Philosophy and Illusion by Lazerowitz Morris Morris;

Author:Lazerowitz, Morris, Morris; [Lazerowitz, Morris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Time and Temporal Terminology

DOI: 10.4324/9781315830193-7

‘The poets have lamented the power of Time to sweep away every object of their love.’ Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy.

The concept of time has given rise to a number of philosophical theories which are remarkable for the way in which they differ from each other. According to one theory, time is not real and exists only as a self-contradictory appearance. According to another theory, time is a component of our perceptual apparatus and is a ‘form of inner intuition’. According to a third theory, time is a self-subsistent phenomenon which is held by some philosophers to be capable of existing empty of occurrences and by other philosophers not. And there are still other theories. The differences between these claims are so startling as to incline one to suppose that philosophers are talking about altogether different things, that they are using the word ‘time’ in different senses, rather than that they are using the word in the same sense and are advancing different theories about the nature of what is denoted by it. But it would be unrealistic to suppose this: for that would imply that the many philosophers who have engaged in debates about time have constantly been misunderstanding each other and talking at cross purposes, rather than arguing against each other's positions. But the many years in which controversies about time have been going on makes ridiculous the notion that philosophers have been blind to each other's use of terminology, especially as the arguments a philosopher gives in support of his position as well as against other positions could not fail to indicate what his terminology referred to. Thus St Augustine, who posed the question, ‘What is time?’, observed that, despite the fact that philosophers have for so long been at loggerheads about it, ‘… we certainly understand it when we talk about it; we even understand it when we hear another person speaking about it’. In view of this it becomes a problem as to how to understand rightly the question, ‘What is time?’, for which such remarkably diverse answers could be proposed. It presents us with the meta-question as to what sort of information is requested by the philosophical question—factual, analytical, or verbal, or perhaps something else. That the question is unusual and may have a hidden character is suggested by St Augustine's famous complaint, ‘What, then, is time? If no one asks me I know; but if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know.’ If his complaint is taken at face value, it would indicate that the question had a property which played odd tricks on his mind, made him lose the answer when he was asked for it. But it is not to be supposed that he found himself unable to teach the use of time-indicating language to someone who asked to be instructed or, to put it somewhat differently, that he found himself unable to explain the meanings of time-indicating expressions, i.e.

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