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<p>Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz’s book <italic>Nothing to Come: a Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time</italic> offers an incredibly rich and skillful defense of the growing block theory (GBT), a view of time that arguably has much intuitive appeal, and which has been under attack from many sides. Nonetheless, I have to report that the book’s tense-logical course of treatment has not worked for me; I still struggle with making sense of the GBT. This article begins by drawing out some implications of the book’s set up. First, the notion of existence in play here is not interpretable on the basis of ordinary usage. Second, it would be a mistake to take the tense-logical framework to have any metaphysical significance. I then articulate two main worries about their version of the GBT. The first worry takes a familiar shape: it is just hard to see how their view is dynamic in the relevant sense. The second worry is that the topic seems to have been changed. C&amp;R’s logical system helps itself to key notions whose intended interpretation includes a solution to every metaphysical puzzle about the GBT, so that these puzzles are not so much addressed as enshrined in a formal system. That is, their view seems to answer the question of how language should behave, if the GBT were (somehow) true.</p>
</abstract>

Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz’s book Nothing to Come: a Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time offers an incredibly rich and skillful defense of the growing block theory (GBT), a view of time that arguably has much intuitive appeal, and which has been under attack from many sides. Nonetheless, I have to report that the book’s tense-logical course of treatment has not worked for me; I still struggle with making sense of the GBT. This article begins by drawing out some implications of the book’s set up. First, the notion of existence in play here is not interpretable on the basis of ordinary usage. Second, it would be a mistake to take the tense-logical framework to have any metaphysical significance. I then articulate two main worries about their version of the GBT. The first worry takes a familiar shape: it is just hard to see how their view is dynamic in the relevant sense. The second worry is that the topic seems to have been changed. C&R’s logical system helps itself to key notions whose intended interpretation includes a solution to every metaphysical puzzle about the GBT, so that these puzzles are not so much addressed as enshrined in a formal system. That is, their view seems to answer the question of how language should behave, if the GBT were (somehow) true.

Plenty to Come: Making Sense of Correia &amp; Rosenkranz’s Growing Block

Disputatio

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Plenty to Come: Making Sense of Correia & Rosenkranz’s Growing Block

{"article-title":"Plenty to Come: Making Sense of Correia & Rosenkranz\u2019s Growing Block"}

Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz’s book Nothing to Come: a Defence of the Growing Block Theory of Time offers an incredibly rich and skillful defense of the...

Plenty to Come: Making Sense of Correia & Rosenkranz’s Growing Block

Pubblicato online: 26 apr 2023

Pagine: 363 - 372

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0019

Parole chiave
dynamism, growing block theory, temporal ontology, tense-logic, time

© 2021 Natalja Deng, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Plenty to Come: Making Sense of Correia & Rosenkranz’s Growing Block

Pubblicato online: 26 apr 2023

Pagine: 363 - 372

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0019

Parole chiavedynamism, growing block theory, temporal ontology, tense-logic, time

© 2021 Natalja Deng, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Parole chiave
dynamism, growing block theory, temporal ontology, tense-logic, time