From the Agent’s Perspective: Action and the Temporality of Experience
Erkenntnis May 14, 2026 Yaron Wolf
Whether experience itself unfolds in time is debated. This paper defends the extensional account of temporal consciousness, where the temporal properties we directly experience match those of experience itself. After showing that introspection alone cannot settle the question, a new argument is developed based on introspection into and the veridicality conditions of awareness of bodily actions. The paper critiques a prominent version of the extensional view that gives temporally extended experiences explanatory and metaphysical priority over their temporal parts. Attention to facets of agential awareness suggests that extended experience should instead be understood as processual in its temporal character.