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McTaggart's argument consists of two-parts.
The first part contends that the "tenseless
theory of time," according to which
the A-concepts are reducible to the B-concepts
(via token-reflexive definitions), or perhaps
completely eliminable (i. e. are never applicable),
is wrong; or as McTaggart puts it, "there
can be no A-series [things to which the A-concepts
apply] without a B-series [things to which
B-concepts apply]." The second part
of the argument purports to show that the
"tensed theory of time", according
to which the B-concepts are not reducible
to the A-concepts, is contradictory. If neither
theory of time is correct, then, it must
be because there is no such thing as time,
i. e. no things to which the A or B concepts
apply.
McTaggart's argument against the tenseless
view of time is that on the tenseless view
of time, represented by Russell, we cannot
make sense of the possibility of change;
and if there is no change, then there is
no time.
McTaggart argues as follows. Take some event,
e. g. the death of Queen Anne. "That
it is a death, that it is the death of Anne
Stuart, that it has such causes, that it
has such effects - every characteristic of
this sort never changes." (26) The only
thing about the death of Queen Anne that
changes over time is whether it is future,
present, or past, i. e. which of the A-concepts
apply to it. And as it is with the death
of Queen Anne, so it is with all events.
Thus, if there is no A-series, there is no
change, and hence no time.
The response by Russell, a proponent of the
tenseless view of time, is that McTaggart
is looking in the wrong place for change.
Change is not present in events (at least
not in momentary events), but in persisting
objects. To say that a something has changed
is to just to say that a persisting thing
has some property at one time, and fails
to have that property at another time, or
in Russell's words, "Change is the difference,
in respect of truth or falsehood, between
a proposition concerning an entity and the
time T1, and a proposition concerning the
same entity and the time T2, provided that
these propositions differ only by the fact
that T1 occurs in the one where T2; occurs
in the other." (Quoted by McTaggart,
27)
McTaggart states that he agrees that this
would suffice for change, but thinks that
this response is question-begging, for it
assumes the existence of times; and according
to McTaggart, if there is no irreducible
A-series, there are no times. So rather than
say, e. g., that this poker is hot at one
time and is not hot at another time, let
us say that the poker is hot on Monday, and
is not hot on Tuesday, remaining neutral
on whether Monday and Tuesday are indeed
times. Does this suffice for there to be
change?
McTaggart claims that it does not, for if
the poker is hot on Monday, it is always
hot on Monday, and if it fails to be hot
on Tuesday, it always fails to be hot on
Tuesday. Neither of these relations of the
poker to Monday and Tuesday change. The only
thing that could change, claims McTaggart,
is whether the poker is hot in the future,
present, or past, i. e. whether Monday and
Tuesday themselves are future, present, or
past. And to account for change, the futurity,
presentness, and pastness of events cannot
merely be the sort of futurity, pastness
and presentness given by a token-indexical
analysis of these concepts, according to
which "past" means "earlier
than this utterance," "present"
means "simultaneous with this utterance,"
and "future" means "later
than this utterance". For if this were
all that were meant, a given event, such
as the poker's becoming hot, would eternally
be future on Sunday, present on Monday, and
past on Tuesday, and there would be no change.
To reinforce this, McTaggart asks us to make
a comparison with having certain properties
in relation to another sort of series, a
spatial one, viz. the series of latitude
lines. At 50 degrees latitude, the Greenwich
meridian is in England, and at 0 degrees;
latitude, it is not. But, claims McTaggart,
we do not wish to say that the Greenwich
meridian undergoes any change in virtue of
its differing relation to points in a spatial
series, for it is always the case that (at
least since there has been an England) the
Greenwich meridian is in England at 50 degrees
latitude, and not in England at 0 degrees
latitude.
Since the B-series by itself cannot account
for change, there is change, and hence time,
only if there is an irreducible A-series.
But McTaggart claims that any theory that
makes use of irreducible A-concepts is contradictory.
For the properties (or relations, if such
they be) of pastness, presentness, and futurity
are (a) incompatible, in that it is conceptually
impossible for a thing to have more than
one; but (b) if a thing has one of these
properties, it must have more than one of
them: the death of Queen Anne was future,
then was present, and now is past.
McTaggart anticipates the reply: yes, these
properties are incompatible, and all events
have all three; but nothing has more than
one of these properties at any given time.
An event that is present was future, and
will be past.
McTaggart answers this reply first with an
analysis of "is", "was",
and "will be": to say that X was
Y, according to McTaggart, is to say that
X is Y at a past moment; and to say that
X will be Y is to say that X is Y at a future
moment. But what of these moments that are
past, present, or future? These moments must
too have the incompatible properties of pastness,
presentness, and futurity; and hence the
contradiction has not been escaped.
If a similar reply is given for these moments,
McTaggart asks again about the new moments
relative to which these moments are past,
present, or future: and claims that the contradiction
has not yet been escaped. "And so on
infinitely", McTaggart writes. "Such
an infinity is vicious. …The first set of
terms never escapes contradiction at all."
Does time flow? Even if McTaggart is wrong,
and the tenseless view of time can make sense
of change by locating it in persisting objects
and not momentary events, the tenseless view
of time still faces a puzzle about the passage,
or the flow, of time. It is a commonplace
that time passes, or flows. Admittedly this
is metaphorical, but what literal truth lies
behind the metaphor: or is the metaphor entirely
misleading when it comes to metaphysics?
The puzzle is this. A river flows or passes
in virtue of the fact that its constituent
drops of water become successively closer
and closer to, and then further and further
away from, some spatial point regarded as
fixed; i. e. at one point in time, t1, any
given constituent drop of the river stands
at a certain distance from the fixed spatial
point, and at a successive time t2, it is
closer to or further away from that point.
How is it then that time flows or passes?
The advocate of the tensed view of time has
an answer to this question. The constituent
times that are future are becoming closer
and closer to the NOW, and those that are
future are receding from it.
It's not clear that the advocate of the tensed
view of time is required to see the pastness,
presentness, or futurity of an event or time
as a literally relational property which
depends on a time or event's relationship
with this "NOW". This might too
be taken as a metaphor, for the fact that
futurity, an intrinsic property of certain
events and times that comes in degrees, is
gradually lost, until the object is present,
at which time the event or time begins to
gain intrinsic pastness.
Or an advocate of the tensed view might try
to explain the metaphor without an appeal
to an ontology of past and future events
or times. This is the position of Arthur
Prior. Prior views the tenses as unanalyzed
one-place sentential operators: "I fell
out of a punt" is analyzed as "It
was the case that I am falling out of a punt";
I will have received my doctorate" as
"It will be the case that it was the
case that I am receiving my doctorate."
Prior also requires more specific tense-operators:
"It was the case three years ago",
"It will be the case six weeks hence",
etc.
To say that something has changed is to say
this, according to Prior. Something that
was the case is no longer the case, i. e.
for some sentence S, to say "It was
the case that S, and it is not now the case
that S. Now the sentence S itself may have
some tense operators on the front of it,
as these operators are iterable. It was the
case two months ago that was the case three
weeks ago that I am getting married, and
it is not now the case that three weeks ago
I am getting married. It is this systematic
change of the truth value of tensed sentences
that is the literal truth behind the metaphor
of time's passage or flow, according to Prior.
The advocate of the tenseless view of time
has no such easy explanation of the metaphor
of time's passage or flow. The advocate of
the tenseless view of time analyzes such
expressions as "now", "is
past", "is future", as well
as Prior's sentential operators "It
was the case that" and "it will
be the case that", in terms of McTaggart's
B-concepts, by construing them as token-indexicals.
"E is happening now" just means
"E is simultaneous with this utterance";
"It was the case that P" just means
"Earlier than this utterance, P".
But these B-concepts attributed to events,
times, or sentences, are eternally applicable.
If an utterance of "The Civil War is
past" at just means "The Civil
War occurred prior to this utterance",
that utterance is, if true, eternally true,
and if false, eternally false. What changes,
on the tenseless view of time, is not the
pastness, presentness, and futurity of events,
times, or sentences, for there is no property,
intrinsic or relational, unambiguously designated
by our "A-words". What changes
(in David Kaplan's terminology) is the one
aspect of the meaning of the A-words, the
content of sentences containing them. (Although
the character of the sentences remains constant.)
References McTaggart, J. M. E. "The
Unreality of Time", in Robin Le Poidevin
and Murray MacBeath, eds., The Philosophy
of Time. Oxford, 1993. Prior, Arthur. "Changes
in Events and Changes in Things," in
Le Poidevin and MacBeath, op. cit.
Copyright © 1997 Carl Brock Sides. Permission
granted to distribute in any medium, commercial
or non-commercial, provided all copyright
notices remain intact.
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