The latency of the present. The contemporary historical time from the thinking of Hans Ulrich Gum-brecht.

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/2965-1557.037.e202531298

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to elaborate a critical reframing and interpretation of recent readings of contemporary historical time by means of the notion of «presentism». Drawing primarily on the work of the French historian François Hartog, the category of «presentism» has become a conceptual key that paves the way to understanding the ways in which we make sense of our experience of time and history. Taking up the conceptual tools of conceptual history, this approach to presentism is focused on analyzing some central aspects of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht`s thought. As it will be developed, his prolific work offers a priceless conceptual vein so as to criticize philosophically both the assumptions and the limits of this interpretation of our regimen of historicity. With a view of doing so, it will be outlined the extent to which his diagnosis of the origin of contemporary historical time derived from the crisis of futurism that have defined the modern regimen of historicity. From this point, by means of Gumbrechtian concept of «presence», this paper will developed his definition of presentism as a fragmented temporal figure that oscillated between the push and the pull of abandoning the future and the impossibility of distancing the past. This interpretation paves the way toward delving further into the weaknesses of Gumbrecht`s reading of contemporary historical time. Through the recovery of Gumbrecht’s notion of «latency» it will be reconstructed the relations and dependencies between presentism and the notion of «trauma». Such connection will bring light into the limits of presentist reading of historical time.   

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Author Biography

Rafael Pérez Baquero, Universidad de Murcia

Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy (Philosophy Area) at the University of Murcia (Spain).

PhD in Philosophy in the University of Murcia, the University of Alicante, the University of Almeria, the University of Zaragoza, the University of Castilla-la Mancha and the University of La Laguna (2020).

Graduate in Philosophy at the University of Murcia (2013).

Master in Theoretical and Practical Philosophy (2014) and Expert in Social Memory and Human Rights (2019) by the UNED.

Visiting researcher at Cornell University (2017), at Birkbeck, University of London (2018), at the University of Tartu (2020), at Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2022), at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales - CSIC and at Bergische Universität Wuppertal (2023).

Published

2025-04-11

How to Cite

Pérez Baquero, R. (2025). The latency of the present. The contemporary historical time from the thinking of Hans Ulrich Gum-brecht . Revista De Filosofia Aurora, 37. https://doi.org/10.1590/2965-1557.037.e202531298

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Section

Continuous Flow