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In The Unreality of Time (1908), J. Ellis McTaggart identifies a fatal vicious circle in the A series of time. What is the problem? The sun rises every day and ever-finer measurements of time are made. The A series is a conceptualisation of this form of time: it is essentially the same thing, so how can it be voided over a case of which-came-first?

The vicious circle is referred to in the 4th paragraph below: The Unreality of Time, page 468

Past, present,and future are incompatible determinations. Every event must be one or the other, but no event can be more than one. This is essential to the meaning of the terms. And, if it were not so, the A series would be insufficient to give us, in combination with the C series, the result of time. For time, as we have seen, involves change, and the only change we can get is from future to present, and from present to past.

The characteristics,therefore, are incompatible. 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 incompatible terms are predicable of each event, which is obviously inconsistent with their being incompatible, and inconsistent with their producing change.

It may seem that this can easily be explained. Indeed it has been impossible to state the difficulty without almost giving the explanation, since our language has verb-forms for the past, present, and future, but no form that is common to all three. It is never true, the answer will run, that M is present, past and future. It is present, will be past, and has been future. Or it is past, and has been future and present, or again is future and will be present and past. 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.

But this explanation involves a vicious circle. For it assumes the existence of time in order to account for the way in which moments are past, present and future. Time then must be pre-supposed to account for the A series. But we have already seen that the A series has to be assumed in order to account for time. Accordingly the A series has to be pre-supposed in order to account for the A series. And this is clearly a vicious circle.

J D
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Chris Degnen
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    McTaggart seems to think that the meaning of "was, is, will be" depends on the meaning of "A-series," so defending the viability of the A-series using the "was, is, will be" scheme seems circular. I would imagine that an easy enough retort would be that time is not being explained in a circle, but that time is being illustrated by its effect on/role in the logic of "is" in general. – Kristian Berry Aug 14 '22 at 12:59
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    @KristianBerry The preceding paragraph suggests (to me) the "is" is the authentic temporality of the observer : "The relations which form the A series then must be relations of events and moments to something not itself in the time-series. What this something is might be difficult to say. But, waiving this point, a more positive difficulty presents itself. ..." – Chris Degnen Aug 14 '22 at 14:29
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    Hmm, I wonder if he was too quick to waive that point, though, then. I hate using scientific information in the wrong way but I wonder how general relativity factors into the A/B distinction in time-series. If something is only relatively past, present, or future, then an event might sustain all three predicates, relativized though, and then not be self-contradictory (nevermind circular, maybe). – Kristian Berry Aug 14 '22 at 14:55
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    @KristianBerry Different inertial or gravitational frames would make clocks tick faster or slower. If there is [absolute simultaneity](https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/einstein-relativity-and-absolute-simultaneity/) relative A series would all be focussed on the same present but scaled differently wrt past & future. So nothing past could be in another's future; no contradiction or incompatibility. Proving absolute simultaneity is stymied by [unobservability](https://www.nature.com/articles/140963b0) though. – Chris Degnen Aug 14 '22 at 15:36
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    Nevertheless, on page 466 McTaggart writes : "in [the case of many presents], no present would be *the* present—it would only be the present of a certain aspect of the universe. But then no time would be *the* time—it would only be the time of a certain aspect of the universe. It would, no doubt, be a real time-series, but I do not see that the present would be less real than the time. / I am not, of course, asserting that there is no contradiction in the existence of several distinct A series. My main thesis is that the existence of *any* A series involves a contradiction." – Chris Degnen Aug 14 '22 at 16:07
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    The argument is simple. If one wishes to avoid the inconsistency of ascribing incompatible properties to events (like being past and future) by stressing the different tenses of "is" they need to first give a consistent account of what makes the tenses different. B properties do not help with that, and invoking A properties only shifts the inconsistency (and is circular). It is an elaboration of Parmenides' argument against reality of change, "*for this shall never be proved, that the things that are not are*". That we "see" sunrises, etc., doesn't help, seeing things doesn't make them *real* – Conifold Aug 14 '22 at 19:32
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    @Conifold I suspect that what McTaggart is missing as regards "what makes the tenses different" is the agency of *Dasein* and the *Augenblick* — the Present moment shared by authentic & inauthentic temporality (the latter being A series), where agency interacts externally. As I quoted earlier, McTaggart says "The relations which form the A series then must be relations of events and moments to something not itself in the time-series"; the authentic temporality of *Dasein* is not in the inauthentic time-series, except for shared moments. McTaggart wouldn't have known this 1927 idea in 1908. – Chris Degnen Aug 14 '22 at 20:43
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    I doubt that would impress McTaggart. Bergson introduced similar "authentic temporality" under the name of "duration" back in 1889, Husserl pondered "time-consciousness" in 1900s too. McTaggart was an objective idealist, all subject bound constructs were "unreal" to him. And, even "waiving that", explaining them, on his terms, would face the same inconsistency, as he remarks. He is asking for a tenseless explanation of tenses, as long as one plays by his rules there is no escaping circularity. This is ironic becausec he was a Hegelian, and Hegel had change built-in from the start. – Conifold Aug 14 '22 at 22:29
  • It can be said, with equal *validity*, that *time* (A series) has to be assumed for *time* (A series). The objective, it seems, is to prove the *reality of time* as in it's not *just* a useful *mental construct* we employ as part of our overall *sense-making* toolkit. – Agent Smith Dec 18 '22 at 16:36
  • @AgentSmith That's a concealed reality acc to Heidegger "240. ... The difficulty involved in asking about the "reality" and "provenance" of space and time is characteristic of the horizon in which occurs in general the guiding question, "What are beings?" [Cf.]" "242 ... The abyss is the *originary unity* of space and time, that unifying unity which first allows them to diverge into their separateness. ... What is the abyssal ground? What is its mode of grounding? ... Abyssal ground: staying away; as ground in self-concealing, a self-concealing in the mode of the withholding of the ground." – Chris Degnen Dec 18 '22 at 18:41
  • @ChrisDegnen, Heidegger was, as per reports, a *metaphysician* and while it's easy to speak/write about what, as one, he should've done, the problem is clearly not that easily dealt with. Ask any metaphysician and he'll tell you what I mean. As for the *abyssal ground*, I'd say it's a good description of the state of affairs although I would've preferred a Latin word/phrase. Perhaps we should explore the history of [time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time) in more depth and detail. – Agent Smith Dec 18 '22 at 18:59
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    @AgentSmith It's the same kind of thing with Kant and Nietzsche, [Relation to Objects in Space](https://iep.utm.edu/kantmind/#SH4d): "we can never be certain of the existence of outer objects." The reality is what you/we make of what appears. Then back to what is the ground? – Chris Degnen Dec 18 '22 at 19:18
  • Indeed, we can't be certain, at all, about the nature of *noumena* beginning with whether *phenomena* correspond in a strict *bijection* with them. We're reduced, as it were, to *solipsism*. Time is *unreal* then, an invention only, just to make the world more intelligible. – Agent Smith Dec 18 '22 at 21:47
  • @ChrisDegnen, does the *vicious circle* bother you in any way? Why did McTaggart find himself going round in a circle. He thought he'd made progress, only to find out it was a mere illusion. – Agent Smith Dec 19 '22 at 11:24
  • @AgentSmith I'd say the A series is, as you put it, an invention, a convention, so no vicious circle. How so? The A series—as ordinary/inauthentic temporality—is invented by beings constituted in *authentic* temporality, which at root begins as *an affect of self upon self*, which "is not a characteristic affecting transcendental subjectivity, one of its attributes; it is, on the contrary, that starting from which the self, the *Selbst*, the I think constitutes itself and announces itself to itself." Fuller quote in [my dodgy old post here](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/92213/5154). – Chris Degnen Dec 19 '22 at 14:55

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The essence of his argument is that if you analyse any attempt to define time in terms of other ideas, you will find that those ideas already assume the existence of time. There is nothing special about that- you can say exactly the same about definitions of space.

Marco Ocram
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  • That's why it is interesting what Conifold says in the comments: "McTaggart was an objective idealist, all subject bound constructs were "unreal" to him." If instead McTaggart were to start from Descartes' *I think* then time would begin as *an affect of self upon self* [ref](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/92213/5154) (also in comments above). If Descartes were then to consider "the "reality" and "provenance" of space and time" he would find the "the abyssal ground" conceals itself; is unreachable. We can only *invent* the space-time construct, which doesn't even work in singularities. – Chris Degnen Jan 13 '23 at 16:32