Online research in philosophy

Time prevents being from forming a totality. Whenever there is time fragmentation and multiplicity occur. Yet, there also ought to be continuity since it is thesame being that was, is and will be. Because of time, being must be both identical and different. This is the key problem that Aristotle attempts to resolve in his discussion of time in Book IV of the Physics. This essay considers three privileged notions: limit, number and ecstasies on which Aristotle relies at crucial moments of his inquiry and shows (1) that limit, number, and ecstasies are actually three ways of approaching the same phenomenon, and (2) how they allow Aristotle to reconcile divisibility and indivisibility.

Or better: time asymmetry in thermodynamics. Better still: time asymmetry in thermodynamic phenomena. “Time in thermodynamics” misleadingly suggests that thermodynamics will tell us about the fundamental nature of time. But we don’t think that thermodynamics is a fundamental theory. It is a theory of macroscopic behavior, often called a “phenomenological science.” And to the extent that physics can tell us about the fundamental features of the world, including such things as the nature of time, we generally think that only fundamental physics can. On its own, a science like thermodynamics won’t be able to tell us about time per se. But the theory will have much to say about everyday processes that occur in time; and in particular, the apparent asymmetry of those processes. The pressing question of time in the context of thermodynamics is about the asymmetry of things in time, not the asymmetry of time, to paraphrase Price ( , ). I use the title anyway, to underscore what is, to my mind, the centrality of thermodynamics to any discussion of the nature of time and our experience in it. The two issues—the temporal features of processes in time, and the intrinsic structure of time itself—are related. Indeed, it is in part this relation that makes the question of time asymmetry in thermodynamics so interesting. This, plus the fact that thermodynamics describes a surprisingly wide range of our ordinary experience. We’ll return to this. First, we need to get the question of time asymmetry in thermodynamics out on the table.

No one conception of time emerges from a study of physics. As science changes—over time or through varying interpretations at a time—our conception of physical time changes. Each of these changes and resulting theories of time has been the subject of philosophical scrutiny, so there are many philosophical controversies internal to particular physical theories. For instance, the move to special relativity radically transformed our understanding of time, but it also gave rise to debates about the nature of simultaneity within the theory itself. Nevertheless, there are some philosophical puzzles that appear at every stage of the development of physics. Perhaps most generally, there is the perennial question, Is there a ‘gap’ between the conception of time as found in physics and the conception of time as found in philosophy?

In Book IV, Chapter 11 of the Physics, Aristotle claims that ‘the before and after’ exists in time because it also exists in change, and it exists in change because it also exists in magnitude, and, further, that ‘time follows change’ and ‘change follows magnitude’.1 This is usually taken to mean that moments of time correspond to momentary stages of changes, and that momentary stages of changes correspond to points in magnitudes, so that time derives its ‘before and after’ from that of change, and change from that of magnitude.2 But this is widely thought to land Aristotle in the following diffi culty: If Socrates walks between points A and C, for instance, he can either proceed from point A to point..

Aristotle begins his famous discussion of time in Book Δ of The Physics by asking whether time belongs to “the things that exist.” In this paper I argue that Aristotle’s apparently ambiguous answer to this question holds one of the keys to clarifying contemporary philosophy of time. First, I argue that the metaphysical and meta-philosophical presuppositions underlying most philosophy of time are deeply flawed. Second, that Aristotle provides us with a much more plausible alternative set of presuppositions about the nature of time. The Aristotelian conception of time as part of the subject matter of physics or “the philosophy of nature” is particularly illuminating. Finally, I examine several issues about the nature and reality of time often raised in the context of contemporary physics and show how the Aristotelian perspective can resolve those puzzles.

In Physics IV 14, 223a16-223a29 Aristotle raises two questions: (Q1) How is time related to the soul? (Q2) Why is time thought to be in everything? Aristotle's juxtaposition of these questions indicates some relation between them. I argue that Aristotle is committed to the claim that time only exists where change is countable. Aristotle must answer (Q2) in a way that doesn't conflict with this commitment. Aristotle's answer to (Q1) offers him such a way. Since time is change qua countable, time is dependent on souls capable of counting. But the thing that time is, change, is not so dependent. Likewise, time is not located in everything, but change, the substratum of time, is. This answers (Q2) in a way that's compatible with Aristotle's commitments.