Prior's ‘Thank Goodness’ Argument: A Reply to Hardin

Abstract

According to C. L. Hardin, A. N. Prior's well-known argument in 'Thank Goodness That's Over'1 may be taken 'to involve the claim that demonstratives are basic to our ontological talk about time and that this marks a fundamental distinction between time and space not already captured by the asymmetry of the earlier-later relation'.2 Hardin proceeds to argue that this claim is false. I shall not challenge his argument; it is both clever and persuasive. Rather, I shall suggest that the argument he criticizes is not at all the argument Prior was offering. Perhaps Prior offers such an argument elsewhere, although I would be surprised if this were so. At any rate, I shall suggest that the argument in 'Thank Goodness That's Over' was intended to say nothing whatever about the ontological significance of our use of demonstratives. The actual argument remains a powerful objection to the tenseless view of time, and this objection is untouched by Hardin's creative discussion. There are two very good reasons to doubt that Prior's argument is essentially about the use of demonstratives. If a claim about demonstratives is indeed basic to the argument, then any statement of the argument should make use of demonstratives. However, the argument is just as strong (or weak) when formulated without demonstratives. For example: