Translations of Dimensions of Time

Translations of dimensions of Time
Introduction

“What we must say is that we have to do with two different kinds of reality, the one heterogeneous, that of sensible qualities, the other homogeneous, namely space. This latter, clearly conceived by the human intellect, enables us to use clean-cut distinctions, to count, to abstract, and perhaps also to speak.” (Bergson 1910, 97)
The simultaneous presence in our lives of these two kinds of reality is commonly accepted and relates to the two dimensions of time coexisting and contributing to the formation of our experience and knowledge: one dimension of time relates to the individual experience of duration and is attributed qualities and limitations federated under the general banner of subjectivity; the other dimension considers Time as the abstract principle governing chronological organization and inherits the objective attributes of science and rationality.
When Edmund Husserl establishes the concept of temporal object that will become the primary component of his philosophy of Time, he defines it as a composition of these two dimensions of Time.
“By temporal object in the specific sense, we understand objects that are not only unities in time but that also contain temporal extension in themselves” (Husserl 1991, 24)
Vladimir Jankélévitch extends this view even further to state that this dual dimension of time is the very fabric of human kind: Humans do not conceive Time as a duality, instead, the duality of Time reveals humanity. (Jankélévitch 1974)
Some sort of generalized esthetics, or esthetics of Time, should primarily consider artistic expressions and works of art as attempts to translate the duality of Time.
Artistic expressions usually combine in specific manners these two dimensions of time. They organize and compose presentations of heterogeneous moments of sensible qualities, with representations of homogenous, abstract distinct instants.
Narration, for example, as Paul Ricoeur (Ricoeur 1984) presents it, is an expression by which, the two opposite dimensions of Time, the Augustinian spiritual extension of duration and the Aristotelian abstract logic of plot are composed in such a manner that “… time becomes human to the extend that it is articulated through a narrative mode and narrative attains its full meaning when it becomes a condition of temporal existence.”(Ricoeur 1984, 52)
Such generalized esthetics following Ricoeur’s hermeneutic will identify the interpretations and modes of interpretations of the two dimensions of time in artistic production as well as their compositions.