John McTaggart in his essay “Time” presents a radical argument that claims time is unreal. While the argument is interesting and has attracted much attention for his arguments, I remain unconvinced of the argument he makes. This paper will lay out McTaggart’s argument that time in unreal, critically analyze why I believe McTaggart’s argument fails and present an alternative idea about time, utilizing aspects of McTaggart’s argument.
Here is an explanation of McTaggart’s view. McTaggart wants ultimately to prove that time does not exist. He attempts to do this by arguing time’s existence is contingent on the existence of transient time and that ultimately transient time fails. Transient time involves A-series. A-series are attributed temporal properties; that is, that they involve “tensed statements.” i.e. past, present and future. He presents a series of arguments that attempt to build on each other to prove time is unreal.
McTaggart splits his paper in two sections. He spends the first part of the paper attempting to prove that time can only exist if A-series exist.
“ We perceive events in time as being present, and those are the only events which we actually perceive. And all other events which, by memory or by inference, we believe to be real, we regard as present, past, or future. Thus the events of time are observed by us form an A-series.”
He proves the necessity of A-series by dismissing B-series. B-series involves earlier and later statements that remain frozen in time. For example, my mother is born before I am born. The statement does not involve tenses; it simply states that there is an event. It does not involve change. B-series serves Static time in this sense.
McTaggart states that it is “universall...
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...change proves the existence of A-series, then time exists. (i,ii,iii)
Time is a difficult topic to handle in metaphysics; many problems arise. If you support A-series, which involves change, you are left to wonder the rate at which time passes. I cannot put my support behind static time; time appears to pass and in passing change occurs. The only aspect of time that appears to stay frozen are events in the past. However, events have to change from future to present and then to past before they can become static in the past. Even though there are clear objections to theories about time, I cannot support McTaggart’s bold claim that time is unreal. I can only look at time from my perspective. Ultimately there is so much change that occurs in me and around me as time passes that I cannot view time to be unreal and I am left to disregard McTaggart’s argument.
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