First published in 1975 and still without equal, The Human Experience of Time provides a thorough review of the concept of time in the Western philosophic tradition. Encompassing a wide range of writings, from the Book of Genesis and the classical thinkers to the work of such twentieth-century philosophers as Collingwood and McKeon, all with introductory essays by the editor, this classic anthology offers a synoptic view of the changing philosophic notions of time.

Can we directly experience change? Although some philosophers have denied it, the phenomenological evidence is unambiguous: we can, and do. But how is this possible? What structures or features of consciousness render such experience possible? A variety of very different answers to this question have been proposed, answers which have very different implications for the nature of consciousness itself. In this brief survey no attempt is made to engage with the often complex (and sometimes obscure) literature on this (...) topic. Instead, a largely schematic examination of the main options is conducted, with a view to determining the most promising avenues for further investigation. (shrink)

Research has demonstrated that how teachers spend their time is an important educational issue. In this paper it is argued that there is a good case for examining teachers’ personal and professional time simultaneously in order to enhance the quality of teaching, learning and teachers’ lives.

In the early decades of the twentieth century the experience of time as crisis became the catalyst for a fundamental reorientation in the relationship between historical materialism and idealism, leading to the rejection of simplistic mechanical concepts of historical time. This reorientation represents a turning point in the history of European ideas, clearly evident in the work of two major thinkers of this period, usually associated with opposing political ideologies: the Marxist theorist Walter Benjamin and the liberal (...) philosopher Benedetto Croce. Based on a conceptual framework borrowed partly from Reinhart Koselleck, this article explains how the experience of acute crisis led both thinkers to develop a new understanding of historical time, which shows surprising parallels. Both authors used the reorientation in the relationship between idealism and materialism to criticize positivist approaches to the analysis of historical change and to reject deterministic accounts of the future. (shrink)

Philosophical debates about the metaphysics of time typically revolve around two contrasting views of time. On the A-theory, time is something that itself undergoes change, as captured by the idea of the passage of time; on the B-theory, all there is to time is events standing in before/after or simultaneity relations to each other, and these temporal relations are unchanging. Philosophers typically regard the A-theory as being supported by our experience of time, and (...) they take it that the B-theory clashes with how we experience time and therefore faces the burden of having to explain away that clash. In this paper, we investigate empirically whether these intuitions about the experience of time are shared by the general public. We asked directly for people’s subjective reports of their experience of time—in particular, whether they believe themselves to have a phenomenology as of time’s passing—and we probed their understanding of what time’s passage in fact is. We find that a majority of participants do share the aforementioned intuitions, but interestingly a minority do not. (shrink)

In this book, Richard Fenn looks at the way in which we experience time in secular societies. In Fenn's view, secularization is virtually synonymous with individualism. Although it is often the Church that decries modern individualism, he says, it is in fact the Church that created it, by its demystification of the universe, its insistence on individual self-discipline, and its intensification of individual responsibility for the use of time. The result was a profound change in the way (...) in which time is experienced by the individual. Fenn offers a probing exploration of our modern experience of time, as expressed in such phrases as 'wasting time' and 'making up for lost time'. He is particularly interested in the idea and experience of waiting, which he believes to be a defining characteristic of modern life. (shrink)

Presentists have typically argued that the Block View is incapable of explaining our experience of time. In this paper I argue that the phenomenology of our experience of time is, on the contrary, against presentism. My argument is based on a dilemma: presentists must either assume that the metaphysical present has no temporal extension, or that it is temporally extended. The former horn leads to phenomenological problems. The latter renders presentism metaphysically incoherent, unless one posits a (...) discrete present that, however, suffers from the same difficulties that the instantaneous present is prone to. After introducing the main phenomenological models of our experience of time that are discussed in the literature, I show that none of them favors presentism. I conclude by arguing that if even the phenomenology of time sides against presentism, the latter metaphysical theory has no scientific evidence in its favor and ought to be dropped. (shrink)

In this paper, I start with the opposition between the Husserlian project of a phenomenology of the experience of time, started in 1905, and the mathematical and physical theory of time as it comes out of Einstein’s special theory of relativity in the same year. Although the contrast between the two approaches is apparent, my aim is to show that the original program of Husserl’s time theory is the constitution of an objective time and a (...) time of the world, starting from the intuitive giveness of time, i.e., from time as it appears. To show this, I stress the structural similarity between Husserl’s original question of time and the problem of a phenomenology of space constitution as it was first developed in the his manuscripts from the nineteenth century, in which we find the threefold question of the origin of our representation of space, of the geometrization of intuitive space, and of the constitution of transcendent world space. Finally, I reconsider some of Husserl’s main theses about the phenomenological constitution of objective time in light of the main results of special relativity time-theory, introducing several corrections to central assumptions that underlie Husserl’s theory of time. (shrink)

It is well established that the temporal proximity of two events is a fundamental cue to causality. Recent research with adults has shown that this relation is bidirectional: events that are believed to be causally related are perceived as occurring closer together in time—the so‐called temporal binding effect. Here, we examined the developmental origins of temporal binding. Participants predicted when an event that was either caused by a button press, or preceded by a non‐causal signal, would occur. We demonstrate (...) for the first time that children as young as 4 years are susceptible to temporal binding. Binding occurred both when the button press was executed via intentional action, and when a machine caused it. These results suggest binding is a fundamental, early developing property of perception and grounded in causal knowledge. (shrink)

In Ennead III.7.11--13, Plotinus describes the genesis of time, and time's nature as the life of soul, and the moving image of eternity. In this dissertation, Ennead III.7.11--13 was read, using an exegetical method, which comprised, raising questions, and answering them, in strictly Plotinian terms, by contemplating the pieces that best fit into these puzzles. Some answers discovered were as follows. ;Before its appearance, time exists as the seed of time in Intellect. This is a state (...) of rest because of its relative unity, its participation in the genus rest, and its absence of tolma. Time's genesis comprises an eternal manifestation of a change of identity from seed to actualization. Time is generated in four logical steps. Soul becomes diluted upon its generative acts, mainly because of tolma. Soul has a far richer contemplation of Intellect underlying its genesis of the sensibles, than that underlying its genesis of time. ;Soul undergoes ontological loss in its generation of time and the sensible universe. Beginning with tolma, and the desires for autonomy unleashed by tolma, soul's multiplicity is enhanced. Yet this multiplicity is also tempered by soul's unquiet power's glance of aspiration towards Intellect. This glance is the contemplation, which fecundates soul's generation of time. Soul's power is its strength, but the unquietness of this power can indicate ontological loss. Tolma in soul incurs evil, because tolma thwarts soul from contemplating Intellect. ;The genus-species structure of soul is involved in the generation and omnipresence of time, through the actualization of the genus in its species. Time is ideally omnipresent when time is kairos. Soul is immortal and impassible, and it is only soul's activity and progeny, which are temporal. Time is the life of soul, insofar as movement is predicated of this life at three levels: the logical, the perceptible, and the spatial. Time itself is a poorer life than eternity, time itself is not alive, and yet, time is not unreal. Time is a moving image of eternity through the common predicates applied to both, which are their shared characteristics, defining the essence of the image that time constitutes. (shrink)

Bergson’s influential discussion of durée—the concept at the heart of his dynamic view of time’s reality—emerges from an inquiry into the nature of temporal experience. In this chapter, I outline Bergson’s view of the non-inferential or immediate experience of time, and mark out the place of durée within his account. I underscore the relation between Bergson’s controversial argument concerning number and his view of temporal experience, and contrast Bergson’s notion of ‘immediate experience’ with immediacy (...) as typically understood in contemporary thought. Bergson’s view of the experience of time, I suggest, is a dual-aspect theory in which durée is accorded a fundamental role in relation to the temporal properties of succession, intervals, and simultaneity. (shrink)

RESUMEN El mundo moderno creó un régimen temporal de horarios, presiones, exigencias de efectividad, rendimientos, etc., que somete a los individuos a procesos de alienación, pero esa lógica temporal no ha sido suficientemente politizada ni se ha llegado a ver qué pasa con nuestra experiencia de tiempo. La lógica temporal de la modernidad parece natural. El propósito de este artículo es volver sobre la realidad del tiempo. Aquí nos apoyamos en un primer momento en el proyecto crítico de Hartmut Rosa (...) y lo conectamos con una consideración del tiempo que debemos buscar en otros autores, presuntamente ajenos a la teoría crítica, a saber, Heidegger y Gadamer. ABSTRACT The modern world created a temporal regime of schedules, pressures, demands of efficiency, performances, etc., that submits individuals to processes of alienation, but that temporal logic has not been politicized neither has it been seen what happens with our experience of the time. The logic of time in modernity seems natural. The purpose of this article is to return to the reality of the time. Here we support in a first moment in the critical project of Hartmut Rosa and we connect it with a consideration of the time that we must look for in other authors, supposedly foreign to the critical theory, namely Heidegger and Gadamer. (shrink)

"How do we experience time? What do we use to experience it?In a series of remarkable experiments, Robert Ornstein shows that it is difficult to maintain an “inner clock” explanation of the experience".

How must experience of time be structured in time? In particular, does the following principle, which I will call inheritance, hold: for any temporal property apparently presented in perceptual experience, experience itself has that same temporal property. For instance, if I hear Paul McCartney singing ‘Hey Jude’, must my auditory experience of the ‘Hey’ itself precede my auditory experience of the ‘Jude’, or can the temporal order of these experiences come apart from the (...) order the words are experienced as having? A number of recent authors (Phillips Experience and Time, ‘The Temporal Structure of Experience’, Soteriou ‘Perceiving Events’, Hoerl ‘“A Succession of Feelings, in and of Itself, is Not a Feeling of Succession”’, Rashbrook) claim, to paraphrase Martin (399), that inheritance best characterises how our temporal experience seems to initial reflective intuition. For this reason, Phillips takes the principle to form part of our naïve view of temporal experience. An opposing group of theorists object that inheritance is subject to empirical counter-example. This article surveys such challenges. Section 2 considers Grush's case against inheritance based on postdiction. Section 3 examines Watzl's anti-inheritance argument based on silencing effects. Finally, Section 4 explores a number of alleged counter-examples proposed by Lee (‘Temporal Experience and the Temporal Structure of Experience’). Section 1 provides essential background to the debate. (shrink)

In this introduction to contemporary conceptions of time and change, I investigate what our experience of time, that is, our experience of change, seems to be and ask whether or not we can say that how it seems could match the reality. My conclusion is that more recent contemporary conceptions of time can do this but that more intuitive or traditional conceptions cannot. Thus, the more contemporary conceptions are preferable for research into time consciousness.

Research has demonstrated that how teachers spend their time is an important educational issue. In this paper it is argued that there is a good case for examining teachers' personal and professional time simultaneously in order to enhance the quality of teaching, learning and teachers' lives.

Kant officially argues that the role of the representation of time in the synthetic a priori judgments of arithmetic and the general theory of motion implies that time must be an a priori condition...

This paper insists on similarities between Heidegger’s presentation of Dasein’s authentic understanding of time in Being and Time (§§ 79-80) and Thomas Mann’s attempts to “narrate time itself” in The Magic Mountain. It shows that Thomas Mann’s temporal experiments can contribute to a phenomenology of temporality, not merely by “illustrating” philosophical theses, but also by achieving something that goes beyond any phenomenological consideration on time: the enactment of fundamental temporal experiences.

As someone diagnosed with severe chronic mental illness early in my adolescence, I have spent over half of my life feeling out of step with the rest of the world due to hospitalizations, treatment programs, and the disruptions caused by anxiety, anorexia, depression, and obsessive–compulsive disorder. The effect of my mental health conditions compounded by these treatment environments means I often feel that I experience time passing differently, which results in sensations of removal and isolation from those around (...) me. The global shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic seemed a way for normative bodies to experience the passing of time the way I always have. In this paper, I extend Dr. Sara Wasson’s analysis of the ways in which chronic pain resists narrative coherence to my own temporal experience of chronic mental illness, specifically my embodied experience of the pandemic. I use that embodied experience as a case study for examining how the reciprocal nature of time and narrativity, as outlined by Dr. Paul Ricoeur, can create isolation for those struggling with their temporality due to chronic mental illness. To acknowledge and grapple with the ramifications of discursive and material privilege involved in such situations, I include an analysis of Robert Desjarlais’s 1994 article “Struggling Along: The Possibilities for Experience among the Homeless Mentally Ill,” in which he investigates a similar phenomenon of being outside of structured sequential narrative time in the residents of a Boston shelter for the mentally ill. (shrink)

Updated, expanded, and with a new introduction by the editor, this volume is not only a historical overview but also a dialectical analysis displaying the ...

In this thesis, I examine the metaphysical debate between the A-theory and the B-theory of time, first by elaborating upon its proper characterization, and then by examining the sorts of evidence that are often thought to be germane to it. This debate, as I see it, is about whether or not time passes in any objective sense: the A-theory holds that it does, while the B-theory holds that it does not. I identify two opposing conceptions of time—that (...) of the “time of ordinary experience” on one hand, and that of “scientific time” on the other—and argue that the tension between them is the driving force behind this debate. I then examine two aspects of “evidence” from the time of ordinary experience: the phenomenological experience of time and the linguistic experience of time. It is often supposed, by both A- and B-theorists alike, that these sorts of evidence lend credence to the A-theory of time, since ordinary experience suggests that time passes. I hope to discredit this presumption, and so challenge the very framework in which this debate is so often carried out. In particular, by closely examining both of these kinds of experience—phenomenological and linguistic—in turn, I hope to provide a partial argument to the effect that the ordinary experience of time as a whole does not favour the A-theory over the B-theory of time. In the case of the phenomenological evidence, this is because the A-theory is just as inconsistent with such evidence as is the B-theory of time; in the case of the linguistic evidence, this is because the B-theory is equally consistent with such evidence as is the A-theory of time, particularly once it is revealed that a certain key assumption is tacitly accepted by both sides of the debate. Because of the popularity of the claim that the ordinary experience of time favours the A-theory, I take this conclusion to be something of a modest defence for the B-theory of time. (shrink)

Supporters of the A-theory of time sometimes refer to an alleged experience of the passage of time in support of their theory. In this paper I argue that it is an illusion that we experience the passage of time, for such an experience is impossible. My argument relies on the general assertion that experience is contingent, in the sense that if it is possible to experience the passage of time, it is (...) also possible to experience that time does not pass. Having established this claim, I argue that it is impossible to experience that time does not pass, and hence that it is impossible to experience the passage of time. (shrink)

To fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease, more than 3 billion people in the world have been confined indoors. Although lockdown is an efficient solution, it has had various psychological consequences that have not yet been fully measured. During the lockdown period in France, we conducted two surveys on two large panels of participants to examine how the lockdown disrupted their relationship with time and what this change in their experiences of time means. Numerous questions were (...) asked about the experience of time but also the nature of life during the lockdown: the emotions felt, boredom, the activities performed, sleep quality, and the daily rhythm. The participants also completed a series of self-reported scales used to assess depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. The results showed that time seemed to pass more slowly during the lockdown compared to before. This feeling of a slowing down of time has little to do with living conditions during the lockdown and individual psychological characteristics. The main predictor of this time experience was boredom and partly mediated by the lack of activity. The feeling of being less happy and the presence of sleep disturbance also explained this specific experience of time albeit to a lesser extent. (shrink)

In this paper, I use two films—Les Statues MeurrentAussi directed by Resnais and Marker and Sans Soleil as representatives of Left Bank cinema to show how they construct experiences of time and memory using various modernist strategies. Key to this is the use of a mental journey genre in modernist cinema and the construction of a facial dispositif which leads to a perceptual experiencing of inner states. Les Statues MeurrentAussi is a key film in the history of French cinema (...) as it highlights Alain Resnais’ and Chris Marker’s early commitment towards a politically avant-garde filmmaking style. The film was banned for many decades because it was highly critical of France’s colonial interests. The film is also a proof to the less emphasised collaboration between two pioneering directors and especially in their use of the essay film genre. Sans Soleil on the other hand is considered as a philosophical masterpiece because of its meditations on time and memory. In taking these two films, I hope not only to demonstrate cinema’s capability to generate affective spatio-temporal states but also to highlight a piece of film history which is often misappropriated under the tag of the French New Wave. (shrink)

This book explores the important yet neglected relationship between the philosophy of time and the temporal structure of perceptual experience. It examines how time structures perceptual experience and, through that structuring, the ways in which time makes perceptual experience trustworthy or erroneous. -/- Sean Power argues that our understanding of time can determine our understanding of perceptual experience in relation to perceptual structure and perceptual error. He examines the general conditions under which (...) an experience may be sorted into different kinds of error such as illusions, hallucinations, and anosognosia. Power also argues that some theories of time are better than others at giving an account of the structure and errors of perceptual experience. He makes the case that tenseless theory and eternalism more closely correspond to experience than tense theory and presentism. Finally, the book includes a discussion of the perceptual experience of space and how tenseless theory and eternalism can better support the problematic theory of naïve realism. -/- Philosophy of Time and Perceptual Experience originally illustrates how the metaphysics of time can be usefully applied to thinking about experience in general. It will appeal to those interested in the philosophy of time and debates about the trustworthiness of experience. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that the passage of time is a real phenomenon. And some of them find a reason to believe this when they attend to features of their conscious experience. In fact this “argument from experience” is supposed to be one of the main arguments for passage. What exactly does this argument look like? Is it any good?

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The (...) data essentially corroborate the theoretical proposal. With respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

Psychopathology in children cannot be understood without considering developmental processes and transactional relationships, particularly the relationship with caregivers. Time-limited intersubjective child psychotherapy is a developmental and transactional approach aimed at helping children and caregivers get back on healthier developmental trajectories. Core developmental processes, such as self-other-regulation and affect integration, are considered particularly important for healthy function and transactions with caregivers and contexts. Therefore, TIC seeks to strengthen core developmental processes in the child and the caregivers’ ability to scaffold the (...) child’s development. This is achieved through parallel child therapy and parent sessions. The current study is a qualitative study of parents’ experiences of change after TIC. The study explores parents’ perception of change in their child, themselves, and their transactions, and what they experienced as helpful in therapy.Materials and MethodsNine semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with parents of nine children aged 9–12 years with internalizing difficulties after completing TIC. The data were analyzed with thematic analysis.ResultsThe parents described positive changes in the children’s ability to understand, regulate and express themselves. The parents also described positive changes in their parenting, and for all nine children the parents reported positive changes in the transactions between themselves and the child. Most parents saw the parallel child and parental sessions as particularly important, while several parents mentioned play and the therapeutic focus.DiscussionParents’ description of changes after TIC indicate that the parents perceived their children as strengthened in core developmental processes important for intersubjective exchanges such as self-regulation and affect integration. In addition, parents saw their children and their own contributions more clearly, and their transactions were described as more supportive and positive.ConclusionThe results from this study give support to TIC as a developmentally supportive approach to therapy, with potential effects on children’s core developmental processes, their parents’ ability to both see and scaffold the child’s development and positive effects on the transactions between children and parents. The positive effects likely result from the integration of the different parts of TIC and the synergies taking place between them, rather than any one component by itself. (shrink)

Temporal passage is an irrefragable and ineliminable feature of our lived experience of time. In this essay, I argue that, regardless of whether one adopts a three-dimensional, A theory of time or a four-dimensional, B theory of time, the subject of lived experience of time has to be conceived of as something that stands outside of the physical order in order for the experience of temporal passage to actually occur. This implies the truth (...) of Dualism as the only account of mind that can accommodate the facts of the lived experience of time. (shrink)

This paper is about our experience of change and movement, and thus about our experience of time – at least under the reasonable assumption that we (can only) experience time by having experiences of change. This assumption is shared by Locke, whose view on temporal experience, expounded in Book II, Chap.14 of his Essay, will be the main focal point of my paper. Some of the most influential accounts of temporal experience embrace the (...) notion of a "specious present" as an explanatory tool in order to account for the continuous and unfolding aspect of our experiences. In this article, I will raise some points of dissatisfaction with the very notion of the specious present, and while I shall not reject the specious present theories, I will argue that more is needed in order to have a proper understanding and explanation of our temporal experience. I will then discuss and defend a view of temporal experience whose basis can be found in Locke's Essay, and which, given some amendments and further development within a contemporary framework, provides us with a very good analysis of our experience of movement, change, and time – a view that helps us to avoid some burdensome commitments incurred by specious present theories and that can be fruitfully combined with these theories in order to yield a complete and more informative picture of the phenomenon of temporal experience. (shrink)

Philosophers have usually approached the concept of timing of experiences by addressing the question how the experiences of temporal phenomena can be explained. As a result, the issue of timing has been addressed in two different ways. The first, similar to the questions posed in sciences, concerns the relationship between the experienced time of events and the objective time of events. The second approach is more specific to philosophers’ debates, and concerns the phenomenology of experiences: how is the (...) apparent temporal structure of experiences constituted? In regard to both questions, this article shows why and how philosophers’ views differ from those held by most scientists. To conclude, I present a combination of views that is not only compatible with that of scientists, but also addresses the problems that engage philosophers. (shrink)