Proposition are assumed to be contents of our attitudes. Mark Richard (1981), in his famous paper, argued that temporal propositions, i.e. propositions that change their truth-values over time, are not suitable for this role. He claimed that temporal propositions cannot be the contents of our beliefs. While his argument faced criticism (e.g., Brogaard 2012, Sullivan 2014), the eternalist-temporalist debate remains unresolved.

Recently, new arguments have emerged, shifting the focus from the contents of beliefs to the contents of other attitudes. In this vein, Brogaard (2022) argues that eternal propositions cannot be the contents of future-directed hopes, while Skibra (2021) argues that eternal propositions cannot be the contents of desires. Both of these arguments against eternalism point to issues with semantic satisfaction.

Consider my hope (or desire) that it will be sunny in Prague. According to semantic eternalism, the content of my hope is the proposition that there is a time t later than the time of the formation of my hope such that it is sunny in Prague at t. This proposition is true or false eternally, so it is true or false at the time of my hope’s formation. However this implies that my hope is fulfilled (or fail to be fulfilled) at the time of its formation, which seems to be an absurd conclusion. In general, the problem is that given semantic eternalism, our hopes (and desires) are fulfilled (or fail to be fulfilled) as soon as they are formed. In my presentation I will focus on this puzzle. After careful reconstruction, I will show how eternalists can address this objection.

The puzzle rests on two assumptions concerning satisfaction. Firstly, it is assumed that hope (desire) is preferential. Preferential attitudes are satisfied when the world changes to fit the content of the attitude in question. The second assumption (FIT) is that the world changes to fit the proposition p iff there are times t₁, t₂ such that p is false at t₁ and p is true at t₂. From these two, one can derive the satisfaction condition that generates the puzzle: a hope for p is satisfied at t iff p is true at t.

My solution to the puzzle is to reject the claim that a hope for p (where p is a proposition) is satisfied at t if and only if p is true at t. Instead, we can link the satisfaction of hope for p with truth of a different proposition p ′ that is systematically related to p. This strategy mirrors the Sullivan's (2014) temporalist response to Richard's (1981) problem. I will show how this strategy can be adopted by rejecting (FIT). I will propose two alternative accounts of what it means for a world to change to fit a content p. One is based on the B-theoretical account of change (Mozersky 2015). The second account assumes an A-theory picture of time and uses the notion of wide-base truthmaking (Caplan & Sanson 2011: 198). My conclusion is that the case for eternalism is not yet lost.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Caplan, B. & Samson, D. (2011), Presentism and Truthmaking, Philosophy Compass 6(3), 196-208.

Brogaard, B. (2012), Transient truths: An essay in the metaphysics of propositions, New York: Oxford University Press.

Brogaard, B. (2022), Temporal Propositions and Our Attitudes toward the Past and the Future. In C. Tillman & A. Murray (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Propositions (pp. 347-362). New York: Routledge.

Mozersky, M. J. (2015). Time, Language, and Ontology: The World From the B-Theoretic Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Richard, M. (1981), Temporalism and eternalism, Philosophical Studies 39 (1), 1-13.

Skibra, D. (2021). On Content Uniformity for Beliefs and Desires, Review of Philosophy and Psychology 12, 279-309.

Sullivan, M. (2014), Change We Can Believe In (and Assert), Noˆus 48(3), 474-495.

One of the longstanding questions in philosophy is whether propositions about contingent future can be presently true. According to linearists, the answer is ‘yes’. They claim that a proposition about the future is true if it is true with respect to the actual future (e.g. Øhrstrøm 2009). On the other hand, universalists claim that the answer is ‘no’: a proposition about the future is true at a moment m if it is true with respect to all possible futures available at m (e.g. Todd 2021; Thomason 1970).

Quite recently, new arguments emerged which suggest that regardless of which position one endorses, it is going to clash with the intuitive probability assessments. Assume that p is the proposition that it will rain in Prague this week. Intuitively, we should ascribe a non-trivial probability to p (i.e., different from 0 and 1) because it is neither impossible nor settled that it will rain in Prague this week. The puzzle is that neither universalists nor linearists can account for this intuition. Universalists are apparently forced to concede that every future contingent has probability 0 (see Carriani 2021; Todd 2021; Williams 2008), while linearists seem committed to the claim that future contingents have uniquely extreme probabilities - 0 or 1 (see De Florio & Frigerio 2022).

Consider linearists first. If we assume that p is true, then the probability of its being true is equal to 1. However, by T-schema, the probability of p should be equal to the probability of p being true. So, the probability ascribed to p should be equal to 1 (because we assumed that p is true). On the other hand, according to universalists, p is not true. Consequently, the probability of its being true is equal to 0. Again, by T-schema, the probability of p should be equal to the probability of p being true. So, the probability ascribed to p should be equal to 0.

The aim of the paper is twofold. Firstly, will clarify and simplify the puzzles. Secondly, we will provide new solutions to the puzzles and argue that the objections are fatal to neither universalists nor linearists. We offer two novel reactions available to universalits. One of them is based on Thomason’s (1970) supervaluationism, while the other involves a primitive notion of a future-oriented probability, premonitions of which can be found in (Todd 2021). However, our assessment is that the responses available to linearists are less costly than those of their rivals. Our linearists-friendly solution to the puzzle is based on the rejection of the premise that if p is true, then the probability of its being true is equal to 1. The upshot of the argument is that this assumption is unjustified in the light of the linearists’ theory because they reject the claim that if something is true, it is settled that it is true. We conclude that the notion of probability fits better with the linearists semantics of future contingents than with their universalist rival.

Selected references

Cariani F. (2021). The Modal Future: A Theory of Future-Directed Thought and Talk. Cambridge University Press.

De Florio, C., & Frigerio, A. (2022). Future, truth, and probability. Inquiry, 1-13.

Øhrstrøm, P. (2009). In Defence of the Thin Red Line: A Case for Ockhamism. Humana Mente 8, 17–32.

Thomason, R. (1970). Indeterminist time and truth-value gaps. Theoria 36(3), 264-281.

Todd, P. (2021). The Open Future: Why Future Contingents Are All False. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Williams, J. (2008). Aristotelian Indeterminacy and the Open Future. https://philpapers. org/rec/WILAIA4.