Systematic and historical background
The symposium focuses on the aspect of tense in the contemporary philosophy of time. There are basically there big areas of philosophical inquiry regarding time. The first is on the status of time itself, wether all time points exist ontologically on a par, or wether only the present moment exists (while the future dos not yet exist and the past no longer). The former poison is called eternalism the latter presentism. The second main area is the question how objects persist through time. The main positions here are endurantism and perdurantism. Endurantists believe that objects are wholly present during each moment of their existence and thus are multi-located in (space-)time. Perdurantist on the other hand claim that objects have temporal parts and that they are thus only located once, namely at the whole spatio temporal area they occupy (i.e. their world line in SRT). The third field - the topic of this symposium - is the question of wether reference to the present moment is something irreducible. One way of capturing the central issue of this debate, is the following question: Is it possible to translate tensed sentences without loss of meaning into tenseless sentences? Adherents of a tensed theory claim that this is not possible. Or more carefully, that their are some tensed sentences, for which it is not possible to capture the meaning with only reference to purely tenseless sentences, or sentence constituents. Tenseless theorists in contrast believe that tense can and should be eliminated. Occurrences of ‚now‘ - like other indexical words as ‚here‘ and ‚I‘ - are to be replaced with explicit specifications of date and time, according to tens less theorist, especially in the language of science.
Although sorting the contemporary debate in the philosophy of time according to 1) to 3) is helpful, it is also incomplete. It is in principle possible to give independent answers to them, but they are nevertheless inter related de facto. One could argue for example, that enternalism is true, but still maintain that tensed sentences - as linguistic entities, or contents of our beliefs - are untranslatable. Nevertheless answers to 1) and 3) are commonly - if not without exception - given as a package deal. Sometimes the label A-theory of time is used for the combination of presentism and tensed theory. The combination of eternalism and tenseless theory is congruously called B-theory. It is seldom believed that the eternalism (and thus B-theory) implies perdurantism, or vice versa, but it is argued that they fit together very tightly. Also there is no knock-down argument against any alternatives, the combination of eternalism, tenseless theory and perdurantism is the predominate view in the recent literature. This combination - sometimes labeled 4-dimensionalism - is not only considered to be the most internal stable possibility, but also to fit best with science and give the best answers to metaphysical puzzles in the philosophy of time, including the infamous problem of temporary intrinsics. At least, 4-dimensionalists admit that their antagonist, the 3-dimensionalism, is closer to our (pre-theoretical) intuitions, but he then goes on to argue that these intuitions have to be abandoned in the light of scientific and metaphysical findings.
The contemporary debate rests on two famous arguments. David Hugh Mellor’s account on the one side is (still) the basis for many accounts in the tenseless theory camp. He supposedly overcame one important obstacle for the translate of tensed sentences: It is objected that I do not need to know which time (and date) it is to understand the sentence ‚it is raining now’ and thus that meaning of this sentence is independent of when it is uttered. Mellor’s alleged solution to this is that the meaning of a sentences is a function from time points to truth conditions. Following this idea, a sentence can have always the same meaning and nevertheless different truth conditions (and thus also different truth values). Mellor’s impact on the debate was so huge that his theory (and consequent theories in its spirit) is called the new tenseless theory of time (or short NTT).
Arthur Prior on the other side is the god father of the tensers (and presentists and maybe endurantists). He claims that tense is relevant for actions and that thus tensed sentences can not be translated without loss of meaning. His example is the relief, or joy someone feels, when an important test is completed. According to Prior, it is important (to believe) that the test is now completed to feel the joy. It is not enough say, that the test ends at 2:00 p.m. and that 2:15 p.m. is later than 2:00 p.m., because one knew that already before the test.
Although sorting the contemporary debate in the philosophy of time according to 1) to 3) is helpful, it is also incomplete. It is in principle possible to give independent answers to them, but they are nevertheless inter related de facto. One could argue for example, that enternalism is true, but still maintain that tensed sentences - as linguistic entities, or contents of our beliefs - are untranslatable. Nevertheless answers to 1) and 3) are commonly - if not without exception - given as a package deal. Sometimes the label A-theory of time is used for the combination of presentism and tensed theory. The combination of eternalism and tenseless theory is congruously called B-theory. It is seldom believed that the eternalism (and thus B-theory) implies perdurantism, or vice versa, but it is argued that they fit together very tightly. Also there is no knock-down argument against any alternatives, the combination of eternalism, tenseless theory and perdurantism is the predominate view in the recent literature. This combination - sometimes labeled 4-dimensionalism - is not only considered to be the most internal stable possibility, but also to fit best with science and give the best answers to metaphysical puzzles in the philosophy of time, including the infamous problem of temporary intrinsics. At least, 4-dimensionalists admit that their antagonist, the 3-dimensionalism, is closer to our (pre-theoretical) intuitions, but he then goes on to argue that these intuitions have to be abandoned in the light of scientific and metaphysical findings.
The contemporary debate rests on two famous arguments. David Hugh Mellor’s account on the one side is (still) the basis for many accounts in the tenseless theory camp. He supposedly overcame one important obstacle for the translate of tensed sentences: It is objected that I do not need to know which time (and date) it is to understand the sentence ‚it is raining now’ and thus that meaning of this sentence is independent of when it is uttered. Mellor’s alleged solution to this is that the meaning of a sentences is a function from time points to truth conditions. Following this idea, a sentence can have always the same meaning and nevertheless different truth conditions (and thus also different truth values). Mellor’s impact on the debate was so huge that his theory (and consequent theories in its spirit) is called the new tenseless theory of time (or short NTT).
Arthur Prior on the other side is the god father of the tensers (and presentists and maybe endurantists). He claims that tense is relevant for actions and that thus tensed sentences can not be translated without loss of meaning. His example is the relief, or joy someone feels, when an important test is completed. According to Prior, it is important (to believe) that the test is now completed to feel the joy. It is not enough say, that the test ends at 2:00 p.m. and that 2:15 p.m. is later than 2:00 p.m., because one knew that already before the test.