Abstract
We now turn to a structural issue: the interpretation or experience of time itself. We live in a historical present whose characteristic structural feature is its accelerated pace. We experience the velocity of events. But our experience is not confined to events in the thematic sense — political, social, technical, etc: It is related to their position in terms of their duration and their passage in time.1
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Notes
The theme is that of George Gurvitch’s book, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated and edited by Myrtle Korenbaum, assisted by Philip Bosserman (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1964). The present analysis does not relate the multiplicity of times to socjal strata or organizations. G.H. Mead’s Philosophy of the Present deals with the position of the present in general, bestowing on it the central position within the dimensions of time. The emphasis in our exposition is on the pace of the present, and not on its ontological position. On the aspect of acceleration, other than within the experience of time, see Max Patterson; ‘Acceleration in Evolution Before Human Times’, Journal of Biological Structures 1 (1978), 201ff.
The book by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann: The Social Construction of Reality, A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Allen Lane, 1971) relates rapid social change to “the pluralistic situation” which is subversive to traditional reality.
My friend Professor Werblowsky called my attention to the work of Ernst Benz; ‚Akzeleration der Zeit als geschichtliches und heilsgeschichtliches Problem,‘Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur, Mainz, Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, Jhrg. 1977, Nr. 2. Benz analyzes the aspect of acceleration mainly in the context of eschatological expectations in the sense of “time is running short,” and does not raise questions related to categorial contexts of historical time. He refers to aspects of revolution (pp. 48ff.). From the point of view directing the present exploration we can say that the velocity of the present time is not necessarily related to the momentum of revolutions, but rather to the interaction between events and the response to them. See Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space 1880–1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983).
See Irving Hallowell, ‘Temporal Orientation in Western Civilization and in a Preliterate Society,’ American Anthropologist XXXIX (1937), 647ff.
J. Huizinga, ‚Die gegenwärtige Kulturkrise verglichen mit früheren,‘Schriften zur Zeitkritik, übersetzt von Werner Kaegi (Zürich-Bruxelles: Occident-Verlag, Pantheon-Verlag, 1948) pp. 17ff.
Harold D. Lasswell, The Future of World Communication: Quality and Style of Life (Honolulu: East-West Communication Institute), 1972, p. 3.
Karl Jaspers’ well-known Die geistige Situation der Zeit (Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter & Co.) appeared in 1933, that is to say, prior to the changes characteristic of the contemporary situation and the sense of velocity related to them. Jaspers said that what man can do refers to the short range. He is given tasks but not any continuity of his existence. That which has past (das Gewesene) no longer holds good, but only that which is present, (das Gegenwärtige). See ibid., p. 40.
Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Zusatz zu & 138. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, translated with Notes by T.M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1943), p. 255.
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© 1987 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Rotenstreich, N. (1987). The Rhythm of Time. In: Time and Meaning in History. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 101. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3845-8_8
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