Abstract
The text surveys the development of the debate between Zahavi and Brough/Sokolowski regarding Husserl’s account of inner time-consciousness. The main arguments on both sides are reconsidered, and a compromise is proposed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In fact, neither of the two latter publications engage in any detailed analysis of Husserl’s theory of inner time-consciousness.
In the following, I will be using both terms interchangeably.
In the following, I will focus on reflection, but we shouldn’t forget that memory can also exemplify a form of reflection. When I remember a past episode, I am usually concerned with the episode, i.e., with how the world was, and not with my past experience of it. But I always have the opportunity to reflect. I can reflect upon my current recollection of the past promenade, but I can also reflect upon my past experience of the promenade. As Husserl writes, “Die von der geraden Erinnerung, etwa eines Hauses, abbiegende Selbsterinnerung enthüllt nicht das gegenwärtige Ich, das der aktuellen Wahrnehmungen (darunter der jetzigen Wiedererinnerung selbst als Gegenwartserleben), sondern das vergangene Ich, das zu dem eigenen intentionalen Wesen des erinnerten Hauses gehört, als das, für das es da war, und da war in den und den subjektiven Bewußtseinsmodis. Erinnerung ist ihrem Wesen nach nicht nur In-Geltung-haben eines Vergangenen, sondern dieses Vergangenen als eines von mir Wahrgenommenen und eines sonstwie Bewußtgewesenen; und eben dieses in gerader Erinnerung anonyme vergangene Ich und Bewußtsein kommt in einer Reflexion (Reflexion nicht auf das jetzige Erinnern, sondern ‘in’ ihm) zur Enthüllung” (Hua VII, p. 264).
An interesting illustration of this can be found in Galen Strawson’s work on self. Strawson vigorously defends the claim that the self is an object. From a phenomenological perspective this claim will sound quite problematic. However, it is worth noticing the specific definition of object provided by Strawson. As he writes “to be an object (if objects exist) is simply to be a ‘strong unity’” (Strawson 2009, p. 298).
“Bewußtsein ist eine Einheit. Ein Akt ist nichts für sich, er ist Welle im Bewußtseinsstrom.”
Tye has recently defended a view somewhat similar to Bergson’s. Tye considers the problem of how a sequence of experiences is unified to be a pseudo-problem, since on his account we are never aware of our experiences as unified or as continuing through time or as succeeding one another. If I have an experience of a red flash followed by a green flash, I experience two colored flashes as occurring one after the other. I do not experience my experience of a green flash as succeeding my experience of a red flash any more than I experience my experience of a red flash as red. Continuity, change and succession are features of the items experienced and not features of the experiences (Tye 2003, pp. 96–97).
It is, however, also important not to overlook a certain ambiguity inherent to the metaphor. The relation between the stream (of consciousness) and the waves (the experiences) is not identical to the relation between the experiencing and the experiences. The latter relation has nothing to do with the former relation, which is a relation between a whole and its moments. In the following quotation it is obviously the latter that Husserl has in mind: “Unser Weltbewußtseinsleben ist ein kontinuierlicher Strom des ‘Erlebens’, verlaufend in mannigfaltigen Sondererlebnissen als unselbständigen Momenten, als Wellen gleichsam dieses Stromes. Ein jedes ist nicht nur ‘Welle des Stromes’, also Teil eines Ganzen, des Lebensganzen, sondern in jedem ist etwas erlebt” (Hua XXIX, p. 194). That this notion of “Erlebens” should not be confused with the experiencing of the absolute time-constituting flow is clear from the following passage: “Diese strömend lebendige Gegenwart ist nicht das, was wir sonst auch schon transzendental-phänomenologisch als Bewusstseinsstrom oder Erlebnisstrom bezeichneten. Es ist überhaupt kein ‘Strom’ gemäß dem Bild, also ein eigentlich zeitliches (oder gar zeiträumliches) Ganzes, das in der Einheit einer zeitlichen Extension ein kontinuierlich sukzessives individuelles Dasein hat (in seinen unterscheidbaren Strecken und Phasen durch diese Zeitformen individuiert). Die strömend lebendige Gegenwart ist ‘kontinuierlich’ strömendes Sein und doch nicht in einem Außereinandersein, nicht in raumzeitlicher (welträumlicher), nicht in ‘immanent-zeitlicher’ Extension Sein (also in keinem Außereinander, das Nacheinander heißt, Nacheinander in dem Sinne eines Stellenauseinander in einer eigentlich so zu nennenden Zeit)” (Hua XXXIV, p. 187).
A third disagreement concerns Brough’s understanding of Querintentionalität (cf. Zahavi 1999, pp. 74–75). But since this criticism has never been picked up by or commented on by Brough or any other Husserl scholar for that matter, I will leave it at that.
For a number of contributions discussing the merits and weaknesses of such an account, see Siderits et al. (2010).
References
Bergson, H. (1910). Time and free will. An essay on the immediate data of consciousness. Montana: Kessinger Publishing Company.
Brough, J. B. (1972). The emergence of an absolute consciousness in Husserl’s early writings on time-consciousness. Man and World, 5, 298–326.
Brough, J. B. (2010). Notes on the absolute time-constituting flow of consciousness. In D. Lohmar & I. Yamaguchi (Eds.), On time—new contributions to the Husserlian phenomenology of time (pp. 21–49). Phaenomenologica 197. Springer: Dordrecht.
DeRoo, N. (2011). Mediating the debate between Zahavi and Brough-Sokolowski on the levels of consciousness in Husserl. Husserl Studies, 27(1), 1–12.
Dodd, J. (2005). Reading Husserl’s time-diagrams from 1917/18. Husserl Studies, 21, 111–137.
Drummond, J. (2006). The case(s) of (self-)awareness. In U. Kriegel & K. Williford (Eds.), Self-representational approaches to consciousness (pp. 199–220). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Hart, J. G. (2001). I-ness and otherness: A review of Dan Zahavi’s Self-awareness and alterity. Continental Philosophy Review, 34, 339–351.
Hua VII (1956). Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil. Kritische Ideengeschichte. R. Boehm (Ed.). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Hua X (1966). Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins (1893–1917). R. Boehm (Ed.). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Hua XIV (1973). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität II. I. Kern (Ed.). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Hua XXIII (1980). Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung. E. Marbach (Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Hua XXIX (1993). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934–1937. R. N. Smid (Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Hua XXXIII (2001). Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein (1917–18). R. Bernet & D. Lohmar (Eds.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Hua XXXIV (2002). Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1926–1935). S. Luft (Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Husserl, E. Ms. L I 15 2b
Kortooms, T. (2002). Phenomenology of time. Edmund Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Micali, S. (2010). The temporalizations of the absolute flow of time-consciousness. In D. Lohmar & I. Yamaguchi (Eds.), On time—new contributions to the Husserlian phenomenology of time (pp. 169–185). Phaenomenologica 197. Dordrecht: Springer.
Niel, L. (2010). Temporality, stream of consciousness and the I in the Bernau manuscripts. In D. Lohmar & I. Yamaguchi (Eds.), On time—new contributions to the Husserlian phenomenology of time (pp. 213–230). Phaenomenologica 197. Dordrecht: Springer.
Siderits, M., Thompson, E., & Zahavi, D. (Eds.). (2010). Self, no self? Perspectives from analytical, phenomenological, and Indian traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sokolowski, R. (1974). Husserlian meditations. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Strawson, G. (2009). Selves. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tye, M. (2003). Consciousness and persons: Unity and identity. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Zahavi, D. (1996). Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität. Eine Antwort auf die sprachpragmatische Kritik. Phaenomenologica 135. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Zahavi, D. (1998). The fracture in self-awareness. In D. Zahavi (Ed.), Self-awareness, temporality and alterity (pp. 21–40). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Zahavi, D. (1999). Self-awareness and alterity. A phenomenological investigation. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Zahavi, D. (2000). Self and consciousness. In D. Zahavi (Ed.), Exploring the self (pp. 55–74). Advances in Consciousness Research 23. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Zahavi, D. (2003). Phenomenology of self. In T. Kircher & A. David (Eds.), The self in neuroscience and psychiatry (pp. 56–75). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zahavi, D. (2004). Time and consciousness in the Bernau manuscripts. Husserl Studies, 20(2), 99–118.
Zahavi, D. (2005). Subjectivity and selfhood: Investigating the first-person perspective. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Zahavi, D. (2010a). Inner (time-)consciousness. In D. Lohmar & I. Yamaguchi (Eds.), On time—new contributions to the Husserlian phenomenology of time (pp. 319–339). Phaenomenologica 197. Springer: Dordrecht.
Zahavi, D. (2010b). Life, thinking and phenomenology in the early Bergson. In M. Kelly (Ed.), Bergson and phenomenology (pp. 118–133). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
I completed the present text before having a chance to read John Brough’s contribution to this issue of Husserl Studies. Instead, I mainly engaged with another recent article by Brough (2010). After having finished my own contribution, I did, however, receive a copy of Brough’s new text, and as far as I can judge the two new pieces by him neatly complement each other.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zahavi, D. Objects and Levels: Reflections on the Relation Between Time-Consciousness and Self-Consciousness. Husserl Stud 27, 13–25 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-010-9084-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-010-9084-4