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