Title:  Kairós: Towards an Ontology of ‘Due Time’ Author:  Giacomo Marramao Series:  Contemporary European Cultural Studies Imprint:  The Davies Group, Publishers soft cover 102 pp. USD  16.00 ISBN  978-1888570373 October  2006 The notion of ‘time’ has captured the interest of human beings since the very dawn of consciousness, and will continue to do so as long as there is someone in the universe who can pose a question: What is time and what does it mean? The perennial fascination with time has worked its magic on the mind of Giacomo Marramao, and through his pen has found eloquent expression. […] To this vexing question of time, he has dedicated three works: Potere e secolarizzazione. Le categorie del tempo (Power and Secularization. The Categories of Time), Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1983, new edition Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2005; Minima Temporalia. Tempo, spazio, esperienza (Minima Temporalia. Time, Space, Experience), Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1990, new edition Rome: Sossella Editore, 2005; and Kairós. Apologia del tempo debito, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1992, third edition in 2005, of which this present volume is the English translation: Kairós. Towards an Ontology of ‘Due Time’. His reflections attempt to blend the theoretical aspect of the question of time with the philosophical-historical aspect, embracing the goal of attaining a genealogical reconstruction of the presuppositions of Western rationalism. According to this reading, which evokes the work of Karl Löwith in the modern forms of social organization, we encounter meanings that are derived from the process of the secularization of religious contents: i.e., from the transposition of the Christian symbolic horizon onto a worldly dimension. Specifically, in Giacomo Marramao’s philosophical perspective, secularization is centred around a process of “temporalization” of history. In virtue of this process, the categories of time (which translate Christian eschatology in a perspective entered on the future: progress, revolution, liberation, etc.) take on an increasing centrality in the political representations of modernity. Around these considerations, treated also in other works (Dopo il Leviatano [After Leviathan], 1995, new edition 2000; Passaggio a Occidente. Filosofia e globalizzazione [Passage to the West. Philosophy and Globalization], published in 2003, an explicit thematization of the philosophical problem of time has begun to take shape. Contrary to the conceptions of Bergson and – in another sense – of Heidegger, who delineate in different ways an “authentic” dimension of temporality, more basic than its representations-spatializations, Giacomo Marramao argues for the inseparability of the time-space connection, and by highlighting the results of contemporary science, he places the structure of time in an aporetical and impure perspective, with respect to which the dimension of space constitutes the formal reference in order to be able to analyze paradoxes themselves. Contents Foreword Preface 1 A ghost of space 2 Plato’s cinematography 3 Einstein’s dream 4 The cosmic dance of the mind 5 The architecture of time 6 Philosophy: Eros’ interlude 7 Familiar strangeness 8 The axis of time 9 “Kairós” and “Tempus” Notes About the author Professor Marramao has taught philosophy at the University of Naples, and has been Visiting Professor at prestigious Universities in Europe, the United States (Columbia University, New York), México (UNAM), Argentina (UBA, Buenos Aires; Universidade Federal, Rio de Janeiro; USP and UNESP, Sâo Paulo) and Asia (Hong Kong Baptist University). He is currently Full Professor at the University of Rome III, occupying the Cathedra of both Theoretical Philosophy and of Political Philosophy. He is also a member of the International College of Philosophy (Paris). The original work Kairós. Apologia del tempo debito, Bari: Laterza, 1992 (terza edizione 2005) ISBN 88-420-4122-X. English translation by Philip Larrey and Silvia Cattaneo