stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

cannot be infinite. But how can time pass? We have seen that there is time at all to the extent that
the passive self acts, in other words, to the extent that the passive self contracts-contemplates.
Does this then not mean that time can pass only if the passive self manages to constitute time as
passing? Time does not pass on its own. Time does nothing on its own to the extent that it is the
activity of the passive self that constitutes it. But it is also the case that this constitution of time is
nothing other than the activity of the passive self. However, the activity of the passive self is
simultaneously the becoming of the individual. Thus we come to this point. Time can pass only
if the activity of the passive self constitutes it as passing. But this means that time can pass only
if the passive self becomes more of an individual, in other words, only if the passive self
becomes an individual who does not just exist in the living present but who also becomes an
individual who embodies time as passing. In order for time to pass the passive self must become
the individual who passes time. This is the task of the second and the third synthesis of time: to
explain how the passive self acts in order to make time pass.
Contraction-contemplation only constitutes time as the living present. Therefore, in order
for time to pass, the passive self must do something other than contract-contemplate. The second
synthesis of time is one way of doing that. Deleuze argues that the passive self constitutes time
as passage from one living present to another in terms of what he calls reminiscence. Again, here
we must not miss the Platonic inspiration. The passive self constitutes time as passage to the
extent that it reminisces the Platonic Idea. But what does this mean? How can remembering
something make time pass from one living present to another? In this regard it is important that
we recognize the mythical structure of the Platonic Idea. To reminisce the Platonic Idea is not to
remember something actual. It is to be inspired by something mythical. “Myth, with its circular
structure, is indeed a story of a foundation. It permits the construction of a model according to
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