Domenico Mancuso

Mc Taggart's celebrated proof of the unreality of time is a chain of implications whose final step asserts that the A-series (i.e. the classification of events as past, present or future) is intrinsically contradictory. This is widely believed to be the heart of the argument, and it is where most attempted refutations have been addressed; yet, it is also the only part of the proof which may be generalised to other contexts, since none of the notions involved in it is specifically temporal. In fact, as I show in the first part of the paper, McTaggart's refutation of the A-series can be easily interpreted in mathematical terms; subsequently, in order to strengthen my claim, I apply the same framework by analogy to the cases of space, modality, and personal identity. Therefore, either McTaggart's proof as a whole may be extended to each of these notions, or it must embed some distinctly temporal element in one of the steps leading up to the contradiction of the A-series. I conclude by suggesting where this element might lay, and by hinting at what I believe to be the true logical fallacy of the proof.

The notion of alternative possibilities plays a key role in the contemporary debate on free will; yet, depending on the author’s perspective, it may be interpreted in deeply conflicting ways. Specifically, libertarians understand it as a genuine possibility, to be exerted in the actual world and in the present moment, while compatibilists project it into an alternate reality, where a given action has different antecedents. Using a geometric metaphor, we could refer to a divergent paradigm of possibility versus a parallel one. Though legitimate from a formal point of view, the compatibilist reading is at odds with our intuitive self-perception as free agents, which involves a feeling of causal openness of our actions – not those I might perform under different circumstances, but those I perform here and now. The divergent paradigm is confronted in turn by some serious conceptual problems, and ultimately results either in a paralysis of the will, or in the activity of some mysterious entity such as Fate or Fortune. As a response, in the last part of the paper I outline a different paradigm, which I call circular, where an act and its rational explanation are linked by a mutual entailment: in this context, alternative possibilities are instantiated by setting up from the beginning a different explanatory circle.