The Reality of Time

By Errol E. Harris

Subjects: Metaphysics
Series: SUNY series in Philosophy
Paperback : 9780887068614, 204 pages, December 1988
Hardcover : 9780887068607, 204 pages, December 1988

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Table of contents

Preface

I. Introduction: The Nature and Vindication

 

Prevalent Repudiation of Metaphysics
What is Metaphysics?
The Restoration of Metaphysics

 

II. Metaphysical Problems of Time

 

Passage, Movement, and Measurement
How Do We Identify the Present?
Change, Permanence, and the Transcendence of Passage
Spinoza Provides a Clue

 

III. Physical Time

 

Attempts to Eliminate Passage from Physical Time
Process, Order, and Chaos
The Paradoxes of Zeno
Cosmic Time
Time Reversal
Cosmic History and Cosmic Unity

 

IV. Biological Time

 

Organism and Duree
The Emergence of Life
Evolution
Environment and Biological Clocks
Behavior
Biocoenoses
Conclusion

 

V. Psychological Time

 

The Stream of Consciousness
The Specious Present
Time and the Transcendental Subject
The Problem of the Transcendental Ego
Soultion to the Problem

 

VI. Historical Time

 

Res Gestae
The Idea of the Historical Past
The Historical Process
Structuralism and Deconstructionism

 

VII. Dialectic in History

 

Historical Thinking
Transformation of Conceptual Schemes
The Dialectical Scale
Historical Objectivity
The Historical Universal

 

VIII. Evolution and Omega

 

Evolution , Diachronic, and Synchronic
The Features of Wholeness
Differentiation and Process
The Clue to "Omega"
Omega and Time
Omega and Deity
"Mysticism"

 

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

"The Reality of Time is cogently thought out and clearly written. Once I started, I could not put it down. I regard this book as an eminently perceptive presentation of the import of time for all intellectual concerns. Demonstrating time's pervasive implications for basic questions of science, thought, and history, this book is also an exceptionally readable introduction to perennial questions of metaphysics as well. For a text obviously addressed not to specialists but to a generally literate audience, (the author) has done a masterful job." — Charles M. Sherover, Hunter College

Reviews

"This is a substantial and well-written essay on a key topic in metaphysics, by a distinguished and seasoned metaphysician who is also a master of the scientific literature of recent decades. The writing is vigorous, concise, and clear, and the examples are aptly chosen and lucidly formulated. It is a book of unique distinction." — George L. Kline, Milton C. Nahm Professor of Philosophy, Bryn Mawr College

"It is a beautiful piece of deep philosophical thinking, expressed with outstanding clarity and elegance. I like especially the rare combination of rich immersion in the facts of science with profound creative reflection and synthesis. This is truly a distinguished, even great work." — W. Norris Clarke, S. J., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Fordham University

"The Reality of Time is cogently thought out and clearly written. Once I started, I could not put it down. I regard this book as an eminently perceptive presentation of the import of time for all intellectual concerns. Demonstrating time's pervasive implications for basic questions of science, thought, and history, this book is also an exceptionally readable introduction to perennial questions of metaphysics as well. For a text obviously addressed not to specialists but to a generally literate audience, (the author) has done a masterful job." — Charles M. Sherover, Hunter College