G E Moore’s Time Realism
Presentism, A-Theory, and the Ghost of Henry Sidgwick
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13772495Keywords:
History of analytic philosophy, Moore, Sidgwick, Russell, McTaggart, A-theory, B-theory, presentismAbstract
The ‘new realist’ G E Moore is hardly known as a metaphysician of time, yet I argue his 1910–11 lectures, later published as Some Main Problems of Philosophy, offer the first substantial English-language defence of presentism and the A-theory. This paper contextualises Moore’s positions, stressing his intellectual connections with J M E McTaggart and Bertrand Russell; explores his Common Sense metaphysics of time; and argues that his time realism owes a great debt to ‘old realist’ Henry Sidgwick.
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