Time Direction Essentialism

CRISTIAN LÓPEZ

Köln

Workshop; Workshop The Direction of Time in the Physical World; 2023

Universidad de Cologne

The view I defend here is Time Direction Essentialism. The view is anchored in two ideas: the direction of time is primitive in the basic ontology and essential to time. According to the former, the direction of time is irreducible to non-temporal asymmetries. According to the latter, it is essential to time to have a direction. The basic idea is that both our daily experience of time and physics require to draw a distinction between spatial and temporal relations, which is given by having (or not) a directionality. In addition, Time Direction Essentialism would play a crucial role in entitling us to explain, and speak meaningfully of, other temporal asymmetries. I show how Time Direction Essentialism can be defended in a substantivalist ontology of time as well as in a relational one.