Compact Seminar: Time to Think and Thoughts About Time

What is time? Is it a fourth dimension, or something altogether different? Does it have an intrinsic direction? Is time travel possible? How does time shape our lives and our conceptions of who we are?

We’ll look at reflections on the nature of time from different points of view—philosophy, psychology, literature, and physics—by writers such as Augustine (Confessions), Boethius (The Consolation of Philosophy), Borges (“The Garden of the Forking Paths” and “A New Refutation of Time”), McTaggart (“The Unreality of Time”), and others.

About Our Scholar:

Professor Bonevac works mainly in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, semantics, and philosophical logic. His book Reduction in the Abstract Sciences received the Johnsonian Prize from The Journal of Philosophy. The author of five books and editor or co-editor of four others, Professor Bonevac's articles include “Against Conditional Obligation” (Noûs), "Sellars v. the Given" (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research), "Reflection Without Equilibrium," (Journal of Philosophy), "Free Choice Permission Is Strong Permission" (Synthese, with Nicholas Asher), "The Conditional Fallacy," (Philosophical Review, with Josh Dever and David Sosa), “The Counterexample Fallacy” (Mind, also with Dever and Sosa), and “The Argument from Miracles” and “Two Theories of Analogical Predication” (Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Religion). He was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy from 1991 to 2001.