Aristotle, Time, and Temporality

Richard N. Williams
Brigham Young University
I. Introduction
There are certain things in life so apparent, so overwhelmingly intuitive,
that it seems impossible to think or to say anything about them which would
be genuinely new and at the same time, sensible. Time is one such thing. Eins-
tein is recognized as a unique genius by the scholar and the layperson alike
in large measure because he had something revolutionary to say about time,
something which challenged our intuitions to such an extent that the mean-
ing and implications of his notion of the relativity of time are still not part
of our ordinary vocabulary. Indeed, even social scientists have been slow to
recognize the implciations of this view of time for our disciplines and to in-
tegrate it into our theorizing. (See Slife, 1979, and 1981, as exceptions.)
The view of time that has dominated our western tradition and formed
the basis of explanations in contemporary social science is essentially the one
formulated by Aristotle. Robinson (1989) rightly observes that the writings
of Aristotle were so comprehensive and insightful that much of our western
tradition can be seen as reaction to or modification of his work. This is perhaps
more true in psychology than other scientific disciplines, and perhaps nowhere
better illustrated than in our reliance on the Aristotlean notion of time. Since
the period of the Enlightenment, and prior to the advent of the "new physics,"
and the revolutionary works of Einstein and the quantum mechanists, scien-
tific explanation has relied on a view of causality based on a linear view of
time. (See Hawking, 1988, for an introduction to the historical and contem-
porary problems.) Linear, unidirectional time has been an essential part of
our explanation of the asymmetry of causality and, thus, of physical events.
Only recently have physical scientists begun to question the necessity of such
a view of time. (See, for examples, the essays in Flood and Lockwood, 1986.)
In the social sciences the received view of causality is still based on linear
time, and challenges to this type of explanation, while increasingly available,
come from what Gergen and Morawski (1980) refer to as the psychological
"counterculture."
14
Theor. & Philo. Psych. Vol. 10, No. 1, 1990
In this paper I will examine Aristotle's treatment of time and indicate some
important conceptual implications of this view manifest in our psychological
theorizing. The notion of temporality as developed in the works of Martin
Heidegger (1962) and others in the post-modernist tradition provides an alter-
native perspective on time which impacts on the practice of social science.
Finally the paper will briefly describe some of the impact, showing particularly
how it both affirms the essential Aristotlean insight and yet provides an alter-
native to his conception of time.
II. Aristotle's Treatment of Time
Early Greek thought was dominated by the question of being vs. becom-
ing. Thales' doctrine that water is the fundamental reality derives from his
attempt to offer a single basic element (being) which, in altered forms (becom-
ming), accounts for all that is. The early Greeks seemed keenly aware of
change, and thus, of the passing of time. It was important to account for
change (becomming) in terms of something which did not change (being).
It was Parmenides who very clearly saw the epistemological problem inherent
in change and temporality. If something is given to change, then it cannot
truly be known because every opinion about it will be just that opinion
subject to modification with time. Knowledge is found only in being. We,
therefore, should be suspicious of time. For Parmenides, things that are are
not subject to time and change, while things that are not do indeed change
with time. This concern with being as explanation of becoming is manifest
in contemporary social science in our search for universals (laws, principles,
structures, regularities, etc.) to account for the particulars we observe in our
studies of the world. (See Gergen, 1973, for a discussion of this notion and
its limitations in the field of social psychology.)
Aristotle directly takes up the topic of time in Chapters 10-14 of Book IV
of Physics. (See Hussey's 1983 translation and notes.) It seems clear that he
views the problem within a Parmenidean framework as he introduces the first
question concerning time: "whether it is among things that are or things that
are not. . . (Aristotle, Physics, 217
b
31). Among the arguments for the con-
clusion that time "is not" is the fact that it is composed of things, some of
which have been, and some of which are not yet, and the related fact that
the "nows" of which time is composed are subject to change. Aristotle goes
on to refute the idea that time is change (although this notion had been defend-
ed by previous thinkers). Changes are specific to time and place while time,
presumably, is not. Changes may be taken to occur "faster or slower" which
qualities are defined by time. He concludes therefore that time is not equivalent
to change, but that it is "not apart from alteration [change], either" (Aristo-
tle, Physics, 218
b
21).
Aristotle then turns attention to the question of just what aspect of change
time is. It is at this point that he introduces the central analogy that informs
his view of timethe analogy of space. (Hussey's discussion, 1983, pp. 142-146
is very helpful in understanding this analogy.) Objects in space have
"magnitude," a dimension along which they move or change (which can often
be measured in some sense), and direction, or a path along which they change.
Time and Temporality 15
It is space, seen as a collection of "places" or points which gives structure
to the world of things. By analogy, time gives structure to the world of change.
Events occur in the same relation to time as objects to space. Change occurs
along a "path," or within time, and time provides the "magnitude" by which
changes can be mapped or measured. It is in this context that Aristotle
(Physics, 219
b
l) offers his definition of time: "A number of change in respect
of the before and after. So time is not change, but in the way in which change
has a number."
Hussey (1983, p. 151) clarifies what is meant by this use of number. The
word can be used in two senses, the number (of things) counted, and the
number by which we count. Aristotle intends that time as number should
be understood in the former sense, i.e., as what is counted or measured in
the course of change. Here Aristotle avoids making time an abstraction (as
numbers are abstractions). To continue the analogy of space, Aristotle likens
time to the movement of a point (Physics, 219
b
33). Every moving thing "in
respect to what makes it what it is" is the same no matter where it may move,
and different by definition. This difference is clearly less fundamental than
the sameness. By the same token every event is in a fundamental way the same
no matter where in time it occurs, and different only in a definitional or
descriptive sense.
In the modern mind (since Descartes) the image most likely to come to
mind in thinking about time in this way is the number line, conceived as a
series of points, or as a point in motion. (Aristotle is explicit in this com-
parison in Physics, 222
a
10.) Every moment is fundamentally like every other
moment, as every point in space is fundamentally like every other. Aristotle
writes that time (like a number line) is continuous because it is a number
of what is continuous. Time (like a number line) is also, therefore, infinitely
divisible (into a infinite number of nows).
One aspect of Aristotle's view of time particularly important for
psychological explanation is its atemporality. While it seems at first contradic-
tory that time should be atemporal, from Aristotle's argument it cannot be
otherwise. (See Faulconer and Williams, 1985, for a discussion of this atem-
porality and its implication for psychological explanation.) At several points
in his discussion, Aristotle reminds us that while it makes sense to speak of
changes as faster or slower, it makes no sense to speak of time that way. Time
provides the number or magnitude that serves as the index of faster or slower.
We can speak of time in terms of much or little, but not faster or slower.
Time is thus atemporal. While time is an aspect of change, and while we
"measure time by change" as well as "change by time," (Physics, 220
b
14) time
is not subject to change in the way that change is ordered or structured by
time since it is not possible to speak of time as faster or slower.
Since atemporality is an important aspect of being, and thus of things that
are, Aristotle goes on to discuss time in relation to such things. Things that
change are "in time" just as objects are "in space," surrounded by it. In con-
trast, "things that always are. . . are not in time. . . not surrounded by time,
nor is their being measured by time, and . . .they are not acted on at all by
time. . . (Physics, 221
b
4-221
b
7). By definition then, what is real, in the sense
16 Theor. & Philo. Psych. Vol. 10, No. 1, 1990
that it always is, is outside of time and unchanging. For Aristotle all the things
that cannot be otherwise (the necessary) are not in time. They cannot come
to be nor cease to be (nor, thus, can they change). It seems clear here that
Aristotle has taken a Parmenidean position. This doctrine, that what is real
must be outside time, and unchanging has been at the core of western
metaphysics from the beginning and, thus, at the core of western culture. Such
atemporal thinking continues to shape our explanations of life and world in
psychology no less than in other cultural endeavors. Faulconer and Williams
(1990), arguing from a post-modern point of view, suggest that this giving
of preeminence to the atemporal in the human world is undertaken at the
price of intelligibility, and meaning. I will return to this issue later.
Returning to the discussion of things that are in time and surrounded by
time (those which are not necessary), we observe that time "acts upon" them
in some way. Things are worn away, they grow old, or they "become beautiful,"
people learn and forget. Aristotle notes, however that these changes brought
about by the action of time are a "ceasing-to-be," rather than a coming to
be, because "change removes what is present" (Physics, 221
a
26-221
b
7). For
this reason, things that always are not necessarily outside time, and thus im-
mune from its effects. Though things may be "acted upon" by time, time itself
is not endowed with causal efficacy. Although, for Aristotle, "[i]t is in time
that everything comes to be and ceases to be. . .," it is also the case that
something "may cease to be even though it is not changed, and this, is above
all what we usually call ceasing-to-be by the agency of time" (Physics,
222
b
16-222
b
25). This change, even though it takes place in time "is not pro-
duced by time" (Physics, 222
b
26).
From this discussion it seems clear that for Aristotle all change takes place
in time, but that time is not the agent of change. Aristotle discusses his no-
tion of the four causes in Book II of the Physics. Indeed time seems not to
be an important aspect of the discussion of causes. The cause of something,
rather, seems to be more of a coming together of the matter, the form, and
the telos into an event. The efficient cause, by analogy, the "maker," plays
the role of bringing these things together in the event responsible for the thing's
being what it is. (Heidegger, 1977, pp. 6-12, provides a good discussion of
the meaning of cause in this sense.) While this event occurs in time, and thus
time is in some sense necessary, the real efficacy (or, "occasioning," to use
Heidegger's term) derives from the causes and not from time.
In spite of Aristotle's early attempt to regard time as number in the sense
of what is counted rather than as the number by which it is counted, in the
concluding sections of Chapter 14, it is difficult (perhaps only for the modern
reader) to keep this distinction firmly in mind. Aristotle explains, for exam-
ple (Physics, 223
b
5-223
b
12), why it must be that "time is everywhere the
same." His analogy is a numerical one: the number seven is same whether
we number dogs or horses. This brings the modern reader perilously close
to the concept of number as that by which we number.
In the final sections of his treatment of time Aristotle links it to the cyclical
(uniform and circular) motion of the celestial sphere. Time is though of as
Time and Temporality 17
a cycle because it is both the measure of that kind of motion and measured
by it. This gives time its proper place in the Aristotelean cosmology. It also
suggests that the two ends of the number line we employ to envision time
ought to be joined. The notion of time as unidirectional and progressive comes
much later in history (e.g., see Hawking, 1988, pp. 2-9). In equating time with
something so fixed and cosmologically important as the fixed stars, Aristo-
tle seems to come close to suggesting that time is not only a numbering, but
something real to be numbered.
Aristotle takes up one last question in relation to time as numbering. It
is whether time can exist independently of a soul (intellect) to do the number-
ing. He seems to suggest that it would be difficult to conceive of time without
soul. This is a point from which an alternative, post-modern conception of
time can take its departure and yet maintain its roots in Aristotle's work, a
possibility that will be briefly explored later.
III. The Modern Rendition of Time and Causality
There is not sufficient space in this essay to recount the evolution of the
concept of time, nor even the history of its use in psychological theorizing.
Rychlak (1977, 1981) provides an excellent treatment of the role time has come
to play in psychological explanation and theories of causality. (See also the
treatment of causality in Robinson, 1985.) Time, in the modern view, has
become linear and unidirectional rather than cyclical. It has assumed an on-
tological status that Aristotle probably never intended (though he may have
opened the door for it), and it has come to play an essential and determining
role in virtually all causal explanation. Space permits only brief mention of
several historical influences. (A more complete treatment of this history is
available in Faulconer and Williams, 1990.)
After Aristotle, the metaphysical project of our western tradition was in
place and underway. Following the paradigm set forth in Plato's forms and
Aristotle's Theos, scholars took being to be fundamental, and sought to
ground all explanation of the changing world of becoming in atemporal be-
ing. Adequate explanation was, therefore, atemporal explanation. The Chris-
tian god came to acquire atemporality as a chief and necessary attribute. As
Christianity rose to prominence the temporality of human events became in-
creasingly unidirectional and progressive in accordance with salvation history.
The creation marked the beginning of time, and the judgment would signal
the end. Progress was the hallmark of God's work. The idea that all events
take place in time, and that time moves as a point through space, already
present in Aristotle, as we have seen, was thus canonized.
Following the Medieval period, western intellectual history took a turn away
from interest in the "other world" of forms of god, to interest in the human
world. Epistemology replaced metaphysics as the fundamental task of
philosophyalthough it is clear that modern epistemology is rooted in
classical metaphysics (Faulconer and Williams, 1990). Descartes made cer-
tainty the model for all knowledge and sought to ground knowledge in the
mind. The mind came to assume all the important properties formerly at-
tached to being. It is unextended and thus atemporal. The principles or ax-
18 Theor. & Philo. Psych. Vol. 10, No. I 1990
ioms invoked by the mind as well as the processes of cognition employed in
the quest for certainty were atemporal. Descartes was also influential in pro-
viding a model of geometric space, composed of points, lines, and planes,
onto which time could readily be mapped. The Aristotlean analogy was given
added impetus.
Also important in this brief history is the turn toward empiricism and
mechanism beginning in this same period. It seemed clear that mechanisms
always operate in only one direction and that it takes time for them to do
their work. The "mechanization of the world picture" (Leahey, 1987, Ch. 4)
brought about the dominance of linear time. Linear time took on new im-
portance in causal explanation as well. This can be seen in Francis Bacon's
redefinition of the Aristotlean efficient cause in terms of impetus or force
which, naturally, requires time to act and only acts in one direction. As material
and efficient cause explanations came to be the only legitimate causal ex-
planations, efficient causal temporal sequencing came to be the dominant
model of cause.
Time and causality came together finally and most clearly in the work of
David Hume. It is this view of causality which, I submit, is the standard by
which causal explanations of psychological phenomena are judged today. For
Hume, causes must always precede their effects in time. Furthermore, the rela-
tion between cause and effect must be a necessary one, i.e., one which could
not really be otherwise. In the requirement of necessity, Hume was bringing
forward once again classical metaphysics and the emphasis on being. The
irony of Hume's treatment of causality is that he concluded human beings
are incapable of ever observing it, or achieving any certainty of (and, therefore,
any confidence in) its existence. This aspect of Hume's work has not daunted
most disciplines in the pursuit of such causal explanations, giving rise, in-
stead to lamentation at the impossibility of achieving what is clearly desirable
and necessary for intelligibility. Temporal sequencing of cause and effect con-
tinues to be a defining characteristic of any causal explanation acceptable
to psychology.
IV. Temporality, the Post-Modern Reply
The post-modern tradition, of which the works of Martin Heidegger, Jurgen
Habermas, Jacques Derrida, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, are exemplary, takes
as its task the "deconstruction" of traditional metaphysics. This task is under-
taken because those within the tradition sense that metaphysical explanations
are unable to actually provide what they promise (certainty and necessity),
and that, even in the attempt to do so, they lose the very world they set about
to capture and clarify. Because traditional metaphysics has always sought ex-
planation in terms of atemporality (being) part of the deconstruction of
metaphysics involves rethinking our notions of time and temporality. Where
metaphysics has taken atemporal being to be fundamental, the post-modern
perspective takes temporality to be fundamental. Temporality, however, is not
to be understood in terms of the traditional view of time which, as I sug-
gested above, is itself atemporal, but rather as an alternative to such a view.
Time and Temporality 19
Heidegger would take issue with Aristotle's treatment of time in the for-
mulating of the question with which the treatment begins. Aristotle's first
question is whether time is "among things that are or things that are not"
(Physics, 217
b
31). For Heidegger, this is entirely the wrong question with
which to begin the discussion of the nature of time because it presupposes
the traditional metaphysic of things. There is a more fundamental question.
Before we can decide whether some particular thing (like time) is or is not,
we must be clear about what it means to be at all. Heidegger's fundamental
question is "why is there something rather than nothing?" He sets about to
investigate what might mean to say that anything (including time) is (Heideg-
ger, 1959).
Since one of the functions of time for Aristotle was to divide necessary
things (being) from things that change (becoming), and since that is precise-
ly the division that Heidegger seeks to overcome, we might expect Heidegger
to offer a refutation. His refutation does not, however, amount to simple re-
jection. Indeed Heidegger wants to preserve some of the best Aristotlean in-
sights. Heidegger (1962, 471-480) suggests that Aristotle is right in saying that
time is counting (number), but it does not follow that there is something to
count. Aristotle seems to talk about time as if there were something (moments)
to count. For Heidegger, rather it is in the act of counting that time has its
existence. Since this act is temporal (as are all acts) the fundamental being
of time is temporal rather than atemporal.
One implication of seeing time as act is that without the act there would
be no time. This is nearly a response to one of Aristotle's last questions
whether there could be time without mind. Since mind is an abstraction
meant to preserve being and atemporalityHeidegger would not formulate
the question in these terms. Rather, he holds (1959, p. 84) that "time is not
eternity and [it] fashions itself into a time only as a human, historical being-
there." For Heidegger (1962, pp. 464), we reckon time because of "thrown-
ness," because we find ourselves in a world not of our own making. Such
reckoning is a part of our making sense of our being there.
Since traditional time-following Aristotle is an abstract thing made up
of a series of identical nows, it cannot carry "significance" nor "datability"
(Heidegger, 1962, pp. 474-475). This is because if this view of time is correct,
we cannot know anything but the single now in which we exist (and even the
status of this knowledge is in question since Hume). We could never have
the horizon of "world time" necessary for understanding meaning in the world.
(See Faulconer and Williams, 1985, for a fuller analysis of this problem.) Simp-
ly put, the traditional view of time and temporal sequencing obviates mean-
ing and understanding. We are thus left with two alternatives, to yield to some
ultimate Humean skepticism, or to reject the traditional notion of time in
favor of an understanding of the world as temporality. The post-modern
philosopher or psychology pursues the latter course.
There is some historical evidence that this position to which we have come
so recently is perhaps a rediscovery of an ancient position in the works of
the Presocratics. Anaximander, for example (Wheelwright, 1960, pp. 52-54,
20 Theor. & Philo. Psych. Vol. 10, No. 1, 1990
288), ascribes to time a role in the moral regulation of the universe. Time
is intrinsically bound up with morality. In early Greek philosophy, two words
are used to speak of time. The first, chronos, is translated as time in the sense
of the moments through which events move. The other word, kairos, is often
translated as the "right time" (e.g., Wheelwright, 1960, p. 48), or the "oppor-
tune moment" (e.g., Wheelwright, 1960, p. 274). (Ricoeur, 1985, p. 166, makes
a similar distinction in another context.) The implication of this latter no-
tion of time is seen in the following passage from Hippocratic medical
philosophy:
Time is that which there are opportune moments, and an "oppor-
tune moment" (Kairos) is that in which there is not much time.
Healing goes on in time, when the moment is opportune.
(Wheelwright, 1960, p. 274)
Our modern view of time, as a reading of Aristotle, has assumed that
chronos is the fundamental and correct conception of time, and that kairos
is derivative therefrom. The post-modern theorist would question such a claim
of priority. Post modernism in viewing time as human action seeks to rescue
meaning in the world, and perhaps something of the original Greek insight
into time.
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