Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-dwq4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T17:26:39.605Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Defense of Presentism in a Relativistic Setting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Mark Hinchliff
Mark Hinchliff*
Affiliation:
Reed College
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Philosophy of Physics and Chemistry
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S575 - S586
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

Footnotes

‡

An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Physics Department, Reed College. I would like to thank John Bigelow, Craig Callender, Robert Reynolds, Steve Savitt, and Nicholas Wheeler for helpful discussions.

References

Callender, Craig (1998), “Shedding Light on Time”, Symposium on The Prospects for Presentism in Spacetime Theories, Philosophy of Science Association Meeting. Kansas City, Missouri, October 24, 1998.Google Scholar
Einstein, Albert ([1905] 1923), “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”, in H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski, and H. Weyl, The Principle of Relativity. London: Metheun, 37–65. Originally published as “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper”, Annalen der Physik 17: 891–921.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, William (1979), “Special Relativity and the Present”, Philosophical Studies 36: 233–244.10.1007/BF00372628CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinchliff, Mark (1996), “The Puzzle of Change”, in Tomberlin, James (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives 10: Metaphysics. Oxford: Blackwell, 119–136.Google Scholar
Maudlin, Timothy (1997), Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity: Metaphysical Intimations of Modern Physics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Minkowski, Hermann ([1908] 1923), “Space and Time”, in H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski, and H. Weyl, The Principle of Relativity. London: Metheun, 75–91. Originally presented as an address, Eightieth Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians. Cologne, Germany, September 21, 1908.Google Scholar
Prior, Arthur (1968), “Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later”, in Arthur Prior, Papers on Time and Tense. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 116–134.Google Scholar
Prior, Arthur. (1970), “The Notion of the Present”, Studium Generale 33: 245–248.Google Scholar
Prior, Arthur. (1996), “Some Free Thinking About Time”, in Copeland, B. J. (ed.), Logic and Reality: Essays on the Legacy of Arthur Prior. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 47–51.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary (1967), “Time and Physical Geometry”, Journal of Philosophy 64: 240–247.10.2307/2024493CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savitt, Steve (1998), “There Is No Time Like the Present (in Minkowski Spacetime)”, Symposium on The Prospects for Presentism in Spacetime Theories, Philosophy of Science Association Meeting. Kansas City, Missouri, October 24, 1998.Google Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence (1981), “Time, Reality and Relativity”, in Healy, Richard (ed.), Reduction, Time and Reality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 129–142.Google Scholar
Stein, Howard. (1968), “On Einstein-Minkowski Space-Time”, Journal of Philosophy 65: 5–23.10.2307/2024512CrossRefGoogle Scholar