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The Specious Present

Dive into the controversial concept of the "specious present" as proposed by James, exploring its existence, implications, and counterarguments. Delve into the debates between Retentionalist and Extensionalist models to make sense of the temporal depth in human experience. A comprehensive survey of key assumptions and philosophical implications awaits.

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The Specious Present

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  1. The Specious Present ‘the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’ James

  2. Consciousness Time Specious Present = time as it most directly and distinctively manifests in experience

  3. BUT: specious present: particularly controversial (& baffling) Does it really exist? Isn’t it paradoxical?

  4. My aims: • Survey the main options + comment on James’ position • Isolate some key assumptions motivating the different positions • Defend a neo-Jamesian conception • Counter some recent criticisms of Sean Kelly’s • Explore a few implications

  5. Specious Present: why believe? Primary reason: to make sense of our experience

  6. “change itself is one of the things immediately experienced.” (James,WPE) • Some changes = too slow to be perceived (growth of oak tree). • Some are too fast (speeding bullet). • Some are just right: we directly apprehend them.

  7. Seeing motion:

  8. Enter SP: ‘all the changes in place of a meteor seem … to be contained in the present.’ (Clay) 1 sec t2 t1 So: our direct perceptual awareness can’t be confined to a durationless instant

  9. Further data: ‘phenomenal depth’ Most simple sensations have some temporal depth Strictly durationless tone = hard to conceive

  10. More generally: (typical) streams of consciousness are continuous each phase is experienced as giving way to the next

  11. A puzzle about length: ‘a core of about a dozen seconds, up to a minute’ (James) We’re not directly aware of what we experienced a minute ago Or even a few seconds!

  12. (Partially) plausible diagnosis: James: ‘the practically cognized present is no knife-edge, but a saddleback’ SP proper (e.g. 1sec) Vivid anticipations Vivid short-term memories

  13. Retentionalist immediate experience of change occurs in a single moment specious present does not really extend through time Extensionalist immediate experience of change is not confined to a single moment specious present is spread through time Making sense of SP: two main models

  14. Extensionalism: 1 SP specious present B C real (clock) time

  15. Extensionalism: streams of SPs succession of tones Pulse version (Whitehead, Sprigge) succession of tones Overlap version (Russell, Foster)

  16. Retentionalist Model: 1 SP more past B less past Specious present C D E clock time B C D E

  17. B C D C D E D E F E F G Retentionalist Model: 3 SPs succession of tones in real time

  18. Retentionalist Model: full glory succession of tones in real time

  19. James: Retentionalist or Extentionalist??

  20. ‘Specious present’ = what James was committed to James = Extensionalist So: distinguish ‘specious present’ theories from Retentionalist approaches Sean Kelly (recent recommendation):

  21. James = Extensionalist? stream doctrine ‘duration-blocks’

  22. James’ Stream doctrine experiences unified by soul-substance (rationalism) experiences not unified (empiricism) REJECT Experience unifies itself, synchronically & diachronicallyvia ‘conjunctive relations’

  23. Conjunctive relations: • ‘The conjunctive relation that has given most trouble to philosophy is the co-conscious transition, so to call it, by which one experience passes into another when both belong to the same self. … this sense of continuity in that most intimate of all conjunctive relations’ (WPE)

  24. But: James = Retentionalist! ‘The knowledge of some other part of the stream, past or future, near or remote, is always mixed in with knowledge of the present thing’ Volkmann has expressed the matter admirably: ‘if A and B are to be represented as occurring in succession they must be simultaneously represented’

  25. James’ SP diagram: pure Retentionalism! ‘The feeling of past time is a present feeling’ specious present B C D E clock time B C D E

  26. Diagnosis: • In Principles James is pulled in different directions: • Retentionalist when in scientific mode • Extentionalist when in phenomenological/philosophical mode

  27. Terminological Recommendation: • ‘Specious Present’ – for any account which attributes apparent temporal depth to experience • E.g. Retentionalism • E.g. Extensionalism

  28. Retentionalism: main advocates Kant Ward James(/2) Lockwood Brentano Broad (L) Husserl Dobbs

  29. Retentionalism: motivation (i) Avoid! awareness • Can we really be directly aware of what lies in the past? (Or the future?) Or is clairvoyance commonplace? Past Present Future

  30. Retentionalism: motivation (ii) Simultaneous Unity Thesis (SUT): to be apprehended as successive, contents must be presented together in consciousness at the same moment • regarded as axiomatic by Volkmann, Ward, James, Husserl, Dobbs

  31. SUT entails Retentionalism

  32. Objections to Retention 1: Why aren’t these experienced as a chord, rather than a succession? B specious present C D E time B C D E

  33. Main solutions: Broad’s ‘presentedness’ Dobbs’ ‘gravitas’ Husserl’s retentions unclear implausible No matter: it still may be possible for momentary experience to have apparent temporal depth

  34. Objection 2: phenomenologically dubious Are we really aware, at each moment, of a temporal spread of content? I’m only aware of what’s happening now!

  35. Objection 3: expensive and exotic Multiplies total quantity of experience in universe retentions

  36. Exotic: Dobbs (& Broad): properly viewed, retention model = two-dimensional time Specious present Experiential (extensive) time Ordinary (transition) time

  37. 2-D time construal = fully justified more past B less past temporal interval C D E clock time B C D E

  38. 2-d time view: vulnerable Phenomenal time ordinary time Surprising & important discovery? Or needless posit?

  39. Objection 4: James’ insight lost? Stream: fragmented Stream: adjacent phases UNIFIED

  40. Extensionalist Alternative?

  41. Two Extensionalisms stream Pulse version stream Overlap version

  42. Fragments stream … succession of tones BETTER: secures continuity of consciousness succession of tones

  43. Overlap Model: basic ingredients = Jamesian duration block single specious present Parts spread across time AND experienced together as a succession

  44. Diachronic co-consciousness = directly experienced succession/persistence A B A B Does mean: directly hearing A-being-followed-by-B Doesn’t mean: hearing A and simultaneously hearing B (i.e.before it has occurred!)

  45. Diachronic co-consciousness: In consciousness together, but as a succession (not simultaneously = retentional model)

  46. Overlap model: from blocks to streams Stream of consciousness

  47. Overlap: no (unwanted) duplications D C SP1 D E SP2 F E SP3 Overlapping SPs possess common parts (D in SP1 = D in SP2, etc)

  48. The asymmetric character of diachronic co-consciousness relationship? The intrinsic character of phenomenal contents? What explains the apparent direction of experience? More economical option

  49. Duration-blocks inherently dynamic: motion! motion!

  50. Overlap but no ‘temporal modes’ (= austere) Jamesian saddleback more past just past present “we have a constant feeling sui generis of pastness, to which every one of our experiences falls prey” James ‘qualities’/intrinsic properties

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