<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Many philosophers of physics take the failure of the laws of physics to be invariant under the time reversal transformation to give us good reason to think that spacetime is temporally anisotropic, yet the details of this inference are rarely made explicit. I discuss two reasonable ways of filling in the details of this inference, the first of which utilizes a symmetry principle proposed by John Earman and the second of which utilizes Harvey Brown’s account of spacetime. I contend that neither of the resulting arguments is sound.</p></abstract>

Many philosophers of physics take the failure of the laws of physics to be invariant under the time reversal transformation to give us good reason to think that spacetime is temporally anisotropic, yet the details of this inference are rarely made explicit. I discuss two reasonable ways of filling in the details of this inference, the first of which utilizes a symmetry principle proposed by John Earman and the second of which utilizes Harvey Brown’s account of spacetime. I contend that neither of the resulting arguments is sound.

Do Time-Asymmetric Laws call for Time-Asymmetric Spacetime Structure?

Disputatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Do Time-Asymmetric Laws call for Time-Asymmetric Spacetime Structure?"}

Many philosophers of physics take the failure of the laws of physics to be invariant under the time reversal transformation to give us good reason to think...

Do Time-Asymmetric Laws call for Time-Asymmetric Spacetime Structure?

Published Online: Dec 31, 2018

Page range: 75 - 98

Received: Jul 30, 2016

Accepted: Feb 07, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2017-0028

Keywords
Philosophy of physics, spacetime metaphysics, direction of time, symmetries, laws of nature

© 2017 Daniel Peterson, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Do Time-Asymmetric Laws call for Time-Asymmetric Spacetime Structure?

Published Online: Dec 31, 2018

Page range: 75 - 98

Received: Jul 30, 2016

Accepted: Feb 07, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2017-0028

KeywordsPhilosophy of physics, spacetime metaphysics, direction of time, symmetries, laws of nature

© 2017 Daniel Peterson, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Philosophy of physics, spacetime metaphysics, direction of time, symmetries, laws of nature