ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the key texts in the phenomenological tradition which have a direct bearing on time and temporality. It shows how this understanding can be further enhanced, both by attending to the flaws in British idealist philosopher J. M. E. McTaggart's hybrid language of time, and by taking note of some of the insights and methods of analytical philosophy generally. It is easy to see why, given McTaggart's way of characterising the passage of time, some philosophers lose patience with the idea altogether and are drawn into embracing a tenseless theory, McTaggart's 'account' of the passage of time is a parody of it. Finally, the chapter explores some of the ways of understanding the world that the main body of tenseless theorists hopes to preserve, notably the idea of a thing and the distinction between things and events.
