The Scent of Time cover art

The Scent of Time

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

The Scent of Time

By: Byung-Chul Han
Narrated by: Peter Noble
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £11.89

Buy Now for £11.89

In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time. Our attachment to the vita activa creates an imperative to work which degrades the human being into a labouring animal, an animal laborans. At the same time, the hyperactivity which characterizes our daily routines robs human beings of the capacity to linger and the faculty of contemplation. It therefore becomes impossible to experience time as fulfilling.

Drawing on a range of thinkers including Heidegger, Nietzsche and Arendt, Han argues that we can overcome this temporal crisis only by revitalizing the vita contemplativa and relearning the art of lingering. For what distinguishes humans from other animals is the capacity for reflection and contemplation, and when life regains this capacity, this art of lingering, it gains in time and space, in duration and vastness.

This audiobook is expertly read by Peter Noble, with audio engineering by Sam Platt. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Metaphysics Philosophy
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet