I thought it was obvious that libertarian freedom was compatible with eternalism, but I’m starting to realize that this isn’t true across the board. Some colleagues here think that the two are likely incompatible. After talking with some folks at the Pacific APA, I discovered others who thought that the two are obviously incompatible.
I was also told that there isn’t much in the literature on this – so I think I’m going to start posting some more thoughts on this.
First, let’s get some terms out of the way.
Eternalism – The past, present, and future all exist and are equally real.
Libertarian Freewill – While there is little agreement about how to define freedom, the Libertarian Conception of freedom is supposed to be the robust notion of freedom that we’re after. A cluster of concepts get thrown around as part of this robust notion including – could-have-done-otherwise, and not-caused-by-events-that-are-not-under-your-control.
It’s a cliffhanger! Hurry up and finish the post! I can’t imagine how the argument from Eternalism to the denial of Libertarianism goes and this inquiring mind wants to know.
Quick and dirty response:
As one who has some very strong B-Theoretic sympathies, eternalism included, I must concur that, prima facie , determinism is a consequent of the view; or at least incompatibilism.
Though there is not large swaths of literature on the relationship between eternalism and free will, there exists enough to get started and become literate on the issue. However, issues in time related to metaphysics (including free will and determinsim), are not rare.
In the earliest history of western philosophy, one should look no further than to the fragments of Heraclitus, Zeno, and Parmenides. Look also to Plato’s Timaeus, (esp. beginning at 37c) supplemented by Meno, The Republic, etc.); or to Aristotle’s Physics (esp. IV 10-14) and his Metaphysics (Cf. Eta, Beta, and Zeta).
Indeed, it is striking the degree to which metaphysical disputes throughout the history of philosophy are deeply predicated on issues of time. For Aristotle, even two of the versions of the law of non-contradiction are tensed: “It is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect” (Metaphysics, IV 3 1005b19–20) and “opposite statements are not both true at the same time” (6 1011b13–20). Identity is not excluded; most of the literature on identity (personal and otherwise) is also dependent on time. Just think: can you divorce all notions of temporality from, say, the sorieties paradox? What of divorcing tense from the philosophy of language? (Are there atemporal verbs?) What would follow if we were to ignore time from discussions of eternity, abstract objects, causation, or space? Striking indeed!
Back to the original topic, allow me to offer essentials to this so-called “deficiency” of literature on the topic. Concerning eternalism and free will, I would recommend, off of the top of my head, the following two articles (and the subsequent slew of papers and book chapters in response to them):
Prior, A. N. 1959. “Thank Goodness That’s Over.” Philosophy, 34:128, pp. 12-
17.
Rietdijk, C.W. 1966. “A Rigorous Proof of Determinism Derived from the Special Theory of Relativity,” Philosophy of Science, 33, pp. 341-344.
Of course, there are much more literature that is strongly related to the issues elucidated above; Cf.:
McTaggart, John. 1908. “The Unreality of Time,” Mind, 17, pp. 456-473.
Williams, D.C. 1951. “The Myth of Passage,” The Journal of Philosophy, 48:15,
pp. 457-472.
Smart, J.J.C. 1955. “Spatialising Time,” Mind, 64, pp. 239-241.
Putnam, Hilary. 1967. “Time and Physical Geometry,” Journal of Philosophy, 64, pp. 240-247.
And many more.
It should be noted that B-Theorists tend to be more sympathetic to perdurantism, the unreality of tense, eternalism, and four-dimensionalism (among other views); whereas A-Theorists are sympathetic to endurantism, the reality of tense, presentism, and three-dimensionalism (among others). As such, the following quick and dirty (and possibly inaccurate) list of A-Theorists and B-Theorists (again, off of the top of my head) may guide your future inquiries into the issue.
A-Theorists:
Quentin Smith (Eternalist A-theorist), William Lane Craig (Eternalist A-theorist), John Lucas, Arthur Prior, Michael Tooley (Growing blocker), Dean Zimmerman (has “presentist inclinations”), C.D. Broad, Mark Hinchliff (presentist), Augustine, David Wiggins? (endurantist), Peter Simons? (endurantist), Peter Van Inwagen? (endurantist) Roderick Chisholm?, Ned Markosian, EJ Lowe, …
B-Theorists:
DH Mellor (eternalist), Robin LePoidevin (eternalist), Adolf Grunbaum (eternalist), Ted Sider (4Dist), Yuri Balashov, J.J.C. Smart (eternalist), Nathan Oaklander, D.C. Williams, Heather Dyke, Bertrand Russell, David Lewis, W.V.O. Quine, Paul Horwich, Huw Price, Hilary Putnam, Jan Faye, Arthur Falk?, Craig Callender? (Perdurantist?), Mark Heller, Katherine Hawley, Judith Thompson?, Hermann Minkowski, Sydney Shoemaker?, Richard Sorabji?, Hans Reichenbach, Gabriele Veneziano, Vesselin Petkov…
At the moment, I’m not sure where Hawking, David Armstrong, Penrose, Maruo Dorato, Boltzmann, Michael Dummett (Non-presentist A-Theorist?), John Hawthorne, Lorentz, George Schlesinger (Oaklander says he’s an A-theorist), and a number of others would go… (Concerning the list above, pardon my sloppiness and any inappropriate name placements–to those reading this, please feel free to make additions and corrections!)
If one queries the Stanford Encyclopedia’s search bar for “Time,” a number of great articles will result that deal, in part, with eternalism and the possibility of free will.
A very interesting topic; I wish there were more blog posts in the blogosphere on space, time, causality, and other areas of metaphysics, seeing as how the “Philosophy of Time Society Blog” seems to be rather moribund.
Best,
M