El tiempo y la Historia. II: Tiempos e Historias desde hoy

What is in view here is a sharply contrasted comparison between the doctrine of time and its epistemological presuppositions in Aristotle’s Physics and late-medieval physics. This contrast seeks to understand the long historical process that marks the transition from ancient classicism to the raising epistemology of modernity comprehending the years 1000 to 1350. That is, from an Aristotelian notion of Physics, centered around the concept of the continuous with clear physiological connotations, to several medieval “readings” of the Aristotelian text according to a plane understanding of physics as the mechanics of individual solids. Late mediaeval Aristotelianism seeks and establishes, at the same time, the decisive epistemological direction of 17th century physical science, and in a way justifies the loss of the historical meaning of the Aristotelian doctrines and even of reality itself. The late mediaeval concept of time does not invite us to assess history, but rather to forget it.