On Absolute Becoming and the Myth of Passage

Abstract

In the literature on time in the twentieth century stemming from J. M. E. McTaggart's famous argument for the unreality of time, two gems stand out. The first is C. D. Broad's patient dissection of McTaggart's argument in the chapter ‘Ostensible Temporality’ in his Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy . Broad carefully, and to my mind persuasively, uncovers the root errors in McTaggart's argument. In addition he tentatively proposes that the features of time that he calls its transitory aspect can be explained in terms of a dynamic aspect of time that he calls Absolute Becoming.