embroiled in debate with Oderberg, points out that the Tristram Shandy story has been used in many versions. For it to be useful to the temporal finitism side, a version must be found that is logically consistent and not compatible with an infinite universe. To see this, note that the argument runs as follows: If an infinite past is possible, then the Tristram Shandy story must be possible The Tristram Shandy story leads to contradiction. Therefore, an infinite past is not possible. The problem for the finitist is that point 1 is not necessarily true. If a version of the Tristram Shandy story is internally inconsistent, for instance, then the infinitist could just assert that an infinite past is possible, but that particular Tristram Shandy is not because it's not internally consistent. Oppy then lists the different versions of the Tristram Shandy story that have been put forward and shows that they are all either internally inconsistent or they don't lead to contradiction. Citations References Further reading Philosophy of time Philosophy of physics Philosophy of Aristotle Infinity Metaphysical theories