This paper examines the discussion concerning temporal vacua, originated by Shoemaker's famous 1969 paper, in connection to relationism about time – roughly, the view that time is nothing over and above a network of relations between things. A novel solution to the problem allegedly constituted by temporal vacua is presented, which turns out to call for, and support, a formulation of relationism that differs from the usual ones. In particular, it is argued that relationism requires neither actual nor merely possible modifications in the qualities or positions of things, and can be made entirely independent of the notion of change.

中文翻译：

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关于时间和时间真空的关系主义

本文考察了关于时间真空的讨论，该讨论起源于 Shoemaker 1969 年的著名论文，与关于时间的关系主义有关——大致上，时间只是事物之间关系网络的观点。对据称由时间真空构成的问题提出了一种新的解决方案，结果证明它需要并支持一种不同于通常的关系主义的表述。特别是，有人认为，关系主义既不需要对事物的性质或位置进行实际的修改，也不需要仅仅可能的修改，并且可以完全独立于变化的概念。