<i>Kairos</i> and Crisis: Responsibility and Time in Benjamin, Heidegger, and Tillich

Felix Ó Murchadha Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway

Abstract

ABSTRACT The sense of kairos is of time as having an event-like character. Fundamental here is a split between quantitative time and a qualitatively distinct moment. The decisive moment connects the kairological to crisis. By exploring the accounts of kairos in three contemporaries responding to the sense of crisis in 1920s Germany—Benjamin, Heidegger, and Tillich—this article shows the manner in action in the kairos can be understood as both responsive and non-opportunist. Themes such as the “tiger leap” (Benjamin), the “moment of vision” (Heidegger), and the “shuddering” of time (Tillich) are analyzed to demonstrate how these accounts taken in dialogue with one another give an understanding of kairos, as a displacement and disruption of time as chronos and not simply as an interruption in chronological time. Such a disruption of chronological time is a necessary condition for responsible action, giving a measure also for the present.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2023-12-31
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.56.3-4.0287
Open Access
Closed
Topics

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Cites in this index (1)

  1. Philosophy & Rhetoric
Also cites 8 works outside this index ↓
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    Symposium  
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    História da Historiografia  
  7. “The Image of Crisis: Walter Benjamin and the Interpretation of ‘Crisis’ in Modernity.”
    Thesis Eleven  
  8. “Three Kairoi—Three Aions. Paul Tillich, Ultimate Concern and Pedagogy of Radical Hope.”
    Studies in Philosophy and Education  
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