A Genealogy of Temporal Construal: 2 Linear Horizons: Philosophical and Cosmological Time in Classical Thought

With the advent of classical thought, temporality undergoes a marked reconfiguration: cycles and embodied rhythms begin to be translated into intelligible, sequential frameworks that foreground linearity and coherence. Time is no longer solely the domain of recurrence and ritual alignment; it becomes a medium through which cosmological and ethical order can be apprehended, measured, and rationally modulated. In this context, the construal of time is simultaneously philosophical, cosmological, and moral, delineating the horizon of potentiality for both natural phenomena and human action.

Heraclitus’ doctrine of flux exemplifies an early attempt to articulate relational temporal awareness through philosophical abstraction. The constant becoming of all things foregrounds temporality as the condition of individuation: entities emerge, persist, and pass away within a continuous process in which past, present, and future are relationally entwined. Temporality, in Heraclitus’ terms, is not a static container but a relational field in which the very identity of phenomena is co-constituted through movement and change. Possibility is thus dynamically constrained: what emerges at any moment is conditioned by prior actualisations, yet remains open to relational divergence.

Aristotle’s teleological conception of time further linearises temporality by linking it to motion, causation, and finality. Time becomes a measure of change, intrinsically oriented towards ends and potentialities that are intelligible within a coherent cosmos. Here, temporal sequence is not merely observational but normative: the ordering of events reflects an intelligible hierarchy of causation, shaping the field of relational potential in which human and natural actions unfold. The linear horizon of Aristotle’s time constrains and enables action through its teleological structuring, translating flux into ordered possibility.

Cosmological reflection during this period similarly translates cyclical phenomena into sequential frameworks. Astronomical observation in Greek thought abstracts celestial recurrence into models of uniform motion and geometric regularity. While seasonal cycles remain practically operative, the philosophical mapping of heavens into intelligible structures reflects a dual move: to preserve observable cyclicity while simultaneously projecting a linear, rational schema capable of supporting prediction and ethical-temporal reasoning. Time becomes a lens through which both human and cosmic possibilities are evaluated and actualised.

Modulatory voices: The transition from cyclical to linear temporality is neither uniform nor unchallenged. Elements of mythic recurrence persist within philosophical cosmologies, and Greek tragedy often dramatises tension between temporal determinacy and human contingency. Moreover, Heraclitean flux and Aristotelian teleology reveal divergent relational construals: one foregrounding processual openness, the other structured sequence. These counterpoints indicate that even as time is rendered linear, it remains a relationally negotiated field, susceptible to interpretation and modulation by human actors, cosmological observation, and symbolic practice.

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Post 2 continues the genealogical thread from primordial, cyclical temporality into classical linear horizons.

A Genealogy of Temporal Construal: Primordial Time: Cycles, Seasons, and the Dawn of Temporal Awareness

The earliest construals of temporality emerge not as abstracted measures but as relationally embedded practices: time is first known in its cyclical and embodied forms, inseparable from ecological rhythms, ritual observances, and the symbolic frameworks through which early societies apprehended the world. To construe time at this stage is to inhabit a field of recurrent possibility, wherein the patterns of day and night, the waxing and waning of the moon, and the shifting of seasons delineate the contours of action and expectation. Temporality here is inherently co-constituted: human activity, cosmological observation, and symbolic inscription collectively stabilise a recurrent horizon of potentialities.

Agricultural calendars exemplify this relational temporality. The timing of sowing and harvest, the observation of lunar phases, and the prediction of flooding cycles instantiate a practical temporality that is simultaneously social, ecological, and symbolic. These calendars do not merely measure time; they actively modulate what is possible within a given season, embedding constraints and affordances that structure human and non-human co-becoming.

Mesopotamian and Egyptian cosmologies further articulate temporal fields through symbolic inscription. The cyclical journeys of celestial bodies are mapped onto mythic narratives, wherein gods enact recurring patterns of creation, destruction, and renewal. These narratives function as construals of temporal potential, translating observable phenomena into fields of relational possibility that shape ritual, social order, and cosmological expectation. Time is thus both embodied and mythically narrated, its continuity maintained through ritual enactment as much as through observational record.

Crucially, these primordial temporal frameworks resist abstraction into linearity. The horizon of possibility is cyclical, and knowledge of the future is contingent upon relational alignment with recurring patterns rather than derivation from immutable laws. Temporality is performative: it emerges through the repeated actualisation of cycles, through the iterative interplay of observation, ritual, and embodied action. In this sense, the “dawn” of temporal awareness is less a conceptual discovery than a relational calibration of potentialities across human, cosmological, and symbolic domains.

Modulatory voices: While the dominant pattern is cyclical, it is important to note variation and tension. Agricultural innovations introduce anticipatory elements; the codification of calendars begins to abstract cycles into discrete units, foreshadowing the eventual linearisation of time. Mesopotamian king lists and Egyptian dynastic records inscribe temporal sequence, signalling the emergent awareness of history and sequence alongside ritual recurrence. These early divergences suggest that even primordial time contains the seeds of temporal differentiation, a relational foreshadowing of linear and ethical construals to come.

The Elemental Genealogies: 5 Aether — Space, Medium, and the Subtle Fields of Relation

If the classical elements Earth, Air, Fire, and Water map the immediate forces of life, Aether marks the subtler horizon: the medium that exceeds the tangible yet grounds possibility itself. It is the invisible field that allows relation to occur, the backdrop against which movement and meaning unfold.

Mythic Aethers

In many traditions, ether is the quintessence, the “fifth element.” In Greek cosmology, it is the pure substance of the heavens, the medium of celestial spheres. In Vedic thought, ākāśa signifies space and resonance — the field in which sound and vibration occur. Daoist cosmology identifies subtle qi as the energetic ether connecting beings and worlds. Here, ether construes possibility not as object but as the relational space through which events become possible.

Philosophical Mediation

Aristotle’s aether was incorruptible, unlike the mutable elements of the sublunary world: a perfect medium for celestial motion. Later, scholastic philosophy inherited ether as the subtle ground of motion, while Renaissance occultism imagined it as the medium of hidden sympathies and influences. In modern metaphysics, ether reappears as relational space itself: not substance, but the enabling field of appearance, resonance, and connection.

Scientific Revisions

For centuries, physics imagined a luminiferous ether through which light travelled. Its eventual collapse in Einstein’s relativity did not erase the intuition but transfigured it: spacetime itself became the medium. Quantum field theory reintroduces ether-like thinking in disguised form: not a static backdrop, but dynamic fields of potential permeating reality. Ether thus names the persistent desire to construe relation through a subtle medium — the unseen field that allows waves, forces, and interactions.

Ontological Thread: Relational Space

Ether is less an element than a horizon of elements: the subtle condition that holds them in relation. It is the symbolic medium of mediation itself — not fire, water, air, or earth, but the between. To construe possibility through ether is to foreground the field, the interval, the relational tissue that binds and exceeds.

Key Insights:

• Field of relation: Ether symbolises the invisible condition that enables interaction and resonance.

• Medium as possibility: It reminds us that possibility is never only about forms but also about the spaces that connect them.

• Persistence of intuition: From ancient quintessence to spacetime and quantum fields, ether endures as a figure for the subtle fabric of relation.

Ether, then, is the most elusive element: not a thing but the relational field itself, the subtle condition without which construal could not take place.

The Elemental Genealogies: 4 Water — Flow, Depth, and the Continuities of Possibility

If Fire is ignition and transformation, Water is flow and continuity. It fills, erodes, sustains, and overwhelms. Water is less a thing than a movement: the shaping of form through persistence, the binding of surface to depth. To construe possibility through water is to imagine potential not as sudden leap but as ongoing, fluid becoming.

Mythic Waters

Across mythologies, water figures both origin and dissolution. In Mesopotamian cosmology, the primordial chaos is a watery abyss, from which order is carved. In the Hebrew tradition, the Spirit hovers over the waters before creation. In Daoist thought, water epitomises yielding strength — soft yet unstoppable, shaping mountains through time. Water construes possibility as primordial depth, as well as the unceasing flow of transformation.

Philosophical Currents

For Thales, the first principle was water: not simply liquid, but the idea of underlying continuity, the sustaining medium of life. Later, Neoplatonism associated water with the formless substrate from which forms arise. In phenomenology, water often figures the lived metaphor of continuity — the feeling of immersion, of being carried by currents larger than oneself. Water becomes the symbolic thread of continuity across shifting experience.

Scientific Hydrologies

Hydrology and oceanography reveal water as the driver of planetary cycles: from rivers to oceans, rainfall to glaciers, water underpins ecological possibility. Physics frames water as a universal solvent, enabling chemical life. In contemporary systems science, fluid dynamics models turbulence, flow, and nonlinear emergence. Here water construes possibility as dynamic stability: continuous yet unpredictable, patterned yet open.

Ontological Thread: Continuity and Flow

Where Earth grounds, Air relates, and Fire transforms, Water flows. It binds surface to depth, moment to duration, life to environment. Water names the continuity of relational fields: the fact that possibility is rarely discrete but often carries forward, pooling and spilling across contexts. In relational ontology, water is the metaphor of persistence — possibility as flow across boundaries and thresholds.

Key Insights:

• Primordial depth: Water figures the abyssal origin of possibility, the reservoir from which forms emerge.

• Flow as construal: It exemplifies continuity — the carrying over of potential through time and relation.

• Erosion and persistence: Water shows how possibility reshapes not through sudden leaps alone, but through steady, accumulative force.

Water, then, is the element of continuity: the medium through which possibility persists, transforms, and flows into new relational horizons.

The Elemental Genealogies: 3 Fire — Energy, Transformation, and the Dynamics of Becoming

If Earth is stability and Air is relation, Fire is transformation. It is never neutral: it consumes, reshapes, actualises. To invoke fire is to invoke energy — the dynamic of becoming that destroys, creates, and drives forward. Fire is both feared and revered because it marks the elemental horizon of change: possibility as ignition.

Mythic Flames

In myth, fire is gift and danger. Prometheus steals fire for humanity, enabling culture, craft, and symbolic life. In Vedic ritual, Agni carries offerings upward, mediating between human and divine. Fire appears as liminal: both sacred and destructive, the force that binds communities through hearth and ritual while also threatening annihilation. Fire construes possibility as transformation — the leap from one state to another.

Philosophical Heat

Heraclitus makes fire the arche: not as substance, but as symbol of perpetual becoming. All is flux, and fire names the underlying principle of change. Later alchemical traditions take fire as essential to transformation — the agent through which hidden potential is released. Fire, then, is less a thing than a process: the sign of energy actualising itself in visible, irreversible ways.

Scientific Energies

Physics reconceptualised fire as combustion, oxidation, and ultimately as energy. Thermodynamics formalised the laws of transformation: fire became one manifestation of energy flow. Nuclear physics extended this to the stellar scale: stars as cosmic furnaces, fire as the very process by which elements and worlds come into being. Fire construes possibility as energy in transit: irreversible, directional, entropic yet creative.

Ontological Thread: Transformation and Becoming

Where Earth binds and Air circulates, Fire consumes and transforms. It is not the medium but the process itself — the actuality of change. Fire names the irreversibility of becoming: once ignited, a process unfolds, reshaping both material and symbolic fields. In relational ontology, fire can be read as construal of transformation: the horizon where potential leaps into actuality, where relation becomes event.

Key Insights:

• Ignition as threshold: Fire is the moment where possibility tips into becoming, marking the irreversibility of change.

• Transformative energy: Fire figures the flux of potential into new states, whether material, symbolic, or social.

• Creative–destructive duality: Its ambivalence underscores that transformation always entails both loss and emergence.

Fire, then, is the element of becoming. It symbolises the energetic horizon of possibility — the dynamics by which worlds are reshaped, meanings are reconfigured, and the future opens through irreversible transformation.

The Elemental Genealogies: 2 Air — Breath, Spirit, and the Field of Relation

If Earth construes stability, Air construes relation. It is never still, never fully contained; it moves, circulates, binds. To breathe is to participate in its flow — to join in the collective medium that sustains life. Air, in its elemental genealogy, symbolises the unseen but pervasive field through which connection and possibility are actualised.

Mythic Atmospheres

Air appears in ancient cosmogonies as the invisible yet essential medium of life. The Hebrew ruach and Greek pneuma both mean “breath” and “spirit,” linking the act of inhaling with the presence of vitality itself. In Vedic hymns, prana is both breath and cosmic force: the circulation that unites body, mind, and universe. Air is never just a physical phenomenon; it is always already relational, tying the individual to the collective, the body to the cosmos.

Philosophical Ether

Presocratic thinkers such as Anaximenes construed air as the fundamental principle: infinite, subtle, and capable of transformation into all other forms. Later philosophy transposed this into the idea of ether: the pervasive, binding medium through which forces act and light travels. Though ether fell away in modern physics, its metaphoric role persists — air as the subtle relational field that carries resonance, communication, and connection.

Scientific Atmosphere

Meteorology and atmospheric science reframed air as dynamic system: flows, currents, turbulence, the invisible architecture shaping climates and conditions of life. Air became measurable, analysable, yet no less elusive — for it is never static, always in flux. Ecology situates air as medium of exchange: oxygen, carbon dioxide, pollen, spores — circulations that link species, ecosystems, and planetary scales.

Ontological Thread: Relation and Circulation

Through myth, philosophy, and science, air construes possibility as circulation. Unlike Earth’s persistence, air emphasises movement, permeability, and connection. To be within air is to be always already connected: to breathe is to partake in a shared medium. In relational ontology, air can be read as the construal of interdependence — the invisible fields of relation that sustain, transform, and constrain life and meaning.

Key Insights:

• Medium of relation: Air symbolises the shared atmosphere of possibility, enabling circulation across bodies and systems.

• Invisibility as condition: Its presence is often unnoticed until disrupted, yet it always shapes the horizon of potential.

• Permeability and exposure: Air is that in which we are immersed, never entirely separate — a construal of exposure as condition of being.

Air, then, is the element of shared possibility. It is the field in which construal circulates, spreads, and intertwines — the relational horizon that binds without binding, the unseen presence that holds open the possibility of breath, spirit, and communication. 

The Elemental Genealogies: 1 Earth — Ground, Matter, and Stability

The first gesture of construal has always been to find footing. Across cultures, myth and ritual return to Earth as the ground of being: the mother, the soil, the bedrock of existence. In Greek cosmogony, Gaia is the primordial progenitor; in many Indigenous cosmologies, the land is not backdrop but ancestor, active participant in the unfolding of possibility. Earth, in its elemental construal, offers stability: not merely a physical platform but a field in which persistence and rootedness take shape.

Mythic Grounding

Earth is the generative matrix, source of fertility and sustenance. From Mesopotamian clay figurines to the Andean Pachamama, the soil embodies potential made tangible. Earth is not inert: it yields, withholds, and remembers. Myths often stage this tension — between the Earth as nurturing and the Earth as resistant, a source of both life and limit.

Philosophical Substance

For Aristotle, earth is one of the fundamental elements, characterised by heaviness and downward movement, seeking its natural place. Medieval scholasticism preserved this image: Earth as substance, weight, persistence. Early modern philosophy reframed it as “matter” — extension, resistance, a substrate that gives form a body. Even when relational ontologies began to dissolve substance into process, the echo of “earth” remained: matter as that which grounds potential by constraining it into persistence.

Scientific Grounding

Modern geology transformed Earth from static base into dynamic history: plates shifting, continents drifting, strata recording the deep time of possibility. Ecology reframed Earth as system: soil, rock, atmosphere, and life entangled in cycles of renewal and depletion. Earth became less the passive ground and more the active constraint within which possibility must be negotiated — food webs, ecosystems, planetary feedbacks.

Ontological Thread: Stability and Persistence

Through these shifts, Earth construes possibility as stability. It is the element of staying put, of resisting dissolution. But this stability is never absolute: it is always patterned, situated, contingent on forces that both hold and erode. In relational ontology, Earth can be read as the construal of persistence within interaction — the relational cut that gives things their apparent solidity, their capacity to endure as nodes within a field of flux.

Key Insights:

• Grounding potential: Earth as element symbolises the way possibility stabilises into form and substance.

• Constraint as affordance: Persistence is both enabling (support) and limiting (inertia).

• Relational endurance: What seems fixed is always relationally held in place, not absolute but phase-stable within a field.

To begin with Earth, then, is to begin with the possibility of holding form in a world of flux. It is to construe stability as an achievement of relation — the first layer in the genealogy of the elemental.