John McTaggart in his essay “Time” presents a radical argument that claims time is unreal. While the argument is interesting and has attracted much attention for his arguments, I remain unconvinced of the argument he makes. This paper will lay out McTaggart’s argument that time in unreal, critically analyze why I believe McTaggart’s argument fails and present an alternative idea about time, utilizing aspects of McTaggart’s argument.
Here is an explanation of McTaggart’s view. McTaggart wants ultimately to prove that time does not exist. He attempts to do this by arguing time’s existence is contingent on the existence of transient time and that ultimately transient time fails. Transient time involves A-series. A-series are attributed temporal properties; that is, that they involve “tensed statements.” i.e. past, present and future. He presents a series of arguments that attempt to build on each other to prove time is unreal.
McTaggart splits his paper in two sections. He spends the first part of the paper attempting to prove that time can only exist if A-series exist.
“ We perceive events in time as being present, and those are the only events which we actually perceive. And all other events which, by memory or by inference, we believe to be real, we regard as present, past, or future. Thus the events of time are observed by us form an A-series.”
He proves the necessity of A-series by dismissing B-series. B-series involves earlier and later statements that remain frozen in time. For example, my mother is born before I am born. The statement does not involve tenses; it simply states that there is an event. It does not involve change. B-series serves Static time in this sense.
McTaggart states that it is “universall...
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...change proves the existence of A-series, then time exists. (i,ii,iii)
Time is a difficult topic to handle in metaphysics; many problems arise. If you support A-series, which involves change, you are left to wonder the rate at which time passes. I cannot put my support behind static time; time appears to pass and in passing change occurs. The only aspect of time that appears to stay frozen are events in the past. However, events have to change from future to present and then to past before they can become static in the past. Even though there are clear objections to theories about time, I cannot support McTaggart’s bold claim that time is unreal. I can only look at time from my perspective. Ultimately there is so much change that occurs in me and around me as time passes that I cannot view time to be unreal and I am left to disregard McTaggart’s argument.
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In the appendix to Person and Object, Roderick Chisholm discusses the doctrine of temporal parts. Chisholm’s position is that the arguments commonly supplied in support of the doctrine are not successful. In this paper, I will consider Chisholm’s objections and then give my own responses in favor of the doctrine of temporal parts.
If you have ever read Einstein's Dreams, you can appreciate my dilemma. If you have not yet had the opportunity to experience this wonderful novel by Alan Lightman, I guarantee that after you read it you will expand your perception of the nature of time and of human activity. The novel is enchanting. It is a fictional account of what one of the greatest scientific minds dreams as he begins to uncover his theory of relativity.
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This is inconsistent with the fact that each of those differences reject the statement about time. He admits to this contradiction defending that any attempt to explain why there are difference in time is strictly due to the fact that we need to detail the order in which those events occurred (past, present, or future). The description of the “different times” raises the purpose of the past, present, or future and in turn will lead to a “vicious infinite regress” (Christensen, 1974). The vicious infinite regress is invoked because in order to explain why the alternative appeal to the differences in time, doesn’t go through that effort again, we must first be able to explain why each apply consecutively and then explain why that sequence appeals to the differences in time, which has no end to clarification. In McTaggart’s The Nature of Existence he explains how he no longer goes against the circulatory doubts, which is arguable in itself because he has come begin to treat the differences in tenses as unpretentious and inexpressible concepts, arguing that the tenses don’t need to be explained at all. McTaggart now claims that despite his inability to describe what the time differences mean, we can now apply them without additional scrutiny. This still leads to
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Time is and endless phenomenon that has no beginning or end, therefore making it infinite. Emily Dickinson proves this point in her poem, Forever – is Composed of Nows, referring to “nows” as more significant than the future (Wilbur 80).
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...wo side by side the endurantist theories, and our intuition, never better Lewis’s third solution of the doctrine of temporal parts. The endurantist solutions are all far more weak and primitive than Lewis’s. Lewis deems the endurantist position as metaphysically untenable and his own as philosophically sound because of his side note of the need to accept temporal parts into the reader’s ontology.
The scientific definition of time is a measurement of progress that is relative to an individual’s perception of events (HowStuffWorks.com, 2010). A psychological study proves that these viewpoints are
... one time was not in existence, it has parts that were put together to form the watch, each one of those parts had to be formed and then they were all fit together in harmony to form the watch by the watchmaker. On a greater scale the universe was not always in existence, it had to be formed by a greater being, God. Without God the universe would not be and the non-existence of the universe is obviously false. He goes on further by saying that we had never seen the watch being made, nor the person who made the watch, and we may not be able to make the watch ourselves, yet the watch exists. You can say the same about the universe. We may have never seen the universe being created, or the being that created it, and we may not be able to create a universe ourselves but the universe