"predicts" must be a variant of standard english which projects the past tense into the present tense because .. reasons?
He predicted. Absent an Ouija board, he isn't predicting any more.
replies(3):
He predicted. Absent an Ouija board, he isn't predicting any more.
Literary criticism and philosophy cast actions in and from recorded media in the "eternal present" (a term of art that should yield search results).
So, if Huxley (contemporary tense) wrote about a drug that resembles Adderall then a sentence cast in the eternal present would express "Huxley _writes_ about Soma in Brave New World which…".
I am more used to historians with horn rimmed glasses and badly fitting tweed jackets talking in the past tense about past times so when they reflect on it's impact in the present time they can use present tense about past acts correctly.
"German Troops conduct a false flag against Poland as a result of which the British issue a final demand, the echoes of which continue to the present day" is really not better than "The German troops conducted a false flag against Poland as a result of which the British issued a final demand, the echoes of which continue to the present day" when it comes down to it.
And it leads to awkward sentences like "At the time, FDR believes that he can keep the war away from America, but Japan attacks pearl harbour and he has no choice but to declare war" when the use of "Believed" and "could" and "attacked" and "had" make it clear we, the owners of backwards looking syntax and historical documents, realise this all happened a very long time ago and can keep a hold of the sequencing.
I must say matches on "the eternal present" are a giant bag of mystical wank, no disrespect to yourself intended. Perhaps you get better responses than I do but my top returns were flooded with mindfulness and cod philosophy and christianity.
Yeah, I searched _after_ I commented.
Here's what kagi yielded for `literary eternal present` [0]
> Literary works, paintings, films, and other artistic creations are assumed to exist in an eternal present. Therefore, when you write about writers or artists as they express themselves in their work, use the present tense.
(Disclosure: I am trained as a scholar of language and literature.)
[0] https://www.vanderbilt.edu/writing/resources/handouts/how-an...