Fundamentality and Time’s Arrow

Loew, Christian

doi:10.1086/697748

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 33 publications

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“…Maudlin argues that his own B‐theoretic metaphysics explains such microscopic atypicality away by holding systems to ‘really’ evolve forwards and not backwards in time: microscopic atypicality is ‘completely accounted for by how it was generated or produced […via] evolution from [the] initial state’ (p. 133), something not available to the C‐theorist, since ‘[t]his sort of explanation requires that there be a fact about which states produce which[, which] is provided by a direction of time’ (p. 134; emphases added). See Loewer (2012) and Farr (2020a) for responses to Maudlin, and Loew (2018) for a defence.…”

Section: Three Motivations For C‐theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

C‐theories of time: On the adirectionality of time

Farr

2020

Philosophy Compass

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The universe is expanding, not contracting. " Many statements of this form appear unambiguously true; after all, the discovery of the universe's expansion is one of the great triumphs of empirical science. However, the statement is time-directed: the universe expands towards what we call the future; it contracts towards the past. If we deny that time has a direction, should we also deny that the universe is really expanding? This article draws together and discusses what I call 'C-theories' of time-in short, philosophical positions that hold time lacks a direction-from different areas of the literature. I set out the various motivations, aims, and problems for C-theories, and outline different versions of antirealism about the direction of time.

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Section: Three Motivations For C‐theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

C‐theories of time: On the adirectionality of time

Farr

2020

Philosophy Compass

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Dated Truths Without Dated Powers

Giannini,

Donati

2024

Erkenn

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Dispositionalism is the theory of modality according to which all (metaphysical and natural) modal truths are made true by some actual irreducibly dispositional property. The relationship between Dispositionalism and time is yet to be satisfactorily explored. In this paper we contribute to this task by examining how Dispositionalism deals with ‘dated truths’: propositions involving a specific time, e.g. “It might rain at 12.30”. We examine two possible accounts: the first, 'Dated Manifestations Strategy', is the idea that powers are very fine-grained, and tend towards temporally very specific manifestations. We argue that such strategy should not be adopted, for it leads to unnecessary violations of ontological parsimony; it is unable to accommodate an ontology of platonic universals; and it is incapable of offering a principled explanation of the forward-looking nature of powers. We offer an alternative account, the "Duration Strategy", which relies on an independently determined arrow of time and the existence of some “duration facts” that specify how long a power takes to bring about its manifestation. We argue that the Duration Strategy is to be preferred. We then flesh out the account by exploring the connection between powers, duration facts, and processes.

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A puzzle about laws and explanation

Jaag

2021

Synthese

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In this paper, we argue that the popular claim that laws of nature explain their instances (explanatory laws) creates a philosophical puzzle when it is combined with the widely held requirement that explanations need to be underpinned by ‘wordly’ relations (explanatory realism). We argue that a “direct solution” to the puzzle that accounts for both explanatory laws and explanatory realism requires endorsing at least a radical metaphysics. Then, we examine the ramifications of a “skeptical solution”, i.e., dissolving it by giving up at least one of these two claims, and argue that adopting it is more favorable to Humean reductionists than to anti-reductionists about laws of nature.

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Fundamentality and Time’s Arrow

Cited by 4 publications

References 33 publications

C‐theories of time: On the adirectionality of time

C‐theories of time: On the adirectionality of time

Dated Truths Without Dated Powers

A puzzle about laws and explanation

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