Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

The Temporal, the Atemporal, and the Tenseless

1) Divide all entities into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classes, the temporal and the atemporal. Temporal entities are 'in time,' while atemporal entities are not 'in time.' Caesar's crossing the Rubicon is in time; 7's being prime is not in time. 

2) Here are some temporal words: past, present, future, before, after, later, earlier, simultaneous.  We can define 'in time' as follows.  An item is in time iff a temporal word can be meaningfully predicated of it. Otherwise it is not in time. My definition is circular, but innocuously so. It is like the following which is also circular: X is possible =df X exists in at least one possible world.

"But doesn't 6 come after 5?" Yes in the normal order of counting. Counting, however, is a temporal process. The numbers themselves are not in time. 

"If a thing changes, then it is in time. The number 9 changed from being Tom's favorite number to being Tom's second favorite number. So numbers are in time."  But that's a mere Cambridge change; it doesn't count. 

3) Atemporal entities tenselessly exist and tenselessly have properties.  Everything timeless is tenseless. 

4) But can a temporal item tenselessly exist? This is the question we need to discuss. Mr Brightly in an earlier thread says No. Caesar is a wholly past individual, and obviously to be classified as temporal rather an atemporal. On Brightly's presentism, JC existed, but is now nothing. We of course agree that JC is no longer temporally present. He is a wholly past individual.  But I maintain that there is a sense in which he exists nonetheless.  I gave an argument earlier in response to Brightly.  Here is a new one.

ARGUMENT FROM THE UNIVOCITY OF 'EXIST(S)'

a) Both temporal and atemporal items exist.

b) Whatever exists exists in the same sense and in the same way: there are no different modes of existence such that timeless items exist in one way and time-bound items in another. 'Exist(s)' is univocal across all applications.

c) Atemporal items exist tenselessly.  Therefore:

d) Temporal items exist tenselessly. Therefore:

e) Julius Caesar and all wholly past items exist tenselessly despite being wholly past.

COMMENT

The main idea is that existence, by its very nature, is tenseless.  To exist is to exist tenselessly.  If so, then pastness, presentness, and futurity are purely temporal properties which, by themselves, imply nothing about existence. It follows that existence cannot be identified with temporal presentness.  Accordingly:

Dinosaurs existed but do not still exist just in case dinosaurs exist (tenselessly) AND they are wholly past.

Horses exist (present-tense) just in case horses exist (tenselessly) AND some of them are present.

Martian colonies will exist just in case Martian colonies exist (tenselessly) AND they are wholly future.

The idea is that existence is time-independent. When a thing exists has no bearing on whether it exists. 

Think of a spotlight that successively illuminates events in McTaggart's B-series (events ordered by the B-relations, i.e., earlier than, later than, simultaneous with.)  The events and the times at which they occur are all equally real, equally existent, and their existence is tenseless.  An illuminated event is a temporally present event.  So the spotlight once shone on the event of my birth rendering it present. But the spotlight moved on such that my birth became wholly past, but not nonexistent.

UPSHOT

I am not endorsing the above argument, nor am I endorsing the Spotlight Theory of Time.  My point against Brightly is that there is no contradiction in thinking of a temporal item as tenselessly existing.  The trick is to realize that existence needn't be thought of as time-dependent — even in the case of items in time.

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Bill Vallicella

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3 responses to “The Temporal, the Atemporal, and the Tenseless”

  1. David Brightly Avatar
    David Brightly

    Thank you, Bill, that helps a very great deal, especially the remarks about dinosaurs, horses, etc.
    When you say

    JC exists tenselessly,

    which I will write as

    JC exists*,

    I think you are speaking in a new language which I call English*. This language looks very much like English but all the verbs are untensed and written with a trailing asterisk. By ‘untensed’ I mean that there are no inflections or other constructions in or associated with the verb word that signify temporal position. I’m not an expert but I believe that the verbs in Mandarin are untensed in this sense. Where you say,

    When a thing is has no bearing on whether it is,

    which I find somewhat nebulous, I prefer to say that ‘exists*’ or ‘blogs*’ convey no information about when a thing exists or when a thing blogs. So if, as you say, existence* by its very nature is tenseless, I say also that blogging* by its very nature is tenseless and just as time-independent as existence*.
    As described so far, English* has less logical power than English. For

    Socrates is* bald, and
    Socrates is* hairy,

    are not contraries. To bring English* up to par we must add ‘temporal qualifiers’ of some sort. Maybe temporal stages to objects, or temporally qualified properties, or maybe adverbial qualifiers as in,

    Presently, Socrates is* bald,
    Pastly, Socrates is* hairy, etc.

    This gives us a translation scheme between English and English*,

    Xs exist no longer <---> Xs exist* ∧ wholly pastly, Xs are*,
    Xs exist <---> Xs exist* ∧ presently, Xs are*,
    Xs will exist <---> Xs exist* ∧ wholly futurely, Xs are*,

    and existence* comes out as disjunctive omnitemporality.
    What do I think this adds up to? First, because the properties of and relations between numbers are fixed an untensed language like English* unextended with ‘adverbial temporal qualifiers’ is adequate for discussing arithmetic. Second, what we can say in English using phrases like ‘exists tenselessly’ can be said in English* using ‘exists*’. Third, tenseless existence seems to be of no more metaphysical significance than tenseless blogging.

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  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    Thanks for responding, David.
    I don’t believe that I am speaking in a new language since ordinary English has always had the resources for speaking tenselessly about the timeless. Would you agree that the ‘are’ in the following sentence is tenseless:
    1. The natural numbers are closed under addition.
    You find nebulous “When a thing is has no bearing on whether it is.” Consider the spatial analogy: Where a thing is has no bearing on whether it is. Do you find that nebulous? I don’t. A spatial thing cannot exist unless it is somewhere or other, but your being way over there relative to my here does not show that you exist any less robustly than I do.
    This I accept:
    Xs exist no longer <---> Xs exist* ∧ wholly pastly, Xs are*,
    Xs exist <---> Xs exist* ∧ presently, Xs are*,
    Xs will exist <---> Xs exist* ∧ wholly futurely, Xs are*,
    If a presentist holds that only what exists exists*, how can you be a presentist.
    There seems to be a substantive difference between holding that only what exists exists* and holding that some items exist* without existing. Which side are you on?

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  3. David Brightly Avatar
    David Brightly

    Hello Bill,
    Yes, of course English can be used tenselessly. In contrast with Mandarin and English* which augment their untensed verbs with explicit signifiers to convey tense, English lacks a way of detensing its tensed verbs. Or rather, we can insert the adverb ‘tenselessly’ if we want but mostly don’t bother. It’s as if we recognise that abstract subject matter doesn’t need tensed verbs. Indeed, it hardly needs verbs at all, witness the predicate calculus.
    Regarding, ‘When/where a thing is has no bearing on whether it is.’ I find this almost as slippery as Quine’s fish, lately resurfaced, to which there are affinities. What is meant by ‘has no bearing’? You can’t be denying the inference from ‘JC is in Rome’ to ‘JC exists’? And I’m confident that JC’s existence in the first century BC was just as robust then as mine is now.
    I hold that ‘X exists’ entails ‘X exists*’ but not conversely.

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