A Source on the Philosophy of Time

Here's a link to an article by Dean Zimmerman defending the intuitive (or "A-Theory") view of time.

http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/zimmerman/PrivilegedPresent.pdf

The intuitive view is that there is such a thing as the present, the "moving now," that at this present is ontologically privileged.

Privileged? Sounds like a bad thing to modern sensibilities. "Check your privilege, nowness!"

At any rate, we intuitively feel confident the now is real, whereas the past is uncertain and the future is promised to no one. Descartes' "cogito" is in the present tense. The certainty is "I think" not "I thought" or "I will think." From this epistemological privilege we infer an ontological one -- the intuition is that the now is more real, which is one reason self-help authors always urge us to "live here now."

Zimmerman believes, roughly, that the inference is a sound one and the self-help authors have a point.

Further, Zimmerman provides an answer to some of the objections to the A-Theory that arise from Einsteinian physics. Special relativity, after all, requires us to understand that the "now" is relative to the framework of the observer. There is no evenly-flowing Newtonian time that is in principle accessible both for the earthbound and for the astronaut on a rocket accelerating on his and its way to Alpha Centauri. So: the only way to save the privileged "now" of intuition is by abandoning one of the foundational theories of contemporary science. That sounds alarming.

I am happy that Zimmerman is not alarmed, that there are such distinguished and well-informed defenders of the A view, yet I'm not sure that I grasp the ins and outs of his response, so I'll say no more about it now.

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