`
PHI 124: Philosophy of Space and
Time
(10 credits: half module)
Stephen Makin
Autumn Semester 2010-2011
Course Information
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Contents
Information on unfair means
p.3
Course details
p.4
Lecture topics
p.5
Tutorials
p.6
Tutorial and micro-essay topics
p.9
Reading (resources)
p.12
Reading (topic by topic)
p.13
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Important Information on the Use of Unfair
Means in Assessment
It is extremely important that you are aware of what counts as Unfair Means
(Plagiarism) in assessed work, and that you are aware of the serious consequences of
using unfair means in your work.
The following four examples of unfair means are serious academic offences and may
result in penalties that could have a lasting effect on a student´s career, both at
University and beyond (including possible expulsion from the University).
Plagiarism (either intentional or unintentional) is the stealing of ideas or work of
another person (including experts and fellow or former students) and is considered
dishonest and unprofessional. Plagiarism may take the form of cutting and pasting,
taking or closely paraphrasing ideas, passages, sections, sentences, paragraphs,
drawings, graphs and other graphical material from books, articles, internet sites or
any other source and submitting them for assessment without appropriate
acknowledgement.
Submitting bought or commissioned work (for example from internet sites, essay
“banks” or “mills”) is an extremely serious form of plagiarism. This may take the
form of buying or commissioning either the whole assignment or part of it and implies
a clear intention to deceive the examiners. The University also takes an extremely
serious view of any student who sells, offers to sell or passes on their own
assignments to other students.
Double submission (or self plagiarism) is resubmitting previously submitted work on
one or more occasions (without proper acknowledgement). This may take the form of
copying either the whole assignment or part of it. Normally credit will already have
been given for this work.
Collusion is where two or more people work together to produce a piece of work, all
or part of which is then submitted by each of them as their own individual work. This
includes passing on work in any format to another student. Collusion does not occur
where students involved in group work are encouraged to work together to produce a
single piece of work as part of the assessment process.
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Course Details
Lecturer:
Steve Makin
Email: s.makin@sheffield.ac.uk
Tel: 0114 222 0573
Office: Room C05, Department of Philosophy, 45
Victoria Street.
Office hours: Fridays 11.00-1.00
Lectures:
Tuesday 10.00-10.50
Venue
In week 1 we will be in St George’s LT 3 (access via
Mappin Hall on Mappin Street)
From week 2 we will be meeting in the Chemistry
Building LT 1
Please take note of this change of venue from week 2
Tutorials:
4 tutorials in weeks 4, 6, 8, 10
Reading week:
Week 7 of the Autumn Semester (8-12 November 2010)
is a reading week. There will be no lectures or
discussion seminars in the department that week.
Course outline:
This course will cover some introductory philosophical
problems concerning space and time. We will start by
looking at the ancient paradoxes about motion due to
Zeno of Elea. This will lead on to questions about the
structure of space and time (are they continuous or
atomic? must time have a beginning?); the relations
between time and change (does time require change?);
the flow of time (is there a real distinction between past,
present and future?); knowledge of the future (is
knowledge of the future consistent with freedom of
action?); truths about the future (are there already truths
about the future?) ; and our access to the past (could we
travel into or otherwise affect the past?).
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Lecture topics
Lectures 1-3:
Zeno’s paradoxes of motion: the Dichotomy, the
Moving Rows and the Arrow
Lecture 4
The beginning of time
Lecture 5
Time without change: substantival and relational
theories of time
Lecture 6
Tensed and detensed views of time (part 1)
Lecture 7
Tensed and detensed views of time (part 2)
Lecture 8
Foreknowledge and the open future (part 1)
Lecture 9
Foreknowledge and the open future (part 2)
Lecture 10
Future truth and the open future
Lecture 11
Time travel and affecting the past
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Tutorials
In addition to the lectures for PHI 124 there are also tutorials. A tutorial is a small,
discussion-oriented meeting (run by a tutor, rather than a lecturer).
You must sign up to a tutorial group (since it is your tutor who grades your work; and
if your work is not graded then you will not receive credit for the module), and you
are required to attend those meetings.
If, for some reason, you need to miss a tutorial meeting, please contact your tutor or
the Director of 1st Year Studies.
How do I Join a Tutorial Group?
You should register for a tutorial group which fits in with the rest of your timetable.
You register for PHI 124 tutorials via MOLE (My Online Learning Environment) on
or after the Monday of week 2 of the semester (Monday 4 October)
To choose a group, log into MOLE, which you can reach through MUSE (My
University of Sheffield Environment).
Click on the PHI 124 module and then on the icon which says ‘PHI124 Tutorial Sign
Up’. You can then choose your group and time from those listed.
There is a wide range of times available and students join groups on a first-come-firstserved basis. So, to maximise your choice of sessions, you should register as soon as
possible after registration opens at 10am on the Monday of week 2.
If you are unable to make any of the sessions listed, please contact the Departmental
Office, or the Director of 1st Year Studies (Chris Bennett: email
c.bennett@sheffield.ac.uk).
Tutorial Topics
You will find prepared tutorial topics for PHI 124 in this booklet. They provide
subjects for tutorial discussion which fit in with the lectures, combined with
associated questions for discussion.
NOTE: In advance of your first tutorial (week 4 = week starting 18 October) you
should prepare the first tutorial topic for that tutorial.
We hope you will find philosophy tutorials enjoyable and will get a lot out of them.
Of course, this also means that you will have to make a positive contribution to the
proceedings. While normal practice will be to rely on the prepared range of Tutorial
Topics, you can also take the initiative by asking for discussion of specific topics,
problems, or anything that puzzled or intrigued you in lectures.
Discussion in tutorials is one of the most important ways in which you can develop
your feeling and expertise for philosophical debate. The main rules for successful and
profitable tutorial meetings are:
 Don’t be afraid to say something;
 Put in the necessary background work;
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 Respect
other people’s opinions.
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Assessment
PHI 124 is a ten credit half module.
Your initial mark for the module is fixed by an unseen final examination (1 question,
1 hour), which will be scheduled for the exam period in weeks 13-15 (Monday 17
January – Saturday 5 February 2011)
Your final mark for the module is 100% of this initial mark, so long as you submit
and pass all three of your micro-essays during the semester. However each late, failed
or missing micro-essay will result in the deduction of 10 marks from your initial
(exam question) mark
THIS MEANS THAT YOU COULD LOSE 30 MARKS IF YOU DON’T DO
THE MICRO-ESSAYS SET FOR THIS MODULE
A re-assuring note: you will pass a micro-essay as long as it is a reasonable attempt to
address the topic set.
Micro-Essays
After your first tutorial meeting, your discussions will be based around micro-essays
(300 words) that you should write in advance of each tutorial, on a topic set by the
lecturer (for details see below). These micro-essays are focused on asking you to learn
how to do some of the things you will be expected to do in Levels Two and Three:
 extracting arguments from complex texts;
 explaining issues in your own words;
 expressing your own considered opinion about an issue;
 making an argument or thinking up a counterexample;
 thinking about the “other side” of an argument;
 presenting an issue orally;
 and above all, writing clearly.
Although these micro-essays are not given a mark individually, the submission of
these micro-essays does count towards your mark for the module, as explained above.
You can receive either a pass or a fail on these micro-essays. You will be given a pass
as long as the micro-essay is handed in on time (that is, before the tutorial) and is of
reasonable quality.
Since you are required to write a micro-essay for each tutorial after the first (week 4),
and since there are four tutorials for a half-module such as PHI 124, you will be
required to write THREE micro-essays for PHI 124 (for tutorials in weeks 6, 8 and
10)
For further information about level one tutorials and assessment you can visit
the following page on our Departmental website
http://www.shef.ac.uk/philosophy/current/undergraduates/studying/format/tutor
ials.html
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Tutorial and micro-essay topics
Tutorial 1 (week 4)
Zeno’s Paradoxes
Read carefully the following three passages from Aristotle
[Zeno’s Dichotomy argument] asserts the non-existence of motion in the
ground that that which is in locomotion must arrive at the half way stage
before it reaches the goal.
(Aristotle Physics 6.9, 239b11-13)
Zeno’s argument makes a false assumption in asserting that it is impossible for
a thing to pass over or come in contact with infinite things individually in a
finite time. For there are two senses in which length and time and generally
anything continuous are called ‘infinite’: they are called so either in respect of
divisibility or in respect of their extremities. So while a thing in a finite time
cannot come in contact with things quantitatively infinite, it can come in
contact with things infinite in respect of divisibility: for in this sense the time
itself is also infinite; and so we find that the time occupied by the passage over
the infinite is not a finite but an infinite time, and the contact with the infinites
is made in times not finite but infinite in number
(Aristotle Physics 6.2, 233a21-31)
But although this solution is an adequate reply to the questioner (for the
question was whether it is possible to traverse or count infinite things in a
finite time), it is inadequate to the facts and the truth. For suppose the distance
to be left out of account and the question asked to be no longer whether it is
possible in a finite time to traverse an infinite number of distances, and
suppose that the inquiry is made to refer to the time itself (for the time
contains an infinite number of divisions): then this solution will no longer be
adequate....... So when someone asks the question whether it is possible to
traverse infinite things - either in time or in distance - we must reply that in a
way it is but in a way it is not. For if they exist actually it is not possible, but if
potentially, it is; for someone in continuous movement has traversed infinite
things incidentally, not without qualification; for it is incidental to the line to
be infinitely many halves, but its essence and being are different.
(Aristotle Physics 8.8, 263a15-22, 263b3-9)
Issues for discussion
Can you explain the difference between viewing space and time as continuous and
viewing space and time as atomistic?
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As clearly and briefly as you can, state first Zeno’s Dichotomy argument and second
one other argument (as short as you like) that you can find in any of the passages from
Aristotle quoted above.
An atomistic view of space and time (ie spatio-temporal atomism) would provide a
response to Zeno’s dichotomy argument. Can you explain how? And do you think that
we should therefore adopt an atomistic view of space and time?
Some scholars think that Zeno’s Moving Rows argument is an objection to an
atomistic theory of space and time. Can you explain what the Moving Rows argument
is, and why it might cause difficulties for spatio-temporal atomism?
How might you respond to Zeno’s Dichotomy argument without adopting an
atomistic view of space and time?
Tutorial 2 (week 6): Micro-essay topic.
Time without change
Consider then the following world. To the best of the knowledge of the
inhabitants of this world all of its matter is contained in three relatively small
regions, which I shall call A, B and C... Periodically there is observed to occur
in this world a phenomenon which I shall call a ‘local freeze’. During a local
freeze all processes occurring in one of the three regions come to a complete
halt; there is no motion, no growth, no decay, and so on. At least this is how it
appears to observers in the other regions... But now the following seems
possible. We can imagine first that the inhabitants of this world discover, by
the use of clocks located in unfrozen regions, that local freezes always last the
same amount of time - let us suppose that the length of freezes is always
exactly one year. We can also imagine that they keep records of local freezes
and find that they occur at regular intervals - let us suppose that it is found that
in region A local freezes have occurred every third year, that in region B local
freezes have occurred every fourth year, and that in region C local freezes
have occurred every fifth year. Having noticed this they could easily calculate
that, given these frequencies, there should be simultaneous local freezes in
regions A and B every twelfth year, in regions A and C every fifteenth year, in
regions B and C every twentieth year, and in all three regions every sixtieth
year. Since these three regions exhaust their universe, to say that there will be
simultaneous local freezes in all three regions every sixtieth year is to say that
every sixtieth year there will be a total freeze lasting one year. Let us suppose
that the predicted simultaneous two-region freezes are observed to occur as
scheduled (the observers being, in each case, the inhabitants of whichever
region remains unfrozen), that no freeze is observed to begin by anyone at the
time at which local freezes are scheduled to begin simultaneously in all three
regions, and that the subsequent pattern of freezes is found to be in accord
with the original generalization about the frequency of freezes. If all of this
happened, I submit, the inhabitants of this world would have grounds for
believing that there are intervals during which no changes occur anywhere
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(from Sydney Shoemaker Time Without Change: available in the electronic
coursepack)
Micro-essay. Briefly explain the difference between a substantival and a relational
view of time. Why would it be relevant to deciding between those two views of time
to consider whether there could be periods of time in which absolutely nothing
happens?
Issues for further discussion
In what way is the strange example discussed by Shoemaker relevant to making up
your mind on the question of whether there could be periods of time in which
absolutely nothing happens? (After all, our world is nothing like the one Shoemaker
describes).
Can you think of considerations other than those concerning time without change
which might be relevant to deciding between a substantival and a relational view of
time?
Tutorial 3 (week 8): Micro-essay topic.
Tensed and detensed views of time
Micro-essay. Tenses and dates are two types of temporal property. What is the
difference between them? And how does that difference underlie the distinction
between tensed and detensed views of time?
Issues for further discussion
What is meant by the claim that there are modal differences between the past and
future?
Some philosophers have claimed that any tensed sentence can be restated in tenseless
terms. Can you illustrate this claim by means of an example? Do you think it is a
persuasive claim?
Why might someone hold that human beings need tensed beliefs in order to engage
successfully in courses of action (eg in order to succeed in turning up to your lectures
on time)?
Do you think that a tenseless view of time makes time and space look more similar to
one another than they really are?
“It must be possible (in principle) to provide an observer independent description of
what is real”. Using examples, can you explain why someone might find that claim
plausible. How is the claim relevant to the debate about tensed and tenseless views of
time?
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Tutorial 4 (week 10): Micro-essay topic
Foreknowledge and the open future
Micro-essay. “If there exists a god who knows in advance every detail of what you
will do in the future then you have no freedom of choice about what to do in the
future”. Explain as clearly as you can the argument expressed in that claim.
Issues for further discussion
Do you think the argument that you have just explained is a convincing argument.
Put the issue of divine foreknowledge to one side. Do you think that you could know
something about someone else’s future? Can you give examples which would make a
positive answer to that question (ie “yes, I could”) plausible.
Do you agree that if you (ie an ordinary human being) could know about someone
else’s future then their freedom of choice for the future would be limited?
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Reading (resources)
There is no set text for this module. Instead I have selected readings from different
sources for each of the topic we will cover. All the readings which are given should
be available via the Library in electronic form
Before you start any reading for this module it will be worthwhile spending half an
hour becoming familiar with the E resources available to you.
For a general overview of the Library’s eResources see
http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/intro/
For a summary of the Philosophy resources available via the Library and online see
http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/subjects/subphil.html
For a alphabetical list of Philosophy eBooks held by the Library see
http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/ebooks/ebphil.html
You can access the Library ejournals via the FindIt@Sheffield system
http://librarylinks.shef.ac.uk:3210/sfxlcl3/az
The Philosophy Department website also has a resources page
http://www.shef.ac.uk/philosophy/resources/additional_links.html
This includes a link detailing philosophers who have posted online papers
http://consc.net/people.html
Two reliable and helpful online philosophy reference sources are
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/
and Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.rep.routledge.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk/
Avoid Wikipedia
You may find it helpful, for easy and repeated access, to collect all these links in a
bookmark folder in your web browser.
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Reading (topic by topic)
There is an electronic version of this topic-by-topic reading list, with direct links to
electronic resources, on the Library’s myResource List for this module. Go to
http://p8080-library.shef.ac.uk.eresources.shef.ac.uk/talislist/index.jsp
Display all the Philosophy modules, and then click on PHI 124 (Philosophy of Space
and Time)
An overview
For a good overview of some basic issues in the philosophy of time go to
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/
and look at the article on Time (by Ned Markosian). Sections which are particularly
relevant to material we will be discussing are §3 ‘The Topology of Time’ (topic 2
below); §2 ‘Reductionism and Platonism with respect to Time’ (topic 3 below); §§4-6
on tensed and detensed views of time (topic 4 below); §1 ‘Fatalism’ (topic 6 below);
§7 ‘Time Travel’ (topic 7 below)
(1)
Zeno
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.rep.routledge.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk/
See the article on Zeno of Elea (by Stephen Makin)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/
See the article on Zeno of Elea (by John Palmer)
James Thomson
Jonathan Lear
Christopher Ray
(2)
‘Tasks and Super-Tasks’ Analysis 15 (1954) 1-13
‘A Note On Zeno’s Arrow’ Phronesis 26 (1981) 91-104
[both available via Ejournals]
Time, Space and Philosophy chapter 1 (‘Zeno and the Limits of
Space and Time’)
[available as ebook]
The Beginning of Time
R.G.Swinburne
J.H.Bird
‘The Beginning of the Universe’ Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 40 (1966) 125-138
‘The Beginning of the Universe’ Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 40 (1966) 139-150
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[both available via Ejournals]
(3)
Time Without Change
Sydney Shoemaker
G.Schlesinger
Roger Teichmann
Michael Scott
(4)
‘Time Without Change’ Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969) 363381
‘Change and Time’ Journal of Philosophy 67 (1970) 294-300
‘Time and Change’ Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1993) 158-177
‘Time and Change’ Philosophical Quarterly 45 (1995) 213-218
[all available via Ejournals]
Tensed and Detensed Views of Time
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.rep.routledge.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk/
See the article on Time, Metaphysics of (by Heather Dyke)
Eric Olson
‘The Passage of Time’ from The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics
ed R. le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonogal and Ross
Cameron (Routledge, Abingdon, 2009) 440-448
There is a downloadable version available from Eric Olson’s
departmental homepage
http://www.shef.ac.uk/philosophy/research/publications/olsone.html
Michael Dummett
‘A Defence of McTaggart’s Proof of the Unreality of Time’
Philosophical Review 69 (1960) 497-504
[available via Ejournals]
(5)
Foreknowledge and the Open Future
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.rep.routledge.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk/
See article on Omnscience (by Thomas Flint)
Lewis Foster
‘Fatalism and Precognition’ Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 31 (1971) 341-351
Jerry Walls
‘A Fable of Foreknowledge and Freedom’ Philosophy 62
(1987) 67-75
[both available via Ejournals]
Paul Helm
Eternal God (OUP 1997) chapters 7 (‘Omniscience and the
Future’) and 8 (‘Divine Foreknowledge and Fatalism’)
Oxford Scholarship Online
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Joseph Diekemper
(6)
‘B-Theory, Fixity and Fatalism’ Nous 41 (2007) 429-452
[available via Ejournals]
Future truth and the open future
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/
See the article on Fatalism (by Hugh Rice)
Elizabeth Anscombe ‘Aristotle and the Sea Battle’ Mind 65 (1956) 1-15
Richard Taylor
‘The Problem of Future Contingencies’ Philosophical Review
66 (1957) 1-28
Rogers Albritton
‘Present Truth and Future Contingency’ Philosophical Review
66 (1957) 29-46
[all available via Ejournals]
Richard Taylor
(7)
‘Fate’
Richard Taylor Metaphysics (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
NJ, 1983) 51-62
[available as Eoffprint]
Time Travel
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/
See article on Time Travel And Modern Physics (by Frank Arntzenius and Tim
Maudlin)
Jonathan Harrison
Murray MacBeath
‘Dr Who and the Philosophers’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society Supplementary Volume 45 (1971) 1-24
‘Who Was Dr Who’s Father?’ Synthese 51 (1982) 397-430
[both available via Ejournals]
David Lewis
‘The Paradoxes of Time Travel’ Philosophical Papers Volume
2 (Oxford University Press, 1986) p.67-80
[available via Library eResources: Oxford Scholarship
Online]
Christopher Ray
Time, Space and Philosophy (Routledge, London, 1991)
chapter 8 (‘Time Travel’)
available via Library ebooks
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