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Full Idea
B-theorists regard tensed sentences as incomplete expressions, implicitly containing an unfilled argument-place for the time at which they are to be evaluated.
Gist of Idea
B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time
Source
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 01)
Book Ref
Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.322
A Reaction
To distinguish past from future it looks as if you would need two argument-places, not one. Then there are 'used to be' and 'had been' to evaluate.
| 13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
| 15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
| 15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| 14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |
| 14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
| 22901 | The B-series needs a revised view of causes, laws and explanations [Bardon] |
| 22896 | The B-series is realist about time, but idealist about its passage [Bardon] |
| 22903 | The B-series adds directionality when it accepts 'earlier' and 'later' [Bardon] |
| 23007 | The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller] |