Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Necessity and Non-Existence' and 'Review of Frege's 'Grundlagen''

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4 ideas

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
20820 Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
     From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
     A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
15067 A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Most A-theorists have been inclined to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction.
     From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 01)
     A reaction: Presumably this is because they reject the notion of 'tenseless' truths. But sentences like 'two and two make four' seem not to be very tensy.
15077 It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: It is said that there is no room in the A-theorists' ontology for a realm of timeless existents. Just as there is a tendency to think that every sentence is tensed, so there is a tendency to think that every object must enjoy a tensed form of existence.
     From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 10)
     A reaction: Fine is arguing for certain things to exist or be true independently of time (such as arithmetic, or essential identities). I struggle with the notion of timeless existence.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / f. Tenseless (B) series
15066 B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: B-theorists regard tensed sentences as incomplete expressions, implicitly containing an unfilled argument-place for the time at which they are to be evaluated.
     From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 01)
     A reaction: To distinguish past from future it looks as if you would need two argument-places, not one. Then there are 'used to be' and 'had been' to evaluate.