Abstract
As Merleau-Ponty points out, our sense of time is that of passage. This demands that we think of time both as extended—that is, as including the past and the future—and as now, the latter being conceived as the point of expiration. The difficulty comes when try to think these separately. To consider time as extended is to think of it in terms of space—i.e., in terms of the “parts outside of parts” definitive of space. The simultaneous existence of such parts seems to exclude expiration. When, however, we consider time in terms of expiration, we face the problem of when the now expires. It cannot cease to exist in itself, since then it existed. It also cannot cease in another now, since then it did not exist. Such difficulties indicate that something is missing—something presupposed by both, which would allow us to think of expiration and temporal extension together. In this article, I argue that what is missing is the body. Its self-presence is behind these two aspects of time.
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Notes
Augustine (1964, p. 264).
Ibid.
Aristotle (1961, p. 78).
Ibid., p. 77.
Augustine (1964, p. 264).
Ibid., p. 269.
Ibid., p. 276.
Ibid., p. 277.
This diagram appears in Husserl (2001, p. 22). Rudolf Bernet writes on Augustine’s influence on Husserl: “The personal copy of the Confessions kept at the Archives shows that Husserl carefully read Book XI. This is not surprising since, in his phenomenological description of internal time-consciousness, he is so inspired by the observations and implicit presuppositions of Augustine’s analysis of time that one may candidly speak of Husserlian ‘marginalia’ to Augustine” (Bernet 1985, p. xi). Husserl himself remarks: “Even today, anyone occupied with the problem of time must still study Chapters 1428 of Book XI of the Confessiones thoroughly. For in these matters our modern age, so proud of its knowledge, has failed to surpass or even to match the splendid achievement of this great thinker who grappled so earnestly with the problem of time” (Husserl 1966, p. 3).
Kant (1998, p. 211). All translations from German in this article are my own.
In adopting Kant’s description, we do not assume that the self is some noumenal thing in itself. In fact, we take such syntheses as functions that the brain performs. This, however, does not mean that consciousness is equivalent to such physical functions.
Kant (1998, p. 110).
Ms. B III 9, p. 15a; Oct.–Dec. 1931, cited with permission.
Husserl (2001, p. 187).
“Keiner kann dem Anderen sein Sterben abnehmen” (Heidegger 1967, p. 240).
Aristotle, thus, writes: “But when we come to the concrete thing, e.g. … one of the individual circles … of these there is no definition, but they are known by the aid of intuitive thinking or of perception; and when they pass out of this complete realization [of being perceived] it is not clear whether they exist or not” (Aristotle 1941, p. 799).
Ibid. pp. 9, 24.
Ibid., pp. 123, 164.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Kant (1998 p. 97).
As Merleau-Ponty expresses this: the road that I see “in the distance has no ‘width’ one could even ideally calculate; it is as wide as the road close-up, since it is the same road—and it is not as wide, since I cannot deny that there is a sort of shrinking in perspective” when viewed from a distance (Merleau-Ponty 1968 , p. 22; Merleau-Ponty 1964, p. 40).
As M.C. Dillon argues, this non-coincidence is essential to perception. Given that perceiving something is distinct from being it, “there must be a distancing of it” (Dillon 2004, p. 298).
This is why Merleau-Ponty can write of the observer: “The space, the time of the things are shreds of himself, of his own spatialization, of his own temporalization.” The two are intertwined. In Merleau-Ponty’s words: he who grasps them feels himself emerge from them by a sort of coiling up or redoubling” (Merleau-Ponty 1968, p. 114; Merleau-Ponty 1964, p. 153). Thus, to think of the nowness or presence of the body in space is to think of it in terms of this coiling up (or intertwining) of our spatialization and temporalization. The simultaneity of space is thought in terms of the simultaneity of time’s moments, which, of course is behind the thought that time is like a river.
As Husserl writes, the “elapsed duration” of a tone is “represented [repräsentiert] by means of a continuity of fading modifications.” Such modifications are “the flow of adumbrations in which the identical tone ‘presents’ itself [sich ‘darstellt’]” (Husserl 1966 p. 277).
Thus, our sense of pastness “springs from the interpretation of the temporal representatives of the temporal positions” [Zeitstellenrepräsentanten], such representatives being the fadings. “This interpretation too is continuously maintained in the flow of modification” in that we continuously interpret the process of fading as departure into pastness (Husserl 1966, p. 66). For an extended account of this, see Mensch (2010, pp. 78–81).
If we look at the neurons in our brains, there is nothing about their behavior that distinguishes them from, say, liver cells with regard to consciousness. The metabolic processes of neither point to consciousness. See Manzotti and Tim Parks (2016). We can, of course, find neural correlates to our sensory experiences. When we see or hear something, patterns of activity occur among our neurons. But a correlate of consciousness is not consciousness. As Manzotti, writes, “When scientists look for AIDS or DNA, they look for the thing itself, not a mere correlate” (ibid). Thus, when we limit our focus to the functioning of the brain, we lose sight of consciousness.
Aristotle (1961, p. 78).
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Mensch, J. Temporality and embodied self-presence. Cont Philos Rev 53, 183–195 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-020-09494-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-020-09494-w