Presentism, Eternalism, and Nonduality Keith Tauravsky, Philosopher, Univ. of Texas
What's the "most nondual" way to think about the nature of time? Herein I will consider two opposing metaphysical hypotheses popular among contemporary philosophers of time: presentism and eternalism. Presentism maintains that only the present moment is real—that the past and future literally do not exist. On the other hand, eternalism (sometimes called the "block universe" theory) asserts that the apparent "privileged status" of the present is an illusion, and that the past and future coexist with the present moment, just as different locations in space coexist. Either way, we must acknowledge that our naïve conception of time relies upon one or more illusory concepts. As it happens, this contemporary philosophical debate is paralleled in the nondualist tradition(s): some thinkers stress that the "Eternal Now" is all that exists, while others believe the present moment, in its fleetingness, is insubstantial and illusory. While either theory of time might thus be held to be "more nondual" than the other, I will argue that presentism yields the more philosophically satisfying (and personally empowering) worldview. Special attention will be given to a common objection to presentism involving the theory of relativity; I will suggest that the so-called Twin Paradox not only fails as an objection to presentism but in fact seems to be strong evidence in support of the view.
Bio
Keith Tauravsky
Keith Tauravsky is a philosopher at the University of Texas.
Critical examination of the rational grounds of our most fundamental beliefs and logical analysis of the basic concepts employed in the expression of such beliefs. Philosophy may also be defined as reflection on the varieties of human experience, or as the rational, methodical, and systematic consideration of the topics that are of greatest concern to humanity. Philosophical inquiry is a central element in the intellectual history of many civilizations. Difficulty in achieving a consensus about the definition of the discipline partly reflects the fact that philosophers have frequently come to it from different fields and have preferred to reflect on different areas of experience. All the world's great religions have produced significant allied philosophical schools. Western philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, George Berkeley, and Søren Kierkegaard regarded philosophy as a means of defending religion and dispelling the antireligious errors of materialism and rationalism. Pythagoras, René Descartes, and Bertrand Russell, among others, were primarily mathematicians whose views of reality and knowledge were influenced by mathematics. Figures such as Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill were mainly concerned with political philosophy, whereas Socrates and Plato were occupied chiefly by questions in ethics. The Pre-Socratics, Francis Bacon, and Alfred North Whitehead, among many others, started from an interest in the physical composition of the natural world. Other philosophical fields include aesthetics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophical anthropology. See alsoanalytic philosophy; Continental philosophy; feminist philosophy; philosophy of science.
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