|
13734
|
Modern Quinean metaphysics is about what exists, but Aristotelian metaphysics asks about grounding [Schaffer,J]
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|
Full Idea:
On the now dominant Quinean view, metaphysics is about what there is (such as properties, meanings and numbers). I will argue for the revival of a more traditional Aristotelian view, on which metaphysics is about what grounds what.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], Intro)
|
|
A reaction:
I find that an enormously helpful distinction, and support the Aristotelian view. Schaffer's general line is that what exists is fairly uncontroversial and dull, but the interesting truths about the world emerge when we grasp its structure.
|
|
23000
|
Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
A regress is vicious if the problem at level n can only be solved at level n+1; it is non-vicious if it can be solved at n, but the solution forces another level n+1, where the problem can be reformulated.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.3.2)
|
|
A reaction:
So in a vicious regress you chase the apparent solution, but never attain it. In the non-vicious you solve it, but then find you have a new problem. I think.
|
|
23024
|
A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
Suppose an art critic travels back in time with a copy of an artist's masterpiece, gives the artist the copy, and the artist copies it. The copy of the copy turns out to be the original mastepiece. The artwork seems to come from nowhere.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.6)
|
|
A reaction:
Lovely thought. Is the example possible (even with time travel)? How would the critic possess the copy before making the time journey? What if the critic decided not to travel back in time? Can a picture exist if no one has imagined it first?
|
|
17304
|
As causation links across time, grounding links the world across levels [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Grounding is something like metaphysical causation. Just as causation links the world across time, grounding links the world across levels. Grounding connects the more fundamental to the less fundamental, and thereby backs a certain form of explanation.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], Intro)
|
|
A reaction:
Obviously you need 'levels' for this, which we should take to be structural levels.
|
|
16066
|
Additional or removal of any part changes a thing, so people are never the same person [Epicharmus]
|
|
Full Idea:
If you add or take away a pebble, the same number does not remain. If you add to a length or cut off from it, the former measure does not remain. So human beings grow or waste away. Both you and I were, and shall be, other men.
|
|
From:
Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B02), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.12
|
|
A reaction:
[The original is in dialogue form from a play. The context is a joke about not paying a debt.] Note the early date for this metaphysical puzzle. My new favourite reply is Chrysippus's Idea 16059; identity actually requires change.
|
|
13742
|
There exist heaps with no integral unity, so we should accept arbitrary composites in the same way [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
I am happy to accept universal composition, on the grounds that there are heaps, piles etc with no integral unity, and that arbitrary composites are no less unified than heaps.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 2.1 n11)
|
|
A reaction:
The metaphysical focus is then placed on what constitutes 'integral unity', which is precisely the question which most interested Aristotle. Clearly if there is nothing more to an entity than its components, scattering them isn't destruction.
|
|
13752
|
The notion of 'grounding' can explain integrated wholes in a way that mere aggregates can't [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The notion of grounding my capture a crucial mereological distinction (missing from classical mereology) between an integrated whole with genuine unity, and a mere aggregate. x is an integrated whole if it grounds its proper parts.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
That gives a nice theoretical notion, but if you remove each of the proper parts, does x remain? Is it a bare particular? I take it that it will have to be an abstract principle, the one Aristotle was aiming at with his notion of 'form'. Schaffer agrees.
|
|
17308
|
Explaining 'Adam ate the apple' depends on emphasis, and thus implies a contrast [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Explaining why ADAM ate the apple is a different matter from explaining why he ATE the apple, and from why he ate THE APPLE. ...In my view the best explanations incorporate ....contrastive information.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
But why are the contrasts Eve, or throwing it, or a pear? It occurs to me that this is wrong! The contrast is with anything else which could have gone in subject, verb or object position. It is a matter of categories, not of contrasts.
|
|
17305
|
I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
I myself would prefer to speak of what is fundamental in terms of the whole spatiotemporal manifold and the fields that permeate it, with parts counting as derivative of the whole.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.1.1)
|
|
A reaction:
Not quite the Parmenidean One, since it has parts, but a nice try at updating the great man. Note the reference to 'fields', suggesting that this view is grounded in the physics rather than metaphysics. How many fields has it got?
|
|
10359
|
In causation there are three problems of relata, and three metaphysical problems [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The questions about causation concern their relata (in space-time, how fine-grained, how many?) and the metaphysics (distinguish causal sequences from others, the direction of causation, selecting causes among pre-conditions?).
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], Intro)
|
|
A reaction:
A very nice map (which has got me thinking about restructuring this database). I can't think of a better way to do philosophy than this (let's hear it for analysis - but the greatest role models for the approach are Aristotle and Aquinas).
|
|
10372
|
Causation may not be transitive; the last event may follow from the first, but not be caused by it [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
It is not clear whether causation is transitive. For example, if a boulder roll's towards a hiker's head, causing the hiker to duck, which causes the hiker to survive, it does not seem that the rolling boulder causes the survival of the hiker.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Maybe survival is not an event or an effect. How many times have I survived in my life? We could, though, say that the hiker strained a muscle as he or she ducked. But then it is unclear whether the boulder caused the muscle-strain.
|
|
10374
|
There are at least ten theories about causal connections [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Theories of causal connection are: nomological subsumption, statistical correlation, counterfactual dependence, agential manipulability, contiguous change, energy flow, physical processes, property transference, primitivism and eliminativism.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 1.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
Schaffer reduces these to probability and process. I prefer the latter. The first two are wrong, the third right but superficial, the fourth wrong, the fifth, sixth and seventh on the right lines, the eighth wrong, the ninth tempting, and the last wrong.
|
|
17307
|
Nowadays causation is usually understood in terms of equations and variable ranges [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The leading treatments of causation work within 'structural equation models', with events represented via variables each of which is allotted a range of permitted values, which constitute a 'contrast space'.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
Like Woodward's idea that causation is a graph, this seems to be a matter of plotting or formalising correlations between activities, which is a very Humean approach to causation.
|
|
23011
|
Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The two major contemporary theories of causation are process theories and counterfactual theories. …Process theories treat it as something to be discovered. …Counterfactual theories ignore processes, and treat it in terms of truth and falsity.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.1)
|
|
A reaction:
I take the counterfactual theory to be a specialised branch of the project of analytic metaphysics, which seeks the logical form of causation sentences, using possible worlds semantics. In the real word its processes or nothing.
|
|
10377
|
Causation may not be a process, if a crucial part of the process is 'disconnected' [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
One problem case for the process view of causation is 'disconnection'. If a brick breaks a window by being fired from a catapult, a latch is released which was preventing the catapult from firing, so the 'process' is just internal to the catapult.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.1)
|
|
A reaction:
Schaffer says the normal reply is to deny that the catch-releasing is genuinely causal. I would have thought we should go more fine-grained, and identify linked components of the causal process.
|
|
23013
|
The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to contemporary process theories of causation it consists of the transference of a 'mark', which is always some conserved quantity. Candidates (from science) are mass, energy, momentum and electric charge.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Given my commitment to physicalism, this is my preferred theory of causation. It began with the suggestion of energy-transfer, but has broadened into the present idea. It is an updated version of the Newton view, as the meeting of objects.
|
|
23014
|
If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
Process theories of causation face a serious problem, such as killing a plant by failing to water it - a cause by omission. …Defenders of the theory propose two concepts of causation: one for legal and one for scientific contexts.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.2.3)
|
|
A reaction:
Not much of a problem, I think. Clearly the scientific concept has priority. The plant died of dehydration, resulting from the consumption and evaporation of the available water. The human causes of that situation are legion.
|
|
10375
|
At least four rivals have challenged the view that causal direction is time direction [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The traditional view that the direction of causation is the direction of time has been challenged, by the direction of forking, by overdetermination, by independence, and by manipulation, which all seem to be one-directional features.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 1.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
Personally I incline to the view that time is prior, and fixes the direction of causation. I'm not sure that 'backward causation' can be stated coherently, even if it is metaphysically or naturally possible.
|
|
10389
|
Causal order must be temporal, or else causes could be blocked, and time couldn't be explained [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Reasons for causal order being temporal order are that otherwise the effect might occur but the cause then get prevented, ..and that they must be the same, because the temporal order can only be analysed in terms of the causal order.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
If one took both time and causation as primitive, then the second argument would be void. The first argument, though, sounds pretty overwhelming to me.
|
|
10390
|
Causal order is not temporal, because of time travel, and simultanous, joint or backward causes [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Reasons for denying that causal order is temporal order are that time travel seems possible, that cause and effect can be simultaneous, because joint effects have temporal order without causal connection, and because backward causation may exist.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
The possibility of time travel and backward causation can clearly be doubted, and certainly can't be grounds for one's whole metaphysics. The other two need careful analysis, but I think they can be answered. Causation is temporal.
|
|
10380
|
Causation is primitive; it is too intractable and central to be reduced; all explanations require it [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Primitivism arises from our failure to reduce causation, but also from causation being too central to reduce. The probability and process accounts are said to be inevitably circular, as they cannot be understood without reference to causation.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This is very tempting. The primitive view, though, must deal with the direction problem, which may suggest that time is even more primitive. Can we have a hierarchy of primitiveness? To be alive is to be causal.
|
|
10385
|
If causation is just observables, or part of common sense, or vacuous, it can't be primitive [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The three main objections to causation being primitive are that causation can't be anything more than what we observe, or that such a primitive is too spooky to be acceptable, or that primitivism leads to elimination of causation.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
[summarised] I don't like the first (Humean) view. I suspect that anything which we finally decide has to be primitive (time, for example) is going to be left looking 'spooky', and I suspect that eliminativism is just Humeanism in disguise.
|
|
10387
|
The notion of causation allows understanding of science, without appearing in equations [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The concepts of 'event', 'law', 'cause' and 'explanation' are nomic concepts which serve to allow a systematic understanding of science; they do not themselves appear in the equations.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This is a criticism of Russell's attempt to eliminate causation from science. It shows that there has to be something we can call 'metascience', which is the province of philosophers, since scientists don't have much interest in it.
|
|
10388
|
Causation is utterly essential for numerous philosophical explanations [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Causation can't be eliminated if it is needed to explain persistence, explanation, disposition, perception, warrant, action, responsibility, mental functional role, conceptual content, and reference. It's elimination would be catastrophic.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed list] I think I am going to vote for the view that causation is one of the primitives in the metaphysics of nature, so I have to agree with this. Most of the listed items, though, are controversial, so eliminativists are not defeated.
|
|
10384
|
If two different causes are possible in one set of circumstances, causation is primitive [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Causation seems to be primitive if the same laws and patterns of events might embody three different possible causes, as when two magicians cast the same successful spell, each with a 50% chance of success, and who was successful is unclear.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
I'm cautious when the examples involve magic. It implies that the process that leads to the result will be impossible to observe, but if magic never really happens, then the patterns of events will always be different.
|
|
10386
|
If causation is primitive, it can be experienced in ourselves, or inferred as best explanation [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The view that causation is primitive can be defended against Humean critics by saying that causation can be directly observed in the will or our bodies, or that it can be inferred as the best explanation.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
I like both views, and have just converted myself to the primitivist view of causation! I can't know the essence of a tree, because I am not a tree, but I can know the essence of causation. The Greek fascination with explaining movement is linked.
|
|
10361
|
Events are fairly course-grained (just saying 'hello'), unlike facts (like saying 'hello' loudly) [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Events are relatively coarse-grained, unlike facts; so the event of John's saying 'hello' seems to be the same event as John's saying 'hello' loudly, while they seem to be different facts.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
The example seems good support for facts, since saying 'hello' loudly could have quite different effects from just saying 'hello'. I also incline temperamentally towards a fine-grained account, because it is more reductivist.
|
|
10360
|
Causal relata are events - or facts, features, tropes, states, situations or aspects [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The standard view make causal relata events (Davidson, Kim, Lewis), but there is considerable support for facts (Bennett, Mellor), and occasional support for features (Dretske), tropes (Campbell), states of affairs (Armstrong), and situations and aspects.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
An event is presumed to be concrete, while a fact is more abstract (a proposition, perhaps). I'm always drawn to 'processes' (because they are good for discussing the mind), so an event, as a sort of natural process, looks good.
|
|
10368
|
If causal relata must be in nature and fine-grained, neither facts nor events will do [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
Theorists who reject both events and facts as causal relata do so because the relata must be immanent in nature, and thus not facts, but also fine-grained and thus not events.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Kim, however, offers a fine-grained account of events (as triples), and Bennett individuates them even more finely (as propositions), so events might be saved. Descriptions can be very fine-grained.
|
|
10383
|
The relata of causation (such as events) need properties as explanation, which need causation! [Schaffer,J]
|
|
Full Idea:
The primitivist about causation might say that the notion of an event (or other relata) cannot be understood without reference to causation, because properties themselves are individuated by their causal role.
|
|
From:
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Having enthusiastically embraced the causal view of properties (see Shoemaker and Ellis), I suddenly realise that I seem required to embrace primitivism about causation, which I hadn't anticipated! I've no immediate problem with that.
|
|
23009
|
There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to contemporary statistical mechanics the second law of thermodynamics is not really a law at all, but merely reflects to probabilities of certain microstates, conditional on local boundary conditions having certain properties.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.6.1)
|
|
A reaction:
A nice illustration of how metaphysicians have been seduced by the 'laws' of nature into falsely inferring all sorts of natural necessities. Entropy is normally assumed to be totally inevitable, because of some natural force. It's just a pattern.
|
|
23002
|
In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
While spatial and temporal distances in relativity depend on one's relative state of motion, spatiotemporal distances within Minkowski spacetime do not. It therefore provides an invariant metric for describing the distances between things.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 4.2)
|
|
A reaction:
I doubt whether this solves all the worries which philosophers have, about relativity giving an account of time which contradicts our concept of time in every other area of our understanding.
|
|
22991
|
How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to the spotlight and growing block views, there is a single objectively present moment, and also other objectively existing moments. But then how do persons in those different moments know which one is present?
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.6)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed example] This sceptical thought leads either towards Presentism (we know we are present because that's all there is), or Eternalism (there is no present moment, so no problem). A good objection to spotlight and growing block.
|
|
22992
|
If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
If the past really exists, and we are in it, rather than in the present, then we should rationally conclude that we are not experiencing the passage of time. …But then we have no basis for arguing that time is dynamic.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.6)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] It is certainly difficult to conceive how past times and entities could be real in every way, except that the experience of time passing has been removed. But if past people experience passing, they must believe they are present…
|
|
22994
|
Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The 'erzatz presentism' view is that either the past and present exist, or all times exist, but only the present is 'actualised'. Standard Presentism says no times exist other than the present.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.7.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Ersatz presentism is obviously a close relative of the moving spotlight and growing block views. No account seems possible of the distinction between 'exists' and 'actualised' (other than the former being a mere abstract concept).
|
|
23017
|
Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
Presentism is more naturally paired with endurantism, since if we pair it with perdurantism or transdurantism we have to say that most of any persisting object does not exist, and while that is not incoherent it is not very attractive.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 7.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
(I think perdurance is time slices, and transdurance is the complete time worm). My preferred combination is this one: all that exists is the complete objects at the present moment. It also needs strong commitment to the truth of tensed verbs.
|
|
23023
|
How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
If Presentism is true, how do we manage to travel from this moment to the next moment, a moment that is, at present, a future and hence non-existent moment?
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
The reply would have to be that the metaphor of 'travel' is inappropriate for the movement through time. Travel needs a succession of existing places. The advancement of time is nothing like that. Nice question, though.
|
|
22995
|
Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
Without time it is hard to make sense of historical research, evolutionary biology, psychology, chemistry, biology, cosmology, social science, archaeology, practical reason, evidence, human agency and causation.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.8)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] I do find it extraordinary that relativistic physicists cheerfully embrace an eternalist theory of time which seems to render nearly all of the other sciences meaningless.
|
|
23001
|
The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to the cognitive error theory of the passage of time, …it is either our misdescription of our temporal phenomenology, or some mechanism of our brain infers that the phenomenology is caused by time actually passing.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 3.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] I think I have some sympathy with the misdescription view. If you imaginatively gradually remove all the changing events in your experience, that doesn't end with a raw experience of pure time, because there is no such thing.
|
|
22986
|
The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The C-series sees times not as directed, but as unchanging, and ordered in terms of the betweenness relation. The C-theory also asserts that the A-series and B-series do not exist.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This is McTaggart's idea. Compare this with A-series ordering by past, present and future, and B-series ordering by earlier-than, later-than and simultaneous. The main point is that A and B have a direction, but C does not.
|
|
23003
|
Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
One argument for the dynamic theory of time is that time is, obviously, asymmetric, and as static theories can't account for this asymmetry, we ought to posit temporal passage to explain it.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5)
|
|
A reaction:
The B-series view (unlike the C-series) asserts that there is an order from past to future, but it offers no explanation of that fact. Physicists love to tell you the order could be in either direction, But why an 'order' at all?
|
|
23005
|
The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The laws of nature are time-reversal invariant, with the small exception of the kaon (a type of sub-atomic particle)
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.3.2)
|
|
A reaction:
If that fact about the kaon were very secure indeed, then that would mean the collapse of the claims about the time-invariance of the laws. Since time-invariance is still routinely asserted, I assume it is not secure.
|
|
22989
|
Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The static theory of time appeals to an 'at-at' notion of change, which analyses change as objects or events having one property at time t1, and a different property at t2. (The worry about this is that it describes variation, but not real change).
|
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From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.4)
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A reaction:
I suppose observing a different property at t2 is observing the result of a change, rather than the process. But then the process might be broken down into micro-gradations of properties. Maybe only results can be observed.
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22987
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The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller]
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Full Idea:
It is the existence of past objects that explains why the past is fixed, and why there are truths about the past, and it is the non-existence of future objects that explains why the future is malleable.
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From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.3)
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A reaction:
The authors label this view 'EntityNowandThenism', and it comes in a section on the 'Temporal Ontology'.
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22990
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The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller]
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Full Idea:
The moving spotlight theorist maintains that there are special temporal properties that entities possess, namely the properties of being present, being past and being future.
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From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.5.3)
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A reaction:
Are these thought to be intrinsic properties of the objects, or (more plausibly) relational properties, between objects and times? Either view is weird. Does some godlike part of time scurry along, illuminating things, like a mouse under a carpet?
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