Abstract:
This article traces how the modern experience of historical time, as crystallized in the French Revolution, reconfigures the relation between subjectivity, collective memory, and political appearance. Through Koselleck, I describe how the widening gap between experience and expectation becomes a lived horizon in which history is no longer inherited but projected. Following Carr, I show how this horizon allows a collective “we” to emerge narratively, not as a fixed entity but as a temporal form sustained through narrative. Yet, I argue that narrative alone cannot account for the sensuous presence of this “we.” Drawing on Carlo Severi, I highlight the constitutive role of symbols, rituals, and chimeric images, which do not supplement narrative but actively stabilize a contingent present through forms of appearance that exceed language. This article challenges logocentric models of political temporality and shows that modern national identity is stabilized not only narratively but also through chimeric symbolic techniques
Keywords:
phenomenology, narrative, political temporality, collective memory, French Revolution
How to cite:
van Binsbergen, Marcus. “Narrative Symbolic Form, and the Phenomenology of Revolutionary Time.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 10, no. 1 (2026): 139-157. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2026.0007.
Author:
Marcus van Binsbergen
Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Kardinaal Mercierplein 2 – bus 3200, BE-3000 Leuven, Belgium
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6156-2798
marcusvanbinsbergen@me.com
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