Abstract

For Albert the Great , physics is the proper science to study the nature and reality of time. The physics of time is scientifically prior to the chronometrics, psychology, or metaphysics of time. Our contention is that Albert on time is more faithful to the principles of Aristotelian natural philosophy than were any of his peripatetic predecessors, including Aristotle. ;After an introductory chapter setting the problem we discuss in chapter two Albert's primary peripatetic sources, Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes. Aristotle establishes that motion and time both have successive and not enduring being in physical reality and that time's nature is analogous to those of motion and spatial extent. Averroes contends in addition that if there were no mind to number events temporally then the complete nature of time as the number of motion would not exist. Also in chapter two we examine Albert's contention that Augustine in Confessions XI is presenting a psychology and not a physics of time. ;Chapter three discusses Albert, emphasizing his position that the whole physical nature of time exists independently of minds. A real temporal distinction of events exists outside the mind, and this temporal distinction is time as it exists as a successive being in the world. ;Chapter four examines Thomas Aquinas and Robert Kilwardby on time. Thomas in the Sentences follows Averroes on time's extra-mental reality but by the Physics he has adopted Albert's opinion against Averroes. Robert's explanation of time is in part original, but by Albert's principles it is no more natural than Averroes'. ;The "doctrinal setting' is provided by examining Albert on eternity, eternal truths, and the eternity of the world. Most notable of Albert's positions is that physics provides no demonstrative arguments either for or against an eternally created world or one with a temporal beginning