Ryan Wasserman
Western Washington University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
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- I am a professor of philosophy at Western Washington University. I specialize in metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy... moreI am a professor of philosophy at Western Washington University. I specialize in metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of language, but I also have interests in epistemology, mind, and ancient philosophy.edit
In this note, I discuss the central argument from Patrick Todd's book The Open Future.
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This is a paper about time travel and what it teaches us about freedom. I argue that cases of time travel bring out an important difference between two ways of thinking about “the past”—either in terms of time itself, or in terms of... more
This is a paper about time travel and what it teaches us about freedom. I argue that cases of time travel bring out an important difference between two ways of thinking about “the past”—either in terms of time itself, or in terms of causation. This ambiguity naturally transfers over to our talk about things like fixity, determinism, and incompatibilism. Moreover, certain cases of time travel suggest that our freedom is not constrained by the temporal past per se, but by the causal histories of our actions. This, in turn, raises a number of interesting questions about the formulation of incompatibilism and the broader debate over freedom.
Research Interests: Free Will and Time Travel
Assume that, even with a time machine, you do not have the ability to travel to the past and kill your grandfather. Why would that be? And what are the implications for traditional debates about freedom?
Research Interests: Free Will and Time Travel
The standard argument for theological fatalism assumes that the past is fixed. However, there are two different ways of understanding this assumption. I argue against the traditional interpretation of fixity and show how a proper... more
The standard argument for theological fatalism assumes that the past is fixed. However, there are two different ways of understanding this assumption. I argue against the traditional interpretation of fixity and show how a proper understanding of this principle fails to support the fatalist's argument.
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Many philosophers have held that some of God's past beliefs depend, in an important sense, on our future actions. This paper seeks to clarify this claim and, in the process, to develop a plausible response to the traditional argument for... more
Many philosophers have held that some of God's past beliefs depend, in an important sense, on our future actions. This paper seeks to clarify this claim and, in the process, to develop a plausible response to the traditional argument for theological fatalism.
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Time travel raises a number of interesting questions about the nature and possibility of freedom. This paper introduces one of the most famous paradoxes of time travel (section 1) and outlines the standard response to that puzzle (section... more
Time travel raises a number of interesting questions about the nature and possibility of freedom. This paper introduces one of the most famous paradoxes of time travel (section 1) and outlines the standard response to that puzzle (section 2). It then considers the implications of these issues for the doctrine of fatalism (section 3), the analysis of freedom (section 4), and the debate over compatibilism (section 5).
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This is a paper about the nature of metaphysical laws and their relation to the phenomenon of vagueness. Metaphysical laws are introduced as analogous to natural laws, and metaphysical indeterminism is modeled on causal indeterminacy.... more
This is a paper about the nature of metaphysical laws and their relation to the phenomenon of vagueness. Metaphysical laws are introduced as analogous to natural laws, and metaphysical indeterminism is modeled on causal indeterminacy. This kind of indeterminacy is then put to work in developing a novel theory of vagueness and a solution to the sorites paradox.
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David Lewis famously motivates the grandfather paradox by appealing to an argument by analogy. Tim (a time traveller poised to kill his grandfather in the past) is relevantly similar to Tom (a non-time traveller who mistakenly thinks that... more
David Lewis famously motivates the grandfather paradox by appealing to an argument by analogy. Tim (a time traveller poised to kill his grandfather in the past) is relevantly similar to Tom (a non-time traveller who mistakenly thinks that he is poised to kill his grandfather in the past). Since Tom can kill his target, it follows that Tim can kill his target as well. In other words, time travel allows for the possibility of retrogrampatricide. This paper examines Lewis’s argument and, in the process, uncovers some surprising constraints on agents’ abilities.
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In " Teleological Dispositions, " Nick Kroll offers a novel theory of dispositions in terms of primitive directed states. Kroll is clear that his notion of directedness " outstrips talk of goals, purposes, design, and function " (p.#),... more
In " Teleological Dispositions, " Nick Kroll offers a novel theory of dispositions in terms of primitive directed states. Kroll is clear that his notion of directedness " outstrips talk of goals, purposes, design, and function " (p.#), and that it commits him to " primitive teleological facts " (p.#). This notion may strike some as outdated and unscientific, but Kroll argues that it has an important theoretical role to play. In particular, he holds that a primitive notion of directedness can provide a theory of dis-positions, an explanation of the link between dispositions and conditionals, and an account of the progressive aspect in English. In this paper, we raise some worries for each of these claims.
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David Lewis famously introduces the debate over persistence as follows: Let us say that something persists iff, somehow or other, it exists at various times; this is the neutral word. Something perdures iff it persists by having different... more
David Lewis famously introduces the debate over persistence as follows: Let us say that something persists iff, somehow or other, it exists at various times; this is the neutral word. Something perdures iff it persists by having different temporal parts, or stages, at different times, though no one part of it is wholly present at more than one time; whereas it endures iff it persists by being wholly present at more than one time. (1986: 202) This passage suggests that there are two different theories about how objects persist through time—the perdurantist theory that objects persist through time by having different temporal parts at different times, and the endurantist theory that objects persist through time by being wholly present at different times. This way of framing the debate over persistence involves both an important insight and an important error. Unfortunately , the error is often embraced and the insight is often ignored. This paper aims to correct both of these mistakes, and thus clarify the debate over persistence.
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Peter van Inwagen's (2009) discussion of time travel invokes both hyper-time and the growing block theory to provide us with a model for changing the past that is both rigorous and ingenious. 1 We are impressed. But we are not yet... more
Peter van Inwagen's (2009) discussion of time travel invokes both hyper-time and the growing block theory to provide us with a model for changing the past that is both rigorous and ingenious. 1 We are impressed. But we are not yet convinced. In this essay, we present three potential objections for van Inwagen's model (section 1), and then show how his model can be adapted to avoid those worries (sections 2-4). 1. Three Potential Objections for van Inwagen's Model The reader is directed to van Inwagen's essay for a complete and careful presentation of the model in question. Our purposes here mainly require taking note of the following components of that presentation. Like van Inwagen, we are interested in discussing " non-Ludovician time travel " — i.e., time travel that involves changing the past. Throughout our discussion , we will accept van Inwagen's (restricted) characterization of the growing block thesis, his identification of times with certain properties, and his claim that the existence of hypertime is consistent with (even if not required by) the growing block theory of time. We begin with three potential objections.
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What is the relationship between a clay statue and the lump of clay from which it is formed? We might say that the lump constitutes the statue, but what is this relation of material constitution? Some insist that constitution is identity,... more
What is the relationship between a clay statue and the lump of clay from which it is formed? We might say that the lump constitutes the statue, but what is this relation of material constitution? Some insist that constitution is identity, on the grounds that distinct material objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time. Others argue that constitution is not identity, since the statue and the lump differ in important respects. Still others take cases like this to motivate revision-ary views about the nature of persistence, parthood, modality, identity, or existence. This article presents some of the most important puzzles of material constitution and evaluates some of the most popular responses.
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David Lewis has long defended an analysis of counterfactuals in terms of comparative similarity of possible worlds. 1 According to Lewis, a counter-factual of the form 'If it were the case that A, then it would be that C' is... more
David Lewis has long defended an analysis of counterfactuals in terms of comparative similarity of possible worlds. 1 According to Lewis, a counter-factual of the form 'If it were the case that A, then it would be that C' is (non-vacuously) true if and only if some world where A and C are both true is more similar to the actual world than any world where A is true and C is false. The purpose of this paper is to reevaluate Lewis's response to one of the oldest and most familiar objections to this proposal, the future similarity objection. 2
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This is the table of contents and preface for The Paradoxes of Time Travel, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.