ABSTRACT
The starting point for recent work on the metaphysics of time is McTaggart’s argument that time is unreal. McTaggart claimed that the things in time-events and the times at which they occur-can be ordered in two ways. There is the B-series, which orders events and times in terms of the tenseless relations of being earlier than and later than, and there is the A-series, which orders events and times in terms of the tensed properties of being past, present, and future. McTaggart argued, fi rst, that the B-series presupposes the A-series, and second, that the assumption that there is an A-series leads to a contradiction; and he concluded that time is unreal.
