Front cover image for Language and time

Language and time

This book offers a defense of the tensed theory of time, a critique of the New Theory of Reference, and an argument that simultaneity is absolute. Although Smith rejects ordinary language philosophy, he shows how it is possible to argue from the nature of language to the nature of reality. Specifically, he argues that semantic properties of tensed sentences are best explained by the hypothesis that they ascribe to events temporal properties of futurity, presentness, or pastness and do not merely ascribe relations of earlier than or simultaneity. He criticizes the New Theory of Reference, which
eBook, English, 2002
Oxford University Press, New York, 2002
1 online resource (ix, 262 pages)
9780198024361, 9780195082272, 9780195155945, 9780195348187, 0198024363, 0195082273, 0195155947, 0195348184
436988560
The translation method and the tensed and tenseless theories of time
The untranslatability of a-sentences by tenseless date-sentences
The untranslatability of a-sentences by tenseless token-reflexive sentences
The tensed theory of a-sentences
Presentness as a logical subject of a-sentences
Presentness as a logical subject of tenseless sentences
Absolute presentness and the special theory of relativity
Conclusion