COMPREHENSION OF THE ABSOLUTE FLUX—PERCEPTION IN THE FOURFOLD SENSE1
The Objects in question here are temporal Objects which must be constituted. The sensible nucleus (the appearance without apprehension) is “now” and has just been and has been still earlier, and so on. In this now there is also retention of the past now of all levels of the duration of which we are now conscious. Every past now retentionally harbors in itself all earlier levels. A bird just now flies through the sunlit garden. In the phase which I have just seized, I find the retentional consciousness of the past shadings of the duration likewise in every fresh now. But the time-train [Zeitschwanz] is itself something which sinks back in time and has its own shading. The entire content of every now sinks into the past; this sinking, however, is no process which is reproduced ad infinitum. The bird changes its place; it flies. In every situation, the echo of earlier appearances clings to it (i.e., to its appearance). Every phase of this echo, however, fades while the bird flies farther on. Thus, a series of “reverberations” pertains to every subsequent phase, and we do not have a simple series of successive phases (let us say, every actual now with a phase) but a series with every individual successive phase.
Following the phenomenological reduction, every temporal appearance, therefore, is reduced to such a flux. The consciousness in which all this is reduced, I cannot myself again perceive, however. For this new perceived entity would again be something temporal which referred back to a constitutive consciousness of just such a kind, and so on, ad infinitum. The question arises, therefore, whence can I have knowledge of the constitutive flux?2
The levels of the description (and of the constitution) of temporal Objects are the following, according to the explanations given hitherto. We have:
1. The properties of empirical Objects in the usual sense: there they are, etc.
2. In the phenomenological view, I take the Object as a phenomenon. I am directed toward the perception, toward the appearance and the appearing in their correlation. The real thing is in real space, endures, changes in real time, and so on. The appearing thing of perception has a space of appearance and a time of appearance. And, in turn, the appearances themselves and all forms of consciousness have their time, namely, their now and their temporal extensity in the form of now-previously [Jetzt-Vorher]: subjective time.
Yet we must take into consideration that the Object of perception appears in “subjective time,” the Object of memory in a remembered time, the Object of phantasy in a phantasied, subjective time, the expected Object in an expected time. Perception, memory, expectation, phantasy, judgment, feeling, will—in short, everything which is an Object of reflection appears in the same subjective time, i.e., in the same time in which Objects of perception appear.
3. Subjective time is constituted in absolute, timeless consciousness, which is not an Object. Let us reflect now as to how this absolute consciousness attains givenness. We have a tonal appearance; we pay attention to the appearance as such. In such a thing as the sound of a violin (materially considered) the tonal appearance has its duration, and in this duration its constancy or alteration. I can pay attention to any phase of this appearance whatsoever (appearance is here the immanent tonal stimulus, apart from its “significance”). This, however, is not the final consciousness. This immanent sound is “constituted,” i.e., continuous with the actual tonal now; we also have tonal shadings. In fact, exhibiting itself in these is the interval of tonal pasts which belong to this now. We can in some degree attend to this series. With a melody, for example, we can arrest a moment, as it were, and discover therein shadings of memory of the past notes. It is obvious that the same holds true for every individual note. We have, then, the immanent tonal now and the immanent tonal pasts in their series or continuity. In addition, however, we must have the following continuity: perception of the now and memory of the past; and this entire continuity must itself be a now. In fact, in the living consciousness of an object, I look back into the past from the now-point out. On the other hand, I can grasp the entire consciousness of an object as a now and say: Now I seize the moment and grasp the entire consciousness as an all-together, as an all-at-once. I hear just now a long whistle. It is like an extended line. At any moment, I stop and the line is extended from there on. The regard from this moment embraces an entire line and the consciousness of the line is grasped as simultaneous with the now-point of the whistle. Therefore, I have perception in a multiple sense.3
1. I have a perception of the steam whistle, or rather of the whistle of the steam whistle.
2. I have a perception of the content of the sound itself which endures, and of the tonal process in its duration, apart from its disposition in nature.
3. I have a perception of the tonal now and at the same time attend to the conjoined just-having-been of the sound.
4. I have a perception of time-consciousness in the now. I attend to the now-appearing of the whistle, in other words, of a sound, and to the now-appearing of a whistle extending in such and such a way into the past (a now-whistle-phase and a continuity of shading appears to me in this now).
What difficulties are there with regard to the last of these perceptions? Naturally, I have time-consciousness without this itself being again an Object. If I make an Object of it, it itself again has a temporal position, and if I follow it from moment to moment, it has a temporal extensity. There is no doubt that such perception exists. As an apprehending regard can attend to the flux of tonal phases, so it also can attend to the continuity of these phases in the now of their appearing, in which the material-Objective [Dinglich-Objektive] is exhibited, and again to the continuity of alteration of this momentary continuity. And the time of this “alteration” is the same as the time of the Objective. If it is a question, for example, of an unaltered sound, then the subjective temporal duration of the immanent sound is identical with the temporal extension of the continuity of the alteration of the appearance.
But do we not have something most highly remarkable here? Can we in a real sense speak here of an alteration where a constancy, an unaltered, filled-out duration is not even thinkable? No possible constancy can be compared to the continuous flux of the phases of appearance.
There is no duration in the primordial flux.4 For duration is the form of an enduring something, an enduring being, something identical in the temporal series which last functions as its duration. With occurrences such as a storm, the motion of a meteorite, etc., it is a question of uniform nexuses of alteration of enduring Objects. Objective [Objektive] time is a form of “persistent” objects, their alterations, and other processes concerned with them. “Process” is, therefore, a concept which presupposes persistence. Persistence, however, is a unity which is constituted in the flux, and it pertains to the essence of flux that there can be nothing persistent in it. In the flux there are phases of lived experience and continuous series of phases. But such a phase is nothing persistent and just as little is it a continuous series. Certainly, it is also in a way an objectivity. I can direct my regard toward a prominent phase in the flux or toward a part of the flux and identify it in repeated presentification, come back to it again and again and say: this part of the flux. And so also for the entire flux, which I can identify in a specific way as this one. But this identity is not the unity of something which persists, and never can be such. It pertains to the essence of persistence that what persists can persist either altered or unaltered. Ideally, every alteration can pass over into constancy, motion into rest and conversely, qualitative alteration into constancy. The duration is then filled with the “same” phases.
In principle, however, no part of what is not-flux can appear. The flux is not a contingent flux as an Objective one is. The variation of its phases can never cease and pass over into a self-continuing of ever-like phases. But in a certain sense is there not also something abiding about the flux, even though no part of the flux can change into a not-flux? What is abiding, above all, is the formal structure of the flux, the form of the flux. That is, the flowing is not just flowing in general; rather, each phase is of one and the same form. The stable form is always newly filled with “content;” however, this content is not something brought into the form from the outside but is determined by the form of regularity [Gesetzmässigkeit]—but in such a way that this regularity does not alone determine the concrete. The form consists in this, that a now is constituted through an impression and that to the impression is joined a train of retentions and a horizon of protentions. This abiding form, however, supports the consciousness of a continuous change (this consciousness being a primal matter of fact, namely, the consciousness of the transformation of the impression into retention), while an impression is continuously present anew or, with reference to the quiddity of the impression, the consciousness of the change of this quiddity while the latter, which until just now we were still cognizant of as “now,” is modified into the character of “just-having-been.”
With this interpretation we come, therefore—as we have already intimated earlier—to the question of the time-consciousness in which the time of the time-consciousness of tonal appearances is constituted.
If I live in the appearing of the sound, the sound stands forth to me and has its duration or alteration. If I attend to the appearing of the sound, then this appearing stands forth and now has its temporal extension, its duration or alteration. In view of this, the appearing of the sound can signify different things. It can, in addition, signify attending to the continuities of shading: now, just-now, and so forth. Now the stream (the absolute flux) must again be objective and have its time. Also, there would again be necessary a consciousness constituting this Objectivity and one constituting this time. In principle, we could again reflect upon this, and so on ad infinitum. Is the infinite regress here to be shown as innocuous?
1. The sound endures, is constituted in a continuity of phases.
2. While or as long as the sound endures, to every point of the duration there belongs a series of shadings from the now on into the blurred past. We have, therefore, a continuous consciousness, of which every point is a stable continuum. This continuum, however, is again a temporal series to which we can attend. Thus the business begins afresh. If we fix any point of this series, it appears that a consciousness of the past must pertain to it, which consciousness refers to the series [Serie] of past series [Reihen], and so on.
Even if reflection is not carried out ad infinitum and if, in general, no reflection is necessary, still that which makes this reflection possible and, in principle (or so it seems, at least) possible ad infinitum must be given. And here lies the problem.
1. To § 34, p. 98.
2. Cf. § 40, pp. 110ff.
3. Cf. § 17, pp. 63ff., and § 18, pp. 64ff.
4. To the following, compare in particular § 36, p. 100.