The Time of History and The History of Times

Wesleyan University
The Time of History and the History of Times

Author(s): John R. Hall
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Feb., 1980), pp. 113-131
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
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THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES
JOHN R. HALL
Historiography, more than other human studies, has been confronted with the
need to understand the nature of social time. Other disciplines, such as sociology and anthropology, often have pretended to escape time - sociology by
looking to the eternal verities of social order, and anthropology by looking
to the archaic social orders which construed themselves as eternal. True,
sociology and anthropology have not totally ignored time. Especially these
days, anthropologists have begun to recognize the need to account for contemporary "savage" societies in relation to "developed" societies. And sociology was born of the recognition of social change in the industrial revolution.
At its inception, it offered counterpoint to historiography by positing social
change as a shift over time in broad complexes of often "mundane" culture,
social activities, and institutions. But the main tendency of both sociology
and anthropology has been ahistorical, and even anti-historical.
Historians, on the other hand, have been concerned in large part with
giving accounts of the unfoldings of past events; and this concern has required, at least implicitly, a theory of social time. Too often historians have
solved their temporal problematic by the fiat of posing objective, chronological time as the basis for observing the march of events.
By way of combatting this solution, theorists of historiography occasionally
have suggested that the stuff of history itself is contained in other, potentially
non-chronological, temporal phenomena. At least since the beginning of this
century, the straightforward chronology of "scientific" history has been challenged in two alternative developments. On the one hand, certain historians
have explored the relativity of multiple scales of objective time. On the other
hand, subjectivist philosophers have described the character of inner timeconsciousness, or subjective time; and subjectivist historians have advanced
a relativism based on the recognition of multiple social actors with diverse
and often conflicting social interests. Each of these intellectual trends has
tended to undermine the Rankean epistemology of history; no longer could
a history of elites be taken to represent the autonomous unfolding spirit of
historical development. But the relativities achieved in subjectivist and objectivist approaches remain incommensurate with one another, for they are based
114
JOHN R. HALL
on different conceptions of the nature of time and its relation to history.

Consideration of these divergent approaches perhaps can lead to the development of a more profound historiographic conception of time.
The following examination of objectivist time in the light of certain subjectivist investigations reveals certain difficulties and limits, as well as critical
insights of each. The Marxist structuralism of Louis Althusser is then discussed in order to clarify the insights of the two approaches toward resolution
of fundamental issues of historical time. Althusser's structuralism itself sets
certain reasonable criteria for such a program; but it has yet to contend with
its own problematic. In lieu of a structuralist program, I propose a comparative phenomenology of time as a basis for linking the temporal character of
social action with the unfolding process of history. This program fortuitously
reaffirms Max Weber's conception of the division of labor between historiography and sociology: it offers comprehension of the temporal character of
action as a bridge between the generalizing ideal types of sociology and the
idiosyncratic events of history. But the more basic concern is to sketch an
approach to historiography which recognizes that because subjective and
social temporal orientations themselves differ among individuals and groups
and over chronological time, knowledge of historically given temporal orientations can tremendously enrich understandings of social order and social
change.
I. THE RELATIVITY OF OBJECTIVE TIME
The Annales school of historiography has become especially identified with

the relativity of objective time. Annales scholars like Lucien Febvre, Marc
Bloch, and Fernand Braudel have been instrumental in setting the problematic and the methodologies of a revolution in historiography. As we all
know, they rejected narrow political history which focuses solely on narration
of events, and looked instead to histories of culture, to economic history,
and to social history. At once they moved beyond the hermeneutic textual
tradition of Ranke, and parted company with sociologists like Max Weber,
who emphasized the importance of subjectively meaningful action. This they
did by the simple tack of looking at processes which, they argued, lay beyond
texts and beyond individuals' intentions. In this sense, the Annales historians
traveled with their French sociological counterpart, Emile Durkheim, who
regarded "social facts as things" which transcend human consciousness.
The empirical studies which have come out of the Annales orientation are
diverse, and they defy any shorthand summary.' Moreover, the achievements
of Annales historians go far beyond any methodological prescriptions which
1. Fernand Braudel, in Traian Stoianovich, French Historical Method: the Annales
Paradigm (Ithaca, N.Y., 1976), 9.
115
serve to underpin their enterprises. Still, the Annales historians' concept of

time provides an accessible key to understanding the framework of their
analyses, and a critique of the objectivist aspects of their approach brings
to light certain problems inherent in any historiography based solely on
concepts of objective time.
Fernand Braudel, more than other Annales scholars, has made his special
scheme of time the key axis of analysis. In his historical tour de force, The
Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip the Second,
Braudel demonstrated the temporal relativity of history by treating objective
time essentially as a problem of scale. Braudel held that the nineteenthcentury historiographic emphasis on the history of events deals only with
brief and ephemeral moments, with what he has described as "surface disturbances, crests of foam that the tides of history carry on their strong
what Braudel terms l'histoire evenemenbacks."2 These surface events
tielle - take place in le temps court.
Braudel sketches two other major scales of objective time which undergird
this surface history. First, there is what might be called la moyenne duree:
"If the expression had not been deflected from its full meaning, one could
call it social history, the history of groups and groupings."' Here, Braudel
wants to talk of the trends and gradual shifts of economic systems, cultures,
and societies, and of the conjunctures of these trends and other conditions
and events, which taken together seem to provide the broad direction of social
history. This second scale of objective time deals with changes which may be
imperceptible to the contemporary observer, simply because they are so gradual as to fall outside the range of perception. Thus Braudel occasionally terms
this scale "unconscious" or "structural" history. Here he cites Levi-Strauss's
quotation of Marx: "Men make history, but they are unaware that they do
so."94
Aside from the structural history of la moyenne duree, Braudel notes a

second, and even grander scale of time beyond le temps court, namely that
of la tongue duree. This is basically an ecological history, "whose passage
is almost imperceptible, that of man in relation to the environment, a history
in which all change is slow, a history of constant repetition, everlasting
cycles."5
Braudel uses all three scales of time as the framework for his analysis of the
age of Philip the Second. But he is not content with letting this initial division
2. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip the Second [1966], transl. Sian Reynolds (New York, 1972), 27.
3. Ibid., 20. The term la moyenne duree was probably coined by J. H. Hexter, but
as Hexter remarked,it seems appropriateto Braudel'sscheme. See his "Fernand Braudel
and the Monde Braudellien," Journal of Modern History 44 (1972),
480-539.
4. Fernand Braudel, Ecrits sur l'Histoire (Paris, 1969), 62.

5. Braudel, Mediterranean, 20.
116
JOHN R. HALL
stand on its own. Useful as it may be for focusing analysis, the division is
arbitrary. All phenomena, Braudel recognizes, have their own temporal
phases. Even la tongue duree has its short cycles of the yearly seasons and
the daily tides. Indeed, some ecological events, such as earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions, are catastrophic, unique, and short-lived. Braudel also
recognizes that the events of social history in diverse areas such as science,
politics, mental outlooks (outillages mentaux), technology, and so on each
have their own rhythms.6 Ultimately Braudel asks for a conception of historical processes which recognizes not simply three scales, but many streams
of events, each with its own diverse and changing rhythms. Together the
streams provide a total unfolding temporal texture analogous to that of an
orchestra. In spite of a seeming multiplicity of times, in the orchestral metaphor, Braudel finally asserts that there is only one time - the time of history,
that is, objective world time. Thus, "long duration, conjuncture, event are
interlocked without difficulty, because all are measured on the same scale."7
II. BRAUDEL AND SUBJECTIVE TIME
Braudel is aware of the potential for a subjectivist alternative to his own

approach to time. Indeed, he uses his "temps imperieux du monde" to challenge subjectivist conceptions, specifically in the dialectical version of Georges
Gurvitch.8 Braudel cogently objects to a "synchronic" sociology which
"freezes" time. Still, we need to pinpoint his complaint against those like
Gurvitch who would explore temporal orientations among various social
groups as a way of unmasking the relationship of social action to processes
of history.
Gurvitch treats time as a variable dimension of social groupings, similar to
class structure or the like. Braudel argues that unitary objective time cannot
be reconstituted from the relativity of such fragmented social and subjective
temporal orientations. In his view, Gurvitch's description of variable time
loses touch with objective time, and thus escapes historical analysis. According to Braudel, objective time is the necessary scale for historiographic inquiry, for this time pushes and constrains human actors.9 It is in this objective
and nonreversible time that events occur in certain conjunctures, and these
conjunctures themselves shape subsequent events.10 In this sense, against
6. Braudel,Ecrits, 46, 49.
7. Ibid., 76, my translation.
8. See Georges Gurvitch, "Continuite et discontinuity en histoire et en sociologie,"
Annales- Economies, Socigtes, Civilisations 12 annee (1957), 73-84, and The Spectrum
of Social Time (Dordrecht, Holland, 1964).
9. Braudel,Ecrits, 77-79.
10. Braudel,Mediterranean,355-375.
117
ahistorical anthropologists, Braudel is ready to assert that even "primitive"

societies have history.1"
The subjectivists would not deny the objective and nonreversible flow of
events which Braudel asserts. Both Alfred Schutz, the phenomenologist of
social life, and his philosophical predecessor Edmund Husserl recognize that
for each Now there is a past which has already happened and is thus closed
to our intervention. Past events cannot be changed, and anticipated events
may be affected only insofar as the action arrives "in time." Thus we know at
the outset that the import of certain actions is lost because the actor made
a decision on the basis of tardy news, or because circumstances changed
between the moment action was initiated and the moment its consequences
came to pass. Imagine, for example, an arrow traveling "through time and
space" toward a target which has moved out of range during the elapsed
time. Both Husserl's and Schutz's phenomenological analyses of subjective
time acknowledge the passage of objective time indicated by this sort of
phenomenon. In fact, both assert that the unity of objective time synthesizes
the multiplicity of subjective temporal experiences.
But the subjectivist perspective does raise the issue of whether passage
of objective time is always equally important, or, alternatively, whether whole
social groups, as well as individuals, act differently toward the flux of events
on the basis of different conceptions of a Now and its relation to past and
future. If this latter view is the case, differences in temporal orientations
would seem to share in shaping the nature of history itself. Although the flow
of objective time may be measurable at a constant rate, variations in subjective temporal orientations are at least one source of the social rhythms,
tempi, and conjunctures which converge on that flow.
Thus, whatever standard time historiographers use to "map" events is
simply one among a number of social conventions for mapping time. Attempts
to reconstruct the historical succession of events may use a conventional system, but the relation of events to one another on a scale of objective time is
problematic. There are events which, although they occur at the "same" time,
bear little relation to one another, just as there are sudden and decisive events
11. Braudel, Ecrits, 57-58. Even so, the interesting problem remains: oral historians
of "primitive"societies may themselves "telescope" or "lengthen" objective time, not
only because certain events have lost their relevance, but also to provide a politically
"correct" history. The experience of past objective time can thus be distorted by
chroniclers as a way of affecting the course of current history. See David P. Henige,
The Chronology of Oral Tradition: Quest for a Chimera (Oxford, 1974).
12. See Alfred Schutz, The Phenomeneology of the Social World [1932] (Evanston, Ill.,
1964), 213; Edmund Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness
[1928], transl. J. S. Churchill (Bloomington, Ind., 1964), 94-96, 143-145: and The
Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology
[1954], transl. David
Carr (Evanston,Ill., 1970), 169.
118
JOHN R. HALL
which have their causes in occurrences long past, intermittent sequences of

social action, and revolutions which bring about sudden change. At the points
of sudden discontinuities, chronology may become particularly crucial, as
events strategically interact with one another. Conversely, relatively longer
periods of objective time may involve a kind of stability in which chronology
loses its importance due to the sheer absence of events which build upon one
another.13 Thus, the character and meaningful content of social life in many
ways give shape to the times of people's lives. Indeed, many events happen
"outside" of objective time, that is, in realms of activity which are disconnected from any significant location on an objective temporal scale. Measured objective time exists simply as a social convention, clearly more or less
important in different ways for various participants and arenas of social life,
as well as for historians.
Braudel's scheme contains the germ of recognizing the importance of subjective time in the assertion that certain consciously based social phenomena,
such as politics and mental outlooks, can have their own rhythms. But in
confronting Georges Gurvitch, Braudel shied away from this view, for fear
that objective time could not be regained once a subjectivist turn had been
taken. As we have seen, neither Husserl nor Schutz places streams of subjective time outside the stream of history. Thus, Braudel's consideration of
Gurvitch misses the mark so far as a critique of the subjectivist model of
time is concerned. But it does underscore the character of Braudel's own
conception of objective time. This conception is not an insistence on objective time simply as a conventional standard for analytic purposes. It is an
assertion about phenomenal reality which shores up Braudel's claim for the
unity of history - a temporally-based unity which derives from the unfolding
conjunctures of diverse events and rhythms in the one objective time. Thus,
one who wants to understand an historical moment must "define a hierarchy
of forces, currents, particular movements, and then recapture them in a whole
constellation.'4 Individual rhythms and counter-rhythms, melodies and counter-melodies come into play as part of one grand "orchestral" performance.
Braudel replaces the Rankean unity of history conceived as the unfolding
individuality of the state with an "unconscious" or "structural"history which
turns out to be a universal history writ large, beyond the "surface" histoire
evenementielle. But teleological notions are not a part of this version of
universal history; instead, the conception of a single "orchestral" time simply
implies that wherever we might be headed, we are all headed there in trends
and movements which converge in a single history.
13. See Siegfried Kracauer, "Time and History," History and Theory, Beihieft 6
(1966), 65-78; and Chester G. Starr, "Historical and Philosophical Time," History and
Theory, Beiheft 6 (1966), 24-35.
14. Braudel,Ecrits, 55, my translation.

III. THE STRUCTURALIST
119
CRITIQUE OF OBJECTIVE TIME
Fernand Braudel's universal objective world time - permeated by the relativity of diverse tempi, rhythms, and conjunctures - represents a formidable
basis for the practice of historiography. From a subjectivist standpoint, its
main defect is to gloss variable subjective temporal orientations toward action.
The Marxist structuralism of Louis Althusser offers an alternative critique
of Braudel's conception of time.15 Basically Althusser rejects objective time
in favor of a Marxist structuralist concept in which social times are circumscribed by a social "totality."'6
Like Braudel, Althusser criticizes the sociological trick which pretends to
"freeze time" by examining structural relationships at one point in time
("synchronically" they say, in a poor use of the term).17 Such freezing of time
Althusser calls an "essential section" (coupe d'essence). He rejects the procedure because an "essential section" cannot reveal the character of the social
formation (that is, economy and society structured as a totality). Why not?
Althusser argues that there is no single Now in which all elements of a social
formation come into play. On the contrary, different "levels" (such as economic, political, scientific) of the social formation have their own temporal
characters. Each level has its own distinctive phases. In Althusser's view
these unfolding "levels" themselves - and even less the relations of these
15. Althusser specifically dissociated his work from "structuralistideology," though

he recognized "structuralism"as a terminological parallel which could give rise to ambiguity. See Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital [1968], transl. Ben
Brewster (London, 1970), 7. Subsequently Althusser went so far as to deny altogether
that he was a structuralist.Apparently he had used the term to contrast his own reading of Marx with humanistic Marxism and economism. But Althusser himself was
accused of formalist and idealist tendencies, for example, by Barry Hindess and Paul
Q. Hirst, Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production (London, 1975), 316. Althusser then
specifically dissociated himself from the "formalist idealism" of structuralism, which
mechanistically produces the real by combining conceptual elements. See Louis Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism, transl. Grahame Lock (London, 1976), 126-131. This
clarificationrevises the context of Althusser's earlier ideas, but it does not seem to have
any bearing on their substance. In what follows, "structuralism"refers only to Althusser'sversion of Marxist analysis.
16. Althusser's work is complicated, for it is based on a particular correspondence
theory of object and concept in science. It has provoked controversy among Marxists
and non-Marxists alike. See Norman Geras, "Althusser's Marxism: An Account and
Assessment,"New Left Review 71 (1972), 57-86; Andre Glucksmann, "A Ventriloquist
Structuralism,"New Left Review 72 (1972), 68-92; Miriam Glucksmann, Structuralist
Analysis in Contemporary Social Thought: A Comparison of the Theories of Claude
Le'vi-Strauss and Louis Althusser (London, 1974); Bryan S. Turner, "The Structuralist Critique of Max Weber's Sociology," British Journal of Sociology 28 (1977),
1-16; Louis Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism; and Barry Hindess and Paul Hirst,
Mode of Production and Social Formation (London, 1977).
17. Althusserand Balibar, 94. Cf. Braudel,Ecrits, 77.
120
JOHN R. HALL
levels to one another in the total historical process - are simply not available
as realities with a single Now.
Althusser credits Braudel and his colleagues for breaking from the conception of history as the single and invariant stream of time by recognizing
the multiplicity of rhythms and tempi. But he still faults them for falling back
on "ordinary time" as the scale upon which these different times are measured. According to Althusser, this ordinary, continuous, objective time, like
the coupe d'essence of frozen time, is an Hegelian concept. For Althusser,
frozen time and the continuity of time are but two sides of the same coin:
an ideological concept of time, one which is "merely a reflection of the conception Hegel had of the type of unity that constitutes the link between all
the economic, political, religious, aesthetic, philosophical and other elements
of the social whole."18
From rejection of this "ideological" concept of historical time, Althusser
moves to display his Marxist structuralist conception of time. This conception rejects not only the correspondence of the Now for diverse "levels" of the
social formation, but the continuity of time as well. In their place, Althusser
would proceed from his own theory of the social formation, which he claims
to derive from the "true" late Marx. In this approach, each "level" has its
own time and history; and the historical "punctuations" (continuous developments, revolutions, breaks, and the like) of each level are "relatively autonomous" of other levels. However, this does not imply that the levels are independent of each other:
The specificity of these times and histories is . . . differential,since it is based
on the differentialrelationsbetweenthe differentlevels within the whole: the mode
and degree of independence of each time and history is therefore necessarily
determinedby the mode and degree of dependenceof each level within the set of
articulationsof the whole.'9
Alluding to Braudel, Althusser comments: "It is not enough to say, as modern
historians do, that there are different periodizations for different times, that
each time has its own rhythms, some short, some long."20 Instead, Althusser
wants to pose the question of "invisible times" embodied in specific forms
of human activity themselves. In this way, Braudel's relativity of objective
time in historical analysis is replaced by an account of the character of
various "levels" of social formations. It would no longer be sufficient, for
example, to give a history of feudalism, or even to note the "frozen" nature
of feudalism as a "social world." Instead, it would be necessary to penetrate
to the temporal modalities of diverse "levels" of feudal activities themselves,
and to provide an account of the independence/dependence of these activities
in relation to the whole.
18. Althusser and Balibar, 96.
19. Ibid., 100.
20. Idem.
THE TIME OF HISTORYAND THE HISTORYOF TIMES
121
Beyond analysis of any given social formation, Althusser's structuralist

conception of time has implications for understanding the succession of one
social formation by another one. Since the structure of a given social formation is the only thing which gives coherence to the diverse, and often relatively
autonomous, levels within that totality, there would be no point to giving a
simple chronological account of the transition from, say, feudalism to capitalism. The temporal features of each social formation's various "levels" are
articulated in relation to the social formation itself, and the two social formations therefore cannot be synchronized. Even though they may overlap in
what is conventionally construed as objective time, and even though certain
"levels" may be differentially connected to both a preceding and an emerging
social formation, the two bear no overall temporal relation to one another.
In this sense, "history" reduces to the diachronic transition from one social
formation to another, though each is relatively disconnected from the other
in objective time.
Consistently then, Althusser resists falling back upon a single reference
time as a way of connecting different levels and different social formations.
This would seem to require a total reconstruction of the historiographic problematic. The nature of the demanded reconstruction may be seen by considering a problem which is useful for our purposes because it raises the issue of
subjective time. I refer to the seemingly eternal problem of the "role of the
individual in history." Here Althusser wants to say that the historiographic
problem is a red herring - one which mistakenly compares theoretical (for
example, historiographic) knowledge of a determinate object ("events")
with the empirical existence of another object, an individual. In other words,
a theoretically reconstructed empirical actor - the individual - is placed
upon an historical stage which has no existence except as a constructed
thought-object of the historian. The Althusserian problem which replaces
this "false" problem arises from the assertion that there is no single time
and no essence of "the individual." This problem consists of constructing "the
historical forms of existence of individuality."2' For Althusser, there is no
answer to the spurious question about the role of the individual in history.
This abstracted question of historiography is to be replaced by an historically
situated one which places the forms of individual existence within their
respective levels of particular social formations.22
Althusser's concern about the forms of individuality points to a difficulty
in Braudel's objectivist conception of time, namely, that individual action
is especially the province of l'histoire evenementielle. The connections between individuals (and, specifically, their temporal orientations) are largely
lost when we move in Braudel's scheme from "surface events" to "structural
21. Ibid., 111-112, italics omitted.
22. See, for example, Eli Zaretsky, Capitalism, the Family and Personal Life (New
York, 1976) for an analysis of the rise of subjectivity in modern capitalist societies.
122
JOHN R. HALL
history."23Thus, the Althusserian structuralist critique of Braudel's approach

gives rise to more than recognition of the relative autonomy of different times
within levels of the social formation; so far as individuals are concerned, it
seems to require an account which can place them within various "levels" of
the social formation and their temporal connections to these "levels." An
example makes this scheme clear. A housewife who does not participate
directly in industrial production partakes of the temporal rhythm of her community, and she fits into institutionally scheduled events mainly as a consumer; her husband may work in a factory, performing routinized and repetitive activities of production for a precisely determined number of hours per
day and days per year. Meanwhile a financial manager of the company
which owns the factory is busy calculating abstract long-term relative shifts
in profits; he wants to know what financial returns can be expected from
alternative patterns of investment in repair of deteriorating labor-intensive
assembly line machinery versus the purchase of new, largely automated production equipment. Each of these individuals participates in the same social
formation; each of their lives at times may intersect with one of the others'.
Still, each participates in large part in different "levels," each of which has its
own "relatively autonomous" temporality.
It is possible to plot events on a scale of objective time, but the meaningful
times are those of the levels themselves and their interconnections, not objective time. Only at moments of intersection between the "relatively autonomous
levels" does objective time become important. Even in such instances, it is
sometimes only the fact of intersection, or, at other times, the relative temporal location of intersection (before or after other events) rather than the
absolute objective temporal location, which has significance for subsequent
events. Beyond this, Althusser notes "invisible times" which are simply inaccessible in the objectivist approach. Presumably, subjective temporal phenomena would fall in this category, as would, for example, the "abstract"
time of capitalist financial calculation. In light of Althusser's approach, the
objectivist approach to time seems to sift out arbitrarily one aspect of the flux
of events -"when"
create a history which thus obscures
they occur -to
the temporal interconnections of "levels" of the totality, as well as the nature
of times within "levels."
Overall, Althusser's structuralist approach offers a clear alternative to
scalar objective temporal relativity. It emphatically rejects as ideological the
idea of a universal world time. It thereby also rejects the notion that an obiective standard of time can be used as a mapping scheme for historiography,
23. Cf. J. H. Hexter, 533, who sees Braudel as simply tacking structural history on
top of a Rankean political history without resolving "the perennial historiographical
difficulty of linking the durable phenomena of history with those that involve rapid
change."
123
because the phenomena of social formations themselves do not transpire

within this conventionalized time frame. Althusser appreciates the recognition by Braudel that there are many rhythms and conjunctures, but he demands that these temporal phenomena be specified not in terms of objective
time, but in terms of "levels" of the social formation in relation to the total
social formation.
In his break with the objectivist approach, Althusser has opened up fundamental questions which are obscured by the concept of a single scale of time,
namely: How can historiography come to terms with the historical emergence
and predominance of different spheres and kinds of time? And how are we to
comprehend alternative temporal relations of human activity themselves?
These questions seem to me to force a synthesis of previously divergent approaches to historiography.
IV. ALTHUSSER AND SUBJECTIVISM
It is clear that Althusser would not entertain a subjectivist solution to his

problematic of differential social times: he wants to look at structural processes, not at human subjects.24 He wants to maintain a radical separation
between scientific concepts and theories on the one hand, and actual social
developments on the other. For these reasons, Althusser would not be sympathetic to a phenomenology of time which begins with knowledge of the human
subject.
Nevertheless, Althusser's approach to temporality must derive in part from
his philosophical mentor Gaston Bachelard's dialectical analysis of subjective and objective time.25 It would seem nearly impossible to construct a
concept of each kind of social time - as Althusser wants to do - without
acknowledging that human activity and hence subjective time comes into
play. Althusser seems to recognize this, for he appreciates Freud's study
of the unconscious, and calls for conceptualization of the time of the unconscious "in order to obtain an understanding of certain biographical traits."26
Thus, while Althusser's epistemology is at odds with any subjectivist theory
of time, his theoretical project must be somewhat receptive to developing
structuralist concepts of subjective time. It is, after all, the temporally organized human activities for which Althusser wants to construct his structuralist
theoretical concepts.
Yet Althusser never approaches empirical reality with his philosophical
analysis. His discussion of time and his attempt to retrieve a concept of history
for Marxist studies always remain in the domain of theory. His collaborator
24. Althusser,94-99.
25. Gaston Bachelard,La Dialectique de la Dr&ee (Paris, 1950).
26. Althusserand Balibar, 103.
124
JOHN R. HALL
Etienne Balibar, however, provides a sketch of concrete analysis informed

by Althusser's structuralist approach to time. This sketch, "The Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism," relies heavily on a revamped distinction
between synchrony and diachrony: the former is held to be the "eternal"
workings out of a particular mode of production, the latter, the transition
from one mode of production to another. In his analysis, Balibar refuses to
descend to the level of empirical events; in good Althusserian fashion he
claims that there are no "facts" except those generated by theoretical concepts.27 Nor does Balibar treat individuals as anything other than those who
enact the determinate structure. Theoretical analysis begets theoretical
knowledge, which never need resort to "events." Of course this preposterous
posture can only be maintained in epistemological pronouncements; in actual
theoretical discussion, Balibar is forced at times into acknowledgement of
empirical realities (such as how the "putting out" system of manufacture
preceded industrialization in the development of the capitalist mode of production). But in no case is the consideration of human actors in lived time
a focus of analysis. In short, Althusser and Balibar steadfastly maintain
theory as a realm unto itself; and since they claim that the concept of mode
of production is based on objective social relationships, they see little need to
deal with individuals and hence with subjective time.
This approach might seem sound so long as we avoid investigating the
particulars of a given mode of production and social formation. But at some
point it becomes necessary to examine the various "levels" of the social
formation, the natures of their various times, and the temporal intersections
of the levels in a total social formation. Yet such a project demands an understanding of subjective time and the intersections of individuals in an intersubjective temporal world. This requirement has nothing to do with any claim
for the autonomy or "free will" of individuals. It is not an idealist assertion
(for example, that subjective temporal orientation or consciousness in general "creates" social reality). That is a separate issue. Nor are we concerned
at this point with epistemological stances treating the relation between theory
and social life. What is at stake is the assumption that any social phenomenon
is ultimately based upon participation by social actors who stand in meaningful relation to one another. For to be in a meaningful social relation is ipso
facto to be in an intersubjective temporal relation. This is so, as Dilthey
observed, because social meanings are produced on occasions. In Dilthey's
view, each social occasion has subjective temporal locations keyed to the
pasts and the anticipated futures of the persons involved. The meaningful
connections of action thus tend to "transcend" the stream of unfolding time;
27. Ibid., 257.
28. Ibid., 252.
125
they are enmeshed in non-sequential subjective contexts of meaning, which

give an extra-chronological character to unfolding social life.29
Given the subjective temporal basis of socially meaningful action, any
project of conceptualizing social phenomena involves understanding the temporal orientations of active subjects. Whether those orientations are conceived as determined by structural processes or as having subjective sources is
a separate matter. As Althusser suggests, this is a crucial line of demarcation
between various theoretical and ideological positions; it cannot be ignored.
But Althusser acknowledges that the initial demarcation is only a rough one;
it must be "worked on" in order to understand the relation between subjects
and structure.30Balibar implicitly moves toward this task with his suggestive
assertion that capitalism differs temporally from feudalism in the manner of
surplus appropriation.31 He thus begins the same sort of temporal analysis of
social formations called for by Althusser. But in his brief sketch, Balibar
balks at considering active subjects, and his analysis therefore can only
proceed so far. Even in such a structuralist approach to Marxist analysis of
the social formation, it must be understood that a mode of production involves social actors in active relation to techniques of production, in relation
to other social actors around the actual means of production, as well as (often
anonymous) social relations of surplus appropriation. In short, modes of production involve ongoing interaction of human beings; and an understanding
of their temporal natures therefore requires analysis of the temporal orientations of acting subjects.
Any serious consideration of Althusser's critique of temporal objectivism
pushes beyond the limits of his Marxist structuralism. It seems both possible
and necessary to incorporate subjective and intersubjective temporal concepts
into this approach, but Althusser and Balibar have not done so. The main
problem they would face is how to reconcile their epistemology - which
denies the possibility of analyzing concrete phenomena - with the concrete
yet nonchronological meaningful character of actual social life. If and when
a conceptualization of subjective time is incorporated into structuralist
Marxist theory, Althusserians would be well served if they simply raided
the camp of subjectivist "bourgeois" social theorists, transforming their concepts of time so as to fit within the structuralist edifice. In any case, they will
have to take on the problem which presently confronts the subjectivist approach, namely, the hiatus between the philosophical understanding of subjective time and the practice of historiographic and sociological analysis.
29. Wilhelm Dilthey, Selected Writings, ed. and transl. H. P. Rickman (London,
1976), 208-245.
30. Althusser,98.
31. Althusser and Balibar, 221 ff.
126
JOHN
R. HALL
V. REPRISE
Basing his studieson the philosophyof EdmundHusserl, Alfred Schutz,the

phenomenologistof the social world, has given a thoroughcritiqueof Max
Weber'sconceptof subjectivelymeaningfulaction. True to Husserl'semphasis on the stream of internal time-consciousnessas the source of meaning,
Schutzdevelopedhis critiquefrom an examinationof the temporalcharacter
of meaningfulaction. Beyond his critiqueof Weber, Schutz also provideda
descriptivephenomenologyof the temporalstructuresof the lifeworld- the
world of paramountrealitywhich humansact within and upon by means of
our animateorganisms.For his phenomenologicalproject, Schutz described
only the a priori temporalstructuresof the lifeworld,that is, those features
which are invariantand essential.Schutz never drew on his analysisfor any
historiographicpurposesof describingempiricalvariantsof these temporal
structures.Althusser'sprogramrevealsa gap and a shortcomingof subjectivist
historiography:logically speaking,the temporalbasis of subjectivemeaning
should require a history of subjectivetemporal orientations.Instead, subjectivist historianshave ignored Wilhelm Dilthey's early emphasis on subjective time, while the phenomenologicalanalysis of time has remaineddecidedlyahistorical.
To resolve this hiatus, philosophicalphenomenology,particularlyin the
work of Husserl, and Schutz's phenomenologyof the lifeworld must be
broughtto bear on the empiricaltasks of interpretativesociology and historiography.This enterpriseof "appliedphenomenology"would restore the
lifeworldas the zone of sociologicalanalysis,and subjectivetime as the keystone of meaning,hence of social action, of complex fields of social action,
and of history.32For an exampleof this kind of analysis,let us take Althusser's projectof conceptualizingthe temporalaspectsof a given mode of production.As we have alreadyseen, no matterwhethera mode of production
transcendsany individualconsciousness,the enactmentof the mode of production involves definite human activity, and it is therefore embedded in
subjectiveandintersubjectivetimes.33
To conceptualizethe temporalaspects of a given mode of production,it
32. John R. Hall, "Alfred Schutz, His Critics and Applied Phenomenology," Cuiltural Herineneutics4 (1977), 265-279.
33. Even the phenomena which Braudel would want to call unconsciousy are only
unconscious in the objective sense, that is, from the point of view of change over objective time. The scale of objective temporal change may transcend the consciousness
of any one individual, but the phenomena themselves embody subjective temporality.
However much the observer may conceptualize a trans-subjective"drift" of folkways,
the folkways themselves are enacted in events which transpire as human actions situated
in subjective streams of temporality. If we are to avoid a kind of abstraction which
obscures the nature of these phenomena, we must insist that every concept of social
127
would be necessary to understand the temporal character of various integrated processes of material production, the subjective temporal orientations
of various social actors who staff positions in a mode of production, the
nature of the social world time of those engaged in the social relationships
of material production, and the temporal relationship of appropriation of
surplus (that is, the temporality of class relationships). In analyzing the
transition from one mode of production to another, it would be necessary to
consider the shifts in the character of time in each of the dimensions just
mentioned. At least one legitimate historiographic problem within this domain
would involve tracing the social sources, elective affinities, and sequential
emergences of various temporal transformations which embody a transition
from one mode of production to another.
Tracing the changes in the material basis of social life is a central concern
of both Marxist and other versions of historiography. Since materialist history conventionally is regarded as strictly an objectivist enterprise, it is an
appropriately difficult case for which to sketch the nature of the temporally
based analysis I am proposing. But other "levels," for example, political
domination or the production of knowledge, should be amenable to the same
sort of investigation.
For the purposes of these investigations, Husserl's phenomenological analysis of essential structures of time-consciousness can be used to derive alternative mundane (lifeworldly) concepts of time. These concepts of applied
phenomenology can be used to enrich other sociological concepts, as well as
to analyze specific historical developments.34 How might these concepts be
derived?
Husserl's phenomenology of internal time consciousness moves from elaborating the Now as a stream of consciousness to describing retention (or
primary remembrance), reproduction (or secondary remembrance), and
anticipation as acts of consciousness. Remembrance and anticipation inject
into the Now objects of attention which are not immediately available to perception in the Now, either because they exist only as abstractions, as memories of previous perceptions, or as intentions or expectations about things
to come. For the purposes of applied phenomenological analysis of the lifeworld, it is possible to conceptualize four types of subjective temporal orientations, each based on different emphases of the a priori possibilities of time
consciousness described by Husserl.
time (but not necessarily ecological time) be based in part on reference to temporal
subjectiveacts of consciousness.
34. This investigative strategy is employed in John R. Hall, The Ways Out: Utopian
Communal Groups in an Age of Babylon (London, 1978). Obviously the Althusserian
strategywould differ somewhat.
128
JOHN R. HALL
First, there is the synchronic temporal orientation. Here "synchronic" has

to be understood in a quite different sense from the conventional objectivist
one. From the phenomenological point of view, as with Althusser, the conventional use of the term "synchronic" to refer to events occurring at the
same point in objective time can lead only to obfuscation. Rather than dealing with the "synchronic" as an analytic device, it is necessary to understand
it as referring to subjective and intersubjective temporal orientations in which
the Now is the locus of individual and collective attention. In its (extreme)
ideal-typical conceptualization, synchronic time is lived time, time totally
contained within the unfolding perceptual stream of consciousness.35 While
retention (primary remembrance) is an a priori aspect of the stream of consciousness, the sedimented experiences thus retained would never be recalled
via reproduction (secondary remembrance), and anticipation would never
guide action in the Now.
Second, and again offering counterpoint to the objectivist analytic dichotomy between the synchronic and the diachronic, a phenomenal diachronic
orientation toward time de-emphasizes the Now in favor of reproduction
(from sedimented memory) of the past and anticipation of the future. This
orientation treats the Now as a way-station between previously conceived
projects or requirements (such as conventions, norms, recipes, policies) and
anticipated completion of these projects in the future. In the empirical instance, this orientation can easily give rise to the use of rationalized physical
duration as an external analogue to subjectively oriented diachrony. Then
the clock may serve as a device for coordination of collective life.
Two other types of subjective temporal orientations both depend on the
exclusive emphasis on either past or future as the source of meaning for the
present. On the one hand, strategic time is totally goal-directed, and the
anticipated future thus defines the meaning and utility of action in the Now.
The past is significant only to the degree that it constrains the possibilities of
present actions toward future goals. On the other hand, eternal time derives
its meaning from a "mythical" past, from a past which precedes any frame
of diachrony and thus attains an abstract character of timeless re-creation,
"now and forever more."
These lifeworld phenomenological possibilities must be understood as ideal
types which could not exactly correspond to empirical reality. Following
Weber's procedure of constructing ideal types, the four types of temporal
orientations have been reduced to a conceptual clarity and adequacy on the
level of meaning which simply does not obtain in the phenomenal world.
But this is the very virtue of ideal-type analysis: the ideal types are fixed
35. Subtypes of temporal orientations can be developed by specifying other aspects
of cognition;see ibid., 57-68.
129
theoretical "benchmarks"; they do not depend upon empirical realities for

the confirmation of their validity. Instead, validity is a purely theoretical
problem of utility and of parsimony in concept formation.36These ideal types
of subjective time and ones like them can be used to specify particular temporal formations, which involve the interplay of subjective temporal orientations, the interplay of subjectivities in vivid social situations, and the gearing
in of these local temporal phenomena with the collective rhythms and disjunctures of various social world times. It is possible, using these and similar
concepts, to construct "secular theories" of the more complex empirical
realities in which different temporal complexes of action interpenetrate in the
actually unfolding "stream of history."
This procedure parallels and enriches Max Weber's analytic strategy.37
As Guenther Roth has described Weber's strategy, sociologically grounded
historical explanation moves among three poles: 1) ideal types, or what Roth
prefers to call socio-historical models (to emphasize the ultimate basis of
concepts in the varieties of human social phenomena); 2) secular (or
developmental) theories, which draw on ideal types for the description of
long-term social transformations (such as the rise of capitalism in the West);
and 3) situational analysis, which penetrates to the specific contingencies of
a particular set of events for a particular set of involved social actors.38
Because Weber's approach is based on a postulate of subjective interpretation
at the level of concept formation, subjectively meaningful action necessarily
figures in explanations at both the secular and situational levels of analysis.
However, it is important to note that Weber did not ever deny the effect of
external events on the course of subjectively meaningful action.39Thus, Weber
allows for a subject-object relation; and because he draws on concepts clarified at a level of pure abstraction, his approach offers a sound basis for fulfilling the Althusserian rejection of a single unified and universal history.
Indeed, this was exactly Weber's enterprise - to give a conceptual account
of empirical events which recognizes some autonomous, some overlapping,
some interpenetrating histories, each with its own typical and unique paths
36. Nevertheless, such concepts may be clarified through empirical investigation. The
general procedure is described by Guenther Roth, "Sociological Typology and Historical
Explanation," in Reinhard Bendix and Guenther Roth, Scholarship and Partisanship:
Essays on Max Weber (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971), 109-128. For an effort at
using this procedure to clarify the concept of charisma, see Bryan S. Turner, Weber
and Islam (London, 1974).
37. "LifeworldPhenomenology,"Huiman Studies, forthcoming.
38. Guenther Roth, "Sociological Typology and Historical Explanation" and "History and Sociology in the Work of Max Weber,"British Journal of Sociology 27 (1976),
306-318.
39. For example, see Max Weber, Economy and Society, ed. G. Roth and C. Wittich
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1977).
130
JOHN R. HALL
of social action directed to other people and to the natural and cultural
worlds.40 Though Weber himself did not treat the history of time per se, it
should be understood by now that the unfolding histories described by him
must have their own temporal characters. These derive from the inherently
temporal meanings of socially oriented subjective actions, carried out both
within the frames of "institutionalized" typical social actions, and within the
temporal cycles and punctuations of natural and social phenomena.
If the Weberian approach is to meet the Althusserian demand for a history
of times, then the ideal types of subjective time just described must be employed in turn to enrich the Weberian ideal types which are employed in
secular theories and situational analyses. For example, it is possible to
suggest in passing that traditional authority involves eternal temporality,
while charismatic authority may be either synchronic or strategic, and legalrational authority is inherently diachronic. Once this kind of specification has
been carried through with respect to ideal types, historical explanations may
be enriched by exploring their temporal modalities as Althusser demands.
For example, we would want to trace the origins of diachrony embedded in
both the subjective participation in, and institutional organization of, early
capitalism. One basis for doing this would be to explore the "elective affinity"
between capitalism as a mode of production and Protestantism as embodying
a subjective temporal orientation. Equally, we would want to know how the
continuities of a diachronically organized social formation are "shot through
with chips of Messianic time," as Walter Benjamin so aptly put it.41 With
these kinds of investigations, those who hope for social inquiry beyond myth
and ideology will be in better positions to assess previous historical explanations often simplistically labeled as "materialist" or "idealist."
As in all theoretical work, the outcome of these considerations is foreshadowed by their presuppositions. I expect that the recognition of "many
histories" will lead to a synthesis beyond subjectivist relativity based on the
recognition of many subjects; nor will it be sufficient any more to rely on
objectivist analysis of relativity derived from the scale perspective of linear
time. Instead, subject and object relativity will be understood in relation to
each other. The conflicting theoretical claims, if they are to be resolved in
theoretical inquiry, can be resolved only by attempting to construct a temporally grounded theory of phenomena themselves, in which subject and the
outer world are linked in momentous flux. The societal ideology of progress
has had its parallel in the historiography which has focused history on
sequences and rhythms of events in objective time; the current task is to
40. Weber rejectedthe kind of holism which Althusser has embraced.
41. Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History" [1940], transl. H. Zohn
and reprinted in Illuminations
(New York, 1968), 265.
131
draw on temporally enriched, subjectively based ideal types in order to free

historiography of this ideology so that we may come truly to understand
alternative temporal social worlds in which, for example, history as it has
been established is irrelevant. The objectivist time of history is to be replaced
with a "history"of times.
University of Missouri
Columbia

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Wesleyan University

The Time of History and the History of Times

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

on different conceptions of the nature of time and its relation to history.

The Annales school of historiography has become especially identified with

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

serve to underpin their enterprises. Still, the Annales historians' concept of

Aside from the structural history of la moyenne duree, Braudel notes a

4. Fernand Braudel, Ecrits sur l'Histoire (Paris, 1969), 62.

Braudel is aware of the potential for a subjectivist alternative to his own

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

ahistorical anthropologists, Braudel is ready to assert that even "primitive"

[1954], transl. David

Carr (Evanston,Ill., 1970), 169.

which have their causes in occurrences long past, intermittent sequences of

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

CRITIQUE OF OBJECTIVE TIME

15. Althusser specifically dissociated his work from "structuralistideology," though

THE TIME OF HISTORYAND THE HISTORYOF TIMES

Beyond analysis of any given social formation, Althusser's structuralist

history."23Thus, the Althusserian structuralist critique of Braudel's approach

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

because the phenomena of social formations themselves do not transpire

It is clear that Althusser would not entertain a subjectivist solution to his

Etienne Balibar, however, provides a sketch of concrete analysis informed

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

they are enmeshed in non-sequential subjective contexts of meaning, which

Basing his studieson the philosophyof EdmundHusserl, Alfred Schutz,the

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

First, there is the synchronic temporal orientation. Here "synchronic" has

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

theoretical "benchmarks"; they do not depend upon empirical realities for

(New York, 1968), 265.

THE TIME OF HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF TIMES

draw on temporally enriched, subjectively based ideal types in order to free

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