Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Conference | Paper

When time stands still: in search of the phenomenology of timelessness

Uldis Vēgners

Wednesday 6 September 2023

14:00 - 14:30

 

Time, temporality, historicity and finality are themes that have been prominent in the history of phenomenology. The fact that our experiential existence and the world we experience is changing, is considered in phenomenology as an inevitable, fundamental fact of our lives. Nevertheless, there are people who claim to have transcended their temporality, that is, to have experienced time standing still and eternity. In other words, people have documented and described their experiences, which can be characterized as extra-temporal. Such cases are described, for example, in the context of mystical experiences, meditation and trance states, psychopathological conditions (like schizophrenia and depression), and near-death experiences. From the perspective of the classical phenomenology, a claim for a timeless experience seems to be at least controversial, as it goes against the fundamental fact of the temporal nature of our experience. Also, the language that is used to describe the experiences of timelessness often appears ambiguous, incomplete, overly general, vague, and even paradoxical, which makes the claim even more problematic. And this raises a set of questions: what is truly experienced when people claim to experience the cessation of time or timelessness; whether it is phenomenologically justified to claim that they have experienced timelessness or eternity; how to best and most accurately phenomenologically describe and conceptualize such experiences; and in what sense, if at all, the timelessness can be experienced? In this context, the aim of this presentation is to outline the problem and to initiate a discussion whether a phenomenology of timelessness, which specifically and concretely attempts to describe experience of timelessness, is possible, and what might be the essential questions, tasks, methodological and conceptual tools, as well as obstacles to its development.