Time of Nature and the Nature of Time

This volume addresses the question of time from the perspective of the time of nature. Its aim is to provide some insights about the nature of time on the basis of the different uses of the concept of time in natural sciences. Presenting a dialogue between philosophy and science, it features a collection of papers that investigate the representation, modeling and understanding of time as they appear in physics, biology, geology and paleontology. It asks questions such as: whether or not the notions of time in the various sciences are reducible to the same physical time, what status should be given to timescale differences, or what are the specific epistemic issues raised by past facts in natural sciences.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Time Between Metaphysics and Natural Sciences: From Physics to Biology (Christophe Bouton).- Part I. The Experience of Time and the Scientific Framing of Time.- Chapter 2. Passage, Flow, and the Logic of Temporal Perspectives (Jenann Ismael).- Chapter 3. Time of Logics and Time of Physics (Carlo Proietti).- Chapter 4. Time Variable and Time Scales in Natural Systems and their Modeling (Annick Lesne).- Chapter 5. On Time and the Varieties of Science (Kristie Miller).- Part II. Time Paradoxes in Physics.- Chapter 6. Is the Future already Present? The Special Theory of Relativity and the Block Universe View (Christophe Bouton).- Chapter 7. Dispelling the Quantum Spooks - a Clue that Einstein Missed? (Huw Price).- Chapter 8. On time, causation and explanation in the causally symmetric Bohmian model of quantum mechanics (Joseph Berkovitz).- Chapter 9. The Representation of Time in Discrete Mechanics (Anouk Barberousse).- Part III. Dealing with deep time (Paleontology).- Chapter 10. Paleontology: Outrunning Time (John Huss).- Chapter 11. The Biologist's time and Deep Time: essay on the psychology of the Paleobiologist (Armand J. de Ricqlès).- Chapter 12. The Making of Paleontological Time (Pascal Tassy).- Part IV. Time of the Evolution (Evolutionary and developmental Biology).- Chapter 13. Repetition and Reversibility in Evolution: Theoretical Population Genetics (Jean Gayon).- Chapter 14. Macroevolution and Microevolution: Issues of Time Scale in Evolutionary Biology (Philippe Huneman).- Chapter 15. The timing of development (Antonine Nicoglou).