Temporicide: A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Western Oblivion of Originary Time

The primary concern of this monograph is the progressive oblivion of originary time as an internal destiny of Western thought, a phenomenon I call "temporicide". My central thesis holds that at decisive junctures, Western thinking has unwittingly created the conditions for this oblivion. I adopt a diagnostic approach, examining junctures of thinking—moments in which thinking articulated itself in relation to fundamental questions, the consequences of which created a binding path. Beginning with Greek poetic time (Sappho and Pindar), where temporality first emerged as a theme of human concern, the genealogy follows its manifestation in tragic poetry (Sophocles, Aeschylus) and its proximity to pre-Socratic thought (Heraclitus, Parmenides), then traces the deepening of concealment from the philosophical determination (Plato, Aristotle) onward, through theological meditation (Augustine) and the mathematization of time in modern physics (Galileo, Leibniz, Newton, Einstein). A sustained dialogue with Heidegger's late lecture "Zeit und Sein" (1962) completes the characterization and identifies the limits of Heideggerian phenomenology. This inquiry reveals that originary time—the gift that opens the world and grants spaciousness—has been progressively obscured and fragmented into measurable chronos. Here, the diagnostic concept of "technicity" becomes crucial. The term designates a metaphysical disposition already discernible in the Platonic-Aristotelian determination of science (epistēmē). By "technicity" I designate the metaphysical trait that reduces being to a calculable project—a disposition distinct from instrumental production or technological devices. This disposition emerges when Aristotle defines time as "the number of motion according to anteriority and posteriority." In this manner, temporality is, for the first time, subordinated to enumeration and measurement. This definition, refined through Augustine's theological reinterpretation and radicalized by modern physics, establishes time as a parameter subject to computation. Technicity is thus the onto-genealogical condition that makes temporicide structurally inevitable. The present age configures itself as the age of extreme technicity, in which this disposition—now wholly devoid of self-awareness and unmoored from its philosophical foundation—feeds on the intensified concealment and keeps it in vigor. (The conceptual foundations of technicity are developed in Chapter V of Science Under the Yoke of Value, Routledge 2025.) The concluding chapter shows that artistic creation, when bound to its genuine provenance, dwells in originary time and moves within genuine spaciousness. The experience of art and the vigor of its works thus attest to an indissoluble nexus between human beings and temporal originarity—a nexus that blazes forth all the more intensely the more our humanities are thrown into temporicide. --- This preprint is deposited to: Establish intellectual priority for the concept "temporicide" as a philosophical category Document the genealogical structure of the inquiry Protect the originality of the diagnostic methodology The complete monograph is currently under review with an academic publisher (provisional title: Temporicide: A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Western Oblivion of Originary Time).