McTaggart, JME - The Unreality of Time

09/04/2009

The Philosophy of Time, Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Poidevin & MacBeath, eds

This is a reprint of an old (1908) essay that seeks to show two things: first that time is essentially a matter of past, present and future, and second that these notions are contradictory. Since they contradict, time can't be real. Author starts by making a distinction between two positions of time, the, indicated by an A series and the B series. The A series involves the past, present and future, and things passing from the future to the present into the past. The B series involves things that are earlier, contemporaneous, and later, where events are related to each other along that scale. It may be tempting to believe that the B series is objective and the A series subjective, therefore time is essentially a B series matter. But author disagrees and set about claiming that the A series is the essential element to time, not the B series. (pg24-5)

Author submits that 'time involves change' and that 'there could be no time if nothing changed' (pg25). The next matter is to ask whether you can have change without the A series-- that is, if the A series is just accidental, subjective, or inessential to the nature of time. Author approaches the problem first by looking at whether you can have change using solely the B series. Here author claims that there is no change if there is solely the B series version of events. The argument goes as follows: (pg25-6)

1. For time to exist, events must change
2. Change is one event M ceasing and another N beginning
3. In the B series, event N follows event M
4. In the B series, event N always and forever follows event M
5. Therefore, the relations between N and M are permanent
6. Therefore, in the B series, N always exists after M (which also always exists)
7. If N always exists, it does not cease or begin (likewise for M)
8. Therefore there is no change in the B series
9. Therefore, there is no time in the B series

The solution, author suggests, is to make one of the relations between M and N change. That relation is the A series relation, of M being, at one point, in the present and N the future, and then eventually making M the past and N the present. This A series possibility changes the relations between the events, making change possible and thus being an essential element to time. (pg26-7)

Author then considers various objections to this view, starting with Bertrand Russell (pg27-8), who claims that the A series is merely a subjective aspect of time. The second objection is that time exists in fictitious works (like stories) but there is clearly no A series. (pg29) The upshot here is that author posits that 'time only belongs to the existent'. (pg29) The third objection is that it may be possible that time has several real and independent time-series. Meaning there could be more than one 'present', but just in different 'series'. This seems to be an objection to both the B and the A series, so author leaves it as showing that there wouldn't be 'the present', but 'the present of a certain aspect of the universe' (pg30).

The second part of the paper is devoted to showing that the A series involves a contradiction and therefore cannot exist. (pg31) The author starts by reminding us that the B series is insufficient to underwrite time, but that the A series needs to stand in relation to something outside the time series (pg31-2) 'If, then, anything is to be rightly called past, present, or future, it must be because it is in relation to something else.' Finding what that something else is 'would not be easy'. (pg32) But the real difficulty is that the terms 'past', 'present', and 'future' are incompatible predicates to apply to an event, yet each event has at least two. (pg32) Author argues that there is no way to dispel this inconsistency without an infinite regress into additional time predicates, which are all based around those initial three terms. (pg32-3)

Author ends by claiming that time is unreal and that our view of it is erroneous.