Dear all,
This Thursday (18 Feb) at the Serious Metaphysics Group, Hugh Mellor will be speaking on Growing Block Theories of Time, abstract below. (This is different to what's advertised on the website - a last-minute change had to happen due to unforeseen issues. Simona Aimar will be speaking on March 3 instead.) Same time, same place, - 1.00-2.30pm, Philosophy faculty board room. Best wishes, Li Li ABSTRACT C. D. Broad presented the growing block theory of time in his 1923 _Scientific Thought_ as an alternative to J. Ellis McTaggart's A-theory of the direction of time in his 1908 'The Unreality of Time'. Broad and his successors must therefore link the direction in which their blocks grow to those of time's other 'arrows', in particular to that of causation. After sketching the first serious successor to Broad's theory, that of J. L. Mackie's 1974 _The Cement of the Universe,_ I turn to the most comprehensive and best-argued causally-based growing block theory to date, that of Michael Tooley's 1997 _Time, Tense, and Causation_. After making the best case for it that I can, I conclude by listing the three main challenges I think his and other growing block theories still face: those posed by modern physics, the indexicality of the present, and an analogue of McTaggart's disproof of the reality of his A series. -- Li Li Tan PhD (Probationary) in Philosophy St Catharine's College _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
