[Time and narrative: the psychic character of history]

The thesis developed here is that of the "psychic character of history", following Simmel's terminology. Psychic character must not, however, be understood as a lack of objectivity. On the contrary, it is an instrument of investigation, which indicates the conditions of objectification in the human and social sciences. If the historian always reconstructs a past time, it is because the past form is the mode, specific to history, of distancing/objectification. Anthropology and sociology make use of other modes of distancing. The reconstruction that takes place during psychoanalysis is thus, on three points of comparison, clarified by the narrative process proper to history.