The unreal future

Theoria 44 (3):157-179 (1978)
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Abstract

Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would he balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun. But the future has no such reality (as the pictured past and the perceived present possess); the future is but a figure of speech, a specter of thought.

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John Burgess
Princeton University

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References found in this work

Past, Present and Future.Arthur N. Prior - 1967 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Counterpart theory and quantified modal logic.David Lewis - 1968 - Journal of Philosophy 65 (5):113-126.
Papers on time and tense.Arthur Norman Prior - 1968 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Per F. V. Hasle.
Dilemmas.Gilbert Ryle - 1954 - Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press.

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