Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Journal of Philosophy, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Philosophy.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
26 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUSOF BECONIING;WHAT IS HAPPENING NOWV? 27
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
28 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUSOF BECOMING: WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW? 29
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
30 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUS OF BECOMING: WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW? 31
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
32 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
There are several difficulties with Russell's idea. One of these it shares
with Smart's account. For if no sense datum or utterance has any
part in the causal etiology of a certain present flash of lightning, then
it seems clear that the flash would have occurred now even if there
had been no sense datum or utterance now. This is fatal to both the
Russell and Smart analyses. For if there had been no sense datum or
utterance now, then the flash would not have been simultaneous
with this sense datum or with this utterance, but it would still have
happened now.
C. The third proposal. The Russell and Smart accounts suggest a
better reflexive reduction of the now:
R. 'Now' is equivalent to 'at the time of this thought (i.e., of this
very mental act or affirmation)'.
Thus my thought that the flash happens now is just the thought that
the flash happens at the time of that very thought.
But is not R subject to the same difficulty as the accounts proposed
by Russell and by Smart? Is it not true that the flash would have oc-
curred now even if this thought had not occurred? This seems clearly
right. But by R this entails that
(1) The flash would have occurredat the time of this thought even if
this thought had not occurred.
And is this not absurd? The answer is that it is absurd only under one
of two possible interpretations, but that it is not absurd under the
following natural interpretation:
(2) The time of this thought is such that the flash would have oc-
curred at it even if this thought had not occurred.
This suggests a way of spelling out R which makes it immune to the
modal difficulties affecting such proposals as those of Russell and
Smart:
R. 'Now' is equivalent to 'at the time of this thought', where if the
definite descriptionfalls within the scope of a modal operator, the
description has primary occurrence (in Russell's terminology).6
Applying R to (1) above yields the harmless (2).
Consider also the following:
(3) S is sorry that he now has a toothache.
This is a further difficulty for Russell and Smart, for S may be un-
aware of any sense datum or utterance of mine. That it is not an
6 Russell, "On Denoting," in R. C. Marsh, ed., Logic and Knowledge (New
York: Macmillan, 1956; CapricornBooks, 1971), pp. 52/3.
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUS OF BECOMING: WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW? 33
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
34 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
TR' requires direct access to the present time on the part of the
thinker. Now whether or not the thinker also has direct access to
times other than the present time, we must face the following ques-
tion: WNhatis it about the present time t that makes one especially
sorry that his toothache occurs at it? Isn't it an obvious and required
answer simply that it is the time that is present? But this points
persuasively to OPD. For then the object of one's sorrow is not sim-
ply that the toothache occurs at t, but rather that the toothache
occurs at t and t is present. And here we seem to be left with an irre-
ducible and objective property of being present.
The response of the advocate of TR' must be to stand his ground.
And he can perhaps attempt to make his stand plausible by appeal to
an analogy between the present moment and himself. For that he
and not someone else suffers from a toothache may be particularly
disturbing to him, and the object of his sorrow would then be simply
that he himself has a toothache. Similarly, it is now argued, that his
toothache is at this time is particularly disturbing to him, and the
object of this sorrow is simply that this itself is the time of his
toothache.
However, even a moment after a toothache passes, sorrow gives
way to relief. One is now relieved that that itself is the time of one's
toothache. If it being at that very time is what a moment ago was so
disturbing about the toothache, then why is it that only a moment
later the very same object of evaluation seems so innocuous? Surely
this ought to be puzzling to the advocate of TR'.7
F. Rejection of the revision. TR' thus has at least two drawbacks.
First, it requires not only the postulation of moments of time in one's
ontology but also direct reference to (and awareness of) such mo-
ments of time (rather than just indirect reference via some uniquely
exemplified property). Secondly, even given such direct reference
(awareness) it is hard to see how a moment's simply being that mo-
ment can lead to a reasonable heightening of sorrow about bad ex-
periences occurring at it rather than at other, past moments. And
yet it does seem that we are especially sorry about our present pains
and other undesirable experiences, and not unreasonably so.
TR' represents a retreat on the part of the thought-reflexive
analyst in response to the objections to TR. But it leads to a blind
alley.
7R. M. Chisholm tells me that similar views have been suggested or held by
Aquinas and by Brentano. See Aquinas' A ristotleon Interpretation,Jean Oesterle,
tr. (Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 1962), Lesson XIII, Paragraph3. For Brentano,
see his 1899 essay classified in the Brentano Nachlass as Z 10/4; also, his Psycho-
logie, II, 143; III, 48-9. (I am indebted to Chisholmfor these references.)
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUS OF BECOMING: WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW? 35
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
36 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
with respect to the present time, of happening then, such that the
object of S's awareness is simply that the flash has (tenselessly) the
property q. Since this property is a simple, sui generis property, its
attribution by simple folk does not require that they relate anything
to their very acts of attribution or that they be in any way self-
conscious.
We seem to have a standoff between the modified-objective-prop-
erty doctrine and the thought-reflexive analysis, as these accounts
of the present have been developed thus far. Is there a third alter-
native?
III. THE TENSED-EXEMPLIFICATION VIEW (TE)
According to this view, tenses are basic and irreducible. (Thus it ac-
cepts the second horn of the dilemma for the OPD presented on p.
I I | above.) If states of affairs are objects of acceptance (and other
attitudes), then it would seem that there is no such state of affairs as
one's exemplifying the property of having a toothache. For it seems
obvious that one cannot simply accept(or reject)-as-holding any
such state of affairs. Such a state would hold at some times and not
hold at others. Which times would be relevant, and why? According
to TE, what one can accept is rather the state of affairs of one's now-
exemplifying the property of having a toothache. And this requires
tensed exemplification. As already noted, tenses drive out transitory
temporal properties. Thus the state of affairs of x now-exemplifying
being-present seems tantamount to the state of affairs of x now-ex-
emplifying self-identity, or to the state of affairs of x now-existing.
Note that what is proposed by TE is not a relation between oneself
and the time t that is present, a relation that yields the state of
affairs of one's being in pain at t. For that would amount to tenseless
exemplification of the pain relation by the ordered pair (oneself, t)-
and thus would reduce to the view TR' already rejected above.
Rather, the state of affairs suggested by TE involves a basic tensed
exemplification nexus of presently-exemplifying: one's presently-
exemplifying the property of being in pain.
According to the advocate of tensed exemplification, therefore,
when I accept (as holding) my now having a toothache, I accept (as
holding) the state of affairs of my now-exemplifying the property of
having a toothache. But what state of affairs did I accept (as hold-
ing) yesterday when I believed then that I then had a toothache? Is
it not the state of affairs of my then-exemplifying the property of
having a toothache? Generalizing from this, it seems clear that the
advocate of tensed exemplification is committed to the following
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUS OF BECOMING: WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW? 37
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
38 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUSOF BECOMING: WHAT IS HAPPENING Now? 39
(a) Necessarily, if tenselessly predicating a property of a thing is
correct at any one time, it would be correct at any other time as
well.
(b) A thing can have a transitory property at one time and not at
another.
(c) If at a time t tenselessly predicating a property of a thing is cor-
rect, then the thing has the property at that time.
It follows from (a), (b), and (c) that tenselessly predicating a prop-
erty of a thing can never be correct unless the thing always has that
property. FT responds by rejecting (a) and with it P1. But how can
it do so with any plausibility? This can perhaps be answered in
several stages as follows. Consider first of all the following distinction
between the present-boundand the present-free.
A. The Distinction.
(a) Present-bound properties: being presently (now) 4
being today 4
having been yesterday 4,
being to be tomorrow 4
having been n days ago 4
being to be n days hence 4
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
40 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
moon phase a month ago? But that property is presumably just the
property of having been in its new-moon phase a month before the
present time. And it seems wrong to suppose that in believing a
month ago that the moon was then in its new-moon phase I must
then have made reference to the present time. So it appears that in
believing a month ago that the moon was then in its new-moon
phase I was attributing to the moon some property other than being
now in its new-moon phase and other than having been in its new-
moon phase a month ago. And if we restrict outselves to present-
bound properties, there is no apparent alternative to the conclusion
that there must have been some primitive property 4 with respect
to a month ago, the property of being then in its new-moon phase,
which is different from the property 4', with respect to two months
ago, of being then in its new-moon phase, and so on ad absurdum.
The form-of-thought view offers a different way of looking at the
matter. Instead of supposing that there is the present-bound prop-
erty of being-presently-in-its-new-noon-phasewhich I attribute to the
moon, FT proposes that there is the present-free property of being-
in-its-new-moon-phase which I attribute-as-present to the moon.
With respect to states of affairs rather than properties, the proposal
is this. Instead of supposing that there is the present-bound state of
affairs of the moon being presently in its new moon phase, let us suppose
that there is the present-free state of affairs of the moon being in its
new-moon phase, which at any given time we may accept as holding.
Since this state of affairs is the very same state of affairs that a
month ago I accepted as holding, FT is not subject to the bizarre ex-
uberance that flaws some of its earlier alternatives.
An important feature of the form-of-thought account (FT) is that
it has the propositional attitudes absorb "the now." Thus FS hopes
(fears) that a now1 is interpreted as FS hopes-present (fears-pre-
sent) that al and rS believes that now ao] is interpreted as rS ac-
cepts-as-present that ao1.
B. Elimination of the Present-bound. FT eliminates present-bound
temporal properties. It makes no room for them for them in states of
affairs. There is a sense in which FT has the propositional attitudes
absorb all such temporal properties. But this requires explanation as
follows.
(a) If a declarative present-tense sentence a makes no time refer-
ence, either explicitly or implicitly, then rFaTwill represent the
gerundive form of a and will pick out a possible state of affairs.
(b) Let FAJt:ao1stand for rAt I, S accepts (as-then-holding) Oa.
(c) The use of the variable 'T'in (b) may be misleading, since we
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE STATUS OF BECOMING: WHAT IS HAPPENING NOWV? 4I
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
42 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
BOOK REVIEWS
Berkeley. GEORGE PITCHER. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1977. 277 p. $16.50.
George Pitcher's Berkeley is a volume in the series that is now be-
ginning to appear, The Arguments of the Philosophers, intended
to provide "an essentially analytic and critical account" of "the
great and the influential philosophers." There hasn't been such a
series in a while, providing a contemporary assessment of historical
figures intended for the general philosophical reader, and this one
is very welcome. The relationship of philosophy with its past is
uneasy. It seems that philosophers cannot jettison their past as
scientists do, that philosophical progress does not permit rejecting
or ignoring the conclusions from the past, for stich conclusions
don't end up either conclusively refuted or hopelessly outdated.
It is nevertheless unrealistic to expect philosophers from the past
to address our contemporary issues directly, for their problems are
0022-362X/79/7601/0042$01.10 (? 1979 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:53:30 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions