Time, Agency, and Our Understanding of ‘Events’

Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck College, University of London)

Abstract. Many discussions of time are replete with claims about events; and many philosophers of action take actions to be events. My focus will be on what can be right with, and how much is wrong with, the idea of events which philosophers have introduced into the language of agency. I criticize various accounts in order to promote a view about time different from that of Eternalism, Presentism and Growing Block-ism. I consider two objections to my stratagem. (1) General conclusions about time can’t be drawn from thinking specifically about human action. (2) The idea of the present of which I make use is mismatched to how we, as agents ourselves, understand ‘present’. I’ll attempt to defend my view against these objections.