ABSTRACT
This chapter answers the obvious worry: Is the formulation of the deflationary theory changing the subject? The answer is no. Bringing the succession of events and passage together is not trivial, because succession is an instance of temporal extension. This is different from spatial extension. The latter is static, but the former, dynamic. A succession of events is enough for our experience of passage—one does not need to invoke a special present or changing moments of time. The point is not only to lend credibility to the view that deflationary passage fits with our temporal phenomenology. Temporal relations, notably the successive before–after causal relations, hold objectively. There are frame-invariant lapses of time measured by the proper time along the timelike worldline: events succeed each other along the worldline. This is contrary to the subjective or idealist metaphysics of time, which heavily emphasize the human point of view. Relationism is a realist theory, which does not indicate the atemporality of physical reality.
