Time

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the ways in which Lucretius and Augustine engage with Greek philosophies of time in distinctive ways that continue to resonate through subsequent philosophical thinking about human mortality, the question of the creation of the world, the relationship of the human and the divine, change and permanence, the relationship between discourse about the world and the world it seeks to describe, and not least time itself. Time poses particular challenges in reconciling first-person (“am”) ontology and third-person (“is”) ontology, the human experience of change and the world as it “really” is that both authors directly confront from their very different Epicurean and Christian perspectives. As well as detailed engagement with their discussions, this chapter seeks to situate those discussions within the history of debates about time that continue to be pressing now.