Jan 25

Introduction; Overview of Ancient and Medieval Concerns about Time

Jan 30

Ancient Theories of Time: Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides

Aristotle, Sections 10-14 from Book IV of Physics (Scroll down to section 10!); Maimonides, Book 2, Chapter 13 of The Guide of the Perplexed.

Optional Readings: Plotinus, Seventh Tractate of the Third Ennead; (Link is to all the Enneads. Scroll down to the Seventh Tractate of the Third Ennead by searching for "Eternity and Time".) Secondary sources in left sidebar.

Feb 1

Class Cancelled

Feb 6

The Structure of Time in Classical Physics

Newton's Scholium to Definition 8 from Principia (Additional Reading: Newton's Views on Space, Time, and Motion)

Feb 8

Newton and Leibniz on Absolute vs. Relational Time

Feb 13

Tensed and Tenseless Theories of Time; A-series, B-series

McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time"

Feb 15

The Passage of Time

Horwich, Ch 2; Lockwood, Ch 1; C. Williams, "The Metaphysics of A- and B-Time"; D. Williams, "The Myth of Passage"

Feb 20

Holiday

Feb 22

The Passage of Time

C. D. Broad, "Ostensible Temporality"; Savitt, "On Absolute Becoming"; Savitt, "The Direction of Time (Review Article)"

Feb 27

The Specious Present

1st Assignment due Wednesday, February 28 at 4:30 PM

Lockwood, Ch 17.

Demonstrations of various Flash-lag effects

Mar 1

The Structure of Time in Special Relativity

Lockwood, Ch 2. Notes

Mar 6

The Structure of Time in Special Relativity

Does Special Relativity Count Against the Thesis that Time Flows?

Lockwood, Ch 3.

Mar 8

Fatalism

Richard Taylor, "Fatalism"; Cahn, "Fatalistic Arguments", Brown, "Fallacies in Taylor's 'Fatalism'"

Mar 13

General Relativity

Lockwood, Ch 4, 5, and 6; Gödel, "The Ideality of Time"

Mar 15

Time Travel

Lockwood, Ch 7; Horwich, Ch 7; Lewis, "The Paradoxes of Time Travel"

Mar 20

Backwards Causation and Bilking Paradoxes

2nd Assignment due Wednesday, March 21 at 4:30 PM

Apr 3

The Second Law of Thermodynamics; Statistical Mechanics; The H-theorem; Reversibility Arguments;

Horwich, Ch 3 and 4

Apr 5

Review

First Draft of Big Paper due Monday, April 8 at 4:30 PM

Apr 10

Statistical Mechanical Definition of Entropy; Boltzmann's Statistical Fluctuation Argument; Poincare Recurrence; Boundary Condition Solution

Lockwood, Ch 8 and 9; Price, "More Apt to Be Lost than Got: The Lessons of the Second Law"

Apr 12

The Knowledge Asymmetry

Apr 17

The Knowledge Asymmetry

Horwich, Ch 5

Apr 19

The Asymmetry of Influence, Counterfactual Conditionals

Lockwood, Ch 12; Horwich, Ch 10; Lewis, "Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow"

Apr 24

Low Entropy and the Asymmetry of Influence; Causal Asymmetry

Albert on Epistemic and Causal Asymmetry; My paper discussing the causal asymmetry.

3rd Assignment due Tuesday, May 1 at 4:30 PM