The Unreality of Time - University Lecturer: J.M.E. McTaggart

Sep 10, 2011
Janet Cameron

Unreality of Time - Photo by Janet Cameron

An atheist who believed in the immortality of the human soul, McTaggart insisted that our perception of time is merely an illusion. Time does not exist.

Born in 1866 in London, J.M.E. McTaggart was a committed proponent of the unreality of time. He was the top scholar of his year at Cambridge University and after he was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College, he became a lecturer in philosophy, a profession he pursued until the end of his academic career. Through his work and his teaching, his influence spread and he became renowned as one of Britain's leading metaphysical idealists.

McTaggart’s beliefs are the polar opposite of Plato's, since the latter believed that time existed independently of the events contained within it. McTaggart's thinking is much more in line with that of Hegel's although he disagrees with some of Hegel's conclusions.

Against Christianity

McTaggart pulled no punches. He disliked Christianity and made no secret of it. “If one was a Christian one would have to worship Christ, and I don’t like him much. If you take what he said in the first three gospels (for St. John’s has no historical value, I believe) it is a horribly one-sided and imperfect ideal.”

Yet his philosophy is intensely humanist. He claims that the best explanation of reality is that of individual minds and their contents. Further, McTaggart says, each member of this community of spirits, or “souls” is immortal and, therefore, the concept of reincarnation is valid. Each of these immortal souls is united, with one or more other souls, by love.

A Radical Theory

McTaggart’s enduring reputation can be laid at the door of his speculations about time. To explain his theory, he postulates an A-series and a B-series.

The A-series is concerned with past, present and future. The A-series, for example, allows for positions in time to be orderered according to their possession of certain properties: two days future, one day future, present, one day past.

The B-Series represents positions that run from sooner to later. It describes time as having 2-place relations: two days earlier than; one day earlier than; simultaneous with. McTaggart claimed the B-series could not happen without the A-series. The B-series does not independently involve change because its positions are fixed and are dependent on the A-series.

Therefore the A-series is the important concept that makes ordering time possible. Time involves change, says McTaggart, and the A-series allows that to happen. For example, Queen Anne’s death was, at one time, an event that would take place in the far future. Gradually, that death moved into the near-future until, at last, it became the present. Once that happened, the Queen’s death was in the past and every moment, it became further and further into the past.

This progression might seem logical, but it is, in fact, contradictory. “It presupposed the existence of the A-series in order to make it valid,” says Jeremy Harwood in 100 Great Thinkers. The result is, as claimed by McTaggart: an "infinite regression" or a "vicious circle."

“Therefore,” explains Harwood, quoting McTaggart: “nothing that exists can be temporal and nothing existent can possess the quality of being in time.” In other words, what we call “time” is unreal. Temporal order is mere appearance and everything we experience must, therefore, be an illusion.

McTaggart, Russell and Moore - an Intellectual Trinity

McTaggart married Margaret Elizabeth Bird in 1899 after meeting her in New Zealand while visiting his mother. He was a friend and colleague of G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, both of whom were at Cambridge with him during the 1900s. He was understandably very upset when Bertrand Russell was thrown out of Trinity during WWI for pacifism. McTaggart, like Russell, was a firm supporter of women’s suffrage.

J.M.E. McTaggart died in 1925, an atheist who believed in the immortality of the human soul.

His major works were The Unreality of Time and The Nature of Existence.

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