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This book defends a relational theory of the passage of time. The realist view of passage developed in this book differs from the robust, substantivalist position. According to relationism, passage is nothing over and above the succession of events, one thing coming after another. Causally related events are temporally arranged as they happen one after another along observers' worldlines. There is no unique global passage but a multiplicity of local passages of time. After setting out this positive argument for relationism, the author deals with five common objections to it: (a) triviality of deflationary passage, (b) a-directionality of passage, (c) the impossibility of experiencing passage, (d) fictionalism about passage, and (e) the incompatibility of passage with perduring objects. Relational Passage of Time will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of time, metaphysics, and philosophy of physics.

Abstract:Given the sharp distinction that follows from Hume's Fork, the proper epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics seems to be a mystery. On the one hand, mathematical propositions concern the relation of ideas. They are intuitive and demonstratively certain. On the other hand, propositions of mixed mathematics, such as in Hume's own example, the law of conservation of momentum, are also matter of fact propositions. They concern causal relations between species of objects, and, in this sense, they are not intuitive or demonstratively certain, but probable or provable. In this article, I argue that the epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics is that of matters of fact. I wish to show that their epistemic status is not a mystery. The reason for this is that the propositions of mixed mathematics are dependent on the Uniformity Principle, unlike the propositions of pure mathematics.

"This book contextualizes David Hume's philosophy of physical science, exploring both Hume's background in the history of early modern natural philosophy and its subsequent impact on the scientific tradition. Drawing on topics including experimentalism, causation, laws of nature, metaphysics of forces, mathematics' relation to nature, and the concepts of space and time, it deepens our understanding of Hume's relation to natural philosophy. It does so in addition by situating Hume's thought within the context of other major philosophers, including Descartes, Locke, Boyle and Kant, and scientists including Newton and Leibniz"--