The present is overdetermined yet fundamentally open to contingency

Evidence

Does this cluster of concepts refer to aspects of the same thing? (Incidentally, I nearly said when David had finished his wonderful paper that we can go home now, because we now know all we ever need to know about the thought of Stuart Hall!) David said that the question I am addressing is what he called the “contingency of the present.” Now, actually, I would not quite put it that way myself, although I understand perfectly well why he did. … The question of the contingency of the history of the present is critically important because this is what I want to say about the present—that it is the product of “many determinations” but that it remains an open horizon, fundamentally unresolved, and in that sense open to “the play of contingency.” — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1196

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the concept of ‘contingency of the present’: the present as product of many determinations but unresolved and open.
• XREF: Connects to the ‘problem space’ / ‘problematic’ / ‘conjuncture’ cluster — the scaffolding Hall’s readers carry into Islamophobia analysis. — connects to: A possibility’s existential weight, not its temporal proximity, determines the present For-itself. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 456; The present reveals being yet is itself pure nothingness alongside it.; Past in suspense, present expecting, and future free project are one reality. (+6 more)