Amphithéâtre Maurice Halbwachs, Site Marcelin Berthelot
Open to all
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Abstract

This paper presents a new temporal ontology, to compete with presentism, eternalism, etc. Like moving spotlight theory, wave theory says (i) that there exist four-dimensional hunks of matter and (ii) the world is fundamentally tensed. However, everyday objects (you, me, everyone we know) are three-dimensional objects constituted by the presently existing instantaneous slices of the four-dimensional hunks (in the same way that some believe lumps constitute statues). This theory is to be recommended because: (i) it has the relevant truthmakers (unlike presentism); (ii) there are no non-present people and so it doesn't have moving spotlight's epistemic issues; (iii) we can capture the literal movement of objects through time.

Nikk Effingham

Nikk Effingham

Nikk Effingham is Reader at the University of Birmingham. His research specialisations are metaphysics (in particular properties, material objects, the philosophy of time, and time travel) and the philosophy of religion. His book, Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2020.

Speaker(s)

Nikk Effingham

University of Birmingham