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Subject: Philosophy  Book Title: Time, Tense, and Causation
Time, Tense, and Causation
Tooley, Michael Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder
Print publication date: 2000
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-825074-6
doi:10.1093/0198250746.001.0001
 
Abstract: Defends a dynamic, or tensed, conception of time, according to which the past and the present are real while the future is not. This conception differs from traditional tensed views, according to which tensed facts are more basic than tenseless ones; on the contrary, tensed facts reduce to tenseless ones.The conception of time defended is supported by arguments from causation: there can be causation only in a world where the past and the present are real, while the future is not.Further, the direction of time can be defined by the direction of causation, and causation can be used to analyse temporal relations such as the relations of simultaneity and temporal priority.The dynamic conception of time developed is contrasted with alternative views and defended against numerous philosophical objections.It is also defended against implications of the Special Theory of Relativity: A modified version of the Special Theory of Relativity that allows for absolute simultaneity is suggested.

Keywords: causation, direction of time, Special Theory of Relativity, temporal relations, tense, tensed facts, tenseless facts, time
Table of Contents
Preface
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Introduction
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1. The Nature of Time: Alternative Accounts and Basic Issues
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2. Actuality and Actuality as of a Time
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3. Temporally Relative Facts and the Argument from Preventability
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4. Facts, Causation, and Time
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5. Truth and Truth at a Time
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6. Tensed Accounts of the Nature of Time
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7. Past, Present, and Future
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8. Past, Present, and Future: Alternative Accounts
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9. Causation and Temporal Relations
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10. Philosophical Objections
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11. The Special Theory of Relativity and the Unreality of the Future
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12. Summary and Conclusions
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Bibliography
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Index
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doi:10.1093/0198250746.001.0001
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Part I Causation, Time, and Ontology
Part II Semantical Issues
Part III Tensed Facts
Part IV Temporal Relations
Part V Objections
Part VI A Summing-Up