8 So Hend Gregoire, Sur les moyens de perlectionner les
sciences
politiques, M~moires de l'lnstitut National (Classe des sciences morales et politiques), Vol.
The-future-cannot-begin-Niklas-Luhmann
?
?
Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p.
130
The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal
Structures in Modern
Society? BY NIKLAS LUHMANN The History of the Future
THEhistory of the future does not reach back very far. Human life, of course, provides always for an immediate future as well as for an immediate past. This immediate time, this time at hand of conditioned and conditioning events, has been distinguished from a more distant past and a more distant future, both of which tend to fuse in the darkness of a mythic time. Philosophy, later, reconceptualized this view by a two-level theory of time, distin- guishing eternal time and the time of changing events. 1 Given this conception of time, medieval philosophers felt no need to re- flect a difference of existence and perpetuation, seeing creation and preservation as one identical act of God. And they implied that the mere succession of thoughts and events produced the idea of time but could not change, as such, the relation between God and His creatures.
It was only the structural change from traditional to bourgeois society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which dissolved this older notion and replaced it by a temporal structure that con-
1 For Neo-Platonic origins. cf. the texts edited by S. Sambursky and S. Pines. The Concept of Time in Late Neoplatonism aerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1971). Cf. also Pitirim A. Sorokin. Social and Cultural Dynamics, of vols. (New York: Bedminster Press. 1937). 2: 473 ff.
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TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 131
tains in itself the possibility of higher complexity. Arthur Love- joy claims for the eighteenth century a "temporalizing of the chain of being. " 2 This means a restructuring of the "series rerum" in the sense of a development from simple to complex forms. The retrogressive time reckoning "before Christ" gained common ac- ceptance in the eighteenth century. s By this invention the past was delivered from the necessity of being grounded in a beginning event. It then became open for limitless historical research. But
if the past no longer has a fixed time of beginning which sets into motion time itself and creates the best of possible worlds and de- fines the natural forms, what will happen to the future? If there is any unity in time itself, any fundamental change in the concep- tion of past cannot remain without consequences for the percep- tion of future.
I have to add that this temporalization of being not only evapo- rated the natural forms; with this, it destroyed the basis of the Aristotelian conception of negation as deprivation (sleresis, pri- valio) too. " The problem of negativity had to be reformulated as a universal category. Since then, any experience and any action implies negation as a requisite of selective determination, and the
future becomes a storehouse of possibilities from which we can choose only by means of negation.
Future itself, and this means past futures as well as the prese~t future, must now be conceived as possibly quite different from the past. It can no longer be characterized as approaching a turning point where it returns into the past or where the order of this world or even time itself is changed. It may contain, as a func- tional equivalent for the end of time, emergent properties and not-yet-realized possibilities. It becomes an open future.
2 Cf. Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the HiJtory of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986).
8 Cf. Adalbert Klempt, Die Siikularisierung der universalhistorischen AuDassung (G<>uingen: Musterschmidt, 1960), pp. 81 ~.
4 This was, to be sure, only one of the traditional notions of negation (the dis- cussion of different notions of negation was very complex in late medieval and early modern times): but its abolition did necessitate, nevertheless, the reconstruction of the meaning of negation as such.
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182 SOCIAL RESEARCH
There are controversies about the exact birth date of this mod- ern conception of future. " Some authors think of the seventeenth century. others of the second half of the eighteenth. 6 This second view seems to be geared to the fact that the second half of the
eighteenth century changes its expectations about coming events from a pessimistic to an optimistic vision. from moral decay to progress. " The last possible date is the French Revolution. which changed the meaning of revolution from turning back to moving forward and put into common use the word avenir. In the pro- ceedings of the Institut National. I found the phrase: Le temps present est gras d'avenir,8 apparently current at that time (1798).
The wording temps present-present time-is interesting in it- self. In what sense can time be present? One possible interpreta- tion might be that the phrase "present time. " by adding stress to
11 Cf. Robert Nisbert, Social Change and History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 106 ff.
8 Cf. Reinhart Koselleck, "Historia Magistra Vitae," in Manfred Riedel, ed. , Natur und Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1967), pp. 196-220: and Reinhart KoseIleck, "Vergangene Zukunft der frUhen Neuzeit," in Festgabe lilr Carl Schmitt (Berlin, 1968), pp. 551- 566.
T Cf. Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City 01 the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven: Y ale University Press, 1982).
8 So Hend Gregoire, Sur les moyens de perlectionner les sciences politiques, M~moires de l'lnstitut National (Classe des sciences morales et politiques), Vol. I (Paris, 1798), pp. 552-556. Future is perceived, in this political context at least,
as dose at hand (prochainementl). Actually, neither the word avenir nor the phrase Le temps present est gros d'avenir had been invented during the French Revolution. The phrase serves as motto in Louis ~bastien Mercier's book rAn deux mille quatre cent quarante: Rive s'il en lut jama;s (London, 1772). Mercier refers to Leibnlz. Checking Lelbnlz, we find a characteristic difference. He does not speak about "the present time" but only about the present as such and uses the phrase only to show that monads have a temporal dimension. For example: Essais de Theodict! e ? 860 (In C. J. Gerhardt, ed. , Die philosophischen Schrilten von Gottlried Wilhelm Leibniz [Hfldesheim: Olms, 1961],6: 829): "C'est une des regles de mon systl! me de l'harmonle que le present est gros de l'avenlr. " Or Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondt! es en raison ? 18 (Gerhardt 6: 604): "Le present est gros de l'avenir, le future se pouvoit lire dans le pas~, l'~loign~ est exprim~ dans le prochain. " Or Letter to Bayle, without date (Gerhardl 8: 66): "Le present est toujours gros de l'avenir ou chaque substance doit exprimer dl! s ~present tous ses eslats futurs"-thus: no open futurel Or Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement (Gerhardt 5: 48): "Le present esl gros de l'avenlr el charg~ du pa~. "
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TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 133
the notion of the present, compensates for a loss of meaning and duration in the present itself. 9 In fact, if we have an almost in- finite historical past, structured and limited only by our actual in- terests, and if we have an open future, the present becomes the turning point which switches the process of time from past into
future. The French Revolution symbolizes and proves the possi- bility of this understanding by its practice. The Germans, on the other hand, join by writing Zeitgedichte-time poems-in the sense of poems of political actuality. IO
However, the punctualization of the present preceded the open future by more than a hundred years; it was not its consequence. Already in the early seventeenth century the unity of existence and preservation was split and the present was conceived as discontinu- ous, depending on secondary causes for its endurance. Hence- forth, actuality has to be thought of as instantaneous change. The
transformation of time perspectives began by reconceptualizing the present. It led, then, to a series of relief measures: to the con- cept of system, to increasing interest in mechanisms and in security, and, during the eighteenth century, to the interpretation of exis- tence as sentiment. But only the economic and political break- through of the bourgeois society provided the background for solving time problems by temporal means: by extending the time horizons of past and future and by orienting the present toward their difference. To put it in the romantic way of Lamennais: "I fly from the present by two routes, that of the past and that of the future. uu
If this is enough evidence-and it would be easy to produce more-that with the rise of bourgeois society the structure of time
9 On the psychological level we have some evidence for this dual understanding of the present: either as a very short or as a rather long duration. See Thomas J. Cottle and Stephen L. Klineberg, The Present Of Things Future: Explorations of
Time in Human Experience (New York: Free Press, 1974), p. 108.
10 Cf. JUrgen Wilke, Das "Zeitgedicht": Seine Herkunft und frilhe Ausbildung
(Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1974).
11 I take this quotation from Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time, translated
by Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), p. 26.
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184 SOCIAL RESEARCH
has changed drastically in the direction of higher temporal com- plexity. then we must expect that this change will have its impact on every social structure and on every concept. Nothing will re- tain its old meaning. If there is formal continuity in institutions or terminologies. this only will conceal the fact that every single form has gained higher contingency and higher selectivity. 12
We have been reacting to the consequences of this change for a long time. W e observe the "loss of the stable state. " 18 and we know that a faster rate of change requires more anticipatory be-, havior-Iiterally, more acting before the event, more future-ori- ented planning. 14 However, we still do not have a satisfactory concept of time. The prevailing "solution" to this problem is the distinction of several different notions of time. l~ Still, we lack a satisfactory theory that would be able to correlate variations in social structure and variations in temporal structure. This de- ficiency is not only a problem of functionalist theory; it has older and deeper roots. IO
Toward a Concept of Time
It is now a very common view that time is an aspect of the social construction of reality. This view suggests that there are several
12 In fact. a new Wiirterbuch Gescllichtliche GrundbegriDe which began to appear in Germany in 1972 tries to make this point.
18 So the formula of Donald A. Sehon. Beyond the Stable State (New York: Norton. 1978).
14 See only F. E. Emery and E. L. Trist. Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Ap- preciation ot the Future in the Present (London and New York: Plenum Press. 1978).
p. 88.
lIS See. for example. the much discussed distinction of the linear dimension and
the modalitles of time by J. Ellis McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time. " Mind 17 (1908): 457-474. reprinted in his Philosophical Stu. dies (New York and London: Longmans. 1984). pp. 110-181. For the German historisch-geisteswissenschattliche tradition. cf. Martin Heidegger. "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschic:htswissenschaft,"
Zeitscllritt tilr Philosophie und philosophische Kf'itik 160 (1916): 178-188.
18 Cf. Hermlnio Martins. "Time and Theory in Sociology:' in John Rex, cd. , AP- proaches to Sociology: An Intf'oduction to Major Tf'ends in British Sociology (Lon-
don and Boston: Routledge Bc Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246-294.
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? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 135
times, a plurality of Temporalgestalten or of social times. IT This conception disconnects time and chronology. Accordingly, we may have several times and one integrating chronology. But there remain questions to be asked: Are we allowed to reduce the unity of time to the unity of chronology? Don't we fall back, by as- suming a plurality of times, upon the pre-Aristotelian notion of time as movement or process? Is there any progress beyond the classical definition of time as measure of movement?
To avoid an uncontrolled fusion of the notions of time and of movement. _ I propose to define time as the interpretation of reality with regard to the difference between past and future. This defini- tion presupposes, of course, that daily life gives the experience of change and contains in itself the point of departure for its own "timing. " I could prove this presupposition by phenomenological analyses. This experience of change, however, is not yet really time, as Husserl himself came to see in his later years. It is per- vasive and unavoidable. If you do not see or hear any change, you will feel it in yourself. It is the dowry of organic life for its mar- riage with culture. And it predetermines the universality of time on the cultural level. But it remains by and large open for cultural elaboration and variation, precisely because it is a uni- versal predisposition for temporalizing experience.
This conceptual approach offers several important advantages:
? It begins by making a clear distinction between movement, process, or experience of change on the one hand, and the cultural constitution of time as a generalized dimension of meaningful
reality on the other.
? Thus, chronology can be conceived as a standardized scheme
of movement and of time. It fulfills several functions at once: first, comparing and integrating movements that are not simul-
1'1 Cf. Pitirim A. Sorokin and Robert K. Merton, "Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis," American Journal of Sociology 42 (1937): 615-629; Pitirim A: Sorokin, Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time (New York: Russell Bc Russell, 1964), pp. 171 ff. ; Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated by Myrtle
Korenbaum (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Rcidel, 1964), esp. pp. 20 ff on multiple times.
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186 SOCIAL RESEARCH
taneously present; 18 second, establishing relations between past and future in the double sense of fixed and unchangeable distances and movement of chronological units (dates, not eventsl) from future to past; and third, linking the experience of change in daily life to the relational structure of time.
8 So Hend Gregoire, Sur les moyens de perlectionner les sciences politiques, M~moires de l'lnstitut National (Classe des sciences morales et politiques), Vol. I (Paris, 1798), pp. 552-556. Future is perceived, in this political context at least,
as dose at hand (prochainementl). Actually, neither the word avenir nor the phrase Le temps present est gros d'avenir had been invented during the French Revolution. The phrase serves as motto in Louis ~bastien Mercier's book rAn deux mille quatre cent quarante: Rive s'il en lut jama;s (London, 1772). Mercier refers to Leibnlz. Checking Lelbnlz, we find a characteristic difference. He does not speak about "the present time" but only about the present as such and uses the phrase only to show that monads have a temporal dimension. For example: Essais de Theodict! e ? 860 (In C. J. Gerhardt, ed. , Die philosophischen Schrilten von Gottlried Wilhelm Leibniz [Hfldesheim: Olms, 1961],6: 829): "C'est une des regles de mon systl! me de l'harmonle que le present est gros de l'avenlr. " Or Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondt! es en raison ? 18 (Gerhardt 6: 604): "Le present est gros de l'avenir, le future se pouvoit lire dans le pas~, l'~loign~ est exprim~ dans le prochain. " Or Letter to Bayle, without date (Gerhardl 8: 66): "Le present est toujours gros de l'avenir ou chaque substance doit exprimer dl! s ~present tous ses eslats futurs"-thus: no open futurel Or Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement (Gerhardt 5: 48): "Le present esl gros de l'avenlr el charg~ du pa~. "
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? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 133
the notion of the present, compensates for a loss of meaning and duration in the present itself. 9 In fact, if we have an almost in- finite historical past, structured and limited only by our actual in- terests, and if we have an open future, the present becomes the turning point which switches the process of time from past into
future. The French Revolution symbolizes and proves the possi- bility of this understanding by its practice. The Germans, on the other hand, join by writing Zeitgedichte-time poems-in the sense of poems of political actuality. IO
However, the punctualization of the present preceded the open future by more than a hundred years; it was not its consequence. Already in the early seventeenth century the unity of existence and preservation was split and the present was conceived as discontinu- ous, depending on secondary causes for its endurance. Hence- forth, actuality has to be thought of as instantaneous change. The
transformation of time perspectives began by reconceptualizing the present. It led, then, to a series of relief measures: to the con- cept of system, to increasing interest in mechanisms and in security, and, during the eighteenth century, to the interpretation of exis- tence as sentiment. But only the economic and political break- through of the bourgeois society provided the background for solving time problems by temporal means: by extending the time horizons of past and future and by orienting the present toward their difference. To put it in the romantic way of Lamennais: "I fly from the present by two routes, that of the past and that of the future. uu
If this is enough evidence-and it would be easy to produce more-that with the rise of bourgeois society the structure of time
9 On the psychological level we have some evidence for this dual understanding of the present: either as a very short or as a rather long duration. See Thomas J. Cottle and Stephen L. Klineberg, The Present Of Things Future: Explorations of
Time in Human Experience (New York: Free Press, 1974), p. 108.
10 Cf. JUrgen Wilke, Das "Zeitgedicht": Seine Herkunft und frilhe Ausbildung
(Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1974).
11 I take this quotation from Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time, translated
by Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), p. 26.
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? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
184 SOCIAL RESEARCH
has changed drastically in the direction of higher temporal com- plexity. then we must expect that this change will have its impact on every social structure and on every concept. Nothing will re- tain its old meaning. If there is formal continuity in institutions or terminologies. this only will conceal the fact that every single form has gained higher contingency and higher selectivity. 12
We have been reacting to the consequences of this change for a long time. W e observe the "loss of the stable state. " 18 and we know that a faster rate of change requires more anticipatory be-, havior-Iiterally, more acting before the event, more future-ori- ented planning. 14 However, we still do not have a satisfactory concept of time. The prevailing "solution" to this problem is the distinction of several different notions of time. l~ Still, we lack a satisfactory theory that would be able to correlate variations in social structure and variations in temporal structure. This de- ficiency is not only a problem of functionalist theory; it has older and deeper roots. IO
Toward a Concept of Time
It is now a very common view that time is an aspect of the social construction of reality. This view suggests that there are several
12 In fact. a new Wiirterbuch Gescllichtliche GrundbegriDe which began to appear in Germany in 1972 tries to make this point.
18 So the formula of Donald A. Sehon. Beyond the Stable State (New York: Norton. 1978).
14 See only F. E. Emery and E. L. Trist. Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Ap- preciation ot the Future in the Present (London and New York: Plenum Press. 1978).
p. 88.
lIS See. for example. the much discussed distinction of the linear dimension and
the modalitles of time by J. Ellis McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time. " Mind 17 (1908): 457-474. reprinted in his Philosophical Stu. dies (New York and London: Longmans. 1984). pp. 110-181. For the German historisch-geisteswissenschattliche tradition. cf. Martin Heidegger. "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschic:htswissenschaft,"
Zeitscllritt tilr Philosophie und philosophische Kf'itik 160 (1916): 178-188.
18 Cf. Hermlnio Martins. "Time and Theory in Sociology:' in John Rex, cd. , AP- proaches to Sociology: An Intf'oduction to Major Tf'ends in British Sociology (Lon-
don and Boston: Routledge Bc Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246-294.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 135
times, a plurality of Temporalgestalten or of social times. IT This conception disconnects time and chronology. Accordingly, we may have several times and one integrating chronology. But there remain questions to be asked: Are we allowed to reduce the unity of time to the unity of chronology? Don't we fall back, by as- suming a plurality of times, upon the pre-Aristotelian notion of time as movement or process? Is there any progress beyond the classical definition of time as measure of movement?
To avoid an uncontrolled fusion of the notions of time and of movement. _ I propose to define time as the interpretation of reality with regard to the difference between past and future. This defini- tion presupposes, of course, that daily life gives the experience of change and contains in itself the point of departure for its own "timing. " I could prove this presupposition by phenomenological analyses. This experience of change, however, is not yet really time, as Husserl himself came to see in his later years. It is per- vasive and unavoidable. If you do not see or hear any change, you will feel it in yourself. It is the dowry of organic life for its mar- riage with culture. And it predetermines the universality of time on the cultural level. But it remains by and large open for cultural elaboration and variation, precisely because it is a uni- versal predisposition for temporalizing experience.
This conceptual approach offers several important advantages:
? It begins by making a clear distinction between movement, process, or experience of change on the one hand, and the cultural constitution of time as a generalized dimension of meaningful
reality on the other.
? Thus, chronology can be conceived as a standardized scheme
of movement and of time. It fulfills several functions at once: first, comparing and integrating movements that are not simul-
1'1 Cf. Pitirim A. Sorokin and Robert K. Merton, "Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis," American Journal of Sociology 42 (1937): 615-629; Pitirim A: Sorokin, Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time (New York: Russell Bc Russell, 1964), pp. 171 ff. ; Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated by Myrtle
Korenbaum (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Rcidel, 1964), esp. pp. 20 ff on multiple times.
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? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
186 SOCIAL RESEARCH
taneously present; 18 second, establishing relations between past and future in the double sense of fixed and unchangeable distances and movement of chronological units (dates, not eventsl) from future to past; and third, linking the experience of change in daily life to the relational structure of time. These multiple functions are interconnected by the use of one standardized movement for
creating distance between dates. Not time, as Aristotle would have it, but chronology makes distance. It serves as an evolution- ary universal which combines very simple rules for its use with highly complex functions-like money.
? W e should avoid, then, any confusion of chronology and time. The approach that I would like to propose articulates the temporal dimension as the relation between past and future. Thereby, the current conceptions of past and future come to be regarded as the decisive factors in the constitution of time. Complexity-in-time, for example, correlates with the possible divergence of past states and future states. Increasing complexity-in-time will, then, have its impact on the prevailing interpretations of past and of fu- ture. The history of the future, outlined in the beginning of this paper, illustrates this point.
. . The relation of past and future will not have the same form in every society. W e can suppose that there are correlations be- tween this relation and other variables of the societal system. W e may formulate the hypothesis that increasing system differentiation correlates with increasing dissociation of past and future. High discontinuity may, on the other hand, shorten the time perspective in the sense that a more distant past and a more distant future become irrelevant. There is some empirical evidence to support this proposition 1? -much to the surprise of students to whom the
18 The primary functiQn of primitive time-reckoning seems to be the integration of recurrent ecological changes and social norms regulating behavior. Cf. Daniel M. Maltz, "Primitive Time? Reckoning as a Symbolic System," Cornell Journal 01 Social Relations 8 (1968): 85-112.
19 Cf. Lucien Bernot and Ren~ Blancard, Notlville: Un village franrais (Paris: Institut d'ethnologie, 1953), pp. 321-332: Johan Galtung, "Images of the World in the Year 2000: A Synthesis of the Marginals of the Ten Nations Study," 7th World
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TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 137
growing importance of time in modern society means simply an extension of time in the chronological sense.
? This brings us back to my central thesis and suggests the formulation that the relevance of time (in fact, I would maintain: relevance as such) depends upon the capacity to mediate relations between past and future in a present. 20 All temporal structures relate to a present. The endurance of the present had to be shaken, as we have seen, before modern society could reconstruct its own temporality.
The Future as Temporal Horizon
Time itself and its conceptualization are changed by the mech- anisms of sociocultural evolution. This fact has consequences for the way we see and conceptualize our future~ Sociological analy- sis, therefore, finds itself facing a problem that has two sides: Its concept of future should be reasonably adequate for scientific
procedures and it should be adequate in respect to its own his- torical situation. Both conditions of adequacy define diverging requirements, particularly for our own very late and highly com- plex society.
T o work out the complexities of this problem it will be useful to distinguish three different ways of conceptualizing the future: the chronological conception, the theory of modalities, and phenom- enological analysis.
The chronological conception presupposes identity and con- tinuity of time and knows of only one principle of differentiation:
Congress of Sociology. Varna. 1970 (Ms. ); Margaret J. Zube. "Changing Concepts of Morality 1948-1969. " Social Forces 50 (1972): 385-393.
20 This does not mean that the present can be explained by its function. There is always the primordial fact of a specious present mediating time and reality. We have. therefore. following George Herbert Mead. The Philosophy of the Present (Chicago: Open Court. 1932). p. 88. to distinguish functional presents and the specious present. A present without function (i. e. ? without context) is by that fact reduced to a specious present.
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138 SOCIAL RESEARCH
dates. The future is the series of dates which will come after the present. This chronological conception suggests that the future will begin where the present ends. A thorough analysis shows, however, that we cannot think of two immediately connected in? stants of time without thinking an interval separating them. 21 Al- ready medieval authors concluded that beginning and ending can- not be, except as a property of the instantaneous present. 22 We know, furthermore, from cultural comparison as well as from em- pirical investigations that in daily life we experience time as rather
discontinuous, that future is disconnected from the present and that only a few societies and in those societies only a fraction of their members feel obliged to gloss over these discontinuities and to level them out by a kind of mathematical calculation. 23
The theory of modalities has been used since the Middle Ages to formulate a two-level conception of reality, reflecting different modes in which being and nonbeing can present themselves. The temporal modes are: past, present, and future. They are distinct modes, of course, but there is again a kind of idealizing and equal- izing at work. It is presupposed that these three modes of time, at least as modes,? are on an equal footing. This may be due to
linguistic requirements. We have the choice between these three tenses. Whereas chronology depends on mathematical calculation, the theory of modalities depends on language. Its prototype seems to be: speaking about something.
The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal
Structures in Modern
Society? BY NIKLAS LUHMANN The History of the Future
THEhistory of the future does not reach back very far. Human life, of course, provides always for an immediate future as well as for an immediate past. This immediate time, this time at hand of conditioned and conditioning events, has been distinguished from a more distant past and a more distant future, both of which tend to fuse in the darkness of a mythic time. Philosophy, later, reconceptualized this view by a two-level theory of time, distin- guishing eternal time and the time of changing events. 1 Given this conception of time, medieval philosophers felt no need to re- flect a difference of existence and perpetuation, seeing creation and preservation as one identical act of God. And they implied that the mere succession of thoughts and events produced the idea of time but could not change, as such, the relation between God and His creatures.
It was only the structural change from traditional to bourgeois society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which dissolved this older notion and replaced it by a temporal structure that con-
1 For Neo-Platonic origins. cf. the texts edited by S. Sambursky and S. Pines. The Concept of Time in Late Neoplatonism aerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1971). Cf. also Pitirim A. Sorokin. Social and Cultural Dynamics, of vols. (New York: Bedminster Press. 1937). 2: 473 ff.
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TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 131
tains in itself the possibility of higher complexity. Arthur Love- joy claims for the eighteenth century a "temporalizing of the chain of being. " 2 This means a restructuring of the "series rerum" in the sense of a development from simple to complex forms. The retrogressive time reckoning "before Christ" gained common ac- ceptance in the eighteenth century. s By this invention the past was delivered from the necessity of being grounded in a beginning event. It then became open for limitless historical research. But
if the past no longer has a fixed time of beginning which sets into motion time itself and creates the best of possible worlds and de- fines the natural forms, what will happen to the future? If there is any unity in time itself, any fundamental change in the concep- tion of past cannot remain without consequences for the percep- tion of future.
I have to add that this temporalization of being not only evapo- rated the natural forms; with this, it destroyed the basis of the Aristotelian conception of negation as deprivation (sleresis, pri- valio) too. " The problem of negativity had to be reformulated as a universal category. Since then, any experience and any action implies negation as a requisite of selective determination, and the
future becomes a storehouse of possibilities from which we can choose only by means of negation.
Future itself, and this means past futures as well as the prese~t future, must now be conceived as possibly quite different from the past. It can no longer be characterized as approaching a turning point where it returns into the past or where the order of this world or even time itself is changed. It may contain, as a func- tional equivalent for the end of time, emergent properties and not-yet-realized possibilities. It becomes an open future.
2 Cf. Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the HiJtory of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986).
8 Cf. Adalbert Klempt, Die Siikularisierung der universalhistorischen AuDassung (G<>uingen: Musterschmidt, 1960), pp. 81 ~.
4 This was, to be sure, only one of the traditional notions of negation (the dis- cussion of different notions of negation was very complex in late medieval and early modern times): but its abolition did necessitate, nevertheless, the reconstruction of the meaning of negation as such.
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182 SOCIAL RESEARCH
There are controversies about the exact birth date of this mod- ern conception of future. " Some authors think of the seventeenth century. others of the second half of the eighteenth. 6 This second view seems to be geared to the fact that the second half of the
eighteenth century changes its expectations about coming events from a pessimistic to an optimistic vision. from moral decay to progress. " The last possible date is the French Revolution. which changed the meaning of revolution from turning back to moving forward and put into common use the word avenir. In the pro- ceedings of the Institut National. I found the phrase: Le temps present est gras d'avenir,8 apparently current at that time (1798).
The wording temps present-present time-is interesting in it- self. In what sense can time be present? One possible interpreta- tion might be that the phrase "present time. " by adding stress to
11 Cf. Robert Nisbert, Social Change and History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 106 ff.
8 Cf. Reinhart Koselleck, "Historia Magistra Vitae," in Manfred Riedel, ed. , Natur und Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1967), pp. 196-220: and Reinhart KoseIleck, "Vergangene Zukunft der frUhen Neuzeit," in Festgabe lilr Carl Schmitt (Berlin, 1968), pp. 551- 566.
T Cf. Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City 01 the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven: Y ale University Press, 1982).
8 So Hend Gregoire, Sur les moyens de perlectionner les sciences politiques, M~moires de l'lnstitut National (Classe des sciences morales et politiques), Vol. I (Paris, 1798), pp. 552-556. Future is perceived, in this political context at least,
as dose at hand (prochainementl). Actually, neither the word avenir nor the phrase Le temps present est gros d'avenir had been invented during the French Revolution. The phrase serves as motto in Louis ~bastien Mercier's book rAn deux mille quatre cent quarante: Rive s'il en lut jama;s (London, 1772). Mercier refers to Leibnlz. Checking Lelbnlz, we find a characteristic difference. He does not speak about "the present time" but only about the present as such and uses the phrase only to show that monads have a temporal dimension. For example: Essais de Theodict! e ? 860 (In C. J. Gerhardt, ed. , Die philosophischen Schrilten von Gottlried Wilhelm Leibniz [Hfldesheim: Olms, 1961],6: 829): "C'est une des regles de mon systl! me de l'harmonle que le present est gros de l'avenlr. " Or Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondt! es en raison ? 18 (Gerhardt 6: 604): "Le present est gros de l'avenir, le future se pouvoit lire dans le pas~, l'~loign~ est exprim~ dans le prochain. " Or Letter to Bayle, without date (Gerhardl 8: 66): "Le present est toujours gros de l'avenir ou chaque substance doit exprimer dl! s ~present tous ses eslats futurs"-thus: no open futurel Or Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement (Gerhardt 5: 48): "Le present esl gros de l'avenlr el charg~ du pa~. "
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TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 133
the notion of the present, compensates for a loss of meaning and duration in the present itself. 9 In fact, if we have an almost in- finite historical past, structured and limited only by our actual in- terests, and if we have an open future, the present becomes the turning point which switches the process of time from past into
future. The French Revolution symbolizes and proves the possi- bility of this understanding by its practice. The Germans, on the other hand, join by writing Zeitgedichte-time poems-in the sense of poems of political actuality. IO
However, the punctualization of the present preceded the open future by more than a hundred years; it was not its consequence. Already in the early seventeenth century the unity of existence and preservation was split and the present was conceived as discontinu- ous, depending on secondary causes for its endurance. Hence- forth, actuality has to be thought of as instantaneous change. The
transformation of time perspectives began by reconceptualizing the present. It led, then, to a series of relief measures: to the con- cept of system, to increasing interest in mechanisms and in security, and, during the eighteenth century, to the interpretation of exis- tence as sentiment. But only the economic and political break- through of the bourgeois society provided the background for solving time problems by temporal means: by extending the time horizons of past and future and by orienting the present toward their difference. To put it in the romantic way of Lamennais: "I fly from the present by two routes, that of the past and that of the future. uu
If this is enough evidence-and it would be easy to produce more-that with the rise of bourgeois society the structure of time
9 On the psychological level we have some evidence for this dual understanding of the present: either as a very short or as a rather long duration. See Thomas J. Cottle and Stephen L. Klineberg, The Present Of Things Future: Explorations of
Time in Human Experience (New York: Free Press, 1974), p. 108.
10 Cf. JUrgen Wilke, Das "Zeitgedicht": Seine Herkunft und frilhe Ausbildung
(Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1974).
11 I take this quotation from Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time, translated
by Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), p. 26.
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184 SOCIAL RESEARCH
has changed drastically in the direction of higher temporal com- plexity. then we must expect that this change will have its impact on every social structure and on every concept. Nothing will re- tain its old meaning. If there is formal continuity in institutions or terminologies. this only will conceal the fact that every single form has gained higher contingency and higher selectivity. 12
We have been reacting to the consequences of this change for a long time. W e observe the "loss of the stable state. " 18 and we know that a faster rate of change requires more anticipatory be-, havior-Iiterally, more acting before the event, more future-ori- ented planning. 14 However, we still do not have a satisfactory concept of time. The prevailing "solution" to this problem is the distinction of several different notions of time. l~ Still, we lack a satisfactory theory that would be able to correlate variations in social structure and variations in temporal structure. This de- ficiency is not only a problem of functionalist theory; it has older and deeper roots. IO
Toward a Concept of Time
It is now a very common view that time is an aspect of the social construction of reality. This view suggests that there are several
12 In fact. a new Wiirterbuch Gescllichtliche GrundbegriDe which began to appear in Germany in 1972 tries to make this point.
18 So the formula of Donald A. Sehon. Beyond the Stable State (New York: Norton. 1978).
14 See only F. E. Emery and E. L. Trist. Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Ap- preciation ot the Future in the Present (London and New York: Plenum Press. 1978).
p. 88.
lIS See. for example. the much discussed distinction of the linear dimension and
the modalitles of time by J. Ellis McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time. " Mind 17 (1908): 457-474. reprinted in his Philosophical Stu. dies (New York and London: Longmans. 1984). pp. 110-181. For the German historisch-geisteswissenschattliche tradition. cf. Martin Heidegger. "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschic:htswissenschaft,"
Zeitscllritt tilr Philosophie und philosophische Kf'itik 160 (1916): 178-188.
18 Cf. Hermlnio Martins. "Time and Theory in Sociology:' in John Rex, cd. , AP- proaches to Sociology: An Intf'oduction to Major Tf'ends in British Sociology (Lon-
don and Boston: Routledge Bc Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246-294.
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TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 135
times, a plurality of Temporalgestalten or of social times. IT This conception disconnects time and chronology. Accordingly, we may have several times and one integrating chronology. But there remain questions to be asked: Are we allowed to reduce the unity of time to the unity of chronology? Don't we fall back, by as- suming a plurality of times, upon the pre-Aristotelian notion of time as movement or process? Is there any progress beyond the classical definition of time as measure of movement?
To avoid an uncontrolled fusion of the notions of time and of movement. _ I propose to define time as the interpretation of reality with regard to the difference between past and future. This defini- tion presupposes, of course, that daily life gives the experience of change and contains in itself the point of departure for its own "timing. " I could prove this presupposition by phenomenological analyses. This experience of change, however, is not yet really time, as Husserl himself came to see in his later years. It is per- vasive and unavoidable. If you do not see or hear any change, you will feel it in yourself. It is the dowry of organic life for its mar- riage with culture. And it predetermines the universality of time on the cultural level. But it remains by and large open for cultural elaboration and variation, precisely because it is a uni- versal predisposition for temporalizing experience.
This conceptual approach offers several important advantages:
? It begins by making a clear distinction between movement, process, or experience of change on the one hand, and the cultural constitution of time as a generalized dimension of meaningful
reality on the other.
? Thus, chronology can be conceived as a standardized scheme
of movement and of time. It fulfills several functions at once: first, comparing and integrating movements that are not simul-
1'1 Cf. Pitirim A. Sorokin and Robert K. Merton, "Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis," American Journal of Sociology 42 (1937): 615-629; Pitirim A: Sorokin, Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time (New York: Russell Bc Russell, 1964), pp. 171 ff. ; Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated by Myrtle
Korenbaum (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Rcidel, 1964), esp. pp. 20 ff on multiple times.
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186 SOCIAL RESEARCH
taneously present; 18 second, establishing relations between past and future in the double sense of fixed and unchangeable distances and movement of chronological units (dates, not eventsl) from future to past; and third, linking the experience of change in daily life to the relational structure of time.
8 So Hend Gregoire, Sur les moyens de perlectionner les sciences politiques, M~moires de l'lnstitut National (Classe des sciences morales et politiques), Vol. I (Paris, 1798), pp. 552-556. Future is perceived, in this political context at least,
as dose at hand (prochainementl). Actually, neither the word avenir nor the phrase Le temps present est gros d'avenir had been invented during the French Revolution. The phrase serves as motto in Louis ~bastien Mercier's book rAn deux mille quatre cent quarante: Rive s'il en lut jama;s (London, 1772). Mercier refers to Leibnlz. Checking Lelbnlz, we find a characteristic difference. He does not speak about "the present time" but only about the present as such and uses the phrase only to show that monads have a temporal dimension. For example: Essais de Theodict! e ? 860 (In C. J. Gerhardt, ed. , Die philosophischen Schrilten von Gottlried Wilhelm Leibniz [Hfldesheim: Olms, 1961],6: 829): "C'est une des regles de mon systl! me de l'harmonle que le present est gros de l'avenlr. " Or Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondt! es en raison ? 18 (Gerhardt 6: 604): "Le present est gros de l'avenir, le future se pouvoit lire dans le pas~, l'~loign~ est exprim~ dans le prochain. " Or Letter to Bayle, without date (Gerhardl 8: 66): "Le present est toujours gros de l'avenir ou chaque substance doit exprimer dl! s ~present tous ses eslats futurs"-thus: no open futurel Or Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement (Gerhardt 5: 48): "Le present esl gros de l'avenlr el charg~ du pa~. "
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? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 133
the notion of the present, compensates for a loss of meaning and duration in the present itself. 9 In fact, if we have an almost in- finite historical past, structured and limited only by our actual in- terests, and if we have an open future, the present becomes the turning point which switches the process of time from past into
future. The French Revolution symbolizes and proves the possi- bility of this understanding by its practice. The Germans, on the other hand, join by writing Zeitgedichte-time poems-in the sense of poems of political actuality. IO
However, the punctualization of the present preceded the open future by more than a hundred years; it was not its consequence. Already in the early seventeenth century the unity of existence and preservation was split and the present was conceived as discontinu- ous, depending on secondary causes for its endurance. Hence- forth, actuality has to be thought of as instantaneous change. The
transformation of time perspectives began by reconceptualizing the present. It led, then, to a series of relief measures: to the con- cept of system, to increasing interest in mechanisms and in security, and, during the eighteenth century, to the interpretation of exis- tence as sentiment. But only the economic and political break- through of the bourgeois society provided the background for solving time problems by temporal means: by extending the time horizons of past and future and by orienting the present toward their difference. To put it in the romantic way of Lamennais: "I fly from the present by two routes, that of the past and that of the future. uu
If this is enough evidence-and it would be easy to produce more-that with the rise of bourgeois society the structure of time
9 On the psychological level we have some evidence for this dual understanding of the present: either as a very short or as a rather long duration. See Thomas J. Cottle and Stephen L. Klineberg, The Present Of Things Future: Explorations of
Time in Human Experience (New York: Free Press, 1974), p. 108.
10 Cf. JUrgen Wilke, Das "Zeitgedicht": Seine Herkunft und frilhe Ausbildung
(Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1974).
11 I take this quotation from Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time, translated
by Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), p. 26.
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184 SOCIAL RESEARCH
has changed drastically in the direction of higher temporal com- plexity. then we must expect that this change will have its impact on every social structure and on every concept. Nothing will re- tain its old meaning. If there is formal continuity in institutions or terminologies. this only will conceal the fact that every single form has gained higher contingency and higher selectivity. 12
We have been reacting to the consequences of this change for a long time. W e observe the "loss of the stable state. " 18 and we know that a faster rate of change requires more anticipatory be-, havior-Iiterally, more acting before the event, more future-ori- ented planning. 14 However, we still do not have a satisfactory concept of time. The prevailing "solution" to this problem is the distinction of several different notions of time. l~ Still, we lack a satisfactory theory that would be able to correlate variations in social structure and variations in temporal structure. This de- ficiency is not only a problem of functionalist theory; it has older and deeper roots. IO
Toward a Concept of Time
It is now a very common view that time is an aspect of the social construction of reality. This view suggests that there are several
12 In fact. a new Wiirterbuch Gescllichtliche GrundbegriDe which began to appear in Germany in 1972 tries to make this point.
18 So the formula of Donald A. Sehon. Beyond the Stable State (New York: Norton. 1978).
14 See only F. E. Emery and E. L. Trist. Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Ap- preciation ot the Future in the Present (London and New York: Plenum Press. 1978).
p. 88.
lIS See. for example. the much discussed distinction of the linear dimension and
the modalitles of time by J. Ellis McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time. " Mind 17 (1908): 457-474. reprinted in his Philosophical Stu. dies (New York and London: Longmans. 1984). pp. 110-181. For the German historisch-geisteswissenschattliche tradition. cf. Martin Heidegger. "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschic:htswissenschaft,"
Zeitscllritt tilr Philosophie und philosophische Kf'itik 160 (1916): 178-188.
18 Cf. Hermlnio Martins. "Time and Theory in Sociology:' in John Rex, cd. , AP- proaches to Sociology: An Intf'oduction to Major Tf'ends in British Sociology (Lon-
don and Boston: Routledge Bc Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246-294.
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? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 135
times, a plurality of Temporalgestalten or of social times. IT This conception disconnects time and chronology. Accordingly, we may have several times and one integrating chronology. But there remain questions to be asked: Are we allowed to reduce the unity of time to the unity of chronology? Don't we fall back, by as- suming a plurality of times, upon the pre-Aristotelian notion of time as movement or process? Is there any progress beyond the classical definition of time as measure of movement?
To avoid an uncontrolled fusion of the notions of time and of movement. _ I propose to define time as the interpretation of reality with regard to the difference between past and future. This defini- tion presupposes, of course, that daily life gives the experience of change and contains in itself the point of departure for its own "timing. " I could prove this presupposition by phenomenological analyses. This experience of change, however, is not yet really time, as Husserl himself came to see in his later years. It is per- vasive and unavoidable. If you do not see or hear any change, you will feel it in yourself. It is the dowry of organic life for its mar- riage with culture. And it predetermines the universality of time on the cultural level. But it remains by and large open for cultural elaboration and variation, precisely because it is a uni- versal predisposition for temporalizing experience.
This conceptual approach offers several important advantages:
? It begins by making a clear distinction between movement, process, or experience of change on the one hand, and the cultural constitution of time as a generalized dimension of meaningful
reality on the other.
? Thus, chronology can be conceived as a standardized scheme
of movement and of time. It fulfills several functions at once: first, comparing and integrating movements that are not simul-
1'1 Cf. Pitirim A. Sorokin and Robert K. Merton, "Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis," American Journal of Sociology 42 (1937): 615-629; Pitirim A: Sorokin, Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time (New York: Russell Bc Russell, 1964), pp. 171 ff. ; Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated by Myrtle
Korenbaum (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Rcidel, 1964), esp. pp. 20 ff on multiple times.
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186 SOCIAL RESEARCH
taneously present; 18 second, establishing relations between past and future in the double sense of fixed and unchangeable distances and movement of chronological units (dates, not eventsl) from future to past; and third, linking the experience of change in daily life to the relational structure of time. These multiple functions are interconnected by the use of one standardized movement for
creating distance between dates. Not time, as Aristotle would have it, but chronology makes distance. It serves as an evolution- ary universal which combines very simple rules for its use with highly complex functions-like money.
? W e should avoid, then, any confusion of chronology and time. The approach that I would like to propose articulates the temporal dimension as the relation between past and future. Thereby, the current conceptions of past and future come to be regarded as the decisive factors in the constitution of time. Complexity-in-time, for example, correlates with the possible divergence of past states and future states. Increasing complexity-in-time will, then, have its impact on the prevailing interpretations of past and of fu- ture. The history of the future, outlined in the beginning of this paper, illustrates this point.
. . The relation of past and future will not have the same form in every society. W e can suppose that there are correlations be- tween this relation and other variables of the societal system. W e may formulate the hypothesis that increasing system differentiation correlates with increasing dissociation of past and future. High discontinuity may, on the other hand, shorten the time perspective in the sense that a more distant past and a more distant future become irrelevant. There is some empirical evidence to support this proposition 1? -much to the surprise of students to whom the
18 The primary functiQn of primitive time-reckoning seems to be the integration of recurrent ecological changes and social norms regulating behavior. Cf. Daniel M. Maltz, "Primitive Time? Reckoning as a Symbolic System," Cornell Journal 01 Social Relations 8 (1968): 85-112.
19 Cf. Lucien Bernot and Ren~ Blancard, Notlville: Un village franrais (Paris: Institut d'ethnologie, 1953), pp. 321-332: Johan Galtung, "Images of the World in the Year 2000: A Synthesis of the Marginals of the Ten Nations Study," 7th World
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TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 137
growing importance of time in modern society means simply an extension of time in the chronological sense.
? This brings us back to my central thesis and suggests the formulation that the relevance of time (in fact, I would maintain: relevance as such) depends upon the capacity to mediate relations between past and future in a present. 20 All temporal structures relate to a present. The endurance of the present had to be shaken, as we have seen, before modern society could reconstruct its own temporality.
The Future as Temporal Horizon
Time itself and its conceptualization are changed by the mech- anisms of sociocultural evolution. This fact has consequences for the way we see and conceptualize our future~ Sociological analy- sis, therefore, finds itself facing a problem that has two sides: Its concept of future should be reasonably adequate for scientific
procedures and it should be adequate in respect to its own his- torical situation. Both conditions of adequacy define diverging requirements, particularly for our own very late and highly com- plex society.
T o work out the complexities of this problem it will be useful to distinguish three different ways of conceptualizing the future: the chronological conception, the theory of modalities, and phenom- enological analysis.
The chronological conception presupposes identity and con- tinuity of time and knows of only one principle of differentiation:
Congress of Sociology. Varna. 1970 (Ms. ); Margaret J. Zube. "Changing Concepts of Morality 1948-1969. " Social Forces 50 (1972): 385-393.
20 This does not mean that the present can be explained by its function. There is always the primordial fact of a specious present mediating time and reality. We have. therefore. following George Herbert Mead. The Philosophy of the Present (Chicago: Open Court. 1932). p. 88. to distinguish functional presents and the specious present. A present without function (i. e. ? without context) is by that fact reduced to a specious present.
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138 SOCIAL RESEARCH
dates. The future is the series of dates which will come after the present. This chronological conception suggests that the future will begin where the present ends. A thorough analysis shows, however, that we cannot think of two immediately connected in? stants of time without thinking an interval separating them. 21 Al- ready medieval authors concluded that beginning and ending can- not be, except as a property of the instantaneous present. 22 We know, furthermore, from cultural comparison as well as from em- pirical investigations that in daily life we experience time as rather
discontinuous, that future is disconnected from the present and that only a few societies and in those societies only a fraction of their members feel obliged to gloss over these discontinuities and to level them out by a kind of mathematical calculation. 23
The theory of modalities has been used since the Middle Ages to formulate a two-level conception of reality, reflecting different modes in which being and nonbeing can present themselves. The temporal modes are: past, present, and future. They are distinct modes, of course, but there is again a kind of idealizing and equal- izing at work. It is presupposed that these three modes of time, at least as modes,? are on an equal footing. This may be due to
linguistic requirements. We have the choice between these three tenses. Whereas chronology depends on mathematical calculation, the theory of modalities depends on language. Its prototype seems to be: speaking about something.
