Recapitulation as Developmental Mediation of Temporal Structure

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Abstract

This paper redefines recapitulation as a developmental process that mediates the paradox of time: the tension between lived, tensed experience and the tenseless structure of cultural meaning. Drawing from McTaggart’s and Bergson’s theories of time and grounded in cultural-historical theory, I identify two distinct forms of recapitulation—tensed and tenseless—and propose that the latter enables transformative, non-additive development. Recapitulation refines cultural practice, projects toward future possibilities, and constructs inter-level responsibility across personal and collective meaning systems. Rather than reducing development to linear repetition, recapitulation functions as a recursive, dialectical reorganization of temporal structure. It allows human beings to inhabit and reconfigure cultural time—not just to remember the past, but to remember it forward.

Author

• Adam LeRoy, HighScope Educational Research Foundation