The aim of this book is to show how McTaggart's atemporal vision of reality is a serious attempt to describe a coherent world without time. It proposes that the answer to the puzzling nature of time is not to be found in the components of time itself, but in an atemporal reality that lies behind it. McTaggart takes an idealist view that reduces all that is real to spirit, that any expression of reality is dependent on a manifestation of consciousness. McTaggart's argument that time is unreal, has been the subject of much philosophical debate since it first appeared in 1908; but much discussion has ignored McTaggart's positive account of time and concentrated on his negative proof. The author argues that the negative thesis should be separated from the positive account, he attacks the standard approaches to interpreting time and provides a full account of McTaggart's atemporal world. The conclusion is drawn that the timeless world has psychological appeal and can form the basis for an atemporal thinking which can break away from the confusing philosophical models of temporality that often bear little resemblance to our experience of it.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 McTaggart's philosophy: McTaggart's works; McTaggart's terms; McTaggart's system - an overview of McTaggart's system, the self (and the way it is perceived), the general nature of spiritual existence, the principle of determining correspondence; conclusion. Part 2 McTaggart's denial of the reality of time: McTaggart's argument against time - step 1 - time involves change, step 2 - change can only occur in the A series, step 3 - the A series is contradictory, problem 1 - our experience of change in the A series is wrong, problem 2 - our experience of time in the B series is wrong; it is events that happen to things that change - things themselves do not change; the vicious regress - A-terms are used at different times, A-terms used to describe A-terms are equivalent terms, a B-language is all that is necessary, the A series is all that is necessary, the B series is all that is necessary, consciousness can replace the A series; conclusion. Part 3 Time and the A series: our concept of time; the components of the A series - past, present, future; conclusion. Part 4 Some philosophical positions on time: reality of consciousness plus being; reality of becoming plus consciousness; a four-dimensional universe with no becoming; the reasonableness of atemporality; conclusion. Part 5 McTaggart's timeless world: the atemporal C series; coherence of the atemporal series; the C series can illuminate our ordinary conception of time - the inclusion series, directionality; fundamental relations between the temporal and the atemporal world; actual and apparent time; conclusion. Part 6 Conclusion.