This chapter addresses the relationship of truth to time and change. According to Aristotle, any bearer of truth or falsehood can, at least in principle, be true at one time and false at another. This is somewhat hard to square with his view that the linguistic items that are bearers of truth or falsehood are utterances (expression-tokens). On reflection, however, the position turns out to be consistent: utterances (expression-tokens) can be true at one time and false at another.

Aristotle also claims that if an assertion or a belief is true at one time and false at another, it does not follow that it undergoes a change. This is probably due to the idea that truth (being correspondence to the world) is something like a relative and therefore, like relatives, is involved at most in a ‘mere Cambridge change’ that does not count as a genuine change. Now, properties involved in a ‘mere Cambridge change’ are not genuine properties. It follows that truth is not a genuine property.

DIFFERENT TRUTH-VALUES AT DIFFERENT TIMES

Truth and falsehood at times. Aristotle thinks that the bearers of truth or falsehood are true, or false, at times. He does not formulate this view explicitly: nowhere does he use a sentence like ‘States of affairs, beliefs, and assertions are true or false not absolutely, but at times.’