The Metaphor of the Stream: Critical Approaches

Abstract

Husserl offers one of the most thoroughly articulated theories of time in the history of philosophy. Among the many strengths of his theory, he highlights the contradictions involved in the concept of objective time, he explores the nature of retention, and he clarifies the transcendental characteristics of time. However, since he conceives of time as continuous, it seems that he fails to account for the phenomenon of forgetting. Moreover, this failure ultimately leads him to claim that consciousness forms a totality, which one might argue leaves his position vulnerable to the threat of Solipsism. In an attempt to defend Husserl’s position against this threat, this essay explores the possibilities of describing the experience of time by means of a phenomenological monadology.