Time and Becoming

Abstract

Richard Taylor has made valuable contributions to the discussion of many central questions of philosophy. Of particular interest to me has been his work on the philosophy of time. I agree with some of his conclusions and disagree with others, but whether his conclusions are true or false his arguments are always challenging. I find Taylor’s arguments for similarities between time and space particularly good, as in his fine papers ‘Spatial and Temporal Analogies and the Concept of Identity’¹ and ‘Moving About in Time’.² On the other hand I do not agree with certain views which Taylor has held about an alleged difference between time and space, namely that there is a passage or movement of time, an irreducible pure becoming. I refer here in particular to Chapter 8 of the second edition of Taylor’s Metaphysics. ³ In this paper I intend to argue for a contrary view, namely that the alleged passage of time or pure becoming is an illusion. Certainly we feel that time flows, but I want to say (contrary to Taylor) that this feeling arises out of metaphysical confusion. It is easier, in my opinion, to argue for the illusoriness of temporal passage or of pure becoming than it is to give a plausible diagnosis of the cause of the illusion, but I shall try to make some suggestions about this toward the end of this paper. In defending the ideas of passage and pure becoming Taylor has ranged himself alongside many other philosophers, and I shall be concerned with this tradition in general, and not only with Taylor’s own particular version of it. It should be noted that Taylor is himself quite aware of the sorts of arguments which I shall put forward, but he is more impressed than I am by the apparent ‘datum’, as he calls it, of our experience of time as apparently involving a pure becoming or passage.