The Direction of Time and The Direction of Causality

• Applicant: Dr. Martin Voggenauer
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508146677

The research project is situated in the broader research context of the metaphysics of science, which tries to investigate the metaphysics underlying general scientific concepts like laws of nature, causation, chance, space and time. The project focuses on the metaphysical interpretation of the direction of time and its connection to the direction of causality. While fundamental physical laws are time-reversal invariant, there are many temporal asymmetries in our world. In particular, it seems to be the case that causal relationships are in general temporally directed, i.e. causes temporally precede their effects and not the other way around. The problem of the directionality of time lies in the question of the origin of the direction of time underlying these apparent temporal asymmetries. If not in the fundamental laws of nature, what is the direction of time grounded in? Moreover, regarding causation, the question arises whether there is a genuine causal asymmetry, i.e. causes cause their effects but not the other way around, or whether this causal asymmetry can be completely reduced to the temporal asymmetry of causation and, therefore, to the direction of time.In the research project, I will first argue that the currently dominating thermodynamic approach to the direction of time raises some serious problems. Accordingly, I want to contrast this standard approach with spacetime approaches, which interpret the direction of time as an intrinsic property of the temporal dimension of spacetime. Specifically, I plan to explore how these alternative approaches can be improved by considering contemporary cosmological assumptions. In a second step, I intend to show how an alleged genuine causal asymmetry can be reduced to the temporal asymmetry of causal relationships by focusing on productive approaches to causation. In particular, I want to investigate whether the causal asymmetry can be reduced to the direction of time interpreted as an intrinsic asymmetry of the temporal dimension of spacetime. In general, the project builds on research on the metaphysics of causation conducted during my PhD and seeks to provide a further building block for an overall metaphysics of science.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position