Tense and Relativity

Noûs 52 (3):667-696 (2018)
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Abstract

Those inclined to positions in the philosophy of time that take tense seriously have typically assumed that not all regions of space-time are equal: one special region of space-time corresponds to what is presently happening. When combined with assumptions from modern physics this has the unsettling consequence that the shape of this favored region distinguishes people in certain places or people traveling at certain velocities. In this paper I shall attempt to avoid this result by developing a tensed picture of reality that is nonetheless consistent with ‘hypersurface egalitarianism’—the view that all hypersurfaces are equal.

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Andrew Bacon
University of Southern California

Citations of this work

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Relativity in a Fundamentally Absolute World.Jack Spencer - 2022 - Philosophical Perspectives 36 (1):305-328.
The Modal Moving Spotlight Theory.Daniel Deasy - 2022 - Mind 131 (524):1195-1215.

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References found in this work

Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
Modal Logic as Metaphysics.Timothy Williamson - 2013 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Relativism and Monadic Truth.Herman Cappelen & John Hawthorne - 2009 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Hawthorne.
Past, Present and Future.Arthur N. Prior - 1967 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

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