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This is a classic example of how the ambiguities of language can create problems which don't exist. The "now" must remain elusive by its very nature, because the label must always be applied retrospectively. It is an example of the reflexive fallacy: since the "now" is a concept about time that is also subject to time, its meaning must constantly shift. We can do the same to the past if we take it to mean everything that has ever happened, or to the future if we take it to mean everything that ever can happen (if we assume that every occurence is negation, that is, the exclusion of another state of affairs).
So the ideas of the past, present and the future are relatively unproblematic. It is their USE - and not their meaning - which shifts. The presumption of such a dichotomy constitutes a refutation of Deconstruction, which says that there is only use and that as such 'meaning' constantly defers. I say that it is the task of philosophy - whether it is ultimately a quixotic one or not - to fight against the bewitchment of the intellect by means of language. And in order to do so we must assume an unchanging, knowable, and residually Platonic discursive realm of some description, in accordance with which we are constantly trying to sculpt our language.
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