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The Inordinance of Time (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) by Shaun Gallagher
Shaun Gallagher's The Inordinance of Time develops an account of the experience of time at the intersection of three phenomenology, cognitive science, and post-structuralism. Using insights developed in both the phenomenological and cognitive traditions (including the contributions of Locke, Hume, James, and Husserl, as well as a variety of contemporary thinkers), Gallagher explores the inadequacies of the phenomenological/cognitive model, the limitations imposed by introspective reflection, the concepts of intentionality and embodied existence, language and historical effect, and the extra-intentional processes that govern the operations of consciousness and memory.
- GenresPhilosophy
Unknown Binding
First published July 8, 1998
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About the author
Shaun Gallagher
33 books30 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 26, 2024
The quality of this book is mixed.
Chapters 1-4 are amazing! Here, we get an analysis of the traditional problem of time-consciousness, which is “How can we perceive time?” Gallagher, following the tradition before him, interprets this question as asking, "How can we perceive succession or temporal passage?". The problem is that the experience of succession requires that we perceive more than one time at once or simultaneously. That is to say, in order to have an experience of succession, we need to (1) experience the present moment, but also (2) experience the moment that just passed as having just passed away – that is, we need to retain or hold onto the moment that just passed away, and we need to hold onto it in a manner that is distinct from the way we apprehend the present.
To understand why this is so important, imagine what experience would look like if we didn't hold onto moments as they passed away. You'd have one present experience, which would be replaced by another, but you would have no cognizance of this replacement. We take for granted that, when each moment passes, it does not just pass but we register its passing, its leaving – it affects us, our memory, we retain it. Thus, to be cognizant that a moment was replaced by another, or that time has passed, you'd need to (in some manner yet unspecified) recall the moment that is gone as gone, while also apprehending the new moment that is here and present. There are many nuances to this account. For instance, the past moment needs to be "held onto" in manner that is distinct from the way we apprehend the present because, if it weren't (that is, if the past moment were merely present), we would not experience succession: we'd just have before us two present moments, like two ringing sounds. We need the past moment to in no way be present (i.e., it cannot be a sensation), but nonetheless it must be kept in consciousness.
In these first four chapters, Gallagher motivates this problem (of perceiving succession, calling it the cognitive paradox), traces its historical routes (with great detail and rigor), and demonstrates that it was finally Edmund Husserl who solved this age-old problem, perfecting the analysis of time-consciousness (or at least, perfectly solving this central problem). Husserl argued that, for time-consciousness to be possible, our consciousness must have the intentional structures of retention-primal impression-protention. These concepts mean nothing without reading the account (and attending to the phenomenology), and I cannot reproduce the account here. But the basic point is that these are intentional structures allow us to explain how we experience moments as arriving (into the present from the future) and passing away (from the present into the past). Because these are intentional structures, they allow us to explain the peculiar phenomenology of something like retention: something that is held onto but not experienced as a sensation. One thing I like about these chapters is their historical approach. Gallagher works hard to contrast Husserl's solution with other solutions that preceded or were contemporaneous with his, principally the solution offered by William James (which actually turns out to be non-solution): the specious present.
After these first four chapters, Gallagher commences his critical enterprise. I am less convinced by these arguments, and let me say a little bit about why. In chapters 5-7, Gallagher seeks to demonstrate the limits of Husserl’s account. I have basically one overarching objection to each of these investigations. (It's very possible that my objection greatly oversimplifies matters, so I am more than happy to be wrong about this.) Gallagher demonstrates that contemporaneous and later thinkers have noticed unique phenomena whose temporal experience is not necessarily linear/successive, or whose experience cannot be accounted for by the structures of time-consciousness articulated by Husserl – i.e., we cannot experience these phenomena because they lie at the limits of retention, primal impression, and/or protention. These are phenomena like deep historical time, trauma, repressed memories, the rhythms of the body, culture/society, language, death, the other, and so on.
My objection is this: Does Gallagher seek to show that Husserl cannot account for these phenomena? Or does he seek to show that he does not? I think his answer to this is ambiguous. Since Gallagher tries to give a Husserlian account of at least some of these phenomena in Chapter 8, he definitely thinks (to some extent) it’s a question of does/doesn’t, meaning that Husserl could've but didn't account for these phenomena for any number of reasons – though one could object to this by pointing out that at least some of the phenomena are accounted for by Husserl elsewhere, in works not consulted by Gallagher in his book (Nicolas de Warren makes this point in his review). Nevertheless, Gallagher is not satisfied with his own defense of Husserl. He gives multiple reasons for why, but the core of it seems to be that he is convinced of the phenomenological paradigm’s inability to answer this question. While I definitely agree with one of his basic points here (i.e., that we are determined by "prenoetic" factors, factors which condition and constitute how we make sense of things in the first place), I am not yet sure what we can conclude from this – certainly not as sure as Gallagher is. He claims that we cannot give a single or unified theory of time, so we need to have multiple theories to account for time and temporal phenomena (and this is by no means a bad thing! It's a wonderful thing!). The problem is that I remain unsure what it means to give a “single” or “unified” account of time. Does it mean that, in order to account for these different phenomena, we must devise theories which are fundamentally in contradiction with one another? Because if not, then I see no reason why these multiple theories (coming from phenomenology, psychoanalysis, etc.) can't come together. Ultimately, because there is no real explanation of what a single theory requires, it is not clear to me precisely what he thinks is impossible and so why it must be supplanted by multiple-theories account of time.
I remain hopeful of a unified theory.
Chapters 1-4 are amazing! Here, we get an analysis of the traditional problem of time-consciousness, which is “How can we perceive time?” Gallagher, following the tradition before him, interprets this question as asking, "How can we perceive succession or temporal passage?". The problem is that the experience of succession requires that we perceive more than one time at once or simultaneously. That is to say, in order to have an experience of succession, we need to (1) experience the present moment, but also (2) experience the moment that just passed as having just passed away – that is, we need to retain or hold onto the moment that just passed away, and we need to hold onto it in a manner that is distinct from the way we apprehend the present.
To understand why this is so important, imagine what experience would look like if we didn't hold onto moments as they passed away. You'd have one present experience, which would be replaced by another, but you would have no cognizance of this replacement. We take for granted that, when each moment passes, it does not just pass but we register its passing, its leaving – it affects us, our memory, we retain it. Thus, to be cognizant that a moment was replaced by another, or that time has passed, you'd need to (in some manner yet unspecified) recall the moment that is gone as gone, while also apprehending the new moment that is here and present. There are many nuances to this account. For instance, the past moment needs to be "held onto" in manner that is distinct from the way we apprehend the present because, if it weren't (that is, if the past moment were merely present), we would not experience succession: we'd just have before us two present moments, like two ringing sounds. We need the past moment to in no way be present (i.e., it cannot be a sensation), but nonetheless it must be kept in consciousness.
In these first four chapters, Gallagher motivates this problem (of perceiving succession, calling it the cognitive paradox), traces its historical routes (with great detail and rigor), and demonstrates that it was finally Edmund Husserl who solved this age-old problem, perfecting the analysis of time-consciousness (or at least, perfectly solving this central problem). Husserl argued that, for time-consciousness to be possible, our consciousness must have the intentional structures of retention-primal impression-protention. These concepts mean nothing without reading the account (and attending to the phenomenology), and I cannot reproduce the account here. But the basic point is that these are intentional structures allow us to explain how we experience moments as arriving (into the present from the future) and passing away (from the present into the past). Because these are intentional structures, they allow us to explain the peculiar phenomenology of something like retention: something that is held onto but not experienced as a sensation. One thing I like about these chapters is their historical approach. Gallagher works hard to contrast Husserl's solution with other solutions that preceded or were contemporaneous with his, principally the solution offered by William James (which actually turns out to be non-solution): the specious present.
After these first four chapters, Gallagher commences his critical enterprise. I am less convinced by these arguments, and let me say a little bit about why. In chapters 5-7, Gallagher seeks to demonstrate the limits of Husserl’s account. I have basically one overarching objection to each of these investigations. (It's very possible that my objection greatly oversimplifies matters, so I am more than happy to be wrong about this.) Gallagher demonstrates that contemporaneous and later thinkers have noticed unique phenomena whose temporal experience is not necessarily linear/successive, or whose experience cannot be accounted for by the structures of time-consciousness articulated by Husserl – i.e., we cannot experience these phenomena because they lie at the limits of retention, primal impression, and/or protention. These are phenomena like deep historical time, trauma, repressed memories, the rhythms of the body, culture/society, language, death, the other, and so on.
My objection is this: Does Gallagher seek to show that Husserl cannot account for these phenomena? Or does he seek to show that he does not? I think his answer to this is ambiguous. Since Gallagher tries to give a Husserlian account of at least some of these phenomena in Chapter 8, he definitely thinks (to some extent) it’s a question of does/doesn’t, meaning that Husserl could've but didn't account for these phenomena for any number of reasons – though one could object to this by pointing out that at least some of the phenomena are accounted for by Husserl elsewhere, in works not consulted by Gallagher in his book (Nicolas de Warren makes this point in his review). Nevertheless, Gallagher is not satisfied with his own defense of Husserl. He gives multiple reasons for why, but the core of it seems to be that he is convinced of the phenomenological paradigm’s inability to answer this question. While I definitely agree with one of his basic points here (i.e., that we are determined by "prenoetic" factors, factors which condition and constitute how we make sense of things in the first place), I am not yet sure what we can conclude from this – certainly not as sure as Gallagher is. He claims that we cannot give a single or unified theory of time, so we need to have multiple theories to account for time and temporal phenomena (and this is by no means a bad thing! It's a wonderful thing!). The problem is that I remain unsure what it means to give a “single” or “unified” account of time. Does it mean that, in order to account for these different phenomena, we must devise theories which are fundamentally in contradiction with one another? Because if not, then I see no reason why these multiple theories (coming from phenomenology, psychoanalysis, etc.) can't come together. Ultimately, because there is no real explanation of what a single theory requires, it is not clear to me precisely what he thinks is impossible and so why it must be supplanted by multiple-theories account of time.
I remain hopeful of a unified theory.
Displaying 1 of 1 review