Earlier and Later If and Only If Past, Present and Future

Philosophy 86 (1):41-58 (2011)
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Abstract

To prove the equivalence one must start with one side, and the earlier-later side seems, for starting with, logically the clearer. The equivalence is provable on reasonable definitions of ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ in terms of the earlier-later structure of time. McTaggart's attempted distinction between the past-present-future A series and the earlier-later B series, as though they were rivals for the structure of time, is based on an unexamined, and false, assumption. The equivalence shows they are not rivals; they are quite consistent with each other. A very serious consequence is that all subsequent argument, from the A side or the B, however sophisticated, is flawed to the extent that it accepts McTaggart's false distinction.

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Citations of this work

The Role of Subjective Temporality in Future-Oriented Mental Time Travel.Stan Klein & Chloe Steindam - 2016 - In Kourken Michaelian, Stanley B. Klein & Karl K. Szpunar, Seeing the Future: Theoretical Perspectives on Future-Oriented Mental Time Travel. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 135-152.
Time as Relative.Denis Corish - 2015 - Philosophy 90 (3):369-391.
Three Paradigm Theories of Time.Eric V. D. Luft - 2019 - Process Studies 48 (1):88-104.

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References found in this work

Time, Tense, and Causation.Michael Tooley - 1997 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
The language of time.Richard M. Gale - 1968 - New York,: Humanitites Press.
The Philosophy of time.Robin Le Poidevin & Murray MacBeath (eds.) - 1993 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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