The causal theory of time

pp. 179-208

in: Adolf Grünbaum, Philosophical problems of space and time, Berlin, Springer, 1973

Abstract

The causal theory of time, which had occupied an important place in the thought of Leibniz and of Kant, again became a subject of central philosophic interest during the current century after its detailed elaboration and logical refinement at the hands of G. Lechalas,¹ H. Reichenbach,² K. Lewin,³ R. Carnap,⁴ and H. Mehlberg.⁵ Specifically, it earned its new prominence in recent decades by its role in the magisterial and beautiful constructions of the relativistic topology of both time and space by Reichenbach⁶ and Carnap.⁷ More recently, I used the causal theory of time to show semantically that, with respect to the relation "later than" the events of physics can meaningfully possess the seemingly counter-intuitive denseness property of the linear Cantorean continuum. And, in this way, I was able to supply the semantical nervus probandi which had been lacking in Russell's mathematical refutation of Zeno's paradoxes of motion.⁸