perhaps most ordinary people, whether past or present, lack particularly good
evidence that they are present. Ifind this upshot more troubling than Cameron does.
But it also not clear whether those who have done the epistemic work arrive at
knowledge at the end of the day. Spot that theory T is true. Definitely, I am in a better
epistemic state when I come to learn that T is better than its competitors. But it is
hard for to me see why this state must be knowledge, especially if the reason why
T ends up on top is that it does better merely with consonance with ordinary belief.
Consonance with ordinary belief is not an intrinsic theoretical virtue, but rather is
virtuous only for the following reasons. First, it is difficult to challenge all of our beliefs
at one time for if we give up too much, we give up the criteria which we use to judge
other beliefs. So some degree of theoretical conservatism is reasonable.^66 Second,
widespread ordinary belief often tracks widespread ordinary perceptions or seemings
more generally. And perceptions, seemings, and intuitions are evidence, and conson-
ance with our evidence is intrinsically important when assessing a theory. We could
tie the phenomenological response to the appeal to theoretical virtue by claiming that,
in this case, widespread ordinary belief that we are present is based on widespread
perception that we are present. But then why embrace the more complicated appeal to
theoretical virtues as opposed to the much simpler phenomenological response?
Let me close with a discussion of the indexical response, a version of which has
been defended by Bricker (2006), who focuses on the status of actuality rather than
presence. According to this response, we need to distinguish our concept of being
present from the ontological status of being present, and moreover hold that the
concept of being present is an indexical concept while the status of being present is a
non-indexical absolute status. This doesn’t mean that the concept of being present as
used by the metaphysician just is the purely indexical concept of being now that is the
temporal analogue of being here. Rather, what makes the concept of presentness
indexical is that part of what it includes is the information that (i) I am present and
(ii) everything“ontologically like”me is also present.
What is it forxto be ontologically likey? A remark by Bricker (2006: 61) suggestsx
is ontologically likeyif and only ifxbelongs to the same fundamental ontological
kind asy. But Bricker (2006: n. 51) wants to allow that objects can fall under more
than one fundamental kind. This suggests that what Bricker should mean by this
expression is thatxis ontologically likeyjust in casexandyfall under exactly the
same fundamental ontological kinds. (Supposexandy’s falling under just one kind
sufficed for ontological likeness, and that kinds can crisscross. A past individual and a
present individual are both individuals though neither are sets; so there is one
fundamental kind that they both fall under; so they are ontologically like each
other; so they are both present. That’s no good.)
(^66) Compare with Lewis (1986: 133–5).