Crossing the great divide: Time, nature and the social

This article addresses perceived difference in temporal pace within nature and considers how epistemological debate is conditioned by such difference, drawing on the work of Norbert Elias. The first part of the article debates the equivalence of 'natural-time' and 'social time'. The acceleration of human social pace is also explored, along with the human capacity for plasticity and change and the contrast which such plasticity presents in relation to the seeming longevity of many natural processes. The epistemological implications of these arguments are considered in the second part of the article, focusing on the difficulties which human plasticity creates for current social theory (with particular attention on to critical realism). In the final part of the article, the foregoing discussion is used to re-evaluate sociologies of nature through reference to the sociology of the body.