________________
NATURE OF TIME
attributes of the substance. Leibniz ruled out the possibility of this extension (space) by positing many atomic substances (monads) in place of one substance. Space and time, according to him, are confused ideas abstracted from our experience of things known independently of space and time.10
According to Newton, sensuous time and space are unreal. There are absolute space and time which are not determined by their relation to anything external. Space is characterised by reversibility; time is characterised by irreversibility. In other words, through an act of will we might change our motion through space, yet on the other hand the flowing of time transcends our act of will. Moreover, Newton's this concept of absolute time makes possible the case of absolute simultaneity."
For Kant space, and time are neither confused perceptions nor absolutes. They are the necessary forms of perception. They are not realities or things existing for themselves, nor are they qualities or relations belonging to things as such; they are forms or functions of the senses. We cannot think things without time, though we can think time without things; hence time is the necessary precondition of our perception of things, or of phenomenal world. Thus these forms are not derived from experience, they are a priori."2 Kant demonstrates that space and time are vitiated by 'antinomies'. This means that on the supposition of the reality of space and time, it is possible to prove, with equal cogency, several contradictory pairs of theses and countertheses, such as that space has boundaries and has not, time has beginning and has not, etc. '3 Bradley traces back all these paradoxes to the fundamental paradox in 'term' and 'relation'. All relations are unreal as they involve infinite regress. 4 According to him space and time are mere appearances and product of nescience, so to say.is A. E. Taylor, a follower of Bradley, distinguishes between perceptual space and time on the one hand and conceptual space and time on the other. Perceptual space and time we have in perception; and they have reference to here and now. Conceptual space and time are constructed from the perceptual data. Neither of them is real. Perceptual space and time are unreal because they involve reference to the here and now of a finite experience'; conceptual space and time are unreal because they contain no principle of internal distinction, and are thus not individual.'16
