The Syntax of Time ─ The Phenomenology of Time in Greek Physics And Speculative Logic from Iamblichus to Anaximander

Manchester (philosophy, Stone Brook U.) reprints three essays from 1984, presents a new one, and revises a 1979 essay that turned out to be based on an error. They begin by showing how fourth-century Neoplatonist Iamblicus, interpreting Plotinus on the topic of time, incorporates a diagram of time that bears comparison to the figure of double continuity drawn by Husserl in his studies of time. Following that clue, he seeks a phenomenological recover of Greek thought about time, arguing that the feature of motion that the word time designates in Greek differs from what most modern scholarship has assumed, and that the very phenomenon of time has been misunderstood for centuries. He offers corrected readings of Plotinus, Aristotle, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, all looking back to Anaximander. He does not suggest revising the calendar. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Peter Manchester, Ph.D. (1972) in Philosophical Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University. He has published on Augustine, Parmenides, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Aristotle, and on "Eternity" in the Encyclopedia of Religion (1987).