Philosophical Foundations of Space, Time and Motion

Catalog description

This course will examine the roles of space, time, and motion in physical theorizing, and various metaphysical and epistemological puzzles associated with those concepts. Among the questions we'll investigate are: Do space and time (or spacetime) exist in the same sense as material objects? Do material objects really have instantaneous velocities? How might we come to know facts about the geometry of physical space? Does time 'pass' or 'flow' in a particular direction, such that only the present moment is real? Is time travel possible, conceptually and physically? Indeed, how do the considerations relevant to addressing the preceding questions change (if at all) as we move from classical physics to the modern spacetime frameworks of special and general relativity? No background in physics is presupposed, but you should be prepared to engage with the scientific material introduced in class. This course fulfills the theoretical elective distribution within the Philosophy major.