Tallant (2007) challenges my recent defence of no-futurism (Button 2006), but he does not discuss the key to that defence: that no-futurism's primitive relation ‘x is real-as-of y’ is not symmetric. I shall therefore answer Tallant's challenge in the same way as I originally defended no-futurism. Doing so allows me to clarify what no-futurists should believe and to supply a variety of semantic principles for no-futurism. It also shows why no-futurists have nothing to fear from sceptical challenges. This is not to say that no-futurism has no weaknesses, however, and I conclude by suggesting where attacks on no-futurism would be better targeted

Button, T

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Every Now and Then Tim ButtonEvery Now and Then, no-futurism faces nosceptical problemsTim ButtonThis paper is published by Blackwell Publishing, on behalf of the Analysis Trust.This is a post-print; that is, it is the full and correct text, including the Correction(also published in Analysis). The definitive version is available at Blackwell . Thefull citations are:Button, Tim. 2007. ‘Every Now and Then, no-futurism faces no sceptical problems’.Analysis 67.4, pp.325–32. This incorporates the ‘Correction to Tim Button, EveryNow and Then, no-futurism faces no sceptical problems’ in Analysis 68.1, p.95Abstract. Tallant (2007) has challenged my recent defence of no-futurism(Button 2006), but he does not discuss the key to that defence: that no-futurism’s primitive relation ‘x is real-as-of y’ is not symmetric. I thereforeanswer Tallant’s challenge in the same way as I originally defended no-futurism.I also clarify no-futurism by rejecting a common mis-characterisation of thegrowing-block theorist. By supplying a semantics for no-futurists, I demon-strate that no-futurism faces no sceptical challenges. I conclude by consideringthe problem of how to interpret the relation ‘x is real-as-of y’.Tallant (2007) challenges my recent defence of no-futurism (Button 2006), but doesnot discuss the key to that defence: that no-futurism’s primitive relation ‘x is real-as-of y’ is not symmetric. I therefore answer Tallant’s challenge in the same way asI originally defended no-futurism. Doing so allows me to clarify what no-futuristsshould believe and to supply a variety of semantic principles for no-futurism. It alsoshows why no-futurists have nothing to fear from sceptical challenges. This is notto say that no-futurism has no weaknesses, however, and I conclude by suggestingwhere attacks on no-futurism would be better targeted.1 Clarifying no-futurismNo-futurists hold that the PAST and the PRESENT are real, but that the FUTUREis not. The capitalization indicates that these are not merely temporal indexicals;they capture the ontological privilege that the PRESENT moment has by virtueof being the last moment of time. A no-futurist, of course, believes that she isPRESENT, but this belief may be problematic. Seemingly, if the no-futurist isPRESENT, then all her real PAST predecessors were wrong to think that they werePRESENT. So, by a sceptical induction, the no-futurist should think that her beliefis also wrong. In which case, no-futurism collapses (Bourne 2002: 362).1I argued that this problem dissolves by recognising that ‘real-as-of’ is not asymmetric relation (Button 2006). I can clarify this claim by rejecting a standard1Cf. Braddon-Mitchell 2004: 200, Button 2006: 131 and Tallant 2007: 84.1Every Now and Then Tim Buttoncharacterization of no-futurism, according to which time is represented by a sequenceof increasingly large blocks:2SSSMSTMMMT TTthe world as-of Sundaythe world as-of Mondaythe world as-of TuesdaySupposedly, the most recent (bottom) block depicts the world as it is, and theothers depict the world as it was.3 However, several Sundays appear on the diagram:Sunday as-of Sunday (marked as ‘SS ’), Sunday as-of Monday (‘SM ’), and Sundayas-of Tuesday (‘ST ’). This threatens to make time two-dimensional. To avoid this,no-futurists are taken to hold that the whole of reality is depicted by just oneblock: the most recent. So, if on Tuesday we want to check the truth-value of somesentence-token uttered on Sunday, we must look to ST (the only Sunday).Suppose that it is Tuesday. Consider a token utterance, U , of ‘Sunday isPRESENT’ that was uttered on Sunday. For the no-futurist, U is true only ifTuesday is not real. But given the block picture, U was was false, for it neglectedTT ’s existence. This is at the heart of the sceptical challenge: all our previous ut-terances were wrong, so we probably are. (Indeed, if U was false, then the blockmarked ‘the world as-of Sunday’ depicts reality as it never was.)To avoid this problem, we must maintain that U was true: that it was righton Sunday to deny TT ’s existence. This requires that the Sunday we consider onTuesday, when evaluating U , corresponds with SS . How could this be possible?Only if the real-as-of relation is not symmetric. The no-futurist should say that,as-of any moment x, only x and moments earlier than x are real.4 In that case,Tuesday is not real-as-of Sunday. Nothing about Sunday—not even its relation toTuesday—is or was altered by Tuesday’s being real-as-of Tuesday. Sunday is not‘changed in moving from PRESENT to PAST’ (or some such clumsly locution);Sunday as-of Tuesday is identical with Sunday as-of Sunday.5 Consequently, U wastrue, as were all similar PAST utterances. The sceptical problem melts away.Evidently, the block picture is misleading. To model the asymmetry of real-as-of, each block would have to be thought of as embedded in the block immediately2Cf. Dainton 2001: 69–713Italicization indicates that the verb is to be read as tensed.4See §5 for how to read ‘are’ here.5Since no properties of (or relations between) moments change with the passage of time,McTaggart’s argument also has no purchase against no-futurism. This is, in essence, Lowe’s(1998: 47) response to McTaggart.2Every Now and Then Tim Buttonbeneath it in such a way that, as you move from right to left in assessing the truthof past-tensed utterances, you mysteriously move up through the blocks and theblocks beneath disappear. This is a wholly inadequate image, but we should nothave expected it to be easy—or even possible—to represent time spatially. To picturetime is to aim at a complete description of reality, true for all times. Having deniedthat real-as-of is symmetric, no-futurists should just deny that such a descriptionis possible, for the total reality of moments ‘differs’ from moment to moment. Theno-futurist must therefore part company with Tooley, who claims ‘there can bea complete and consistent description of the world that is not a description fromany particular temporal perspective’ (1997: 16).6 This view causes the scepticalproblem, but it is this view that my no-futurist explicitly rejects.72 Tallant’s challengeTallant (2007: 85) argues that the preceding account does not distinguish ‘simpleindexical’ tense (symbolised as ‘is’) from tense ‘that ascribes some component toour ontology’ (‘IS ’). The sceptical problems then returns in the following form:Each of our predecessors believed that ‘it IS the case that this momentIS PRESENT’. If they believed such, and we believe that ‘it IS thecase that this moment IS PRESENT’, then we must find some reasonfor thinking that we ARE correct in thinking that our claim IS true,as opposed to thinking that our claim WAS-is-‘present’ and, hence,WAS-is-true. (Tallant 2007: 86)Tallant fears that ‘IS ’ and ‘is’ can diverge, so that I merely WAS-is right at PASTmoments to think ‘I AM (PRESENT)’. How should we understand this concern?Perhaps the worry is that that my account of no-futurism neglects some signif-icant difference between the sentences ‘I AM ’ and ‘I am PRESENT’. This concernis groundless. Bourne’s sceptical challenge arose by separating expressions that as-cribe ontological privilege from those that are mere indexicals. It does not matterwhether this separation is indicated by using different verbs (‘IS ’ versus ‘is’) orby using different independent grammatical particles (‘PRESENT’ versus ‘this mo-ment’); no additional metaphysical distinction hangs upon this purely grammaticalchoice. So I can address this concern as I did the original sceptical problem.I would worry that Sunday WAS, but IS not, the last moment of time, only ifI believed in an ‘objective past’ (Tallant 2007: 86) that is invariant from momentto moment: a single moment that is PRESENT from the perspective of anyoneat any time. The no-futurist denies the possibility of a moment-invariant descrip-tion of reality, on the grounds that real-as-of is not symmetric. So, suppose it ISTuesday. Me-on-Tuesday SAYS : ‘me-on-Monday merely WAS correct to think he IS(PRESENT); I AM (PRESENT)’. Suppose further that, as me-on-Tuesday LOOKS6Cf. Tooley 1997: 30, 41, 416.7See Button 2006: 133–4 for further details of the no-futurist’s response to the scepticalchallenge.3Every Now and Then Tim Buttonat it, me-on-Monday SAID exactly the same thing with regard to me-on-Sunday.As-of Monday, me-on-Tuesday IS not real, since Tuesday is later than Monday. Sofrom me-on-Tuesday’s perspective, me-on-Tuesday WAS correct. There is simplyno threatening induction. (Cf. Button 2006: 133.)3 Semantic considerationsPerhaps Tallant’s worry is that anything with the truth conditions ‘Monday IS time’slast moment’ IS false, so the Monday-token merely WAS -(is) true, but IS false.This thought needs some unpacking. A token of the type ‘Monday IS PRESENT’IS indeed false on Tuesday if I UTTER it on a Tuesday, but the token in questionWAS UTTERED on Monday. To consider this argument, we need to consider howto evaluate the PRESENT truth of PAST utterances, which requires an account ofno-futurism’s semantics. I shall briefly set aside Tallant’s concerns to supply one.8The semantics of future-tensed statements lies beyond the scope of this paper,so consider a past- or present-tensed token, U , made at time t1 about some event E.First, consider U ’s truth-value at t1. (The abbreviation ‘[is/was]’ should be treatedas follows: if we are at t and we wish to evaluate U ’s truth at t, read every instanceof the abbreviation as ‘is’; if we are at some later moment, read every instance as‘was’.)(i) U [is/was] true at t1 iff either:(a) U [is/was] present-tensed and E and t1 are real-as-of each other; or(b) U [is/was] past-tensed and, for some t earlier than t1, E and t are real-as-of each other.Next, we require a semantic principle for evaluating U ’s truth value at any momentt2 which is later than t1. Three incompatible principles are available:(ii) U [is/was] true at t2 iff U was true at t1.(iii) U [is/was] true at t2 iff either:(a) U was present-tensed and E and t2 are real-as-of each other; or(b) U was past-tensed and, for some t∗ earlier than t2, E and t∗ are real-as-ofeach other.(iv) U [is/was] truth-valueless at t2.To see the difference between these principles, suppose that a relieved Gaul exclaimed‘Caesar is crossing the Rubicon!’ as Caesar crossed the Rubicon. By (ia), this tokenwas true when Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Hence, if we adopt (ii), this token is8Cf. Tooley’s (1997: 200–3) and Bourne’s (2002: 368–9) non-token-reflexive semantics,particularly their discussion of truth at a time. This account shares features of Lowe’s token-reflexive account (1998: 45–6), replacing talk of ‘simultaneity’ with ‘x and y are real-as-ofeach other’.4Every Now and Then Tim Buttontrue, even though, by (ia), anyone who says in 2007 ‘Caesar is crossing the Rubicon’says something false. By contrast, if we adopt (iii), the Gaul’s token is false, sinceit is evaluated exactly as if it were a fresh token of the same type. Finally, by (iv),the token is truth-valueless. (One might be motivated to adopt (iv) by the thoughtthat it is as peculiar to ask whether the Gaul’s token is true as it is to ask whetherCaesar’s hair is black.)Tallant will maintain that the preceding discussion treats all the verbs in (i)–(iv) as ‘simple indexicals’. He will insist that the no-futurist should consider a set ofprinciples exactly like (i)–(iv), but with all the italicized verbs capitalized to makethem ontologically ascriptive. Call the resulting principles (I)–(IV). Suppose thatthe no-futurist adopts either (III) or (IV). If Tuesday IS PRESENT, then a token onMonday of ‘this IS time’s last moment’ WAS true (by (IA)) and is true (by (ia) and(ii)), but IS not true (by (III) or (IV)). The same considerations apply to all PASTtokens. By a sceptical semantic induction, we reach Tallant’s feared conclusion thatI merely WAS -is right.The no-futurist could just respond by accepting (II). Then earlier utterancesARE right if and only if they WERE right, and the semantic induction becomesfavourable rather than sceptical. Indeed, a favourable induction is available evento no-futurists who reject (II): that every earlier token WAS true suggests that thecurrent token IS. Which induction is correct? That we have to ask this question atall indicates that something has gone awry. For the sceptical semantic induction tobe a legitimate induction, the tokens in the inductive base and the current tokenmust be relevantly similar. The inductive base comprises PAST tokens, and it istheir PASTNESS that RENDERS them not true (everyone, after all, agrees thatthey WERE true). So the no-futurist will only accept that this base IS relevantto my current token Tuesday IS PRESENT if the no-futurist already believes thatthe current token IS (or MIGHT BE ) a PAST token. That is precisely what theno-futurist denies: by the asymmetry of real-as-of, as-of any moments, there are nolater moments.We are at the heart of the matter. No-futurists would only require a two-dimensional semantics (indexical versus ontological) if they held a two-dimensionalview of time, but the two-dimensional view was rejected in §1. The semantic objec-tion, like the original puzzle, presupposes a metaphysics that no-futurists reject.4 Immunity to all sceptical challengesTo prevent further misdirected attacks on no-futurism, it is worth diagnosing theroot cause of the sceptical challenges. Tallant begins his challenge with the words‘suppose that we are in the PAST’ (2007: 85). No-futurists will immediately interjectthat this supposition is always false: whenever I am, there are no later moments,so I cannot be PAST. Sceptical problems would indeed arise if no-futurists werecommitted to something like:(1) there is exactly one moment x such that, any token of ‘x is PRESENT’,uttered at any moment y, is true.5Every Now and Then Tim ButtonSomeone who holds this principle will be genuinely troubled by the supposition thatshe is PAST. Bourne’s original problem arises by reading the verbs tenselessly.9Tallant’s problem arises by reading the verbs as ontologically-ascriptive. Otherproblems might arise by reading the verbs in some other way. But this is all irrele-vant, since no-futurists reject all readings of (1). Since real-as-of is not symmetric,no-futurists instead endorse:(2) as-of any moment y, there is exactly one moment x such that any token of ‘xis PRESENT’, uttered at y, [is/was] true,which is compatible with the no-futurist thesis(3) for any moment x, any token of ‘x is PRESENT’ uttered at x [is/was] true.Sceptical worries dissolve, for ontological ascription and indexicality are bound to-gether. Tallant omits the asymmetry of real-as-of in his discussion of my solution,but it is all that my solution to the original problem consisted in. It solves his chal-lenge too, and it blocks any sceptical induction from the falsity of PAST statementsof no-futurism, because all the relevant PAST statements were true (and, by (ii),still are).5 Interpreting ‘real-as-of’Capitalization of temporal terms was introduced to disambiguate ontology fromindexicality. Since we have seen that these do not come apart, the no-futurist candispense with the convention. Furthermore, all verbs can be read as tensed (unlessexplicitly stated otherwise), so the demand to italicize verbs can be relaxed. No-futurists should feel free to write normal English sentences again.One verb, however, deserves special attention. No-futurists claim that, as-of anymoment, only earlier and simultaneous moments are real. Someone might ask: is the‘are’ in the thesis to be read as tensed or tenseless? This question misunderstandsno-futurism. The ‘is’ in ‘x is real-as-of y’ is neither tensed nor tenseless. The relation‘x is real-as-of y’ is a primitive of no-futurism, and the verb it includes is just a partof that primitive. Tense and PRESENTNESS supervene upon real-as-of relations,and tenseless truths (i.e. truths that are true at every moment) follow in their wake.But it is clearly nonsensical to demand that the relation itself must be either tensedor tenseless.Attacks on no-futurism should focus on the interpretation of this relation. Inparticular, some may object that it is impossible for x to exist relative to y, withouty existing relative to x. If this objection carries, then‘x is real-as-of y’ cannotbe interpreted as ‘x exists relative to y’. It will follow that all moments of timeexist relative to each other (albeit without being ‘real-as-of’ each other), and no-futurism will have become a version of the tenseless theory of time, with ‘x is real-as-of y’ interpreted as some transitive, reflexive, non-symmetric accessibility relation9Cf. Button 2006: 1326Every Now and Then Tim Buttonbetween co-tenselessly-existing objects and moments. This would vindicate Bourne’sclaim (2002) that the only plausible theories of time are presentism and the tenselesstheory.But why should it be unacceptable to relativize existence? The relation ‘x existsrelative to y’ is still, for the no-futurist, symmetric within moments, so synchronicmetaphysics is unaffected. No-futurists are simply telling us to take seriously the ideathat reality as a whole differs from moment to moment. To maintain that this ideais implausible is just to refuse to engage with tensed theories of time altogether.10University of Cambridge, Darwin CollegeCambridge CB3 9EU, UKbutton@cantab.netReferencesBourne, C (2002). ‘When am I? A tense time for some tense theorists?’Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 80, pp. 359–371.Braddon-Mitchell, D (2004). ‘How do we know it is now now?’ Analysis, 64,pp. 199–203.Button, T (2006). ‘There’s no time like the present’. Analysis, 66, pp. 130–135.Dainton, B (2001). Time and Space. Chesham: Acumen Press.Dummett, Michael (1960). ‘A Defence of McTaggart’s Proof of the Unreality ofTime’. Philosophical Review , 69, pp. 497–504.Le Poidevin, R, editor (1998). Questions of Time and Tense. Oxford: ClarendonPress.Lowe, E J (1998). ‘Tense and Persistence’. In Le Poidevin (1998), pp. 43–59.Tallant, J (2007). ‘There have been, are (now), and will be lots of times like thepresent in the hybrid view of time’. Analysis, 67, pp. 83–86.Tooley, M (1997). Time, Tense and Causation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10Many thanks to Arif Ahmed, who first suggested to me the Dummettian line that tensedtheorists should reject the ‘prejudice that there must be a complete description of reality’(1960: 504), and who was my graduate supervisor when I wrote Button 2006. Thanks tohim for comments on this paper, and to Craig Bourne, Hugh Mellor, Michael Potter, ananonymous referee for this journal, and members of the Cambridge Metaphysics Group.7

Every Now and Then, no-futurism faces no sceptical problems

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Every Now and Then, no-futurism faces no sceptical problems

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