Phenomenology of time

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asks, I know not."
Augustine, Confessions Book XI
"Time" is a word we use so often that we can lose sight of how its meaning shifts in different contexts. This interdisciplinary course tarries with time and takes a phenomenological route through its mysteries.
As an important strand of Western philosophy, phenomenology sees time as the fundamental marker of our being: all experience is structured temporally and all us must wrestle with the practical problem of how to live a mortal life.
We start with early Mediterranean views on cosmological time and consider how the finite lifespan of humans is conceptualised in relation to the universe and ideas about creation. We will look at how philosophers have wrestled with an apparently indifferent cosmos or sought to situate our limited span within a grander vision.
We then focus on the subjective and personal approaches to the passage of time and discuss how memory and expectation structure temporal experience and our sense of self.
We will examine the writings of phenomenologists such as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger and consider their precursors and fellow-travellers. In particular, we will consider the central place of time in modern fiction and the explicit connections to philosophy invoked there.