The Time of Nachträglichkeit

Time, together with space, constitutes one of the two fundamental dimensions of subjectivity and individual development. The issue of time, since Plato, has run through western philosophical thinking and already St. Augustine in Confessions defined time as a «very intricate enigma», of which we can understand its aporias as well as its inexpressibility:

What is time for? Who can readily and briefly explain this? Who could form just its concept in one's mind as to be able to express it in words? Yet, what is a more familiar and known word than «time», which comes over and again in our conversations?… So, what is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asks, I know not.

In psychoanalytic thinking, far from being conceived as an a priori of the experiential occurrence, it rather represents a condition of mind that is structured in the relationship with the other. By the way, the object's paradigm is its being the most powerful agent in the structuring of time through a presence-absence rhythm, where the experience of the subject permeates the experience of the other. In constructing a temporal axis, on which our ability to think and think about ourselves depends, both the state of passivity — Hilflosigkeit, of the human condition at birth and its lengthy state of dependence — as well as the two-phase dimension of human sexuality are at stake. The psychic apparatus does not only come from and develop as a function of time, but it is also inhabited by host of temporal directions which are in a state of tension within the subject, whose representation meets the inexpressibility St. Augustine talked about.

As I was confronted with the poverty of speech, the richness of the image through a painting by came to my aid. Bellini's Sacred Allegory is a painting in the Uffizi Gallery. Its mysterious and uncanny character immediately strikes the observer. The difficulty in deciphering the painting is proven by the number of interpretations that have been