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Undoubtedly the most celebrated argument against an A-Theory of time is the attempt by the British idealist J. M. E. McTaggart to demonstrate that an Aseries of events is self-contradictory or leads to a vicious infinite regress of A-theoretic determinations.¹ Indeed, Richard Gale has remarked that "If one looks carefully enough into the multitudinous writings on time by analysts, one can detect a common underlying problem, that being that almost all of them were attempting to answer McTaggart"s paradox."² Although McTaggart himself regarded his demonstration as a proof that time does not exist, certain contemporary B-theorists employ versions of his argument to prove the unreality of tense and temporal becoming, which, they claim, are not essential to time. Let us begin with McTaggart"s own statement of the argument.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-9345-8_6

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