[...]... last time , ‘several times’, ‘sometimes’, and time and time again’ If we were to say ‘The children were all talking at the same time , we should be unlikely to be thinking of a time as given by a clock; it is a matter of the children all talking together, or at once With respect to some uses there may be uncertainty whether a system of Conceptions of Time and Space 15 timekeeping is presumed, but by and. .. resolution of the problems discussed, problems concerning the nature and reality of time and space, temporal order, temporal parts, verifiability, scepticism, anti-realism and the past, backwards causation, time travel, geometry, convention, the infinitude of space and time, and the possibility of time without change While space as well as time is our concern, it is the latter that will receive the lion’s... proponents We shall begin with a brief sketch of what each involves 2 Time, Space, and Metaphysics According to Newton, Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in and of itself and of its own nature, without reference to anything external, flows uniformly and by another name is called duration Relative, apparent, and common time is any sensible and external measure (precise or imprecise) of duration by means... roundabout: space (is what) makes possible the placing of bodies; or: there is a space between A and B if and only if it Conceptions of Time and Space 9 makes sense to speak of placing a body between A and B (without displacing anything) We are talking about what is describable, rather than physically possible Leibniz’s positive account of instants is also in need of a more accurate formulation Space and time. .. a day, a month, a year—is commonly used instead of true time (Newton 1999: 408) Absolute time equates to duration, and relative time is a measure of duration, and hence of absolute time It is right to distinguish time as a measure and time as what is measured, but while the concepts may be different, a period of time may be both what measures and what is measured So when we say that the task took a... a temporal series, and such a development would be yet to come Indeed, we may even hesitate to speak in terms of a concept of time in their regard, since any term equivalent to our time is clearly dispensable, and they are not in a position to make use of such phrases as ‘at a time , ‘for a time , ‘the right time , ‘in time , and so forth Again, it will not be appropriate to expand ‘e1 occurred before... a time before e2 ’, and while, for us, to say that an event occurred then may be to say that it occurred at 14 Time, Space, and Metaphysics that time, where this is a matter of time as given by a clock, for the speaker of the more primitive language, the temporal reference will be as determined directly by some past event, rather than by the time onto which this might in turn be mapped, ‘at that time ... that I hold space to be something merely relative, as time is; that I hold it to be an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions For space denotes, in terms of possibility, an order of things which exist at the same time, considered as existing together’ (Alexander 1956: 25–6) So, all movement is with respect to things in space, not to space itself Take away all bodies, and space itself... which rewordings are possible, but in which time does not allow of a single translation, he cites ‘in time , time after time , ‘had a good time , and ‘mark time To say, for instance, that time is ‘the form of becoming’, ‘the possibility of change’, or even ‘measurable duration’ is not to offer a possible substitute for time in ‘Don’t hurry, still plenty of time (1968: 140) But, he insists, the failure... duration and space are only understood to be the same as they really are because of their mutual order and position; nor do they have any hint of individuality apart from that order and position which consequently cannot be altered (Newton 1962: 126) So, the identity of a part of space or time what makes it that part—is constituted by its order and position; and what is important about order and position . Contents Preface ix 1. Conceptions of Time and Space 1 1.1 Absolute and relational time 1 1.2 Absolute and relational space 6 1.3 Metrical and non-metrical concepts 10 2. Time, Order, and Direction 18 2.1 Temporal. Bede. Time, space, andmetaphysics/BedeRundle. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN978–0–19–957511–4 (hardback) 1. Space and time. 2. Metaphysics. I. Title. BD632.R86 2009 114—dc22 20090 23021 Typeset. 178 9.1 Time and infinity 178 9.2 Causes, causal conditions, and backwards causation 186 9.3 Time travel 201 10. Space 206 10.1 Absolute space 206 10.2 The reality of space 212 10.3 Space and curvature