The Modal Dimension

Space and time are two obvious candidates as dimensions of reality. Yet, are they the only two dimensions of reality? Famously, David Lewis maintained the doctrine o

Time Travel and the Immutability of the Past within B-Theoretical Models

The goal of this paper is to defend the general tenet that time travelers cannot change the past within B-theoretical models of time, independently of how many temporal dimensions there are. Baron Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98, 129–147 offered a strong argument intended to reach this general conclusion. However, his argument does not cover a peculiar case, i.e. a B-theoretical one-dimensional model of time that allows for the presence of internal times. Loss Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96, 1–11 used the latter model to argue that time travelers can change the past within such model. We show a way to debunk Loss’s argument, so that the general tenet about the impossibility of changing the past within B-theoretical models is maintained

Materiality, Parthood, and Possibility

This paper offers an argument in favour of a Lewisian version of concretism that maintains both the principle of material inheritance (according to which, if all the parts of an object x are material, then x is material) and the materiality-modality link (that is, the principle that, for every x, if x is material, then x is possible)

The moving spotlight(s)

The moving spotlight account (MS) is a view that combines an eternalist ontology and an A-theoretic metaphysics. The intuition underlying MS is that the present time is somehow privileged and experientially vivid, as if it were illuminated by a moving spotlight. According to MS-theorists, a key reason to prefer MS to B-theoretic eternalism is that our experience of time supports it. We argue that this is false. To this end, we formulate a new family of positions in the philosophy of time, which differ from MS in that, intuitively, they admit a plurality of moving spotlights. We argue that these \u2018deviant\u2019 variants of MS cannot be dismissed as conceptually incoherent, and that they are as well-supported by our experience as is MS. One of these variants, however, is consistent with the B-theory. Thus, if our experience of time supports MS, then it supports the B-theory as well

The Identity of Indiscernibles and the Principle of No co-location

version de travailwe propose a revised version of Black's original argument against the principle of identity of indiscernibles. Our aim is to examine a puzzle regarding the intuitiveness of arguments, by showing that the revised version is clearly less intuitive than Black's original one, and appears to be unjustified by our ordinary means of assessment of intuitions

The Myth of Presentism’s Intuitive Appeal

Presentism, the view that only what’s present exists, seems to be intuitively very appealing. The intuitive appeal of presentism constitutes a main reason for treating the view as a serious option and worthy of consideration. In this paper, I argue that the appearance of presentism’s intuitiveness is based upon a series of misconceptions

Yet Another Confusion About Time Travel

I argue that, contrary to an idea to be found in popularizations of time travel, one cannot more easily multiply oneself by taking younger versions of oneself back in time than by travelling back in time on one\u2019s own. The reason is that the suggested multiplication of the traveller is, from a global perspective, only apparen