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THE LANGUAGE AND REALITY OF TIME This page intentionally left blank The Language and Reality of Time THOMAS SATTIG CLARENDONPRESS·OXFORD 1 GreatClarendonStreet,OxfordOX26DP OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork ThomasSattig2006 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2006 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Sattig,Thomas. Thelanguageandrealityoftime/ThomasSattig. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. 1. Time. I. Title. BD638.S292006 115—dc22 2006000592 TypesetbyLaserwordsPrivateLimited,Chennai,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby BiddlesLtd.,King’sLynn,Norfolk ISBN0–19–927952–7 978–0–19–927952–4 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Formyparents, ChristelandBerndSattig This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements MostofthisbookwaswrittenwhileIwasaBritishAcademyPostdoctoral FellowandaJuniorResearchFellowofBrasenoseCollege,Oxford.Ithank the British Academy and the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College fortheirsupport. For valuable comments on the material presented in this book I am grateful to a number of people. I am most indebted to Tim Williamson, who supervised the doctoral thesis that forms the origin of this book, andwhoaccompaniedthebook’sprogresswithstimulatinginsights.Iam also grateful to Jeremy Butterfield, Kit Fine, Graeme Forbes, Jonathan Lowe,KrisMcDaniel,HughMellor,AdrianMoore,CalvinNormore,Josh Parsons,OliverPooley,GonzaloRodriguez-Pereyra,NickShea,NicoSilins, Barry Smith, Stephen G. Williams, Dean Zimmerman, and participants in graduate classes I gave with Jeremy Butterfield at Oxford University. I am especially grateful to Thomas Crisp, Heather Dyke, and Ted Sider for extensive comments on the entire manuscript. Further, I thank Peter Momtchiloff for his interest and encouragement, and Ahlie Schaubel for beingthere. Section5.5 draws on material previously published in my ‘Temporal PredicationwithTemporalPartsandTemporalCounterparts’,Australasi- an Journal of Philosophy, 81 (2003), 355–68, by permission of Oxford University Press. Section6.3 contains material from my ‘Temporal Parts andComplexPredicates’,ProceedingsoftheAristotelianSociety,102(2002), 279–86,bypermissionoftheEditoroftheAristotelianSocietyProceedings. T.S. This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction 1 1. TemporalSupervenience 5 1.1. TemporalLanguage 5 1.2. TemporalReality 17 1.3. TemporalSupervenience 24 1.4. TheProblemsofChange 32 1.5. A-time,B-time,andSpacetime 34 1.6. SupervenienceandRelativity 41 2. Three-DimensionalismandFour-Dimensionalism 47 2.1. ObjectsinSpacetime 47 2.2. TemporalPartsandTemporalCounterparts 52 2.3. EndurantismandPerdurantism 57 2.4. EternalismandPresentism 62 3. TemporalPredicationandSupervenienceFailure 66 3.1. TheRelationalAccount 66 3.2. RelationalSupervenienceFailure 70 3.3. TheIntensionalAccount 77 3.4. IntensionalSupervenienceFailure 86 3.5. Adverbialism 91 4. Four-DimensionalistSupervenience 97 4.1. TheTemporal-partsAccount 97 4.2. TemporalandModalSupervenience 111 4.3. SpatialSupervenienceandSpace–TimeAsymmetry 117 4.4. ExtremeFour-DimensionalismandOntological Parsimony 129 4.5. PredicationalOverkill 135 4.6. TheTemporal-counterpartsAccount 156 5. Three-DimensionalistSupervenience 163 5.1. TheTemporal-regionsAccount 163 5.2. TheStatusofRegionalInstantiation 169