"Does Time Exist?", Revisited

Presently, I've been participating in a philosophical debate on Facebook in one its many private forums. The question was put to the members of said group:

"Time does not exist, only clocks do". Yes, no, maybe? What do you think?"

My response contextualized the question within an important historical conversation, between Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and Marx (others have had more to say about this matter, but these four did much to advance the conversation from Premodern conceptions).

 We could say that, aside from clocks, calendars also exist. Calendars are not exactly like clocks, though clocks do accord to calendars, and in a certain sense reiterate calendars. We can also say that calendars are not simply thin booklets which hang upon the wall, but are also conceptual structures by which societies organize their regular or annual events. Also, calendars are a certain type of structural ground for histories, so that while we may question the existence of a thing such as a concept, it becomes very evident that without such conceptual grounds, the very possibility of a critical historical perspective would be radically undermined. So, Here are three alternative ways of thinking about clocks: as gear-mechanisms, as annual schedules, as commemorated events. Each of these demonstrates some degree of abstraction—even the gear-mechanism, since one has to "read" it in a way that is not immediately obvious to those who haven't been previously introduced to its function. As such, even the clock is not a clock unless we admit to the abstractive element by which its function becomes intelligible. 

In essence, yes, Time is abstract, perhaps even the very basis of all abstraction, but no, this does not make it a falsity or an illusion. I may simply be a structure for which our base senses lack the grasping, so that the hermeneutical engine of our brain-stuff has to avoid falling too much into visual, tactile metaphors in order to "grasp", i.e., 'com-pre-hend'.

BTW, the proclivity towards reducing all abstraction to some sort of convenient fiction and/or myth has a certain longstanding basis, including none other than Marx's Materialistic Dialectic (an antithetical sort of abstraction in comparison with Hegel's Trinitarian Dialectic). Karl had a certain vision of truth, of what was real, which objected to abstraction as a mere post hoc appropriation by elites of the day to day existential facts of lived experience. He comments in his work on German Idealism that the real facts consist in human actions, the invention of a wheel or axe, that sort of concrete change which historically impacted humanity's industry. 

Hegel, by contrast, regarded the concept as the most concrete thing: human rights, freedom, liberty, justice; these ideals were the most important projects of humanity, and deserved the lion's share of our intellectual labors. But, as abstractions, they were difficult to access, assess, and critique. As such, they needed a firm basis, one given in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, wherein it becomes "plainer" how human reason works. 

In Kant's Critique, "Time" is the internal form of all sensuous intuitions, to be contrasted against "Space" as the external form of all sensuous intuitions (One should note a certain homage to Descartes' basic mind-body problem here). As such, the powers of the understanding, of the intellect, depend for its basis an understanding of cause-and-effect, of Time. This gives us a concrete basis for accessing, assessing, and critiquing those historical concepts which in Hegel's mind are the vanguard of human goals. 

As the primary objects of human striving, there is of course a certain concrete seriousness with which they are to be regarded. And in this respect, these concepts are very much real, however abstract. Among these, Hegel regarded Time as the very "Concept of concepts", no doubt because of Kant's vision of Time as the structural framework within which all such concepts came to light and played out their values and roles in human history.