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Giovanni Merlo has argued that a currently popular way to interpret Kit Fine's fragmentalism about tensed facts (which he calls 'unstructured fragmentalism') is threatened by the problem of 'tensed belief explosion'. I argue that such an explosion of belief poses no problem to unstructured fragmentalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correia and Rosenkranz have recently argued in Analysis (2020, 2022) that tense realism (understood as the view that there is a real difference between past, present and future) entails realism about temporal passage (and thus the idea that there is some change in which time is the present time). I argue that their argument is either unsound or question-begging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the growing-block theory of time and truthmaker maximalism jointly entail that some truthmakers undergo mereological change as time passes. Central to my argument is a grounding-based account of what I call the "purely incremental" nature of the growing-block theory of time. As I will show, the argument presented in this paper suggests that growing-block theorists endorsing truthmaker maximalism have reasons to take composition to be restricted and the "block" of reality to literally grow as time goes by. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature on mereology it is often accepted that mereological universalism entails extensionalism. More precisely, many accept that, if parthood is assumed to be a partial order (and, thus, the relevant theory of parthood is taken to be at least as strong as 'core mereology'), the thesis that every plurality of entities has a mereological fusion entails the thesis that different composite entities have different proper parts. Central to this idea is the principle known as 'Weak Supplementation' which many take to impose an important constraint on the relation of proper parthood. In this paper I argue that this claim is false as the principle that I will call 'Minimal Supplementation' appears to be capable of doing all the work done by Weak Supplementation but without entailing extensionalism if conjoined with universalism and core mereology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Damiano Costa has recently offered a novel mereological definition of endurantism based on the idea that for an object to be wholly present at a time is for it to be a whole at that time. In this paper, I argue that Costa’s is not a definition of endurantism, since the idea that every object is a whole at every time it exists can be accepted by endurantists and perdurantists alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two main ways in which the notion of mereological fusion is usually defined in the current literature in mereology which have been labelled 'Leśniewski fusion' and 'Goodman fusion'. It is well-known that, with Minimal Mereology as the background theory, every Leśniewski fusion also qualifies as a Goodman fusion. However, the converse does not hold unless stronger mereological principles are assumed. In this paper I will discuss how the gap between the two notions can be filled, focussing in particular on two specific sets of principles that appear to be of particular philosophical interest. The first way to make the two notions equivalent can be used to shed some interesting light on the kind of intuition both notions seem to articulate. The second shows the importance of a little-known mereological principle which I will call 'Mild Supplementation'. As I will show, the mereology obtained by adding Mild Supplementation to Minimal Mereology occupies an interesting position in the landscape of theories that are stronger than Minimal Mereology but weaker than what Achille Varzi and Roberto Casati have labelled 'Extensional Mereology'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I present an argument proving that there are no fundamental facts, which is similar to an argument recently presented by Mark Jago for truthmaker maximalism. I suggest that this argument gives us at least some prima facie, defeasible reason to believe that there are no fundamental facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of providing an adequate supervenience base for tensed truths may seem to be one of the main theoretical advantages of both the growing-block and the moving-spotlight theory of time over presentism. However, in this paper I will argue that some propositions appear to be as problematic for growing-block theorists as past-directed propositions are for presentists, namely propositions stating that nothing will be the case in the future. Furthermore, I will show that the moving-spotlight theory can adequately address all the main supervenience challenges that can be levelled against A-theories of time. I will, thus, conclude that, at least as far as the supervenience principle is concerned, the moving-spotlight theory should be preferred over both presentism and the growing-block theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Composition is Identity, a whole is literally identical to the plurality of its parts. According to Mereological Nihilism, nothing has proper parts. In this note, it is argued that Composition is Identity can be shown to entail Mereological Nihilism in a much more simple and direct way than the one recently proposed by Claudio Calosi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounding contingentism is the doctrine according to which grounds are not guaranteed to necessitate what they ground. In this paper I will argue that the most plausible version of contingentism (which I will label 'serious contingentism') is incompatible with the idea that the grounding relation is transitive, unless either 'priority monism' or 'contrastivism' are assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of changing the past by means of time-travel appears to depend on the possibility of distinguishing the past as it is 'before' and 'after' the time-travel. So far, all the metaphysical models that have been proposed to account for the possibility of past-changing time-travels operate this distinction by conceiving of time as multi-dimensional, and thus by significantly inflating our metaphysics of time. The aim of this article is to argue that there is an intuitive sense in which past-changing time-travels are metaphysically possible also in one-dimensional time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to propose a novel supervaluationist theory of ‘actually’ in the open future. First, I will argue that any adequate theory of actuality in a branching setting must comply with three main desiderata. Second, I will prove that none of the actuality operators that have been proposed in the literature is up to the task. Finally, I will propose a novel theory of actuality in the open future combining one of the existing definitions of the actuality operator with a new definition of the historical possibility operator, and argue for its adequacy. The central feature of the theory I will advance is the introduction of an actuality parameter capable of being shifted by the historical possibility operator. I will argue that this account appears to not only be consistent with the idea that the future is genuinely open, but also with the general idea that ‘actually’ is, in a relevant sense, a ‘rigid’ operator. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is argued that there are sentences and pairs of sentences, belonging to the family of ‘truth-tellers’ and ‘no–no sentences’, such that it is possible to prove (and, hence come to know) their truth-value. It is, therefore, concluded that the kind of pathological feature affecting some truth-tellers and no–no sentences is not due to the specific kind of circularity characterizing their truth-conditions and must, thus, depend on some other reason. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses Peter van Inwagen's Third Argument. It cites the opinion of Joseph Keim Campbell on Inwagen's argument against compatibilism for its dependence on the existence of a remote past. It also presents Anthony Brueckner's new version of the Third Argument, which showed that determinism and free will are perpetually incompatible. It exploits Brueckner's new concept to establish another version of van Inwagen's original view that does not depend on the existence of the past.

The article presents a reply to the argument of Joseph Keim Campbell which states that the Third Argument (TA) or Incompatibilism has failed to prove that determinism is incompatible with the free will thesis since the remote past is contingent to our world. It proposes a new version of the TA in which it does not rely on the existence of a part but on the necessity of the present.