What account is to be given temporal priority and of the direction of time? One natural view is that no accountis needed (Oaklander 2004), a position that can be defended by arguing, first, that one immediately perceives the succession of events (Bergson 1912), and second, that if one can immediately see that events stand in the relation of temporal priority, then the concept of that relation is primitive and unanalyzable.

There are, however, important objections to this view and to the supporting argument. As regards the latter, the question arises whether perception of change does not turn out, on closer scrutiny, to involve not only a momentary visual state but also short-term memories of immediately preceding visual states. If so, then the acquisition of a belief that something is moving or changing will involve inference, and succession will...