McTaggart and the problem of infinite series

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to show that, if infinity is conceived as unfinishable, McTaggart's paradox could not be applied to an infinite series. Furthermore, I also intend to show that there are textual evidences for the attribution of this concept of infinity to the author. The main point I want to address is that (if the series is infinite and we conceive infinity as unfinishable) we would never reach the perspective in which all the terms of the series would have simultaneously the three incompatible characteristics (past, present and future). Presentness would run through the events of the series successively (diachronically), without ever reaching the end of the series. Thus, we would never reach the first step of the paradox, of the simultaneous incompatibility of the three characteristics (avoiding also the second step of the paradox, which would take us from circularity to an infiniteregress). For McTaggart, the characteristics (present, past and future) are only incompatible when they are simultaneous, but there is no contradiction in the fact that each term of the temporal series has them successively.