Back to the Unchanging Past

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (1):129-147 (2017)
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Abstract

The standard philosophical view of time travel has it that time travelers cannot change the past. It has been argued by some that the standard view is false, and that this can be shown using a two-dimensional model of time. I defend the standard view against this attack. I show, first, that the addition of a second temporal dimension does not provide a model of changing the past and, second, that neither does the addition of n temporal dimensions for any n > 1.

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Sam Baron
University of Melbourne

Citations of this work

Paradoxes of Time Travel to the Future.Sara Bernstein - 2022 - In Helen Beebee & A. R. J. Fisher (eds.), Perspectives on the Philosophy of David K. Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Backwards Causation in Social Institutions.Kenneth Silver - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (5):1973-1991.
Exterminous Hypertime.Nikk Effingham - 2021 - Philosophies 6 (4):85.

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References found in this work

The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David K. Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
Bananas enough for time travel.Nicholas J. J. Smith - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):363-389.
A two-dimensional passage model of time for time travel.Jack W. Meiland - 1974 - Philosophical Studies 26 (3-4):153 - 173.
Avoiding or changing the past.G. C. Goddu - 2011 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (1):11-17.

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