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Single Idea 15203

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time ]

Full Idea

Tense plays a crucial role in thought and action.

Gist of Idea

Tense is essential for thought and action

Source

report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a

Book Ref

'Questions of Time and Tense', ed/tr. Le Poidevin,R [OUP 2002], p.28


A Reaction

This is important, because much of our metaphysics is dominated by a detached 'scientific' description of reality, which is given a rather passive character. If processes take centre stage, which they should, then our own processes are part of it.


The 10 ideas with the same theme [meaning of verbs of past and future]:

Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus]
Tense is essential for thought and action [Perry, by Le Poidevin]
Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin]
At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin]
Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin]
A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K]
It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K]
It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin]
Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider]
The past, present and future walked into a bar.... [Sommers,W]