What does a presentist see when she looks at photographs of dead relatives? (original) (raw)

The objective of this paper is to bring to the foreground some metaphysical commitments present in the debate about the relation between photography and the past. I will try to answer the question: what does a presentist see when she looks at photographs of dead relatives? According to presentism, if a particular object does not exist in the present, it does not exist simpliciter. For this reason, in Priorian presentism, there can be no de re (singular) propositions about past particulars. Part of the requirement for singularity would be played by reality, which suffers metaphysical restrictions from the passage of time. After outlining the metaphysical and semantical debate about presentism, I will briefly explore some theories of photography and separate them in two groups: de re theories that accept that through photography we indirectly perceive the past object itself and de dicto theories that deny it. Then, I will connect those theories to the problem faced by presentism, show...