Preview

Concept: philosophy, religion, culture

Advanced search

The Temporal Turn in Cultural Sciences: Prerequisites, Content, and Role in the Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge

https://doi.org/10.24833/2541-8831-2026-2-38-10-25

Abstract

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to define the temporal turn as the result of scientific understanding of modern cultural transformations affecting the ways of encoding and perceiving time and temporality. The purpose of the study is to determine the prerequisites, content, and essence of the temporal turn as one of the trends in modern cultural studies. The article considers the following tasks: (1) to analyse the prerequisites of the temporal turn in the transformations of modern culture; (2) to identify the signs of the temporal turn in cultural studies; (3) to clarify the essence of the temporal turn in the context of the formation of post-non-classical scientific rationality; (4) to define the temporal turn in its relationship with other turns in cultural studies. This study draws on the material of contemporary Russian and international scholarly texts that explore the characteristics, challenges, and reflections on the temporal turn. The research methodology is based on a synthesis of elements of a hermeneutic approach with categorical analysis, supplemented by historical-genetic and comparative methods for studying the manifestations of the temporal turn in scholarly literature and the changing role of time in the structure of scientific knowledge in the context of cultural transformations. The results of the study reveal characteristics that allow us to identify the temporal turn in its connection with reflections on contemporary cultural transformations, including manifestations of multiple and nonlinear temporality characteristic of modern cultures. It is concluded that the use of the concept of "temporal turn" in the scholarly literature and its definitions are highly inconsistent. This indicates its incompleteness, including its influence on methodology and research methods, as well as the identification of new subject areas. At the same time, the fundamental signs of the temporal turn are evident, although they are not always declared. These include such signs as: the transition from substantial and one-dimensional definitions of time to relational and multidimensional ones; the affirmation of the idea of the constructedness of time and its immanence in the concrete social world; a shift in emphasis from universality to the uniqueness of the experience of time; consideration of the actual experience of time as a complex multilayered intersection of various temporalities, which are described, mainly, not as sequences, but as flows; actualization of the problematic of the interaction of various temporalities within the framework of a single subject field of research. In social sciences and humanities research, the temporal turn is a trend closely linked to the emergence of post-classical rationality and the interdisciplinary role of other methodological turns.

About the Author

D. G. Gorin
Plekhanov Russian University of Economics
Russian Federation

Dmitry G. Gorin — Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of Political Analysis and SocioPsychological Processes

Office 340, 28-1, Stremyanny lane, Moscow, Russia, 117997 (Russia)



References

1. Agapov, M. G. and et al (2021) ‘Reflections on the “Anthropology of Time” and Regimes of Temporalities: Discussion Forum’, Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, (6), pp. 104–128. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.31857/S086954150017937-0

2. Austin, J. L. (1979) Philosophical papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Russ. ed.: (2006) Tri sposoba prolit’ chernila: Filosofskiye raboty. Saint Petersburg: Aletheia Publ.).

3. Bachmann-Medick, D. (2016) Cultural Turns: New Orientations in the Study of Culture. Berlin Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110402988 (Russ. ed.: (2017) Kul’turnyye povoroty. Novyye oriyentiry v naukakh o kul’ture. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie Publ.).

4. Bakhtin, M. M. (2000) ‘Formy vremeni i khronotopa v romane. Ocherki po istoricheskoy poetike [Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel. Essays on Historical Poetics]’, in Epos i roman [Epic and Novel]. Saint Petersburg: Azbuka Publ., pp. 9–193. (In Russian).

5. Chekantseva, Z. A. (2023) ‘The Temporal Turn in Twenty-First Centuryhistorical Culture’, in Istoricheskaya nauka i obrazovaniye v XXI veke [Historical Science and Education in the 21st Century]. Novosibirsk: Novosibirskiy gosudarstvennyy pedagogicheskiy universitet Publ., pp. 321–329. (In Russian).

6. Cherepanova, E. (2001) ‘A Temporal Turn: The Case of Meinong’, Philosophical Literary Journal Logos, (6), pp. 193–216. (In Russian).

7. Cole, M. (2004) ‘US Imperialism, Transmodernism and Education: A Marxist Critique’, Policy Futures in Education, 2(3–4), pp. 633–643. https://doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2004.2.3.15.

8. Evans, V. (2005) The structure of time: language, meaning, and temporal cognition. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

9. Ferguson, N. (ed.) (1999) Virtual history: alternatives and counterfactuals. New York: Basic Books.

10. Foucault, M. (1966) Les mots et les choses. Une archeologie des sciences humaines. Paris: Callimard. (Russ. ed.: (1994) Slova i veshchi. Arkheologiya gumanitarnykh nauk. Saint Petersburg: A-cad Publ.).

11. Fraser, N. (1990) ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’, Social Text, (25/26), pp. 56–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/466240

12. Groys, B. (2017) Ranniye teksty: 1976–1990 [Early Texts: 1976–1990]. Moscow: Ad Marginem Press. (In Russian).

13. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2000) Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (Russ. ed.: (2004) Imperiya. Moscow: Praxis Publ.).

14. Koselleck, R. (2002) ‘Hinweise auf die temporalen Strukturen begriffsgeschichtlichen Wandels’, in Begriffsgeschichte, Diskursgeschichte, Metapherngeschichte. Göttingen: Wallstein-Verl., pp. 29-48. (Russ. ed.: (2010) ‘K voprosu o temporal'nykh strukturakh v istoricheskom razvitii ponyatiy’, in Istoriya ponyatiy, istoriya diskursa, istoriya metafor. Moscow: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye Publ., pp. 21-33.).

15. Kravchenko, S. A. (2014) ‘The Arrow of Time: Challenges for Sociological Knowledge’, Sociological Science and Social Practice, (1), pp. 110–124. (In Russian).

16. Kuhn, T. S. (1962) The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Russ. ed.: (2003) Struktura nauchnykh revolyutsiy. Moscow: AST, Yermak Publ.).

17. Lakatos, I. (1978) The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Philosophical Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621123 (Russ. ed.: (2003) Metodologiya issledovatel’skikh programm. Moscow: AST, Yermak Publ.).

18. Mescheryakova, T. V. (2012) ‘Memory-Turn or Return to the Lost’, Tomsk State University Journal of Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science, (4), pp. 187–193. (In Russian).

19. Molesworth, J. (2019) ‘Introduction: The Temporal Turn in Eighteenth-Century Studies’, The Eighteenth Century, 60(2), pp. 129–138. https://doi.org/10.1353/ecy.2019.0012

20. Negt, O. and Kluge, A. (1972) Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung: zur Organisationsanalyse von bürgerlicher und proletarischer Öffentlichkeit. Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp.

21. Oleynikov, A. (2021) ‘History’s Time’, Philosophical Literary Journal Logos, 31(4), pp. 5–30. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.22394/0869-5377-2021-4-5-27

22. Olsevich, Yu. Y. (2012) Kognitivno-psikhologicheskiy sdvig v aksiomatike ekonomicheskoy teorii [Cognitivepsychological shift in the axiomatics of economic theory]. Saint Petersburg: Aletheia Publ. (In Russian).

23. Pecile, V. (2023) ‘Rethinking legal time: The temporal turn in socio-legal studies’, Oñati Socio-Legal

24. Series, 13(S1), pp. S386–S401. https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.1811

25. Podoroga, V. (2013) Kairos, kriticheskiy moment. Aktual’noye proizvedeniye iskusstva na marshe [Kairos, Critical Moment. A Contemporary Work of Art on the March]. Moscow: Grundrisse Publ. (In Russian).

26. Pyatigorsky, A. M. and Alekseev, O. B. (2008) Razmyshlyaya o politike [Meditating on politics]. Moscow: Novoye izdatel’stvo Publ. (In Russian).

27. Rorty, R. (ed.) (1992) The linguistic turn: essays in philosophical method; with two retrospective essays. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

28. Snezhko, G. E. (2024) ‘A Temporal Turn in Modern Socio-Humanitarian Knowledge’, in Losevskiye chteniya [Losev Readings]. Novocherkassk: NOK Publ., pp. 126–129. (In Russian).

29. Ssorin-Chaikov, N. V. (2021) ‘The Anthropology of Time: History and the State of the Art’,

30. Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, (6), pp. 83–103. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.31857/S086954150017934-7

31. Stepanov, Yu. S. (2009) V trekhmernom prostranstve yazyka: Semioticheskiye problemy lingvistiki, filosofii, iskusstva [In the Three-Dimensional Space of Language: Semiotic Problems of Linguistics, Philosophy, and Art]. Moscow: URSS Publ. (In Russian).

32. Stepin, V. S. (1992) Philosophische Anthropologie und Philosophie der Wissenschaft. Moskau: Hochschulverl. (In Russian).

33. Virno, P. (2001) Grammatica della moltitudine. Per un’analisi delle forme di vita contemporanee. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino Editore. (Russ. ed.: (2013) Grammatika mnozhestva. K analizu form sovremennoy zhizni. Moscow: Ad Marginem Press.).

34. Whorf, B. (1956) ‘The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language’, in Language, thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 134–159.

35. Yarskaya-Smirnova, V. (2023) ‘Temporality of trauma (reflecting on the book by Zh. T. Toshchenko)’,

36. Vestnik instituta sotziologii, 14(1), pp. 67–77. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.19181/vis.2023.14.1.4

37. Yarskaya-Smirnova, V. N. and Yarskaya-Smirnova, E. R. (2023) ‘Temporality Turn in the Studies of

38. Sociocultural Reality’, Izvestia Ural Federal University Journal Series 1. Issues in Education, Science and Culture, 29(3), pp. 111–123. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.15826/izv1.2023.29.3.052


Review

For citations:


Gorin D.G. The Temporal Turn in Cultural Sciences: Prerequisites, Content, and Role in the Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge. Concept: philosophy, religion, culture. 2026;10(2):10-25. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24833/2541-8831-2026-2-38-10-25

Views: 93

JATS XML


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.


ISSN 2541-8831 (Print)
ISSN 2619-0540 (Online)