more on this theme | more from this text
Full Idea
Not only the present but also the past exist, but the future (so long as it is the future) does not.
Gist of Idea
The present and past exist, but the future does not
Source
report of C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923]) by Michael Dummett - Thought and Reality 1
Book Ref
Dummett,Michael: 'Thought and Reality (Gifford Lectures)' [OUP 2006], p.1
A Reaction
This is quite appealing, and seems right if you believe that every truth has a truthmaker, and that there are no truths about the future. And yet the whole misery of people dying is that they cease to exist.
| 14963 | Surely the past phases of a thing are not parts of the thing? [Broad] |
| 7628 | Broad rejects the inferential component of the representative theory [Broad, by Maund] |
| 8160 | The present and past exist, but the future does not [Broad, by Dummett] |
| 14759 | A thing is simply a long event, linked by qualities, and spatio-temporal unity [Broad] |
| 14609 | We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad] |
| 22933 | We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad] |
| 11842 | If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad] |