Why Special Relativity is a Problem for the A-Theory

Philosophical Quarterly 70 (279):385-406 (2019)
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Abstract

Neither special nor general relativity make any use of a notion of absolute simultaneity. Since A-Theories about time do make use of such a notion, it is natural to suspect that relativity and A-Theory are inconsistent. Many authors have argued that they are in fact not inconsistent, and I agree with that diagnosis here. But that doesn’t mean, as these authors seem to think, that A-Theory and relativity are happy bedfellows. I argue that relativity gives us good reason to reject the A-Theory, even though strict inconsistency isn’t that reason.

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Jason Turner
University of Arizona

Citations of this work

Relativity and the A-theory.Antony Eagle - 2022 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 86–98.
Temporal quantifier relativism.Peter Finocchiaro - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
Relativism and Two Kinds of Branching Time.Dilip Ninan - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (2):465-492.

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References found in this work

Four Dimensionalism.Theodore Sider - 1997 - Philosophical Review 106 (2):197-231.
The unreality of time.John Ellis McTaggart - 1908 - Mind 17 (68):457-474.
Scientific Thought.C. D. Broad - 1923 - Paterson, N.J.,: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
The Moving Spotlight: An Essay on Time and Ontology.Ross P. Cameron - 2015 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Time, Tense, and Causation.Michael Tooley - 1997 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

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