Explaining it Away?: On the Enigma of Time in Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time-Consciousness

This paper is motivated by what I call the “enigma of time”, the paradox that, on the one hand, the givenness of a temporal entity takes time, i.e., comes in installments and is never complete, while, on the other hand, at each moment of manifestation the entity is grasped as a unity, i.e., “pretends” to be complete. A methodological assumption underlying my investigation is that the paradox cannot be “solved” by positing a timeless foundation while compartmentalizing temporality to the extent that it becomes ontologically superfluous. Such an attempt only obscures or postpones the problem, for time is that paradox, and to eliminate the paradox is to eliminate time. By contrast, a thinking that takes time seriously must comprehend the paradox and make it the productive core of theorizing. Only in this way can time cease to be a petrifying impasse and instead redefine the landscape of philosophy.