Abstract
A naturalistic approach to metaphysical questions ought to accommodate and take seriously the findings of science that are relevant to those questions. In the philosophy of time, this means that the findings of our best current scientific theories about time ought to be taken seriously in the development of metaphysical theories about time. Contemporary debate in that field pits the A-theory, which asserts the existence of an absolute, objective present and temporal passage, against the B-theory, which denies that time has these features. Prima facie, the B-theory is better placed to accommodate and take seriously our best current scientific theories about time, such as the Special Theory of Relativity, so it looks to be the best candidate for a naturalistic metaphysical theory of time. However, the B-theory is prima facie inconsistent with our ordinary experience of time, which tells us that there is a privileged present moment and that time flows. This chapter argues that the B-theory is better placed to accommodate what the special sciences tell us about temporal experience than the A-theory. Some features of our temporal experience are better explained by contributions from our cognition than by the claim that our temporal experience is straightforwardly veridical. The B-theory is therefore able to offer a complete, naturalised metaphysics of time that coheres with both fundamental physics and special sciences such as cognitive science.