Gallaghers and Zahavis Discussion in The Phenomenological Mind of Time - Book Report/Review Example

The Phenomenological Mind of Time Gallagher and Zahavi’s The Phenomenological Mind is an important book that is difficult to overstate. Up until recently, the philosophy of the human mind has been a mainly analytical affair with relatively minimal recognition of phenomenology’s relevance as a discipline of philosophy. In chapter 4 of The Phenomenological Mind, which covers the phenomenological mind of time, the authors discuss the temporality of experience, arguing that it is one of the more neglected aspects of consciousness and cognition, in spite of being very important to both aspects. Indeed, Gallagher & Zahavi (2012: p77) state that daily human activities and encounters possess several aspects of temporality, in which the mind anticipates occurrences of the past, occurrences just about to happen, and also maintain a working sense of occurrences in the immediate past. Moreover, it is also claimed that the ability to use temporal navigations is responsible for the human mind’s ability to move through numerous experiences without losing its bearing, while it is also responsible for the mind’s ability to navigate space and form social relationships. This is what allows humans to live in a coherent and meaningful world. The phenomenological mind of time as discussed by the authors seeks to answer a question regarding how individuals can describe the future’s and past’s impact on present experiences. One of the most important findings of the phenomenological mind of time is that the human memory has different memory faculties that consist of several distinct and dissociable processes. Gallagher and Zahavi (2012: p79) contend that there is a clear distinction between the various forms of memory, such as procedural, semantic, episodic, and working memory, all of which can be phenomenologically and conceptually substantiated and differentiated. Normally, however, such distinctions among the different forms of memory are attributed to neuropathology and brain imaging, which identify that different areas of the brain are more involved in some memory tasks. More importantly, perhaps, is the authors’ finding that specific types of brain damage are responsible for the loss of particular memory types. For instance, anterograde amnesia, which involves complete or partial inability to recall events from the recent past due to a loss in ability to form new memories, results in an inability to capture events in the mind’s episodic memory as the mind cannot hold the events for long enough. In this case, as soon as the individual’s attention is directed towards another point of focus, the previous experience is immediately forgotten (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p80). From such an argument, it would seem that any disruptions to one’s past experiences would also portend serious consequences for their future experiences. It becomes increasingly clear from the authors’ line of argument that temporality is critical to perception and experience, while the analysis of time allows for access to subjectivity. In fact, Gallagher and Zahavi (2012: p80) do argue that the role of time is essential in justifying human experience and its dynamic character, thus raising the question of what a temporal structure is and how it operates. Temporality of experience, which is also referred to as time-consciousness, assumes that the human mind directly experiences persistence and change in the environment. The authors, however, argue that perception has temporal phases that, in effect, do not provide for successive consciousness. The mind must unite the successive consciousness phases experientially in order for an object to endure with time, which, in turn, means that there must be temporal binding without infinite regress where first-order consciousness must be unified by yet another consciousness that is temporarily extended (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p81). This temporality of experience as discussed by the authors can also be referred to as time-consciousness, which is possibly one of the most difficult topics covered by the authors in the chapter and, indeed, in the entire book. From the authors’ argument, perceptions of objects that are temporally extended require that consciousness provides the human mind with more than a momentary aspect of the object, as well as ensure that the consciousness stream is more than a series of experienced unconnected points (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p83). Because of the human mind’s ability to experience duration and experience, it is therefore, to be expected that consciousness is more than the present, encompassing the immediate past and the immediate future. The authors pose a question regarding how the human mind can be conscious of what has not yet happened or what is no longer present. To answer this question, they consider Husserl’s argument that the structure of consciousness is such that it enables temporal presentation, where each moment of consciousness that occurs is maintained in an intentional string, which enables a coherency stretching over the human mind’s temporal duration of experience (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p84). In such a case, it can be argued that the authors view lived experience as a temporal field that is made up of all temporal modes, including the future, the present, and the past. This temporal structure of consciousness can be described in terms of primal impression, retention, and protention, which refer to the immediate presence of an object, the just-elapsed presence of the object, and the immediate future context of the object respectively (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p85). What can be drawn from this assertion is that any experience has a common structure of temporality, in which all experienced moments have a current openness to the present, a retentional reference to experiences from past moments, and a protential anticipation of experiences about to occur. Thus, consciousness involves the human mind’s generation of a lived experience field. While there is progressive change in the mind consciousness structure’s content from one moment to the next, the primal-retention, protention structure exists as a whole. Although Gallagher and Zahavi (2012: p87) argue that the human mind experiences more than what is present at the moment due to the existence of temporal perception, although they do not explain why this is the case. However, there is a concern regarding the difference between the aforementioned protention and expectation and recollection, in which the former are considered as structural feature of all conscious acts. Protention and retention make temporal consciousness possible as a stream or flow as we experience it. From the authors’ assertions, it is, therefore, evident that they consider time-consciousness as a formal condition required for any object to be perceived. More importantly, Gallagher and Zahavi (2012: p88) contend that inner time-consciousness is important for the human mind to become aware of the individual’s successive experiences, especially with regards to how consciousness is unified over time. In addition, each consciousness phase retains the earlier consciousness phase, which shows that there should be a retentional continuum stretching back through experiences undergone previously. Such retentional continuity, it can be said, has two major aspects, including longitudinal intentionality of retention that allows for consciousness to be intentionally unified and transverse intentionality that establishes continuity of the object being experienced. Protention would also be expected to possess a longitudinal aspect, in which anticipation for the next event is also a sense of anticipation that one will experience this event. Therefore, it can be concluded from the authors’ arguments that protention is, in fact, a sense of anticipation of what the human mind is about to experience. Such self-consciousness within the basic structural processes of time-consciousness, discussed by the authors and mentioned above, enables what is experienced to be considered as part of the human mind’s stream of consciousness (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p88). The temporal structure of consciousness, as a result, is referred to as inner time-consciousness due to its placement in the act’s or events innermost structure. Gallagher and Zahavi (2012: p89) then seek to relate time-consciousness and its phenomenological analysis t cognitive sciences, pointing out that the process of protention and retention may have a direct association with a dynamic system of self-organization. In such a cognitive experience, various processes of the environment, body, and brain are coupled temporarily in coordination that is dynamic. Thus, all cognitive experiences are as a result of simultaneous participation of distinct brain regions, whose contributions involve collaboration of three different duration scales; the elementary, integration, and narrative scale, of which the latter involves memory. The neuronal system of the human mind and its dynamics are integrated with the dynamics of the body’s environment, in which the level of experience is determined by the integration between the environment, body, and brain (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p90). The fundamental temporal structure can apply to bodily actions and motor control processes. Therefore, from this contention, it can be said that what is perceived in the environment will alter the body’s and the brain’s dynamics, as well as other processes of protention. Therefore, a question is raised regarding the consciousness of the temporal process and whether, it is temporally measurable and extended in objective time (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p91). Phenomenologists, it is argued, are not sold on the use of objective clock time in understanding the time experienced by the human mind. Using earlier understandings of this concept, it can be argued that temporal experience cannot be an object that occurs only in time or a simple time consciousness but is, in fact, a type of temporality. Looking at the concept of retention, it can also be argued that it is not a theoretical solution, but instead should be considered as a descriptive abstraction that is phenomenologically legitimate. From the argument provided by the authors, it can be concluded that human time is not the objective time used normally or a subjective time of consciousness. Rather, human time provides a bridge between the time of the cosmos and phenomenological time. Indeed, human time is narrated, structured, and articulated by the narratives of symbolic mediations. The start of an event is already determined by other events, while the eventual outcome of these events is only determined, in part, by the individual’s decisions and choices (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012: p95). Therefore, the events that make up an individual’s experience are integrated into communal and historical structures that give meaning. References Gallagher, S., & Zahavi, D. (2012). The phenomenological mind. London: Routledge. Read More