The Conceptual Structure of Reality by Gal Yehezkel

Author:Gal Yehezkel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

4.6 Temporal Indexical Expressions

The first question that I need to address, in light of the wide selection of indexical expressions available (for example, past, present (now), future, yesterday, tomorrow and so on), is which, if any, of these expressions is the basic temporal indexical expression. My answer is that the temporal indexical expression “now” (or “present”) is the basic temporal indexical expression, which is necessarily included in any conceptual scheme that includes temporal indexical expressions. This is evident from the fact that propositions which include a temporal indexical component describe reality from a point of view which is located at the present (that is, “now”). This claim can be shown to be true by the following consideration: For every sentence p, which includes a temporal indexical expression, adding the prefix “now” results in a proposition which has the same truth-value as the original proposition. For example, “I was in New York yesterday” has the same truth-value as “Now (it is true that) ‘I was at New York yesterday’.”22 This implies that temporal indexical expressions assume the existence of a unique position in time, denoted by the indexical expression “now,” in relation to which their reference is determined. It therefore follows that every conceptual scheme that includes temporal indexical expressions must include the temporal indexical “now” (or “present”).

In light of this conclusion, I concentrate in what follows on the temporal indexical expression “now.” However, it can be shown that any conceptual scheme which includes the temporal indexical expression “now” (the “present”) also includes the temporal indexical expressions “past” and “future”: The indexical expressions “past” and “present” can be defined with the help of the indexical expression “present” and the temporal relation “before,” thus: x is past if and only if x is before the present; x is future if and only if the present is before x. However, any conceptual scheme which contains temporal distinctions (that is, any temporal conceptual scheme) includes the temporal relation “before,” which lets us distinguish between different positions in time. Hence, while past, present, and future can be distinguished they cannot be completely separated from one another.

Consider sentence (4) “There is no university in New York now.” Its suggestion that the same proposition can be both true and false at different times is expressed, for example, by the following sentence:

(4a) It is false that “There is no university in New York now,” but in 1492 it was true that “There is no university in New York now.”

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