Essays in Philosophy and Kalam

Essays in Philosophy and Kalam

A Historical Study of the Objections to the Four–Dimensionalism in the Muslim World

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Assistant Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Contemporary Wisdom, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
To clarify the reason why presentism is preferable to four–dimensionalism, we have to see what serious criticisms have been posed against four–dimensionalism throughout history. Several criticisms have been raised by some contemporary western thinkers the most important of which is the fact that the four–dimensionalism denies movement and therefore it is highly counterintuitive. Some Muslim thinkers, too, have sometimes tried to intensely criticize it in a similar way since the four–dimensionalism was proposed by Naṣīr al–Dīn Ṭūsī. For instance, ʿAllāmah Ḥillī maintains that we self–evidently know that the past and the future, e.g., yesterday and tomorrow, are nonexistent and it is not the case to say that they are fixed in their own context. In other words, since the fourth dimension denies the movement and change, it is counterintuitive and even leads to sophism. Therefore, Muslim thinkers’ objections to the four–dimensionalism must be studied historically and analyzed rationally to see whether they are plausible.
Keywords
Subjects

Sider, Theodore, Four–Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
 
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Volume 53, Issue 2 - Serial Number 107
autumn& winter 2022
January 2022
Pages 11-28

  • Receive Date 16 May 2022
  • Revise Date 27 May 2022
  • Accept Date 22 August 2022