Why Existence Simpliciter?

Here Bill writes,

Let us now consider a concrete example, Winston Churchill. The gross facts or Moorean data are not in dispute. WC existed, but does not now exist. So far, no metaphysics. Just ordinary tensed English, and a bit of uncontroversial historical knowledge. Reflecting on the data, we note that some of what is said now about WC is true, and some false. WC is now the logical subject of both true and false predications (predicative statements). And this despite the fact that WC does not now exist. [1] At this point a philosophical problem arises for the presentist. On presentism, only that which presently exists exists simpliciter. What did exist and what will exist does not exist simpliciter. How can something that does not exist simpliciter be the logical subject of such presently true past-tensed contingent affirmative statements as 'WC smoked cigars'? [2] This is the question to which presentism has no good answer. It would be a very bad answer to say that the past-tensed sentence is true now because WC existed. For on presentism, WC is nothing; he is not just nothing now -- which is trivially true -- but simply nothing, i.e., nothing simpliciter. And if WC is simply nothing, then he is not 'there' (read existentially, not locatively) to be the logical subject of predications.

I suspect the sentences I have underlined are somewhat problematic for Bill.  Consider the sentences [1].  They have the form A despite B, with  

A =  WC is now the logical subject of both true and false predications.
B =  WC does not now exist.

Bill's expectation is that A cannot be true if B is true.  Yet it is.  The temptation is to weaken B to make it consistent with A.  So we grant WC existence simpliciter.  The latter is understood as consistent with inexistence now and grounds A.  This grounding is expressed in [2]:  WC must exist simpliciter for 'WC smoked cigars' to be true.  

Earlier in the piece Bill says,

To locate the bone of contention in the philosophy of time over which presentists and 'eternalists' fight, we must navigate, if we can, between the Scylla of self-contradiction and Charybdis of tautology. Mixed metaphors aside, the issue is whether the past exists simpliciter. When I say that the past is real, I mean that past items exist simpliciter. I do not mean that past items exist now -- which would be self-contradictory -- or that they existed -- which would be trivial. What I mean, and what the dispute is about, cannot be understood without this notion of existence simpliciter. And the issue is meaningful only if this notion is meaningful. So what is existence simpliciter?

Existence simpliciter is often introduced as a means of elucidating a non-trivial presentism. Bill claims that the idea is indispensable.   I have to disagree.  It seems to me that the idea benefits more the anti-presentist, especially if he has a direct reference theory of names in the background.   My kind of presentism may be trivial to state but it stands in opposition to such metaphysical gerrymandering.  But it leaves tricky questions to be faced:  How can we refer to past things if they are now non-existent?  How can truths about the past be possible if the past 'isn't there'? What do I mean by 'the reality of the past'? I am pushing the problem out of the philosophy of time and existence into another, broader region.

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