61 ideas
| 5750 | Consistency is modal, saying propositions are consistent if they could be true together [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Consistency is a modal notion: a set of propositions is consistent iff all the members of the set could be true together. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This shows why Kantian ethics, for example, needs a metaphysical underpinning. Maybe Kant should have believed in the reality of Leibnizian possible worlds? An account of reason requires an account of necessity and possibility. |
| 22353 | One view says objectivity is making a successful claim which captures the facts [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: One conception of objectivity is that the facts are 'out there', and it is the task of scientists to discover, analyze and sytematize them. 'Objective' is a success word: if a claim is objective, it successfully captures some feature of the world. | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to describe truth, rather than objectivity. You can establish accurate facts by subjective means. You can be fairly objective but miss the facts. Objectivity is a mode of thought, not a link to reality. |
| 22356 | An absolute scientific picture of reality must not involve sense experience, which is perspectival [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: Sense experience is necessarily perspectival, so to the extent to which scientific theories are to track the absolute conception [of reality], they must describe a world different from sense experience. | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a beautifully simple and interesting point. Even when you are looking at a tree, to grasp its full reality you probably need to close your eyes (which is bad news for artists). |
| 22359 | Topic and application involve values, but can evidence and theory choice avoid them? [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: There may be values involved in the choice of a research problem, the gathering of evidence, the acceptance of a theory, and the application of results. ...The first and fourth do involve values, but what of the second and third? | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] My own view is that the danger of hidden distorting values has to be recognised, but it is then possible, by honest self-criticism, to reduce them to near zero. Sociological enquiry is different, of course. |
| 22360 | The Value-Free Ideal in science avoids contextual values, but embraces epistemic values [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: According to the Value-Free Ideal, scientific objectivity is characterised by absence of contextual values and by exclusive commitment to epistemic values in scientific reasoning. | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems appealing, because it concedes that we cannot be value-free, without suggesting that we are unavoidably swamped by values. The obvious question is whether the two types of value can be sharply distinguished. |
| 22362 | Value-free science needs impartial evaluation, theories asserting facts, and right motivation [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: Three components of value-free science are Impartiality (appraising theories only by epistemic scientific standards), Neutrality (the theories make no value statements), and Autonomy (the theory is motivated only by science). | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: [They are summarising Hugh Lacey, 1999, 2002] I'm not sure why the third criterion matters, if the first two are met. If a tobacco company commissions research on cigarettes, that doesn't necessarily make the findings false or prejudiced. |
| 22364 | Thermometers depend on the substance used, and none of them are perfect [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: Thermometers assume the length of the fluid or gas is a function of temperature, and different substances yield different results. It was decided that different thermometers using the same substance should match, and air was the best, but not perfect. | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: [summarising Hasok Chang's research] This is a salutary warning that instruments do not necessarily solve the problem of objectivity, though thermometers do seem to be impersonal, and offer relative accuracy (i.e. ranking temperatures). Cf breathalysers. |
| 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. |
| 5737 | Predicate logic has connectives, quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names and brackets [Melia] |
| Full Idea: First-order predicate language has four connectives, two quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names, and brackets. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Look up the reference for the details! The spirit of logic is seen in this basic framework, and the main interest is in the ontological commitment of the items on the list. The list is either known a priori, or it is merely conventional. |
| 5744 | First-order predicate calculus is extensional logic, but quantified modal logic is intensional (hence dubious) [Melia] |
| Full Idea: First-order predicate calculus is an extensional logic, while quantified modal logic is intensional (which has grave problems of interpretation, according to Quine). | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: The battle is over ontology. Quine wants the ontology to stick with the values of the variables (i.e. the items in the real world that are quantified over in the extension). The rival view arises from attempts to explain necessity and counterfactuals. |
| 5740 | Second-order logic needs second-order variables and quantification into predicate position [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Permitting quantification into predicate position and adding second-order variables leads to second-order logic. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Often expressed by saying that we now quantify over predicates and relations, rather than just objects. Depends on your metaphysical commitments. |
| 5741 | If every model that makes premises true also makes conclusion true, the argument is valid [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In first-order predicate calculus validity is defined thus: an argument is valid iff every model that makes the premises of the argument true also makes the conclusion of the argument true. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: See Melia Ch. 2 for an explanation of a 'model'. Traditional views of validity tend to say that if the premises are true the conclusion has to be true (necessarily), but this introduces the modal term 'necessarily', which is controversial. |
| 23024 | A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller] |
| 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? |
| 23008 | Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: Grounding is a posit introduced by metaphysicians in an attempt to devise a relation that can accommodate dependence between things in the world. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: Grounding is a recent concept which seems to have lots of enemies, but I assume you can only reject it if you reject the concept of dependence - yet that seems a fairly obvious fact to me. My favoured metaphysical relation is 'determination'. |
| 5736 | No sort of plain language or levels of logic can express modal facts properly [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers say that modal facts cannot be expressed either by name/predicate language, or by first-order predicate calculus, or even by second-order logic. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: If 'possible' were a predicate, none of this paraphernalia would be needed. If possible worlds are accepted, then the quantifiers of first-order predicate calculus will do the job. If neither of these will do, there seems to be a problem. |
| 5735 | Maybe names and predicates can capture any fact [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers think that any fact can be captured in a language containing only names and predicates. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: The problem case Melia is discussing is modal facts, such as 'x is possible'. It is hard to see how 'possible' could be an ordinary predicate, but then McGinn claims that 'existence' is, and that there are some predicates with unusual characters. |
| 23018 | How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: The problems of temporary intrinsics are reconciling the indiscernibility of identicals with change in an object over time, and the problem of something have incompatible properties over time (such as tired and not-tired). | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 7.3.1) | |
| A reaction: Loosely speaking, I would offer some sort of essentialism as the answer to these problems. People are not essentially sitting down, or tired. Or we can relativise properties to times t1 and t2. |
| 5746 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is contentious for qualities, and trivial for non-qualities [Melia] |
| Full Idea: If the Identity of Indiscernibles is referring to qualitative properties, such as 'being red' or 'having mass', it is contentious; if it is referring to non-qualitative properties, such as 'member of set s' or 'brother of a', it is true but trivial. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3 n 11) | |
| A reaction: I would say 'false' rather than 'contentious'. No one has ever offered a way of distinguishing two electrons, but that doesn't mean there is just one (very busy) electron. The problem is that 'indiscernible' is only an epistemological concept. |
| 5738 | We may be sure that P is necessary, but is it necessarily necessary? [Melia] |
| Full Idea: We may have fairly firm beliefs as to whether or not P is necessary, but many of us find ourselves at a complete loss when wondering whether or not P is necessarily necessary. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I think it is questions like this which are pushing philosophy back towards some sort of rationalism. See Idea 3651, for example. A regress of necessities would be mad, so necessity must be taken as self-evident (in itself, though maybe not to us). |
| 5732 | 'De re' modality is about things themselves, 'de dicto' modality is about propositions [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In cases of 'de re' modality, it is a particular thing that has the property essentially or accidentally; where the modality attaches to the proposition, it is 'de dicto' - it is the whole truth that all bachelors are unmarried that is necessary. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me one of the most important distinctions in metaphysics (as practised by analytical philosophers, who like distinctions). The first type leads off into the ontology, the second type veers towards epistemology. |
| 5739 | Sometimes we want to specify in what ways a thing is possible [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes we want to count the ways in which something is possible, or say that there are many ways in which a certain thing is possible. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a basic fact about talk of 'possibility'. It is not an all-or-nothing property of a situation. There can be 'faint' possibilities of things. The proximity of some possible worlds, especially those sharing our natural laws, is one answer. |
| 5734 | Possible worlds make it possible to define necessity and counterfactuals without new primitives [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In modal logic the concepts of necessity and counterfactuals are not interdefinable, so the language needs two primitives to represent them, but with the machinery of possible worlds they are defined by what is the case in all worlds, or close worlds. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: If your motivation is to reduce ontology to the barest of minimums (which it was for David Lewis) then it is paradoxical that the existence of possible worlds may be the way to achieve it. I doubt, though, whether a commitment to their reality is needed. |
| 5742 | In possible worlds semantics the modal operators are treated as quantifiers [Melia] |
| Full Idea: The central idea in possible worlds semantics is that the modal operators are treated as quantifiers. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems an essential requirement of metaphysics that an account be given of possibility and necessity, and it is also a good dream to keep the ontology simple. Commitment to possible worlds is the bizarre outcome of this dream. |
| 5743 | If possible worlds semantics is not realist about possible worlds, logic becomes merely formal [Melia] |
| Full Idea: It has proved difficult to justify possible worlds semantics without accepting possible worlds. Without a secure metaphysical underpinning, the results in logic are in danger of having nothing more than a formal significance. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This makes nicely clear why Lewis's controversial modal realism has to be taken seriously. It appears that the key problem is truth, because that is needed to define validity, but you can't have truth without some sort of metaphysics. |
| 5749 | Possible worlds could be real as mathematics, propositions, properties, or like books [Melia] |
| Full Idea: One can be a realist about possible worlds without adopting Lewis's extreme views; they might be abstract or mathematical entities; they might be sets of propositions or maximal uninstantiated properties; they might be like books or pictures. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that once you go down the road of realism about possible worlds, Lewis's full concrete realism looks at least as attractive as any of these options. You can discuss the 'average man' in an economic theory without realism. |
| 5751 | The truth of propositions at possible worlds are implied by the world, just as in books [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Propositions are true at possible worlds in much the same way as they are true at books: by being implied by the book. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing way to introduce the view that possible worlds should be seen as like books. The truth-makers of propositions about the actual world are items in it, but the truth-makers in novels (say) are the conditions of the whole work as united. |
| 22357 | The 'experimenter's regress' says success needs reliability, which is only tested by success [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: The 'experimenter's regress' says that to know whether a result is correct, one needs to know whether the apparatus is reliable. But one doesn't know whether the apparatus is reliable unless one knows that it produces correct results ...and so on. | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: [H. Collins (1985), a sociologist] I take this to be a case of the triumphant discovery of a vicious circle which destroys all knowledge turning out to be a benign circle. We build up a coherent relationship between reliable results and good apparatus. |
| 22365 | The Bayesian approach is explicitly subjective about probabilities [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: The Bayesian approach is outspokenly subjective: probability is used for quantifying a scientist's subjective degree of belief in a particular hypothesis. ...It just provides sound rules for learning from experience. | |
| From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.2) |
| 5748 | We accept unverifiable propositions because of simplicity, utility, explanation and plausibility [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers now concede that it is rational to accept a proposition not because we can directly verify it but because it is supported by considerations of simplicity, theoretical utility, explanatory power and/or intuitive plausibility. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This suggests how the weakness of logical positivism may have led us to the concept of epistemic virtues (such as those listed), which are, of course, largely a matter of community consensus, just as the moral virtues are. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 23015 | The counterfactual theory of causation handles the problem no matter what causes actually are [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: The chief advantage of the counterfactual theory of causation is that it is flexible enough to handle causation no matter what in the world underlies the causal facts in question. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: It has this advantage because it makes no attempt to explain causation, but merely gives an accurate map of the truth and falsity of causal statements. It describes how we think about causation. |
| 23016 | Counterfactual theories struggle with pre-emption by a causal back-up system [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: Counterfactual theories of causation have difficulty accommodating pre-emption, which involves the existence of causal back-up systems that undermine counterfactual dependence. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: E.g. If your stone hadn't broken the window first, my stone would have broken it instead. So in the nearest world the withholding of your stone doesn't save the window. |
| 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. |
| 22988 | The block universe theory says entities of all times exist, and time is the B-series [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: The standard block universe theory combines EntityEverywhenism with the B-theory of time. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: This is also known as 'eternalism'. These authors emphasise that there is an ontological commitment to the objects of past and future in eternalism, as well as the B-series view of the moments of time. |
| 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). |
| 22998 | How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: A chief challenge facing presentism is how to give an account of cross-temporal relations, which link things that exist with things that do not. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: The problem of whether to keep a dubious death-bed promise is a bit of a puzzle for all of us, whatever our metaphysical view of time. None of us deny the reality of our great-great-grandparents. |
| 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. |
| 22993 | For abstractionists past times might still exist, althought their objects don't [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: If past moments are seen as abstract (rather than concrete) it doesn't follow that because past objects no longer exist that therefore past times do not exist. The abstractionist needs to say which times are concretely realised. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.7.2) | |
| A reaction: Abstractionists see times as representations of change, rather than as substances. |
| 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. |
| 22999 | It is meaningless to measure the rate of time using time itself, and without a rate there is no flow [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: It seems we are forced to measure the rate of time's passing against itself. But that's just not a meaningful rate. So time has no rate. So it doesn't flow. So there is no such thing as temporal passage. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.3.1) | |
| A reaction: It is suggested that you can exchange dollars one for one, so time might move at one second per second. But you can't exchange your own dollars with yourself at one-for-one. That is meaningless. Time is NOT a substance which flows. |
| 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. |
| 22996 | The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: One of the limitations of the A-series is that temporal passage then presupposes the existence of properties of being present, being past and being future. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Metaphysicians happily talk about 'properties' all the time, and most of them never grasp how ambiguous and obscure that concept is. The idea that my recent scratching of my chin first acquired the 'present' property and then lost it is incoherent. |
| 23007 | The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: The view that time has a direction is entirely consistent with the B-theory of time, as long as time's having a direction is not a matter of it having temporal flow. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how you could account for an intrinsic direction to time if it is not because of the 'flow'. The B-series seems to invite a reductive account of time's direction (e.g. to entropy). |
| 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? |
| 23004 | The direction of time is either primitive, or reducible to something else [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: Primitivism is the view that time has a direction, and that its having that direction is intrinsic to time itself. Reductionism is the view that time has a direction, but its having that direction is reducible to something else. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.3.1) | |
| A reaction: The general suggestion for the second theory is that time's direction reduces to some aspect of the laws of nature. I strongly incline to the primitive view. Something's got to be primitive. |
| 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. |
| 23006 | Maybe the past is just the direction of decreasing entropy [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: We could say that what we call the past is just the direction towards (for instance) decreasing entropy, and the direction we call the future is the direction towards increasing entropy. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.3.3) | |
| A reaction: One problem is that locally entropy can sometimes go the other way, which would imply local pockets with a reversed time's arrow,. |
| 23010 | We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: An option for accounting for the direction of time would be to appeal to the direction of causation …to the future is the direction towards which there are effects, and the past is the direction towards which there are causes. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.6.2) | |
| A reaction: The obvious problem is that we can no longer pick out a cause by saying it 'precedes' its effect. It is not obvious what other criterion can be used to distinguish them (esp. given Hume's regularity account). |
| 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). | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.4) | |
| 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. |
| 23020 | If a time traveller kills his youthful grandfather, he both exists and fails to exist [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: It is surely true that if a time traveller travels back in time and succeeds in shooting his youthful grandfather then the time traveller both exists and fails to exist. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the best known paradox of time travel. It is a special dramatic case of making any change to the past. If the traveller kills his neighbour's grandfather, his neighbour should vanish. Moving a speck of dust could have enduring results. |
| 23022 | Presentism means there no existing past for a time traveller to visit [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: A time traveller can only travel to a location if the location exists, But if Presentism is true then past locations do not exist, so time travel to the past is impossible. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.3.1) | |
| A reaction: Might a time machine actually restore the past time which had ceased to exist? Then the problem is the information needed to achieve that. |
| 22987 | The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller] |
| 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. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: The authors label this view 'EntityNowandThenism', and it comes in a section on the 'Temporal Ontology'. |
| 22990 | The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller] |
| 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. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.5.3) | |
| 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? |
| 22997 | The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller] |
| Full Idea: Rather than treating presentness as an acquired property …. presentism equates the metaphysical specialness of the present with existence. | |
| From: Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems like common sense to say that the recent scratching of my chin came into existence and then went out of existence (rather than that it acquired and then lost a property). |