“The concept of temporality in Heidegger, as interpreted by Derrida, is opposed to the chronological conception of time, characterized by its uniformity, measurability, and linearity. This chronological time, which Heidegger calls ”middle time” (mittlere Zeit), shapes the ordinary experience of time as a neutral succession of measurable instants. This representation presupposes a homogeneous continuity, available for quantification and external to the subject.
In contrast, Heideggerian temporality designates a structure that cannot be reduced to objective temporal units or inscribed in a stable frame of reference. Its character does not allow it to be subordinated to the logic of chronology. Indeed, Derrida observes that time in Heidegger is composed of multiple directions that diverge from one another. This intertwining of temporal dimensions reveals a discontinuous, non-unified and, at times, even contradictory organization.
This heterogeneity breaks with the metaphysical tradition that conceives of time as a continuous and indifferent flow. Heidegger shifts this paradigm by asserting that time is not a phenomenon that is added to existence. On the contrary, time occurs as the very structure of being of Dasein. In his words: “Die Zeit ist nicht etwas, was zum Dasein hinzukommt, sondern sie ist das eigentliche Sein des Daseins” (Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §65). In other words, time is not something that is added to Dasein: it constitutes its very being.
Dasein, as an existing being that anticipates and projects itself, does not live within a pre-established time. It temporalizes its existence from its own mode of being-in-the-world. From this perspective, to say that time is Dasein is to recognize that temporality is not given as content, but arises as an opening of possibilities. Therefore, authentic time cannot be reduced to magnitudes or captured by measuring instruments. It is the very unfolding of existence.
Derrida takes up this conception by asserting that reading Heidegger requires conceiving of a time without measure, without reference to homogeneous scales. In Donner le temps, he writes: “Ce temps ne donne rien, pas même le temps; il ne se donne pas comme temps mesurable, homogène, présentable” or “This time gives nothing, not even time; it does not give itself as measurable, homogeneous, presentable time.” (Derrida, Donner le temps, p. 33). Original temporality is not expressed in figures, rhythms, or calendars. It implies a radical transformation of the understanding of time.
This intuition can even be glimpsed in everyday situations. When someone says “I’ll be back in a while,” the term does not refer to a definite quantity, but to an expectation experienced in relation to the other or to the context. This type of temporal experience has also been addressed by some Lutheran theologians, who distinguish between chronological time and lived time. The experience of the moment is not equivalent to a fraction of a second or a segment within a uniform succession. Rather, it constitutes a form of openness or interruption that transcends any system of measurement.
This temporal modality does not fit into a sequence, but introduces a break, a qualitative interval in the flow of the usual. In Heidegger, the difference between temporality and temporariness does not establish an opposition between two kinds of time, but refers to two modes of understanding being. While conventional temporality presupposes a subject inhabiting an external time, temporariness redefines being as that which temporalizes.
Existence is not situated in an objective time: it is configured as time insofar as it projects itself into the future, retains its past, and actualizes itself in its present. In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger formulates this idea precisely: “Die Einheit des ekstatischen Horizonts der Zeit macht die Einheit der Auslegung des Seins aus” or “The unity of the ecstatic horizon of time constitutes the unity of the interpretation of being.” (Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, §69).
This reformulation radically transforms the question of being. Temporality is no longer limited to being a context in which being unfolds. It becomes the ontological condition through which being can manifest itself. In this sense, time is not thought of as quantifiable duration, but as the structural opening of existence.
This reformulation shifts the question of being from its very roots. Temporality is no longer conceived as an external framework in which being unfolds, but as its ontological condition of possibility. Time is no longer thought of as quantifiable duration but is understood instead as the structural opening that configures the existence of Dasein.
The originality of Heidegger’s thought lies in having removed the notion of time from classical representational schemes and restored it to the plane of factual existence. In this orientation, temporality does not function as a neutral background, but as the horizon that articulates all understanding of being. Thinking about time does not imply representing it as an object, but recognizing its structuring function in ontological understanding. This inversion requires a critical suspension of the traditional categories of time—instant, duration, succession—and anticipates the conceptual twist that Derrida will develop in the framework of différance.
Différance, a central notion in Derrida’s thought, does not designate an entity or a property. It is a movement without a fixed origin, an instance that differs and postpones, preventing any closure of meaning in the figure of presence. As a deferred structure, it points to the impossibility of full coincidence with itself and subverts any conception of time as a series of identifiable moments. Time, in this perspective, lacks a beginning, a culmination, and the possibility of synthesis. It reveals itself as an endless opening, an ever-displaced becoming. This conception resonates with Heideggerian temporality, which also interrupts the claim of presence as the ultimate foundation.
Derrida does not simply prolong Heidegger’s thought. He critically questions it and pushes it to the limits of its own consistency. While Heidegger attempts to conceive of a non-vulgar time based on the finitude of Dasein, Derrida revisits the very possibility of founding a temporal origin. In Sein und Zeit, Heidegger states: “Das Dasein ist je schon gewesend in seiner Existenz.” Dasein has always already been in its existence. Derrida, however, distrusts the stability implicit in this “already” and examines its consequences for the constitution of temporal meaning.
From this perspective, the impossibility of fixing a stable temporal origin leads to a conception of time as structural dislocation. Time not only exceeds all measure; it also eludes all reappropriation as full presence. In Derrida’s thought, temporal experience is constituted as exposure to what escapes, to what never gives itself as a totality. In Donner le temps, Derrida formulates: “Ce temps ne donne rien, pas même le temps.” This time gives nothing, not even time. The gift is not realized as a full giving, but as an interruption, as a break in the economy of presence.
This shift allows us to think about existential temporality beyond the framework of philosophical anthropology. Time does not constitute a structure derived from the human subject, nor can it be reduced to a function of being. It is the unfounded condition of all possibility of meaning. It does not emerge as a supplement to being or as a product of its manifestation: it is inscribed as the trace of a difference that is never present in act. Thinking about time at the intersection between Heidegger and Derrida requires abandoning all certainty about the moment and accepting the constitutive instability of that which never ceases to be deferred.
Both authors converge in their rejection of the traditional conception of time as a measurable, homogeneous, and sequential unit. However, while Heidegger reinscribes it as the ontological structure of being-in-the-world, Derrida dislocates it until it becomes prior to any ontological thematization. At this confluence, time ceases to fulfill the function of ordering events and reveals itself as a sign of radical exposure to otherness. This irreducible alteration prevents any definitive closure of meaning and opens up a space in which being can no longer assert itself without the constitutive lag that runs through it.
This conception of time, devoid of linearity, measurement, and assured presence, is not reduced to an ontological reconfiguration. Its radiation decisively affects the ethical, hermeneutic, and theological domains. In the ethical realm, the impossibility of fixing an absolute present inaugurates a responsibility without location, irreducible to any structure of reciprocity. In Emmanuel Levinas, this discontinuous temporality is expressed as an exposure to otherness that precedes all anticipation. The relationship is not inscribed in simultaneity, nor in the correlation of presences, but in a diachrony that fractures any economy of exchange. The demand of the other cannot be measured or reabsorbed; it imposes itself from an exteriority that never fully presents itself, but is constantly binding.
From a hermeneutic perspective, time ceases to function as a neutral support for meaning. Understanding no longer consists in synthesizing stabilized horizons, but in exposing oneself to an incessant deferral that prevents any closure. Meaning is not given as a finished product, but appears in a discontinuous, interrupted form, sustained by an openness that never closes. This orientation, initially articulated by Heidegger, finds rigorous elaboration in Jean-Luc Nancy. For him, meaning is not delivered as available content, but “exposed” in an interrupted temporality, shared in its finitude, partage without totality. Far from a full presence, meaning occurs as an interval, as a mismatch between signification and event.
On the theological level, this understanding of time destabilizes any attempt to inscribe the absolute event in a recognizable sequence. If time cannot be reduced to measure or presence, then revelation—in its most radical sense—cannot coincide with a chronological inscription or a full figure. In Maurice Blanchot, this disarticulation unfolds as an event that does not appear, except in its own withdrawal. The instant of saying, when something bursts in without fixing itself, approaches an experience without its own form, structurally akin to that which cannot be thematized. This is not an affirmative theology, but rather an opening sustained by silence, where mystery resists all conceptual appropriation. Saying does not consume a truth, it only exposes it to its own impossibility.
On this horizon, time is no longer conceived as an ordering principle or as an epistemic axis of guarantee. It manifests itself as the unstable condition from which responsibility to the irreducible, interpretation without closure, and openness to the unrepresentable are constituted. This temporality forces us to think of being not as an offered presence, but as a sustained exposure, oriented by a waiting that is never fulfilled. Existence does not move toward an attainable fullness, but toward a promise that withdraws, in which meaning remains in transit, with no possible closure. Thinking about time in this way means removing it from all logic of calculation, in order to receive it as a deferred trace of that which cannot be surrendered without residue.”
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