Time as a metaphysical dilemma : Jose Luis Borges' treatment of the nature of time in his selected works

Abstract

The concept of time, which has been a major subject of study in various fields, defies a neat definition. Many scholars have failed to define it in a manner applicable to all fields. Generally, time can be defined as the unlimited continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future, regarded as a whole. It is a measure in which events can be ordered from the past through the present into the future. Some schools of thought deny the existence of time. They argue that the present is undefined and indefinite; and the future has no reality except as present recollection. In some of his works, Jose Luis Borges (1899-1986) describes time in a linear manner, that is to say, that humans experience time as a series of present moments, one following the other. The past and the future both exist nowhere but in the human mind. Borges seems to agree with the notion that time is but a figment of the mind. In other stories, his perception of time is circular. Thus, the focus of the current article is on time, which is a metaphysical dilemma, and Borges' treatment of the nature of time in his selected works.