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First published Thu Nov 14, 2013; substantive revision Fri Mar 23, 2018
There is an extensive literature on time travel in both philosophy and physics. Part of the great interest of the topic
stems from the fact that reasons have been given both for thinking that time travel is physically possible—and for
thinking that it is logically impossible! This entry deals primarily with philosophical issues; issues related to the
physics of time travel are covered in the separate entries on time travel and modern physics and time machines.
We begin with the definitional question: what is time travel? We then turn to the major objection to the possibility
of backwards time travel: the Grandfather paradox. Next, issues concerning causation are discussed—and then,
issues in the metaphysics of time and change. We end with a discussion of the question why, if backwards time
travel will ever occur, we have not been visited by time travellers from the future.
1. If time travel were ever to occur, we should see extensive uncaused correlations.
2. It is extremely unlikely that we should ever see extensive uncaused correlations.
3. Therefore time travel is extremely unlikely to occur.
The conclusion is not that time travel is impossible, but that we should treat it the way we treat the possibility of,
say, tossing a fair coin and getting heads one thousand times in a row. As Price (1996, 278 n.7) puts it—in the
context of endorsing Horwich’s conclusion: “the hypothesis of time travel can be made to imply propositions of
arbitrarily low probability. This is not a classical reductio, but it is as close as science ever gets.”
Smith (1997) attacks both premisses of Horwich’s argument. Against the first premise, he argues that backwards
time travel, in itself, does not entail extensive uncaused correlations. Rather, when we look more closely, we see
that time travel scenarios involving extensive uncaused correlations always build in prior coincidences which are
themselves highly unlikely. Against the second premise, he argues that, from the fact that we have never seen
extensive uncaused correlations, it does not follow that we never shall. This is not inductive scepticism: let us
assume (contra the inductive sceptic) that in the absence of any specific reason for thinking things should be
different in the future, we are entitled to assume they will continue being the same; still we cannot dismiss
a specific reason for thinking the future will be a certain way simply on the basis that things have never been that
way in the past. You might reassure an anxious friend that the sun will certainly rise tomorrow because it always
has in the past—but you cannot similarly refute an astronomer who claims to have discovered a specific reason for
thinking that the earth will stop rotating overnight.
Sider (2002, 119–20) endorses Smith’s second objection. Dowe (2003) criticises Smith’s first objection, but
agrees with the second, concluding overall that time travel has not been shown to be improbable. Ismael (2003)
reaches a similar conclusion. Goddu (2007) criticises Smith’s first objection to Horwich. Further contributions to
the debate include Arntzenius (2006) and Smeenk and Wüthrich (2011, §2.2). For a different argument to the
same conclusion as Horwich’s—that time travel is improbable—see Ney (2000).
3. Causation
Backwards time travel scenarios give rise to interesting issues concerning causation. In this section we examine
two such issues.