A Synopsis of William Barrett’s The Flow of Time

In The Flow of Time William Barrett argues that the flowing of time into the future is as primordial a datum as Heidegger’s view of time as a field of “past-present-future” (where time is understood to be a unifying, possibility-producing synthesis relied on heavily in Being and Time). Barrett propounds Heidegger’s construal of time, as a structuring ontological field rather than a mere “sequence of disjunct Now’s”, as “one of the most original of contemporary views on this ancient subject.” (356) As such, Barrett’s point of contention regarding Heidegger is restricted to the foundational, pre-philosophic landscape (to which, presumably, we each were party in, at least, our early childhood) that yields the notion of time in its disparate historical forms. (364) Accordingly, a correct account of time and the one that Heidegger implicitly relies on, according to Barrett, incorporates the flow of time within the horizon of possibility afforded by temporality.

Barrett’s first consideration wrestles with historical dating. First, Barrett notes that Heidegger makes much of the fact that we are “thrown” into the world at some time, t, notwithstanding Heidegger’s refusal to acknowledge t as intelligible outside of some “human project” (where project is meant in two senses: a project among one’s many projects, and the project[ion] of one’s existence). Barrett professes the belief that a certain sense of “datability of events” is intelligible outside of particular human projects and projections, e.g. “the fixing of events in relation to before and after”, and that if this fails to be the case then Heidegger brandishes little more than “a mere subjective idealism”. ( 364-5) The process of fixing events in relation to before and after can be thought of as a wanderer marking his trail on some sort of map in order to properly orient himself to his environment, except that for the analogy to fit the wanderer cannot stop nor reverse his journey: his map’s use is exhausted by the process of orientation.

Barrett then remarks on thoughts germinating in later works by Heidegger. As these considerations lie beyond the scope of this synopsis I shall only note that Barrett reads into these later works of Heidegger a concession as regards to his thesis. Also, in the chapter on Heidegger in Irrational Man Barrett makes much of Heidegger’s being mistakenly criticized for “evolving” in his later work when, as Barrett sees it, Heidegger simply extended what was already present in Being and Time.

In the last positive section of the paper Barrett further develops the essential place that the flow of time holds in phenomenological and existential philosophy by tracing the role of time-flow in discussions from Aristotle to Sartre before going on to explaining the impetus for his thought in the concluding chapter. On the second to last page in his only footnote Barrett admits that the entire paper can be taken to be an interpretation of one three word statement in Being and Time: “The world worlds.” Indeed the sentiment Barrett took from this statement should be obvious from the above statements: the world creates possibilities by actualizing some, destroying others and thrusting one into a world renewed yet whose possibilities are by-and-large bound to be destroyed, and still bound to perpetuate itself in an ever forward movement from the remains of what was into the unknown yet-to-be by means of the absolute reality of itself. And all of this, as one cannot fail to note when reviewing the literature, is absolutely limited by death.

Bibliography
Barrett, William. The Flow of Time in The Philosophy of Time, ed. Richard M. Gale, London: Macmillan & Co LTD, 1968: pp. 355-377.
Barrett, William Irrational Man New York: Doubleday, 1958.