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Time and Space



C.D. Broad:

"In a linear spatial series there is no asymmetric dyadic relation intrinsic to the series… In the temporal series of experiences, which constitutes a person's mental history there is a genuine dyadic relation which is intrinsic to the series and involves no reference to any term outside the latter. This is the relation "earlier than". It is the fundamental relation here, and temporal betweenness is definable in terms of it. In the temporal series there are two intrinsically opposite directions, earlier-to-later and later- to- earlier. In the linear spatial series there is no intrinsic direction. If direction is to be introduced, this must be done extrinsically, either by reference to motion along the line (and therefore to time),"

The point, if I understand it, is that time is a very different sort of thing from space, and when physicists talk of "spacetime" as one thing they are, for their own valid purposes of course, glossing over this distinction. But philosophers naturally shouldn't gloss over it, but should inquire into the metaphysical basis of this distinction.

For example: is space more fundamental than time? or vice versa?

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