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)

The present work explores various ways in which contingent evidence can impact metaphysics, while advocating that, just as a scientific realist allows for ampliative inferences to the unobservable, ampliative inferences from possible evidence can warrant possibility claims that lie beyond the reach of sensorial imagination. In slogan form: possible evidence is a guide to possibility. Drawing on Shoemaker’s (1969) argument for the possibility of time without change, I advocate the following principle: If there is a possible world at which the (...) observable facts make it objectively reasonable to conclude that p, then we should conclude that p is possibly true. This provides a route to contingentism in metaphysics, for, if one considers that there are worlds in which the observable facts make it objectively reasonable to conclude that p, and worlds in which the observable facts make it objectively reasonable to conclude that not-p, then my principle tells us that we should conclude that possibly-p and possibly not-p, i.e. that p is contingent. This contingency in what is reasonable to conclude, I suggest, occurs most saliently in debates where evidence of phenomenal experience and empirical science are marshalled to support one theory over another. I also explore some consequences of taking possible evidence to be a guide to possibility in this way, among them being an interesting modal analogue of the lottery paradox. (shrink)

This paper defends a relational view of time based on recent work on quantum gravity. Julian barbour's relational approach to physical theory, in particular, is developed as a basis for a relational, rather than anti-realist, metaphysics of time.

A critical discussion of Shoemaker's argument for the possibility of time without change, intended as an argument against relationist conceptions of time. A relational view of time is proposed based on the primitive identity of events (or whatever entities are the basic subjects of change and lack thereof).

Does mere passage of time have causal powers ? Are properties like "being n days past" causally efficient ? A pervasive intuition among metaphysicians seems to be that they don't. Events and/or objects change, and they cause or are caused by other events and/or objects; but one does not see how just the mere passage of time could cause any difference in the world. In this paper, I shall discuss a case where it seems that mere passage of time does (...) have causal powers : Sydney Shoemaker's (1969) possible world where temporal vacua (allegedly) take place. I shall argue that Shoemaker's thought-experiment doesn't really aim at teaching us that there can be time without change, but rather that if such a scenario is plausible at all (as I think it is) it provides us with good reasons to think that mere passage of time can be directly causally efficient. (shrink)

In this paper I look to develop a defence of “presentist temporal passage” that renders presentism immune from recent arguments due to Eric Olson. During the course of the paper, I also offer comment on a recent reply to Olson’s argument due to Ian Phillips. I argue that it is not clear that Phillips’ arguments succeed.

The issue whether there is any necessary connection between time and change turns, I argue, on the problem of what constitutes an accurate measurement of how much time passes. Given a plausible hypothesis about how time is measured, Shoemaker’s well known argument that time can pass without change can be seen to be unsound. But Shoemaker’s conclusion is not therefore false. The same hypothesis about time measurement supports a revised version of Shoemaker’s argument, and the revised argument does establish that (...) the passage of a quantity of time does not require that change occur during that time. Though Shoemaker’s conclusion is vindicated, it does not follow that there is no necessary connection at all between time and change. On the contrary, there is a connection which is simply of a different kind from the one Shoemaker had in mind. (shrink)

It is widely believed that relationism cannot make room for the possibility of intervals of time during which no changes occur. Benovsky has recently challenged this belief, arguing that relationists can account for the possibility of changeless time in much the same way as substantivalists do, thereby concluding that the two views are interchangeable for all theoretical purposes. This paper intends to defend the meaningfulness of the traditional dispute between substantivalists and relationists, by contending that the particular form of relationism (...) on which Benovsky has based his criticism is in fact alien to that debate. (shrink)

There is a lingering objection to the idea of the passage of time. Roughly speaking, the argument runs as follows: if time passes, its passage must occur at some rate, but there is no such rate; hence, the passage of time is a myth. While some philosophers try to reject premise, I wish to challenge the first premise by arguing that time may pass with or without a rate. My argument addresses two cases, one that identifies the passage of time (...) with changes in things and one that does not. I call the former view ‘the Priorian passage theory’, and the latter view ‘the pure passage theory’. I argue that each dynamic view of time is immune to the rate argument. Further, I suggest a possible extension of the Priorian passage theory, in which the passage of time is identified with the pure persistence of things. (shrink)