Abstract
In this chapter, Mary Whiton Calkins examines available conceptions of time and develops her own reconceptualization of it.
Mary Whiton Calkins: First published in 1899 in Mind, 8(30), 216–232.
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Notes
- 1.
Translations of German quotes by Andreas Spahn.
- 2.
Cf. Bradley's definition of facts, Appearance and Reality, p. 317. “Any part of a temporal series... can be called an event or fact, for it is taken as a piece....”.
- 3.
Vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom Zureichenden Grunde, § 16. Trans.: “All our representations,” he says “are in a relation which is governed by laws, according to which nothing that exists solely for itself or independently, nor something isolated or disrupted, can become an object for us. It is this relation which is expressed by the principle of sufficient reason (Grund).”
- 4.
Cf. Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, § 4, p. 11 (8te Auflage): “Das Zugleichsein vieler Zustände aber macht das Wesen der Wirklichkeit aus, denn durch dasselbe wird allererst die Dauer möglich, indem diese nur erkennbar ist an dem Wechsel der mit dem Dauernden zugleich Vorhandenen” (Trans.: “The simultaneous presence of different states is what constitutes reality because it is only through this that duration becomes possible, for duration is only known by being compared with a cooccurring change”).
- 5.
Schopenhauer, Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., § 4, p. 9.
- 6.
Trans.: “Succession,” says Schopenhauer, “is the whole essence of time.”
- 7.
Treatise, book i., pt. ii., § 3, Green & Grose, ed. i., p. 343.
- 8.
Principles of Human Knowledge, § 98.
- 9.
“Die drei Modi der Zeit sind Beharrlichkeit, Folge und Zugleichsein” (Trans.: “The three modes of time are perseverance, effect and simultaneous existence”). Kritik der reinen Vernunft, editions A., p. 177; B., p. 219.
- 10.
Op. cit. A., p. 183, B., p. 226. “Die Beharrlichkeit drückt überhaupt die Zeit aus. Denn der Wechsel trifft die Zeit selbst nicht, sondern nur die Erscheinungen in der Zeit” (Trans: “Persistence is what in general expresses time…Because change does not affect time, but only appearances in time).”
- 11.
Nachträge, lxxx. Trans.: “Here the proof must be conducted so that it applies only to substances as phenomena of the external senses, thus of space.”
- 12.
Trans.: “Time…remains and does not change.”
- 13.
Trans.: “Only space persistently determines duration, but time, and everything which is part of inner sense, flows continually.”
- 14.
The truth is that there is hardly any part of Kant’s teachings so full of verbal inconsistencies as his doctrine of time. The constant juxtaposition, in successive paragraphs and even sentences, of glaring contradictions like those which have been quoted, amply justifies the critical theory of the Kritik, as written bit by bit and carelessly put together. At least three positions are assumed: (1) the theory that time is fundamentally “the permanent,” and thus the substratum of succession and co-existence; (2) the theory that permanence is one of the modi, attributes or dimensions of time; (3) the theory which contradicts the permanence of time, as in the words, “Das Zugleichsein [ist] nicht ein Modus der Zeit, in welcher keine Theile zugleich sondern alle nach einander sind” (Trans.: “Simultaneous presence is not a mode of time, in which no parts are simultaneous, but all follow each other”). Cf. Reflexionen, pp. 366, 368 and 373.
- 15.
Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., § 4, p. 11.
- 16.
Trans.: “rigid, unchanging persistence of space”.
- 17.
Weltseele, 3te Aufl., p. xxxv. Trans.: “Time suspends the division”.
- 18.
Op. cit., A., p. 199; B., p. 244.
- 19.
This is sometimes incorrectly interpreted as the observation that breathings and movements form the material of the time-consciousness.
- 20.
Principles of Psychology, i., p. 620.
- 21.
Outlines of Psychology, p. 184.
- 22.
Cf James, op. cit., i., p. 605, where he seems to make the original time datum the ‘past,’ while Strong, Psychol. Review, iii., p. 150, identifies it with the ‘present’ in the words, “The past means that which once was present; and the future that which will be present”.
- 23.
Meumann (paraphrasing Nicholls) Wundt's Philos. Stud., viii., p. 503. Trans.: “The elementary, not further reducible, consciousness of temporality”.
- 24.
Cf. Wundt, Külpe, Titchener, Ward; also Stern, Zeitschr. f. Psych. u. Phys., xiii., p. 332.
- 25.
This consideration suggests a criticism upon the ordinary procedure of coordinating duration with quality, extent and intensity, as attribute of sensation. For duration, as has been shown, is an attribute only from a realistic and reflective point of view, whereas intensity and extent, as well as quality, are sensational in their nature.
- 26.
Cf. Strong, op, cit., p. 155 seq.
- 27.
Physiologische Psychologie, 4th Aufl.
- 28.
Trans.: Time intuition.
- 29.
Grundriss der Psychologie, p. 416.
- 30.
Trans.: Time perception.
- 31.
Quoted by Stern, “Psychische Präsenzzeit,” Zeitschr. f. Psych. u.
Phys., xiii., p. 327.
- 32.
“Beitrage zur Psychologie des Zeitsinns,” Philosophische Studien, vii. and ix.
- 33.
Principles of Psychology, i., p. 605 seq.
- 34.
Op. cit.
- 35.
Op. cit.
- 36.
Philosophische Studien, xii., p. 127. Trans.: time awareness.
- 37.
Theorie der Veränderungsauffassung, pp. 3 and 10. Psychologie der Veränderungsauffassung, p. 21. Trans.: time concept.
- 38.
Op. cit., i., p. 243.
- 39.
Treatise, bk. i., part ii., sec. 3, p. 343. Italics mine.
- 40.
Vierfache Wurzel, u.s.w., § 20.
- 41.
Trans.: “The regulator of changes of outer experience.”
- 42.
Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., p. 10 (Trans.: “Its essence comprises causality”); cf. i., p. 13, “Materie oder Kausalität, denn beide sind Eines”. Trans.: “Matter or causality, since both are one.” A slight modification of this doctrine is the definition of matter as “objektiv gewordene Kausalität,” (Trans.: “objectified causality”) and this again is expanded into the theory that matter is simultaneity, a combination of space and time, or “die Wahrnehmbarkeit von Zeit und Raum” (Trans.: “the perceptibility of time and space”). Throughout, Schopenhauer's insistence upon the externality of causation is clear.
- 43.
Cf. Hume, who, though he usually treats causality as connexion of outer events with each other (or of psychic facts with the ‘real objects’ which he inconsistently assumes), nevertheless, says distinctly (Treatise, bk. i., pt. iii., § 2, end) that the ideas of cause and effect are “derived from the impressions of reflexion, as well as from those of sensation. Passions are connected with one another... no less than external bodies are connected together.”
- 44.
Op. cit., A., 211; B., 256.
- 45.
Welt als Wille, u.s.w., i., p. 109.
- 46.
Trans.: “Space is nothing other than the possibility of the mutual determination of its parts through each other, which is called position.”
- 47.
Principles of Psychology, third ed., part vi., c. 22, vol ii., p. 275.
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Calkins, M.W., Edited by., Katzav, J. (2023). Time as Related to Causality and to Space. In: Katzav, J., Vaesen, K., Rogers, D. (eds) Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24437-7_23
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