Sewell emphasizes that scientific theories and the world views founded on them are decisively shaped by the temporalities that underlie them. For the historical sciences, he distinguishes three concepts of time in particular.

The teleological perspective assumes prior (transhistorical) laws that inherently predetermine the logic of natural or social developments. The goal and meaning of history are a consequence of anonymous, long-term causal forces. The system under consideration has a predetermined lawful state at any point in time in the past, present and future (assumption about the uniformity of causalities). From Sewell’s point of view, such a conception postulates a unitary origin (Big Bang) in retrospect from the present situation to the past, which already contains the future preformed as a potential (in potentia). Turning points (or crucial events) that can give the course of history a new, unpredictable direction do not appear in it, but are reduced to the status of milestones on the way to an unavoidable future as consequences of the preceding laws.

The teleological perspective also includes considerations of the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous, in which observed differences between events classified as comparable are interpreted as different phases or states occurring at the same time in a development process that progresses according to the law from a common origin. Sewell sees this approach as a fallacy, because an actual, historically based socio-geographical difference in the social order is reinterpreted as stages in the linear development of a higher-level evolutionary law (a kind of eternal yeast).

The empirical (quasi-experimental, inductive) perspective assumes that similar events can be subjected to a comparative analysis in order to uncover causal factors that explain the occurrence of certain categories of events. Causal factors are to be understood as necessary, mutually supporting or successive conditions for the occurrence of comparable sequences of events. The prerequisite for the comparability of such events is the similarity and independence of the cases under consideration, which are frozen as extracted blocks and treated as quasi-timeless objects of a typological class that are subject to the same causal laws and are independent of preceding events. According to Sewell, this perspective does not provide evidence for universally valid laws, but analogies to specifically describe the interactions that arise from the overall circumstances and develop from processes that were originally determined separately. The empirical concept of time is therefore based on an ontology of comparable extractable blocks of events that constitute history as quasi-timeless, typifiable units.

The eventful perspective emphasizes the effectiveness of singular historical events. It assumes that the actions and encounters of social actors are simultaneously enabled and restricted by the constitutive structures of the respective society. Most social actions simply reproduce the existing social and cultural structures without significant changes. But there are also events in the narrower sense of upheavals that decisively transform social and cultural structures. Such events can not only shift the balance of active power relations, but also turn the entire logic on its head that causally determines the subsequent development of society under given circumstances and conditions. Event-oriented temporality assumes that the development of social relationships is determined by the concrete course (path dependency), the concrete power relations (temporally heterogeneous causalities) and the concrete circumstances (global contingency). Social events are by their nature contingent, discontinuous and open-ended. Significant and important social processes are never completely immune to small, unpredictably changing local influences.

In summary: An experimentally determined temporality postulates the time-independent constancy of causal laws and the causal independence of sequences of events from preceding or following events. A teleologically oriented temporality insists on a lawful goal-directedness, but accepts a certain path dependency and superficial contingency of sequences of events. Eventful temporality assumes that sequences of events are fundamentally path-dependent, i.e. they depend on contingent framework conditions, and can be subject to a shift in causal relationships in their course.

Sewell distinguishes between a synchronic and a diachronic perspective in historical representations: „history as temporal context“, as statically or factually located in a past time, and „history as transformation“, as development or progression, and argues for a dialectical oscillation between the two in order to do justice to transformations – „trans“ and „form“ – taken literally. Basically, he demands a proper determination of time for historical observation (in the sense of an interpretive or explanatory description), which requires a definition of defined initial and final states as quasi-timeless, because „synchronous“ or simultaneous event relations, in order to present the transformation „diachronically“ via a law of progression with the help of a clock.

Sewell refers to the characteristic temporality of society-changing events (happenings), which are never limited to the moment, but always extend over a period of time from the initial break with the usual to the articulation of a new self-image. These are times of great uncertainty, in which the usual routines are fundamentally questioned (loss of orientation) and acting people have to cope with existential situations that are emotionally intense (loss of the feeling for a secure temporal progression: time is out of joint). In this context, he refers to the English verb „to temporize“: to manipulate the characteristic time of a situation in order to influence events or to enable options.

Only the establishment of a new self-understanding brings the distinction of events as historical events into effect. For Sewell, this conceptual reinterpretation (hb: the symbolic marking of a turning point, the setting of a time marker for a before and an after, the beginning of a new era with reference to something that is definitely past, no longer present, only presentable, an irretrievably absent reality) is an indispensable part of every society-transforming event.

The prerequisite for society-transforming events is a punctual interlocking of special circumstances (structure of the conjuncture: the small but locally determining conditions whose interaction in a particular time and place may seal the fates of whole societies). Sewell distinguishes between three types of interlocking circumstances in particular. 1. semantic framework conditions: the ambiguity of terms allows for the mixing of references and thus new combinations and contextualizations – an under-determined term, which different sides initially use in different ways, becomes a link that can be sharpened through reformulation to mark a new beginning; 2. a prior attribution of meaning to places or people as symbols of, for example, injustice; 3. an extraordinary emotional intensity of the situation in which enthusiasm and anger go together in such a way that generosity or barbarism can emerge unpredictably.

Sewell makes metaphorical reference to de Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole: the synchronous (i.e. timeless) set of rules of language and its practical, diachronic (i.e. temporally unfolding) use in speech. Langue enables and restricts parole at the same time, i.e. it provides the means to say something, but at the same time restricts what can be said. Parole reproduces langue through use, but also changes and expands it at the same time through specific (generous) interpretation of the rules, which makes it possible to speak meaningfully about an unpredictable world in the first place. Saussure’s concept of language differs from Sewell’s concept of the social in temporality. The former privileges the synchronic perspective by placing langue (language) above parole (speech). Change is essentially only captured formally, quasi timelessly, through reversible logical connection of the existing elements of the semiotic system. The latter, on the other hand, emphasizes the diachronic perspective of both processes of creation and persistence in and through time. According to Sewell, humans are animals that transform the environment. They act in a physical world that they continually change according to their purposes. The built environment into which we are born limits and opens up possibilities and mediates our social form of life. Through our actions, we reproduce life routines and living conditions and at the same time change them. Persistence through reproduction and progress through variation determine the (iterative) course of history. Social structures (social constructs) are designed, inherited and redesigned over time by located social actors. They accumulate over time and are instantiated in the physical world.

Literature:

Elias Norbert, Über die Zeit, Vorwort (1984, zitiert nach 12. TB Auflg. 2017)

Further Reading:

Link: Titel (Kategorie)

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