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85Problems with John Earman's attempt to reconcile theism with general relativityErkenntnis 52 (1): 1-27. 2000.Discussions of the intersection of general relativity and thephilosophy of religion rarely take place on the technical levelthat involves the details of the mathematical physics of generalrelativity. John Earman's discussion of theism and generalrelativity in his recent book on spacetime singularities is anexception to this tendency. By virtue of his technical expertise,Earman is able to introduce novel arguments into the debatebetween theists and atheists. In this paper, I state and examineEarm…Read more
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84Semantics, Tense, and TimePhilosophical Review 111 (2): 278-281. 2002.The primary goal of Peter Ludlow's Semantics, Tense, and Time is to illustrate how one can study metaphysical issues from a linguistic/semantic perspective by addressing the debate between tenseless theorists and tensed theorists. Ludlow's book is noteworthy in part because of the novelty of its approach to this debate and in part because it addresses and endeavors to solve the metaphysical problems of temporal solipsism that other temporal solipsists have not addressed.
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82The Ontological Interpretation of the Wave Function of the UniverseThe Monist 80 (1): 160-185. 1997.There are two distinct questions that arise when one asks about “the interpretation of quantum mechanics” or “how can quantum mechanics be reconciled with the ‘real’ world—the world we experience.”
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79On the beginning of timeNoûs 19 (4): 579-584. 1985.You can search this site: Note that this analysis of a beginning of time concerns intervals ’of the same length' ; if this qualifying phrase is not added, then the analysis would be invalid for a dense time. If time is dense and began, then for each interval of time there is another interval of a shorter length that is a part of that interval and which completely elapses before the interval of which it is a part completely elapses. Before the first hour completely elapses, the first minute does …Read more
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77Internal and external causal explanations of the universePhilosophical Studies 79 (3). 1995.By "an infinite series of contingent beings" is meant a beginningless succession of modally contingent beings, such that the succession of beings occupies an infinite number of equal-lengthened temporal intervals (e.g. an aleph-zero number of past years)
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71Language and timeOxford University Press. 1993.This book offers a defense of the tensed theory of time, a critique of the New Theory of Reference, and an argument that simultaneity is absolute. Although Smith rejects ordinary language philosophy, he shows how it is possible to argue from the nature of language to the nature of reality. Specifically, he argues that semantic properties of tensed sentences are best explained by the hypothesis that they ascribe to events temporal properties of futurity, presentness, or pastness and do not merely…Read more
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62Tensed States of Affairs and Possible WorldsGrazer Philosophische Studien 31 (1): 225-235. 1988.The aim of this paper is to show that the definition of a possible world in the actualist tradition of A. Plantinga, R.M. Adams, R. Chisholm, J. Pollock and N. Wolterstorff is unable to accomodate tensed states of affairs. An example of a tensed state of affairs is the transiently obtaining state of affairs that the storm is present, which obtains only if its negation, it is not the case that the storm is present also obtains but at different times. A possible world that includes tensed states o…Read more
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61Atheism, theism and big Bang cosmologyAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (1). 1991.The following article was originally published in Australasian Journal of Philosophy March 1991 (Volume 69, No
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59Can Everything Come to Be Without a Cause?Dialogue 33 (2): 313. 1994.Lane Craig, for example, asserts, that it is "intuitively obvious." 1 This approach is not promising since this principle is not self evident. A principle p is self evident if and only if everybody who understands p believes p, but many philosophers and cosmologists not only believe it possible.
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58Husserl's theory of the phenomenological reduction in the logical investigationsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 39 (3): 433-437. 1979.Husserl conceived of the "reduction" in the "logical investigations" in a different manner than he conceived of it in his later works. In this book, The "reduction" is not a bracketing of the empirical ego so as to attain a self-Enclosed transcendental ego with its intentional acts, Hyletic data, And noemata. Rather it is a reduction that proceeds in part through an adequate inner perception, And in part through recollection and "empirical assumption," and which results in an empirical ego that …Read more
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57Scheler's Critique of Husserl's Theory of the World of the Natural StandpointModern Schoolman 55 (4): 387-396. 1978.Scheler's critique of Husserl's theory of the world of the natural standpoint may be understood as a decisive factor in the transition of phenomenological philosophy from the "rationalism" of Husserl to the 'existentialism" of Heidegger. Husserl's theory that the value characteristics of the world are founded on the natural characteristics signifies, as we will show, that the individual objects of the world are "logical individuals." By criticizing this view, and by showing that it is really the…Read more
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56On Husserl's theory of consciousness in the fifth logical investigationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 37 (4): 482-497. 1977.
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56The Impossibility of Token-Reflexive AnalysesDialogue 25 (4): 757. 1986.Reichenbach, for example, believes that "1" has the same extensional meaning as "the person who utters this token", and Smart believes that "now" means the same as is simultaneous with this utterance” (where the italicization of the "is" indicates it is tenseless). But if a tokeri 1 of’ ’I’ , refers to itself, it has a different reference than a token.
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53The Felt Meanings of the World: A Metaphysics of FeelingPurdue University Press. 1986.In a critical dialogue with the metaphysical tradition from Plato to Hegel to contemporary schools of thought, the author convincingly argues that traditional rationalist metaphysics has failed to accomplish its goal of demonstrating the existence of a di.
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50Sentences about timePhilosophical Quarterly 37 (146): 37-53. 1987.do not really ascribe A-properties. Tensed sentences or their tokens, it is argued, are logically equivalent to, or have the same meaning as, tenseless sentences about events, and thus possess the same reference as the tenseless sentences, viz., to events with B-relations. It would follow that time has only one aspect, the B-aspect. You can search..
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49Max Scheler and the Classification of FeelingsJournal of Phenomenological Psychology 9 (1): 114-138. 1978.
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48Time, Tense and CausationPhilosophical Review 108 (1): 123. 1999.The main goal of Michael Tooley’s groundbreaking book is to establish a position intermediate between the tenseless theory of time and the standard tensed theory of time. Tooley argues for a novel version of the tensed theory of time, namely, that the future is unreal and the present and past real, and yet that reality consists only of tenseless facts. The question that naturally arises for the reader concerns an apparent paradox: how could the tensed theory of time be true if reality consists o…Read more
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46Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2002.Consciousness is perhaps the most puzzling problem we humans face in trying to understand ourselves. It has been the subject of intense study for several decades, but, despite substantial progress, the most difficult problems have still not reached any generally agreed solution. Future research can start with this book. Eighteen original, specially written essays offer new angles on the subject. The contributors, who include many of the leading figures in philosophy of mind, discuss such central…Read more
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46Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of LanguageYale University Press. 1997.This is a critical history of analytic philosophy from its inception in the late-19th century to the present day. The book focuses on the connections between the four leading movements in the field - logical realism, logical positivism, ordinary language analysis and linguistic essentialism.
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45Time, Tense, and Reference (edited book)MIT Press. 2003.Original essays by philosophers of language and philosophers of time exploring the semantics and metaphysics of tense.
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45Can the New Tenseless Theory of Time Be Saved by Individual Essences?Philo 10 (1): 66-68. 2007.I will begin by conceding that some of Beer’s arguments are sound (mostly on pages before the last page), and observe that Beer’s theory that “now” ascribes an individual essence to a time on each occasion of its tokening is a novel theory that seems fruitful and is worthy of being pursued and of being developed to deal with the criticisms in the following points.
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45Reply to Vallicella: Heidegger and IdealismInternational Philosophical Quarterly 31 (2): 231-235. 1991.Vallicella argued that Heidegger's idealism is incoherent but that absolute idealism is coherent. I argue the reverse. There is no contradiction in the supposition that Being is dependent upon Dasein, that entities are dependent upon Being, and therefore that all entities are dependent upon Dasein. This may be false, but it is consistent. The absolute idealism of Fichte and the like is incoherent, however, because it supposes that all human minds are but representations in the Absolute Mind, and…Read more
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44The co-reporting theory of tensed and tenseless sentencesPhilosophical Quarterly 40 (159): 213-222. 1990.
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