The objectivity of time-flux and the direction of time

UWE Meixner

pp. 107-117

in: Jan Faye, UWE Scheffler, Max Urchs (eds), Perspectives on time, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

I. McTaggart's attack (reprinted in [2], ch. 1) on the flow of time — that is, the fleeting characterization of events (taken to be actual, momentary, total [all-encompassing] events) in terms of being future, then present, then past — has received considerable attention in recent years (see for example [1], ch. 6). But having looked at his argument with the utmost attention, I find nothing in it but a simple confusion of two possible meanings of "present", "past", "future": "present (past, future)" can mean being presently present (past, future), or being once present (past, future); but it cannot, reasonably, mean both concepts at once. If one chooses the first meaning, then the sentence "No [actual, momentary, total] event is both present and past, or present and future, or past and future" is straightforwardly true, but the sentence "Every [actual, momentary, total] event is present and past and future" is straightforwardly false. If, however, one chooses the second meaning, then the first sentence is false, the second sentence true. Of course there are events that are once present (because they are presently present) and once past (because they will be past after being present) and once future (because they were future before being present); in fact, every [actual, momentary, total] event is once future, then present, then past, that is: once future, once present, once past.