Table of Contents:
Preface
I. Introduction: The Nature and Vindication
Prevalent Repudiation of Metaphysics
What is Metaphysics?
The Restoration of Metaphysics
II. Metaphysical Problems of Time
Passage, Movement, and Measurement
How Do We Identify the Present?
Change, Permanence, and the Transcendence of Passage
Spinoza Provides a Clue
III. Physical Time
Attempts to Eliminate Passage from Physical Time
Process, Order, and Chaos
The Paradoxes of Zeno
Cosmic Time
Time Reversal
Cosmic History and Cosmic Unity
IV. Biological Time
Organism and Duree
The Emergence of Life
Evolution
Environment and Biological Clocks
Behavior
Biocoenoses
Conclusion
V. Psychological Time
The Stream of Consciousness
The Specious Present
Time and the Transcendental Subject
The Problem of the Transcendental Ego
Soultion to the Problem
VI. Historical Time
Res Gestae
The Idea of the Historical Past
The Historical Process
Structuralism and Deconstructionism
VII. Dialectic in History
Historical Thinking
Transformation of Conceptual Schemes
The Dialectical Scale
Historical Objectivity
The Historical Universal
VIII. Evolution and Omega
Evolution , Diachronic, and Synchronic
The Features of Wholeness
Differentiation and Process
The Clue to "Omega"
Omega and Time
Omega and Deity
"Mysticism"
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Errol E. Harris is John Evans Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University.
Review :
"This is a substantial and well-written essay on a key topic in metaphysics, by a distinguished and seasoned metaphysician who is also a master of the scientific literature of recent decades. The writing is vigorous, concise, and clear, and the examples are aptly chosen and lucidly formulated. It is a book of unique distinction." — George L. Kline, Milton C. Nahm Professor of Philosophy, Bryn Mawr College
"It is a beautiful piece of deep philosophical thinking, expressed with outstanding clarity and elegance. I like especially the rare combination of rich immersion in the facts of science with profound creative reflection and synthesis. This is truly a distinguished, even great work." — W. Norris Clarke, S. J., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Fordham University
"The Reality of Time is cogently thought out and clearly written. Once I started, I could not put it down. I regard this book as an eminently perceptive presentation of the import of time for all intellectual concerns. Demonstrating time's pervasive implications for basic questions of science, thought, and history, this book is also an exceptionally readable introduction to perennial questions of metaphysics as well. For a text obviously addressed not to specialists but to a generally literate audience, (the author) has done a masterful job." — Charles M. Sherover, Hunter College
