Time and Identity
Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, and Harry S. Silverstein
Abstract
The concepts of time and identity seem at once unproblematic and frustratingly difficult. Time is an intricate part of our experience — it would seem that the passage of time is a prerequisite for having any experience at all — and yet recalcitrant questions about time remain. Is time real? Does time flow? Do past and future moments exist? Philosophers face similarly stubborn questions about identity, particularly about the persistence of identical entities through change. Indeed, questions about the metaphysics of persistence take on many of the complexities inherent in philosophical consider ... More
The concepts of time and identity seem at once unproblematic and frustratingly difficult. Time is an intricate part of our experience — it would seem that the passage of time is a prerequisite for having any experience at all — and yet recalcitrant questions about time remain. Is time real? Does time flow? Do past and future moments exist? Philosophers face similarly stubborn questions about identity, particularly about the persistence of identical entities through change. Indeed, questions about the metaphysics of persistence take on many of the complexities inherent in philosophical considerations of time. This book brings together these two essentially related concepts in a way not reflected in the available literature. The chapters first consider the nature of time and then turn to the relation of identity, focusing on the metaphysical connections between the two, with a special emphasis on personal identity. The book concludes with chapters on the metaphysics of death, an issue in which time and identity play a significant role. This book offers both epistemological analysis and historical perspectives on contemporary topics.
Keywords:
time,
identity,
experience,
identical entities,
change,
metaphysics,
metaphysical connections,
death,
past,
future
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262014090 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: August 2013 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262014090.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Joseph Keim Campbell, editor
Michael O'Rourke, editor
Harry S. Silverstein, editor
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