Duration and the Specious Present

Duration and the Specious Present Gustav Bergmann Philosophy of Science, Vol. 27, No. 1. (Jan., 1960), pp. 39-47. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248%28196001%2927%3A1%3C39%3ADATSP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P Philosophy of Science is currently published by The University of Chicago Press.

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DURATION AND THE SPECIOUS PRESENT* GUSTAV BERGMANN** State University of Iowa

T h e problem I shall discuss is specific, even minute. Yet, being philosophical, it arises and can be profitably discussed only in a context anything but minute, namely, that of a conception of philosophy and its proper method. I could not possibly unfold my conception once more for the sake of a minute problem. Nor do I believe that as things now stand this is necessary. I shall merely recall two propositions which are crucial in the context, and, in stating them, shall freely use its vocabulary. The undeJined descriptive terms of the ideal language all refer to phenomenal things wholly presented. These things all are either individuals or characters, and, if characters, either relational or nonrelational. These are the two propositions. I t may throw light on another crucial point not always well understood if I imagine someone to ask: Wholly presented to whom? T h e answer is: T o the person to whose world the philosopher, who , himself always speaks commonsensically, fits the ideal language. Science is common sense elaborated. T o speak scientifically, therefore, is to speak commonsensically. T h u s I shall speak commonsensically, as by the rules of the context I must, if I avail myself of the time line of classical physics in stating next how I shall use 'duration' and 'instant'. An interval on the time line, however long or short, is a duration. A point on the time line is an instant. Instantaneous things are abstractions or fictions. T h e troubles into which one gets by using uncritically either 'abstraction' or 'fiction' are not now my concern. I merely use them to recall, with familiar words, that instantaneous things, if there be any, belong to elaborated common sense. Duration requires no such qualification. Return to the man to whose world the philosopher fits the ideal language. Assume that a green spot appeared in his visual field at time 0, persisted without interruption or change until time 2 (seconds), then disappeared. I n the context, the spot is an individual. I t has a duration. Notice, though; that it is the philosopher, speaking commonsensically, who just used the phrase 'having a duration' (and the word 'individual'), just as it is he who looked at his watch to time the spot. Note also what I shall mean by 'contained'. When the durations of, say, two individuals lie, in the time-line sense, inside a third, then I shall say that the two individuals as well as the qualities and relations they exemplify are contained in the third. What is the "problem of time"? A philosopher's answer depends on his

* Received

June, 1959.

** This paper is the result of a five-comered

discussion. HERBERT HOCI~BERC proposed the

puzzle. EDWINB. ALLAIRR, MAY BRODBECK, GROSSMANN and REINHARDT contributed with him to the solution. But it seemed pretentious to put five names to a short paper. So the four agreed to my writing it up. The responsibility, therefore, is mine alone.

39

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GUSTAV BEIIGMANN

context. I n mine it all hinges on the answer to one question. How are commonsensical statements containing either an explicit or an implicit reference to time, such as the statement that a certain individual has a certain duration, to be transcribed into, or, as one also says, reconstructed in the ideal language ( I L ) ? T h e 'in' is crucial. (That is why I emphasized in the last paragraph that it was the philosopher who spoke and looked at his watch.) T h e question, though one in a sense, is yet so large that it can and must be divided into several smaller ones. Quite a few of these I have tried to answer, against the full background of the context, in a rather long study.l This time, I shall attend to one only. Even so, attention must be called to what in the context sets the style of all partial questions and answers. 'The specious present' is not a phrase in every one's mouth. Yet the notion is commonsensical. Those who elaborate it are the psychologists. A specious present is a duration. Specifically, it is what the psychologists call the (temporal) span of a man's attention. How long then is a specious present ? What does its length depend o n ? What are the upper and lower limits? Wundt and his contemporaries worried such questions; quite legitimately, for they were psychologists. T o us, both questions and answers are irrelevant. All that matters is that the notion, however to be elaborated, is commonsensical and is that of a duration. T o see why this is so, turn to the two propositions from the context with which I began. Time is part of the world's content, not of its (logical) form. Hence the undefined temporal terms of the I L are all descriptive. Furthermore, they all name relational characters exemplified by individuals and not either individuals or qualities of such.2 'I'hat much I take from the context. T h e point is that for an undefined term to occur in the I L , the thing it names must be wholly presented. A necessary condition for a thing to be wholly presented is that it be contained in a specious present. Or, perhaps better, this is (part of) what in the context it means to be wholly presented. T h e task, therefore, is to "build time" (in the I L ) from (the names of) temporal relations, each of which can be exemplified in a specious present. T h a t is one of the two features which in the context set the style for all questions and answers about time. Let us look at the other. Let 'a' and 'gr' be the names (in the I L ) of the spot I mentioned and of its color. I assumed that it did not change. No individual can undergo any change whatsoever, either qualitative or relational, during its duration. T h a t is the second feature. T o see why this is so, assume that the spot did change color during its duration, began by being green, ended by being red. Since a is its (unchanging) name, and since 'gr(a)' is a well-formed sentence (of IL), 'gr(a)' and '-gr(a)' would both be true. This, of course, is logical catastrophe. t

9

"Sotne Reflections on Time," in I1 ll'enzpo (Archivio di Filosofin, 1958), 49-82; reprinted in afrd I?xistence (University of Wisconsin Press, 1959); hereafter cited as SRT. 'I'he limitntion to relntionnl things amounts to the rejection of nbsolute time. For details see SRT.

Mennilzg

DURATION AND THE SPECIOUS PRESENT

41

I t will help to drive home what has just been said as well as prepare the ground for what will be said presently, if I call attention to a possible ambiguity in the use of 'change'. Consider two sentences. (1) T h e world's individuals are unchanging. (2) There is no change in the world. Idiomatically, the transition from (1) to (2) is so slight that it hardly gives us pause. Yet there obviously is "change" in the world, since there is time in it. There is, and there must be, change possible in a specious present, since it is a duration. (Perhaps I should speak of the "world of the context," rather than of the "world." But the qualification is obvious; so I suppress it.) Imagine a specious present of duration [0,5] containing two individuals, one green and of duration [1,2], the other red and of duration [3,4], and nothing else. T h e example shows the sense in which there is "change" in this world of unchanging individuals, or loosely, in this world without "change." This is the ambiguity in a certain use of 'change' I wanted to spot. The interval numbers I just used and shall continue to use are without any intrinsic significance. I use them merely to save tedious diagrams. Next for four comments. They may seem a digression; yet they, too, prepare the ground. Moreover, they illustrate the method in connection with a minute point. Such illustration, I think, is always valuable. First. Are two individuals contained in one specious present simultaneous ? Roughly, yes. For a specious present is so short that an even rougher notion of simultaneity will do quite well on many occasions. Consider then, for a moment, the definition of 'x is (roughly) simultaneous with y' by 'x and y are both contained in a (someone's) specious present'. Note that in trying on this odd definition we speak commonsensically and from without, as it were, that is, not within the world to which the I L is fitted. I put it so circumstantially because the I L is not really a language spoken by anyone. Having made the point, though, I shall not always be so accurate and, as is customary, speak about speaking (commonsensically) about and speaking in the IL. Second. Assume, for the sake of the argument and as will soon transpire contrary to fact, that the odd definiens is available in the Ik as the name of a character exemplified by individuals. If it were, it wouldn't be of any help with the job of building time. This is the next point to be grasped. Consider the last example. T h e individuals of duration [ l , 21 and [3,4] respectively exemplify a (temporal) precedence relation, which beyond any doubt is some.tiaes wholly presented to us. Its name ('precedes' or 'earlier-later') rather obviously will be an undefined term indispensable for the building of time. Thus there would often be occasion to say of two individuals, in the IE, that they are (roughly) simultaneous as well as that one precedes the other. Rather obviously again, on this level of the reconstruction so rough a notion of simultaneity would be of no help. T h i ~ d .T h e odd definiens is in fact not available on the lowest level of the reconstruction, where one deals only with (the names of) individuals and the characters they exemplify. On this level one is guided by what is usually called phenomenology. What psychologists call phenomenological reports is among the material from which

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GUSTAV BERGMANN

they may eventually build their science. But phenomenology is not the science of psychology. Now consider three propositions. (a) 'Specious present', the crucial phrase of the spurious definiens, is a phrase of either common sense or the science of psychology (such as it now is). (b) Common sense and science lie in the reconstruction on a level or levels high above the lowest. (c) T h e job of building time must be begun at the very lowest level. For the level of common sense is being reached exactly when this job, together with some others, has been done. I t follows from (a), (b), and (c) that the spurious definiens is not available at the lowest level. For the truth of (a), (b), and (c) I shall not argue on this occasion. But 4: grant, even insist, that the very phrase 'level of the reconstruction' requires unpacking. Once more, though, P believe that as things now stand such unpacking can be dispensed with in a paper of this sort. Fourth. Rules for the "interpretation" of the IE, i.e., what I have spoken of as fitting it to someone's world, are part of the full articulation of the method. By these rules, the conditions under which the names of individuals and of characters respectively may occur in the I L differ in one respect. Consider a relational statement (of the IL) referring to two things. If the two things are individuals, then both their names can occur in the statement only of there is a specious present in which they are both contained. (Otherwise at least one must be referred to by an existential clause.) T h e rule for the occurrence of predicates is less restrictive. This is the difference. I t may be partly responsible for the confused idea that the psychological notion of a specious present enters in the wrong way into the building of time. T o dispel the confusion, one must grasp the distinction between what may "show itself" and what can actually be said at any given level of the IE. T h e distinction is crucial; so crucial indeed that I believe it should be brought out again and again, in connection with all kinds of minute points. Intervals on the time line either (1) lie outside of each other, e.g., [1,2], [3,4]; or, (2) they have an interval in common, e.g., [1,3], [2,4]; or, (3) one lies inside the other, e.g., [1,4], [2,3]. Combining (2) and (3), 1 shall say that in either of these cases the durations overlap. Individuals have durations. If their durations either lie outside of each other or overlap, I shall say that the individuals themselves do. If the durations of two individuals coincide, however, I shall say, not that they overlap, but that they are synchronous. T h e precedence relation mentioned before ('earlier-later') obtains between any two individuals if and only if they do not overlap. T h e (partial) questions and answers about time are many. Quite a few of them, including very important ones, are not affected by the simplifying assumption that no two individuals overlap. One assumes, then, that two individuals are either synchronous or that one precedes the other. Or, what as far as these questions are concerned amounts to the same, one may assume that all individuals are instantaneous. Making either of these assumptions, one can build time from 'precedes' and 'synchronous'. If, as I shall, one drops the simplifying assumption, time must be built from 'precedes' and

DURATION AND THE SPECIOUS PRESENT

43

'overlaps'. I t is of course not my intention in this note to do the whole job.

I merely propose to dissolve a puzzle, or solve a minute problem, one comes across at the very start. Consider a specious present, SF, of duration [0,2]. Its duration coincides with that of an individual, say, a green spot, called 'a' in IL. Another individual, called 'by in I L , of duration [0,1], is a red spot to the left ('If') of the first. Speaking from without and commonsensically, that is, among others things, in a language containing temporal determinations without paradox, we may divide SP into two parts, refer to them by "at first" and "then," respectively. We can describe what I assume to be the whole content of SF by the following sentence: (S) At first the red spot was to the left of the green one, then it wasn't. There is thus no difficulty. But turn now to I L . Both spots are contained in SP. Hence, 'a' and 'by are available "all through SP." T o grasp that, one merely has to remember the fourth comment of the apparent digression. Now I give the word to the one who proposed the puzzle. I n this situation, he says, one could in I L at first truly assert (S,) 'lf(b,a)'; then, equally truly, (S,) '-lf(b,a)'. Conjoining the two sentences, you obtain (S,) 'If(b,a). -lf(b,a)'. Thus we are in I L faced with contradiction, which is logical catastrophe. This is the problem. I n formulating it I planted the cue for a $first step toward its solution. I spoke of asserting S,, S,, and S,. Who does the asserting ? T h e I L , I recalled, is not spoken by any one, not even by the person to whose world it is fitted. But disregard for a moment the reminder and assume that this person speaks the IL. I believe that in this way the first point can be made more forcefully. A visual field is the base of a cone. The beholder's eye is in its apex. Metaphorically, a specious present is the base of a narrow isosceles triangle. I n its apex stands the "owner" of this specious present, who, as for the moment I assume, is also the "speaker" of the IL. From this point he surveys the whole duration of the specious present, say, SP. T h e point, though, is not itself located anywhere in this duration. Or, to say the same thing differently, whatever the speaker truly asserts may be asserted by him "all through SP." Only, we see now that, as I used it in stating the problem, the phrase 'all through SIP' is itself problematic. But let me use it once more to point out that, as I interpret 'lf','If(b,a)' may be truly asserted all through SP, as may 'ov(a,b)', where 'ov' stands for the transcription of 'overlap' into the IL. All this is obvious, I submit. I n spite of the metaphor, as some now use 'logic', it merely states the logic or use of 'specious present'. One may of course so interpret 'If' that 'lf(c,d)' is false unless the individuals named 'c' and 'd' are also synchronous. If so, then, in our case, '-IJ(b,a)' is true and, if that need be added, may be asserted all through SP. For good reasons I have not so interpreted 'If'. As I interpreted it, 'lf(b,a)' is true, and, again, may be asserted by our "speaker" throughout SP. (I use the misleading wording once more in order to leave no doubt which it is in my power to remove.) I t follows immediately that S,, S,, and S, cannot serve as transcriptions of S and its two conjunction terms, respectively. How, then,

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GUSTAV BERGMANN

are they to be transcribed ? I leave the answer to the fourth step. I t will further illuminate the context and add to the interest of the problem, if I next show, in the second step, why a certain kind of answer won't do. I n a world of unchanging individuals, either synchronous or one preceding the other, there is change. This we saw before. That is one kind of change. What happens in our example at time 1, when the red spot disappears while the green one persists, is another kind; call it the second. Phenomenally, there is still a third, the kind that occurs when we say, commonsensically, that in a specious present a spot moves or that it changes (continually) either brightness or color. Phenomenally, part of the essence of the third kind is continuity. These, it seems to me, are the three "fundamental" kinds of change of which, in an obvious sense, all others are "composed." Presently it will appear that my argument is not afected if for the time being I ignore the third kind. Now consider duration. I t is evident, or at least it is evident to me, that, aside from continuity, the second kind of change, that is, the one illustrated by the example, is the very essence of duration. T h e appeal to evidence, I submit, is not a sign of either fuzziness or sloth. Phenomenally the matter is fundamental. All one can do, therefore, is to make as clear as one can what one is talking about. Those who propose the solution that won't do, if only because it is not completely thought through, assert that whenever a change of the second kind occurs, something mental occurs, too. One specious present comes to an end; another begins. Thus, in the example, SP is not really a specious present. There could be that close a tie between change in the world (without minds) and change in minds. Since in fact there isn't, the solution has a deceptively idealistic (subjectivistic) flavor. But, then, one need not be deceived. On the other hand, if one accepts the gambit, then, clearly, our problem disappears. That makes the matter at least worth considering. So I shall start on two strings of comments. First. One may accept the gambit. What it amounts to, essentially, is to make one of the two simplifying assumptions that were mentioned. Formally, the (mathematical) continuum can be "constructed" from points on a line. Phenomenally, one narrows one's basis to what is presented in specious presents without either the second or the third kind of change. T h e price is high. I call it high because, e.g., the two spots of the example would no longer be individuals. Nor could they literally be named in the IL, i.e., they couldn't be referred to by undefined descriptive signs. Yet the price is not prohibitive. For, while the context requires that what is named be wholly presented, it does not require that what is so presented can also be named. Just think of the spot, mentioned at the beginning, which changes color in a specious present. As we saw, it cannot be an individual and cannot . ~ what be named in my, or, for that matter, in any nonsubstantialist ~ o n t e x tAnd holds for this spot, holds for any change of the third kind. About the alternative assumptions to which the gambit reduces I shall say this. With things For details, see SRT.

DURATION AND T H E SPECIOUS PRESENT

45

literally instantaneous I simply am not acquainted. That leaves the synchronous individuals. T o start from them is to accept a "fundamental phenomenological quantisation of time." This I am reluctant to do, if only because it entails, or seems to entail, that something makes sense which to me doesn't, namely, the introduction of duration into a world without any change whatsoever. (This is also why I called change of the second kind the essence, apart from continuity, of duration.) I am not at all sure, though, that this is a conclusive argument. Probably, the best argument against the gambit is that it is not necessary. Second. T h e proponents of the solution assert that no change of the second kind ever occurs in a specious present. That is patently false. I n the preceding paragraph I have shown that one can propose their gambit without committing one's self to the falsehood. But the confusion likely to have spawned it is of some interest. Remember the metaphor of the narrow triangle. T h e confusion consists in considering a specious present as the content of a single act issuing from a mind located in the apex of the triangle. Ontologically this triangle is nowhere. That is the limit of the metaphor which thus, like all metaphors, has its dangers as well as its uses. Positively, an act, or, rather, what in the .~ context correponds to it, is itself an individual, called an a ~ a r e n e s s Thus it lives in the world and not, like the triangle and its apex, in a metaphor. Being an individual, moreover, it has itself a duration; and there is no reason why two or more such individuals should not, as in fact I find they sometimes are, be contained in the same specious present. Executed in detail, the t h i ~ dstep takes quite long. I shall take it very quickly. I t amounts to the construction, in the I L , of the continuum of instants out of intervals (on a line) and the two relations of precedence and overlapping among them. Mathematicians know how to do that. So there is need for only one comment. If the construction is to succeed, some generalities containing the names of the two relations must be true. T h e mathematicians call such generalities axioms. Speaking commonsensically and therefore using some of the crucial words freely, the axioms assert such things as that, say, for any two intervals (individuals) which neither are contiguous nor overlap, there is a third preceding the one and preceded by the other. One may reasonably doubt whether these axioms are true. Or, perhaps better, one may wonder whether they do not go unreasonably far beyond what is ever presented to us. On a different level, this is the question of how to introduce real numbers into measurement. Such doubts don't bother me; such questions don't preoccupy me. If necessary, the job may be done by resorting to the partial interpretation of a c a l c u l u ~ .Perhaps this is the place for a more general ~ comment. 'The classical analysts, who flourished from the turn of the century to the beginning of the Second World War, and particularly the logical positivists among them, were greatly concerned with those doubts and questions. These things were at the very center of their interest. I n these See Meaning and Existence, specially the essay "Intentionality," but also SRT.

"ee Philosophy of Science (University of Wisconsin Press, 1957).

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GUSTAV BERGMANN

areas they made contributions which by now are uncontroversial-which doesn't mean, of course, that they were correct in all details or couldn't be otherwise improved upon. However that may be, I am more than willing to leave matters of this kind to the mathematical logicians. T h e dieerence in accent illustrates as well as any, I think, the difference between classical analysis and the kind of analytical philosophy some of us now practice. We are ready for the fourth step, the solution of our problem. T h e third step yields a defined arithmetical functor of the first type, write it 'du' and call it 'duration', such that 'du(a) = [0,2]' and 'du(b) = [0,1]' transcribe what so far we could only say commonsensically, from without, about the two spots of the example. I t remains to transcribe the statement I called S and its two conjunction terms. Arithmetic, being logical, is available to us in the IL. So we can readily form two sentences; one, call it Dl, stating that the first instants of the two durations coincide; the other, call it D,, stating that the last instant of the one precedes that of the other. Now I transcribe the three statements by (~,)'Zf(b,a).~,',(I,)'lf(b,a).D,', (I,)'Zf(b,a).D,.D,', respectively. 'Dl.D,' is not a contradiction; hence I, isn't. Thus the problem is solved. Or, if you please, the puzzle is dissolved. Three brief comments should settle the matter. One. A superficial similarity with Russell's analysis of definite descriptions suggests itself. Upon this analysis, the two sentences 'The present king of France is bald' and 'The present king of France is not bald' are no longer contradictions. Or, rather, there transcriptions are not. Second. As I interpreted 'If','lf(c,d)' can be truly asserted of any two individuals of a specious present, irrespective of how in this specious present they temporally lie to each other. That does not mean that we need two primitive notions of leftness; a crude one, wliich is the one I used; and a refined one, which involves synchrony. The point is, rather, that the refined one can, and for some purposes must, be defined in terms of the crude one in conjunction with the two primitive temporal relations. Third. 'At first' and 'then', the two expressions T used earlier when, speaking commonsensically, I introduced the example, are correlative. They "presuppose" each other. 'Dly and 'I),' do not state correlatives in this sense. Noticing this, some one may wonder whether I, and I, can really serve as transcriptions of the two parts of S. Such a one worries about ordinary language. I leave him to his worries and conclude with a more general reflection. Duration is a temporal notion. Continuity as such is not. Continuity is no doubt one of the essential ingredients of duration. Not being temporal, however, it cannot be the whole. The other essential ingredient of duration is the second kind of change. I n the IL, this ingredient is accurately and adequately represented by the undefined name for overlapping. I n this sense, the construction of time, a small part of which I have here considered, does full justice to duration. I n another sense it does not and cannot. I need not and shall not argue whether or not "duration" is introspectively simple. Whether or not it is, it is sometimes wholly presented to us. I t is in fact so presented whenever we find, in a specious present, the third kind of change,

DURATION AND THE SPECIOUS PRESENT

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e.g., a spot (continuously) changing color. Yet, the IL refers to duration by means of a defined functor and not, as would seem more satisfactory, by an undefined descriptive term. Nor, for that matter, can the spot which changes color be named in the IL. That shows how things hang together. The dissatisfaction itself cannot be removed in any nonsubstantialist context. More radically even, as I have shown e l ~ e w h e r ewe , ~ stand here at the natural limits of the analytical enterprise.

8

See the last section of SRT.