Aristotle’s account of time

Introduction

The present paper deals with Aristotle’s concept of time. He defines time by saying that
time is the number of motion in respect to before and after. In this paper, I will try to explain
Aristotle’s concept of time and its relation with motion. Time, for Aristotle, is fundamentally
linked to change and motion. Where there is alteration or movement, there is time, for
everything that comes to be and ceases to be are in time. It is also worth noting that Aristotle has
restricted his discussion of time strictly to the natural objects capable of motion. Objects that
exist eternally are not in time. This is why Aristotle’s analysis of time belongs not to
his Metaphysics but to Physics, to his natural philosophy, for “every alteration and all that
change is in time” (222b31). The question, “What is time?”, will be expounded in terms of
what it is for time to exist; by virtue of what can we say that time “is”; and whether time can be
said to be among things that are or things that are not, that is to say, whether time is in the order
of being or in the order of non-being.
Time appears prima facie to be identical to change and movement. Aristotle argues the time
being the ‘now’. Because the now is the temporal instant that is our most immediate experience
of time. But, time is also a motion of some kind, namely, the motion from time-not-yet to time-
no-longer. Insofar as time implies a sense of a before and after, we can say that time is the
coming-to-be and passing-away of nows moving in an irreversible, linear fashion. Time, hence,
is essentially successive. However, we can grasp this succession of nows if and only if we have
some conceptual means of distinguishing one now from another now, and this we have if and
only if we perceive that a change has in fact taken place between the passage of one now to
another now. In other words, time cannot elapse unless there is change, and change cannot occur
unless there is time. Indeed, the very movement of time from one now to another now, its
passage from a before and an after, presupposes that some change is taking place. As Aristotle
writes, “not only do we measure change by time, but time by change, because they are defined
by one another” (220b14-15).

Time and motion:

In interpreting Aristotle, there are three possible ways of thinking the relationship between time
and motion- 1.Time and motion are independent things, and time is related to motion only
insofar we become aware of it.
2. Time and motion are identical.
3. Time is not motion, but is inseparable from and dependent on motion.
Among these possible interpretations, the first one cannot be acceptable. Time and motion
cannot be independent, for Aristotle says ‘time is either motion or something that belongs to
motion’ (219a8-9).
Neither it is entirely accurate to say that time is identical to change and movement. For Aristotle
points out, time is not identical to change because change presupposes movement in space, and
time has no location. We can only point to time as ‘now’. The ‘now’ itself, strictly speaking, is
not motion (218b18). That is, the only way to understand time is the last option: it is evident that
time is neither motion nor independent of motion. The task for us is to clarify where exactly to
attribute this movement of time: (1) does it belong to things in motion or (2) does it, more
generally, belong to how humans experience time or (3) does it, in fact, inhere in time itself? If
Aristotle holds that time is not motion yet also that time and motion necessarily imply one
another, then how precisely to think the interrelation of time and change?
It is at this point Aristotle offers his definition of time.
Aristotle defines time as “a number of change in respect of the before and after” (219b1).
Time is not motion; it is a number, more exactly, a number of motion, that by which can motion
be numerically estimated. It is important to note here that by defining time as a number of
motions, Aristotle does not mean that time is a number with which we count; time is not a
number as such. Rather, time is a number of motions, that by which we can quantitatively
express the qualitative modification of something undergoing change. Time is ‘of’ the before and
after in motion. So, to understand time, first we must understand what Aristotle means by before
and after. If we can show they are ‘in’ motion, and the way the number is ‘of’ them, then we can
grasp Aristotle’s account of time. Put in other words, the explanation of ‘now’ must clarify the
relation of time and motion.
Further, we will discuss the accounts of Julia Annas and David Bostock to examine the nature of
the ‘now’ and clarify the relation between time and motion.

 Julia Annas
In the article “Aristotle, number and time’ Annas argues that the idea of counting and
measuring in Metaphysics I could help to explain the meaning of number, and therefore
of time. In order to count, we must specify in advance what unit we are counting, e.g.
centimeters, men, cows etc. the unit is arbitrary, but once marked off it is the principle of
counting, so that taken as a unit, ‘one is a measure of number’ (Annas 99). Annas argues,
for Aristotle counting is what forms the unit of measure, showing how number is related
to measure. As the principle of counting, the unit is arbitrary but basic and indivisible
(1052b32). Annas says, unlike for Plato, the ‘one’ is just a thing in the world. There is no
need for a separate number or unit itself. What she means to say is that Aristotle held a
non-platonic view regarding number. Number has no independent existence over and
above the numbering-act.
Annas remarks that ‘nows’ are unit of time. We use them to mark off units. Aristotle says
that the ‘now’ is the limit with which we mark off time, the way points mark off a line.
Time is not the ‘now’, but it is formed by marking off the ‘nows’. Hence, time is number
as the extremities of a line form a number, and not as the part of the line (220a13-15).
 In general approaching the problem of time by asking ‘how do we quanitify time?’ is
very different from asking ‘what makes time happen?’. The first question presupposes
that time exists. But Aristotle does not assume that time exists already. It comes along
with motion. But the way it comes along with motion is trough the ‘now’. In short, what
generates time is not comparing units, but counting motion.

 David Bostock
Bostock remarks that Aristotle’s thesis that ‘time is not without motion’ (218b21-219a10)
Aristotle infers without any evident warrant that time must be a property of motion and
shortly after concludes that it is a number. Bostock further remarks that for Aristotle it
seems that if time is the only quantity of motion. If Aristotle’s doctrine is to be
acceptable, then one must suppose that the phrase ‘in respect to the before and after’ has
some significance. In fact it must be supposed to be picking out the temporal aspect of
motion as opposed to its other quantifiable aspects (Bostock 136).
Aristotle has begun by recalling his usual doctrine that every motion is from one terminus
to another. Then, introducing the apparently important factors of before and after, he says
that these are notions which primarily apply in space, where they signify position, and
that they thence are transferred to motion, and thence to time. So, we have apparently
three kinds of before-and after to reckon with- in place, in motion and in time. That is to
say, time is defined as a quantity of motion either in respect of the before and after in
time, or in respect of the before and after in motion, or finally, in respect of the before
and after in place. Now in the last case the quantity in question can only be a distance
covered by the motion, so we can certainly rule out this alternative. It seems that the
before and after in question must be of motion, for specifying them as the before and
after of time would seem to import an obvious circularity into the definition. We must,
then, say that time is defined as a certain quantity of motion, viz. that which is
determined by the before and after in time, the temporal instants, or ‘nows’.( Bostock
138).

The asymmetrical relation between time and motion

In her article, ‘Why does Aristotle say that there is no time without change?’ Ursula
Coope points out that relationship between time and motion or change is asymmetrical.
Because time is the number of motion, Coope says, the claims ‘no time without change
and to change without time’ are asymmetrical. There is no time without change because
time depends on, or comes from motion. But when it comes to the claim that ‘there is no
change without time’, Aristotle’s point is not that change depends on time, e.g. to be
measured, but rather than to be able to say there is motion we must already mark it off
with before and after. For Aristotle, to experience motion is to articulate it into ‘before’
and ‘after’. In a word, whenever we say there is motion, we can also say there is time.
Aristotle concludes from this asymmetrical relation that time differs from, but belongs to
change.
But if in Aristotle’s doctrine the ‘now’ is what relates and distinguishes time from
motion, the asymmetry between these two is in the structure of ‘now’. Aristotle says that
the ‘now’ is the same in substratum in motion, but differs in definition. But differing in
definition means that the ‘now’ does not demarcate motion, it demarcates time. As
Aristotle writes: ‘what is bounded by the now is time’. Though it is in motion, it points us
away from motion and towards time, and in doing so, bounds time.
To sum up, we can say that it is not by counting the ‘nows’ that we get time, it is in
marking motion with ‘nows’ that a number appears, corresponding to the stretch between
them. It can be said, insofar as motions articulate and differentiate themselves, time arises
in the motion of things.

Conclusion
In conclusion, if we hold to Aristotle’s distinction between ‘what is counted’ and ‘that
with which we count’ we can sort out the relationship between time, motion and the
‘now’. In Aristotle’s account, motion is related to number because it generates a ‘before’,
‘after’ and the ‘now’. However, motion itself, according to Aristotle, is not countable; by
marking off motion, the before and the after have delimited that which we number,
namely, time. In otherwise, by marking off motion with the before and the after, we
actually count time. Therefore, time is not motion, nor is it the number of ‘nows’, but
only the number of motion.

Corollary questions
Aristotle’s account of time, however, poses some question to me. They are yet unresolved
and open for discussion.
1) Time, might be said, consists of past or before, future or after and present or now. But
the past has been and no longer, while the future is about to be and is not yet. And the
‘now’ or the present is evidently not a part of time. Since no parts of time exist, how
can time itself exist?
2) If the now is always changing, then a past ‘now’ has ceased to be, in order to be
replaced by a present ‘now’. When did that happen? Surely not at the very moment
that the past ‘now’ existed? Again, surely, not later than that time, for then that ‘now’
must have continued through the interval till then, which is impossible. So, the now
cannot be changing.
Again, when Aristotle says that ‘nows cannot be next to each other, any more than
points’ (218a18), it seems he thinks of time as continua, like the real numbers. In that
light, if a now has ceased to exist at some later now, then it must persist through some
interval until the later now. Requiring the original now to occur at the same time as
 those distinct nows in interval, so be the the same now as each of them. This would
indeed be an incoherent view.
But if the now is not changing, then all events must occur in one and the same now.
That is, all events occur simultaneously and so there is no before and after. So, the
now cannot be unchanging.
3) Time is the number of motion. Again the concept of motion involves the concept of
time. Aristotle himself says that ‘Not only do we measure the motion by time, but
also the time by motion’. There is an evident circularity in the notion. Hence, the
account can certainly be questioned.

References

1) Annas Julia: Aristotle, Number and Time, The Philosophical Quarterly

1975 vol25 no.99
2) Bostock David: Space, Time, Matter and Form, Oxford Aristotle studies
series 2006
3) Coplestone Frederick S.J. A History of Western Philosophy, Doubleday
1993
4) Ross Sir David: Aristotle, Methuen & Co. ltd 1923