Eastern Division PTS Meetings

Ernâni Magalhães is going to comment on the paper by Adrian. If anyone is interested in commenting on Yuri's paper please contact me at lno@umflint.edu. Thanks. Nathan

Papers to be presented at the Eastern APA Meeting, December 2007, Baltimore, MD:

"Kant and the Conventionality of Simultaneity"

Adrian Bardon

Wake Forest University

www.wfu.edu/~bardona

Abstract:

Kant’s three Analogies of Experience, in his Critique of Pure Reason, represent a highly condensed attempt to establish the metaphysical foundations of Newtonian physics. His strategy is to show that the organization of experience in terms of a world of enduring substances undergoing mutual causal interaction is a necessary condition of the temporal ordering even of one’s own subjective states, and thus of coherent experience itself. In his Third Analogy—an examination of the necessary conditions of judgments of simultaneous existence—he argues that certain conceptual presuppositions consistent with Newtonian physics are necessary to time-awareness. His argument, however, appears to be undermined by conventionalism in natural science generally, and by the conventionality of simultaneity in particular. In this paper I discuss Kant’s claims in light of contemporary relativity theory. I suggest that, while his project is obsolete in major respects, there may still be useful insights into time-awareness to be drawn from his work.

"Against Alexandrov Present and Alexandrov Coexistence"

Yuri Balashov

University of Georgia

http://yuri.myweb.uga.edu

Abstract:

On eternalism, there is a sense in which all the inhabitants of spacetime coexist with each other, simply because all such entities—dinosaurs, Nebuchadnezzar, Jacques Chirac, etc.—exist, at their respective spacetime locations. But even the eternalist must admit that there is another sense of the coexistence relation such that she bears this relation to Chirac but not to Nebuchadnezzar. This sense of coexistence is familiar and important and its application is not limited to sentient beings. The Great Wall of China coexists, in this interesting sense, with the Taj Mahal, but there was a time when it did not. Can the interesting notion of coexistence be extrapolated to Minkowski spacetime? To the extent that this is possible it requires certain adjustments in the notion. The need to make the adjustments reveals two distinct strands in the "intuitive lore" of the coexistence relation. They work together in the classical setting but come apart in the relativistic context, thus giving rise to two different sets of rules associated with the use of the interesting concept of coexistence. Which of them, if any, can claim the title? I will consider the alternatives and defend my preferences.

A complete draft of Yuri's paper can be found at:

http://yuri.myweb.uga.edu/Working/coexistence_in_minkowski_spacetime.pdf

Comments

[Ernani Magalhaes]

I believe we also need a chair for the session.

[Alyson]

Well written article.