Abstract time?

George Herbert Mead focused his thought on temporality (especially in Philosophy of the Present ), and particularly on “time in” events and roles rather than time as a background of events. Time in the strictest sense is the moment of present emergence that reflects into the past and changes its meaning and projects toward the future. The abstract time of calendars and clocks is time “in a manner of speaking.”

Is the time of clocks and calendars “abstract”? What might that mean?

Presumably, clock time is “abstract” because it names (enumerates) a time regardless of what’s happening in that time – saying “it’s 11 o’clock” doesn’t tell you whether it’s day or night, whether it’s the seventh hour of torture or the third hour of a honeymoon cruise, whether you’re in the middle of a battle or calming going over accounts in front of a computer. Saying it’s “Wednesday” is “abstract” in similar ways.

But surely this is only a relative “abstractness.” “It’s 11 o’clock” doesn’t say whether it’s day or night, but whichever it is, it considerably narrows the range of possible “contents.” If it’s AM, it’s probably not “the time I got to work” or “the time I left” but rather more likely “the last hour of drudgery before lunch break.” If it’s PM, it’s likely not “you missed curfew by four hours” or “time for dinner” but “time for evening news” or “time for bed.” (This is variable, of course, since people work and sleep at different times. But, given the average daily schedule of 21st-century Americans, it doesn’t seem infinitely variable, absolutely “abstract.”)

Calendar time is even less abstract. “July 1” doesn’t tell you anything about what’s happening or where, comparatively little about the weather (since it could be winter or summer), nothing about your mood. But, again given particular social expectations in particular settings, it does communicate something . It more likely communicates “school’s out for summer” than “first day of school”; more likely (for the Northern hemisphere)”we’ll go swimming tomorrow” than “we’ll go skiing” (vice versa for the South).

Weekday names carry content as well. “It’s Friday” isn’t just giving a name filler for the sixth day of the week; it bespeaks freedom, fun, late nights, movies, bars, a dinner date. Reverse all that for “It’s Monday.” “Tomorrow’s Sunday” catalyzes an emotional reaction both among Christians and non-Christians.

Mead’s conception that calendar time is “abstract” works only if he’s already “abstracted” the calendar from history and its cultural setting. It’s July 4 on July 4 everywhere the Gregorian calendar is in use, and in that sense the date doesn’t give us any indication of the activities of the day or its past or future. But in certain settings it has an emotional and political weight that can’t be reduced to numeration – 7/4. Even in countries where July 4 doesn’t have immediate historical significance, it is a calendrical symbol of the possibilities of freedom and constitutional republican government. The point can be extended, mutatis mutandis, to numerous dates in our calendar.

If you leave out the people who use the calendar, and their cultural setting, and the history of the calendar, and all history for that matter – then, surely, calendrical time is abstract. But it’s you who’ve done the abstracting. Don’t blame that on the calendar.