Metaphysics and Epistemology Group (Tuesday - Week 4, TT23)

epistemology reading group

This is joint work with Alex Kaiserman.

 

In a recent paper, Daniel Nolan describes two variants of the so called ‘new Zeno’ puzzles, which he takes to be “absurd and strange”, and indeed “much stranger than we might have realised”. Other theorists have similarly suggested that New Zeno puzzles have surprising philosophical implications including to the nature of infinity, causation, ability, and counterfactual logic.

 

In this paper, we argue that New Zeno puzzles are not, on reflection, all that puzzling and that there are no substantive philosophical lessons to be learned from them. After setting up the puzzle, we lay out our reasons for this deflationary attitude. Along the way, we’ll relate our observations to some of the philosophical litrature on ability, free will, and time travel.


Metaphysics and Epistemology Group Convenors: Bernhard Salow, Nick Jones and Alex Kaiserman