Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T15:10:57.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The cresting wave: a new moving spotlight theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kristie Miller
Kristie Miller*
Affiliation:
The Centre for Time, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

One argument for the moving spotlight theory is that it better explains our temporal phenomenology than does any static theory. In this paper it is argued that insofar as moving spotlight theorists take this to be a sound argument they ought embrace a new version of the moving spotlight theory according to which the moving spotlight is a cresting wave of causal efficacy. Hence a range of fundamental properties are temporary because presentness synchronically changesthe fundamental properties that are instantiated in the present moment, and our experiences of presentness co-varies with presentness, allowing us to phenomenologically detect presentness.

Keywords

Timetemporal passagephenomenologymoving presentA-theorymoving spotlight
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 94 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

With thanks to Michael Duncan, James Norton, Naoyuki Kajimoto, Andrew Latham, Jonathan Tallant and Daniel Deasy for helpful comments on the paper.

References

Audi, P., 2012. ‘A clarification and defense of the notion of grounding.’ In Metaphysical grounding: Understanding the structure of reality. Edited by Correia, F. & Schnieder, B.. 101–121. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourne, C., 2002. “When Am I? A Tense Time for Some Tense Theorists?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 80: 359–371. doi:10.1080/713659472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourne, C., 2006. A Future for Presentism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braddon-Mitchell, D., 2004. How Do We Know It Is Now Now? Analysis, 64: 199–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braddon-Mitchell, D., 2013. “Against the Illusion Theory of Temporal Phenomenology.” CAPE Studies in Applied Ethics, 2: 211–233.Google Scholar
Cameron, R. 2008. “Turtles All The Way Down: Regress, Priority, and Fundamentality.” The Philosophical Quarterly, 58 (230): 1–14.Google Scholar
Cameron, R., 2015. The Moving Spotlight: An Essay on Time and Ontology. Oxford: OUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, W. L., 2000. The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cusbert, B. S., Farr, J., Kon, M., and Miller, K.. 2015. “Temporal Experience, Temporal Passage and the Cognitive Sciences.” Philosophy Compass, 10 (8): 56—571.Google Scholar
Deasy, D., 2015. “The Moving Spotlight Theory.” Philosophical Studies, 172: 2073–2089. doi:10.1007/s11098-014-0398-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, T.S. 2016. “"What Is The Well-foundedness Of Grounding?".” Mind, 125 (498): 439–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dretske, F. 1981. Knowledge and The Flow Of Information. MIT Pres.Google Scholar
Dretske, F., 1983. “Precis Of Knowledge and The Flow Of Information, ” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 6: 55–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. 1987. Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT/Bradford.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. 1990. A Theory of Content and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT/Bradford Press.Google Scholar
Forrest, P., 2006. “Uniform Grounding of Truth and the Growing Block Theory: A Reply to Heathwood.” Analysis, 66 (2): 161–163. doi:10.1093/analys/66.2.161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoerl, C., 2014. “Do We (Seem To) Perceive Passage?” Philosophical Explorations, 17: 188–202. doi:10.1080/13869795.2013.852615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maloney, J., 1994. “Content: Covariation, Control and Contingency.” Synthese, 100: 241–290. doi:10.1007/BF01063811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merricks, T., 2006. “Goodbye Growing Block.” Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, 2: 103.Google Scholar
Miller, K., 2017. “Presentness, Where Art Thou? Self-Locating Belief and the Moving Spotlight.” Analysis, 77 (4): 777–788. doi:10.1093/analys/anx101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, K., 2018. “The New Growing Block Theory Vs Presentism.” Inquiry, 61 (3): 223–251. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2017.1385528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, K., Latham, A., and Holcombe, A.. 2018. “Temporal Phenomenoligy: Phenomenal Illusion Vs Cognitive Error.” Synthese. doi:10.1007/s11229-018-1730-y.Google Scholar
Mumford, S., and Anjum, R. L.. 2011. Getting Causes from Powers. Oxford: OUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, J., 2015. “The Burning Fuse Model of Unbecoming.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 52: 103–105. doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2014.07.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, J., 2002. “A-Theory for B-Theorists.” Philosophical Quarterly, 52 (206): 1–20. doi:10.1111/phiq.2002.52.issue-206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, L. A. 2010. “Temporal Experience.” Journal Of Philosophy, 107 (7): 333–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, M. J. 2012. “In Defence Of Ground.” Australasian Journal Of Philosophy, 90 (4): 687–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, G. 2015. “Grounding Is Not a Strict order.” Journal Of The American Philosophical Association, 1 (3): 517–534. doi: 10.1017/apa.2014.22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, J. S., 2016. “Temporary Safety Hazards.” Nous, 50 (4): 152–174.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2009. ‘On What Grounds What.’ In Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. edited by Manley, D., Chalmers, D., and Wasserman, R.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J., 2016. “Grounding in the Image of Causation.” Philosophical Studies, 173 (1): 49–100. doi:10.1007/s11098-014-0438-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, T., 2011. Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: OUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skow, B., 2011. “Experience and the Passage of Time.” Philosophical Perspectives, 25: 359–387. doi:10.1111/phpe.2011.25.issue-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skow, B., 2015. Objective Becoming. Oxford: OUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stampe, D., 1986. “Verificationism and a Causal Account of Meaning.” Synthese, 69: 107–137. doi:10.1007/BF01988289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torrengo, G., forthcoming. “Feeling the Passing of Time.” The Journal of Philosophy.Google Scholar
Williams, C., 1994. “The Phenomenology of B-Time.” In The New Theory of Time, edited by Oaklander, L. N. and Smith, Q., 360–372. New Haven London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, T., 2002. “Necessary Existents.” In Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, edited by O’Hear, , 269–287l, Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Wilson, A., 2017. “Metaphysical Causation.” Noûs. doi:10.1111/nous.12190.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, D., 2011. “Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time, edited by Callender, C., 163–246, Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, D. W., 2005. “The A-Theory of Time, the B-Theory of Time, and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’.” Dialectica, 59 (4): 401–457. doi:10.1111/j.1746-8361.2005.01041.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar