Cover not available
Part of
Controversies and Interdisciplinarity: Beyond disciplinary fragmentation for a new knowledge model
Edited by Jens Allwood, Olga Pombo, Clara Renna and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 16] 2020
► pp. 177–198

Chapter 9
Husserl’s phenomenology of inner time-consciousness and enactivism

The harmonizing argument

 | Tel Aviv University
In this article, I single out the characteristics of a polemical type of argument that I dub “the harmonizing argument”. Contenders that use the harmonizing argument aim to persuade their audience that it is possible to harmonize two opposed positions. My case study is the enactivists’ attempt to naturalize Husserl’s phenomenology of inner time-consciousness. I first present Husserl’s account of time-consciousness. I clarify why absolute subjectivity cannot be naturalized. I continue by interpreting the enactivists’ attempt to naturalizes absolute subjectivity as exemplifying the harmonizing argument. I present the limitations of this attempt, and I conclude by pointing out the possible positive epistemic results of using this type of argument.
Keywords: harmonizing argument, enactivism, subjectivity, first-person perspective, prereflective self-awareness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discussion and controversy
  • 3.The harmonizing argument
  • 4.The intentional approach to the specious present
  • 5.Temporal objects and temporal experiences
  • 6.Absolute subjectivity
  • 7.The main two steps of the enactivists’ harmonizing argument
  • 8.Prereflective self-awareness
  • 9.The living present
  • 10.Absolute subjectivity and non-linear dynamical systems
  • 11.Is it possible to naturalize Husserlian phenomenology?
  • 12.The positive outcomes of the harmonizing argument
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.16.09sen
References (30)
References
Armstrong, D. (1998). “What is consciousness?” in Block, N., Flanagan, O., and Güzeldere, G., (eds.). 1998. The nature of consciousness. Cambridge Mass.: The MIT Press. pp. 721–728.Google Scholar
Brough, J. B. (1972). “The emergence of an absolute consciousness in Husserl’s early writings on time consciousness”. Man and world, 5, 298–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1991). “Translator’s introduction”. In Husserl, E. On the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time. Translated by Brough, J. B. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher.Google Scholar
(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. Phaenomenologica 197. Springer: Dordrecht. pp. 21–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dascal, M. (1998). “Types of polemics and types of polemical moves”. In Dialogue analysis VI (= Proceedings of the 6th Conference, Prague 1996), vol.1, S. Čmejrková, S. J. Hoffmannová, O. Müllerová, & and J. Svetlá (eds), 15–33. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 15–33.Google Scholar
Gallagher, S. (1998). The inordinance of time. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Gallagher, S. and Zahavi, D. (2008). The phenomenological mind. Ney York: Routledge.Google Scholar
James, W. (1952). The principles of psychology I–II. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Husserl, E. (1977). Phenomenological Psychology. Trans. J. Scanlon. The Hague: Martinis Nijhoff. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1991). The phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time (1893–1917). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. First book. General introduction to a pure phenomenology. Trans. F. Kersten. Den Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001). Logical investigations 2 vol. Translated by J. N. Findlay. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, D. M. (1998). “A Theory of consciousness”. In Block, N., Flanagan, O. and Güzeldere Güven (eds.). The nature of consciousness. Cambridge Mass.: The MIT Press. pp. 729–754.Google Scholar
Saint Augustine. (1961). Confessions. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Senderowicz, Y. (2005). “Externalism, individualism and self-knowledge”. in P. L. Barrotta and M. Dascal (eds.) Controversies and subjectivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 283–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008). “Kant’s theory of metaphysical controversies”. [URL]
(2010). Controversies and the metaphysics of mind. Amsterdam and N.Y.: John Benjamin Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014). “The exclusion argument”. In Riesenfeld, D. and Scarafile, J. (eds.) Perspectives on theory of controversies and the ethics of communication. Heidelberg & New York: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sokolowski, R. (1974). Husserlian meditations. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
(2000). Introduction to phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. (2007). Mind in life: Biology, phenomenology, and the science of mind. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Varela, J. F. (1997). “The naturalization of phenomenology as the transcendence of nature: searching for generative mutual constraints.” Alter 5, pp. 355–381.Google Scholar
(1999). “The Specious present: A Neurophenomenology of time consciousness.” In J. Petitot, F. J. Varela, B. Pachoud, & J-M. Roy (eds.). Naturalized phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 267–314.Google Scholar
Zahavi, D. (1999). Self-awareness and alterity. A phenomenological investigation. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
(2003a). Husserl’s phenomenology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University-Press.Google Scholar
(2003b). “Inner time-consciousness and prereflective self-awareness”. In D. Welton, ed., The New Husserl: A Critical Reader, pp. 157–180. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
(2004). “Time and consciousness in the Bernau manuscripts”. Husserl studies, 20(2), pp. 99–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2005). Subjectivity and selfhood: Investigating the first-person perspective. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010). “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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011). “Objects and levels: Reflections on the relation between time-consciousness and self-consciousness”. Husserl studies. (2011) 27:13–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Filipovic, Anastasija
2023. Husserl’s understanding of temporality as a reflection of active subject. Theoria, Beograd 66:3 ► pp. 39 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.