Once Grounded, Always Grounded: past truths without present grounds

Abstract

Presentism, roughly the view that only present objects exist, is intuitively appealing, and hence worthy of serious consideration. However, according to another equally intuitive and well-established constraint on truth, propositions require grounding, i.e. a wordly item capable of suitably ground their truth. Given that presentists are not committed to the existence of past objects like Caesar or dinosaurs, what could possibly ground the present truth of propositions about Cesar or dinosaurs? Henceforth, I shall refer to this challenge faced by presentists as the grounding objection to presentism. In this nal research paper, I set out to clarify such objection, carefully examine the number of di erent answers to it, and nally assess whether they succeed. In doing this, I shall proceed as follows. In the rst part, I will spell out the objection more in details, and specify presentists are mainly faced with a particular explanatory challenge rather than with a mere request of specifying an ontological ground for propositions about the past. Along the way, I will also lay out some desiderata for a overly satisfying solution to the grounding objection on behalf of the presentists. In the second part, accordingly, I'll proceed to weigh various presentist solutions by considering how well they fare in providing e cacious explanations for the truth of past propositions. Finally, I will set forward my preferred versions of the solution to the objection, helping myself from a speci c reading of the notion of grounding and also appealing to a more minimalist strategy. Crucially, the challenge will be met on the basis of a suitable explanation of why past propositions are true