Kurt Gödel made many affirmations of robust realism but also showed serious engagement with the idealist tradition, especially with Leibniz, Kant, and Husserl. The root of this apparently paradoxical attitude is his conviction of the power of reason. The paper explores the question of how Gödel read Kant. His argument that relativity theory supports the idea of the ideality of time is discussed critically, in particular attempting to explain the assertion that science can go beyond the appearances and ‘approach the (...) things’. Leibniz and post-Kantian idealism are discussed more briefly, the latter as documented in the correspondence with Gotthard Günther. (shrink)

It is well known that there is a conflict between three intuitive principles for the evaluation of risky prospects in distributional contexts, Ex-Post Egalitarianism, Ex-Ante Pareto and Dominance. In this paper, I return to Peter Diamond’s suggestion that we reject Dominance as a principle of rationality in distributional contexts and present a new argument in support of this position. The argument is based on an observation regarding the right way for a distributor to weigh reasons for actions. In some cases, (...) I argue, reasons for action that are grounded in the interests of one of the patients ought to be disregarded by the distributor. These cases share the following property: it is in the patient’s overall interest that the distributor disregards them. I show that Dominance does not permit distributors to disregard such reasons and use this observation to argue against the claim that Dominance is a principle of rationality in distributional contexts. (shrink)

In a recent paper, David Albert has suggested that no quantum theory can yield a description of the world unfolding in Minkowski spacetime. This conclusion is premature; a natural extension of Stein's notion of becoming in Minkowski spacetime to accommodate the demands of quantum nonseparability yields such an account, an account that is in accord with a proposal which was made by Aharonov and Albert but which is dismissed by Albert as a ‘mere trick’. The nature of such an account (...) is clarified by an extension to a relativistic quantum context of David Lewis' picture of objective chances evolving in time. 1 Introduction 2 Classical relativistic becoming 3 Relativistic quantum becoming, without collapse 4 Relativistic quantum becoming, with collapse 5 Objective chance, conditional probability, and definite properties 6 The nature of the wave function 7 Conclusion. (shrink)

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

Fragmentalism was first introduced by Kit Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’. According to fragmentalism, reality is an inherently perspectival place that exhibits a fragmented structure. The current paper defends the fragmentalist interpretation of the special theory of relativity, which Fine briefly considers in his paper. The fragmentalist interpretation makes room for genuine facts regarding absolute simultaneity, duration and length. One might worry that positing such variant properties is a turn for the worse in terms of theoretical virtues because such (...) properties are not involved in physical explanations and hence theoretically redundant. It will be argued that this is not right: if variant properties are indeed instantiated, they will also be involved in straightforward physical explanations and hence not explanatorily redundant. Hofweber and Lange, in their ‘Fine’s Fragmentalist Interpretation of Special Relativity’, object that the fragmentalist interpretation is in tension with the right explanation of the Lorentz transformations. It will be argued that their objection targets an inessential aspect of the fragmentalist framework and fails to raise any serious problem for the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (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)

According to logical positivism, so the story goes, metaphysical questions are meaningless, since they do not admit of empirical confirmation or refutation. However, the logical positivists did not in fact reject as meaningless all questions about for example, the structure of space and time. Rather, key figures such as Reichenbach and Schlick believed that scientific theories often presupposed a conceptual framework that was not itself empirically testable, but which was required for the theory as a whole to be empirically testable. (...) For example, the theory of Special Relativity relies upon the simultaneity convention introduced by Einstein that assumes that the one-way speed of light is the same in all directions of space. Hence, the logical positivists accepted an a priori component to physical theories. However, they denied that this a priori component is necessarily true. Whereas for Kant, metaphysics is the a priori science of the necessary structure of rational thought about reality, the logical positivists were forced by the history of science to accept that the a priori structure of theories could change. Hence, they defended a notion of what Michael Friedman calls the ‘relativised’ or the ‘constitutive’ a priori. Carnap and Reichenbach held that such an a priori framework was conventional, whereas Schlick seems to have been more of a realist and held that the overall relative simplicity of different theories could count as evidence for their truth, notwithstanding the fact that some parts of them are not directly testable. All this is part of the story of how the verification principle came to be abandoned, and how logical positivism transmuted into logical empiricism. (shrink)

According to logical positivism, so the story goes, metaphysical questions are meaningless, since they do not admit of empirical confirmation or refutation. However, the logical positivists did not in fact reject as meaningless all questions about for example, the structure of space and time. Rather, key figures such as Reichenbach and Schlick believed that scientific theories often presupposed a conceptual framework that was not itself empirically testable, but which was required for the theory as a whole to be empirically testable. (...) For example, the theory of Special Relativity relies upon the simultaneity convention introduced by Einstein that assumes that the one-way speed of light is the same in all directions of space. Hence, the logical positivists accepted an a priori component to physical theories. However, they denied that this a priori component is necessarily true. Whereas for Kant, metaphysics is the a priori science of the necessary structure of rational thought about reality , the logical positivists were forced by the history of science to accept that the a priori structure of theories could change. Hence, they defended a notion of what Michael Friedman calls the ‘relativised’ or the ‘constitutive’ a priori. Carnap and Reichenbach held that such an a priori framework was conventional, whereas Schlick seems to have been more of a realist and held that the overall relative simplicity of different theories could count as evidence for their truth, notwithstanding the fact that some parts of them are not directly testable. All this is part of the story of how the verification principle came to be abandoned, and how logical positivism transmuted into logical empiricism. (shrink)

The debate between Einstein and Bergson is a salient episode in the history of modern physics and a telling example of the interaction between science and philosophy. This paper initially discusses five reasons why Bergson criticised Einstein for giving up absolute time. The most important one was Bergson’s commitment to an intuitionist, anti-Kantian metaphysics informed by common sense. Apart from that, he knew that the theory of special relativity permits “duration” in the form of the passage of proper time, to (...) which Bergson referred as “real time”. Neither static eternalism nor dynamic eternalism are acceptable from Bergson’s philosophical perspective, which acknowledges the role of temporal experience and everyday thinking in addition to science and metaphysics. He understood temporal passage as creation of new existence, anticipating what later became known as the growing block theory of time. The pointy relativistic variant of this theory, which divides the universe into blocks of growing past light cones, does justice to large parts of his philosophy, including the distinction between the actual and the virtual. Supporters of Bergson’s account of duration should adopt this theory of time. (shrink)

Abstract This paper compares Heidegger's conception of time with more prevalent physical and broadly psychological analyses of time. The ?vulgar? notion of time, as Heidegger understands it, is based on the assumption that time, regardless of whether it is identified with tense or not, is something that is essentially measurable by clocks. Heidegger maintains that the vulgar notion of time is a distortion of his own preferred conception of temporality. I show how temporality may be understood as the non?sequential tensed (...) structure underlying tensed discourse. I argue against any straightforward reduction of this tensed structure and the direction of time to physical occurrences. Nevertheless I argue that temporality can be distinguished from purely psychological analyses of temporal experience and from traditional conceptions of time as tensed experience. The selectiveness of demonstrative discourse provides the basis for Heidegger's critique and reconstruction of time understood as tensed discourse about things. Heidegger's scepticism about the interpretation of time as a sequence of nows that underlies the dominant interpretation of tense is due to his appropriation of the relativity of simultaneity from special relativity. But his interpretation of physical theory leads him to the thesis that time is pre?supposed but not completely analysed in physical theory. The meta?language of physical theory makes covert use of temporal notions, for entities can themselves only be understood in covertly temporal ways. I show how this claim may be understood and defended in the light of current physical theory. Heidegger's analysis gives us some basis for thinking that his own notion of temporality is built into an understanding of temporal experience. But I argue that Heidegger fails to make the case that physical time is ontologically dependent on human existence. (shrink)

A-theoretic presentness is commonly regarded as non-solipsist and non-relative. The non-solipsism of a non-relative, A-theoretic presentness requires at least two space-like separated things to be present simpliciter together – this co-presentness further implies the global, non-relative, non-conventional simultaneity of them. Yet, this implication clashes with the general view that there is no global, non-relative, non-conventional simultaneity in Minkowski space-time. In order to resolve this conflict, this paper explores the possibility that the non-solipsism of a non-relative, A-theoretic presentness does not require (...) at least two space-like separated things to be present simpliciter together. This can be done by holding exclusive disjunctivism –that mutually space-like separated things are present simpliciter exclusively disjunctively, and each one of them gets to be present simpliciter in a non-successive way (just like mutually time-like related things are present simpliciter exclusively disjunctively, and each one of them gets to be present simpliciter, but in a successive way). (shrink)

Presentism is the view, roughly speaking, that only presently existing things exist. Though presentism offers many attractive solutions to problems in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind, it faces threats from two main sources: McTaggart and the special theory of relativity. This paper explores the prospects for fitting presentism together with the special theory. Two models are proposed, one which fits presentism into a relativistic setting (the cone model) and one which fits the special theory into a presentistic (...) setting (the surface model). It is concluded that there is no good reason arising from the special theory of relativity for rejecting presentism. Presentism is tenable here and preferable elsewhere. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a theory of local temporality, sometimes referred to as a point-present theory. This theory has the great advantage that it allows for the possibility of an open future without requiring any alterations to our standard understanding of special relativity. Such theories, however, have regularly been rejected out of hand as metaphysically incoherent. After surveying the debate, I argue that such a transformation of temporal concepts (i) is suggested by the indexical semantics of tense in a (...) relativistic universe, (ii) when properly understood easily withstands the usual accusations of metaphysical incoherence and (iii) leads naturally to a meta-philosophical position from which we can understand and escape the increasing sterility of debates between radical Parmenideans and radical Heracliteans in the philosophy of time. (shrink)

There are two main theories about the persistence of objects through time: endurantism and perdurantism. Endurantists hold that objects are three-dimensional, have only spatial parts, and wholly exist at each moment of their existence. Perdurantists hold that objects are four-dimensional, have temporal parts, and only partly exist at each moment of their existence. In this paper we argue that endurantism is poorly suited to describe the persistence of objects in a world governed by Special Relativity, and can accommodate a relativistic (...) world only at a high price, one that we argue is not worth paying. Perdurantism, on the other hand, fits beautifully with our current scientific understanding of the world. Furthermore, we make this argument from implications of the Lorentz transformations, without appeals to geometrical interpretations, dimensional analogies, or auxillary premises like temporal eternalism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to make presentism a dynamic view of reality by basing it on a notion of dynamic existence, that is, on a notion of existence which has a dynamic character. The paper shows that both of the notions of existence which are used in metaphysical theories of time have a static character and, while such a notion is useful for eternalists, it is useless for presentists if they want to make their view able to remain (...) in agreement with our everyday experience and self-consistent. It is demonstrated that both empirical and theoretical arguments indicate that the presentist should replace the notion of this static existence with the notion of a dynamic existence and that this maneuver allows the presentist to treat his/her existential thesis as equivalent to the thesis that time flows. Not only does this strategy allow us to express presentism in a simple, homogenous way which remains in agreement with our experience, but also permits us to solve some of the difficult problems which presentism faces, such as, for example, the objection of triviality and the question about the rate of time passage. Moreover, such an approach to presentism allows us to solve fundamental metaphysical problems concerning time such as the problem of the openness of the future and the fixity of the past, direction of causation, and relations between presentism and persistence through time by endurance. (shrink)

Callender [2017] claims that contemporary science demonstrates that there is no objective present and no objective flow of time, especially since all sensed events come from the past, our various senses need different amounts of time to react, and there are enough asymmetries in the physical world to explain our experience of time. This paper holds that, although Callender’s arguments for the subjectivity of the flow of time are unconvincing, the scientific discoveries and arguments he indicates can still be applied (...) to improve theories of the objective flow of time. The paper develops precisely such a theory, one which introduces multiple individual proper presents for all of the objects that make up our world. (shrink)

It is usually agreed that reality is temporal in the sense of containing entities that exist in time, but some philosophers, roughly those who have been traditionally called A-theorists, hold that reality is temporal in a far more profound sense than what is implied by the mere existence of such entities. This hypothesis of deep temporality typically involves two ideas: that reality is temporally compartmentalised into distinct present, past, and future ‘realms’, and that this compartmentalisation is temporally dynamic in the (...) sense that the boundaries of those temporal realms change from one moment to the next. The truth of something like this hypothesis is commonly thought to require that at least some of the facts that fundamentally constitute reality be tensed. While this seems plausible, realism about fundamental tensed facts does not seem to entail deep temporality. Nor is it clear exactly what realism about tense amounts to, given that no informative answer has been given to the question of what it is for a fact to be tensed. In this paper, I introduce a novel approach, perspectivalism about temporal reality, that seeks to vindicate the hypothesis of deep temporality by ascribing to reality a certain kind of temporally perspectival structure, which also provides a straightforward answer to the question of what the tensedness of facts consists in as well as to the question of what it is for reality to be constituted by such facts. (shrink)

Traditionally one main emphasis of the quantum mechanical measurement theory is on the question how the pure state of the compound system 'measured system + measuring apparatus' is transformed into the 'mixture' of all possible results of that measurement, weighted with their probability: the so-called “disappearance of the interference terms”. It is argued in this note that in reality there is no such transformation, so that there is no need to account for such a transformation theoretically. _German_ Gewöhnlich liegt ein (...) Hauptgewicht der quantenmechanischen Messtheorie auf der Frage des Übergangs vom,reinen Fall' des Gesamtsystems,gemessenes System + Messgerät' in das,Gemenge' aus allen möglichen Messergebnissen, gewichtet mit ihren Wahrscheinlichkeiten: Das sog.,,Verschwinden der Interferenzterme“. In dieser Notiz wird die Meinung vertreten, dass es einen solchen Übergang faktisch nicht gibt, so dass es nicht notwendig ist, eine theoretische Erklärung für den Übergang zu geben. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Closed time is possible in several senses of ‘possible’. One might like to know, therefore, whether closed time is possible in the sense that it is compatible with standard metaphysical theories of time. In this paper I am concerned with whether closed time is compatible with A and/or B theories of time. A common enough view amongst philosophers is that B theories do but A theories do not allow closed time. However, I show that prima-facie neither approach allows closed (...) time, but that with a little work standard versions of both approaches do. This shows that there’s no special problem with the notion of eternal return. (shrink)

In the literature on the compatibility between the time of our experience and the time of physics, the special theory of relativity has enjoyed central stage. By bringing into the discussion the general theory of relativity, I suggest a new analysis of the misunderstood notion of becoming, developed from hints in Gödel's published and unpublished arguments for the ideality of time. I claim that recent endorsements of such arguments, based on Gödel's own ‘rotating’ solution to Einstein's field equation, fail: once (...) understood in the right way, becoming can be shown to be both mind-independent and compatible with spacetime physics. Being a neededtertium quidbetween views of time traditionally regarded as in conflict, such a new approach to becoming should also help to dissolve a crucial aspect of the century-old debate between the so-called A and B theories of time. (shrink)

In a reply to Nicholas Maxwell, Stein has proved that Minkowski spacetime can leave room for the kind of indeterminateness required both by certain interpretations of quantum mechanics and by objective becoming. By examining the consequences of outcome dependence in Bell-type experiments for the co-determinateness of spacelike-related events, I argue that the only becoming relation that is compatible with both causal and noncausal readings of the quantum correlations is the universal relation. This result might also undermine interpretations of quantum mechanics (...) requiring non-epistemically indeterminate states before measurement and hyperplane-dependent wave collapse. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that physics is, always was, and probably always will be voiceless with respect to tense and passage, and that, therefore, if, as I believe, tense and passage are the essence of time, physics’ contribution to our understanding of time can only be limited. The argument, in a nutshell, is that if "physics has no possibility of expression for the Now", to quote Einstein, then it cannot add anything to the study of tense and passage, and (...) specifically, cannot add anything to the debate between deniers and affirmers of the existence or reality of tense and passage. Since relativity theory did not equip physics with a new language with which to speak of tense and passage, I draw the further conclusion that relativity theory has not generated the revolution to our conception of time that is attributed to it. In the last section I discuss the motivations behind the continued but misguided attempts to integrate tense into a relativistic setting, and assess the manners in which relativity theory has nevertheless enhanced, albeit indirectly, our understanding of tense and passage. (shrink)

Michael Tooley presents a major new philosophical theory of the nature of time, offering a powerful alternative to the traditional "tensed" and recent "tenseless" accounts of time. He argues for a dynamic conception of the universe, in which past, present, and future are not merely subjective features of experience. He claims that the past and the present are real, while the future is not. Tooley's approach accounts for time in terms of causation. He therefore claims that the key to understanding (...) the dynamic nature of the universe is to understand the nature of causation. Time, Tense, and Causation is a landmark treatment of one of the oldest and most perplexing intellectual problems, and will be fascinating reading for anyone interested in the character of time. (shrink)

Gravitation is interpreted to be an “ontomathematical” force or interaction rather than an only physical one. That approach restores Newton’s original design of universal gravitation in the framework of “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, which allows for Einstein’s special and general relativity to be also reinterpreted ontomathematically. The entanglement theory of quantum gravitation is inherently involved also ontomathematically by virtue of the consideration of the qubit Hilbert space after entanglement as the Fourier counterpart of pseudo-Riemannian space. Gravitation can be (...) also interpreted as purely mathematical or logical “force” or “interaction” as a corollary from its ontomathematical (rather than physical) realization. The ontomathematical approach to gravitation is implicit in general relativity equating it to operators in pseudo-Riemannian space obeying the Einstein field equation and also well-known by the “geometrization of physics”. Quantum mechanics shares the same by the separable complex Hilbert space and defining “physical quantity” by the Hermitian operators on it. One can interpret special Minkowski space involved by special relativity and the qubit Hilbert space of quantum information as Fourier counterparts immediately noticing that general relativity means gravitation as the Fourier counterpart of non-Hermitian operators implying non-unitarity and the violation of energy conservation and thus destroying Pauli’s particle paradigm. Since the Standard model obeys it, this explains the impossibility of “quantum gravitation” in any framework conservatively generalizing the Standard model so that it would include gravitation along with electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions. Einstein’s geometrization of gravitation can be continued into a purely mathematical theory of it following Euclid’s realization for geometry to be exhaustively built in a deductive and axiomatic way as well as Riemann’s parametrization of all the class of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries by “space curvature”, then being generalized to Minkowski space as the operators on pseudo-Riemannian space as the Einstein field equation means gravitation. The transition from mathematical gravitation to logical one can rely on the historical lesson of the pair of Lobachevski’s and Riemann’s approaches now “reversely”, i.e., from the latter to the former. Logical gravitation is linkable to Hegel’s dialectical logic and ontological dialectics abandoning their interpretations as a new zero logic substituting classical propionyl logic. The approach of ontomathematics generalizing that of ontology, traceable even to Aristotle’s reformation of Plato’s doctrine, needs Hegel’s doctrine to be formalized as a first-order logic naturally containing Boolean algebra, isomorphic to both classical propositional logic and set theory being the class of all first-order logics, as a sub-logic along with Peano arithmetic as another sub-logic. The first-order logic at issue is called Hilbert arithmetic and elaborated in detail in other papers. It allows for both self-foundation of mathematics to be internally proved as complete and furthermore, quantum mechanics reinterpreted as quantum information to be included by the qubit Hilbert space interpretable in turn as a dual and physical counterpart of Hilbert arithmetic in a narrow sense, that is, both counterparts constitute Hilbert arithmetic in a wide sense, being mathematical and physical simultaneously and thus overcoming the Cartesian dualism of “body” gapped from “mind” by an abyss. Then, the proper philosophical interpretation of gravitation to be the fundamental ontomathematical force or interaction overcomes the ridiculous belief of the Big Bang wrongly alleged to be a scientific theory. Ontomathematical gravitation suggests an omnipresent and omnitemporal medium of “God’s” creation “ex nihilo” following only the natural necessity of quantum-information conservation particularly and locally manifested as energy conservation. (shrink)

Discussions of the nature of time, and of various issues related to time, have always featured prominently in philosophy, but they have been especially important since the beginning of the 20th Century. This article contains a brief overview of some of the main topics in the philosophy of time — Fatalism; Reductionism and Platonism with respect to time; the topology of time; McTaggart's arguments; The A Theory and The B Theory; Presentism, Eternalism, and The Growing Universe Theory; time travel; and (...) the 3D/4D controversy — together with some suggestions for further reading on each topic, and a bibliography. (shrink)

In the transition to Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity (SR), certain concepts that had previously been thought to be univocal or absolute properties of systems turn out not to be. For instance, mass bifurcates into (i) the relativistically invariant proper mass m0, and (ii) the mass relative to an inertial frame in which it is moving at a speed v = βc, its relative mass m, whose quantity is a factor γ = (1 – β2) -1/2 times the proper mass, (...) m = γm0. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: a) to explore the compatibility of Minkowski’s space-time representation of the Special theory of relativity with a dynamic conception of space-time; b) to locate its roots in invariant features - like entropic relations - of the propagation of signals in space-time. From its very beginning Minkowski’s four-dimensional space-time was associated with a static view of reality, e.g. a block universe. Einstein added his influential voice to this conception when he wrote: ‘From a “happening” (...) in three-dimensional space, physics becomes (…) an “existence” in the four-dimensional “world”.’ (Einstein, Relativity 1920, 122) Yet it is by no means clear that Minkowski himself was a believer in the block universe. In his 1908 Cologne lecture on ‘Space and Time’ he speaks of a four-dimensional physics but concedes that a ‘necessary’ time order can be established at every world point. Although the conception of the block universe has gained much currency, an alternative view has been in circulation since the 1910s according to which the trajectories of particles constitute histories in space-time. (Robb 1914, Cunningham 1915, Carathéodorys 1924, Schlick 1917, Reichenbach 1924). (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)

The causal set programme towards a quantum theory of gravity is situated vis-à-vis the long-standing debate between eternalism (block theory) and past-presentism or possibilism (growing block theory) in the philosophy of time. It is argued that despite 'appearances' and declarations to the contrary, the programme does not side with growing block theorists when it comes to harboring a robust notion of Becoming - at least, not more than familiar relativistic theories on continuous spacetime manifolds. The problem stems mainly from the (...) postulate of discrete general covariance - a requirement imposed upon the only fully worked out kind of dynamics for causal sets to date, a dynamics of a classical stochastic process. (shrink)

Black holes are arguably the most extraordinary physical objects we know in the universe. Despite our thorough knowledge of black hole dynamics and our ability to solve Einstein’s equations in situations of ever increasing complexity, the deeper implications of the very existence of black holes for our understanding of space, time, causality, information, and many other things remain poorly understood. In this paper I survey some of these problems. If something is going to be clear from my presentation, I hope (...) it will be that around black holes science and metaphysics become more interwoven than anywhere else in the universe. (shrink)

The article explores the strategy of reconciliation of the idea of objective flow of time with science. In the first part of my paper, I analyze different conceptions of the passage of time and ponder on how we should understand it. The second part is de-voted to the problem whether there is the passage of time in science.

This is a copy of my DPhil thesis, the abstract for which is as follows: The first third of this thesis argues for a B-theoretic conception of time according to which all times exist equally and the present is in no way privileged. I distinguish "ontological" A-theories from "non-ontological" ones, arguing that the latter are experientially unmotivated and barely coherent. With regard to the former, I focus mainly on presentism. After some remarks on how to formulate this (and eternalism) non-trivially, (...) I review the non-relativistic case against presentism. I then consider the impact of Special Relativity on the debate, and attempt to deepen this impact by supplying a modal variation on the standard arguments. The middle third of the thesis investigates persistence, contending that both endurance and perdurance are consonant with the eternalism already endorsed. After introducing these theories of persistence, and discussing in particular how best to formulate an eternalist endurance, I proceed to defend the coherence of this combination. The Problem of Change is addressed here. I then respond in some detail to recent allegations of relativistic threats to endurance. The final third of the thesis questions the validity of the endurantist-perdurantist dispute. I criticize two recently proposed translation schemes that aim to show this dispute to be non-substantive. However, the second scheme suggests a doctrine of "Ontological Equivalence" which I develop and consider. I then address the Rotating Discs Argument, using this to launch a discussion of identity, genidentity, and the relationship between them. (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)