Presentness

Abstract

Abstract The present is now, where we, the things we have experience of, and the things we act upon also are. The past and the future are somewhere else. In this chapter, the author argues that this fundamental ‘locational fact’ underpins the perceived prominence of presentness in our lives. The chapter elucidates a distinction between what the perceptual dimension of the present—which according to the author does not have any phenomenological distinctiveness, and the conceptual dimension of the present—which holds significant structural relevance within our narrative cognition. An error theoretic perspective on our linguistic and cognitive representations of the present is proposed and defended. The chapter asserts that our ordinary discourse and thought patterns concerning events and their presence are explicable by appealing to a narrative present.