The Moving Spotlight's Broken Lightbulb
Lisa Leininger (Hobart and William Smith Colleges)

part of: TMW: "The Moving Spotlight"
June 28, 2017, 12:30pm - 2:00pm
Centre for Philosophy of Time, University of Milan

Sala Crociera del Dipartimento di Filosofia
Via Festa del Perdono, 7
Milano 20122
Italy

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Organisers:

Samuele Iaquinto
University of Milan
David Ingram
University of Milan
Giuliano Torrengo
University of Milan
Nick Young
University of Milan

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Abstract.  The Moving Spotlight theory of time (MST) is commonly understood to combine elements of eternalism (that the past, present, and future are ontologically on par) and A-theory (that there is a privileged present) in which a "spotlight" sweeps through the four-dimensional manifold; each moment is "lit up" in turn as the objectively privileged present. In MST, the passage of time is then formulated as a change in what moment is objectively privileged as the present. I argue that the proponent of MST must account for a moment being formerly objectively privileged for there to be a change in what moment is objectively privileged. But any way the proponent of MST accounts for this (including appeal to a supertime or appeal to temporal distributional properties) results in more than one moment being present simpliciter. Ultimately, the proponent of MST must admit that all moments are present simpliciter, which really means that there is no one objectively privileged present moment. The moving spotlight's lightbulb, it turns out, does not shine on anything.

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