MANUSCRITO brings fourteen original contributions to the philosophy of time

Marco Ruffino, Editor, University of Campinas-UNICAMP, CNPq, Campinas, SP, Brazil

This issue is the second part of a special volume on the philosophy of time with Emiliano Boccardi as guest editor. In “The Passage of Time and its Enemies: an Introduction to Time and Reality II”, Boccardi offers a critical introduction to the second part of the special issue Time and Reality. The aim is to frame the papers in this volume within the general arena of the philosophy of time, highlighting a number of recurrent themes.

In “What Is Time”, Fiocco tries to answer the question of what time is. First, he considers why one might ask this question and what exactly it is asking. Such radical investigation requires a special methodology. After briefly characterizing this methodology, he shows how it can be employed to answer the titular question.

In “ Reply to Oaklander”, Baker responds to Oaklander’s criticisms to her paper for the first special issue. Her reply has two parts. In the first, she says what she wants to do in philosophy in general, and in the philosophy of time in particular. In the second part, she mentions some places where Oaklander (apparently) misunderstands her view.

In “A Rate of Passage”, Maudlin takes issue with Jonathan Tallant’s “Temporal Passage and the ‘No Alternate Possibilities Argument’”. Tallant’s argument is that, if time passes at the rate of one second per second there is no other possible rate at which it could pass. Maudlin claims that the argument rests on the premise that if time passes at some rate then it could have passed at some other rate, and one concludes that time cannot pass at all. He then argues that the weak point of the NAP is the premise itself.

In “Gunky time and indeterminate existence”, Spolaore criticizes an argument recently presented by Ross Cameron. The argument purports to show that, if time is gunky, and if changes in existence are underwritten by events of coming to be, then there are cases of indeterminate existence. The paper argues that this argument conflates two different readings of “event of coming to be”.

In “Challenging the Grounding Objection to Presentism”, Ingthorsson criticizes the so-called ‘grounding objection’ to presentism. This objection rests on two premises that presentists tend not to challenge. Ingthorsson argues that they should.

In “Time, Fission, Fusion: An Argument against the Block Universe with Endurance”, Balashov discusses the combination of the Block Universe view with Endurance. He argues, however, that this combination fails to account for a striking feature of our temporal experience and must be rejected in favor of the Block Universe with Exdurance.

In “Temporal Experience and Metaphysics”, Peebles discusses the phenomenological argument for the passage of time. He argues that the phenomenological argument is best served by the adoption of a representational theory of perception. He then presents a representational theory of temporal experience.

In “A and B Theories of Closed Time”, Dowe is concerned with whether closed time is compatible with A and/or B theories of time. He claims that a common view is that B theories do but A theories do not allow closed time. However, he shows that prima-facie neither approach allows closed time, but that with a little work standard versions of both approaches do.

In “Closed Time and Local Time: A Reply to Dowe”, Savitt discusses Dowe’s paper in this volume. Savitt agrees with Dowe’s general conclusion, but he claims that, in the course of the argument, there are a number of false statements and misrepresentations of detail that require comment.

In “Fine’s McTaggart: Reloaded”, Loss presents three arguments with the aim of shedding some new light on the structure of Fine’s (2005, 2006) ‘McTaggartian’ arguments against the reality of tense. Along the way, he also (i) draws a novel map of the main realist positions about tense, (ii) unearths a previously unnoticed but potentially interesting form of external relativism and (iii) sketches a novel interpretation of Fine’s fragmentalism.

In “Einstein’s physical chronogeometry”, Valente claims that, in Einstein’s physical geometry, the geometry of space and the uniformity of time are taken to be non-conventional. However, as it stands, Einstein’s views do not seem to apply to the whole of the Minkowski space-time. With this paper he aims to show how it can be so applied.

In “Note on “The Art of Time Travel: An Insoluble Problem Solved””, McCall argues that the attempted solution by Craig Bourn and Emily Caddick Bourne to a puzzle he put forward in his ‘An Insoluble Problem’ (2010) fails.

In “The Art of Time Travel: A Bigger Picture”, E.C. Bourne and C. Bourne expand on their solution to McCall’s puzzle and defend it from his objections contained in this volume.

Refereces

FINE, K. Tense and reality, in his modality and tense. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 261-320.

FINE, K. The reality of tense. Synthese, v. 150, n. 3, p.  399-414, 2006.

MCCALL, S. An insoluble problem. Analysis, n. 70, p. 647-48, 2010.

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Manuscrito vol.40 no.1 Campinas jan./mar. 2017

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Manuscrito – MAN: www.scielo.br/man