The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness

Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, James S. Churchill

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780253041975
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Phenomenology in Philosophy

An exploration of the terrain of consciousness in the light of its temporality from the father of phenomenology. The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness is a translation of Edmund Husserl's Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins. The first part of the book was originally presented as a lecture course at the University of Göttingen in the winter semester of 1904–1905, while the second part is based on additional supplementary lectures that he gave between 1905 and 1910. The pervading theme of these essays and lectures is the temporal constitution of a pure datum of sensation and the self-constitution of "phenomenological time" which underlies such a constitution. Husserl identifies two categories of temporality—retention and protention—and outlines how temporality provides the form for perception, phantasy, imagination, memory, and recollection. He demonstrates a distinction between cosmic and phenomenological time and explores the relevance of phenomenological time for the constitution of temporal objects. The ideas Husserl developed here are explored further in his Ideas and were pursued until the end of his philosophical career. "As an addition to the small body of Husserl's writings now available in English (Ideas 1931; Meditations, 1960), this book is essential to even a small collection of source works on contemporary philosophy." — Choice

PART ONE

THE LECTURES ON INTERNAL TIME-CONSCIOUSNESS FROM THE YEAR 1905

PART ONE

THE LECTURES ON INTERNAL TIME-CONSCIOUSNESS FROM THE YEAR 1905

Introduction

The analysis of time-consciousness is an age-old crux of descriptive psychology and theory of knowledge. The first thinker to be deeply sensitive to the immense difficulties to be found here was Augustine, who labored almost to despair over this problem. Chapters 13–18 of Book XI of the Confessions must even today be thoroughly studied by everyone concerned with the problem of time. For no one in this knowledge-proud modern generation has made more masterful or significant progress in these matters than this great thinker who struggled so earnestly with the problem. One may still say with Augustine: si nemo a me quaerat, scio, si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.

Naturally, we all know what time is; it is that which is most familiar. However, as soon as we make the attempt to account for time-consciousness, to put Objective¹ time and subjective time-consciousness into the right relation and thus gain an understanding of how temporal Objectivity—therefore, individual Objectivity in general—can be constituted in subjective time-consciousness—indeed, as soon as we even make the attempt to undertake an analysis of pure subjective time-consciousness—the phenomenological content of lived experiences of time [Zeiterlebnisse]—we are involved in the most extraordinary difficulties, contradictions, and entanglements.

An exposition of Brentano’s analysis of time, which, unfortunately, he never published, but imparted only through lectures, can serve as a point of departure for our study. This analysis was presented very briefly by Marty in his paper on the development of the sense of color which appeared in the late seventies. Stumpf also made a brief reference in his Tonpsychologie.

§ 1. The Exclusion [Ausschaltung] of Objective [Objektiven] Time

A few general observations must still be made beforehand. Our aim is a phenomenological analysis of time-consciousness. Involved in this, as in any other such analysis, is the complete exclusion of every assumption, stipulation, or conviction concerning Objective time (of all transcendent presuppositions concerning existents). From an Objective point of view every lived experience, like every real being [Sein] and moment of being, may have its place in the one unique Objective time—consequently, also the lived experience of the perception and representation [Vorstellung] of time itself. It may be of interest to some to determine the Objective time of a lived experience by that of one which is time-constituting. It may further be an interesting study to establish how time which is posited in a time-consciousness as Objective is related to real Objective time, whether the evaluations of temporal intervals conform to Objective, real temporal intervals or how they deviate from them. But these are not tasks for phenomenology. Just as a real thing or the real world is not a phenomenological datum, so also world-time, real time, the time of nature in the sense of natural science including psychology as the natural science of the psychical, is not such a datum.

When we speak of the analysis of time-consciousness, of the temporal character of objects of perception, memory, and expectation, it may seem, to be sure, as if we assume the Objective flow of time, and then really study only the subjective conditions of the possibility of an intuition of time and a true knowledge of time. What we accept, however, is not the existence of a world-time, the existence of a concrete duration, and the like, but time and duration appearing as such. These, however, are absolute data which it would be senseless to call into question. To be sure, we also assume an existing time; this, however, is not the time of the world of experience but the immanent time of the flow of consciousness. The evidence that consciousness of a tonal process, a melody, exhibits a succession even as I hear it is such as to make every doubt or denial appear senseless.

What is meant by the exclusion of Objective time will perhaps become still clearer if we draw a parallel with space, since space and time exhibit so many noted and significant analogies. Consciousness of space belongs in the sphere of phenomenological givens, i.e., the consciousness of space is the lived experience in which “intuition of space” as perception and phantasy takes place. When we open our eyes, we see into Objective space—this means (as reflective observation reveals) that we have a visual content of sensation which establishes an intuition of space, an appearance of things situated in such and such a way. If we abstract all transcendental interpretation and reduce perceptual appearance to the primary given content, the latter yields the continuum of the field of vision, which is something quasi-spatial but not, as it were, space or a plane surface in space. Roughly described, this continuum is a twofold, continuous multiplicity. We discover relations such as juxtaposition, superimposition, interpenetration, unbroken lines which fully enclose a portion of the field, and so on. But these are not Objective-spatial relations. It makes no sense at all, for example, to say that a point of the visual field is one meter away from the corner of this table here or is beside or above it, etc. It makes just as little sense, naturally, to assert that the appearance of a thing has a position in space and various other spatial relations. The appearance of a house is not beside or over the house, one meter from it, etc.

We can now draw similar conclusions with regard to time. The phenomenological data are the apprehensions of time, the lived experiences in which the temporal in the Objective sense appears. Again, phenomenologically given are the moments of lived experience which specifically establish apprehensions of time as such, and, therefore, establish, if the occasion should arise, the specific temporal content (that which conventional nativism calls the primordially temporal). But nothing of this is Objective time. One cannot discover the least trace of Objective time through phenomenological analysis. The “primordial temporal field” is by no means a part of Objective time; the lived and experienced [erlebte] now, taken in itself, is not a point of Objective time, and so on. Objective [Objektiver] space, Objective time, and with them the Objective world of real things and events—these are all transcendencies [Transzendenzen]. In truth, space and reality are not transcendent in a mystical sense. They are not “things in themselves” but just phenomenal space, phenomenal spatiotemporal reality, the appearing spatial form, the appearing temporal form. None of these are lived experiences. And the nexuses of order which are to be found in lived experiences as true immanences are not to be encountered in the empirical Objective order. They do not fit into this order.

A study of the data of place [Lokaldaten] (that nativism accepts from a psychological standpoint) which form the immanent order of the “field of visual sensation,” and of this field itself, also belongs in a completely worked out phenomenology of space. These data are to appearing regions [Orten] as the data of quality are to appearing Objective qualities. If one speaks in the one case of place-signs, he must in the other speak of quality-signs. Sensed red is a phenomenological datum which exhibits an Objective quality animated by a certain function of apprehension. This datum is not itself a quality. Not the sensed but the perceived red is a quality in the true sense, i.e., a characteristic of an appearing thing. Sensed red is red only in an equivocal sense, for red is the name of a real quality. If, with reference to certain phenomenological occurrences, one speaks of a “coincidence” of one with the other, he must still consider that it is through apprehension that sensed red first acquires the value of being a moment which exhibits a material quality. Viewed in itself, however, sensed red is not such a moment. One must also note that the “coincidence” of the exhibitive [Darstellenden] and that which is exhibited is by no means the coincidence of a consciousness of identity whose correlate is “one and the same.”

If we call a phenomenological datum “sensed” which through apprehension as corporeally given makes us aware of something Objective, which means, then, that it is Objectively perceived, in the same sense we must also distinguish between a “sensed” temporal datum and a perceived temporal datum.² The latter signifies Objective time. The former, however, is not itself Objective time (or position in Objective time) but the phenomenological datum through whose empirical apperception the relation to Objective time is constituted. Temporal data—or, if you will, temporal signs—are not tempora themselves. Objective [Objektive] time belongs in the context of empirical objectivity. “Sensed” temporal data are not merely sensed; they are also charged with characters of apprehension, and to these again belong certain requirements and qualifications whose function on the basis of the sensed data is to measure appearing times and time-relations against one another and to bring this or that into an Objective order of one sort or another and seemingly to separate this or that into real orders. Finally, what is constituted here as valid, Objective being [Sein] is the one infinite Objective time in which all things and events—material things with their physical properties, minds with their mental states—have their definite temporal positions which can be measured by chronometers.

It may be—and concerning this we need not judge here—that these Objective determinations ultimately have their basis in the substantiation of distinctions and relations of temporal data or in immediate adequation to these temporal data themselves. But a sensed “at the same time” [Zugleich], for example, cannot forthwith be equated with Objective simultaneity, the sensed equality of phenomenological-temporal intervals with Objective equality of intervals of time, etc. And the sensed absolute temporal datum cannot forthwith be equated with Objective time as it is experienced. (This also holds for the absolute datum of the now.) Apprehension—specifically, the evident apprehension of a content just as it is experienced—does not yet mean the apprehension of an Objectivity in the empirical sense, i.e., of an Objective reality in the sense of which we speak of Objective things, events, relations, of Objective spatial and temporal situations, of Objectively real spatial and temporal forms, etc.

Let us look at a piece of chalk. We close and open our eyes. We have two perceptions, but we say of them that we see the same piece of chalk twice. We have, thereby, contents which are separated temporally. We also can see a phenomenological, temporal apartness [Auseinander], a separation, but there is no separation in the object. It is the same. In the object there is duration, in the phenomenon, change. Similarly, we can also subjectively sense a temporal sequence where Objectively a coexistence is to be established. The lived and experienced content is “Objectified,” and the Object is now constituted from the material of this content in the mode of apprehension. The object, however, is not merely the sum or complexion of this “content,” which does not enter into the object at all. The object is more than the content and other than it. Objectivity [Objektivität] belongs to “experience,” that is, to the unity of experience, to the lawfully experienced context of nature. Phenomenologically speaking, Objectivity is not even constituted through “primary” content but through characters of apprehension and the regularities [Gesetzmässigkeiten] which pertain to the essence of these characters. It is precisely the business of the phenomenology of cognition to grasp this fully and to make it completely intelligible.

§ 2. The Question of the “Origin of Time”

In conformity with these reflections, we also understand the difference between the phenomenological question (i.e., from the standpoint of theory of knowledge) and the psychological with regard to the origin of all concepts constitutive of experience, and so also with regard to the question of the origin of time. From the point of view of theory of knowledge, the question of the possibility of experience (which, at the same time, is the question of the essence of experience) necessitates a return to the phenomenological data of which all that is experienced consists phenomenologically. Since what is experienced is split owing to the antithesis of “authentic” and “unauthentic” [“eigentlich” und “uneigentlich”], and since authentic experience, i.e., the intuitive and ultimately adequate, provides the standard for the evaluation of experience, the phenomenology of “authentic” experience is especially required.

Accordingly, the question of the essence of time leads back to the question of the “origin” of time. The question of the origin is oriented toward the primitive forms of the consciousness of time in which the primitive differences of the temporal are constituted intuitively and authentically as the originary [originären] sources of all certainties relative to time. The question of the origin of time should not be confused with the question of its psychological origin—the controversial question between empiricism and nativism. With this last question we are asking about the primordial material of sensation out of which arises Objective intuition of space and time in the human individual and even in the species. We are indifferent to the question of the empirical genesis. What interest us are lived experiences as regards their objective sense and their descriptive content. Psychological apperception, which views lived experiences as psychical states of empirical persons, i.e., psycho-physical subjects, and uncovers relationships, be they purely psychical or psycho-physical, between them, and follows their development, formation, and transformation according to natural laws—this psychological apperception is something wholly other than the phenomenological. We do not classify lived experiences according to any particular form of reality. We are concerned with reality only insofar as it is intended, represented, intuited, or conceptually thought. With reference to the problem of time, this implies that we are interested in lived experiences of time. That these lived experiences themselves are temporally determined in an Objective sense, that they belong in the world of things and psychical subjects and have their place therein, their efficacy, their empirical origin and their being—that does not concern us, of that we know nothing. On the other hand, it does interest us that “Objective-temporal” data are intended in these lived experiences. Acts which belong to the domain of phenomenology can be described as follows: the acts in question intend this or that “Objective” moment; more precisely, these acts are concerned with the exhibition of a priori truths which belong to the moments constitutive of Objectivity. We try to clarify the a priori of time by investigating time-consciousness, by bringing its essential constitution to light and, possibly, by setting forth the content of apprehension and act-characters pertaining specifically to time, to which content and characters the a priori characters of time are essentially due. Naturally, I am referring here to self-evident laws such as the following: (1) that the fixed temporal order is that of an infinite, two-dimensional series; (2) that two different times can never be conjoint; (3) that their relation is a non-simultaneous one; (4) that there is transitivity, that to every time belongs an earlier and a later; etc.

So much for the general introduction.

1. [Following the practice of Dorion Cairns, the translator of Husserl’s Cartesianische Meditationen (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1960), to differentiate the terms Objekt and Gegenstand, both of which are used by Husserl, I have chosen to translate the word Objekt by Object and Gegenstand by object. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, in the case of words derived from Objekt and Gegenstand. If the English word object or any word derived from it stands first in a sentence, the German word is given in brackets. J.S.C.]

2. The term “sensed,” therefore, signifies a relational concept which in itself does not tell us whether in general what is sensed is material [sensuell], or indeed whether in general it is immanent in the sense of the material. In other words, it remains open whether the sensed is itself already constituted, and perhaps in a way quite other than the material. But this whole distinction is best left aside. Not every constitution has the schema: content of apprehension-apprehension.

SECTION ONE

BRENTANO’S THEORY CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF TIME

§ 3. The Primordial Associations

By coming to grips with Brentano’s theory of the origin of time, we shall now gain an approach to the problems we have raised. Brentano believed he had found the solution to the problem in the primordial associations, in the “genesis of the immediate presentations of memory [Gedächtnisvorstellungen] which, according to a law that admits no exceptions, are joined to particular presentations of perception without mediation.” When we see, hear, or in general perceive something, it happens according to rule that what is perceived remains present for an interval although not without modification. Apart from other alterations, such as those in intensity and richness, which occur now to a lesser, now to a more noticeable degree, there is always yet another and particularly odd characteristic to be confirmed, namely, that anything of this kind remaining in consciousness appears to us as something more or less past, as something temporally shoved back [Zurückgeschobenes], as it were. When, for example, a melody sounds, the individual notes do not completely disappear when the stimulus or t...