The Syntax of Time
The Phenomenology of Time in Greek Physics and Speculative
Logic from Iamblichus to Anaximander
Peter Manchester, Leiden: Brill, 2005
Description
The fourth century Neoplatonist Iamblichus, interpreting Plotinus on the topic of time, incorporates a ‘diagram of time’ that bears comparison to the figure of double continuity drawn by Husserl in his studies of time. Using that comparison as a bridge, this book seeks a phenomenological recovery of Greek thought about time. It argues that the feature of motion that the word ‘time’ designates in Greek differs from what most modern scholarship has assumed, that the very phenomenon of time has been misidentified for centuries. This leads to corrective readings of Plotinus, Aristotle, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, all looking back to the final phrase of the fragment of Anaximander, from which this volume takes its title: « according to the syntax of time. »
(Text from the publisher)
Table of contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter One –Two-Dimensional Time in Husserl and Iamblichus
The Problem of the Flowing of Time
The Flux of Consciousness
The Transparency of the Flux
Time-Framing in Locke and Hume
The Dimensions of Transparency
Two-Dimensional Time in Husserl
The Figure of Double Continuity
The Double Intentionality of Disclosure Space
Two-Dimensional Time in Iamblichus
Time as the Sphere of the All
Chapter Two – Time and the Soul in Plotinus
Two-Dimensional Time in Neoplatonism
The Schema of Participation
The Silence of Time in Plotinus
Chapter Three – Everywhere Now: Physical Time in Aristotle
Soul and the Surface of Exoteric Time
The Spanning of Motion
The Scaling of Spans
The Unit of Disclosure Space
The Soul of Physical Time
Chapter Four – Parmenides: Time as the Now
Parmenides Thinks about Time
Signpost 1: Being Ungenerated and Unperishing
Signpost 2: Whole; Signpost 4: The Coherent One
Signpost 3: Now is All at Once and Entirely Total
Conclusion
Chapter Five – Heraclitus and the Need for Time
Review: The Path to Heraclitus
From Husserl to Heraclitus via Iamblichus
Time in Heraclitus: The Circular Joining of ἀεὶ and αἰών
Heraclitus as a Gloss on Anaximander
Appendix 1 – Physical Lectures on Time by Aristotle: A MinimalTranslation
Appendix 2 – Fragment 8 of the Poem of Parmenides: Text and Translation
Bibliography
Index
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