Samuel L. Macey (ed.), Encyclopedia of Time (1994), contains some 360 entries providing extensive coverage of various aspects of the study of time. Also useful is Samuel L. Macey, Time: A Bibliographic Guide (1991), which lists approximately 6,000 mostly English-language titles in diverse areas divided by academic subject.
Time and its role in the history of thought and action
The concept of time in Eastern philosophy is discussed in Charles Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, 3 vol. (1921, reissued 1971); Fung Yu-lan (Yu-lan Feng), A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. from Chinese by Derk Bodde, 2 vol. (1937–53, reissued 1983); and R.C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961). Works with a pre-Socratic focus are John Burnet, Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato (1914, reissued 1968); and Henri Frankfort et al., The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (1946, reissued 1977). Time in classical Greece is discussed in Norman W. De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy (1954, reprinted 1973); W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, 6 vol. (1962–81); and Jacqueline de Romilly, Time in Greek Tragedy (1968). Christian and Muslim studies include Augustine, Confessions, especially Book II, available in many English translations, an important work of Greco-Roman thought on the problems of experienced time and the difficulty of grappling with them; Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. from Arabic, 3 vol. (1958, reissued in 1 vol., 1974), undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind; Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time, rev. ed. (1962; originally published in German, 3rd rev. ed., 1962); and James Barr, Biblical Words for Time, 2nd rev. ed. (1969).
Time in the 18th and 19th centuries is examined in Giambattista Vico, The New Science of Giambattista Vico (1948, reissued 1984; originally published in Italian, 3rd ed., 1744), a seminal work on the ontological significance of history; Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by Norman Kemp Smith (1929, reissued 1978; originally published in German, 2nd ed., 1787), presenting time as an a priori category of perception and expressing the relationship of time with the way the human mind structures knowledge; Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), also available in many later editions; and H.G. Alexander (ed.), The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (1956, reissued 1976), offering a concise and accurate exposition of the contrasted idealist/relativist and realist conceptions of time in modern natural philosophy.
Time in the 20th century is explored in Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, 2 vol. (1926–28, reissued 1988–89; originally published in German, 1919–22); Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954, reissued 1974; originally published in French, 1949); Francis C. Haber, The Age of the World: Moses to Darwin (1959, reprinted 1978); S.G.F. Brandon, History, Time, and Deity (1965); Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield, The Discovery of Time (1965, reprinted 1983), a history of the changing attitude toward time that arose from advances in the study of geology and biology in the 19th century; the symposium volume, History and the Concept of Time (1966); and Michael Young, The Metronomic Society: Natural Rhythms and Human Timetables (1988), a popular book on our social experience of time.
Contemporary philosophies of time
Two reference works in the study of time are G.J. Whitrow, The Natural Philosophy of Time, 2nd ed. (1980); and J.T. Fraser (ed.), The Voices of Time, 2nd ed. (1981)—both contain extensive references. Also of interest is Keith Seddon, Time (1987), a brief Anglo-American introduction to conceptualizing time. Two phenomenological studies by major philosophers are Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1962, reissued 1978; originally published in German, 1927); and Edmund Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness (1964; originally published in German, 1928). An influential work on experiencing time is Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will, trans. by F.L. Pogson (1910, reissued 1971; originally published in French, 1889). Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, corrected ed. (1978), is a contemporary attempt at building up a natural philosophy based on the conceptualization of temporal change. Other studies include G.J. Whitrow, What Is Time? (1972; also published as The Nature of Time, 1973); P.C.W. Davies, The Physics of Time Asymmetry (1974), and Space and Time in the Modern Universe (1977); W. Newton-Smith, The Structure of Time (1980); George N. Schlesinger, Aspects of Time (1980); and D.H. Mellor, Real Time (1981).
Multidisciplinary discussions are found in Joseph Campbell (ed.), Man and Time (1957, reissued 1973); Rudolf W. Meyer (ed.), Das Zeitproblem im 20. Jahrhundert (1964); Roland Fischer (ed.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives of Time (1967); J.T. Fraser et al. (eds.), The Study of Time (1972); J.T. Fraser, Time, The Familiar Stranger (1987), a useful survey for general readers and perhaps his most accessible book; and J.T. Fraser (ed.), Time and Mind: Interdisciplinary Issues (1989), covering a wide range of disciplines, including literature, music, psychology, and physics.
Texts emphasizing the philosophy of time are J.J.C. Smart (ed.), Problems of Space and Time (1964); Richard M. Gale (ed.), The Philosophy of Time (1967, reissued 1978); Charles M. Sherover (ed.), The Human Experience of Time (1975); and Robin Le Poidevin and Murray MacBeath (eds.), The Philosophy of Time (1993), all with extensive bibliographies.
Time in literature and the arts is treated in Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (1939, reissued 1972); Hans Meyerhoff, Time in Literature (1955, reissued 1974); Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time (1956, reprinted 1979; originally published in French, 1949); George Kubler, The Shape of Time (1962); and Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 3 vol. (1984–88; originally published in French, 1983–85), by a foremost French philosopher, relating his phenomenological interpretation of time and plot to literature.
Psychology is the focus of Jean Piaget, The Child’s Conception of Time (1969; originally published in French, 1946); John Cohen, Psychological Time in Health and Disease (1967); Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History, 2nd ed. (1985); and Ernst Pöppel, Mindworks: Time and Conscious Experience (1988; originally published in German, 1985), for a popular audience. Two books that examine cognitive theory are Richard A. Block (ed.), Cognitive Models of Psychological Time (1990), very useful for research; and William Friedman, About Time (1990), a brief introductory survey of time perception. Sociopsychological aspects of time are explored in Eviatar Zerubavel, The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week (1985); and Joseph E. McGrath and Janice R. Kelly, Time and Human Interaction: Toward a Social Psychology of Time (1986); Joseph E. McGrath (ed.), The Social Psychology of Time (1988), for advanced readers.
Works with an emphasis on biology and medicine are J.L. Cloudsley-Thompson, Rhythmic Activity in Animal Physiology and Behaviour (1961); Curt P. Richter, Biological Clocks in Medicine and Psychiatry (1965, reprinted 1979); Gay G. Luce, Biological Rhythms in Psychiatry and Medicine (1970); Erwin Bünning, The Physiological Clock, rev. 3rd ed. (1973; originally published in German, 1958); and J. Arendt, D.S. Minors, and J.M. Waterhouse (eds.), Biological Rhythms in Clinical Practice (1989).
Time in physics is discussed in Hans Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space & Time (1957; originally published in German, 1928), highlighting the philosophical challenge about time raised by contemporary physics; Richard Schlegel, Time and the Physical World (1961); Milic Capek, The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics (1961), a treatment of process philosophy; O. Costa de Beauregard, Le Second Principe de la science du temps (1963); Thomas Gold (ed.), The Nature of Time (1967); Adolf Grünbaum, Modern Science and Zeno’s Paradoxes (1967), regarding problems concerned with the continuity of time, and Philosophical Problems of Space and Time, 2nd enlarged ed. (1973), treating many important issues including that of temporal asymmetry; Ilya Prigogine, From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences (1980); Richard Morris, Time’s Arrows (1985), a general, not overly technical introduction to scientific views on time; Raymond Flood and Michael Lockwood (eds.), The Nature of Time (1986), eight nontechnical essays for informed readers, including a glossary; Robert G. Sachs, The Physics of Time Reversal (1987); Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988), a popular overview by an eminent physicist; John Archibald Wheeler, A Journey Into Gravity and Spacetime (1990), an introductory analysis of Einstein; and Barry Parker, Cosmic Time Travel (1991), questioning whether or how such travel might be possible.
The formalization of time in logic is analyzed in Arthur N. Prior, Time and Modality (1957, reprinted 1979), and Past, Present, and Future (1967). Yoav Shoham, Reasoning About Change (1988), accounts for the representation of time from the standpoint of artificial intelligence. On the representation of time in history, useful sources include David Carr, Time, Narrative, and History (1986); and Nathan Rotenstreich, Time and Meaning in History (1987).
Time as systematized in modern scientific society
Definitions, formulas, and tables concerning time, ephemerides, and calendars are given in Great Britain, Nautical Almanac Office and United States Naval Observatory, Nautical Almanac Office, The Astronomical Almanac (annual), and Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, rev. ed. edited by P. Kenneth Seidelmann (1992). The 1984 Almanac contains a supplement concerning the IAU astronomical constants, timescales, and reference frame introduced that year. Bureau International de l’Heure, Annual Report, provides results on rotational time, including new techniques, atomic time, and Earth rotation. Edgar W. Woolard and Gerald M. Clemence, Spherical Astronomy (1966), is a mathematical treatment of fundamental positional astronomy. Ivan I. Mueller, Spherical and Practical Astronomy (1969), concerns practical usages for geodesy, including polar motion. Robert R. Newton, Ancient Astronomical Observations and the Accelerations of the Earth and Moon (1970), discusses ancient eclipse reports critically. Articles in journals include W. Markowitz et al., “Frequency of Cesium in Terms of Ephemeris Time,” Physical Review Letters, 1(3):105–107 (Aug. 1, 1958); T.C. Van Flandern, “Is the Gravitational Constant Changing?,” Astrophysical Journal, 248(2):813–816 (Sept. 1, 1981); and Donald Backer, “Millisecond Pulsars,” Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy, 5(3):187–207 (September 1984), on time from pulsar PSR 1937+21.