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temporal-synthesis
The concept that past, present, and future are interconnected through a synthesis that constitutes personal identity and temporal experience.
1 chapter across 1 book
Being and Nothingness (1943)Jean-Paul Sartre
Chapter 2GT142
This chapter explores the phenomenology of temporality, focusing on the ontological status of the past in relation to present consciousness. Sartre critiques common conceptions that either deny the being of the past or grant it a static existence, arguing instead that the past is ontologically connected to the present and future through a synthesis that constitutes personal identity and memory. He challenges theories that reduce memory to present traces and emphasizes the inseparability of pastness from the present moment of consciousness.