BEFORE TIME, THE VOID: ESSAY ON A MYSTERY IN MOTION

Abstract

This article develops a theoretical reflection on time, conceived not as mere measure or succession, but as a decisive analytical category for understanding physical, philosophical, and geographical processes. Grounded in a qualitative, bibliographic approach, the study establishes an interpretive field in which distinct traditions of thought are brought into tension and composition, with particular emphasis on the problematization of temporality in the production of space. The analysis, interpretive in nature, focuses on the ways in which time reveals and withdraws itself through the categories that seek to express it. In this movement, rhythm, duration, simultaneity, and experience emerge not merely as analytical tools, but as figures of thought that approach the thickness of time. The systematization of these categories leads to the development of theoretical-conceptual syntheses, articulated through analytical frameworks as devices of interpretive condensation. By engaging thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Immanuel Kant, Henri Lefebvre, and Henri Bergson, the article displaces time from mere quantification, affirming it as flow, discontinuity, and lived experience. Understanding the lived world thus entails recognizing time as an immanent dimension of the production of space, where permanences, rhythms, and transformations intertwine.