Chapter 5 - Time

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Annotated Bibliography

J.M.E. McTaggart. 1908. The Unreality of Time.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2248314; Introduces the distinction between the A-series and B-series and argues against the reality of time
Heather Dyke. 2002. McTaggart and the Truth About Time.: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/; Explains and evaluates the two main stages of McTaggart's argument against the reality of time
Hilary Putnam. 1967. Time and Physical Geometry.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2024493; Argues that physics forces us to rethink how we conceptualize time
Mark Hinchliff. 2000. A Defense of Presentism in a Relativistic Setting.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/188696; Argues that presentism can be made coherent even if special relativity is true
D.C. Williams. 1951. The Myth of Passage.: www.jstor.org/stable/2021694; Defense and elaboration of the block universe view
A.N. Prior. 1959. Thank Goodness That's Over.: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/; Argues that tensed statements cannot be reduced to tenseless B-theoretic ones
Ned Markosian. 2004. A Defense of Presentism.: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/; Defends presentism from several common objections
Roberta Ballarin. 2007. Prior on the Logic and the Metaphysics of Time.: http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/; Examines A.N. Prior's construction of tense logic to ask what the relevance of developments in logic is to metaphysical questions
Bradford Skow. 2007. What Makes Time Different From Space?: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/; Argues that time plays a role in physical theories making it different from space
Paul Horwich. 1975. On Some Alleged Paradoxes of Time Travel.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2025013; Resolves several seeming paradoxes of time travel including those involving our knowledge and control of the past
David Lewis. 1976. The Paradoxes of Time Travel.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20009616; Introduces the distinction between personal time and external time, resolving the alleged paradoxes within a B-theoretic framework
Sara Bernstein. 2014. Time Travel and the Movable Present.: http://people.duke.edu/; Evaluates some possibilities for how time travel might work in an A-theoretic framework and how the time traveler might control the location of the present
Simon Keller and Michael Nelson. 2001. Presentists Should Believe in Time-Travel.: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/; Develops a way in which presentists can piggyback on Lewis's solutions to the paradoxes of time travel
Jack Meiland. 1974. A Two-Dimensional Passage Model of Time for Time Travel.: http://link.springer.com/article/; Presents a model of time as two-dimensional in order to make time travel scenarios coherent

Annotated Weblinks

https://www.youtube.com/: Jonathan Tallant explains the A- and B-theories of time.
https://www.youtube.com/ (part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/ (part 2)
https://www.youtube.com/ (part 3): William Lane Craig, Quentin Smith, Paul Ricoeur, D.H. Mellor, and Michael Friedman discuss the nature of space and time, whether time is real, special relativity, the A- and B-theories, the present, and the future.
https://www.youtube.com/: Jonathan Tallant very quickly explains the philosophy of time.
http://philosophybites.com/: D.H. Mellor argues that events are not in time, time is not tensed, and there is no past, present, or future, at Philosophy Bites.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/time-lord/: Craig Callendar is interviewed at 3:AM Magazine on time and other topics.

Discussion Questions

Explain in your own words what it means to say the future is open. Why do we not generally think the past is open in the same way?
If you were a presentist, how would you try to defend your position against the threat posed by special relativity?
Provide three (original) examples of A-facts (tensed facts) about events.
Provide three (original) examples of B-facts (tenseless facts) about those same events.
Why do you think there aren’t any presentists that accept the B-theory of tense?
Do you think it is correct that time requires an A-series? Why or why not?
Discuss a potential problem for the moving spotlight view.
What do you think is the most plausible response presentists have given to the truthmaker objection?
Assume that time passes. Given this assumption, what is it most plausible to think about the ontological status of past and future events and objects?
What are the two senses of ‘can’ that are relevant to evaluating whether one can kill one’s past self? Do you agree with Lewis that in one sense of ‘can,’ you are not able to kill your past self? Explain your answer.