In recent papers by Marc Depaepe and Daniel Trohler, philosophers of education are criticised for their tendency to address eternal questions in pursuit of timeless truths, with insufficient awareness of the genesis of the ideas they refer to and insensitivity to historical context. The suspicion of "presentism" in their approach is reinforced by their practice of speaking of figures of the past in the present tense. This paper takes issue with the characterisation of philosophy of education that both papers presume, suggesting that the field is different from and more varied than these authors imply. More specifically, the logic of the assumptions behind the criticism of usage of the present tense is questioned, and this leads to an exploration of different dimensions of time that casts light on the nature of history. (Contains 39 footnotes.)