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- The Power to Change
- God and Time
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- The Metaphysics of Time and Modality
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- Time and Change
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- Tense vs Tenseless Theory
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International Workshop
The Now Now
30 November 2018
University of Siegen / Room: AR-HB 0122
The Now Now
30 November 2018
University of Siegen / Room: AR-HB 0122
Speakers
Donatella Donati (Nottingham)
Bahadir Eker (Tübingen)
Florian Fischer (Siegen)
Ramona Gerards (Bonn)
Matyas Moravec (University of Cambridge)
Eric Tremolanti (Lugano)
Donatella Donati (Nottingham)
Bahadir Eker (Tübingen)
Florian Fischer (Siegen)
Ramona Gerards (Bonn)
Matyas Moravec (University of Cambridge)
Eric Tremolanti (Lugano)
Program
|
10:15 -11:15
11:30 - 12:30 14:00 - 15:00 15:15 - 16:15 16:45 - 17:45 18:00 - 19:00 19:30 |
Ramona Gerards (Bonn) - Infinity. An Aristotelean Approach
Florian Fischer (Siegen) - Prior to Prior: How Moritz Schlick Made the Case for Indispensable Indexicals lunch break Eric Tremolanti (Lugano) - Where's the now, now? Moving Spotlight with Supertime and its limits Bahadir Eker (Tübingen) - Dynamic Absolutism and Qualitative Change Matyáš Moravec (Cambridge) - A Bergsonian Response to McTaggart’s Paradox Donatella Donati (Nottingham) - No Time for Powers Yet conference dinner |
Infinity. An Aristotelean Approach
Ramona Gerards (Bonn)
Potential infinity like Aristotle defined it, was believed until Cantor and Dedekind redefined infinity in an actual manner in mathematics. But I think it is interesting to reuse the concept of potential infinity and have a deeper look into the Physics to systematize the Aristotelian account of it. If you favour some metaphysical Aristotelian ideas like motion, the difference between actuality and potentiality and the importance of nature, you probably won't value mathematics in a way Cantor did. Therefore potential infinity winning persuasiveness. I argue that the concept of infinity used by Aristotle relies importantly on his idea of nature and the place mathematics plays in it. Especially it is useful when it comes to an account of time, which wants to stress that time flows. Time in an Aristotelian way is infinite, but it is more important to show how time could be understood with the characteristics of infinity I will work out.
Ramona Gerards (Bonn)
Potential infinity like Aristotle defined it, was believed until Cantor and Dedekind redefined infinity in an actual manner in mathematics. But I think it is interesting to reuse the concept of potential infinity and have a deeper look into the Physics to systematize the Aristotelian account of it. If you favour some metaphysical Aristotelian ideas like motion, the difference between actuality and potentiality and the importance of nature, you probably won't value mathematics in a way Cantor did. Therefore potential infinity winning persuasiveness. I argue that the concept of infinity used by Aristotle relies importantly on his idea of nature and the place mathematics plays in it. Especially it is useful when it comes to an account of time, which wants to stress that time flows. Time in an Aristotelian way is infinite, but it is more important to show how time could be understood with the characteristics of infinity I will work out.
Prior to Prior: How Moritz Schlick Made the Case for Indispensable Indexicals
Florian Fischer (Siegen)
The debate between A- and B-theory is one of the main areas of discourse in the philosophy of time. This debate circles around the linguistic reference to the present, typically formulated via the tense of a sentence. Famously Arthur Prior has argued in 1959 that tensed sentences and beliefs are important for our actions and that they not reducible to tenseless ones. 25 years earlier (1934) Moritz Schlick argued in a completely different context that the meaning of a tenseless sentence differs from the meaning of its tensed counterpart. In this talk I will compare both arguments and asses how similar they really are.
Florian Fischer (Siegen)
The debate between A- and B-theory is one of the main areas of discourse in the philosophy of time. This debate circles around the linguistic reference to the present, typically formulated via the tense of a sentence. Famously Arthur Prior has argued in 1959 that tensed sentences and beliefs are important for our actions and that they not reducible to tenseless ones. 25 years earlier (1934) Moritz Schlick argued in a completely different context that the meaning of a tenseless sentence differs from the meaning of its tensed counterpart. In this talk I will compare both arguments and asses how similar they really are.
Where's the now, now? Moving Spotlight with Supertime and its limits
Eric Tremolanti (Lugano)
The Moving Spotlight Theory of time (MST) may with some reason be said to be the black sheep of the metaphysics of time. Firstly formulated by one who did not believe in it (Broad, 1923), it now counts very few supporters, and even some of those who most struggle to nd a proper formulation of it do not actually defend it (Skow, 2015). In my talk, I am rstly going to point at what I think to be the main reasons of such disdain for the MST, then I will move on to consider one of the main versions of the theory that are currently discussed, namely the MST with Supertime. I will present the theory as it is sketched in Skow (2015) in great detail, by applying the tools of formal temporal logic, and I will thereafter focus on its crucial weaknesses. I hope to show that, even if MST with supertime is perhaps the worst version of MST, it also is the best place to start in order to fully appreciate the fundamental intuitions at the basis of MST itself, and I will conclude pointing at some possible ways to better develop the theory.
References
[1] C.D. Broad, Scienti c Thought, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1923
[2] B. Skow, Objective Becoming, OUP, Oxford 2015
Eric Tremolanti (Lugano)
The Moving Spotlight Theory of time (MST) may with some reason be said to be the black sheep of the metaphysics of time. Firstly formulated by one who did not believe in it (Broad, 1923), it now counts very few supporters, and even some of those who most struggle to nd a proper formulation of it do not actually defend it (Skow, 2015). In my talk, I am rstly going to point at what I think to be the main reasons of such disdain for the MST, then I will move on to consider one of the main versions of the theory that are currently discussed, namely the MST with Supertime. I will present the theory as it is sketched in Skow (2015) in great detail, by applying the tools of formal temporal logic, and I will thereafter focus on its crucial weaknesses. I hope to show that, even if MST with supertime is perhaps the worst version of MST, it also is the best place to start in order to fully appreciate the fundamental intuitions at the basis of MST itself, and I will conclude pointing at some possible ways to better develop the theory.
References
[1] C.D. Broad, Scienti c Thought, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1923
[2] B. Skow, Objective Becoming, OUP, Oxford 2015
Dynamic Absolutism and Qualitative Change
Bahadir Eker (Tübingen)
According to Kit Fine’s famous version of the infamous McTaggartian paradox, realism about tensed facts is incompatible with the joint acceptence of three very general and seemingly plausible theses about reality. Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz have recently objected that Fine’s argument depends on a crucial assumption about the nature of tensed facts; once that assumption is given up, they claim, realists can endorse the theses in question without further ado. I argue in this paper that Correia and Rosenkranz’s proposal does not constitute a genuine alternative response to Fine’s McTaggartian argument.
Bahadir Eker (Tübingen)
According to Kit Fine’s famous version of the infamous McTaggartian paradox, realism about tensed facts is incompatible with the joint acceptence of three very general and seemingly plausible theses about reality. Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz have recently objected that Fine’s argument depends on a crucial assumption about the nature of tensed facts; once that assumption is given up, they claim, realists can endorse the theses in question without further ado. I argue in this paper that Correia and Rosenkranz’s proposal does not constitute a genuine alternative response to Fine’s McTaggartian argument.
A Bergsonian Response to McTaggart’s Paradox
Matyáš Moravec (Cambridge)
The aim of my paper is to provide a hypothetical response to McTaggart’s paradox that Henri Bergson would have written. Due to a series of unfortunate historical coincidences, Bergson and McTaggart – unlike some of their followers – never interacted with each other’s work. Nevertheless, I will argue that the framework of Bergson’s philosophy, with its key concepts of “la durée” and “spatialised time,” can respond to McTaggart’s paradox from the “Unreality of Time” (1908) and its later elaboration in The Nature of Existence (1927). Furthermore, I will demonstrate that a closer attention to fundamental concepts in both McTaggart’s and Bergson’s thought can show that, on the one hand, many analytic philosophers have been mistaken in categorising Bergson as holding an A-theory of time and, on the other hand, that Bergson’s philosophical framework can accommodate McTaggart’s B-series. Finally, I suggest that whereas McTaggart reached the conclusion that time is unreal, a reading of Bergson’s philosophy through the lens of McTaggart’s argument can demonstrate that there are in fact two “real” times – the Real Time of la durée (Bergson) and the “Real Time” (Mellor) of the B-series.
Matyáš Moravec (Cambridge)
The aim of my paper is to provide a hypothetical response to McTaggart’s paradox that Henri Bergson would have written. Due to a series of unfortunate historical coincidences, Bergson and McTaggart – unlike some of their followers – never interacted with each other’s work. Nevertheless, I will argue that the framework of Bergson’s philosophy, with its key concepts of “la durée” and “spatialised time,” can respond to McTaggart’s paradox from the “Unreality of Time” (1908) and its later elaboration in The Nature of Existence (1927). Furthermore, I will demonstrate that a closer attention to fundamental concepts in both McTaggart’s and Bergson’s thought can show that, on the one hand, many analytic philosophers have been mistaken in categorising Bergson as holding an A-theory of time and, on the other hand, that Bergson’s philosophical framework can accommodate McTaggart’s B-series. Finally, I suggest that whereas McTaggart reached the conclusion that time is unreal, a reading of Bergson’s philosophy through the lens of McTaggart’s argument can demonstrate that there are in fact two “real” times – the Real Time of la durée (Bergson) and the “Real Time” (Mellor) of the B-series.
Venue
University of Siegen
Room: AR-HB 0122
Campus Adolf-Reichwein-Straße
Adolf-Reichwein-Straße 2
57076 Siegen
University of Siegen
Room: AR-HB 0122
Campus Adolf-Reichwein-Straße
Adolf-Reichwein-Straße 2
57076 Siegen
Organisation
Florian Fischer
Florian Fischer