“The Reality of the Past”
E921636
“The Reality of the Past” is a philosophical essay by Michael Dummett that examines how statements about the past can have determinate truth-values and what this implies for realism and the nature of time.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| “The Reality of the Past” canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11365950 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: “The Reality of the Past” Context triple: [Truth and Other Enigmas, hasPart, “The Reality of the Past”]
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A.
The Presence of the Past
The Presence of the Past is a work of political theory by Sheldon Wolin that explores how historical political ideas and traditions shape contemporary democratic life and thought.
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B.
The Past is Ours
"The Past is Ours" is the motto of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, reflecting the organization's focus on preserving and promoting a particular memory of the Confederate past.
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C.
Life of the Past
Life of the Past is a seminal book by paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson that explores the history, evolution, and diversity of ancient life on Earth.
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D.
Letter to the Past
"Letter to the Past" is a song by Brandi Carlile featured on her 2021 album In These Silent Days.
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E.
No Future in the Past
"No Future in the Past" is a country song by Vince Gill featured on his acclaimed 1992 album *I Still Believe in You*.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: “The Reality of the Past” Target entity description: “The Reality of the Past” is a philosophical essay by Michael Dummett that examines how statements about the past can have determinate truth-values and what this implies for realism and the nature of time.
-
A.
The Presence of the Past
The Presence of the Past is a work of political theory by Sheldon Wolin that explores how historical political ideas and traditions shape contemporary democratic life and thought.
-
B.
The Past is Ours
"The Past is Ours" is the motto of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, reflecting the organization's focus on preserving and promoting a particular memory of the Confederate past.
-
C.
Life of the Past
Life of the Past is a seminal book by paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson that explores the history, evolution, and diversity of ancient life on Earth.
-
D.
Letter to the Past
"Letter to the Past" is a song by Brandi Carlile featured on her 2021 album In These Silent Days.
-
E.
No Future in the Past
"No Future in the Past" is a country song by Vince Gill featured on his acclaimed 1992 album *I Still Believe in You*.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (40)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
philosophical essay
ⓘ
work on metaphysics ⓘ work on philosophy of language ⓘ |
| author | Michael Dummett NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| discusses |
conditions under which statements about the past are true
ⓘ
connection between realism and bivalence ⓘ epistemic access to the past ⓘ independence of past facts from present knowledge ⓘ logical law of excluded middle for past-tense statements ⓘ metaphysical implications of semantic theses ⓘ objectivity of historical facts ⓘ relationship between meaning and truth ⓘ role of evidence in fixing truth about the past ⓘ temporal asymmetry ⓘ tension between verificationist semantics and realism ⓘ whether past-tense statements have determinate truth-values ⓘ |
| field |
metaphysics
ⓘ
philosophy of language ⓘ philosophy of time ⓘ |
| hasPhilosophicalPosition |
criticizes purely verificationist accounts of truth
ⓘ
supports a realist view of the past ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
analytic philosophy
ⓘ
debates on realism and anti-realism ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
anti-realism about the past
ⓘ
determinacy of truth-value ⓘ nature of time ⓘ realism about the past ⓘ reality of the past ⓘ semantic realism ⓘ truth-conditions ⓘ truth-values of statements about the past ⓘ verificationism ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
bivalence
ⓘ
evidence-transcendent truth ⓘ historical knowledge ⓘ semantic anti-realism ⓘ truth-conditional semantics ⓘ |
| relatedWork | Truth and Other Enigmas NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: “The Reality of the Past” Description of subject: “The Reality of the Past” is a philosophical essay by Michael Dummett that examines how statements about the past can have determinate truth-values and what this implies for realism and the nature of time.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.