Open AccessMetaphysics and Time
Author(s) -
Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
forum philosophicum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2353-7043
pISSN - 1426-1898
DOI - 10.35765/forphil.2008.1302.27
Subject(s) - metaphysics , theory of relativity , epistemology , ontology , conceptual change , theoretical physics , philosophy , philosophy of science , philosophy of space and time , physics , western philosophy
The leap from primitive to scientific time represented as the “time” in “relativity physics,” or in “thermodynamics” or perhaps in “quantum physics” or even within “statistical mechanics” is large. Large also is the conceptual difference between these various understandings of the nature of time. How are we really to understand these physical perspectives on time: As knowledge about the real nature of time represented by the objective concepts: Or as epistemological-operational abstractions that cannot avoid elevating their results to the level of full-fledged reality, to ontology?