I doubt that any phenomenon, real or imagined, has inspired more perplexing, convoluted, and ultimately futile philosophical analysis than time travel has. (Some possible contenders, determinism and free will, are bound up anyway in the arguments over time travel.) In his classic textbook, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, John Hospers tackles the question: "Is it logically possible to go back in time—say, to 3000 B.C., and help the Egyptians build the pyramids? We must be very careful about this one."
It's easy to say—we habitually use the same words to talk about time as we do when talking about space—and it's easy to imagine. "In fact, H. G. Wells did imagine it in The Time Machine (1895), and every reader imagines it with him." (Hospers misremembers The Time Machine: "A person in 1900 pulls a lever on a machine and suddenly is surrounded by the world of many centuries earlier.") Hospers was a bit of a kook, actually, who achieved the unusual distinction for a philosopher of having received one electoral vote for President of the United States. But his textbook, first published in 1953, remained standard through four editions and 40 years.
THE IMPOSSIBLE MACHINE: In H.G. Wells' 1895 novel…Read More…
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