Abstract
“Tense” is an ambiguous term. It refers to a grammatical feature of natural languages, and also to a disputed metaphysical feature of temporal reality. The chapter examines both the linguistic and the metaphysical issue, and considers the relation between them. Then, it presents and evaluates some linguistic, metaphysical and evolutionary arguments that the inference from language to metaphysics is not justified. The metaphysical debate is concerned with whether or not tense exists in reality. The linguistic issues are interesting, and worthy of study in their own right, but care should be taken not to run them together with the metaphysical issues. Finally, the chapter explores the importance of tensed belief and notion of ‘taking tense seriously’, which has been much discussed in the philosophical literature, and the importance of tensed beliefs to agency and successful timely action.