Logic and Philosophy of Time

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2025): 70 Years of Tense-Logic
Articles

A.N. Prior’s development and presentation of tense-logic and its context in June-August 1954

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  • Peter Øhrstrøm,
  • Martin Prior,
  • Andreas M Müller,
  • David Jakobsen
Peter Øhrstrøm
Aalborg University
Martin Prior
Aalborg University
Andreas M Müller
Aalborg University
David Jakobsen
Aalborg University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54337/lpt.v6i1.9938

Published 13-01-2025

Keywords

  • Tense-logic,
  • Modal logic,
  • time

How to Cite

Øhrstrøm, P., Prior, M., Müller, A. M., & Jakobsen, D. (2025). A.N. Prior’s development and presentation of tense-logic and its context in June-August 1954. Logic and Philosophy of Time, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.54337/lpt.v6i1.9938

Copyright (c) 2025 Logic and Philosophy of Time

Creative Commons License

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

Abstract

A.N. Prior (1914-69) presented his tense-logic for the very first time at the New Zealand section of the Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy, Second Philosophical Congress, Wellington 27th – 30th August, 1954. He introduced his ideas as a new and important approach to the discussion of basic aspects of time. It is, in fact, remarkable that Prior was able to write such an important paper at this time of his life. He had to face several challenges mainly due to TB in the family. However, this also makes it possible to follow several of his considerations since he wrote about all of it in his many letters to his wife Mary, who was then at the sanatorium with TB. We present a selection of the letters along with the presidential address itself.

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