Prior’s Thank-Goodness Argument Reconsidered

Abstract

Arthur Prior's argument for the A-theory of time in "Thank Goodness That's Over" is perhaps his most famous and well-known non-logical work. Still, I think that this paper is one of his most misunderstood works. Because of this, much of its brilliance has yet to be properly appreciated. In this paper, I suggest that the explanation of this is that it has been treated as though it were following (what has been mythologized as) the standard model for a piece of Analytic philosophy. That is, it has been assumed that what Prior was doing was deductively demonstrating the truth of a proposition which can be discussed via any sentences with the same semantic content. Here, I argue that this assumption is wrong on two fronts:(1) Most importantly, the strongest reading of the structure of Prior's argument is as an abduction rather than as a deduction.(2) Many of the most important lessons of the argument are lost by focusing on the bare propositional content of its premise and conclusion statements. In other words, we can learn as much from the manner in which this argument is presented and expressed as we can from that which is expressed.