Abstract
The causal theory of time is a special type of a relational theory of time. A relational theory holds that it is not necessary to postulate the absolute existence of instants of time, to think of instants as part of a being which is absolute in that it is a kind of event container whose existence is independent of the existence of the events it contains; rather, time is said to be nothing over and above (to be constituted by, to be reducible to) the structure of temporal relations between events. The causal species of this theory says that temporal relations can be defined in terms of ‘physical relations’, relations which, whatever else they are, are not ‘specifically temporal’.
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© 1973 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
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Earman, J. (1973). Notes on the Causal Theory of Time. In: Suppes, P. (eds) Space, Time and Geometry. Synthese Library. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2686-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2686-4_3
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