The philosopher versus the physicist

Susan Stebbing on Eddington and the passage of time

Bibliographic Data

ID21597891
AuthorsPeter West (0000-0003-3862-142X, Durham University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume30
Issue1
Pages130-151
Publication date2022-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0960-8788 • E-ISSN: 1469-3526
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09608788.2021.1985962
OpenAlexW3206819432
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited11

In this paper, I provide the first in-depth discussion of Susan Stebbing’s views concerning our experience of the passage of time – a key issue for many metaphysicians writing in the first half of the twentieth century. I focus on Stebbing’s claims about the passage of time in Philosophy and the Physicists and her disagreement with Arthur Eddington over how best to account for that experience. I show that Stebbing’s concern is that any attempt to provide a scientific account of the passage of time will face problems, since the events described by physics are necessarily measured against the passage of time. I then identify views elsewhere in her philosophical corpus that can help shed light on this claim. Ultimately, I argue, Stebbing’s views on time should be construed as part of her wider commitment to ‘realism’. To be a realist, for Stebbing, is to accept a set of propositions which are a pre-requisite for even beginning to analyse the world around us. For Stebbing, I argue, part of what it means to be a realist is to accept our experience of the passage of time as something fundamental that cannot itself be subject to analysis

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Physics · Realism · Sociology · Computer Science · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Philosophy, Science, and History

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