ABSTRACT
Time, in virtue of being a system of abstract temporal items, is a rich source of philosophical perplexity. The problem of time's abstractness, promiscuity and theoretical character, is compounded by our own 'picture-making' inclinations. To justify fully a programme developed from the beginnings the reductionist has to show that all talk apparently about temporal items can be treated as talk about things in time. The British neo-Hegelians hold time to be unreal on the grounds that the very concept of time is inherently incoherent. Turning to the pair of which characterizes Platonism, one could hold that time possesses its topological properties as a matter of necessity and deny that temporal items exist independently of things in time. The nature of the issue involved can be elucidated by considering one pair of the rival, historically important, and prevalent theories of time.
