Abstract
In1 this century the attempt has been undertaken to make progress with the longstanding problem of time by posing the question as to how time is originally experienced. I would like to take up anew this question, one posed above all by the first thinkers of phenomenology, Husserl and Heidegger. In my opinion a phenomenological theory of time can only then have a claim to binding knowledge when it arises out of an original experience of time. An original experience of time I understand as that experience through which we as human beings first notice that there is such a thing as “time,” an experience which may thus possibly occasion us to form the concept “time.”
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Iwould like to thank my assistant, Dr. Felix Ó Murchadha, for his effort in translating this text into English.
Cf. in this context the author’s “Heimwelt, Fremdwelt, die eine Welt,” in Phanomenologische Forschungen, ed. E. W. Orth, vol. 24, 1991, 313ff. and 320ff.
In relation to the inner connection of logos, time, and number cf. the author’s “Zeit als Zahl. Das Pythagoraische im Zeitverstandnis der Antike,” in Zeiterfahrung und Personalität, ed. P. Rohs (Frankfurt a.M., 1992).
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Stambaugh (Albany, 1996) [in the following cited as BT], 352.
Cf. Martin Heidegger, Der SatzvomGrund(Pfullmgen,1957), 181.
For a justifiably critical assessment of this cf. Ernst Tugendhat, Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl undHeidegger(Berlin, 1970), 368, footnote. Cf. in this regard too the author’s “Heidegger and the Principle of Phenomenology,” in Martin Heidegger. Critical Assessments, ed. Chr. Macann (London, 1992).
Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Über leere und erfüllte Zeit,” in Kleine Schriften III(Tübingen, 1972), 221ff.
Aristotle, Politic , 1252a30ff.
Cf. ibid., 1252b16.
The claim that man and woman are equal in the family for Aristotle and that this is for him an essential foundation for political equality may seem surprising. But apart from what I have presented in the main body of this article, the validity of this thesis is supported by a passage in the Nicomachean Ethics: 1160b32ff. Here Aristotle, in setting up an analogy between the good, thus non-despotic constitutions, and the relationship of friendship within the house, made a parallel between the friendly “benevolent” relationship between husband and wife and the relationship of equality, which in a Timocracy (which in turn because of its relationship with the polity or the—in this place favorably judged—democracy is positively assessed, cf. 1160bl7ff.) exists between the aristocratic power holders. In the same way as the latter in ruling a polis are equal to one another, so do the husband and wife rule with equal rank over the house.
Cf.Pol., 1252b5ff..
Cf. in this regard the author’s “Die Zweideutigkeit der Doxa und die Verwirklichung des modernen Rechtsstaats,” in Meinungfreiheit: Grundgedanken und Geschichte in Europa und USA, ed. J. Schwartländer und D. Willoweit, Tübinger Universitatsschriften, vol. 6: Forschungsprojekt Menschenrechte (Kehl a.Rh., 1986).
Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1161a25ff.
Cf. Pol., 1253b32/33..
In the Paris Manuscripts the young Marx interpreted the begetting of children as productive work and precisely in that falls victim to the barbarianism which Aristotle exposed. Thus the much praised humanism of the young Marx did not from the very beginning stretch very far. Admittedly, to the extent to which we have today become used to characterizing the begetting of children as “reproduction” of the human species, our own humanity does not fare much better.
Cf. G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit(Oxford, 1977), ch. IV: The Truth of Self-Certainty, 104ff.
Cf. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition(Chicago, 1958), 175ff. and 246f. along with 96ff.
Cf. BT, 40.
Cf. H. Arendt.
Cf. Plato, Symposium 206c ff.
Cf. on this theme the author’s “Fundamental Moods and Heidegger’s Critique of Contemporary Culture,” in Reading Heidegger. Commemorations, ed. J. Sallis (Bloomington/Indianapolis, 1993).
BT, 282 (§ 62) along with 219ff. (§§ 46–48) as well as 245f. and 277.
Cf. G. Marcel: Philosophie der Hoffnung(Munich, 1957), in particular: “Das Geheimnis der Familie,” 77ff. and “Die Schöpferische Verpflichtung als Wesen der Vaterschaft,” 143ff
Cf. BT, 343f.
The house (oikos), i.e., the living space of the family in antiquity on which Aristotle bases the explanation of the essential source of the polis, is not simply the elementary form of community, i.e., the form of community which is by nature not further analysable. It is rather the fusing of two forms of living with one another, which themselves are in this sense elementary: the ephemeral elementary community of master-servant and the generative elementary community of matrimony. (An “Element” is defined by Aristotle in Metaphysics, 1014b26ff. as that which is indivisible with respect to its specific quality.)
Cf. ibid., 1160b27f.
Cf.Pol., 1252bl8ff.
Cf. G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, ed. J. Hoffmeister (Hamburg, 1955), 155 (§§158–181), especially §§158, 163, 170 and 173.
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Held, K. (2000). Generative Experience of Time. In: Brough, J.B., Embree, L. (eds) The Many Faces of Time. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9411-0_9
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