1st Edition

A Treatise on Time and Space

By J. R. Lucas Copyright 1973
    336 Pages
    by Routledge

    336 Pages
    by Routledge

    Originally published in 1976. This comprehensive study discusses in detail the philosophical, mathematical, physical, logical and theological aspects of our understanding of time and space. The text examines first the many different definitions of time that have been offered, beginning with some of the puzzles arising from our awareness of the passage of time and shows how time can be understood as the concomitant of consciousness. In considering time as the dimension of change, the author obtains a transcendental derivation of the concept of space, and shows why there has to be only one dimension of time and three of space, and why Kant was not altogether misguided in believing the space of our ordinary experience to be Euclidean.

    The concept of space-time is then discussed, including Lorentz transformations, and in an examination of the applications of tense logic the author discusses the traditional difficulties encountered in arguments for fatalism. In the final sections he discusses eternity and the beginning and end of the universe.

    The book includes sections on the continuity of space and time, on the directedness of time, on the differences between classical mechanics and the Special and General theories of relativity, on the measurement of time, on the apparent slowing down of moving clocks, and on time and probability.

    Part 1: Time by Itself  1. The nature of time  2. Time and consciousness  3. Instants and intervals  4. The ever-shrinking present  5. Concepts and experience  6. Denseness and continuity  7. The topology of time  8. The direction of time  9. Cyclic time  10. The measurement of time  11. Calendars and clocks  12. The rational theory of clocks  13. Timelessness, permanence and omnitemporality  14 Facts and fiats  15. The tenuousness of time  Part 2: The Argument from Time to Space  16. Space  17. Outline of the argument from time to space  18. Time, change and communication  19. Things  20. The argument from the possibility of communication to things  21. The argument from change to things  22. The argument from things and change to different sorts of qualities  23. Qualitative identity and numerical distinctness  24. Types and tokens  25. The Identity of Indiscernibles  26. Parameter space  27. Wireless metaphysics  28. Impenetrability  29. Dimensions and continuity  Part 3: The Theology of Space  30. Newtonian space  31. Equivalence relations and groups  32. Digression into geometry  33. Interpretations  34. The measurement of space  35. Τὸ ἄπειρον  36. Reflections and rotations  37. The Euclidean group  38. Shapes and sizes  39. Pythagoreanism  40. Theodicy  Part 4: Space and Time Together  41. The plenum  42. Newtonian mechanics and relativity  43. The Lorentz group of transformations  44. The transcendental derivation of the Lorentz transformations  45. A priori arguments and empirical truths  46. The dilatation of time 47 The Special and General Theories of Relativity  48. Athanasius intra mundum  Part 5: Return to Time  49. Time reversibility in classical physics  50. Time and probability  51. Time and modality  52. Tenses  53. Dates and tenses  54. Future contingents and fatalism  55. Eternity  56. Alpha and omega

    Biography

    J. R. Lucas