The work of VAUVENARGUES (1715-1747) contains the proposal to define action as a countermovement which is made necessary by the continuous vanishing of the present. This was, at his time, an unsuccessful theory because a moralistic and later an utilitarian concept of action prevailed. The sociological theory of action systems, on the other hand, began with a critique of the utilitarian conception of action systems and never arrived at any depth in apprehending the relation of time and action. This historical case study is used to discuss problems of the sociology of knowledge and of action theory as well. It is shown that theories with incommensurable conceptual bases (action as movement and action as event) can nevertheless be compared. And it is proposed to replace the subject/action scheme by a time/action scheme.