Time and Identity (Topics in Contemporary Philosophy)

✍ Scribed by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, Harry S. Silverstein

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 339
• Series: Topics in Contemporary Philosophy
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The concepts of time and identity seem at once unproblematic and frustratingly difficult. Time is an intricate part of our experience—it would seem that the passage of time is a prerequisite for having any experience at all—and yet recalcitrant questions about time remain. Is time real? Does time flow? Do past and future moments exist? Philosophers face similarly stubborn questions about identity, particularly about the persistence of identical entities through change. Indeed, questions about the metaphysics of persistence take on many of the complexities inherent in philosophical considerations of time. This volume of original essays brings together these two essentially related concepts in a way not reflected in the available literature, making it required reading for philosophers working in metaphysics and students interested in these topics. The contributors, distinguished authors and rising scholars, first consider the nature of time and then turn to the relation of identity, focusing on the metaphysical connections between the two, with a special emphasis on personal identity. The volume concludes with essays on the metaphysics of death, issues in which time and identity play a significant role. This groundbreaking collection offers both cutting-edge epistemological analysis and historical perspectives on contemporary topics. Contributors : H. E. Baber, Lynne Rudder Baker, Ben Bradley, John W. Carroll, Reinaldo Elugardo, Geoffrey Gorham, Mark Hinchliff, Jenann Ismael, Barbara Levenbook, Andrew Light, Lawrence B. Lombard, Ned Markosian, Harold Noonan, John Perry, Harry S. Silverstein, Matthew H. Slater, Robert J. Stainton, Neil A. Tognazzini Topics in Contemporary Philosophy

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 8
Introduction: Framing the Problems of Time and Identity......Page 10
I Time......Page 34
1 Temporal Reality......Page 36
2 Time for a Change: A Polemic against the Presentism–Eternalism Debate......Page 58
3 Context, Conditionals, Fatalism, Time Travel, and Freedom......Page 88
4 The Identity of the Past......Page 104
II Identity......Page 120
5 Identity through Change and Substitutivity Salva Veritate......Page 122
6 Identifying the Problem of Personal Identity......Page 138
7 Persistence and Responsibility......Page 158
8 Descartes on Persistence and Temporal Parts......Page 174
III The Self......Page 192
9 Persons, Animals, and Human Beings......Page 194
10 Me, Again......Page 218
11 Selves and Self-Concepts......Page 238
12 Ex Ante Desire and Post Hoc Satisfaction......Page 258
IV Death......Page 278
13 Eternalism and Death’s Badness......Page 280
14 The Time of the Evil of Death......Page 292
15 The Retroactivity Problem......Page 306
16 Love Conquers All, Even Time?......Page 320
Contributors......Page 330
Index......Page 332