The images of time in the epoch of multiculturalism

Abstract

The article is devoted to the comprehension of the connection between the idea and practice of multiculturalism and images of time that define the identity of classical cultural models. To answer the question about the perspectives and the limits of multiculturalism as new form of pluralism, it is necessary to examine the origins of the idea of plurality in Western culture. This idea occurs to be deeply connected with the specific movement of subjectivation and the mode of time‐experience that defines the ontological basis of the Self. The specific feature of European mode of apprehension of the time is its visual character. The vivid call of the epoch of multiculturalism is the need for transformation of indefinite plurality into real diversity. It demands new ontology based on refusal from visual approach to time and on transition “eidetic” one into “existential”.