Tense, Timely Action and Self-Ascription

Abstract

I consider whether the self‐ascription theory can succeed in providing a tenseless (B‐theoretic) account of tensed belief and timely action. I evaluate an argument given by William Lane Craig for the conclusion that the self‐ascription account of tensed belief entails a tensed theory (A‐theory) of time. I claim that how one formulates the self‐ascription account of tensed belief depends upon whether one takes the subject of self‐ascription to be a momentary person‐stage or an enduring person. I provide two different formulations of the self‐ascription account of tensed belief, one that is compatible with a perdurantist account of persons and the other that is compatible with an endurantist account of persons. I argue that a self‐ascription account of tensed beliefs for enduring subjects most plausibly involves the self‐ascription of relations rather than properties. I argue that whether one takes the subject of self‐ascription to be a momentary person‐stage or an enduring person, the self‐ascription theory provides a plausible B‐theoretic account of how tensed belief and timely action are possible.

Commentary: Physical time within human time

“…This official statement of stage theory is also Block Universe-friendly but may be much less intuitive. The best arguments in its favor involve rather abstract philosophical conundrums of material coincidence and vagueness (Sider, 2001 ), but I contend that it can also be supported by reflection on a central feature of our temporal experience (Hoy, 1978 ; Torre, 2010 ; Parsons, 2015 ; Skow, 2015 ; Balashov, 2017 ), especially when this is followed by a leap of imagination inspired by influential thought experiments (Parfit, 1971 , 1984 , 2008 ).…”

The common present in a block universe

“…Because the particular CP associated with it includes the short stretches of our IPs borne by our individual stages, which also do the agreeing, within the relevant time margins involved in auditory processing and subsequent communication. 15 In contrast, your 20:45:00 stage and my 21:00:00 stage cannot share a musical CP of the relevant sort (associated with the last -sad and hopeless -movement of the symphony), and hence cannot be constitutive of the corresponding CP, simply because they do not belong to a common causal network of processes typically associated with fleeting musical experiences. 16 The eternalist explanation of CP is thus very efficient: CP emerges as a by-product of ongoing causal interaction of the subjects of experience amongst themselves and with their environment.…”