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The discovery of a time of inner time consciousness is one of the great philosophical accomplishments of the 20th century. At about the same time, but independent each of the other, both Bergson and Husserl sought to break the hold of objective time by tracing the latter back to its ultimate foundations in a time of inner time consciousness. For Bergson, objective time is the product of a confusion or rather of a compromise between two quite distinct sets of phenomena, the pure duration of consciousness itself and the sheer simultaneity of the material universe. Insofar as that of which consciousness is conscious is spatial, consciousness is spatialized in the very process of representing objects existing in the external world. Through spatialization, consciousness becomes capable of representing its own internal processes. By the same token, consciousness introduces its own flux into a material universe which is itself timeless. Thus the clarity and distinction of external perception is brought into consciousness while the temporality of internal perception is projected upon the world.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-3754-6_5

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