Messianic or Heterogeneous Time? Critical Temporal Orders in Benjamin and Foucault

Abstract

This paper raises questions about the traditional conceptualization of time by drawing on the notions of historical time underlying the approaches to critical historiography in the work of Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault. The paper is exploratory. While both thinkers belong to different European Schools of Thought and pursue different approaches to critical historiography, both share the view that an alteration of the predominant consciousness of history and time is of highest importance. While Benjamin and Foucault conceptualize their temporal orders in unique manners, both reject the notion of time as a linear and homogeneous order. I find interest points of contact in the notions of temporal non-accumulation, discontinuity and non-linearity. Looking through the lens of time offers not only new perspectives on Benjamin’s and Foucault’s work but also implications for social change.