Nachträgliche Vorläufigkeit : Geschichte schreiben nach der Gegenwart

Abstract

The connection between science and activism is subject to temporal problems. A specific difficulty concerns the understanding of the present as a mostly tacitly assumed category in the relationship between science and activism. If activism demands a change in the present and also for this present (“Change now!”) for entirely understandable reasons, then a historiographical and historical-theoretical perspective cannot avoid highlighting the problematic nature of such a concept of the present. Firstly, it is therefore necessary to show what is so difficult about the supposedly clear, everyday concept of the ‘present’. Secondly, it is necessary to discuss how, despite these conceptual difficulties, the present cannot be escaped at all. And thirdly, it can hardly be overlooked that historical work always takes place after the present, not only in chronological hindsight, but also in a causal retrospective.