The language and reality of time

233 Pages·2006·0.797 MB·English

by  Sattig, Thomas

THE LANGUAGE AND REALITY OF TIME
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The Language
and Reality of Time
THOMAS SATTIG
CLARENDONPRESS·OXFORD
1
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Sattig,Thomas.
Thelanguageandrealityoftime/ThomasSattig.
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Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1. Time. I. Title.
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Acknowledgements
MostofthisbookwaswrittenwhileIwasaBritishAcademyPostdoctoral
FellowandaJuniorResearchFellowofBrasenoseCollege,Oxford.Ithank
the British Academy and the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College
fortheirsupport.
For valuable comments on the material presented in this book I am
grateful to a number of people. I am most indebted to Tim Williamson,
who supervised the doctoral thesis that forms the origin of this book,
andwhoaccompaniedthebook’sprogresswithstimulatinginsights.Iam
also grateful to Jeremy Butterfield, Kit Fine, Graeme Forbes, Jonathan
Lowe,KrisMcDaniel,HughMellor,AdrianMoore,CalvinNormore,Josh
Parsons,OliverPooley,GonzaloRodriguez-Pereyra,NickShea,NicoSilins,
Barry Smith, Stephen G. Williams, Dean Zimmerman, and participants
in graduate classes I gave with Jeremy Butterfield at Oxford University.
I am especially grateful to Thomas Crisp, Heather Dyke, and Ted Sider
for extensive comments on the entire manuscript. Further, I thank Peter
Momtchiloff for his interest and encouragement, and Ahlie Schaubel for
beingthere.
Section5.5 draws on material previously published in my ‘Temporal
PredicationwithTemporalPartsandTemporalCounterparts’,Australasi-
an Journal of Philosophy, 81 (2003), 355–68, by permission of Oxford
University Press. Section6.3 contains material from my ‘Temporal Parts
andComplexPredicates’,ProceedingsoftheAristotelianSociety,102(2002),
279–86,bypermissionoftheEditoroftheAristotelianSocietyProceedings.
T.S.
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Contents
Introduction 1
1. TemporalSupervenience 5
1.1. TemporalLanguage 5
1.2. TemporalReality 17
1.3. TemporalSupervenience 24
1.4. TheProblemsofChange 32
1.5. A-time,B-time,andSpacetime 34
1.6. SupervenienceandRelativity 41
2. Three-DimensionalismandFour-Dimensionalism 47
2.1. ObjectsinSpacetime 47
2.2. TemporalPartsandTemporalCounterparts 52
2.3. EndurantismandPerdurantism 57
2.4. EternalismandPresentism 62
3. TemporalPredicationandSupervenienceFailure 66
3.1. TheRelationalAccount 66
3.2. RelationalSupervenienceFailure 70
3.3. TheIntensionalAccount 77
3.4. IntensionalSupervenienceFailure 86
3.5. Adverbialism 91
4. Four-DimensionalistSupervenience 97
4.1. TheTemporal-partsAccount 97
4.2. TemporalandModalSupervenience 111
4.3. SpatialSupervenienceandSpace–TimeAsymmetry 117
4.4. ExtremeFour-DimensionalismandOntological
Parsimony 129
4.5. PredicationalOverkill 135
4.6. TheTemporal-counterpartsAccount 156
5. Three-DimensionalistSupervenience 163
5.1. TheTemporal-regionsAccount 163
5.2. TheStatusofRegionalInstantiation 169