Tim, Tom, Time and Fate: Lewis on Time Travel

Analytic Philosophy 57 (3):247-252 (2016)
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Abstract

In his well-known time travel story, David Lewis claims that there is a sense in which Tim can go back in time and kill his Grandfather and a (more inclusive) sense in which he cannot. Lewis describes Tim’s predicament as semi-fatalist, but holds that this does not compromise Tim’s freedom or his ability to kill Grandfather. I argue that if semi-fatalism is true of Tim, it is true of everyone, and that this is a troubling conclusion.

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Brian Garrett
Australian National University

Citations of this work

Paradoxes of Time Travel to the Future.Sara Bernstein - 2022 - In Helen Beebee & A. R. J. Fisher (eds.), Perspectives on the Philosophy of David K. Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Abilities, freedom, and inputs: a time traveller's tale.Olivia Coombes - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Edinburgh

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References found in this work

The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David K. Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
On the Notion of Cause.Bertrand Russell - 1913 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 13:1-26.
What time travelers cannot do.Kadri Vihvelin - 1996 - Philosophical Studies 81 (2-3):315 - 330.

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