The future ain’t what it used to be: Strengthening the case for mutable futurism

Synthese 199 (3-4):10569-10585 (2021)
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Abstract

This paper explores mutable futurism, the view according to which the future can literally change—that is, it can happen that a future time t changes from containing an event E to lacking it. Mutable futurism has received little attention so far, and the details and implications of the view are underexplored in the literature. For instance, it currently lacks a precise metaphysical model and a formal semantics. Although we do not endorse mutable futurism, our goal here is to strengthen the case for mutable futurism and help establish it as a worthy contender in the debate on the philosophy of time. To attain this goal, we try to make mutable futurism, along with its metaphysical and inferential commitments, as clear as possible, by providing it with a coherent metaphysical model and a plausible semantics, and we show that it can be backed by theoretical reasons.

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Author Profiles

Giacomo Andreoletti
University of Salzburg
Giuseppe Spolaore
University of Padua

Citations of this work

The Future of the Present.Ulrich Meyer - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89:463-478.
Branching Time, Fatalism, and Possibilities.Giacomo Andreoletti - 2024 - Kriterion – Journal of Philosophy 38 (3-4):139-155.

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References found in this work

The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David Lewis - 1976 - American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (2):145-152.
The Moving Spotlight: An Essay on Time and Ontology.Ross P. Cameron - 2015 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Paradoxes of Time Travel.Ryan Wasserman - 2017 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
The Paradoxes of Time Travel.David Lewis - 2004 - In Tim Crane & Katalin Farkas (eds.), Metaphysics: a guide and anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.

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