Abstract
The connection between the metaphysics of time and the metaphysics of powers is a relatively new debate in the philosophical literature. Friebe (Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, 33, 77–89, 2017, Backmann (Inquiry, 62, 979–1007, 2018), Donati (No time for powers, Phd Dissertation, University of Nottingham, 2018) have argued that dispositional essentialism may encounter some problems when combined with (in their words) ‘static’ views of time, such as Eternalism. I believe this is a challenge that it is important to address. I will first briefly present (the standard version of) the four main metaphysics of time; I will then present and discuss the main objections moved to the combination of powers ontologies and the metaphysics of time; finally, I will argue that these objections fail, and that the alleged incompatibility results merely from a misconception of the staticity of Eternalism, on the one hand, and of the productiveness of powers on the other; in particular, I will show how the ‘incompatibility argument’ is either false or trivial.
I am grateful for the feedback received on earlier versions of this paper presented (online) at the 2021 Conference of the Society for the Metaphysics of Science The research leading to this publication was supported by the Leverhulme Trust as part of the project Part-whole relations within the fundamental potentialities in nature (RPG-2018-079).
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Notes
- 1.
In a ‘predicatory’ sense, whatever we say in our natural language about an object defines a property: an object has the property of being such that ‘x’. However, we might have good reasons to think that such a predicative property is not necessarily a full-fledged component of our ontology; powers are ‘ontic dispositional properties’ in the sense that are ontological components of the world (see e.g. Bird, 2016 for the difference between predicatory and ontic use of the term property).
- 2.
In order for a dispositional property to be a power, its dispositionality needs to be a non-reducible, ineliminable part of what that property is. A nice and direct way to understand what powers are, then, would be to say that powers are properties which are essentially dispositional – as in e.g. Shoemaker (1969), Ellis (2001), Heil (2003), Bird (2007), Martin (2007); this might however be controversial, as some power ontologists, such as Molnar (2003), Mumford (2004), prefer to avoid the reference to ‘essences’, and simply claim that the dispositionality of powers is what fixes their identity, instead of representing their essence.
- 3.
See for example Callender 2002, Maudlin 2007, Dainton 2010, Markosian 2014 for an overview of the different positions in the debate. Presentism and Eternalism are, by far, the most popular metaphysics of time; the Growing Block view (Ellis, 2006, 2014) and the Moving Spotlight view (Skow, 2012, 2015), however, are quite discussed in recent literature. There are also other possibilities, such as the Burning Fuse model (Norton, 2015) or various combinations of the main four metaphysics, but it is not relevant for the present purposes. I will consider here the three most popular views: Presentism, Eternalism, and the Growing Block Theory (GBT).
- 4.
There are of course many different ways to be a Presentist – and the same goes with the other metaphysics of time; what I am here presenting is a simplified, standard introduction to these positions to help a potential reader who is not acquainted with this temporal debate.
- 5.
One of the interesting consequences of Presentism, which I will not however discuss here, is that it is difficult to see space and time as different aspects of the same entity ‘spacetime’.
- 6.
- 7.
See e.g. Braddon-Mitchell (2004) for a discussion of this topic.
- 8.
I am here simplifying: Craig Callender, for example, consider himself an Eternalist and yet argues in favour of a stronger notion of present (see e.g. Callender, 2002, 2008). Another interesting way to present the debate would be to talk about tense theories and tenseless theories; however, for our present purposes, this would merely lead us astray, as I am already going to propose considering the (very similar) opposition between dynamic and static views of time.
- 9.
Shimony, 1993: 284.
- 10.
“For simplicity we consider the flat spacetime of special relativity (Minkowski space). But with little change it could be a curved spacetime of general relativity”. Hartle (2005), p. 103.
- 11.
I am aware of the existence of different models to explain time estimation and duration perception (the most famous are probably the “Internal clock model” and Ian Phillips’ “Mental activity model”); but this querelle is not relevant here, since everything I need to claim is that – whichever model we choose to represent our internal temporal processing – more images, even if visually identical, are at least numerically distinct; that our brain is able to distinguish between one picture and the successive acquisition of ten identical pictures.
- 12.
The situation is complicated a little by the fact that there are different models to account for our temporal phenomenology (the three main models of our temporal understanding are the Extensionalist, the Retentionalist and the Cinematist); the accumulation of experiences, however, is something that these models have in common. Whichever model we choose to describe our temporal phenomenology, our ‘dynamical feeling’ in front of the same painting is described by the continuous acquisition of data.
- 13.
Dynamists might well argue that this awareness is impossible without the feeling of an objective flow of time, or that the nature of this awareness is unclear, or similar arguments; but I find this line of thought quite promising for Eternalists that want to explain our subjective temporal experience. As the present purposes have more to do with metaphysics than phenomenology, however, this debate is here not crucial.
- 14.
- 15.
There are different possible terminologies in the literature for metaphysics which contain irreducible dispositional properties, each of which has different implications (some philosophers, for example, want to avoid the reference to essences, etc.). For reasons of simplicity, I will here use “dispositional essentialism” as a synonym of “powers metaphysic”.
- 16.
- 17.
Causally inert properties, known in literature as ‘categorical’, are typically understood as geometrical/structural properties like shape and size (as well as any irreducible qualitative properties). Neo-Humeans take all properties to be causally inert categorical properties, lacking modal or causal characteristics; therefore, whatever causal or modal fact obtains in the world, it does so because it is determined by the limited base of categorical properties. An ontology in which all fundamental properties are categorical is known in literature as categorical monism; categorical monism is a key aspect of the neo-humean ontology, which eschews any fundamental property whose essence is at all powerful.
- 18.
It is well-known the fact that in QM there seem to be ‘spooky actions at a distance’, as Einstein used to say. Entangled particles seem to be showing that Quantum information could travel faster than light; I take this into consideration in the next sentence.
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Roselli, A. (2022). Dispositional Essentialism in the Eternalist Block. In: Austin, C.J., Marmodoro, A., Roselli, A. (eds) Powers, Time and Free Will. Synthese Library, vol 451. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92486-7_3
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