J. M. E. McTaggart - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

John McTaggart was an idealist

Idealism

In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

metaphysician

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

. For most of his life McTaggart was a fellow and lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

. He was an exponent of the philosophy of Hegel and among the most notable of the British idealists

British idealism

A species of absolute idealism, British idealism was a philosophical movement that was influential in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The leading figures in the movement were T.H. Green , F. H. Bradley , and Bernard Bosanquet . They were succeeded by the...

Personal life

J. M. E. McTaggart was born in 1866 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

to Francis and Ellen Ellis. At birth, he was named John McTaggart Ellis, after his maternal grand-uncle, John McTaggart. Early in his life, his family took the surname Ellis McTaggart as a condition of inheritance from that same uncle.
McTaggart attended Clifton College

Clifton College

Clifton College is a co-educational independent school in Clifton, Bristol, England, founded in 1862. In its early years it was notable for emphasising science in the curriculum, and for being less concerned with social elitism, e.g. by admitting day-boys on equal terms and providing a dedicated...

, Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, before going up to Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

, in 1885. At Trinity

Trinity College, Cambridge

he was taught for the Moral Sciences Tripos by Henry Sidgwick

Henry Sidgwick

Henry Sidgwick was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research, a member of the Metaphysical Society, and promoted the higher education of women...

and James Ward

James Ward (psychologist)

James Ward was an English psychologist and philosopher. He was born in Kingston upon Hull, the eldest of nine children. His father was an unsuccessful merchant...

, both distinguished philosophers. After obtaining First class honours (the only student of Moral Sciences to do so in 1888), he was, in 1891, elected to a prize fellowship at Trinity

Trinity College, Cambridge

on the basis of a dissertation on Hegel's Logic

Science of Logic

Hegel's work The Science of Logic outlined his vision of logic, which is an ontology that incorporates the traditional Aristotelian syllogism as a sub-component rather than a basis...

. McTaggart had in the meantime been President of the Union Society

Cambridge Union Society

The Cambridge Union Society, commonly referred to as simply "the Cambridge Union" or "the Union," is a debating society in Cambridge, England and is the largest society at the University of Cambridge. Since its founding in 1815, the Union has developed a worldwide reputation as a noted symbol of...

, a debating club, and the secretive Cambridge Apostles

Cambridge Apostles

The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an intellectual secret society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the first Bishop of Gibraltar....

. In 1897 he was appointed to a college lectureship in Philosophy, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1923 (although he continued to lecture until his death).

McTaggart, although radical in his youth, became increasingly conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

(perhaps influenced by Hegel) and was influential in the expulsion of Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

from Trinity

Trinity College, Cambridge

for pacifism

Pacifism

Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...

during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. But McTaggart was a man of contradictions: despite his conservatism

Conservatism

he was an advocate of women's suffrage

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

; and though an atheist

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

from his youth was a firm believer in human immortality

Immortality

Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...

and a defender of the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. He was personally charming and had interests ranging beyond philosophy, known for his encyclopaedic knowledge of English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

novels and eighteenth-century memoirs.

His honours included an honorary LLD from the University of St. Andrews and Fellowship of the British Academy

British Academy

The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

.

He died in London in 1925. In 1899 he had married Margaret Elizabeth Bird in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

whom he met while visiting his mother (then living in near New Plymouth

New Plymouth

New Plymouth is the major city of the Taranaki Region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after Plymouth, Devon, England, from where the first English settlers migrated....

, Taranaki) and was survived by her; the couple had no children.

Hegel Scholarship

McTaggart's earlier work was devoted to an exposition and critique of Hegel's metaphysical

Metaphysics

methods and conclusions and their application in other fields. His first published work Studies in Hegelian Dialectic (1896), an expanded version of his Trinity fellowship dissertation, focused on the dialectical method of Hegel's Logic

Science of Logic

Hegel's work The Science of Logic outlined his vision of logic, which is an ontology that incorporates the traditional Aristotelian syllogism as a sub-component rather than a basis...

. His second work Studies in Hegelian Cosmology (1901) is directed more towards a critique of the applications of Hegelian

Hegelianism

Hegelianism is a collective term for schools of thought following or referring to G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories...

ideas made, both by Hegel and earlier neo-Hegelians, to the fields of ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

, politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

and religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

. In this book a number of his distinctive doctrines already appear, for example, his belief in human immortality

Immortality

. His final book specifically on Hegel was A Commentary on Hegel's "Logic"

Science of Logic

Hegel's work The Science of Logic outlined his vision of logic, which is an ontology that incorporates the traditional Aristotelian syllogism as a sub-component rather than a basis...

(1910), in which he attempted to explain and, to an extent, defend the argument of the Logic

Science of Logic

Hegel's work The Science of Logic outlined his vision of logic, which is an ontology that incorporates the traditional Aristotelian syllogism as a sub-component rather than a basis...

.

Although he defended the dialectical method broadly construed and shared a similar outlook to Hegel, McTaggart's Hegelianism was not uncritical and he disagreed significantly both with Hegel himself and with earlier neo-Hegelians. He believed that many specific features of Hegel's argument were gravely flawed and was similarly disparaging of Hegel's application of his abstract thought. However, he by no means reached the same conclusions as the previous generations of British Idealists

British idealism

and in his later work came to hold strikingly different and original views. Nonetheless, in spite of his break from earlier forms of Hegelianism, McTaggart inherited from his predecessors a pivotal belief in the ability of a priori

A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)

The terms a priori and a posteriori are used in philosophy to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments...

thought to grasp the nature of the ultimate reality, which for him like earlier Hegelians was the absolute idea

Absolute (philosophy)

The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...

. Indeed, his later work and mature system can be seen as largely an attempt to give substance to his new conception of the absolute

Absolute (philosophy)

"The Unreality of Time" (1908)

In The Unreality of Time

The Unreality of Time

The Unreality of Time is the best-known philosophical work of the Cambridge idealist J. M. E. McTaggart. In the paper, first published in 1908 in Mind 17: 457-73, McTaggart argues that time is unreal because our descriptions of time are either contradictory, circular, or insufficient...

(1908), the work for which he is best known today, McTaggart argued that our perception of time

Time

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

is an illusion

Illusion

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people....

http://www.philosophicalparadoxes.com, and that time itself is merely ideal. He introduced the notions of the "A series" and "B series"

A-series and B-series

A-series and B-series are two different descriptions of the temporal ordering relation among events. The two series differ principally in their use of tense to describe the temporal relation between events...

interpretations of time, representing two different ways that events in time can be arranged. The A series corresponds to our everyday notions of past

Past

Most generally, the past is a term used to indicate the totality of events which occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human observers experience time, and is...

, present, and future

Future

The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...

. The A series is "the series of positions running from the far past through the near past to the present, and then from the present to the near future and the far future" (p. 458). This is contrasted with the B series, in which positions are ordered from earlier to later, i.e. the series running from earlier to later moments.

McTaggart argued that the A series was a necessary component of any full theory of time, but that it was also self-contradictory

Contradiction

In classical logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical, usually opposite inversions of each other...

and that our perception of time was, therefore, ultimately an incoherent illusion.

The Necessity of the A series

The first, and longer, part of McTaggart's argument is his affirmative answer to the question "whether it is essential to the reality of time that its events should form an A series as well as a B series" (p. 458). Broadly, McTaggart argues that if events are not ordered by an A as well as a B series then there cannot be said to be change. At the centre of his argument is the example of the death of Queen Anne. This event is a death, it has certain causes and certain effects, it is later than the death of Queen Elizabeth etc., but none of these properties change over time. Only in one respect does the event change:

"It began by being a future event. It became every moment an event in the nearer future. At last it was a present event. Then it became past, and will always remain so, though every moment it becomes further and further past.
Thus we seem forced to the conclusion that all change is only a change in the characteristics imparted at to events by their presence in the A series" (p. 460).

Despite its power and originality this half of McTaggart's argument has, historically, received less attention than the second half.

The Incoherence of the A series

What is most often presented as McTaggart's attempted proof of the incoherence of the A series (the argument of pages 468-9) appears in the original paper only as a single part of a broader argument for this conclusion, but it can be extended to have general application. According to the argument, the contradiction in our perception of time is that all events exemplify all three of the properties of the A-series, viz. being past, present and future. The obvious response is that while exemplifying all three properties at some time, no event exemplifies all three at once, no event is past, present, and future. A single event is present, will have been future, will be past, and here there is, it seems, no contradiction.

McTaggart's great insight is that this ascent will apparently give rise to a vicious circle

Vicious Circle

Vicious Circle is an album released in 1994 by L.A. Guns. Most of the songs have Phil Lewis on lead vocals, but the track "Nothing Better to Do" features Kelly Nickels on lead vocals, and "Tarantula" is instrumental. MC Bones drums on several songs. Lewis and Bones also played together in the band...

or infinite regress

Infinite regress

An infinite regress in a series of propositions arises if the truth of proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, the truth of proposition P2 requires the support of proposition P3, .....

. On the one hand, the response depends upon the A-series to make sense. To distinguish the properties of being present, having been future and going to be past requires a conception of time divided into past, present and future, and hence of the A-series.

"Accordingly the A series has to be pre-supposed in order to account for the A series. And this is clearly a vicious circle" (p. 468).

The same difficulty can be represented as a 'vicious infinite series' (infinite regress). One can construe the response above as "constructing a second A series, within which the first falls, in the same way in which events fall within the first" (p. 469). But even if the idea of a second A series within which the first falls makes sense (and McTaggart doubts it does, p. 469), it will face the same contradiction. And so, we must construct a third A series within which the second falls. And this will require the construction of a fourth A series and so on ad infinitum. At any given stage the contradiction will appear; however far we go in constructing A series, each A series will be, without reference to a further A series containing it, contradictory. One ought to conclude, therefore, that the A series is indeed contradictory and, therefore, does not exist.

Mature System: The Nature of Existence

In his later work, particularly his two-volume The Nature of Existence, McTaggart developed his own, highly original, metaphysical system. The most famous element is his defence of the unreality of time

The Unreality of Time

, but McTaggart's system was much broader. In The Nature of Existence McTaggart defended a similar Hegelian view of the universe to that of his earlier work on the basis not of Hegel's dialetic but rather in the mode of more modern metaphysics

Metaphysics

.

McTaggart concluded the world was composed of nothing but soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

s, each soul related to one or more of the others by love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

. While he argued against belief in a personal God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

and denied the absolute

Absolute (philosophy)

(for McTaggart, the community of souls) any single personality (thereby justifying his atheism

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

), McTaggart's philosophy was fundamentally optimistic. McTaggart believed each of the souls (which are identified with human beings) to be immortal

Immortality

and defended the idea of reincarnation

Reincarnation

Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...

. The Nature of Existence also seeks to synthesise McTaggart's denial of the existence of time, matter etc. with their apparent existence.

Despite the mystical

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

tone of its conclusions, the philosophical method of The Nature of Existence is far from mystical. McTaggart arrived at his conclusions by a careful analysis of the essential requirements of any successful metaphysical system (Volume I) followed by a purported proof that only his system satisfies these requirements (Volume II). The logical rigour of his system is in evidence, for example, in McTaggart's famous attempted proof of the unreality of time

The Unreality of Time

Influence

McTaggart was a friend and teacher of Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

and G. E. Moore, and, according to Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...

, the three were known as "The Mad Tea-Party

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...

of Trinity

Trinity College, Cambridge

" (with McTaggart as the Dormouse). Along with Russell and Moore McTaggart was a member of the Cambridge Apostles

Cambridge Apostles

through which he would have a personal influence on an entire generation of writers and politicians (his involvement with the Apostles presumably overlapped with that of, among others, the members of the Bloomsbury group

Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...

) .

In particular, McTaggart was an early influence on Bertrand Russell. It was through McTaggart that the young Russell was converted to the prevalent Hegelianism of the day, and it was Russell's reaction against this Hegelianism that began the arc of his later work.

McTaggart was the most influential advocate of neo-Hegelian idealism

Idealism

in Cambridge at the time of Russell and Moore's reaction against it, as well as being a teacher and personal acquaintance of both men. With F.H. Bradley of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

he was, as the most prominent of the surviving British Idealists, the primary target of the new realists'

Critical realism

In the philosophy of perception, critical realism is the theory that some of our sense-data can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data do not accurately represent any external objects, properties, and events...

assault. McTaggart's indirect influence was, therefore, very great. Given that modern analytic philosophy

Analytic philosophy

Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...

can arguably be traced to the work of Russell and Moore in this period, McTaggart's work retains interest to the historian of analytic philosophy

Analytic philosophy

Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...

despite being, in a very real sense, the product of an earlier age.

The Nature of Existence, with Green's Prolegomena to Ethics and Bradley's Appearance and Reality, marks the greatest achievement of British Idealism, and McTaggart was the last major British Idealists of the classic period (for the later development of British Idealism, see T.L.S. Sprigge).

Personal life

Hegel Scholarship

"The Unreality of Time" (1908)

The Necessity of the A series

The Incoherence of the A series

Mature System: The Nature of Existence

Influence

See also

Books

Articles

Secondary Literature