Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 September 2025
Many scholars argue that Ockham is ontologically committed to non-present temporalia. Often, that claim is defended by an appeal to Ockham’s account of the truth conditions for tensed propositions, which these scholars argue entails that a true tensed proposition presupposes non-present temporalia. I argue, however, that the truth conditions that Ockham provides for tensed propositions entail no such thing. For, according to the account that Ockham provides, a tensed proposition is true just in case some equivalent present-tense proposition was (will be) true. A present-tense proposition is ontologically committing only when it is true, however, and, at those times at which it is true, the things it presupposes are presently existing things, not non-present temporalia. Consequently, the claim that Ockham is committed to non-present temporalia cannot be defended by appeal to his account of the truth conditions for tensed propositions.
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