Akiko Frischhut (University of Genève)

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November 28 FRI — 14.30-16.30

Aula Seminari — Cortile Ghiacciaia, II floor (Via Festa del Perdono 7, Milano)

McTaggart and the Nature of Ontological Regress. A Case Study.

Abstract: This talk has two objectives. First, I shall present and analyse an entirely novel reconstruction of McTaggart’s infamous regress argument, which was designed to show that the passage of time leads into an infinite vicious regress. Second, I want to use the reconstructed McTaggartian regress as a case study to elucidate more about the nature of regresses. Looking at the regress in its novel form reveals some surprising new insights. The McTaggartian regress, I argue, is ontological and whether or not it is vicious depends on the structural features we allow reality to have.

More specifically, I argue that McTaggart’s argument is a variation of the general problem of change. McTaggart’s conception of temporal passage as qualitative change in terms of pastness, presentness and futurity implies that the change constituting passage must be merely relational. The regress, an infinite chain of ontologically dependent relational changes, ensues from applying the only available solution to the problem of change.

Ontological regresses come in two broad kinds. Infinitist regresses, non well-founded chains of dependency where each thing asymmetrically depends for its existence on the next, and coherentist regresses, where the dependency structures are circular or symmetrical. The McTaggartian regress, I shall show, is of the latter sort. Although the traditional consensus is that infinitist and coherentist structures are both vicious, this orthodox opinion has recently been challenged by several authors. There is a danger that discussions about these matters are perceived as simply trading on different intuitions, with no progress to be made. This might be particularly salient in the case of metaphysical coherentism. I hope to advance matters by using the McTaggartian regress as a case study, thereby bringing fresh arguments to an important debate that has been neglected for too long. Although most coherentist regresses are probably vicious, McTaggart’s regress, or my interpretation of it, may well be benign. One surprising conclusion to draw from this is that there may not be an answer for or against coherentist regresses that applies across the board. Instead, a more apt methodology requires an individual treatment of ontological regresses on a case by case basis.