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Cite
Cite
Ross P Cameron, Summary, Analysis, Volume 77, Issue 4, October 2017, Pages 775–777, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anx142
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Extract
According to the B-Theory, the God’s-eye perspective on reality is an atemporal one: it describes how things are across time – this happens, then that, then this. The B-Theorist holds that the ultimate account of reality does not change. Change is simply variation from one temporal point of reality to another. How things are across time does not change.
According to the most popular A-Theory,1 presentism, the God’s-eye perspective on reality is a temporal one: it describes how things are now. This is what is happening now, although that did happen and this will happen. The presentist holds that the ultimate account of reality changes. Since different things did and will happen, different accounts of reality were and will be true.
Moving Spotlight theories attempt to blend elements of these two views. The standard version – a view probably nobody has held, but which is what people typically have in mind when they talk about the Moving Spotlight – combines the B-Theorist’s atemporal description of reality with the presentist’s claim that the ultimate account of reality changes. On this ‘enriched B-Theory’ version of the Moving Spotlight, we take the B-Theorist’s atemporal account of reality and add to it a further fact: that one time (and hence its goings on) is present. This ultimate account of how reality is changes, but only with respect to which time (and hence, which goings on) is present.2
