Action at a temporal distance in the best systems account

Drawing on Earman’s (1986) definition of determinism and Lewis’ (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61, 343–377, 1983) best systems account of laws, in What Makes Time Special? (2017) Craig Callender develops an account of time as ‘the strongest thing’. The characterisation of this account apparently assumes no action at a temporal distance, an assumption that also underlies Earman’s account of determinism. In this paper I show that there is a way to define determinism that allows worlds with action at a temporal distance to count as deterministic, that action at a temporal distance is possible on a best systems account of laws, and hence that Callender need not make this assumption.