About
About this site
An independent study site on the philosophy of time, built around one chapter of one book and the long argument it joins.
What it is
The starting point is chapter 11 of David Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality (1997), "Time: The First Quantum Concept". Its diagrams of a moving present had to sit still on the page; here they move. Each major view of time then gets a page of its own, setting out the view, the argument for it, and where it meets and parts from Deutsch.
Sources and copyright
- Deutsch's book is in copyright. The site summarises it in its own words and quotes at most one short passage from it on any page.
- The same rule applies to every other copyrighted source. Where a modern author is set off in a quotation box, the words are our paraphrase, marked "after".
- Ancient fragments are our own translations, cited by their Diels–Kranz numbers.
- Where we could not read a source in full, the page says only what could be confirmed.
- Book links on the reading page are plain links, not affiliate links.
Images
The images are public-domain artworks and photographs, mostly from Wikimedia Commons, resized and in some cases cropped. Three photographs, of two sculptures and a fresco, are under Creative Commons licences, credited on the pages where they appear.
| File | Work | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| poussin-dance.jpg | Nicolas Poussin, A Dance to the Music of Time, c. 1634–36, Wallace Collection | Public domain |
| cole-youth.jpg | Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1842, National Gallery of Art, Washington | Public domain |
| muybridge-horse.jpg | Eadweard Muybridge, The Horse in Motion, 1878 | Public domain |
| steenwijck-vanitas.jpg | Harmen Steenwijck, An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life, c. 1640, National Gallery, London | Public domain |
| bronzino-time.jpg | Agnolo Bronzino, Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (detail), c. 1545, National Gallery, London | Public domain |
| marey-heron.jpg | Étienne-Jules Marey, Chronophotograph of a Flying Heron, 1880s, Cleveland Museum of Art | Public domain |
| durer-melencolia.jpg | Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, National Gallery of Art, Washington | Public domain |
| hogarth-bathos.jpg | William Hogarth, Tailpiece, or The Bathos, 1764 | Public domain |
| raphael-plato-aristotle.jpg | Raphael, The School of Athens (detail), 1509–11, Vatican | Public domain |
| heraclitus-moreelse.jpg | Johannes Moreelse, Heraclitus, c. 1630 | Public domain |
| aion-mosaic.jpg | Aion mosaic from Sentinum, c. AD 200–250, Glyptothek, Munich. Photo: Bibi Saint-Pol | Public domain (photographer's release) |
| parmenides-bust.jpg | Herm of Parmenides, Velia. Photo: Sergio Spolti | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| zeno-bust.jpg | Etching of the herm of Zeno (inscribed ΖΗΝΩΝ), from the series Paradigmata graphices variorum artificum, Rijksmuseum (RP-P-1907-4495); cropped to the plate | Public domain |
| aristotle-rembrandt.jpg | Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, 1653, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | Public domain |
| plato-silanion.jpg | Portrait of Plato, Roman copy of a 4th-century BC original attributed to Silanion, Capitoline Museums, Rome. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen; background flattened to a plain tone | CC BY 2.5 |
| titian-prudence.jpg | Titian, An Allegory of Prudence, mid-16th century, National Gallery, London | Public domain |
| friedrich-wanderer.jpg | Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, c. 1818, Kunsthalle Hamburg | Public domain |
| bayeux-harold.jpg | Bayeux Tapestry (detail: "Harold the king is killed"), 11th century, Bayeux | Public domain |
| panini-gallery.jpg | Giovanni Paolo Panini, Picture Gallery with Views of Modern Rome, 1750s | Public domain |
| haeckel-tree.jpg | Ernst Haeckel, Pedigree of Man, plate XV of The Evolution of Man (English edition of Anthropogenie) | Public domain |
| turner-rain-steam.jpg | J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844, National Gallery, London | Public domain |
| greuze-broken-eggs.jpg | Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Broken Eggs, 1756, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | Public domain |
| fetti-archimedes.jpg | Domenico Fetti, Archimedes Thoughtful, 1620, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden | Public domain |
| cole-desolation.jpg | Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: Desolation, 1836, New-York Historical Society | Public domain |
| vermeer-geographer.jpg | Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, 1669, Städel Museum, Frankfurt | Public domain |
| monet-rouen.jpg | Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight, 1894, National Gallery of Art, Washington | Public domain |
| bergson-photo.jpg | Henri Bergson, photographic portrait, early 20th century, photographer unknown | Public domain |
| einstein-1921.jpg | Albert Einstein, 1921. Photo: Harris & Ewing Studio, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | Public domain (CC0) |
| piranesi-drawbridge.jpg | Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Drawbridge, plate VII of Carceri d'invenzione, 1761 edition; cropped to the plate | Public domain |
| vermeer-milkmaid.jpg | Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, c. 1658, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam | Public domain |
| grandville-comet.jpg | J. J. Grandville, Pérégrinations d'une comète, from Un autre monde, 1844 | Public domain |
| matsys-moneylender.jpg | Quentin Matsys, The Moneylender and His Wife, 1514, Musée du Louvre, Paris | Public domain |
| botticelli-augustine.jpg | Sandro Botticelli, Saint Augustine in His Study, c. 1480, Ognissanti, Florence. Photo: Sailko | CC BY 3.0 |
| blake-newton.jpg | William Blake, Newton, 1795/c. 1805, Tate, London | Public domain |
| leibniz-francke.jpg | Christoph Bernhard Francke, Portrait of Leibniz, c. 1695, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig | Public domain |
| kant-portrait.jpg | Portrait of Immanuel Kant, 18th century, oil on canvas | Public domain |
