Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530 DOI 10.

1007/s10743-007-9031-1

Husserl, Deleuzean Bergsonism and the Sense of the Past in General

Michael R. Kelly

Published online: 20 October 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract Those familiar with contemporary continental philosophy know well the defenses Husserlians have offered of Husserls theory of inner time-consciousness against post-modernisms deconstructive criticisms. As post-modernism gives way to Deleuzean post-structuralism, Deleuzes Le bergsonisme has grown into the movement of Bergsonism. This movement, designed to present an alternative to phenomenology, challenges Husserlian phenomenology by criticizing the most important of all phenomenological problems. Arguing that Husserls theory of time-consciousness detailed a linear succession of iterable instants in which the now internal to consciousness receives prejudicial favor, Bergsonism concludes that Husserl derived the past from the present and cannot account for the sense of the past, which differs in kind from the present. Consequently, everything on Husserls account remains present and his theory cannot accommodate for times passage. In this paper, I renew the Husserlian defense of Husserls theory of time-consciousness in response to the recent movement of Deleuzean Bergsonism. Section one presents Bergsonisms notion of the past in general and its critique of Husserls theory of time-consciousness. Section two presents a rejoinder to Bergsonisms critique of Husserl, questioning (1) its understanding of the living-present as linearly extended, (2) its conation of the living-present with Husserls early schema-apprehension interpretation, and (3) its failure to grasp Husserls revised understanding of primary memory as a result of (2). In conclusion, I suggest that Husserls theory of retention might articulate a notion of the past more consistent with Bergson than Bergsonism itself.

M. R. Kelly (&) Department of Philosophy, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806, USA e-mail: kellynm@bc.edu

123

16

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

1 Introduction Those familiar with contemporary continental philosophy know well the defenses Husserlians have offered of Husserls theory of inner time-consciousness against post-modernisms deconstructive criticisms.1 That a wholesale application of the latter to the formerthat does not acknowledge the distinct phases of Husserls in Twenty First Century early and late thinking on time-consciousnessis passe continental philosophy evidences the effectiveness of such efforts. Not easily silenced by such defenses, turn of the century French continental philosophy has developed a new attempt to establish the shortcomings of Husserls theory. Postmodern deconstructionism is giving way to Deleuzean post-structuralism. And Deleuzes Le bergsonisme2a work that Deleuze admits piggy-backs on the author and gives him a child [that] would be his and at that same time be a monster3 has begotten a theoretical offspring designed to present an alternative to phenomenology (B 116). This young, Deleuzean Frankenstein, now grown into the movement that French continental philosophy terms Bergsonism, has heard its makers rally cry to render Bergson a challenge to phenomenology. Bergsonism hopes to undermine Husserlian phenomenology, to cut it off at the knee, by criticizing Husserls theory of the most fundamental and important of all phenomenological problems,4 the problem of time-consciousness. Husserls theory of time, according to Bergsonism, details a linear succession of iterable instants in which the now internal to consciousness receives prejudicial favor at the expense of the past. Bergsonism contends that Husserl derives the past from the present and thus cannot account adequately for the sense of the past, which differs in kind from the present. If Husserl cannot account for the sense of the past otherwise than as a derivative of the present, the argument continues, then everything on his account remains present and his theory cannot accommodate times fundamental characteristic, namely its passage. In this paper, I want to renew earlier Husserlian defenses of Husserls theory of time-consciousness in response to this recent movement of Deleuzean Bergsonism.5 In Sect. 1, I present Bergsonisms alternative notion of the past, i.e., the past in general, and its critique of Husserls theory of time-consciousness. In Sect. 2, I argue that Bergsonisms critique of Husserl misses the mark because it fails to appreciate Husserls discovery of a new interpretation of the immediate
1 2

Brough (1993). Broughs is the most representative of these works.

Deleuze (1991). References to this work will appear parenthetically as B and be cited according to the English translation.

Deleuze (1973, p. 111). Deleuze writes, specically, I imagined myself getting onto the back of an author and giving him a child which would be his and which would at the same time be a monster My book on Bergson seems to me to be a classic case of this.

Husserl (1966, pp. 334, 346) and Husserl (1991, pp. 276, 286). References to this text, Zur Pha nomenologie des inneren Zeitbewutseins (18931917), and to the English translation On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (18931917), henceforth will appear parenthetically as Hua X and be cited according to the German pagination followed by the pagination of the English translation. Brough (1993).

123

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

17

consciousness of the past, which articulation emerges in 1908 when Husserl begins to revise his 1905 lectures on time and move away from his schematic theory of time to his theory of the living-present. Insofar as Bergsonism discusses the moments of the living-present as if they operated like the components of Husserls early schema-apprehension model, it understands the moments of the living-present linearly. And insofar as Bergsonism conates Husserls interpretive models, it fails to grasp Husserls corresponding change in language from primary memory to retention. In conclusion, I suggest that Husserls new interpretation of the immediate consciousness of the past, i.e., his theory of retention, might articulate a notion of the past in general more consistent with Bergson than Bergsonism itself.6

2 Standard Theories of Time, the Past in General, and Bergsonisms Critique of Husserl The standard theory of time that Bergsonism challenges understands time as a succession of irreversibly tensed instants: past, present, future. Book XI of Augustines Confessions presents the paradigmatic version of this model. As is well-known, Augustine concludes that all experience of time derives from present experience. Hence, Augustine accounts for the existence of the past by describing it as a present of things past. This standard theory of time can explain how things appear to consciousness in time and how we locate events in history, both personal and cultural; it cannot, however, explain how the present becomes the past, properly speaking.7 As Deleuze writes on Bergsons behalf, traditional philosophical accounts of time that believe that the past as such is only constituted after having been present (B 58) reduce being to being-present and thus dene the past as a lack of the present.8 For Bergsonism, this standard theory of time falters not because it prejudices the now points of succession at the expense of the trace of the present, for the trace amounts to a depraved image of the present and does not liberate the past from the present at all.9 The relation of past to present as that of before to after, argues Bergsonism, renders the past a weak image of the former present. As such, the past amounts to a past-present, and a past that amounts to a past-present is but a degree of the present and not past at all. As a degree of the present, this past-present

This paper concerns neither the cogency of Deleuzes theory of time nor Deleuzean Bergsonisms theory of time (as a reading of Bergsons theory of time), for each matter would demand a separate treatment. Rather, this paper concerns itself only with the cogency of Deleuzean Bergsonisms critique of Husserls theory of the living-present, particularly its moment of retention. In conclusion, however, I offer some suggestive remarks concerning a tension in Deleuzean Bergsonisms reading of Bergson; still, I contain these remarks to a discussion of how my defense of Husserls theory of retention against Bergsonism sheds light on a similarity between Bergson and Husserl. Crocker (2004, p. 44). Ibid., pp. 4447. Wood (1989, p. 94).

7 8 9

123

18

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

remains of the same nature or kind as the present itself.10 A picture of time as a bloated present with different degrees of presence within itself thus results. Reducing the past to a present of things past, the standard theory of time eliminates the past qua past. As Deleuzes Bergson explains, any account of time as a serial succession that denes the past as a before in relation to the present that comes after makes the past wait in order to be no longer; yet, if the present must wait for the after in order to become the before, if it was not immediately and now that it had passed, past in general, it could never become what it is, it would never be that past (B 59, DR 81). We shall return below to the issue of the past in general in more detail, but rst it is necessary to see how a reduction of the past to the present obliterates not only the past, but also the present. If philosophy eradicates the past qua past by reducing it to a degree of the present, then the present qua present cannot exist as such because it never can behave like the present and pass. This brief examination concerning the effect that reducing the past to the present has on the present itself offers a clue into the past in general as that which marks the condition of the passage of every particular present (B 56). The standard theory of time, since it cannot explain the constitution of the past qua past, also cannot explain times passage, and with no sense of the past, nothing exists into which the present can pass. On this standard model, the presents wait will be eternal, trapped as it is between two presents: the one which it has been and the one in relation to which it is past (DR 80). Hence, the standard theory renders the notion of temporal succession unintelligible because it (i) relegates all being to being present, (ii) considers time a linear succession of tensed moments, and (iii) narrows (i) further to mean full presence in the now. Even Bergsons early theory of time, according to Bergsonism, suffered from the shortcomings of the standard theory. In his 1893 work, Time and Free Will, Bergson e as the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes explained dure when our ego lets itself live.11 As a form of succession, Bergsons description of the life of the ego submits to the standard theory of time as a linear succession of instants and thus can explain neither the existence of the past nor the passage of the present. Whats worse, Bergson describes this form as a succession without distinction, a form where conscious states of past and present melt into one another, and this form amounts to a convoluted view of time.12 Insofar as e conates times three tenses, it cannot account for Bergsons 1893 theory of dure the preservation of the determinate moments of time, and insofar as it cannot account for the determinate moments of time, it can account for neither a succession of consciousnesses nor a consciousness of succession. For these and other reasons, early Bergson commentatorslike Jean Hyppolite, whose reading of Bergson would inuence Deleuzes Le Bergsonismehave argued that Bergson abandoned

10 Deleuze (1994, p. 82). References to this text will appear parenthetically as DR and will be cited according to the English translation. Cf. Crocker (2004, p. 47). 11 12

Bergson (2001, p. 100). Ibid., pp. 100101.

123

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

19

this psychology of time (as a successive interpenetration of psychic states) in favor of an ontology of time.13 According to Bergsonism, this ontology of time rst appears in Bergsons notion of the past in general, which the latter articulated in his 1896 work, Matter and Memory.14 Bergsonism to the side for a moment, in Matter and Memory Bergson locates the existence of the past, which he terms the past in general, in personal memory (MM 152, 161). He writes, Whenever we are trying to recover a recollection, to call up some period of our history, we become conscious of an act sui generis by which we detach ourselves from the present in order to replace ourselves, rst, in the past in general, then, in a certain region of the pasta work of adjustment, something like the focusing of a camera. (MM 133134) e and the limitations these Recognizing the ambiguities of his 1893 account of dure confusions caused for his account of time, Bergson now seems to claim that without a sense of the past one could not (i) establish a sense of times passage or (ii) search for something past because one could not distinguish past from present (MM 134135).15 The above passage further suggests that Bergson has identied consciousnesss native abilityits rightto access the past. And he seems to imply consciousnesss right to access the past on two scores. First, he seems to maintain that it is consciousnesss right to access the past by changing its attention, detaching itself from the present, replacing itself in the past, and focusing into the past in general for a past in particular. The second matter concerns consciousnesss ability to perceive a temporal object thanks to consciousnesss right to access the past. Bergson seems to imply that the past in general serves as the region wherein consciousness seeks to retain the passing moments of a present experience that make possible the perception of time and temporal objects, e.g., a sentence, and thereby deposited memories. The difference between these two modes of apprehending the past concern consciousnesss attention: In the rst instance, consciousness attends to the past by changing the temporal index of its focusing, while in the second moment consciousness intends the past in its relevance for the present (and not the present of things past, to be sure).16
13

Hyppolite (1949, p. 472). This text appears in English translation as Various Aspects of Memory in Bergson, trans. A. Colman, in L. Lawlor, The Challenge of Bergsonism (New York: Continuum, 2003), 112127, 114115. Cf. Crocker (2004, p. 43). Bergson (1994). References to this text will appear parenthetically as MM. Cf. Lawlor (1998, pp. 1534, 24).

14 15 16

Here, of course, it will make sense to differentiate between memory, recollection and retention, to use Husserls terms. The mode of focusing in the rst instance discussed above concerns memory, the mode of focusing in the second instance above concerns retention, and the difference between them concerns the temporal index of the experience. But the difference between memory and retention with respect to temporal indexing does not sufce to distinguish recollection from retention, for recollection amounts to a searching in the past for some experience relevant to the present. As such, an act of recollection does not change the temporal index from present to past. Hence, recollection resembles retention more so than memory and a fuller account of the difference between recollection and retention must focus on a distinction between recollection and perception. As this issue goes beyond the scope of the present essay, I defer its discussion for another time.

123

20

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

The difference Bergson implies between the two modes of consciousnesss access to the past does not concern Bergsonism, however. What is important for Bergsonism is that the past in general remains the same, always the depository for presently forming and past completed experiences. Bergsonism aims to justify its characterization of the past as always already there, the ever-present depository for the present that passes, by highlighting Bergsons claim that the past exists just as unperceived objects in space exist (MM 142, 145). While Bergsons looks like an argument for the reality of the events of our past life (MM 167), Bergsonism argues, it amounts to an argument for the ontological existence of the past, the past in general, the past itself that co-exists with the present.17 More specically, Bergsonisms Bergson argues that the past itself must co-exist with the present because a past derived from the present is no past at all. As we now shall see, Bergsonism maintains the existence of the past in general as a necessary condition for the passage of time. For Bergsonism, Bergsons revised view realized that a philosophy that wishes to return to the present its character as that which passes must rst explain, quite paradoxically, the existence of the past. As Deleuzes Bergson puts it, The past and present do not denote two successive moments, but elements which coexist: One is the present which does not cease to pass, and the other is the past, which does not cease to be but through which all presents pass The past does not follow the present, but is presupposed by it as the pure condition without which it would not pass. (B 59) Contrary to the standard theory of time as a linear succession, the new theory of time proposed by Bergsonism claims priority for a past which never was present (DR 82). And this pure or a priori element of the past, the past in general,18 co-exists with the present as the enabling condition that allows the relations of diachronic resemblance to form among presents.19 On this interpretation, the ow of conscious life and its ability to apprehend times succession results when consciousness, by right, places itself within the past in general (MM 239) and leapsin Kierkegaardian fashion, according to Deleuze (B 57)between the two co-existing spheres of the past and the present. However tempting it may be to consider the metaphor of the leap into the past in general as something like an attempt to search ones memorial life for a particular instancemuch like one thumbs through a book in search of a particular sentenceone should not consider such efforts illustrative of Bergsonisms past in general. Bergsonism considers the past in general as an ontological condition for the possibility not only of times passage, but also of retention, recollection and memory. As Deleuze writes, Far from being derived from the present or from representation, the past is presupposed by every representation. In this sense, the active synthesis of
17 18 19

May (2005, p. 51). Al-Saji (2004, pp. 203239, 210). Crocker (2004, p. 47).

123

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

21

memory may well be founded upon the (empirical) passive synthesis of habit, but on the other hand, it can be grounded only by another (transcendental) passive synthesis which is peculiar to memory itself. (DR 81) Three moments of conscious life work here: (a) the active effort to remember some past moment, which is grounded in (b) empirical associations in habit, which are founded, in turn, upon (c) the leap into the past in general that occurs quite naturally, i.e., passively, for conscious life. We can restate these distinguishable though inseparable elements as follows: (a) and (b) denote psychological memory, while (c) denotes ontological memory and constitutes the well-spring of (a) and (b) (B 56).20 However we articulate this position, the crucial point seems to be that without (c) we would not have (b) or (a). To highlight why he considers Matter and Memory a great book that works through the paradox of the transcendental synthesis of a pure past (DR 81), Deleuze contrasts the past in general with Husserls psychological concept of retention in the living-present, which he construes as (b). Deleuze describes Husserls notion of retention as a state of successive instants contracted in a present of a certain duration (DR 80); this description falls squarely within Bergsonisms aforementioned critique of the standard theory of time. I take Deleuze to mean that retention denotes a focus in the present on a particular temporal event, e.g., the perception of a sentence. This focus on the past-presents (comprising the sentences beginning and naturally relating to its conclusion) are preserved in relation to the present-present thanks to the ontological condition for the passage of time, the past in general, which is not the former present itself but the element in which we focus upon the latter (DR 80). Founded upon the past in general, Deleuze argues, retention does not dilate the present but contracts a related former present [that] nds itself represented in the present one (DR 80). As an immediate past naturally belonging to a present present the retentional moments of the living-present amount to a reection of the present present (DR 81). Deleuze thus understands the living-present and retentions role therein as this mixing of past and present (LS 164);21 although Deleuze grants that Husserls notions of memory and retention extend beyond the now, he insists that these activities of the livingpresent remain present nonetheless.22 Put differently, both memory and retention
20

Cf. Deleuze (1990, p. 165). References to this text (The Logic of Sense ) will appear parenthetically as LS and be cited according to the English translation. These three movements that I have divided into (a), (b) and (c)where the (a) and (b) mark psychological time and (c) marks ontological time and the past in generaloccur under different terms in this earlier work of Deleuzes. In LS, the terms Chronos and Aion apply to psychological and ontological time, respectively. Of their difference, Deleuze writes, Whereas Chronos expresses the action of bodies and the creation of corporeal qualities, Aion is the locus of incorporeal events, and of the attributes which are distinct from qualities. Whereas Chronos was inseparable from the bodies which ll it out entirely as causes and matter, Aion is populated by effects which haunt it without ever lling it up. Whereas Chronos was limited and innite, Aion is unlimited, the way that the future and the past are unlimited, and nite like the instant. Always already passed and eternally yet to come, Aion is the eternal truth of time: pure empty form of time, which has freed itself of it is present corporeal content Cf., Lawlor (2003, p. 76). May (2005, p. 47).

21 22

123

22

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

re-present the past by focusing in the present on some particular element (regardless of its temporal distance from the present) of the past in general.23 Deleuzean Bergsonism thus interprets Husserls notions of the relation of primal impression to retention in the living-present as analogous to the relation of negative to negative in a lm reel, as when one shot fades into another, our capacity for retention enables the present to retain a reference to its immediate past.24 The consensus in Bergsonism, then, is that [S]tretched by its halo of retentions,25 Husserls living-present cannot explain the succession and unication of temporal moments because the mere assertion that the present incorporates the immediate past [cannot] release us from the standard picture of time.26 We can summarize this critique of Husserl according to the aforementioned aws of the standard theory of time. First, Husserl (i) denes all being as being present to consciousness.27 Second, Husserl (ii) construes time as a linear succession of tensed moments; as one Bergsonist writes, Husserls theory of longitudinal intentionality amounts to a temporality composed of threads that run horizontally between its successive pointstime becomes a line.28 As such, third, considering the past as a kind of after-image that can persist in a weak form in a succeeding image,29 Husserl (iii) narrows all being to the living-presents synthesis of the past in the present. 3 Bergsonisms Reading of Husserls Theory of Time: A Refutation30 A response to Deleuzean Bergsonisms critique of Husserls account of timeconsciousness need not tackle all three of these charges. A rejoinder to (ii) Bergsonisms misunderstanding of retention as a tensed part of the living-present interpreted as an after image that can persist in a weak form in a succeeding imagesufces to challenge charges (iii) and (i). As we shall see, the livingpresent neither incorporates times immediate past instants nor represents former present instants in a present one. A distinction between the passive synthesis of retention (or primary memory according to Husserls revised interpretation), which presents times passage, and the active synthesis of memory, which represents a past temporal instant, will reveal that consciousnesss double-life in the living-present establishes both a sense of the past as past, i.e., the past in general, and a consciousness of succession.
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Cf. Lorraine (2003, p. 35). Crocker (2004, p. 46). Ibid., p. 47. Al-Saji (2004, p. 208). Lawlor (2003, pp. ix, 11, 24). Al-Saji (2004, p. 204). Crocker (2004, p. 46), Cf. Al-Saji (2004, p. 204).

This section owes a great debt to John Broughs clarication of Husserls theory of timeconsciousness, for I apply his insight to a contemporary challenge to Husserl not yet addressed by Husserlians.

123

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

23

In one respect, it is correct to say that Husserl considers time to be a linear succession of instants. Husserl admits that objective time is a perpetual Heraclitean ux, that time is xed, and time ows (Hua X 349, 62/360, 64). The time when Husserl offered his 1905 time-lectures, for example, is xed, and yet time continues to progress to the point of your current experience of this papers time, which is owing and will be xed and followed by the days further experiences. But Husserls phenomenology of inner time-consciousness brackets the metaphysical question of objective time. Husserl concerns himself instead with how one accounts for the consciousness of succession, the apprehension of the before and after that characterizes objective and psychological time, which certainly he believes is linear. In this shift of attention from the natural to the phenomenological attitude, the phenomenologist no longer considers the now a part of the process of objective time. Rather, the now denotes a mode of apprehending that which is present in person (Hua X 60, 325/62, 338).31 Correspondingly, the past, on Husserls account, also does not comprise a part of the process of objective or psychological time. Not a former present that existed before the current present in a serial order of instants, the past amounts to the mode in which one apprehends that which no longer exists in person, i.e., that which is absent. Nevertheless, Husserl claims that new nows replace earlier nows (Hua X 275/285) and that past and future always are oriented towards the actually present now (Hua X 214/221). Such remarks make it easy to see why Bergsonism views Husserls theory of time as composed of threads that run horizontally between its successive points. Does this mean that despite Husserls attitudinal shift he remains vulnerable to Bergsonisms charges against tensed theories of time that seek to explain times succession and unity by incorporating the immediate past into the present? As I understand Husserl, we can answer this question negatively. The metaphors of the lm negative and the unraveling thread that Bergsonist commentators impose on Husserls theory of time are profoundly misleading with respect to Husserls theory of the living-present. Both metaphors imply not only that the living-present is itself spatial, but also that it is itself temporal, which Husserl claims it is not. Husserls theory of time-consciousness resists the lm-negative metaphor as too atomistic and discrete, a metaphor that forces one to narrowly consider consciousness of the past as merely memorial. Conversely, the threading metaphor seems too ambiguous and incapable of accounting for the distinction between the consciousness of the present and the consciousness of the past that constitutes the tensed moments of objective time. Threads may ow horizonally in the livingpresent, but these threads do not rst and foremost link successive time points in psychological or natural time (though, as we shall see, they will make such linking possible). Everything hinges on Husserls description of the now and the past not as tensed (or threaded) moments of time (represented in association or memory) but modes of apprehending that which is given in presence and absence, modes of apprehension that make possible the consciousness of tensed moments of objective time.

31

Brough (1993, p. 512).

123

24

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

Shifting from the concepts of present and past to the modes of intentionality that disclose them, consider the temporal object that is the word, Bergsonism. It occurs in three syllables: Berg, son, and ism. Taking the second syllable, son, as that which appears in person, the rst and the third exist no-longer and not-yet, respectively. The mode of apprehending the syllable appearing now in person, Husserl terms the primal impression. The mode of apprehending the absent syllable, Berg, Husserl terms retention. Both modes comprise inseparable yet distinguishable moments of the life of consciousness that Husserl terms the livingpresent. Husserl states clearly that this ow of the modes of consciousness is not a process (Hua X 333/345) or a thread that runs horizontally between successive instants of time. Specically, the primal impression, the consciousness of the now[,] is not itself now, neither as primal impression nor retention (Hua X 333/ 345). Moreover, the mode of retention that apprehends the past [does] not endure and is not [a] temporal object grasped reectively (Hua X 333334/345 346). Construed neither as pieces in a process, nor separate morsels that require reconnection, primal impression and retention denote distinguishable though inseparable non-temporal moments of the living-present that apprehend the present and past phases of experiences and there by the past and present instants of the temporal object, Bergsonism, which object itself consists of pieces in a process that ows. Bergosnisms claim that Husserls living-present consists of threads running through tensed instants of time amounts to the claim that Husserl considers time... internal to consciousness.32 Yet if one brings times ow back into the livingpresent as Bergsonism does, then it comes as no surprise that one will have to read Husserls living-present as a rened Augustinian consideration of the past as a present of things past. Considered as such, the retentional element of the livingpresent brings the past moments back into the present by an effort of memorial distention.33 To call this kind of activity retention, however, marks an instance of mistaken attribution. And I suspect that Bergsonism gets this mistaken impression of retention as a kind of after-image that enables the present to retain a reference to its immediate past from Husserl himself, who says something like this in his early, 1905 account of time consciousness according to the schema-apprehension model (Hua X 7, 6263/67, 6465). Husserls 1905 time-consciousness lectures did in fact echo Augustines theory of time according to the distension of the soul in a present of things past. According to Husserls early model of time-consciousness, a momentary phase of consciousness consisting of three modes of apprehensionprimary memory, primal impression, primary expectationconstituted a temporal object in the following manner:
32 33

Al-Saji (2004, p. 204).

Crocker (2004, p. 27). For a view that refutes the resemblance that someone like Crocker sees between Husserl and Augustine on time-consciousness, see my, On the Minds Pronouncement of Time: Aristotle, Augustine, and Husserl on Time-consciousness, Proceedings of the ACPA, 78 (2005): 247 262. There, I argue against the traditional readings of Augustines theory of time as a historical anticipation of Husserls theory of time-consciousness, basing my claims on the improvements Husserl makes to his theory of time between the years 1907 and 1911 (a piece that is, again, greatly indebted to my readings of John Broughs work).

123

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

25

Temporal objects spread their matter over an extent of time, and such objects can become constituted only in acts that constitute the very differences belonging to time. But time-constituting acts areessentiallyacts that constitute the present and the past Temporal objects must become constituted in this way. That implies: an act claiming to give a temporal object must contain in itself apprehensions of the now, apprehensions of the past, and so on (Hua X 40/41) Returning to our earlier example, the now-perception apprehends the content son, while primary memory apprehends the past content Berg. Together with the formers animation of son, the latter re-animates Berg and drags it along in a continuously modied continuum whose phases are the continua belonging to the different time-points of the duration of the object (Hua X 2930/3132). Supposedly capable of preserving the determinate position of a temporal objects successive instants, this schema-apprehension model produced only a simultaneity of instants in a bloated present.34 And this incoherence resulted from the demands of Husserls schematic interpretation, which required that the content animated as past should be present. Primary memory understood according to Husserls 1905 model of timeconsciousness marked an objectifying act from within the now that is the momentary phase of consciousness. As an intentional ray from the present (from the momentary phase of consciousness), primary memory denoted the past-apprehension of a past content still apprehended in the present but as memorya weaker and represented after-image. This primary-memory mode of apprehension could only ensure that a past sensation was still on hand in the now (yet somehow) animated as past. Hence, primary memorys attempt to animate past-nows as a consciousness of the object as past (Hua X 29/31) doomed to the present the sense of the past upon which times succession depends. The past qua past ceased to exist in the schema-apprehension model, thereby producing just the kind of after-image Bergsonism critiqued. As early as 1907, however, Husserl began to criticize his notion of the momentary phase of consciousness, i.e., his schema-apprehension interpretation of the consciousness of internal time.35 Husserl realized that past contents have passed, metaphysically, and that a faithful account of the consciousness of time must respect this essential dimension of time. As his thoughts on time mature, he comes to realize that insofar as he retained a schematic interpretation of time-consciousness, memoryregardless of the adjectival nuance he gave itcould not resurrect past moments in order to explain the consciousness of succession. The appeal to memory to explain the consciousness of a temporal object will not work because, as Husserl puts it, The primary contents that spread out in the now are not able to switch their temporal functions: the now cannot stand before me as not-now, the not-now cannot stand before me as now. Indeed, if it were otherwise, the whole continuum of contents could be viewed as now and consequently coexistent and then again as successive. This is evidently impossible. (Hua X 322/334335)
34 35

Cf. Brough (1991). Ibid., xxlviii.

123

26

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

This articulation of the consciousness of succession according to the momentary phase of consciousnesss schematizing of past and present content either ends in a simultaneity or explains only a succession of now consciousnesses that is in part memory, in smallest part perception (Hua X 25/25). Understood in this schematic way, primary memory necessarily fails to explain the consciousness of succession; memory cannot produce perception, since (i) these acts differ in kind and (ii) the latter founds the former insofar as memories themselves depend for their existence upon a consciousness of the past, the apprehension of succession (or a successive event).36 In short, as Brough incisively puts it, primary memory interpreted in terms of the schema cannot explain the consciousness of succession because all events in the momentary phase of consciousness are simply now and nothing [can] overcome that fact.37 If Bergsonism directs its critique to Husserls early theory of time-consciousness, then it seems justied. Its blanket critique of Husserls concept of primary memory (or retention) rests, however, on a conation of Husserls mature and immature theories of time, i.e., the living-present and the schema-apprehension interpretations, respectively. In its attempt to criticize Husserls theory of time-consciousness as a theory that traps the past within the present, Bergsonism reads the schemaapprehension interpretation into the living-present interpretation. For example, the aforementioned description of Husserls notion of retention as an after-image that persists in the present as a weak image of a former image fails to acknowledge that Husserl himself realized that the phenomenologist must distinguish the past sensation from its manifestation in fresh memory (Hua X 311/323). Indeed, the notion of an after-image loses its place in Husserls developed theory of time, for Husserl realizes the need for a rened account of primary memory (or retention), an account of the immediate consciousness of that past that realize that the intuition of the past cannot itself be a pictorialization, [for it] is an original consciousness (Hua X 311/323). When the reader of Husserl recognizes the difference between the past represented as an after-image and the original consciousness of the past, he can easily conrm that [the latter] obviously [does] not belong to memory as memory but to perception (Hua X 312/323). Since Bergsonisms blanket reliance on the analogy of the after-image implicitly takes the schema-apprehension model of awareness as Husserls nal word on the subject of time-consciousness, its critique mistakenly discusses the theory of the schema-apprehension model with the language of the living-present. The Bergsonist critique fails to see that Husserl abandoned the schemaapprehension interpretation of primary memory precisely because it could not account for the sense of pastness upon which the consciousness of succession and time-consciousness depends. Around 1909, Husserl revised his interpretation of our immediate consciousness of the past, distancing it sharply from his early schematic theory, and this shift was accompanied more or less faithfully by a shift in language from primary memory to retention. Rather than a mode of apprehension that issues from the now to animate contents presently in consciousness in order to constitute the
36 37

Zahavi (1999, pp. 64ff). Brough (1991, p. xxlvii).

123

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

27

consciousness of the temporal objects past instants, and rather than a mode of apprehension that remembers past phases of the ow in a moment of memorial distention, Husserl comes to favor the theory that consciousness of the past must be explained by the intentional direction of primary memory (or retention) towards the past of consciousness lived experience. The shift in language from primary memory to retention, then, is designed to account for Husserls interpretive discovery that primary memory (or retention) interpreted according to the model of the livingpresent lets the present instants pass because it apprehends the past as past. In a crucial supplementary text to the time-lectures, The Modications Proper to Primary Memory, Husserl draws the following structural contrast between primary memory interpreted according to the schema-apprehension model and primary memory or retention interpreted according to the theory of the living-present: A sensation-series, which is not a memory series, can become given in consciousness as a temporal succession only because it grounds memory-series Primary memory must attach itself to the sensation as something new so that that consciousness of the sensation does not vanish On the other hand, as far as the ow of memory is concerned, nothing further needs to be attached to the newly occurring memory since it already implies in itself the memory of the previous memory. (Retention.) (Hua X 333/345, Husserls italics). Here is the difference: On the one hand, primary memory as interpreted in 1905 re-members related past instants (or phases) in the now and produces a consciousness of the object as past, a consciousness of the [instant] that has been, (Hua X 29/31). On the other hand, primary memory interpreted in 1909 (or retention) designates the intentional relation of phase of consciousness to phase of consciousness (Hua X 333/346), i.e., a consciousness of the past of the [experience] (Hua X 312/324) and thereby the past of the object. The former amounts to an active, objectifying re-presentation of the past in the present, whereas the latter amounts to a passive, non-objectifying presentation (i.e., perception) of the past of conscious life. And the latter in this case founds the former, as Husserl notes: Memory is an expression that always and only refers to a constituted temporal object. Retention, on the other hand, is an expression used to designate the intentional continuities of consciousness [that] must not be regarded as temporal objects (Hua X 333/346). Although Husserl occasionally slides back to use of the phrase primary memory in his discussions of retention after 1909 (Hua X no. 47), the reader now should understand this phrase (primary memory) in light of Husserls interpretive discovery of a new sense of the immediate consciousness of the past as an original consciousness of the past. Husserls crucial discovery concerns the fact that primary memory or retention differs from memory not temporally but structurally. The different interpretations of primary memory from 1905 and 1909 establish that the difference between primary memory and secondary memory lays not with the temporal distance of the experience from the present but with the structural difference in intentionalities. For example, when I walk into my kitchen to get my keys and some news on the radio distracts me, I must try to remember my original purpose for entering the kitchen. The temporal distance between activities is almost

123

28

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

immediate, but the act of remembering my original intention of retrieving my keys bears no difference from my act of remembering my twelfth birthday. The difference between memory and retention, then, concerns the manner in which consciousness intends the pasteven if it is a rather temporally proximal past. On this new interpretation of primary memory (or retention), Husserls theory neither connes past instants to a bloated present nor represents the instants themselves as, in Deleuzes words, a former present represented in the present one (DR 80). In the living-present, the primal impression takes consciousness out to the now that is given in person, while retention simultaneously takes consciousness to the past, to its elapsed phase; consciousness enjoys something like a double-life. The primal impression intends the present that is given in person and lets it pass, i.e., become past, while retention intends the consciousness of the past, the past as past, and presents it without any present contentno after image or echo (Hua X 312/323 324)contained in it.38 Hence, Husserls claim that sensationif by sensation we understand consciousness (not that which is sensed)and likewise retention are non-temporal (Hua X 333334/346) but provide access to the tensed moments of time. To explain the consciousness of the past upon which consciousness of succession rests, retention denotes a sense of the past of the life of consciousness, a sense of the past in general, if you will. Neither this consciousness of the past (retention), nor the inseparable moment of the consciousness of the present (primal impression) is itself temporal, but together in the living-present they present temporal objects precisely as they are given in their presence and absence.

4 Conclusion: Husserl, Bergson and the Past in General Bergsonism conates Husserls distinction between primary memory and retention as a result of its failure to appreciate the fact that Husserl rened his early interpretation of the phrase, primary memory, precisely to (i) avoid the limitation of his earlier, schematic interpretation and (ii) to ensure that the present passes and that the sense of the past is not derived from the present. As Brough puts it, Husserl realized that if the consciousness of the past is made to depend on the consciousness of what is now, then one will never be conscious of the past at all, and one will then have no experience of time or temporal objects (including memories and recollections).39 The motivation behind Husserls shift in language from primary memory to retention stems from his shift in thought, his realization that, as Bergson put it, temporal objectsincluding memories and recollectionscould not be referred to the past unless it was in the past that I sought [them] (MM 135). Having emphasized Husserls distinction between the immature and mature interpretations of primary memory, perhaps we further can suggestion that Husserls theory of retention can accommodate all that Bergsonism believes Bergson contributes beyond Husserls theory of time? Given that retention, according to the living-present interpretation, is not formed after, but coexists with, the primal impression as a non-temporal mode of
38 39

Brough (1991, p. 522). Ibid., p. 522.

123

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

29

apprehension, retention seems to satisfy the conditions Deleuze set for a theory of a past that never was present (a sense of the past not derived from the present). Indeed, it seems we may apply equally to Husserl Deleuzes words of praise intended for Bergson: far from being a dimension of time we cannot say that [the past] was In effect we necessarily speak of a past which never was present, since it was not formed after (DR 82). One begins to wonder, then, whether Husserls claim that retention apprehends the past as past brings Husserl closer to Bergson than Bergsonism itself. The present paper at least establishes that Bergson and Husserl share with Deleuzean Bergsonism the claim that the sense of the past is not derived from the present. Perhaps more interestingly, the present paper creates the space to renew a productive dialogue between Bergson and Husserl. Indeed, Bergson and Husserl share three salient beliefs concerning consciousnesss relation to the past that would put them together in opposition to Deleuzean Bergsonisms avowedly ontological theory of the past in general that argues that a former present nds itself represented in a present one in both perceptual and memorial activity. Like Bergson, Husserl (i) locates the existence of the past in the life of consciousness (MM 167, 152) insofar as the past in general amounts to the realm of my recollections in their totality (MM 152, 161) and (ii) employs the metaphor of the leap to describe consciousness access to the past. Taken on Bergsons terms rather than Bergsonisms reading, Husserl could accept each of these claims. In fact, Husserl claims, (i) that the past exists as a eld of at least idealiter possible complete memory,40 a eld to which consciousness has access by (ii) making one leap, as it were, back into the past by memory (Hua X 107/111). Although Husserl speaks of the leap by memory, one can apply this metaphor to his rened thought of retention, for Husserl mentions the leap in writings dated from 1909 when the discovery of a new interpretation of the immediate consciousness of the past began to take hold over his thoughts on time-consciousness.41 What is crucial and of future interest concerning Bergson and Husserls shared metaphor of the leapand here we reach the third suggestive point of coincidenceis the implicit belief that consciousnesss access to the past by the leap does not reproduce, represent or remember the past. Rather, for both, the leap indicates the belief that we perceive our immediate past... (MM 151).42 As Husserls rened theory of primary memory contends, consciousness as the
40 41

Husserl (2001, p. 400).

Cf. Husserl (1966, Appendix III). This is entitled The Nexus of Intentions of Perception and Memory and dated around 1909/1910 by Rudolf Bernet. For Husserl, the retentional moment of the living present does not turn to cognize the selfs past states in objectifying act (as memory represents the past); rather, it functions as a momentary consciousness of the elapsed phase and a foundation for the retention of the next phase, and thus is conscious of the preceding phase without making it into an object (HUA X 123). Interestingly, Rudolf Bernet (who I think still would believe it more philosophically informative to emphasize the differences rather than similarities between Bergson and Husserl) recently has produced remarks on the relation between Bergson and Husserl that seemingly support this claim that each thinker believes that we perceive the past and that such perception of the past constitutes the founding conditions for memory and recollectionalthough Bernet writes of this matter in a radically different context than the one I have discussed in this essay. Bernet (2005, pp. 5576, 61).
42

123

30

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:1530

living-present enjoys a double-life, a double movement at once in two directions, consciousness of the present and consciousness of the past. No schism within the self, this double-life marks but two distinguishable though inseparable, i.e., coexistent, moments of the temporal ow of one and the same conscious life. The leap implied in Husserls theory of retention functions like Bergsons theory of the past in general. For each, the metaphor denotes consciousness direct and immediate access to the past of its life, a sense of the past not derived from the present, a past that never was present because this non-temporal past was not formed after.

References
Al-Saji, A. (2004). The memory of another past: Bergson, Deleuze and a new theory of time. Continental Philosophy Review, 37(2), 203239. Bergson, H. (1994). Matter and memory. Trans. N. M. Paul & W. S. Palmer. New York: Zone Books. References to this text will appear in the text as MM and be cited according to the English translation. Bergson, H. (2001). Time and free will. Trans. F. L. Pogson. Mineola: Dover Publications. Bernet, R. (2005). A present folded back on the pat (Bergson). Research in Phenomenology, 35(1), 5576. Brough, J. (1991). Translators introduction. In E. Husserl (Ed.), On the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time (18931917). Trans. John Brough (Collected Works, Vol. IV). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Brough, J. (1993). Husserl and the deconstruction of time. Review of Metaphysics, 46, 503536. Crocker, S. (2004). The past is to time what the idea is to thought or, what is general in the past in general? Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 35(1), 4253. ` Michel Cressole. In M. Cressole (Ed.), Deleuze. Paris: Editions Deleuze, G. (1973). Lettre a Universitaires. Deleuze, G. (1990). The logic of sense. Trans. M. Lester with C. Stivale. New York: Columbia University Press. Cited in the text as LS. Deleuze, G. (1991). Bergsonism. Trans. H. Tomlinson & B. Habberjam. New York: Zone Books. Cited in the text as B. Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition. Trans. P. Patton. New York: Columbia University Press. Cited in the text as DR. Husserl, E. (1991). On the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time (18931917). Trans. John Brough (Collected Works, Vol. IV). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Husserl, E. (1966). Zur Pha nomenologie des inneren Zeitbewutseins (18931917). In: Rudolf Boehm (Ed.), Husserliana X. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Cited in the text as Hua X. Husserl, E. (2001). Analyses concerning passive and active synthesis: lectures on transcendental logic. Trans. A. Steinbock. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Hyppolite, J. (1949). Aspects diverses de la memoire chez Bergson, Revue internationale de philosophie, October. This text appears in English translation as Various aspects of memory in Bergson, trans. A. Colman, in L. Lawlor, The challenge of Bergsonism (New York: Continuum, 2003), 112127, 114115. Lawlor, L. (1998). The end of phenomenology: expressionism in Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty. Continental Philosophy Review, 31, 1534. Lawlor, L. (2003). The beginnings of thought: the fundamental experience in Derrida and Deleuze. In P. Patton & J. Proveti (Eds.), Between Deleuze and Derrida, New York: Continuum Press. Lawlor, L. (2003). The challenge of Bergsonism. New York: Continuum. Lorraine, T. (2003). Living a time out of joint. In P. Patton & J. Proveti (Eds.), Between Deleuze and Derrida, New York: Continuum Press. May, T. (2005). Gilles Deleuze: An introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wood, D. (1989). The deconstruction of time. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International. Zahavi, D. (1999). Self-awareness and alterity: A phenomenological investigation. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

123