Back to the Unchanging Past

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (1):129-147 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The standard philosophical view of time travel has it that time travelers cannot change the past. It has been argued by some that the standard view is false, and that this can be shown using a two-dimensional model of time. I defend the standard view against this attack. I show, first, that the addition of a second temporal dimension does not provide a model of changing the past and, second, that neither does the addition of n temporal dimensions for any n > 1.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,785

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Why Time Travellers (Still) Cannot Change the Past.Nicholas J. J. Smith - 2015 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 71 (70th Anniversary Issue on Metaph):677-94.
The Reality of the Present.Franklin Curtis Mason - 1998 - Dissertation, Purdue University
How to Know That Time Travel Is Unlikely Without Knowing Why.Katrina Elliott - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100 (1):90-113.
How to Change the Past in One-Dimensional Time.Roberto Loss - 2015 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 96 (1):1-11.
Past Tense and Past Times in Subjunctive Conditionals.John Mackay - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (S1):520-535.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-11-06

Downloads
236 (#113,210)

6 months
4 (#1,064,894)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Sam Baron
University of Melbourne

References found in this work

The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
Bananas enough for time travel.Nicholas J. J. Smith - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):363-389.
A two-dimensional passage model of time for time travel.Jack W. Meiland - 1974 - Philosophical Studies 26 (3-4):153 - 173.
Avoiding or changing the past.G. C. Goddu - 2011 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (1):11-17.

View all 11 references / Add more references