The Politics of Time: Epistemic Shifts and the Reception History of the Four Kingdoms Schema

Abstract

Time is a particularly slippery object of study.1 As a structuring element of human experience, it lies outside the bounds of our direct perception; nevertheless, we cannot help but observe its constant, omnipresent effects. Since time is in itself imperceptible, we observe and measure it only by its impacts.2 Moreover, since time appears to be ubiquitous, any division of time will necessarily be arbitrary. Yet in order to conceive of time, we must make such arbitrary distinctions. As systems-theoreticians G. Spencer-Brown and Niklas Luhmann have demonstrated, the drawing of distinctions, of delimitation and articulation, must precede any and every act of indication or description.3 Time is a particularly rich index of the necessity of articulation precisely because of its simultaneous ubiquity and imperceptibility. Thinking about time requires us to study changes in objects that reveal the passage of time, which in turn requires us to articulate different moments in time by which to measure that change. Periodization is the always-constructive act of articulating time into different, distinguishable objects for purposes of measurement and analysis. Even the articulation of a period of time as seemingly natural as a day is a constructive act of periodization. Not only is a twenty-four hour cycle arbitrary from any cosmic perspective other than that of the earth: even within the limits of an anthropocentric perspective, various cultures begin and end their counting of days at different moments.4 Some start with daybreak, others nightfall, while still others switch from one day to