Time and Change
Edited by Stephan Torre (University of Aberdeen)
About this topic
Summary | What is the relation between time and change? Can time pass without change? Or, as Hume thought, does the passage of time require change? How do we make sense of change in objects? Consider the fire poker: it is hot and glowing red now but it was cold and black an hour ago. How can it have incompatible properties of being black and not black? Hot and not hot? The natural answer is that it has these incompatible properties at different times. But what is the correct metaphysical account of how this happens? Does the poker stand in different relations to different times? Does it have temporal parts some of which are hot and others which are cold? Maybe it's enough to say that it was cold but is no longer cold. Another question concerning time and change is: can we change the future? In what sense is the future alterable? Does time travel involve the ability to change the past? This category covers all issues concerning the relation between time and change. |
Key works | David Hume's influential discussion of the relation between time and change can be found in Book I, Part 2 of Norton & Norton 2007. Sydney Shoemaker provides arguments against the view that time requires change in his Shoemaker 1969, David Lewis discusses the problem of temporary intrinsics in Section 4.2 of Lewis 1986. |
Introductions | Good introductions to issues concerning change and time can be found in Wasserman 2006 and Markosian 2010. |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- A-Theories of Time (335)
- B-Theories of Time (308)
- Experience of Temporal Passage (211)
- McTaggart's Argument (204)
- The Passage of Time, Misc (234)
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Editorial team
General Editors:
David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Esa Diaz-Leon Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |