ABSTRACT
In this paper I will present three arguments (based on the notions of constitution, metaphysical reality, and truth, respectively) with the aim of shedding some new light on the structure of Fine’s (2005_______ “Tense and Reality,” in his Modality and Tense, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 261-320, 2005., 2006_______ “The Reality of Tense,” Synthese 150/3: 399-414, 2006.) ‘McTaggartian’ arguments against the reality of tense. Along the way, I will also (i) draw a novel map of the main realist positions about tense, (ii) unearth a previously unnoticed but potentially interesting form of external relativism (which I will label ‘hyper-presentism’) and (iii) sketch a novel interpretation of Fine’s fragmentalism (which I contrast with Lipman’s 2015_______ “On Fine’s fragmentalism,” Philosophical Studies 172(12): 3119-33, 2015., 2016b_______ “Perspectival Variance and Worldly Fragmentation’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (1): 42-57, 2016b., forthcomingLIPMAN, M. “A passage theory of time,” in Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, forthcoming.).
Keywords:
Kit Fine; McTaggart; Metaphysics of time; Reality of tense Fragmentalism
