Every now and then, no-futurism faces no sceptical problems

Analysis 67 (4):325–332 (2007)
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Abstract

Tallant (2007) has challenged my recent defence of no-futurism (Button 2006), but he does not discuss the key to that defence: that no-futurism's primitive relation 'x is real-as-of y' is not symmetric. I therefore answer Tallant's challenge in the same way as I originally defended no-futurism. I also clarify no-futurism by rejecting a common mis-characterisation of the growing-block theorist. By supplying a semantics for no-futurists, I demonstrate that no-futurism faces no sceptical challenges. I conclude by considering the problem of how to interpret the relation 'x is real-as-of y'. -/- (NB: A correction to this article appears in Analysis 68.1.).

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Tim Button
University College London

Citations of this work

Nothing to Come: A Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time.Fabrice Correia & Sven Rosenkranz - 2018 - Cham, Switzerland: Springer Verlag. Edited by Sven Rosenkranz.
Presentism, eternalism, and the growing block.Kristie Miller - 2013 - In Heather Dyke & Adrian Bardon (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Time. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 345-364.
String Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity and Eternalism.Baptiste Le Bihan - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10:17.
Defining Existence Presentism.Jonathan Charles Tallant - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (S3):479-501.

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References found in this work

Time, Tense, and Causation.Michael Tooley - 1997 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Time and Space.Barry Dainton - 2001 - Mcgill-Queen's University Press.
How do we know it is now now?David Braddon-Mitchell - 2004 - Analysis 64 (3):199–203.
When am I? A tense time for some tense theorists?Craig Bourne - 2002 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (3):359 – 371.
Time and Space.Barry Dainton - 2001 - Philosophy 79 (309):486-490.

View all 14 references / Add more references