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Full Idea
McTaggart says we can speak of events in time in two ways, as past, present or future, or as being before or after or simultaneous with one another. The first cannot be reduced to the second, as the second makes no provision for the passage of time.
Gist of Idea
For McTaggart time is seen either as fixed, or as relative to events
Source
report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], II.329-) by A.J. Ayer - The Central Questions of Philosophy 1.D
Book Ref
Ayer,A.J.: 'The Central Questions of Philosophy' [Penguin 1976], p.15
| 13228 | There is no time without movement [Aristotle] |
| 20920 | If there were many cosmoses, each would have its own time, giving many times [Aristotle] |
| 1903 | If motion and rest are abolished, so is time [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 19384 | Space and time are the order of all possibilities, and don't just relate to what is actual [Leibniz] |
| 2100 | Space and time are purely relative [Leibniz] |
| 13181 | Time is the order of inconsistent possibilities [Leibniz] |
| 4189 | Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing [Schopenhauer] |
| 2608 | For McTaggart time is seen either as fixed, or as relative to events [McTaggart, by Ayer] |
| 2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |
| 9504 | The relational view of space-time doesn't cover times and places where things could be [Bird] |