Against Radical Relationalism: in Defense of the Ordinal Structure of Time

TL;DR

This paper defends the importance of the ordinal structure of time in classical and quantum theories, arguing against radical relationalist views that deny its necessity, and emphasizes its empirical and explanatory significance.

Contribution

It critically analyzes radical relationalist arguments and establishes the essential role of the ordinal structure of time in our physical theories.

Findings

Radical relationalist arguments have serious conceptual flaws.

The ordinal structure of time is crucial for the explanatory power of theories.

The ordinal structure is part of the empirical content of classical and quantum theories.

Abstract

Some authors in the quantum gravity community endorse, explicitly or implicitly, a radical relationalist view of time which states that the ordinal structure of time is not needed even in our classical theories, especially in general relativity. In this article I analyze this position and the arguments supporting it, and I argue that there are some serious concerns with some of the radical relationalists' arguments which make it an unattractive position. In this sense, I conclude that the chrono-ordinal structures of our theories play important theoretical and explanatory roles and that they can be taken to be part of the empirical content of our theories.