The Analytical Metaphysics of Time and the Recent Theory of History: Overtones of the Debate about Presentism

Hélio Rebello Cardoso Jr.

doi:10.15848/hh.v14i35.1739

Authors

Hélio Rebello Cardoso Jr. Universidade Estadual Paulista

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15848/hh.v14i35.1739

Keywords:

Historical Time, Presentism, Philosophy of History

Abstract

The longstanding line of research that the analytic tradition calls metaphysics of time remains quite ignored by the theory of history. To bring them closer, this study proposes to introduce to historians and theorists of history the metaphysics of time theses about the presentism/eternalism and the linear/closed time. For such purpose, we drew correspondences between the theory of history and the analytical metaphysics of time concerning some characteristics of the emerging concepts of historical time. These characteristics are related to the recent debate about presentism regarding the regimes of the historical time (multiple temporalities and pluritemporality); plural time in the analytical metaphysics and synchronous/asynchronous historical time; linear/closed time in the analytic tradition and being affected by historical time. As a result, this article presents how the analytical metaphysics of time theses disclose unnoticed contours related to the history theorists’ understanding about the relation with the past.

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Author Biography

Hélio Rebello Cardoso Jr., Universidade Estadual Paulista

Hélio Rebello Cardoso Jr. was a Elementary School Teacher from 1984 to 1987 and has been a University Professor since 1989. He is currently a professor of Theory of History at Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP, Brazil). Visiting Researcher: 2008-2009 Peirce Edition Project (IUPUI, USA) with the Fulbright Scholar Advanced Research and University Lecturing Awards; 2011-2012 University of Paris X; 2019-2020 Katholiek Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He directed 140 ICs, 19 MEs, 19 DOs and 7 PosDocs, the vast majority with scholarships. He published 69 articles, 7 books (either as an author or editor) and 33 chapters. He obtained 76 grants and scholarships from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, Brazil). Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Brazil) Productivity Scholarship.

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