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Full Idea
Some of time has been and is not, some of it is to be and is not yet. …But it would seem to be impossible that what is composed of things that are not should participate in being.
Gist of Idea
How can time exist, when it is composed of what has ceased to be and is yet to be?
Source
Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 217b33)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Physics Books III and IV', ed/tr. Hussey,Edward [OUP 1983], p.41
A Reaction
This is his opening remark in the discussion of time, and he seems to be endorsing it, since he thinks of time as a form of measurement of change.
Related Idea
Idea 16693 Time has parts, but the now is not one of them, and time is not composed of nows [Aristotle]
| 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] |