ABSTRACT
Much of the current debate about temporal experience in philosophy is framed in terms of a debate between three specific main positions, sometimes referred to as the extensional model, the retentional model and the cinematic model. Viewed at some level of abstraction, problems remarkably similar to the problems with Husserl's attempt to distance his own retentionalism from the cinematic model of temporal experience also plague some existing attempts to demarcate extensionalism from the cinematic model. In the context of the debate between extensionalism and the cinematic model, the crucial stake issue is often conceived of in terms of the question as to whether there can be a relation of "diachronic unity" between non-contemporaneous experiences. Defenders of the cinematic model are, in effect, pulled in two different directions, each implicitly motivated by a different view of the nature of perception.
