Forum Philosophicum

Volume 13, Issue 2, Autumn 2008

Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen
Pages 357-371

Metaphysics and Time

The leap from primitive to scientific time represented as the „time" in „relativity physics", or in „thermodynamics" or perhaps in „quantum physics" or even within „Statistical mechanics" is large. Large also is the conceptual difference between these various understandings of the nature of time. How are we really to understand these physical perspectives on time: As knowledge about the real nature of time represented by the objective concepts: Or as epistemologicaloperational abstractions that cannot avoid elevating their results to the level of full-fledged reality, to ontology?