In this paper, I propose and defend a solution to Kripke's puzzle about time and thought, which lives in harmony with the axiom schema of separation and does not invoke paraconsistency. I also compare my solution with Parikh's semantic interpretation, and answer to three potential objections.

Should we be time-biased on behalf of other people? ‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no’—it is tempting to answer. But this is not right. On pain of irrationality, we cannot be too selective about when we are time-biased on behalf of other people.

Should we be time-biased on behalf of other people? 'Sometimes yes, sometimes no'—it is tempting to answer. But this is not right. On pain of irrationality, we cannot be too selective about when we are time-biased on behalf of other people.

In this course we will examine several philosophical puzzles concerning time. We all seem to experience time in a very fundamental and direct way. Yet once we begin to reflect on what time really is, it is easy to feel as puzzled as St Augustine was, who wrote: “If no one asks me, I know what [time] is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.” The first set (...) of issues we will discuss concern the question whether time is ‘real.’ Time appears to consist of past, present and future. But do the past and the future exist in the same way as the present or is only the present real? Does time ‘flow’? In what ways is time different from space? What would it be to ‘spatialize’ time? Next we will ask whether certain views of time imply that there can be no freedom of the will. One might worry that if facts about the future (including facts about what I will do tomorrow) already existed in the same way as facts about the present exist, then I could not be free to choose what I will do. After all, how can I be free to decide to skip class tomorrow, if it is ‘already’ a fact today that I will attend class? What, if anything, is the connection between various views of time and ‘fatalism’? The third topic we will discuss is time travel. First we will ask whether time travel is a conceptual possibility. As we will see, there are certain conceptual puzzles associated with the possibility of time travel. For example, one might think that if time travel is possible, then I should be able to travel back in time and kill my father before the date of my conception. But this scenario seems to lead to a contradiction. Some have taken considerations such as these to argue that the very idea of time travel is incoherent. Is this right? If not, why not? Then we will look at what the theory of relativity says about the nature of time in general and about the physical possibility of time travel more specifically. Finally we will examine several issues concerning the asymmetry of time.. (shrink)

Anslem raised a puzzle about mercy: How can anyone (God, say, or a judge) be both just and merciful at the same time? For it seemed to Anselm that justice requires giving people what they deserve, while being merciful involves treating people less harshly than they deserve. This puzzle has led to a number of analyses of mercy. But a strange thing emerges from discussions of this topic: people seem to have wildly divergent intuitions about putative cases (...) of mercy. Examples that are taken by some to be paradigm cases of mercy are seen by others to be clear instances of non-mercy. This phenomenon gives rise to a new puzzle: Why is it that people seem to have such wildly divergent intuitions about putative examples of mercy? This paper proposes a new analysis of mercy that provides solutions to both of these puzzles about mercy. (shrink)

Dreyfus and Rubin's commentary on Division II of Being and Time raises three closely related puzzles about the possibility of authenticity: how could Dasein ever choose to become authentic, how could authentic Dasein ever choose to take up any particular possibility, and how could anything matter to authentic Dasein? They argue that Heidegger has a convincing answer to the first two puzzles, but they find his answer to the third "indirect and not totally convincing". I argue (...) that they should find Heidegger's answer to the third puzzle far worse than "not totally convincing", given their interpretation of his account of anxiety, and that the answers they claim he has in response to the first two puzzles are not supported by the text. I then show that the puzzles arise from distortions in Dreyfus and Rubin's interpretation of Heidegger's account of anxiety. The puzzles dissolve once the distortions are identified. (shrink)

I'd like to present a puzzle about belief reports that's been nagging at me for several years. I've subjected many friends and audiences to various abortive attempts at solving it. Now it's time to get it off my chest and let others try their hand at it.<1>.

I describe a problem about the relations among symmetries, laws and measurable quantities. I explain why several ways of trying to solve it will not work, and I sketch a solution that might work. I discuss this problem in the context of Newtonian theories, but it also arises for many other physical theories. The problem is that there are two ways of defining the space-time symmetries of a physical theory: as its dynamical symmetries or as its empirical symmetries. (...) The two definitions are not equivalent, yet they pick out the same extension. This coincidence cries out for explanation, and it is not clear what the explanation could be. The Puzzle: Symmetries, Measurability and Invariance 1.1 The symmetries and the measurable quantities of Newtonian mechanics 1.2 The puzzle Two Easy Answers Another Unsuccessful Solution: Appeal to Geometrical Symmetries Locating the Puzzle The Relation between Laws and Measurability A Possible Solution CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This thesis aims to solve two metaphysical puzzles about ability. The first belongs to the free will debate: is determinism compatible with the ability to do otherwise? The second pertains to time travel: what things can a backward time traveler do in the past? By introducing two principles about an agent’s ability regarding the past, I defend the following modal principle about ability: what an agent can do must be compossible with the past. This (...) principle generates solutions to the two puzzles. (shrink)

Most of our best scientific descriptions of the world employ rates of change of some continuous quantity with respect to some other continuous quantity. For instance, in classical physics we arrive at a particle’s velocity by taking the time-derivative of its position, and we arrive at a particle’s acceleration by taking the time-derivative of its velocity. Because rates of change are defined in terms of other continuous quantities, most think that facts about some rate of change obtain (...) in virtue of facts about those other continuous quantities. For example, on this view facts about a particle’s velocity at a time obtain in virtue of facts about how that particle’s position is changing at that time. In this paper we raise a puzzle for this orthodox reductionist account of rate of change quantities and evaluate some possible replies. We don’t decisively come down in favour of one reply over the others, though we say some things to support taking our puzzle to cast doubt on the standard view that spacetime is continuous. (shrink)

According to a plausible and influential account of perceptual knowledge, the truth-makers of beliefs that constitute perceptual knowledge must feature in the causal explanation of how we acquire those beliefs. However, this account runs into difficulties when it tries to accommodate time perception -- specifically perception of order and duration -- since the features we are apparently tracking in such perception are not causal. The central aim of the paper is to solve this epistemological puzzle. Two strategies are examined. (...) The first strategy locates the causal truth-makers within the psychological mechanism underlying time perception, thus treating facts about time order and duration as mind-dependent. This strategy, however, is problematic. The second strategy modifies the causal account of perceptual knowledge to include a non-causal component in the explanation of belief-acquisition, namely chronometric explanation. Applying this much more satisfactory approach to perceptual knowledge of time, we can preserve the mind-independence of order and duration, but not that of time's flow. (shrink)

In metaphysics, there are a number of distinct but related questions about the existence of “further facts”—facts that are contingent relative to the physical structure of the universe. These include further facts about qualia, personal identity, and time. In this article I provide a sequence of examples involving computer simulations, ranging from one in which the protagonist can clearly conclude such further facts exist to one that describes our own condition. This raises the question of where along (...) the sequence the protagonist stops being able to soundly conclude that further facts exist. (shrink)

In metaphysics, there are a number of distinct but related questions about the existence of “further facts”—facts that are contingent relative to the physical structure of the universe. These include further facts about qualia, personal identity, and time. In this article I provide a sequence of examples involving computer simulations, ranging from one in which the protagonist can clearly conclude such further facts exist to one that describes our own condition. This raises the question of where along (...) the sequence the protagonist stops being able to soundly conclude that further facts exist. (shrink)

Since at least the time of Epicurus, philosophers have debated whether death could be bad for the one who has died, since death is a permanent experiential blank. But a different puzzle about death’s badness arises when we consider the death of a person who is paradise-bound. The first purpose of this paper is to develop this puzzle. The second purpose of this paper is to suggest and evaluate several potential attempts to solve the puzzle. After rejecting two (...) seemingly attractive suggestions, I argue that there are two types of solution to the puzzle that can succeed. The first type of solution simply denies that death can be bad for the paradise-bound. I argue that the main worry for this type of solution, namely that it gives up the common-sense view about death’s badness, is only a prima facie worry. The second type of solution maintains that death can be bad for the paradise-bound because it can deprive her of certain goods, which allows those who are attracted to this type of solution to adopt the deprivation account of death’s badness. I consider three views of the relation between the paradise-bound and paradise that are consistent with the deprivation account, connecting my discussion of paradise with the extant literature on death’s badness. (shrink)

This paper argues against the common practice of presenting perdurantism, endurantism, and other views about persistence and time as solutions to an alleged puzzle about change. Various recent attempts to generate a puzzle about change are examined and found unsuccessful. This does not mean, however, that the relevant views about persistence and time are not well motivated, but rather that their interest and purpose is independent of their suitability for solving the alleged puzzle.

According to a plausible and influential account of perceptual knowledge, the truth-makers of beliefs that constitute perceptual knowledge must feature in the causal explanation of how we acquire those beliefs. However, this account runs into difficulties when it tries to accommodate time perception – specifically perception of order and duration – since the features we are apparently tracking in such perception are not causal. The central aim of the paper is to solve this epistemological puzzle. Two strategies are examined. (...) The first strategy locates the causal truth-makers within the psychological mechanism underlying time perception, thus treating facts about time order and duration as mind-dependent. This strategy, however, is problematic. The second strategy modifies the causal account of perceptual knowledge to include a non-causal component in the explanation of belief-acquisition, namely chronometric explanation. Applying this much more satisfactory approach to perceptual knowledge of time, we can preserve the mind-independence of order and duration, but not that of time's flow. (shrink)

Our topic is the ontology and persistence conditions of material objects. One widely held doctrine is that identity-over-time has causal commitments. Another is that identity-over-time is just identity as it relates one object that exists at two times. We believe that a tension exists between these two apparently sensible positions: very roughly, if identity is the primary conceptual component of identity-over-time and—as is plausible—identity is noncausal, then the conceptual origins of the causal commitments of identity-over-time become (...) a mystery. We will begin by formulating the two widely held doctrines and our puzzle more fully and more carefully. Then, the remainder of the paper will be devoted to analyzing views one might adopt that could minimize the tension. (shrink)

Our topic is the ontology and persistence conditions of material objects. One widely held doctrine is that identity-over-time has causal commitments. Another is that identity-over-time is just identity as it relates one object that exists at two times. We believe that a tension exists between these two apparently sensible positions: very roughly, if identity is the primary conceptual component of identity-over-time and—as is plausible—identity is noncausal, then the conceptual origins of the causal commitments of identity-over-time become (...) a mystery. We will begin by formulating the two widely held doctrines and our puzzle more fully and more carefully. Then, the remainder of the paper will be devoted to analyzing views one might adopt that could minimize the tension. (shrink)

Robin Le Poidevin (2007) claims that we do form perceptual beliefs regarding order and duration based on our perception of events, but neither order nor duration are by themselves objects of perception. Temporal properties are discernible only when one first perceives their bearers, and temporal relations are discernible only when one first perceives their relata. The epistemic issue remains as to whether or not our perceptual beliefs about order and duration are formed on the causal basis of an event’s (...) objective order and duration. Le Poidevin raises this issue in the form of an epistemological puzzle of time perception, from which he derives the claim that the order and duration of events do not causally contribute to our perceptual beliefs about them. Since his view is motivated by a causal truthmaker principle for grounding knowledge, it also holds that perceptual beliefs about temporal features must be caused by the features themselves in order to count as knowledge. Given these theoretical commitments, there is a puzzle concerning how such perceptual beliefs could constitute knowledge of temporal properties. In response to Le Poidevin, I argue for an account according to which order and duration are objects of perception, causally contribute to our perceptual beliefs about them, and such beliefs are capable of counting as knowledge. I conclude by showing that, on my alternative account, the epistemological puzzle dissolves and his own solution to it fails. (shrink)

The author tends to emphasize that there are at least three reasons to analyze Callimachus\' epigram about Diodorus : First of all, the date of this epigram shows us that it represents the earliest information about Diodorus doctrine. Second, another support of its authenticity could be found in fact that this epigram expressing part of the atmosphere following, and also remaining after, discussing the Diodorian topics. Third, its philosophical relevance, usually minimized in classical literature, could be found in (...) those facts that it could show the way out in many today dilemmas about his philosophical claims and support some of our contemporary assumptions about its logical conception, as well as that of space, time, and meaning of statements. The author defends a position that it is necessary to develop well-grounded and methodologically relevant base covering the historical reconstruction and the interpretation of ancient logical theories. (shrink)

Suppose that God or a demon informs you of the following future fact: despite recent cosmological evidence, the universe is indeed closed and it will have a ‘final’ instant of time; moreover, at that final moment, all 49 of the world’s Imperial Faberge eggs will be in your bedroom bureau’s sock drawer. You’re absolutely certain that this information is true. All of your other dealings with supernatural powers have demonstrated that they are a trustworthy lot.

Sensitivity to others’ actions is essential for social animals like humans and a fundamental requirement for any kind of social cognition. Unsurprisingly, it is present in humans from early in the first year of life. But what processes underpin infants’ sensitivity to others’ actions? Any attempt to answer this question must solve twin puzzles about the development of goal tracking. Why does some, but not all, of infants’ goal tracking appear to be limited by their abilities to represent (...) the observed action motorically at the time it occurs? And why does their sensitivity to action sometimes manifest itself differently in dishabituation, pupil dilation and anticipatory looking? Solving these twin puzzles is critical for understanding humans’ earliest sensitivity to others’ actions. After introducing the puzzles, this paper argues that solving them may require identifying multiple, distinct processes for tracking the targets and goals of actions. (shrink)

When faced with intertemporal choices, which have consequences that unfold over time, we often discount the future, preferring smaller immediate rewards often at the expense of long-term benefits. How psychologically connected one feels to one’s future self-influences such temporal discounting. Psychological connectedness consists in sharing psychological properties with past or future selves, but connectedness comes in degrees. If one feels that one is not psychologically connected to one’s future self, one views that self like a different person and is (...) less likely to wait for the future reward. Increasing perceived psychological connectedness to one’s future self may lead to more far-sighted decisions. Episodic prospection may help in this regard. Episodic prospection is our ability to ‘pre-experience’ the future by mentally simulating it, drawing on information from episodic memory and other sources. Episodic memory and prospection are thought to involve a special form of consciousness, which underpins the capacity to appreciate the connection between one’s past, present, and future selves. Simulating the future self through prospection may increase felt psychological connectedness and support future-oriented decision-making. Yet this is where a puzzle arises. The imagery of episodic memory and prospection is perspectival: often one views the visualised scenario from a detached perspective, seeing oneself from-the-outside as if viewing another person. The aim of this paper is to characterise how the perspectival imagery of prospection relates to psychological connectedness, and to show that even though such imagery involves a detached perspective it can still be used to help reward one’s future self. (shrink)

The biggest research programme within business ethics is arguably Corporate Social Responsibility and all its related streams (Corporate Citizenship, Social Justice, etc.) While there seems to be widespread agreement that business ethics is situated between the amoral or even immoral view of Milton Friedman as explicated in his 1970 New York Times paper, and the moral view expounded by R. Edward Freeman, this essay challenges that view. Friedman, maybe owed to his flamboyant writing style and crude and purely rhetorical oversimplifications (...) has been misinterpreted to advocate for managers to be completely amoral maximisers of profitability. This misinterpretation has become common wisdom, despite him clearly stating that the law and the moral standards of surrounding society must limit profit-seeking behaviour. Freeman's stakeholder theory, on the other hand, is seen as being on the other end of the continuum, arguing for selflessness—another misinterpretation, as I argue with Ed Freeman's help. Instead, I suggest that both Friedman and Freeman represent the virtuous mean of the business ethics continuum and not its extremes because they both base their theories on the idea of the free and socially embedded individual. The two vicious ends of the continuum are inhabited by the unreal, atomised, completely a-social and selfish individual on the one end, and by the equally unreal collectivised self-less individual on the other. The mainstream in business ethics has declared the collective and selfless end to be the ideal that must guide practice and research. The selfish and the selfless strawmen have prevented a proper debate in business ethics for too long. (shrink)

This paper should be read against the backdrop of three lines of linguistic investigation: the investigation of the Perfect construction, which has received considerable attention, going back to Reichenbach ; the working hypothesis that certain verbal constructions can be described in terms of the semantics of determiners on nominal expressions, with which we are more familiar; the common observation that we talk about time the way we talk about space. The focus of the paper is a particular (...) construction in Greek. As always, however, the search for the solution of a particular question reveals many other questions in the process and this paper should be seen as being also about a number of related puzzles in English and other languages. (shrink)

Aggleton & Brown rightly point out the shortcomings of the medial temporal lobe hypothesis as an approach to anterograde amnesia. Their broader perspective is a necessary corrective, and one hopes it will be taken very seriously. Although they correctly note the dangers of conflating recognition and recall, they themselves make a similar mistake in discussing familiarity; we suggest an alternative approach. We also discuss implications of their view for an analysis of retrograde amnesia. The notion that there are two routes (...) by which the hippocampus can reactivate neuronal ensembles in the neocortex could help us understand some currently puzzling facts about the dynamics of memory consolidation. (shrink)

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time is a concise and accessible survey of the history of philosophical and scientific developments in understanding time and our experience of time. It discusses prominent ideas about the nature of time, plus many subsidiary puzzles about time, from the classical period through the present.

My aim in this paper is to show a tension in the nozickian entitlement theory. The tension is between the enforcement of the rectification principle in ideal epistemic conditions and the first two clauses of the theory. In order to do that, I argue that the principle of rectification in the above conditions entails a weird theoretical result: it is better applied under relative ignorance than under ideal conditions, which suggests that Nozick’s theory is too rigid. The underlying point is (...) that Nozick neglects some important aspects concerning the effects of time in property claims. I finish the paper suggesting that we can face this problem in two ways and that both imply costs. The first one is to keep the theory as it was conceived, accepting the objection that it is, in a way, implausible. Or we can change the theory and weaken its purely historical character. And it is not clear how this can be done without raising difficulties. (shrink)

Existing puzzles about coinciding objects can be divided into two types, corresponding to the manner in which they bear upon the endurantism v. perdurantism debate. Puzzles of the first type, which involve temporary spatial co-location, can be solved simply by abandoning endurantism in favor of perdurantism, whereas those of the second type, which involve career-long spatial co-location, remain equally puzzling on both views. I show that the possibility of backward time travel would give rise to a (...) new type of puzzle. The new puzzles confront perdurantists and can be solved just by shifting to endurantism. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers have offered differing concepts of biological race. That is, they have offered different candidates for what a biological correlate of race might be; for example, races might be subspecies, clades, lineages, ecotypes, or genetic clusters. One thing that is striking about each of these proposals is that they all depend on a concept of population. Indeed, some authors have explicitly characterized races in terms of populations. However, including the concept of population into concepts of race raises (...) three puzzles, all having to do with time. In this paper, I extend the causal interactionist population concept (CIPC) by introducing some simple assumptions about how to understand populations through time. These assumptions help to shed light on the three puzzles, and in the process show that if we want to understand races in terms of populations, we will need to revise our concept(s) of race. (shrink)

Aristotle's discussion of time is part of his Physics, which was an important part of the philosophical curriculum of late antiquity. Aristotle says that it is because nature is a principle of change that people must establish what change is. This chapter focuses on his scientific treatment of time. Aristotle begins his discussion of time by engaging in the examination of a set of puzzles (aporiai). He clearly indicates that this examination is embedded in the two‐stage (...) inquiry. Aristotle develops, within his positive account of time, the conceptual tools to deal with a puzzle. The chapter shows how the definition of change advanced in the third book of the Physics contributes to the discussion of time developed in the fourth book. (shrink)

Philosophy of time, as practiced throughout the last hundred years, is both language- and existence-obsessed. It is language-obsessed in the sense that the primary venue for attacking questions about the nature of time—in sharp contrast to the primary venue for questions about space—has been philosophy of language. Although other areas of philosophy have long recognized that there is a yawning gap between language and the world, the message is spreading slowly in philosophy of time.[1] Since (...) twentieth-century analytic philosophy as a whole often drew metaphysical conclusions from arguments with linguistic premises, philosophy of time perhaps may be forgiven for this transgression. Connected to this language-saturated way of doing philosophy, however, is a hitherto unnoticed obsession, equally unhealthy; namely, an obsession with existence. Existence draws the very lines of debate in philosophy of time: “eternalists” believe past, present and future events all ‘equally’ exist, “possibilists” believe that past and present events exist, and “presentists” believe that only present events enjoy this lofty status.[2] These differences between what events exist as of some other time are supposed to explain the main puzzles surrounding time. This fixation on existence, I submit, is a lingering symptom of the language-saturated days of philosophy of time.[3] And just as linguistic issues such as the ineliminability of tense fail to elucidate time and temporal experience, so too do the “existence debates” fail to explain much of what is interesting about time. Philosophers should have more to say about such a fascinating topic. (shrink)

Talk about time travel is puzzling even if it isn't obviously contradictory. Philosophers however are divided about whether time travel involves empirical paradox or some deeper metaphysical incoherence. It is suggested that time travel requires a Parmenidean four-dimensionalist metaphysical conception of the world in time. The possibility of time travel is addressed (mainly) from within a Parmenidean metaphysical framework, which is accepted by David Lewis in his defence of the coherence of time (...) travel. It is argued that time travel raises formidable difficulties which are not satisfactorily resolved by Lewis's ingenious defence of time travel. Objections to time travel considered include: (1) travel to other times is impossible because there is nowhere (or “nowhen”) to go to; (2) the problem that upon setting out on a journey to the past a time machine will collide with itself; (3) time travel generates a mysterious temporal dualism between experiential time and physical time; (4) travel to the past permits reverse causation, raising the possibility of causal loops and attendant problems arising, for example, from the prospect of empirical contradiction and the possibility of someone being one of their ancestors. (shrink)

Huw Price argues that there are two conceptions of the puzzle of the time‐asymmetry of thermodynamics. He thinks this puzzle has remained unsolved for so long partly due to a misunderstanding about which of these conceptions is the right one and what form a solution ought to take. I argue that it is Price's understanding of the problem which is mistaken. Further, it is on the basis of this and other misunderstandings that he disparages a type of account (...) which does, in fact, hold promise of a solution. (shrink)

About time, we have too many questions, such as the thing of the past no longer have? The future is not expected to do? Now exist? The passage of time is irreversible, it? What is eternal? Relationship with time? In this paper, the Great Perfection tradition of Tibetan Buddhism's long clearance and West Pakistan Heidegger, for example the phenomenon of school time to discuss the experience. They did not go to the concept of eternal life, (...) but deep into the phenomenon of the passage of time and experiences, reveals a new time dimension, the so-called fourth dimension of time or fourth time. This paper describes the Dzogchen tradition, the processing time of a spiritual experience, and analysis of Pakistan's four seasons Longqing concept and significance in the history of Buddhism, followed by a discussion of Heidegger's four-dimensional concept of time, and their followers on the the concept of further discussion. Finally, in conclusion, I will briefly explain the traditional four-dimensional time in these two different points in the same, and to explore possible reasons similar point. Concerning time, we have many puzzles, such as what is eternity, how it is related to the passage of time, whether the passage of time is irreversible, whether things past are no-longer, whether the future is non-predictable, whether the present exists or not, and so on. This article is an attempt to discuss such experiences of the passage of time. First, a Buddhist practice in Dzogchen tradition that deals with the experience of the passage of time will be introduced, then Longchenpa's concept of four times will be analyzed, and its significance in the history of Buddhism will also be discussed. In the following section, it will examine Heidegger's concept of four dimensional time and briefly discuss its elaboration by later philosophers. In conclusion, it will discuss the similarities and differences between the four-dimensional time theories as found in these two diverse traditions, and the possible reasons for their striking similarities. (shrink)

Recently Saul Kripke has drawn attention to a puzzle about belief and proper names, a puzzle of which philosophers have been aware for a long time, but which has never been completely resolved. Kripke gives a new, bilingual illustration of the puzzle:1 Pierre, while living in his native France, learns much about the city of London, which he calls ‘Londres,’ and comes to believe something which he would express in French with the words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Using (...) standard principle of translation, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ Suppose however that Pierre learns English, travels to London, learns that the name of the city he is in is ‘London,’ and sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘London is not pretty.’ On the basis of his assertion, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is not pretty.’ But suppose he does not realize that ‘Londres’ is also a name for the city he is in, so he retains the belief which he would express with the French words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Then, by the same principles of translation as before, it seems that we are still justified in saying, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ But now we have attributed to Pierre contradictory beliefs, and that does not seem acceptable, since Pierre has committed no logical oversight.Kripke believes that this is the same puzzle as one that arises in older, monolingual examples, such as that used by Quine: suppose Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline. Since ‘Tully’ is another name for Cicero, it seems acceptable to paraphrase his belief and say, ‘Tom believes that Tully denounced Cataline.’ But suppose Tom does not realize that Cicero and Tully are the same person, and suppose, in fact, that he sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ Then it also seems acceptable to say, on the basis of Tom’s assertion, ‘Tom believes that Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ But now we have attributed to Tom contradictory beliefs, and, as in the Pierre example, that does not seem acceptable. (shrink)

Recently Saul Kripke has drawn attention to a puzzle about belief and proper names, a puzzle of which philosophers have been aware for a long time, but which has never been completely resolved. Kripke gives a new, bilingual illustration of the puzzle:1 Pierre, while living in his native France, learns much about the city of London, which he calls ‘Londres,’ and comes to believe something which he would express in French with the words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Using (...) standard principle of translation, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ Suppose however that Pierre learns English, travels to London, learns that the name of the city he is in is ‘London,’ and sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘London is not pretty.’ On the basis of his assertion, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is not pretty.’ But suppose he does not realize that ‘Londres’ is also a name for the city he is in, so he retains the belief which he would express with the French words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Then, by the same principles of translation as before, it seems that we are still justified in saying, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ But now we have attributed to Pierre contradictory beliefs, and that does not seem acceptable, since Pierre has committed no logical oversight.Kripke believes that this is the same puzzle as one that arises in older, monolingual examples, such as that used by Quine: suppose Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline. Since ‘Tully’ is another name for Cicero, it seems acceptable to paraphrase his belief and say, ‘Tom believes that Tully denounced Cataline.’ But suppose Tom does not realize that Cicero and Tully are the same person, and suppose, in fact, that he sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ Then it also seems acceptable to say, on the basis of Tom’s assertion, ‘Tom believes that Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ But now we have attributed to Tom contradictory beliefs, and, as in the Pierre example, that does not seem acceptable. (shrink)

Why does time seem to flow in one direction? Can we influence the past? Is only the present real? Does relativity conflict with our common understanding of time? How does time relate to free will? Could science do away with time? These questions and others about time are among the most puzzling problems in philosophy and science. In this exciting collection of original articles, eminent philosophers propose novel answers to these and other questions. Based (...) on the latest research in philosophy and physics, these essays will be enjoyable to anyone with a speculative turn of mind. (shrink)

A study of habit and other unconscious backgrounds of action shows how shapes of spiritual life in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit each imply correlative senses of lived time. The very form of time thus gives spirit a sensuous encounter with its own concept. The point that conceptual content is manifest in the sensuous form of time is key to an interpretation of Hegel's infamous and puzzling remarks about time and the concept in ``absolute knowing.'' The (...) article also shows how Hegel's Phenomenology connects with current discussions of lived time, habit, and, via discussion of Wallace's Infinite Jest, addiction. (shrink)

Saul Kripke has been a major influence on analytic philosophy and allied fields for a half-century and more. His early masterpiece, Naming and Necessity, reversed the pattern of two centuries of philosophizing about the necessary and the contingent. Although much of his work remains unpublished, several major essays have now appeared in print, most recently in his long-awaited collection Philosophical Troubles. In this book Kripke’s long-time colleague, the logician and philosopher John P. Burgess, offers a thorough and self-contained (...) guide to all of Kripke’s published books and his most important philosophical papers, old and new. It also provides an authoritative but non-technical account of Kripke’s influential contributions to the study of modal logic and logical paradoxes. Although Kripke has been anything but a system-builder, Burgess expertly uncovers the connections between different parts of his oeuvre. Kripke is shown grappling, often in opposition to existing traditions, with mysteries surrounding the nature of necessity, rule-following, and the conscious mind, as well as with intricate and intriguing puzzles about identity, belief and self-reference. Clearly contextualizing the full range of Kripke’s work, Burgess outlines, summarizes and surveys the issues raised by each of the philosopher’s major publications. Kripke will be essential reading for anyone interested in the work of one of analytic philosophy’s greatest living thinkers. (shrink)

The concept of a time-relative interest is introduced by Jeff McMahan to solve certain puzzles about the badness of death. Some people (e.g. McMahan and David DeGrazia) believe that this concept can also be used to show that abortion is permissible. In this paper, I first argue that if the Time-Relative Interest Account permits abortion, then it would also permit infanticide.

There you are at the opera house. The soprano has just hit her high note – a glassshattering high C that fills the hall – and she holds it. She holds it. She holds it. She holds it. She holds it. She holds the note for such a long time that after a while a funny thing happens: you no longer seem only to hear it, the note as it is currently sounding, that glass-shattering high C that is loud (...) and high and pure. In addition, you also seem to hear something more. It is difficult to express precisely what this extra feature is. One is tempted to say, however, that the note now sounds like it has been going on for a very long time. Perhaps it even sounds like a note that has been going on for too long. In any event, what you hear no longer seems to be limited to the pitch, timbre, loudness, and other strictly audible qualities of the note. You seem in addition to experience, even to hear, something about its temporal extent. (shrink)

Aristotle opens his discussion of time in Physics 4.10-14 with a puzzle, an argument which purports to show that time does not exist, since its only parts – the past and future – do not exist. He does not discuss the puzzle again, and so we are left with the question of how he would or could solve it. A full solution would involve not only a justification of realism about time, but also an account of (...) why the puzzle arises, what must be corrected to prevent it from arising, and how much of our pre-theoretical picture of time survives these adjustments. This paper argues that we can provide such a solution by (i) distinguishing between two ways of being committed to the reality of past, present, and future, and (ii) examining Aristotle’s remarks in Physics 4.12 on the notions of being in time and being surrounded by time. (shrink)

We are no less directly acquainted with the temporal structure of the world than with its spatial structure. We hear one word succeeding another; feel two taps as simultaneous; or see the glow of a firework persisting, before it finally fizzles and fades. However, time is special, for we not only experience temporal properties; experience itself is structured in time. -/- Part One articulates a natural framework for thinking about experience in time. I claim (i) that (...) experience in its experiential aspect has a realistically conceived temporal structure; (ii) that our judgements about that structure always go via judgements about the temporal structure of the apparent objects of perception; and (iii) that a subject undergoing perceptual experience of a given experiential kind is always in a position to know that they are undergoing experience of that kind simply in virtue of so undergoing. On this basis, I argue that the temporal structure of experience cannot systematically come apart from the temporal structure of its objects. -/- Part Two treats four puzzles relating to our experience of time. The first is Dennett’s notorious discussion of masking and apparent motion phenomena. The second is the traditional debate regarding the very possibility of perceiving temporal properties. The third is Fara’s recent contention that standard explanations of our experience of slow changes preclude us from perceiving constant motion. A common reaction to these three puzzles is to reject some element of the naïve picture of temporal experience developed in Part One. I resolve them instead by showing how each arises from mistakenly thinking that experience is homoeomerous down to very short durations or instants. That is, thinking that we can analyse experience into a series of independent short slices, and explain the nature of the stream of consciousness in terms of those slices. The final chapter discusses a fourth puzzle about visual motion perception which I diagnose as driven by a rather different, but equally misguided way of thinking about vision. (shrink)

It has been suggested that there is something worrisome, puzzling, or incomprehensible about the sorts of causal loops sometimes involved in backwards time travel. This paper disentangles two distinct puzzles and evaluates whether they provide us reason to find backwards time travel incomprehensible, inexplicable, or otherwise worrisome. The paper argues that they provide no such reason.

Scholars of classical philosophy have long disputed whether Aristotle was a dialectical thinker. Most agree that Aristotle contrasts dialectical reasoning with demonstrative reasoning, where the former reasons from generally accepted opinions and the latter reasons from the true and primary. Starting with a grasp on truth, demonstration never relinquishes it. Starting with opinion, how could dialectical reasoning ever reach truth, much less the truth about first principles? Is dialectic then an exercise that reiterates the prejudices of one's times and (...) at best allows one to persuade others by appealing to these prejudices, or is it the royal road to first principles and philosophical wisdom? In From Puzzles to Principles? May Sim gathers experts to argue both these positions and offer a variety of interpretive possibilities. The contributors' thoughtful reflections on the nature and limits of dialectic should play a crucial role in Aristotelian scholarship. (shrink)

This volume addresses the question of time from the perspective of the time of nature. Its aim is to provide some insights about the nature of time on the basis of the different uses of the concept of time in natural sciences. Presenting a dialogue between philosophy and science, it features a collection of papers that investigate the representation, modeling and understanding of time as they appear in physics, biology, geology and paleontology. It asks (...) questions such as: whether or not the notions of time in the various sciences are reducible to the same physical time, what status should be given to timescale differences, or what are the specific epistemic issues raised by past facts in natural sciences. The book first explores the experience of time and its relation to time in nature in a set of chapters that bring together what human experience and physics enable metaphysicians, logicians and scientists to say about time. Next, it studies time in physics, including some puzzling paradoxes about time raised by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. The volume then goes on to examine the distinctive problems and conceptions of time in the life sciences. It explores the concept of deep time in paleontology and geology, time in the epistemology of evolutionary biology, and time in developmental biology. Each scientific discipline features a specific approach to time and uses distinctive methodologies for implementing time in its models. This volume seeks to define a common language to conceive of the distinct ways different scientific disciplines view time. In the process, it offers a new approach to the issue of time that will appeal to a wide range of readers: philosophers and historians of science, metaphysicians and natural scientists - be they scholars, advanced students or readers from an educated general audience. (shrink)