Modern Phenomenology II

This chapter argues that the descriptive primacy of time in modern ontology follows an elastic regime of motion. As noted in the previous chapter, some degree of elasticity had always been part of the kinetic structure of “tensional” time. In early modern descriptions of abstract or absolute time, the folds of lived time could expand and contract, as could the flow of time itself. However, this elasticity was also simultaneously subordinated to the ontological tensions of a more primary divine force. This chapter discusses time in the work of Kant, Hegel, and Marx.