Theodore Sider
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199244430
- eISBN:
- 9780191598425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924443X.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
The ‘B‐theory’ of time says that all temporal facts ‘reduce’ to tenseless facts about a manifold of equally real past, present, and future objects; the ‘A‐theory’ denies this reduction. Presentism is ...
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The ‘B‐theory’ of time says that all temporal facts ‘reduce’ to tenseless facts about a manifold of equally real past, present, and future objects; the ‘A‐theory’ denies this reduction. Presentism is a version of the A‐theory that denies the existence of part of the B‐theorist's manifold: the part containing merely past and future objects. Some say that the B‐theory cannot account for the irreducibly temporal nature of our psychological attitudes, but this is incorrect. B‐theorists can defend temporal versions of well‐known theories of ‘indexical’, or ‘de se’, attitudes. Presentism, on the other hand, is vulnerable to powerful objections: (1) The irreducible tense‐operators to which presentists must appeal are objectionably ungrounded in reality. (2) Presentists cannot account for the fundamental ‘cross‐time spatial relations’ that ground the structure of space‐time, and thus cannot account for spatiotemporal continuity, acceleration, and other states of motion. (3) Presentism conflicts with the special theory of relativity.Less
The ‘B‐theory’ of time says that all temporal facts ‘reduce’ to tenseless facts about a manifold of equally real past, present, and future objects; the ‘A‐theory’ denies this reduction. Presentism is a version of the A‐theory that denies the existence of part of the B‐theorist's manifold: the part containing merely past and future objects. Some say that the B‐theory cannot account for the irreducibly temporal nature of our psychological attitudes, but this is incorrect. B‐theorists can defend temporal versions of well‐known theories of ‘indexical’, or ‘de se’, attitudes. Presentism, on the other hand, is vulnerable to powerful objections: (1) The irreducible tense‐operators to which presentists must appeal are objectionably ungrounded in reality. (2) Presentists cannot account for the fundamental ‘cross‐time spatial relations’ that ground the structure of space‐time, and thus cannot account for spatiotemporal continuity, acceleration, and other states of motion. (3) Presentism conflicts with the special theory of relativity.
Robert Stalnaker
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198713265
- eISBN:
- 9780191781711
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198713265.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
A defense of a thesis about self-locating attitudes that Clas Weber has labeled “Propositionalism”: to be ignorant of where in the world one is, what time it is, or who one is is always to be ...
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A defense of a thesis about self-locating attitudes that Clas Weber has labeled “Propositionalism”: to be ignorant of where in the world one is, what time it is, or who one is is always to be ignorant of what possible world is actual. The thesis is articulated in the context of David Lewis’s “centered worlds” model of self-locating or indexical attitudes. It is argued that the underlying issue concerns, not just the analysis of a distinctive kind of self-locating attitude, but the nature of intentionality. It is argued that in a sense all attitudes are self-locating since their content is explained in terms of the way the agent is situated in his or her environment.Less
A defense of a thesis about self-locating attitudes that Clas Weber has labeled “Propositionalism”: to be ignorant of where in the world one is, what time it is, or who one is is always to be ignorant of what possible world is actual. The thesis is articulated in the context of David Lewis’s “centered worlds” model of self-locating or indexical attitudes. It is argued that the underlying issue concerns, not just the analysis of a distinctive kind of self-locating attitude, but the nature of intentionality. It is argued that in a sense all attitudes are self-locating since their content is explained in terms of the way the agent is situated in his or her environment.
