Abstract

This study firstly deals with fundamental problems of time such as reality of time, what time is and how it appears to us in experience in the context of McTaggart and Husserl’s views of time. These two philosophers have investigated the concept of time in different ways. McTaggart explained the concept of time based on his distinction between realty and existence. According to McTaggart, when time is applied to reality, it causes contradiction, and therefore, for him, time is unreal. However, Husserl deals with the concept of time in relation to consciousness. According to Husserl, all experience entails a temporal horizon and temporality of consciousness makes time experience possible. These two approaches allow the development of important debates in contemporary philosophy of time. Problems of objectivity of the present and time experience are some of these debates and this controversy arises between two opposing views which is called presentism and eternalism. Therefore, other aspect of this study is the discussion between presentism and eternalism. While presentism claims that only what is present is real, on the contrary eternalism argues that all that exists equally exists in all stages of time. Thus, in this study, based on McTaggart and Husserl’s views on time, we want to show that both eternalism and presentism could not give a time without contradiction. Beside this, in this study, it is suggested that the problem of time is not only a problem of temporal judgement, but it is also related to consciousness, and in this way it will be claimed that ‘being present’ can be explained in relation to consciousness.