Phil 420: Metaphysics
Spring 2008
[Handout 17]
J. M. E. McTaggart: Time (1908)
Professor JeeLoo Liu § McTaggart’s Main Claims
1.Nothing that exists can be temporal – nothing existent can possess the
characteristic of being in time.
2.There is in fact no time; time is unreal.
3.The appearance of temporal order is mere appearance.
The Shocking Claim:
•We have no experience which does not appear to be temporal.
•But time is unreal.
•Hence, our experience is illusory.
Part I.  The A-series of Time is what makes time possible.
Positions in Time
[A].  Past, Present, Future
___ For the sake of brevity I shall give the name of the A series to that series of positions which runs from the far past through the near past of the present, and then from the present through the near future to the far future, or conversely.
[B].  Earlier than; later than
___ The series of positions which runs from earlier to later, or conversely, I shall call the B series.
McTaggart’s claim:
___ the distinction of past, present, and future is as essential to time as the distinction of earlier and later, while in a certain sense it may… be regarded as more fundamental than the distinction of earlier and later.
§ First Argument: There can be no change in the B series.
M N O
1.The contents of any position in time form an event.  In three time segments, we
have events M, N, and O such that M is earlier than N (N is later than M) and N is earlier than O (O is later than both M and N).valid from是什么意思
2.If N is ever earlier than O and later than M, it will always be, and has always
been, earlier than O and later than M, since the relations of earlier and later are
permanent.
3.In the B series of time (earlier than – later than), N will always have a position in
a time-series, and always has had one.
4.Between M and N, for example, there is no moment when M changes into N,
because, if M changed into N at a certain moment, then at that moment, M would have ceased to be M, and N would have begun to be N.
5.Change, then, cannot arise from an event ceasing to be an event, nor from one
event changing into another.
6.Therefore, in the B series there can be no change possible.
7.There could be no time if nothing changed.
8.Therefore, the B series does not constitute time.
§ Second Argument: Change is possible in the A series.
past … present … future …
past … present … future …
1.Take an event – the death of Queen Anne, for example – and consider what
changes can take place in its characteristics.
2.That it is a death, that it is the death of Ann, that it has such causes, that it has
such effects – every characteristic of this sort never changes.
3.But in one respect it does change.  It was once an event in the far future.  It
became every moment an event in the nearer future.  At last it was present.  Then
it became past, and will always remain past, though every moment it becomes
further and further past.
4.Therefore, there is change when time is considered as a series from past to present
and to future.
5.Therefore, change is possible in the A series.
Conclusion #1:
The B series, therefore, is not by itself sufficient to constitute time, since time involves change.
The B series, however, cannot exist except as temporal, since earlier and later, which are the relations which connect its terms, are clearly time-relations.  So it follows that there can be no B series when there is no A series, since without an A series there is no time.  § Three Objections and McTaggart’s Replies
1.Russell – Past, present and future do not belong to time per se, but only in
relation to a knowing subject.
___ An assertion that N is present means that it is simultaneous with that assertion, an assertion that it is past or future means that it is earlier or later than that assertion.
Thus it is only past, present, or future, in relation to some assertion.
___ If there were no consciousness, there would be events which were earlier and later than others, but nothing would be in any sense past, present, or future.  And if there were events earlier than any consciousness, those events would never be future or present, though they could be past.
___ Therefore, an A series is not essential to time.
McTaggart’s Reply:
My contention is that if we remove the A series from the prima facie nature of time, we are left with a series which is not temporal, and which does not allow change.
No fact about anything can change, unless it is a fact about its place in the A series.  Whatever other qualities it has, it has always.  But what which is future will not always be future, and that which was past was not always past.
2.The possibility of non-existent time-series such as the adventures of Don
Quixote.
___ Non-existent time series can have earlier than and later than relations, but not past, present and future.  In other words, this series does not form part of the A series.
I cannot at this moment judge it to be either past, present, or future.  Indeed, I know
that it is none of the three.  Yet, it is certainly a B series.
___ Therefore, an A series is not essential to time.
McTaggart’s Reply:
Time only belongs to the existent.  If any reality is in time, that involves that the reality in question exists – if anything is in time, it must exist.
Now what is existent in the adventures of Don Quixote?  Nothing.  For the story is imaginary.
Thus the answer to the objection is that, just as far as a thing is in time, it is in the A series.  If it is really in time, it is really in the A series.  If it is believed to be in time, it is believed to be in the A series.  If it is contemplated as being in time, it is contemplated as being in the A series.
3.The possibility of multiple time-lines.
___ If time were real at all, there might be in reality several real and independent time-series.  Every time-series would be real, while the distinction of past, present, and future would only have a meaning within each series, and would not, therefore, be taken as absolutely real.
___ Of course, many points of time can be present.  In each time-series many points are present, but they must be present successively.  And the presents of the different time-series would not be successive, since they are not in the same time.  And different presents cannot be real unless they are successive.  So the different time-series, which are real, must be able to exist independently of the distinction between past, present, and future.
___ Therefore, an A series is not essential to time.
McTaggart’s Reply:
I cannot regard this objection as valid.  No doubt in such a case, no present would be the present – it would only be the present of a certain aspect of the universe.  But no time would be the time – it would only be the time as a certain aspect of the universe.  It would be a real time-series, but I do not see that the present would be less real than the time.
Part II.  The Contradiction of the A-series
To show: An A series cannot exist, and that therefore time cannot exist.
X
1.Past, present, and future are characteristics which we ascribe to events, and also to
moments of time, if these are taken as separate realities.
[3A] – events
2.Past, present, and future, are relations in which events stand to something outside
the time-series.
3.  A series is an A series when each of its terms has, to an entity X outside the series,
one, and only one, of three indefinable relations, pastness, presentness, and
futurity.
4.This entity X could not itself be in time, and yet it must be such that different
relations to it determines the other terms of those relations, as being past, present, or future.
5.Past, present, and future are incompatible determinations.  Every event must be
one or the other, but no event can be more than one.
6.But every event has them all.  If M is past, it has been present and future.  If it is
future, it will be present and past.  If it is present, it has been future and will be
past.  Thus all the three characteristics belong to each event.
7.Thus we get a contradiction.
[3B] – moments
8.If M is present, there is no moment of past time at which it is past.  But the
moments of future time, in which it is past, are equally moments of past time, in
which it cannot be past.  Again, that M is future and will be present and past
means that M is future at a moment of present time, and present and past at
different moments of future time.  In that case it cannot be present or past at any
moments of past time.  But all the moments of future time, in which M will be
present or past, are equally moments of past time.
9.And thus again we get contradiction, since the moments at which M has any one
of the three determinations of the A series are also moments at which it cannot
have that determination.
10.If we try to avoid this by saying of these moments that some moment, for
example, is future, and will be present and past – then “is” and “will be” have the same meaning as before.  Our statement, then, means that the moment in question is future at a present moment, and will be present and past at different moments of future time.  This, of course, is the same difficulty once again.  And so on
infinitely.
11.Such an infinity is vicious.
12.Therefore, the A-series is self-contradictory.
* A sub-rebuttal based on a vicious infinite regress:
1.Counter-claim: The characteristics are only incompatible when they are
simultaneous, and there is no contradiction to this in the fact that each term has all of them successively.
2.Rebuttal: But “being successive” means that they have them in relation to terms
specified as past, present, and future.
3.These again must in turn be specified as past, present and future.

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