•  474
    Fatalism as a Metaphysical Thesis
    Manuscrito: Revista Internacional de Filosofía 39 (4). 2016.
    Even though fatalism has been an intermittent topic of philosophy since Greek antiquity, this paper argues that fate ought to be of little concern to metaphysicians. Fatalism is neither an interesting metaphysical thesis in its own right, nor can it be identified with theses that are, such as realism about the future or determinism.
  •  260
    Explaining causal loops
    Analysis 72 (2): 259-264. 2012.
    This article argues that the causal loops that occur in some time-travel scenarios and in certain solutions of the theory of relativity are no more mysterious than the infinitely descending causal chains familiar from Newtonian mechanics
  •  247
    Counterpart Theory and the Actuality Operator
    Mind 122 (485): 27-42. 2013.
    Fara and Williamson (Mind, 2005) argue that counterpart theory is unable to account for modal claims that use an actuality operator. This paper argues otherwise. Rather than provide a different counterpart translation of the actuality operator itself, the solution presented here starts out with a quantified modal logic in which the actuality operator is redundant, and then translates the sentences of this logic into claims of counterpart theory.
  •  209
    The Presentist’s Dilemma
    Philosophical Studies 122 (3): 213-225. 2005.
    This paper defends three theses: that presentism is either trivial or untenable; that the debate between tensed and tenseless theories of time is not about the status of presentism; and that there is no temporal analogue of the modal thesis of actualism.
  •  195
    The Banach-Tarski Paradox
    Logique Et Analyse. forthcoming.
    Emile Borel regards the Banach-Tarski Paradox as a reductio ad absurdum of the Axiom of Choice. Peter Forrest instead blames the assumption that physical space has a similar structure as the real numbers. This paper argues that Banach and Tarski's result is not paradoxical and that it merely illustrates a surprising feature of the continuum: dividing a spatial region into disjoint pieces need not preserve volume.
  •  166
    ‘Now’ and ‘Then’ in Tense Logic
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 38 (2): 229-247. 2009.
    According to Hans Kamp and Frank Vlach, the two-dimensional tense operators “now” and “then” are ineliminable in quantified tense logic. This is often adduced as an argument against tense logic, and in favor of an extensional account that makes use of explicit quantification over times. The aim of this paper is to defend tense logic against this attack. It shows that “now” and “then” are eliminable in quantified tense logic, provided we endow it with enough quantificational structure. The operat…Read more
  •  154
    Is science first-order?
    Analysis 62 (4): 305-308. 2002.
    It is a popular view amongst some philosophers, most notably those with Quinean views about ontological commitment, that scientific theories are first-orderizable; that we can regiment all such theories in an extensional first-order language. I argue that this view is false, and that any acceptable account of science needs to take some modal notion as primitive.
  •  134
    Worlds and Times
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 47 (1): 25--37. 2006.
    There are many parallels between the role of possible worlds in modal logic and that of times in tense logic. But the similarities only go so far, and it is important to note where the two come apart. This paper argues that even though worlds and times play similar roles in the model theories of modal and tense logic, there is no tense analogue of the possible-worlds analysis of modal operators. An important corollary of this result is that presentism cannot be the tense analogue of actualism
  •  116
    Time as Logical Space
    CAPE 2 199-209. 2014.
    There are two ways of thinking about instants of time: "spatial" accounts emphasize the similarities between instants and places; "modal" accounts focus on the parallels between times and possible worlds. My aim in this paper is to draw attention to one respect in which times are more similar to possible worlds than they are to places.
  •  100
    Prior and the platonist
    Analysis 62 (3). 2002.
    The aim of this paper is to draw attention to a conflict between two popular views about time: Arthur Prior’s proposal for treating tense on the model of modal logic, and the ‘Platonic’ thesis that some objects (God, forms, universals, or numbers) exist eternally.1 I will argue that anyone who accepts the former ought to reject the latter.
  •  96
    How to apply mathematics
    Erkenntnis 61 (1): 17-28. 2004.
    This paper presents a novel account of applied mathematics. It shows how we can distinguish the physical content from the mathematical form of a scientific theory even in cases where the mathematics applied is indispensable and cannot be eliminated by paraphrase.
  •  94
    Tense, propositions, and facts
    Synthese 193 (11): 3691-3699. 2016.
    This paper aims to clarify the connection between the logic of temporal distinctions and the temporal features of propositions. Contra Prior, it argues that the adoption of tense operators does not commit one to the view that propositions can change their truth value over time.
  •  80
    The Metaphysics of Velocity
    Philosophical Studies 112 (1). 2003.
    Some authors have recently arguedthat an objects velocity is logicallyindependent of its locations throughout time.Their aim is to deny the Russellianview that motion is merely a change oflocation, and to promote a rival account onwhich the connection between velocities andtrajectories is provided by the laws ofnature. I defend the Russellian view of motionagainst these attacks.
  •  75
    Tense Logic
    Philosophy Compass 10 (6): 406-419. 2015.
    This article surveys some of the key issues that arise when one tries to use tense logic as a metaphysical theory of the nature of time. Topics discussed include basic tense logic, tense logic and verb tense, the structure of the time series, instants of time, quantified tense logic, and the expressive resources of tense logic
  •  72
    Dummett on the Time-Continuum
    Philosophy 80 (311). 2005.
    Michael Dummett claims that the classical model of time as a continuum of instants has to be rejected. In his view, “it allows as possibilities what reason rules out, and leaves it to the contingent laws of physics to rule out what a good model of physical reality would not even be able to describe.” This paper argues otherwise
  •  66
    The nature of time
    Clarendon Press. 2013.
    Ulrich Meyer defends a novel theory about the nature of time, and argues against the consensus view that time and space are fundamentally alike. He presents the first comprehensive defense of a 'modal' account, which emphasizes the similarities between times and possible worlds in modal logic, and is easily reconciled with the theory of relativity.
  •  59
    The Future of the Present
    Erkenntnis 89 463-478. 2024.
    Some theories of time entail that the present can change before or after it has happened. Examples include views on which time-travelers can change the past, the glowing block theory, Peter Geach’s mutable future view, and the moving spotlight theory. This paper argues that such ante factum or posthumous change requires a heterodox “split time” view on which earlier-than is not the converse of later-than.
  •  59
    Time and Modality
    In Craig Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time, Oxford University Press. pp. 91--121. 2011.
    With the rigorous development of modal logic in the first half of the twentieth century, it became custom amongst philosophers to characterize different views about necessity and possibility in terms of rival axiomatic systems for the modal operators ‘ ’ (‘possibly’) and ‘ ’ (‘necessarily’). From the late 1950s onwards, Arthur Prior began to argue that temporal distinctions ought to be given a similar treatment, in terms of axiomatic systems for sentential tense operators, such as ‘P’ (‘it was the…Read more
  •  59
    Modal Property Comprehension
    Synthese 190 (4): 693-707. 2013.
    To define new property terms, we combine already familiar ones by means of certain logical operations. Given suitable constraints, these operations may presumably include the resources of first-order logic: truth-functional sentence connectives and quantification over objects. What is far less clear is whether we can also use modal operators for this purpose. This paper clarifies what is involved in this question, and argues in favor of modal property definitions.
  •  55
    Times in Tense Logic
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 50 (2): 201--19. 2009.
    This paper explains how to obtain quantification over times in a tense logic in which all temporal distinctions are ultimately spelled out in terms of the two simple tense operators “it was the case that” and “it will be the case that.” The account of times defended here is similar to what is known as “linguistic ersatzism” about possible worlds, but there are noteworthy differences between these two cases. For example, while linguistic ersatzism would support actualism, the view of times defend…Read more
  •  27
    Fatalism as a Metaphysical Thesis
    Manuscrito 39 (4): 203-223. 2016.
    ABSTRACT Even though fatalism has been an intermittent topic of philosophy since Greek antiquity, this paper argues that fate ought to be of little concern to metaphysicians. Fatalism is neither an interesting metaphysical thesis in its own right, nor can it be identified with theses that are, such as realism about the future or determinism.
  •  11
    Prior and the Platonist
    Analysis 62 (3): 211-216. 2002.
  •  8
    Consciousness and the Present
    In Yuval Dolev & Michael Roubach (eds.), Cosmological and Psychological Time. pp. 143-153. 2016.
    A perennial question in the philosophy of time concerns the relation between the objective “physical time” that features in empirical theories of motion and the subjective “human time” in which our own experiences unfold. This article is about one facet of this broader question: whether the phenomenon of consciousness allows us to make a principled distinction between the present and other times. A number of authors have argued that, without conscious observers, there would be no distinctions of…Read more
  •  1
    Times as Abstractions
    In Adrian Bardon (ed.), The Future of the Philosophy of Time, Routledge. pp. 41--55. 2011.
    Instead of accepting instants of time as metaphysically basic entities, many philosophers regard them as abstractions from something else. There is the Russell-Whitehead view that times are maximal classes of simultaneous events; the linguistic ersatzer's proposal that times are maximally consistent sets of sentences or propositions; and the view that times are made up of temporal parts of material objects. This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these various proposals and c…Read more