Concerted instant-interval temporal semantics. I: Temporal ontologies (Q2639048)

Semantics for the language of time is commonly based on instants or points; but there is a less developed program based rather on intervals. The author explores the possibility of defining temporal structures in terms purely of points, and alternatively in terms purely of intervals. This permits the discrimination of three different ideas about the nature of a point of time instants, (1) as an atomic interval (the natural set- theoretical interpretation), (2) as a boundary (as in Aristotle, Euclid, and Plato), and (3) as a limit (as in Russell and Weiner). It also permits a formal description of some of the alternative ontologies of time which have been suggested by various writers including John of Damascius, Giordano Bruno, Aristotle, Leibniz, and Brentano. Like many other writers on the logic of time, the author is familiar with the early history of this subject and draws it fruitfully into his own work.