Time and Critique: The Temporal Dimensions of the Dialectical Method

Abstract

After discussing the method of ‘critique’ and its intellectual evolution, this chapter will examine its temporal dimensions, while continuing to emphasize the writings of Hegel and Marx. The issue of time is the grammatical code within which method is understood. Through the temporal dimensions the range and boundaries of the categories are framed. This is important in Marx’ critique of positivism because underlying both explanatory science and the critique of political economy are two entirely different understandings of the nature of time and history. The approach to the temporal dimension will form the framework within which history can be known; it will also form the methodological conditions and boundaries by which the external reality can be appropriated; it will structure the nature of our knowledge about the future, which can be anticipated; and, finally, it will determine the way in which social practice is ultimately understood. In explanatory science the elements of time are viewed as quantitative and discrete, separable moments capable of being adequately predicted by theoretical projections and manipulated by social intervention. This temporal dimension of positivism is built into its very categorial and logical structure.