Lewisian Time Travel in a Relativistic Setting

Abstract

Abstract I argue that David Lewis’s philosophically dominant conception of time travel cannot straightforwardly handle what we might call cases of relativistic time travel – that is, the sort of time travel which could only plausibly occur in a relativistic setting. I evaluate whether or not the Lewisian account can be successfully adapted such that it would able to analyse potential cases of relativistic time travel satisfactorily while still being employable in the analysis of those cases that make no mention of physics or the structure of spacetime. This is primarily an analytical and explanatory exercise, rather than a polemical one.