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Philosophies
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Time Travel 2nd Edition
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Time Travel 2nd Edition

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 6673

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Alasdair Richmond

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, UK
Interests: time travel; time; space; philosophy of science; British empiricism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to invite submissions for a second edition of this Special Issue of Philosophies, to be devoted to papers in the philosophy of time travel. The first edition features a wide range of work by outstanding practitioners of the philosophy of time travel, covering, e.g., problems in backwards causation, precognition, probability, agency and decision making, while also covering how time travel illuminates differing attitudes to future events, as well as multi-dimensional time models of time travel.  However, in addition to the above, there are still plenty of areas of the subject for this Special Issue to explore. The philosophy of time travel now ranges from theories of how different interpretations of quantum mechanics might try to resolve Grandfather Paradoxes, through to discussions about the impact that time travel cases might have on our understanding of life’s value and death’s harm.  Other topics include questions about philosophical aesthetics, probability theory, historical artefacts, abstract entities, divine identity, and the ultimate cosmological/theological origins of the universe. The philosophy of time travel can contain discussions of issues in ethics, the philosophy of religion, philosophy of science (including quantum physics and spacetime physics), theories of persistence, personal identity, the philosophy of fiction, or even the philosophy of computation.  With time travel discussions proliferating in a host of philosophical sub-disciplines, my hope is that a second edition of this Special Issue may help extend the philosophy of time travel still further. Papers are invited from potential contributors on any aspect of the philosophy of time travel (including, but not exhausted by, the topics mentioned above and the topics in the list of keywords below). I look forward to your submissions.

Dr. Alasdair Richmond
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Philosophies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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14 pages, 280 KiB  
Article
Determinism, Counterfactuals, and the Possibility of Time Travel
by Kadri Vihvelin
Philosophies 2023, 8(4), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8040068 - 25 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1966
Abstract
The Consequence argument is an argument from plausible premises–our lack of causal power over the laws and past–to an implausible conclusion: that if determinism is true, we are equally powerless with respect to the future. What the compatibilist needs is a theory of [...] Read more.
The Consequence argument is an argument from plausible premises–our lack of causal power over the laws and past–to an implausible conclusion: that if determinism is true, we are equally powerless with respect to the future. What the compatibilist needs is a theory of counterfactuals that preserves the links between counterfactuals, causation, and the natural laws in a way that supports our commonsense belief that we have the power to make a causal difference to the future but no such power with respect to the past. Lewis’s critique of the Consequence argument was based on his theory of counterfactuals and his analysis of causation as a counterfactual relation between particular events. He argued that, at a world that is deterministic in the way that ours might be, counterfactuals are temporally asymmetric in a way that matches the contingent temporal asymmetry of cauation. So it is not surprising, but only to be expected, that the past is causally closed while the future is causally open. If this worked, it would be just what the compatibilist needs. But it doesn’t work. There is an argument, due to Tooley and recently endorsed by Wasserman, that a fundamental feature of Lewis’s theory of counterfactuals is inconsistent with the metaphysical possibility of time travel and backwards causation. If this is right, then Lewis’s response to the Consequence argument fails. I endorse this conclusion, but argue that there is a better theory of counterfactuals–a theory that leaves open the metaphysical possibility of time travel to the past and backwards causation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Time Travel 2nd Edition)
14 pages, 220 KiB  
Article
Time Travelers (and Everyone Else) Cannot Do Otherwise
by G. C. Goddu
Philosophies 2024, 9(1), 28; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies9010028 - 17 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1520
Abstract
Many defenders of the possibility of time travel into the past also hold that such time travel places no restrictions on what said time travelers can do. Some hold that it places at least a few restrictions on what time travelers can do. [...] Read more.
Many defenders of the possibility of time travel into the past also hold that such time travel places no restrictions on what said time travelers can do. Some hold that it places at least a few restrictions on what time travelers can do. In attempting to resolve this dispute, I reached a contrary conclusion. Time travelers to the past cannot do other than what they in fact do. Using a very weak notion of can, I shall argue that the correspondingly strong cannot do otherwise applies in the case of backwards time travel. I defend this result from objections. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Time Travel 2nd Edition)
28 pages, 2666 KiB  
Article
The Close Possibility of Time Travel
by Nikk Effingham
Philosophies 2023, 8(6), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8060118 - 12 Dec 2023
Viewed by 2577
Abstract
This article discusses the possibility of some outlandish tropes from time travel fiction, such as people reversing in age as they time travel or the universe being destroyed because a time traveler kills their ancestor. First, I discuss what type of possibility we [...] Read more.
This article discusses the possibility of some outlandish tropes from time travel fiction, such as people reversing in age as they time travel or the universe being destroyed because a time traveler kills their ancestor. First, I discuss what type of possibility we might have in mind, detailing ‘close possibility’ as one such candidate. Secondly, I argue that—with only little exception—these more outlandish tropes fail to be closely possible. Thirdly, I discuss whether these outlandish tropes may nevertheless be more broadly possible (e.g., metaphysically or logically possible), arguing that whether they are or not depends upon your favored metaphysics of the laws of nature. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Time Travel 2nd Edition)
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