more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The main objections to the A-theory are due to the metaphysical mysteriousness of the A-theory ideas of past, present and future, and also tenses, and to the greater plausibility of analyzing them as indexicals.
Gist of Idea
The past, present, future and tenses of A-theory are too weird, and should be analysed indexically
Source
J.J.C. Smart (The Tenseless Theory of Time [2008], 3)
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics', ed/tr. Sider/Hawthorne/Zimmerman [Blackwell 2008], p.233
A Reaction
When it comes to time, every theory that has ever been though of is deeply weird, so the basic objection doesn't bother me. Analysing as indexicals just seems to be a technical way of denying reality to the present.
| 22961 | The present moment is obviously a necessary feature of time [Aristotle] |
| 3915 | The Hopi have no concept of time as something flowing from past to future [Whorf] |
| 22899 | 'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN] |
| 14614 | The past, present, future and tenses of A-theory are too weird, and should be analysed indexically [Smart] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 16266 | There is one ordered B series, but an infinitude of A series, depending on when the present is [Maudlin] |
| 14608 | A-theorists, unlike B-theorists, believe some sort of objective distinction between past, present and future [Zimmerman,DW] |
| 14006 | Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne] |
| 22897 | The A-series says a past event is becoming more past, but how can it do that? [Bardon] |
| 22996 | The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller] |