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On Going Backward in Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

John Earman
John Earman*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Abstract

This paper presents a critical examination of claims advanced by several philosophers to the effect that ‘time travel’ represents a physical possibility and that the interpretation of certain actually observed phenomena in terms of ‘time travel’ is both legitimate and advantageous. It is argued that (a) no convincing motivation for the introduction of the time travel hypothesis has been presented; (b) no coherent and interesting sense of ‘going backward in time’ has been supplied which makes ‘time travel’ compatible with Special Relativity; (c) even the conceptual possibility of ‘time travel’ is an unsettled and somewhat nebulous question.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 1967 , pp. 211 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1967

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References

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