"A New Refutation of Time" (original

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

title: "Nueva refutación del tiempo") is an essay by Argentine writer

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

(written between 1944 and 1946) in which he argues that the negations of

idealism Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...

may be extended to time. It consists of a prologue and two articles: the first one was written in 1944 and appeared in number 115 of the review '' Sur''; the second, written in 1946, is a rework of the first. Borges comments that he did not combine the two texts into one, as the reading of two analogous texts might facilitate the comprehension of an indocile subject. Just as subjective idealist

George Berkeley George Berkeley ( ; 12 March 168514 January 1753), known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, writer, and clergyman who is regarded as the founder of "immaterialism", a philos ...

denies that there is a material object existing independently of our perception of it, and

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...

denies that there is a subject apart from a mere recollection of sensations (a reductionist,

materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materia ...

worldview), Borges tries to posit that there is no time. He proceeds on the assumption that if "man" is reduced, as according to Hume, to a collection of sensations, a single repeated perception, either in one man's life or in the experience of two different men, suffices to prove that time is a fallacy, since this repetition will destroy its linear sequence.

References

* * Works by Jorge Luis Borges Philosophy essays Works originally published in Sur (magazine) 1946 essays Contemporary philosophical literature Metaphysics books {{philo-essay-stub