ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to the attempts of two philosophers to make sense of our immediate experience of time. A cursory glance at the relevant primary sources, or indeed a more careful scrutiny of some secondary sources, might easily give one the impression that Broad and Husserl had arrived at very similar conclusions concerning temporal awareness. In one sense this would not be too far off the mark, in that it is true that both authors can be found endorsing theories of a similar general form, but a closer look shows the situation to be rather more complicated. Husserl struggled with the topic throughout his long career, and in his various writings several different accounts of time-consciousness can be found; he seems never to have been entirely happy with any of them. Broad proposed an account of temporal experience in his Scientific Thought (1923), and returned to the topic in his An Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy (1938). Although Broad does not indicate as much, his later account is very different from his earlier effort, despite some superficial similarities. The interesting point is that although the views of both philosophers evolved, they evolved in opposite directions. Broad’s later account most resembles a theory Husserl elaborated in his earlymid period, whereas Broad’s initial account is in some respects similar to one which can be discerned in Husserl’s later writings. Broad’s early account is realist, his later account anti-realist; Husserl seems to have moved in the opposite direction. So, to simplify somewhat, far from arriving at the same place, each writer’s destination was the other’s point of departure.
