ABSTRACT
This chapter describes in greater detail the sense in which ‘time is an impossible possibility’ for Derrida through an analysis of his deconstructive reading of Aristotle’s Physics IV, one that is similar to his reading of Husserl, specifically as regards an unresolved tension between ideas of temporal continuity and discontinuity. This tension is later described as an antagonism between two mythic figures, that of the eternal youth and the senex (i.e., the temporal father). This is the archetypal split as described by James Hillman, which construes the problem of the puer aeternus personality as one of an archetypal split, a conflict between two mythic figures that are, at root, one. Hillman’s reading offers an excellent means of reconceiving what Derrida describes as two irreconcilable conceptions of presence: one that is continuous (and eternal) and another that is discontinuous (and temporal). In framing these irreconcilable conceptions in mythic terms, the chapter offers an opportunity to see them in a different light: Time and eternity are not merely concepts; they represent two innately human perspectives that bring with them a multitude of associations and polarized sets of values.
