Real Time : A Reinvention in British Metaphysics 1883-1928.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thomas, Emily.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (442 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2026.

Summary:

In 1880s Britain, philosophers developed what would become a half-century obsession with time. Back then, time was widely held to be unreal; by the 1920s, it was widely held to be real. This sea-change was gradual but sweeping. Early time realists focused on defending the reality of time. From around 1900, they began asking fresh questions about the nature of time, all loosely concerned with its dynamicity---its 'moving on'. Are the past and future real? Is time fundamentally an 'A-series' or 'B-series' - is it about past, present, and future, or earlier and later? Does time have an intrinsic direction? These questions are still widely debated today. This book investigates the reinvention of time realism, and follows the emergence of these new, in-house realist debates.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Brief Contents

Detailed Contents

Figures

Archive Abbreviations

Introduction

1 Three Victorian Ideas around Time: Evolution, Linearity, and Progress

1 Introduction

2 Time Enables Evolution

3 Time Is Linear

4 Time Brings Progress

2 The Rise of Unreal Time and British Idealism 1883-1893

2 Scene Setting: Time Metaphysics in Nineteenth-Century Britain

3 The Rise of British Idealism and Unreal Time: 1883-1893

3.1 Introducing British Idealism

3.2 Green's 1883 Prolegomena to Ethics

3.3 Caird's 1893 Evolution of Religion

3.4 Bradley's 1893 Appearance and Reality

4 Why Did Idealism Reject Time? Faith and the Spectre of Darwinism

5 "Fourth Dimension" Theories and Unreal Time

3 Time Realism: Boosted by the Specious Present and Evolution 1886-1895

2 Nineteenth-Century Realisms against British Idealism

3 The Specious Present, Shadworth Hodgson, and William James: 1878-1890

4 Arguments from Evolution to Time Realism: 1885-1895

5 What Is Absent from These Realisms

4 The British Presentism-Eternalism Debate, Founded 1897

2 A Mini History of Eternalism and Presentism

3 Presentism: Lotze's 1879 "Of Time"

4 Anti-Realism about Time: Bradley, Bosanquet, and Moore

4.1 Bradley's Illuminated Stream

4.2 Bosanquet's Permanent Background

4.3 Moore's Timeless Reality

5 Eternalism: Hodgson's Durational Permanent Background

6 Debates Crystallise

5 The Genesis of J. M. E. McTaggart's "The Unreality of Time" 1893-1908

2 McTaggart's Career

3 McTaggart on Hegel's Problem with Time: 1893-1901

4 Outlining McTaggart's "The Unreality of Time"

4.1 Major Part: Arguing Time is Unreal.

4.2 Minor Part: Explaining Why We Misperceive Time as Real

4.3 McTaggart's Conclusion: The C-series

5 The Development of McTaggart's "The Unreality of Time": 1901-1907

5.1 Josiah Royce and the Specious Present

5.2 McTaggart and the Specious Present

6 McTaggart: Philosophy of Time 'Giant'

6 G. E. Moore's Common Sense Realism: Presentism, A-Theory, and the Ghost of Henry Sidgwick 1897-1911

2 The Cambridge Years of Moore and Russell

2.1 'The Mad Tea Party of Trinity': Moore, Russell, and McTaggart

2.2 How Russell and Moore Rejected Idealism for Realism

3 The Background to Moore's Realism: His Shift from Anti-Realism: 1897-1900

4 Main Problems on Realism, A-Theory, and Presentism: 1910-1911

4.1 Moore's Common Sense Realism

4.2 Moore's Common Sense Presentism and A-theory

5 Henry Sidgwick as the Source of Moore's Common Sense Realism: 1905

6 The Legacy of Moore's Time Realism

7 A French Interlude: Britain's 'Bergson Boom' 1909-1911

2 Bergson's Philosophy of Time: 1888-1911

3 The British Go 'Mad' for Bergson: 1907-1911

8 Bertrand Russell on the B-Series and Mental-Physical Time 1901-1915

2 Before "On the Experience of Time": Realism and the B-series

2.1 A Biographical Note

2.2 Russell's Long-standing Time Realism: 1893 Onwards

2.3 Russell's B-series and Its Relations: 1901-1903

3 The Mental-Physical Time Distinction: 1913-1915

4 Reflecting on Mental-Physical Time

4.1 A Genesis in Dissatisfaction?

4.2 Sources of Russell's Mental-Physical Time Distinction

4.3 Why Include 'Mental Time' within "On the Experience of Time"?

5 After: Russell's Permanentism and the Superficiality of Time

9 Hilda Oakeley's Time Realism: Origins and Bergsonism 1911-1916

2 Oakeley's Career and Feminism.

3 Oakeley's Argument from Value for Time Realism: 1911-1913

4 Oakeley's Bergsonism about the Nature of Time: 1913-1916

10 Karin Costelloe-Stephen's Bergsonism and 'The Facts' of Time 1911-1922

2 Costelloe-Stephen's Career and Feminism

3 Tracing Costelloe-Stephen's Engagement with Bergson's Philosophy

3.1 Before and After "What Bergson Means": September 1911 to May 1913

3.2 Paris and Bergson: November 1913 to May 1914

3.3 Philosophy around the War Years: May 1915 to July 1919

3.4 The Long Genesis of The Misuse of Mind: 1913 to 1922

4 Costelloe-Stephen on Time

4.1 Costelloe-Stephen's Bergsonism

4.2 Costelloe-Stephen's Cambridge Translation of 'the Facts' of Time

11 Sexism and Time: A Feminist Reading of Oakeley and Costelloe-Stephen's Bergsonian Time

2 The Dark Side of Victorian "Progress"

3 The Appeal of Bergson's Philosophy for Feminists

4 An Affinity: Oakeley and Costelloe-Stephen's Feminism, and Bergsonian Time

12 Samuel Alexander's 'Generative' Time and Its Eternalist Universe 1911-1920

2 Alexander's Life and Career

3 Alexander Develops a New Concept of Time: 1911-1914

4 Alexander and Bergson

4.1 Bergsonism as a Driving Force in Alexander's 1910-1914 Thought

4.2 Contrasting Bergsonian Ideas with Alexander's Later Thought

5 Alexander's Eternalism and B-Theory: 1914-1915

5.1 Eternalism against Timeless Block, Growing Block, and Presentism

5.2 The Specious Present, Presentism, and Lloyd Morgan

5.3 The B-theory of Russell and Alexander

6 The Impact of Space, Time, and Deity on Philosophy of Time

13 Time, Events, and Passage in A. N. Whitehead's London Years 1911-1920

2 Whitehead's Cambridge and London Years

3 The Development of Whitehead's Time and Events Metaphysic.

4 Whitehead's Apparent Eternalism and the Problem of Passage

4.1 Whitehead's Apparent Eternalism

4.2 The Problem of 'Passage' in the Enquiry

4.3 The Tension: Whitehead's Apparent Eternalism and the Problem of Passage

5 The Bergson Question (or, Comments on Lowe's Tirade)

6 A Mutual Appreciation Duo: Whitehead and Alexander

14 C. D. Broad on Eternalism and Growing Block Theory 1913-1928

2 Broad's Career and Works on Time

3 Broad's Eternalism: 1913-1920

3.1 Early Attitudes towards Time, Russell, and Bergson

3.2 The Eternalism of "Time"

4 Broad's Growing Block Theory: 1920-1928

4.1 The Growing Block Theory in Scientific Thought

4.2 Why Did Broad Shift from Eternalism to Growing Block?

4.3 The Growing Block Theory in Broad's Later Texts

5 The Early Reception of Broad's Growing Block Theory

15 Arthur Eddington and Time's Arrow into the Progressive Future 1919-1928

2 Eddington's Career and Philosophical Works

3 The Metaphysics of Time in Eddington's Early Texts

4 Time's Arrow in The Nature of the Physical World

5 The Origins of Eddington's Arrow: Bergsonism versus Victorian Empiricism plus Theism

6 How Eddington's Arrow Survived into the Future

Afterword

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780197844519

OCLC:

1589417312