Is There Backward Generation in the Institutional Realm?

Over the last decade it has been pointed out by several philosophers that not all Status Function Declarations are synchronic: some such declarations are directed toward the absolute past. Such Status Function Declarations are perplexing if one is an ontic realist with respect to institutional properties and states of affairs. If successful, such Status Function Declarations seem to change the absolute past; at the very least, they seem to involve some form of absolute backward generation. Both consequences look problematic: the notions that the absolute past can change and that there is absolute backward generation are both regularly accused of being contradictory or entailing implausible metaphysics. In this paper, I argue that both issues can be avoided if the ‘results’ of absolutely backward-directed declarations are analysed in terms of mere Cambridge changes realised in B-time. A key upshot of the account is that ‘institutional properties’ are neither identifiable nor perfectly correlated with enablements and constraints, contrary to what is sometimes argued in the literature.