The Language and Reality of Time

The Language and Reality of Time
Author: Thomas Sattig
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2006-05-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199279527

Thomas Sattig's book develops a comprehensive framework for doing philosophy of time. He brings together a variety of different perspectives, linking our ordinary conception of time with the physicist's conception, and linking questions about time addressed in metaphysics with questions addressed in the philosophy of language. Within this framework, Sattig explores the temporal dimension of the material world in relation to the temporal dimension of our ordinary discourse about theworld.The discussion is centred around the dispute between three-dimensionalists and four-dimensionalists about whether the temporal profile of ordinary objects mirrors their spatial profile. Are ordinary objects extended in time in the same way in which they are extended in space? Do they have temporal as well as spatial parts? Four-dimensionalists say 'yes', three-dimensionalists say 'no'. Sattig develops an original three-dimensionalist picture of the material world, and argues that this pictureis preferable to its four-dimensionalists rivals if ordinary thought and talk are taken seriously. Among the issues that Sattig discusses are the metaphysics of persistence, change, composition, location, coincidence, and relativity; the ontology of past, present, and future; and the semantics ofpredication, tense, temporal modifiers, and sortal terms.

The Language and Reality of Time

The Language and Reality of Time
Author: Thomas Sattig
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2006-05-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191535486

Thomas Sattig's book develops a comprehensive framework for doing philosophy of time. He brings together a variety of different perspectives, linking our ordinary conception of time with the physicist's conception, and linking questions about time addressed in metaphysics with questions addressed in the philosophy of language. Within this framework, Sattig explores the temporal dimension of the material world in relation to the temporal dimension of our ordinary discourse about the world. The discussion is centred around the dispute between three-dimensionalists and four-dimensionalists about whether the temporal profile of ordinary objects mirrors their spatial profile. Are ordinary objects extended in time in the same way in which they are extended in space? Do they have temporal as well as spatial parts? Four-dimensionalists say 'yes', three-dimensionalists say 'no'. Sattig develops an original three-dimensionalist picture of the material world, and argues that this picture is preferable to its four-dimensionalists rivals if ordinary thought and talk are taken seriously. Among the issues that Sattig discusses are the metaphysics of persistence, change, composition, location, coincidence, and relativity; the ontology of past, present, and future; and the semantics of predication, tense, temporal modifiers, and sortal terms.

The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time

The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time
Author: Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 567
Release: 2015
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1107074061

Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

Time, Reality and Experience

Time, Reality and Experience
Author: Craig Callender
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2002-08-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521529679

Why does time seem to flow in one direction? Can we influence the past? Is only the present real? Does relativity conflict with our common understanding of time? Could science do away with time? These questions and others about time are among the most puzzling problems in philosophy and science. In this exciting collection of original articles, eminent philosophers propose novel answers to these and other questions. Based on the latest research in philosophy and physics, these essays will be enjoyable to anyone with a speculative turn of mind.

Space, Time and Reality

Space, Time and Reality
Author: Ernesto Lee
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
Total Pages: 171
Release: 1998-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1581128630

This sentence is false. Is this sentence true? If it is true that the sentence is false then the sentence is true. If it is false that the sentence is false then the sentence is true. This is a logical contradiction. The sentence can not be both true & false simultaneously. The sentence must be true or false. This begins our journey into the nature of the paradox. A paradox is an absurd truth that derives a repugnant conclusion from an unquestionable set of premises. The listener will usually agree with the arguments supporting the conclusion but be unwilling to accept the final inference. To resolve a paradox, we must do one of four things: ignore it, distort it, reject it, or accept it. This thought provoking book, Space, Time, & Reality, seeks to probe the depths of the human mind by leveraging the power of the paradox. This is a book of questions...not answers, & is intended for those who accept or reject & not ignore or distort.

Language, Truth and Logic

Language, Truth and Logic
Author: Alfred Jules Ayer
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2012-04-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0486113094

"A delightful book … I should like to have written it myself." — Bertrand Russell First published in 1936, this first full-length presentation in English of the Logical Positivism of Carnap, Neurath, and others has gone through many printings to become a classic of thought and communication. It not only surveys one of the most important areas of modern thought; it also shows the confusion that arises from imperfect understanding of the uses of language. A first-rate antidote for fuzzy thought and muddled writing, this remarkable book has helped philosophers, writers, speakers, teachers, students, and general readers alike. Mr. Ayers sets up specific tests by which you can easily evaluate statements of ideas. You will also learn how to distinguish ideas that cannot be verified by experience — those expressing religious, moral, or aesthetic experience, those expounding theological or metaphysical doctrine, and those dealing with a priori truth. The basic thesis of this work is that philosophy should not squander its energies upon the unknowable, but should perform its proper function in criticism and analysis.

The Reality of Time and the Existence of God

The Reality of Time and the Existence of God
Author: David Braine
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 383
Release: 1988
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780198244592

Nothing within the world has the power to make the world continue; yet it is intrinsic to the temporal world that it does continue, and does not exist merely instantaneously. On this basis, the author renews St. Thomas's way of conceiving God as the immediate principle of existence, but doesthis de novo, never drawing upon any authority, but working within the exigencies of contemporary general philosophy. The philosophy of religion is for him never a separate discipline but the fruit of a proper working through of the inter-related problems of the philosophy of mind and action,epistemology, and logical theory with the correlative restructuring of metaphysics.

Space and Time in Language and Literature

Space and Time in Language and Literature
Author: Lovorka Gruić Grmuša
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2009-10-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1443815098

Space and time, their infiniteness and/or their limit(ation)s, their coding, conceptualization and the relationship between the two, have been intriguing people for millennia. Linguistics and literature are no exceptions in this sense. This book brings together eight essays which all deal with the expression of space and/or time in language and/or literature. The book explores the issues of space, time and their interrelation from two different perspectives: the linguistic and the literary. The first section—Time and Space in Language—contains four papers which focus on linguistics, i.e. explore issues relative to the expression of time and space in natural languages. The topics under consideration include: typology regarding the expression of spatial information in languages around the world (Ch.1), space as expressed and conceptualized in neutral, postural and verbs of fictive motion (Ch. 2), prepositional semantics (Ch.3), aspectuality (in Tamil, Ch. 4). All articles propose innovative topics and/or approaches, crossreferring when possible between space and time. Given that all seem to propose at least some elements of “language universality” vs. “language variability”, the strong cognitivist nature of the approach (even when the paper is not written within a cognitive linguistic framework) represents a particularly strong feature of the section, with a strong appeal to experts from fields that need not necessarily be linguistic. The second section of this volume—Space and Time in Literature—brings together four essays dealing with literary topics. Inherent in each narrative are both temporal and spatial implications because a literary text testifies of a certain time, it is from and about a certain period, as well as about a certain space, even if virtual. A particularly strong feature of these papers is that they envision space and time as complementary parameters of experience and not as conceptual opposites, following the transfer of perspective through the whole century. Departing from the late nineteenth century England’s and Croatia’s fictive spaces (Ch. 5), the topic moves via the American Southern Gothic, focusing on Faulkner from the thirties to the early sixties (Ch. 6), via the post-WWII perspectives on history, probing the postmodern context of temporality (Ch 7), to finally reach the contemporary era of post 9/11 space-time (Ch 8). The voyage from chapter five to eight is thus a journey through space and time that allows for some answers to the nature of reality (of a variety of space-times) as conceived by both the authors of these essays as well as by the authors that these essays discuss. The main goal of the editors has been to bring together different scientific traditions which can contribute complementary concerns and methodologies to the issues under exam; from the literary and descriptive via the diachronic and typological explorations all the way to cognitive (linguistic) analyses, bordering psycholinguistics and neuroscience. One of the strengths of this volume thus lies in the diversity of perspectives articulated within it, where the agreements, but also the controversies and divergences demonstrate constant changes in society which, in turn, shapes our views of space-time/reality. All this also suggests that science and literature are not above or apart from their culture, but embedded within it, and that there exists a strong relativistic interrelation between (spatio-temporal) reality and culture. The only hope to objectively envisage any if not all of the above, is by learning how to move (our thought) through space, time or, to put it in simpler terms, how to shift perspectives.