Ingarden’s Ontology of Time and Process and Presentism

Abstract

Presentism is described as the theory according to which there is an objective time flow and that there is neither past nor future. Roman Ingarden’s ontology of time does not seem to be presentist then, since it supposedly rejects the second component of that doctrine. In this article, I show that this view misconstrues the spirit of Ingarden’s account, and I defend a certain ontology of time (inspired by Ingarden’s works) against several objections (e.g. the ‘how fast does time flow’ question). Since becoming of a process (in the sense of its mode of existence) is just this process’s time, I consider in turn several possible responses to the charge of an infinite regress leveled against Ingarden’s ontology of process. If his original position is set aside, two extreme proposals will remain: the rebuttal of the objectual aspect of a process and giving up the categorial difference between objects enduring through time and processes (i.e. accepting perdurantism). While not discussing in detail the former one, I point out that the adequacy of perdurantism is an open question: in particular, reasons appealing to problems of material constitution, given by perdurantists, are unsatisfactory.