Time and temporality in Mihai Şora’s thought Cover Image

Timp şi temporalitate în filosofia lui Mihai Şora
Time and temporality in Mihai Şora’s thought

Author(s): Victor Eugen Gelan
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Editura Academiei Române
Keywords: Time; ontological model; Mihai Şora; Phenomenology; consciousness of time; the temporality of the Moment; intersubjectivity; “the gift of Encounter”; dialogical philosophy; empathy; relation; authenticity

Summary/Abstract: The present contribution has the purpose of evidencing both the originality of Şora’s understanding of time (and its importance for the question of authenticity, empathy and intersubjectivity), and the possibility of a dialogue with Husserl’s understanding of the consciousness of internal time. One of the most important aspects of my paper is the endeavour to bring to light the underlying structure of temporality at work in Mihai Şora’s philosophy. The two forms of temporality present in Şora’s thought – the temporality “of the Moment” and that “of the instances of countable time” – open up the possibility of a phenomenological understanding of time. Some specific terms which Şora uses to describe the two forms of temporality – like the “vertical plunge”, “openness”, “disclosure”, “the gift of Encounter”, “the horizontal walk”, etc. – seem, at least at first, to belong to a poetic language, full of metaphors, a language which doesn’t seem to have much in common with the rigors of a philosophical language, but they nevertheless reveal some fundamental characteristics of the two forms of temporality. The possibility of understanding and interpreting these forms of temporality as structures belonging to the consciousness of time, in a broad sense (which correspond to the fabric of the real word, according to Şora’s ontological model), is another interesting question which will be debated in the present study.

  • Issue Year: IX/2013
  • Issue No: 09
  • Page Range: 129-147
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Romanian