Depending upon your definition of the present, it is hard to distinguish when the present time really is. Trying to pinpoint the exact time of “now” seems to be impossible because when we actually finish saying “now” it is already in the past. It is believed by many people that when a human dies for example, they cease to exist. In this essay I will be looking at two key concepts that relate to the topic of existence and the present time. These concepts are ‘Presentism’ and ‘Eternalism’. I will begin the essay by outlining what ‘Eternalism’ is and how its followers may see the present in a different way because of it. From here I will propose some of its weaknesses followed by objections to these weaknesses. The second main concept will be ‘Presentism’ which will be the opposing argument that suggests that things only exist in the present time instead of the past, present and future. After giving this argument, I will also be giving objections and counters to it. I, myself believe that there is a present time and existence, as we I find it difficult to believe that something exists in the same way once it has died and decomposed.
The idea of ‘Eternalism’ stems from the concept that the past, present and future are all equally real in comparison with one another. It can be seen to be the case the things from the past or the present can be seen to exist just as must as in the present. For example, the 12th February 2014 is equally as real as the 12th March 2014; they’re just in different parts of the timeline of time. Although some things are not in the same time period as us right now, such as a dinosaur, does not mean that they did not exist at all, and certainly “does not mean that they shouldn’t be on the list of all existing...
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...nd the future. I, myself, believe that things do not cease to exist completely in death, but do not have the same type of existence, as they do not. There are different properties of existence between a living and dead person, as one can interact and grow, whereas the other decomposes into the earth. Things can exist in the present and past, and in the future to a degree. The reason why I do not believe that some things exist in the future and so I disagree with eternalism is because of the fact that they could have so easily have not existed. Once they do exist though in the present they must in the past. For example, a baby may have not been conceived at all, but when it is and it is born it exists in the present and past. I agree with presentism more so though, due to the fact that the main point of something’s existence in within the present time of their being.
8- McDermid, Douglas. "God's Existence." PHIL 1000H-B Lecture 9. Trent University, Peterborough. 21 Nov. 2013. Lecture.
Temporality is a process with three dimensions, which form a unity. The task that Heidegger sets himself in Being and Time is a description of the movement of human finitude. As many readers have pointed out and Heidegger himself acknowledged, Being and Time is unfinished. The question that he leaves hanging at the end of the book is the issue that began the whole enterprise, namely the question of being as such. We have been given an answer to the question what it means to be human, but no sense of how we might answer the question of being as such. The task that Heidegger set himself, from the publication of Being and Time in 1927 to his death nearly a half-century later in 1976, was the elucidation of that
When reflecting on immortality, longevity, death and suicide, or taking into consideration some of the central concepts of the Sino-Japanese philosophical tradition, such as impermanence (Chinese: wuchang, Japanese: mujo), we see that the philosophical methods developed in the Graeco-Judaeo-Christian tradition might not be very suitable. On the other hand, it is instructive to put them into contrast with the similar themes developed in the Graeco-Judeo-Christian tradition, since these problems present a challenge for a redefinition of "philosophy" which has traditionally regarded itself as a European (and in an even less acceptable variation as a "Western") phenomenon and therefore today the very borders of philosophical discourse known in European history as "philosophia" are reexamined (affected).
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.
To answer the question of whether a person can persist through time, it is important to consider what is meant by a ‘person’. This consideration seems trivial at first, and if one were to take the physicalist route, it would be – a person persists through time by existing as the same human animal. However, it is in fact a lot harder to pinpoint what the ‘self’ actually consists of if we were to take the psychological route and consider the voice inside our heads, the voice that thinks and experiences and suffers. What is this mysterious immaterial phenomenon that we hold to be our personal identity? And what makes it the same entity as the one yesterday? Although these questions don’t have an explicit answer yet, in this essay I will attempt to give an insight on how they could be answered, offering a psychological
Descartes’ epiphany of “I exist, I am” was the catalyst for the exploration of the issues he discusses in Meditations. Although I find problems in some instances of his reasoning, I realize that he has provided answers through his Method of Doubt that have endured the ages and allow us to continue to ponder their truth today.
Making the decision to act is the fundamental idea of existentialism. Choice is sacred in, and in choosing to create a positive perspective, we lighten the load that negativity brings. Albert Camus, in “The Myth of Sisyphus”, finds the classic tale of Sisyphus’ punishment as an existential masterpiece. The rock that Sisyphus has to push for all of eternity, to most, is viewed as an infinite imprisonment. Instead, Camus does not view this as a curse, but as a form of self-absolution. Similarly, Jean-Paul Sarte, author of “Existentialism”, explains existentialism as a way of taking responsibility for all of mankind and stresses the importance of choice. Man has the ability to shape his fate with making a choice and acting upon it. Choice is power. David Foster Wal...
classicmoviescripts/script/seventhseal.txt. Internet. 4 May 2004. Blackham, H. J. Six Existentialist Thinkers. New York: Harper, 1952. Choron, Jacques. Death and Western Thought. New York: Collier Books, 1963.
In this essay we will consider a much more recent approach to time that came to the fore in the twentieth century. In 1908 James McTaggart published an article in Mind entitled 'The Unreality of Time', in which, as the title implies, he argued that there is in reality no such thing as time. Now although this claim was in itself startling, probably what was even more significant than McTaggart's arguments was his way of stating them. It was in this paper that McTaggart first drew his now standard distinction between two ways of saying when things happen. In this essay we shall outline these ways of describing events and then discuss the merits and demerits of each, and examine what has become known as the 'tensed versus tenseless' debate on temporal becoming.
our existence in reality is a question which philosophers have tackled throughout time. This essay will look at the
Ross, Kelly L. "Existentialism." The Proceedings of the Friesian School, Fourth Series. Kelly L. Ross, Ph.D., 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
However, I also perceive time to be a progression of cycles that God has set in motion. I need constant reminders of both my insignificance and my potential for changing the course of time. I believe that my existence is a small part in a much larger scheme that I'll never comprehend. The fact that I wake up in the morning is mind-boggling when I consider that I am no more deserving of life than the Southeast Asian child that dies of hunger or the elderly woman that dies alone in a cold, cavernous rest home. Time continues to perpetuate itself, but I have yet to be included in the endless cycle of deaths that paves the way for new births. My life is a precious gift from God; in many ways, I have no control over my future - a truth that I have accepted and use as a motivation to manage what time I have wisely.
Time is our greatest asset for study. When we observe time we can see change and evolution. Despite its importance to us there is an ontological perspective that has archeologists rejecting the concept of time in flavor of understand with the change through space. Ontology is the study of the nature of reality, and in an essentialist view archeologists care about the snapshot or the moment in time that reality. Essentialists take these snapshots at points in time when things are their purest state, and they can be good for understanding the overall whole picture and the spatial relationships of
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).
...eve in any concept such as an ending, brings the belief that one thing leads to another; therefore refuting the entire concept of human mortality to think of it instead as a never ending cycle and how death leads to another life somewhere else is preposterous. Nonetheless, the idea of immortality is no more than what it was, is and always will be - merely an idea.