Is Present Time a Precondition for the Existence of the Material and Public World?

Abstract

Proposing that all there ever is in the material and public world depends on, and arises out of, there being a present time, this paper sets out by describing two approaches to the NOW, or present time, these being an everyday understanding approach and a counter-intuitive approach. The former is distinguished and positioned in terms of Heidegger’s “ordinary understanding of time”, insofar as that relates to present time. We then take up this first approach, discussing five of its fundamentals or axiom-like features postulated as both self-evident and immutable relative to knowledge’s changing perspective. In the course of the discussion of both approaches a distinction is drawn between, on the one hand, the “knowing” that is incumbent upon the first approach and, on the other hand, the knowledge paradigm upon which the second approach to the NOW is premised. The aim of the paper is to show that the second approach fails, and that it is only by means of the immediacy of the NOW (as given to everyday understanding) that a material universe arises which stands as other, and in autonomy to, the subjectivity or psychological processes of the observer.