more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The temporal reductionist claims that tensed locutions are indexical - 'present' being the time of utterance etc. This generalises to say that nothing corresponding to tense need be admitted as a fundamental feature of the world.
Gist of Idea
Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance
Source
Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.1)
Book Ref
Sider,Theodore: 'Four Dimensionalism' [OUP 2003], p.13
A Reaction
[He particular cites Mellor for this view] Highly implausible. I very much doubt whether it is possible to explain the indexicality of a word like 'now' without referring to tenses. Does time only exist when sentences and thoughts occur?
| 22749 | Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 15203 | Tense is essential for thought and action [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
| 15204 | Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin] |
| 15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |
| 15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
| 15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |
| 15206 | It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
| 15208 | The past, present and future walked into a bar.... [Sommers,W] |