Philosophy 218: Homework #1

Instructions:

Please use a typewriter or printer to print your assignment, using (preferably) 1 inch margins, 12 point font, and double spacing. Try to put your answers in everyday English, using a minimum of quotes (quotes give me the author’s words but I want you to explain them!) and a minimum of technical expressions or, at least, explaining any that you use. Write the last four digits of your student ID number but not your name on the homework (if you don't want to use your SID number for some reason, that's fine — please see me). Try not to exceed the page length limits (‘¾’ means three fourths of a page) specified in parentheses.

Questions:

1. Broad argues that events become, and that this becoming is what gives time its 'sense'. In your opinion, does or doesn’t becoming give time its sense? Explain why. ['Becoming' and 'sense' are technical terms that should be explained. You’re not graded on which view you support but on how clearly and forcefully you support it.] (1)

2. Summarize Hinckfuss’s argument. (¾)

3. Williams (p. 463) argues that if time passes (in anything other than the trivial sense in which there are earlier and later times), then there would have to be a second time dimension. Try to set out as clearly as possible why he says this. (½)

4. Smart (in “The Space-Time World”) argues for a token-reflexive analysis of tenses. This is supposed to support the view that time does not flow. How is it supposed to do that? (½)