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Single Idea 15077
[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
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Full Idea
It is said that there is no room in the A-theorists' ontology for a realm of timeless existents. Just as there is a tendency to think that every sentence is tensed, so there is a tendency to think that every object must enjoy a tensed form of existence.
Gist of Idea
It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences
Source
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 10)
Book Ref
Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.351
A Reaction
Fine is arguing for certain things to exist or be true independently of time (such as arithmetic, or essential identities). I struggle with the notion of timeless existence.
The
16 ideas
from 'Necessity and Non-Existence'
15063
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Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not
[Fine,K]
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15065
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What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features
[Fine,K]
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15064
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Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances
[Fine,K]
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15067
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A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction
[Fine,K]
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15066
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B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time
[Fine,K]
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15069
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Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out
[Fine,K]
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15068
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The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities
[Fine,K]
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15070
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It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man
[Fine,K]
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15071
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Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality
[Fine,K]
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15073
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Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself
[Fine,K]
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15074
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We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible
[Fine,K]
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15072
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Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither
[Fine,K]
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15076
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Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are
[Fine,K]
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15075
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Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity
[Fine,K]
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15078
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There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function
[Fine,K]
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15077
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It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences
[Fine,K]
|