The evolutionary origins of tensed language and belief

Biology and Philosophy 26 (3):401-418 (2011)
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Abstract

I outline the debate in metaphysics between those who believe time is tensed and those who believe it is tenseless. I describe the terms in which this debate has been carried out, and the significance to it of ordinary tensed language and widespread common sense beliefs that time is tensed. I then outline a case for thinking that our intuitive beliefs about tense constitute an Adaptive Imaginary Representation (Wilson, in Biol Philos 5:37–62, 1990; Wilson, in Biol Philos 10:77–97, 1995). I also outline a case for thinking that our ordinary tensed beliefs and tensed language owe their tensed nature to its being adaptive to adopt a temporally self-locating perspective on reality. If these conclusions are right, then common sense intuitions and temporal language will be utterly misleading guides to the nature of temporal reality

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Heather Dyke
University of Otago

Citations of this work

Explaining Tensed Belief.Vasilis Tsompanidis - 2015 - In K. Paykin-Arroučs & C. Majolino (eds.), Telling Time: Tensed and Temporal Meaning Between Philosophy and Linguistics. Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 97-133.

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References found in this work

Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Don Ross, David Spurrett & John G. Collier.
Objective knowledge.Karl Raimund Popper - 1972 - Oxford,: Clarendon Press.
Ethical Intuitionism.Michael Huemer - 2005 - New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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