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The past, present and future of time-consciousness: From husserl to varela and beyond

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Context • In developing an enactivist phenomenology the analysis of time-consciousness needs to be pushed toward a fully enactivist account. Problem • Varela proposed a neurophenomenology of time-consciousness. I attempt to push this analysis towards a more complete enactivist phenomenology of time-consciousness. Method • I review Varela’s account of time-consciousness, which brings Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of the intrinsic temporal structure of experience into contact with contemporary neuroscience and dynamical systems theory, and pushes it towards a more enactivist conception of consciousness. I argue that Varela’s analysis motivates a closer examination of the phenomenological aspects of the intrinsic temporal structure of experience, understanding it in terms of an action-oriented embodied phenomenology in its most basic manifestation. Results • This fully enactivist phenomenology of time-consciousness continues the analysis initiated by Varela and remains consistent with but also goes beyond Husserl’s later writings on time-consciousness. Implications • This analysis shows that the enactive character of intentionality in general, goes all the way down; it is embedded in the micro-structure of time-consciousness, and this has implications for understanding perception and action. Constructivist content • This account is consistent with Varela’s constructivist approach to cognition.
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http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
Enactivism
The Past, Present and Future
of Time-Consciousness:
From Husserl to Varela and Beyond
Shaun Gallagher • University of Memphis, Tennessee, USA, and University of Wollongong, New South
Wales, Australia • s.gallagher/at/memphis.edu Shaun Gallagher
> Context • In developing an enactivist phenomenology the analysis of time-consciousness needs to be pushed to-
ward a fully enactivist account. > ProblemVarela proposed a neurophenomenology of time-consciousness. I attempt
to push this analysis towards a more complete enactivist phenomenology of time-consciousness. > Method • I review
Varela’s account of time-consciousness, which brings Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of the intrinsic temporal
structure of experience into contact with contemporary neuroscience and dynamical systems theory, and pushes it
towards a more enactivist conception of consciousness. I argue that Varela’s analysis motivates a closer examination of
the phenomenological aspects of the intrinsic temporal structure of experience, understanding it in terms of an action-
oriented embodied phenomenology in its most basic manifestation. > Results • This fully enactivist phenomenology
of time-consciousness continues the analysis initiated by Varela and remains consistent with but also goes beyond
Husserl’s later writings on time-consciousness. > Implications This analysis shows that the enactive character of in-
tentionality in general, goes all the way down; it is embedded in the micro-structure of time-consciousness, and this
has implications for understanding perception and action. > Constructivist contentThis account is consistent with
Varela’s constructivist approach to cognition. > Key words Time-consciousness, enactivism, Husserl, Varela.
Introduction
« 1 » My rst encounter with Francisco
Varela was in 1996 when we communicated
about one of my articles he reviewed for the
Journal of Consciousness Studies (Gallagher
1997). At that time we exchanged manu-
scripts that we were in the process of writ-
ing. He was writing an article on the neu-
rophenomenology of time-consciousness
(Varela 1999a, 1999b), and I was just put-
ting the nishing touches on a book manu-
script on the same topic (Gallagher 1998).
Neither of these subsequently published
works, however, went far enough towards
an interpretation of time-consciousness
that would t with a fully enactivist view. In
this target article I propose to review what
I take to be an important development of
Edmund Husserl’s analysis of time-con-
sciousness in Varela’s work, and to push it
forward to a full-edged enactivist concep-
tion, informed by dynamical systems the-
ory and a more action-oriented embodied
view of experience.
The past: Husserl’s analysis
« 2 » How is it possible to be conscious
of objects such as melodies, which cannot ap-
pear all at once, but only unfold themselves
over time? is is the kind of question that
Husserl (1966a) seeks to answer in his lec-
tures on time-consciousness. Husserls view
is that perceiving succession and change
would be impossible if consciousness gave us
merely a pure momentary time slice or if the
stream of consciousness were a series of un-
connected experiential points. If conscious-
ness were restricted to what exists right now,
it would be impossible to perceive anything
with a temporal extension and duration. A
succession of isolated, punctual, conscious
states does not add up to a consciousness
of succession and duration. Consciousness
must in some way grasp more than the punc-
tual now; it must be conscious of that which
has just been and is just about to be. How this
is possible or how a subject can be aware of
that which is no longer or not yet present –
this is what Husserl attempts to answer. To be
clear, Husserl oers a phenomenology of the
intrinsic temporality of experience, bracket-
ing or setting aside assumptions about time
as objective or measurable by the clock.
« 3 » Husserl reject’s Franz Brentano’s
answer, that re-presenting (vergegenwärti-
gende) acts of imagining, remembering or
expecting allow us to grasp more than the
now point, since that would imply that we
are not able to perceive objects with tempo-
ral duration (Husserl 1966a: 10–19). Rather,
in agreement with William James (1890),
Husserl argues that the basic unit of time-
consciousness is not a “knife-edge” present,
but a duration-block,” i.e., a temporal eld,
or what Robert Kelly, the author of e Alter-
native: A Study in Psychology, writing under
the name of E. R. Clay, had called a “specious
present” (see Andersen & Grush 2009). e
specious present or thick duration block,
which is not equivalent to a momentary or
strict present, somehow contains all three
temporal modes, present, past and future.
Husserl oers a phenomenological account
of this temporality.
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« 4 » Assume that you are hearing a
tonal sequence A, B, and C. If you attend to
your perception the instant tone B sounds,
you will not nd a consciousness of this tone
exclusively alone, but rather a consciousness
of the broader sequence A, B, and C. When
you hear the tone B, you are still perceptu-
ally conscious of the just-past tone A and,
if it is a familiar melody, you are anticipat-
ing the just-about-to-be-sounded tone C.
You are not simply perceiving B, and then
remembering A and combining that with an
act of imagination about C. Rather, in some
way you are hearing these tones as in suc-
cession, as part of an on-going sequence.
Importantly, however, there is a dierence
between your consciousness of the present
tone B and your consciousness of the tones
A and C, since they are not heard as simul-
taneous; A is heard as just past, and C as just
about to be. For this reason, we can say that
we hear the melody in its temporal succes-
sion and not merely as isolated or uncon-
nected tones.
« 5 » In his analysis, Husserl describes
the structure of this temporal experience us-
ing three technical terms:
Primal impression, the component of
consciousness narrowly directed toward
the now-phase of the object. Accord-
ing to Husserl, the primal impression
cannot be thought independently of its
temporal horizon (Husserl 1966b: 315,
337f). It never appears in isolation, and
as such, in the analysis, it is treated as
an abstract component of a larger struc-
ture.
Retention, the component that provides
us with a consciousness of the just-
elapsed phase of the object. Retention
provides an awareness of the object or
event as it sinks into the past.
Protention, the component that, in a
more-or-less indenite way, anticipates
the phase of the object just about to oc-
cur. Protention is an implicit and unre-
ective anticipation of what is just about
to happen as experience progresses.
« 6 » According to Husserl’s analysis,
not only perception, but also memory, imag-
ination, and experience of any kind, has this
common temporal structure: at any mo-
ment of experience a retentional reference
to past moments of experience is coupled to
a current openness (primal impression) to
what is happening now, and a protentional
anticipation of the moments of experience
that are just about to happen. e concrete
and full structure of temporal experience
is determined by the protention/primal-im-
pression/retention structure of consciousness.
Within this structure what we experience –
the experiential content – changes from mo-
ment to moment, but how we experience it
– the temporal form – at any given moment
reects this threefold unied structure.
In this way, it becomes evident that concrete
perception as original consciousness (original
givenness) of a temporally extended object is
structured internally as itself a streaming system
of momentary perceptions (so-called primal im-
pressions). But each such momentary perception
is the nuclear phase of a continuity, a continuity of
momentary gradated retentions on the one side,
and a horizon of what is coming on the other side:
a horizon of ‘protention,’ which is disclosed to be
characterized as a constantly gradated coming.
(Husserl 1962: 202)
« 7 » us, on Husserl’s account percep-
tual presence is not punctual, it is a eld in
which now, no-longer-now and not-yet-now
are given in a gestalt pattern. is structure
is what allows for the possibility of our per-
ception of succession and duration.
« 8 » In contrast to Brentano, reten-
tion and protention are distinguished from
the proper cognitive acts of recollection and
expectation. Clearly there is a dierence be-
tween hearing a melody as it is occurring,
and recollecting the party you attended last
New Year, or looking forward to the beach
next summer. e latter are full-edged and
explicit intentional acts, which themselves
presuppose the operations of retention and
protention as structural components or im-
plicit moments of such acts of conscious-
ness. Moreover, retention and protention are
said to occur passively, in contrast to explicit
recollection or expectation, which are usu-
ally under our voluntary control. In contrast
to recollection (memory proper), which is
a bringing to presence (or “re-presenting”
[Vergegenwärtigung]) of a past, no-longer-
present event, retention is a keeping in pres-
ence of what has just been present (Husserl
1966a: 41, 118, 330).
« 9 » To be clear, for Husserl temporal
experience is not itself an object occurring
in time, but neither is it merely a conscious-
ness of objective time; rather it is itself a
form of temporality. is means that even
if we ascribe some kind of temporality to
the stream of consciousness due to its dy-
namic and self-dierentiating character,
this intrinsic temporality is not the same
temporality that pertains to the objects of
consciousness. Husserl rejects an isomor-
phism between the stream of conscious-
ness and the temporal objects and events of
which it is conscious. e relations between
protention, primal impression and retention
are not relations of past-present-future in a
way that matches up with a perceived object
such as a melody. My retentional awareness
of the just-past note is not itself just past; it
is part of the present structure of conscious-
ness. Husserl thus distinguishes the objects
that are constituted as temporal objects in
an experience structured by protention,
retention and primal impression, from the
relations that exist between the constituting
structures of consciousness itself. ere are
two dierent temporal domains here. Just as
my experience of a red circle is neither cir-
cular nor red, the temporal givenness of the
intentional object (as past-present-future) is
not the same as the intrinsic temporality of
the experience itself (Husserl 1966a: 75, 333,
375f).
« 10 » In Husserl’s analysis of this intrin-
sic temporality of consciousness, each ele-
ment, if taken in isolation, is an abstraction
and theoretical limit-case. Primal impres-
sion is never given alone; nor is retention or
protention. e concrete and full structure
of the lived presence, according to Husserl,
is protention/primal impression/retention
(Husserl 1966b: 317, 378). I note that much
of Husserl’s original analysis focuses on re-
tention, and on getting that aspect right. His
discussion of protention is less developed,
and most of this suggests that protention is
something like the reverse of retention.
« 11 » is is a brief survey of Husserl’s
standard depiction of the tripartite struc-
ture of the intrinsic temporality of experi-
ence as found in his lectures and notes from
around 1904 to 1917. Some of Husserl’s later
texts on time-consciousness, especially the
Bernau Manuscripts, which were written
around 1917–1918, introduce a reframing of
the original tripartite account. In this later
account, primal impression, rather than be-
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ing portrayed as an experiential origin, “the
primal source of all further consciousness
and being” (Husserl 1966a: 67), is consid-
ered the result of an interplay between re-
tention and protention. us, in the Bernau
Manuscripts, Husserl denes primal impres-
sion as “the boundary between […] the re-
tentions and protentions (Husserl 2001:
4). Whereas retentions and protentions in
the early lectures were dened as retaining
the primal impression, or projecting a new
primal impression, respectively, in Husserl’s
later research manuscripts, the primal im-
pression is considered the line of intersec-
tion between retentional and protentional
tendencies that make up every present
phase of consciousness. Even in his earlier
account Husserl had claimed that primal
presentation is not self-sucient, rather it
operates only in connection with retentions
and protentions. In the Bernau Manuscripts,
however, Husserl seems to suggest that the
complicated interlacing of retentions and
protentions is constitutive of primal impres-
sion. Not only is primal impression not self-
sucient, it is a constituted product rather
than something that makes a constitutive
contribution of its own.
« 12 » is more radical claim is ex-
pressed in Husserl’s idea that the initial event
of experience is the empty anticipation.
First there is an empty expectation, and then
there is the point of the primary perception, itself
an intentional experience. But the primary pre-
sentation [or impression] comes to be in the ow
only by occurring as the fulllment of contents
relative to the preceding empty intentions, there-
by changing itself into primal presenting percep-
tion. (Husserl 2001: 4; translated in Gallagher
& Zahavi 2014)
e primal impression comes on the scene
as the fullment of an empty protention; the
now, as the present phase of consciousness,
is constituted by way of a protentional full-
ment (Husserl 2001: 4, 14).
Each constituting full phase is the retention
of a fullled protention, which is the horizonal
boundary of an unfullled and for its part contin-
uously mediated protention. (Husserl 2001: 8)
« 13 » In shiing the emphasis from pri-
mal impression to protentional fulllment,
Husserl is moving from a static phenom-
enology to a more genetic view. I want to
argue that this shi sets the stage for a more
dynamical, enactivist conception of time-
consciousness. To start working towards this
conception, I will suggest that Varelas neu-
rophenomenological analysis of time-con-
sciousness makes some important headway.
The present:
The neurophenomenology
of temporal experience
in Varela
« 14 » Whereas Husserl proposed a
purely phenomenological account of the
intrinsic temporality of consciousness, Va-
rela proposes a naturalized account that
integrates phenomenological and neuro-
physiological elements. Varela sees in Hus-
serl’s account, however, a “dynamical bent,
a leaning towards a dynamical account that
Varela takes as opening towards a neural
dynamics, and thereby, a naturalization. He
thus wants to work out a neurophenomenol-
ogy of time-consciousness.
In brief, I approach temporality by following
a general research direction I have called neuro-
phenomenology, in which lived experience and
its natural biological basis are linked by mutual
constraints provided by their respective descrip-
tions (Varela 1996) […] Given the importance of
the topic of the experience of temporality, let it be
clear that I consider this an acid test of the entire
neurophenomenological enterprise. (Varela
1999a: 267)
« 15 » Varela focuses on the “texture” or
the three-part structure of time-conscious-
ness, and he describes it as follows. First,
there is a central “now moment with a fo-
cused intentional content” – that which is
given by the primal impression. is central
moment is “bounded by a horizon or fringe
that is already past” – but a past that is held
in retention. It also “projects toward an in-
tended next moment. As these horizons
move, they ow into the past that I can re-
tain to some limit, and then they disappear
out of view. Varela’s description is consistent
with Husserl’s original phenomenology. It is
by way of a complaint, however, that Varela
is able to shi the account closer to a neu-
rophenomenology. e complaint is about
Husserl’s primary example of listening to a
melody. As numerous commentators have
remarked, Husserl treats listening to music
as a very abstract experience (see, e.g., Gal-
lagher 1998); Varela, likewise, criticizes the
example and proposes to shi to a more
concrete, but perhaps uncommon example:
multistable visual perception. One can think
here of the Necker cube or the duck-rabbit
gure, and the shiing perspectives we ex-
perience as we view them. Varela oers the
following image (Figure1).
« 16 » We can see this in a rst instance
as from the top, where the center square is
the top of a pyramid; our perspective can
shi so that we see that same center square
as the back wall of a hall. e image is per-
ceptually unstable; it can ip back and forth,
but we can also learn to control this shi of
perspective. is example oers an impor-
tant dierence from Husserl’s example of lis-
tening to the melody. Specically, when we
learn to control the shi of perspective, we
become active perceivers rather than passive
listeners. Indeed, Varela wants to emphasize,
as enactivists generally want to do, the idea
that there is a connection between percep-
tion and active movement. Here he admits
that there is minimal movement involved in
perceiving this unstable image. He suggests
“head adjustment, frowning and blinking,
and surely, in eye movements of various
kinds” (Varela 1999a: 272). He oers anoth-
er example that serves the same analysis, but
would be less amenable to experimentation.
I open a door and walk across the thresh-
Figure 1 • Pyramid-Hallway
(from Varela 1999a).
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old only to bump into a friend whose face
I immediately recognize. I oer my hand in
greeting. ere is more obvious movement
involved, and there is a certain adjustment
required to bring my friend’s face into focus.
For Varela, and enactivists, the key is the
link between perception and action. “It is
this active side of perception that gives tem-
porality its roots in living itself” (ibid).
« 17 » It will be helpful to clarify the con-
cept of enactivism. Enactivism is a specic
theory of embodied cognition. It argues that
perception and much of cognition is action-
oriented, and that the meaningful world
is not independent from the experiencing
agent. Enactivism can be characterized by
the following propositions (see Gallagher
2017 for further discussion).
a Cognition is not simply a brain event.
It emerges from processes distributed
across brain-body-environment.
b e world (meaning, intentionality) is
not pre-given or predened, but is struc-
tured by cognition and action.
c Cognitive processes acquire meaning in
part by their role in the context of ac-
tion, rather than through a representa-
tional mapping or replicated internal
model of the world.
d e enactivist approach has strong links
to dynamical systems theory, emphasiz-
ing the relevance of dynamical coupling
and coordination across brain-body-
environment.
e In contrast to classic cognitive science,
which is oen characterized by method-
ological individualism with a focus on
internal mechanisms, the enactivist ap-
proach emphasizes the extended, inter-
subjective and socially situated nature of
cognitive systems.
f Enactivism aims to ground higher and
more complex cognitive functions not
only in sensorimotor coordination, but
also in aective and autonomic aspects
of the full body.
« 18 » Higher-order cognitive functions,
such as reective thinking or deliberation
are exercises of skillful know-how and are
usually coupled with situated and embod-
ied actions.Varela draws the connection
between Husserl’s analysis of intrinsic tem-
porality and enactivism by means of this
emphasis on movement, which reects the
enactivist emphasis on embodied cognition
and dynamical systems theory to character-
ize both the dynamical coupling between
body and environment, and the dynamical
processes of the brain.
From an enactive viewpoint, any mental act is
characterized by the concurrent participation of
several functionally distinct and topographically
distributed regions of the brain and their senso-
rimotor embodiment. From the point of view of
the neuroscientist, it is the complex task of relat-
ing and integrating these dierent components
that is at the root of temporality. A central idea
pursued here is that these various components
require a frame or window of simultaneity that
corresponds to the duration of lived present.
(Varela 1999a: 271)
« 19 » Somewhat like the shiing Neck-
er perspectives (pyramid/hallway, duck/
rabbit), Varela shis the perspective on tem-
porality, moving from the phenomenologi-
cal perspective to a neuroscientic point of
view. Here he introduces a second threefold
distinction between three scales of duration,
to make clear how we can open the window
onto the lived present.
e elementary timescale (measured in
milliseconds)
e integration timescale (measured in
seconds, approximating the specious
present)
e narrative timescale (measured in
durations greater than the specious
present).
Within the elementary timescale (of 10–100
msecs), which characterizes neurophysio-
logical events,1 two stimuli are not perceived
as successive but are fused and treated as
simultaneous. is facilitates the variations
across sense modalities, where visual, audi-
tory, tactile, etc. have dierent processing
times. At the ballet, my experience of the
ballerina’s movement is not out of sync with
the music, for example, because this sync-
ing between dierent temporally processed
1 | “ese thresholds can be grounded in the
intrinsic cellular rhythms of neuronal discharges,
and in the temporal summation capacities of syn-
aptic integration. ese events fall within a range
of 10 msec (e.g., the rhythms of bursting interneu-
rons) to 100 msec (e.g., the duration of an EPSP/
IPSP sequence in a cortical pyramidal neuron)”
(Varela 1999a: 273).
modalities happens within a window where
there is no experienced succession. is
timescale approaches the limit of the mo-
mentary perceptual event or the reaction
time for a basic action. Apparent motion,
such as the psy-phenomenon, Varela notes,
requires 100 msecs.
« 20 » At the integration scale these
subpersonal events are integrated into a
cognitive operation or basic action at a per-
sonal, phenomenological level. is corre-
lates with neuronal, “long-rangereciprocal
connections or cell assemblies across “vast
[relatively speaking] and geographically
separated regions of the brain” organized
in dynamical networks “where sequential-
ity is replaced by reciprocal determination
and relaxation time” (Varela 1999a: 274).
An experiential event arises, ourishes, and
subsides in the ow of consciousness in a
structure that integrates experiential phases
into and across cognitive acts and basic ac-
tions. is is precisely where the retention/
primal-impression/protention process does
its work and forms an incompressible spe-
cious present. is process is underpinned
by transient phase locking of cell assemblies
in neural synchronization (Varela 1995).
is intrinsic temporality arises in these dy-
namical processes, not on the basis of an ob-
jective time tied to an external or internally
ticking clock or a xed integration period,
but is contingent on the integration of vari-
able numbers of dispersed cell assemblies.
« 21 » One could think of this as a purely
processual or formal integration, and there-
fore as presemantic, independent of the par-
ticular intentional content of the experience.
Varela sees this as consistent with Husserl’s
contention that the coherence of temporal
experience does not depend on a recollec-
tion or act of expectation. For purposes of
understanding the intrinsic temporality
of consciousness we need not consider the
narrative timescale, which would involve
memory, etc.
« 22 » Varela’s analysis of the phenom-
enology of our temporal experience then
follows Husserl. He employs the multistable
image in Figure1 to provide a description of
the retentional aspect of experience.
What is preserved is also modied. If when I
see a pyramid, I could still hold unchanged the
nowness of when I saw the hallway, all temporal
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structure would disappear. e relation of the
now to the just-past is one of slippage organized
by very strict principles. (Varela 1999a: 278)
In eect, the retentional aspect of conscious-
ness presents, within the now of perception,
what is just past, not as present, but precisely
as just past – as a modied present. He also
presents neurocognitive evidence for the
distinction between memory proper and the
kind of working memory that is implied by
retention. Varela references several of Hus-
serl’s diagrams that indicate a source point
in the primal impression, but he also notes
dissatisfaction with the diagrams because
they represent Husserl’s earlier static view,
and he quotes favorably Maurice Merleau-
Ponty’s (2012: 440) note in reference to the
diagrams: “Time is not a line but a network
of intentionalities.” Varela thus suggests that
we take a dynamical view on the structures
of time-consciousness.2
« 23 » To set out this dynamical ac-
count, however, Varela turns back to the
neuroscience. e emergence of a transient
non-linear synchrony of coupled oscilla-
tors subtends the arising of structure in the
ow of consciousness and an integration of
experiential phases into dynamical trajecto-
ries. “Each emergence bifurcates [undergoes
a phase transition] from the previous ones
given its initial and boundary conditions.
us each emergence is still present [still
retained] in its successor” (Varela 1999a:
283).3 e important point for Varela is that
the biologically based model of the dynami-
2 | It is interesting to note that in some in-
terpretations of early Buddhism (prior to the de-
velopment of the Abhidharma) one nds a simi-
lar emphasis on the dynamical interconnection
“within a nite segment of time as constituting
our immediate experience” (Kalupahana 1974,
185). David Kalupahana provides a good review
of the complexity of Buddhist views on temporal-
ity. Varela was inuenced by Buddhist teachings
more generally. I thank an anonymous referee for
pointing to this connection.
3 | He provides a simple phenomenological
example using visual perception of a gure that
transitions across multiple variations of a male
face to a female body. “When the ambiguity has
increased suciently (when the observer has
moved to a position suciently advanced in the
series), we pass through a bifurcation or phase
cal system he describes captures the ow
structure that Husserl was aer. Varela ap-
peals to an unstable system in which “ere
are no attractor regions in phase space, but
rather ongoing sequences of transient visits
in a complex pattern of motion, modulated
only by external coupling” (ibid: 288).
« 24 » Varela oers more detail in esh-
ing out Husserl’s account of time-conscious-
ness, including a discussion of the double
intentionality of retention – the fact that
it retains phases of the enduring object by
retaining the owing phases of conscious-
ness itself, thus providing both a sense of the
continuity of the object and a pre-reective
sense of the experiencing self. Citing a point
I had made about the retentional-proten-
tional structure not being on a dierent
level from the ow (Gallagher 1979), Varela
argues that
e inseparability of these two intentionalities
here is not only descriptively accurate but part of
the intrinsic logic of complex nonlinear dynamics.
It would be inconsistent to qualify the self-motion
as a ‘deeper layer’ of the dynamical process and to
describe these trajectories as mere appearance.
(Varela 1999a: 295)
e double intentionality is more like what
Merleau-Ponty would call an intertwine-
ment or what Gibson would call an eco-
logical relation (also see Gallagher & Varela
2003 and ompson 2007: Chapter 11 for
more details of this neurophenomenologi-
cal account). For my purposes in this article,
however, I want to shi focus to Varela’s ac-
count of protention.
« 25 » Rightly noting that protention is
not symmetrical to retention, Varela sug-
gests that protention is closely connected
with aect and action. If we think that the
experiencing subject is always characterized
by an aective disposition, then the idea is
that one’s disposition modulates protention.
is idea nds application in considering
certain pathologies that may involve the
sense of agency. us, in the case of schizo-
phrenia, where there are modulations in af-
fect, there is also in some cases a disruption
in the sense of agency that may be tied to
a problem involving anticipatory experi-
transition and the emergence of a new percept be-
comes possible” (1999a: 284).
ence (Gallagher 2000; 2005; Gallagher &
Varela 2003; Jeannerod 2009). One might
also think of issues related to the experi-
ence of time in subjects with major depres-
sion (Gallagher 2012). I think the important
point here involves the sense of agency and
action, and this is consistent with Varela’s
transition to a discussion of the notion of
coping, transparency (or non-reection) as
one is absorbed in action, and ow, which
involves a readiness disposition or proten-
tion (anticipation) that is oriented towards
where the action is going.
« 26 » Varela provides more analysis,
especially in terms of constructing more
dynamical diagrams of temporal experi-
ence. He also suggests there is even more
to explore. As he transitions to his discus-
sion of the ow of consciousness, he asks
his readers “to consider what I propose in
the remainder of this text as a sketch of fu-
ture work more than anything else” (Varela
1999a: 289). I think, however, that we have
explored Varelas view suciently to moti-
vate a closer look at the connection between
protention, action and enactive perception.
The future: An enactivist
account of time-
consciousness4
« 27 » e protention/primal-impres-
sion/retention model applies to movement
and non-conscious motor processes, as well
as it does to consciousness (Berthoz 2000;
Gallagher 2005, 2011, 2016). Both human
experience and human action are charac-
terized by a ubiquitous intrinsic temporal-
ity. In regard to action, consider that at any
one moment the body is in some precise
posture, as one might capture it in a snap-
shot, for example. at snapshot posture,
however, is a complete abstraction from an
ongoing movement. Moving is not occupy-
ing a dierent posture from moment to mo-
ment; rather it involves a trajectory and is
constantly on the way, in a movement ow,
such that any abstract postural moment only
has signicance as part of that process. On
third-person measurements, at any moment
the body is in a specic posture. But if that
4 | is section is based on analyses in Gal-
lagher & Zahavi (2014) and Gallagher (2016).
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
96
The Past, Present and Futureof Time-Consciousness Shaun Gallagher
E 
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
The Past, Present and Futureof Time-Consciousness Shaun Gallagher
E 
postural moment is anything, it is the prod-
uct of an anticipated trajectory, of where the
action is heading. Moreover, we can dene
that abstract postural moment as what it is
only when it is already accomplished, which
means, only in retention, as an end point of
what had been a movement characterized
primarily by anticipation.
« 28 » As Husserl describes it, con-
sciousness operates in the same way as a
ow, intentionally directed so that when I
am hearing the current note of a melody I
am already moving beyond it, which is al-
ready a leaving behind in retention. e
basic datum of experience is a process in
which the primal impression is already col-
lapsing into the retentional stream even as
it is directed forward in protention. Hearing
a melody never involves hearing a currently
sounded note, and then moving beyond it;
rather, the “and then” is already eected, al-
ready implicit in the experience.
« 29 » Our experience of the present is
always dynamic in this protention/primal-
impression/retention structure, in such
a way that a focus on any one of the three
components in isolation runs into an ab-
straction. ere is no knife-edge impression
of the present; rather, as Husserl suggests,
primal impression is already fullling (or
failing to fulll) protentions that have just
been retained, and in doing so is already in-
forming current protention.
« 30 » As Husserl had suggested in the
Bernau Manuscripts, and consistent with
what Varela proposes, we should abandon
the idea that primal impression is a direct,
straight and simple apprehension of some
now-point of a stimulus (S) that is unaect-
ed by retention and protention. e current
note of melody I perceive is already modi-
ed by my just-past and passing awareness
of whatever came directly before. Primal
impression is already modied by the reten-
tional performance of consciousness. It is
not that in a now phase of consciousness I
have a retention of a past phase in addition
to a primal impression of a current S. It is
not an additive function. Rather, for a series
of notes, A, B, C, the primal impression of B
is already qualied or modulated by the just-
previous experience. e primal impression
of B (iB) is always something that works
its way through the retention of a previous
primal impression of the previous S (iA). In
other words, iB would be a dierent expe-
rience if it were preceded not by iA, but by
i[~A], just as much as the retention, r[iA]
would have to be dierent if it were r[i{~A}].
« 31 » Consider now the eect of proten-
tion (p). First, the primal impression of A,
(iA) produces a determination of what my
protentional horizon is – e.g., a protention
of B … C … and so on. Whatever I antici-
pate must be somewhat determined by what
I am currently experiencing. Furthermore,
when in the next moment iB comes along, it
is already qualied by the previous proten-
tion (which is now currently retained), as a
fulllment, if the previous protention was of
B, or as unfullled if the previous protention
was of something else. Generally speaking,
then, primal impression
a constrains the current protention by
providing partial specication of what I
am anticipating (protentional specica-
tion) and
b is constrained by the previous proten-
tion (being its fulllment or non-fulll-
ment).
e primal impression of B that conrms a
previous protention of B is dierent, indeed,
dierent in terms of its aective character,
from the primal impression of B disconrm-
ing a protention of ~B.
« 32 » Consider an example (from Gal-
lagher & Zahavi 2014). In many cases the
meaning of a word in a sentence is deferred
until a phrase or the sentence is complete, so
that the word itself, as it is read or sounded,
motivates a certain anticipation towards the
fulllment of its meaning. e word “cas-
es” in the previous sentence is an example.
It does not refer to a container (e.g., cases
of wine), or to grammatical cases (cases of
a noun or pronoun); but its meaning is al-
ready anticipated before that ambiguity gets
resolved, and the remainder of the sentence
fullls that anticipation. If the content of
the paragraph that preceded this paragraph
had been about a grammatical point, then
it could have biased my anticipation of the
meaning of the word “cases,” and clearly my
subsequent primal impressions would have
been dierent since they would not have ful-
lled the prior protention. Such things oen
slow down our reading and make us go back
over text to get clarication.
« 33 » If primal impression intuits the
current moment, it does so already con-
strained by the eects of retention and pro-
tention. If primal impression is part of the
structure of the living present, it is itself
structured in its relations to retention and
protention (and vice versa). In this sense, we
can say that time-consciousness has a fractal
character (Gallagher & Zahavi 2014). Each
element of the protention/primal-impres-
sion/retention structure reects that same
structure. Any attempt to dene primal im-
pression in itself always nds the eects of
retention or protention already included,
and likewise for any attempt to dene reten-
tion or protention. To think of one of these
elements as part of this structure is to think
it with (or having) this structure – primal
impression reecting retention and proten-
tion, and vice versa. is is consistent with
Husserl’s indication that “it pertains to the
essence of conscious life to contain an inten-
tional intertwining, motivation and mutual
implication by meaning […]” (Husserl 1977:
26; see ompson 2007: 356 for discussion).
« 34 » Accordingly, there is no primal
impression without it already being an-
ticipatory (on the basis of what has just oc-
curred), so that my primal impression of the
present is already involved in an enactive
anticipation of how my experience of the
stimulus will unfold. With protention lead-
ing the trajectory, the protention/primal-
impression/retention structure is an enac-
tive structure with regard to the stimulus in
the sense that a certain anticipatory aspect
(already shaped by what has just gone be-
fore) is already complicating the immediacy
of the present. Consciousness is not simply
a passive reception of the present; it is not
simply self-aective. It enacts the present.
In its dynamical intertwining it constitutes
its meaning in the shadow of what has just
been experienced, and in the light of what
it anticipates. Consistent with the idea of a
self-constituting ow, the coherency of con-
sciousness (or action) is not static, or an ad-
ditive kind of unity, but an enactive unity.
« 35 » is intrinsic temporality is not
independent from the intentional nature
of consciousness and action; it is what ex-
plains its directionality towards things. It is
enactively in-the-world, in very pragmatic
terms. is account lines up well with Hus-
serl’s conception of embodied experience
as an “I can,” a concept that foreshadowed
James Gibsons (1977) notion of aordance.
The Past, Present and Futureof Time-Consciousness Shaun Gallagher
E 
97
The Past, Present and Futureof Time-Consciousness Shaun Gallagher
E 
http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
As Husserl (1966a: 301; English translation:
313) put it, “every living is living towards
(Entgegenleben).In this anticipatory inten-
tionality the apprehension of the not yet is
not an apprehension of an absence (Entge-
genwärtigung), it is rather an apprehension
of the possibilities or the aordances in the
present, the anticipation of what S can be for
my experience, possibilities that will be ful-
lled or not fullled as our enactive percep-
tion trails o in retention.
« 36 » is intrinsic temporality con-
stitutes the possibility of an enactive en-
gagement with the experienced world (the
object, the melody, etc.). Nothing is an af-
fordance for my enactive engagement if it
is presented to me passively in a knife-edge
present; that is, nothing would be aorded if
there were only primal impressions, one af-
ter the other, without protentional anticipa-
tion, since I cannot enactively engage with
the world if the world is not experienced as
a set of possibilities, which, by denition, in-
volves the not yet. And just as nothing would
be possible if there were only primal impres-
sions without a retentional-protentional
structure, so too nothing would be possible
if there were no primal impression. If there
were only retentions, everything I experi-
ence would already have just happened; we
would be pure witnesses without the poten-
tial to engage. If there were only protentions,
there would only be unfullled promises of
engagement. Meaning itself would dissipate
under any of these conditions.
« 37 » is means that the enactive
character of perception, action, and inten-
tionality in general, goes all the way down; it
is embedded in the micro-structure of time-
consciousness; indeed, one does not get this
enactive character without this intrinsic
temporal integration. Experience thus has
an enactive character, not only on the level
of full acts of perception or actions, but in its
most basic self-constituting, self-organizing
level, in its intrinsic temporal structure.
Conclusion
« 38 » Varela (1999a) proposed an ac-
count of time-consciousness that brought
Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of the
temporal structure of experience into con-
tact with contemporary neuroscience and
dynamical systems theory, and pushed it to-
wards a more enactivist conception of con-
sciousness. is motivates a closer examina-
tion of the phenomenological aspects of the
intrinsic temporal structure of experience,5
understanding it in terms of its enactive
character, in its most basic manifestation. I
have argued that this enactivist phenome-
nology of time-consciousness both remains
consistent with and goes beyond Husserl’s
later writings on time-consciousness.
Acknowledgements
e author received support from the
Humboldt Foundation’s Anneliese Maier
Research Award (2012–18).
R:  M 
A:  A 
5 | Possible approaches to this further analy-
sis, consistent with Varela’s philosophy, could in-
clude micro-phenomenological analysis and the
use of mindfulness meditation as a phenomeno-
logical method (see, e.g., Bitbol & Petitmengin
2017; Petitmengin 2006; Petitmengin et al. 2017).
SHAUN GALLAGHER
is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy at
the University of Memphis. He has a secondary research appointment
at the University of Wollongong, Australia, is Honorary Professor at the
University of Tromsø, Norway, and held honorary positions at the University
of Copenhagen (2010–2015) and Durham University (2011–2016).
Gallagher holds the Humboldt Foundation’s Anneliese Maier Research Award
[Anneliese Maier-Forschungspreis] (2012–2018). His areas of research
include phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, especially topics
related to embodiment, self, agency and intersubjectivity, hermeneutics,
and the philosophy of time. Gallagher is a founding editor and a co-
editor-in-chief of the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.
His publications include How the Body Shapes the Mind (2005); The
Phenomenological Mind (with Dan Zahavi, 2008; second edition 2012);
Phenomenology (2011); The Neurophenomenology of Awe and Wonder
(2015) and Enactivist Interventions: Rethinking the Mind (2017).
{
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
98
Protention and Predictive Processing Dan Lloyd
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
Protention and Predictive
Processing: The Wave
of the Future
Dan Lloyd
Trinity College, Connecticut, USA
dan.lloyd/at/trincoll.edu
> Upshot • Gallagher’s main claim can
be enhanced neurophenomenologically.
In his 1907 lectures Thing and Space, Hus-
serl argued that perception in general is
enactive. Moreover, the neuroscientic
theory of predictive processing connects
neatly to a future-oriented phenomenol-
ogy.
« 1 » Your ight is about to land. As you
look out of the window, the ground rises
toward you, its details more sharply etched
with each passing second. Soon the end of
the runway ashes into view, with stripes
and skid marks streaking by. Suddenly
there’s a loud clunk and the plane shudders.
Now you expect either a rapid deceleration
as the plane rolls toward a stop, or a violent
burst of excruciating heat and pain – a ery
death. e experience of the landing gear
touching down with a bang is clearly very
dierent under the two dierent expecta-
tions. ese vivid anticipations – Husserlian
protentions – modify the immediate senso-
ry present, or what Edmund Husserl called
the Primal Impression (PI). e primal im-
pression (of landing) has no phenomenal
features that are not already infused with the
conscious anticipation of what is immedi-
ately to follow.
« 2 » Shaun Gallagher endorses Hus-
serl’s insistence that the temporal phases of
protention, primal impression, and reten-
tion are each abstractions from a unied
whole, rather than phenomenological iso-
lates. But within the Husserlian tripartite
sandwich, how thick is the primal impres-
sion? Gallagher develops the idea that the
PI is as thin as can be, a mere theoretical
boundary of protention and retention. (e
arguments in the target article were also de-
veloped in Gallagher & Zahavi 2014). e
infusion of protention underwrites Gallagh-
er’s push toward an enactive conception of
protention and thus of temporality overall.
« 3 » Gallagher grounds his enactivism
(as does Dan Zahavi) in the phenomenol-
ogy of time, going rst to Husserl’s Time lec-
tures from 1905, and Husserl’s subsequent
aerthoughts. But for Husserl’s enactivism a
richer source is his 1907 lectures on ing
and Space (Husserl 1997). Here we encoun-
ter the stirring idea that the consciousness of
things and their environments is essentially
compounded from combinations of sensa-
tion and bodily movement. For Husserl,
the problem inherent in our awareness of
objects and scenes is that the senses give us
sequences of images (visual, auditory, tac-
tile) dancing about without an organizing
principle to make sense of them. In addi-
tion to these jumbled sensory inputs, how-
ever, we nd another stream of sensation,
that of our bodies in motion, sensations
Husserl calls kinaesthetic (or nowadays,
proprioceptive). Taken by themselves, the
kinaesthetic stream is just as arbitrary as the
sensory stream. But when these two streams
are combined, they harmonize. Our kinaes-
thetic awareness serves to situate the points
of view that ricochet through the sensorium,
and thereby enable us to construct a stable
world (Husserl 1997: §§48–57).
« 4 » e common example of this har-
mony of informational ows is the relation-
ship between saccadic eye movements and
the visual world (Husserl 1997: §48). As our
eyes turn right, the retinal image slides to
the le. We do not see a jumpy world, how-
ever, because the retinal slide is cancelled
by aerent feedback from the muscles con-
trolling the eyes. e result is a stable visual
environment. In ing and Space, Husserl
works through an encyclopedia of variations
of agents in interaction with static and mov-
ing congurations of objects and scenes.
« 5 » Time is essential to this under-
standing of perception, of course, since the
world is built from the coordination of dy-
namical trajectories, but temporal experi-
ence emerges as constitutive of thinghood.
Husserl notes that visual objects, almost
without exception, always have parts that
are hidden from view:
e thing, as given in perception, has more
than the appearing […] front side […] and this
‘more’ lacks presentational contents. It is […]
co-included in the perception, but without itself
coming to presentation. (Husserl 1997: §16)
To see objects as things that can be distin-
guished from other things and to perceive
them as enclosing wholes, we apprehend
their back sides. But without direct sensory
contact, how do we experience a hidden side
as a surface with visible and tactile features
that nonetheless do not appear? We can un-
Open Peer Commentaries
on Shaun Gallagher’s “The Past, Present and Future
of Time-Consciousness”
99
Protention and Predictive Processing Dan Lloyd
E 
http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
derstand these obscurities as protentions,
as predictions of what we will nd when we
circle the object, or turn it around:
e thing […] is in and with the stream not
only of its actual changes but also of its possible
changes, and the latter are indeed innite, though
rmly delimited. (Husserl 1997: §48)
ese anticipated percepts will have the
same dual ow as occurrent perceptions.
We’ll see (for example) that if we move a
certain way, we’ll see a certain image. In this
way the tangle of impressions and move-
ments resolves as a world of things in space.
« 6 » e world is thick with things, and
thus is saturated with protention. Where
then is the primal impression? I concur with
Gallagher’s conclusion that to be impressed
in any way already enfolds expectations. No
experience is primal. Husserlian phenom-
enology fully converts expectation into ac-
tion, and thereby creates for consciousness
a world.
« 7 » As the above suggests, I think Gal-
lagher is on solid phenomenological ground
in his valorization of protention, more solid
even than his exposition would suggest. In
a Varelian vein, we can also strengthen Gal-
lagher’s protentive push with an appeal to
contemporary cognitive neuroscience.
« 8 » One theme of much recent cogni-
tive science and neuroscience is predictive
processing (PP; for example, Friston 2005;
Friston & Stephan 2007; Hohwy 2012; Ho-
hwy 2013). Andy Clark summarizes its main
claim:
To perceive the world is to meet the sensory
signal with an apt stream of multilevel predic-
tions. ose predictions aim to construct the
incoming sensory signal ‘from the top down’
using stored knowledge about interacting distal
causes. (Clark 2016: 6)
« 9 » One traditional view of perception
suggests that the world drives a cascade of
feature detectors from the bottom up (or
from the periphery inward). PP upends this
picture. Instead, it imagines a cascade of
predictions from the top down, where each
“higher layer” projects its best guess for the
future into the layer below, where it inhibits
congruent inputs. What propagates upward
then is an error signal, the mismatch (if any)
between the predicted and the incoming
neural signal. at error signal is used to ad-
just the predictions for the next round.
« 10 » Neural conduction takes time, so
both the traditional bottom-up scheme and
PP have straightforward temporal implica-
tions. Simply stated, bottom-up processing
follows a stimulus; PP, being predictive and
top-down, precedes the stimulus. Since the
predictive signal inhibits the matching in-
put, it seems that the downward-propagat-
ing information is mainly running ahead of
the incoming stimulus, and more or less re-
places it. e error signal, on the other hand,
follows the input, just as in the traditional
bottom-up scheme.
« 11 » ese temporal divisions of labor
suggest intriguing phenomenological analo-
gies. PP describes systems in which the
detailed model of the perceptual world is
protentive. Such systems live in the world of
their imagined futures until rudely contra-
dicted by stubborn error. e error signal,
meanwhile, encodes a just-past; its content
is most like retention. And, just as the target
article suggests, nothing remains of a bare
“primal impression.
« 12 » is strikes me as an attractive
alignment. e seeming (illusory) plenum
of the perceived world is a complex assump-
tion, and we ride the wave of this future.
However, the barebones PP sketched is still
tightly bound to the phenomenal immediate
present, as its predictions run just ahead of
inputs, and error signals just behind. As pre-
dictions range further into the future, their
reliability rests on intermediate predictions.
is cascade of intermediate anticipations
co-occur with present perception but they
must be kept in their proper temporal order.
us, PP leads to a picture of the present
perceptual moment as a compound of ex-
pectations, ordered by their time of expecta-
tion. is temporal penumbra of predictions
is analogous to Husserlian protention.
« 13 » e proposal that PP structures
neural computation in alignment with Hus-
serlian temporality can be contrasted with
similar ideas in the work of Varela (espe-
cially Varela 1999a). As Gallagher describes
(§§18–26), the centrepiece of Varela’s ac-
count is the transient cell assembly (Varela
1999a: 273), a distributed network of active
neurons bound temporarily by synchro-
nized oscillations. ese assemblies are sta-
ble only for brief periods, moments whose
durations comprise the “integrative (or ‘1’)
scale” of neurodynamics. Varela conceptu-
alizes these complex patterns of oscillation
as points in a trajectory through a high di-
mensional neural-activation space. Each
trajectory is unique, and is quasi-stable long
enough to embody a fringe or tail of reten-
tional information.
« 14 » As Gallagher mentions, proten-
tion (in Varela’s analysis) is not simply “re-
tention in reverse,but an “aective dispo-
sition(§25). Varela’s full proposals are too
elaborate for consideration here, beyond
noting that he stresses the concreteness and
specicity of retentional content, contrasted
with the openness of protention. Accord-
ing to PP, however, it is the predictive con-
tent that is most elaborate, while retention
emerges primarily as error. Both Varela and
the PP theorists face a parallel challenge:
How in the tumult of neural activity is the
structure of temporality to be embodied? We
navigate the temporal landscape with great
precision. How that temporal eld of view is
organized by the brain is still more conjec-
ture than science.
« 15 » Meanwhile, from two directions,
the phenomenological and the neuroscien-
tic, I am inclined to join Gallagher in his
push for an enactive temporality. Neurophe-
nomenology continues to be the wave of the
future.
Dan Lloyd is the Thomas C. Brownell Professor of
Philosophy and a Professor of Neuroscience at Trinity
College, Connecticut. Together with Valtteri Arstila he
is the author/editor of Subjective Time: The Philosophy,
Psychology, and Neuroscience of Temporality (2014).
Dan is also the author of Radiant Cool: A Novel Theory
of Consciousness, an exploration of consciousness
presented as a noir detective fiction (2004); and
Simple Minds: A Philosophical Examination of
Scientific Approaches to the Mind and Brain (1989).
R:  O 
A:  O 
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
100
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
Some Shortcomings
of Naturalization
Véronique Havelange
Université de Technologie de
Compiègne, France
veronique.havelange/at/orange.fr
> Upshot • Gallagher hardly refers to the
central issue of the phenomenological
reduction, and he perpetuates the histor-
ical blunder of Chisholm, misinterpreting
Husserlian intentionality as linguistic
intensionality. This misunderstanding
opens the way to a “naturalization” of
phenomenology, which misses the very
method of the phenomenological reduc-
tion as well as the essential dimension of
subjective lived experience.
« 1 » In the rst part of his target article,
Shaun Gallagher presents and analyses the
Husserlian concept of time-consciousness.
e latter is structured into a past, a pres-
ent and a future, a tripartite structure that
consolidates a dierentiation between the
primary impression (situated in the present
of the perception of an object), the reten-
tion (which contributes a consciousness of
the “just-elapsed” of this perception), and
the protention (which anticipates what is
“just-about-to-happen”). ese three mo-
ments dene a triple unied structure of
time-experience.
« 2 » On the basis of this initial pre-
sentation and this tripartite dierentiation,
Gallagher then proceeds to propose a “natu-
ralization” of temporal experience. I would
like to draw attention to two characteristics
of Gallagher’s approach, characteristics that
I consider call for critical examination.
Phenomenological reduction
« 3 » First of all, Gallagher evokes very
briey – too briey – the theme of the phe-
nomenological reduction. He merely al-
ludes to it just once in his §2, saying only
that Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology in-
volves “bracketing or setting aside assump-
tions about time as objective or measurable
by the clock.” But concerning the whole
question of wrenching oneself away from
the “natural attitude, the unquestioned
and unquestioning belief in the existence
of transcendent objects and other persons,
Gallagher says practically nothing. is
cursory treatment of the phenomenological
reduction (in particular the epoché in Hus-
serl’s later work) seems to me insucient
and perilous. In particular, it opens the
way to purely and simply juxtaposing the
phenomenological approach and the enter-
prise of naturalization. is way of merely
putting these two approaches in parallel
amounts to an unfortunate oversimplica-
tion, which seriously obscures the complex
relation of intertwinement (Ineinander in
the German original) between phenom-
enology and the sciences (in particular the
sciences of mind), which Husserl (1982)
went to considerable lengths to elaborate.
is relation of intertwinement carries in-
deed a major implication: the naturalist ap-
proach to the experience of time (and more
generally to consciousness), perfectly legiti-
mate in itself, exerts in addition a feedback
eect (Rückbeziehung) on the phenomeno-
logical description. is intertwining gives
rise to “a double and mutual presupposition
between science and the pre-donation of
the world” (Husserl 1971: §45); and this, in
turn, puts into question the mere juxtaposi-
tion that Gallagher proposes.
« 4 » However, Gallagher concludes
this section on Husserl by noting that af-
ter 1917, and in particular in the Bernau
Manuscripts written in 1917 and 1918 (Hus-
serl 2001), Husserl himself recongures
his tripartite analysis of the temporality of
lived experience. e point here is that the
“primal impression,” far from being con-
stitutive, is constituted by the intertwining
of retentions and protentions. Gallagher
concludes this section (§§11–13) by em-
phasizing that this displacement marks the
passage from a static phenomenology to
a genetic phenomenology, and this opens
the way to a more dynamic conception of
temporal consciousness. is seems to me
essentially correct. Whether this more dy-
namic conception justies an “enactivist”
reading of Husserl, and whether it validates
the enterprise of “naturalizing” phenom-
enology, is more dubious.
Intentionality
« 5 » My second remark is that Galla-
gher perpetuates the blunder committed by
Roderick Chisholm (1957) in his interpre-
tation of the key concept of “intentionality.
According to Husserl, the distinctive type
of act specic to consciousness consists of
an “intentional aiming” whereby conscious-
ness directs itself to something outside it-
self, without for all that leaving itself: this
is the notion of “transcendence within im-
manence” (Husserl 1982: §57). Gallagher
systematically confuses this “directedness-
to” of the conscious mind with linguistic in-
tensionality (with an “s”). Indeed Chisholm,
who historically introduced Franz Brentano
to the Anglo-Saxon world, committed a
serious misunderstanding in his reading.
e correct interpretation of intentionality
is that of a psychical act (the noesis) that
transcends itself from within, in correlation
with a sense (Sinn) that remains interior
to itself (the noema): hence the notion of
“noetico-noematic correlation” that Hus-
serl attempted to grasp. However, Chisholm
– and following him Quine – interpreted
intentionality as a mental state (not an act);
this state is endowed with a “contentthat
refers to a physical object. e existence of
this (putative) object is not (and cannot be)
guaranteed by the fact that the mental state
itself exists. It follows that this “content” can
only be intensional in the linguistic sense
(Dupuy 1994; Havelange 1995). is mis-
understanding thus goes directly against
the core of the phenomenological approach,
i.e., the phenomenological reduction.
« 6 » Because of this, cognitive sci-
ence1 remains beholden to a philosophy
of language rather than a genuine philoso-
phy of mind. Consequently, attempts at the
“naturalization of this psycho-linguistic
philosophy engender a permanent dilemma
confronting a materialist theory of mind,
oscillating hopelessly between an elimina-
tionist” position and a vague, indenable
“non-reductionist” stance. It seems as if it is
because he has understood neither the ep-
oché nor the “intentional aiming” that Gal-
lagher sees in “enactivism” a royal road for
his project of naturalizing phenomenology.
1 | At least in its original version of the “com-
putational theory of mind” and its cognitivist
derivatives. Whether this also applies to the puta-
tive paradigm shi towards enaction is an open
question.
101
Time As the “Acid Test” of Neurophenomenology Jean-Michel Roy
E 
http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
Neurophenomenology
« 7 » Gallagher refers to Francisco Va-
rela in order to further his project of natu-
ralization. is is notably the case concern-
ing the introduction of neuroscience in the
form of “neurophenomenology.” What Gal-
lagher seems not to notice, or to care about,
is that this introduction of neuroscience
and reference to brain-states leads us even
further away from the existential dimen-
sion of Husserlian intentionality. e point
is that Husserlian phenomenology lays the
basis for seriously taking into account the
subjective dimension of lived experience.
Phenomenology engages and challenges the
subject in the intimacy of their own lived ex-
perience. On the contrary, Gallagher waters
down this subjective dimension by shiing
what is given in rst-person experience to
a third-person register; this is, to be sure,
much more amenable to a conventional sci-
entic approach, but unfortunately misses
the main point.
Conclusion
« 8 » e theme of this special issue is
“Missing the Wood for the Trees.” Ironically
enough, this article of Gallagher is a prime
example of how easy it is to lose one’s way
and to fall wide of the mark; in other words,
neither more nor less than to miss the wood
for the trees.
Véronique Havelange studied philosophy at the
University of Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne. Her main
area of research is the epistemology of the social
sciences and cognitive science. She was a Reader
at the Technological University of Compiègne for
many years, where, in 1987, she set up a degree
on “Philosophy, Technology, Cognition.” She is
currently preparing a book on The Problem of
Subjectivation and the Formation of the Social
Bond in the Constitution of the Sciences of Mind.
R:  O 
A:  O 
Time As the “Acid Test”
of Neurophenomenology
Jean-Michel Roy
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon,
France, and East China Normal
University, Shanghai, China
jean-michel.roy/at/ens-lyon.fr
> Upshot • Gallagher provides a sugges-
tive solution to the problem of articulat-
ing the neurophenomenological and the
enactivist components of Varela’s ap-
proach to cognition, although one that
perpetuates a problematic understand-
ing of the naturalist dimension of the
idea of neurophenomenology.
« 1 » Shaun Gallagher provides a con-
cise but remarkably comprehensive account
of Francisco Varela’s application of his neu-
rophenomenological perspective to the topic
of time. A topic that was undeniably crucial
for Varela, and the only one about which he
had the time to oer a detailed illustration
of what a neurophenomenological inquiry
looks like. is crucial role is concealed by
the fact that in his programmatic 1996 paper
“Neurophenomenology: A Methodological
Remedy for the Hard Problem,” time gures
only as one among four types of phenomena
mentioned as possible elds of application.
It is interesting to note, however, that in the
initial version of the article submitted in Au-
gust 1995, the investigation of temporality
is the only case study presented under a de-
veloped form. One might therefore reason-
ably suppose that the phenomenon of time
is the main source of the neurophenom-
enological project, and that Varelian neuro-
phenomenology is in this sense primarily a
neurophenomenology of time. A hypothesis
reinforced by the fact that in the “Specious
Present” (Varela 1999a), his central work on
the topic, Varela also explicitly qualies time
as the “acid test” (ibid: 267) of the whole neu-
rophenomenological project.
« 2 » Accordingly, the key question
raised by his innovative approach to tem-
porality – although it incarnates neither the
only nor the earliest version of the general
idea that a rigorous descriptive account of the
subjective dimension of cognitive processing
must be integrated into a scientic study of
cognitive faculties – is whether it successful-
ly passes this acid test. In other words: Does
Varela oer a suciently satisfactory neuro-
phenomenological investigation of time, an
inquiry that validates the general neurophe-
nomenological project to which it belongs?
And such is precisely the question addressed
by Gallagher in his target article. His answer
can be seen as a twofold one. To the extent
that it is a test of the soundness of the neuro-
phenomenological project at large, Gallagher
agrees that the investigation of time carried
out by Varela validates his general ambition
of “providing a naturalized account” of the
subjective side of cognition along neurophe-
nomenological lines. However, as a neuro-
phenomenological account of the specic
phenomenon of temporality, it suers from
a weakness regarding an additional, and no
less central, ambition of the neurophenom-
enological project, which is to contribute to
the development of an enactivist perspective
on cognition. In other words, despite mak-
ing “some important headway,” Varela oers
a neurophenomenological account of time-
consciousness that is insuciently enactive
in Gallagher’s eyes, and consequently does
not score on the acid test as well as it should
in this regard. e goal of Gallagher’s contri-
bution is precisely to improve this score by
oering a reorientation of the idea of a neu-
rophenomenology of time in a more fully
and radically enactivist direction.
« 3 » Gallagher’s criticism touches on a
rather deep and important issue about Va-
relas overall project, namely that of nding
a proper way of articulating its neurophe-
nomenological and enactivist dimensions.
It is oen neglected that the neurophenom-
enological claim emerges late in Varela’s the-
oretical itinerary, and only as a complement
to the formulation of the enactivist claim,
itself derived from the autopoietic one about
the phenomenon of life and belonging to the
foundations of life sciences. And although
Varela certainly saw these three claims re-
garding neurophenomenology, enaction
and autonomy as obeying one single deep
theoretical logic, a non-neurophenomeno-
logical enactivist theory of cognition is argu-
ably conceivable, as well as a non-enactivist
neurophenomenological one. As a matter of
fact, the principles of neurophenomenology
are formulated by Varela in fairly neutral
terms regarding the descriptive content and
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
102
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
the neurobiological content of its phenom-
enological and neurocognitive components.
And it is hard to see any reason why a dis-
ciplined account of the content of conscious
cognitive experience along these principles
(reduction, use of intuition, description of
experiential invariants, training, establish-
ment of mutual constraints) could not be
developed in a kind of classical neurocog-
nitive framework that enactivism takes as
its main target. Furthermore, even though
Varela explicitly reiterates that the “back-
ground of [his] discussion of temporality” is
the enactive approach (Varela 1999a: 272), it
is far from clear whether a good deal of the
discussion dedicated to nowness, retention
and the genetic analysis of temporality relies
on much more than the hypothesis of neural
assemblies based on phase-locking. ere is
more to enactivism, however, than the neu-
ral-assembly hypothesis and the dynamical-
systems framework associated with it, both
of which also gure as constitutive elements
in non-enactive approaches. Consequently,
by emphasizing the need to tighten the link
of Varelian neurophenomenology of time
with its enactivist background, Gallagher
points with good reason to a problematic
connection within Varelas theoretical con-
struction. So, the rst issue raised by his
contribution can accordingly be put as fol-
lows: How well integrated into its enactivist
framework is the Varelian neurophenom-
enology of time, according to Gallagher, and
how exactly does he propose to integrate it
better into this framework?
« 4 » e answer to this twofold interro-
gation depends, of course, on what one takes
the essence of enactivism to be. Gallagher
locates it fundamentally in the claim that
action is essential to cognition, and hence
to temporality (§16), even though he fully
acknowledges that this essentiality of action
claim is complemented by several additional
ones (§17). On this basis, he further locates
the enactivist dimension of Varelas phe-
nomenology of time in his analysis of pro-
tention, which connects protention closely
with action and aect,” and in which Varela
puts, indeed much more evidently, the basic
tenets of the enactivist framework to bear
on the investigation of temporality. Varela
concentrates in particular on the relation
that protention has with the aective dimen-
sion of the disposition to act, considered as
a central aspect of the key phenomenon of
coping. Unfortunately, Gallagher does not
push his critical examination so far as to
specify why this Varelian analysis falls short
of providing a satisfactory enactivist account
of protention. But it can be surmised from
his own proposal that its main insuciency
consists in its not anchoring the enactivist
dimension of protention deeply enough in
the structure of experiential temporality. As
is made clear in §37, Gallagher thinks indeed
that the enactive character of cognition nds
its ultimate source in this structure itself,
and specically in the nature of its proten-
tion constituent. For Gallagher, protention
is an intrinsically enactive constituent of the
structure of temporality, and furthermore
everything else inherits its enactive dimen-
sion from participating in this structure.
Why does Gallagher consider protention to
be intrinsically enactive? e core of his an-
swer can be found in §34, where he writes:
[T]he protention/primal impression/retention
structure is an enactive structure with regard to
the stimulus in the sense that a certain anticipa-
tory aspect (already shaped by what has just gone
before) is already complicating the immediacy of
the present.
Protention is thus considered intrinsically
enactive to the extent that it is intrinsically
anticipatory, and therefore future-oriented.
But how does the notion of anticipation
itself relate for Gallagher to the idea of es-
sentiality of action, considered as the most
essential dening feature of enactivism? e
answer is: through the further idea that an-
ticipating is a form of acting. Indeed, Gal-
lagher characterizes an analysis of the tem-
poral structure of experience in terms of
anticipation as an “active” or “dynamic” one,
as opposed to a “passive” or “static” one.
« 5 » It is thus clear that Gallagher’s pro-
posal goes right to the heart of the problem
of articulating neurophenomenology with
enactivism, and takes a radical stand on the
matter, inscribing what might be called the
principle of enactivism into neurophenome-
nology, and neurophenomenology of time in
particular. He even inscribes it into the very
core of the neurophenomenology of time,
i.e., in the content of the description of time
consciousness, and not in its methodology.
As a result, any type of phenomenological
inquiry accepting this description qualies
as a form of enactivism. And this, he feels,
also applies to Husserlian phenomenology.
« 6 » e next question raised by Galla-
gher’s proposal is naturally that of determin-
ing to what extent it is a better enactivist can-
didate for passing the acid test than Varela’s.
e answer to this question exceeds the lim-
its of this commentary, as it requires, in par-
ticular, critically and comprehensively com-
paring their respective analyses of protention
drawn from the same late Husserl source. It
nevertheless opens an important new space
of discussion for future debates in the search
for a neurophenomenology of time.
« 7 » I will content myself with men-
tioning one diculty elicited by Gallagher’s
proposal, which relates directly to an im-
portant problem concerning the validity of
the Varelian neurophenomenology of time.
e diculty is that Gallagher sticks to a
standard interpretation of Varelian neu-
rophenomenology as a naturalist account
of experience, and that this interpretation
is quite problematic. Detailing the reasons
why it is so, is also beyond the scope of this
commentary, but the bulk of the argument is
quite simple. e claim is that if we stick to
the denition of neurophenomenology of-
fered by Varela in 1996, and repeated in later
writings, neurophenomenology cannot be
construed as a naturalist enterprise because
it leaves the core of the problem of cognitive
naturalism unanswered. Varela certainly
did provide an answer to this problem, and
one that takes the form of a type of causal
emergentism, whose best and most explicit
articulation and defence can be found in an
article that was published posthumously and
co-authored with Evan ompson (omp-
son & Varela 2001). However, the problem
is that this answer is not explicitly inte-
grated into his central formulations of the
denition of neurophenomenology. Some
(e.g., Bitbol 2000) have concluded from
this strange absence (an absence that con-
trasts here again with the rst version of the
1996 article that explicitly mentions emer-
gentism) that Varela transforms the general
notion of cognitive naturalism and circum-
vents the hard problem instead of confront-
ing it. Nothing could be more erroneous in
my opinion.
« 8 » Neurophenomenology is explicitly
introduced as a “remedy to the hard prob-
103
Life is Intrinsically Temporal Julian Kiverstein
E 
http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
lem,” although one of a “methodological”
sort. is means that, for Varela, contrary
to what Chalmers thinks, we do not need a
new naturalist principle of explanation, for
the reason that we do have a valid one in
our hands with causalist emergentism. e
only thing we need, in order to eliminate
the explanatory gap, is to enrich this emer-
gentist framework with the introduction
of a level of rst-person description of the
explanandum as well as of some reciprocal
constraints between this level and the other
ones. In other words, the motto is: close the
descriptive gap, and the explanatory gap will
go. Consequently, neurophenomenology
without emergentism is not a naturalist doc-
trine, and cannot be a solution to the hard
problem. Mutual constraints per se do not
and cannot deliver the sought-for naturalist
explanation of consciousness. e conse-
quence is that if one sticks to the standard
understanding, suggested by Varela’s own
formulations, of what neurophenomenology
is, his neurophenomenology of time scores
much worse in the acid test on the issue of
naturalism than it possibly does on the issue
of enactivism. One can always retort that it is
enough to supplement the missing element
and assess the achievements of the Varelian
neurophenomenology of time in light of the
right understanding of neurophenomenolo-
gy. But it is not clear whether Varela did not
somehow fall victim to his own problematic
formulations and did much more, as a re-
sult, than illustrating how one can establish
mutual constraints, instead of relations of
causal emergence, between the Husserlian
analysis of the structure of time-conscious-
ness and neural-assemblies dynamics.
Jean-Michel Roy collaborated with Francisco
Varela at the time Varela laid the grounds of his
neurophenomenological project. A co-founder of the
Paris research group Phenomenology and Cognition,
he organized the 1995 Bordeaux conference that
gave birth to the collective volume Naturalizing
Phenomenology (1999), of which he is a co-editor. In
a series of subsequent papers, he developed his own
view of the possible relevance of a phenomenological
investigation to contemporary cognitive science,
and of Husserlian phenomenology in particular.
R:  O 
A:  O 
Life is Intrinsically Temporal
Julian Kiverstein
University of Amsterdam,
Netherlands
j.d.kiverstein/at/amc.uva.nl
> Upshot • In this commentary I invert
Gallagher’s argument and argue that
the account he gives of temporality
should be applied to enactive cognition
across the board. Instead of enactiv-
ising phenomenological accounts of
time-consciousness, I suggest Gallagher
ought also to be read as arguing for a
temporalizing of enactive cognition.
Introduction
« 1 » In this important target article
Shaun Gallagher sets about providing a
new “full-edged” enactive interpretation
of time-consciousness. He does so by fol-
lowing up on the neurophenomenologi-
cal account of time-consciousness Varela
developed in a series of papers in the late
1990s (Varela 1999a, 1999b). Gallagher
argues, however, that Varela’s ideas were
insuciently integrated with his enactive
theory of cognition. In this essay Gal-
lagher shows how to make Varela’s ideas
truer to the spirit of his enactivism. e
key move Gallagher makes is to look to the
later genetic analysis of time-consciousness
Edmund Husserl (2001) provided in the
Bernau Manuscripts of 1917–18. In what
follows I will try to bring out the conse-
quences of Gallagher’s argument, not for
how one thinks about time-consciousness
but for the enactive approach to the mind
more generally. In the next section I begin
with some brief remarks about how Gal-
lagher characterises the enactive approach
to the mind. e middle section provides
an overview of Varela’s work on time-con-
sciousness. I aim to provide just enough of
an overview of this work to highlight what
one might take to be missing when seen
through the lenses of Varelas broader com-
mitment to enactivism. e nal section
turns to Gallagher’s treatment of time-con-
sciousness in his target article. I show how
the enactive account of time-consciousness
Gallagher proposes can also be interpreted
as an argument for the temporalizing of en-
action more generally.
Gallagher’s enactivism
« 2 » Enactivism is described by a
Gallagher as a theory of embodied cogni-
tion (§17). As such, enactivism as a theory
should apply to all cases of embodied cogni-
tion, not only to conscious episodes of expe-
rience. In his recent book, for instance, Gal-
lagher shows how enactivism can be applied
not only to action and perception but also to
“higher-order capabilities such as memory,
imagination, reective judgement and so
on” (Gallagher 2017: 186). us, we can see
already his argument has implications that
potentially go beyond time-consciousness.
e account of temporality he arrives at
potentially applies to cognition across the
board, I suggest, and not only to time-con-
sciousness.
« 3 » Gallagher says quite rightly that
enactivism is a “specic theory” of embod-
ied cognition. In his list of the dening com-
mitments of enactivism, however, it was not
completely clear to me what sets enactiv-
ism apart from other theories of embodied
cognition. Anthony Chemero’s radical em-
bodied cognitive science would agree with
all the propositions Gallagher associates
with enactivism (Chemero 2009). Does this
mean that radical embodied cognition is
just enactivism? Proponents of the extended
mind might also be able to embrace all of
these propositions for at least some cases of
cognition (Clark 2008). us, proponents of
the extended mind may embrace Gallagher’s
description of enactivism but argue that it is
restricted in scope to certain types of cogni-
tive processes.
« 4 » e latter possibility raises the
question of the scope of Gallagher’s enac-
tive propositions. I take it from propositions
(f) and (g) in §17 that Gallagher’s enactiv-
ism is intended as a theoretical and concep-
tual framework for understanding cognition
across the board. It applies to both so-called
“lower” processes of online sensorimotor
control, and to “higher-order” processes of
oine cognition. Perhaps, then, it is in part
the scope of enactivism that distinguishes it
from other approaches to embodied cogni-
tion.
« 5 » In addition, I would suggest prop-
osition (b) is a distinguishing feature of en-
active theories. is is the claim that “[t]he
world (meaning, intentionality) is not pre-
given or pre-dened.” Exactly what Galla-
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
104
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
gher has in mind here is complicated by the
parentheses. Based on what he says in ini-
tially introducing enactivism, I will take him
to mean the life-world or the environment
– the meaningful world as it is experienced
by organisms belonging to a form of life. e
environment has to be understood in rela-
tion to organisms that live in it because it is
from their activities that the environment is
given meaning. What sets apart enactivism
from other theories of embodied cognition
(but not from radical embodied cogni-
tive science) is that it thinks of cognition
in terms of an organism-environment co-
determination. e organism as a self-pro-
ducing and self-sustaining unity establishes
a meaningful relation to the environment
based on its living cares and concern. e
environment is a domain of interactions, a
niche, dened in relation to the organism.
e organism engages in recurrent patterns
of active engagement in the niche it inhabits
in order to maintain its own viability, and its
way of life more generally (Rietveld & Kiver-
stein 2014).
Varela’s neurophenomenology
of time-consciousness
« 6 » Varela approaches the naturali-
sation of time-consciousness through his
work on the neurodynamics of conscious-
ness. He makes a distinction between three
temporal scales of processes in the brain.
ese three temporal scales already help us
to understand how the temporality of pro-
cesses in the brain can come apart from the
temporality of processes in the world. With-
in the elementary timescale of 10–100ms,
for instance, events that occur successively
in the environment can be fused by sen-
sory systems and treated as simultaneous.
Similarly, it is processing at this temporal
scale that allows for experiences in dierent
sense-modalities to be combined and inte-
grated, presenting me with, for instance, the
sight of the ballerina’s movements in sync
with the sound of the music to which she
is dancing.
« 7 » Varela hypothesised that at the
integration timescale measured in seconds,
brain processes organise in such a way as to
give rise to a temporally structured ow of
consciousness. He applied his neurophysio-
logical work on the transient phase-locking
of cell assemblies in neural synchronisation
to explain the temporality of the stream
of consciousness. e transient non-lin-
ear synchrony of coupled oscillators only
emerges on the basis of what has gone before
in the brain. Prior patterns of activation set
the boundary conditions for the emergence
of neural synchrony. us, each preceding
dynamical trajectory remains present and
is retained as the boundary condition for
the emergence of its successor. Protention
is understood by Varela as bound up with
the agent’s aective disposition that readies
the agent for action (see, e.g., Varela & De-
praz 2005). Temporality thus arises out of
the large-scale self-organising dynamics of
“functionally distinct and topographically
distributed regions of the brain and their
sensorimotor embodiment” (Varela 1999a:
271). ese diverse neural elements are
brought together within a window of time
that Varela suggests “corresponds to the du-
ration of the lived present” (ibid).
« 8 » Viewed from the wider perspec-
tive of enactivism, what is missing in Va-
rela’s important treatment of the biological
basis of time-consciousness is a story about
how integration in the brain takes place in
the wider context of the animal’s sensorim-
otor embodiment in its environment. Gal-
lagher nds a clue for developing such an
account in the intrinsic temporality that is
shared by both perception and action (§27).
The intrinsic temporality of life
« 9 » As my hand moves towards the
cup of coee I am reaching to grasp, my
arm goes through a sequence of dierent
postures. At each moment my movement is
unfolding because of the cup I am moving
to take hold of. ere is thus a retaining in
perceptual presence of the cups aordances
its possibilities for action – to which my
movements are coordinating and adjusting
(Rietveld & Kiverstein 2014). At the same
time, my movements are unfolding in a way
that anticipates my taking hold of the cup of
coee to drink from it. My movements thus
unfold along a particular trajectory based
both on a retention of my body’s congu-
ration in relation to the environment, and
an anticipation of where my movement is
heading next. Similarly, perception is not a
“knife-edge impression of the present.” Per-
ception instead arises with what Gallagher
describes as an “empty anticipation” that
is either fullled or not fullled by a pri-
mal impression. is empty anticipation is
in turn constrained by a retention of what
was just anticipated. e primal impression
does not make a contribution to the consti-
tution of temporal experience on its own
but is itself constituted by the relationships
that hold between retentions and proten-
tions.
« 10 » Gallagher does not elaborate
further on the signicance of perception
and action as sharing a common temporal
structure. However, a thought along these
lines seems to be behind his characterising
the temporal structure of the stream of con-
sciousness as enactive. He writes:
With protention leading the trajectory, the
protention-primal-impression-retention struc-
ture is an enactive structure with regard to the
stimulus in the sense that a certain anticipatory
aspect (already shaped by what has just gone be-
fore) is already complicating the immediacy of
the present. (§34)
What is not entirely clear to me, however,
is why protention leading the trajectory
suces to make the temporal structure of
the stream of consciousness enactive? Why
does Gallagher say that, because of its in-
trinsic temporality, consciousness “enacts
the present”?
« 11 » is becomes somewhat clearer
(in §35) when Gallagher writes that intrin-
sic temporality is what explains the direct-
edness of both consciousness and action
towards things in the environment. Con-
sciousness as enactive is to be understood
as an “I can” that is as an “apprehension of
the possibilities or the aordances in the
present.” Gallagher then proceeds to oer
the following argument for this conclu-
sion. ere would be no engagement with
aordances were perception to only pres-
ent an animal with a knife-edge present.
To apprehend and be sensitive to possibili-
ties, a perceiving animal needs protentional
anticipation – it needs to have experiences
that reach out into the future, anticipating
what could be. is is just what it takes to
perceive possibilities. Gallagher does not
spell out whether perception of possibilities
would be possible without retention. How-
ever, since what is retained is just the ful-
lled or unfullled protention that has just
105
Directional Causality Between Affect, Action and Time-Consciousness? Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
E 
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past, we can infer, based on the argument
that has just been given, that it would not.
Perception without retention would be per-
ception that is unconstrained by what was
previously anticipated. But we have just ar-
gued that there can be no perception of pos-
sibilities without protention. Finally, Gal-
lagher does consider whether there could
be engagement with possibilities without
a primal impression, and answers in the
negative. “If there were only retentions, ev-
erything I experience would have just hap-
pened; we would be pure witnesses without
the potential to engage” (§36).
Conclusion
« 12 » Gallagher’s argument has far-
reaching consequences. It is not so much
the structure of time-consciousness that is
enactive. Instead it seems to me that what
Gallagher has shown is that cognition
conceived in terms of enaction (across the
board in all of its guises from “lower” to
“higher-order cognition”) has a temporal
structure. Gallagher has found in Husserl
a description of the temporality that is in-
trinsic to the self-organising processes that
unfold as the agent dynamically couples to
its environment in perception and action.
He has shown how intrinsic temporality has
its roots in life.
Julian Kiverstein is a senior researcher working on Erik
Rietveld’s ERC-funded project “Skilled Intentionality
for Higher Cognition.” He works on foundational
issues in the philosophy of cognitive science. He
is currently working on a co-authored book with
Michael Kirchhoff, titled Extended Consciousness: A
Third-Wave View, which will be published in 2018.
R:  O 
A:  O 
What Is the Exact
Directional Causality
Between Affect, Action and
Time-Consciousness?
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
University of Haifa, Israel
avivabo/at/edu.haifa.ac.il
> Upshot • A triple schematic connec-
tion between aect, action and time-
consciousness can be represented as fol-
lows: “aect action (anticipation)
time-consciousness (protention).” Two
questions are raised: what is the exact
directional causality between these
three phenomena? And does empirical
evidence from the study of certain con-
ditions where the time-experience,
aect and action were shown to be
transformed support the proposed con-
nections? While psychiatric disorders
show a similar schematic causation be-
tween these phenomena, this is not the
case for meditation. One possible expla-
nation of the inconsistency is the ques-
tion of the interplay in aect between
arousal and valence.
« 1 » e thread hat passes through
the target article by Shaun Gallagher is the
enactivist account of time-consciousness,
understanding it in terms of action-orient-
ed embodied phenomenology, consistent
with Francisco Varela’s constructivist ap-
proach. Specically, the author claims that
time-consciousness (the third part of the
structure of the temporal-experience, the
protention – which is an implicit anticipa-
tion of what is just about to happen) is tied
to action (i.e., anticipatory behavior), which
is closely connected with aect. In §25, the
author writes:
Rightly noting that protention is not sym-
metrical to retention, Varela suggests that proten-
tion is closely connected with aect and action. If
we think that the experiencing subject is always
characterized by an aective disposition, then the
idea is that one’s disposition modulates proten-
tion. is idea nds application in considering
certain pathologies that may involve the sense of
agency.
« 2 » us, there are three phenomena –
aect, action and time-consciousness – that
seem to have a causal connection between
them. But what is the exact directional cau-
sality between these three phenomena? And
does empirical evidence from the study of
certain conditions where the time-expe-
rience, aect and action were shown to be
transformed support the theoretical con-
nections?
« 3 » If we consider that Varela and
Nathalie Depraz (2005: 74) refer to aect
as “embodiment of readiness-for-action,
then the rst causal connection might be
schematically seen as “aect action.
And when considering that “It is this ac-
tive side of perception that gives temporal-
ity its roots in living itself ” (Varela 1999a:
272), then the second causal connection
might be schematically seen as “action
time-consciousness.” us, theoretically, the
schematic connections can be represented
as follows: “aect action (anticipation)
time-consciousness (protention).
« 4 » e schematic connections can be
put to empirical test by using the intentional
binding paradigm as a measure of agency,
as subsequently elaborated. e sense of
agency (the sense that I am the one who is
causing or generating an action) is a bridg-
ing empirical concept between action and
time-consciousness, because it is associ-
ated with a subjective compression of time,
such that causal actions and their eects are
perceived as bound together across time
(Haggard, Clark & Kalogeras 2002; Moore
& Obhi 2012). is phenomenon is known
as “intentional binding,” and according to
the inuential “Comparator Model” it de-
pends on sensorimotor prediction of ac-
tion outcomes (Blakemore, Wolpert & Frith
2002). Specically, an eerence copy of mo-
tor commands is used to predict the likely
sensory consequences of a voluntary action,
and the match between these predictions
and the measured sensory consequences
promotes the feeling of self-agency, whereas
a mismatch reduces it.
« 5 » Yet, the question arises – is the
sense of agency a cause or a consequence
of the subjective compression of time be-
tween actions and their eects? While more
experimental work is needed to clarify this
relationship, one hypothesis aligned with
the proposed schematic triple connection
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
106
Directional Causality Between Affect, Action and Time-Consciousness? Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
E 
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
The Transcendental Character of Temporality Stefano Poletti
– is that sense of agency is the cause rather
than the consequence (Stetson et al. 2006),
which aligns closely with Varelas view. Ac-
cording to this hypothesis, we expect that
outcomes caused by our own actions will be
temporally contiguous. Once we recognize
that an outcome is dependent on our own
behavior (high sense of agency), then a re-
calibration mechanism is activated, bringing
these two events closer together in subjec-
tive time. is suggests that perception of
time may be strongly modulated by prior
expectancy, as applies to other perceptions
(Moore et al. 2013). Importantly, empirical
support for the connection “aect  action
was provided using the intentional bind-
ing paradigm: it was shown that negative
emotional outcomes attenuate intentional
binding for negative compared to positive or
neutral outcomes (Yoshie & Haggard 2013).
« 6 » A good model to empirically test
the proposed relationship is schizophrenia,
a condition in which modulation of aect,
and problems in anticipatory experience,
agency and time-consciousness were found
(Gallagher 2000; Gallagher & Varela 2003;
Jeannerod 2009). Patients with schizophre-
nia show an absence of predictive action
binding (Voss et al. 2010), as well as decits
in sensorimotor prediction, in alignment
with the Comparator Model (Moore et al.
2013). According to the Comparator Model
of agency, experiences of passivity in pa-
tients with schizophrenia can be explained
by impaired sensorimotor prediction during
voluntary action. is impairment is said to
lead to a faulty mismatch between the expe-
rienced and expected sensory consequenc-
es. As a result, patients experience a reduced
feeling of self-agency for their movements.
It is noteworthy that schizophrenia also en-
tails an impairment in temporal estimation,
towards longer perceived durations (e.g.,
Volz et al. 2001). In terms of aect, a recent
meta-analysis of experience-sampling stud-
ies indicate that people with schizophrenia
consistently report more negative and less
positive emotion than healthy control par-
ticipants (Cho et al. 2017). us, in schizo-
phrenia patients there is evidence for nega-
tive valence, reduced sense of agency, and
slower time-ow, supporting the following
schematic connection: positive aect
agency time estimation” (arrow down
means decrease, and vice versa).
« 7 » Another condition in which mod-
ulation of aect and problems in anticipa-
tory experience and time-consciousness can
be found is depression (Gallagher 2012).
Both phenomenological and experimental
studies show that depressed subjects have a
slowed experience of time-ow and tend to
overestimate time (Gallagher 2012; a recent
meta-analysis in Stanghellini et al. 2017).
Phenomenologically, the sense of agency
in depression is reduced (Slaby, Paskaleva
& Stephan 2013). Negative emotions ob-
viously pervade, although the proportion
between sadness (i.e., negative valence with
low arousal) and anxiety (possibly negative
valence with high arousal) varies between
patients (Liverant et al. 2008). us, in de-
pression, as with schizophrenia patients,
there is evidence supporting the following
schematic connection: positive aect
agency time estimation.
« 8 » While the schematic connection
positive aect agency time es-
timationgenerally applies in cases of psy-
chiatric diseases, this is apparently not the
case in meditation. Mindfulness meditators
generally show, as a trait, increased posi-
tive and reduced negative aect compared
to non-meditators (Berkovich-Ohana &
Glicksohn 2015; Farb, Anderson & Segal
2012). Building on the schematic connec-
tion found in psychiatric conditions, this an-
ticipates a heightened sense of agency, and
shorter time estimations. Indeed, as a trait,
mindfulness meditators seem to exhibit a
stronger sense of agency, manifested by a
stronger intentional binding compared to
non-meditators (Lush, Parkinson & Dienes
2016) (but for contradicting ndings see Jo
et al. 2014). Specically, meditators showed
a larger shi in the timing of an outcome
toward the intentional action that caused it,
argued to reect improved metacognition
of motor intentions (Lush, Parkinson & Di-
enes 2016), in alignment with the fact that
meditation is an exercise in metacognitive
processes, and that mindfulness meditation
practice involves awareness of the causal
connections between dierent mental states,
including intentions and their outcomes
(Gunaratana & Gunaratana 2011). Yet con-
versely, the state of deep meditation seems
to involve phenomenologically a reduced
sense of agency (Ataria, Dor-Ziderman &
Berkovich-Ohana 2015), aligned with some
philosophical accounts of Buddhist practice
(Hyland 2014). us, the current empirical
evidence is scarce and ambiguous.
« 9 » Now, turning to time-conscious-
ness, the expectation of shorter estimates of
time interval is indeed met by Peter Lush,
Jim Parkinson and Zoltan Dienes (2016),
who report a shorter estimate of the time
interval between an action and its outcome
in meditators. Yet, this contrasts with ample
evidence that mindfulness meditators ex-
perience an “extended now,” based on re-
ports of a slower subjective passing of time
(Berkovich-Ohana, Glicksohn & Goldstein
2011; Wittmann & Schmidt 2014), and a
relative overestimation of durations (Droit-
Volet, Fanget & Dambrun 2015; Kramer,
Weger & Sharma 2013). us, in medita-
tion the results show positive aect
agency (but still controversial) time
estimation.
« 10 » e inconsistency in the sche-
matic relationship between dierent condi-
tions presented above shows that, currently,
the relationships are not well understood,
and more theoretical and empirical work is
needed to clarify and better articulate the
causal connections. A possible direction
for further investigation is a ner-grained
account of aect, as its subcomponents are
known to have varying eects on time-con-
sciousness, as subsequently briey shown.
« 11 » Aective states are generally
agreed to bear two phenomenal features;
the one is bodily and the other mental (re-
viewed by Lambie & Marcel 2002). ese
can be called “arousal” (extent of bodily ex-
citation) and “valence” (a subjective feeling
of pleasantness or unpleasantness). e em-
piric connection between aect and time-
experience shows dierential eects for the
two sub-components of aect. ere is ac-
cumulating evidence for an arousal-induced
temporal distortion, namely that when the
level of physiological activation decreases/
increases, the internal clock varies in ac-
curacy (Droit-Volet & Gil 2009; Glicksohn
2001). However, the exact direction is less
clear, as a strong arousal level had dierent
eects on the participants’ time judgements
as a function of their aective valence. In
high-arousal conditions, unpleasant pic-
tures were overestimated, whereas pleasant
pictures were underestimated. Inversely, in
low-arousal conditions, unpleasant pictures
107
The Transcendental Character of Temporality Stefano Poletti
E 
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were underestimated and pleasant pictures
overestimated (Angrilli et al. 1997; Droit-
Volet & Gil 2009). is opposite direction
of the valence eect as a function of arousal
suggests that two dierent mechanisms are
triggered by arousal levels: an attention-
driven mechanism for low arousal, and
an emotion-driven mechanism for high
arousal (Droit-Volet & Gil 2009). is raises
the possibility that the interplay in arousal-
valence, and possibly also attention, is the
cause of the inconsistencies in empiric evi-
dence shown above.
« 12 » To conclude, a schematic causal
relationship between aect, action and
time-consciousness was proposed and put
to empirical test. While psychiatric disor-
ders show a similar schematic causation be-
tween these phenomena, this is not the case
for meditation. One possible explanation
of the inconsistency is the question of the
ner-grained eect of the interplay between
arousal and valence.
« 13 » As a response to the target article,
I outlined some interdisciplinary aspects
by searching for exact causality that can be
empirically tested and integrated. e em-
pirical inconsistencies presented here draw
the scientic attention back to the impor-
tance of aect in Varela’s account of time-
consciousness, suggesting that while current
work mostly focuses on understanding the
role of perception and action, more work is
needed to consider the role of aect and its
sub-components.
After studying Biology, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
completed her PhD in Neuroscience at Bar-Ilan
University, and trained as a post-doctoral fellow at
the lab of Rafi Malach at the Weizmann Institute.
Currently a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa,
Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study
of Learning Disabilities, and Faculty of Education.
Her research focuses on two main topics. One topic
is contemplative mental training effects and their
relevance to education. Another focus is the study
of consciousness and sense of self. To this end,
she collaborates with long-term contemplative
practitioners, employing neurophenomenology.
R:  O 
A:  O 
The Transcendental Character
of Temporality and the
Buddhist Contribution
to Time-Consciousness
Stefano Poletti
University of Padua, Italy
stefano.poletti/at/phd.unipd.it
> Upshot • Enriching the parallel be-
tween transcendental phenomenol-
ogy and enactivism, I briey discuss the
compatibility of the Buddhist perspec-
tive with Gallagher’s contribution to
time-consciousness. Grounded in his
meditative practice and heartfelt en-
gagement with Buddhist philosophy,
Varela de-constructed representation-
alism and its underpinning metaphysi-
cal dualism, building up the generative
concept of enaction. His approach has
been deeply inspired by Madhyamika
Buddhism, which describes time-con-
sciousness as that double illusion that
frames phenomena as either becoming
or permanent.
« 1 » Shaun Gallagher’s target article,
centered around Francisco Varela’s contin-
uation of Edmund Husserl’s work on time-
consciousness, elaborates on the embodied
approach pioneered by Varela. e rigor of
this analysis starts with the denition of
Husserlian distinguishable-yet-inseparable
moments: retention, primal impression,
and protention. en, towards the conclu-
sion, the author intertwines them with an
enactive approach to temporality, based
on the mutual interdependence of such
a threefold structure of time-experience.
e precision and clarity of Gallagher’s
article leave almost no space for critiques,
re-enhancing a neglected theme in contem-
porary literature. Even though time shapes
our lives with both intense and empty mo-
ments, it recedes ephemerally from our
analysis, as we try to catch its essence. e
implications of the target article retrieve
classical unadulterated philosophical ques-
tions and deserve some further consider-
ations.
“Knife-edge” present
transcendental deconstruction
« 2 » Gallagher’s article sets the stage
of the “knife-edge present” deconstruction
from its very beginning (§2): “Conscious-
ness must in some way grasp more than
the punctual now.” en, in his enactivist
account of time-consciousness (§§29–36),
Gallagher points out the interdependency
of primal impression, retention, and pro-
tention: “Our experience of the present is
always dynamic […] in such a way that a
focus on any one of the three components
in isolation runs into an abstraction” (§29).
Considering each factor per se reciprocally
presupposes the other two factors in a cir-
cular way: “[I]f primal impression is part of
the structure of the living present, it is itself
structured in its relations to retention and
protention” (§33). is brings Gallagher to
discuss time-consciousness’s phenomeno-
logical “fractal character”: as each block
is acknowledged, it collapses into the “fol-
lowing.” As we grasp a primal impression
based on protention, it ends being held in
retention, and so on; retention dissolves
into protention, as “every living is living
towards” (Husserl 1991: 313).
« 3 » Nowadays, Immanuel Kant’s phi-
losophy nds little attention with respect
to this theme. In Kant’s framework, any
fact, to become meaningful, must match
our a priori structure, which in turn pre-
determines it (Kant 1990). Given that the
transcendental structure constitutes only
selected aspects of the phenomenal world,
time as an inner form of intuition cannot
become the direct object of our conscious
attention. Nonetheless, we perceive and
conceive of things only insofar as they un-
fold in time. Husserl relied on Kantian re-
ned conception, considering time neither
as an objective fact existing in the world
nor as a private, subjective projection. He
inherited from Kant the view that both spa-
tiality and temporality are a priori empty
intuitions permeated by sensorial, a poste-
riori ones. Kant argued that the properties
that we can assign to the object are noth-
ing but the very preconditions for know-
ing the object itself, overturning the rela-
tionship between the knowing subject and
the experienced object. However, he did
not formulate a phenomenological reduc-
tion of time-consciousness, as Husserl did.
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
108
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
With phenomenology, Husserl turned Kan-
tian time from a pure intuition – as a non-
empirical representation into a living,
dynamic phenomenon that relies on the
horizon of experience. Moreover, Husserl
developed phenomenological methods,
such as the epoché, in order to reduce expe-
rience to its minimal, invariant character.
Building upon this, Varela then situated
time-consciousness in an embodied pro-
cess. Enactivism reminds us that we cannot
access the objects per se but only those as-
pects of objects that are co-constituted by
our ongoing cognitive activity (§17). is a
priori structure is grounded in the embod-
ied retention of all previous successful cou-
plings, and circularly shapes and is shaped
by its aordance possibilities.
From passive to active perception
and action
« 4 » Consider the Husserlian example
of the temporal succession of melody (§2):
the unitary, punctual essence of “duration
blocks” of individual tones A-B-C. While
the duration-blocks, in themselves, do not
possess melody, if considered independent-
ly, melody arises out of the interplay of past
retentions and occurring protentions as we
listen to the blocks in continuation. Music
is more likely to create temporal form while
unfolding in time and co-originating with
it: a melody is a melody only as it unfolds
in time, and time does not exist outside
of that melody. According to Husserl, the
intentional act of hearing each appearing
singular tone is simultaneously intertwined
with the dynamic interplay of the “com-
ing-to-be” and “about-to-be.” Overcoming
Franz Brentano’s isomorphism, Husserl
conceived a transcendental reconstruction
of time as a somewhat passive immanent
character of experience itself. Following
the epoché reduction, the diachronic suc-
cession can be deconstructed in its tran-
sitory components, all immanent to the
intentional bond: “[M]y retentional aware-
ness of the just-passed note is not itself just
past; it is part of the present structure of
consciousness” (§9).
« 5 » Given that the threefold structure
of time-consciousness unfolds through in-
tentionality, the author concludes that con-
sciousness itself, “is not simply a passive
reception of the present; it is not simply
self-aective. It enacts the present” (§34).
As our attention is driven towards the pres-
ent moment, the linearity of the succes-
sion is undermined by the self-referential
enactive character of the temporal stream:
“[F]or Husserl temporal experience is not
itself an object occurring in time, but nei-
ther is it merely a consciousness of objec-
tive time; rather it is itself a form of tem-
porality” (§9). Embedding perception into
action, Varela (1999a: 272) shows how the
act of viewing a multistable image “gives
temporality its roots in living itself ” (§16).
e anticipatory apprehensiveness of the
“not-yet” thus becomes complementary to
the retention of the “just-past,” showing
how we are “active perceivers, rather than
passive listeners” (§16). Similarly, recalling
James Gibson’s notion of aordance, Galla-
gher depicts intentionality as an embodied
spatial protention in the action towards
objects (§35). e “not-yet,” far from be-
ing a mere absence, is full of enactive pos-
sibilities that will be fullled or not “as our
enactive perception trails o in retention.”
In Khachouf, Poletti & Pagnoni (2013), we
discuss, from an “embodied-transcenden-
tal” perspective, how the predetermined
enactive architecture of an autopoietic or-
ganism dynamically structures its ecologi-
cal niche, dening its Umwelt, intentional
aordances, and world-view.
« 6 » Time-consciousness may relate
to various inertial phases in the recollec-
tion of stored contents, enabling the in-
terpretative activity of the sensorial input
ow, in a self-referential predictive an-
ticipation (Gallagher & Allen 2016). For
example, the localized activity associated
with face processing biases subjects before
the detection of a face rather than a vase
during a decision task on Rubin’s ambigu-
ous vase-face gures (Hesselmann, Kell &
Kleinschmidt 2008). is nding ts with
Varela’s idea of conscious self-referentiality
as an embodied hierarchical process: in
his hypothesis, neural dynamics unfold at
multiple temporal scales. In Guido Hessel-
mann et al.s example, the phase synchrony
of neural discharges is rst hypothesized
to occur at lower levels within scattered
sensorimotor assemblies, associated with
the “pure present” character of the ongoing
experience. ese neural discharges are in
turn recruited by higher-order assemblies
that integrate their activity. e hierarchi-
cal inclusion of these assemblies in larger
dynamic structures could represent a stage
associated with the phenomenological
threefold structure of the “living present”
(Varela 1999a). us, Varela described the
“living present” as a pre-narrative “pure
present” encircled by a horizon of retention
and protention, associated with higher-or-
der neural phase synchronies unfolding at
multiple temporal scales and modifying the
present act of perception as “just past.” e
transient phase locking of cell assemblies
in neural synchronization goes conjointly
with that constant modication of the pres-
ent (Varela 1995, in §20).
Time-consciousness in Buddhism
and the problem of dualism
« 7 » Acknowledging certain weak
spots in Husserl’s methodology, Gallagh-
er (1998) maintains that pre-noetic and
hermeneutical factors (such as embodi-
ment, language, historical eect, and in-
tersubjectivity) should be integrated into
it. Literature, art, cognitive psychology,
and social sciences, he argues, may be use-
ful in overcoming intrinsic limitations of
phenomenology, as they all encompass
extra-intentional dimensions. However,
to adequately meet this transdisciplinary
challenge, Gallagher admits that new radi-
cal paradigms might be needed. ese
paradigms should involve the minimum
of interactions between methodological
reductions and metaphysical assumptions.
« 8 » In the enactivist approach (§17),
intentionality is accompanied by prere-
ective awareness (Depraz, Varela & Ver-
mersch 2000), which in turn is embedded
in situated physiological processes (Lutz
& ompson 2003). Varela methodologi-
cally dissolved any objective, metaphysical
stance on “a mind-independent reality,
showing the impossibility of being able to
describe consciousness “within nature as it
is supposedly described by our best scientif-
ic theories” (Bitbol 2002). Neurophenom-
enology encourages a transdisciplinary
integration of extra-intentional, pre-noetic
factors, starting by “clearing out” research-
ers’ minds. In fact, these factors can be con-
sidered as directly immanent in one’s mind,
given that it actively maintains intentional
bonds with socio-cultural constructions
109
The Transcendental Character of Temporality Stefano Poletti
E 
http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
such as language. Incorporating these fac-
tors as being co-produced with the experi-
ence, the Buddhist contemplative practice,
which is grounded in body-awareness, is
supposed to unveil the intentional char-
acters immanent to time-consciousness.
As reported in Gallagher’s article, Bud-
dhism brought Varela to frame our imme-
diate experience as a dynamical intercon-
nection “within a nite segment of time”
(§22). Later, in §24, referring to the double
intentionality, Gallagher quotes Varela’s
consideration of a “pre-reective sense of
the experiencing self ”: certainly, Varela ac-
cessed it personally, scrutinizing Buddhist
philosophy and practicing meditation.
« 9 » Following Varela’s example, neu-
rophenomenology can be intended as a
radical constructivist research program,
matching the conceptual analysis with
a profound, embodied, existential com-
mitment (Vörös & Bitbol 2017, this is-
sue). With respect to time-consciousness,
meditation seemingly suspends the self-
conrmatory loop of the predictive, tran-
scendental process, including Gibsonian
aordances (Khachouf, Poletti & Pagnoni
2013). In Buddhism, unreleased-stored
reactions, oen referred to as dispositions
(Skt, samskaras) held in deep storehouse
consciousness (Skt, alaya vijnana), are said
to push forth attachments and consequent
existential suering (Skt, dukkha). e re-
tention of these salient memories is said to
show up through individual inclinations to
act (Skt, vrittis and vasanas). at is why
meditation is said to help us get rid of past
impressions, purifying the ongoing de-
pendent origination of time-consciousness.
« 10 » Buddhist interdependent origi-
nation addresses time-consciousness and
related problems head-on. For example,
with rened logical arguments, Nagarjuna
attempted to show how time has no self-ex-
istence, since it can never be grasped (Gar-
eld 1995). In a less analytical way, Dogen
dened being-time as a unied, co-emer-
gent pure activity, since Being unfolds itself
as beings, and time unfolds Being as beings
(Kim 2000). In Dogen, Being and time are
the activity of space-awareness, based on
“forgetting oneself.” Such an interpretation
takes on its full meaning only following the
“letting-go” gesture, reclaimed by Varela
himself. Forgetting the “specious-present,
time structure can be reabsorbed into min-
imal activity. Letting-go both time-impres-
sion and concept, the Buddhist soteriology
aims at getting rid of recorded retentions,
which keep us in the threefold circle of
retention-primal impression-protention,
determining our personal worldview and
thirst/desire (Skt, trishna), marked by kar-
mic inuences impressed in our beliefs and
in our dualistic worldview. Dualism starts
with the (pre-reective) attitude separat-
ing ourselves from the supposed “external
world”; hence, the core sense of “I” exists
only insofar as its evidence is supported
in its auto-conrmatory process based on
salient retention-protention cycles that de-
termine self-attachment.
« 11 » In both Hinduism and Bud-
dhism, primary existential craving is said
to shape this transcendental activity, build-
ing up the condition of suering (Skt.
dukkha), as impermanence (Skt. anitya)
and self-emptiness (Skt, anatman) go un-
recognised. Contemplative practices are
supposed to allow that acknowledgement
through rened analysis of the ongoing
experience. Clearly, time-consciousness is
radically at stake there and has to deal with
our ego-centered interpretative framework.
Considering the gap between the three
components of time-consciousness, Mad-
hyamika philosophers proposed a rened
conception of time, lling the gap between
the act of knowing and perceiving (Gareld
1995). As in Husserlian epoché, the attempt
of Buddhist meditation is to collapse all in-
terpretative inclinations towards the noetic
side of intentionality. Trying to overcome
the subjective dimension, its endeavor is to
abandon ego-centered action-perceptions,
a principle that was crucial in determining
Varela’s own worldview.
Conclusion
« 12 » Considering the contemporary
recurrent naïve reduction of temporality
to a linear discrete process through which
neurophysiological data can be interpreted,
time-consciousness in all its phenomeno-
logical complexity deserves more nuanced
elucidations. In both his deconstructive and
generative intentions, Gallagher’s works
(e.g., Gallagher & Varela 2003; Reinerman-
Jones et al. 2013; Øberg, Normann & Gal-
lagher 2015) bring important contributions
to the constructivist approach, enriching
transdisciplinary research. Neurophenom-
enology still deserves a deeper philosophi-
cal integration of phenomenology and
meditation in order to access and reframe
transcendental processes’ dynamics.
« 13 » Time-consciousness shows fruit-
ful connections with many research topics,
e.g., the predictive conrmations of the
narrative-self in integrative clinical prac-
tice. Autobiographical-identity is sustained
by self-referential thoughts triggered by
past memories and consistent anticipatory
patterns (Gallagher 2000). As reclaimed
by Khachouf, Poletti & Pagnoni (2013: 8),
the Default Mode Network (DMN) activa-
tion could be related to an activity that is
“being prepared for the future.” is may
be especially useful for what concerns the
function of the DMN in enacting and look-
ing out for environmental conrmation of
an autobiographical-based model of nar-
ratives. Finally, as recommended in a con-
clusive footnote (§38), the complementary
interplay of micro-phenomenology and
meditation could improve Western scru-
tiny of consciousness’s micro-dynamics
(Petitmengin et al. 2017).
Stefano Poletti, a psychologist, is especially
interested in phenomenology and contemplative
studies. During his PhD in Social Sciences, he
developed qualitative research on Mindfulness-
based Intervention with cancer and epileptic
patients in order to explore its interaction and
meaning in chronic suffering. To this end, he
deepened patients’ metaphysical worldviews after
mindfulness programs, exploring in the meantime the
soteriological conception of Buddhist expert meditators
with respect to pain and existential suffering.
R:  O 
A:  O 
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
110
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
Author’s Response
Internatural Relations
Shaun Gallagher
> Upshot • I oer some clarication on
how enactivism is related to naturalism,
predictive processing and transcenden-
tal phenomenology, and I point to a para-
dox that requires further clarication
with regard to the structure of intrinsic
temporality and the nature of self.
« 1 » I thank my commentators for their
insightful and critical commentaries. I will
respond to each in turn and highlight some
contrasts and connections as I go.
« 2 » Dan Lloyd proposes that predictive
processing (PP) may provide an alternative
model that is nonetheless consistent with
the main thesis of my target article about the
enactivist account of the primacy of proten-
tion. I am in general agreement with Lloyd
that it is worth considering PP as a model
that brings recent neuroscience together
with phenomenological and enactivist ap-
proaches to time-consciousness. In such
considerations, however, there is a further
question that needs to be addressed: which
model of PP will best t with neurophenom-
enology and with what Lloyd calls Edmund
Husserl’s enactivism as found in ing and
Space?
« 3 » Husserl rightly and insightfully
emphasized the role of kinesthesis in extero-
ceptive perception. Kinesthesis/propriocep-
tion is typically thought of as reaerent sen-
sory input generated as the result of bodily
movement, and therefore aer the fact of
that movement. is is clearly one aspect
of kinesthesia. Importantly, however, kin-
esthesia is involved in feed-forward control
processes activating a kinesthetic signal that
anticipates movement, as part of proten-
tional/anticipatory movement preparation
(Gandevia et al. 1997; Lethin 2005, 2007).
is is consistent with Husserl’s notion of
the perceptual “I can” – the idea that I per-
ceive the world in terms of how I can act on
it (Husserl 1989), which in turn is consistent
with the notion of aordance as James Gib-
son (1977) later developed it, and with enac-
tivist views on sensory-motor contingency
(e.g., O’Regan & Noë 2001). In this respect,
it is important to keep in mind that kines-
thesia is not reducible to brain processes. It
involves the peripheral nervous system, and
more generally reects the motor intention-
ality of the body as it is coupled to the envi-
ronment.
« 4 » As Lloyd suggests, these ideas can
be captured by the theoretical model of PP.
But these ideas also suggest that internalist
models of PP, represented by Jakob Hohwy
(2013), fall short of what is needed for the
enactivist view. On the internalist reading,
which wraps the brain in a tight Markov
blanket and cuts it o from the world, the
brain is making anticipatory guesses about
the world based on priors informing a gen-
erative model that is constantly correcting
itself in the light of prediction errors. As
Lloyd shows, this is nicely consistent with
Husserl’s analysis of intrinsic temporality
and the enactivist emphasis on the dynami-
cal processes involved in the back-and-forth
adjustments of the system to the world. For
the enactivist, however, this is not just an
isolated dynamics conned to the brain. It
involves the whole body as it is coupled to
the environment. Accordingly, what predic-
tive coders call priors are not reducible to
what Andy Clark, even in his more liberal
and embodied view of PP, refers to as “stored
knowledge” (Clark 2016: 6, 27, 79) in the
brain. Rather, within the PP framework, one
can understand priors to involve the dynam-
ical coupling of brain-body-environment.
is is clearly shown, for example, in studies
by Lisa Barrett and Moshe Bar (2009; also
Barrett & Simmons 2015; Chanes & Barrett
2016). ey propose the “aective predic-
tion hypothesis,” which
implies that responses signaling an object’s
salience, relevance or value do not occur as a
separate step aer the object is identied. Instead,
aective responses support vision from the very
moment that visual stimulation begins. (Barrett
& Bar 2009: 1325)
« 5 » ey show that along with the ear-
liest perceptual processing, activation of the
medial orbital frontal cortex and a train of
muscular and hormonal changes through-
out the body are initiated, generating “in-
teroceptive [and kinaesthetic] sensations
from organs, muscles, and joints associated
with prior experience, which integrates with
current exteroceptive sensory input. In oth-
er words, it is the organism as a whole that
constitutes the priors. is means, consis-
tent with Husserl’s enactivist leanings, per-
ception is
intrinsically infused with aective value, so
that the aective salience or signicance of an
object is not computed aer the fact. […T]he pre-
dictions generated during object perception carry
aective value as a necessary and normal part of
visual experience. (ibid: 1328)
« 6 » I am in agreement with Lloyd that
PP oers a model that can capture much of
the enactivist story. What is important, how-
ever, is to esh out an enactivist version of
PP, which is not reducible to an internal set
of brain processes (so-called “inferences”)
“in-the-head,” but is a form of predictive en-
gagement in-the-world (Gallagher & Allen
2016). Indeed, it is possible to see Karl Fris-
tons concept of the Free Energy Principle
as consistent with Francisco Varelas notion
of autopoiesis (Allen & Friston 2016; Bru-
ineberg, Kiverstein & Rietveld 2016). As Lloyd
predicts, this combination of phenomenol-
ogy, enactivism, and predictive processing
may be the “wave of the future” (§15).
« 7 » In contrast, Véronique Havelange
oers a reactive undertow oriented to the
past, and consistent with the classic ver-
sion of phenomenology, which, seemingly
for her, does not include Husserl’s insights
into the embodied, kinesthetic aspects of
operative (fungierende) intentionality or the
“I can.” According to Havelange, I “system-
atically” confuse Husserl’s concept of in-
tentionality as “‘directedness-to’ of the con-
scious mind with linguistic intensionality
(with an ‘s’)” (§5). is is a view that Have-
lange associates with Roderick Chisholm
(1957). It is not clear to me, however, where
she nds this view in my account. If I shi
the emphasis away from act-intentionality,
it is a shi towards operative or bodily in-
tentionality (Husserl 1989; Merleau-Ponty
2012) rather than towards some Fregean
notion of intensionality. Indeed, enactivism
eschews the latter notion as a model for in-
tentionality to the extent that it rejects the
notion of propositional or semantic repre-
sentational content (e.g., Gallagher 2017;
Hutto & Myin 2013). Havelange may sim-
ply be associating the term “cognitive sci-
ence” with its early Fodorian emphasis on
111
Author’s Response Shaun Gallagher
E 
http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
propositional representations. e idea of
naturalizing phenomenology in the context
of cognitive science, however, does not put
phenomenology to use in the service of an
already established cognitive science. Rath-
er, phenomenologically inspired embodied-
enactivist approaches pose a challenge to
this good-old-fashioned version of cogni-
tive science.
« 8 » is can be made clear by con-
sidering Havelange’s more substantial claim
about the shortcomings of naturalization,
and Jean-Michel Roys remarks on issues re-
lated to naturalism. First, in contrast to
Havelanges worry, neurophenomenology
does not give up the phenomenological re-
duction. Indeed, in Varela’s account, and in
experiments he conducted, he is careful to
employ a version of the phenomenological
reduction (Varela 1996; Lutz et al. 2002).
is is not, however, Husserl’s transcen-
dental reduction. And, certainly, neuro-
phenomenology is a dierent project from
transcendental phenomenology. But this is
not something that Husserl would reject as
heretical. In fact, Husserl, who did not in-
tend that the insights provided by transcen-
dental phenomenology should be ignored
by science, gives his imprimatur to the very
idea of a naturalized phenomenology. He
suggested, quite clearly, that
every analysis or theory of transcendental phe-
nomenology – including […] the theory of the
transcendental constitution of an objective world
– can be developed in the natural realm, by giving
up the transcendental attitude. (Husserl 1970:
§57)
e idea that phenomenological insights
could inform the natural sciences is not in-
consistent with the value of transcendental
analysis. e idea of a phenomenological
psychology would follow along this line.
« 9 » At the same time, the naturaliza-
tion of phenomenology does not mean that
phenomenology succumbs to the classic
conception of nature that still guides most of
contemporary science (excepting quantum
mechanics). It rather motivates a rethinking
of the very idea of nature. Maurice Merleau-
Ponty, in pursuit of some of Husserl’s critical
comments about scientism and the objecti-
cation of nature, comes to the idea that there
is a “truth of naturalism” understood not in
terms of the classic concept of nature (Mer-
leau-Ponty1964: 201), but rather in terms
of a reconceptualization of nature not as
a collection of objects or objective relations,
but in terms of form (structure, gestalt), or,
as in his later work, “esh” (Merleau-Ponty
1968) – where nature is not independent
of the perceiver or the agent. Indeed, Mer-
leau-Ponty (1995: 373) cites Niels Bohr on
the harmony between phenomenology and
contemporary physics (see Bohr 1999). In
this regard, Merleau-Ponty, and the neuro-
phenomenology inspired by him, does not,
pace Havelange, shi away from “what is
given in rst-person experience to a third-
person register… [or] to a conventional sci-
entic approach” (§7). Indeed, that would
be to miss the main point of a naturalized
phenomenology.
« 10 » is also addresses the worry that
Roy expresses about whether Varela trans-
forms “the general notion of cognitive natu-
ralism” (§7). Roy is still looking for a solu-
tion to the hard problem of consciousness.
Although Varela responds to David Chalm-
ers (1995) by promising a “remedy” to the
hard problem through neurophenomenol-
ogy, this was not meant to be the solution
for which Roy is looking (§8). Anything that
could count as a solution to the hard prob-
lem would have to buy into the assumptions
of classic naturalism, since those assump-
tions dene precisely the framework within
which the hard problem is dened, namely,
that a complete scientic description of the
brain will be deterministic, and completely
independent of rst-person experience. To
think that there is a solution to the problem
is to accept the terms in which the problem
is dened, and this is not something that
Varela, even as a scientic neurobiologist,
was willing to do. e remedy was indeed
to circumvent the problem by reconceiving
nature.
« 11 » Roy poses an important question
about why Varela, in his nalized version of
neurophenomenology, shis away from the
emergentist position he expressed earlier,
and then again later in his article with Evan
ompson (ompson & Varela 2001). is
is a dicult question that would lead us too
far aeld in this short response. Although
Varela was rightly invested in the concept
of dierent timescales, there is still a ques-
tion of whether the best way to think of en-
activist conceptions of cognition involves
dierentiations captured by the vocabulary
of lower-level versus higher-level processes.
If, instead of a hierarchy, we think of brain-
body-environment in terms of a dynami-
cal gestalt, where processes may be better
conceived of in terms of gure-ground, it is
not clear how to conceive of emergentism.
Indeed, the question of emergentism gets
completely caught up in Varela’s (and
ompson’s 2007) attempt to rethink the
concept of nature. is is not an issue that
can be resolved here, however.
« 12 » Julian Kiverstein, like Roy, raises
the issue about the tension between Va-
relas neurophenomenological project and
enactivism. He suggests that there is some
element of enactivism missing in neurophe-
nomenology. is is another way to frame
the issue that I attempt to address in my
target article. at is, by thinking further
along the lines that Varela already set in re-
gard to intrinsic temporality (characterizing
both experience and action), we can make
the neurophenomenological analysis more
enactive. What is unresolved in Varela,
however, speaks to the ongoing theoreti-
cal struggle between the task of remaining
scientic (which Varela certainly wanted to
do) and reconceiving nature (and therefore
reconceiving what science actually is).
« 13 » Kiverstein also points to nuanced
dierences between dierent versions of
embodied cognition – the dierences be-
tween ecological, extended and enactivist
conceptions. He wants more clarity about
how enactivism can be distinguished from
other approaches and focuses on the idea
that the world and its meaning is not pre-es-
tablished or pre-given. My own view of this
is that there are ways to understand enactiv-
ism as including conceptions of ecological
and extended cognition as long as we give
up functionalist commitments, especially
in versions of extended mind (Gallagher
2017). So, my project, rather than providing
a clear distinction between these approach-
es, is to nd a way to integrate them. Kiver-
stein goes some distance in this direction in
his own ecological analyses of aordances
(Rietveld & Kiverstein 2014). Indeed, as
Kiverstein notes, the very relational and en-
active structure of aordances requires the
kind of intrinsic temporality that I attempt
to describe.
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS IN ENACTIVISM
112
CONSTRUCTIVIST FOUNDATION . , N°
« 14 » Aviva Berkovich-Ohana raises ques-
tions about the causal relations between
aect, action and time-consciousness. She
reviews a number of empirical studies that
suggest that the relation is “aect  action
(anticipation)time-consciousness (pro-
tention)” (§3). In asking about the “exact
directional causality between these three
phenomena” (§2), Berkovich-Ohana seems
to conne herself to a linear concept of
causality that is itself in question in the
enactivist approach. inking of the ties
between aect, action and intrinsic tem-
porality in more dynamical terms requires
that we consider non-linear reciprocal
causal relations. is is, in part, what Va-
rela’s distinctions among dierent time-
scales are meant to suggest. An account of
the enactive system must include the kind
of reciprocal causality that explains how,
in cognitive processes, there are relational
couplings between brain and body, and
between body and environment that are
constitutive of cognition (Gallagher, in
press). is involves a dynamical integra-
tion across specic timescales.
« 15 » In §§18 of my target article I
detail dierent timescales distinguished
by Varela. Although these timescales can
be plotted on linear objective clock time,
as indicated by the temporal variations in
milliseconds and seconds, objective time
does not capture the signicance of the re-
lations among these scales. e integrative
timescale of conscious experience is not an
additive composition of the intervals on the
elementary level. I mentioned, for example,
a form of inter-level (elemental to integra-
tive) temporal compression. Specically,
from the perspective of the integrative scale
there is no experiential dierence between
10 and 20 msecs as measured on the elemen-
tal scale. Accordingly, between the elemen-
tary and the integrative timescales, relations
are not straightforwardly linear or additive
such that we can simply sum up a number
of elementary time periods or put them in a
specic order to get to an integrative second
or an experience of that same order (see,
e.g., Ronconi & Melcher 2017). For example,
when a stimulus of 50 msec. is followed by a
stimulus of 100 msec. the integrated event
(i.e., the combined event experienced on the
integrative level) is not necessarily an addi-
tive sum of 150 msecs.
Instead, the earlier stimulus interacts with the
processing of the 100 msec. interval, resulting in
the encoding of a distinct temporal object. us,
temporal information is encoded in the context of
the entire pattern, not as conjunctions of the com-
ponent intervals. (Karmarkar & Buonomano
2007: 432)
« 16 » e integration occurs according
to dynamical, non-linear principles. us,
even in Husserl’s favorite example of listen-
ing to music, the temporal experience of a
tonal sequence will not necessarily match
the sequence of tones as they occur in ob-
jective time, or the sequence of processing
that occurs on the neuronal level (Bregman
& Rudnicky 1975; also see Dennett & Kins-
bourne 1992; Gallagher 1998). Indeed, these
dynamics help to explain the phenomenon
of intentional binding and a lot of the ex-
perimental results cited by Berkovich-Ohana.
« 17 » I agree with Berkovich-Ohana that
a good understanding of these phenomena
requires more research. She makes an inter-
esting suggestion about dierential eects
for the two sub-aspects of aect: arousal and
valence (Lambie & Marcel 2002). Likewise,
it will be important to pursue dierences
across these various parameters and dy-
namical relations in the cases of meditation
and psychopathology. It is not at all clear
whether we can consider the structure of in-
trinsic temporality as an a priori structure if
in cases of meditation or psychopathological
experiences this structure breaks down (see
Frith & Gallagher 2002).
« 18 » is brings us to Stefano Poletti’s
comments. He appreciates the connections
to be found among enactivist interpreta-
tions, predictive processing, and Varela’s
explanation of the living present in the in-
tegrative timescale. Citing Michel Bitbol, he
notes that
Varela methodologically dissolved any objec-
tive, metaphysical stance on ‘a mind-independent
reality,’ showing the impossibility of being able to
describe consciousness ‘within nature as it is sup-
posedly described by our best scientic theories’
(Bitbol 2002). (§8)
is reinforces my remarks in §8 above con-
cerning an enactivist conception of nature.
e enactivist view, that nature is not just
the mind-independent objectivity that sci-
ence takes it to be, is reinforced by Bohr in
light of his considerations concerning quan-
tum physics. According to Bohr, if we want
to give a “description of any phenomenon
to which the term ‘physical reality’ can be
properly attached” we need to include the
conditions which dene the possible types of
predictions regarding the future behavior of the
system […]. In objective description, it is indeed
more appropriate to use the word phenomenon
only to refer to observations obtained under spec-
ied circumstances, including an account of the
whole experimental arrangement. (Bohr 2014:
148)
« 19 » As Bitbol puts it, for Bohr, phe-
nomena are indissolubly co-dened by the
experiments which are used to make them
manifest” (Bitbol 2002: 204). For the enac-
tivists, phenomena are co-relational with
the perceiving agent. But the perceiving
agent is embedded in multiple extra-inten-
tional factors – including aective, social
and cultural factors that dene aordances
and the solicitations we ordinarily take to be
valuable. We are caught up in a set of ongo-
ing priming eects that shape how we per-
ceive the world.
« 20 » Poletti suggests that meditation
practices can suspend such eects. Medita-
tion helps to neutralize the priors and the
retentions that supposedly inform our pre-
dictive processing. “at is why meditation
is said to help us get rid of past impressions,
purifying the ongoing dependent origina-
tion of time-consciousness” (Poletti: §9).
is is, as Poletti suggests, a deconstruction
of our temporal experience, and along with
it the “I” which exists “in its auto-conr-
matory process based on salient retention-
protention cycles that determine self-attach-
ment” (§10). On this view, certain forms of
Buddhist meditation practices involve self-
less states. If the retentional-protentional
structure of intrinsic time explains the pos-
sibility of pre-reective self-awareness, then
absent that retentional-protentional struc-
ture, pre-reective self-awareness would
collapse into this seless state.
« 21 » is view seems consistent with
Berkovich-Ohanas experimental studies on
meditation, although, at the same time, it
motivates a paradox. Distinguishing be-
tween narrative self (NS), minimal self (MS),
113
Combined References Shaun Gallagher
E 
http://constructivist.info/13/1/091.gallagher
and seless (SL) experiences, Berkovich-Oha-
na (in Dor-Ziderman et al. 2013) sought to
identify the neural correlates of the elimina-
tion of NS and MS during meditation, and
a characterization of SL. e SL condition,
however, seemed to involve a decentering
process where there still exists an “observer
perspective” since subjects are able to report
on such states. “A careful reading … of the
participants’ rst-person descriptions of
their SL experiences indicated three rather
broad but distinct types of experiences”: lack
of ownership (LO); altered experience; and
less happening (Dor-Ziderman et al. 2013)
Consider the LO experience, which was at-
tained by the most experienced meditators.
e sense of ownership, or what phenom-
enologists call the experience of mineness,
is considered to be one of the most basic
aspects of pre-reective self-awareness (or
the minimal self), and it can be described in
terms of our retentional hold on our passing
experience. If Poletti is correct in suggesting
that some meditation practices help to elim-
inate the retentional aspect of experience,
then we would expect to nd meditators in
the LO experience. e paradox, however,
is that these meditators are seemingly able
to describe this experience, according to
Berkovich-Ohana (Dor-Ziderman et al. 2013;
2016). For example, one meditator reports
on SL: “ere was an experience but it had
no address, it was not attached to a center or
subject ….” Another states: “Sensations of all
kinds of things ickering. A sort of medita-
tive phenomena and ickering of light and
darkness – dicult to describe in words.
And another: “ere was a feeling of a shi
in alertness, a cessation of reectivity. A dif-
ferent kind of quiet” (these reports are cited
in Dor-Ziderman et al. 2013: 6). If, however,
one’s retentional consciousness (and pre-
reective sense of mineness) is eliminated
in SL, then when asked to report the seless
experience, should the subject not say some-
thing like, “I don’t know, I wasn’t there”?
« 22 » On the logic that informs the
analysis of intrinsic temporality in Husserl
and Varela, the fact that there can be a re-
port on experience seems to suggest that the
particular experience is not seless, but that
it still involves a minimal pre-reective self-
awareness and sense of ownership or mine-
ness (Gallagher 1996). If phenomena are
co-relational with the experiencing agent
(§12 above), and if there is no experienc-
ing agent, then there is no phenomenon to
report. Accordingly, I suggest that further
clarication is needed of the “observer per-
spective,” and how that perspective relates
to the retentional-protentional structure of
time-consciousness.
Acknowledgements
e author received support from the
Humboldt Foundation’s Anneliese Maier
Research Award (2012-18).
R:  O 
A:  N 
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