PHIL 1670

Fall 2014

The Philosophy of Time

Course Topics and Readings
This schedule is subject to change throughout the semester. Its your responsibility to keep track of announcements on
the course Canvas site.

Part I: A brief history of the question: Is time an illusion?

1
Is time an illusion?
September 4
Is time an illusion? What could that mean? We consider the distinctive ways in which the claim
that time is an illusion arises in fiction, in scientific theories, and in philosophical arguments.

No reading

2
Nagarjunas examination of time
September 9
The idea that time is in some sense illusory arises throughout history and across various cultural
traditions. We look in particular at a piece by Nagarjuna, a famous Buddhist philosopher, that
foreshadows several ways in which contemporary philosophers have tried to argue that time is an
illusion.

Garfield, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Chapter XIX

3
Augustine on the illusory nature of time
September 11
Another well-known historical text on the nature of time is St. Augustines Confessions. We look at
several ways in which Augustine argues that time is an illusion.

Augustine, Confessions, Book 11, Sections XII - XXXI.

4
Newton and Leibniz on space and time as substances
September 16
th
Fast forward to the 17 century, and the debate between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz about the nature of space and time

Excerpts from Newton, Scholium to Principia Mathematica

Excerpts from the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence

5
The bucket argument and Machs response
September 18
Suppose you take a bucket, fill it with water, hang it by a string, and start it spinning. According
to Newton, this simple experiment reveals important truths about the nature of space and time.
We look at Newtons argument, and a reply by 19th-century physicist Ernst Mach.

Greene, Fabric of the cosmos, pp. 23-38.

6
McTaggarts argument against the reality of time
September 23
Now to some early 20th-century philosophy of time. We look at J.M.E. McTaggarts distinction
between the A-series and the B-series, and his argument against the reality of the A-series.

McTaggart, The unreality of time

Broad, McTaggarts arguments against the reality of time

7
Time without change?
September 25
McTaggarts argument relies on the assumption that without a certain kind of change, time does
not exist. What sort of change does McTaggart have in mind? And is his assumption plausible?

Shoemaker, Time without change

8
Is tense reducible?
September 30
McTaggarts argument also assumes that you can give tenseless translations for all tensed
sentences. Is tense reducible in this way?

Smart, The tenseless theory of time

9
Thank goodness thats over!
October 2
Arthur Prior famously argued that tense is irreducible on the basis of such seemingly innocuous
sentences as Thank goodness thats over! as uttered when walking out of your dentists office.
We look at his argument in detail.

Sider, Four-dimensionalism, pp. 18-21

Prior, Thank goodness thats over

Part II: Contemporary philosophy of time

10
Ontology I: Cross-temporal relations
October 7
Contemporary metaphysics includes three main ontological theories about time: presentism,
eternalism, and the growing block. We look these three theories and at the first of three
arguments against presentism. If the past and future do not exist, how should we understand
cross-temporal relations?

Sider, Four-dimensionalism, Chapter 2, Section 2

Excerpts from Markosian, A defense of presentism

11
Ontology II: The truthmaker objection
October 9
A second argument against presentism is that if the past does not exist then there is nothing to
make truths about the past and future true. This is the so-called truth-maker objection.

Sider, Four-dimensionalism, Chapter 2, Section 3

Keller, Presentism and truth making
Excerpts from Zimmerman, The privileged present

12
Presentism and relativity theory I
October 14
A third argument against presentism: according to special relativity there is no absolute
simultaneity. Combined with presentism, this would entail that existence is relative to a reference
frame. But that is absurd!

Sider, Four-dimensionalism, Chapter 2, Section 4

Handout on the relativity of simultaneity

13
Presentism and relativity theory II
October 16
What sorts of responses can the presentist give to the objection from special relativity? How do
those responses fair once we introduce general relativity?

Hinchliff, A defense of presentism in a relativistic setting

Hawley, Metaphysics and relativity

14
The standard view and the manifest image
October 21
Given the problems with presentism, the standard view among philosophers is the view that
combines the reduction of tense with eternalism. But how can advocates of the standard view
capture the seemingly obvious features of our temporal experience?

Excerpts from Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Callender, The common now

15
The standard view and the open future
October 23
According to the standard view, the future exists in the same sense as the past and the present. So
how can advocates of such a view make sense of the claim that the future is open?

Diekemper, B-theory, fixity, and fatalism

16
The standard metaphysics and the direction of time
October 28
According to the standard view, if time has a direction it does not arise from any fundamental
distinction between past and present on the one hand and future on the other. So where does it
come from?

Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, Chapter 6.

Excerpts from Lightman, Einsteins Dreams

17
The standard metaphysics and the passage of time
October 30
One of the most basic features of our temporal experience is that time flows. What does that
mean? Is it compatible with the standard metaphysics?

Price, The flow of time

18
How fast does time flow, anyway?
November 4
If time flows, how fast does it flow? Do we need some sort of meta-time that measures the
passage of time? And then what measures the passage of meta-time? Meta-meta time?

Markosian, How fast does time pass

19
The temporal value asymmetry
November 6
Whatever you may want to say about the reducibility of tense, its obvious that we prefer pain to
be in the past rather than in the future. Can we explain this temporal value asymmetry without
appealing to any metaphysical distinction between the past, the present, and the future?

Suhler and Callender, Thank goodness that argument is over: explaining the
temporal value asymmetry

Part III: Time travel

20
Types of time travel
November 11
There are several different ways in which a person or an objective might be said to travel through
time. We look at the various ways in which relativity theory suggests that such time travel is
possible.

Nahin, Time travel, Chapters 2 and 7

21
Time travel and changing the past
November 13
One of the main worries about time travel to the past in a non-branching universe is that it
makes it possible for a person to change the past in such a way that they themselves never exist. Is
that a paradox? Does it mean that this sort of time travel is not possible?

Lewis, The paradoxes of time travel

Kahdri Vihvelin, What time travelers cannot do

22
Time travel and causal loops
November 18
Another worry about time travel to the past in a non-branching universe is that it gives rise to
causal loops. What are these loops and in what way are they problematic?

Heinlein, By his own bootstraps

Monton, Time travel without causal loops

23 Time travel for presentists

November 20
Presentists dont think that the past or the future exist. So in what sense can someone or
something travel to the past or the future if presentism is true?

Excerpts from Keller and Nelson, Presentists should believe in time travel
Sider, Traveling in A- and B- Time

Part IV: Time in contemporary physics

24
Time in quantum mechanics
November 25
Standard interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics seem to rely on an absolute
notion of simultaneity. Does that mean we can all be presentists after all?

Carroll, From Eternity to Here, Chapter 11, Quantum time

25
Time and quantum gravity
December 2
Attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity have resulted in physical
theories in which time plays no role whatsoever. What would it mean to endorse such a theory?

Healey, Can physics coherently deny the reality of time?

Excerpts from Barbour, The End of Time

26
Time as an emergent phenomena
December 4
If time does not arise in our fundamental physics, perhaps it is an emergent phenomena. We look
for inspiration to some analogous claims that are made in other areas of philosophy

No reading