"It doubtless seems highly paradoxical to assert that point is unreal, and that statements which involve its fact are erroneous, " and yet, in his 1908 newspaper 'The Unreality of Time', J. M. E. McTaggart makes an attempt to prove that. This essay will summarize his arguments and examine their outcomes. At the main of McTaggart's discussion is the differentiation between what he calling the 'A-theory' and the 'B-theory' of the time. Positions with time, he says, can be purchased according with their properties, such to be two times future, being one day future, being present, being 1 day past, etc. This temporal series of being previous, present, and future, he calls the A-series. However, he asserts that positions with time may also be bought by dyadic relationships such as two times earlier than, 1 day sooner than, simultaneous with, etc. This temporal position of events according to the relation 'earlier than', he calls the B-series.
After making these distinction, McTaggart's first rung on the ladder is to show that the A-series theory is essential to our notion time, by highlighting the fundamental aspect of change in virtually any such conception. "It could, " he says, ". . . be universally accepted that time includes change". A universe in which nothing at all ever transformed, ". . . would be a timeless universe. " He argues that the B-series, minus the A-series, will not entail genuine change, since where in fact the A-series changes (in that what was future is currently earlier) the B-series positions are true timelessly-they are forever 'set'.
After dealing with some possible responses by the likes of Bertrand Russell (that i shall discuss shortly) and establishing to his satisfaction that change can be accounted for only by A-series notions of energy, McTaggart second step is to show that any A-series notions are nonetheless ultimately incoherent, and so so is time itself. To start with, McTaggart argues that being future, being present, and being previous, are incompatible determinations-they are mutually exclusive. Yet, in A-series interpretations of energy, ". . . every event has them all. " So, though McTaggart thinks the A-series series is essential to time, he also thinks it causes a contradiction, and so cannot be true of anything in reality. Thus, time can't be true of anything in reality either; therefore time is unreal.
Despite McTaggart's quarrels, most philosophers have remained convinced of the truth of time; partially because the looks of an temporal order to the earth is so strong; partly because the implications of its unreality are so huge and injurious to so many philosophical ideas; and partially because, like me, they remain unconvinced of the 'confirmation' itself. These philosophers normally dispute the need of the A-series in recording the nature of the time, and defend what P. T. Geach later called the 'Cambridge' criterion of change.
One such philosopher, Bertrand Russell-who Richard Gale hailed as "[t]he father of the modern version of the B-Theory. . . "- thinks that McTaggart looks for change in the wrong place. He says that "[c]hange is the difference, according of truth or falsehood, between a proposition pertaining to an entity and a period T, and a proposition concerning the same entity and another time T', so long as the two propositions change only by the actual fact that T occurs in one where T' occurs in the other. " In other words, change is simply the difference in the applicability of the predicate to a subject at different points in time. McTaggart addresses this discussion using the example of a poker that is hot at T and cool at T'. This, he says, does not constitute real change, because it is always the situation that the sooner part of the event is hotter than the later part of this event. However, Russell would probably have found this not completely persuasive, as, though it can be true that the poker will not change when it comes to it being hot at T, this argument will give us a criterion for what's for the poker to improve.
That is not to say, however, the McTaggart's 'proof' proves little or nothing. At least one part of McTaggart's argument, the part about the contradiction inherent in the A-series, seems to be sound. It is not hard to dismiss the most obvious objection available to the defender of the A-series. As McTaggart says, one may declare that it's never true of any event that it's past, is future, and is past. Instead, such an debate would run, the function exists, will be past, and has been future; or it is past, and has been future and present; or it is future, and you will be present and previous. There seems to be no contradiction here because, though the characteristics are incompatible, ". . . each term has most of them successively. " But, corresponding to McTaggart, this objection fails considering that the other times called upon to explain the event's incompatible A-properties must themselves have got all of the same A-properties (as must any further times invoked due to these additional times, etc ad infinitum). This objection, therefore, can never resolve the initial contradiction inherent in the A-series, since it simply reintroduces further notions of your time, therefore begs the same question. This does not mean that we should go as far as to deny the truth of your energy itself, for though McTaggart may establish that the A-series is unreal, he does little to persuade B-theorists such as Russell of its need.
