This paper presents a line of thought against the possibility of causation without time. That possibility, insofar as it is supposedly rested upon a Lewisian counterfactual theory of causation, does not stand up to scrutiny. The key point is that, as a reflection on the trans-world identity of events reveals, (distinct) events deprived of times are—according to Lewis’s own semantics of counterfactuals—no longer eligible to stand in counterfactual dependence.

Time is what clocks are used to measure. Information about time tells the durations of events and when they occur and which events happen before which others, so time plays a very significant role in the universe’s structure, including the structure of our personal lives. But carefully describing time’s properties has led to many unresolved issues, both philosophical and scientific.

This paper considers a problem for dynamic presentism that has received little attention: its apparent inability to accommodate the duration of events (such as conscious experiences). After outlining the problem, I defend presentism from it. This defence proceeds in two stages. First, I argue the objection rests on a faulty assumption: that duration is temporal extension. The paper challenges that assumption on several different ways of conceiving of temporal extension. This is the negative case and forms the bulk of the (...) paper. Second, after diagnosing the error leading to the identification of duration with temporal extension, I outline a new presentist-friendly account of duration that avoids the problem. In particular, a non-reductive account of duration is offered that treats it as a primitive quality which bestows its possessor with a certain modal quality: that the possessor potentially does not change whilst there are changes in its environs. This is the positive case. Together the positive and negative cases provide presentism with an interesting and novel way of overcoming the problem of duration. (shrink)

I begin by giving reasons to accept the block-universe view, the strongly supported by physics view that we live in a four-dimensional world. According to it, the past and the future are as real as the present. As a result, it seems that the future is determined in the sense that what will be the case will necessarily be the case. In the dissertation, I examine whether we have to accept this consequence. I show that we do not have to (...) bite the bullet: the future might be both real and contingent. I first start to consider modal realism (possible futures are real) as a possible solution. However, I propose then another account, actualist (positing the reality of only one possible world: the space-time we live in). This solution relies on a conventionalist theory about metaphysical modality (Sidelle, 1989). It states that modal modality is purely conventional. In combination with a realist interpretation of natural modality (causal and/or nomological), this framework allows me to propose that the future is conventionally closed and naturally contingent. In this view, the necessity of the future holds in virtue of linguistic conventions and then is conventionally necessary. But this is a distinct phenomenon from the natural contingency of the future: the future is naturally contingent because there are mind-independent probabilistic relations holding between the present and the future. This solution has strong consequences: most importantly, an anti-realist view about ordinary objects and physical particles. I end up by presenting and arguing in favour of the general image of the world that comes out from these views. (shrink)

Perdurantists hold that we persons—just like other ordinary objects—persist by perduring, by having temporal parts, or stages, located over time. Perdurantists also standardly endorse the B-theory of time. And, in light of this endorsement, they typically characterize our tensed beliefs as self-ascriptions of properties, made not by us but by our stages. For instance, for me to believe that Angela Merkel is currently the chancellor of Germany is for my now-located stage to self-ascribe the property of being simultaneous with Merkel’s (...) chancellorship. The problem with this way of understanding tensed belief is that it undermines—if not outright contradicts—the perdurantist’s best options for resisting the Too Many Thinkers objection. In what follows, I show why this is. I then consider what I take to be the perdurantist’s most promising alternative account of tensed belief. I argue that this alternative either leaves perdurantists no better off with respect to the Too Many Thinkers objection or, instead, leaves them vulnerable to another objection, one that they would otherwise have no problem resisting. (shrink)

This is an attempt to sort out what is it that makes many of us uncomfortable with the perdurantist solution to the problem of change. Lewis argues that only perdurantism can reconcile change with persistence over time, while neither presentism nor endurantism can. So, first, I defend the endurantist solution to the problem of change, by arguing that what is relative to time are not properties, but their possession. Second, I explore the anti-perdurantist strategy of arguing that Lewis cannot solve (...) the problem of change, for he cannot account for how some properties are possessed by objects in time. However, I argue that this strategy fails, for if by saying that objects in time can have properties ‘timelessly’ we mean “at no particular time” and “tenselessly”, only objects outside time can have properties in that way; but if we mean “for all the time they exist”, or “essentially”, perdurantists can account for this. Finally, I argue that actually perdurantism cannot solve the problem, but for different reasons: for either it sweeps the problem under the carpet, denying change, and in general subverting our conceptual scheme in a dangerous way, or it becomes equivalent to the endurantist picture that properties are had at times. Nor perdurantism is justified by the Relativity Theory or the B-theory of time, because while endurantism is certainly comfortable with presentism, it need not be committed to it; and even if it were, presentism need not be refuted by the Relativity Theory. (shrink)

Dunbar, the character from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, tries to extend his life by making it boring. I use Dunbar’s case to pose a challenge to those who think our phenomenology gives us reason to defend time’s passage as a metaphysical view. I argue that the reason phenomenology gives for us to defend time’s passage cannot be that our brains detect time’s passage, unless we take Dunbar’s metaphysics more seriously than it deserves. Instead we must resort to the ordinary practice (...) of trying to make sense of things in order to reach such a metaphysically substantive view. (shrink)

Relativity theory is often said to support something called ‘the four-dimensional view of reality’. But there are at least three different views that sometimes go by this name. One is ‘spacetime unitism’, according to which there is a spacetime manifold, and if there are such things as points of space or instants of time, these are just spacetime regions of different sorts: thus space and time are not separate manifolds. A second is the B-theory of time, according to which the (...) past, present, and future are all equally real and there is nothing metaphysically special about the present. A third is perdurantism, according to which persisting material objects are made up of different temporal parts located at different times. We sketch routes from relativity to unitism and to the B-theory. We then discuss some routes to perdurantism, via the B-theory and via unitism. (shrink)

It is customary in current philosophy of time to distinguish between an A- (or tensed) and a B- (or tenseless) theory of time. It is also customary to distinguish between an old B-theory of time, and a new B-theory of time. We may say that the former holds both semantic atensionalism and ontological atensionalism, whereas the latter gives up semantic atensionalism and retains ontological atensionalism. It is typically assumed that the B-theorists have been induced by advances in the philosophy of (...) language and related A-theorists’ criticisms to acknowledge that semantic atensionalism can hardly stand, but have also maintained that what is essential for the B-theory is ontological atensionalism, which can be independently defended. Here it is argued that the B-theorists have been too quick in abandoning semantic atensionalism: they can still cling to it. (shrink)

This paper argues against the common practice of presenting perdurantism, endurantism, and other views about persistence and time as solutions to an alleged puzzle about change. Various recent attempts to generate a puzzle about change are examined and found unsuccessful. This does not mean, however, that the relevant views about persistence and time are not well motivated, but rather that their interest and purpose is independent of their suitability for solving the alleged puzzle.

It is, I think, possible to generate a variation of McTaggart’s (Mind 17:457–474, 1908 ) paradox that infects all extant versions of presentism. This is not to say that presentism is doomed to failure. There may be ways to modify presentism and I can’t anticipate all such modifications, here. For the purposes of the paper I’ll understand ‘presentism’ to be the view that for all x , x is present (cf. Crisp ( 2004 : 18)). It seems only right that, (...) at a conference devoted to McTaggart’s work on time, we continue to pursue new ways in which his now infamous arguments remain relevant to us today. (shrink)

As far as our experience goes, we live in a dynamic present. Those two phenomenal features of experience—presentness and dynamism—are obviously connected. However, how they are connected is not obvious at all. In this paper, I criticise the view according to which the former can explain the latter, which I call sophisticated representationalism. My criticism will be based on an ambiguity in the notion of tense found in the philosophical literature, that between the perspectival understanding and the dynamic understanding of (...) tenses. The distinction is not just of independent interest, but it has a role in providing indirect evidence for the claim that the feeling of passage of time should be understood in non-representationalist terms. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is two fold: first, I look to show Oaklander’s theory of time to be false. Second, I show that the only way to salvage the B-theory is via the adopting of the causal theory of time, and allying this to Oaklander’s claim that tense is to be eliminated. I then raise some concerns with the causal theory of time. My conclusion is that, if one adopts eternalism, the unreality of time looks a better option than (...) the B-theory. (shrink)

I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the doctrine that only present objects exist. Then, I outline and defend a form of spacetime realism that I call event substantivalism. I propose an ontological theory for the emergence of spacetime from more basic entities. Finally, I argue that a relational theory of pre-geometric entities can give rise (...) to substantival spacetime in such a way that relationism and substantivalism are not necessarily opposed positions, but rather complementary. In an appendix I give axiomatic formulations of my ontological views. (shrink)

Intuitively, the future is open and the past fixed: there is something we can do about the future but not the past. Some metaphysicians believe that a proper metaphysics of time must vindicate this intuition. Whereas philosophers have focused on the future and the past, the status of the present remains relatively unexplored. Drawing on resources from action theory, I argue that there is something we can do about the present just like there is something we can do about the (...) future. Hence, a proper metaphysics of the open future should allow for an open present as well. I argue that none of the major metaphysics of the open future currently available can accommodate an open present adequately. Finally, I’ll show that, surprisingly, the shrinking block metaphysics can. (shrink)

This monograph is a detailed study, and systematic defence, of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), first conceived by C.D. Broad. The book offers a coherent, logically perspicuous and ideologically lean formulation of GBT, defends it against the most notorious objections to be found in the extant philosophical literature, and shows how it can be derived from a more general theory, consistent with relativistic spacetime, on the pre-relativistic assumption of an absolute and total temporal order. -/- The authors devise (...) axiomatizations of GBT and its competitors which, against the backdrop of a shared quantified tense logic, significantly improves the prospects of their comparative assessment. Importantly, neither of these axiomatizations involves commitment to properties of presentness, pastness or futurity. The authors proceed to address, and defuse, a number of objections that have been marshaled against GBT, including the so-called epistemic objection according to which the theory invites skepticism about our temporal location. The challenge posed by relativistic physics is met head-on, by replacing claims about temporal variation by claims about variation across spacetime. -/- The book aims to achieve the greatest possible rigor. The background logic is set out in detail, as are the principles governing the notions of precedence and temporal location. The authors likewise devise a novel spacetime logic suited for the articulation, and comparative assessment, of relativistic theories of time. The book comes with three technical appendices which include soundness and completeness proofs for the systems corresponding to GBT and its competitors, in both their pre-relativistic and relativistic forms. -/- The book is primarily directed at researchers and graduate students working on the philosophy of time or temporal logic, but is of interest to metaphysicians and philosophical logicians more generally. (shrink)

This article is a response to Clifford Williams’s claim that the debate between A- and B theories of time is misconceived because these theories do not differ. I provide some missing support for Williams’s claim that the B-theory includes transition, by arguing that representative B-theoretic explanations for why we experience time as passing (even though it does not) are inherently unstable. I then argue that, contra Williams, it does not follow that there is nothing at stake in the A- versus (...) B debate. (shrink)

The problem of future contingents is regarded as an important philosophical problem in connection with determinism and it should be treated by tense logic. Prior’s early work focused on the problem, and later Prior studied branching-time tense logic which was invented by Kripke. However, Prior’s idea to use three-valued logic for the problem seems to be still alive. In this paper, we consider partial and paraconsistent approaches to the problem of future contingents. These approaches theoretically meet Aristotle’s interpretation of future (...) contingents. (shrink)

Dolev's ambitious project is to show that the traditional debate in the philosophy of time between the so-called ‘tensed’ and ‘tenseless’ theorists is not a sustainable one. The key to the negative portion argument is that both the tensed and tenseless view of time can be understood only from within their respective ontological frameworks. Moreover, that there is only really an appearance of understanding within these frameworks, since neither framework furnishes us with the wherewithal to genuinely understand temporal language. Moving (...) past these frameworks is the goal Dolev sets us. The positive aspect of the text tries to teach us how to transcend this merely ontological dispute and engage in phenomenological considerations of time itself. The conclusion to the positive project is that we cannot postulate an adequate metaphysical system of time, though we can understand what time is if we treat it as the time of our experiences in everyday life .The prospect that we might be able to move past the existing debate into fresh philosophical terrain is exciting. But I am not quite persuaded by the arguments that are intended to motivate the move to pastures new. First, on occasion Dolev seems to slightly …. (shrink)

Temporal aspects dwell both in the world around us and at the core of our experience of it. Reality, thought, and language all seem to be imbibed in temporality at some level or another. It is thus not surprising that philosophers who have to face the problems of understanding time have resorted to tools from different spheres of investigation, and often at the points of overlap of these areas. Metaphysics, philosophy of physics and science in general, philosophy of language, phenomenology, (...) philosophy of mind, the study of perception and cognition, but also anthropology, sociology, and history of culture, art, and ideas all contain theories and reflections that are crucial to our understanding and experience of time. Many recent debates in analytic philosophy have tackled in different ways the question of whether the sensation of the passage of time that seems to characterise our ordinary experience should be understood as reflecting some obje .. (shrink)

Artikkelissa puolustetaan syy-seuraussuhteen ajallista yksisuuntaisuutta. Positiivinen argumentti perustuu ajanluontoisten tapahtumien ennen–jälkeen-suhteen pysyvyyteen. Olennaiset vastaväitteet, jotka perustuvat samanaikaiseen kausaliteettiin, antikausaaliseen fysiikan filosofiaan ja luonnonlakien symmetrisyyteen, otetaan huomioon. Johtopäätöksenä todetaan, että malliesimerkit kausaliteetista ilmentävät syyn ja seurauksen epäsymmetriaa. Syy alkaa ennen sen seurausta, vaikka ne ovat osittain samanaikaisia.