Zeithorizonte in der Wissenschaft

The contributors reflect on the concept of time and time horizons in the sciences. From a philosophical position, they demand that the actioning and formative character of time should again become an experiential element of life, we should reflect on the temporality of knowledge and its finiteness, debates about the progress and regression of knowledge accumulation should be measured against their past manifestations, even that we resist the concept of epochs. Historians of science discuss how humans are determined by a network of time rhythms, how the time horizon of the experimental sciences is tied to specific relations of objects and processes, and which dichotomies run through our thinking about biology. Natural scientists define time by atomic and molecular processes, current discussions are concerned with the origin of the direction of time and its irreversibility. Legal history shows how the frantic flight of lawyers into print in modern times has through self reference fragmented the foundations of the legal system into a confusing textual world and how the metaphor of 'time horizons' serves as an effective means to construct orientations.

Dieter Simon is President of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.