Time and the Unity of Absolute Consciousness

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to defend the thesis, found across the works of Edmund Husserl, that the most fundamental level of subjectivity – the so-called absolute consciousness – is given in time as an immediate unity. In order to do so, I first consider Martin Hägglund’s critique of the Husserlian absolute consciousness. My subsequent answer to Hägglund has two parts: firstly, I argue that Hägglund’s own account of subjectivity is contradictory; secondly, I offer a model of absolute consciousness impervious to Hägglund’s critique. Drawing on Husserl’s “Bernau Manuscripts,” I demonstrate that time is, in fact, compatible with the notions of immediacy and unity, and that a correct account of the Husserlian absolute consciousness recognizes the latter to be given as a temporally differentiated immediate unity.