Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Theoretical philosophy
Keywords: David Lewis, Grandfather Paradox., Time travel
In this note, I am critical of some aspects of David Lewis’s resolution of the Grandfather Paradox. In particular, I argue that Lewis gives the wrong explanation of Tim’s inability to kill Grandfather, and that the correct explanation makes essential reference to the self-undermining character of Tim’s grampicide.
The philosophy of time travel is, in large part, an attempt to answer the exam question: To what extent, if any, do you disagree with the views defended by David Lewis in his eminently readable “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”? (Lewis 1976). One of the most interesting and influential parts of Lewis’s article is his discussion of what a traveler to the past can and can’t do. In particular, can such a traveler kill his own…
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