Dartmouth Events

Sapientia Lecture Series

Nina Emery (Brown). "Actualism without Presentism? Not by Way of the Relativity Objection." Free & open to all. Reception follows.

Friday, April 22, 2016
3:00pm – 4:30pm
103 Thornton Hall
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars

Abstract: "Actualism, the view that only actually existing things exist, and presentism, the view that only presently existing things exist, share a common structure and motivation. Yet most philosophers are actualists and few philosophers are presentists. One way of explaining this disparity is by appeal to the apparent conflict between presentism and one of our best scientific theories—special relativity. In this paper I argue for a surprising conclusion: that the relativity objection to presentism is not obviously any more problematic than an analogous relativity objection to actualism. Anyone who is moved by relativistic considerations to give up presentism should be moved by analogous considerations to give up actualism as well. And anyone willing to remain an actualist despite relativistic considerations should be willing to remain a presentist as well."

Nina Emery is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. Her research focuses on the intersection of metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science, particularly the philosophy of physics. She is especially interested in the questions how and to what extent our best scientific theories should inform our metaphysics, and what impact that interaction has on other philosophical projects. Her current research topics include the role of probabilities in explaining frequencies in deterministic contexts, and the relationship between contemporary scientific theories that posit an unintuitive ontology and more traditional skeptical scenarios.

Free and open to all. The Sapientia Lecture Series is funded by The Mark J. Byrne 1985 Fund in Philosophy.

For more information, contact:
Marcia Welsh
(603) 646-3738

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.