Raimon Panikkar on the Experience of Time
Context
For a sourced excerpt on the same topic, see our entry:
The topic is generally sourced from:
- Book: The Cosmotheandric Experience: Emerging religious consciousness. By Raimon Panikkar.
URL = https://www.raimon-panikkar.org/english/XXXIII-2-cosmotheandric.html
The following synthesis was produced by DeepSeek after prompting by Michel Bauwens.
Discussion
DeepSeek:
This page summarizes Raimon Panikkar's analysis of the three kairological moments of human consciousness from his work The Cosmotheandric Experience, and situates it alongside related reflections on the "post-historical" condition by Roderick Seidenberg and Lewis Mumford.
The Three Kairological Moments of Consciousness
Panikkar distinguishes three fundamental, non-chronological "kairological" moments in the unfolding of human consciousness. These are not sequential historical eras but rather irreducible attitudes or horizons through which humans relate to reality. Each moment is linked to a specific form of time-consciousness.
The Ecumenic Moment (Non-Historical Consciousness)
This primordial moment is characterized by non-historical consciousness and the figure of the "Man of Nature". Humans live in an undifferentiated communion with nature and the spirit-world, without separating the divine, the human, and the cosmic. The cosmos is understood as a living organism (anima mundi), and human sensitivity is holistic, intuitive, and inclusive. The background is theocosmos, and the center of the universe is the cosmos (cosmocentric). Innocence, unity, and solidarity define this attitude.
The Economic Moment (Historical Consciousness)
This second moment is defined by historical consciousness and the rise of the "Man above Nature". The divine is either removed from the world or relegated to a subsidiary role, and Man becomes the "measure of all things" (Protagoras). This anthropocentric worldview enthrones reason, science, and technology as the hallmarks of truth. Nature is reduced to an object for exploitation. This moment is marked by a thrust toward the future, a drive toward universalism, and a deep sense of alienation—the loss of original innocence. The vision is anthropocentric, with history as its horizon.
The Catholic Moment (Trans-Historical Consciousness)
The third moment is characterized by trans-historical consciousness and a "new innocence". It beckons as an integration of the prior moments, where the fundamental insights of the ecumenic and economic attitudes are gathered and harmonized. It is the dawn of the cosmotheandric vision—a holistic awareness of the intrinsic, non-dual relationship between Cosmos, Anthropos, and Theos (the divine, the human, and the earthly). No dimension can exist without the others: "There is no God without Man and World. There is no Man without God and the World. There is no World without God and Man." This moment represents a "new innocence" and a radical relationality.
Dynamics of Transition Between the Moments
Panikkar insists these moments "cannot be isolated chronologically". The transition from the Ecumenic to the Economic moment involved a "fall" into history—the emergence of reflexive knowledge, the alienation of the human from the cosmos, and the enthronement of reason. The movement from the Economic to the Catholic moment is not a return to a lost past but an integration born of a "new revelatory experience". Panikkar describes the current period as an "ecological interlude" or an "interval" between the economic and catholic moments, where the crisis of the economic moment (ecological devastation, human alienation, and the meaninglessness of the Divine) becomes apparent, yet a genuine transformation has not yet occurred. The Catholic moment requires a "radical metanoia"—a complete turning of mind, heart, and spirit—to overturn the dominant technocratic paradigm.
Relation to the Post-Historical Thesis
Roderick Seidenberg and the Post-Historical Thesis
Roderick Seidenberg, in his 1950 book Posthistoric Man: An Inquiry, offers a parallel diagnosis of the "end of history." His thesis is that human history is a brief, transitional phase between a long prehistory and an imminent posthistory.
Seidenberg traces this as a movement from instinct to intelligence. In prehistory, instinct dominated. In history, conscious intelligence has progressively gained control over one human activity after another, transferring authority from the organic and purposeful to the causal and mechanical. The endpoint is post-historic man: a being under the universal control of a depersonalized "intelligence" (closely aligned with technology), living in an "Ant-like" state of "icy fixity." Seidenberg views this as a dystopian, essentially predetermined outcome, where human purposes are swallowed up by a mechanical process.
Lewis Mumford on Post-Historic Man
Lewis Mumford, in his essay "Post-Historic Man" (chapter 34 of Interpretations and Forecasts, and also a chapter in The Transformations of Man), directly engages Seidenberg's thesis. Mumford agrees that a post-historic man represents a dark future already visible, a "replacement of historic man by a new form". He summarizes Seidenberg's argument: the instinctual life of man has been losing its grip as conscious intelligence gains firmer control, detaching from the organic and attaching to the causal and mechanical.
However, Mumford maintains a critical distance. He argues that post-historic man—the "wholly subservient creature of the machine"—is a "theoretic possibility, not a historic probability." He warns against the naive assumption that a single, predetermined line of development will inevitably prevail. For Mumford, the very act of assuming such a future also implies a false claim to adequate knowledge, ignoring the latent, creative, and emergent forces of life. His essay is thus both a profound diagnosis of the threat and a call to consciously choose a different path toward a "world culture" and "human prospects," rather than surrendering to a dehumanized alter ego.
More information
- Book: The Cosmotheandric Experience. Raimon Panikkar.
- Topic and book: End of History. Francis Fukuyama.
- Panikkar, Raimon. "Is History the Measure of Man? Three Kairological Moments of Human Consciousness." The Teilhard Review 16, no. 1-2 (1981): 39-45.
- Seidenberg, Roderick. Posthistoric Man: An Inquiry. University of North Carolina Press, 1950.
- Mumford, Lewis. "Post-Historic Man." In Interpretations and Forecasts: 1922-1972. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.
Mumford, Lewis. "Post-Historic Man." In The Transformations of Man. Harper & Brothers, 1956.