Presentism and Quantum Gravity

Bradley J Monton

Abstract

There is a philosophical tradition of arguing against presentism, the thesis that only presently existing things exist, on the basis of its incompatibility with fundamental physics. I am willing to grant that presentism is incompatible with special and general relativity, but I argue that presentism is not incompatible with quantum gravity, because there are some theories of quantum gravity that utilize a fixed foliation of spacetime. As part of the defense of my argument, I point out a flaw in Gödel’s modal argument for the ideality of time.