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Reviewed by:
  • Time, tense, and reference ed. by Aleksandar Jokić and Quentin Smith
  • Roberta D’Alessandro
Time, tense, and reference. Ed. by Aleksandar Jokić and Quentin Smith. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Pp. x, 470. ISBN 026260050. $40.

This book brings together contributions by philosophers of time and philosophers of language in order to highlight the similarities and interactions between these two fields of philosophy. The book consists of two parts: ‘The philosophy of tensed language’, and ‘The metaphysic of time’, each of which is further divided into two sections and has an autonomous introduction.

Section A of Part 1, ‘The semantic content of tensed sentences’, examines the truth conditions of tensed sentences. In Ch. 1, ‘Outline for a truth-conditional semantics for tense’, Ernest Lepore and Kirk Ludwig propose a semantic of tenses on analogy with Donald Davidson’s theory of events. Tensed structures are assigned semantic structures, including existential quantifiers ranging over times. Nathan Salmon’s ‘Tense and intension’ outlines a theory of temporal operators. He proposes that propositions are invariant over time with regard to truth value. Semantic content is indexed both to a context and to a time, and sometimes also to a place.

Section B of Part 1 is titled ‘The cognitive significance of tensed sentences’. Mark Richard’s chapter, ‘Objects of relief’, underlines the flaws of James Higginbotham’s and David Kaplan’s views on tensed beliefs. In a ‘direct reference’ framework, Richard proposes that temporal thoughts are reflexive, and that their being tensed reflects this reflexivity. Higginbotham’s theory of tensed thoughts is presented in the chapter that follows (‘Tensed second thoughts’). Anthony Brueckner analyzes the present tense in ‘Tensed sentences, tenseless truth conditions, and tensed beliefs’. ‘Need we posit A-properties?’ is Mark Richard’s reply to Brueckner’s theory of present. ‘Time plus the whoosh and whiz’, by Arthur Falk, closes Part 1 with a theory of the cognitive significance of tense.

Section A of Part 2 concerns the ‘Tenseless theories of time’. The discussion is about the static (tenseless) or dynamic (tensed) nature of time. L. N. Oaklander’s ‘Two versions of the new B-theory of language’ shows how the concepts of time, tense, and reference are related. Next, Robin Le Poidevin, in ‘Why tenses need real times’, argues that times cannot be replaced by temporal relations. Times are necessary in order to express truth conditions for tensed sentences. The last chapter of Section A is ‘Real tenses’, by Miloš Arsenijević, who argues for a tenseless theory of time. In his view, tenses are features of ‘what sentences (and thoughts expressed by them) are about’.

Section B of Part 2, ‘Tensed theories of time’, starts with Quentin Smith’s chapter ‘Reference to the past and the future’. Smith maintains that the present is not the only real temporal dimension, but that the past and future are also real. Next, William Lane Craig’s ‘In defense of presentism’ comments on Smith’s view of past and future tenses. ‘Basic tensed sentences and their analysis’, by Michael Tooley, reconciles tensed and tenseless theories of time. Last, in ‘Actualism and presentism’, James Tomberlin accounts for presentism by claiming that there are no objects that do not presently exist.

Roberta D’Alessandro
University of Cambridge
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