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Item Details
| Title:
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LANGUAGE AND TIME
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| By: |
Quentin Smith |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| List price:
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£41.49 |
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We currently do not stock this item, please contact the publisher directly for
further information.
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| ISBN 10: |
0195155947 |
| ISBN 13: |
9780195155945 |
| Publisher: |
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS INC |
| Pub. date: |
1 June, 2002 |
| Pages: |
272 |
| Description: |
Quentin Smith offers powerful arguments against the New Theory of Reference propounded by leading thhinkers in the philosophy of language. Smith defends the tensed theory of time and argues that the simultaneity is absoltue, basing this position on the theory that all propositions exist in time. Using detailed propostitions and a theory of cognitive significance, he introduces an alternative interpretation of reference that will be relevant to metaphysicians,philosophers of science and philosophers of language and may come to be recognised as the definitive statement on the tensed theory of time. |
| Synopsis: |
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. |
| Publication: |
US |
| Imprint: |
Oxford University Press Inc |
| Returns: |
Returnable |
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