Abstract
Time has a highly unstable place between the objective and the subjective. On the one side, there are very well known philosophical arguments trying to show that time has only a subjective reality, even that it is merely a subjective epiphenomenon. On the other side, we are compelled to take points of view as non dispensable elements of reality, at least of a reality capable of containing beings like us. And points of view offer a world of temporal entities existing in an objective way. Moreover, points of view themselves appear to be temporal entities among other temporal entities. We analyse both aspects of time. Our main focus will be McTaggart’s arguments against the reality of a fluent time, what he called temporal series of kind A. We will distinguish three very different arguments in McTaggart works. We analyse them in detail. And we reject their conclusive character. Our final target is to maintain that there is a room for fluent time in what is internal to points of view but external to the subjects adopting those points of view.
This work has been granted by Spanish Government, “Ministerio de Economía y Competividad”, Research Projects FFI2008-01205 (Points of View. A Philosophical Investigation), FFI2011-24549 (Points of View and Temporal Structures), and FFI2014-57409-R (Points of View, Dispositons, and Time. Perspectives in a World of Dispositions).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
Mainly, he does it in book VI of his The Nature of Existence (1927).
- 4.
The notion of a “well founded apparent relation”, a “bene fundata appearance”, would come from Leibniz. This topic will be discussed in other chapters of the book.
- 5.
About that complexity, see Nyiri [17]. She also offers a very interesting overview about the different reactions to McTaggart’s arguments in the last hundred years, in particular their connections to Einstein-Minkowski’s conception of space-time. We will not address any of these topics here.
- 6.
That A-series are essential to our experience of time, and that an adequate account of time needs them, are the two main claims about time of Lynne Rudder Baker ([2], Chap. 7). In her own words, “[…] both the B-series (that orders time in terms of unchanging relations like “earlier than”) and the A-series (that orders time in terms of changing properties like “being past”, “being present”, and “being future”) are needed for an adequate account of time. Neither series is dispensable, and neither by itself is a sufficient account of time. […] it is a deep fact about time that it can be experienced only as transient.” (pp. 155–156).
- 7.
Suppose this situation: either I am singing, or I have sung, or I will sing. What is it ultimately real of that situation? For Presentism only that I am singing at the present time is real. For Eternism, that I have sung and that I will sing would be as much real as that I am singing at the present time. For the Growing Block Universe Conception, only that I have sung would be real. It is very difficult to reformulate this example exclusively in terms of B-series! Only Eternism seems not to depend on a sharp distinction between the “past”, the “present”, and the “future”.
- 8.
Very often, the “spacialisation of time” in Special Theory of Relativity is assumed without taking into account its metaphysical consequences in relation to Presentism, Eternism, and the Growing Block Universe Conception. For Presentism and the Growing Block Universe Conception, what is real would be relative to our place or position. With respect to the physical world, only Eternism seems to have clear advantages.
- 9.
Horwich [9], Section “McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time”.
- 10.
Dummett (1978, v.o. 1960) [5].
- 11.
According to Dummett, the case of personality would be similar to the case of space. However, it can be claimed that token-reflexive expressions are also essential for describing something as a particular person, for instance for describing something as being “me”.
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Dummett [5].
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Dummett ([5]: 356).
- 14.
All the following fragments of McTaggart in this section come from ([14]: #35–36).
- 15.
When, for instance, we say something about the future, we are not necessarily only expressing our ignorance. Moreover, the contrast between the past, the present, and the future (including here the asymmetry and directionality of a fluent time) cannot be reduced to a simple question of more or less knowledge.
- 16.
In Dummett (1978, v.o. 1960) [5]. All the fragments of Dummett in this section come from here, pp. 351–352.
- 17.
Of course, persisting things could be placed “at the same time” in the past, the present and the future. R would not apply to them. However, we can think of A-series applied to persistent things something derivate from applications to the temporal positions of changing things.
- 18.
Fatalism can be defined as the thesis that determinism is “necessarily” true. The sort of distinction we are making between, on the one hand, the past and the present and, on the other hand, the future was a very important subject for Prior. See Prior [20, 21]. In fact, very often we think of future events as events that can happen in “one or another” point in the future.
- 19.
However, R would exclude other temporal scenarios. And it is important to note it. For instance, the possibility of having a perfect circularity of events in time: a circular time in which “absolutely identical events” (numerically identical events) would repeat again and again.
- 20.
The point we are making is closely connected to the idea expressed by Dummett in one of the fragments previously quoted: “… a description of events as taking place in time is impossible unless temporally token-reflexive expressions enter into it, that is, unless the description is given by someone who is himself in that time” (Dummett 1978: 354). This involves circularity and regression, but not necessarily of a defective (or vicious) sort.
- 21.
McTaggart ([14], #327–328).
- 22.
Something can change “at the same time” with respect to more than one property. This does not pose any serious problem. We can say that X changes with respect to property F at the same time than it changes with respect to property G iff X changes with respect to H at that time, being H a certain combination of properties F and G.
- 23.
The peculiarities of our personal experiences of time are emphasised by Russell [22]’s logical construction of time out of “sensibilia”. Russell defends a relational, constructive (anti-Kantian and anti-Newtonian) Leibnizean theory of time. In his construction, time comes to be internal to a construed space of perspectives without being internal to the subjects from which that space of perspectives is construed. There is an asymmetry between determinations of temporal positions in the case of our own experiences and determinations of temporal positions in other cases. Whereas the first ones are direct, the second ones are indirect. And that indirect character entails the intervention of processes that, when they are projected over a physical space of perspectives, “take time”. The construction of a Russellian space of perspectives, and of a physical space-time containing physical objects, matter, and perspectives, is explained in other chapters of this book.
- 24.
The BA-theory of time defended by Baker [2] would embrace the temporal duality present in the option 3.
- 25.
See, in his Critique of Pure Reason, “Transcendental Aesthetic”.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
We have assumed that to identify permanencies in time is to identify “possible but not actual changes”. Without the possibility of changes, we could not identify permanencies either.
- 30.
Perhaps something “changing” requires that “it has changed” a bit, and also that “it will change a bit”. Being this true, the present will always need a small portion of past and a small portion of future. In other chapters of the book, it will be argued that this is just the case. More precisely, it will be argued that the present is part of a “now” that always includes a certain past and a certain future. In any case, when we attribute temporal positions in terms of A-series to a thing changing, we try to be maximally selective. We try to refer to the present in the narrowest way.
- 31.
- 32.
Wittgenstein (1953).
- 33.
- 34.
The generation of conceptual contents in “conceptual spaces” of qualitative dimensions, and the formation of these qualitative dimensions from identifications of similarities and differences among experiential contents, would offer a very interesting approach in order to understand the last two points. See Gärdenfors [6] and Hautamäki [7].
- 35.
We have suggested that the constitution of TPoV could be understood as the formation of a new qualitative dimension in a conceptual space. Some differences in non-CC are taken as temporal differences according to a past, a present, and a future. As any other qualitative dimension, that temporal dimension could be interpreted phenomenally (for instance, from the temporal values of a psychologically extended “now”, including a certain past, present, and future) or scientifically (for instance, using the theoretical values of some metric applied to brain processes). The comparisons between the two interpretations would be comparisons between “two different conceptual spaces”. See again Gärdenfors [6] and Hautamäki [7].
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Liz Gutiérrez, A.M., Vázquez Campos, M. (2015). Temporal Aspects of Points of View. In: Vázquez Campos, M., Liz Gutiérrez, A. (eds) Temporal Points of View. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19815-6_3
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