Paradox of temporal consciousness

Abstract

Temporal consciousness seems so common that if we want to understand what philosophers find puzzling about it we must first look into the ways in which we would naively account for it. My initial worry will thus be that of making clear how puzzlement regarding temporal experience arises in the first place. In the first section, I will focus on a certain family of solutions, sometimes referred to as Specious Present theories, and analyse two main subsets of this family: extentionalism and retentionalism. In section two I will detect the point of contact between these views and formalise it in terms of the individuation argument, following Hoerl’s proposal. Then, I will advance some objections against this argument, leaving thus space, in the last section, to weigh up the validity of the solutions we met. This should allow us to better understand the conceptual knot that originated the puzzle, and contribute to individuate the space for a possible novel position. The aim of this work is to give a clear picture of the main solutions to the paradox of temporal consciousness and some of their deficiency, so to individuate the area where a possible new solution can be developed.