Hello, other than my introduction, this is my first post! Also, in my introduction, I said that I do hope to give contributions to the forum outside of my asking for help with uni! Just because I know that making my first post a favour is poor etiquette, I intend to make a better impression later! OK, here goes:

I have a critical essay due in soon regarding McTaggart on time. I have done a fair amount of reading for arguments against him, but I can't help but feel there is a jump in his logic that everyone seems to overview when arguing against him.

In making his argument (that for time to have movement, it must exist in the A-series) he seems to use logic that begins with a presumption that time must be in either the A-series or the B-series. I can't see where he justifies this limitation.

Secondly, he then states that as time cannot be real within the a-series or the b-series, it must therefore be unreal. I also feel he is making a jump there. Basically his argument seems to go as follows:

1. If time is not real in the A-series or the B-series, then it must be unreal.
2. Time is not real in the A-series or the B-series.
therefore
3. Time must be unreal.

I feel that his entire piece, 'The Unreality of Time' is spent on explaining and justifying premise 2. However, I feel that he fails to convince me of Premise 1.

I just think that he seems to be presuming Premise 1 with no justification, or, alternatively, is using logic of 'if I can't explain it, it must be unreal' which just seems arrogant to me.

What would be of help would be:

i) Is there any published philosopher who covers my observations that I could read up on to improve or disprove my argument, and
ii) if not, are my observations reasonable, or have I missed something?

Thanks in advance to all replies!