Nature of Time

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Z_Mahavir_Jain_Vidyalay_Suvarna_Mahotsav_Granth_Part_1_012002.pdf and Mahavir_Jain_Vidyalay_Suvarna_

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66 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
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.12 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.13 Bradley traces back all these paradoxes to the fundamental paradox in 'term' and 'relation'. All relations are unreal as they involve infinite regress.14 According to him space and time are mere appearances and product of nescience, so to say.15 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
Time (durée) assumes fundamental importance in Bergson. Space and time are, according to him, diametrically opposite in nature. Space is static, while time (durée) is the principle of creative evolution. Real time, according to him, is duration and not the juxtaposition of discrete instants. Real time (durée reelle) is 'heterogeneous' and 'continuous'. The real temporal process is a multiplicity of 'interpenetration'. Real time flows in an indivisible continuity. This real time we find in our experiences. It is Intellect that makes cuts in it, spatializes it and falsely represents it as a straight line with discrete moments as its points. Thus real time we cannot think, we must live it because life transcends intellect'.17
12 A History of Philosophy (Thilly), p. 421. 13 Kant's first Critique (Cassirer), p. 267. 14 Appearance and Reality (Oxford, 1959), p. 18. 15 Ibid., p. 36. 16 Elements of Metaphysics (Taylor), pp. 243-255. 17 Hundred Years of Philosophy (Passmore), pp. 106-107.