QuestionsDoes time really exist?'Thank goodness that's over!': our relief shows that the present moves on
Does time really exist?Time really passes

'Thank goodness that's over!': our relief shows that the present moves on

Prior's relief argument

Arthur Prior 1914 · 1969A logician who defends the view that time really passes and who founded tense logic.
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What it claims

There are temporal facts that mere dates cannot express: it is true now that the exam is past, and it was not true before. The present moves on.

Why

We are relieved that the exam is over now, not that it falls on some date: a date true at all times cannot express that.

The same idea through history
Arthur Prior1959Prior starts from an ordinary experience, relief after an ordeal, to argue that there are facts that change with time, and not only dates.
In short

"'Thank goodness that's over!': our relief shows that the present moves on" is an argument by Arthur Prior ('Thank Goodness That's Over', Philosophy, 1959, 1959) on the question "Does time really exist?" (answer: time really passes). Its claim: There are temporal facts that mere dates cannot express: it is true now that the exam is past, and it was not true before. The present moves on. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

'Thank Goodness That's Over', Philosophy, 1959
Valid with an implicit premise

You have just sat a very painful exam. Leaving the room, you say: 'Thank goodness that's over!' What are you relieved about? Not just that the exam took place on a certain date: you already knew that the day before, and it did not relieve you. You are relieved that the exam is now past. For Prior, this small fact of everyday life shows that there are real temporal facts: 'it is over' is true now and was not true before. The present moves on, and this is no illusion.

P1My relief after the exam is fitting now, and would not have been the day before.
P2If 'it is over' meant only that the exam takes place at a date earlier than this sentence, it would be a mere relation between two dates. Such a fact is true in the same way at all times, the day before as the day after.
P3A fact that is true in the same way at all times cannot explain why my relief is fitting at one time and not another.
P4 · implicit premiseIf my relief is fitting, something justifies it: either a relation between dates, or a temporal fact (the exam is now past).
So there are temporal facts that mere dates cannot express: it is true now that the exam is past, and it was not true before. The present moves on.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, one could accept everything and still say: relief need not be justified by a fact. It is a reaction of body and mind, like fear, that says nothing about the world. This is one of the lines of reply of Mellor and MacBeath.
The argument is valid. P1 says that relief is fitting now and not before. P2 and P3 show that a mere relation between dates cannot explain it, since it is true at all times. P4 says there must be some justification, which is therefore a temporal fact.
Analogy. On a map, a cross marks where you are. 'You are here' is not in the map: it is someone standing at a precise spot. For Prior, 'it is over' is like that 'you are here' for time: a fact that changes with where one stands in time, and that a map of dates does not contain.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

D
David Hugh Mellor 1981 · attacks premise 2

Mellor argues that a present-tense sentence like 'it is over' is true when the exam is earlier than that very sentence, taken as a dated event. This relation between dates does not exist the day before, since the sentence has not been uttered yet. Our relief is then explained without a temporal fact: one can believe 'it is over' and be relieved only after the exam.

a defender replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1981, after the author's death (1969).
O
Olley Pearson defender of the argument · 2017
Pearson disputes that Mellor and MacBeath have settled the matter. He argues that a plausible account of when an emotion is appropriate, combined with Prior's argument, still points to tensed facts.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Many philosophers judge that Mellor and MacBeath have shown that our emotions do not force us to admit tensed facts. A few, like Pearson, still dispute this verdict. The core disagreement is about what makes an emotion 'appropriate': a true belief, or a fact of the world.
M
Murray MacBeath 1983 · attacks premise 4

MacBeath takes up Mellor's reply and strengthens it: our emotions about past and future do not oblige us to suppose tensed facts. Relief can be explained by a belief whose content is a relation between dates, without the world containing a present that moves on.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1983, after the author's death (1969).
The debate goes on (our summary) Prior died in 1969 and could not reply. Defenders of his argument, like Pearson, take the question up again in 2017 (see the discussion with Mellor above).
Albert Einstein 1905 · attacks the conclusion

In relativity, two events that are simultaneous for one observer are not for another who is moving. So there is no 'now' common to the whole universe, and apparently no single present that advances for everyone. Many philosophers conclude that past, present and future all exist alike: the block universe.

no reply
see the argument
We have not yet found a direct reply by Prior in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) We have not found a reply from Prior on this precise point. Defenders of an advancing present generally say it is compatible with relativity if one admits a privileged frame, which physics does not detect. Block-universe supporters judge this price too high.