This chapter begins by outlining Heidegger’s project of identifying the timeliness (Zeitlichkeit) of human existence as what is ontologically distinctive about it. The chapter also recounts how, in the context of establishing that distinctiveness, Heidegger demonstrates that timeliness to be the “original time,” that is, the origin of so-called “world-time” (Weltzeit) (the time of the workworld) and, via use of the clock, the origin of the purely serial time attributed to things on hand in nature. In the wake of this exposition and after flagging criticisms of Heidegger’s undertaking, the chapter examines Ernst Tugendhat’s influential criticism that Heidegger’s putative demonstration is invalid since it has recourse to serial time (“time in the normal sense”) and, hence, is viciously circular. The chapter ends with a sustained rebuttal of Tugendhat’s criticism.

The study explores the materiality of clock towers to understand how temporal order was constructed and changed in the late Ottoman Empire. It takes a microhistorical perspective with a critical realist lens. Specifically, it focuses on the 24 clock towers constructed between 1876 and 1909 outside Istanbul, remaining within the national borders of Turkey. In addition, the study has developed case studies of three “exceptional typical” clock towers at Kastamonu, Çorum, and Izmir. Results indicate that these clock towers were symbols of continuous and hybridized changes in the temporal construction of Ottoman societies. The study illustrates how alternative time conceptions can exist, combine, and transform autonomously, constituting a polychronous context. In addition to the Ottoman state, the local elite was central in negotiating and contesting the diffusion of modernity into their realms. The study contributes to understanding the politics of time from a non-industrialized and non-Western historical context.