Print
REVISED
|

Time, metaphysics of

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-N123-2
Versions
Published
2011
DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-N123-2
Version: v2,  Published online: 2011
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/time-metaphysics-of/v-2

5. The B-theory and temporal experience

As well as appealing to the fact that language and thought is tensed (and irreducibly so) to support their theory, A-theorists also appeal to the fact that our temporal experience strongly suggests that time is dynamic. This too can be seen as a challenge to the B-theorist to provide an adequate explanation of why we seem to experience time as flowing if it doesn’t really flow.

There are two features of our temporal experience that need to be explained if the B-theory is true. First, there is the fact that experience seems to occur only in the present. Second, there is the fact that we seem to experience time as flowing. B-theorists generally explain the first of these features by appeal to the fact that our span of direct awareness, or ‘specious present’, is very brief (Dainton 2001). Since, at any one time, we are only aware of what is going on in a very limited period of time, it can seem to us that what is located within that very brief time span is all that is really going on. However, just because we are unable to perceive events that are happening at other times does not mean they are not happening at those times.

The B-theorists’ explanation for the apparent experience of temporal passage is often given in terms of the fact that our memories accumulate over time (Mellor 1998). Suppose you perceive the hands of a clock showing first 2:00, then 2:15 and then 2:30. These experiences are not totally isolated from each other. Your perception of the clock showing 2:15 is accompanied by a memory of having already perceived it showing 2:00, and your perception of it showing 2:30 is accompanied by a memory of it showing 2:15 while remembering it showing 2:00. According to the B-theorist, our sense of the passage of time is, at least in part, to be explained by the fact that our memories of our experiences accumulate in this way.

Print
Citing this article:
Dyke, Heather. The B-theory and temporal experience. Time, metaphysics of, 2011, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-N123-2. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/time-metaphysics-of/v-2/sections/the-b-theory-and-temporal-experience.
Copyright © 1998-2024 Routledge.

Related Searches

Topics

Related Articles