Chronos and Kairos: Ordering on the one Side and Radiating on the Other

Abstract

The question of time preoccupied philosophers already in Antiquity, and its interpretation in history has known several culminations. Strangely enough, time does not fall into any ontological category, for all of them depend on it. In fact, the various modes of existence (e.g., reality, ideality, fictive existence, absolute existence) are to be distinguished fundamen- tally by their relation to time, which their respective ontological structures indicate as being either necessary (real existence, which allows change and action) or inadmissible (ideal existence, which does not compass the possibility of change), etc. The question thus emerges — in virtue of what does time play such a basic role with respect to ontology?