Articles

Abstract:

This paper comments the chapter »Existence in Time« in the book »Cognition of Existence« by Heinrich Barth: Time, in its utmost abstraction, is representend by a coordinate, defined prior to any event, to which a locus on that coordinate is subsequently given. In retrospect, past appearances can be ordered in their temporal sequence and in this way a process can form its own frame in time, which needs no further definition. The phases of time, past, present and future, are absent in such a frame. In introducing them we apply the concept of time that is necessarily connected to human cognition. Appearances appear exclusivly in the present. What relation do we have to the past and the future as beings centered in the present? In contemplating existence we remain outside its true reality - but still true conscious existence needs the illumination that contemplation will give. [...]