ABSTRACT
Part of the difficulty is to distinguish time from change. Many changes are cyclic. Indeed the processes of nature are characteristically periodic. And from this Pythagorean periodicity of process it is natural to argue, with Eudemus, that time too would be cyclic. If time really were cyclic, there would not be a recurrence of events that were qualitatively identical though numerically distinct, but, rather, the events would be numerically as well as qualitatively identical. The fundamental reason is the essential egocentricity of time. Time cannot be analysed simply in terms of change, but is a concomitant of consciousness. The proponent of cyclic time is faced with a dilemma. Even if the essential egocentricity of time were questioned, there are difficulties about the order of events in cyclic time. Cyclic time is static time, and static time is no time.
