Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Language and Time

4/5 ( ratings)

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 holds that now refers directly to a time and does not ascribe the property of presentness. Smith does not adopt the old or Fregean theory of reference but develops a third alternative, based on his detailed theory of de re and de dicto propositions and a theory of cognitive
significance. He concludes the book with a lengthy critique of Einstein's theory of time. Smith offers a positive argument for absolute simultaneity based on his theory that all propositions exist in time. He shows how Einstein's relativist temporal concepts are reducible to a conjunction of
absolutist temporal concepts and relativist nontemporal concepts of the observable behavior of light rays, rigid bodies, and the like.

Language: English

Pages: 272

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: September 30, 1993

ISBN: 0195082273

ISBN 13: 9780195082272

Language and Time

4/5 ( ratings)

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 holds that now refers directly to a time and does not ascribe the property of presentness. Smith does not adopt the old or Fregean theory of reference but develops a third alternative, based on his detailed theory of de re and de dicto propositions and a theory of cognitive
significance. He concludes the book with a lengthy critique of Einstein's theory of time. Smith offers a positive argument for absolute simultaneity based on his theory that all propositions exist in time. He shows how Einstein's relativist temporal concepts are reducible to a conjunction of
absolutist temporal concepts and relativist nontemporal concepts of the observable behavior of light rays, rigid bodies, and the like.

Language: English

Pages: 272

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Release: September 30, 1993

ISBN: 0195082273

ISBN 13: 9780195082272

More books from Quentin Smith

Time, Change and Freedom: An Introduction to Metaphysics

4.1/5 ( ratings)

16mm of Innocence

4.1/5 ( ratings)

The Felt Meanings of the World: A Metaphysics of Feeling

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Epistemology: New Essays

3.6/5 ( ratings)

The Secret Anatomy of Candles

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Consciousness: New Philosophical Essays

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The New Theory of Time

3.2/5 ( ratings)

The Importance of Time

4.5/5 ( ratings)

The Double Content Of Art

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Sweet Bergamasque

Flyness Only: The 25 Rules of Being Fly

Time, Tense, and Reference (Bradford Books) (MIT Press)

born in lockdown: a selection of poems

Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology

Rate this book!

Write a review?