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International Workshop
Being in Time
19 February 2016
University of Bonn
Being in Time
19 February 2016
University of Bonn
Program
|
13:00 - 14:00
14:30 - 15:30 16:00 - 17:00 17:30 - 18:30 19:00 - 20:00 |
Florian Fischer - Carnap vs. New Tenseless Theory of Time
Maja Schepelmann - Beyond objectivity and subjectivity - the origin of 'time' in Heidegger Damiano Costa - The Transcendentist Theory of Persistence Dan Deasy - Past Particulars Matthias Warkus - Forging the Axes of Time: Philosophy-of-time implications of a pragmatist account of change |
Venue
The workshop takes place at the "International Centre for Philosophy NRW", Institut für Philosophie, Poppelsdorfer Allee 28, 53115 Bonn, Germany. Everybody is welcome! If you want to participate please send an email to: fischerf@uni-bonn.de
The workshop takes place at the "International Centre for Philosophy NRW", Institut für Philosophie, Poppelsdorfer Allee 28, 53115 Bonn, Germany. Everybody is welcome! If you want to participate please send an email to: fischerf@uni-bonn.de
Registration
All participants are welcome, but please send a short email to fischerf@uni-bonn.de to let us know you are coming.
All participants are welcome, but please send a short email to fischerf@uni-bonn.de to let us know you are coming.
Organisation
Florian Fischer
Florian Fischer
Abstracts
The Transcendentist Theory of Persistence
Damiano Costa
In this talk I will present a new endurantist theory of persistence. The theory is built around one basic tenet, which concerns existence at a time – the relation between an object and the times at which that object is present. According to this tenet, which I call transcendentism, for an object to exist at a time is for it to participate in events that are located at that time. I argue that transcendentism is a semantically grounded and metaphysically fruitful. It is semantically grounded, insofar as a semantic analysis of our temporal talk favors it over rivals. It is metaphysically fruitful, insofar as the theory of persistence that can be built around it – the transcendentist theory of persistence, to give it a name – requires neither temporal parts nor the problematic commitments to which all extant forms of endurantism are committed, such as the possibility of extended simples or multilocation.
Damiano Costa
In this talk I will present a new endurantist theory of persistence. The theory is built around one basic tenet, which concerns existence at a time – the relation between an object and the times at which that object is present. According to this tenet, which I call transcendentism, for an object to exist at a time is for it to participate in events that are located at that time. I argue that transcendentism is a semantically grounded and metaphysically fruitful. It is semantically grounded, insofar as a semantic analysis of our temporal talk favors it over rivals. It is metaphysically fruitful, insofar as the theory of persistence that can be built around it – the transcendentist theory of persistence, to give it a name – requires neither temporal parts nor the problematic commitments to which all extant forms of endurantism are committed, such as the possibility of extended simples or multilocation.
Past Particulars
Daniel Deasy
According to a relatively popular metaphysical theory of time- presentism- wholly past objects such as Xanthippe no longer exist, and wholly future objects such as President Jones, the first president of Mars, don’t exist yet. According to a relatively popular semantic theory of names- Millianism- the meaning of a name is its referent. On the face of it, presentism and Millianism are inconsistent: given that the name ‘Xanthippe’ is meaningful, Millianism implies that Xanthippe exists, contra presentism, and presentism implies that the meaning of ‘Xanthippe’ is not Xanthippe, contra Millianism.
In this talk I describe and assess some of the moves that can be made to try to reconcile presentism and Millianism. I conclude that the best prospect for reconciliation involves rejecting the principle that relations always require relata.
Daniel Deasy
According to a relatively popular metaphysical theory of time- presentism- wholly past objects such as Xanthippe no longer exist, and wholly future objects such as President Jones, the first president of Mars, don’t exist yet. According to a relatively popular semantic theory of names- Millianism- the meaning of a name is its referent. On the face of it, presentism and Millianism are inconsistent: given that the name ‘Xanthippe’ is meaningful, Millianism implies that Xanthippe exists, contra presentism, and presentism implies that the meaning of ‘Xanthippe’ is not Xanthippe, contra Millianism.
In this talk I describe and assess some of the moves that can be made to try to reconcile presentism and Millianism. I conclude that the best prospect for reconciliation involves rejecting the principle that relations always require relata.
Carnap vs New Tenseless Theory of Time
Florian Fischer
This talk is partly an historical exegesis of Carnap’s stance on time, and partly a systematic, Carnap inspired talk presenting a novel transcendental argument in favour of the A-theory of time. After the publication of Carnap’s works containing his thoughts about time and indexicals, the important switch from the old B-theory to the new tenseless theory of time (NTT) occurred, which led to the almost complete abandonment of the old B-theory. Carnap himself belongs among the old B-theorists, regarding indexicals as inessential and replaceable. Indeed, the NTT is neither compatible with Carnap’s beloved metaphysical neutrality thesis nor with his inter-translatability thesis, both of which he held throughout his career.
Even worse for Carnap, I try to show that his inter-translatability thesis cannot be held for every tensed sentence. Moritz Schlick famously and nearly without consequences at his time argued against the “meaninglossless” translation of tensed sentences into tenseless ones. As is well known, Carnap was not moved by Schlick’s arguments to abandon his inter-translatability thesis, but it has gone unnoticed, as far as I know, that Carnap underestimated the implications of his own findings in the context of the foundations of physics for the epistemology and even metaphysics of time. Based on Carnap’s explication of time measurement, I develop an argument for the A-theory, or more precisely I argue that there (must) exist some tensed sentences which cannot be translated into tenseless ones, since they are necessary for building a system of time and date indications, i.e. a B-time order. This argument is backed up by Russell’s later philosophy, an astonishing fact, as Russell was one of the central old B-theorists.
Florian Fischer
This talk is partly an historical exegesis of Carnap’s stance on time, and partly a systematic, Carnap inspired talk presenting a novel transcendental argument in favour of the A-theory of time. After the publication of Carnap’s works containing his thoughts about time and indexicals, the important switch from the old B-theory to the new tenseless theory of time (NTT) occurred, which led to the almost complete abandonment of the old B-theory. Carnap himself belongs among the old B-theorists, regarding indexicals as inessential and replaceable. Indeed, the NTT is neither compatible with Carnap’s beloved metaphysical neutrality thesis nor with his inter-translatability thesis, both of which he held throughout his career.
Even worse for Carnap, I try to show that his inter-translatability thesis cannot be held for every tensed sentence. Moritz Schlick famously and nearly without consequences at his time argued against the “meaninglossless” translation of tensed sentences into tenseless ones. As is well known, Carnap was not moved by Schlick’s arguments to abandon his inter-translatability thesis, but it has gone unnoticed, as far as I know, that Carnap underestimated the implications of his own findings in the context of the foundations of physics for the epistemology and even metaphysics of time. Based on Carnap’s explication of time measurement, I develop an argument for the A-theory, or more precisely I argue that there (must) exist some tensed sentences which cannot be translated into tenseless ones, since they are necessary for building a system of time and date indications, i.e. a B-time order. This argument is backed up by Russell’s later philosophy, an astonishing fact, as Russell was one of the central old B-theorists.
Beyond objectivity and subjectivity – the origin of ‘time’ in Heidegger
Maja Schepelman
According to the ancient distinction between kairos and chronos and polemical with Husserl and his presumed objectivity of so-called ‘cosmological’ time Heidegger focusses on kairological aspects of time.
They are pointed out as authentic features of what we call ‘time’ as far as our thinking of and reflecting on certain hermeneutical conditions of being in the world is concerned.
Heidegger claims that it is not justified and even might be not justifiable to identify chronos with scientific objectivity and kairos with subjectivity, mainly because this distinction itself might be a prejudice. These presuppositions as well as further ones in thinking of ‘time’ need to be suspended in sense of Husserls epoché.
Methodologically consistent but partly puzzling in terms he conceived of a phenomenological approach of how we ourselves create kairological time. Following Heidegger doing so is the condition sine qua non for any chronological features of time.
So Heidegger puts it the other way round: he treats chronological features of time as derivative aspects, useful in everyday life as well as in certain sciences – while there is a truth about ‘time’ which is only conceptually capable by analyzing the hermeneutic and existential conditions of being human in this world.
I will try to show that this approach of Heidegger’s develops the tradition of sceptical thinking in a peculiar way and that it might be useful to integrate some of his remarks into Philosophy of Science.
Maja Schepelman
According to the ancient distinction between kairos and chronos and polemical with Husserl and his presumed objectivity of so-called ‘cosmological’ time Heidegger focusses on kairological aspects of time.
They are pointed out as authentic features of what we call ‘time’ as far as our thinking of and reflecting on certain hermeneutical conditions of being in the world is concerned.
Heidegger claims that it is not justified and even might be not justifiable to identify chronos with scientific objectivity and kairos with subjectivity, mainly because this distinction itself might be a prejudice. These presuppositions as well as further ones in thinking of ‘time’ need to be suspended in sense of Husserls epoché.
Methodologically consistent but partly puzzling in terms he conceived of a phenomenological approach of how we ourselves create kairological time. Following Heidegger doing so is the condition sine qua non for any chronological features of time.
So Heidegger puts it the other way round: he treats chronological features of time as derivative aspects, useful in everyday life as well as in certain sciences – while there is a truth about ‘time’ which is only conceptually capable by analyzing the hermeneutic and existential conditions of being human in this world.
I will try to show that this approach of Heidegger’s develops the tradition of sceptical thinking in a peculiar way and that it might be useful to integrate some of his remarks into Philosophy of Science.
Forging the Axes of Time
Philosophy-of-time implications of a pragmatist account of change
Matthias Warkus
The usual account of change in analytical metaphysics holds that change is the difference in truth value between two propositions ascribing the same property to the same object at different times. This »Cambridge« concept of change have been debated for as long as analytical philosophy can be said to exist (and long before that). There is violent disagreement about nearly all of the prerequisites of this concept, about the boundary conditions that need to be introduced to make it a viable construal of lifeworld change, and about the more or less unfortunate implications for ontology in general.
I propose to do away with the account of change as change in truth values of propositions altogether, and to instead construe change as a (lifeworld or purely cognitive) act that, reflecting on a logically prior act, creates or destroys the possibility of a lifeworld action. Change, in this view, does not necessarily happen in time, and time is secondary to change. I propose that change (or changelike operations) implies and serves to create time (or various timelike axes), and that no abstract axis of time is required to meaningfully speak of change.
Philosophy-of-time implications of a pragmatist account of change
Matthias Warkus
The usual account of change in analytical metaphysics holds that change is the difference in truth value between two propositions ascribing the same property to the same object at different times. This »Cambridge« concept of change have been debated for as long as analytical philosophy can be said to exist (and long before that). There is violent disagreement about nearly all of the prerequisites of this concept, about the boundary conditions that need to be introduced to make it a viable construal of lifeworld change, and about the more or less unfortunate implications for ontology in general.
I propose to do away with the account of change as change in truth values of propositions altogether, and to instead construe change as a (lifeworld or purely cognitive) act that, reflecting on a logically prior act, creates or destroys the possibility of a lifeworld action. Change, in this view, does not necessarily happen in time, and time is secondary to change. I propose that change (or changelike operations) implies and serves to create time (or various timelike axes), and that no abstract axis of time is required to meaningfully speak of change.
