ERA: The Extensional-Retentional Analysis
Constructing the Present January 1, 2025 Camden Alexander Mckenna
A new model called the Extensional-Retentional Analysis (ERA) offers a pluralistic approach to time-consciousness, arguing that extensionalist and retentionalist explanations are complementary rather than competing. ERA proposes that the duration of the specious present is best explained by the real temporal properties of experience (an inheritance view), while experiential succession is best understood through a flux of experiential relations (a relational view). Other aspects like event order are determined by the intentionality of mental processes, not directly by properties of experience. The chapter argues against a single monolithic analysis of temporal phenomenology, suggesting the phenomena are too diverse for such an approach.