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audio excerpt:
Arcanum (Plutarch)
by Ezequiel Viñao
Absolute Ensemble
Kristjan Jarvi, conductor
© 1996-2004 Ezequiel Viñao. All rights reserved.
In the eleventh book of his Confessions, Augustine argues that we cannot say that time IS, except by reason of its impending
state of NOT BEING:
"How can past and future BE, when the past no longer is and the future is not yet?"
"How can we say that the present IS, when the reason why it IS is that it is NOT TO BE?"
For Augustine past and future are memory and expectation, modifications of consciousness.
For Plutarch, as for Schopenhauer, there is only ONE PRESENT, and this is always: for it is the sole form of actual existence.
The past is not IN ITSELF different from the present, but only in our apprehension, which has time as its form.
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