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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access originally published online on August 12, 2006
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2006 57(3):459-479; doi:10.1093/bjps/axl019
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© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Causality and Temporal Order in Special Relativity

Hanoch Ben-Yami

Philosophy Department, Central European University, Nádor u. 9, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary

David Malament tried to show that the causal theory of time leads to a unique determination of simultaneity relative to an inertial observer, namely standard simultaneity. I show that the causal relation Malament uses in his proofs, causal connectibility, should be replaced by a different causal relation, the one used by Reichenbach in his formulation of the theory. I also explain why Malament's reliance on the assumption that the observer has an eternal inertial history modifies our conception of simultaneity, and I therefore eliminate it. Having made these changes, Malament's uniqueness result no longer follows, although the conventionality of simultaneity is not reinstated. I contrast my approach with previous criticisms of Malament.

  1. Introduction
  2. Causality and Temporal Order
  3. Malament's Argument
  4. Causality versus Causal Connectibility
  5. Simultaneity and History
  6. Conclusion


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