The Inquietude of Time and the Instance of Eternity

This chapter explores the meaning and importance of the question “What is time?” in the phenomenological philosophies of Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas. As developed in this chapter, the question of time is for each of these thinkers inseparable from the question of subjectivity. To pose the question “What is time?” is equally to pose the question “Who is the subject in time?” In addition to a discussion of the relation between time and subjectivity, this chapter further examines how for each of these thinkers their respective understanding of time is configured around a twofold sense of temporal difference: the difference between past, present, and future within time; and the difference between time and eternity.