Time (ARTS90051)

Does any moment other than the present exist? Are all moments of time (past, present, and future) equally real or are some moments privileged? Does special relativity constrain the views of time that it is reasonable to endorse? How does the way we experience time (both as individuals and as members of a particular cultural) influence our daily lives? In this subject we will examine various accounts of the nature of time (presentism, eternalism, growing block theory), as well as of our experience of time (i.e. our "temporal phenomenology"). Far from being a mere esoteric philosophical matter, which view of time we endorse and which temporal phenomenology we experience has far-reaching consequences. Special emphasis will be placed upon exploring connections between philosophical accounts of time and ways of conceiving time that have been influential in other disciplines. This inter-disciplinary approach to understanding time will be particularly relevant to students whose studies involve consideration of events unfolding over time (e.g. the reign of a queen, the evolution of linguistic practices over time) or inter-personal/inter-cultural differences in the perception of time (e.g. does how quick people are to anger vary across cultures? Are there systematic difference in our perception of time that mirror the systematic personality differences evaluated in the Myers Briggs personality test?)