This book defends a relational theory of the passage of time. The realist view of passage developed in this book differs from the robust, substantivalist position. According to relationism, passage is nothing over and above the succession of events, one thing coming after another. Causally related events are temporally arranged as they happen one after another along observers’ worldlines. There is no unique global passage but a multiplicity of local passages of time. After setting out this positive argument for relationism, (...) the author deals with five common objections to it: (a) triviality of deflationary passage, (b) a-directionality of passage, (c) the impossibility of experiencing passage, (d) fictionalism about passage, and (e) the incompatibility of passage with perduring objects. (shrink)

Eternalism is the view that the past, the present and the future exist simpliciter. A typical argument in favor of this view leans on the relativity of simultaneity. The ‘equally real with’ relation is assumed to be transitive between spacelike separated events connected by hyperplanes of simultaneity. This reasoning is in tension with the conventionality of simultaneity. Conventionality indicates that, even within a specific frame, simultaneity is based on the choice of the synchronization parameter. Hence the argument for eternalism is (...) compromised. This paper lays out alternative eternalist strategies which do not hinge on hyperplanes. While we lack a rigorous proof for eternalism, there are still cogent reasons to prefer eternalism over presentism. (shrink)