Temporal language and temporal reality

Philosophical Quarterly 53 (212):380–391 (2003)
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Abstract

In response to a recent challenge that the New B-theory of Time argues invalidly from the claim that tensed sentences have tenseless truth conditions to the conclusion that temporal reality is tenseless, I argue that while early B-theorists may have relied on some such inference, New B-theorists do not. Giving tenseless truth conditions for tensed sentences is not intended to prove that temporal reality is tenseless. Rather, it is intended to undermine the A-theorist’s move from claims about the irreducibility of tensed language to the conclusion that temporal reality must be tensed. I then examine how A-theorists have used facts about language in attempting to establish their conclusions about the nature of temporal reality. I take the recent work of William Lane Craig and argue that he implicitly and illicitly moves from facts about temporal language to his conclusion that temporal reality is tensed.

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Heather Dyke
University of Otago

Citations of this work

Endurantism and Perdurantism.Nikk Effingham - 2012 - In Robert Barnard Neil Manson (ed.), Continuum Companion to Metaphysics. pp. 170.
Time's ontic voltage.Craig Callender - 2011 - In Adrian Bardon (ed.), The future of the philosophy of time. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 73-94.
Time, Metaphysics of.Natalja Deng - forthcoming - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Now is the time.M. J. Cresswell - 2006 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (3):311 – 332.

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References found in this work

The unreality of time.John Ellis McTaggart - 1908 - Mind 17 (68):457-474.
How Relativity Contradicts Presentism.Simon Saunders - 2002 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 50:277-.
Time, Reality & Experience.Craig Callender (ed.) - 2002 - Cambridge University Press.
Tensed Meaning.Heather Dyke - 2003 - Journal of Philosophical Research 28:65-81.

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