Abstract

One central issue concerning the relationship between truth and time is the mode of being of true propositions. In order to understand what mode of being they have one must recognize that a proposition is different from any type of mental act whose content is a proposition such as an act of judging or doubting. Propositions are also different from declarative sentences used to express propositions. Moreover, propositions are different from states of affairs, the referents of propositions. ;Within the copula of each proposition is a syncategorematic positing-concept. Its function is to posit the existence of a state of affairs. This is the "claim to truth" made by each proposition, and is independent of the asserting of a proposition through an act of judging. Proposition are true when there is a correspondence between a proposition and an existing state of affairs. Truth is a property of a proposition itself and not the actual correspondence. ;True propositions are existentially independent of the mental acts of persons for two or more persons can think the identical truth. Also, there are logical relationships among true propositions which obtain although only some of these true propositions have been thought. For instance, the contrapositive of each true proposition must be true even though the contrapositive proposition is not also thought. Furthermore, because of their unity and universality true propositions cannot be characterized in terms of when and where they came into existence or how long they existed. These features of true propositions cannot be explained by granting merely the existence of states of affairs, or merely the existence of possible true propositions. ;Thus, all true propositions exist eternally and are immutable. However, some eternally true propositions still refer to temporallly-existing states of affairs. Nevertheless, they are immutable due to the necessary presence of a temporal modality. ;Furthermore, eternally true propositions are not identical to necessary truths. The former can be either necessarily true or contingently true