SOURCE: “The Indexical Fallacy in McTaggart's Proof of the Unreality of Time,” in Mind, Vol. 96, No. 381, January, 1987, pp. 62-70.

In the following essay, Lowe argues against McTaggart's theory in which he purports that time cannot be real because of contradictions in “A-series expressions.”

Events, as McTaggart pointed out, may not only be described as being earlier and later than one another (and as such constituting the ‘B series’) but also as being past, present and future (and as such constituting the ‘A series’).¹ B-series sentences do not alter in truth value with time: if ‘e₁ is earlier than e₂’ is ever true, it is always true, whereas ‘e happened yesterday’, if true today, will not be true tomorrow.² McTaggart holds that the reality of time demands the reality of the A series (the B series alone will not suffice) because, he considers, change is essential to time but...