Abstract
"Vertically accumulating time", which is formulated by the philosopher K. Noe, is a view of time which considers it not as elapsing to the past and fading out, but as accumulating at the present. And indeed, it underlies some of the trends in sociology in recent years. Some sociologists such as P. Bourdieu have presupposed the view, and have brought to light the close relationship between the past and the present that had not been grasped adequately until then. However, they have not sufficiently inquired into the future in this view of time. On the above-mentioned background, this paper considers how the future in "vertically accumulating time" can be described. For this purpose, we refer to the study of time by A. Schutz who is one of the originators of the view of time in sociology. Schutz has described the future on the basis of the typified knowledge consisting of the sedimentation of past experiences. So far as it is concerned, description of the future in Schutz overlaps E. Husserl's and Bourdieu's view of the future as "a mode of already-known". On the other hand, however, if we take account of Schutz's insight of "what it is unknown", and his concept of "novel experience", we can find in his theory not only "the future as a mode of already-known", but also "the future as not-known (nicht-wissen)". Through this study, some possibilities of further development of "vertically accumulating time" in sociology are suggested.
