Making Time: An Ontology of Temporal Fiat Objects

ABSTRACT In the social world, our lives are informed, impacted, and controlled by time. Behind this grand saying there is the phenomenon of making time . More precisely, there are acts and processes, largely conventional and oftentimes institutional, that create temporal fiat objects (TFOs for short). A TFO is an abstract entity set with temporal boundaries, much like a national park is a creatable spatial fiat object with spatial boundaries. In this paper, I construct an ontology of TFOs and argue that it is explanatorily useful for understanding how TFOs are created and maintained (often at the hands of those in power) and for solving justice issues that arise from TFOs generated in morally problematic ways. The explanatory utility of the theory provides one reason to believe that the theory is true. A comprehensive social metaphysics should make room for such temporal entities in the social world.