Abstract
Experience presents us time, or the temporal properties of what is in time, in a way that we find hard to articulate within a coherent theory of time. This sounds as if our experience of time were at least puzzling, if not contradictory. A phenomenology of the perception of time studies our experience of time. So it might be expected to offer a view of time-consciousness that solves the apparent puzzles, or at least explains their origin. Is that right? Is such an expectation appropriate? There are at least three questions at stake here. First: what does it mean to develop a conception of time on the basis of our experience of time, what kind of requirements are involved in such a theoretical endeavour and what speaks in favour of its pursuit? Second: which features of our experience of time are puzzling and in what sense are they puzzling? Third: supposing that phenomenology studies the experience of time, what exactly is its contribution to the solution of those puzzles within a conception of time based on our experience of time? I shall discuss some facets of these difficult questions. I am especially interested in the relation between the phenomenology of time experience and some metaphysical (maybe empirically grounded) theories about the nature of time.