The Priority of the Past
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2025.e102141Keywords:
Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of Time, GroundingAbstract
This paper presents a criticism to Baron’s (2014) Priority Presentism and proposes an alternative view, the Priority of the Past. Both theories are based on the application of metaphysical grounding to temporally located entities. In the first part, we define synchronic and diachronic grounding and then the corresponding notions of synchronic and diachronic fundamental and derivative. In the second part, we present three arguments for supporting the priority of the past: the ontological stability, the ontological dependency and the grounding the direction of time argument. Finally, we discuss a possible objection to our proposal.
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