Abstract
It is customary in current philosophy of time to distinguish between an A- (or tensed) and a B- (or tenseless) theory of time. It is also customary to distinguish between an old B-theory of time, and a new B-theory of time. We may say that the former holds both semantic atensionalism and ontological atensionalism, whereas the latter gives up semantic atensionalism and retains ontological atensionalism. It is typically assumed that the B-theorists have been induced by advances in the philosophy of language and related A-theorists’ criticisms to acknowledge that semantic atensionalism can hardly stand, but have also maintained that what is essential for the B-theory is ontological atensionalism, which can be independently defended. Here it is argued that the B-theorists have been too quick in abandoning semantic atensionalism: they can still cling to it.
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Notes
Or truth conditions, in a certain sense of “truth condition” (see e.g., Smith 1993, p. 12).
In the vast literature on these topics tensed and tenseless sentences are often called “A-sentences” and “B-sentences” and an analogous terminology is used for propositions. As we shall see below, we shall reserve the terms “A-sentences” (“B-sentences”) for those sentences that prima facie look tensed (tenseless), leaving it open whether or not they are really tensed (tenseless). A similar terminology will be assumed for propositions.
Even though Smith’s arguments regarding token-reflexivity are of interest to us here primarily as addressed to the old B-theory, it is worth noting that at least some of them were also directed against the new B-theory and have convinced Mellor, possibly the most influential new B-theorist in the last few decades, and presumably many others, that token-reflexivity is not a viable semantic road. Accordingly, Mellor (1981) has moved from a version of the new B-theory based on token-reflexivity to a version based on a date approach (1988). We surmise that at least some of the counterarguments that we shall present against Smith in order to vindicate the token-reflexive old B-theory could be adapted to an attempt to rescue a token-reflexive new B-theory, but this issue is beyond the scope of this paper.
As it will be apparent below, especially in Sect. 7, some of the objections to the old B-theory presuppose mind-independent propositions and it will be interesting to see that these objections can be defused without abandoning this presupposition. However, although our defense of the old B-theory of time employs the assumption of mind-independent propositions, one of us (Oaklander) is reluctant to countenance them, and prefers to construe propositions, or something in their neighborhood that can perform their functions (for example, as truth bearers), as mental contents in states of consciousness. Oaklander’s reluctance to accept mind-independent propositions and Oaklander’s alternative are not pertinent to the purpose of this paper and so will not be discussed. It is worth noting, however, that he has abandoned the view held earlier (Oaklander 2004, p. 254) that “‘is true’ and ‘is false’ apply to sentence-tokens” since, apart from thought, sentence tokens are just marks on paper or sounds without meaning or truth value.
Paul (1997) has argued that a new B-theorist can reply to some of Smith’s criticisms by adopting the type-oriented approach, but Smith (1999) has rebutted this. We shall not take up this strand of the debate, since, given the perspective we adopted, we’ll rather be interested in showing that, from the point of view of the token-oriented approach, the old B-theorist can answer to Smith. Whether this is possible from the standpoint of the type-oriented approach is something one might also want to investigate, but it will not be pursued here.
We may want to add that tensed propositions attribute to something, whether implicitly or explicitly, an A-property such as ‘present,’ ‘past,’ or ‘future,’ or even a metric A-property such ‘three hours ago’, ‘yesterday’ and the like (Mellor 1983, p. 363).
The old B-theorists seemed to take a success in this enterprise as an argument for the B-theoretic ontology, but it is not necessary to do so. One can regard a defense of the eliminability of tensed sentences and propositions not so much as an argument for the B-theory, but just as a defense of the B-theory against A-theorists who argue against the B-theory by claiming that tensed sentences and propositions cannot be given up. Of course, to demonstrate that a certain argument or set of arguments against a view are invalid, is not to demonstrate that the view is true.
Following the tradition, we are using “translation” and “paraphrase” as synonymous, although perhaps the latter term is preferable, since the former is best used when two different tongues, such as English and Italian, are involved.
See e.g., Smith (1994, p. 18), where this view is attributed to Russell, Smart, Reichenbach and Goodman. It should be clear that this is a sort of rational or ideal reconstruction that does not correspond to the letter of what many old B-theorist would have said, for many of them (e.g., Goodman and Quine) explicitly rejected the existence of propositions. Moreover, the debate over whether prima facie tensed sentences are translatable into tenseless ones has typically focused on sentence types, rather than on sentence tokens (and perhaps has suffered sometime from some ambiguity in this respect), or at least it has not always clearly distinguished between talk of types and talk of tokens when it would have been appropriate. In the following, we shall try to do this explicitly.
Frege (1918–1919, p. 309) expresses this idea in a well-known passage as follows: “The words ‘This tree is covered with green leaves’ are not sufficient by themselves to constitute the expression of thought, for the time of utterance is involved as well. Without the time-specification thus given we have not a complete thought, i.e., we have no thought at all. Only a sentence with the time-specification filled out, a sentence complete in every respect, expresses a thought.” Something similar is argued for by Broad (1921, pp. 147–148), although he accepts the token-reflexive approach (p. 149).
Interestingly, the token-reflexive approach is attributed by McTaggart (1927, Ch. 33) to Russell, without however referring to any work of the latter.
Following current usage (see e.g., Smith 1993), we may also say, for brevity’s sake, “this utterance” rather than “the utterance of this token.”.
The first of these two analyses can be attributed to Reichenbach and the second to Smart (see Smith 1993, p. 72).
(M1), (M2) and (M3) are put in terms of truth conditions by Mellor as follows. Corresponding to (M1), there is Mellor’s claim that having the same truth conditions is a necessary condition for two sentences’ having the same meaning, and, corresponding to (M2) and (M3), there is Mellor’s claim that tenseless and tensed sentences have different truth conditions.
As we shall see below, Gale and others have tried to argue that token-reflexivity amounts to tensedness, but not in a convincing way.
How is it the case that Mellor reaches a different result? He takes (M3) for granted by ruling out the use of token-reflexive terms in tenseless sentences (see below) and argues for (M2) in a way that disregards the possibility that prima facie tensed sentences do not express propositions. Let us see how. Thesis (M2) is supported by taking a paradigmatic example of a prima facie tensed sentence type in order to show that any attempt to translate it with a tenseless sentence is doomed to fail. This is the example:
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(ME) it is now 1980.
Mellor then looks for the best candidate in an attempt to translate (ME) in tenseless terms. Potential candidates are not allowed to involve “token-reflexive names or indexicals” (p. 74), as noted above. Mellor thus appeals to a singular term “S” that is supposed to refer to a certain token of (ME) without being a token-reflexive name or description and comes up with this best candidate:
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(ME′) S occurs in 1980.
Clearly, for a token of (ME) to be true, it must occur in 1980; a token of (ME) occurring, say, in 1990, is false. In contrast, all tokens of (ME′) have the same truth-value: if S was uttered in 1980, then any token of (ME′), no matter when uttered, is true. And, if S was uttered at another time, say in 1979, any token of (M’) is false, no matter when uttered. Mellor generalizes as follows: “Obviously, nothing tenseless will translate tokens R and S, if ‘R occurs in Cambridge’ and ‘S occurs in 1980’ do not. And if simple tensed sentences such as these have no tenseless translation, then no tensed sentence does. The fact, I think, needs arguing no further, least of all to opponents of tenseless time” (1981, p. 75; in order to draw an analogy between temporal and spatial indexicals, Mellor considers, in addition to (ME), “Cambridge is here” and takes “R” to denote a token of this sentence). There is a shift in this quotation from the issue of translating sentence types to that of translating sentence tokens. And it also seems as if a token (e.g., the token S of (ME)) is meant to be translated by a type (“S occurs in 1980”). But we can assume that Mellor means to say that the sentence type (ME) cannot be translated by the sentence type (ME′) and, correspondingly, no token of (ME) can be translated by a token of (ME′).
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Analogous considerations can be made on behalf of the psychological approach, and perhaps some might even urge that the latter is more appropriate to characterize tacit beliefs that do not involve communication. From this perspective, for example, what moves Tom to get to the lecture is a belief to the effect that, this perception of the clock’s striking 1 p.m. is simultaneous with the clock’s striking 1 p.m. Here, however, as noted, we focus on the token-reflexive approach. Oaklander (2004, p. 286) seems to see that this approach does not fall prey to the cognitive value argument but, rather than pressing this point and accordingly defending the old B-theory, proposes a “massive error theory,” to be discussed below.
It is nowadays fashionable to take all indexicals to be directly referential, along the lines of proposed by Castañeda (1967, p. 86) as follows: “Reference to an entity by means of an indicator is purely referential, i.e., it is a reference that attributes no property to the entity in question.” It is worth noting however that one can take a token-reflexive term such as “this token” to be directly referential, without thereby being committed to a directly referential approach to the indexical terms commonly encountered in natural language, such as “I,” “you,” “here,” etc. One could still provide for them a descriptivist account, as attempted, e.g., in Orilia (2010). In fact, Reichenbach (1947) himself provided descriptivist analyses of these expressions by relying on the direct referentiality of “this token.”
Dyke (2007) distinguishes two versions of the new B-theory, on the basis of how the strategy of offering tenseless truth-conditions is understood. According to what she calls the truth-conditional version, which she chastises because guilty of the representational fallacy just like the old B-theory, the strategy aims at proving ontological atensionalism in an attempt to draw ontological conclusions from linguistic facts. According to what she calls the truthmaker version, which she approves, the strategy has a mere ancillary role, for ontological atensionalism is reached by other means, such as appealing to McTaggart’s argument or to the special theory of relativity (pp. 449–452). Dyke attributes the truth-conditional version to all the B-theorists cited above except the Mellor of Real Time II, to whom she attributes the truthmaker version (p. 437, p. 442, p. 444).
Mellor prefers to say “is simultaneous with t,” rather than “occurs at t.” At any rate, in talking of times Mellor does not intend to be committed to primitive irreducible times and allows for the option of considering them as depending on events and their mutual B-relations, in line with a relationalist view of time (1998, p. 34).
Tensed propositions are characterized by Mellor as “tc-functions,” (1998, p. 59) i.e., functions that, given a moment (at which a certain sentence token occurs) yield as value a tenseless truth-condition (of the sentence token in question). However, he also sees propositions, in line with the tradition, as truth-bearers, meanings of sentences and contents of propositional attitudes (pp. 23–24). As noted by Oaklander (2004, p. 282), it is problematic to view propositions, so understood, as functions. See, however, Mellor (1998, p. 60).
Some lack of precision in Mellor’s statement of his view and of the arguments for it in Real Time (1981) have provided the input for Smith’s attack, but a careful use of the type/token distinction may perhaps allow for a coherent description of Mellor’s position (Oaklander 2004, Ch. 24).
Most of Smith’s arguments can also be found in his earlier 1987; for present purposes, it will suffice to refer to Smith (1993).
Smith’s arguments, to the extent that have token-reflexivity as target, also apply to the new B-theory in its token-reflexive guise and thus Dyke (2002, 2007) has tried a systematic response to these objections that bear some analogies to the one we propose here. However, for the most part we have to follow different strategies, for Dyke replies to Smith from a point of view according to which sentence tokens are the primary truth-bearers and there are no language independent propositions. In contrast, we are assuming propositions as main truth-bearers.
Actually Smith focuses on “it was true that the era devoid of linguistic utterances is present,” but bringing in the word “true” leads to irrelevant complications that we can set aside for present purposes.
In discussing this problem, Smith lets his case rest on a restricted notion of uttering, according to which it does not apply to silently thought mental tokens. But there is no good reason to take uttering in this narrow sense and by seizing on this Dyke (2002, pp. 297–299) has too easy a job in countering Smith. Here however I reconstruct Smith’s objection in a way that does not depend on the restricted notion of uttering. As a matter of fact, as we shall see in discussing the next problem, Smith himself recognizes that uttering can be understood in a broad sense that allows for the utterance of silent mental tokens.
Actually, at the page we have indicated, Smith focuses on a different example, involving a hurricane rather than a burning forest, but this is of course immaterial.
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