Abstract

In this paper I will contrast the current situation concerning the explanatory relation between neuroscientific and philosophical accounts of our spatial and temporal experience. Evans’ account of “egocentric experience’ and Husserl’s analysis of temporal awareness are respectively taken to represent the philosophical side, while Pouget’s basis functions theory and Grush’s trajectory estimation theory act respectively as representatives of the neuroscientific camp. I inquire specifically about the respective chances of these representative neuroscientific theories to explain aspects of the ordinary spatial and temporal phenomenology, as this phenomenology is accounted for by those well-known philosophical theories. I will argue that, in this respect, the spatial and temporal cases present a strong contrast: while in the spatial case the claim that neuroscientific theories explain some aspects of the phenomenology would be defensible, nothing of this sort is in sight in the temporal case.