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Copyright by Maxwell James Goss 2006 Copyright by Maxwell James Goss 2006 The dissertation committee for Maxwell James Goss certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Time and Human Nature: A Modest Defense of Eternalism Committee: __ _______________________________ Robert Koons, Supervisor _________________________________ Richard Sorabji _________________________________ Cory Juhl _________________________________ Robert Kane _________________________________ Edwin Allaire _________________________________ David Sosa Time and Human Nature: A Modest Defense of Eternalism by Maxwell James Goss, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfill ment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2006 To the Glory of God Acknowledgements Far more people than I can name have helped me along to the compl etion of this project. A few deserve special mention. I want to thank my examination committee, Robert Koons, Richard Sorabji, Robert Kane, Cory Juhl, David Sosa, and Edwin Allaire. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Robert Koons, my advisor and philo sophical mentor, who was unfailingly generous with his time, and to Richard Sorabji, my co -advisor, whose friendly disagreements have kept me honest. Rob and Richard are models of humaneness, precision, and fertility of mind, and each has left his mark on this project and on my whole philosophical outlook. I am grateful to Quentin Smith and Arthur Falk , my unofficial advisers, who have helped me navigate a treacherous subject and whose searching criticisms provoke me to think ever more deeply. I am grateful for useful conversations with Peter van Inwagen and Brian Pitts, and for useful correspondence with John Perry, Sanford Goldberg, and L. Nathan Oaklander. I am grateful to S loan Lee, Neal Judisch, James Kraft, Timothy McGrew, Lyd ia McGrew, and J. Budzisze wski, partners in the pursuit of wisdom, each of whom provided encouragement, inspiration, and invaluable feedback at crucial stages along the way. I want to thank the Russell K irk Center for Cultural Renewal and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, whos e generous fellowships gave me well over a year of uninterrupted research and writing, and the University of Texas Dean of Graduate Studies and Department of Philosophy, who provided for my annual visits to Oxford. v I want to thank the participants in the P hilosophy of Time Society meetings at the American Philosophical Society, Pacific Division, 2003, and Eastern Division, 2005, and the attendees of my Russell Kirk Center lecture in Summer 2005. The questions and comments I received at these sessions were c onstructive and insightful. I also want to thank the students of Knowledge and Reality, Fall 2005, for helping me examine every angle of the problems of free will and personal identity. I am deeply grateful to my parents, who have supplied a lifetime of l oving support, even for my craziest undertakings . I am most indebted to Liz, who somehow combines the virtues of both philosopher and wife. Her acute insights, constant encouragement, and cheerful sacrifices have made this project possible, and much, much more. vi Time and Human Nature: A Modest Defense Of Eternalism Publication No. _____________ Maxwell James Goss, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisor: Robert Koons Eternalism is the view that all times are r eal and no time is objectively past, present or future. It is commonly assumed that eternalism creates problems for robust conceptions of human nature, since the freedom, responsibility and rationality that such conceptions typically req uire seem for vario us reasons to demand a metaphysical distinction between the present and other times. My purpose is to show, to the contrary, that eternalism is fully compatible with freedom, responsibility and rationality, thereby laying the essential groundwork for a pos itive defense of vii eternalism as the correct theory of time. My project has a number of important ramifications, not the least of which is that it p oints the way towards a satisfying integration of the best scientific, theological, and humane learning. viii Table of Contents List of Diagrams ................................ ................................ ................................ ..... x 1. Introduction ................................ ................................ ................................ .......... 1 1.1 Of Time and Human Nature ................................ ................................ .... 1 1.2 The Compatibility Thesis ................................ ................................ ..... 4 1.3 Eternalism and Temporalism ................................ ............................... 8 1.4 Assumptions and Strategy ................................ ................................ .. 21 2. Freedom ................................ ................................ ................................ ............. 27 2.1 The Basic Argument from Freedom ................................ ....................... 28 2.2 Two Improved Arguments from Freedom ................................ .............. 46 3. Responsibility ................................ ................................ ................................ .... 62 3.1 Endurance and Responsibility ................................ ................................ .64 3.2 Endurance and Eternalism ................................ ................................ ...... 82 4. Rationality (I) ................................ ................................ ................................ ... 100 4.1 The “Myth of Passage” ................................ ................................ ......... 101 4.2 Saving the Appearances ................................ ................................ ........ 109 5. Rationality (II) ................................ ................................ ................................ .126 5.1 “T hank Goodness That’s Over” ................................ ............................ 127 5.2 The Experiential View ................................ ................................ .......... 153 6. Conclusion ................................ ................................ ................................ ....... 177 References ................................ ................................ ................................ ............ 187 Vita……… ................................ ................................ ................................ ........... 197 ix List of Diagrams Contemporary Theories of Time ................................ ................................ ............ 19 x 1. Introduction It is clearly bad for the sciences and the arts to be divided into “two cultures.” It is bad for scientists to be working without a sense of obligation to cultural tradition. It is bad for artists and scholars in the humanities to be working without a sense of obligation to the world beyond artifacts of culture. It is bad for both of these cultures to be operating… [without] any vision of an eternal order to which we all are subordinate and under obligation. – Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle 1.1 Of Time and Human Nature The present essay is an exercise in what might be called “analytic humanism.” It employs the distinctive methods and commitments of contemporary analytic philosophy – conceptual analysis, attention to logical form, confidence in empirical science, a problem -centered approach , a sturdy suspicion of unfettered sp eculation – to explore one aspect of that great and ancient question: What is man? Influential strands of the Western tradition, which can be group ed under the heading “humanism,” h ave answered that human beings are fundamentally distinguished from the res t of the natural world in virtue of possessing a conspicuous moral nature . Though humanism in its various forms was once dominant, it has now fallen into disrepute in many sectors. My project arises from the conviction that at least a limited humanism is n evertheless true. A full -scale vindication of the unique importance of human persons is beyond the scope of a single essay. 1 In fact, I shall not even try to defend it. Instead, I shall consider human nature in connection with another ancient question: Wha t is the nature of time? Some of the most significant challenges to a traditional understanding of 1 In this essay I use the locution “human person s,” which I sometimes abbreviate as “persons.” I do not take a position here on whether there are humans that are not persons or persons that are not humans. 1 persons are due to dramatic developments in modern science, most notably the Copernican revolution in astronomy and the advent of evolutionary biology. A thi rd challenge, less widely noted but, in my judgment, no less important, is due to a certain view of time – call it “eternalism” – according to which all past, present and future times are fully real and on an ontological par with one another. Eternalism – also known variously as the block universe theory, the tenseless theory and the B -theory of time – strikes many as deeply counter -intuitive, in part because it can seem to imply that the moving present , however deeply engrained in our experience, is actual ly an illusion. Eternalism has a venerable pedigree in the history of philosophy, arguably beginning with Parmenides, but has received a fresh impetus in the last century with the emergence of relativity theory. Consequently,
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