Totality and Time

TOTALITY AND TIME I THE PURPOSE OF this article is to explore to what extent the philosopher is able to clarify in his own way a problem much under debate at present, that of timereversal .' It should be made clear from the start that the goals under consideration are very limited. I am not concerned with time-travel, nor shall I make the claim and demonstrate philosophically that particles or events are running in reverse-as in a film taken with the camera upside down and inserted backwards in later editing. There is not, it seems, sufficient ground to assert this philosophically. I should add that philosopher and scientist approach the notion of time differently. While the scientist observes time as a flow of particles or anti-particles, the philosopher looks for their embodiment in certain events or things-that-change and as a result offer him the possibility of time-awareness. Naturally the philosopher's attempt to interpret certain events in the realm of time should not contradict the proven data of science, but it is important to keep in mind that some of the scientific conclusions concerning time, especially concerning time-reversal, are themselves speculative; although at times they carry a certain plausibility on the theoretical level, their fulfillment in the physical realm is not easily verifiable. Whenever particular results on time-reversal seem to have been obtained by the scientist, they appear to be infinitesimal in both size and duration. We shall be able to define later what we understand by timereversal , but now we must stress the point that the understanding of time-reversal in this article gives a definite role to 1 This paper was read at the convention of the American Philosophical Association at San Francisco on March ~9, 1974. 696 TOTALITY AND TIME 697 the future. As is well known, there is strong disagreement among philosophers on the function of the future. Many in recent times r.esent any consideration of the future dimension as an object of meaningful study. What matters is the past, which, on the basis of an incessant cause-and-effect concatenation , builds up the present. Evolution and survival of life are explained on the basis of a mechanistic cause-and-effect sequence . We shall come back to this topic later; it suffices to note that this approach does not implicate the future as a cause. This attitude is considered scientific, and a great number of philosophers who make the claim that as philosopher one should not proceed beyond what exists and as such is verifiable, share that view. There are still philosophers, however, who would question such a radical stand. This writer for one would assert-and in these pages will attempt to confirm his statement-that the future dimension is a very relevant one, a " phenomenon" of great importance. I would like to introduce here a scholastic term that is very illuminating, the term scientia visionis. Aquinas defines it as the knowledge in God, of himself, of all creatures, whether past, present, or future (not the futuribilia) .2 It would be sheer presumption to transfer this original meaning to any human application. Yet the present use of the term would like to stress that the philosopher qua philosopher is bent upon past, present, and future. In that sense the scientia visionis is his potential and the cosmos as a whole his territory, however modest the results of this endeavor. Things-to-come are also the object of his observation and phenomenological description. It may very well appear that life and the world as a whole are not intelligible on the basis of the past alone. The philosopher is entitled to this " complete " intelligibility, as we shall attempt to show. 2 " Quaedam enim, licet non sint nunc in actu, tamen vel fuerunt vel erunt; et omnia ista dicitur Deus scire scientia visionis. Quia, cum intelligere Dei, quod est ejus esse, aeternitate mensuretur, quae sine successione existens totum tempus comprehendit, presens intuitus Dei fertur in totum tempus, et in omnia quae sunt in quocumque tempore, sicut in subjecta sibi presentialiter" (Summa Theol., I, q.l4, a. 9). 698 WILFRID DESAN II A traditional philosophy that accepts God as the...