There appears to be a temporal analogue to the Knowledge argument. If correct, it could be read as an argument that B-theorism is false: time is not completely described by McTaggart's B-series. We analyse the temporal knowledge argument in terms of Chalmers's 2-dimensional semantics. An adaptation of the most popular response to the Knowledge argument indicates that McTaggart's A-series and B-series have different modes of presentation.

To all appearances, the basic building blocks of reality tend to keep existing unless something intervenes to destroy them. In other words, basic things seem to have existential inertia. But why might this be? This paper considers a number of arguments for and against existential inertia. It discusses arguments inspired by Aquinas, Descartes, and Spinoza, as well as considerations deriving from Occam’s Razor, entropy, and certain views about the nature of time and change.

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)

Historically models of eternity have been grounded in divine attributes rather than the intrinsic structure of space-time. I examine the topology of Minkowski spacetime in comparison to the Euclidean space of Newtonian Mechanics, before highlighting five common approaches to eternity. Both atemporal and temporal models of eternity are examined to establish what they tell us about the nature of eternity outside the divine attributes, before being evaluated for their coherence with the Special Theory of Relativity. I argue that the most (...) coherent models of eternity in light of the Special Theory of Relativity are those that appeal to metaphysical rather than physical time as it remains unaffected by the conventionality and relativity of simultaneity. I conclude that the special Theory of Relativity has a valid role to play in establishing the coherence of eternity. However, due to the discontinuity of concepts of time between the Special Theory of Relativity, the General theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, it cannot single-handedly be used to establish which models of eternity cohere with scientific models of time, but must be use alongside the General theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. (shrink)

A framework for the mind-matter problem in a holistic universe which has no parts is outlined. The conceptual structure of modern quantum theory suggests to use complementary Boolean descriptions as elements for a more comprehensive non-Boolean description of a world without an a priori mind-matter distinction. Such a description in terms of a locally Boolean but globally non-Boolean structure makes allowance for the fact that Boolean descriptions play a privileged role in science. If we accept the insight that there are (...) no ultimate building blocks, the existence of holistic correlations between contextually chosen parts is a natural consequence. The main problem of a genuinely non-Boolean description is to find an appropriate partition of the universe of discourse. If we adopt the idea that all fundamental laws of physics are invariant under time translations, then we can consider a partition of the world into a tenseless and a tensed domain.In the sense of a regulative principle, the material domain is defined as the tenseless domain with its homogeneous time. The tensed domain contains the mental domain with a tensed time characterized by a privileged position, the Now. Since this partition refers to two complementary descriptions which are not given a priori we have to expect correlations between these two domains. In physics it corresponds to Newton 's separation of universal laws of nature and contingent initial conditions Both descriptions have a non-Boolean structure and can be encompassed into a single non-Boolean description. Tensed and tenseless time can be synchronized by holistic correlations. (shrink)

This thesis aims to establish a Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture to address the theoretical problems of modern East Asian philosophy of culture, particularly Chinese New Confucianism and the Kyoto School who try to formulate their cultural subjectivities for the sake of cultural modernisation. Both schools adopt Hegelian philosophy of culture and therefore inherit the problems of Hegelian dialectics which Kierkegaard criticises. While Kierkegaard himself does not develop a philosophy of culture, this thesis argues that his concepts of culture in terms (...) of the manifestations of passions, community and contemporaneity are useful resources for the formulation of East Asian cultural selves. Firstly, in chapter 1, I argue that there are two tasks of modern East Asian philosophers of culture: how to understand a culture and how to establish a cultural self. Secondly, in chapter 2, I argue that there are three theoretical problems in Mou’s and Watsuji’s Hegelian philosophies of culture, namely, the impossibility of change in cultural value, the lack of empirical method and the neglect of openness of interpretation. Thirdly, in chapter 3, I argue that Kierkegaard’s definition of culture in terms of the manifestations of passions explain East Asian cultural development more consistently than Hegelian dialectics. Fourthly, in chapter 4, I establish a Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture and argue that a cultural self is formulated by the concepts of community and contemporaneity where individuals express their passions according to their free wills. Finally, I argue that Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture fulfils both the ontological and epistemic tasks of East Asian philosophers and solves the theoretical problems they encounter when they adopt Hegelian dialectics. (shrink)

Unatoč naslovu koji pokriva iznimno opširno područje, članak se usredotočuje na blisko pitanje da li Specijalna teorija relativnosti nužno zagovara ukidanje ontološke razlike između prošlih i budućih događaja, između prošlosti i budućnosti općenito. Izraženo žargonom koji uvodi Stein: jesmo li u okviru STR prinuđeni birati isključivo između ‘solipsizma’ i ‘determinizma’? Posebice će biti riječi o ulozi koju konvencionalnost istovremenosti u STR ima u pokušaju odgovora na ovo pitanje. Standardni argumenti pozivaju se na relativnost istovremenosti, tvrdnju da STR negira postojanje univerzalne (...) ‘sadašnjosti’ koja razgraničava ‘prošlost’ i ‘budućnost’, kako bi pokazali da nema ontološke razlike između prošlosti i budućnosti, da su obje jednako određene/zbiljne . Pritom se prešutno prelazi preko činjenice da je za uspostavu ontoloških tvrdnji vezanih uz relativnost istovremenosti potrebno prvo riješiti pitanje konvencionalnosti istovremenosti u okviru STR. U članku će se nastojati pokazati da promatranjem pitanja konvencionalnosti istovremenosti iz perspektive ‘čisto filozofskog’ Dummettovog određenja razlike između prošlosti i budućnosti možemo u okviru STR pokušati razviti shvaćanje razlikovanja prošlosti i budućnosti mimo stroge ontološke dihotomije ‘solipsizam’/‘determinizam’, ukoliko kriterij koji postavlja STR shvatimo kao epistemički, a ne kao ontološki.Despite a broad-range title the paper settles for the related issue of whether the Special Theory of Relativity necessarily advocates the demise of an ontological difference between past and future events, between past and future in general. In the jargon of H. Stein: are we forced, within the framework of the STR, to choose only between ‘solipsism’ and ‘determinism’ exclusively? A special emphasis is placed on the role that the conventionality of simultaneity plays in the STR with regards to this question. The standard arguments rely on the relativity of simultaneity, the claim that the STR negates the existence of a universal ‘present’ that divides the ‘past’ and the ‘future’, so as to conclude that there is no ontological difference between past and future events, that both are equally determined/real . This often neglects the fact that to establish the ontological claims related to relativity of simultaneity, one must first resolve the issues of conventionality of simultaneity within the STR. The paper will aim to show that by addressing the issue of conventionality from Dummett’s ‘purely philosophical’ determination of the difference between the past and the future, we develop an understanding of the said difference, within the framework of the STR, beyond the strict ontological dichotomy of ‘solipsism/determinism’, given that the criterion that is provided by the STR is understood as epistemic and not ontological. (shrink)

This essay pursues two goals: to argue that two fundamental types of time—the time of objective reality and “the time of the soul”—meet in human activity and history and to defend the legitimacy of calling a particular version of the second type a kind of time. The essay begins by criticizing Paul Ricoeur’s version of the claim that times of these two sorts meet in history. It then presents an account of human activity based on Heidegger’s Being and Time, according (...) to which certain times of the two types—existential temporality and succession—meet in human activity. The legitimacy of calling existential temporality a kind of time is then defended via an expanded analysis of activity that examines where the two times meet there. The concluding section briefly considers a conception of historical time due to David Carr before showing why history is a broader domain encompassing human activity where the two times meet. (shrink)

This essay is an elaboration on some central themes and arguments from my recent book, Chronopathologies: Time and Politics in Deleuze, Derrida, Phenomenology and Analytic Philosophy (Rowman and Littlefield 2012). There is hence an element of generality to this essay that the book itself is better able to justify. But a short programmatic piece has its own virtues, especially for those of us who are time poor (which is pretty much everyone in contemporary academia). Moreover, it adds a dimension to (...) the above book by more explicitly situating it in relation to what is an emerging view in some recent scholarship (such as John McCumber, Len Lawlor, David Hoy, and before this Liz Grosz) that time is central to the identity of continental philosophy, as well as considering some of the work that in different ways contests this kind of interpretation of the identity of continental philosophy (e.g. Simon Glendinning, and, tacitly, Paul Redding). In continuing to side with the former over the latter, I will also develop my argument that time is one of the most significant factors in the divided house that I think contemporary philosophy remains, and I conclude by offering a series of negative prescriptions regarding how we might better avoid particular chronopathologies, or time-sicknesses, that are endemic to these philosophical trajectories, and that are also present (to greater and lesser degrees) in the majority of individual philosophers standardly labelled analytic and continental. To the extent that such sicknesses are at least partly inevitable, akin to a transcendental illusion, this paper consists in a call to be more attentive to this tendency, and to the methodological, metaphilosophical, and ethico-political consequences that follow from them. (shrink)

After a brief introduction to issues that plague the realization of a theory of quantum gravity, I suggest that the main one concerns defining superpositions of causal structures. This leads me to a distinction between time and space, to a further degree than that present in the canonical approach to general relativity. With this distinction, one can make sense of superpositions as interference between alternative paths in the relational configuration space of the entire Universe. But the full use of relationalism (...) brings us to a timeless picture of Nature, as it does in the canonical approach. After a discussion of Parmenides and the Eleatics' rejection of time, I show that there is middle ground between their view of absolute timelessness and a view of physics taking place in timeless configuration space. In this middle ground, even though change does not fundamentally exist, the illusion of change can be recovered in a way not permitted by Parmenides. It is recovered through a particular density distribution over configuration space which gives rise to 'records'. Incidentally, this distribution seems to have the potential to dissolve further aspects of the measurement problem that can still be argued to haunt the application of decoherence to Many-Worlds quantum mechanics. I end with a discussion indicating that the conflict between the conclusions of this paper and our view of the continuity of the self may still intuitively bother us. Nonetheless, those conclusions should be no more challenging to our intuition than Derek Parfit's thought experiments on the subject. (shrink)

Non-reductivists about phenomenal consciousness believe that physical facts are insufficient to ground the existence of phenomenal consciousness. It will be argued that if one is going to be a non-reductivist, then one should not limit oneself to expanding one’s catalogue of the world’s basic features, as recommended in the paradigmatic non-reductivist approach developed by David Chalmers. One should rather take a realist stance towards subjectivity. A realist about subjectivity thinks that at least some of the propositions needed to state how (...) things are in reality are such that their truth-value is capable of changing ‘from one subject to another’. Realism about subjectivity will be introduced by means of an analogy with the so called ‘A-theory’ of time. An A-theorist claims that at least some of the propositions needed to state how things are in reality are such that their truth-value is capable of changing ‘from one time to another’. It turns out that a robust notion of metaphysical reality is necessary to make sense of both realism about subjectivity and the A-theories of time. (shrink)

In the thesis I offer an analysis of the metaphysical underpinnings of the extended cognition thesis via an examination of standard views of metaphysical building (or, dependence) relations. -/- In summary form, the extended cognition thesis is a view put forth in naturalistic philosophy of mind stating that the physical basis of cognitive processes and cognitive processing may, in the right circumstances, be distributed across neural, bodily, and environmental vehicles. As such, the extended cognition thesis breaks substantially with the still (...) widely held view in cognitive science and philosophy of mind, namely that cognitive processes and cognitive processing take place within the skin-and-skull of individual organisms. The standard view of metaphysical building relations can be expressed as the conjunction of two theses. First, that a metaphysical building relation – such as composition, constitution, realization, supervenience or emergence – is a relation of ontological dependence, because if a metaphysical building relation holds between X (or the Xs) and Y, then it is in virtue of X (or the Xs) that Y exists. Second, metaphysical building relations are synchronic (durationless) relations of ontological dependence. In the thesis, I propose an alternative diachronic framework by which to extend the standard synchronic accounts of metaphysical dependence relations, and by which to reformulate the metaphysical foundation of the extended cognition thesis. The project fills an important gap between analytical metaphysics (in particular, the metaphysics of dependence relations) and naturalistic philosophy of mind (especially the extended cognition thesis). To my knowledge there has been no attempt to establish a robust diachronic account of metaphysical building (or, dependence) relations such as, e.g., composition and constitution. However, this is precisely what I argue is required to properly advance and ground the metaphysics of extended cognition. Ultimately, my aim of reformulating the metaphysics of extended cognition consists in taking several steps toward a third-wave of extended cognition. (shrink)

This dissertation is a defense of a particular theory of the metaphysics of time which I call "accretivism", but which is popularly known in a form usually called the "Growing Block Theory". The goal of a metaphysics of time is to incorporate the various aspects of our temporal experience into a single, comprehensive whole. To this end I delineate five aspects of our ordinary experience of time: 1) The Tensed Aspect, in virtue of which objects are presented to us as (...) past, present, or future; 2) The Transitory Aspect, in virtue of which time passes or "flows"; 3) The Durational Aspect, in virtue of which entities have a certain temporal extent; 4) The Structural Aspect, in virtue of which entities are given as being in temporal relations to one another, and 5) The Differential-Repetitive Aspect, in virtue of which things are different from one time to another, and yet there is a certain recurrence of aspects of our experience form one time to another. I contrast the accretivist picture of time, according to which that which is past and that which is present both have ontological status, but nothing which is future has ontological status, and in which temporal passage consists in the coming-into-being of new entities at the temporal edge of reality marked by the present, with the two dominant theories of time in the contemporary literature: 1) presentism, according to which only that which is present has ontological status, and 2) four-dimensionalism, according to which time is to be understood on analogy with spatial dimensions. Accretivism, I argue, is superior to the other two views in virtue of the fact that it gives full status to both the Structural Aspect of Time, for which the presentist has difficulty accounting, and the Transitory Aspect of Time, for which the four-dimensionalist has difficulty accounting. I then defend the accretivist picture against a variety of objections that might be raised to it. (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)

Determinism is usually understood as a commonly clear and obvious thesis. In the most of the actual literature a character of determinism is rarely enough explicitly underlined and we believe that it is the reason why common uses of the term often leads to inconsistencies and present a source of misunderstandings of different sorts. Here we will try to show that that there are many forms of determinism; that the concept of determinism has a composite character; and that conceptions of (...) determinism can be mutually discriminated and organized according to particular elements they are consisting of by applying the procedure of classification. (shrink)

We review three broadly geometrodynamical---and in part, Machian or relational---projects, from the perspective of spacetime functionalism. We show how all three are examples of functionalist reduction of the type that was advocated by D. Lewis, and nowadays goes by the label `the Canberra Plan’. The projects are: the recovery of geometrodynamics by Hojman et al. ; the programme of Schuller and collaborators to deduce a metric from the physics of matter fields; the deduction of the ADM Hamiltonian by Gomes and (...) Shyam. We end by drawing a positive corollary about shape dynamics: namely, it has a good rationale for the Hamiltonian it postulates. (shrink)

In this thesis I present a phenomenological investigation of our experience of time – of things as they fall within time – and suggest that something important goes missing in recent debates. This is the notion of a point of view. I believe that articulating the sense in which we have a point of view in time, and what this is a point of view upon, is crucial to an account of how things are for an experiencing subject. In the (...) first chapter, I elucidate the specious present. I argue that theorists appeal to the specious present under two guises without explicitly distinguishing between them; yet these two conceptions are not identical, while one entails the other the reverse is not true. In the second chapter I defend an appeal to the specious present against proponents of what I refer to as snapshot models of temporal experience. I argue that perceptual experience minimally presents something of some non-zero temporal extent as such. In the third chapter I discuss how we are to characterise experience over intervals of time of a greater extent than the specious present. I offer a proposal on which a subject is invariably presented with a positive temporal extent, with this interval marking the partition between the past and the future for the subject. In the fourth chapter I compare and contrast our experience of objects and events, and our experiential point of view in space and in time. Among other things, I argue that getting right how things are for the subject requires an appeal to the subject’s asymmetrical awareness of times either side of the specious present. In fifth and final chapter I demonstrate that appeal to an experiencing subject’s tensed temporal perspective can explain the sense in which time seems to pass. (shrink)

The first part of this thesis articulates and defends the Subjectivist View of the Mental. According to this view, my mental states are essentially different from the mental states of everyone else, but the fact that they are is a subjective fact, rather than an objective one. Chapter 1 explains what it takes for a fact to be subjective, what kind of difference holds between my mental states and everyone else's mental states and what kind of intuitions lead me to (...) believe that there is such a difference. Chapter 2 defends the Subjectivist View of the Mental from objections and discusses some of its most significant implications. In the second part of the thesis, I explore the advantages that the Subjectivist View of the Mental offers when it comes to accounting for three basic features of our knowledge of the mental. Chapter 3 deals with the asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds. It is argued that, if the Subjectivist View of the Mental is true, we can explain why this asymmetry holds without assuming that self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds are involved with substantially different ways of knowing. Chapter 4 focuses on the immunity to error through misidentification of mental self-ascriptions. I show that, while there has been a temptation to explain this phenomenon by following Lichtenberg and Wittgenstein in taking the content of mental self-ascriptions to be general rather than particular, this proposal cannot be made to work unless something like the Subjectivist View of the Mental is true. Chapter 5 is concerned with experiential knowledge. I argue that, if experiential truths are taken to be objective truths, it is not easy to see why experiential knowledge should have the peculiar 'first-hand' character it has. The problem disappears if experiential truths are regarded as subjective rather than objective. (shrink)

McTaggart famously introduced the A- and B-series as rival metaphysical accounts of time. This paper shall reorient the debate over the original distinction. Instead of treating the series as competing theories about the nature of time, it will be argued that they are different viewpoints on a world that is fundamentally physical. To that end, non-reductive physicalism is proposed to reconcile the series.

In this chapter I argue that there can be no mental representation of objective ‘tensed’ features of reality of the kind that might be thought to occur when we experience time passing or think of times as past, present or future, whether or not such features are part of mind-independent reality. This, I hold, has important consequences for metaphysics; but (as will be most relevant to this volume) it is also likely to have important consequences for a correct semantics for (...) tense. In a nutshell, no correct semantics for tense can treat what philosophers call ‘A-properties’ (such as real pastness, presentness or futurity) as semantic values. (shrink)

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)

Though there are many analogies between time and space, there appear to be three commonplace yet deeply perplexing features of time that reveal it to be quite unlike space. These can be called ‘orientation’, ‘flow’ and ‘presence’. By orientation I mean that there is a direction to time, a temporal order between events which is not merely a reflection of how they are observed (what McTaggart 1908/1968 labelled the B-series time). Assertions that objects stand in spatial relations, such as to (...) the left of, or above, or to the north of explicitly depend upon the position from which they are asserted or upon arbitrary, conventionally established spatial frameworks. There is nothing intrinsic about them; the objects involved are, so to speak, indifferent to them. Temporal relations are not like that – times are not just arranged along, as it were, a line but are successive along that imaginary line. Whether one event is before or after another is not (altogether) dependent upon how, or from where, they are viewed. Nature appears to respect temporal orientation, as enshrined in the laws of thermodynamics, though it remains a deep mystery exactly how the temporally symmetric basic laws of physics ground strongly asymmetric temporal processes (see Sklar 1993). (shrink)

This paper focuses on the semantics of statements of the form ‘x is P at t’ vis-à-vis its metaphysical underpinnings. I begin by considering four main readings, corresponding to the four basic parsings of the temporal modifier ‘at t’: (1) at-t x is P, (2) x-at-t is P, (3) x is-at-t P, and (4) x is P-at-t. Each of these readings—which correspond to different metaphysical conceptions of the nature of temporal change—is found inadequate or otherwise problematic. In the second part (...) of the paper I therefore consider a fifth account whose advantages over (1)–(4), I argue, exceed its revisionary costs. This fifth account is based on a conception of objects as entia successiva held together by a nexus of temporal counterparthood and reads ‘x is P at t’ as ‘the t-counterpart of x is P’. (shrink)

Concerning the versions of the Tenseless Theory of Time, the Old Btheory has two: the Date-analysis version and the Token-reflexive version, while the New B-theory has three: the Date-analysis, the Token-reflexive and the Sentence-type versions. Each of these five versions of the B-theory has received serious attacks from the A-theorists, some of whom even claim that the tenseless theory “though still widely held, is a theory in retreat” (Craig 1996), and that “if Quentin Smith (1993) delivered the mortal blow to (...) the New B-Theory of Language then Laurie Paul (1997) has written its obituary” (Craig 1999). In this paper, by making more precise some key notions involved in the formulation of a tenseless theory – in particular, two notions of truth conditions, two notions of meaning and two notions of translation are distinguished – I have come up with a single B-thesis for the B-theory. When charitably interpreted, the two versions of the old theory and the three versions of the new theory can all be regarded as special ways of presenting the same B-thesis, and the various A-attacks raised against these versions can then be resolved in a systematic way. (shrink)

The non-credit bearing and ongoing education and development of mid- to late-career corporate executives is known by the compound term executive education. Reductively stated, executive education, for its corporate consumers and its business school providers, is predicated on the relationship between an order and its execution ; a relationship I call the “order-execution cognate”. With the word execution derived from Greek for sequence, and with the sequence of an execution following-on from its corresponding order, sequentiality is the essence of execution, (...) and the cognate. Executive education involves the amelioration of this order-execution cognate, to the ends of increased profits and competitiveness for the corporation concerned, and increased career prospects for the individual executive. Concerning sequentiality, and as a thesis on the philosophy of executive education, I apply a strand of ontological reflection to examine this cognate, namely philosophy concerning time and temporal succession. To aid in this task I use the English translations of writings on time by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Emerging from Heidegger’s thought are two temporal types that acknowledge and critique temporal succession; chronological time and Kairotic time respectively. By associating Heidegger’s philosophic method with that of early German Romantic philosophy, I articulate how it is possible to reconceive the temporal sequence of the order-execution cognate as a productive oscillation between chronic and Kairotic time; I call this oscillation “ironic temporality,” and its productivity “ironic productivity”. My philosophical analysis of commercially lucrative and neoliberal executive education is at odds with traditional knowledge-based analyses, affording a critique of the capitalist order which the educative event serves. Disrupting temporal notions of that event then becomes a dangerous political act; becomes the means to frame the educative event for the management of our age; and becomes the new orders for executive education. (shrink)

This thesis is about the conceptualization of persistence of physical, middle-sized objects within the theoretical framework of the revisionary ‘B-theory’ of time. According to the B-theory, time does not flow, but is an extended and inherently directed fourth dimension along which the history of the universe is ‘laid out’ once and for all. It is a widespread view among philosophers that if we accept the B-theory, the commonsensical ‘endurance theory’ of persistence will have to be rejected. The endurance theory says (...) that objects persist through time by being wholly present at distinct times as numerically the same entity. Instead of endurantism, it has been argued, we have to adopt either ‘perdurantism’ or the ‘stage theory’. Perdurantism is the theory that objects are four-dimensional ‘space-time worms’ persisting through time by having distinct temporal parts at distinct times. The stage theory says that objects are instantaneous temporal parts (stages) of space-time worms, persisting by having distinct temporal counterparts at distinct times. In the thesis, it is argued that no good arguments have been provided for the conclusion that we are obliged to drop the endurance theory by acceptance of the B-theory. This conclusion stands even if the endurance theory incorporates the claim that objects endure through intrinsic change. It is also shown that perdurantism and the stage theory come with unwelcome consequences. -/- Paper I demonstrates that the main arguments for the view that objects cannot endure in B-time intrinsically unchanged fail. Papers II and III do the same with respect to the traditional arguments against endurance through intrinsic change in B-time. Paper III also contains a detailed account of the semantics of the tenseless copula, which occurs frequently in the debate. The contention of Paper IV is that four-dimensional space-time worms, as traditionally understood, are not suited to take dispositional predicates. In Paper V, it is shown that the stage theory needs to introduce an overabundance of persistence-concepts, many of which will have to be simultaneously applicable to a single object (qua falling under a single sortal), in order for the theory to be consistent. The final article, Paper VI, investigates the sense in which persistence can, as is sometimes suggested, be a ‘conventional matter’. It also asks whether alleged cases of ‘conventional persistence’ create trouble for the endurance theory. It is argued that conventions can only enter at a trivial semantic level, and that the endurance theory is no more threatened by such conventions than are its rivals. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Incarnation of the Son of God, understood in a traditionally orthodox way, is incompatible with an atemporalist concept of God. First, I explain what I mean by atemporalism, namely the idea that God exists outside time. I also show the main corollaries of that doctrine, most notably that all of God’s life occurs eternally simultaneously. Second, based on New Testament teaching and widely accepted creeds, I spell out philosophically what I mean by the (...) Incarnation. In short, I take it to be the doctrine that the Second Person of the Trinity at some point in time took on a human body as part of a fully human nature. I then proceed to my central argument, which derives a contradiction from the definitions of the Incarnation and of atemporalism, respectively. In the last section, I shall treat some possible objections to my argument and show that they do not solve the problem satisfactorily. (shrink)

This thesis is a study of the notion of time in modern physics, consisting of two parts. Part I takes seriously the doctrine that modern physics should be treated as the primary guide to the nature of time. To this end, it offers an analysis of the various conceptions of time that emerge in the context of various physical theories and, furthermore, an analysis of the relation between these conceptions of time and the more orthodox philosophical views on the nature (...) of time. In Part II I explore the interpretation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics in light of the suggestion that an overly Newtonian conception of time might be contributing to some of the difficulties that we face in interpreting the quantum mechanical formalism. In particular, I argue in favour of introducing backwards-in-time causal influences as part of an alternative conception of time that is consistent with the picture of reality that arises in the context of the quantum formalism. Moreover, I demonstrate that this conception of time can already be found in a particular formulation of classical mechanics. One might see that one of the central themes of Part II originates from a failure to heed properly the doctrine of Part I: study into the nature of time should be guided by modern physics and thus we should be careful not to insert a preconceived Newtonian conception of time unwittingly into our interpretation of the quantum mechanical formalism. Thus, whereas Part I is intended as a demonstration of methodology with respect to the study of time, Part II in a sense explores a confusion that can be seen as arising in the absence of this methodology. (shrink)

Since J. McTaggart’s paper on “The Unreality of Time” the opposition of “A-theorists” and “B-theorists” establishes a focal point in the modern debate on the metaphysics of time: While “A-theorists” claim the existence of an objective present, moving along time positions, “B-theorists” maintain that time is just a set of ontologically equivalent coordinates, “now” being merely the indexical of the speaker’s position. Contemporary attempts to resolve the issue by resorting to the analysis of language or to the theory of science (...) seem to deliver no definite results. By contrast, practical and existential aspects of the two models promise to be more univocal guides in deciding between them. Particularly, C. D. Broad’s hybrid conception of a “growing block theory” attains special attractiveness in this regard. (shrink)

Some philosophers contend that the notion of temporal passage is illusory. But if the flow of time is an illusion, what gives rise to the notion that an event is in the future and then becomes present? In this paper, I hypothesize that there is a relation between the degree to which the conditions necessary for an event to occur have been met and the perception that a future event is “distant” or “near” in time. An event is perceived to (...) be “distant” when few or none of the conditions necessary to cause the event have been met. As the conditions necessary to cause the event are attained, the event is perceived to be “near” or “about to happen.” This hypothesis would explain the perception that an event “moves” from the future to the present, but it would not explain why an event that has occurred seems to move from the near past into the distant past. (shrink)

This dissertation is on infinite regress arguments in philosophy. Its main goals are to explain what such arguments from many distinct philosophical debates have in common, and to provide guidelines for using and evaluating them. Two theories are reviewed: the Paradox Theory and the Failure Theory. According to the Paradox Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to refute an existentially or universally quantified statement (e.g. to refute the statement that at least one discussion is settled, or the statement that (...) discussions are settled only if there is an agreed-upon criterion to settle them). According to the Failure Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to solve an existentially or universally quantified problem (e.g. to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to settle all discussions, or that it fails to settle even one discussion). In the literature, the Paradox Theory is fairly well-developed, and this dissertation provides the Failure Theory with the same tools. (shrink)

The central claim of this thesis is that concepts, the components from which cognitively significant truth evaluable content (thought) is composed, are unstructured entities an account of whose individuation makes no essential reference to other concepts in the possession of the thinking subject or to any particular means by which the reference of the concept is identified by the thinking subject. This position is called Conceptual Atomism and contrasts with Inferential Role Semantics, according to which concepts are individuated by their (...) inferential roles or their conditions of warranted application. The structure of the argument is as follows. Firstly, a principle called the Transparency Principle is developed. This places constraints on the individuation of concepts across differing contexts. The Transparency Principle is then used to show that Inferential Role Semantics is false because it cannot provide a satisfactory account of cognitive dynamics; that is, of the conditions under which a concept is retained through changes in the epistemic state of the subject over a period of time. A version of Conceptual Atomism is then defended and it is shown that this theory yields the correct individuation of concepts. According to this theory the concepts of an individual subject are individuated in terms of referential episodes, episodes of ongoing reference to an object or property during which it is diachronically transparent to the subject that the same thing is being referred to. The more general notion of a referential practice is then used to account for the sharing of concepts by more than one person. Finally, a novel account of the thoughts expressed using indexical terms is defended in order to show that indexicals present no counterexample to Conceptual Atomism. This account of indexical thoughts is of some consequence in its own right. (shrink)

To date, there is no universal and coherent theory concerning the nature or the function of time. Furthermore, important and unresolved controversies raging within both philosophy and the natural sciences apparently indicate that there is little hope of constructing a single, unified theory. Even so-called "folk" theories of time, embedded within different cultural traditions, show no common elements, and therefore can not provide a pre-theoretical description of time, towards which an explanatory framework could be constructed. This lack of consensus indicates (...) that the concept as it is currently being used is ill defined, and, at the very least, needs to be considerably revised. The conceptual disarray surrounding time has aided and abetted the arguments of certain thinkers, especially Ricoeur, working within the phenomenological tradition who make de principe claims that there can not be a single theory of time. My intention is not to try and to produce a concept of time that was capable of unifying all these different elements. Rather, Ricoeur's arguments and those of others working in the phenomenological tradition dissatisfied me. I believed that their arguments were informed by a myopic, muddled and positively 19th Century understanding of the scientific project. Hence, my aim is to show that Ricoeur's claim will not stand up to scrutiny, and that there are no principled arguments against the possibility of a unified theory of time. We examine the major arguments against unification in general, and also with particular reference to theories of time, such as Husserlian phenomenology, conventionalism, instrumentalism, anti-reductive positions in general, as well as the specific problem of reducing subjective experience to objective description. We demonstrate that none of these objections constitutes a watertight a priori argument against a unified theory of time. Furthermore, we demonstrate that recent developments in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind have made such a unified theory a plausible goal. We argue that post-positivist philosophy of science, with its emphasis on research programmes, the co-evolution of theories and super-empirical rational support, opens the way for new types of evidence to be brought to bear on questions about time. Also, recent developments in the brain sciences mean that a neurologically plausible and fully naturalised analysis of our experience of time is being developed. Although much work in this direction has begun, we argue that it is fragmented, partly through the limitations of our current knowledge, but more particularly through an inadequate background of coherent philosophical thought. This has lead both philosophers and scientists to attempt grand metaphysical answers to muddled philosophical questions which threaten the progress which natural science and the philosophy of science have offered in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

We review the current situation in the philosophy of time, partly to investigate Michael Dummett’s complaint that the philosophy of physics has become too specialized and technical to be able to communicate with mainstream philosophy. We conclude that the situation in this case is different: there is no special difficulty of intelligibility---the obstacle for communication between science and philosophy here is rather that what physics, or science in general, tells us is prima facie in conflict with common sense and intuition. (...) We argue that this difficulty is indeed prima facie: on closer inspection it appears that the scientific B-theory may explain our intuition better than the A-theory, even though the latter at first sight seems to completely mirror our direct experience. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the seeming contingency of the fact that one is the specific person that one is. Here, I propose that this contingency is illusory.

ABSTRACT Temporal dynamists argue that we should believe that there exists temporal passage because there being passage is the best explanation for the presence of our temporal phenomenology. Presentists argue that presentism is the best version of temporal dynamism. Therefore, conditional on us accepting temporal dynamism, we should accept presentism. In this paper it is argued that if we understand temporal passage as the presentist does, such an argument can succeed only if dualism is true. Thus, we conclude, either presentists (...) should embrace dualism, or they should reject any argument for presentism that proceeds via any such argument for temporal passage that proceeds via considerations of what best explains our temporal phenomenology. (shrink)

The Aleph Zero or Zero Dichotomy is a strong version of Zeno's Dichotomy II which being entirely derived from the topological successiveness of the w-order comes to the same Zeno's absurdity.

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.

The text is divided into two parts. In the first part, the author describes the eternalists’ and presentists’ positions as the two basic possible statements of the ontology of time . The eternalist position and the emphasis it puts on the actual existence of past and future events are thoroughlly analysed in order to show that in fact, they end up making strings of symbols that are not correct statements. It is therefore necessary to step beyond these clumsy statements and (...) try to understand more exactly the eternalist intuitions on a deeper, metaphysical level. That is the main concern of the second part of the text, in which the metaphysical implications of both positions are compared. At the end of the linguistical analysis in the first part, we got to a point where it may seem that presentism and eternalism are only different attempts at expressing what is in fact the same understanding of the nature of time, but in the metaphysical analysis that follows, it will turn out that they are not. Presentism and eternalism are shown to be two different ontological approaches of time in relation to space . The author then focuses on the consequences these two positions have especially on the concept of the present and of its flow through time. In the end, presentism and eternalism turn out to be completely different positions that – in parallel with the famous McTaggart’s argument – claim a very strong reality of time on the one hand or, on the other hand, its utter unreality. (shrink)

A-Theory or B-Theory of Time? An Aristotelian Answer The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of Aristotle’s theory of time, in order to understand if it could introduce a stimulus into the contemporary debate on the nature of time between A-theorists and B-theorists. The first section of the paper is devoted to a conceptual explanation of these two main positions about the nature of time and their intimate link with eternalism and presentism. The second section presents the (...) Aristotelian view on the nature of time, considering his analysis on the notion of ‘periods’ and ‘instants’ or ‘nows’ and arguing a metaphysical priority of the ‘now’ on the ‘period’. The third section tries to locate the Aristotelian theory into this contemporary debate, following two different strategies. Initially, it will be argued in favour of Aristotle present’s primacy demonstrating his preference for A-theory of time. Secondly, thorough the help of an argument from Jeffery Brower, the paper provides an account of Aristotle’s position in a specific debate on the nature of time concerning the problem of ‘temporary intrinsics’, stating an Aristotelian endurantism. In the Conclusion, the paper claims the perfect consistency of Aristotle present’s primacy with Brower’s argument in favour of Aristotle’s endurantism. Bibliography Aristotle.. Physic. Harvard University Press. Brower, J.. Aristotelian Endurantism: A new Solution to the Problem of temporary Intrinsics. Mind 112: 882-905. Strobach, N.. The Moment of Change. A Systematic History in the Philosophy of Space and Time. Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V. Key-words Aristotle – A-theory – B-theory – endurantism – metaphysics - perdurantism. (shrink)

Quantum gravity is expected to require modifications of the notions of space and time. I discuss and clarify how this happens in Loop Quantum Gravity.

Privileged-perspective realism (PPR) is a version of metaphysical realism that takes certain irreducibly perspectival facts to be partly constitutive of reality. PPR asserts that there is a single metaphysically privileged standpoint from which these perspectival facts obtain. This chapter discusses several views that fall under the category of privileged-perspective realism. These include presentism, which is PPR about tensed facts, and non-multiverse interpretations of quantum mechanics, which the chapter argues, constitute PPR about world-indexed facts. Using the framework of the bird perspective (...) and the frog perspective, it argues that PPR views methodologically treat the frog perspective as metaphysically primary. This chapter considers case studies of metaphysical interpretations of special relativity and quantum mechanics in order to demonstrate that such motivations for PPR are non-naturalistic. Further, it considers psychological factors that motivate the appeal of PPR views and offers naturalistic explanations of why we should not expect them to produce an adequate metaphysics of science. (shrink)

This paper models God and time in the framework of modern physics. God bridges and simultaneously exists in (1) a universe with infinite tenseless time and (2) a created parallel universe with tensed time and a point origin. The primary attributes of God are inexhaustible love, inexhaustible perception, and inexhaustible force. The model also incorporates modern physics theories that include relativity, the conservation of energy, quantum mechanics, and multiverse geometry. For example, creation out of nothing and divine intervention are subject (...) to physical processes and likewise nomological possibility. I will call this model semiclassical theism. (shrink)

Following the seminal work of Ingvar (1985. “Memory for the future”: An essay on the temporal organization of conscious awareness. Human Neurobiology, 4, 127–136), Suddendorf (1994. The discovery of the fourth dimension: Mental time travel and human evolution. Master’s thesis. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand), and Tulving (1985. Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 26, 1–12), exploration of the ability to anticipate and prepare for future contingencies that cannot be known with certainty has grown into a thriving research enterprise. (...) A fundamental tenet of this line of inquiry is that future-oriented mental time travel, in most of its presentations, is underwritten by a property or an extension of episodic recollection. However, a careful conceptual analysis of exactly how episodic memory functions in this capacity has yet to be undertaken. In this paper I conduct such an analysis. Based on conceptual, phenomenological, and empirical considerations,I conclude that the autonoetic component of episodic memory, not episodic memory per se, is the causally determinative factor enabling an individual to project him or herself into a personal future. (shrink)

There are two main camps in 20th-century philosophy of time: A-theorists who believe in the dynamic model of reality, and B-theorists who maintain a static model of reality. After the publication of Putnam’s influential article, “time and physical geometry”, the implications of the Special Theory of Relativity became serious in metaphysical discussions about temporal reality. Some philosophers argued that this theory contradicts the dynamic model and implies the ontology of the static model, namely, the objective reality of the present, past (...) and future events. In response, some advocates of the dynamic model argued that there can be dynamic models in relativistic setting, though they are different, radically, from old theories of dynamic reality. In this paper, first, I shall discuss how special relativity contradicts the traditional dynamic model and, then, how new dynamic models imply a relative concept of reality, in contrast to its old absolute concept and, so, why these strategies are very unintuitive. Finally, I shall argue that this radical conceptual shift about reality is, not only unintuitive, but unwarranted and, in some sense, inconsistent as well. (shrink)