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Single Idea 15206

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

Full Idea

It is crucially one's view of the status of the future that makes one a tensed or a tenseless theorist.

Gist of Idea

It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time

Source

Robin Le Poidevin (Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense [1998], 5)

Book Ref

'Questions of Time and Tense', ed/tr. Le Poidevin,R [OUP 2002], p.37


A Reaction

If you believe in the reality of the future, you are an eternalist and like the B-series. If you deny the existence of the future, you must opt for Presentism or the Growing Block (depending on the status of the past).


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]