Quotessence
Home / Authors / Michael Sonenscher Biography

Michael Sonenscher Biography

Author

Related Quotes

“Hegel also pointed out that part of the content of the division of time into past, present, or future seemed able to transcend these temporal units because the parts in question were simply true. Time does not seem to matter to things like triangles or tripods because their qualities are either timeless or eternal. A future triangle would be like any triangle past or present. Truth, in other words, seems either to eradicate time or, at least, to take the temporality out of time. In the terms that Hegel began to establish, Kant’s disquieting claim about the injustice built into time, history, and progress began to look more surmountable. On one side, there was a world made up of moments, some present, some past, some future. The future would turn into the present and negate itself. The present would turn into the past but could still be available in the present. The passage of time and the endless stream of negations of negations built into the human ability to make choices and decisions would give rise to many diferent values, arrangements, and worldviews. Some, however, might turn out to be true. This was the hallmark of the other side of human history. If something was true, it would fall out of time and become, simply, timeless. On Kant’s terms, time and history were the problem. On Hegel’s terms, they were the solution.”