Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:52:11.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Unrealities of Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2014

BAPTISTE LE BIHAN
BAPTISTE LE BIHAN*
Affiliation:
University of Rennes 1
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is time flowing? A-theorists say ‘yes’, B-theorists say ‘no’. But both take time to be real, which means that B-theorists accept that time is real, even if lacking a property usually ascribed to it. In this paper, I ask what the different properties usually ascribed to time there are in order to draw the list of different possible kinds of realism and anti-realism about time. As we will see, there are three main kinds of anti-realism. I will argue that if time is defined as the universe's fourth dimension, there is no way time could be unreal.

Le temps s’écoule-t-il? Les théoriciens A répondent positivement, les théoriciens B négativement. Les deux camps s’accordent cependant sur la réalité du temps. Cela signifie que les théoriciens B acceptent la réalité du temps en dépit du rejet d’une propriété qui lui est communément attribuée. Dans cet article, je veux examiner les différentes propriétés qui sont généralement attribuées au temps afin de faire la liste des différents types de réalisme et d’anti-réalisme. Nous le verrons, il existe trois types d’anti-réalisme. Je soutiendrai que si l’on définit le temps comme la quatrième dimension de l’univers, l’irréalité du temps est exclue.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 25 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benovsky, Jiri 2010“Relational and Substantival Ontologies, and the Nature and the Role of Primitives in Ontological Theories.” Erkenntnis 73 (1): 101–21.Google Scholar
Bigelow, John 1996“Presentism and Properties.” Philosophical Perspectives 10: 35–52.Google Scholar
Bourne, Craig 2006 A Future for Presentism. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bowin, John 2009“Aristotle on the Order and Direction of Time.” Apeiron 42 (1): 49–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butterfield, Jeremy 2002 “The End of Time?”http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/butterfield/Reviews/BarbourReviewLong.pdf.Google Scholar
Healey, Richard 2002“Can Physics Coherently Deny the Reality of Time?” In Time, Reality and Experience. Callender, Craig (ed.). Cambridge University Press, 293–316.Google Scholar
Lewis, David 1986 On the Plurality of Worlds. Vol. 322. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Markosian, Ned 1993“How Fast Does Time Pass?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (4): 829–44.Google Scholar
Markosian, Ned 2004“A Defense of Presentism.” Oxford Studies in Metaphysics (3): 47–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDaniel, Kris 2013“John M. E. McTaggart.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2013. Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/mctaggart/.Google Scholar
McTaggart, J. Ellis 1908“The Unreality of Time.” Mind 17 (68): 457–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellor, David Hugh 1998 Real Time II. Routledge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellor, David Hugh 2001“The Time of Our Lives.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 48: 45–59.Google Scholar
Merricks, Trenton 1999“Persistence, Parts, and Presentism.” Noûs 33 (3): 421–38.Google Scholar
Miller, Kristie 2009“Defending Contingentism in Metaphysics.” Dialectica 63 (1): 23–49.Google Scholar
Miller, Kristie 2010“Three Routes to Contingentism in Metaphysics.” Philosophy Compass 5 (11): 965–77.Google Scholar
Oaklander, L. Nathan, (Ed.) 2013“A-, B-, and R- Theories of Time, A Debate.” In The Future of the Philosophy of Time. Routledge.Google Scholar
Price, Huw 1997 Time’s Arrow & Archimedes’ Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, Gideon 2006“The Limits of Contingency.” In Identity and Modality. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rovelli, Carlo 2004 Quantum Gravity. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand 1903 The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand 1938 Principles of Mathematics. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.Google Scholar
Smart, J. J. C 1963 Philosophy And Scientific Realism. Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Dean 1998“Temporary Intrinsics and Presentism.” Metaphysics: The Big Questions, 206–19.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Dean 2008“The Privileged Present: Defending an ‘A-Theory’ of Time.” Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, 211–25.Google Scholar