Projectivism and Experiences of Temporal Properties

Abstract

Among the many ways in which, it seems, we can be conscious of time, there is the sensory perception of certain temporal properties. Many of perceptual experiences seem capable of representing properties such as (i) the succession of events and (ii) their duration. Accounting for the representational content of such experiences is one of the central issues that make up what I‚ll call the problem of temporal perception. How does the problem arise and who is it a problem for? In the first part of this paper, I‚ll try to clarify the relationship between perceptual experiences of temporal properties and the main accounts of the metaphysics of time. The problem of temporal perception is in fact quite independent from the issues that oppose A-theories and B-theories of time. For one thing, succession and duration are B-properties, the existence of which is recognized by both A-theories and B-theories. For another, it may be that perceptual experiences typically mis-represent temporal properties&emdash;in which case, an account of such experiences will have little to do with the true metaphysics of time. The problem of temporal perception arises in fact because of the following two assumptions: Temporal Resemblance: perceptual experiences represent the temporal properties of events partly in virtue of their own temporal properties. No Specious Present: perceptual experiences represent events as present, but a single experience cannot represent non-simultaneous events as being all present. In the second part of the paper, I‚ll attempt to defend a particular account of experiences of temporal properties: a simple-minded version of Projectivism, according to which experiences represent the temporal properties of events in virtue of their own temporal properties. Interestingly, most alternative accounts of temporal experiences are usually motivated in reference to the many difficulties allegedly plaguing such an account. In particular, it is often argued that such a version of Projectivism cannot account for various aspects of the phenomenology of experiences of time. Thus, the argument goes, an account of experiences of temporal properties needs to be supplemented with an appeal to memory (Mellor), internal clocks (Le Poidevin), or some relation of co-consciousness (Dainton). After some clarifications of the simple-minded version of Projectivism to be defended in this paper, I‚ll show how it can resist the various phenomenological objections raised against it.