Abstract

I use Kant's theory of the transcendental ideality of time to answer McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time. McTaggart's argument is that the atemporal C-series (the logical atoms of all moments) must be regarded as the metaphysical foundation of the B-series, the non-dynamic world of objective temporal relations of events being earlier or later than others. That B-series (having a qualitative aspect that is not indifferent to the direction of time) is essentially an ossification of the A-series--the dynamic flow of qualitative relations of past, present, and future moments. But McTaggart argues that the A-series is contradictory--if the A-series were real, then each logical moment of time would have past, present, and future equally predicated of it. Because it doesn't exist, then neither does the B-series. All that is real is atemporal C-series. Kant rejects this argument by denying the metaphysical reality of absolute time (the C-series). He then argues that the B-series is dependent on the A-series and that the A-series is subject-relative. The first person perspective creates the simple moment--the now--which acts as a temporal metric to metaphysically ground all possible B-series relations. This is how time (as the objective relations between events in nature) is transcendentally ideal.