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Time Will Tell: Against Antirealism About the Past

Time Will Tell: Against Antirealism About the Past Past entities, events, and circumstances are neither observable nor manipulatable. Several philosophers argued that this inaccessibility precludes a realistic conception of the past.I survey versions of antirealism and agnosticism about the past formulated by Michael Dummett, Leon Goldstein, and Derek Turner. These accounts differ in their motivations and reasoning, but they share the opinion that the reality of at least large swathes of the past is unknowable. Consequently, they consider statements about them as referring, at most, to present constructs.These antirealists about the past are not, however, antirealists or skeptics about time or chronology. They accept, among other things, that present traces can be dated and statements about their temporal provenances are referring and truth-apt.I posit that an antirealist who accepts that at least some of the present traces can be truth-aptly dated while holding that these traces do not support knowledge about past events and circumstances commits herself to a radically skeptic stance. Otherwise, she would be diluting her position so that it will be hardly distinguishable from realism.This problem could be avoided if antirealists about the past would extend their antirealism to estimates of the age of present traces. Such a position, however, would imply a very drastic form of scientific antirealism.I conclude that the past’s inaccessibility is insufficient to support antirealism about the past, either as a part of moderate scientific antirealism or as a stand-alone position. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal for General Philosophy of Science Springer Journals

Time Will Tell: Against Antirealism About the Past

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References (30)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022
ISSN
0925-4560
eISSN
1572-8587
DOI
10.1007/s10838-021-09592-0
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Past entities, events, and circumstances are neither observable nor manipulatable. Several philosophers argued that this inaccessibility precludes a realistic conception of the past.I survey versions of antirealism and agnosticism about the past formulated by Michael Dummett, Leon Goldstein, and Derek Turner. These accounts differ in their motivations and reasoning, but they share the opinion that the reality of at least large swathes of the past is unknowable. Consequently, they consider statements about them as referring, at most, to present constructs.These antirealists about the past are not, however, antirealists or skeptics about time or chronology. They accept, among other things, that present traces can be dated and statements about their temporal provenances are referring and truth-apt.I posit that an antirealist who accepts that at least some of the present traces can be truth-aptly dated while holding that these traces do not support knowledge about past events and circumstances commits herself to a radically skeptic stance. Otherwise, she would be diluting her position so that it will be hardly distinguishable from realism.This problem could be avoided if antirealists about the past would extend their antirealism to estimates of the age of present traces. Such a position, however, would imply a very drastic form of scientific antirealism.I conclude that the past’s inaccessibility is insufficient to support antirealism about the past, either as a part of moderate scientific antirealism or as a stand-alone position.

Journal

Journal for General Philosophy of Science – Springer Journals

Published: Dec 1, 2022

Keywords: Scientific realism; Realism about the past; Time; Chronology; Dating of traces

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