more from Michael Dummett

Single Idea 8197

[catalogued under 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / f. Eternalism]

Full Idea

Maybe both the past and the future are real, determined by our current temporal perspective. Past is then events capable of having a causal influence upon events near us, and future is events we can affect, but from which we receive no information.

Gist of Idea

Maybe past (which affects us) and future (which we can affect) are both real

Source

Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5)

Book Reference

Dummett,Michael: 'Truth and the Past (Dewey Lectures)' [Columbia 2004], p.86


A Reaction

This is the Four-Dimensional view, which is opposed to Presentism. Might immediate unease is that it gives encouragement to fortune-tellers, whom I have always dismissed with 'You can't see the future, because it doesn't exist'.