Why it was traditionally supposed that Descartes offered an account of time that consisted of discontinuous, temporal atoms is not difficult to understand. Indeed, this seems to be the most natural way of interpreting Descartes’ descriptions of the “parts of time” and the radical contingency that follows these parts. As many have noted, however, this atomistic interpretation seems inconsistent with other essential tenets of Cartesian metaphysics; most notably, it is difficult to reconcile these discrete bits of duration with Descartes’ contention that substances maintain their existence by means of God’s continuous and immutable act of sustenance. By considering both the advantages and disadvantages of the traditional, atomistic interpretations, I will isolate a few general requirements of a plausible Cartesian account of time. Accordingly, I will briefly lay out the general arguments that have been offered on both sides of the atomism debates. I will not exhaustively categorize the various nuances in these debates, since a less-refined sketch is sufficiently for conceiving of their general structure. Indeed, I will not attempt to present or refute the position of any particular interpretation, since a broader view will better highlights the key features.
As Descartes offers so few passages that directly describe time, it is not surprising that the passages that support an atomistic interpretation are all ones that we have already considered. All the places where Descartes argues from the parts of time to substances’ radical contingency on divine concurrence suggest themselves as evidence for an atomistic account of time. Among the most obvious passages are the following:
Med III: For a lifespan can be divided into countless parts, each completely independent of the others, so that it does not follow from the fact that I existed a little while ago that I must exist now, unless there is some cause which as it were creates me afresh at this moment—that is, which preserves me. For it is quite clear to anyone who attentively considers the nature of time that the same power and action are needed to preserve anything at each individual moment of its duration as would be required to create that thing anew if it were not yet in its existence.[3]
1st Set of Replies: Now I regard the divisions of time as being separable from each other, so that the fact that I now exist does not imply that I shall continue to exist in a little while unless there is a cause which, as it were, creates me afresh at each moment of time.[4]
Principles I.21: For the nature of time is such that its parts are not mutually dependent, and never coexist. Thus, from the fact that we now exist, it does not follow that we shall exist a moment from now, unless there is some cause—the same cause which originally produced us—which continually reproduces us, as it were, that is to say, which keeps us in existence.[5]
The inference from these passages to the conclusion that these parts are temporal atoms is pretty straightforward. The language is clearly suggestive of discrete bits of time. Descartes describes the “divisions of time as being separable from each other” and claims that “the nature of time is such that its parts are not mutually dependent, and never coexist.” These phrases seem naturally to suggest an account of time in which it contains parts that are discrete, separable bits—consistent with temporal atoms.
Following the suggestive parts language, it was traditionally accepted that Descartes offered an atomistic account of time. Among atomistic interpreters, however, there was debate over the structure of this atomism;[6] in particular, whether the various temporal atoms should be continuously or discontinuously connected (i.e., whether these atoms should be in direct contact with each other or separated by temporal gaps). This debate followed the causal theory that these same passages suggest. In emphasizing the need for an immediate cause for a thing’s continued existence, Descartes indicated a causal supposition that he elsewhere made more explicit; namely, that a cause cannot be temporally removed from its effect.
The natural light does not establish that the concept of an efficient cause requires that it be prior in time to its effect. On the contrary, the concept of a cause is, strictly speaking, applicable only for as long as the cause is producing its effect, and so it is not prior to it.[7]
That Descartes believed a cause must be immediately present to its effect provides a plausible explanation for why Descartes appeals to the “parts of time” in order to explain the radical contingency of substances. A substance cannot ground one moment of its existence on a former moment, suggests Descartes, because these moments are temporally separated from each other. This separation excludes one from continuously self-causing since a cause must be simultaneous with its act of causing.[8]
It is, however, not obvious what sort of separation would be required between time atoms for them to not be causally efficacious on each other. Whereas some have thought that the very distinctness of these temporal atoms would be sufficient for guaranteeing that one atom could not cause the next, others have wondered if the atoms needed to be more than just discrete—whether they also needed to be discontinuous, that is, divided by temporal gaps. If the various time atoms were immediately conjoined, suggests this latter (discontinuous) view, then it is possible that one moment of a substance’s enduring would be conjoined to the next in a way that would not require an additional divine cause to maintain the substance in existence.
Though discontinuous temporal atoms would certainly guarantee that one moment of a thing could not be the causal ground of the next, and would be consistent with the language of independent parts of time, I tend to agree with most of Richard Arthur’s criticisms of this view in “Continuous Creation, Continuous Time.” As Arthur notes, “Surely if creation is really discontinuous, then it cannot be equivalent to conservation: repeated creation is, one would think the very opposite of conservation.”[9] Moreover, if a thing’s lifespan really looked like “a repeated alternation between the state of being and the state of nonbeing,”[10] then this would not only be a very strange type of conservation, but it would contradict Descartes’ explicit claims in correspondence with More. In this correspondence, Descartes claims, “I think it involves a contradiction to conceive of any duration intervening between the destruction of an earlier world and the creation of a new one.”[11] Thus, for Descartes to assert that God created discontinuous, temporal atoms he would need to assert what he elsewhere takes as contradictory.[12]
Even more damaging to those who interpret Descartes as offering discontinuous, temporal atoms are the voids supposed by such views. For there to be temporal atoms that are separated by gaps, the gaps would need to be types of temporal voids. Such voids are clearly not possible for Descartes. Here again is an argument that many others have seen and noted before me, so I will simply sketch the key points.[13] Descartes is very explicit that there can be no spatial vacuums.
Principles II.18: It is no less contradictory for us to conceive of a mountain without a valley than it is for us to think of the concavity apart from the substance which is extended; for. …nothingness cannot possess any extension…When there is nothing between two bodies they must necessarily touch each other. And it is a manifest contradiction for them to be apart or to have a distance between them, when the distance in question is nothing; for every distance is a mode of extension, and therefore cannot exist without an extended substance.[14]
An empty bit of extension is a “manifest contradiction” within Cartesian metaphysics, because extension is a property of bodies. Thus, when there is no body, there is no extension. An exactly parallel argument excludes the possibility of an empty bit of duration. Duration is an attribute of substances. It is the very enduring of a substance—“a mode under which we conceive the thing in so far as it continues to exist.”[15] Consequently, it is a “manifest contradiction” to suppose that there might be bits of duration apart from a thing that endures. Just as it is impossible for there to be bits of extension apart from a body that is extended, it is impossible for there to be bits of duration apart from a thing that endures. There can be no mode for the continued existence of nothingness, since it is a �
�common notion that nothingness possesses no attributes.”[16]
Though I think that discontinuous, temporal atomism is particularly unlikely, any form of temporal atomism is problematic for Descartes—whether the atoms are conceived as continuous or discontinuous. The very idea that Descartes might have posited the existence of temporal atoms (as many have noted) is odd on its face. Descartes was explicit in his rejection of spatial atoms, and it seems that Descartes’ grounds for rejecting spatial atoms would have compelled a similar rejection of temporal atoms.[17] In Principles II.20, Descartes discusses why spatial atoms are impossible.
We also know that is impossible that there should exist atoms, that is, pieces of matter that are by their very nature indivisible…for if there were any atoms, then no matter how small we imagined them to be, they would necessarily have to be extended; and hence we would in our thought divide each of them into two or more smaller parts, and hence recognize their divisibility. For anything we can divide in our thought must, for that very reason, be known to be divisible...Even if we imagine that God has chosen to bring it about that some particle of matter is incapable of being divided into smaller particles, it will still not be correct, strictly speaking, to call this particle indivisible. For, by making it indivisible by any of his creatures, God certainly could not thereby take away his own power of dividing it, since it is quite impossible for him to diminish his own power.[18]
In this discussion, Descartes is only discussing spatial atoms, but it seems as though the same line of reasoning is applicable to the possibility of temporal atoms. Insofar as one conceives of atoms as being discrete bits of duration, these bits have some extension. The extent of the duration, no matter how slight, is always such that one could conceive dividing the extent into smaller parts. If such a division is conceivable, then given the fact that God cannot diminish his own power, the bits are in fact divisible in the way that they are conceived to be. Thus, the only way that temporal parts could avoid violating divine omnipotence would be if the parts lacked any duration, that is, were bare instants.
The bare instant interpretation might solve the divisibility problem, but it does so at the cost of creating its own significant problems. To conceive of divine creation as creating instantaneous, non-durational bits is just as problematic as conceiving of this creation as being of extended indivisibles, because these instants could not function as proper parts.[19] Though Descartes’ physics does describe the existence of unextended, points of time[20] these points can only serve as limits, and not as parts, if they truly lack any extension. Where there is no extension, there is only a limit, but a limit cannot exist without that which it limits. It is by itself a mere nothing, and no matter how many nothings one has, they cannot be jointly arranged to build up to an extended something.
Whether one interprets Descartes as claiming that time is composed of parts that have duration but are indivisible, or of being composed of parts that lack duration and are thus indivisible, it seems one’s interpretation faces serious pitfalls. Thus, if Descartes offered some sort of temporal atomism, then no matter what form this atomism took (i.e., whether continuous or discontinuous), his account was one that was deeply problematic. When one compounds these problems with the problem of how to relate these atoms (i.e., continuously or discontinuously), the problems simply compound. Just as any form of atomism is problematic (by suggesting that an omnipotent God cannot divide some duration, or that one can add many zeros to arrive at a non-zero quantity), there seems to be no metaphysically respectable way for Descartes to link these problematic atoms. If they are discontinuously linked, then this at least explains why a substance would be radically contingent on divine conservation (given the impossibility of a cause at a temporal distance). Yet, this discontinuity suggests a very strange account of conservation. It thus seems that Descartes’ “parts of time” can neither have duration nor lack it, and that they can be neither continuously nor discontinuously related.
Despite the obvious problems with Descartes offering any sort of temporal atomism, there is no denying that Descartes’ describes time as having parts. He uses the parts language, and appeals to these parts to explain why one moment of a thing cannot be the cause of the next. As these texts cannot be ignored, it seems (or so many have concluded) that Descartes offers a deeply problematic account of time. If his account requires parts, but there is no metaphysically respectable way for him to include these parts, then one might reasonably suppose that there is simply no way to offer a reputable interpretation of Descartes’ account of time.
Entering the Fray
What the prior section undoubtedly emphasizes is the tangle that seems to entrap all Cartesian accounts of time. Not only does Descartes offer very few explicit statements about time, the few he does offer—when teased out—seem to direct one toward untenable theories. Despite the problems with these theories, they do suggest a general guide for what a plausible Cartesian account of time must offer. A plausible account must explain the language of independent parts, as well as their entailment of radically contingent substances. Likewise, the account should avoid crediting a type of temporal atomism that conflicts with other central tenets of Cartesian metaphysics. With inexcusable hubris, I offer my interpretation as doing all of these things.
In my earlier descriptions, I undoubtedly indicated my sympathies. I tend to be very skeptical of any account that entails a discontinuity in the substances that God sustains. Like Arthur, I strongly suspect that alternating states of being and non-being, would be quite the opposite of conservation. Such sympathies are indeed increasingly common in the scholarship. With very few exceptions,[21] recent commentators have shied away from discontinuous accounts of Cartesian time. However, in accounting for how Descartes would cause substances to have successive duration (which I have agreed He does do), there are still those who offer accounts which translate into God successively causing the distinct parts of created substances.[22] Though these attempts are consistent with Descartes’ parts language and avoid crediting Descartes with a conservation fluxuating between being and non-being, I object to the type of divine activity these accounts suggest.
Successive sustaining events seem intuitively to conflict with divine immutability. Descartes’ steadfast commitment to the simplicity and immutability of God is beyond question.[23] As such, it is very difficult to conceive how a “God always acting in the same way and consequently always producing substantially the same effects”[24] might be responsible for the fluxuating being supposed by the discontinuous account, or for the successive stages suggested by otherwise continuous accounts.[25] Granted, when Descartes claims that God continuously preserves the world “through an action identical with its original act of creation,”[26] there is room to say that divine immutability is maintained in virtue of the successive causal acts all being of the exact same type, that is, of reading “identical” in the sense of precise similarity as opposed to the very same act. This looser sense of identity may be defensible, but it suggests a weakened account of divine immutability. It seems that for a strongly immutable God to conserve substances in their being, their being would need to be continuous and the divine act that causes this being would likewise need to be simple and indivisible.
Though considerations of the divine nature compel one to suppose that substances must be caused by one simple and continuous act of God, it is unclear how to reconcile this intuition with the fact that Descartes claims that the duration of a substance is successive. That Descartes does maintain the successiveness of duration I have already conceded. Indeed, in chapter 3, I argued that Descartes followed Suarez in supposing that all substances possessed their own intrinsically successive durations that could serve as the ground of their motion. Accordingly, my interpretation must offer some solution to the apparent conflict between God’s conserving substances’ successive enduring without Himself engaging in successive acts. This is where time-in-thought assists my account by serving a (somewhat Kantian) role in organ
izing and structuring duration.[27]
Insofar as I have argued that time-in-thought is an innate idea, that is, a primitive notion according to which we conceive of duration, it seems that this idea can be the ground of the divisions in duration, as opposed to some inconstancy in our mode of creation. As time-in-thought is a sequentially ordered measuring stick, its application to duration divides duration into parts. Recall that in chapter 4 I explained how Descartes’ notion of measuring just is the translating of a whole into a collection of parts. As Descartes claimed, “If we regard the whole as being divided up into parts, we are measuring it.”[28] Thus, if time-in-thought is the measure of duration, then every time we conceive of duration by means of time-in-thought, we conceive of duration as “divided up into parts.”[29] Time-in-thought thus provides a plausible explanation for why “parts” language gets incorporated into Descartes’ discussions on time.
In referencing time-in-thought as being the ground of duration’s parts, I am not denying that Descartes granted a genuine successiveness to duration. The “parts” created through time-in-thought are not simply how duration is conceived as opposed to how it really is. Recall that I have argued that time-in-thought is an innate idea, and thus an idea of a true and immutable nature. Thus, when time-in-thought structures our conceiving of duration, we learn more than just a fact about how duration is conceived. We learn something true about the nature of duration, since whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive about the world is something that is true of the world.[30] Descartes sees this entailment as following directly from God’s not being a deceiver and from His omnipotence. In holding this view, Descartes does not claim that the things we conceive as distinct must ever actually exist separately. Rather, he simply maintains that our clearly conceiving of things as distinct is sufficient for their being divisible, and truly distinct in their natures. Thus, if time-in-thought allows us to clearly and distinctly divide duration into parts, then it is sufficient for determining that duration actually has parts.[31]
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