Time

Philosophical thinking about time is characterised by tensions between competing conceptions. Different sources of evidence yield different conclusions about it. Common sense suggests there is an objective present, and that time is dynamic. Science recognises neither feature. This Element examines McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time, which epitomises this tension, showing how it gave rise to the A-theory/B-theory debate. Each theory is in tension with either ordinary or scientific thinking, so must accommodate the competing conception. Reconciling the A-theory with science does not look promising. Prospects look better for the B-theory's attempt to accommodate ordinary thinking about time.

Some Additional Metaphysical Questions

The book has been making the case that perspectival content is necessary for the explanation of much of human activity, and that the best approach to tense is to think in terms of interperspectival contents. It has already covered a number of metaphysical worries about tense and perspectival contents (McTaggart’s argument, for example) but there are two additional worries that need to be addressed. The first has to do with the problem of truth-makers. The second has to do with the kinds of contents that are metaphysically admissible. It is argued that metaphysical concerns about truth-makers and Humean supervenience do not undermine the positing of interperspectival contents. Such contents are part and parcel of basic low-level descriptions and they do not thwart attempts at naturalization of our accounts of action, emotion, etc.

Time and Metaphysics: Kant and McTaggart on the Reality of Time

The paper examines Kant’s theory of time in light of McTaggart’s argument that time is unreal. First, it presents McTaggart’s theory of time and his argument that a contradiction inevitably emerges in time’s analysis, leading either to an infinite regress of times or the denial that time is real. The paper then shows that Kant rejects the absolute notion of time, the idea that there are eternal coordinates that are experienced by us as being in time. It argues against subjectivist or psychological interpretations of Kant’s theory of time. The main argument is that Kant’s notion of a priori intuition, rather than being the flow of mental states in consciousness, is the subject’s self-intuition as being temporally present, and, moreover, that the present acts as a temporal metric, specifying a first-person perspective in the world and designating a temporal simple.

J. McTAGGARTAS IR H. MELLORAS APIE LAIKĄ

Straipsnyje analizuojamas vienas garsiausių XIX–XX a. sandūros britų idealistinės metafizikos pavyzdžių – Johno McTaggarto argumentas, neigiantis savarankišką laiko egzistavimą. Teigiama, kad, priimdami McTaggarto įvestą A sekos ir B sekos skirtį, susilaikyti nuo jo siūlomos išvados galime tik neigdami B sekos nepakankamumą kismui paaiškinti arba A sekos implicitišką prieštaringumą. Kaip būdingiausias tokios strategijos atvejis čia tiriama Hugh’o Melloro kritika. McTaggarto ir Melloro polemikoje paaiškėja, kad jei pasaulį laikytume faktų (o ne daiktų) visuma, tai tokiame pasaulyje tikras kismas nebūtų įmanomas ir McTaggartas būtų teisus. Tačiau jei tuos faktus nulemiančių daiktų tikrovę laikysime fundamentalesne, turėsime pripažinti, kad bent kai kurie šių daiktų kinta, ir laiko kaip pagrindinio šio kismo matmens negalima atsisakyti. Pagrindiniai žodžiai: laikas, kismas, metafizika, britų idealizmas.J. McTaggart and H. Mellor on TimeJonas Dagys SummaryThe article analyzes John McTaggart’s argument for unreality of time, a classical piece of fin de sičcle Brittish idealist metaphysics. Having accepted the distinction between A-series and B-series, one can only resist McTaggartian conclusion by denying at least one of the two: that B-series alone is insufficient for change or that A-series implies a contradiction. Hugh Mellor’s criticism is taken to represent this strategy. The lesson to be learnt from this debate is that if the world is conceived as a mere totality of facts no change could be real in such a world, and so McTaggart would right. However, if the reality of things determining those facts is recognized as more fundamental, it would not be denied that at least some of these things undergo genuine temporal change, and time as a dimension of this real change cannot be rejected. Keywords: time, change, metaphysics, British idealism.size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">

A Century of Time

This chapter argues for the position of temporal becoming across a wide variety of fields. The chapter's central sections address successively the metaphysics, physics and logic of time. It rebuts McTaggart's argument that temporal becoming involves a contradiction. It admits that special relativity's frame — dependence of simultaneity is inimical to temporal becoming. However it also argues that temporal becoming is rehabilitated both by general relativity's allowance of cosmic time functions and, more fundamentally, by the collapse of the wave-packet in quantum theory. Finally, the discussion considers the logic of time, especially tense logic, and applies this to recent cosmological speculation about the Big Bang and more generally to the idea of the beginning of time.

McTaggart's Argument

The argument of J. M. E. McTaggart in ‘The Unreality of Time’ (Mind 1908) fails logically. There is no A series as such, but there is a shifting past-present-future arrangement within and consistent with the earlier-later B series, past being always earlier, future always later, present always a position earlier or later. An exactly similar logical structure is constructible within the number series, by making each number as one goes up it in turn (it does not matter what ‘it’, or ‘present’, means, ontologically). The subsequent argument that past-present-future time falls into contradiction then fails also, and proves to be equivocal.

Mc Taggart and the Truth about Time

McTaggart famously argued that time is unreal. Today, almost no one agrees with his conclusion.1 But his argument remains the locus classicus for both the A–theory and the B-theory of time. I want to show how McTaggart's argument provided the impetus for both of these opposing views of the nature of time. I will also present and defend what I take to be the correct view of the nature of time.

On Absolute Becoming and the Myth of Passage

In the literature on time in the twentieth century stemming from J. M. E. McTaggart's famous argument for the unreality of time, two gems stand out. The first is C. D. Broad's patient dissection of McTaggart's argument in the chapter ‘Ostensible Temporality’ in his Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy. Broad carefully, and to my mind persuasively, uncovers the root errors in McTaggart's argument. In addition he tentatively proposes that the features of time that he calls its transitory aspect can be explained in terms of a dynamic aspect of time that he calls Absolute Becoming.