53

TENSED STATEMENTS

This paper will attempt to show that the tensed and tenseless modes of
speaking about temporal facts are not both equally workable and legitimate.1
First I would like to indicate briefly why the much discussed and disputed
question whether or not everything sayable in the tensed mode is equally
well sayable in the tenseless mode is of such vital importance. Two opposing

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theories of time have been prominent in twentieth century analytic philo-
sophy. The theory held by Russell and others2 claims that the concept of
time is analyzable solely in terms of the timeless relations of " earlier and
later than " and " simultaneous with ", hereafter to be called " .B-relations ".
The -B-relations are fundamental and primitive, and the pastness, present-
ness and futurity of events, hereafter to be called " 4-determinations ", are
analyzable in terms of or reducible to -B-relations between events, but not
vice-versa. The opposing theory held by Broad and others3 maintains that
the -4-determinations are fundamental and primitive and that the B-
relations between events are analyzable in terms of or reducible to A-
determinations of events, but not vice-versa. The Russellian theory, since
it holds that the A -determinations of events are reducible to -B-relations
between events, entails that tensed statements (i.e. statements referring to
the A -determinations of events) are always translatable into tenseless state-
ments (i.e. statements referring to the timeless .B-relations between events)
without any loss of meaning ; whereas, the Broadian theory, holding that
the A -determinations are primitive and therefore not reducible to .B-relations,
entails that this is impossible. The question, then, whether language can
be detensed is a sort of crucial test for these two conflicting theories of time.
If, as I shall try to demonstrate, it is not the case that tensed statements
can be rendered by tenseless ones without any loss of meaning, it will refute
the Russellian theory.
Before discussing this question directly it will be necessary to introduce
some preliminary definitions and distinctions. A tenseless statement makes
a temporal designation by describing a jB-relation between two events. If
a tenseless statement is true then the utterance at any other moment of time
of the sentence (following Strawson's distinction between sentence and state-
ment) employed in this statement will also make a true statement. The
1
That they are both equally workable and legitimate is claimed by Findlay in " An
Examination of Tenses," Contemporary British Philosophy, series 3, edited by Lewis,
p . 177, and Smart in " Spatialising Time," Mind, 1955, p . 240, and in " The Moving
Now," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1953, p p . 186-7.
2
Among the defenders of this theory are Braithwaite, Ayer, Quine, Goodman and
Williams.
'Among the defenders of this theory are J . Wisdom, Pears, Strawson, Prior and
W. Sellars.
54 RICHARD M. GALE

sentence employed in a tenseless statement is not context-bound, since it

is freely repeatable. Therefore, it is not essential to distinguish between
sentence and statement. A tensed statement refers to the ^4-determination
of an event. There are countless grammatical techniques for tensing a
statement of which tensed-verbs are only one, but what they all have in
common, and what will serve as a criterion for calling something a tensed
statement, is this : a tensed statement makes a temporal designation through
the utterance at some moment of time of a sentence which cannot be used
at every other moment of time so as to make a true statement. The sentence
employed in a tensed statement is context-bound, since it is not freely
repeatable. The reason for this is that a tensed statement refers to the

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A -determination of an event, but since this event changes in respect to its
.4-determination the sentence employed in a tensed statement cannot
appropriately be used at every moment of time.
All parties to this dispute would agree that if the only means we had for
making temporal designations were through the use of tenses then a difference
in tense would often make a difference in the meaning of our conception or
statement about some event. Let us assume for the purpose of the following
discussion that our conception or statement about some event includes the
date at which this event occurs. In such a case would tense add anything
to the meaning of our statement ? Let us consider the following statements :
(1) Leonard Warren dies (present tense) on March 4, 1960.
(2) Leonard Warren died on March 4, 1960.
(3) Leonard Warren will die on March 4, 1960.
(4) Leonard Warren dies (tenseless present) on March 4, 1960.
Those who hold the Russellian theory and claim that a tensed statement
can always be rendered by a tenseless one without any loss of meaning
would say that there is no difference in meaning between the first three
tensed statements—assuming, of course, that they are made at the ap-
propriate time. Also, any one of the first three statements can be rendered
by the fourth statement, which is tenseless, without any loss of meaning.
Their main argument in support of this is that there is no difference in the
empirical or factual content of these four statements. The difference in
tense in the first three statements does not in any way alter or add anything
to our tenseless conception of " Warren's death on March 4, 1960 ". What
the tense of the statement indicates is merely whether or not the event
could be directly verified or directly perceived by the person making the
statement. When I add to my tenseless conception of Warren's death on
March 4, 1960 the fact that it is past (present, or future) I am not adding
any new empirical content to my original tenseless conception. By adding
tense to my conception I am not conceiving of the stage on which he fell
as being any more solid, or the orchestra as having any more musicians, or
Warren's costume as being of a different colour, etc., from what it is in my
tenseless conception. Therefore the fourth statement is identical in empirical
meaning with any of the first three statements.
 TENSED STATEMENTS 55
Those who believe that tense does add something to the meaning of a
conception or statement would claim that neither one of the first three
statements can be rendered by the fourth statement without some loss of
meaning. Moreover, no two of the first three statements are identical in
meaning, since they differ in tense. As far as I can see, the only argument
advanced by them to support this is the rather unilluminating one, un-
illuminating because it merely repeats the problem confronting us, that a
tensed statement has a different meaning from a tenseless one because it
tells us whether the event referred to is past, present, or future, while the
tenseless statement merely indicates a timeless 5-relation between this
event and some other chosen event, without indicating whether either one

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of the events is past, present, or future. But, unfortunately, this does not
tell us in what sense tense adds anything to the meaning of our conception
of an event.
This is as far as the dispute has got, and I would now like to show in
exactly what sense a tensed statement has a different meaning than a tense-
less one. My argument will be that tensed statements have a different role
or function within certain types of language-games than do tenseless state-
ments. If we adopt as our criterion of meaning the use of an expression in
certain contexts, then it would follow that since tensed statements have a
different use than tenseless ones they must thereby differ in meaning from
tenseless statements. If one should reject this theory of meaning based
on use and claim that statements can have empirical meaning independently
of their use within some context, I would then argue that while tensed and
tenseless statements can have the same empirical meaning they differ in
respect to their pragmatic force, meaning by this their role within certain
types of language-games. Herein we are making the same point in regard
to the difference between tensed and tenseless statements that we would
make if we accepted the theory of meaning based on use, only that we are
now rather artificially separating the empirical meaning of a statement
from its use in specific contexts.
To illustrate the different r61es which are played by tensed and tenseless
statements within certain types of language-games, and why the latter
cannot fulfil the same role as the former, let us imagine some situation in
which language is used as an instrument to enable two men to communicate
with each other so that they may co-ordinate their actions so as to achieve
some practical end. Joe is a scout for a machinegun company. He is strategi-
cally stationed so that he can survey the battleground, and when the enemy
approaches within 100 yards of their position he must inform the company
so that they can open fire. In order to conserve ammunition and not give
their position away, they fire only when the enemy is within a range of
100 yards.
The crucial question concerns whether Joe can alert the company
equally well through the use of a tenseless statement as he can through the
use of a tensed one. I shall try to show why only the latter mode of speaking
 56 RIOHAED M. GALE

would work in such a situation. Ordinarily Joe would give the company
the signal to open fire by uttering a tensed sentence, such as, " The enemy
is now within 100 yards ". If Joe is conversant with the literature on token-
reflexives and egocentric particulars he might say, " The enemy's approaching
within 100 yards is simultaneous with now (or this) ", in which ' now ' or
' this ' refers to the moment of time at which the statement in which they
are contained is made. Such a statement is obviously a tensed one because
every time the word ' now ' or ' this ' is used it refers to a different moment
of time. It is very misleading to call them proper names for a moment of
time, since, unlike ordinary proper names, they can be used only once to
refer to their referrent. We could imagine an even more primitive language-

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game in which Joe said only " Fire ! " or " Now ! " at the appropriate time.
Such utterances would have the same r61e in the language-game as the utter-
ance of a tensed sentence. They satisfy the criterion for being called a tensed
utterance or statement, for the word(s) used in these utterances is not freely
repeatable.
All goes well with Joe and the company until one fateful day when Joe
gets into a philosophical discussion with a man on the chow line. This
man, in civilian life a professional philosopher and an avid upholder of the
Russellian theory of time, convinces Joe of the superiority of the tenseless
mode of speaking. He first points out that if we speak in a tenseless manner
we do not have to worry about the distinction between sentence and state-
ment, as we do in the tensed mode of speaking. This does away with the
confusion surrounding our use of tensed statements. Also, since tensed
statements do not differ in empirical content from their tenseless renderings,
no meaning is lost by speaking in the tenseless mode. He might even add
some very questionable ontology to his logic, as do many defenders of the
Russellian theory, by saying that since tenseless propositions describing
timeless 5-relations between events are " eternally true or false ", there
must be in reality a corresponding series of events eternally laid out in
respect to these .B-relations. The argument by which he finally convinces
Joe of the superiority of the tenseless mode of speaking is that if everyone
spoke in a tenseless way then after Joe dies none of the people whom he
used to keep awake at night by his harmonica playing could ever say,
" Thank goodness that Joe is no longer around ". 4
Joe is sold and vows never again to utter a tensed sentence. Joe's philo-
sophical friend from the chow line realized that Joe would have difficulty
at first eliminating tense from his speech and has instructed him in the two
main techniques for detensing language—the first way being to replace
the original tensed statement with a statement describing a timeless il-
lation between the event referred to by the tensed statement and the time
at which the tensed statement is made ; the second way being to show a
•Actually, as pointed out by Prior in his brilliant article, " Thank Goodness That's
Over ", Philosophy, 1959, p . 17, he is refuting his own position t h a t everything sayable
in the tensed mode is equally well sayable in the tenseless mode, for it is impossible
in the tenseless mode to say " thank goodness that's over ".
 TENSED STATEMENTS 57
timeless JB-relation between the event referred to by the tensed statement
and the event which serves as the origin of our calendar. In the second
technique we eliminate all reference to the original tensed statement and
merely indicate the date at which the event referred to by the original tensed
statement takes place. The next day Joe spots the enemy, but through
excitement and force of habit he forgets his vow and utters out loud a tensed
sentence. He quickly repents for this transgression by replacing his original
tensed statement with a tenseless one through one of the two techniques
outlined above ; however, this would not serve as a test to prove that the
tenseless statement he later utters can fulfil the same role in this language-
game as that fulfilled by a tensed statement, for before Joe could replace

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his original tensed statement with a tenseless one the company will already
have opened fire. With practice Joe gets to the point where he no longer
utters out loud a tensed statement when he spies the enemy, but rather
says it to himself, and then immediately translates it into a tenseless state-
ment which he utters out loud. He first says to himself, " The enemy is
now within 100 yards ", and then translates it into a tenseless statement
which he utters out loud. Using the first technique he would say, " The
enemy's approaching within 100 yards is (tenseless present) simultaneous
with the utterance of the sentence, ' The enemy is now within 100 yards ' ".
Herein Joe is mentioning rather than using, as he did in his original tensed
utterance, the tensed sentence, " The enemy is now within 100 yards ".
Therefore he is not, as he was through the use of the tensed sentence, indi-
cating whether the enemy's approaching within 100 yards is (now) present.
The company would be bewildered when they hear this tenseless statement,
for they would not know whether the enemy's approaching within 100 yards
or the utterance of the tensed sentence, " The enemy is now within 100
yards ", is now past, present, or future. If Joe employed the second tech-
nique he would first have to look at his watch, which records the date as
well as the time. He would then say, " The enemy approaches within 100
yards on October 17, 1960, at 4.00 p.m. E.S.T.". The company, not knowing
the exact date and time, believe that Joe is engaging in some idle day dream
or reverie about their past battles. In neither case would Joe's tenseless
statements serve as a signal for the company to open fire. As a result of
their tenseless scout the company is caught flatfooted. . . . So ends the
tragedy of the " Lost Machinegun Company ".
It might be objected that Joe's tenseless statements above could serve
the same r61e in the language-game as that served by the tensed statements.
It is possible to make a stipulation that Joe would utter a tenseless sentence
only when the enemy is actually approaching within 100 yards. But in
such a case his statement would be tensed even though the sentence employed
grammatically looked like a tenseless sentence. We might say that a sentence
is not inherently tensed or tenseless ; which it is depends upon the rules
determining the conditions under which it can be used in a language-game.
A tenseless statement involves the utterance of a sentence which is freely
58 EICHAED M. GALE

repeatable. It is obvious that if a stipulation is laid down that Joe is to

utter a tenseless sentence at only those moments when the enemy is within
100 yards, then, within this language-game, Joe's utterance would serve the
function of a tensed statement, and would therefore be a tensed statement.
If there was such a stipulation, then, if Joe uttered a tenseless sentence at
a moment when the enemy was not within 100 yards, within this language-
game his statement would be false, regardless of whether it correctly
describes some event and the date of its occurrence. His statement would
be false in the sense of being misleading ; it would frustrate the company's
efforts to accomplish its mission, i.e. to stay alive.
This language-game, by which we attempted to show that tenseless

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statements cannot be equivalent in meaning (or, if you wish, in pragmatic
force) to tensed statements because they cannot equally well fulfil the same
r61e or function that tensed statements do, is typical of all those situations
in which men use language primarily as a form of communication to enable
them to co-ordinate their efforts so as to accomplish some practical end.
In order for the tenseless way of speaking, in which dates are ascribed to
events, to work in such contexts, it would be necessary for the people to
know the exact date and time, but to know this requires additional effort
on their part, so that the two modes of talking are not both equally legitimate
and workable.5 Imagine a language-game like this one : at the appropriate
moment of time a woman says to her lover, " Kiss me NOW! " Not only
might it prove embarrassing for her to have to put on the light so that they
both can check their watches, but the time lapse involved might prove to
be disastrous. Likewise, the time lapse involved in checking my watch
might prove disastrous to you, if not to me, if I should wish to alert you to
the fact that the roof is caving in on you.
Nelson Goodman has advanced the following counter-argument to this :
" Since—the argument runs—we recognize the tenseless sentence as a
translation of the tensed one only in the light of outside knowledge, we
have no genuine translation at all. But this seems to me no more cogent
than would the parallel argument that ' L'Angleterre ' is not a genuine
translation of ' England ' because we recognize it as a translation only if
we know that L' Angleterre is England ". 6
Goodman's argument begs the question, for in the case of ' England '
and ' L'Angleterre ' there exists a stipulation that they are synonymous,
that one is usable in place of the other ; but the question is whether a similar
type of stipulation can be made in regard to tenseless statements being
synonymous with tensed ones, and thereby usable in place of tensed state-
ments. We know what it is like to have a stipulation that ' England ' and
6
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 569. " Language is an instrument.
Its concepts are instruments. Now perhaps one thinks that it can make no great
difference which concepts we employ. As, after all, it is possible to do physics in feet
and inches as well as in metres and centimetres ; the difference is merely one of con-
venience. But even this is not true if, for instance, calculations in some system of
measurement demand more time and trouble than it is possible for us to give them "
'Goodman, The Structure of Appearance, p . 297.
r
TENSED STATEMENTS 59

' L'Angleterre ' are synonymous, how to record it in a dictionary and look
it up. Given our initial knowledge of this stipulation we can thereafter
substitute one term for the other without having to make some additional
effort, such as looking up the stipulation in the dictionary, on each occasion.
But it is quite different in the case of making a stipulation that tenseless
statements are synonymous with tensed ones, if the preceding argument is
sound. No such dictionary type of stipulation could exist in this case, for
every time we wish to use a tenseless statement in place of a tensed one we
must make the additional effort of checking our watch, which often involves
a disastrous time lapse.
If the preceding argument to show that tensed statements cannot be

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rendered by tenseless ones without any loss of meaning is sound, it will
refute the Russellian theory of time ; but does this ipso facto establish the
validity of the Broadian analysis which claims that .B-relations are reducible
to ^4-determinations ? I believe that it does. In ordinary language if it is
now true to utter the sentence " Y is present and X is past ", it follows
that it is now true to utter the tenseless sentence " X is earlier than Y ".
But the converse does not hold, for if it is now true to utter " X is earlier
than Y ", it does not follow that it is now true to utter " Y is present and
X is past ".' The statement " X is earlier than Y " is logically equivalent
to " Either X is present and Y future or X will be present and Y future
(quoad X) or X was present and Y future (quoad X) ". If " X is earlier
than Y " is true, then each of the three statements formed from the appro-
priate use of the tensed sentences forming the disjuncts of this disjunction
will be true ; but this does not tell us which one of these three differently
tensed counterparts can be used now so as to make a true statement. Since
tenseless statements can be derived from tensed ones, but not vice-versa,
this shows that the A -determinations are fundamental and that JS-relations
are reducible to them, but not vice-versa. This establishes the validity of
Broad's analysis of the concept of time.
RICHARD M. GALE
New York University.

' I n the Aristotle-Prior terminology, in which no distinction is made between

sentence and statement (as Strawson does) or between propositional function and
proposition (as Russell does), we could call the logical relation between a tensed state-
ment and its tenseless rendering one of superimplication. Cf. Prior, " Three-Valued
Logics and Indeterminism ", this journal, 1953.