Recent Trends in the Philosophy of Time: an Introduction to Time and Reality I

Abstract

This essay is an introduction to Time and Reality I, the first part of a special issue dedicated to the philosophy of time. Here I outline a number of new trends in philosophical theorizing about time, detailing how the various contributions fit into the picture. I argue that there has been a potentially misleading tendency to separate the debate over the passage of time from the debate over the reality of tense. This has obscured a number of interesting philosophical questions. One of the aims of this volume is to bring these two issues together, where they belong. I argue that many contributions to it go in the right direction. The contributions to this volume also establish uncharted philosophical junctures between Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Morality, and the Philosophy of Mind.

Three Levels of Modeling: Static (Structure/Trajectories of Flow), Dynamic (Events) and Behavioral (Chronology of Events)

“…In TM, a thing has no other place to be besides the five generic stages. Note that this definition is inspired by Russell's definition of motion as occupying different places at different times [25]. Adopting this theory (used to solve Zeno's paradoxes [25]), the arrows in Fig.…”

“…Note that this definition is inspired by Russell's definition of motion as occupying different places at different times [25]. Adopting this theory (used to solve Zeno's paradoxes [25]), the arrows in Fig. 2 have no corresponding events (times), as they do not denote transitions.…”