•  1134
    Growing-Block theorists hold that past and present things are real, while future things do not yet exist. This generates a puzzle: how can Growing-Block theorists explain the fact that some sentences about the future appear to be true? Briggs and Forbes develop a modal ersatzist framework, on which the concrete actual world is associated with a branching-time structure of ersatz possible worlds. They then show how this branching structure might be used to determine the truth values of future con…Read more
  •  585
    The future, and what might have been
    Philosophical Studies 176 (2): 505-532. 2019.
    We show that five important elements of the ‘nomological package’— laws, counterfactuals, chances, dispositions, and counterfactuals—needn’t be a problem for the Growing-Block view. We begin with the framework given in Briggs and Forbes (in The real truth about the unreal future. Oxford studies in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012 ), and, taking laws as primitive, we show that the Growing-Block view has the resources to provide an account of possibility, and a natural semantics …Read more
  •  391
    The Growing Block’s past problems
    Philosophical Studies 173 (3): 699-709. 2016.
    The Growing-Block view of time has some problems with the past. It is committed to the existence of the past, but needs to say something about the difference between the past and present. I argue that we should resist Correia and Rosenkranz’ response to Braddon-Mitchell’s argument that the Growing-Block leads to scepticism about whether we are present. I consider an approach, similar to Peter Forrest, and show it is not so counter-intuitive as Braddon-Mitchell suggests and further show that it r…Read more
  •  267
    The Growing-Block: just one thing after another?
    Philosophical Studies 174 (4): 927-943. 2017.
    In this article, we consider two independently appealing theories—the Growing-Block view and Humean Supervenience—and argue that at least one is false. The Growing-Block view is a theory about the nature of time. It says that past and present things exist, while future things do not, and the passage of time consists in new things coming into existence. Humean Supervenience is a theory about the nature of entities like laws, nomological possibility, counterfactuals, dispositions, causation, and c…Read more
  •  126
    Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Vol. 5 (review)
    Analysis 70 (3): 571-577. 2010.
  •  120
    Time appears to us to pass. Some philosophers think that we should account for these experiences by appeal to change in what there unrestrictedly is . I argue that such an appeal can only be the beginning of an account of passage. To show this, I consider a minimal type of view—a purely topological view—that attempts to account for experiences as of passage by an appeal to ontological change and topological features of the present. I argue that, if ontological change is needed to account for our…Read more
  •  45
    What Makes Time Special? by Craig Callender (review)
    Analysis 80 (2): 398-400. 2020.
    What Makes Time Special? by Craig Callender, Oxford University Press, 2017. xx + 344 pp.
  •  43
    Enduring Senses
    Synthese 200 (291): 1-21. 2022.
    The meanings of words seem to change over time. But while there is a growing body of literature in linguistics and philosophy about meaning change, there has been little discussion about the metaphysical underpinnings of meaning change. The central aim of this paper is to push this discussion forward by surveying the terrain and advocating for a particular metaphysical picture. In so doing, we hope to clarify various aspects of the nature of meaning change, as well as prompt future philosophical…Read more
  •  36
    Are We In A Simulation?
    The Philosophers' Magazine 78 10-13. 2017.
    Graeme A Forbes asks David Chalmers, Michaela McSweeny and Darren Bradley 'Are we in a Simulation?' in this magazine feature for a popular audience.
  •  28
    Time and Time Again (review)
    Analysis Reviews 2023. 2023.
    What is time? When no-one asks you, you know, but when you read the recent literature in philosophy of time, you don’t know. Out of Time, by Sam Baron, Kristie Miller and Jonathan Tallant, and Dynamic Realism, by Tina Röck, present very different accounts of time. They differ methodologically, with a focus on experimental philosophy, in the form of the Sydney Time Studies, and live hypotheses in the theoretical physics of quantum gravity on the one hand, and phenomenology combined with process p…Read more
  •  24
    Dunbar, the character from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, tries to extend his life by making it boring. I use Dunbar’s case to pose a challenge to those who think our phenomenology gives us reason to defend time’s passage as a metaphysical view. I argue that the reason phenomenology gives for us to defend time’s passage cannot be that our brains detect time’s passage, unless we take Dunbar’s metaphysics more seriously than it deserves. Instead we must resort to the ordinary practice of trying t…Read more
  •  15
    A clock designed to work for 10 millennia is being built – but what is the point of it?
  •  11
    Critical Commonsensism in Contemporary Metaphysics
    In Daniel Herbert, Paniel Reyes Cardenas & Robert Talisse (eds.), Pragmatic Reason: Christopher Hookway and the American Philosophical Tradition, Routledge. 2023.
    I aim to sketch a view of a methodology for metaphysics, suggested by Hookway’s reading of C. S. Peirce, that allows one to hold realist metaphysical views (i.e. ones that avoid anti-realism, or idealism) about some questions, but avoids merely verbal disputes, and ‘unwieldy realism’. It is named for Peirce’s ‘Critical Commonsensism’, and uses pragmatic transcendental arguments to defend realism about non-optional basic commitments, e.g. to generality, agency, normativity, modality, change, conc…Read more
  • The 2D Past
    In Kasia M. Jaszczolt (ed.), Understanding Human Time, Oxford University Press. pp. 60-84. 2023.
    The ‘When Am I?’ problem, introduced by Bourne 2002, 2006, and Braddon-Mitchell 2004, creates a problem for thinking that the past is just like the present, and responses by Forrest 2004 and Forbes 2016, in which activities and processes are distinctive of the present, suggest that the past is settled. This chapter argues that the ‘When am I?’ problem arises because it takes tense metaphysically seriously but not aspect. The solution of invoking processes and activities takes aspect as seriously…Read more