Fatalism and the Logic of Time

In Fatalism and the Logic of Time, Linda Zagzebski examines two interpretations of the necessity of the past. One interpretation is the modal necessity of the past, and the other interpretation is the cause of closure of the past. She argues that the combination of the necessity of the past with the transfer of necessity principle is inconsistent with the truth of any proposition about the past that entails a proposition about the future. As such, the problem is much broader than fatalism. It is a problem in the logic of time. All arrows of time, as well as the arrows of physics, arise from the human experience of before and after -- but that experience does not itself require an arrow.

Auteur

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is the George Lynn Cross Research Professor Emerita and Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics Emerita at the University of Oklahoma. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. Some of her other publications include Omnisubjectivity (OUP, 2023), Epistemic Authority (OUP, 2017), Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge, 2012), and The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge (OUP, 1991).