Bogdan-Andrei Dumitrescu
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Philosophy
“The aim of this talk is to tackle David Storrs-Fox’s (2021) argument against the A-theory of time. The argument concerns the A-theory’s alleged inability to account for an explanation of actions. My claim is that his conclusion threatens only some variants of the A-theory of time and not all of them. This makes the argument lose its generality.
In the first part of the talk, I present Storrs-Fox’s argument that the A-theory of time is inadequate for action explanation. He begins by stating that the A-theory typically accepts two distinct theses:
(I) There are temporary propositions (propositions that are sometimes true, sometimes false);
(II) Some facts obtain, but sometimes they don’t obtain (or stop obtaining).
He claims that these two theses are incompatible with the idea that “Explanation is forever and factive.” Consider: if it is raining at t1 and this is the reason why I take my umbrella at t2, then the fact that it is raining at t1 explains why I take my umbrella at t2 (and will still explain at all times later than t2). Thus, I can utter at t3 (a time in which it is not raining) that “The fact that it rained at t1 explains why I took my umbrella at t2.” Storrs-Fox argues that if the past fact still explains at t3 why I took my umbrella at t2, then the past fact still obtains. But this runs contrary to the tenets of the A-theory, he claims. Thus, the A-theory is inconsistent with the idea that “explanation is forever”.
In the second part of the talk, I present Olley Pearson’s (2023) response to this argument. Pearson claims that the A-theory does not face the problem that Storrs-Fox sees and disagrees that explanation is forever. In the third part, I aim to show that Storrs-Fox’s argument applies only to some variants of the A-theory and not to all. The argument’s conclusion loses its force when applied to the A-theory as a whole.
Chair: Clelia Repetto
Time: September 12th, 11:20 – 11:50
Location: HS E.002 (online)
SOPhiA 2026 