Still Point of the Turning World

Schubert’s late instrumental music evokes a distinctive time-sense which not only expands the expressive potential of stylistic norms, but also invites deeper reflections on the relationship between the self and the world through his multilayered construction of temporal consciousness. The sense of now, towards which past and future gravitate, is particularly salient. In this article, I examine the formal, harmonic, topical processes through which Schubert constructs a vivid sense of the now in two movements from his late period, D. 956/ii and D. 959/ii, through the lens of phenomenology, drawing on conceptions of time as formulated by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. I aim to bridge two fields together: first, the general theory of musical time, as has been delineated by Kramer, Barry and Clifton, which examines concepts such as linearity/nonlinearity, silence and stasis; and second, the scholarship on late Schubert, with key conceptual tools such as landscape, late style, lyricism, songfulness and interiority, formulated in the works of Adorno, Burnham, Mak and Taylor. I will also provide the cultural context of musical time in the early-nineteenth century, focusing on the wider paradigm shift from form-as-architecture to form-as-process in music. My analysis reflects a phenomenological orientation within a hermeneutic, narrative mode. I highlight the often disorienting subjective experience of time as evoked by moments that deflect from norms and expectations, specifically the tension between the transient nature of music and the sense of permanence evoked through Schubert’s cyclic, paratactic procedures. I then show how Schubert’s construal of temporal consciousness acquires a historiographical import and resonates with the broader intellectual world by framing it in terms of Schlegel’s three stages of history. I conclude by promoting phenomenological approaches in analysing Schubert’s works and nineteenth-century music at large.

آليات تشكيل الوعي في ضوء السنة النبوية

تمثِّل قضية الوعي إحدى أبرز مفردات البناء العقلي للمنهج النبوي؛ ذلك لأنها قضية تحوي كنه الوجود الإنساني، وترسم خارطة لامتدادات هذا الوجود. ويهدف هذا البحث إلى الكشف عن سبل تشكيل وعي الإنسان بأنماطه المختلفة ذاتًا وزمانًا ومكانًا ومعرفة ولغة من خلال السنة النبوية، ليكون ذلك برهانًا من براهين احتواء الرسالة الخاتمة على مرتكزات الرشاد الإنساني. وقد استعملت في هذا البحث منهجين، وهما: المنهج الاستقرائي، والمنهج التحليلي، أما المنهج الاستقرائي فتتبعت من خلاله مواطن الاستدلال من السنة النبوية على موضوع البحث، وأما المنهج التحليلي فقمت من خلاله بتحليل هذه الأحاديث لاستخراج النتائج منها.وخلصت الدراسة إلى أنه كانت للسنة النبوية أساليبها المتنوعة في تشكيل الوعي الذاتي للإنسان من خلال تشكيل وعيه بأصل خِلْقته، وغاية خلقته، وحدود طاقته، وأن السة لنبوية أصَّلت للوعي الزماني من خلال الربط بين الزمن وبين الحركة الإنسانية، والربط بينه وبين التكاليف الشرعية، وبيان الأثر الإيجابي المترتب على استغلال الزمن والسلبي المترتب على الغفلة عنه. كما أبانت كيف أن السنة النبوية قد شكَّلت وعيًا مكانيًّا تُفَرِّقُ العقلية الإسلامية من خلاله بين إطار مكاني وآخر، وكان من دوائر هذا الوعي الربط بين المكان والحدث، والتنبيه على اختلاف الإطار الثقافي والاجتماعي لكل موطن من المواطن.كما أظهرت كيف أن السنة النبوية كوَّنت وعيًا لغويا من خلال الوعي بالمضامين الحضارية لمفردات اللغة، والتنبيه إلى المناط الاستعمالي، والأثر النفسي للغة. Awareness is one of the most fundamental elements of the rational construction in the prophetic scheme, as it expresses the essence of the purpose of human existence on the planet earth and shapes it future extension. This research aims to underline ways of the formation all kinds of human awareness in the perspective of the Sunnah and it will then focus on presenting how this would be a proof of the evidence that the God’s final message contains the basics of human guidance. A mix of deductive and analytical method was used to trace the points of inference from the Prophetic sunnah on the topic and several hadiths were quoted and analysed for the result extractions. The research resulted in the conclusion that the prophetic Sunnah had various methods of forming the self-awareness of the human being. The Prophet enlightened that if human being reflecting the origin of his creation, the purpose of his creation, and the limits of his energy, the awareness consequently be formed. Furthermore, the prophetic tradition was rooted in temporal consciousness by linking time and human movement. The link between temporal consciousness with the shariah obligation explains the positive impact of the time exploitation and the negative consequences of neglecting those obligations. On the other, the prophetic tradition also illuminates the formation of special awareness in which the Islamic mentality differentiated between the framework of one place and another. Among the circle of this awareness was the link between place and event, and alerting the difference of cultural and social context for each people. Finally, this study also shared how the prophetic sunnah formed a linguistic awareness through the cultural implications of the language, the alertness or cognition of the person to the areas of its function, and the psychological impact of language.

In favour of analytic phenomenology of time

The article considers analytic phenomenology of time as a most hopeful way for studying temporal structure of consciousness. In order to demonstrate advantage of this area we briefly outline the main methods of research of time consciousness and time perception, clarify connection between analytic philosophy and phenomenology and turn to contemporary research of temporal consciousness structure. We can mention F. Varela, S. Gallagher, E. Pöppel, H. Maturana, E. Knyazeva as proponents of analytic phenomenology, who have already performed outstanding results. Thus, it is through the analytic phenomenology of time we can study temporal structure of consciousness using logical methods, system and analytical approach without excluding phenomenological and neurophenomenological researches.

The Relevance of Phenomenological Analysis Within Current Epistemology

This article is primarily concerned with the articulation of a defensible position on the relevance of phenomenological analysis with the current epistemological edifice as this latter has evolved since the rupture with the classical scientific paradigm pointing to the Newtonian-Leibnizian tradition which took place around the beginning of 20th century. My approach is generally based on the reduction of the objects-contents of natural sciences, abstracted in the form of ideal objectivities in the corresponding logical-mathematical theories, to the content of meaning-acts ultimately referring to a specific being-within-the-world experience. This is a position that finds itself in line with Husserl’s gradual departure from the psychologistic interpretations of his earlier works on the philosophy of logic and mathematics and culminates in a properly meant phenomenological foundation of natural sciences in his last major published work, namely the Crisis of European Sciences and the Transcendental Phenomenology (Husserl, 1962). Further this article tries to set up a context of discourse in which to found both physical and formal objects in parallel terms as essentially temporal-noematic objects to the extent that they may be considered as invariants of the constitutional modes of a temporal consciousness.

Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls: Motion Aftereffects and the Dynamic Snapshot Theory of Temporal Experience

The philosophical investigation of perceptual illusions can generate fruitful insights in the study of subjective time consciousness. However, the way illusions are interpreted is often controversial. Recently, proponents of the so-called dynamic snapshot theory have appealed to the Waterfall Illusion, a kind of motion aftereffect, to support a particular view of temporal consciousness according to which experience is structured as a series of instantaneous snapshots with dynamic qualities. This dynamism is meant to account for familiar features of the phenomenology of time, such as succession, continuity, and change. Previous theories have typically appealed to a subjective present occupying an interval of time; that is, a “specious present.” I argue, through analysis of motion aftereffect illusions and the rare condition of akinetopsia, i.e. motion-blindness, that the Waterfall Illusion fails to support the dynamic snapshot theory as intended. Furthermore, I suggest that future theories of subjective time should see temporal phenomenology as the result of non-localised processes closely tied to the mechanism underlying consciousness generally.

Temporal Consciousness

The temporal aspects of experience raise three related questions, central to our understanding of temporal consciousness: how do sensory experiences carry information about, or make us aware of, some of the temporal features of perceived events (if at all)—in what format, by what mechanisms?; do the temporal properties of conscious experiences—including the arrangement of their temporal parts—play any role in how these experiences present or represent the temporal properties of perceived events?; how does such temporal representation manifest itself in the phenomenology of the relevant experiences? Most theories of temporal consciousness can be divided in terms of how they treat these questions. This chapter begins with a brief sketch of the main theories currently on the market and some of their background assumptions; it then moves to a—also brief—critical review of some of the arguments at the centre of the dispute.