4. Back to the future

This chapter addresses the question posed in these volumes of the interrelationship of time and space. It contrasts the view that the concept of space structures that of time with the alternative that there is a close relationship between time and epistemic modality. Focusing on metaphors, the chapter argues that casting events as physical objects located in positions around Ego, i.e. an individual at the deictic centre, allows the degree to which Ego can physically interact with the event-objects to be inferred. It is argued that mental interaction can be metaphorically cast as physical interaction and consequently the location of an event allows the degree of epistemic detachment from the event (a modal concept) to be determined.