Philosophy Compass (12):1-17 (2020)
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Abstract |
“The universe is expanding, not contracting.” Many statements of this form appear unambiguously true; after all, the discovery of the universe’s expansion is one of the great triumphs of empirical science. However, the statement is time-directed: the universe expands towards what we call the future; it contracts towards the past. If we deny that time has a direction, should we also deny that the universe is really expanding? This article draws together and discusses what I call ‘C-theories’ of time — in short, philosophical positions that hold time lacks a direction — from different areas of the literature. I set out the various motivations, aims, and problems for C-theories, and outline different versions of antirealism about the direction of time.
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Keywords | C theory B theory Time Direction of time Causation Symmetries |
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DOI | 10.1111/phc3.12714 |
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Citations of this work BETA
Perceiving Direction in Directionless Time.Matt Farr - 2021 - In Kasia M. Jaszczolt (ed.), Understanding Human Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
What’s so Special About Initial Conditions? Understanding the Past Hypothesis in Directionless Time.Matt Farr - 2021 - In Yemima Ben-Menahem (ed.), Rethinking the Concept of Laws of Nature: Natural order in the Light of Contemporary Science. Springer.
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2020-10-12
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326 ( #31,355 of 2,498,401 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
108 ( #6,382 of 2,498,401 )
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