Past, Present and Future

Past, Present and Future, first published in 1867, is the magnum opus of the logician and philosopher Arthur Norman Prior (1914-1969). This new edition presents the work with updated logical notation, along with an editors' preface and postscript introducing this landmark work of analytic philosophy.

Past, Present and Future, first published in 1867, is the magnum opus of Arthur Norman Prior (1914-1969). Prior was the founding father of tense-logic: Past, Present, and Future presents his tense-logic as a powerful and precise formalism for the systematic study of the temporal aspects of reality. The book was the summation of a decade of work on tense-logic following Prior''s John Locke lectures at the University of Oxford in 1956, subsequently published in 1957 as Time and Modality. Among a wide range of topics, Past, Present and Future investigates the idea of branching time that had earlier been suggested by Saul Kripke. It includes several philosophical investigations of time, from a discussion of McTaggart''s paradox, the Master Argument of Diodorus, time and existence, problems regarding determinism and future contingency. Prior''s discussion of these matters invited a broad scope of ancient and medieval philosophers into the modern discussion in the philosophy of time. Prior was spearheading a revolution in analytic philosophy. Unfortunately, Prior''s choice of Polish logical notation has limited its influence. This new edition employs modern notation, making it accessible to a new generation of philosophers and logicians. It includes a new preface a postscript by the editors, which can serve as an introduction to this landmark work of analytic philosophy.