According to Peter Ludlow, there is a very close relation
between the structure of natural language and that of reality, and
one can gain insights into long-standing metaphysical questions by
studying the semantics of natural language. In this book Ludlow
uses the metaphysics of time as a case study and focuses on the
dispute between A-theorists and B-theorists about the nature of
time. According to B-theorists, there is no genuine change, but a
permanent sequence of events ordered by an earlier-than/later-than
relation. According to the version of the A-theory adopted by
Ludlow (a position sometimes called "presentism"), there are no
past or future events or times; what makes something past or future
is how the world stands right now.
Ludlow argues that each metaphysical picture is tied to a
particular semantical theory of tense and that the dispute can be
adjudicated on semantical grounds. A presentism-compatible
semantics, he claims, is superior to a B-theory semantics in a
number of respects, including its abilities to handle the indexical
nature of temporal discourse and to account for facts about
language acquisition. Along the way, Ludlow develops a conception
of "E-type" temporal anaphora that can account for both temporal
anaphora and complex tenses without reference to past and future
events. His view has philosophical consequences for theories of
logic, self-knowledge, and memory. As for linguistic consequences,
Ludlow suggests that the very idea of grammatical tense may have to
be dispensed with and replaced with some combination of aspect,
modality, and evidentiality.
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