Philosophy of Time:
A great many other “flowings” or “fluxes” or “relations” acquire
their privileged directionality (their asymmetry) from the arrow of
time. How then does time acquire its direction? This seems to be a
very puzzling question. (C.G. Weaver)
Lecture One handout – Debates About Time Oliver Pooley [pdf]
What is the extent of reality? Putnam (1967) suggests that the ‘man on the street’s’
view of the nature of time involves a commitment to the claim that “All (and
only) things that exist now are real”. This is presentism: all that exists is what
exists now. An alternative view is eternalism: all events, whether past, present
or future, are on the same ontological footing; they are all equally real. A third
possibility is that the past and present are real, while the future is not. This third
option is a component in a dynamic view of time championed by Broad (1923)
and Tooley (1997), often called the ‘growing block universe view’.
Metaphysics:
The A-Theory of Time, The B-Theory of Time, and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’ Dean W. Zimmerman [pdf]
Presentism and Eternalism in Perspective Steven F. Savitt [pdf]
