Philosophy of Mind Workshop 2006-05-04
Lowe on McTaggart's Argument for the Unreality of Time
Last night, Jay and I presented some material on McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time. What follows is part of what we talked about.McTaggart’s Argument1. Time essentially involves change. 2. Change can only be explained in terms of A-series expressions.3. A-series expressions involve contradiction and so cannot describe reality.4. So time is unreal. Lowe wants to resist (4). He does so by denying (3). But his denial of (3) requires altering McTaggart’s account of (2) to explain how change can only be explained in terms of A-series expressions. Lowe’s argument can therefore be broken down into two parts. Part I: Denying that A-series expressions involve contradiction. Part II: explaining how change essentially involves A-series expressions. PART I: Denying that A-series expressions involve contradiction1. McTaggart’s argument for (3) involves the following claims: a. The predicates “is past”, “is present” and ...
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