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

Document Type : Original Article

Author

• Mahdi Assadi

Assistant Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Contemporary Wisdom, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran

10.22067/epk.2022.76716.1127

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

• four–dimensionalism
• past
• future
• time
• traversing movement (al-ḥraka al-qaṭʿiyya)
• Ṭūsī

Main Subjects

• Islamic Philosophy and Kalam

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References

Sider, Theodore, Four–Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.