A certain mythology has been perpetuated in discussions of philosophy of time. It has been contended that the adoption of a particular theory of time, what I will call the “Non-dynamic Theory of Time” results in a commitment to Fatalism. This unwanted, if not intolerable baggage, is said to be avoided only by jettisoning NDTT and espousing what I will call the “Dynamic Theory of Time”. What I hope to show is that the truth of the matter is almost completely (...) the reverse; while NDTT has absolutely no Fatalistic ramifications, DTT, when it is conjoined with a most plausible supposition, does. (shrink)

The article shows how McTaggart’s distinction between A- and B-series ways of locating events in time prompted and enabled the twentieth century’s most important advances in the philosophy of time. It argues that, even if the B-series represents time as it really is, because having A-series beliefs when they are true is indispensable to the causation of timely action, the A-series represents ‘the time of our lives ’.

The B-theory of time holds that McTaggart’s A-series of past, present, and future is reducible to the B-series of events running from earlier to later. According to the date-theory—originally put forth by J.J.C. Smart and later endorsed by by D.H. Mellor—the truth conditions of tensed or Asentence-tokens can be given in terms of tenseless or B-sentences and, therefore, A-sentence-tokens do not ascribe any A-determinations of pastness, presentness, or futurity. However, as Nathan Oaklander has argued, the date-theory does not provide an (...) adequate analysis of the ontological truth conditions of irreducible A-propositions. I show that the co-reporting theory—which holds that for every A-sentence-token there is a B-sentence that differs in sense but reports the same event or state of affairs—escapes the objections Oaklander has addressed against the date-theory. (shrink)

The concept of temporal flow has been attacked both on the grounds that it is logically incoherent, and on the grounds that it conflicts with the theory of relativity. I argue that the charge of incoherence cannot be made to stick: McTaggart's argument commits the fallacy of equivocation, and arguments deployed by Smart and others turn out to be question-begging. But objections arising from relativity, so I claim, have considerably more force than Lucas acknowledges. Moreover, the idea of equating the (...) cosmic time which arises in general relativistic cosmology with a metaphysically preferred space-time foliation, founders on the fact that the Friedmann models are idealisations. Finally, Lucas may be right in claiming that dynamical wave-function collapse, provided it does not propagate superluminally, will define a preferred foliation. But it is arguable that this consideration, so far from supporting Lucas's position, is grounds for rejecting collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

In response to a recent challenge that the New B-theory of Time argues invalidly from the claim that tensed sentences have tenseless truth conditions to the conclusion that temporal reality is tenseless, I argue that while early B-theorists may have relied on some such inference, New B-theorists do not. Giving tenseless truth conditions for tensed sentences is not intended to prove that temporal reality is tenseless. Rather, it is intended to undermine the A-theorist’s move from claims about the irreducibility of (...) tensed language to the conclusion that temporal reality must be tensed. I then examine how A-theorists have used facts about language in attempting to establish their conclusions about the nature of temporal reality. I take the recent work of William Lane Craig and argue that he implicitly and illicitly moves from facts about temporal language to his conclusion that temporal reality is tensed. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the time of human activity. It begins by discussing how most accounts of action treat the time of action as succession, using Donald Davidson's account of action as illustration. It then argues that an adequate account of action and its determinants, one able to elucidate the ``indeterminacy of action,'' requires an alternative conception of action time. The remainder of the essay constructs a propitious account of the time and determination of action. It does so by critically drawing (...) on Henri Bergson's notion of duration and Martin Heidegger's notion of the teleological dimensionality (past, present, and future) of existence. Whereas Bergson provides valuable insights into the continuity of activity, Heidegger illuminates the determination of action. Combining their insights yields an account of the time of activity that supplements succession with a nonsuccessive temporality: the time of activity is an overlapping continuum of action performances each of which is structured as coming towards an end starting from a motivating state of affairs. The essay concludes with brief thoughts on what justifies calling the nonsuccessive dimensionality of existence a kind of time. (shrink)

The conceptual and technical difficulties involved in creating a quantum theory of gravity have led some physicists to question, and even in some cases to deny, the reality of time. More surprisingly, this denial has found a sympathetic audience among certain philosophers of physics. What should we make of these wild ideas? Does it even make sense to deny the reality of time? In fact physical science has been chipping away at common sense aspects of time ever since its inception. (...) Section 1 offers a brief survey of the demolition process. Section 2 distinguishes a tempered from an extremely radical form that a denial of time might take, and argues that extreme radicalism is empirically self-refuting. Section 3 begins an investigation of the prospects for tempered radicalism in a timeless theory of quantum gravity. (shrink)

We regularly talk of the experience of time passing. Some theorists have taken the supposed phenomenology of time passing to provide support for metaphysical accounts of the nature of time; opposing theorists typically granted that there is a phenomenology of time passing while seeking to dispute that any metaphysical conclusions about time can be drawn from this. In recent debates theorists have also begun to dispute that there is a phenomenology of time passing – plausibly, if there is not, then (...) there is no relevant experience to be explained away, or for metaphysical conclusions to be drawn from. In the present paper I offer one explanation of why such disputes about the experience of time passing may seem intractable. However, I suggest that there is a distinct and more tractable issue lurking in this area, concerning our experience of how certain phenomena persist over time. Interestingly, articulating how we experience different phenomena as persisting over time doesn't simply provide a challenge to one metaphysical view of persistence rather than another; instead, it generates an explanatory challenge for a variety of competing views of persistence and, by extension, a challenge for popular combinations of views of the metaphysics of persistence and of time. (shrink)

A-theorists and B-theorists debate whether the "Now" is metaphysically distinguished from other time slices. Analogously, one may ask whether the "I" is metaphysically distinguished from other perspectives. Few philosophers would answer the second question in the affirmative. An exception is Caspar Hare, who has devoted two papers and a book to arguing for such a positive answer. In this paper, I argue that those who answer the first question in the affirmative---A-theorists---should also answer the second question in the affirmative. This (...) is because key arguments in favor of the A-theory are more effective asarguments in favor of the resulting combined position, and key arguments against the A-theory are ineffective against the combined position. (shrink)

In recent years the quantum foundations community has seen increasing interest in the possibility of using retrocausality as a route to rejecting the conclusions of Bell’s theorem and restoring locality to quantum physics. On the other hand, it has also been argued that accepting nonlocality leads to a form of retrocausality. In this article we seek to elucidate the relationship between retrocausality and locality. We begin by providing a brief schema of the various ways in which violations of Bell’s inequalities (...) might lead us to consider some form of retrocausality. We then consider some possible motivations for using retrocausality to rescue locality, arguing that none of these motivations is sufficient to show that local retrocausal theories should always be preferred to nonlocal retrocausal theories, and therefore there is no clear reason to focus research efforts entirely on seeking local retrocausal models. Next, we examine several different conceptions of retrocausality, concluding that ‘all-at-once’ retrocausality is more coherent than the alternative dynamical picture. We then argue that since the ‘all-at-once’ approach requires probabilities to be assigned to entire histories, locality is not playing any crucial role within this picture. Thus we conclude that using retrocausality as a way to rescue locality may not be the right route to retrocausality. Finally, we demonstrate that accepting the existence of nonlocality and insisting on the nonexistence of preferred reference frames leads naturally to the acceptance of a form of retrocausality, albeit one which is not mediated by physical systems travelling backwards in time. We argue that this is the more natural way to motivate retrocausal models of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This paper states and gives three applications of a novel ‘Presentist Fragmentalist’ interpretation of quantum mechanics. In a cognate paper it was explicitly shown this kind of presentism is consistent with special relativity and that it has implications for how to understand time as it relates to the Big Bang. In this paper we narrowly focus on three applications. These are surely the most important conundrums for any proposed interpretation of quantum mechanics: Schrodinger’s Cat, Bell non-locality, and the Born rule. (...) It will be shown that these can be handled in a consistent and intuitive way. (shrink)

A possible solution is offered to help resolve the “two times problem” regarding the veridical and illusory nature of time. First it is recognized that the flow of time is part of a wider array of temporal experiences referred to as manifest time, all of which need to be reconciled. Then, an information gathering and utilizing system model is used as a basis for a view of manifest time. The model IGUS robot of Hartle that solves the “unique present” debate (...) is enhanced with veridical and illusory components of not only the flow of time but also the larger entity of manifest time, providing a dualistic IGUS robot that represents all of the important temporal experiences. Based upon a variety of prior experiments, that view suggests that the veridical system is a reflection of accepted spacetime cosmologies and through natural selection begets the illusory system for functional purposes. Thus, there are not two opposing times, one outside and one inside the cranium. There is just one fundamental physical time which the brain developed, now possesses and is itself sufficient for adaption but then enhances. The illusory system is intended to provide a more satisfying experience of physical time, and better adaptive behavior. Future experiments to verify that view are provided. With a complete veridical system of temporal experiences there may be less need to reify certain temporal experiences so that the two times problem is less of a problem and more of a phenomenon. (shrink)

What is time? Just like everything else in the world, our understanding of time has changed continually over time. This article tracks this question through the history of Western philosophy and looks at major answers from the likes of Aristotle, Kant, and McTaggart.

This study investigates how typological and metaphorical construal differences may affect the use and frequency of temporal expressions in English and Spanish. More precisely, we explore whether there are any differences between English, a satellite-framed language, and Spanish, a verb-framed language, in the use of certain temporal linguistic expressions that include a spatial, deictic component (Deictic Time), a purely temporal relation between two events (Sequential Time) or the expression of the duration of an event (Duration). To achieve this, we perform (...) two different types of studies. First, we conduct an informational gain or loss analysis of 1,650 of English-to-Spanish translations extracted from parallel corpora. Secondly, we compare the frequency of 33 English and 27 Spanish temporal expressions in two similar written online corpora (EnTenTen and EsTenTen, respectively) and a television news spoken corpus (NewsScape). Our results suggest that English uses “deictic expressions with directional language” (explicitly stating the spatial location of the temporal event, e.g., back in those days/in the future ahead ) much more frequently than Spanish, to the extent that such directional information is often excluded in English-to-Spanish translations. Also, sequential expressions (such as before that / later than ) and duration expressions ( during the whole day ) are much more frequent in Spanish. These usage differences, explained by the variability in motion typology and metaphoric construal, open up the interesting question of how these differences in linguistic usage could affect the conceptualization of time of English and Spanish speakers. (shrink)

According to the No Alternate Possibilities argument, if time passes then the rate at which it passes could be different but time cannot pass at different rates, and hence time cannot pass. Typically, defenders of the NAP argument have focussed on defending premise, and have taken the truth of for granted: they accept the orthodox view of rate necessitarianism. In this paper we argue that the defender of the NAP argument needs to turn her attention to. We describe a series (...) of worlds that appear to contain differential passage: worlds where time passes at different rates in different subregions. If the NAP argument is to succeed, rate necessitarians must show that each of these worlds is either metaphysically impossible, or does not contain differential passage. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue that a temporal asymmetry may be established within the framework of quantum field theory, independently of any violation of CP, and thereby T, in weak interactions, and independently of the property of time reversal invariance that its dynamical equations instantiate. Particularly, I shall argue that the temporal asymmetry can be stemmed from assessing the links between the proper group of symmetries of the theory and the ontology of the theory: arguments applied to (...) establish which elements and magnitudes remain invariants under group transformations can also be used to establish a temporal asymmetry. (shrink)

Recently we proposed "quantum language" (or, the linguistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics"), which was not only characterized as the metaphysical and linguistic turn of quantum mechanics but also the linguistic turn of Descartes=Kant epistemology. We believe that quantum language is the language to describe science, which is the final goal of dualistic idealism. Hence there is a reason to want to clarify, from the quantum linguistic point of view, the following problems: "brain in a vat argument", "the Cogito proposition", (...) "five-minute hypothesis", "only the present exists", "Copernican revolution", "McTaggart's paradox", and so on. In this paper, these will be discussed and clarified in quantum language. That is, these are not in quantum language. Also we emphasize that Leibniz's relationalism in Leibniz-Clarke correspondence is regarded as one of the most important parts of the linguistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. This paper is the revised version of the paper: Open Journal of Philosophy, 2018 Vol.8, No.5, 466-480). (shrink)

This paper elaborates the problem of temporal unity for dynamic presentism and diagnoses the source of that problem in the dynamic presentist’s discarding the traditional C-series in its avoidance of McTaggart’s A-series paradox. This C-series provided the fixed structure of time which the transitory aspects of time then followed, and thereby unify those transitory aspects. It then considers ersatzer presentism as an ostensible solution to the problem of temporal unity by providing a new abstract C-series for dynamic presentism. However, after (...) a closer examination of the details of this proposal, it is found that the ersatz-B-series itself needs to be temporally variable to capture the transitory aspects of time that it is meant to track. Consequently, it cannot provide the fixed structure of time required to unify the transitory aspects of time into a temporal series. It is therefore suggested that dynamic presentists look for a more course-grained determiner of temporal progression to construct the presentist-friendly C-series required to unify their transitory aspects of time. (shrink)

I accept that McTaggart's A-series and B-series are not inter-reducible and that both are needed for a complete temporal description of a physical system. I consider the Wigner's Friend thought experiment. The A-series are associated with each (quantum) system, and relativity is associated with the B-series. I consider temporal evolution through this 'hybrid' time. We may define the rate of temporal flow as 1 B-series second per A-series second.

There are several intertwined debates in the area of contemporary philos- ophy of time. One field of inquiry is the nature of time itself. Presentists think that only the present moment exists whereas eternalists believe that all of (space-)time exists on a par. The second main field of inquiry is the question of how objects persist through time. The endurantist claims that objects are three-dimensional wholes, which persist by being wholly1 present, whereas the perdurantist thinks that objects are four- dimensional (...) and that their temporal parts are the bearers of properties. The third debate in the field of contemporary philosophy of time is about tense- versus tenseless theory. Tensers are at odds with detensers about the status of the linguistic reference to the present moment. These are only very crude characterizations and it is even disputed by some ad- vocates of the corresponding positions that they are accurate. However this very sketchy picture already reveals a fundamental difference: The eternalism/presentism and endurance/perdurance discussions belong to the field of metaphysics, whereas tense is in the first instance a linguistic phenomenon. (shrink)

In this contribution, I will argue for an ontological understanding of time as temporality. This, however, implies that in a certain sense being is temporality, by which I mean that on an ontological level temporality is nothing but the process of change, i.e. the dynamic aspect of being in its becoming, changing, and perishing, and that concrete beings are not merely in time, but they are temporal. This leads to the conclusion that actual time is the process of change that (...) becoming beings are, as well as the conclusion that reality is fundamentally temporal as argued by process metaphysicians like Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, and Gilles Deleuze. The investigation begins with first establishing the methodological difficulties involved in thinking temporality as an ontological feature. In a second step, dynamic ontologies are introduced as the conceptual background best suited to think ontological temporality and their difference to event-ontologies is explained. Finally, the distinction between temporality and linear time is clarified. This introduction of temporality ends with some arguments for the existence of temporality that are inspired by Aristotle’s famous investigations into the nature of time. After having thus introduced temporality as an ontological feature and argued for the existence and relevance of it, its implications for our understanding of the dimensions of time and especially for anticipation are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Tensism is the view that tense is not merely a property of language and the mind, but of the world itself. Perspectivalism extends this idea to all perspectival properties be they person or locational. One challenge that perspectivalism faces is the problem of expressing the contents of the beliefs and utterances of persons that are in other perspectival positions. One proposed solution to this problem is to allow for semantic theories that "realign" the expression of contents so that the (...) contents expressed by persons in other perspectival positions can be re-expressed from one's own perspectival position. In this paper I argue that a similar semantic realignment strategy could be deployed in helping perspectivalists generally come to grips with a puzzle raised by the Special Theory of Relativity. In short, the strategy is to realign the expression of contents in another inertial frame so that they are expressed from within your inertial frame. As we will see, the strategy is not puzzle free. (shrink)

An explanatorily powerful approach to the modal dimension of knowledge is Robert Nozick’s idea that knowledge stands in a tracking relation to the world. However, pinning down a specific modal condition has proved elusive. In this paper, I offer a diagnosis and a positive proposal. The root of the problem, I argue, is the unquestioned assumption that tracking is a matter of directly preserving conformity between what is believed and what is the case in certain possible worlds. My proposal is (...) that what we track is whether the conditions for belief formation are appropriate in such worlds. Accordingly, we indirectly track the truth by ensuring that we only use our methods of belief formation in conditions that make it likely that conformity is preserved between what is believed and what is the case. (shrink)

_ doi:10.1093/analys/anx072 _, published: 27 June 2017.

Deleuze seeks to pry philosophy from the hands of those who would, grounding their judgments in a supposedly transcendent reality, distort or fail to recognize the true nature of things in the changing world. This task for a philosophy of the future, intended to project us beyond such moral categories as "good" and "evil" in favour of the alternative ethical categories, "good" and "bad", is to be achieved, Deleuze thinks, by overturning Platonism. Plato's doctrine of the forms is held by (...) Deleuze to be an example of the corruption of metaphysics by the will to judge, characteristic of Christian morality (whose origins in Platonic philosophy are undeniable). For Deleuze, the philosopher is primarily a producer of concepts, not an agent who generates through judgment. Chapter One sets the agenda for the thesis by opening questions about what is good for the human agent, specifically in terms of the relation between an agent and the products s/he might produce. A brief account is given of Deleuze's position on goodness, offered in the light of his criticisms of the Platonic tradition. Questions are raised about what measures Deleuze takes to avoid transcendence, and about what consequences might follow from this move. Chapter Two attempts to rescue Plato from some of Deleuze's more serious charges, and does so by considering Plato's concept of the Good in relation to his accounts of measure and of the chora, a concept of place. Contemporary Plato scholarship is used to show questionable presuppositions in Deleuze's account of Plato, for instance regarding the physics of the Platonic universe, the status of transcendence, and the nature of the eidos, or form. Chapter Three examines Deleuze's own metaphysics of Difference, Multiplicity and Event, in relation to traditional atomism, the philosophy of time (duration) of Henri Bergson, and certain alternative theories of event. The relation of event and action is explored in the context of naming and intention. Chapter Four presents Deleuze's theory of the Event as a theory of the Void, in relation to Deleuze's monism, and to time, goodness, and negativity. The relation between Deleuze's theory of the Event and his Ethics is further developed, in order to open questions about the motivation for and nature of action in Deleuzian philosophy. Chapter Five synthesizes the various themes, and contrasts Deleuze with Plato on the question of the good for the agent, love, and action, all in relation to Deleuze's Stoicism. (shrink)

A book review of R. Paul Thompson's "A Remarkable Journey: The Story of Evolution.

This paper proposes a view of time that takes passage to be the most basic temporal notion, instead of the usual A-theoretic and B-theoretic notions, and explores how we should think of a world that exhibits such a genuine temporal passage. It will be argued that an objective passage of time can only be made sense of from an atemporal point of view and only when it is able to constitute a genuine change of objects across time. This requires that (...) passage can flip one fact into a contrary fact, even though neither side of the temporal passage is privileged over the other. We can make sense of this if the world is inherently perspectival. Such an inherently perspectival world is characterized by fragmentalism, a view that has been introduced by Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’ (2005). Unlike Fine's tense-theoretic fragmentalism though, the proposed view will be a fragmentalist view based in a primitive notion of passage. (shrink)

This chapter argues for a notion of time that allows time travel. In order to time traveling to happen, in contrast to Presentism, the chapter demonstrates that we can change the past and we have some place where to travel. It shows the advantages of a non-presentist ontology that advocates for indeterminacy of future facts based not on its absence of truth-value, but on the overdetermination of future facts. The conclusion is that to break the causal chain is impossible in (...) we are placed in the same causal line. But if we rethink the time traveling as a trans-world traveling, it is possible to open a new causal line anytime that someone travel in time, to the past as well as to the future. (shrink)

Much current debate in the metaphysics of time is between A-theorists and B-theorists. Central to this debate is the assumption that time exists and that the task of metaphysics is to catalogue time’s features. Relatively little consideration has been given to an error theory about time. Since there is very little extant work on temporal error theory the goal of this paper is simply to lay the groundwork to allow future discussion of the relative merits of such a view. The (...) paper thus develops a conceptual framework from within which to evaluate claims about the actual existence, or not, of temporality as that notion appears in folk discourses about time, and from there to examine claims about the counterfactual existence, or not, of temporality so conceived. We subsequently apply this framework to three extant positions drawn from physics and metaphysics that deny the existence of time. We show that only one of these positions is a folk temporal error theory; that is, a view that denies the existence of time as that notion is operative in our everyday thought and talk. (shrink)

One of the most gripping intuitions that people have about time is that it, in some sense “flows.” This sense of flow has been articulated in a number of ways, ranging from us moving into the future or the future rushing towards us, and there has been no shortage of metaphors and descriptions to characterize this sense of passage. Despite the many forms of the metaphor and its widespread occurrence, it has been argued that there is a deep conceptual problem (...) in any assumption that time “passes” or “flows.” The idea expressed by the metaphor is supposed to be incoherent. But is the idea expressed by this metaphor really incoherent? In this essay I will argue that, on one understanding of the metaphor, it is not. I’ll argue that the metaphor can be unpacked as representing three features of temporal experience, and while these features together appear to lead to paradox, I will argue that correctly handled they do not. (shrink)

This paper offers a new way to evaluate counterfactual conditionals on the supposition that actually, there is no time. We then parlay this method of evaluation into a way of evaluating causal claims. Our primary aim is to preserve, at a minimum, the assertibility of certain counterfactual and causal claims once time has been excised from reality. This is an important first step in a more general reconstruction project that has two important components. First, recovering our ordinary language claims involving (...) notions such as persistence, change and agency and, second, recovering enough observational evidence so that any timeless metaphysics is not empirically self-refuting. However, the project of investigating causation in a timeless setting has a greater relevance than its application to timeless physical theory alone. For, as we show, it can be used to model the assertibility conditions of causal claims more generally. (shrink)

The following article deals with Alfred Schutz’s contribution to the theory of action and interaction by pointing out the possibly most compelling phenomenological starting position, i.e, the decomposition of the unity of an action. The article stresses that Schutz’s methodical interpretive sociology in thissense has always refused the assimilation of action-events to material occurrences. In contrast to empiricist theories of action which wrongly substantialize actionevents by treating them as material events, the phenomenological account gives reason to the assumption that there (...) must be a systematic gap between at least two subjective estimations of the meaning of action. In other words, the introspective analysis of the subjective constitution of meaning means to take the problem of double contingency seriously. Phenomenology, for its temporal and conceptual resolution, seems much more appropriate to reconstruct the complex structures of “presence,” “identity,” and “intersubjectivity” than empiricist accounts. The article proposes in the end the need for an alternative concept of presence:Instead of confusing levels of cooperation with allegedly “objective” synchronicity, phenomenology reminds us to elaborate an alternative concept of simultaneity, i.e, a simultaneity on the level of performativity and tacit knowledge. The latter could be the warrantor for co-reference. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to address what I call the ‘Incoherence’ objection to the growing universe theory of time. At the root of the objection is the thought that one cannot wed objective temporal becoming with the existence of a tenseless past—which is apparently what the growing universe theorist tries to do. To do so, however, is to attribute both dynamic and static aspects to time, and, given the mutual exclusivity of these two aspects—so the thought goes—incoherence results. (...) My solution to the problem is to offer an alternative account of past existence that is compatible with a dynamic conception of time. I take as my starting point Adams’ suggestion that the past exists in virtue of the existence of thisnesses of past individuals. I first seek to defend this suggestion, before amending it in order to provide a satisfactory response to the Incoherence objection. The result is a new growing universe theory which avoids the Incoherence objection but which has some surprising features of its own. Chief among these is the rejection of present events. I argue, however, that such a rejection is a necessary consequence of endorsing the growing universe theory, and that it is not as counter-intuitive as it initially sounds. (shrink)

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)

The aim of this essay is to introduce philosophers of science to some recent philosophical discussions of the nature and origin of the direction of time. The essay is organized around books by Hans Reichenbach, Paul Horwich, and Huw Price. I outline their major arguments and treat certain critical points in detail. I speculate at the end about the ways in which the subject may continue to develop and in which it may connect with other areas of philosophy.

I criticize Shimony's argument from the Transient Now (Shimony 1993) that the B-series view of time is inadequate but offer a reading of that argument that is more charitable than one offered and rejected by Eilstein (1996). Shimony's argument turns on putative phenomenological features of the Now (singularity and numerical identity) but transience only arises as a logical implication of those features. Transience is thus a second order phenomenon. If these two features are accurate then the B-series cannot provide a (...) complete account of the Now and Eilstein misses the role of Shimony's Phenomenological Principle (PP) in this regard. Holding a B-theoretic view then demands giving up the numerical identity of person-slices across time. (shrink)

There is a long tradition of drawing metaphysical conclusions from investigations into language. This paper concerns one contemporary variation on this theme: the alleged ontological significance of cognitivist truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competence. According to such accounts, human speakers’ linguistic behavior is in part empirically explained by their cognizing a truth-theory. Such a theory consists of a finite number of axioms assigning semantic values to lexical items, a finite number of axioms assigning semantic values to complex expressions on the basis (...) of their structure and the semantic values of their constituents, and a finite number of production schemata. The theory enables the derivation of truth-conditions for each sentence of the language: something of roughly the form ‘S is true iff P’.1 The claim that speakers stand in a cognitive relation to such theories is advanced, not as a conceptual analysis of semantic competence or understanding, but rather as an empirical hypothesis about human speakers in particular, one part of a broader empirical account of our linguistic competence and cognition generally. It therefore must mesh with the rest of our theorizing in these areas and whatever relevant data from neighboring inquiries there may be. The precise nature of the cognitive relation a speaker is supposed to bear to a truththeory is a matter of some dispute. I speak of ‘‘cognizing’’ (following. (shrink)

In this essay I address the issue of whether Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity counts against a tensed or "A-series" understanding of time. Though this debate is an old one, it continues to be lively with many prominent authors recently arguing that a genuine A-series is compatible with a relativistic world view. My aim in what follows is to outline why Special Relativity is thought to count against a tensed understanding of time and then to address the philosophical attempts to (...) reconcile the two theories. I conclude that while modern physics on its own does not rule out the possibility of a real A-series, the combination of Einstein's theory and the philosophical arguments against tense is decisive. The upshot is that the tenseless or "B-series" view of time is the best one. (shrink)

Zeno’s arrow does not move “in the now” (Phys. VI 8, 239b2) or, equivalently, “in the place it is” (DK 29 B 4). Zeno concludes from this that the arrow does not move at all. In Aristotle (ibid. 9, 239b5–9, 31–33), Zeno’s argument takes the form of an invalid inference from instants to periods of time. Insofar as it fails to bring out an inconsistency in Aristotle’s account of motion, the paradox is thus eliminated. That instantaneous motion is a contradiction (...) in terms belongs to the common ground Aristotle shares with Zeno. That’s why information concerning Zeno’s relevant argument must be sought elsewhere (see section 3). Aristotle’s discussion of the Arrow pertains to the conclusions drawn from the denial of instantaneous motion. But the argument he refutes is of his own making, or so I will argue (section 2). In particular, Aristotle fails to address the presentist commitment adumbrated in his account, which would leave nothing beyond the denial of instantaneous motion for Zeno to prove. Presentism is no option in Phys. VI where a tenseless account of time and motion is offered. I will argue that Aristotle’s account of the tenses in De interpretatione is prone to Zeno’s argument if the present is conceived as an instant – which it arguably is not (section 4). (shrink)

İslam felsefesinin tartışmasız en önemli filozoflarından biri olan İbn Sina, dönemindeki yoğun Aristoteles etkisine karşılık, Aristoteles’in sisteminden bağımsız yeni bir zaman sistemi kurmuştur. Şifa isimli kitabında bu sistemi sunan İbn Sina, aynı zamanda hareket, hız, mekansal büyüklük gibi belli kavramların yanında bölünebilir bir büyüklük olan ve zorunlu bir şekilde öncelik ve sonralığa sahip olan bir kapasite olarak tanımladığı imkana dayalı bir zamanın gerçekliği savunusu yapmakla birlikte bu kavramların anlam kazanabilmesi için zaman kavramına ihtiyacımız olduğunu göstermiştir.Zamanın gerçekliği sorusu, güncel felsefenin aktörlerinden (...) de büyük dikkat çekmiştir. Bu isimlerden biri olan J. Ellis McTaggart, hayli tartışmalı olmasının yanısıra etkili de olan “Zamanın Gerçekdışılığı” başlıklı makalesinde zamanın bir illüzyondan ibaret olduğunu tartışmıştır. McTaggart, gerek bu makalede gerekse Varoluşun Doğası isimli kitabında zamanın gerçek olmadığını ve zamana dair verdiğimiz her tanımın döngüsel, çelişkili veya yetersiz olduğunu savunmuştur. McTaggart, bu ispatını zamandaki anların birbirine nispetle iki farklı şekilde sınıflandırılabileceği varsayımı üzerine kurgulamıştır. Buna göre A serisi, zamandaki anları geçmiş, şu an ve gelecek şeklinde konumlandırırken B serisi, öncelik ve sonralık ilişkisi ile konumlandırmaktadır. Bu çalışma, İbn Sina’nın sunduğu zaman sisteminin McTaggart’ın B serisi ile uyumlu olup olmadığı sorusunu cevaplamayı amaçlamaktadır.Anahtar kelimeler: İbn Sina, Zaman, Mekansal Büyüklük, İmkan, Hareket, McTaggart, B serisi. (shrink)

Let me begin by sincerely thanking the commentators for taking the time to share their insightful reactions to the target article [Callender 2022a]. I am very fortunate to have so many talented, di...

It is often assumed that an eternalist and a presentist will have the same emotional response to life's events because, regardless of one's metaphysical beliefs, we all have the same phenomenological experience of time passing and it is this experience that is relevant to emotional response. I question the assumption that beliefs about the metaphysics of time can have little impact on one's emotional responses and establish the position that scientific and metaphysical beliefs can offer succour.

This article brings time and theology together constructively in response to a pressing problem for the doctrine of personal salvation. The problem arises within the physics and metaphysics of time, as these support a so-called temporal B-theory in which time does not pass and reality is comprised of a block universe. Within this static temporal metaphysic, objective change is highly problematized. Yet salvation requires an objective change from fallenness to redemption. So, how can we understand a salvation-transformation in the block (...) universe? In other words, can sinners really change? I argue that on a B-theory of time, a salvation-transformation is best understood as a form of qualitative, phenomenological, and subjective change, rather than a robust ontological change. I conclude that the individual's transformation from fallen to saved is one of mind-dependent becoming. So, sinners can change. But, in this lifetime, that change can only be subjective. (shrink)

A number of philosophers uphold a metaphysical symmetry between time and hypertime, in this sense: in so far as hypertime exists, the nature of hypertime should agree with the nature of time. Others allow that we can mix and match the metaphysics of time and hypertime. Thus, it may be that time really passes, but hypertime does not or vice versa. In this paper, we provide a preliminary defense of the mix and match approach. We outline a number of arguments (...) for the claim that time and hypertime must share a common nature and find them all wanting. (shrink)

Evolution seems tobe a perfect example of a historical process: It began with the earliest “living” units, progressed to massive diversity and disparity, and resulted in our recent lifeworld, the subject-matter of the evolutionary biologist. Yet some irritation remains considering the logical grammar of “history”, as it seems to introduce non-functional aspects into evolutionary theory – which is often addressed as contingency in evolutionary biology. But even reducing the “historical” aspect of evolutionary biology to a functional understanding of lifeworld, we (...) have to consider the specific historicity of the epistemic situation of the evolutionary biologist. This paper argues for the relevance of the explication of this peculiar epistemic situation, taking into account the recent systemic transformations of evolutionary theory.The argument is developed in three steps: first, a revision of the use of temporal expressions in (bio-)sciences, revealing the prevalence of a non-modal understanding of time, which leads to “thin” temporal characterizations of biological processes. Second, based upon biology’s shift toward system paradigms, the formal structure of recent evolutionary approaches is shown to result in a “loss of historicity”. Finally, the consequences for the self-understanding of humans as evolutionary lifeforms are explicated.This reconstruction of the difference between historical and evolutionary judgment emphasizes the relevance of the modal aspects of temporality, which is demonstrated by considering a significant shift of the underlying temporal frames. Accordingly to human beings as historical entities, the differences between natural history, prehistory and history proper are relocated within the concept of history itself. (shrink)