Two assistant professors of philosophy from West Virginia University will be featured on a West Virginia Public Broadcasting television program next week.

Andrew Cullison and Ernni Magalhes will appear on the weekly television news magazine show,Outlook,to discuss the philosophy and nature of time. The program, hosted by Beth Voorhees, will air at 9 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 4, and again at noon

Sunday, Jan. 7. For a list of stations that will broadcast the show, go to:http://www.wvpubcast.org/aboutus/tvcoverage.asp

The interviewer asked questions about whether time is realwhether time exists,Cullison said.Does your identity change through time? Are you the same person in the past, present and future? If the technology were available, could you go backward and forward in time just as you can in space? These are great questions. Philosophers, physicists, psychologists and artists have long been intrigued by these questions.

Scholars subscribe to one of two views about the nature of time: presentism or eternalism.

Those who argue for presentism believe that only the present is real,Cullison explained,and those who argue for eternalism believe that all things and all times are equally real, so Socrates is just as real as you or I. Thats eternalism.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting focuses on stories and issues that affect West Virginia as well as providing in-depth feature stories from around the state.

I am very pleased that two of our young, enthusiastic faculty members are having this opportunity to connect with the people of West Virginia,said Sharon Ryan, chair of the Department of Philosophy at WVU .They are both excellent scholars and articulate thinkers on a deep and difficult subject.

WVU s Department of Philosophy is housed in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

On the Net:http://www.wvu.edu/~philosophy/