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The Debate About Time: Examining The Evidence From Our Ordinary Experience Of Time, Melissa Macaulay

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, I examine the metaphysical debate between the A-theory and the B-theory of time, first by elaborating upon its proper characterization, and then by examining the sorts of evidence that are often thought to be germane to it. This debate, as I see it, is about whether or not time passes in any objective (observer-independent) sense: the A-theory holds that it does, while the B-theory holds that it does not. I identify two opposing conceptions of time—that of the “time of ordinary experience” on one hand, and that of “scientific time” on the other—and argue that the tension …