Causal Order, Temporal Order, and the Asymmetry of Time
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 96
ISBN-13:
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The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation
Author: Alison Fernandes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2023-06-01
Total Pages: 153
ISBN-13: 1108906621
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCauses always seem to come prior to their effects. What might explain this asymmetry? Causation's temporal asymmetry isn't straightforwardly due to a temporal asymmetry in the laws of nature—the laws are, by and large, temporally symmetric. Nor does the asymmetry appear due to an asymmetry in time itself. This Element examines recent empirical attempts to explain the temporal asymmetry of causation: statistical mechanical accounts, agency accounts and fork asymmetry accounts. None of these accounts are complete yet and a full explanation of the temporal asymmetry of causation will likely require contributions from all three programs.
Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Time and Space
Author: Michael Futch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2008-04-05
Total Pages: 223
ISBN-13: 1402082371
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLeibniz’s metaphysics of space and time stands at the centre of his philosophy and is one of the high-water marks in the history of the philosophy of science. In this work, Futch provides the first systematic and comprehensive examination of Leibniz’s thought on this subject. In addition to elucidating the nature of Leibniz’s relationalism, the book fills a lacuna in existing scholarship by examining his views on the topological structure of space and time, including the unity and unboundedness of space and time. It is shown that, like many of his more recent counterparts, Leibniz adopts a causal theory of time where temporal facts are grounded on causal facts, and that his approach to time represents a precursor to non-tensed theories of time. Futch then goes on to situate Leibniz’s philosophy of space and time within the broader context of his idealistic metaphysics and natural theology. Emphasizing the historical background of Leibniz’s thought, the book also places him in dialogue with contemporary philosophy of science, underscoring the enduring philosophical interest of Leibniz’s metaphysics of time and space.
Change, Cause and Contradiction
Author: Robin Le
Publisher: Springer
Published: 1990-11-23
Total Pages: 170
ISBN-13: 134921146X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAsymmetries In Time
Author: Paul Horwich
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1987-04-01
Total Pages: 235
ISBN-13: 0262580888
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTime is generally thought to be one of the more mysterious ingredients of the universe. In this intriguing book, Paul Horwich makes precise and explicit the interrelationships between time and a large number of philosophically important notions. Ideas of temporal order and priority interact in subtle and convoluted ways with the deepest elements in our network of basic concepts. Confronting this conceptual jigsaw puzzle, Horwich notes that there are glaring differences in how we regard the past and future directions of time. For example, we can influence the future but not the past, and can easily gain knowledge of the past but not of the future. Moreover we see a profusion of decay processes but little spontaneous generation of order; time appears to "flow" in one privileged direction, not the other; and we tend to explain phenomena in terms of antecedent circumstances, rather than subsequent ones. Horwich explains such time asymmetries and examines their bearing on the nature of time itself. Asymmetries in Time covers many notoriously difficult problems in the philosophy of science: causation, knowledge, entropy, explanation, time travel, rational choice (including Newcomb's problem), laws of nature, and counterfactual implication—and gives a unified treatment of these matters. The book covers an unusually broad range of topics in a lucid and nontechnical way and includes alternative points of view in the philosophical literature.
Time: A Philosophical Analysis
Author: T. Chapman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 181
ISBN-13: 9400979045
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is intended as an exposition of a particular theory of time in the sense of an interrelated set of attempted solutions to philosophical problems about it. Generally speaking there are two views about time held by philosophers and some scientists interested in philosophical issues. The first called the A-theory (after McTaggart's expression A-determinations for the properties of being past, present or future) is often thought to be closer to our commonsense view of time or to the concept of time presupposed by ordinary language. It includes at least the following theses, (a) Logic ought really to include tensed quantifiers for existence on one of its important usages means, present existence. More generally, we can't reduce all tensed locutions to tenseless ones. (b) The distinction between past, present and future is an objective one. It is not, for example, dependent on our consciousness of change; some A-theorists hold also, that the distinction, in effect, is an absolute one.
Temporal Asymmetries in Philosophy and Psychology
Author: Christoph Hoerl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022-02-24
Total Pages: 315
ISBN-13: 0192607847
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHumans' attitudes towards an event often vary depending on whether the event has already happened or has yet to take place. The dread felt at the thought of a forthcoming exam turns into relief once it is over. Recent research in psychology also shows that people value past events less than future ones, such as offering less pay for work already carried out than for the same work to be carried out in the future. This volume brings together philosophers and psychologists with a shared interest in such psychological past/future asymmetries. It asks questions such as: What different kinds of psychological past/future asymmetries are there, and how are they related? Under what conditions do humans exhibit them? To what extent do they reflect features of time itself, or particular beliefs people have about time? Are they rational, or at least rationally permissible, or should we aspire to being temporally neutral? What exactly does temporal neutrality consist of?
Causality and time: from relativity to quantum physics
Author: Marino Dobrowolny
Publisher: Youcanprint
Published: 2017-02-09
Total Pages: 160
ISBN-13: 8892649299
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book provides a description of the evolution of the concepts of causality and time through modern physics considering first relativity theories and them quantum mechanics. Relativity, at least in the form given by Einstein, denies reality of past, present and future and does not indicate a time direction. On the other hand a time direction is indicated by all the phenomena we observe including our own existence. Quantum mechanics seems to indicate a different story. It is argued that, because of its non deterministic character, it is capable to indicate an objective time direction. This occurs through the phenomena of wave function collapse and entanglement which are discussed at length.
Chance and Temporal Asymmetry
Author: Alastair Wilson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 307
ISBN-13: 019967342X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume presents twelve original essays on the metaphysics of science, with particular focus on the physics of chance and time. Experts in the field subject familiar approaches to searching critiques, and make bold new proposals in a number of key areas. Together, they set the agenda for future work on the subject.
Three Concepts of Time
Author: K. G. Denbigh
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 185
ISBN-13: 3642680828
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe existence of so many strangely puzzling, even contradictory, aspects of 'time' is due, I think, to the fact that we obtain our ideas about temporal succession from more than one source - from inner experience, on the one side, and from the physical world on the other. 'Time' is thus a composite notion and as soon as we distinguish clearly between the ideas deriving from the different sources it becomes apparent that there is not just one time-concept but several. Perhaps they should be called variants, but in any case they need to be seen as distinct. In this book I shall aim at characteri sing what I believe to be the three most basic of them. These form a sort of hierarchy of increasing richness, but diminishing symmetry. Any adequate inquiry into 'time' is necessarily partly scientific and partly philosophical. This creates a difficulty since what may be elementary reading to scientists may not be so to philosophers, and vice versa. For this reason I have sought to present the book at a level which is less 'advanced' than that of a specialist monograph. Due to my own background there is an inevitable bias towards the scientific aspects oftime. Certainly the issues I have taken up are very diffe rent from those discussed in several recent books on the subject by philoso phers.
