Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3 / In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods

by Plotinus

POLEMIC AGAINST EPICURUS: TIME IS NOT AN ACCIDENT OR CONSEQUENCE OF MOVEMENT.

9. (10). When (Epicurus[457]) says that time is a consequence of movement, he is not explaining the nature of time; this would demand a preliminary definition of the consequence of movement. Besides, this alleged consequence of movement—granting the possibility of such a consequence—must be prior, simultaneous, or posterior. For, in whatever way we conceive of it, it is within time. Consequently, if the consequence of movement be time, the result would be that time is a consequence of movement in time (which is nonsense).