Self‐Locating Evidence and the Metaphysics of Time

Abstract

For most metaphysical debates, ordinary observational evidence seems to be irrelevant.Intuitively, ordinary observational evidence can neither confirm nor disconfirm the existence of abstract objects, the existence of tropes or universals, the existence of arbitrarily scattered mereological fusions, etc. Arguments for these views tend to be at a very abstract, theoretical level.They are rarely of the following form: conditional on metaphysical theory X, we should expect to observe O 1 .Conditional on ~X, we should expect to observe O 2 , with O 1 ≠ O 2. We have in fact observed O 1 , so we should raise our credence in X.The goal of this paper is to argue that ordinary observational evidence can directly confirm or disconfirm the two major positions in the metaphysics of time, Presentism and Eternalism, in exactly this way.There are cases where we should expect to observe different things depending on whether Eternalism or Presentism is true.Presentism is the view that only present things exist, and so reality is three-dimensional.Eternalism is the view that objects from both the past and the future exist just as much as present objects, and so reality is four-dimensional.I will be considering an orthodox version of Eternalism according to which no time is objectively privileged as having the primitive property of being present.I will be setting aside the Growing Block theory, according to which only past

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