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Philosophy essay

Philosophy

1-Explain Augustine 's temporal paradox . What does he conclude with respect to the ontological status of time ? How might one argue against Augustine 's position

Augustine 's temporal paradox can be explained by starting with our typical beliefs about time , to wit : the past does not exist , the future is yet to exist and only the present actually exists . However the actual existence of the present has no duration because it immediately becomes the past or the future the moment we try to isolate it . In the words of St

. Augustine , The present hath no space . The temporal paradox refers to the existence only of the present which however does not have a duration

Following this temporal paradox and Augustine treated time in ontological terms , i .e . in relation to the nature of being and existence . We derive the notion of time by perceiving something that has passed , something that exists and something that will exist in the future . Time is embodied and manifested through the duration of things that come into being to the present that passed away in an incessant continuum of past and future . Consequently , material things move from existence to existence to non existence (past , present and future The perpetuation of the time continuum entails that the mind expects and attends , and remembers , so that what it expects passes by way of what it attends to into what it remembers (Augustine , 2002 , p236 What the mind expects is the future , what is remembers is...

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