Historical consciousness of time and its societal uses

Abstract

ABSTRACTTaking as a point of departure that consciousness of time is pivotal to historical consciousness, this paper explores intuitive temporal experiences as opposed to the less intuitive temporal experience connected with historical consciousness. The intuitive daily/cyclic, social and mythical temporal awareness is being opposed to historical consciousness of time, defined in six central concepts: chronology, anachronism, historical distance, contingency, evidence and narration. The connection between the rise of a historical consciousness of time and the development of democracy is being discussed. Based on research in history education, the counter-intuitive nature of each of the six concepts of historical consciousness of time is shown, resulting in the conclusion that the ways of thinking connected to the six concepts—counter-intuitive as they are, and therefore not likely to develop spontaneously in people—should be the object of history teaching. Hypothetically, the probable yields of each of the concepts for the support and upkeep of free democratic societies are discussed. The central thesis explored in this paper is: there is a consciousness of time which does not originate spontaneously and which—being an essential part of thinking and reasoning in democratic societies—should be fostered actively in history lessons.