The Philosophy of Time (Oxford Readings in Philosophy)

Rating:
Summary: A fine collection.
Review: This is an excellent collection of readings on the philosophy of time. The contents include twelve essays by twelve different philosophers (including the editors of the volume) -- the very first of which is taken from the famous thirty-third chapter of John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart's _The Nature of Existence_. (Originally entitled "Time," the chapter is here retitled "The Unreality of Time.")

I remarked in my review of that book that McTaggart's argument has been tried and found wanting, but one important partial exception is featured in this volume: D.H. Mellor's piece "The Unreality of Tense." Mellor does not, indeed, accept McTaggart's conclusion that time itself is "unreal," but he does take McTaggart to have provided a successful argument for a "tenseless" theory of time. (Mellor's piece is a revision of chapter 6 of his book _Real Time_ -- the first edition, I presume.)

The other essays range over a wide variety of topics, from David Lewis's "The Paradoxes of Time Travel" to Michael Dummet's "Bringing About The Past," from whether time really "passes" or not and whether the nature of time is a philosophical or an empirical question to whether time has a beginning and whether change is real. I shall not try to comment on them all.

But the selections are excellent and the collection as a whole is very thorough. In short, this a fine set of readings for anyone with time on his hands.