Smith on times and tokens

In this essay I respond to Quentin Smith's charge that `the date-analysis v ersion of the tenseless theory of time cannot give adequate accounts of the truth conditions of the statements made by tensed sentence-tokens' (Smith 1999, 236). His argument is based on an analysis of certain counterfactual situations that is at odds with the date-analysis account of language and h ence succeeds only in begging the question against that theory. To anticipa te: his argument fails if one allows that temporal indexicals such as `now' rigidly designate their time of utterance, something the date-analyst can happily admit whether she adheres to an absolute or relational metaphysics of time.