Neither ancient nor modern notions of time adequately capture time’s twofold negation

Evidence

The contradiction between these forms of identity allows no conclusion to be drawn concerning the alleged ‘unreality’ of time. If such a conclusion were to involve a notion of reality which ignored temporality it would be particularly unproductive and misleading. Trust does not pose any problem of unreal propositions. Rather, the nature of time consists in that twofold possibility of negation, having reality as possibility as well as negation, having in other words actual, demonstrable, effective capacities. This twofold negation in which each varies in terms of the other initially yields a complete model of time which actually eludes being captured as a complete schema. Neither the ancient notion of time, focusing on the present, nor the modern notion of time, focusing on points of time, is adequate. The perspective associated with these notions of time present only a scheme to question constancies and events, but one which would have to be corrected by a counter perspective in considering time. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 118

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames Luhmann’s account of time as twofold negation — a constancy/event scheme neither purely present-focused nor purely point-based.
• XREF: connects to: Consciousness’s temporality refuses the instant because the for-itself never is. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 501; Time is constituted by the For-itself’s nothingness rather than inhering in objects — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1524; The excess of time on time may itself be something other than time. (+2 more)