A Difference between Ecstatic Time and Pure Duration

Abstract

The article offers a speculative comparison of two approaches to modern materialist science – that of Heidegger based on the understanding of ecstatic time and that of Bergson based on the notion of vital momentum, or pure duration. Bergson’s notion of vital momentum can be derived from the Heideggerian ecstasy of the future. The notion of fundamental material elements as well as the notion of their lawful movement can be derived from the Heideggerian ecstasies of the past and the present. Bergson also sees modern science as based on the concept of what is finished (past) and of what is present (given). While Bergson opposes his vital momentum to the notion of matter which underlies modern materialist science, Heidegger shows the historical origin of these notions in the Greek understanding of Presence and also the ontological origin in Presence as ecstatic time. Bergson’s pure duration is a mode of the inauthentic understanding of temporality. The analysis and comparison draw on phenomenological-hermeneutical approach, fundamental ontology as well as ‘philosophy of life’.