Re: [xmca] Researchers looking into non-linear constructions of time

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

I wanted to share another perspective on time that is tied to notions of
the ESSENTIAL historicity of spontaneous human existence.

Louis A. Sass wrote a chapter for a book on psychoanalytic versions of the
human condition edited by Alan Rosenberg.
Louis Sass chapter 11 is titled *Ambiguity Is of the Essence: The Relevance
of Hermeneutics for Psychoanalysis*

I am attempting to understand how hermeneutical undrstandings can unveil
multiple types of narrative structure, and psychoanalysis is one particular
type of hermeneutical narrative.
Sass refers to Merleau-Ponty's understanding of temporality as essentially
historical.
M-P wrote,

"All prospection is anticipatory retrospection, but it can equally be said
that all retrospection is prospection in reverse.: I know that I was in
Corsica before the war, because I know that the war was on the horizon of
my trip there.... Time is thought of by us before its parts, and temporal
relations make possible the event in time" [Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p414
quoted by Sass]

 Louis Sass adds to this quote and amplifies its central point with the
assertion,

"This ESSENTIAL historicity of SPONTANEOUS human existence implies a
certain ambiguity, given the multiplicity of projects and retrospections
that are always weaving their way in and out of our awareness, sometimes
fairly explicitly, but often in ways more inchoate and obscure." [p. 276]

Merleau-Ponty is exploring the double arrow of time [ambiguity of
prospection and retrospecton]that is also explored in the article
Greg mentioned
This double arrow of time which constitutes spontaneous human
existence within ESSENTIAL historicity seems to be a central aspect of
transforming the ensemble of perceptions within human existence.

Human studies as interpretation and understanding imply human temporality
within a hermeneutical essential historicity.

Larry
On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Katerina Plakitsi <kplakits@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> my PhD dissertation is on children's conceptions of time, but
> unfortunately is only in Greek.
> In any case clocks represent the conventional time which is totally
> different from the personal psychological time.
> According to Piaget, we conceptualize time through its major dimensions
> the duration and the succesion of events.
> Long periods of time are more easy (like the time of farmers, seasoning,
> periodical activities etc.), while short periods of time (like minutes and
> seconds) are more difficult.
> Another historical dichotomy between physical time and psychological time
> is the debate between Einstein and Bergson.
> Finally, Heidegger approached the concept of time from a very different
> point of view (Being and Time).
> Below, you can see some helpful citations.
> Yours
> Katerina
>
> 11. Bergson, H. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of
> Consciousness 1910. (Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience
> 1889) Dover Publications 2001: ISBN 0-486-41767-0 – Bergson's doctoral
> dissertation
> 12. Biological Clocks. Gold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative
> Biology, XXV, 1960
> 45. Fraisse, P. (1964), The Psychology of Time. Trans.  J. M. A., Leith.
> (OXON.). Eyre & Spottiswoode, London.
> 47. Friedman, W. (1982), The Developmental Psychology of Time. Academic
> Press, New York.
> 58. Grünbaum, A. (1971). The Meaning of Time. In E., Freeman, and W.,
> Sellars. Basic Issues in the Philosophy of Time. Illinois.]
> 69. Hawking, Stephen, (1988), A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books,
> London.
> 70. Heidegger, M. (1962), Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Translated
> by James S. Churchill, Bloomington (German original first published: Bonn
> 1929).
> 71. Heidegger, M. (1982), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated
> by Albert Hofstadter, Bloomington 1982 (German original first published in:
> Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, II. Abteilung: Vorlesungen 1923-1944, Bd.
> 24, Frankfurt a.M. 1975).
> 72. Heidegger, M. (1992a), Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie
> and Edward Robinson, Oxford and Cambridge (first published 1962; German
> original first published: Tübingen 1927).
> 73. Heidegger, M. (1992b), The Concept of Time. Translated by William
> McNeill, Oxford and Cambridge (Mass.) (German original first published:
> Tübingen 1989).
> 88. Kant, I. (1787/1933), Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd edit. N.K. Smith
> (trans.), Macmillan, London (first published: London 1929; German original
> first published: Riga 1781[A]; 1787[B]).
> 137. Piaget, J. (1969), The Child’s Conception of Time. Trans from French
> (1927) Le Development de la Notion de Temps chez l’ Enfant, PUF, by
> Pomerans, A.J. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
> 151. Prigogine, Ilya (1980), From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity
> in the Physical Sciences, San Francisco.
>
> ..............................**..............................**
> ...........
> Katerina Plakitsi
> Assistant Professor of Science Education
> School of Education
> University of Ioannina
> University Campus Dourouti 45110
> Ioannina
> Greece
> tel. +302651005771
> fax. +302651005842
> mobile.phone +306972898463
>
> http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits
> http://erasmus-ip.uoi.gr
> http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp
>
>
> -----Αρχικό μήνυμα----- From: Michelle Zoss
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2012 9:26 PM
> To: eXtended Mind Culture Activity
> Cc: Alisha White
> Subject: [xmca] Researchers looking into non-linear constructions of time
>
>
> Dear XMCA Colleagues,
>
> I am working on a project with my colleague, Alisha White, in which we are
> trying to understand the experiences of a  teacher during her second year
> of teaching in which she was diagnosed, treated, and recovered from cancer.
>
> The issue at hand is this: Time, as we understand it based on her
> discussion of her experiences, was not linear. She often spoke about time
> in a folded or overlapping sense--she spoke about past, present, and future
> all at once on a number of occasions. We speculate that her understanding
> of time was not linear because she positioned her experiences as being
> present to her at the moment of the interview, though the experiences had
> already happened in the past or she was talking about what her experiences
> would be like in the future. Trying to parse out whether she was talking
> about recent past events or future events was something we encountered
> throughout the analysis of several hours of formal and informal interviews
> that were conducted during and just after the school year.
>
> The question we would like to pose for consideration of the group is this:
>
> Where and to whom do we look for discussions and analyses of time in
> people's experiences as possibly non-linear?
>
>
> This question is here, in part, because of work that I did with Peter
> Smagorinsky in analyzing the work of a Native American student and his
> composing practices in an English class (see: http://ijea.org/v8n10/). In
> this study, the student named Peta described how a mapping activity to show
> his life could not be linear because "No way in life is linear." This
> phrase has been rattling around in my own brain since about 2005.
>
>
> For the current study, we think that time was not linear for the teacher
> in our study as well. For her, time was less a function of a clock marking
> a linear progression of hours in a day; rather, time was more a function of
> the relationships she had with students. Time seemed interminably slow when
> her relationships with students were strained and awkward because she was
> recovering from the illness, staying relatively still throughout her
> classes, and not connecting with students on a personal level (there were
> times when she could not remember students' names, let alone if they were
> present in class). In contrast, time seemed more typical and even perhaps
> fast when her relationships with students were closer to her expectations
> for what she expected those relationships to look like. Put simply, time is
> important in this study, but we are struggling with how to theorize how it
> functioned, especially since it seems to be out of synch with the day-to-day
> pacing of one lesson after another, day after day structure that existed
> in the school. (We published an article last summer about how her teaching
> practices shaped into the kind of teaching she wanted in this article:
> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.**com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-8845.**
> 2011.01096.x/abstract<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-8845.2011.01096.x/abstract>
> ).
>
>
> I appreciate any thoughts you can share and directions you might be able
> to point out.
>
> Thanks,
> Michelle.
>
>
> **** **** **** ****
>
>
> Dr. Michelle Zoss
> Georgia State University
> michellezoss@yahoo.com
> zoss@gsu.edu
> ______________________________**____________
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