How can present facts ground truths about the past? Capraru’s answer relies on dispositional essentialism — objects have inherent powers to leave traces, and those traces are present.
His unique twist: he tries to reconcile presentism with . Most philosophers think relativity undermines presentism because simultaneity is relative. Capraru argues that one can define a metaphysically privileged foliation of spacetime (a way of slicing it into "nows") without contradicting relativity, as long as this foliation is not empirically detectable. This is a bold, neo-Lorentzian move.
(b. 1973) is a philosopher working primarily in metaphysics , philosophy of time , and ontology . He is Romanian by birth but has spent most of his academic career in Germany. He is known for a rigorous, analytical style, often engaging with both contemporary analytic metaphysics and the history of philosophy (especially Kant and medieval philosophy).
Capraru pushes presentism to its logical extreme: not only do past and future things not exist, but (being past, being future) are not real properties of events. Instead, he analyzes temporal language using token-reflexive or indexical semantics, but anchored to a single, dynamically moving present.
One of Capraru's most notable contributions is his research into . In the landmark paper Adversarial Sensor Attack on LiDAR-based Perception in Autonomous Driving , Capraru and his colleagues investigated how LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems—the primary depth-sensing tools for self-driving cars—can be manipulated.
: Moving beyond laboratory settings to test how sensors perform in "edge cases," such as heavy rain , fog, or high-traffic familiar roads where driver distraction often peaks. Collaborative Impact
(2019) — Develops a theory of truthmakers using only present entities, appealing to powers and potentialities of objects to ground past-directed truths.
He is also sympathetic to (David Lewis-style) but only insofar as it doesn’t conflict with his temporal views. He has written on counterfactuals and dispositions , arguing for a presentist-friendly account.
Capraru is a in method — he believes metaphysics should be continuous with science, but not reducible to physics. He is willing to posit non-empirical facts (like a preferred frame) if they help solve metaphysical puzzles, but he insists on consistency with empirical findings.
He is also interested in how we can paraphrase apparently quantifying statements about the past (e.g., "There were dinosaurs") into statements that only quantify over present entities (e.g., "There are dinosaur fossils and traces, etc."). This is a classic presentist strategy, and Capraru defends it against objections about truthmakers.
How can present facts ground truths about the past? Capraru’s answer relies on dispositional essentialism — objects have inherent powers to leave traces, and those traces are present.
His unique twist: he tries to reconcile presentism with . Most philosophers think relativity undermines presentism because simultaneity is relative. Capraru argues that one can define a metaphysically privileged foliation of spacetime (a way of slicing it into "nows") without contradicting relativity, as long as this foliation is not empirically detectable. This is a bold, neo-Lorentzian move.
(b. 1973) is a philosopher working primarily in metaphysics , philosophy of time , and ontology . He is Romanian by birth but has spent most of his academic career in Germany. He is known for a rigorous, analytical style, often engaging with both contemporary analytic metaphysics and the history of philosophy (especially Kant and medieval philosophy). richard capraru
Capraru pushes presentism to its logical extreme: not only do past and future things not exist, but (being past, being future) are not real properties of events. Instead, he analyzes temporal language using token-reflexive or indexical semantics, but anchored to a single, dynamically moving present.
One of Capraru's most notable contributions is his research into . In the landmark paper Adversarial Sensor Attack on LiDAR-based Perception in Autonomous Driving , Capraru and his colleagues investigated how LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems—the primary depth-sensing tools for self-driving cars—can be manipulated. How can present facts ground truths about the past
: Moving beyond laboratory settings to test how sensors perform in "edge cases," such as heavy rain , fog, or high-traffic familiar roads where driver distraction often peaks. Collaborative Impact
(2019) — Develops a theory of truthmakers using only present entities, appealing to powers and potentialities of objects to ground past-directed truths. This is a classic presentist strategy
He is also sympathetic to (David Lewis-style) but only insofar as it doesn’t conflict with his temporal views. He has written on counterfactuals and dispositions , arguing for a presentist-friendly account.
Capraru is a in method — he believes metaphysics should be continuous with science, but not reducible to physics. He is willing to posit non-empirical facts (like a preferred frame) if they help solve metaphysical puzzles, but he insists on consistency with empirical findings.
He is also interested in how we can paraphrase apparently quantifying statements about the past (e.g., "There were dinosaurs") into statements that only quantify over present entities (e.g., "There are dinosaur fossils and traces, etc."). This is a classic presentist strategy, and Capraru defends it against objections about truthmakers.