Free US delivery on orders $35 or over

The Growing-Block View

Philosophy of Time, Change, and the Open Future

The Growing-Block View cover

The Growing-Block View

Philosophy of Time, Change, and the Open Future

Description

What makes time interesting and what is time? Graeme A. Forbes presents a robust defence of the metaphysical asymmetry between past and future, providing a compelling argument for the acceptance of the Growing-Block view.

Taking us from the armchair to philosophy of physics, and then out to the human world Forbes considers the ontological questions that have been the focus of most of the literature on the metaphysics of time.

Across three parts, he addresses questions central to the philosophy of time. Part I asks why we should think that time does something that space does not; Part II examines why we should think that the past differs in some metaphysically interesting way from the future and Part III shows why we should accept the Growing-Block view – the view on which the past exists, the future doesn't, and the passage of time is causation bringing about events in accordance with the laws of nature.

This wide-ranging and engaging exploration of persistence, experience, agency, and more, makes a radical contribution to our understanding of the philosophy of time.

Table of Contents

Preface
Part I: Change
1. McTChange and Temporal Variation
2. Experience of McTchange
3. Enduring McTchange
4. The Science of McTchange
5. Relativity and McTchange
Part II: The Arrow of Time
6. Time, entropy, memory, and causation
7. Agency, fate, and the open future
8. Thank Goodness That's Over!
Part III: The Growing Block
9. Temporal Ontology
10. The Growing-Block view
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published May 15 2025
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Extent 320
ISBN 9781350504295
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 7 bw illus
Series Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Graeme A. Forbes

Graeme A Forbes is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at…

Related Titles

Environment: Staging