Abstract
This section will consider the treatment of time in twentieth-century analytic philosophy, this being a generic term which includes logical atomism, logical positivism, rational reconstruction, and linguistic analysis (ordinary language philosophy). We shall begin our investigation by considering J. M. E. McTaggart’s famous argument for the unreality of time, which was first published in 1908. McTaggart’s discussion is a key to the views of time held by twentieth-century analytic philosophers, for one can detect in their writings a common underlying concern: almost all of them are attempting to answer McTaggart’s paradox. This is not to say that all these writings mention McTaggart by name, or even that their authors always had him consciously in mind; but only that the problems they wrestled with were those bequeathed to them by McTaggart. A person can scratch a mosquito bite without knowing that it is a mosquito bite. McTaggart’s argument is fallacious, but it is fallacious in such a deep and basic way that an adequate answer to it must supply a rather extensive analysis of the concept of time, along with a host of neighboring concepts that are themselves of philosophical interest, such as change, substance, event, proposition, truth, and others. What we shall notice is that the answers proposed involve very different analyses of these concepts.
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Bibliography
McTaggart’s argument first appeared as “The Unreality of Time,” M, 17 (1908), reprinted in his Philosophical Studies, Edward Arnold, London, 1934. Attempts to refute his argument through the use of the B-Theory of Time are, in addition to the D. Williams article in this section: C. D. Broad, “Time,” in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1922. Broad was under the influence of Russell when he wrote this article, and completely reversed his position in his subsequent writings. For a detailed account of Broad’s shifting views on time see C. W. K. Mundle, “Broad’s Views about Time,” in The Philosophy of C. D. Broad, P. A. Schilpp, ed., Open Court, La Salle, Ill., 1959
R. B. Braithwaite, “Time and Change,” PAS, Supp. Vol. 8 (1928)
D. W. Gotshalk, “McTaggart on Time,” M, 39 (1930). Bertrand Russell developed the B-Theory of Time in his: The Principles of Mathematics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1903, especially pp. 458-76
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1919, p. 164
“The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” Monist, 28-29 (1918-1919) (see Lecture IV, where Russell discusses the philosophical importance of “emphatic particulars,” which are later termed “egocentric particulars” in his An Inquiry into Meaning & Truth, W. W. Norton, New York, 1940, ch. vii). Russell’s views about the reducibility of A-determinations to B-relations are developed and defended in: G. P. Adams, “Temporal Form and Existence,” in PT N. Goodman, The Structure of Appearance, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1951
W. V. Quine, “Mr. Strawson on Logical Theory,” M, 62 (1953)
A. J. Ayer, “Statements about the Past,” in his Philosophical Essays, Macmillan, London, 1954
Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge, Macmillan, London, 1956, particularly pp. 57-58 and 179-80
J. J. C. Smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1963, ch. vii. Attempts to show that space and time are analogous because of the complementarity between things and events appear in: R. Taylor, “Spatial and Temporal Analogies and the Concept of Identity,” JP, 52 (1955), reprinted in Problems of Space and Time, J. J. C. Smart, ed., Macmillan, New York, 1964, which views are further elaborated on in his “Moving about in Time,” PQ, 9 (1959)
B. Mayo, “Objects, Events, and Complementarity,” PR, 70 (1961). Taylor’s position is criticized by: N. L. Wilson, “Space, Time, and Individuals,” JP, 52 (1955)
W. J. Huggett, “Losing One’s Way in Time,” PQ, 10 (1960)
J. Jarvis Thomson, “Time, Space, and Objects,” M, 74 (1965)
J. W. Meil-and, “Temporal Parts and Spatio-Temporal Analogies,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 3 (1966). The Mayo article is criticized by F. Dretske, “Moving Backward in Time,” PR, 71 (1962). Other writings defending the B-Theory of Time are listed under Sections III and IV of this bibliography.
Answers to McTaggart’s argument employing the A-Theory of Time are: C. D. Broad, Scientific Thought, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, 1923
Broad, “Reply to My Critics,” in The Philosophy of C. D. Broad, cited earlier in full
John Wisdom, “Time, Fact and Substance,” PAS, 29 (1928-1929)
E. W. Hall, “Time and Causality,” PR, 43 (1934)
P. Marhenke, “McTaggart’s Analysis of Time,” in PT L. S. Stebbing, “Some Ambiguities in Discussions Concerning Time,” in Philosophy and History, R. Klibansky and H. J. Paton, eds., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1936
E. R. Bevan, Symbolism and Belief, Beacon Press, Boston, 1957, ch. iv
D. Pears, “Time, Truth, and Inference,” in Essays in Conceptual Analysis, A. G. N. Flew, ed., Macmillan, London, 1956
M. Dummett, “A Defense of McTaggart’s Proof of the Unreality of Time,” PR, 69 (1960)
Richard M. Gale, “Is It Now Now?” M, 73 (1964). Works defending tenets of the A-Theory of Time are: R. Collingwood, “Some Perplexities about Time with an Attempted Solution,” PAS, 26 (1925-1926)
W. R. Dennes, “Time as Datum and as Construction,” in PT D. S. Mackay, “Succession and Duration,” in PT E. W. Strong, “Time in Operational Analysis,” in PT J. N. Findlay, “Review of Ehrenfel’s Cosmogony,” P, 25 (1961)
Findlay, “An Examination of Tenses,” in Contemporary British Philosophy, third series, cited earlier in full
P. F. Strawson, Introduction to Logical Theory, Methuen & Co., London, 1952, especially pp. 150–51
D. Y. Deshpande, “Professor Ayer on the Past,” M, 65 (1956)
W. S. Sellars, “Time and the World Order,” in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, III, H. Feigl, G. Maxwell, and M. Scriven, eds., University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1962, reprinted in Science, Perception & Reality, Humanities Press, New York, 1963
K. W. Ranldn, “Order and Disorder in Time,” M, 66 (1957)
A. N. Prior, “Time After Time,” M, 67 (1958)
Prior, “Thank Goodness That’s Over,” P, 34 (1959)
Prior, “Changes in Events and Changes in Things,” the Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas, 1962
Stuart Hampshire, Thought and Action, Viking Press, New York, 1960, ch. i
M. Black, “The ‘Direction’ of Time,” A, 19 (1959)
Black, “Review of G. J. Whitrow’s The Natural Philosophy of Time” in Scientific American, 206 (1962)
L. E. Palmieri, “Empiricism and a Time-Line,” PQ, 10 (1960)
R. Taylor, “Pure Becoming,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 38 (1960)
David Shwayder, “The Temporal Order,” PQ, 10 (1960)
Richard M. Gale, “Dewey and the Problem of the Alleged Futurity of Yesterday,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 21 (1961)
Gale, “Tensed Statements,” PQ, 12 (1962), which article is criticized by J. J. C. Smart, “‘Tensed Statements’: A Comment,” PQ, 12 (1962)
B. Mayo, “Infinitive Verbs and Tensed Statements”; and by I. Thalberg, “Tenses and ‘Now’,” both in PQ, 13 (1963), along with Gale’s answer “A Reply to Smart, Mayo, and Thalberg on ‘Tensed Statements’,” in the same issue. A further criticism of the original Gale paper is J. Rosenberg, “Tensed Discourse and the Eliminability of Tenses,” PQ, 16 (1966). Other articles by Gale are: “Existence, Tense and Presupposition,” Monist, 50 (1966), and “McTaggart’s Analysis of Time,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 3 (1966). Other articles defending the A-Theory are listed under Sections III and IV. The problem of detensing language is discussed in the articles by A. Duncan-Jones, P. N. Smith, B. Mayo, and L. J. Cohen in ch. vii of Philosophy and Analysis, M. Macdonald, ed., Philosophical Library, New York, 1955.
The Either-Way-Will-Work Theory of Time is put forth in J. J. C. Smart, “The River of Time,” in Essays in Conceptual Analysis, cited earlier in full, as well as in the Findlay and Smart.articles included in this volume. The only philosopher who has defended the view that neither the A-nor the B-Series alone is sufficient to account for our concept of time is L. O. Mink, “Time, McTaggart and Pickwickian Language,” PQ, 10 (1960).
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© 1968 Richard M. Gale
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Gale, R.M. (1968). The Static Versus the Dynamic Temporal. In: Gale, R.M. (eds) The Philosophy of Time. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15243-8_2
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