Questions of Time and Tense

by Robin Le Poidevin (editor)

This book brings together new essays on a major focus of debate in contemporary does time really pass, or is our ordinary experience of time as consisting of past, present, and future an illusion? The international contributors broaden this debate by demonstrating the importance of questions about the nature of time for philosophical issues in ethics, aesthetics, psychology, science, religion, and language.

Genres: Philosophy

306 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 1998

About the author

Robin Le Poidevin (born 1962) is a Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Leeds whose interests include the nature and experience of time, agnosticism, and philosophy of religion. He joined the Department of Philosophy at Leeds in 1989 having completed postgraduate studies at both Oxford and Cambridge, obtaining his MA from the former and his PhD from the latter.He is also the current president of The British Society for the Philosophy of Religion.

From 1998 to 2001 he was Head of Department, and in 2000 was appointed to a personal chair in Metaphysics. He is a member of the Centre for Philosophy of Religion, the Centre for Metaphysics and Mind, and is the Editor of Religious Studies, and Past President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion.

In 2007 he gave the Stanton Lectures in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge, and in 2012 was Alan Richardson Fellow in Theology at the University of Durham.

Reviews

[James T]

Didn't read all the articles but want to keep the title bookmarked. Contains William Lane Craig and Paul Helm's articles on divine timelessness.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology is pretty good. It has a real gem of a paper in it discussing the following problem: according to standard analyses, our treatment of persons other than ourselves, worlds other than the actual, and times other than the present ought to be analogous. However, while I am inclined to think of the present as metaphysically special (and the actual world, also), I am disinclined (in my reflective moments) to think of myself as metaphysically special. What's up with that?!