Time, Space, and Metaphysics

by Bede Rundle

Overview

Time, Space, and Metaphysics engages with major philosophical questions concerning time and space, a framework for the investigation being provided by the debate between the absolutists and the relationists, so between Newton and Leibniz, and their followers. The investigation brings to the fore questions of the nature and reality of time and space, and leads on to more recent debates, such as those relating to anti-realism, time travel, temporal parts, geometry, convention, and the infinitude of time and space. These in turn raise more general issues, issues involving such concepts as those of identity, objectivity, causation, facts, and verifiability. Their examination falls within metaphysics, thought of as the investigation and analysis of fundamental philosophical concepts, but there is also metaphysics of a more contentious character, where the subject-matter is provided by propositions which transcend what can be known either through experience or by pure reasoning. In this connection, a central aim is to show how, without dismissing them as nonsensical, we may arrive at a fruitful interpretation of such propositions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199575114
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/13/2009
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bede Rundle is an Emeritus Fellow in Philosophy at Trinity College, Oxford. Educated in New Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington and at Oxford, he has been a Junior Research Fellow at the Queen's College, Oxford, and has held visiting appointments in North America.

Table of Contents

1. Conceptions of Time and Space2. Time, Order, and Direction3. Time and Tense4. Observer-Dependence5. The Past6. The Future7. Grammar and Ontology8. Equality of time intervals9. Temporal asymmetries10. Space11. Time and ChangeReferences