The Enigmatic Reality of Time
Aristotle, Plotinus, and Today
Michael F. Wagner, Leyde: Brill, 2008
Description
The nature and existence of time is a fascinating and puzzling feature of human life and awareness. This book integrates interdisciplinary work and approaches from such fields as physics, psychology, biology, phenomenology, and technology studies with philosophical analyses and considerations to explain a number of facets of the perennial question of time’s nature and existence, both in contemporary and in its initial classical Greek context; and it then explores and explains two of the most influential investigations of time in classical Western thought: Aristotle’s, as presented in his Physics, and the (neo)Platonist Plotinus’ in his treatise On Time and Eternity. Original interpretative perspectives are argued in both cases, and special attention is paid to Plotinus as partly responding to and critiquing Aristotle’s account.
(Text from the publisher)
Table of contents
Introduction
Chapter One – Is Time Real?
Chapter Two – Eleaticism, Temporality, And Time
Chapter Three – The Makings Of A Temporal Universe
Chapter Four – Parmenidean Time And The Impossible Now
Chapter Five – Cosmic Motion And The Speed Of Time
Chapter Six – Temporal Cognition And The Return Of The Now
Chapter Seven – Real Temporality In An Aristotelian World
Chapter Eight – Does Aristotle Refute Eleaticism?
Chapter Nine – Temporality, Eternality, And Plotinus’ New Platonism
Chapter Ten – Plotinus’ Critique Of Aristotelian Motion
Chapter Eleven – Indefinite Temporality And The Measure Of Motion
Chapter Twelve – Plotinus’ Neoplatonic Account Of Time
Bibliography
Index
Link
