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Full Idea
People sometimes think that 'Socrates was a philosopher' expresses something like a true, singular proposition about Socrates. They're making a mistake, but still, this explains why they think it is true.
Gist of Idea
People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something
Source
Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.8)
Book Ref
'Persistence: contemporary readings', ed/tr. Haslanger,S/|Kurtz,RM [MIT 2006], p.322
A Reaction
A classic error theory, about our talk of the past. Personally I would say that the sentence really is true, and that needing a tangible object to refer to is a totally bogus requirement. 'I wonder if there are any scissors in the house?'
17243 | Past times can't exist anywhere, apart from in our memories [Hobbes] |
8196 | The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett] |
22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |
13998 | Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects [Markosian] |
13999 | People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something [Markosian] |
22987 | The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller] |