Key Arguments

• He raises the problem of how a non‑existent future can ‘diminish’ and a non‑existent past can ‘grow’, and proposes that this can only be explained by three mental processes: "unless there are three processes in the mind which in this is the active agent? For the mind expects and attends and remembers, so that what it expects passes through what has its attention to what it remembers."
• He maintains the ontological claim that future and past do not exist, but locates their ‘length’ in mental states: "Who therefore can deny that the future does not yet exist? Yet already in the mind there is an expectation of the future. Who can deny that the past does not now exist? Yet there is still in the mind a memory of the past."
• He reiterates that the present has no temporal extension—"present time lacks any extension because it passes in a flash"—yet says that attention is continuous and is the channel of transition: "Yet attention is continuous, and it is through this that what will be present progresses towards being absent."
• From this he redefines long future and long past: "So the future, which does not exist, is not a long period of time. A long future is a long expectation of the future. And the past, which has no existence, is not a long period of time. A long past is a long memory of the past."
• He illustrates with the example of reciting a psalm: before reciting, expectation covers the whole; as he recites, completed parts become memory while the unreached parts remain expectation, and attention operates at the present syllable: "The life of this act of mine is stretched two ways, into my memory because of the words I have already said and into my expectation because of those which I am about to say. But my attention is on what is present: by that the future is transferred to become the past."

Source Quotes

Or how does the past, which now has no being, grow, unless there are three processes in the mind which in this is the active agent? For the mind expects and attends and remembers, so that what it expects passes through what has its attention to what it remembers. Who therefore can deny that the future does not yet exist?

Who therefore can deny that the future does not yet exist? Yet already in the mind there is an expectation of the future. Who can deny that the past does not now exist?

Who can deny that the past does not now exist? Yet there is still in the mind a memory of the past. None can deny that present time lacks any extension because it passes in a flash.

Yet there is still in the mind a memory of the past. None can deny that present time lacks any extension because it passes in a flash. Yet attention is continuous, and it is through this that what will be present progresses towards being absent. So the future, which does not exist, is not a long period of time.

So the future, which does not exist, is not a long period of time. A long future is a long expectation of the future. And the past, which has no existence, is not a long period of time. A long past is a long memory of the past. (38) Suppose I am about to recite a psalm which I know.

Key Concepts

• For the mind expects and attends and remembers, so that what it expects passes through what has its attention to what it remembers.
• Yet already in the mind there is an expectation of the future.
• Yet there is still in the mind a memory of the past.
• None can deny that present time lacks any extension because it passes in a flash. Yet attention is continuous
• A long future is a long expectation of the future. And the past, which has no existence, is not a long period of time. A long past is a long memory of the past.

Context

Book XI, xxviii (37–38): Augustine completes his psychological reinterpretation of past, present, and future as three presents in the soul—present of future (expectation), present of present (attention), and present of past (memory)—and uses the recitation of a psalm as a model.