Time Flashcards
What is the problem of change?
A banana cannot be both yellow and brown.
- We believe we can speak atemporally but we end up being inconsistent.
What are Lewis’ three options?
- No Intrinsic properties as they are relations.
- no because then no temporary intrinsic properties. - Presentism.
- no because unpopular theory of time. - Deny Endurantism.
What is Stage Theory?
Based on Perdurantism (what is that?)
- Objects are momentary stages with counterparts at other times.
- Objects are the subjects of properties.
- No inconsistency.
What are the worries for Stage Theory?
- We are never speaking of the same object.
- Can momentary objects do events that take time?
- Is this change or replacement?
What is Endurantism?
When we say that something endures is for it to be fully present at any given time.
How can we solve the contradiction worry of Endurantism?
The problem may be solved with Serious Tensing.
- All truths are truths in the present moment - Presentism.
What are the worries for Endurantism?
If you are Presentist, then you reject persistence altogether (Lewis)
- Lewis believes that persistence is existing in more than one time and having different properties.
What does Zimmerman claim about Lewis’ notion of persistence?
We can paraphrase what persistence is to:
- X persists iff it was F and is/will be not F.
- No quantification over times.
What are the arguments for: Is time real?
- McTaggart’s Paradox
- Objections
What is McTaggart’s argument?
- Time is only real if change occurs.
- Change only occurs if events are ordered in past, present, and future (A-Series).
- A-Series is incoherent.
- So, dynamic time is not real.
How is A series incoherent?
Because this is meant to be an objective ordering (past, present, and future).
But depending on perspectives, events are all three.
This is incoherent.
What is the issue with B-Series?
The ordering of events is fixed.
X is always earlier than Y.
Thus another event cannot become another event.
because either:
They are identical or one event goes out of existence (not possible)
What are the objections to McTaggart’s Paradox?
- The indexical Fallacy
- Is there a contradiction?
What is Lowe’s Indexical Fallacy objection to McTaggart?
Higher order tenses are not implied by indexical language.
- Instead of, ‘X will happen’ = ‘X is now happening in the future’ (McTaggart).
- Rather, ‘X will happen’ = there will be a time in which ‘X is happening now’ is true.
- ‘X is happening now’ is only true in the present due to indexicals getting their meaning from location.
- Therefore, no incoherence.
What notion of propositions does Lowe assume?
Tensed propositions.
Propositions truth value can vary accirding to when it is.
Is there contradiction in A-Series?
Most events are not instantaneous; the lecture can be past, present, and future – no contradiction.
- What if every part is an event?
- If all events are instantaneous then McTaggart argues there is no change in events (no change, no time).
- Do events change, or do objects?
- What about Cambridge Change?
What are intrinsic properties?
A that sentence ascribes an intrinsic property to something is entirely about that thing.
What is the problem of temporary intrinsic properties?
If a = b then they have identical properties.
But things that are the same (the same banana) can have different intrinsic properties.
Violates the law of indiscernability of identicals.
What is Zimmerman’s claim about propositions?
That (most) are tensed.
He is a serious tenser.
Propositions only make claims about now.
What does Zimmerman’s paraphrase show?
That persistence need not commit us to the existence of the past and future.
What does Zimmerman claim about Lewis’ notion of persistence?
That it lso needs to be paraprhased.
There is a time at which x had a temporal part that was F, and a time at which x had a temporal part that was not F.
What does Zimmerman show about presentism in response to Lewis’ attack?
That whilst there are issues with Presentism, Lewis does not show that we must reject it.
What is perdurantism?
We have temporal parts (like spatial parts) that have the different properties.
Objects are like space-time worms that are made up of these temporal parts.
Why may perdurantism be compelling?
We can conceive of a world in which perdurantism is true.
What is an issue with Perdurantism?
Is it replacement or change?
It seems as though there is no change involved as temporal parts just replace one another?
What is a response to the objection against perdurantism?
The change occurs on the object level, not temporal level.
What could the perdurantist claim about the endurantist’s claim that temporal replacement is not sufficient for change?
This is simply question begging.
The endurantist is constraining our notion of change too much.
