In his review of Pascal Richet's A Natural History of Time (Books, August 10), Keith Thomson says that philosophers, faced with conundrums such as "What is time?" or "Does time exist if nothing is changing?" will "seek for the deep meanings".
I don't think they will. Rather, they will start by working out whether such questions make sense.
If they decide, as I have, that the word "time" is not one to which the interrogative "what?" or the verb "exist" can be sensibly applied, they will not look for deep meanings, but just throw the questions in the bin.
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saone France