Phenomenological Temporality

Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the structure of temporality as it is originally experienced in time-consciousness. At a pre-reflective level, time-consciousness presents us with changing or unchanging worldly objects as persisting through time. However, time-consciousness is not simply a consciousness of worldly temporal events but, rather, a consciousness of these events as they appear in our experience. Accordingly, the phenomenal time that is experienced in time-consciousness consists in a correlative unity between two different temporal series: that of the appearing objects and that of their modes of appearance. This article concludes with an analysis of the “immanent” side of phenomenal temporality. Following Husserl, I argue that appearances or experiences have the same temporal structure as worldly events, and that this isomorphism makes it possible for worldly processes of change and persistence to present themselves to us as perceptual phenomena.