A kronometrikus időszemlélet újkori térhódítása és egyneműsödése
The Spead and Homogenisation of the Chronometric View on Time in the Modern Age

Summary/Abstract: The crisis of medieval symbolic thinking initiated a semantic homogenization process in conceptual systems. It seems advantageous to investigate these occurrences in the wider context of a space-time paradigm shift. The gradual decline of the geocentric worldview, together with the proposition that the miracle of redemption did not take place in the center of the universe, but on one of the planets rotating around the Sun, must have had a dramatic effect overall. The gradual erosion of the medieval geocentric worldview, together with its system of spheres, prepared the development of modern rationalized concepts of time and space, in which transcendental symbolism has lost its relevance. When looking at the effects of this paradigm shift, we see an almost simultaneous change in the way the cosmos is represented in its structural and spatial relationships and in the internal abstract space of contemporary thought, exemplified by how its symbolic (microcosmic) mechanism operates. It is advantageous to think of time (and especially World Time and its standardization in the 19th century) within this context – as an entity gaining independence of symbolic, teleological or eschatological dimensions. Parallel investigations of the concept of time through different branches of research, such as the history of mentality, sociology of time, technological advances and pragmatic usage aspects of timemeasurement devices, complement each other in representing different dimensions of the same process.

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