Norbert Elias and the philosophical controversy surrounding the nature of time

Elias’ criticism of the dualistic philosophical interpretation of time

The theoretical–philosophical, and more prominently epistemological foundations of Elias’ research on time can be found mainly in his classics The Civilizing Process (especially in the first volume of that work, originally published in 1939) and The Society of Individuals (the first two parts, written decades before the publication of that book in 1987); as in Involvement and Detachment (1983), in his interviews and biographical notes (published for the first time in 1984 and later gathered and put together as a book) and above all, in The Symbol Theory (1989)—the last book published by Elias before his death. Elias’ references, direct or indirect, to the conceptual problem of time were rare in his early works, although little more frequent in his later studies.

However, undoubtedly, the most important source for understanding Elias’ concept of time is his book Über die zeit, comprised of a series of essays collected and published in 1984. With the publication of this book, Elias substantively entered the philosophical debate over the nature of time. In the book’s introduction, Elias explained that the purpose of this book is to provide instruments for an interpretation of time that will “steer the discussion of the human concept of time between the traditional philosophical alternatives, subjectivism and objectivism …” (Elias, 1992: 30).

In his analysis of the concept of time, Elias departs from an initial basic assumption according to which one of the barriers to understanding the essence of time—a barrier that serves to strengthen its enigmatic and mysterious character—is the way in which the concept has been treated within the context of traditional philosophical approaches, and in the theories of knowledge associated with them. Elias identified the existence of two diametrically opposed positions at the center of the long philosophical discussion about time: On one hand are those who argue that “time exists objectively as a part of natural creation,” an element of the “eternal order of nature” (Elias, 1992: 9, 123), with the same characteristics as any other physical object, except for being imperceptible. According to Elias, these “objectivist” conceptions, which have found themselves increasingly under attack in more recent times, have as their most prominent representative the English physicist Isaac Newton. On the other hand, we have those who assert that time is a “kind of synoptic view of events residing in the peculiar nature of human consciousness, or the human mind or reason.” For those individuals, time represents a “universal structure of human consciousness,” an immutable fact of mankind, an innate form of experience or an a priori synthesis. For Elias, that conception—albeit, in a less systematic form—seemed to have prevailed and, despite its remote roots in Descartes, its most respectable expression is found in the work of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (Elias, 1992: 4–5, 123).

Regardless of the controversial issue of whether Kant’s concept of time is appropriately classified as “objectivist” or “subjectivist,” Elias contends that, in fact, both theories view time as a natural fact—whether as “an ‘objective’ fact existing independently from human beings” or “a merely ‘subjective’ notion rooted in human nature.” From this initial analysis, Elias clarified his position, stating that “what the concept of time refers to is neither a conceptual ‘copy’ of a flow existing objectively, nor a category of experience common to all people and existing in advance of all experience” (Elias, 1992: 5, 8).

According to Elias, there is a distinct polarization between objectivist and subjectivist theories of time, with each based on a particular epistemological assumption: at one extreme, time is a property of objects and at the other extreme, time is a property of knowing subjects—generally, considered individually. The assumption shared by these positions is that their particular notion of time is universal, regardless of historical time, age, or any human experience or learning (Elias, 1992: 126).

As to whether time is a property of objects or subjects, Elias argued that the difficulties of finding an answer to that question are a consequence of the poor formulation of the question. The starting point is mistaken. The question presupposes the division of the world between subject and object, as if there were internal and external worlds. According to Elias, this division has been assumed and promoted by the philosophical discourse on “two independent existences separated from each other by an invisible spatial divide” (Elias, 1992: 125). Hence, the notion of time remained an enigma for so long—a problem that (seemingly) could not possibly be solved.

For Elias, understanding the concept and nature of time requires recognizing that it involves considering man and nature not as two separate entities, but as “people in nature” (Elias, 1992: 8). Therefore, time is not a concept reduced to a copy of a flow existing objectively in the physical world, nor is it a representation forged by an isolated man, totally independent of his relationships with nature and with other human beings.

Dichotomy in the traditional theories of knowledge

Elias believes that the main challenge in understanding time—which is at the core of Elias’ criticism of the dichotomy between physical and social times— resides in the general tendency of certain traditional theories of knowledge to view and attempt to interpret the world from a set of dichotomic pairs arising from the division of the world into subjects and objects as static elements existing independently of each other, thereby forming the classical epistemological antinomy (cf. Elias, 1991a). This fragmenting tradition is responsible for the existence and persistence of claimed oppositions between man (society and culture) and nature, and therefore between the areas of knowledge that are dedicated, respectively, to the study of these objects.

According to Elias, in his time, the meaning of the concept of nature was largely determined according to the way existing academic knowledge, due to its intense specialization, divided the universe between nature and society or, more specifically, by the form and meaning given to the concept of time by the so-called physical or natural sciences. However, those sciences, he argues, were merely interested in a limited area of the universe, excluding from its research field “the highest level of integration, represented by human beings, as if they were not part of ‘nature’.” However, an adequate understanding of time must consider that humans emerged from the physical universe, adding to the concept of nature the idea “that its blind processes have given rise not only to helium reactors and lunar deserts, but to human beings also” (Elias, 1992: 9).

Therefore, such conceptual rift produced between nature—as a field of study of the physical sciences—and human societies—as a field of study of the social or human sciences—has created the illusion of a world divided in two, according to the different fields of specialization: knowledge and science (Elias, 1992: 8–9, 85–86). This segregating conceptualization, criticized by Elias, eventually crystallized a notion according to which nature and society would be not only existentially distinct but also—and this is crucial—antagonistic and irreconcilable. Such a notion prevents the study and understanding of the relations between these concepts, by creating an existential abyss between them.

For the German sociologist, it would seem as if in the current world, we were trapped in and utilizing a conceptual structure that establishes a very clear boundary among the levels of physical, biological, social, and individual integrations, building the image of a world divided into extremely closed and opposite sectors (Elias, 1992: 15, 97). However, according to Elias, humanity, society, and culture are “no less ‘natural’—forms no less part of the one universe—than atoms or molecules” (Elias, 1992: 87).

Therefore, the fundamental issue for Elias is that reflection on the nature of time should necessarily rectify such an image and acknowledge the mutual imbrications and interdependency among nature, society, and the individual. It should also accept, perhaps in a less anthropocentric approach, that human groups are situated within a larger setting than the ones formed by them: “the natural universe” (Elias, 1992: 9, 15–16).

Studies about time would still be constrained if they had been driven only by the perspective of the conceptual opposition between nature and society, since, according to the Elias’ analysis, the problems of time would neither be framed in the compartments in which scientific disciplines were divided, nor in the niches of humans’ conceptual apparatus (Elias, 1992: 88–89). In brief, according to Elias, if we continued exploring the physical and social universes independently or, in other words, if we had not perceived “human societies as emerging and developing within the larger non-human universe,” the mystery of time would continue without solution (Elias, 1992: 45).

The dichotomic division of time into physical and social times

According to Elias, the dichotomic conceptual expressions physical and social times began to express the contemporary configuration of the philosophical controversy surrounding the objective or subjective essence of time. Elias considered physical time—an aspect of “physical nature”—as an immutable variable measured by physicists, and social time—a social institution—as a regulator of social events and a modality of human experience (Elias, 1992: 116). This conceptual dualism would result in the establishment of a clear distinction of hierarchical status and value between the terms “natural time” and “social time,” giving the impression that the former would be the real time, whereas the latter would be reduced to an arbitrary convention. Men used to consider nature as “the epitome of good order and thus, in some sense, as more ‘real’ than their own, seemingly less orderly and more haphazard social world” (Elias, 1992: 116–117).

The problem arising from this division between “physical” and “social” times is that it requires us to understand time as a reference either to nature or to society—as if there is a distinct time internal to the former, and another internal to the latter. Elias replied categorically that this is a false choice, because these “times” do not exist by themselves, and therefore cannot be investigated independently. Such a division is merely a consequence or reflection of the partition of the world into subject and object. For Elias, the insoluble puzzle of time continues

as long as the division between “nature” and “society” and, thus, between “physical time” and “social time”, characteristic of the present stage of development, is understood as an eternal, existential division – and as long, therefore, as the problem of the relationship between “physical time” and “social time” remains unexplored. (Elias, 1992: 117)

In concluding this critique of Elias’ philosophical dualist interpretations of time presented in the last topics, we should finally stress some implications and limitations of the objectivist and subjectivist approaches as well as some essential aspects regarding time that those approaches, with their dichotomic and stagnant visions, cannot capture. By reinforcing the division between the spheres of subjective and objective knowledge as being independent and incommunicado—and consequently, the division between the areas of knowledge dedicated to the studies of natural “objects” on one hand and social “subjects” on the other—those approaches have contributed to a distorted view of the nature and society pair of concepts as well as their relationships, impeding the conception of time as something simultaneously natural (physical) and cultural (social).

Consequently, the objectivist and subjectivist approaches have become obstacles to the appearance and development of interdisciplinary perspectives that involve the so-called natural sciences and human sciences. In addition, they favor the fragmentation of a more general concept of time, generating a multiplicity of “times,” according to various specializations and subdivisions of disciplines with no connection among themselves and no common denominator, thereby diminishing the strength and usefulness of that concept. Finally, they also share the inability to grasp the dynamics of the social and historical processes in the construction of notions of time, which go through constant semantic variations.

Time as a social symbol: A complex conceptual synthesis

In his effort to propose an understanding of time that would challenge the traditional philosophical alternatives of subjectivism and objectivism, nominalism and realism, Elias addressed the need to provide tools for “an interpretation of social symbols.” In this regard, his study of time comprised a broader investigation, partly conducted after the publication of his book On time, and under the influences of the philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1953, 1955, 1957) and the semiotician Umberto Eco (1984). Elias’ efforts aimed at developing a general theory of symbols, since, for him, time is a relational and socially communicable symbol (Elias, 1992: 29–30). Time is “among the symbols which human beings can learn and, from a certain stage of social development on, must learn as means of orientation” (Elias, 1992: 21). For a physical process to become a timing device, it is necessary that it associates itself with a moveable social symbol in the form of information or regulation in the communication system of human societies. This does not mean, however, that we could simply separate the symbolic dimension of a timing device from its physical properties. For Elias, time as a symbol is not incompatible with time as a physical dimension of the universe (Elias, 1992: 14–15).

Hence, time has gradually become a symbolic representation of a broad network of relationships, which is comprised of varied processes. However, enabling such processes to be captured in space and time requires a commanding human action or a “consciously learned synthesis.” Thus, according to Elias, the notion of time, in its current stage of development, concerns a complex conceptual synthesis for establishing relationships among positions or durations, whether in the course of physical events, in social dynamics, or even in the course of an individual’s life (Elias, 1992: 16, 35).

According to this approach, the perception of time would require beings endowed with a power of synthesis—a property unique to human beings—activated and patterned by individual and collective experiences, and capable of drawing a mental picture that combines successive, but not simultaneous, events in a single representation:

Humans orient themselves less than any other creature we know by means of unlearned reactions and, more than any other creature, by perceptions which are patterned by learning, by previous experiences, not only of each human being individually, but also of long chains of human generations. (Elias, 1992: 37)

However, it is worth mentioning that, according to the sociological and enduring procedural (historical) approach chosen by Elias, any solution to the problem of understanding time will require taking into consideration the changes in the concept of time passed from one generation to the next. Such changes result from the different levels of development of social groups. Therefore, in Elias’ conception, an exclusively philosophical approach limited by a dichotomic and nonprocedural perspective of the world will be unable to overcome the dichotomy between objective and subjective times. Thus, the connections among individual, collective, and natural levels—which are traditionally studied as independent and opposing concepts—are possible only if one considers the eminently historical and social processes involved in forming the ideas of time, processes that are always inclined and exposed to change in time and space.

Certain problems arising from the symbolic nature of time

When emphasizing the enigmatic character of our everyday notion of time, Elias stated that its ontological status remained obscure:

What still remains by and large unclear today is the ontological status of time. People reflect on it without really knowing what kind of phenomenon they are dealing with. Is time a natural phenomenon? Is it a cultural object? Or does the substantive form of the word “time” perhaps create an illusion of an object? (Elias, 1992: 12)

According to Elias, many of the confusions and barriers to understanding time arise precisely from the tendency toward naturalization, i.e. the naturalization of something that, as a conceptual synthesis and a social symbol, is not natural in the sense of being independent from human beings as well as their experiences with others and with the nonhuman world. Thus, according to this perspective, the enigma surrounding the idea of time largely results from its symbolic essence, and hence from the issues of language itself. As Elias believed, much of the problem stems from the fact that we routinely employ the word time as a noun instead of as a verb, a practice that has contributed to its reification (Elias, 1992: 46).

Reflection about the issue of time is hampered by its substantival form. For Elias, the practice of thinking and speaking with the aid of a reifying substantive, of personifying abstractions, is a convention that greatly restricts the perception of the nexus of events. Such linguistic habits thereby mislead reflections, reinforcing “the myth of time as something which in some sense exists and as such can be determined or measured even if it cannot be perceived by the senses.” Accordingly, this problem is closely related to the nature of symbolic time. Since temporal symbols, analogous to mathematical symbols, can serve to compare very diverse sequences, a false impression is created, according to which “time” exists, or could exist, regardless of any specific and tangible sequences. In addition, the more complex and differentiated the society, the greater the impression created (Elias, 1992: 42–43, 104).

Another difficulty derived from the fact that time is a relation among much varied processes is that such a situation results in a tendency to attribute to time some properties of these very same processes. This is an example of how a widely used symbol—similar to a complex conceptual synthesis— decoupled from the processes to which it is related, can acquire autonomy in language and human thought, and in some instances achieve the status of a second nature (Elias, 1978: 20). In a socio-symbolic universe such as ours, “highly abstract symbols become reified in common parlance and assume a life of their own” (Elias, 1992: 7, 69, 120–121). Moreover, according to Elias, when such symbols reach a high degree of adaptation to reality—such as in the case of time in today’s more complex social settings—people much more frequently mistake them for reality itself.

Time as a purely relational symbol

For Elias, what we call “time” is also a type of relation of social and symbolic nature. In this sense,

the word “time”, one might say, is a symbol of a relationship that a human group, that is, a group of beings biologically establishes between two or more continua of changes, one of which is used by it as a frame of reference or standard of measurement? for the other (or others). (Elias, 1992: 46)

Faced with the inability to directly confront the duration of sequences that occur consecutively, and to meet their needs of orientation, human beings have historically used a second succession of processes to compare their durations, in an indirect way—such socially standardized and regular processes similar to the cycles of the apparent motion of the sun or of clock hand (Elias, 1992: 10).

In brief, Elias described time, among other things, as a purely relational symbol, in the same category as mathematical symbols, in the sense that the relationships it symbolically represents do not refer to one or another particular object or event. The concept of time thus conceived can be applied to evolutive continua of any kind—from cooking an egg to the birth and demise of stars and galaxies—requiring only the existence of a socially patterned sequence that serves as a model, be it of a physical or social nature (Elias, 1992: 133).

Distinction between the “structural” and the “experiential” concepts of time

In addition to allowing indirect comparisons among positions or duration of different processes, time can also designate relations in the scope of a unique or identical sequence of events, between what happened earlier and what happened later, between before and after. Obviously, in such cases, the reference point will be situated within the same evolutive sequence (Elias, 1992: 74). Hence,

one of the principal clues to the problem of “time” and of “timing” is to be found in the specific capacity of people for envisaging together and, thus, for connecting to each other what happens “earlier” and what happens “later”, what “before” and what “now” in a sequence of events. Memory plays a fundamental part in this capacity for visualizing together what does not happen together in actual fact. (Elias, 1992: 74)

The conclusion that one might infer from Elias’ analysis is that the existence of numerous and different temporal expressions created and used by people—such as year, month, hour, before, after, sooner, later, now, today, past, present, and future arises from the fact that we consider the relationships among or within observable continua, and we do or do not include in this conceptualization the human capacity to make syntheses and, primarily, human experiences.

According to Elias, the function and meaning of these time concepts remain misunderstood due to a lack of clarity between their differences and similarities. To better clarify them, he initially related the simpler concepts of sequential flow such as year, month, and hour, with the more complex concepts of past, present, and future, “which include into the orbit of their meaning people as focusing units who visualize the sequential flow and its temporal structure” (Elias, 1992: 76).

From this perspective, concepts such as year, month, or hour would not comprise the human ability to experience as simultaneity what does not occur in simultaneity, even when they can presuppose it in their meaning. Rather, they would be categories that simply express sequential flows of different duration, successfully used in describing relation systems that manifest themselves at the physical level. However, they would be inappropriate for understanding relations in terms of human practices. Conversely, the notions of past, present, and future denote the relationship among a series of events and experiences that an individual or a group has. In more than a single sequence, these three expressions represent the “simultaneous presence of the three time-units of time in people’s experience,” and therefore they represent a single concept (Elias, 1992: 76–77).

Furthermore, Elias related the concepts past, present, and future with the temporal expressions sooner and later. Notwithstanding that the former as much as the latter can relate themselves to the same sequences of changes, Elias advised that simple classification of an event as preceding or succeeding can be independent from subjects of reference, since in a single evolving continuum, what happens sooner would always be prior to what happens later—the relation of order between these expressions would be fixed, without any reference to certain people (Elias, 1992: 78).

On the other hand, according to Elias, the concepts of past, present, and future bind the temporal relationships that a group of living human beings establishes among any series of changes—whether personal, social, or physical—and the becoming that will be submitted to the same group; thus, the focus on time concepts dependent on subjects of reference: a given event is past, present, or future for any given living human being, and always considered in his becoming. Moreover, such concepts could have clearer meaning only if jointly present in human consciousness (Elias, 1992: 79).

Elias also noted a key difference between series of social phenomena and other series unrelated to human beings, consisting of purely biological or physical events. In the former type of sequences, unlike the latter, “people’s experience of social sequences forms part and parcel of the flow of such a sequence itself.” Hence, Elias concluded that the concepts of past, present, and future, due to their direct and exclusive links with such human experiences, do not apply to the realm of physical processes, and therefore there would be no meaning in the division of continuous sequences of events in the “natural” world in past, present, and future sequences (Elias, 1992: 79–80).

Incidentally, when addressing the relationship between two successive events, Elias highlighted that, in the scope of human experiences, what occurred before could be understood as a cause of what happened later—as a consequence. However, at the same time, according to the experiences of future generations, what happened next—the consequences—would have an impact on the sense in which what happened before is “experienced” (Elias, 1994: 152). Unlike the causal order implicit in the cause–effect relationship experienced in the realm of the physical universe, in this case, surprisingly, if one admits that the past somehow is something that “precedes the future,” this temporal order could be subverted in the sense that the future, i.e. “what next” could “interfere with the past,” or, rather in the way that past is experienced. Therefore, the causal relationships do not apply to the temporal concepts of past, present, and future.

In any event, for Elias, there are two types of time concepts used by people, regardless of whether the way in which they experience the evolutive sequences in the conceptualizations process is taken into consideration (Elias, 1992: 80).

While acknowledging the difficulty of creating an appropriate typology for the differentiation of these two groups of time concepts, Elias suggested a contrast between “structural” concepts and those “related to an experience.” While both these groups symbolically represent learned relations or synthesis, they are of different types. Although both designate the previous or posterior character of events in an evolutive continuum, unlike other time concepts—such as earlier and later, for example—the concepts of past, present, and future constitute syntheses regarding noncausal relationships among such events; in other words, they form conceptual syntheses that include “a specific way of experiencing sequences” (Elias, 1992: 80).

The fifth symbolic dimension of experience or human consciousness

We have finally arrived at the heart of Elias’ elaboration and theoretical synthesis effort to offer an approach that, in his view, will allow one to unravel the apparent mystery of the nature of time, generated by the philosophical antithesis between subjectivism and objectivism, as well as by the resulting dichotomies inherent in traditional theories of knowledge. This involves a daring and complex evocation of a universe of five dimensions. With the emergence of mankind, a fifth dimension is added—though not as a mere juxtaposition—to the four dimensions of the physical universe formed by space and time. What Elias named the fifth dimension is the lived experience or consciousness, i.e. the socially learned symbols—such as time—that serve as means of communication, orientation, and identification for human beings (Elias, 1992: 81).

When clarifying the idea of a world of five dimensions, Elias sought to demonstrate the double character of the world of experience as a world independent of human beings. However, it is a world that, at the same time, includes them and a network of symbolic representations made by man that are materialized only with the help of social learning processes. It is about a dual experience: we experience this world and we experience ourselves within it. Consistent with this perspective, the fact that everything that occurs in time and space also has a place in the fifth dimension is not, in any way, incompatible with the fact that everything that occurs in the symbolic dimension also occurs in the four dimensions formed by time and space. Furthermore, the fabric composed of the symbols can well be conceived as another dimension, precisely for encompassing all that exists, analogous to the space–time continuum (Elias, 1991b).

Before proceeding with the presentation and interpretation of the fifth dimension allegory suggested by Elias—and perhaps to help better understand it—it might be useful to use here an analogy between what “time” represents (according to Elias) in the relation between the fifth and the fourth dimension, on one side, and, on the other side, what it means for physicists, in the relation between the fourth and the third dimension of our physical universe. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity and Maxwell’s electromagnetism, time cannot be treated separately from the three dimensions of space, necessitating the addition of a time dimension to them, thus forming a unit, the space–time continuum that physicists have agreed to call the fourth dimension, a nomenclature that can generate misunderstandings, because, in fact, time does not represent, in that dimension, another dimension separate from the three dimensions of space. Instead of a juxtaposition, there is a fundamental interconnection among the four dimensions, due to a kind of omnipresence of time in spatial dimensions (cf. Hawking and Mlodinow, 2010).

Elias precisely intended to highlight with his model this interconnection between the five dimensions, so that time is something integral, without any contradiction for either the five- or the four-dimensional universes. Thus, according to Elias, what we call “time” refers to one of the constitutive dimensions of the four-dimensional physical universe, which represents the entire perceptible world, in the sense that “everything that is perceptible, humans included, has a position in each of the four dimensions formed of space and time.” However, concurrently, time would also be a social symbol, and therefore a “representative of the human world of five dimensions.” Given this “strange double life of time,” Elias formulated the following questions: what is the reciprocal relationship between these two representations of time? Are they reconcilable? (Elias, 1992: 35)

Elias began his effort to answer those questions by saying that human beings, when perceiving certain events situated in the space–time dimensions, are not always aware of the symbolic nature of time and space, since they do not realize that to be aware they require “a learned synthesis of consciousness by order-creating people.” It follows that, by observing and perceiving a four-dimensional universe, humans initially do not include themselves as subjects of observation and perception. Thus, Elias continues, the conditions exist for achieving a higher level of consciousness (Elias, 1992: 35).

With the addition of a fifth dimension to the observers’ view—represented by men who organize and perceive the events perceived in time and space—humans begin to perceive themselves as four-dimensional beings. Upon such “distancing,” and endowed with a kind of “fifth-dimensional lens,” these observers see not only the four-dimensional but also the symbolic character of the four dimensions, in their function as instruments of human orientation within the becoming continuing flow. That is, the symbolic specificity of the four dimensions manifests itself when we reach a higher level of knowledge, and humankind is included in this very knowledge, as its subject (Elias, 1992: 35–36).

Thus, Elias concludes his response to the previously discussed questions about the dual nature of time—its belonging to the fourth and fifth dimensions simultaneously— by stating that, while time is initially perceived only as a dimension of the physical universe, when “society is included in the field of view as a subject of knowledge,” time becomes recognizable as a symbol of human origin (Elias, 1992: 36). Considering his configurational sociology as his starting point, Elias’ analysis is focused on a “five-dimensional image of the plurality of human beings that includes directly visible and ‘experiential’ four-dimensional behavioral aspects …” (Elias, 1987: 116).

Since the “experiential” time concepts, such as past, present, and future, are characterized precisely for structuring “the experience in terms of its relation to the change-continuum of living and experiencing human groups,” one may conclude that such concepts would effectively integrate this fifth symbolic dimension formed by time, space, language, thought, knowledge, memory, consciousness, etc. (Elias, 1992: 81).

Despite the fact that Elias called this fifth dimension the symbolic dimension of experience or consciousness, he does not explain in detail what he means by these concepts. Nevertheless, in the first case (i.e. experience), one may infer that it is not about any experience, but about a lived experience, and therefore a living experience. In general terms, we could say that this concept refers to the notion of a life which has been experienced and remembered. Therefore, it refers to the consciousness which one attains and maintains in life. It might also designate a certain expression of consciousness—such as a thought that someone thinks reflexively, a science of itself together with a science of something (Cf. Comte-Sponville, 2011: 122–123, 634).

Virtually everything that has herein been said about the nature of time would equally apply to space as a dimension of the physical universe and, simultaneously, a social symbol forged by humankind. Space is to extension what time is to duration. Time and space both represent a complex conceptual synthesis, relations of purely positional order among observable events. The difference is that, while time refers to certain positional relations within a flow, and considers its continuous shifts and changes, space refers to the positional relations among moving events, using abstraction of their movements and effective changes. However, these positional relations are absolutely inseparable from each other, so that any change in time produces a change in space, and vice versa (Elias, 1992: 98–100).

Certain observations in Elias’ possible philosophical “subjectivism”

It is possible to question the extent to which Elias succeeded in undermining or refuting traditional conceptual schemes, and therefore the antithesis opposing objective and subjective times. If his departure from the objectivist approach is quite clear in his conceptualization of time, his criticism of the subjectivist approach is not as simple or as clear. As suggested at the beginning of this study, if the subjectivist approach tends to situate time in the sphere of the mind or the soul, sustaining subjective time as a time of consciousness or experienced time, it might be asked how far Elias has distanced himself from that position, since his concept of time also encompasses experience or consciousness, and given that, instead of a St. Augustine or a Bergson, he suggested the example of Kant as an expression of the subjectivist approach; (which, itself, is quite controversial) indeed, Elias insisted on the Kantian naturalization of time.

The distinction between traditional subjectivist perspectives and Elias’ subjectivism might stem from the fact that Elias’ understanding of time as a symbolic time, on one hand, contains a social dimension, i.e. it is not an innate time in an isolated individual, but a symbol resulting from a long social process of learning and experience. Moreover, this symbolic time is not incompatible with the nature of time, with physical time, rather integrates it as a synthesis—that is the basic idea in Elias’ five-dimensional allegory.

Accordingly, for Elias, time is not an attribute of the movements of celestial bodies—as Aristotle believed—an attribute of the soul—as advocated in St. Augustine’s Confessions (397–398)—an objective fact independent of human reality—as proposed by Newton in the Principia (1687)—or a mere “subjective” representation rooted in human nature—as postulated by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). For Elias, to a large extent, what united Newton and Kant was the fact that both of them considered time as something completely independent of any human experience or knowledge, both in the individual sense and in the context of that accumulated across successive generations.

Additionally, it is worth examining Elias’ position with respect to the controversy between the realistic and phenomenological approaches to the “reality” of time. On one hand, objectivists affirmed that only objective time, independent of the subject, was real, whereas subjective time, which proceeded from it, was merely an illusion elaborated by consciousness (Elias, 1992: 117). On the other hand, conversely, subjectivists affirmed that only subjective time, generated by consciousness, is real, whereas objective time, which proceeds from subjective time, is something illusory, i.e. objective time is a mere objectification or a projection of consciousness. Hence, the issue dividing objectivists and subjectivists is the possibility of the existence of objective time in the world, regardless of the subject.

In fact, Elias denied that time itself would exist outside of any teaching or independent of any experience. After stating that “in a world without people or living beings of any kind there would be no time,” he formulated the following question: “But is time, considered as an object or reflection, in fact nothing other than a conception of individual people?” (Elias, 1992: 12–13) Notwithstanding, one might ask, would such a position not bind him to the phenomenological approach as described above? However, as we have seen, the fact is, for Elias, time is not a representation reduced to a faithful copy of the flow objectively existing in nature, nor is it an image elaborated by an isolated man, totally independent of his experiences and knowledge derived from his relationship with nature and with other human beings. Time is not a representation made by man and nature as two existentially disconnected events, rather by men in the interior of nature (Elias, 1992: 8). This is the fundamental meaning in Elias’ conceptualization of time as a social symbol belonging to the experiential fifth dimension.

Hence, let us formulate the question once again: is time an exclusive attribute of subjects? Should we understand subjective time, created by the individual consciousness, to be the only real time? In turn, should objective time be understood as something illusory, as a mere projection of individual consciousness? Elias would say that such questions are ill-formulated, because they mistakenly suppose a division of the world between subject and object, generating an antithesis between objective and subjective times and also the false dichotomy between physical and social times.

On the other hand, Elias’ claim that in a universe without people there would be no time (since time does not exist by itself), could lead us to the idea that the four dimensions of the physical universe would not exist without the fifth human dimension. Although in agreement with this idea, Johan Goudsblom, a student and disciple of Elias, observed that considering the five dimensions to be a human creation could generate misleading conclusions, since humans are part of the natural four-dimensional universe (Dunning et al., 2005: 125–126). It is thus worth asking, to what extent does Elias’ statement that in a world without people there would be no time entail a subjectivist and anthropocentric position, according to which the fifth dimension is a human creation?

Elias stated that human beings, similar to the societies formed by individuals, are not “made by men”; rather, from the interweaving of actions and intentions of individuals emerges an unplanned order distinct from “nature.” In other words, individual actions are supported by an unplanned five-dimensional structure, originating from a preexisting social order (Elias, 1987). Here, Elias’ idea about the lack of planning of this five-dimensional human order of experience and consciousness eliminates the possibility of some kind of an anthropocentric and omnipotent intentionality that would allow people such capacity for creation—whatever meaning you assign to that term, including the sense of a mere invention or fanciful illusion.

This position must be understood in the context of the proposed procedural sociology of civilization development in the long term—the essence of Elias’ sociological theory—which seeks to describe how human society progresses as a whole, as the history of humankind makes its path: “From plans arising, yet unplanned. By purpose moved, yet purposeless” (Elias, 1991a: 63–64). However, more than that, it should be understood in the context of his more general idea, according to which the concept of nature (or universe) should include the potential that it has to produce, without purpose, not only galaxies and planets but also human beings (Elias, 1992: 9).

Conclusion

With the image of the five dimensions, Nobert Elias managed to build and offer a creative alternative that synthesizes the aspects of his critique (addressed herein) of the approaches to time promoted by traditional philosophies and epistemologies that facilitated—and perhaps continue to facilitate, although to a lesser extent—the debate about the nature of time. Such approaches, which tend to conceive the world from endless nonprocedural antitheses, have been responsible for the division between object and subject, nature and society, the physical and social worlds, and, consequently, between physical and social times, presented as existentially independent and irreconcilable.

Elias’ theoretical effort focused on elaborating a complementary and procedural synthesis for addressing the problem of time, a synthesis that would connect the dichotomous pairs, not only as a mere sum but also as a necessary combination. His idea of a symbolic fifth dimension overcomes the antagonism between physical social times and many other accompanying antagonisms. He concluded that the symbolic dimension was not incompatible with the dimension of the physical universe, and that there is an interrelation between them. Thus, both physical and social times are merely examples of the multiple notions into which the concept of time has been fragmented, in antitheses, in juxtaposed parts, without any level of articulation. Symbolic time, part of the fifth dimension of consciousness and experience, constitutes Elias’ synthesis.

Therefore, Elias’ concept of time can be considered both a provocative alternative and, to some extent, unique in relation to the objectivist and subjectivist schemes of traditional gnosiology. Insofar as it sheds light—even partially—on certain aspects of the enigma surrounding the concept of “time,” Elias’ approach can be legitimately understood to constitute a fruitful contribution to the efforts to understand and elucidate the philosophical problem of time. To the extent that is true, Elias’ concept of time, as he himself once said, contributes to a better understanding of the human condition.

Furthermore, Elias’ criticism of the dichotomy between physical and social times constitutes more than a mere reflection on time, it also provides a significant contribution to the debate about the epistemological problems generated by the concept of time—the complex relationships between object and subject, nature and society, and consequently between the physical or natural sciences and social sciences—and present in the sphere of language. In addition, it also facilitates a better understanding of the functions of social symbols as a means of human communication and orientation. Moreover, Elias’ fertile contribution to the reflection on the essence of, and the relations among, different notions of time certainly provides new possibilities for thinking about other useful time concepts as part of a research effort investigating the links among the various notions into which the more general concept of time has been fragmented.