Metaphysics of laws and ontology of time

Abstract

At first glance, every metaphysics of laws can be combined with every ontology of time. In contrast, the paper intends to show that Humeanism requires eternalism and that Power metaphysics must presuppose an existentially dynamical view of temporal existence, i.e. growing block or presentism. The presented arguments turn out to be completely independent of whether the laws of nature are deterministic or probabilistic: the world is non-productive and static or productively dynamical, the future be ‘open’ or not.

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Citations of this work

Dispositions and Powers.Toby Friend & Samuel Kimpton-Nye - 2023 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Tuomas E. Tahko.
Powers, Processes, and Time.Giacomo Giannini - 2021 - Erkenntnis (6):1-25.
New powers for Dispositionalism.Giacomo Giannini - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1):2671-2700.

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References found in this work

Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The metaphysics within physics.Tim Maudlin - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Time, Tense, and Causation.Michael Tooley - 1997 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
A Future for Presentism.Craig Bourne - 2006 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Four Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time.Theodore Sider - 2004 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3):642-647.

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