The causal efficiency of the passage of time
Philosophia 40 (4):763-769 (2012)
Abstract
Does mere passage of time have causal powers ? Are properties like "being n days past" causally efficient ? A pervasive intuition among metaphysicians seems to be that they don't. Events and/or objects change, and they cause or are caused by other events and/or objects; but one does not see how just the mere passage of time could cause any difference in the world.
In this paper, I shall discuss a case where it seems that mere passage of time does have causal powers : Sydney Shoemaker's (1969) possible world where temporal vacua (allegedly) take place. I shall argue that Shoemaker's thought-experiment doesn't really aim at teaching us that there can be time without change, but rather that if such a scenario is plausible at all (as I think it is) it provides us with good reasons to think that mere passage of time can be directly causally efficient.
Keywords
Categories
(categorize this paper)
Reprint years
2018
PhilPapers/Archive ID
BENTCE-2
Revision history
Archival date: 2013-08-01
View upload history
View upload history

Real Time Ii.Mellor, D. H.
The Unreality of Time.McTaggart, J. Ellis
Causality and Properties.Shoemaker, Sydney
The Paradoxes of Time Travel.Lewis, David
View all 10 references / Add more references

The Sense of Time.Viera, Gerardo
Still Foes: Benovsky on Relationism and Substantivalism.Mazzola, Claudio
Added to PP index
2012-02-28
Total downloads
242 ( #10,682 of 37,105 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
22 ( #15,657 of 37,105 )
2012-02-28
Total downloads
242 ( #10,682 of 37,105 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
22 ( #15,657 of 37,105 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Monthly downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks to external links.