Introductory description

Time is at once a pervasive aspect of human experience and something that can appear very elusive (as expressed, for instance, in the slogan 'There is no sense organ for time'). What is involved in representing things in time? Is temporal representation something very primitive - which we, for instance, share with non-human animals - or is it rather a sophisticated cognitive achievement that even young children struggle with? This module will look at these and related issues from a number of different aspects, drawing on sources from psychology, phenomenology, the philosophy of mind and metaphysics.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Preliminaries: The nature of mind and the idea of a perspective.
2. Time and timing: cognitive maps and internal clocks
3. Temporal updating and temporal reasoning: Are animals 'stuck in the present'?
4. 'Drawing a line in thought': using space to represent time
5. Episodic memory: remembering 'what, where, when'?
6. 'Mental time travel': continuities and discontinuities between past and future thinking
7. Are we all presentists? Experience and the metaphysics of time
8. Time and tense in perceptual experience
9. Explaining (away) the flow of time

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• demonstrate a systematic and advanced understanding and knowledge of the texts covered in the module, the main arguments of the texts, and critical responses to those arguments.
• communicate at an advanced level clearly and substantively in writing on the questions addressed in the module. They should be able to provide critical analysis of the relevant texts.
• work autonomously to articulate their own view of the relative merits of arguments, methodologies and positions in the literature, and engage critically with other points of view
• analyse and critically assess complex concepts and arguments, as well as communicate at an advanced level clearly and substantively in speech, as well as in writing, the philosophical arguments and concepts covered in the texts.

Indicative reading list

Addis, D. R. (2020). Mental time travel? A neurocognitive model of event simulation. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11(2), 233-259.
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1981). The reality of the past The collected philosophical papers of G. E. M. Anscombe, Vol. 2: Metaphysics and the philosophy of mind (pp. 103-119). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Baier, A. (1976). Mixing memory and desire. American Philosophical Quarterly, 13(3), 213-220.
Boyle, A. (2021). Remembering events and representing time. Synthese, 199(1), 2505-2524.
Callender, C. (2017). What makes time special. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Campbell, J. (1994). Past, space and self. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dainton, B. (2023). Temporal consciousness. In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2023 ed.).
Hartle, J. B. (2005). The physics of now. American Journal of Physics, 73(2), 101-109.
Hoerl, C., & McCormack, T. (2019a). Thinking in and about time: A dual systems perspective on temporal cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42, e244.
Ismael, J. (2017). Passage, flow, and the logic of temporal perspectives. In C. Bouton & P. Huneman (Eds.), Time of Nature and the Nature of Time (pp. 23-38). Berlin: Springer.
Keven, N. (2016). Events, narratives and memory. Synthese, 193(8).
Michaelian, K. (2016). Mental time travel: Episodic memory and our knowledge of the personal past. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Phillips, I. (forthcoming). What has episodic memory got to do with space and time? In S. Aronowitz & L. Nadel (Eds.), Space, Time, and Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Richardson, L. (2014). Space, time and Molyneux's question. Ratio - New series, 27(4), 483-505.
Soteriou, M. (2020). Determining the Future. In G. Ernst & S. Schmidt (Eds.), The Ethics of Belief and Beyond. Understanding Mental Normativity (pp. 234-255): Routledge.
Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic memory: from mind to brain. Annual Reviews of Psychology, 53, 1-25.

Interdisciplinary

The module will draw on work in psychology and evaluate its relevance for philosophical questions about the nature of temporal cognition.

Subject specific skills

(i) The capacity to read and understand key texts in the philosophy of time, memory and temporal experience.
(ii) The capacity to explain key arguments and positions found in the module reading material.
(iii) The capacity to critically evaluate different theoretical positions and arguments concerning the topics covered in the module.
(iv) The capacity to appreciate how philosophical questions may be informed by empirical work in psychology.

Transferable skills

(i) The capacity to read demanding material effectively and critically.
(ii) The capacity to explain demanding ideas and arguments clearly, briefly and accurately.
(iii) The capacity to think creatively about problems by deploying clear thinking and reasoning
(iv) The capacity to communicate effectively in spoken and written language.