The theory of relativity must be reworked. Quite simply because it does not properly address the question of time. It avoids confronting it, taking its object for granted, hidden as it is in punctual
clocks that don’t exist. However, it’s not a question of getting rid of it, nor fundamentally modify in its mathematical formalism. We should even consider it as expressing the general structure of our understanding of space and time, extending beyond the realm of physics and into the human and social sciences. It points the way to a close relationship between time and space. But it remains at the level of measurements (the links between time and space are those of clock and ruler readings). It does not go deeper into concepts. In the current situation, the weight of relativity has isolated physics from the human and social sciences; it has created a damaging disconnect, to the point where we sometimes struggle to find a common meaning for physical time and human time. We need to re-read relativity theory, open it up to other ways of reasoning (complex reason and its circularities), and modify the mental images on which it is built. It must accompany the development of the concept of time, associating it with space and movement (as first perceived and inhabited by man), rather than taking it as already established. It must therefore be independent of a pre-existing framework, or background independent. This re-reading offers solutions to the more or less significant difficulties (of a mathematical or interpretative nature) that have arisen since its foundation. It makes it capable of fulfilling new functions and restoring the link between the physical sciences and the human and social sciences on the question of time. This text summarizes more than twenty years of research, presenting the framework of an original approach. For further details, including mathematical equations, readers are referred to two appendices, as well as to texts available in open archives, or published elsewhere.