Perception of Duration Presupposes Duration of Perception – or Does it? Husserl and Dainton on time

Abstract

In his recent book The Stream of Consciousness, Dainton provides what must surely count as one of the most comprehensive discussions of time‐consciousness in analytical philosophy. In the course of doing so, he also challenges Husserl’s classical account in a number of ways. In the following contribution, I will compare Dainton’s and Husserl’s respective accounts. Such a comparison will not only make it evident why an analysis of time‐consciousness is so important, but will also provide a neat opportunity to appraise the contemporary relevance of Husserl’s analysis. How does it measure up against one of the more recent analytical accounts?

Keywords:

• Husserl
• Dainton
• temporality
• time‐consciousness
• phenomenology

Notes

1 Dainton discusses Broad’s theory in even greater detail, but I will ignore that part of his discussion.

2 Given Dainton’s projectivism, given that he considers ordinary perceptual objects to be part of the stream of consciousness, I find it hard to understand how he is able to avoid the threat of solipsism. I also think that the extent of his temporal realism can be questioned, but these are issues that I will be unable to pursue further in this paper.

3 For my own contributions, see Zahavi 1999, 2003, 2004.

4 Cf. Kern, 1975: pp. 40–1; Bernet, 1994: p. 197; Merleau‐Ponty, 1945: p. 483, Heidegger, 1991: p. 192. Although the field of experiencing has neither a temporal location nor a temporal extension, and although it does not last and never becomes past, it is not a static or momentary supra‐temporal principle, but a living pulse (Lebenspuls) with a certain articulation and variable width, i.e., it might stretch. In fact, I would suggest that the metaphor of stretching – a metaphor used by both Husserl and Heidegger (Hua 10/376; Heidegger, 1986: §72) – might be quite appropriate as a characterization of the ecstatic self‐differentiation of the constituting flow, since it avoids the potentially misleading talk of the flow as a sequence or succession of changing impressions, slices, or phases. To venture a more daring suggestion, perhaps a change of metaphor is really called for. Rather than likening time‐consciousness to a river or stream, we should consider comparing it to a rubber band. As Claude Romano has pointed out to me, this suggestion recalls Augustine’s notion of distentio animi.

5 For a meticulous investigation of Husserl’s concept of nunc stans, see Held’s classical work Lebendige Gegenwart (1966).

6 Regarding this specific objection, it might by the way be worthwhile recalling that everything that can be perceived has temporal duration and that this includes perceived colour.

7 See Zahavi, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005.

8 I am indebted to Joakim Quistorff‐Refn for this critical point.

9 Did anybody whisper ‘metaphysics of presence’?

10 This study has been funded by the Danish National Research Foundation.