Omnia tempus habet – on the Problems of Encapsulating and Defining Time in Education and Culture (a Review of Perspectives)

Abstract

From the presented review of perspectives regarding the encapsulation of time and its division, it appears that time has a relative scope, and is culturally, socially and also historically conditioned.  Its perception is depended upon many individual factors such as: the psychological condition of an individual, his/her physical and mental state, level of education, the employment or the lack of job. It is also determined by the place where one lives; the latitude and a sense of civilizational belonging. The reflecting upon time and the accepted temporal orientation is extremely helpful in the attempts of understanding the modern culture. In the attitudes towards time, it is also possible to observe the choices regarding the style of life and values made by a man.  
There is, however, no scholarly definition of the considered category, which would be able to encompass all the aspects and perspectives of its perceiving. For the full comprehension of the matter in question, it seems essential to transcend the narrowly defined disciplines. The postulated, for at least the past fifty years, interdisciplinary nature of studies on time on the one hand promises a lot and unchangeably attracts the researchers, but on the other hand is linked to many difficulties. Dealing with the time-based problematic aspects demands the skills of integrating various attitudes and paradigms. The agreement upon procedures, research tools or the means of understanding the basic categories referring to studies on time is highly complicated. Nevertheless, it is worth undertaking such attempts. What places itself on the point of contact between disciplines, allows revealing a fragment of a complicated, in its wealth and diversity, world.