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Part of
Controversies and Interdisciplinarity: Beyond disciplinary fragmentation for a new knowledge model
Edited by Jens Allwood, Olga Pombo, Clara Renna and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 16] 2020
► pp. 177–198

Chapter 9
Husserl’s phenomenology of inner time-consciousness and enactivism

The harmonizing argument

| Tel Aviv University

In this article, I single out the characteristics of a polemical type of argument that I dub “the harmonizing argument”. Contenders that use the harmonizing argument aim to persuade their audience that it is possible to harmonize two opposed positions. My case study is the enactivists’ attempt to naturalize Husserl’s phenomenology of inner time-consciousness. I first present Husserl’s account of time-consciousness. I clarify why absolute subjectivity cannot be naturalized. I continue by interpreting the enactivists’ attempt to naturalizes absolute subjectivity as exemplifying the harmonizing argument. I present the limitations of this attempt, and I conclude by pointing out the possible positive epistemic results of using this type of argument.

Keywords: harmonizing argument, enactivism, subjectivity, first-person perspective, prereflective self-awareness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discussion and controversy
  • 3.The harmonizing argument
  • 4.The intentional approach to the specious present
  • 5.Temporal objects and temporal experiences
  • 6.Absolute subjectivity
  • 7.The main two steps of the enactivists’ harmonizing argument
  • 8.Prereflective self-awareness
  • 9.The living present
  • 10.Absolute subjectivity and non-linear dynamical systems
  • 11.Is it possible to naturalize Husserlian phenomenology?
  • 12.The positive outcomes of the harmonizing argument
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.16.09sen
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Filipovic, Anastasija
2023. Husserl’s understanding of temporality as a reflection of active subject. Theoria, Beograd 66:3 ► pp. 39 ff. DOI logo

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