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Fatalism and Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Mark Bernstein
Mark Bernstein
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

A certain mythology has been perpetuated in discussions of philosophy of time. It has been contended that the adoption of a particular theory of time, what I will call the “Non-dynamic Theory of Time” (NDTT) results in a commitment to Fatalism. This unwanted, if not intolerable baggage, is said to be avoided only by jettisoning NDTT and espousing what I will call the “Dynamic Theory of Time” (DTT). What I hope to show is that the truth of the matter is almost completely the reverse; while NDTT has absolutely no Fatalistic ramifications, DTT, when it is conjoined with a most plausible supposition, does.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , Summer 1989 , pp. 461 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1989

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References

1 I am hesitant to equate NDTT and DTT with, respectively, the B-theory and A-theory of time because there has been significant divergence about what philosophers mean by these lattertheories. The locus classicus of the A-theory is McTaggart, 's “The Unreality of Time” in Mind 18 (1908), 457–474CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Representative A-theorists include Gale, R., The Language of Time (New York: Humanities Press, 1968)Google Scholar, Prior, A. N., Time and Tense (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar, and Schlesinger, G., Aspects of Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)Google Scholar. The locus classicus for the B-theory is Russell's “On The Experience of Time” in Monist 24 (1915), 212–233Google Scholar. Representative B-theorists are Grunbaum, A., “The Meaning of Time” in Freeman, E. and Sellars, W., eds., Basic Issues in the Philosophy of Time (Lasalle, IL: Open Court, 1971), 195–228Google Scholar, Williams, D. C., “The Myth of Passage” in Journal of Philosophy 48 (1951) 457–472CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mellor, D. H., Real Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar. For an unusually lucid defence of the B-theory as well a clear and even sympathetic articulation of the A-theory, see Oaklander, N.'s Temporal Relations and Temporal Becoming (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984)Google Scholar. Differences notwithstanding, I think it would be fair to claim that NDTT and DTT encapsulate what virtually, if not veritably, all philosophers of time take to be essential to the A and B theories.

2 I assume, arguendo, that the notion of temporalizing (or tensing) propositions is coherent. Of course if it is not, and DTT entails that propositions have a temporal parameter, DTT would be shown unsatisfactory. I have much more to say on this in my “Fatalism”.

3 But is this too quick? Being able to make E not occur merely entails that “event E will occur” is forever false. That is, if the power to make E not occur is exercised “event E will occur” is false at all times and, concomitantly, there is no fact, at any time, of E's occurrence. So exemplification of this power does not change the Past, it just ensures what the Past was.

But this rejoinder is available only to those who deny what DTT is committed to, viz., the existence of temporal truths whose truth at a particular time is accounted for by the obtainment of a fact at that same time. For if one is burdened with this commitment it would preclude the possibility of a subsequent action (the exercise of the power to make E not occur) accounting for (ensuring) the truth at an earlier time, of a proposition. (This will be detailed later.) NDTT shuns this commitment, as we will presently see, by denying (1), that is, by abandoning altogether the notion of temporal truth.

4 This was made evident in Boston at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division meeting in 1986, where Plantinga discussed David Lewis' “modal realism”.

5 This has obvious affinity to the Quinean doctrine of necessity being a language-relative phenomenon. Here, determinateness plays the role of essential properties.

6 Cf. White, Michael's Agency and Integrality (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially chaps. 1 and 2.

7 For the contemporary origin of this issue, see Pike, N., “Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action” in The Philosophical Review (PR) 74 (1965), 27–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article has spawned the following series; Adams, M., “Is the Existence of God a ‘Hard Fact’?”, PR 76 (1967), 492–503Google Scholar, Fischer, J. M., “Freedom and Foreknowledge”, PR 92 (1983), 64–79Google Scholar, Hoffman, J. and Rosenkrantz, G., “Hard and Soft Facts”, PR 93 (1984), 419–434Google Scholar, Pike, N., “Fischer on Freedom and Foreknowledge”, PR 93, (1984), 599–614Google Scholar, Fischer, J. M., “Ockhamism”, PR 94 (1985), 81–100Google Scholar, Fischer, J. M., “Hard-Type Soft Facts”, PR 95 (1986), 591–601.Google Scholar

8 Of course, Fatalists would deny that there are any open soft facts, and so their alleged obviousness which gives rise to the general consensus would be viewed as questionbegging.

9 I am grateful to an anonymous reader of Dialogue for helpful comments.