The unreal future

Theoria 44 (3):157-179 (1978)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would he balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun. But the future has no such reality (as the pictured past and the perceived present possess); the future is but a figure of speech, a specter of thought.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,752

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Is the Future Partly Unreal?Paul Fitzgerald - 1968 - Review of Metaphysics 21 (3):421 - 446.
The Real Truth About the Unreal Future.Rachael Briggs & Graeme A. Forbes - 2012 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics volume 7. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
An unreal image. [REVIEW]John Worrall - 1984 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 35 (1):65-80.
Review: An Unreal Image. [REVIEW]John Worrall - 1984 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 35 (1):65 - 80.
Fantasy, Imagination and the Screen.Roger Scruton - 1983 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 19 (1):35-46.
Knowing Future Contingents.Ezio Di Nucci - 2012 - Logos and Episteme 3 (1):43-50.
Unreal subsistence and consciousness.W. P. Montague - 1914 - Philosophical Review 23 (1):48-64.
On the History of the Unreal Condition in Latin.H. C. Nutting - 1901 - The Classical Review 15 (01):51-53.
On some unreal distinctions in ethics.Henry David Aiken - 1966 - Journal of Philosophy 63 (21):697-699.
Is the abstract unreal?W. H. Sheldon - 1904 - Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 1 (17):449-453.
Discrimination between the real and unreal. Vivekaprana - 2009 - New Delhi: TransEdit Communications.
Future Idea and Philosophical Understanding.Xiaoting Liu - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 24:37-43.
Ockham's nominalism and unreal entities.Marilyn McCord Adams - 1977 - Philosophical Review 86 (2):144-176.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-09-13

Downloads
140 (#132,261)

6 months
8 (#353,767)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

John Burgess
Princeton University

Citations of this work

Assertion, Evidence, and the Future.Dilip Ninan - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (4):405-451.
In Defence of Ockhamism.Sven Rosenkranz - 2012 - Philosophia 40 (3):617-631.
Decidability for branching time.John P. Burgess - 1980 - Studia Logica 39 (2-3):203-218.
A finite axiomatization of the set of strongly valid ockhamist formulas.Alberto Zanardo - 1985 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 14 (4):447 - 468.
B-Theory and Time Biases.Sayid Bnefsi - 2019 - In Patrick Blackburn, Per Hasle & Peter Øhrstrøm (eds.), Logic and Philosophy of Time: Further Themes from Prior. Aalborg University Press. pp. 41-52.

View all 24 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Past, Present and Future.Arthur N. Prior - 1967 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Counterpart theory and quantified modal logic.David Lewis - 1968 - Journal of Philosophy 65 (5):113-126.
Papers on time and tense.Arthur Norman Prior - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Per F. V. Hasle.
Dilemmas.Gilbert Ryle - 1954 - Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press.

View all 9 references / Add more references