Time and identity

Review A surprisingly informative and useful volume...The editors deserve credit not just for selecting and editing these fine essays but for arranging them in a manner that highlights how the essays relate to each other...A very good book...It brings together essays that are each worth reading alone and that also contribute to a greater whole. (Kronoscope) Product Description The concepts of time and identity seem at once unproblematic and frustratingly difficult. Time is an intricate part of our experience -- it would seem that the passage of time is a prerequisite for having any experience at all -- and yet recalcitrant questions about time remain. Is time real? Does time flow? Do past and future moments exist? Philosophers face similarly stubborn questions about identity, particularly about the persistence of identical entities through change. Indeed, questions about the metaphysics of persistence take on many of the complexities inherent in philosophical considerations of time. This volume of original essays brings together these two essentially related concepts in a way not reflected in the available literature, making it required reading for philosophers working in metaphysics and students interested in these topics. The contributors, distinguished authors and rising scholars, first consider the nature of time and then turn to the relation of identity, focusing on the metaphysical connections between the two, with a special emphasis on personal identity. The volume concludes with essays on the metaphysics of death, issues in which time and identity play a significant role. This groundbreaking collection offers both cutting-edge epistemological analysis and historical perspectives on contemporary topics.Contributors:Harriet Baber, Lynne Rudder Baker, Ben Bradley, John W. Carroll, Reinaldo Elugardo, Geoffrey Gorham, Mark Hinchliff, Jenann Ismael, Barbara Levenbook, Andrew Light, Lawrence B. Lombard, Ned Markosian, Harold Noonan, John Perry, Harry S. Silverstein, Matthew H. Slater, Robert J. Stainton, Neil A. Tognazzini About the Author Joseph Keim Campbell is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Washington State University. Michael O'Rourke is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Idaho. Harry S. Silverstein is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at Washington State University. Campbell, O'Rourke, and Silverstein are coeditors of Causation and Explanation (MIT Press, 2007), a previous volume in the Topics in Contemporary Philosophy series.