This chapter focuses on the ontological nature of the past and our experience of the present in relation to the actual. It is argued that philosophers mistakenly equate the real with the actual. The actual is what is presented to us in experience, but what is presented to us in experience is confined to the present; so one might think that it follows that only the present is real. This presentist theory is subsequently rejected. Past, present and future are real (...) and certain mental acts such as memories of the past and expectations of the future have as their content objects at those times; these objects are just as real as the objects of present experiences. This paves the way for a distinctive brand of eternalism that is defended in the remainder of this chapter. (shrink)

This chapter examines what it means to take time seriously. It begins with an examination of the arguments of Kant and Bradley for the view that time is not an ultimate primitive of reality. Then Bergson’s attempt to take time seriously is criticised. Bergson’s duration fails to capture the content of our concept of time. Space is just as important and it plays a unique role in explaining facts about our concept of time. Thus, in order to take time seriously (...) we need to posit space-time of which space and time are mere aspects. Consequences about the nature of time with respect to theories of motion, temporal progression in the universe, universals and God are also discussed. (shrink)

This chapter is about logic and the relationship between truth/thought and reality. The specific concern is the relation between ground and cause. On one view, the ground of an inference is identical with the respective cause. But there are cases where the ground is not some physical event, but rather something non-causal, as in judgements about similarity among objects in intrinsic respects. It is argued that cause is logically prior to ground. The world as a system is founded on vast (...) webs of causal relations, and these causal relations or larger causal structure have a temporal component; hence time figures in the structuring base of reality and system. A view about judgement and inference is then developed: inference is the scientist’s tool, whereas judgements are the material, just like the marble is the material from which the sculptor creates a statue. This leads to an objectivist theory of judgement. (shrink)

I Shall begin by a distinction which will limit my subject. I propose to speak only of beautiful poetry and beautiful prose, or if the phrase be preferred, artistic poetry and prose. The distinction I wish to draw is between art and craft, between making a competent and useful thing which exactly fits its purpose and making it beautifully, between technical skill and artistry, between good workmanship and design and that touch of rareness which makes not merely good but fine (...) and lovely. The boundaries are difficult to draw. For much craft is also beautiful, and the craftsman is always in doing his best, striving to be an artist and often succeeding. But they are not the same things. Mere technical skill will not make a work beautiful but only correct, and on the other hand art may possess beauty, even if not of the highest order; though it fails in skill, the conception in some degree makes up for the defect of skill, as for instance much primitive Italian painting or Greek sculpture, which is defective in drawing or modelling and yet beautiful. Now a large part, perhaps the greater part, of what is called art is not art at all, but craft, good correct painting or drawing or sculpture; pleasing, but not pleasing with the pleasure or even rapture which beauty gives. It is so with prose and poetry. Many poems are not poetry, though written in impeccable verse, and long poems are always apt to drop in places into what is only not called prose because it is metrical. By far the greatest part of prose is merely good workmanlike writing, and in no sense art. I am not intending to depreciate craft, and still less the value and difficulty of attaining it. (shrink)

It has been explained how science, with the freedom which makes it an art, uses ideas of its own construction, and that they are verified by nature shows them to be, directly or indirectly, at differing degrees of remoteness, congenial to and so far inherent in the material which is the subject-matter of the science. Take, for an instance, velocity. It is expressed by the ratio of two integers which measure distance and time respectively. Now a ratio is a construction (...) of the mind, and it does not exist in external things in the sense in which universals must be said to belong to them and have in one way or another been held to belong to them since the time of Socrates, or at least Plato. Even if we agree that the integers themselves are given to mind and not created by mind, their ratio implies the intervention of mind, and does not inhere in the integers themselves. But though velocity does not inhere in things, it corresponds to and stands for something which is found alike in all moving things and varies in the moving tram and the sea-plane in a Schneider race. (shrink)