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Full Idea
Time never exists, since all of its parts never exist together.
Gist of Idea
Time doesn't exist, since its parts don't coexist
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Paul Pellison-Fontinier [1691], A1.6.226), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
Book Ref
Garber,Daniel: 'Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad' [OUP 2009], p.154
A Reaction
The problem here is that he seems to be admitting that time has 'parts'. Can something have parts and not exist? Events will also fail to exist by this criterion, though we could hardly deny that events (or some such) 'happen'.
| 22956 | How can time exist, when it is composed of what has ceased to be and is yet to be? [Aristotle] |
| 5102 | If all of time has either ceased to exist, or has not yet happened, maybe time does not exist [Aristotle] |
| 1904 | Time must be unlimited, but past and present can't be non-existent, and can't be now, so time does not exist [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 5981 | The whole of the current year is not present, so how can it exist? [Augustine] |
| 19381 | The past has ceased to exist, and the future does not yet exist, so time does not exist [William of Ockham] |
| 2107 | No time exists except instants, and instants are not even a part of time, so time does not exist [Leibniz] |
| 12720 | Time doesn't exist, since its parts don't coexist [Leibniz] |
| 22936 | A-series time positions are contradictory, and yet all events occupy all of them! [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 4231 | Time involves change, only the A-series explains change, but it involves contradictions, so time is unreal [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| 22900 | How can we question the passage of time, if the question takes time to ask? [Bardon] |
| 22995 | Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller] |