Memory, McTaggart and the Descriptive Metaphysics of Time

In the debate over the question whether time passes in some objective, mind-independent sense, as it has developed over the last half century or so, those who have argued against objective passage have typically conceded that our ordinary conceptual scheme represents the presentness of events as non-perspectival, while insisting that in reality presentness is purely perspectival. To employ P.F. Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, we could express this position as proposing a discrepancy between the descriptive and the revisionary metaphysics of time. Deniers of time’s passage have also typically (though not invariably) appealed, as a key part of their case, to McTaggart’s contention that the idea of non-perspectival presentness, together with the associated ideas of non-perspectival pastness and futurity, lead to contradiction. This combination of views, however, implies that our ordinary conceptual scheme is incoherent in this respect. The implausibility of such a conclusion should prompt a reconsideration of how our ordinary conceptual scheme does represent time. This paper uses an exploration of episodic memory as a way of motivating the view that we naturally represent presentness and pastness as perspectival. It goes on to ask whether this temporal case study has implications for other instances where there are alleged discrepancies between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics