Abstract
This chapter gives a brief overview over the key questions and points of contention in the philosophy of time: first, time’s ontological status and the debate between substantivalism and relationism; second, time’s structure and the by now classical distinction between the A- and the B-theory of time, followed by an assessment of A- and B-models. Finally, we take a closer look at a concept of central importance to the time debate: that of the instant moment or of “the universe at a given time”.
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- 1.
B. Dainton, Time and Space, 2nd edn (2010), pp. 1–3.
- 2.
Clearly, relations come in both varieties: some are mind-independent (e.g. “greater than”), whereas others are not (e.g. “frightening to”).
- 3.
Cf. H. Robinson, “Substance”, in E. N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition).
- 4.
“Tempus Absolutum, verum et mathematicum, in se et naturâ suâ sine relatione ad externum quodvis, aequabiliter fluit, alioque nomine dicitur Duratio.” I. Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, (1739), p. 12.
- 5.
See, for example, Dainton (2010), pp. 175–181; W. Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time and Space”, Zygon (2005). On the meaning of the sensorium in Newton’s thought, cf. S. Ducheyne, “Isaac Newton on space and time: metaphysician or not?”, Philosophica (2001), especially pp. 88–93.
- 6.
For a discussion, see G. Schwarz, Raum und Zeit als naturphilosophisches Problem, 2nd edn (1992), pp. 191–194.
- 7.
Cf. E. Runggaldier, C. Kanzian, Grundprobleme der Analytischen Ontologie (1998), pp. 100–104.
- 8.
The term “determinate” will frequently be used in the following discussion. The precise meaning of this term is left open for the sake of a broad characterization of current models of time. A formal definition will be given in Sect. 2.2.3.
- 9.
See the discussion in M. Dorato “On becoming, cosmic time and rotating universes”, in C. Callender (ed.) Time, Reality and Experience (2002), here especially pp. 260–265.
- 10.
The following discussion will make extensive use of the notion of an “event”, and of sets of events, since models of time can be characterized well in these terms. Moreover, these notions are central to relativity theory. Of course, employing this terminology does not commit us to an event ontology whereby events are more basic than things.
- 11.
Note that, by throwing present, past, and future events into the same set, nothing is prejudiced of their ontological status, which may differ. That is, the set could contain real and unreal members. This is not to say that such a model is unproblematic: if, for example, future events are simply non-existent, in what sense can they be said to approach the present?
- 12.
On defining a metric on a set, cf. F. Hausdorff, Grundzüge der Mengenlehre (1978), pp. 211–214.
- 13.
Augustine concluded that temporal measurement takes place entirely in the mind, exclaiming: “in te ergo, anime meus, tempora metior.” Confessiones, XI, 27.
- 14.
M. Dorato, Time and Reality: Spacetime Physics and the Objectivity of Temporal Becoming (1995), pp. 57–67.
- 15.
To use the formulation in Dorato (1995), p. 61.
- 16.
For a discussion of the meaning of “only the present is real”, cf. T. M. Crisp, “Presentism”, in M. J. Loux, D. W. Zimmerman (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (2003).
- 17.
Dainton (2010), pp. 90–91.
- 18.
Eddington’s block-universe view will be discussed in more detail in Sect. 4.2.
- 19.
This is not to say that all B-theorists hold time-travel to be possible: see, for example, D. H. Mellor, Real Time II (1998), pp. 125–135. On A-theorist views of time travel, see Dainton (2010), pp. 138–141.
- 20.
De Interpretatione, 19a,1–19b,4.
- 21.
The addition “which can meaningfully be used to describe it” is necessary, since not all predications can meaningfully be made of all events.
- 22.
K. Popper, The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism (1988), pp. 5–8.
- 23.
Such a possibility may well not have been taken seriously prior to the advent of quantum mechanics. Whether this theory allows it is open since, for example, it can be argued that it is simply not meaningful to assign a particle both a clearly defined value of position and momentum—or of any other pair of canonically conjugate variables—at any particular time.
- 24.
Note that the “fuzziness” refers to the absence of definite truth values, not to physical indeterminism, although the latter is arguably necessary for there to be any such fuzziness.
- 25.
Runggaldier, Kanzian (1998), pp. 100–104.
- 26.
Although one might object that the present is still distinguished from the past in a very relevant sense according to the growing-block model: it is the last layer of the block, set between the fixed and real past, and the open and unreal future, thus making it, so to speak, the locus of becoming.
- 27.
This article was first published in Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy (1908) 17, 457–474. A revised version thereof, drawn from McTaggart’s The Nature of Existence, can be found in R. Le Poidevin, M. MacBeath (eds.) The Philosophy of Time (1993).
- 28.
“Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy”, in Van Inwagen, P., Zimmerman, D. W. (eds.) Metaphysics: The Big Questions (1998), here p. 77. Emphases in the original.
- 29.
Cf. the discussion in M. Moling, Zeit und Ewigkeit nach Thomas von Aquin, PhD thesis at Innsbruck University (2005), pp. 32–38.
- 30.
“Omniscience and immutability”, The Journal of Philosophy (1966), here p. 409.
- 31.
A hyperplane in an n-dimensional vector space is a vector sub-space of dimension n−1 embedded therein—just like a two-dimensional plane is embedded in three-dimensional space.
- 32.
“Transcendental Tense” (1998). http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/time/transten.html.
- 33.
The concept of a “kinematic description of the universe at an instant” suffers from the difficulty that instantaneous velocities need to be assigned to particles, but such velocities themselves are only obtained through a limiting process, so that in practice a time-slice of finite width will need to be taken into account. Cf. the discussion in Dainton (2010), pp. 290–294.
- 34.
“We must therefore regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its precedent state, and as the cause of the one which will follow. An intelligence which, for a given instant, would know all the forces by which nature is moved, and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if furthermore it were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, would comprehend within the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe, and those of the lightest atom: nothing would be uncertain for it, and the future as well as the past would be present to its eyes. The human spirit, in the perfection which it has been able to give to astronomy, presents a feeble shadow of this intelligence … All its efforts in the search for truth tend to bring it ever closer to the intelligence which we have just devised, but it will always remain infinitely distant from it.” In the original: “Nous devons donc envisager l’état présent de l’univers, comme l’effet de son état antérieur, et comme la cause de celui qui va suivre. Une intelligence qui pour un instant donné, connaîtrait toutes les forces dont la nature est animée, et la situation respective des êtres qui la composent, si d’ailleurs elle était assez vaste pour soumettre ces données à l’analyse, embrasserait dans la même formule, les mouvemens des plus grands corps de l’univers et ceux du plus léger atome: rien ne serait incertain pour elle, et l’avenir comme le passé, serait présent à ses yeux. L’esprit humain offre dans la perfection qu’il a su donner à l’astronomie, une faible esquisse de cette intelligence… Tous ses efforts dans la recherche de la vérité, tendent à le rapprocher sans cesse de l’intelligence que nous venons de concevoir, mais dont il restera toujours infiniment éloigné.” P. S. Marquis de Laplace, Théorie Analytique des Probabilités (1814), pp. ii–iii.
- 35.
Popper (1988), p. 30.
- 36.
There are, however, difficulties with the notion of a deterministic universe evolving in time at all, as will be discussed in Sect. 6.2.
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Saudek, D. (2020). Models of Time: A Brief Survey. In: Change, the Arrow of Time, and Divine Eternity in Light of Relativity Theory. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38411-1_2
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