Objective Becoming
Oxford: Oxford University Press UK (2015)
Abstract
What does the passage of time consist in? There are some suggestive metaphors. âEvents approach us, pass us, and recede from us, like sticks and leaves floating on the river of time.â âWe are moving from the past into the future, like ships sailing into an unknown ocean.â There is surely something right and deep about these metaphors. But how close are they to the literal truth? In this book Bradford Skow argues that they are far from the literal truth. Skowâs argument takes the form of a defense of the block universe theory of time, a theory that, in many ways, treats time as a dimension of reality that closely resembles the three dimensions of space. Opposed to the block universe theory of time are theories that take the metaphors more seriously: presentism, the moving spotlight theory, the growing block theory, and the branching time theory. These are theories of ârobustâ passage of time, or âobjective becoming.â Skow argues that the best of these theories, the block universe theoryâs most worthy opponent, is the moving spotlight theory, the theory that says that âpresentnessâ moves along the series of times from the past into the future. Skow defends the moving spotlight theory against the objection that it is inconsistent, and the objection that it cannot answer the question of how fast time passes. He also defends it against the objection that it is incompatible with Einsteinâs theory of relativity. Skow proposes several ways in which the moving spotlight theory may be made compatible with the theory of relativity. Still, this book is ultimately a defense of the block universe theory, not of the moving spotlight theory. Skow holds that the best arguments against the block universe theory, and for the moving spotlight theory, start from the idea that, somehow, the passage of time is given to us in experience. Skow discusses several different arguments that start from this idea, and argues that they all fail.Author's Profile
Reprint years
2016
Call number
BD638.S56 2015
ISBN(s)
9780198713272 9780198776697 0198776691 0198713274 9780191781674
My notes
Similar books and articles
On the meaning of the question “How fast does time pass?”.Brad Skow - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 155 (3):325-344.
The Moving Spotlight: An Essay on Time and Ontology.Ross P. Cameron - 2015 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Time Travel and the Movable Present.Sara Bernstein - 2017 - In John Keller (ed.), Being, Freedom, and Method: Themes from the Philosophy of Peter van Inwagen. pp. 80-94.
The real price of the dead past: A reply to Forrest and to braddon-Mitchell.Chris Heathwood - 2005 - Analysis 65 (3):249–251.
Inconsistency in the A-Theory.Nicholas J. J. Smith - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 156 (2):231 - 247.
Relativity, the Open Future, and the Passage of Time.Oliver Pooley - 2013 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (3pt3):321-363.
Analytics
Added to PP
2015-10-14
Downloads
23 (#501,788)
6 months
9 (#95,670)
2015-10-14
Downloads
23 (#501,788)
6 months
9 (#95,670)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Is our naïve theory of time dynamical?Andrew J. Latham, Kristie Miller & James Norton - 2021 - Synthese 198 (5):4251-4271.
An Empirical Investigation of the Role of Direction in our Concept of Time.Andrew J. Latham, Kristie Miller & James Norton - 2021 - Acta Analytica 36 (1):25-47.
Relativity and Three Four‐dimensionalisms.Cody Gilmore, Damiano Costa & Claudio Calosi - 2016 - Philosophy Compass 11 (2):102-120.