Paralleling the formal derivation of general relativity as a flat spacetime theory, we introduce in addition a preferred temporal foliation. The physical interpretation of the formalism is considered in the context of 5-dimensional “parametrized” and 4-dimensional preferred frame contexts. In the former case, we suggest that our earlier proposal of unconcatenated parametrized physics requires that the dependence on τ be rather slow. In the 4-dimensional case, we consider and tentatively reject several areas of physics that might require a preferred foliation, (...) but find a need for one in the process (“flowing”) theory of time. We then suggest why such a foliation might reasonably be unobservable. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

I consider whether the self-ascription theory can succeed in providing a tenseless (B-theoretic) account of tensed belief and timely action. I evaluate an argument given by William Lane Craig for the conclusion that the self-ascription account of tensed belief entails a tensed theory (A-theory) of time. I claim that how one formulates the selfascription account of tensed belief depends upon whether one takes the subject of selfascription to be a momentary person-stage or an enduring person. I provide two different formulations (...) of the self-ascription account of tensed belief, one that is compatible with a perdurantist account of persons and the other that is compatible with an endurantist account of persons. I argue that a self-ascription account of tensed beliefs for enduring subjects most plausibly involves the self-ascription of relations rather than properties. I argue that whether one takes the subject of self-ascription to be a momentary personstage or an enduring person, the self-ascription theory provides a plausible B-theoretic account of how tensed belief and timely action are possible. (shrink)

In this paper, presented at an APA colloquium in Boston on December 28, 1994, it is argued that Ruth Barcan Marcus' 1961 article on Modalities and Intensional Languages originated many of the key ideas of the New Theory of Reference that have often been attributed to Saul Kripke and others. For example, Marcus argued that names are directly referential and are not equivalent to contingent descriptions, that names are rigid designators, and that identity sentences with co-referring names are necessary if (...) true. She also first presented the modal argument that names are directly referential, the epistemic argument that names are directly referential, and the argument that there area posteriori necessities. (shrink)

Since the early part of this century there has been a considerable amount of discussion of the question 'Does time pass?'. A useful way of approaching the debate over the passage of time is to consider the following thesis: The space-time thesis (SPT): Time is similar to the dimensions of space in at least this one respect: there is no set of properties such that (i) these properties are possessed by time, (ii) these properties are not possessed by any dimension (...) of space, and (iii) in virtue of time's possession of these properties it is true to say that time passes. Those who say that time does not pass generally want to affirm something like SPT. But those, on the other hand, who say that time does pass generally want to deny SPT. Of course, SPT is, as it stands, a mere skeleton of a thesis. It needs to be fleshed out. What could the relevant properties be? Why exactly would it be that in virtue of time's possession of these properties it is true to say that time passes? What exactly would it mean to say that time passes? These are all matters that require considerable discussion. The aim of this paper, however, is to take up some linguistic issues that have been considered central to the debate over the passage of time. There are two main reasons why I think it is appropriate to discuss these linguistic issues independently of the relevant metaphysical issues. The first reason is historical: many of the writers who have taken up the issue of whether or not time passes have begun their discussions by focusing on linguistic.. (shrink)

In this paper I consider two strategies for providing tenseless truth-conditions for tensed sentences: the token-reflexive theory and the date theory. Both theories have faced a number of objections by prominent A-theorists such as Quentin Smith and William Lane Craig. Traditionally, these two theories have been viewed as rival methods for providing truth-conditions for tensed sentences. I argue that the debate over whether the token-reflexive theory or the date theory is true has arisen from a failure to distinguish between conditions (...) for the truth of tensed tokens and conditions for the truth of propositions expressed by tensed tokens. I demonstrate that there is a true formulation of the token-reflexive theory that provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of tensed tokens, and there is a true formulation of the date theory that provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of propositions expressed by tensed tokens. I argue that once the views are properly formulated, the A-theorist’s objections fail to make their mark. However, I conclude by claiming that even though there is a true formulation of the token-reflexive theory and a true formulation of the date theory, the New B-theory nonetheless fails to provide a complete account of the truth and falsity of tensed sentences. (shrink)

Most of us would want to say that it is true that Socrates taught Plato. According to realists about past facts,1 this is made true by the fact that there is, located in the past, i.e., earlier than now, at least one real event that is the teaching of Plato by Socrates. Presentists, however, in denying that past events and facts exist2 cannot appeal to such facts to make their past-tensed statements true. So what is a presentist to do?

I begin by giving reasons to accept the block-universe view, the strongly supported by physics view that we live in a four-dimensional world. According to it, the past and the future are as real as the present. As a result, it seems that the future is determined in the sense that what will be the case will necessarily be the case. In the dissertation, I examine whether we have to accept this consequence. I show that we do not have to (...) bite the bullet: the future might be both real and contingent. I first start to consider modal realism (possible futures are real) as a possible solution. However, I propose then another account, actualist (positing the reality of only one possible world: the space-time we live in). This solution relies on a conventionalist theory about metaphysical modality (Sidelle, 1989). It states that modal modality is purely conventional. In combination with a realist interpretation of natural modality (causal and/or nomological), this framework allows me to propose that the future is conventionally closed and naturally contingent. In this view, the necessity of the future holds in virtue of linguistic conventions and then is conventionally necessary. But this is a distinct phenomenon from the natural contingency of the future: the future is naturally contingent because there are mind-independent probabilistic relations holding between the present and the future. This solution has strong consequences: most importantly, an anti-realist view about ordinary objects and physical particles. I end up by presenting and arguing in favour of the general image of the world that comes out from these views. (shrink)

Concerning the versions of the Tenseless Theory of Time, the Old Btheory has two: the Date-analysis version and the Token-reflexive version, while the New B-theory has three: the Date-analysis, the Token-reflexive and the Sentence-type versions. Each of these five versions of the B-theory has received serious attacks from the A-theorists, some of whom even claim that the tenseless theory “though still widely held, is a theory in retreat” (Craig 1996), and that “if Quentin Smith (1993) delivered the mortal blow to (...) the New B-Theory of Language then Laurie Paul (1997) has written its obituary” (Craig 1999). In this paper, by making more precise some key notions involved in the formulation of a tenseless theory – in particular, two notions of truth conditions, two notions of meaning and two notions of translation are distinguished – I have come up with a single B-thesis for the B-theory. When charitably interpreted, the two versions of the old theory and the three versions of the new theory can all be regarded as special ways of presenting the same B-thesis, and the various A-attacks raised against these versions can then be resolved in a systematic way. (shrink)

Tenseless theories of time entail that earlierthan, later than and simultaneous with (i.e.,McTaggart's `B-series') are the only temporalproperties exemplified by events. Such theories oftencome under attack for being unable to satisfactorilyaccount for tensed language. In this essay I arguethat tenseless theories of time are capable of twofeats that critics, such as Quentin Smith, argue arebeyond their grasp: (1) They can coherently explainthe impossibility of translating all tensed sentencesby tenseless counterparts; (2) They can account forcertain obviously valid entailment relations betweentensed sentence (...) types. In analyzing tensed entailmentrelations tenselessly, I favor a date analysis oftensed language over a token-reflexive theory. Theupshot is that tenseless theories of time are notundermined by the linguistic facts. (shrink)

Time is what clocks are used to measure. Information about time tells the durations of events and when they occur and which events happen before which others, so time plays a very significant role in the universe’s structure, including the structure of our personal lives. But carefully describing time’s properties has led to many unresolved issues, both philosophical and scientific.

Human beings seem to capture time and the temporal properties of events and things in thought by having beliefs usually expressed with statements using tense, or notions such as ‘now’, ‘past’ or ‘future’. Tensed beliefs like these seem indispensable for correct reasoning and timely action. For instance, my belief that my root canal is over seems inexpressible with a statement that does not use tense or a temporal indexical. However, the dominant view on the nature of time is that it (...) forms, with space, a four-dimensional continuum where time does not encompass private perspectives or an absolute, fixed present. This ‘tenseless’ theory of time encounters a challenge in integrating tensed belief, because it cannot easily explain what constitutes a tensed belief in a tenseless world and how such a belief works inside our cognitive network to bring about the actions it does. Providing such an account is the main goal of this dissertation. -/- I argue here that the correct way to proceed would be to utilize philosophical theories dealing with indexicality, as the puzzling features of tensed belief are shared with beliefs expressed by first-person or spatial indexicals. In chapters II and III I expand the dominant theories about indexicality (Lewis, Perry, Kaplan) and apply them to tensed belief. I show that each is in certain respects incomplete or inadequate. -/- My preferred account critiques the preceding theories as mis-attributing the indexicality involved to a fully conceptual element in the way people think about time. I argue that we should instead connect tensed belief to not fully conceptual elements thought. For support I turn to work in perceptual psychology that connects beliefs about space to perceptions of spatial features. In chapter IV I develop an analogous argument about temporal thought and discuss how mental representations involved in perceptions are constitutively related to the formation and preservation of tensed beliefs. Combining this story with a tenseless theory of time should give us a complete, metaphysically uncontroversial, account of the way a tensed belief functions in reasoning and produces timely action. (shrink)

New B-Theorists of language, while conceding the untranslatability of tensed sentences by tenseless sentences, deny that the ineliminability of tense implies the reality of tensed facts. Thus, New BTheorist Nathan Oaklander explains, For a variety of reasons, ... recent defenders of the tenseless view have come to embrace the thesis that tensed sentences cannot be translated by tenseless ones without loss of meaning. Nevertheless, recent detensers have denied that the ineliminability of tensed language and thought entails the reality of temporal (...) properties. ... Tensed discourse is indeed necessary for timely action, but tensed facts are not, since the truth conditions of tensed sentences can be expressed in a tenseless meta-language that describes unchanging temporal relations between and among events. (shrink)

Quentin Smith has argued that the new tenseless theory of time is faced with insurmountable problems and should be abandoned in favour of the tensed theory of time. Smith;s main argument attacks the fundamental premise of the tenseless theory: that tenseless truth conditions for tokens of tensed sentences adequately capture the meaning of tensed sentences. His position is that tenseless truth conditions cannot explain the logical relations between tensed sentences, thus the tensed theory must be accepted. Against Smith, this paper (...) adopts an alternative approach to the explanation of the entailment relations between sentences which contain indexicals. The approach drops the reliance upon tokens and instead relies on the evaluation of sentence types with respect to a context rather than upon actual or possible utterances of tokens of the types. This (new) version of the tenseless theory of time can adequately explain the relevant entailment relations between tensed sentences. (shrink)

The most important argument against the B-theory of time is the paraphrase argument. The major defense against that argument is the “new” tenseless theory of time, which is built on what I will call the “indexical reply” to the paraphrase argument. The move from the “old” tenseless theory of time to the new is most centrally a change of viewpoint about the nature and determiners of ontological commitment. Ironically, though, the new tenseless theorists have generally not paid enough sustained, direct (...) attention to that notion. I will defend a general criterion of ontological commitment and apply it to generate a version of the new tenseless theory of time. I will argue that many of the extant versions of the new tenseless theory of time (specifically, all those which seek to identify tenseless truth-conditions of tensed sentences as a way out of apparent ontological commitment to tensed features of reality) are unsatisfactory because their general criterion of ontological commitment is inadequate. Those versions of the new tenseless theory which are adequate (specifically, those which identify tenseless truthmakers for tensed sentences) actually entail the criterion of ontological commitment that I defend, despite appearances to the contrary. (shrink)

In this dissertation I provide a tenseless account of tensed sentences and tensed belief. I begin by distinguishing tensed theories of time from tenseless theories of time. Tensed theories of time hold that there is a time that is objectively present, and that the moment that is objectively present changes from one moment to the next. I reject tensed theories of time. I deny that there is a time that is objectively present that changes from one moment to the next. (...) Instead, time is in many ways analogous to space and 'now' is in many ways analogous to 'here'. Just as there is no one location that is objectively here, there is no one moment that is objectively now. Nothing metaphysically distinguishes the present moment from past and future moments. ^ There are two major challenges facing the tenseless theory of time. The first challenge is: can a tenseless theory of time provide a plausible account of the truth-conditions for tensed sentences? Tensed sentences such as 'The meeting is now!' provide a prima facie reason in favor of irreducibly tensed properties: the sentence is true if and only if the meeting has the tensed property of being now. I examine existing attempts by tenseless theorists for providing tenseless truth-conditions for tensed sentences. I argue that they are unable to provide a complete account of what makes tensed sentences true. I formulate and defend a new tenseless account of the truth-conditions for tensed sentences, the type-context theory, which makes use of David Kaplan's theory of indexicals. ^ The second challenge facing the tenseless theory of time is: can a tenseless theory of time provide a plausible account of our tensed psychological attitudes? Most of our psychological attitudes such as belief, desire, relief, regret and anticipation are irreducibly tensed: we cannot adequate describe such attitudes without appealing to tensed language. I do not take relief in the tenseless fact that I got my wisdom teeth out in 1998. I take relief in the tensed fact that my wisdom teeth were extracted in the past. I do not run to the bus stop merely because I believe that the bus arrives at 8:45. I run to the bus stop because I believe that the bus is arriving now. How can the tenseless theory of time explain the central role that tense plays in our psychological attitudes? I claim that the objects of tensed beliefs are properties. The account I defend is a version of the self-ascription accounts defended by Roderick Chisholm and David Lewis. I argue that such a view can provide a plausible tenseless account of tensed belief. ^. (shrink)

In this thesis, I examine the metaphysical debate between the A-theory and the B-theory of time, first by elaborating upon its proper characterization, and then by examining the sorts of evidence that are often thought to be germane to it. This debate, as I see it, is about whether or not time passes in any objective sense: the A-theory holds that it does, while the B-theory holds that it does not. I identify two opposing conceptions of time—that of the “time (...) of ordinary experience” on one hand, and that of “scientific time” on the other—and argue that the tension between them is the driving force behind this debate. I then examine two aspects of “evidence” from the time of ordinary experience: the phenomenological experience of time and the linguistic experience of time. It is often supposed, by both A- and B-theorists alike, that these sorts of evidence lend credence to the A-theory of time, since ordinary experience suggests that time passes. I hope to discredit this presumption, and so challenge the very framework in which this debate is so often carried out. In particular, by closely examining both of these kinds of experience—phenomenological and linguistic—in turn, I hope to provide a partial argument to the effect that the ordinary experience of time as a whole does not favour the A-theory over the B-theory of time. In the case of the phenomenological evidence, this is because the A-theory is just as inconsistent with such evidence as is the B-theory of time; in the case of the linguistic evidence, this is because the B-theory is equally consistent with such evidence as is the A-theory of time, particularly once it is revealed that a certain key assumption is tacitly accepted by both sides of the debate. Because of the popularity of the claim that the ordinary experience of time favours the A-theory, I take this conclusion to be something of a modest defence for the B-theory of time. (shrink)