Time, metaphysics of

References and further reading

	Balashov, Y. and Janssen, M. (2003) ‘Presentism and Relativity’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54: 327–346. (A sustained critique of one attempt to reconcile presentism with the special theory of relativity.)
	Bourne, C. (2002) ‘When am I? A Tense Time for Some Tensed Theorists?’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80: 359–371. (A presentation of the argument that nonpresentist A-theories cannot guarantee our knowledge that we are in the present.)
	Bourne, C. (2006) A Future for Presentism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (A thorough, readable and scientifically informed book-length defence of presentism.)
	Braddon-Mitchell, D. (2004) ‘How Do We Know It Is Now Now?’, Analysis 64 (3): 199–203. (A short and pithy presentation of the argument that on ‘growing block’ theories the current time is almost certainly not the present.)
	Craig, W. L. (2000) The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (A presentation and defence of arguments in favour of the A-theory, and an examination and critique of arguments against it: thorough, but dense.)
	Dainton, B. (2001) Time and Space, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. (Wonderfully accessible discussion of all of the main issues in the philosophy of time and an ideal starting point for anyone interested in the philosophy of time.)
	Dyke, H. (2002) ‘McTaggart and the Truth about Time’, in C. Callender (ed.) Time, Reality and Experience, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 137–152. (Defence of McTaggart’s paradox as a problem for the A-theory of time, and defence of the B-theory against some criticisms: fairly accessible.)
	Dyke, H. (2002) ‘Tokens, Dates and Tenseless Truth Conditions’, Synthese 131: 329–351. (A detailed examination of the different accounts of tenseless truth conditions and their metaphysical significance.)
	Dyke, H. (2003) ‘Temporal Language and Temporal Reality’, Philosophical Quarterly 53: 380–391. (Argues that it is a mistake to draw ontological conclusions about the nature of time from premises about the nature of temporal language, a trap that A-theorists fall into, but B-theorists don’t.)
	Dyke, H. (2007) Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy, London: Routledge. (A general investigation into the relationship between language and reality that initially focuses on this issue in the philosophy of time.)
	Horwich, P. (1987) Asymmetries in Time: Problems in the Philosophy of Science, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. (An examination of issues in the philosophy of time as they connect up with issues in the philosophy of science.)
	Le Poidevin, R. (1991) Change, Cause and Contradiction, Basingstoke: Macmillan. (A defence of the B-theory of time: moderately accessible.)
	Le Poidevin, R. and MacBeath, M. (1993) The Philosophy of Time, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (A collection of previously published and important papers on time, with a very useful introduction.)
	Ludlow, P. (1999) Semantics, Tense and Time: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. (A book-length defence of the view that features of natural language imply presentism.)
	McTaggart, J. M. E. (1927) The Nature of Existence, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Contains McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time.)
	Markosian, N. (2004) ‘A Defense of Presentism’, in D. W. Zimmerman (ed.) Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 47–82. (A defence of presentism against four of the most serious objections it faces.)
	Mellor, D. H. (1981) Real Time, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (The first book-length articulation and defence of the B-theory of time: thorough, well-argued, but quite difficult in places.)
	Mellor, D. H. (1998) Real Time II, London: Routledge. (A largely rewritten version of the previous item.)
	Oaklander, L. N. (1984) Temporal Relations and Temporal Becoming: A Defense of a Russellian Theory of Time, Lanham, MD: University Press of America. (A defence of the B-theory of time: moderately accessible.)
	Oaklander, L. N. and Smith, Q. (1994) The New Theory of Time, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (A collection of previously published papers on time charting the development of the A-theory/B-theory debate with particular emphasis on the significance of tensed language. Contains useful introductions to each section.)
	Perry, J. (1979) ‘The Problem of the Essential Indexical’, Noûs 13: 3–21. (A classic article on the irreducibility of indexical belief.)
	Quine, W. V. O. (1964) ‘Time’, in J . J. C. Smart (ed.) Problems of Space and Time, New York: Macmillan, 370–384. (A classic statement of the view that tensed language is reducible to tenseless language.)
	Saunders, S. (2002) ‘How Relativity contradicts Presentism’, in C. Callender (ed.) Time, Reality and Experience, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 277–292. (Argues that presentism and special relativity are irreconcilably inconsistent.)
	Savitt, S. F. (2000) ‘A Limited Defence of Passage’, American Philosophical Quarterly 38 (3): 261–270. (A critique of McTaggart’s paradox by a B-theorist.)
	Sider, T. (2001) Four- dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (A rigorous and elegantly written book-length defence of four- dimensionalism, both as a theory of time and as a theory of persistence. Contains an excellent critique of presentism.)
	Smart, J. J. C. (1980) ‘Time and Becoming’, in P. van Inwagen (ed.) Time and Cause, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 3–15. (An early statement of the new B-theory of time.)
	Smith, Q. (1993) Language and Time, New York: Oxford University Press. (A detailed defence of a version of the A-theory of time: quite difficult and technical.)
	Tooley, M. (1997) Time, Tense and Causation, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Develops a ‘closed past, open future’ version of the A-theory, making use of the concept of causation.)