Conventionalism about time direction
Authors
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
Synthese
ISSN
0039-7857
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
200
Issue
1
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Farr, M. (2022). Conventionalism about time direction. Synthese, 200 (1) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03540-1
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>In what sense is the direction of time a matter of convention? In <jats:italic>The Direction of Time</jats:italic>, 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’ direction of time; and (3) argue that this offers an important middle-ground position between existing realist and antirealist accounts of the direction of time.</jats:p>
Keywords
Original Research, All Things Reichenbach, Time, Direction of time, Conventionalism, Reichenbach, Past hypothesis
Identifiers
s11229-022-03540-1, 3540
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03540-1
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/335985
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.
Recommended or similar items
The current recommendation prototype on the Apollo Repository will be turned off on 03 February 2023. Although the pilot has been fruitful for both parties, the service provider IKVA is focusing on horizon scanning products and so the recommender service can no longer be supported. We recognise the importance of recommender services in supporting research discovery and are evaluating offerings from other service providers. If you would like to offer feedback on this decision please contact us on: support@repository.cam.ac.uk