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Philosophy of Time Travel (PHIL10125) Course Guide 2020/21

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Philosophy of Time Travel (PHIL10125) Course Guide 2020/21 Philosophy of Time Travel (PHIL10125) Course Guide 2020/21 Course Organiser: Dr. Alasdair Richmond, [email protected] Dugald Stewart Building, room 6.11, 0131 650 3656 I hope to be offering office hours as well but they will obviously be contingent on how the re-opening of University proceeds in the wake of Covid-19. So look out for further announcements but chats via (e.g.) Skye or Teams will be possible regardless. Course Secretary: Ms. Ann Marie Cowe, [email protected] Undergraduate Teaching Office, Dugald Stewart Building, room G.06, 0131 650 3961 Department of Philosophy School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences University of Edinburgh Course Aims and Objectives This course will offer detailed seminars on key philosophical issues in the philosophy of time travel, largely with an analytical slant. Students should end this course conversant with a range of significant metaphysical (and other) issues surrounding time travel. No detailed logical, scientific or metaphysical expertise will be assumed, and the course is intended to be accessible to students with a wide range of philosophical interests and aptitudes. Intended Learning Outcomes To develop further the philosophical skills, and to extend and deepen the philosophical knowledge, acquired in previous philosophy courses. Transferable skills that students will acquire or hone in taking this course should include the following: written skills (through summative essays) oral communication skills (through lecturer-led and/or student-led seminar discussions) presentation skills (through giving and criticising student presentations) analytical skills (through exploring a carefully-chosen series of philosophical texts) ability to recognise and critically assess an argument. Lecture Times and Locations Second semester Day/ Time: Again, this is all rather contingent on how re-opening proceeds. However please note that: I) all lecture content is already available in pre-recorded form on the LEARN page for this course, and ii) we have resources to allow this course to proceed fully online if required. I hope to have (at the very least) small group face-to-face meetings but rest assured, the course can carry on as planned even if direct meetings prove impracticable. (I have delivered entire courses electronically before, I stress.) Lecture Content and Readings Asterisked items below are available from JSTOR. All other journal items should be available via the electronic journals access facilitated by the Library / MyEd. Any problems, do please let me know. Main texts: *** Please note: electronic alternatives to print resources can always be provided if (e.g.) the Main Library proves difficult of access. There is no irreplaceable reading that is only available in print. As always, please ask if I can help at all. *** This is a research-led course, driven by my ongoing monograph and spin-off articles on sundry aspects of time travel. Just recently (2018 and 2020 respectively), the Oxford University Press have published Ryan Wasserman’s Paradoxes of Time Travel and Nikk Effingham’s Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility, the first full-length books on the philosophy of time travel. Both books can be recommended in their entirety and should be available (again in their entirety) electronically via the Main Library. (My review of Wasserman appeared in Analysis in 2018. By the time the course is actually delivered, my review of Effingham should also be available, again from Analysis.) This next is still probably the best available introduction to space and time in general: Barry Dainton, Time and Space, Chesham, Acumen, 2001, second edition Durham Acumen 2010, multiple copies should be available in the Library Hub Reserve (at shelf-mark BD632 Dai). I spent academic years 2008-2009 and 2016-17 on research-leave, working on a raft of time-travel related articles plus a book. On request, I am happy to circulate draft papers and other works-in-progress of my own. (Just please don’t post my draft stuff anywhere – I’ll just end up looking silly / even sillier. Quite where my book is after Wasserman and Effingham is another story …) Please note that the following lists of readings are prioritised, with the most important / useful readings at the top. So the recommended way to tackle the suggested readings is to start at the top of each list and work downwards. If you read only one thing for each seminar, read the top one. Week 1 Introducing the Debate – What is Time Travel? The Lewisian Analysis. Recommended reading: David Lewis, ‘The Paradoxes of Time Travel’, The American Philosophical Quarterly, 13, 1976: 145-52. Much reprinted in (for examples) The Philosophy of Time, (edd. Robin Le Poidevin and Murray MacBeath), (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993): 134-46 and in Metaphysics: The Big Questions, ed. D. Zimmerman and P. van Inwagen, (Oxford, Blackwell, 1998): 159-169. Online at: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/merlinos/Paradoxes%20of%20Time%20Travel.pdf AR, ‘Recent Work: Time Travel’, Philosophical Books, 44, 2003: 297-309. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0149.00308 Useful background / of related interest: Barry Dainton, Time and Space, EITHER 2001 edition, Chapter 8, 110-113, 116- 119; OR 2010 edition, 121-124; 127-130. Paul Horwich, ‘On Some Alleged Paradoxes of Time Travel’, The Journal of Philosophy, LXXII, 1975: 432-444. Week 2 Developments of, and Objections to, the Lewisian Analysis. Recommended reading: Phil Dowe, ‘The Case for Time Travel’, Philosophy, 75, 2000, 441-451. William Grey, ‘Troubles With Time Travel’, Philosophy, 74, 1999: 55-70. Useful background / of related interest: Jonathan Harrison, ‘Dr. Who and the Philosophers or Time-Travel for Beginners’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, 1971: 1-24. Jonathan Harrison, ‘Analysis Problem No. 18’, Analysis, 39, 1979: 65-66. Jonathan Harrison, ‘Report on Analysis Problem No. 18’, Analysis, 40: 65-9. Week 3 A) Introducing Relativity. Barry Dainton, Time and Space, EITHER 2001 edition, Chapters 16 and 18, 254- 68, 284-300; OR 2010 edition, Chapters 18 and 20, 313-327; 343-367. Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, Ch. 5: 141–159. (Whole book available electronically via the Main Library.) Robert Weingard, ‘General Relativity and the Conceivability of Time Travel’, Philosophy of Science, 46, 1979: 328-32. Further reading: John Earman 1972: ‘Implications of Causal Propagation Outside the Null Cone’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 50, 1972: 222-237. Hajnal Andréka, Judit X. Madarász, István Németi and A. Andai, ‘Visualizing Some Ideas About Gödel-type Rotating Universes’, (2002), draft available at: www.math-inst.hu/pub/algebraic-logic/goduniv/goduniv11.ps.gz Sean Carroll, ‘Lecture Notes on General Relativity’, 1997, archived at: http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9712019 B) Gödel and the Unreality of Time Recommended reading: Barry Dainton, Time and Space, EITHER 2001 edition, Chapter 19, 314-19; OR 2010 edition, 381-386. Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, Ch. 8: 204–224. (Whole book available electronically via the Main Library.) Steven S. Savitt, ‘The Replacement of Time’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 72, 1994: 463-74. Useful background / of related interest: Palle Yourgrau, The Disappearance of Time: Kurt Gödel and the Idealistic Tradition in Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991. Palle Yourgrau, Gödel Meets Einstein: Time Travel in the Gödel Universe, La Salle / Chicago, Open Court, 1999. Palle Yourgrau, A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein, New York, Basic Books, 2005. Week 4 The Cheshire Cat Problem and Other Spatial Perplexities. Recommended reading: Robin Le Poidevin, ‘The Cheshire Cat Problem and Other Spatial Obstacles to Backwards Time Travel’, The Monist, 88, 2005: 336-352. Access via ‘Philosophy Online’: http://www.pdcnet.org/collection/show?id=monist_2005_0088_0003_0336_0352& file_type=pdf&page=1 AR, ‘Time Travel, Hyperspace and Cheshire Cats’, Synthese 2017, online: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11229-017-1448-2 Sara Bernstein, ‘Nowhere Man: Time Travel and Spatial Location’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 39, 2015: 158-168 Useful background / of related interest: Robin Le Poidevin, ‘The Chemistry of Space’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 72, 1994: 77-88. G. J. Whitrow, ‘Why Physical Space Has Three Dimensions’, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 6, (1955), 13-31. Cody S. Gilmore, ‘Time Travel, Coinciding Objects and Persistence’, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, III, 2007 pre-print on-line at: http://www.unomaha.edu/philosophy/TTCOandPmay05.pdf Week 5 Causal Loops Revisited (Part One): ‘Jane’, Jocasta, Dee and Dum. Information Loops and Object Loops. Recommended reading: Richard Hanley, ‘No End in Sight: Causal Loops in Philosophy, Physics and Fiction’, Synthese, 141, 2004: 123-52. Jonathan Harrison, ‘Analysis Problem No. 18’, Analysis, 39, 1979: 65-66. Useful background / of related interest: Jonathan Harrison, ‘Report on Analysis Problem No. 18’, Analysis, 40: 65-9. Margarita R. Levin, ‘Swords’ Points’, Analysis, 40, 1980: 69-70. Phil Dowe and Dylan Evans, ‘How to ‘Clone’ Sexually’, 1998, MS available online at: http://www.uq.edu.au/~uqpdowe/Research/pdfs/cloning.pdf Week 6 A) Causal Loops Revisited (Part Two): Mellor and the Facts of Causation. Recommended reading: D. H. Mellor, Real Time II, (London, Routledge, 1998), 125-135. Susan S. Weir, ‘Closed Time
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