# Presentism and the A-theory **Abstract:** objects/maximal propositions – of a similar kind to that defended by Crisp (2007) is presentist but not A-theoretic. In more detail, the metaphysic that Rasmussen (2012: 273) recommends is: (1) Times are abstract objects/maximal propositions that bear primitive earlier than/later than relations to one another (2) There is always only one time that is true (3) Times change in a Cambridge way, such that a time that is 7 years earlier than a time that is true becomes 6 years earlier than a time that is true (4) Being present and presently existing are distinct: all times presently exist, but only one of them is present: in lieu of the latter we may say that ‘x is a time and x is true’ Rasmussen’s thought is this: the primitive earlier than/later than relations that obtain between abstract times can be used to reductively analyse the A-properties. Since we can analyse the A-properties in terms of B-relations, so we can reduce the A-properties to the B-relations – thus, presentists can deny (A). To give an example of such a reduction: suppose that time t is present Analysis Vol 0 | Number 0 | 2012 | pp. 1–8 doi:10.1093/analys/ans111 ß The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] 2 | jonathan tallant (and hence, true). Some other time, t*, ‘is future’. This futurity can be reductively analysed. The analsysis takes the form: t* is future iff t is true and t* is **Authors:** [[JONATHAN TALLANT]]