•  1382
    On A- and B-theoretic elements of branching spacetimes
    Synthese 188 (1): 85-116. 2012.
    This paper assesses branching spacetime theories in light of metaphysical considerations concerning time. I present the A, B, and C series in terms of the temporal structure they impose on sets of events, and raise problems for two elements of extant branching spacetime theories—McCall’s ‘branch attrition’, and the ‘no backward branching’ feature of Belnap’s ‘branching space-time’—in terms of their respective A- and B-theoretic nature. I argue that McCall’s presentation of branch attrition can o…Read more
  •  1193
    Bertrand Russell famously argued that causation is not part of the fundamental physical description of the world, describing the notion of cause as “a relic of a bygone age”. This paper assesses one of Russell’s arguments for this conclusion: the ‘Directionality Argument’, which holds that the time symmetry of fundamental physics is inconsistent with the time asymmetry of causation. We claim that the coherence and success of the Directionality Argument crucially depends on the proper interpretat…Read more
  •  924
    Causation and Time Reversal
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (1): 177-204. 2020.
    What would it be for a process to happen backwards in time? Would such a process involve different causal relations? It is common to understand the time-reversal invariance of a physical theory in causal terms, such that whatever can happen forwards in time can also happen backwards in time. This has led many to hold that time-reversal symmetry is incompatible with the asymmetry of cause and effect. This article critiques the causal reading of time reversal. First, I argue that the causal readin…Read more
  •  910
    Cognitive science has recently made some startling discoveries about temporal experience, and these discoveries have been drafted into philosophical service. We survey recent appeals to cognitive science in the philosophical debate over whether time objectively passes. Since this research is currently in its infancy, we identify some directions for future research
  •  817
    C‐theories of time: On the adirectionality of time
    Philosophy Compass (12): 1-17. 2020.
    “The universe is expanding, not contracting.” Many statements of this form appear unambiguously true; after all, the discovery of the universe’s expansion is one of the great triumphs of empirical science. However, the statement is time-directed: the universe expands towards what we call the future; it contracts towards the past. If we deny that time has a direction, should we also deny that the universe is really expanding? This article draws together and discusses what I call ‘C-theories’ of t…Read more
  •  618
    Explaining Temporal Qualia
    European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (1): 1-24. 2020.
    Experiences of motion and change are widely taken to have a ‘flow-like’ quality. Call this ‘temporal qualia’. Temporal qualia are commonly thought to be central to the question of whether time objectively passes: (1) passage realists take temporal passage to be necessary in order for us to have the temporal qualia we do; (2) passage antirealists typically concede that time appears to pass, as though our temporal qualia falsely represent time as passing. I reject both claims and make the case tha…Read more
  •  533
    It is often said that the world is explained by laws of nature together with initial conditions. But does that mean initial conditions don’t require further explanation? And does the explanatory role played by initial conditions entail or require that time has a preferred direction? This chapter looks at the use of the ‘initialness defence’ in physics, the idea that initial conditions are intrinsically special in that they don’t require further explanation, unlike the state of the world at other…Read more
  •  451
    Conventionalism about time direction
    Synthese 200 (1): 1-21. 2022.
    In what sense is the direction of time a matter of convention? In 'The Direction of Time', Hans Reichenbach makes brief reference to parallels between his views about the status of time’s direction and his conventionalism about geometry. In this article, I: (1) provide a conventionalist account of time direction motivated by a number of Reichenbach’s claims in the book; (2) show how forwards and backwards time can give equivalent descriptions of the world despite the former being the ‘natural’ d…Read more
  •  331
    Perceiving Direction in Directionless Time
    In Kasia M. Jaszczolt (ed.), Understanding Human Time, Oxford University Press. pp. 199-219. 2023.
    Modern physics has provided a range of motivations for holding time to be fundamentally undirected. But how does a temporally adirectional metaphysics, or ‘C-theory’ of time, fit with the time of experience? In this chapter, I look at what kind of problem human time poses for C-theories. First, I ask whether there is a ‘hard problem’ of human time: whether it is in principle impossible to have the kinds of experience we do in a temporally adirectional world. Second I consider the ‘easy problem’:…Read more
  •  263
    In the two feature articles for this volume, Gruber et al and Buonomano & Rovelli focus on what the former call the 'two-times problem', in short, the apparent lack of fit between time as described by physical science and our own temporal experience, where 'experience' involves things like memory, anticipation, and perception of change and motion. In this short note I'll make the case that the twotimes problem is less serious than it is often made out to be in the specific case of features like …Read more
  •  162
    Review of Tim Maudlin, "Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time" (review)
    Philosophy in Review 35 (4): 208-210. 2015.
    A review of Tim Maudlin's "Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time"
  •  158
    This thesis introduces and defends a ‘C theory’ of time. The metaphysics of time literature is primarily concerned with the distinction between the A and B theories of time, with the disagreement concerning whether the passage of time is an objective feature of reality. I argue that the distinction between the B and C theories—in terms of whether time has a ‘privileged’ direction—is of more obvious relevance to the philosophy of physics than is the distinction between the A and B theories. The t…Read more
  •  141
    Methods in Science and Metaphysics
    In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, Routledge. 2020.
    While science is taken to differ from non-scientific activities in virtue of its methodology, metaphysics is usually defined in terms of its subject matter. However, many traditional questions of metaphysics are addressed in a variety of ways by science, making it difficult to demarcate metaphysics from science solely in terms of their subject matter. Are the methodologies of science and metaphysics sufficiently distinct to act as criteria of demarcation between the two? In this chapter we focus…Read more
  •  135
    It is an unresolved question in quantum mechanics whether quantum states apply to individual quantum systems, or to ensembles of quantum systems. We show by way of a thought experiment that quantum states apply only to ensembles of quantum systems. A further unresolved question is whether quantum systems possess ontic states. If a quantum state is the state of an ensemble, as we claim, the answer to this question is that quantum states are not ontic. However, a notable recent result in quantum f…Read more
  •  106
    Conventional Principles in Science: On the Foundations and Development of the Relativized A Priori
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 52 (Part B): 111-113. 2015.
  •  10
    Causation in Science, by Yemima Ben-Menahem
    Mind 132 (528): 1176-1185. 2021.
    Whatever you think of Bertrand Russell’s famous claim that the ‘law of causality’ is (at least as of 1912) redundant in the ‘advanced sciences’, it is nonethele.