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Single Idea 5979

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism ]

Full Idea

Of the three divisions of time, how can two, the past and the future, be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet?

Gist of Idea

If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist?

Source

Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14)

Book Ref

Augustine: 'Confessions', ed/tr. Pine-Coffin,R.S. [Penguin 1961], p.264

A Reaction

This is the oldest bewilderment about time, which naturally leads us to the thought that time cannot actually 'exist'. The remark implies that at least 'now' is safe, but that also succumbs to paradox pretty quickly.

Related Idea

Idea 16700 In order to speak about time and successive entities, the 'present' must be enlarged [Wycliff]

The 30 ideas with the same theme [only the present moment exists]:

20819 The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
5979 If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine]
8167 If Presentism is correct, we cannot even say that the present changes [Dummett]
15188 If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin]
14409 I am a presentist, and all language and common sense supports my view [Bigelow]
14724 Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider]
14756 For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider]
4473 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland]
14026 Presentists can talk of 'times', with no more commitment than modalists have to possible worlds [Crisp,TM]
14406 Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks]
14407 Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks]
14411 Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks]
14007 How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne]
14011 Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne]
14017 Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne]
14938 A fixed foliation theory of quantum gravity could make presentism possible [Ladyman/Ross]
13990 Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian]
13992 Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian]
13994 Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian]
13995 Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian]
13996 Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian]
13997 Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian]
13993 Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian]
22974 Presentists lack the materials for a realist view of change [Price,H]
19041 Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter]
22994 Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
22998 How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller]
23017 Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
23023 How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
22610 It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson]