Reframing Temporality

Abstract

The essay starts with the methodological concept of “recurrence” as a biographical and historical “backward running” generation of knowledge, as elaborated by Gaston Bachelard within the framework of historical epistemology. On the basis of this paradigmatic model case, a relation-theoretical reconstruction of temporality is undertaken with reference to Walter Benjamin's and Achim Landwehr's philosophy of history, in which the three temporal orders past, present and future are no longer conceived as separate dimensions. The temporal relational structure acquires epistemological significance, among other things, through the phenomenon of “absence”, i.e. through the temporal effectiveness of an actual “present absence of the past” in biographically or historically reconstructed temporal relational networks. The relevance of educational theory can be clarified historically, transgenerationally, disciplinary-historically and socio-historically, which we outline in the outlook.

Keywords

• recurrence
• temporality
• chronoference
• relational constellation