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)

Ismael aims for an understanding of the nature of an embedded perspective of agents in a world. If successful, this would explain a cluster of ways in which from an embedded perspective, we experience the world in an array of temporally asymmetric ways. Moreover, these are ways that have led many philosophers to rather metaphysically inflationary views about the nature of time, according to which time itself really is dynamical, and is characterized by the movement of an objectively (i.e., non-perspectival) (...) present. Ismael aims to explain these features of our experience without positing any such metaphysical picture. She argues that there are constraints which prevent us from taking this Olympian conception of the world and our place in it, and that these, jointly, explain why we experience the world in these temporally asymmetric ways. We take up two related questions. First, what it would mean to say that these constraints are not merely epistemic, and second, how far these constraints get us in explaining why we experience the world in these ways. (shrink)

Temporal dynamists typically hold that it seems to us as though time robustly passes, and that its seeming so is explained by the fact that time does robustly pass. Temporal non-dynamists hold that time does not robustly pass. Some non-dynamists nevertheless hold that it seems as though it does: we have an illusory phenomenal state whose content represents robust passage. Call these phenomenal passage illusionists. Other non-dynamists argue that the phenomenal state in question is veridical and represents something other than (...) robust passage. Call this the veridical passage-less view. This paper argues in favour of the latter view over the former, by arguing that we should reject passage illusionism. (shrink)

We explore the role of episodic imagining in explaining why people both differentially report that it seems to them in experience as though time robustly passes, and why they differentially report that they believe that time does in fact robustly pass. We empirically investigate two hypotheses, the differential vividness hypothesis, and the mental time travel hypothesis. According to each of these, the degree to which people vividly episodically imagine past/future states of affairs influences their tendency to report that it seems (...) to them as though time robustly passes and to judge that time does robustly pass. According to the former, a greater degree of vividness will tend to increase the extent to which people make such reports, while according to the latter, it will tend to decrease the extent to which people make such reports. We found weak evidence in favour of the former hypothesis. We reflect on the implications of this finding for theorising about such reports. (shrink)

Modern physics has provided a range of motivations for holding time to be fundamentally undirected. But how does a temporally adirectional metaphysics, or ‘C-theory’ of time, fit with the time of experience? In this chapter, I look at what kind of problem human time poses for C-theories. First, I ask whether there is a ‘hard problem’ of human time: whether it is in principle impossible to have the kinds of experience we do in a temporally adirectional world. Second I consider (...) the ‘easy problem’: how specific directed aspects of our temporal experience are to be explained by C-theorists. This leads to a greater issue: is there such a thing as an experience of time direction at all to even be explained? I show how the kinds of experience we have that we typically associate with the idea of time being directed can be accommodated within a directionless picture of time. (shrink)

When interpreters orient Kant in relation to contemporary philosophy of time, they claim that the B series is dependent on the A series. However, I claim that the opposite direction of dependence is also supported, due to Kant’s position that change is both intelligible and involves incompatibility. This paper extends the contemporary description of Kant’s philosophy of time to show that Kant endorses the interdependence of A series and B series views on time.

Philosophers have usually approached the concept of timing of experiences by addressing the question how the experiences of temporal phenomena can be explained. As a result, the issue of timing has been addressed in two different ways. The first, similar to the questions posed in sciences, concerns the relationship between the experienced time of events and the objective time of events. The second approach is more specific to philosophers’ debates, and concerns the phenomenology of experiences: how is the apparent temporal (...) structure of experiences constituted? In regard to both questions, this article shows why and how philosophers’ views differ from those held by most scientists. To conclude, I present a combination of views that is not only compatible with that of scientists, but also addresses the problems that engage philosophers. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some aspects of the relation between temporal experience and the A versus B debate. To begin with, I provide an overview of the A versus B debate and, following Baron et al. (2015), distinguish between two B-theoretic responses to the A- theoretic argument from experience, veridicalism and illusionism. I then argue for veridicalism over illusionism, by examining our (putative) experiences as of presentness and as of time passing. I close with some remarks on the relation between veridicalism (...) and a deflationary view of the A versus B debate. I suggest that the deflationary view can provide further support for veridicalism. (shrink)

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

Through hearing we learn about source events: events in which objects move or interact so that they vibrate and produce sound waves, such as when they roll, collide, or scrape together. It is often claimed that we do not simply hear sounds and infer what event caused them, but hear source events themselves, through hearing sounds. Here I investigate how the idea that we hear source events should be understood, with a focus on how hearing an event relates to hearing (...) the objects involved in that event. I argue that whereas we see events such as rollings and collisions by seeing objects move through space, this cannot be how we hear them, and go on to examine two other possible models. On the first, we hear events but not their participant objects. On the second, to hear an event is to hear the appearance of an object to change. I argue that neither is satisfactory and endorse a third option: to hear a source event is to hear an object as extending through time. (shrink)

Here, I put forward a new account of how experience gives rise to the belief that time passes. While there is considerable disagreement amongst metaphysicians as to whether time really does pass, it has struck many as a default, ‘common sense’ way of thinking about the world. A popular way of explaining how such a belief arises is to say that it seems perceptually as though time passes. Here I outline some difficulties for this approach, and propose instead that the (...) belief in time passing is elicited by a particular feature of agentive experience. When we deliberately move our bodies, bring something to mind, or focus our attention, we experience ourselves as the sources of these actions. Sensing oneself as a source, I argue, is a unique type of change experience, one which leads us to a belief that time is passing. (shrink)

The hyper-Russellian skeptic is someone who thinks that only one of all your experiences was, is, and will ever be conscious. Which one? The very one you are having now. Before you were always a zombie, and you will be a zombie for ever after. In the present literature on the metaphysics of passage of time, there is disagreement on whether our feeling that time passes — the “dynamic flavor” of our ordinary experience — provides support to the A-theory, that (...) is, the thesis that the passage of time is an objective feature of reality. Lately, several philosophers have argued against this idea. In this paper I want to push this line of reasoning further by exploiting the hyper-Russellian scenario against the A-theory of time. (shrink)

In the contemporary landscape about temporal experience, debates concerning the “hard question” of the experience of the flow—as opposed to debates concerning more qualitative aspects of temporality, such as change, movement, succession and duration—are gaining more and more attention. The overall dialectics can be thought of in terms of a debate between the realists (who take the phenomenology of the flow of time seriously, and propose various account of it) and deflationists (who take our description of temporal phenomenology as “flowy” (...) to be spurious, and propose various explanation of this spuriousness). In this paper we look inside the realist side. We distinguish primitivist realism, according to which the feeling of time flowing is an irreducible sui generis phenomenology, and various forms of reductionist realism, according to which the experience of the flow is ultimately explainable in terms of a more basic phenomenology. We present reasons to be sceptical against the various reductionist proposals. The conclusion is thus disjunctive: either primitivism or deflationism is the correct account of the purported experience of the flow of time. (shrink)

Within the philosophy of time there has been a growing interest in positions that deny the reality of time. Those positions, whether motivated by arguments from physics or metaphysics, have a shared conclusion: time is not real. What has not been made wholly clear, however, is exactly what it entails to deny the reality of time. Time is unreal, sure. But what does that mean? There has been only one sustained attempt to spell out exactly what it would mean to (...) endorse a temporal error theory; a theory that denies the reality of time—Baron & Miller’s ‘What is temporal error theory?’. Despite the fact that their paper makes significant strides in spelling out what would be required of a temporal error theory, my claim in this paper is that their position must be rejected and replaced. As well as looking to reject Baron and Miller’s position, I also look to provide that replacement. (shrink)

This work introduces a causal explanation of the passage of time, and contrasts it with rival explanations. In the causal explanation, laws of physics are shown to entail that events are in causal succession, and the passage of time is defined as their causal succession. The causal explanation is coupled with phenomenology of the passage of time, and contrasted with the project of making sense of the idea that time does not pass.

The moving spotlight account (MS) is a view that combines an eternalist ontology and an A-theoretic metaphysics. The intuition underlying MS is that the present time is somehow privileged and experientially vivid, as if it were illuminated by a moving spotlight. According to MS-theorists, a key reason to prefer MS to B-theoretic eternalism is that our experience of time supports it. We argue that this is false. To this end, we formulate a new family of positions in the philosophy of (...) time, which differ from MS in that, intuitively, they admit a plurality of moving spotlights. We argue that these ‘deviant’ variants of MS cannot be dismissed as conceptually incoherent, and that they are as well-supported by our experience as is MS. One of these variants, however, is consistent with the B-theory. Thus, if our experience of time supports MS, then it supports the B-theory as well. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that the passage of time is a real phenomenon. And some of them find a reason to believe this when they attend to features of their conscious experience. In fact this “argument from experience” is supposed to be one of the main arguments for passage. What exactly does this argument look like? Is it any good?

In first personal accounts of the experience of grief, it is often described as disrupting the experience of time. This aspect of the experience has gained more attention in recent discussions, but it may nonetheless strike some as puzzling. Grieving subjects do, after all, still perceptually experience motion, change, and succession, and they are typically capable of orienting themselves in time and accurately estimating durations. As such, it is not immediately obvious how we ought understand the claim that grief disrupts (...) the experience of time. In the present discussion I suggest that we can shed light on this aspect of the experience of grief by distinguishing between three temporal perspectives that experiencing (human) subjects typically occupy: the perceptual, the agential, and the narrative. Appeal to these three temporal perspectives helps to clarify the phenomenology of grief; it reveals a way in which grief can disrupt the experience of time; and it can also help us to analyse pre-existing issues in the literature on grief. (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)

Philosophical debates about the metaphysics of time typically revolve around two contrasting views of time. On the A-theory, time is something that itself undergoes change, as captured by the idea of the passage of time; on the B-theory, all there is to time is events standing in before/after or simultaneity relations to each other, and these temporal relations are unchanging. Philosophers typically regard the A-theory as being supported by our experience of time, and they take it that the B-theory clashes (...) with how we experience time and therefore faces the burden of having to explain away that clash. In this paper, we investigate empirically whether these intuitions about the experience of time are shared by the general public. We asked directly for people’s subjective reports of their experience of time—in particular, whether they believe themselves to have a phenomenology as of time’s passing—and we probed their understanding of what time’s passage in fact is. We find that a majority of participants do share the aforementioned intuitions, but interestingly a minority do not. (shrink)

We seem to experience time as flowing. Yet according to the leading metaphysical picture of time, the block-universe theory, time in fact does not flow. Block-lovers typically react to this apparent tension by unhitching the sense of flow in our temporal experience from temporal reality, holding that temporal experience is systematically illusory. I shall develop a new block-friendly account of the sense of flow, which preserves a match of temporal experience and temporal reality. According to this account, the sense of (...) flow arises from higher-order temporal experience. (shrink)

In the past generation, various philosophers have been concerned with the so-called “placement problem” for naturalism. The problem has taken on the shorthand alliteration of the 4Ms, since Mind/Mentality, Meaning, Morality, and Modality/Mathematics are four important phenomena that are difficult to place within orthodox construals of naturalism, typified by physicalism and a methodological preference for ways of knowing associated with the natural sciences. In this paper I highlight the importance of temporality to this ostensibly forced choice between naturalism and the (...) 4Ms, and then reframe the problem by advocating a temporal naturalism rather than the atemporal versions that remain the orthodoxy. In short, I argue in Section 1 that scientific naturalism is standardly atemporal in outlook and in philosophical presuppositions, in Section 2 that temporality is a fundamental condition for each of the 4Ms (drawing on insights from classical phenomenology), and hence the intransigence of the dilemma. Instead of accepting this construal, in Section 3 I outline a temporal naturalism that owes more to biology than to physics (and hence more to Peter Godfrey-Smith than Huw Price), where we also see temporally dependent “points of view” in incipient biological forms, and where the norms surrounding explanation are less nomological and reductive in orientation. (shrink)

Brentano’s suggestion that intentionality is the mark of the mental is typically spelled out in terms of the thesis that all and only mental states are intentional. An influential objection is that intentionality is not necessary for mentality. What about the idea that only mental states are intentional? In his 2008 paper published in Analysis, Nes shows that on a popular characterization of intentionality, notably defended by Crane, some non-mental states come out as intentional. Crane replies that the concept of (...) representation solves the problem. In this paper, I argue that no representational account of intentionality meets Nes’s challenge. After distinguishing between two notions of representation, I contend that there are two versions of Crane’s representational account, but neither of them is able to solve the problem posed by Nes. (shrink)

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)

Is the objective passage of time compatible with relativistic physics? There are two easy routes to an affirmative answer: (1) provide a deflationary analysis of passage compatible with the block universe, or (2) argue that a privileged global present is compatible with relativity. (1) does not take passage seriously. (2) does not take relativity seriously. This paper is concerned with the viability of views that seek to take both passage and relativity seriously. The investigation proceeds by considering how traditional A-theoretic (...) conceptions of passage might be generalized to relativistic space-times without incorporating a privileged global present. I argue that the most promising position marries the idea that open possibilities for the future are settled as time passes with a ‘non-standard’ interpretation of the relevant formal models. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the A-theorist's argument from experience is undermined by a commitment to ‘experiential punctivism' - the view that instantaneous experiences are metaphysically prior to durative ones. The experiences to which the A-theorist's argument appeals are those of processual events. For these experiences to constitute perceptions of temporal passage it would be necessary to perceive such processes qua processes; but, if experiential punctivism were true, this would be impossible. We could only ever perceive (...) those processes qua temporal variation, which merely amounts to an awareness of change as described by the B-theory. If there is such a phenomenon as the passing of time, it could not be an object of our experience. (shrink)

Duration distortions familiar from trauma present an apparent counterexample to what we might call the naive view of duration perception. I argue that such distortions constitute a counterexample to naiveté only on the assumption that we perceive duration absolutely. This assumption can seem mandatory if we think of the alternative, relative view as limiting our awareness to the relative durations of perceptually presented events. However, once we recognize the constant presence of a stream of non-perceptual conscious mental activity, we can (...) provide an attractive, purely relative account of temporal distortions quite consistent with the naive view. I also consider (and reject) a second empirical challenge to the naive view arising from the so-called ‘oddball effect’. I conclude by tentatively pointing to further empirical data, traditionally accounted for in terms of an internal clock model of timing, which, I suggest, may be understood more illuminatingly by appeal to the idea that we perceive duration in part relative to concurrent non-perceptual mental activity. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an argument against eternalism, which is similar to the widely discussed grounding problem for presentism. It has recently been argued by many that presentism should be rejected on grounds that its sparse ontology is not suited to underwrite the healthy dose of realism we all share about the past. My aim basically is to add a new twist to the debate, by showing that actually eternalists are no better off than their rivals. In particular, I (...) argue that the eternalist’s ontology does not have the appropriate shape to ground true propositions about the past. (shrink)

This paper articulates and explores in some detail the main features of Whitehead’s early temporal ontology. By ‘early temporal ontology’ I refer to the views Whitehead developed during his London years, more specifically in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919) and the more approachable Concept of Nature (1920). These works are not usually read through a heavily ontological lens. It is often said that Whitehead developed his metaphysics later, when he moved to the United States, in 1924. (...) I believe, however, that these earlier works should not merely be read as works in natural philosophy or merely as stepping stones to his later magnum opus Process and Reality (1929). Although Whitehead’s stated goal in these works is not to provide a systematic ontology of time, such an ontology is present and is worth distilling and interpreting. (shrink)

The well-known phenomenological argument draws metaphysical conclusions about time, specifically about change through time and the resulting passage or flow of time, from our temporal experience. The argument begins with the phenomenological premise that there is a class of properties which underlies our experience of time and change through time, and its conclusion is that these properties are not merely experienced but exemplified. I argue that the phenomenological argument is best served by the adoption of a representational theory of perception. (...) I then present a representational theory of temporal experience. (shrink)

Phenomenal character is the what-it's-likeness of subjective experience. I develop an ontology of phenomenal feel as process. My being in some phenomenal state R is the process of my instantiating R’s neurological correlate. The ontology explains why we have asymmetric epistemic access to phenomenal characters: the ontological ground for the subjective or first-personal stance is different from the ontological ground for the objective or third-personal stance. I end by situating my account in debates about physicalism.

Recent work in philosophy could benefit from paying greater attention to empirical results from cognitive science involving judgments about the nature of our ordinary experience. This paper describes the way that experimental and theoretical results about the nature of ordinary judgments could—and should—inform certain sorts of enquiries in contemporary philosophy, using metaphysics as an exemplar, and hence defines a new way for experimental philosophy and cognitive science to contribute to traditional philosophical debates.

Critics of contemporary metaphysics argue that it attempts to do the hard work of science from the ease of the armchair. Physics, not metaphysics, tells us about the fundamental facts of the world, and empirical psychology is best placed to reveal the content of our concepts about the world. Exploring and understanding the world through metaphysical reflection is obsolete. In this paper, I will show why this critique of metaphysics fails, arguing that metaphysical methods used to make claims about the (...) world are similar to scientific methods used to make claims about the world, but that the subjects of metaphysics are not the subjects of science. Those who argue that metaphysics uses a problematic methodology to make claims about subjects better covered by natural science get the situation exactly the wrong way around: metaphysics has a distinctive subject matter, not a distinctive methodology. The questions metaphysicians address are different from those of scientists, but the methods employed to develop and select theories are similar. In the first section of the paper, I will describe the sort of subject matter that metaphysics tends to engage with. In the second section of the paper, I will show how metaphysical theories are classes of models and discuss the roles of experience, common sense and thought experiments in the construction and evaluation of such models. Finally, in the last section I will discuss the way these methodological points help us to understand the metaphysical project. Getting the right account of the metaphysical method allows us to better understand the relationship between science and metaphysics, to explain why doing metaphysics successfully involves having a range of different theories, to understand the role of thought experiments involving fictional worlds, and to situate metaphysical realism in a scientifically realist context. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of lacking (...) prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

As you face a life-defining change, you might ask yourself: Who will I become? This can be understood as a question about the nature and character of your future life, asked from your first person, or subjective, perspective. The nature and character of your conscious, first person, lived experience is a defining constituent of what it is like to be you. Framed this way, knowing the nature of your future lived experience is a way of knowing your future self. In (...) this paper, I explore this way of understanding one’s self and its implications for understanding life-defining changes in high-stakes contexts. My exploration of this way of understanding one’s self highlights the role of experience in grasping perceptual truths, and the importance of imagination, empathy, and testimony in self-understanding and prediction. (shrink)

Appeals to the ‘common sense’, or ‘naïve’, or ‘folk’ concept of time, and the purported phenomenology as of time passing, play a substantial role in philosophical theorising about time. When making these appeals, philosophers have been content to draw upon their own assumptions about how non-philosophers think about time. This paper reviews a series of recent experiments bringing these assumptions into question. The results suggest that the way non-philosophers think about time is far less metaphysically demanding than philosophers have assumed.

Experience is the most primitive kind of intentional contact with reality. Metaphysical inquiry is one of the heights of human thought. It would not be surprising if experience was often silent on metaphysics, failing to offer support to one metaphysical disputant over the other, forcing them to fall back on nonexperiential considerations. I argue that the dispute between A- and B-theorists about time is a dispute about which experience is silent. B-theorists have typically conceded that the manifest image of time (...) conflicts with how time turns out to be, on their own view of time. They have offered an array of accounts of why that conflict should not worry us. I argue here that these accounts are unconvincing. I also argue that they are unnecessary. Nothing about how time is experienced conflicts with B-theory. An independently plausible method for discovering what properties experience represents—the method of phenomenal contrast—implies that experience does not favor A-theory over B-theory. (shrink)

Temporal non-dynamists hold that there is no temporal passage, but concede that many of us judge that it seems as though time passes. Phenomenal Illusionists suppose that things do seem this way, even though things are not this way. They attempt to explain how it is that we are subject to a pervasive phenomenal illusion. More recently, Cognitive Error Theorists have argued that our experiences do not seem that way; rather, we are subject to an error that leads us mistakenly (...) to believe that our experiences seem that way. Cognitive Error Theory is a relatively new view and little has been said to explain why we make such an error, or where, in the cognitive architecture, such an error might creep in. In this paper we remedy this by offering a number of hypotheses about the source of error. In so doing we aim to show that Cognitive Error Theory is a plausible competitor to Phenomenal Illusion Theory. (shrink)

One argument for the moving spotlight theory is that it better explains certain aspects of our temporal phenomenology than does any static theory of time. Call this the argument from passage phenomenology. In this paper it is argued that insofar as moving spotlight theorists take this to be a sound argument they ought embrace a new version of the moving spotlight theory according to which the moving spotlight is a cresting wave of causal efficacy. On this view it is more (...) than just presentness that is temporary: a range of other fundamental properties are also temporary because presentness synchronically changes the fundamental properties that are instantiated in the present moment, from those instantiated when that moment is future, or past. On this view having experiences as of presentness co-varies with the presence of presentness, allowing the moving spotlight theorist to provide a compelling explanation for why we have the temporal phenomenology we do, and to explain how we can know that we are present by reflecting on the nature of said phenomenology. (shrink)

Hoerl & McCormack posit two systems – the temporal updating system and the temporal reasoning system – and suggest that they explain an inherent contradiction in people's naïve theory of time. We suggest there is no contradiction. Something does, however, require explanation: the tension between certain sophisticated beliefs about time, and certain phenomenological states or beliefs about those phenomenological states. The temporal updating mechanism posited by H&M may contribute to this tension.

I argue that time travel to the past is impossible, given a certain metaphysical theory, namely, The Dynamic Theory of Time. I first spell out my particular way of capturing the difference between The Dynamic Theory of Time and its rival, The Static Theory of Time. Next I offer four different arguments for the conclusion that The Dynamic Theory is inconsistent with the possibility of time travel to the past. Then I argue that, even if I am wrong about this, (...) it will still be true that The Dynamic Theory entails that you should not want to travel back to the past. Finally, I conclude by considering a puzzle that arises for those who believe that time travel to the past is metaphysically impossible: What exactly are we thinking about when we seem to be thinking about traveling back in time? For it certainly does not feel like we are thinking about something that is metaphysically impossible. (shrink)

According to The Static Theory of Time, time is like space in various ways, and there is no such thing as the passage of time. According to The Dynamic Theory of Time, on the other hand, time is very different from space, and the passage of time is an all-too-real phenomenon. This paper first offers some suggestions about how we should understand these two theories, and then introduces five new arguments for The Dynamic Theory of Time.

Among the most important questions in the metaphysics of science are "What are the natures of fundamental laws and chances?" and "What grounds the direction of time?" My aim in this paper is to examine some connections between these questions, discuss two approaches to answering them and argue in favor of one. Along the way I will raise and comment on a number of issues concerning the relationship between physics and metaphysics and consequences for the subject matter and methodology of (...) metaphysics. (shrink)

It is taken as obvious that there is a conflict between objective temporal passage and relativistic physics. The traditional formulation of temporal passage is the movement of a universe-wide set of simultaneous events known as the NOW; the Special Theory of Relativity implies that there is no NOW and therefore no temporal passage. The vast majority of those who accept the B-theory blockworld—the metaphysics of time most friendly to relativistic physics—deny that time passes. I argue that this denial is a (...) mistake. Contrary to overwhelmingly popular opinion, temporal passage does not need a NOW. To show this, I defend a relational understanding of temporal becoming, that I call B-coming, in which an event y B-comes with respect to x iff R xy. Temporal passage is then the difference in what has B-come at one point in a thing’s history with respect to what has B-come at an earlier point in that thing’s history. Appealing to this kind of relation is a strategy that is well-known but has been widely dismissed. This dismissal is premature; I show that the essential elements of temporal passage do not necessarily require a NOW. There can be passage without presentness. (shrink)

‘Space does not exist fundamentally: it emerges from a more fundamental non-spatial structure.’ This intriguing claim appears in various research programs in contemporary physics. Philosophers of physics tend to believe that this claim entails either that spacetime does not exist, or that it is derivatively real. In this article, I introduce and defend a third metaphysical interpretation of the claim: reductionism about space. I argue that, as a result, there is no need to subscribe to fundamentality, layers of reality and (...) emergence in order to analyse the constitution of space by non-spatial entities. It follows that space constitution, if borne out, does not provide empirical evidence in favour of a stratified, Aristotelian in spirit, metaphysics. The view will be described in relation to two particular research programs in contemporary physics: wave function realism and loop quantum gravity. (shrink)

Eternalism, the view that what we regard locally as being located in the past, the present and the future equally exists, is the best ontological account of temporal existence in line with special and general relativity. However, special and general relativity are not fundamental theories and several research programs aim at finding a more fundamental theory of quantum gravity weaving together all we know from relativistic physics and quantum physics. Interestingly, some of these approaches assert that time is not fundamental. (...) If time is not fundamental, what does it entail for eternalism and the standard debate over existence in time? First, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in string theory entails standard eternalism. Second, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in loop quantum gravity entails atemporal eternalism, namely a novel position in the spirit of standard eternalism. (shrink)