The view from nowhen: The Mctaggart-Dummett argument for the unreality of time

Philosophia 38 (2):297-312 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Years ago, Michael Dummett defended McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time, arguing that it cannot be dismissed as guilty of an “indexical fallacy.” Recently, E. J. Lowe has disputed Dummett’s claims for the cogency of the argument. I offer an elaboration and defense of Dummett’s interpretation of the argument (though not of its soundness). I bring to bear some work on tense from the philosophy of language, and some recent work on the concept of the past as it occurs in memory, in an effort to support the claim that McTaggart is not guilty of any simple indexical fallacy. Along the way I criticize an account of what is at stake in disputes about the reality of tense due to A. W. Moore, and I argue for the superiority of the conception of tense-realism that is implicit in McTaggart’s work. The paper is intended to prepare the ground for a substantive defense of the reality of tense.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,449

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

Mctaggart, Dummett, and Time.Carl Stephen Woolf - 1985 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Time, Space, Dummett and McTaggart.Brian Garrett - 2017 - Metaphysica 18 (1):61-67.
The pervasive paradox of tense.Heather Dyke - 2001 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 62 (1):103-124.
A Defense of Presentism.Mark Hinchliff - 1988 - Dissertation, Princeton University
Philosophical Objections.Michael Tooley - 1997 - In Time, Tense, and Causation. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Apperception and the Unreality of Tense.A. W. Moore - 2001 - In Christoph Hoerl & Teresa McCormack, Time and memory: issues in philosophy and psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 375-391.
McTaggart's Argument against the Reality of Time.M. Joshua Mozersky - 2011 - In Michael Bruce & Steven Barbone, Just the Arguments. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley‐Blackwell. pp. 64–67.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-01-13

Downloads
352 (#84,047)

6 months
16 (#159,027)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Kevin Falvey
University of California at Santa Barbara

Citations of this work

Farewell to McTaggart’s Argument?Michael Tooley - 2010 - Philosophia 38 (2):243-255.
Tensed Belief.Vasilis Tsompanidis - 2011 - Dissertation, University of California Santa Barbara

Add more citations

References found in this work

The View From Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The unreality of time.John Ellis McTaggart - 1908 - Mind 17 (68):457-474.
Elements of symbolic logic.Hans Reichenbach - 1980 - London: Dover Publications.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Behaviorism 15 (1):73-82.

View all 32 references / Add more references