Time and identity PDF
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TIME AND IDENTITY EDITED BY Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O’Rourke, and Harry S. Silverstein Time and Identity Topics in Contemporary Philosophy Editors Joseph Keim Campbell, Washington State University Michael O’Rourke, University of Idaho Harry S. Silverstein, Washington State University Editorial Board Members Kent Bach, San Francisco State University Michael Bratman, Stanford University Nancy Cartwright, London School of Economics Richard Feldman, University of Rochester John Martin Fischer, University of California, Riverside Nicholas F. Gier, University of Idaho Philip J. Ivanhoe, Boston University Michael McKinsey, Wayne State University John Perry, Stanford University and University of California, Riverside Stephen Schiffer, New York University Brian Skyrms, University of California, Irvine Holly Smith, Rutgers University Judith Jarvis Thomson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Peter van Inwagen, University of Notre Dame Time and Identity edited by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O’Rourke, and Harry S. Silverstein A Bradford Book The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2010 M assachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected] . edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cam- bridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Stone and Stone Sans by Westchester Book Group. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Time and identity / edited by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O’Rourke, and Harry S. Silverstein. p. cm.—(Topics in contemporary philosophy) “A Bradford book.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01409-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-262-51397-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Time. 2. Identity (Philosophical concept). 3. Self (Philosophy). 4. Death. I. Campbell, Joseph Keim, 1958–. II. O’Rourke, Michael, 1963–. III. Silverstein, Harry, 1942–. BD638.T5437 2010 115—dc22 2009041935 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: F raming the Problems of Time and Identity 1 Matthew H. Slater I Time 25 1 Temporal Reality 27 Lynne Rudder Baker 2 Time for a Change: A Polemic against the Presentism–Eternalism Debate 49 Lawrence B. Lombard 3 Context, Conditionals, Fatalism, Time Travel, and Freedom 79 John W. Carroll 4 The Identity of the Past 95 Mark Hinchliff II Identity 111 5 Identity through Change and Substitutivity Salva Veritate 113 Reinaldo Elugardo and Robert J. Stainton 6 Identifying the Problem of Personal Identity 129 Ned Markosian 7 Persistence and Responsibility 149 Neal A. Tognazzini 8 Descartes on Persistence and Temporal Parts 165 Geoffrey Gorham vi Contents III The Self 183 9 Persons, Animals, and Human Beings 185 Harold Noonan 10 Me, Again 209 Jenann Ismael 11 Selves and Self-Concepts 229 John Perry 12 Ex Ante Desire and Post Hoc Satisfaction 249 H. E. Baber IV Death 269 13 Eternalism and Death’s Badness 271 Ben Bradley 14 The Time of the Evil of Death 283 Harry S. Silverstein 15 The Retroactivity Problem 297 Barbara Baum Levenbook V Postlude 309 16 Love Conquers All, Even Time? 311 Andrew Light Contributors 321 Index 323 Acknowledgments Earlier versions of the essays in this volume were presented in Pullman, Washington, and Moscow, Idaho, at the eighth annual Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference (INPC), held April 1–3, 2005. For administrative and fi nancial support for the conference, we thank the philosophy depart- ments at Washington State University (David Shier, Chair) and the Univer- sity of Idaho (Douglas Lind, Chair), the College of Liberal Arts at Washington State University (Erich Lear, Dean), the College of Letters, Arts & Social Sciences (Joe Zeller, Dean) and the Provost’s Offi ce at the University of Idaho, the research offi ces at both universities, and the departmental administrative managers, DeeDee Torgeson and Diane Elli- son. We are also grateful for a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a state-based affi liate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, to help fund the Public Forum. Those who presented papers at INPC 2005 were encouraged to submit their work for possible inclusion in this volume, and, after a process of peer evaluation, only a few were selected. We regret that we had to turn down numerous quality essays. For help with the selection process and other matters, we thank William Beardsley, Ben Bradley, Andrei Buckareff, Ben Caplan, Larry Colter, Barry Dainton, Bruce Glymour, Gary Hardcastle, Katherine Hawley, Mark Heller, Paul Hovda, Charlie Huenemann, Simon Keller, Ann Levey, Marc Moffett, Mark Moyer, Joe Salerno, Steve Savitt, Christopher Shields, Russell Wahl, Lisa Warenski, Ryan Wasserman, Brian Weatherson, and Ron Wilburn. Finally, our thanks to Delphine Keim Campbell, Rebecca O’Rourke, and Lorinda Knight for continued support and understanding! Introduction: Framing the Problems of Time and Identity Matthew H. Slater Concepts Familiar yet Perplexing Many philosophical concepts are diffi cult. Some, however, are doubly con- founding in their apparent f amiliarity . The concepts of t ime and i dentity may top this list. The fourth-century philosopher, Augustine of Hippo, expressed his exasperation with time this way: For what is time? Who can easily and briefl y explain it? Who can even comprehend it in thought or put the answer into words? Yet is it not true that in conversation we refer to nothing more familiarly or knowingly than time? And surely we under- stand it when we speak of it; we understand it also when we hear another speak of it. What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know. (C onfessions , 11, XIV, 17) Time is an intricate and deeply embedded part of our experience. Indeed, it would seem that the passage of time is a prerequisite for having any experi- ences at all. But a number of recalcitrant questions about time remain: Is time real? Does time objectively fl ow? Do past and future moments exist just as present moments do, or is the present in some way special? The concept of identity also seems at once philosophically unproblem- atic and frustratingly diffi cult. It is, as philosophers have long noted, that relation everything bears to itself and to no other thing .1 Of course, as Haw- thorne (2003 , 99) points out, this cannot be an analysis of identity—for ‘ itself ’ and ‘no other thing’ already presuppose an understanding of iden- tity. David Lewis likewise tempers his praise of identity’s simplicity: There is never any problem about what makes something identical to itself; noth- ing can ever fail to be. And there is never any problem about what makes two things identical; two things never can be identical. There might be a problem about how to defi ne identity to someone suffi ciently lacking in conceptual resources—we note that it won’t suffi ce to teach him certain rules of inference—but since such
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