Chronometric Explanations

Philosophia 44 (1):275-287 (2016)
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Abstract

In this paper I present a problem for the conventionalist regarding temporal metrics, and I defend an objectivist position on the ground of its explanatory force. Roughly, the conventionalist has it that there is no fact of the matter with respect to the truth or falsity of judgments of the kind “event e1 lasted as long as event e2”, while the objectivist thinks that they are grounded in objective features of space-time. I argue that, by positing grounds for judgments of relative temporal length, the objectivist gains an explanatory force that the conventionalist position lacks.

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Giuliano Torrengo
Università degli Studi di Milano

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References found in this work

Supervaluationism and Its Logics.Achille C. Varzi - 2007 - Mind 116 (463):633-676.
Philosophical Problems of Space and Time.V. F. Lenzen - 1975 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 36 (1):127-129.
The Structure of Time.Jeremy Butterfield & W. H. Newton-Smith - 1983 - Philosophical Review 92 (3):468.

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