Edmund Husserl:
The Phenomenology Of The Consciousness Of Internal Time
B Supplementary Texts Setting Forth The Development Of The Problem

< No. 12. The Evidence of Time-Consciousness )

I perceive a measure, a melody. I perceive it step by step, tone by tone. Assuming that no direct interruptions occur, I hear and perceive continuously. Accordingly, there exists an enduring, temporally extended act of perceiving.

What do I perceive? The first tone sounds. I hear this tone. But I do not merely hear its quality in a timeless point. The tone endures and in the course of its duration swells in intensity in this way or that, and so on. And then the second tone follows. I continue to hear, and I now hear it. The consciousness of the preceding tone is not erased, however. I can surely observe, "see," that I still keep my intention directed towards the first tone while the second is "actually sounding," is "actually" being perceived. And so it continues. In the case of a given experience - in the case of familiar melodies, for example, or of melodies that are perhaps repeated - we frequently have intuitive expectations as well. Each new tone then fulfills this forwards-directed intention. We have determinate expectations in these cases. But we are not and we cannot be entirely without apprehension directed forwards. The temporal fringe also has a future.

Therefore the perceiving of a melody is in fact a temporally extended, gradually and continuously unfolding act, which is constantly an act of perceiving. This act possesses an ever new "now"-point. And in this now, something becomes objective as now (the tone heard now), while at the same time some one member of the melody is objective as just past and others are objective as still further past; and perhaps also something or other is objective (as) "future."

Moreover, the now is as little a fictitious mathematical time-point as the "previous tone," as the first or second tone before the now or after it. Each now rather has its perceptible extension, which is something that can be confirmed. (It would be possible, of course, for the extensions of the objects in their temporal locations to appear as nonextended, namely, without sufficient breadth to permit of further division. The indivisible in this instance is an ideal limit, however, just as the indivisible spatial point is.)

If we hear only a single enduring tone, then we hear (it) continuously. As a rule, the tone fluctuates, or " simultaneous" successions bestow divisions on it, such that parts belonging to the now, even if obscurely contrasted and loosely delimited, are distinguished from the just past and from the future, which we expect in advance.

We therefore find an act of perceiving that is temporally extended, that perceives now A, then B, then C. And this act has perceived first the A in the privileged mode of the now, then the B in this privileged mode, in the course of which A is pushed into the background and assumes the status of what is "just before," fulfilling an expectation or filling out an altogether indefinite empty intention aimed at the future; then C has the privilege of being now, B the character of being just before [C], and A 14 the character of being " immediately before B," and so on.

What we establish in the individual case is valid universally and essentially. We see universally and with evidence that meaning and appearance are extended in the indicated order and manner over the temporal field, that they form a unity of continuity. We grasp this evidence through reflection.

I can certainly often enough produce perceptions that are quite alike, repeating the melody or the visual event, and in so doing focus my attention on the appearance itself and the meaning. The essential interconnection between perception of the thing itself and perception of the appearance is thereby universally grasped.

What is "given" to perception is necessarily something temporally extended, not something with the character of a mere point in time. That is evident. Yet to the essence of perception, as far as its temporal character is concerned, there does belong the necessary privilege of a "now" and a gradual gradation towards the now, a kind of relation of ascent and intensification in the direction of the zero-point; and in the opposite direction, a blurring into indistinctness, which, however, does not essentially appear as such.

If we are in the C-now, then B is characterized as the immediately preceding point (which is no longer now) and A as the point that immediately precedes B. Hence B does not have the character of the now and in this position cannot have it. Now and before evidently and essentially exclude one another. Fur-thermore, we have as evident the possibility of a memory in which B is characterized as now and C as "not yet," in the course of which B is induced and is meant with evidence as the same B. It is evident that what thus appears as the just past B can also be meant in the phantasy-memory as identical to the B represented in the now. It is evident that what is "no longer" was a now." It is further evident that what now is will be something that " no longer" is: The expectation of the " not yet" connected with the "now" is fulfilled; and identically the same thing, which in the course of this fulfillment is characterized as no longer, fulfills the intention aimed at the aforesaid "no longer." In this way, the object can endure. As far as what it was is concerned, it is no longer. But at the same time it is present as completely the same as what it was; it is continuously and identically the same. -

That all reality lies in the indivisible now-point, that in phenomenology everything ought to be reduced to this point - these are sheer fictions and lead to absurdities. In phenomenology we do not have to do with objective time but with the data of adequate perception. This requires us to consider perceptions, with their appearing now, past, and future, as given. Reduced, they yield the evident now, past, and future, as well as evident possibilities of phantasy, of reproductive memory, of reproductive expectation (not of the immediate future of the temporal field - what is immediately future in the temporal field is not the same as the more distant future, which is the object of phantasy-expectation), and of the evident interconnections conditioned by these. -

The evidence of time-consciousness: As far as the unbroken continuity extends, thus far does the evidence extend. But this does not include the ultimate specific differences. Where there is continuous similarity, there is no differentiation possible within narrower ranges. But [differentiation is possible] on the generic level. Evident are the identities, differences, etc., based on points of relation that are evident as far as their identity with themselves is concerned. Such relation-points do not presuppose determina-tion; they are absolute.


< No. 23. The Unity of time and Its Infinity
The first impressional memory.

The recollection that coincides with and identifies itself with an impressional memory.

The modified (consciousness of the now (the primary impressional consciousness of the past) and the reproduced and represented now.

We must distinguish: the now that has sunk into the past (which as a rule is not meant, not noticed, although it can be noticed) and the reproduced now that is immediately associated with the now that has sunk into the past. The reproduced now "begins again," runs off again, but in "phantasy" (in " repro-duction"), doing so in such a way that it has 1) the character of memory and 2) the character of identity with what has sunk into the past but is still held in consciousness.

It belongs to the essence of the phenomenological situation that every "past" can be converted reproductively into a reproductive "now," which in turn has a past itself. And that is the phenomenological foundation of all temporal laws.

But can there not be an ultimate now that has no past behind it? It is evident that no time-point is the first. Does that merely mean that to every now an earlier now can belong, in keeping with an ideal possibility? But then de facto an empty time could exist.


p.260
The Spatial Individual
There is, in addition, an identification that elevates the identity of the individual above the absolute place. The spatial individual is that which remains identical while the place varies, that which is identical in the change of place (change, no matter what the temporal change). If the spatial filling is preserved in its identity (in its species) and if it moves while what is specific in the filled spatial form (shape) is preserved, then the spatial individual is the same. We can also disregard the spatial filling - that which is identical, therefore, in the change of place. The constitutive content is: specific shape and specific qualities. The individual is that which is always determined as specifically the same and that which changes its absolute location. There is, of course, no qualitative individual; the possibility of the spatial individual depends on the peculiarities of space and time.

If I disregard the filling content, then (the ) spatial individual is a fixed spatial thing or "geometric" body. If I retain the filling content, then I have a fixed body = what is identical in the change of place.

There is no space in the tonal field. Two tones, identical in species, can occur only at different times. In a given time there is only one tone with the same specific determination. Here there is simultaneity only of what is different, and even that is transformed into a unity, into a fusion. Tones do not constitute sensuous physical things; they are only awakened by these and are only indirectly included in them and in the space in which they are " propagated." -

As far as possible, we have tried to proceed phenomenologically up to this point. (Of course, everything is in need of checking in this respect.) Are temporality and spatiality, provided they are understood phenomenologically and not empirically - that is, not as transcendent temporality and spatiality - actually complete principles of individuation? How is the step from the phenomenological to the empirical to be taken? And above all: How is the individuality of the Ego and of "its" phenomena - of its sensuous appearances and of its psychic experiences in the narrower sense - related to phenomenological individuality? It is difficult, of course, to say what makes up the phenomenological content of the "Ego" here.



[Source: Edmund Husserl on the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time (1893-1917) translated by John Barnett Brough,1990]