List: Gary Richmond, Gary Fuhrman, and I have had various lengthy off-List exchanges over the last few months about Peirce's ideas pertaining to time. After a lot of reading and thinking about the mathematical, phenomenological, semeiotic, and metaphysical aspects of that topic, I decided to post the following and see if it prompts any further discussion.
In a 1908 paper <http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html> that established the parameters for many of the debates that have occurred within the philosophy of time since its publication, John Ellis McTaggart argues for "The Unreality of Time." His basic claim is that time cannot be real because it is contradictory to predicate past, present, and future of the same moment or event; and he alleges that the obvious rejoinder--that a moment or event is past, present, and future only at different times--is viciously circular. McTaggart's implicit assumption is that time is a series of *discrete* positions, which are what he calls moments, and an event is the *discrete* content of a particular moment. In other words, he treats any single moment or event as an existential subject, which is why it is precluded from having incompatible determinations. Of course, by contrast Peirce held that time is real and *continuous*. Positions in time are *instants* that we artificially mark for some purpose, such as measurement, while moments are indefinite *lapses* of time that we can only distinguish arbitrarily because "moment melts into moment. That is to say, moments may be so related as not to be entirely separate and yet not be the same" (CP 7.656, 1903). An event is "an existential junction of incompossible facts" (CP 1.492; c. 1896); as Peirce later elaborates ... CSP: The event is the existential junction of *states* (that is, of that which in existence corresponds to a *statement* about a given subject in representation) whose combination in one subject would violate the logical law of contradiction. The event, therefore, considered as a junction, is not a subject and does not inhere in a subject. What is it, then? Its mode of being is *existential quasi-existence*, or that approach to existence where contraries can be united in one subject. Time is that diversity of existence whereby that which is existentially a subject is enabled to receive contrary determinations in existence. (CP 1.494; c. 1896) In logic, existential subjects (i.e., concrete things) and their abstract qualities are denoted by *terms*--or, respectively, lines of identity and labeled spots in existential graphs--while states of things are signified by *propositions *(statements). A fact is the state of things signified by a *true* proposition. CSP: *Space*, like Time, is a general respect to whose determinations realizations are relative. Only, in the case of space, the realizations instead of being of states of things signified by propositions are of objects representable by terms of propositions. Namely, if a proposition be so analyzed as to throw all general characters into the predicate,--as when we express 'all men are mortal' as 'whatever exists is either not a man or is mortal,'--then, if the universe of discourse is a collection of objects of a certain kind called *things*, each individual thing denoted by a subject of the proposition (reckoning as 'subjects' not only the subject nominative but the direct, indirect, and prepositional objects) each such individual exists and has such characters as it has, relatively to some determination of space. (NEM 3:1077; c. 1905) CSP: A *state of things* is an abstract constituent part of reality, of such a nature that a proposition is needed to represent it ... A *fact *is so highly a prescissively abstract state of things, that it can be wholly represented in a simple proposition ... (CP 5.549, EP 2:378; 1906). An event is not *itself* an existential subject, it is the state of things that is *realized* at a lapse of time when a definite change occurs. An existential subject initially has one determination, such that a certain fact is realized, but then it receives a contradictory determination, such that a negation of that fact is realized. The continuous flow of time, which we directly perceive (NEM 3:59-60; c. 1895), is what facilitates this. CSP: *Time *is a certain general respect relative to different determinations of which states of things otherwise impossible may be realized. Namely, if P and Q are two logically possible states of things, (abstraction being made of time) but are logically incompossible, they may be realized in respect to different determinations of time. (NEM 3:1074; c. 1905) Hence time is also not *itself* an existential subject, and past/present/future are not abstract qualities that *inhere* in instants/moments or events as existential subjects. Instead, time is a real law that *governs* existential subjects, and past/present/future are "the three *general* determinations of Time" (CP 5.458, EP 2:357; 1905, emphasis mine)--lapses at which different states of things are realized (cf. NEM 3:1074-1077; c. 1905), not *individual* determinations of the same instant/moment or event. In short, the two authors agree that time does not *exist*, but McTaggert wrongly concludes from this that time cannot be *real*, while Peirce maintains that existence is not coextensive with reality. CSP: Existence, then, is a special mode of reality, which, whatever other characteristics it possesses, has that of being absolutely determinate. Reality, in its turn, is a special mode of being, the characteristic of which is that things that are real are whatever they really are, independently of any assertion about them. (CP 6.349; 1902) He also recognizes a third mode of being in accordance with his conviction that "Metaphysics consists in the results of the absolute acceptance of logical principles not merely as regulatively valid, but as truths of being" (CP 1.487; c. 1896). CSP: Just as the logical verb with its signification reappears in metaphysics as a Quality, an ens having a *Nature* as its mode of being, and as a logical individual subject reappears in metaphysics as a Thing, an ens having *Existence* as its mode of being, so the logical reason, or premise, reappears in metaphysics as a Reason, an ens having a *Reality*, consisting in a ruling both of the outward and of the inward world, as its mode of being. The being of the quality lies wholly in itself, the being of the thing lies in opposition to other things, the being of the reason lies in its bringing qualities and things together. (CP 1.515; c. 1896) The state of things in the *present* is always one of indefinitely gradual change, as ongoing events bring different abstract qualities and concrete things together, such that the indeterminate possibilities and conditional necessities of the *future* become the determinate actualities of the *past* (cf. CP 5.459, EP 2:357-8; 1905). Time is real because this process and its results are as they are regardless of what any individual mind or finite group of minds thinks about them. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
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