By Fiona Beck ’24

Majors: Anthropology and Philosophy

Contributor Biography: Fiona Beck is a senior and soon-to-be graduate of Washington College pursuing a B.A. in Anthropology and Philosophy. While at Washington College, she has been the president of the MMA Club and a part of the Art Club executive board helping coordinate club events and meetings. Also, she is a member of multiple honor societies including Omicron Delta Kappa, Lambda Alpha, and Phi Sigma Tau. When she’s not doing academic work, Fiona loves spending time immersed in nature, reading a good book, or pursuing new kinds of art.

Brief Description: This essay displays an analysis of Augustine Aurelius’ perspective of what defines time. Presenting faults of Augustine’s arguments along with present-day connections help support assertions made throughout the piece.

The following was written for Philosophy 435: Philosophy, Dialogue, Methods

Time has existed as a standard that the world conforms to without much questioning. It is a standard that helps society function on a set schedule; without it, society would be unstable. Although the majority has chosen to follow time through measured constructs such as hours and days, some people have questioned time through an abstract lens. Such abstract concepts include the ideas of the past, present, and future. Augustine of Hippo was a philosopher who wrote many pieces including his series titled Confessions, in which he addressed the issues he had with time, along with concepts related to the Judeo-Christian God. Augustine’s argument on these concepts focused on his definitions of the past, present, and future. Although many of his assertions are agreeable, an analysis of his argument reveals flaws that are present within his perspective.

Augustine views the past, present, and future as a continuous flow of motion that a being experiences. He states that the concept of the past is built upon memory. These memories are recorded events that occurred at previous moments, which the present mind is perceiving and processing. On the other end of the spectrum, he sees the future as the events the imagination presumes will occur. Since the future is unknown to all, there is no definite possibility for what it could hold. It is only what the present mind anticipates will happen in hypothetical situations. Finally, between the past and the future is an ever-fleeting moment of the present. The present cannot be perceived as an exact moment, for it is constantly being experienced by everyone in different and independent capacities.^[1] These ideas of time are simultaneously subjective and objective, since they depend both on individual perspective and the impartiality of situations. With this complex questioning of how time should be perceived and how it should be defined, Augustine’s argument is important because it causes us to question normalized structural standards of society. It leads us to ask: if there is no exact definition of time, is it just one big illusion?

Augustine begins his argument by asking what God was doing before the creation of reality and why he chose to create. This point stems his further exploration into time, since it leads him to propose a paradox based upon the timeline of God’s creation. Augustine wonders how God’s will caused creation and if it is possible that time did not exist before the exact moment it occurred.^[2] Was there any past perceived by God before the moment of creation, and if so, what was it based on? He also questioned the idea that if God experiences memories, he is a being that experiences change. This presents further doubt regarding how it is plausible for God to be seen as an eternal entity. This notion directly contradicts the changeless quality associated with God, so we are left with a paradox. This is one alternate concept that Augustine provided outside his argument of time that is still worth questioning since it leads him to wonder how God would see and exist in time.

The construct of time in present society is used in measured increments that help individuals follow a collective schedule. Without the construct of time, everyone would be acting on different agendas, lacking uniformity. Meetings, schedules, or societal structure and function would be impossible. Augustine stated that this measured concept of time is purely relative.^[3] So, time is dependent upon an individual’s motion throughout their experience of life; as the sun spins around the earth, the time displayed on the clock depends on where the sun is in its cycle and where the one is on the planet. With this perceived relativity, there is no further support for the societal constructs of time holding any validity in reality.

When assessing Augustine’s argument, objections arise from his definitions of the past and future. Since memory and imagination, the brain processes on which Augustine builds his concepts of the past and future, occur in a well-functioning brain, he ignores how people with conditions that affect cognitive processes like these would perceive time. For example, someone diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease struggles with the part of their brain that processes memory. Throughout their life, they were able to process memories and perceive the past, but once the disease progresses and starts affecting their cognition, would the past not exist to them? This is a tricky situation because the person would have lived through their memories and processed them under previous circumstances, but when Alzheimer’s takes hold, their memories are slowly stripped away. Though this effect of the disease is inevitable, the person’s “past” cannot be completely disregarded since it was once present to them. Though as they progress into the future they lose more and more of who they were, I believe they are still entitled to their past experiences as they perceived them when they were fully competent. They have no control over the progression of the disease, so would Augustine say that they cannot perceive time once the disease takes hold of their perception?

Another example can be applied to Augustine’s perception of the present to root out its faults. Individuals who have experienced traumatic situations may develop post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects their conscious ability to perceive and process events. In many recorded occurrences, an individual with PTSD may experience dissociative episodes, causing them to be unable to process ongoing events; they mentally detach from reality. Even though they are still experiencing the flow of events, they are doing so in a purely physical form since their mental perceptions are removed. During these episodes, a period of time may seem to be five minutes when in actuality 20 minutes have passed. Augustine might reply to this argument by saying that we as a society perceive time through measured increments like minutes and that that is where we fault ourselves. Though he may have a valid objection to my point, I believe that those who suffer from dissociation are experiencing present moments, but at a different rate than the majority. Their experience of the present may be altered on a mental level, but their physical body is still experiencing the moment like any other.

My perspective on the definition of time differs from Augustine’s. I agree with his concepts pertaining to the present, since it is an ever-changing state with no moment that can define it. I also agree with his assertion that the concepts of the past and future are dependent on the status of the present mind. Nevertheless, I think that there is a more prevalent mind-body connection present when processing time. In situations like dissociative episodes, as stated previously, I think that the inclusion of the body in the experience of time is necessary. Additionally, I see time as the range of experiences one has from birth to death. This means that even when one is unable to consciously remember past experiences, such as those from infancy, there is still an acknowledgement of the “past” since the body and mind were present. A person may not have processed these moments like those occurring later in life with the support of learned languages, but they still perceived them.

Considering the idea of time being connected to everyone’s individual experiences from birth to death, I feel the process of aging is important to consider when analyzing what could constitute the definition of time. The aging quality of all things shows a physical representation of time passing. From the wearing characteristics of the physical body, such as wrinkles, to the changing of the leaves with the seasons, clear displays of aging help represent the process of elapsing time. Though it is possible that one could present a situation of a simulated event that falsely displays one of these occurrences, such as pre-weathered leaves on artificial trees to imply a tree existing in autumn when in actuality it is spring, I feel that unaltered signs of age are still accurate representations of the continuous quality of time.

I also wonder about the concept of time at death. When connecting this idea to Augustine’s concept of the future, since death is an inescapable and unpredictable certainty of life, how can one perceive the future, using Augustine’s definition, when death could occur at any time? Death is inevitable and no one knows when their time will end or what happens after death. We do not know if time stops when after death. Although this is a proposition to which we may never know the answer, I think it is still valuable to consider.

Augustine’s view of the past, present, and future has been regarded by many scholars, and it is the basis of many criticisms and further investigations. Though he presents a valiant effort in trying to define this concept of time, he never provides an exact definition in his conclusion. There are numerous influences affecting the mind’s perception of time that were not acknowledged during Augustine’s life, which may have led to the proposed faults of his discussion. Will there ever be exact definitions of the past, present, and future? Since they are all moments experienced by humanity, I hope so, but the concepts may be impossible to convey through the manners and languages in which we communicate, leaving us in infinite inconclusion.

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[1] Aurelius Augustine, “Augustine on Time,” trans. Edward Buckner, Augustine on Time, May 2006, http://www.logicmuseum.com/time/augustineonntime.htm, 61.

[2] Augustine, “Augustine on Time,” 59.

[3] Augustine, “Augustine on Time,” 63.

Bibliography

Augustine, Aurelius. Translated by Edward Buckner. Augustine on Time, May 2006. http://www.logicmuseum.com/time/augustineonntime.htm.