A Medieval Way of Talking about the Past and Future

 One issue important to both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of time is how statements made about the past and future can be meaningful.  Some philosophers of time, such as Quentin Smith, claim that a referential theory of meaning requires the existence of past and future things in order for statements about them to be meaningful.  This poses a problem for Presentists, as only the present exists simpliciter, making it difficult to explain how statements about the past and future can be meaningful if meaning is somehow connected to reference.

A related issue pertaining to statements made about the past and future concerns the truth-makers of those statements.  What is the truth-maker for the statement “Socrates was put to death in Athens.”  Is the truth-maker found in the presently existing world- such as Socrates bones?  Is it not directly Socrates, but writings about him?  Again, Eternalists can claim that if the fact that Socrates drinks hemlock at a time earlier than the present is still a time that exists simpliciter,  then the truth-maker for the statement can be just that- Socrates drinking hemlock.  Presentists do not have that option, but they can and have appealed to states-of-affairs (Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig), such as the present state-of-affair that Socrates drank hemlock in Athens.

The Principle of Charity and Gadamer’s View of Completeness

Hans Georg Gadamer describes the hindrance that prejudices make on our ability to interpret a text in his major work, Truth and Method. While I have a certain set of problems with his overall program and many of his conclusions, I do think he has some insight into the notion of charity (though I don’t think he ever uses that term). The principle of charity basically claims that we should interpret someone in a favorable light, i.e., we assume that they have some intelligence.

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