ABSTRACT
In this chapter, trauma studies are situated within the contemporary problem of nihilism, which calls for an address of knowledge by truth. In light thereof, an exploration of pre-modern subjectivity (especially in ancient Greek thought, as reflected upon by Foucault) provides historical context for fully traumatic subjectivity later occurring for modernity. In distinction to the encapsulated, individual mind of the early Enlightenment bounded by representation of exterior reality through linear time, the modern subject of trauma is structurally constituted through a condition of temporal finitude. Though forms of philosophical thought (i.e., Husserl) attempt a restorative temporality, these efforts deconstruct themselves. Thus, an understanding of the traumatic ontology of the modern subject will allow a repositioning of suffering and its relation to truth and knowledge within temporal fragmentation.
