Abstract
As complex as it is to come to grips with the ontological categories of whole, process and causation, or the framework of levels of reality, the subsequent step is even more complex, since it involves clarification of the category of time – by and large acknowledged as one of the most difficult problems of all. The main result of the present chapter is the distinction between the pure category of real time and other forms of real time connected to wholes and the processes that last in them. This chapter will pave the way for the later result that anticipation does not violate pure time. As we will see, anticipation always works from qualified times – that is, from times qualified by wholes and the processes lasting in them.