Abstract
This chapter examines the notion of tense as it occurs in metaphysics and in language, and shows how these two notions are connected. In metaphysics it refers to the distinction between past, present, and future, and the associated passage of time. In language, it refers to the linguistic feature enabling speakers to locate events relative to their own temporal location. I explore the metaphysical debate between tensed theorists, who take tense to be objectively real, and tenseless theorists, who deny its objective reality. I show how this debate came to be focused on issues concerning tensed language, and how tenseless theorists brought the focus back to the metaphysical question of the nature of temporal reality. For new tenseless theorists, tense is an irreducible feature of our representations of reality, but not a feature of the reality they represent. Finally, I examine some ways in which tense appears to be a fundamental and inescapable feature of our lives as temporal beings, and consider how tensed and tenseless theorists account for this.