Temporality and epistemic commitment: An unresolved question (2013) (original) (raw)
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Epistemic modality and temporal anchoring
2014
In this paper, we explore temporal configurations in epistemic readings. The semantics of these temporal configurations seems to be quite straightforward and constrained: epistemic readings are associated with a simultaneous (deictic or anaphoric) TPERSP and a past or simultaneous TORIENT. However, particularly in languages in which modals can be fully inflected for temporal-aspectual categories, there are various syntax-semantic mismatches involving the site of realization and the site of interpretation of tense-aspect morphology, which give rise to far- reaching compositionality issues. After presenting the main solutions that have been proposed for such syntax-semantic mismatches, we show that there are important differences between the case of perfect morphology on epistemic modals (OVERT PERFECT RAISING) and the case of simple past tenses on epistemic modals.
Time as degrees of epistemic commitment (2011)
In: P. Stalmaszczyk, ed., 2011, Turning Points in the Philosophy of Language and Linguistics, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 19-34. Translated as ‘Le temps comme degrés d’engagement épistémique’ in: P. Morency, ed., 2011, Temps, discours, argumentation, Travaux Neuchâtelois de Linguistique 51, 97-113
The article addresses the question as to whether time is a primitive concept or rather is composed out of conceptually more basic building blocks. After a brief analysis of tense-time mismatches with examples from English, Polish, Thai and Swahili, I present a hypothesis that time is conceptualized in terms of degrees of epistemic modality. Expressions with future, present and past reference are ordered on scales of epistemic commitment. I demonstrate that the theory of Default Semantics has no difficulty with representing tense-time mismatches in that it reflects the fact that information about temporality is conveyed via a variety of processes, some of them pertaining not to the processing of the lexicon or grammar but even to pragmatic inference. The theory also gives support to the thesis of time as modal detachment.
The modal supervenience of the concept of time (2008)
In: A. Hieke & H. Leitgeb, eds, 2008, Beiträge der Österreichischen Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft, vol. XVI, Kirchberg am Wechsel, 153-155
The concept of time (here: A-theory time, McTaggart 1908) is generally acknowledged to be only a partial reflection of real time (here: B-theory time). Multiple arguments, mostly from the phenomenological tradition of Husserl and Heidegger, have been used for the explanation of this thesis. In this paper I focus on a different kind of supervenience, namely on the dependence, in the sense of constitutive conceptual and semantic qualities, of internal time on epistemic modality and thereby on degrees of detachment from certainty that temporal thoughts include and temporal expressions convey. I discuss several arguments and some linguistic evidence in support of the thesis of modal supervenience and conclude with a question concerning the possible conceptual and semantic identity of epistemic modality and temporal reference. *** Partial arguments in support of the supervenience of the concept of time on the concept of degrees of probability are ample. and contend that temporality is supervenient on the concepts of perspective and contingency and that tense and aspect systems are founded on the same conceptual primitives as evidentiality which, by our definition, is a concept overlapping with that of epistemic modality. Slightly more remote from this thesis is that of who argue that the past, the present and the future are linked by means of the imposition of goals, planning, and causation. Temporality supervenes on what is intended, desired as present, as well as on the cause-and-effect relation between events and states that are arranged on the line with relations such as earlier-than, later-than, or overlap. Finally, Nuyts (2006: 19) proposes that modality occupies a higher place than time in the hierarchy of semantic categories, which means that it is of a higher level of abstraction.
Logic and Philosophy of Time: Further Themes from Prior
2019
This paper argues that A.N. Prior’s invention of tense-logic constitutes a return of medieval logic in the philosophy of time. The argument proceeds from an analysis of W.V. Quine and P.W. Strawson’s 1953 discussion about the inability of formal logic to analyse the tenses of ordinary language. Recent discoveries in the A.N. Prior archive at the Bodleian Library in Oxford reveal that J.J.C. Smart, in a letter to Prior, brought up their discussion in his rejection of Prior’s invention of tense-logic. The correspondence will be discussed in terms of the importance of Prior’s discovery of tense-logic and the presentation of this as a solution to the problem discussed by Strawson and Quine in The Syntax of Time Distinctions (1958, [9]). Recent discoveries reveal a close connection between this discussion and Prior’s discussion of future contingency in Diodoran Modality (1955, [7]). These discoveries support the conclusion of this paper, which argues that Quine’s insistence that modern l...
A unified analysis of the future as epistemic modality
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 2018
We offer an analysis of future morphemes as epistemic modal operators. The main empirical motivation comes from the fact that future morphemes have systematic purely epistemic readings—not only in Greek and Italian, but also in Dutch, German, and English will. The existence of epistemic readings suggests that the future expressions quantify over epistemic, not metaphysical alternatives. We provide a unified analysis for epistemic and predictive readings as epistemic necessity, and the shift between the two is determined compositionally by the lower tense. Our account thus acknowledges a systematic interaction between modality and tense—but the future itself is a pure modal, not a mixed temporal/modal operator. We show that the modal base of the future is nonveridical, i.e. it includes p and ¬p worlds, parallel to epistemic modals such as must, and present arguments that future morphemes are a category that stands in between epistemic modals and predicates of personal taste. We identify, finally, a subclass of epistemic futures which are ratificational, and argue that will is a member of this class.
Philosophy in Review, 2013
This book advertises itself as an exploration of the world-time parallel, that is, the parallel between the modal dimension, on the one hand, and the temporal dimension, on the other. It is that, and much more. As the authors point out, there is reasonable agreement that we can model times, through temporal logic, in ways that are analogous to those by which we model modality through the logic of possible worlds. But this formal parallel has almost universally been taken to be merely a formal parallel, that is to say, the assumption has been that no metaphysical conclusions ought to be drawn from it. Thus, it is generally thought that one is free to accept an argument for actualism, say, but to reject a parallel argument for presentism. Rini and Cresswell compellingly argue that this is a mistake: the temporal and the modal are more than merely formally analogous. Abstracting from the interesting central question about the status of the world-time parallel, this book is of interest to anyone who desires clarity about propositional content, de se knowledge (and indexicality more generally) and of course tense and modality. In part because the authors do not wish to prejudge any metaphysical disputes-in particular they do not want to take a stand on whether one ought to be a possibilist rather than an actualist, or an eternalist rather than a presentist-they scrupulously offer very careful explications of current actualist and possibilist modal semantics as well as eternalist and presentist tense semantics. The book is rich with careful detail. It is full of places where various confusions are cleared away. Indeed, there is so much packed into the various discussions that it is difficult to know where to start a review. So rather than try and offer a very potted cook's tour of the book, in what follows I offer just a small taste of one of the issues canvassed.
Logic and Philosophy of Time: Themes from Prior, Volume 1
2017
A.N. Prior’s Past, Present and Future [18] was published 50 years ago in 1967 and was clearly a milestone in the development of tense-logic. It is a mature and comprehensive presentation of the basic concepts, systems and issues in tense-logic. In addition it also contains a number of interesting ideas that later led to important further developments of the field. Past, Present and Future represents a culmination of Prior’s struggle with the problem of determinism (including his study of the tension between the doctrines of divine foreknowledge and human freedom). Prior’s study of the problem of determinism led him to a reconstruction of the famous DiodoreanMaster Argument which had for centuries been regarded as a strong argument in favour of determinism. In his further analysis of the problem, hemade extensive use of tense-logic and the idea of branching time. However, in Past, Present and Future Prior also stresses that time as such should not simply be understood in terms of bra...
Taking Times Out: Tense Logic as a Theory of Time
Ulrich Meyer’s book The Nature of Time uses tense logic to argue for a ‘modal’ view of time, which replaces substantial times (as in Newton’s Absolute Time) with ‘ersatz times’ constructed using conceptually basic tense operators. He also argues against Bertrand Russell’s relationist theory, in which times are classes of events, and against the idea that relativity compels the integration of time and space (called by Meyer the Inseparability Argument). I find fault with each of these negative arguments, as well as with Meyer’s purported reconstruction of empty spacetime from tense operators and substantial spatial points. I suggest that Meyer’s positive project is best conceived as an elimination of time in the mode of Julian Barbour's The End of Time.
Temporal language and temporal reality
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2003
In response to a recent challenge that the New B-theory of Time argues invalidly from the claim that tensed sentences have tenseless truth conditions to the conclusion that temporal reality is tenseless, I argue that while early B-theorists may have relied on some such inference, New B-theorists do not. Giving tenseless truth conditions for tensed sentences is not intended to prove that temporal reality is tenseless. Rather, it is intended to undermine the A-theorist’s move from claims about the irreducibility of tensed language to the conclusion that temporal reality must be tensed. I then examine how A-theorists have used facts about language in attempting to establish their conclusions about the nature of temporal reality. I take the recent work of William Lane Craig and argue that he implicitly and illicitly moves from facts about temporal language to his conclusion that temporal reality is tensed.
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