Metaphysics privileges the present tense by defining past and future as modifications of presence

Evidence

The ordinary understanding of time is what constitutes for Heidegger the unity of the philosophical tradition summed up for him in the name ‘metaphysics’. Metaphysics, in this view, was ruled by a certain determination of being, understood in the sense of presence ( σ α, Anwesenheit), and that is tantamount to privileging the present tense (Gegenwart) with respect to the other dimensions of time. Consequently, the past and future must necessarily appear as either a present time which is just past, or a present which is to come (‘that which is not-yet-now’). In Heidegger’s view, the conception of time as a homogeneous milieu in which events occur dominated philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to Husserl. Hegel stands out however from the other philosophers because he takes to its logical conclusion this traditional privilege of the present. In the speculative conception of time, the future is not even a time like other times: it lacks the power to preserve itself, succumbing to the advances (that is to say, the ontological priority) of the past understood as the previous modality of the present. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 195

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the Heideggerian frame: metaphysics as the privilege of presence/present tense, against which Hegel’s speculative time will be positioned.
• XREF: Connects directly to Malabou’s whole project of reading plasticity through Hegel — the present’s ontological priority is exactly what plasticity will complicate. — connects to: Present conscious states derive meaning only from internal relation to the future; Past tense predicates require a recollecting synthesis anchored in present being; Ontology specifies structures of being while metaphysics questions the existence of the existent — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 799 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Augustine defines past and future as present memory and expectation #exemplifies (1.00) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1391
• Life’s self-transcendence makes time real, unlike analytical separation of tenses #contradicts (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 809
• Treating time as a series of nows annihilates past, present, and future alike #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 408
• Expressive orientations stabilize the present while instrumental ones defer to the future #corroborates (0.75)
• Personal identity depends on language’s temporal unification of past, present, and future #expands (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 98
• Present tense forecloses judgment by compressing event and narration into the here-now #complicates (0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 181