Logic and Philosophy of Time

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2023): The History and Philosophy of Tense-logic
Articles

A.N. Prior on John Wyndham's case

pdf
  • Manuel González Riquelme,
  • Peter Øhrstrøm
Manuel González Riquelme
IES Vicente Medina
Peter Øhrstrøm
Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54337/lpt.v5i1.8027

Published 23-10-2023

Keywords

  • Bifurcation,
  • transworld identity,
  • transtemporal identity,
  • possible worlds,
  • counterfactual,
  • future contingents,
  • A.N. Prior,
  • John Wyndham,
  • Saul Kripke
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Riquelme, M. G., & Øhrstrøm, P. (2023). A.N. Prior on John Wyndham’s case. Logic and Philosophy of Time, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.54337/lpt.v5i1.8027

Copyright (c) 2023 Logic and Philosophy of Time

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

In his paper “Opposite Number” (1957) A.N. Prior anticipates the later philosophical debate on the ideas of bifurcation in time, existence and identity. The paper was inspired by a science fiction story by John Wyndham, and it was published in 1957, i.e., the year before Kripke´s famous letter of September 3, 1958, in which the idea of branching time was suggested. Which means that important aspects of this idea and complex problems related to it, were discussed by Prior earlier than has traditionally been assumed.

pdf

References

  1. Frigerio, Aldo (2023). "Book Review of Todd, P. The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False". Manuscrito 46(1); 220-230 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-6045.2023.v46n1.af
  2. Goodman, Nelson (1983), Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.
  3. Lewis, David (1986), On the plurality of Worlds. Basil Blackwell, New York, USA.
  4. Mackie, Penelope and Mark Jago (2022), "Transworld Identity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/identity-transworld.
  5. Ploug, T.; Øhrstrøm, P. (2012). "Branching time, indeterminism and tense logic: Unveiling the Prior-Kripke letters". Synthese, vol. 188, 367-379 Prior, A. N. (1957). "Opposite Number". The Review of Metaphysics, 11 (2), 196-201. Prior, A. N. (1976), Papers in Logic and Ethics, 6. "Opposite Number". Edited by T.G. Geach and A.J.P. Kenny, Duckworth. The Trinity Press, Worcester, and London. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-011-9944-2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-011-9944-2
  6. Prior, A. N. (2003), Papers on Time and Tense. New Edition. Edited by Per Hasle, Peter Øhrstrøm, Jack Copeland & Torben Braüner, Oxford University Press.
  7. Todd, Patrick (2021). The Open Future, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192897916.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192897916.001.0001
  8. Wilson, N.L. (1955). "Space, time and individual", Journal of Philosophy, 52, October 1955). Wyndham, J. (1956) The Seeds of Time: Classic Science Fiction. Penguin UK, 2014. Kindle version. https://doi.org/10.2307/2022167 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2022167
  9. Øhrstrøm, P. and González, M. (2022) "Prior's big Y and the Idea of Branching Time". History and Philosophy of Logic. 2022. DOI: 10.1080/01445340.2022.2147809 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01445340.2022.2147809
  10. Øhrstrøm,P., Hasle,P. (1995) Temporal logic. From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence, Kluwer/Springer, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-37463-5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-37463-5
  11. Øhrstrøm, P. and Hasle, P. (2020) "Future Contingents". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer Edition. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/future-contingents/, 2020.