Philosophy 3752-01
PHILOSOPHY OF TIME
Fall 2003

I am sure that time is a profoundly important dimension of our existence. I am not sure whether the question "What is time?" is answerable. But I would like to try pursuing these more specific questions:

What are the main senses of our references to time? Are there fundamentally different ways of speaking of time (e.g. in different cultures)?

How is time structured? Is one of its phases (past, present, future) more fundamental or valuable than the others?

How is time real?

Is time an independent or dependent variable?

Do time's attributes vary, e.g. in speed or fullness?

Is there any absolute date?

Is time objective, subjective, or both?

How are temporal aspects of reality related to nontemporal aspects? What is eternity and what sort of being could be eternal? Is "eternal life" possible?

Could the duration of the universe be finite?

What issues of personal and social importance do we face in relation to time? What approaches to these issues are available? What is involved in these approaches--e.g. in promise-making or storytelling? Is time permanently mysterious, and if so, what is the significance of that mystery for how we live our lives?

The primary purpose of this course is to gain insight into a variety of forms of time thinking in order to develop a more rewarding relationship with time. The secondary purpose is to develop our philosophical skills of analysis, articulation, and critical reasoning.

The course grade will be based on class participation (20%), homework and shorter writings (20%), a 5-6 pp. essay (30%), and a take-home final exam (30%).

The required books, available in the bookstore, are:
Jonathan Westphal & Carl Levenson, eds., Time
Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Vol. 1
Some required readings will also be in e-mails and handouts.

POSSIBLE SCHEDULE

Note: an evening screening will be scheduled early in our mini-semester for Hiroshima, Mon Amour.

Oct. 14 Introduction to the class.
Oct. 16 Aristotle.
READ: selection from Physics (in Time)
Oct. 21 FALL BREAK.
Oct. 23 Neoplatonism's appeal to eternity.
READ: selection from Plato's Timaeus, pp. 52-54; Plotinus, Enneads III.7 (in Time)
Oct. 28 Interpreting the appeal to eternity; the alternate appeal to the future.
READ: Eliade on sacred time (in Time); Nietzsche on eternal recurrence (handout); Bloch and Moltmann's principle of hope (handout)
Oct. 30 Augustine's difficulties with time.
READ: selection from Augustine's Confessions (in Time)
Nov. 4 Leibniz vs. Newton on the objective reality of time.
READ: Newton and Leibniz selections in Time
Nov. 6 NO CLASS (instructor out of town).
Nov. 11 Bergson's argument for primordial, unspatialized "duration."
READ: selections from Einstein on relativity and Bergson's Duration and Simultaneity (handout)
Nov. 13 The phenomenology of time in Husserl and Heidegger.
READ: selection from Husserl's Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness (in Time); selection from Heidegger's Being and Time (handout)
Nov. 18 Ricoeur on the narrative structuring of temporal experience.
READ: Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Vol. 1, chap. 1
Nov. 20 Ricoeur, cont.
READ: Ricoeur, chap. 2
Nov. 25 NO CLASS (instructor out of town).
ESSAY DUE NOV. 26.
THANKSGIVING.
Dec. 2 Ricoeur, cont.
READ: Ricoeur, chap. 3
Dec. 4 McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time.
READ: selection from McTaggart's "The Unreality of Time" (in Time)

EXAM DUE DECEMBER 11.

NOTABLE LITERARY WORKS

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Novels in which time runs backwards:
Martin Amis, Time's Arrow: Or the Nature of the Offense
Philip K. Dick, Counter-Clock World

Interesting time travel stories:
Robert Heinlein, "By His Bootstraps" and "--All You Zombies--"
Robert Silverberg, Up the Line

NOTABLE FILMS (beyond the usual time travel sort of thing)
The Man With a Movie Camera. Vaunts the peculiar power of film to construct and manage time.
Hiroshima Mon Amour. The power of the traumatic past intersects with the extraordinary present of lovers.
Memento. Study of the dependence of coherent time experience on memory.
Frequency. Relatively interesting use of time loops (and time-travel puzzles) to heal a relationship between father and son.
Wings of Desire. Angels encountering the values of mortality.

SOME MORE PHILOSOPHICALLY VALUABLE BOOKS
(from a vast literature)
Julian Barbour, The End of Time. Physicist works out how physical theory can dispense with time.
Eva Brann, What, Then, Is Time? A wide-ranging reflection on the main historical currents in philosophy of time.
Joseph Campbell, ed., Man and Time. Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks. Much on metaphysical and religious aspects; includes a paper by Jung on synchronicity.
Lawrence W. Fagg, The Becoming of Time. Integrating Physical and Religious Time
Robin Le Poidevin and Murray MacBeath, eds., The Philosophy of Time. Excellent reader for recent analytic work; contains David Lewis's "The Paradoxes of Time Travel."
Robert Neville, Eternity and Time's Flow. Makes a metaphysical case for eternity and time as necessarily related.
Jeremy Rifkin, Time Wars. Historical account of antagonism between an inhuman conception of time and a healthier one.
David Wood, The Deconstruction of Time. Discusses Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, and Derrida.

GUIDELINES FOR A CONSTRUCTIVE PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY ON TIME

1. Definition of the problem. By the end of your introductory paragraph, the reader should know what issue you are addressing in your paper. It should be an issue that you care about and that is worth everyone's wrestling with. Some general areas in which important issues will be found include:
Is time real, and if so, how?
Can there be really different ways of experiencing time?
What is eternity?

2. Explanation of the problem. Show why the answer to the question you are posing is not obvious and straightforward. Usually this involves setting forth conflicting points of view on it, and especially the view that stands as a strong objection to the one you are going to defend. You want to show, as best you can, the plausibility of the conflicting views, and especially of the one hostile to your own.

3. Solution of the problem. Now explain the right way to think about the issue and the reasons that should decide us in favor of this way. Here you may or may not be helped by readings you have done, but in any case, you are taking responsibility here for the solution.
Remember to be reasonable. Don't preach. Don't dogmatize. Don't simply report opinions. Don't be totally facetious. This is a philosophy assignment. A good philosophical essay probes for convincing justifications.

4. Defense of the solution. Since you did such a good job of presenting an objection to your own view in step #2, now you need to handle the objection. Show the mistake in it, or show how to interpret that point in such a way that it harmonizes with your view. Possibly you were able to do this in step #3, but in most cases it will be worthwhile to write an extra paragraph or two just for this purpose.

5. Enjoy. What could be more rewarding than seeing your own thought take shape on a vitally important question? If you turn in your essay on time you will certainly have the opportunity to rewrite it, so don't be too anxious to make it perfect on your first go-round. Care about it, but don't worry about it. The best reasoning often comes out in response to questions and challenges from the reader.

GUIDELINES FOR THE CRITICAL REVIEW OPTION

Much of what is said above applies to this sort of paper too--it's an alternate way of reaching the goal of philosophical insight.

1. Choose a work that promises to make a significant contribution to our understanding of an aspect of time or temporality that interests you: the physics of time, the religious conception of eternity, the narrative structuring of time, the logic of tensed truth claims, etc.

2. The goal of your review is to advance our understanding by improving our understanding of a specific thinker's arguments. Your review must, therefore, carefully establish what a thinker's reasoning is on a given problem, and also evaluate that reasoning.

a. In the part of the review that is devoted to making your author's own case, you have to decide what's most relevant. Don't try to explain more than you can explain sufficiently. Be sure to pay attention to the author's reasoning, not merely her or his opinions.

b. In the evaluative part of your review, do not merely agree or disagree with your author. Offer reasons of your own for thinking that the author's treatment of the given problem is right or wrong, adequate or inadequate. You can be a good philosophical partner to the author and be creative and honest at the same time.