Existence in the present as an ontological problem

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to develop an ontological understanding and interpretation of the existence of real world objects in the present mode, to determine the essence, properties and ontological status of the Present. The author identifies and analyzes contradictions in various approaches to understanding being and reality in the present. The essence of the problem is the contradiction of the idea of the inactivity of the moment of the present time, which gives rise to its denial («there is no present») and the procedural representation of being, the idea of the duration of the processes, the course of the movement, which, as it is customary to think, in the present. The study is conducted mainly within the framework of realistic ontology, which recognizes the authenticity of the existence of real material things and social objects as single integrations. A phenomenological approach is also used to identify the forms and methods of the primary pre-reflexive given reality of the Present to human consciousness. At the same time, the methods of research are representation, comparison, ontological analysis, interpretation and reinterpretation of various interpretations of the Present and time as a whole. The article presents various interpretations of the essence of the Present. The theoretical contradictions of the concept of the idle Present, presented as one state of existence and its inconsistency with reality, are revealed and shown. The argument is given to the impossibility of realizing the existence of things and the world as a whole on the basis of the idea of the idle Present. The author justifies the idea of the existence of the Past in the present on the basis of a synthesis of various interpretations of the interpenetration of the reality of these temporary modes. The dilemma of the ratio of competing ideas about the inactivity of the Present and the movement taking place in it is solved by the provision that in the Present not a particular state of the world continues (lasts), but the process of changing these states itself, which «moves» the Present to the last place in the non-spatial temporal order of successive states. Scientific novelty in solving the problem is manifested in justifying the modification of the idea of being in the Present within the framework of the dynamic concept of time by the provision on various forms and methods of the existence of the Past in the Present. The author concludes that such synthesis is possible and necessary.

Keywords

• modes of time
• present
• past reality
• ontology
• being
• past in present