Time, Reality and Experience

by Edited by Craig Callender

• ISBN13: 9780521529679
• ISBN10: 0521529670
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-19
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Why does time seem to flow in one direction? Can we influence the past? Is only the present real? Does relativity conflict with our common understanding of time? How does time relate to free will? Could science do away with time? These questions and others about time are among the most puzzling problems in philosophy and science. In this exciting collection of original articles, eminent philosophers propose novel answers to these and other questions. Based on the latest research in philosophy and physics, these essays will be enjoyable to anyone with a speculative turn of mind.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Notes on Contributors	vii
When Time Gets Off Track	1	(18)
Jan Faye
Burbury's Last Case: The Mystery of the Entropic Arrow	19	(38)
Huw Price
Zeno's Arrow and the Significance of the Present	57	(16)
Robin Lepoidevin
Presentism, Ontology and Temporal Experience	73	(18)
L. Nathan Oaklander
A Presentist's Refutation of Mellor's McTaggart	91	(28)
Philip Percival
Time and Degrees of Existence: A Theory of `Degree Presentism'	119	(18)
Quentin Smith
McTaggart and the Truth about Time	137	(16)
Heather Dyke
On Absolute Becoming and the Myth of Passage	153	(16)
Steven F. Savitt
Time Travel and Modern Physics	169	(32)
Frank Arntzenius
Tim Maudlin
Freedom from the Inside Out	201	(22)
Carl Hoefer
On Stages, Worms and Relativity	223	(30)
Yuri Balashov
On Becoming, Cosmic Time and Rotating Universes	253	(24)
Mauro Dorato
How Relativity Contradicts Presentism	277	(16)
Simon Saunders
Can Physics Coherently Deny the Reality of Time?	293	(24)
Richard Healey
Rememberances, Mementos, and Time-Capsules	317
Jenann Ismael