more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
It has been argued that the tensed view of time is actually committed to the unreality, not just of the future, but of the past also.
Gist of Idea
It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past
Source
Robin Le Poidevin (Intro to 'Questions of Time and Tense' [1998], Intro)
Book Ref
'Questions of Time and Tense', ed/tr. Le Poidevin,R [OUP 2002], p.2
A Reaction
There seem to be strong and weak version here, since if you are committed to tenses, you are presumably committed to the possibility of truths about the past and future. The strong version (denying past and future) seems to make tenses pointless.
| 15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
| 15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
| 15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
| 15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
| 15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
| 15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |