Does Heidegger’s Being and Time Resolve the Contradiction within the A-series?

Contents

I. Introduction

II. The Dimensional Conception of Time

III. The Phenomenology of Time

Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit

Authentic temporality

Public time

IV. McTaggart Revisited

Duration and change

The authentic past, present and future

Events and agency

V. Conclusion

I. Introduction

In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger (1996) presents a detailed analysis of the nature of, and relationship between, these two most fundamental concepts of philosophy. In the context of investigating the ‘meaning of being’ — a question Heidegger claims that has been neglected since Aristotle — time emerges as ‘the horizon1 of the understanding of being’ (bt 17) or, to put it in Kantian terms, the precondition for all human knowledge and experience. Heidegger’s primarily phenomenological account may be contrasted with more conventional analyses of time as being an objectively present quality, property or dimension along which events are arranged, or series of relations between objects. However, according to an argument by J. Ellis McTaggart (1908), such accounts become incoherent when we consider the issue of changing tense, which McTaggart takes to be essential to the concept of time, since no event can be both ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ without generating a contradiction.2 McTaggart concludes that, since neither the tensed ‘A-series’ account of time, nor the tenseless ‘B-series’ is sufficient to account for time, then time must be unreal.

In this essay, I present an interpretation of Heidegger’s phenomenology that aims to defuse this sceptical paradox by rejecting certain key assumptions in McTaggart’s account, chiefly the notion that time may be described in terms of a series, or dimension. I begin by giving an account of this ‘dimensional conception of time’ and its relation to McTaggart in section II below. In section III, I sketch out the structure of Heidegger’s phenomenological account, beginning with the ‘existential meaning’, or significance, of time, followed by the phenomenon of authentic temporality and the emergence of public time. In section IV, I show how this account highlights the presuppositions that give rise to the contradiction in McTaggart’s A-series, and how this may be resolved by rejecting the dimensional conception of time in favour of Heidegger’s existential account. Finally, I conclude that the contradiction in the A-series arises a result of taking time to be an objective, as opposed to existential, notion and, as such, is based on a misguided attempt to view time from an atemporal perspective.

II. The Dimensional Conception of Time

Since Aristotle (1984: 218b 21ff), the conventional view of time has been that of a ‘series of nows’ (ibid.). In it, each moment of time is a complete and self-contained ‘instant’, devoid of any change or activity, and ordered relative to previous and successive instants by the temporal relations of before and after. This gives ontological priority to the phenomenon of the ‘now’, or present, which is defined either as a distinguished moment that traverses the series, and so is ever-changing (as in McTaggart’s A-series), or as an indexical term denoting the temporal ‘location’ of the observer (as per the B-series) [cf. Mellor 1998]. Regardless of whether time is regarded as relational (Leibniz 1956) or absolute (Newton 1689; Einstein and Minkowski3 in Barbour 1999: 142), what these views have in common is that they attempt to spatialize time; i.e. to represent time as being analogous to a spatial dimension (tb v). This ‘dimensional’ conception of time (bpp 248) is deeply entrenched in our ways of talking and thinking about time, particularly in the natural sciences, where time is often characterised as a ‘timeline’ or dimension along which events may be placed (Figure 1). Similarly, our systems of measuring and representing time — e.g. sundials, calendars and clocks — all involve the spatial projection of temporal relationships, making it quite natural for us to think of time as a kind of space ‘within which events take place’ (ct 3).4

However, there are also many dissimilarities between space and time. Unlike space, time — at least as we experience it — is asymmetrical due to differences between the past, which we think of as being immutable and certain, and the future, which is generally thought of as largely uncertain and unknown. Time also has an inherent directionality. We are able to move up, down, left, right, forwards or back within space, but — despite theoretical claims regarding the possibility of time travel — are only ever aware of a single ‘direction’ of time, which advances in predictable fashion, with future events becoming present and then past. Despite the prevalence of spatial metaphors, such as ‘movement through time’ or the ‘flow of time’, there are clear differences between time and space, and so we should not be surprised if the analogy between them breaks down at some point.

McTaggart’s A-series, which consists of the temporal determinations that are assumed by events as they ‘move’ from the far future, through the present and into the distant past, is a dimensional account par excellence. Without wishing to provide a detailed description of it here,5 the contradiction that it presents concerning the incompatible properties of events is symptomatic of the difficulties inherent in any such account. As such, McTaggart’s conclusion — that both the A-series and time are unreal — may also be read as a reductio of the dimensional conception of time that gives rise to this contradiction, and so favours the adoption of an alternative conception of time and temporality in which the problem does not arise.

III. The Phenomenology of Time

Being and Time is a primarily phenomenological, as opposed to primarily metaphysical, study of time. That is to say, Heidegger aims to determine the existential meaning, or significance, of time, rather than to directly analyse its ‘essence’ or nature. In particular, Heidegger’s account calls into question certain presuppositions that are central to McTaggart’s conception of the A-series, and therefore of time, namely, (i) that ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ are mutually exclusive determinations, (ii) that time may be characterised as series of homogeneous ‘instants’ or locations that stand in various relations to events, and (iii) that time is entirely objective and independent of human agency. In order to show how these presuppositions give rise to the contradiction within the A-series, I will first give an overview of Heidegger’s phenomenological account, starting with the notion of ‘to-handedness’ and objective presence.

1. (i) Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit
   

According to Heidegger, the being of everyday things inheres in their Zuhandenheit (‘to-handedness’; bt 71).6 That is, they are ontologically grounded in familiar forms and functions that are so integrated in our everyday lives that we barely even notice their presence. Ordinary objects such as tools, clothes, signs, and much of the natural world form what can be described as a network of significance — i.e. the web of meaningful relationships by which we navigate and manipulate the world. This phenomenal world, as distinct from the physical universe described by the natural sciences, is primary for us, and we grasp it and everything contained within it in terms of the possibilities that they present. The Zuhandenheit of a table, for example, is constituted by the possibilities it presents for gathering around it for meals, its use as a work surface, being broken up to use as firewood, and so on (Inwood 1997: 33). Together, these comprise its meaning for us as a phenomenal object (as opposed to a physical object, which presents only the possibility for repeated intra-personal observation [Beyer 2007]). Since Zuhandenheit is essentially related to our projects and purposes, it is primarily future-directed. It also incorporates an essential reference to the human subject; i.e. it is not objective, but neither is it purely subjective, since an object may possess the same phenomenal qualities for many different subjects. This is summed up in our fundamental attitude towards the world which is, for Heidegger, that of Sorge (‘care’), or active and self-concerned engagement.

Time, as distinct from temporality, also has its place in the network of significance. The day, delineated by the sunrise and sunset, is the most basic and natural (although still not entirely primitive) measure of time, and understood in terms of the possibilities that it presents for wakeful activity during the hours of daylight, and for sleep or rest at night (bt 412). Similarly, there are times to eat, times to go out, times to plant and harvest crops, and so on.7 Thus, the everyday concept of time exhibits the significance of Zuhandenheit, making each moment not just an isolated point or ‘location’ in the timeline, but a ‘time for . . .’ that has meaning in its own right (bt 414). Time is therefore also subject-dependent, but not subjective since ‘it is not a characteristic of the subject, but rather a mode or way in which the subject is in the world’ (Gelven 1989: 218; original italics).

Heidegger contrasts the significance of Zuhandenheit with Vorhandenheit, or ‘objective presence’ (bt 61). When confronted with a being outside of its usual context, such as a tool that is broken or missing, for example, or when we study it scientifically, it becomes ‘levelled down’ to a mere thing. As such, it is stripped of its usual significance — its ‘worldliness’ (bt 63) — and seen solely in terms of ‘brute facts’, such as might be amenable to logical or mathematical analysis. In moving from the engaged significance of Zuhandenheit to the dispassionate and disinterested mode of Vorhandenheit, we turn Being from a ‘how’ (i.e. a meaningful set of possibilities that relate to some future end) into a ‘what’ (i.e. a mere thing) [ct 12]. Thus, for Heidegger, the natural sciences do not address ordinary being as such, but a secondary or ‘deficient’ (bt 73) mode of being that is derived from — and therefore secondary to — the world of Zuhandenheit. Although Heidegger does not denigrate the notion or study of objective presence, which is essential to both science and human creativity (e.g. in the design and manufacture of artefacts), the ‘levelling down’ that this entails causes the resulting concepts to lack the significant relations of everyday phenomenal experience. Thus it follows that science is, for Heidegger, secondary to phenomenology, and not the other way round.

2. (ii) Authentic temporality
   

The distinction between authentic and inauthentic existence is central to much of Heidegger’s philosophy (bt 43). ‘Authenticity’ is characterised by ‘resolute’ self-awareness and pursuit of deliberately chosen goals and commitments, informed by individual and historical circumstances. ‘Inauthenticity’, on the other hand, is characterised as being ‘swept along’ (bt 348) by the passive group-mentality that is dominated by the pursuit of novelty, ‘busyness’ (bt 178) and ‘idle talk’ (bt 167). Perhaps the most striking aspect of this distinction may be found in the individual’s attitude towards death. As with all existent beings, Da-sein8 is essentially temporal and ‘stretched along’ (bt 373) in time. The life of Da-sein — and therefore its time — is necessarily limited as it gradually ‘uses itself up’ (bt 333) until the inevitable moment of its death, beyond which Da-sein no longer ‘is’ except as a lifeless and objectively present thing — a corpse. Thus, in order to live authentically, i.e. in accordance with its nature as a self-determining and self-interpreting being, Da-sein must choose which of its possibilities to realise in the limited time available to it.

However Da-sein’s choices are limited or constrained by the situation into which it is ‘thrown’ (bt 135) as a result of previous actions and other contingent aspects of its existence. This ‘having-been’ (bt 326) reveals both how Da-sein came to be in its present situation and what its possibilities for action are, and is the ontological basis for the phenomenon of ‘the past’. The authentic past is not an exclusive determination, but rather just one aspect, or ekstasis (‘standing out’; Gelven op. cit. 182), of an essentially unified and coherent whole, since the past can only be understood relative to the current projects, goals and possibilities of Da-sein, which are futural. Similarly, the dimensional ‘future’ is replaced with the projection of future possibilities, or ‘futural projection’, which retains an essential reference to the past, since it is through past experience that we grasp the possibilities that objects, or the life of Da-sein, have to offer. The perception of a chair, for example, as distinct from a mere jumble of materials, involves our having-been familiar with chairs and their usage in the past, as well as the projection of its possibilities — e.g. for sitting upon — into the future. Past, present and future are therefore, for Heidegger, very much bound together and permeate every ‘moment’ of time (Dostal 1993: 156), rather than being external to one another, as on the dimensional conception.

Heidegger’s shift from talking about time to talking about temporality reflects the ontological priority that he gives to the subject and its manner of being in the world. Since time is not a being, it is not in the world, but rather the means by which the world is manifest to us (bt 365). Heidegger rejects the question of what time is as misguided since it reifies time, treating it as a ‘mere thing amongst things’ (bt 26 in Sinclair 2006: 140), and instead concentrates upon ‘how [Da-sein] “has” its time’ (bt 410). Da-sein’s temporality (and therefore time) is manifested through its ‘temporalizing’, which may be authentic or inauthentic, according to its manner of being. Inauthentic temporality, which is constitutive of everyday being, is characterised by the process of ‘making present’. In this mode of temporalizing, ‘the present’ is not an objective state of affairs, as with the dimensional conception of time, but a continually manifested and manifesting totality that arises from the juxtaposition of past experience (‘thrownness’) with future possibilities (projection). It therefore combines elements of both past and future in a single unified whole: the ‘e[k]static unity of temporality’ (bt 408).

Whilst inauthentic temporality is primarily centred upon the phenomenon of the present, with past and future characterised by the passivity of ‘forgetting’ and ‘awaiting’, respectively, authentic temporality is primarily directed towards the future and the possibility for agency. Acknowledging the certainty of its own death, authentic Da-sein resolutely pursues its projects and commitments, thereby actively ‘anticipating’ and shaping its own future. The authentic present, or ‘Moment’ (Augenblick; bt 338), combines both past and future in the possibility for action, which is primarily future-directed. For Heidegger, it is this threefold structure of authentic temporality, or ‘datability’, that makes engaged concern possible (bt 328), and is what gives time its distinctly temporal, as opposed to spatial, structure (Figure 2). Thus, on Heidegger’s account, the past, present and future are not mutually incompatible determinations, as they are for McTaggart, but essentially unified aspects of a single phenomenon: the authentic ‘temporalizing of temporality’ (bt 406–7). Although the balance between these three aspects, or modes, is constantly shifting, it is impossible to conceive of one without the others. Consequently, for Heidegger, the past, present and future describe only isolated aspects of this temporal unity, and are necessarily derivative and incomplete (bt 326).

3. (iii) Public time
   

The final element of Heidegger’s account of time is his description of the emergence of the ‘vulgar concept of time’ (bt 404). This emerges when we move from a subject-dependent view of time to the purely objective conception of ‘public time’ or ‘clock time’. As described above, this involves a ‘levelling down’ or loss of significant meaning, fragmenting the essential unity of time into a series of objectively present elements: the inauthentic past, present and future of the dimensional account. Time is ‘public’ because it is accessible to everyone, and may be measured by dividing it into discrete, recurring intervals using devices such as sundials or clocks (bt 416). However, the movement from the Zuhandenheit of everyday time to the existence of objectively present ‘times’, which are purely formal and so inherently meaningless, reveals the essential inauthenticity of public time (Gelven op. cit. 217). Each moment of clock time becomes an idealised point-like instant, or ‘now’, independent of the other ‘nows’ with which it stands in temporal and causal relations. The characteristic asymmetry, directionality and advancement of time are replaced by a single homogeneous ‘dimension’. Moreover, we can no longer locate ourselves within this temporal continuum since each ‘now’ is merely objectively present, as opposed to bearing an essential reference to the experiencing subject. Consequently, the notion of ‘the present’ either becomes redundant (as in McTaggart’s B-series), or something that ‘pass[es] along’ the sequence (as in the A-series; McTaggart op. cit. 463). However, it is no longer clear precisely what is is moving or why this should be the case since the subject is longer ‘stretched along’ in time, but standing ‘outside’ it, looking in. It is this disembodied view that, according to Heidegger, gives rise to the paradoxes and contradictions within our philosophical understanding of time, including McTaggart’s A-series, as described in section IV below, since ‘[o]nce time has been defined as clock time then there is no hope of ever arriving at its original meaning again’ (ct 18–9).

Because the purely logical relations that hold between times can always be extended to encompass still previous and subsequent times, public time is also effectively infinite (bt 424). This ‘covers over’ the inevitability of Da-sein’s death, and is contrary to experience, which gives us no reason to believe that time is unlimited, even when the existence of multiple subjects is taken into account.9 For Heidegger, this is erroneous, since it is only from the perspective of an embodied subject within the world that we can make sense of such worldly phenomena as being and time.

IV. McTaggart Revisited

Having established the basic structure of Heidegger’s phenomenological account, I will now consider how this addresses the contradiction within McTaggart’s A-series. The contradiction arises because ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ are conceived as mutually incompatible intrinsic or relational properties of events. Consequently, one and the same event cannot possess more than one of these determinations. However, since the passage of time requires every event to do just that, an event that was future, is then present, and will be past. The obvious response — that no event is required to assume more than one of these determinations at the same time — is ruled out since each ‘time’ must also successively assume the incompatible determinations, and so is similarly contradictory. Attempting to resolve this second-level contradiction by reiterating the notion of ‘at the same time’ sets up a regress, which McTaggart (op. cit. 468) takes to be vicious. Similarly, the notion of tense fails to resolve the issue since not all tenses are compatible; e.g. a single event cannot be both ‘presently present’ and ‘presently future’ (cf. Lowe 2002: 318). The same is true of complex tenses, such as ‘will be presently past’ and ‘will be presently future’, which are contradictory when applied to the same event over time, and so do not avoid the paradox.10

Authentic temporality, as described by Heidegger’s existential concepts of having-been, the Moment and futural projection, is fundamentally tensed, and so is ostensibly an A-series account. However, as previously noted, these concepts are not the mutually exclusive determinations of past, present and future that McTaggart describes, but rather unified aspects of the authentic temporalizing of temporality. Heidegger’s central claim with respect to time is that these phenomenological concepts yield an account of time and temporality that is both internally consistent and in keeping with our everyday talk and experience of time. Conversely, the inauthentic (i.e. dimensional) conceptions of past, present and future cannot fully account for the phenomenology of time (its significance, asymmetry, datability, etc.), and so is inadequate and incomplete. I will now examine the validity of Heidegger’s claim and its consequences for the A-series in detail, starting with the notion of duration, which Heidegger, like Kant, takes to be irreducible.

4. (iv) Duration and change
   

For Heidegger, all being is temporal and ‘stretched along’ in time, as opposed to being reducible to a series of point-like instants or ‘nows’. This applies both to our own mode of being, which is ‘used up’ throughout our lifetime, and the being of other things, such as objects and events. Regardless of the temporal scale at which we consider the world — lifetimes, days, minutes, picoseconds — every object and event will be spread out in time, thus occupying a distinct ‘span’ or duration (bt 409). This commits Heidegger viewing time as continuous, rather than discrete, and is consistent with both scientific observation and Kant’s First Critique (op. cit. A208–11/B253–6). Since each event is ‘stretched along’ in time, it cannot properly be classed as either past, present or future while it is occurring, since the beginning and end of the event will also lie in the past and future, respectively. Thus, for Heidegger, a presently occurring event is also past and future.

An obvious objection to this argument is that the start of a presently occurring an event lies wholly in the past, and so is not present or future, and its end lies wholly in the future, and so is not past or present. However, this requires defining duration as ‘the interval between two points in time’, which is precisely the view that Heidegger rejects. Rather, for Heidegger, it is duration that is fundamental, and from which we abstract the notion of individual instants, or ‘points in time’, and not the other way round (bt 391; tb 12). Thus, even though we can always subdivide a given event into ever-shorter periods, at each level an event that is currently occurring will not just be present, but also past and future, thus exhibiting the fundamental unity of the three ekstasies of authentic temporality.

The above argument challenges McTaggart’s claim that past, present and future are mutually contradictory determinations, since all three are, at a fundamental level, coexistent on Heidegger’s conception of occurrence (bt 375). If we reject this claim, then the alleged contradiction in the A-series does not arise, since there is no longer any conflict between an event’s assuming all three determinations due to the passage of time (the original source of McTaggart’s paradox). However, this conclusion is too quick as it equivocates between the dimensional past, present and future and their authentic equivalents. In order to establish the true relation between these concepts, we must therefore consider their ontological grounds in Heidegger’s existential notions of having-been, the Moment and futural projection.

5. (v) The authentic past, present and future
   

For Heidegger, the past, present and future, although temporal concepts, are not themselves ordered in time, i.e. ‘[t]he future is not later than the having-been, and the having-been is not earlier than the present’ (bt 350; original italics). Rather, they are aspects, or modes, of our temporalizing that reflect time’s underlying structural unity. Considering each mode individually, we find that it contains elements of both of the others. The authentic future, constituted by Da-sein’s projection of its past situation (its having-been or ‘thrownness’) onto its present possibilities for action, brings both past and present ‘into’ the future. Similarly, the authentic past, as constituted by the present interpretation (a mode of understanding, which is primarily futural [bt 336)) of Da-sein’s having-been, again contains aspects of both present and future. Finally, the authentic present, or Moment, is a constantly shifting convergence of having-been and futural projection that gives rise to Da-sein’s possibility for action, and so again encompasses elements of both past and future.

It is important to note that these three modes do not represent different relations between an existent past, present and future, as per the dimensional account. Rather, the authentic past and future are partially constitutive of the authentic present, and similarly for the other temporal modes, mutatis mutandis. Consequently, previous and subsequent ‘times’, or instants, do not bear merely external relations to one another, but are internally related since it is impossible to conceive of one without the other — i.e. without the future, there would be no past or present. Conversely, the dimensional, or inauthentic, past, present and future form an externally related series of elements that could conceivably exist independently of one another, and of the experiencing subject. It follows from this that the authentic past, present and future of Heidegger’s phenomenological account are not mutually incompatible determinations, as they are for McTaggart, but are always present together in the authentic temporalizing of temporality.11

Since all three temporal modes contain elements of each of the others, the difference between them lies in the precedence and structure of the ontologically prior notions of having-been, the Moment and futural projection, respectively. These existential modes are described as ‘equiprimordial’ (i.e. equally primitive and without conceptual priority) and constitutive of the being of Da-sein. The various relations between them give rise to the secondary determinations of past, present and future as the ways in which Da-sein has its time. For example, an event’s ‘pastness’ is constituted by its forming part of Da-sein’s (present) having-been in the context of the (future) possibilities that it discloses. Similarly, ‘futurity’ is grounded in (present) futural projection, as constrained by (past) having-been. Finally, ‘presence’ is characterised by the juxtaposition of (past) having-been and (future) possibility, creating the possibility of authentic self-awareness and agency (the Moment). Thus ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ represent different structural manifestations of having-been, the Moment and futural projection in which one of these three modes dominates the others. They, in turn, are not contradictory determinations, but rather complementary modes of being that are constitutive of authentic temporality, and therefore of the being of Da-sein.

On this view, past or future events are not external to the present, as on the dimensional account, but are already here, albeit in different manners, as befits their relative pastness or futurity. As time advances, future events become more present, and present events more past, reflecting the shifting balance between possibility and actuality in the world of Da-sein. This allows Heidegger to avoid the contradiction in McTaggart’s A-series since no event is exclusively past, present or future, but instead possesses a constantly shifting combination of all three as a result of the way in which it is apprehended, or ‘temporalized’, by Da-sein (bt 406–7). As such, all events are, were and always will be past, present and future. Of course, Da-sein cannot simply choose to temporalize an event as past, present or future any more than it can arbitrarily choose other aspects of its world that are grounded in its having-been. However, in order to understand why this is the case, we must first consider the nature of the experiencing subject, or agent.

6. (vi) Events and agency
   

Instead of describing time in terms of its constituent ‘parts’ — i.e. the dimensional past, present and future — authentic temporality aims to elucidate the fundamental unity of temporality, and so address the phenomenological question of how Da-sein has time and engages with the world. As such, events do not bear relations to times, since times are not beings, but to an experiencing subject, or agent, which is essentially embedded in both time and space. For Heidegger, as for Kant, without subjectivity, there is no time, since it is the inherent temporality of the experiencing agent that gives rise to the phenomena of time and ‘the world’ (bt 365). Time is therefore neither subjective nor objective, but an a priori condition of experience (bt 419; tb viii). Furthermore, to regard the agent as being merely objectively present at some moment ‘in time’, such as the present (in McTaggart’s A-series), or at some other point in the sequence (as per the B-series), severely distorts its nature as an experiencing subject (bt 328). Similarly, the subject cannot be placed outside the temporal sequence, since it is essentially temporal, and thus ‘stretched along’ through past, present and future.

The above considerations raise two important questions for Heidegger’s conception of authentic temporality: (i) what makes the ‘objective’ phenomenon of public time possible, and (ii) how can one and the same event be characterised as predominantly future, predominantly present and predominantly past for the same agent (the Heideggerian equivalent of McTaggart’s paradox). Whilst Heidegger does not deny that all existence is grounded in some kind of pre-conceptual reality (bt 412), he is remarkably vague as to how this reality should be regarded. It is certainly not to be identified with either the phenomenal world of experience. Nor can it be the physical universe of the natural sciences, which is a purely theoretical construct that ‘levels down’ all first-person subjectivity in an attempt to create a fully objective third-person perspective,12 and thus is in no sense conceptually prior to experience. Perhaps, like Kant’s ‘noumena’ (op. cit. A235/B294), such ultimate reality is beyond the reach of Da-sein and language, although this seems to leave little room for the possibility of either genuine self-knowledge (through phenomenology) or the systematic investigation of reality (i.e. science). However, perhaps a more satisfying answer can be given in terms of Heidegger’s grounding the being of Da-sein in its ‘having-been’ (bt 328).

For Heidegger, the difference between future and past events lies in their manner of being; i.e. the way in which they are temporalized by Da-sein. Whereas future events exist as possible occurrences, and are experienced as futural projection, past events have already become actual, and so form part of Da-sein’s ‘having-been’, as characterised by the authentic past. This emphasis upon possibility explains both the asymmetry of time, and is the reason why we can change the future, but not the past, since it already part of our being. Thus it is not that events exist ‘in’ the past or future, as if they were presently happening ‘somewhere else’, but that they exist here as part of the possible or actual structure of the world. The authentic present, or Moment, on the other hand, is characterised by the possibility for resolute action, or agency, in which Da-sein embraces both past and future in order to realise its future possibilities; i.e. to make them real. In this way, authentic Da-sein makes what was merely possible, i.e. futural, actual, i.e. part of what Da-sein presently is, and therefore its having-been. In acting, Da-sein brings about a change both in the being of events (from possible to actual) and in itself, as it creates — or, in the inauthentic case, is created by — the temporal unfolding of its possibilities.13

But what about events that are not the result of any action of Da-sein, such as the rising and setting of the sun? For Heidegger, these too involve changes in the experiencing agent, since events are only ‘past’ or ‘future’ in so far as they are already (or have the capacity to become) part of the being of Da-sein (e.g. by altering the range of possibilities that are available to it). As such, ‘public’ events like the movements of the planets are constitutive of the being of all Da-sein, and thus form the basis of a framework within which public time may be measured — such as when we implicitly reference the rotation of the Earth by looking at a clock, for example (bt 71). On this view, it is not that the intrinsic or relational properties of events undergo changes, but that their manner of being changes as a result of them becoming manifest to the agent in different ways, corresponding to the actualisation of possibilities within the world of Da-sein. The paradox of McTaggart’s A-series may then be restated as the question of how is it possible for one and the same event to be both possible and actual, since on the dimensional account, these determinations are also conflicting. For Heidegger, however, it is precisely Da-sein’s capacity for agency, as exhibited in the threefold structure of Sorge, or ‘care’, that enables such changes to take place, since changes in events are merely changes in the way in which the world becomes manifest to Da-sein through its temporalizing of temporality.

V. Conclusion

Heidegger’s phenomenology of time addresses the contradiction inherent in McTaggart’s A-series in two ways. Firstly, by replacing the dimensional conception of ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ with the conceptually and ontologically prior notions of having-been, the Moment and futural projection, Heidegger argues that these three aspects, or ekstasies, of time are essentially unified, thus avoiding the appearance of a contradiction in his own account. Secondly, by showing how the dimensional or ‘vulgar’ conception of time may be derived from this account, but not the other way around [bt 426], Heidegger identifies the source of the problem as lying in the attempt to view time as an ‘objectively present’ phenomenon, independent of our own existence. By leaving out any reference to the subject and its capacity for agency — both of which are essential to Heidegger’s account — McTaggart’s ‘levels down’ the significance of authentic time into a series of homogeneous and inherently meaningless ‘locations’. This transforms time into a series of determinations against which individual objects and events are measured, thus assuming the linear characteristic of a ‘timeline’ or dimension. This ‘spatialization’ of time obscures its fundamentally perspectival nature, concealing the finitude and unity of authentic temporality, and ultimately leading to the contradiction inherent in McTaggart’s conception of the A-series.

What Heidegger’s account shows is that time can only be understood from the perspective of an essentially embodied and temporal agent that is already in the world. As soon as we try to ‘step outside’ time and consider it sub specie aeternitatis, as on the dimensional account, we necessarily lose our grip upon its fundamental structure, as constituted by the three internally related modes of temporality, or Sorge (‘care’). Externalised in this way, each moment of authentic time is transformed from a significant ‘then’ into a meaningless ‘there’, and the ‘how’ of Da-sein’s authentic having-been into the ‘what’ of mere objective presence (ct 12). For Heidegger, the contradiction in McTaggart’s A-series arises not because time or the A-series is unreal (although he agrees with McTaggart to the extent that neither has any substantial being since it is not a thing in any meaningful sense [tb 3]), but because we are asking the wrong question. On Heidegger’s view, it makes no sense to ask what time is, or whether it is real, but rather: ‘how do we have time?’ and ‘in what manner are the past, the present and the future in the world?’. In this way, the temptations that led us to view time as a dimension in the first place may be removed, and the paradox of McTaggart’s A-series no longer arises.

——————

1 A term attributable to Husserl (Beyer 2007).

2 A detailed account of this argument may be found in my essay, ‘Time, Tense and Adverbial Change’ (Wilson, 2007).

3 Four-dimensional ‘spacetime’ is a more sophisticated variant of the same basic conception.

4 Whether Aristotle himself held this view is, however, debatable (Sinclair 2007: 156).

5 See Wilson (op. cit. 2–4), and section IV below.

6 I have retained the original German terms where these are more descriptive than the common English translations.

7 Heidegger’s use of rustic, down-to-earth examples reflects his aim to reveal the nature of everyday being, and not some theoretical version of it.

8 ‘There-being’; the mode of being that we ourselves possess.

9 This echoes Kant’s First Antinomy (2002: A426/B454), where he argues that time is neither knowably infinite nor knowably finite.

10 For a more detailed discussion of McTaggart, see Wilson (ibid.).

11 Indeed, Heidegger argues that if past, present and future were conceived of as external to one another, as per the dimensional account, then it would be impossible to attach any significance to the concepts of ‘past’ and ‘future’ whatsoever, since both would be defined entirely by absence and so could not affect present experience (Gelven op. cit. 180; Dostal op. cit. 147).

12 Thomas Nagel’s (1989) ‘view from nowhere’.

13 Here, ‘action’ denotes any kind of engagement with the world. In this sense, even inaction is a form of action (cf. ‘Resolute, Da-sein is already acting.’ [bt 300]).

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