This paper presents a line of thought against the possibility of causation without time. That possibility, insofar as it is supposedly rested upon a Lewisian counterfactual theory of causation, does not stand up to scrutiny. The key point is that, as a reflection on the trans-world identity of events reveals, (distinct) events deprived of times are—according to Lewis’s own semantics of counterfactuals—no longer eligible to stand in counterfactual dependence.

Is a whole something more than the sum of its parts? Are there things composed of the same parts? If you divide an object into parts, and divide those parts into smaller parts, will this process ever come to an end? Can something lose parts or gain new ones without ceasing to be the thing it is? Does any multitude of things (including disparate things such as you, this book, and the tail of a cat) compose a whole of some (...) sort? Questions such as these have occupied us for at least as long as philosophy has existed. They define the field that has come to be known as mereology-the study of all relations of part to whole and of part to part within a whole-and have deep and far-reaching ramifications in metaphysics as well as in logic, the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, and beyond. In Mereology, A. J. Cotnoir and Achille C. Varzi have compiled decades of advanced research into a comprehensive, up-to-date, and formally rigorous picture. The early chapters cover the more classical aspects of mereology; the rest of the book deals with variants and extensions. Whether you are an established professional philosopher, an interested student, or a newcomer, inside you will find all the tools you need to join this ever-evolving field of inquiry and theorize about all things mereological. (shrink)

The paper has two parts: First, I describe a relatively popular thesis in the philosophy of propositional attitudes, worthy of the name ‘taking tense seriously’; and I distinguish it from a family of views in the metaphysics of time, namely, the A-theories (or what are sometimes called ‘tensed theories of time’). Once the distinction is in focus, a skeptical worry arises. Some A-theorists maintain that the difference between past, present, and future, is to be drawn in terms of what exists: (...) growing-block theorists eschew ontological commitment to future entities; presentists, to future and past entities. Others think of themselves as A-theorists but exclude no past or future things from their ontology. The metaphysical skeptic suspects that their attempt to articulate an ‘eternalist’ version of the A-theory collapses into merely ‘taking tense seriously’– a thesis that does not imply the A-theory. The second half of the paper is the search for a stable eternalist A-theory. It includes discussion of temporary intrinsics, temporal parts, and truth. (shrink)

A familiar slogan in the literature on temporal experience is that ‘a succession of appearances, in and of itself, does not amount to an experience of succession’. I show that we can distinguish between a strong and a weak sense of this slogan. I diagnose the strong interpretation of the slogan as requiring the support of an assumption I call the ‘Seems→Seemed’ claim. I then show that commitment to this assumption comes at a price: if we accept it, we either (...) have to reject the extremely plausible idea that experience is as it seems, or we are forced to provide an account of temporal experience that isn’t compatible with the phenomenology. I conclude by noting that the only plausible interpretation of the slogan is the weak interpretation, and outline a positive account of temporal experience, according to which an appearance of succession requires a succession of appearances. (shrink)

This paper considers a problem for dynamic presentism that has received little attention: its apparent inability to accommodate the duration of events (such as conscious experiences). After outlining the problem, I defend presentism from it. This defence proceeds in two stages. First, I argue the objection rests on a faulty assumption: that duration is temporal extension. The paper challenges that assumption on several different ways of conceiving of temporal extension. This is the negative case and forms the bulk of the (...) paper. Second, after diagnosing the error leading to the identification of duration with temporal extension, I outline a new presentist-friendly account of duration that avoids the problem. In particular, a non-reductive account of duration is offered that treats it as a primitive quality which bestows its possessor with a certain modal quality: that the possessor potentially does not change whilst there are changes in its environs. This is the positive case. Together the positive and negative cases provide presentism with an interesting and novel way of overcoming the problem of duration. (shrink)

In a recent article, ‘Tensed Time and Our Differential Experience of the Past and Future,’ William Lane Craig attempts to resuscitate A. N. Prior's ‘Thank Goodness’ argument against the B-theory by combining it with Plantinga's views about basic beliefs. In essence Craig's view is that since there is a universal experience and belief in the objectivity of tense and the reality of becoming, ‘this belief constitutes an intrinsic defeater-defeater which overwhelms the objections brought against it.’ An intrinsic defeater-defeater is a (...) belief that enjoys such warrant for us that it simply overwhelms the defeaters brought against it without specifically rebutting or undercutting them. Thus, Craig claims that an effete philosophical argument like McTaggart's paradox is nothing more than ‘an engaging and recalcitrant brain teaser whose conclusion nobody really takes seriously.’ It is difficult to reconcile this statement with Craig's own writings elsewhere. For Craig has vigorously argued in at least two other articles that 'hybrid A-B theorists like McCall, Schlesinger, and Smith [who give ontological status to both A-properties and B-relations] are in deep trouble’ since they are all effectively refuted by McTaggart's Paradox. It is not Craig's inconsistency regarding the significance of McTaggart conundrum that I want to draw attention to, however. Rather I wish to raise a different issue. (shrink)

The basic kinds of physical causality that are foundational for other kinds of causality involve objects and the causal relations between them. These interactions do not involve events. If events were ontologically significant entities for causality in general, then they would play a role in simple mechanical interactions. But arguments about simple collisions looked at from different frames of reference show that events cannot play a role in simple mechanical interactions, and neither can the entirely hypothetical causal relations between events. (...) These arguments show that physics, which should be authoritative when it comes to the metaphysics of causality, gives no reasons to believe that events are causal agents. Force relations and some cases of energy-momentum transfer are examples of causal relations, with forces being paradigmatic in the macroscopic world, though it is conceivable that there are other kinds of causal relation. A relation between two objects is a causal relation if and only if when it is instantiated by the two objects there is a possibility that the objects that are the terms of the relation could change. The basic metaphysics of causality is about objects, causal relations, changes in objects, and a causal primitive. The paper also includes a discussion of the metaphysics of forces and a discussion of the metaphysics of energy and momentum exchanges. (shrink)

A critical discussion of Shoemaker's argument for the possibility of time without change, intended as an argument against relationist conceptions of time. A relational view of time is proposed based on the primitive identity of events (or whatever entities are the basic subjects of change and lack thereof).

In a lot of domains in metaphysics the tacit assumption has been that whichever metaphysical principles turn out to be true, these will be necessarily true. Let us call necessitarianism about some domain the thesis that the right metaphysics of that domain is necessary. Necessitarianism has flourished. In the philosophy of maths we find it held that if mathematical objects exist, then they do of necessity. Mathematical Platonists affirm the necessary existence of mathematical objects (see for instance Hale and Wright (...) 1992 and 1994; Wright 1983 and 1988; Schiffer 1996; Resnik 1997; Shapiro 1997 and Zalta 1988) while mathematical nominalists, usually in the form of fictionalists, hold that necessarily such objects fail to exist (see for instance Balaguer 1996 and 1998; Rosen 2001 and Yablo 2005). In metaphysics more generally, until recently it was more or less assumed that whatever the right account of composition—the account of under what conditions some xs compose a y—that account will be necessarily true (for a discussion of theories of composition see Simons 1987 and van Inwagen 1987 and 1990; the modal status of the composition relation is explicitly addressed in Schaffer 2007; Parsons 2006 and Cameron 2007). Similarly, it has generally been assumed that whatever the right account is of the nature of properties, whether they be universals, tropes, or whether nominalism is true, that account will be necessarily true (though see Rosen 2006 for a recent suggestion to the contrary). In considering theories of persistence it has been widely held that whether objects endure or perdure through time is a matter of necessity (Sider 2001; though see Lewis 1999 p227 who defends contingent perdurantism). And with respect to theories of time it is frequently held that whichever of the A- or B-theory is true is necessarily true. A-theorists often argue that there is time in a world only if the A-theory is true at that world (see for instance McTaggart 1903; Markosian 2004; Bigelow 1996; Craig 2001) while B-theorists often argue that the A-theory is internally inconsistent (Smart 1987; Mellor 1998; Savitt 2000 and Le Poidevin 1991). Once again, we find a few recent contingentist dissenters. Bourne (2006) suggests that it is a contingent feature of time that it is tensed, and thus that the A-theory is contingently true. Worlds in which there exist only B-theoretic properties are worlds with time, it is just that time in those worlds time is radically different to the way it is actually. Other defenders of the B-theory, though not expressly contingentists, do offer arguments against versions of the A-theory that try to show that such A-theories theories are inconsistent with the actual laws of nature (see for instance Saunders 2002 and Callender 2000); these arguments, at least, leave room for the possibility that the A-theories in question are contingently false (at least on the assumption that the laws of nature are themselves contingent, an assumption that not everyone accepts). Despite some notable exceptions, necessitarianism has flourished in many, if not most, domains in metaphysics. One such exception is Lewis’ famous defence of Humean supervenience as a contingent claim about our world. Lewis does not argue that necessarily, the supervenience base for all matters of fact in a world is nothing but a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact. Rather, he thinks that we have reason to think that our world is one in which Humean supervenience holds (see Lewis 1986 p9-10 and 1994). Another exception to the necessitarian orthodoxy is to be found in the lively debate about the modal status of the laws of nature. Here, if anything, contingentism has been the dominating force, with it generally being held that there are possible worlds in which different laws of nature hold (this view is defended by, among others, Lewis 1986 and 2010; Schaffer 2005 and Sidelle 2002). Necessitarian dissenters hold that the laws of nature are necessary, frequently because they think it is necessary that fundamental properties have the causal or nomic profiles they do (see for instance Shoemaker 1980 and 1988; Swoyer 1982; Bird 1995; Ellis and Lierse 1994). Nevertheless, when it comes to thinking about the nature of the laws themselves, the necessitarian presumption is back on firm footing. Though there is disagreement about whether the laws are generalisations that feature in the most virtuous true axiomatisation of all the particular matters of fact (often known as the Humean view of laws and defended by Ramsey 1978; Lewis 1986 and Beebee 2000) or whether laws are relations of necessity that hold between universals (a view defended by Armstrong 1983; Dretske 1977; Tooley 1977 and Carroll 1990) no one has seriously suggested that it might be a contingent matter which of these is the right account of laws. The necessitarian orthodoxy is not surprising since metaphysics is largely an a priori process. While a priori reasoning may be used to determine whether a proposition is necessary or contingent, it is not well placed (in the absence of a posteriori evidence) to determine whether a contingent proposition is actually true or false. Since metaphysicians aim to tell us which principles are true in which worlds, on the face of it the discovery that metaphysical principles are contingent seems to make part of the task of metaphysics epistemically intractable. In what follows I consider two reasons one might end up embracing contingentism and whether this would lead one into epistemic difficulty. The following section considers a route to contingent metaphysical truths that proceeds via a combination of conceptual necessities and empirical discoveries. Section 3 considers whether there might be synthetic contingent metaphysical truths, and the final section raises the question of whether if there were such truths we would be well placed to come to know them. (shrink)

According to three-dimensionalism, objects persist in time by being wholly present at each time they exist; on the contrary, four-dimensionalism asserts that objects persist by having different temporal parts at different times or that they are instantaneous temporal parts of four-dimensional aggregates. Le Poidevin has argued that four-dimensionalism better accommodates two common assumptions concerning persistence and continuity; namely, that time itself is continuous and that objects persist in time in a continuous way. To this purpose, he has offered two independent (...) arguments, each of which moves from a different understanding of continuity. In this paper, both of Le Poidevin’s arguments will be discussed and rejected. (shrink)

Explanations of the genuine openness of the future often appeal to objective indeterminacy. According to the received view, such indeterminacy is indeterminacy of certain future-tensed state of affairs that presently obtain. We shall call this view the weak indeterminate present, to distinguish it from the view we will defend in this paper, which we dub the strong indeterminate present. According to our view, unsettledness of the future is grounded on the present indeterminacy of some present-tensed state of affairs. In order (...) for an indeterminate present-tensed state of affairs to explain the unsettledness of a future-tensed state of affairs, there has to be a connection between the two. We argue that this connection can only be provided if we look at the internal structure of the relevant state of affairs. Finally, we will suggest that the best background theory to explain the connection are the so-called spontaneous collapse models of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Perhaps the real paradox of Zeno's Arrow is that, although entirely stationary, it has, against all odds, successfully traversed over two millennia of human thought to trouble successive generations of philosophers. The prospects were not good: few original Zenonian fragments survive, and our access to the paradoxes has been for the most part through unsympathetic commentaries. Moreover, like its sister paradoxes of motion, the Arrow has repeatedly been dismissed as specious and easily dissolved. Even those commentators who have taken it (...) seriously have propounded solutions with which they profess themselves to be perfectly satisfied. So my question is: will Zeno's Arrow survive into the millennium just begun? (shrink)

Presentism is held by most to be the intuitive theory of time, due in large part to the view's supposed preservation of time's passage. In this paper, I strike a blow against presentism's intuitive pull by showing how the presentist, contrary to overwhelming popular belief, is unable to establish temporal change upon which the passage of time is based. I begin by arguing that the presentist's two central ontological commitments, the Present Thesis and the Change Thesis, are incompatible. The main (...) problem is that satisfying the Change Thesis to establish passage requires the existence of more than one moment. This conflicts with the Present Thesis that only the present moment exists. The presentist's response is to appeal to surrogates to stand proxy for the past, so as to account for the difference between what does exist and what did exist. I argue that, for this surrogate strategy to be successful, the proposed surrogates must track what actually happened. I demonstrate that there is no guarantee that t.. (shrink)

I argue that Mumford and Anjum’s recent theory of simultaneous causation among powerful meso-level objects is problematic in several respects: it is based on a false dichotomy, it is incompatible with standard meso-level physics, it is explanatory deficient, and it threatens to render the powers metaphysics incoherent. Powers theorists are advised, therefore, to adopt a purely sequential conception of causation.

Many are committed to the idea that the present generation has obligations to future generations, for example, obligations to preserve the environment and certain natural resources for those generations. However, some philosophers want to explain why we have these obligations in terms of correlative rights that future persons have against persons in the present. Attributing such rights to future persons is controversial, for there seem to be compelling arguments against the position. According to the “nonexistence” argument, future persons cannot have (...) rights (and so should not be attributed rights) because they do not exist. According to the “no-satisfaction” argument, future persons cannot have a right to resources that do not exist at the time of their existence because such a right could not, in principle, be satisfied. In this paper, I will argue that an eternalist ontology of time provides the resources for satisfactorily responding to both the nonexistence and the no-satisfaction arguments. (shrink)

There is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the traditional way of defining the A-theories of time. One reason is that these definitions rest on an ontological question—‘Do the future and the past exist?’—to which no non-speculative answer can be provided. Another reason is that these definitions fail to distinguish between various A-theories of time at all times and, therefore, cannot be regarded as essential to them. In the present paper, I make a fresh start in the debate, by introducing two (...) questions whose specific answers allow one to get a comprehensive categorization of the A-theories of time. This alternative way of defining the A-theories of time addresses the two above-mentioned issues and reveals the metaphysical singularity of underrated theories, such as the growing block theory. (shrink)

Does the A-theory have an intuitive advantage over the B-theory? Many A-theorists have claimed so, arguing that their theory has a much better explanation for the fact that we all experience the passage of time: we experience time as passing because time really does pass. In this paper I expose and reject the argument behind the A-theorist’s claim. I argue that all parties have conceded far too easily that there is an experience that needs explaining in the first place. For (...) what exactly is an experience of temporal passage? One natural thought is that we experience passage in virtue of experiencing change, or in virtue of experiencing change as ‘dynamic’. Another is that we experience passage in virtue of experiencing events as (successively) present. None of these experiences, I argue, amounts to an experience of passage. Although there might still be other ways to experience passage, A-theorists would have to provide us with a plausible candidate experience. If there is such an experience at all, it won’t be one that qualifies as what we intuitively take to be an experience of passage. The ‘intuitive advantage’, it seems, has dissolved in any case. (shrink)

This paper aims to determine whether we can locate temporal passage in a non-dynamical (block universe) world. In particular, we seek to determine both whether temporal passage can be located somewhere in our world if it is non-dynamical, and also to home in on where in such a world temporal passage can be located, if it can be located anywhere. We investigate this question by seeking to determine, across three experiments, whether the folk concept of temporal passage can be satisfied (...) in our world if it is non-dynamical, and, if it can, what sort of thing in our world satisfies that concept. In particular, we focus on the question of whether that concept (if satisfied) is satisfied by something mind-dependent or something mind-independent. In other words, we ask, is temporal passage something that is at least partially in the mind, or is it entirely external to the mind? We find, contrary to what is often assumed by dynamists and non-dynamists alike, that the folk concept of temporal passage is satisfied in our world conditional on it being non-dynamical, and that the concept is satisfied by something mind-independent. This provides further ammunition for recent deflationary accounts of temporal passage that attempt to locate passage somewhere in our non-dynamical world. (shrink)

This paper considers a problem for dynamic presentism that has received little attention: its apparent inability to accommodate the duration of events. After outlining the problem, I defend presentism from it. This defence proceeds in two stages. First, I argue the objection rests on a faulty assumption: that duration is temporal extension. The paper challenges that assumption on several different ways of conceiving of temporal extension. This is the negative case and forms the bulk of the paper. Second, after diagnosing (...) the error leading to the identification of duration with temporal extension, I outline a new presentist-friendly account of duration that avoids the problem. In particular, a non-reductive account of duration is offered that treats it as a primitive quality which bestows its possessor with a certain modal quality: that the possessor potentially does not change whilst there are changes in its environs. This is the positive case. Together the positive and negative cases provide presentism with an interesting and novel way of overcoming the problem of duration. (shrink)

I outline the debate in metaphysics between those who believe time is tensed and those who believe it is tenseless. I describe the terms in which this debate has been carried out, and the significance to it of ordinary tensed language and widespread common sense beliefs that time is tensed. I then outline a case for thinking that our intuitive beliefs about tense constitute an Adaptive Imaginary Representation (Wilson, in Biol Philos 5:37–62, 1990; Wilson, in Biol Philos 10:77–97, 1995). I (...) also outline a case for thinking that our ordinary tensed beliefs and tensed language owe their tensed nature to its being adaptive to adopt a temporally self-locating perspective on reality. If these conclusions are right, then common sense intuitions and temporal language will be utterly misleading guides to the nature of temporal reality. (shrink)

Metaphysics seeks an account of fundamental reality as it is independent of any observer or point of view. As such, one problem it faces is that any such account is necessarily created by some observer from some point of view. Does this mean that metaphysics is thereby inherently impossible? Or inherently incomplete? I argue that it is possible and it can aim at completeness, but it must acknowledge the contributions made by the human perspective on reality, human cognition, and features (...) of the conceptual and linguistic representations in which it is couched. The idea that we can discover metaphysical insights by investigating concepts and language has had a remarkably tenacious grip on the field of metaphysics. I offer a diagnosis of how this grip took hold and an argument that it should be loosened. I also propose a means of pursuing metaphysical investigation that does not rely on an enquiry into language and that can yield fruitful results. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider some logical aspects of the debate between the view that the present is the only 'real' time, and the view that the present is not in any way metaphysically privileged. In particular I shall set out a language of first-order predicate tense logic with a now predicate, and a first order (extensional) language with an abstraction operator, in such a way that each language can be shewn to be exactly translatable into the (...) other. I shew that this translation is preserved at the metalinguistic level, so that equivalent truth conditions can be defined in a tensed metalanguage or an indexical metalanguage. I then make some remarks about the connection between proofs of relative consistency and metaphysical truth; and some historical remarks about Arthur Prior's use of formal logic in expressing his presentist views. (shrink)

Most of us would want to say that it is true that Socrates taught Plato. According to realists about past facts,1 this is made true by the fact that there is, located in the past, i.e., earlier than now, at least one real event that is the teaching of Plato by Socrates. Presentists, however, in denying that past events and facts exist2 cannot appeal to such facts to make their past-tensed statements true. So what is a presentist to do?

Most of us would want to say that it is true that Socrates taught Plato. According to realists about past facts, this is made true by the fact that there is, located in the past, i.e., earlier than now, at least one real event that is the teaching of Plato by Socrates. Presentists, however, in denying that past events and facts exist cannot appeal to such facts to make their past-tensed Statements true. So what is a presentist to do?There are (...) at least three conditions that would ideally be met in a satisfactory solution to this problem:a) It must preserve our views about which Statements are true and which falseb) It must be transparent what the truthmakers are for those Statementsc) It must accommodate the truth-value links between various times. (shrink)

Metaphysical theories are often counter-intuitive. But they also often are strongly supported and motivated by intuitions. One way or another, the link between intuitions and metaphysics is a strong and important one, and there is hardly any metaphysical discussion where intuitions do not play a crucial role. In this article, I will be interested in a particular kind of such intuitions, namely those that come, at least partly, from experience. There seems to be a route from experience to metaphysics, and (...) this is the core of my interest here. In order to better understand such ‘arguments from experience’ and the kind of relationship there is between this type of intuitions and metaphysical theories, I shall examine four particular cases where a kind of experience-based intuition seems to motivate or support a metaphysical theory. At the end of the day, I shall argue that this route is a treacherous one, and that in all of the four cases I shall concentrate on, phenomenological considerations are in fact orthogonal to the allegedly ‘corresponding’ metaphysical claims. An anti-realist view of metaphysics will emerge. (shrink)

Endurantism, as opposed to perdurantism, is supposed to be the intuitive view. But the ‘endurantist intuition’ – roughly, that objects persist through time by being numerically identical and wholly located at all times at which they exist – is behind more than just endurantism. Indeed, it plays an important role in the motivation of some theories about the passage of time, and some theories about the nature of the subject. As we shall see, the endurantist intuition is often taken in (...) these cases to be a reason, or at least a motivation, to endorse one or the other of these metaphysical theories. Sometimes, it is even said to constitute a basis for an argument in their favour. In this article, I show that such an appeal to this ‘endurantist intuition’ is misleading and wrong. I do not deny that there is an intuition of this kind, but I deny that it can play any philosophically significant role as a reason – and even less as a basis for an argument – in defending metaphysical theories such as endurantism, dualism, or the A-theory. (shrink)

This dissertation is a defense of a particular theory of the metaphysics of time which I call "accretivism", but which is popularly known in a form usually called the "Growing Block Theory". The goal of a metaphysics of time is to incorporate the various aspects of our temporal experience into a single, comprehensive whole. To this end I delineate five aspects of our ordinary experience of time: 1) The Tensed Aspect, in virtue of which objects are presented to us as (...) past, present, or future; 2) The Transitory Aspect, in virtue of which time passes or "flows"; 3) The Durational Aspect, in virtue of which entities have a certain temporal extent; 4) The Structural Aspect, in virtue of which entities are given as being in temporal relations to one another, and 5) The Differential-Repetitive Aspect, in virtue of which things are different from one time to another, and yet there is a certain recurrence of aspects of our experience form one time to another. I contrast the accretivist picture of time, according to which that which is past and that which is present both have ontological status, but nothing which is future has ontological status, and in which temporal passage consists in the coming-into-being of new entities at the temporal edge of reality marked by the present, with the two dominant theories of time in the contemporary literature: 1) presentism, according to which only that which is present has ontological status, and 2) four-dimensionalism, according to which time is to be understood on analogy with spatial dimensions. Accretivism, I argue, is superior to the other two views in virtue of the fact that it gives full status to both the Structural Aspect of Time, for which the presentist has difficulty accounting, and the Transitory Aspect of Time, for which the four-dimensionalist has difficulty accounting. I then defend the accretivist picture against a variety of objections that might be raised to it. (shrink)

This is a copy of my DPhil thesis, the abstract for which is as follows: The first third of this thesis argues for a B-theoretic conception of time according to which all times exist equally and the present is in no way privileged. I distinguish "ontological" A-theories from "non-ontological" ones, arguing that the latter are experientially unmotivated and barely coherent. With regard to the former, I focus mainly on presentism. After some remarks on how to formulate this (and eternalism) non-trivially, (...) I review the non-relativistic case against presentism. I then consider the impact of Special Relativity on the debate, and attempt to deepen this impact by supplying a modal variation on the standard arguments. The middle third of the thesis investigates persistence, contending that both endurance and perdurance are consonant with the eternalism already endorsed. After introducing these theories of persistence, and discussing in particular how best to formulate an eternalist endurance, I proceed to defend the coherence of this combination. The Problem of Change is addressed here. I then respond in some detail to recent allegations of relativistic threats to endurance. The final third of the thesis questions the validity of the endurantist-perdurantist dispute. I criticize two recently proposed translation schemes that aim to show this dispute to be non-substantive. However, the second scheme suggests a doctrine of "Ontological Equivalence" which I develop and consider. I then address the Rotating Discs Argument, using this to launch a discussion of identity, genidentity, and the relationship between them. (shrink)

The talk deals with Aristotle’s famous sea-battle problem concerning the truth values of sentences about contingent future events: If an utterance of the sentence “There will be a sea battle tomorrow” is true, then it seems that it is determined that there will be a sea battle tomorrow. For otherwise, how could the utterance be true? If, however, an utterance of the sentence “There will be a sea battle tomorrow” is false, then it seems that it is determined that there (...) will be no sea battle tomorrow. For otherwise, how could the utterance be false? Thus, it seems that it is determined whether there will be a sea battle tomorrow or not – and so for any future event whatsoever. This, however, is in conflict with the assumption that there is such a thing as an open future, i.e., that at least for some future events, it is not determined whether they will take place or not. Some have argued, in light of this problem, that sentences about f uture events are neither true nor false. In this talk, however, it shall be argued that the sea-battle problem can be resolved in an intuitively plausible manner without giving up the principle of bivalence. (shrink)