Le Soi produit le temps

This paper proposes a conceptual shift regarding lived time: it is not an external dimension into which consciousness is immersed, but the result of an integrative activity performed by the Self. Starting from Husserl, who describes the retention-protention structure without naming its operator, from Bergson, who grasps duration without its active maintenance, and from Varela, who anchors temporal production in cognitive dynamics without accounting for subjective unity, we argue that lived time requires a principle of cohesion: the Self, understood not as a substance but as a configuring function holding together memory, presence, and projection. This model explains McTaggart’s contradiction as a symptom of dependence on a constituting perspective, and finds default confirmation in limit states (trauma, dissociation) where this cohesion falters. The question then becomes: what integrative activity is currently configuring the time we live in?