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Single Idea 15066

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / f. Tenseless (B) series ]

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.

The 16 ideas from 'Necessity and Non-Existence'

15063 Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K]
15065 What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K]
15064 Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K]
15067 A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K]
15066 B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K]
15069 Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K]
15068 The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K]
15070 It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K]
15071 Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K]
15073 Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K]
15074 We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K]
15072 Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K]
15076 Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K]
15075 Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K]
15078 There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [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]