TRUTH CONDITIONS OF TENSED SENTENCE TYPES

Author: PAUL L.A.

Source: Synthese, Volume 111, Number 1, April 1997 , pp. 53-72(20)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Quentin Smith has argued that the new tenseless theory of time is faced with insurmountable problems and should be abandoned in favour of the tensed theory of time. Smith's main argument attacks the fundamental premise of the tenseless theory: that tenseless truth conditions for tokens of tensed sentences adequately capture the meaning of tensed sentences. His position is that tenseless truth conditions cannot explain the logical relations between tensed sentences, thus the tensed theory must be accepted. Against Smith, this paper adopts an alternative approach to the explanation of the entailment relations between sentences which contain indexicals. The approach drops the reliance upon tokens and instead relies on the evaluation of sentence types with respect to a context rather than upon actual or possible utterances of tokens of the types. This (new) version of the tenseless theory of time can adequately explain the relevant entailment relations between tensed sentences.

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Department of Philosophy Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 U.S.A.

Publication date: 1997-04-01