Higher-Order Tense Realism

Fabrice Correia (University of Geneva, Universitá della Svizzera Italiana)

The Formal Methods research cluster at the department of philosophy, King's College London is pleased to announce a guest talk by Prof. Fabrice Correia (Chair of Analytic Philosophy, University of Geneva) who will present joint work with Sven Rosenkranz (LOGOS / ICREA / University of Barcelona) on Higher-Order Tense Realism.

Fabrice Correia & Sven Rosenkranz

Higher Order Tense Realism

Realism about tense comes in various forms. Kit Fine (“Tense and Reality”, 2005 and “The Reality of Tense”, 2006) offers a helpful taxonomy. In our paper “Eternal Facts in an Ageing Universe” (2012), we improve upon this taxonomy, identifying a further type of view that Fine leaves out: Dynamic Absolutism. Both these taxonomies construe the different versions of tense realism in terms of first-order quantification over facts or states of affairs. Our goal is to show that the logical space of these first-order tense-realist positions can be replicated using higher-order quantification instead. Along the way, we rebut an argument given by Lukas Skiba in his “Higher-Order Being and Time” (2025) to the effect that there is no coherent higher-order version of Dynamic Absolutism.

The event is on campus only. All are welcome but non-KCL attendees must register in advance: see website for details.