Topics Time

Question Why are philosophers concerned with the nature of time? Isn't this a scientific subject?

Accepted:
May 12, 2011

Comments

Good question. But why can't it be both scientific and philosophical? Much of the philosophy of time -- dating back long before serious scientific investigation on time (which I'll arbitrarily date to 17th century or so) -- involves reflection on our conscious experience of temporality -- and most of that reflection still is valuable and insightful even as science has progressed to very different understandings of the nature of time ... So there's still plenty of room to philosophize about time, about our experience of time, even INDEPENDENT of whatever's going on in science ....

best,

Here are some questions about time that are not scientific but are philosophical. Does time flow? Does it pass? What does it pass? Does it move? If so, how fast? If speed (s) = d/t, what is d/t when s is the speed of time? What temporal distance does time travel in a unit time? Surely the unity distance. But then the speed of time is 1 sec. per sec. How can time be measured, as the past does not exist and the future does not exist and the present is merely a point - nothing to measure there! - dividing the past and future? Does time exist? What (if anything) is it made of? Is time travel possible? In a completely unchanging universe, would time pass anyway? If every true statement corresponds to a fact, how can statements about the future be true now, in the present, as there are no facts about the future now, in the present? If there were, they wouldn't be future. Does it mean anything to say that time has a direction? What does it mean? If omelets came first and then eggs afterwards, time would surely still be going forwards, whatever that means; it's just that omelets would come first and eggs afterwards. And (as Andrew points out) how - in what way - do we experience time? This last question, though, might be thought to have a wholly psychological sense. Perhaps there is no such thing as the experience of time itself, but only of things changing. Would there be any difference in our experience of the world if we did not experience time as such? In fact the conceptual problems of time are interesting partly because so little in the way of answers can be extracted from science. In "Time and Physical Geometry" (1967) Hilary Putnam took the view that science gives the answer to problems about time. Science tells us that the death of Mr. A. is earlier in your reference frame than the death of Mr. A in my reference frame. That leaves a huge philosophical problem about the place of Mr. A's death in reality. One can see how simultaneity is relative to a reference frame, but it is much harder, if not impossible, for philosophical reasons, to see how the reality of something like Mr. A's death could be taken relative to a reference frame. But this is implied by its position in the temporal order.

Question Why are philosophers concerned with the nature of time? Isn't this a scientific subject? Accepted:May 12, 2011

Question Why are philosophers concerned with the nature of time? Isn't this a scientific subject?

Accepted:
May 12, 2011