Moment, Instant, Realization

For both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, Time stops with the 'Augenblick'--the 'moment of vision'. By also characterizing it as an 'ultimate consciousness' and a 'gaze', Merleau-Ponty seems to be suggesting that the Augenblick is the most fundamental layer of lived experience, as well as the Phenomenological gaze itself, while it seems to be for Heidegger what he later describes as the 'appropriation of a being by Being'. However, Sartre seems less mystified by it, offering an account of the experience that is more incisive than those of the other two. First, he terms a disruption in the temporal flow of experience an 'instant', which he defines as the completion of one project and the beginning of another one. Second, he briefly characterizes revelation as 'realization', which implies both completion, and, thus, temporality, since, it implies its unity with what has preceded it. So, the Augenblick can be interpreted as a realization of the instant of the completion of a process, i. e. a 'dawning', that leads up to it, and, hence, as temporal. Furthermore, Time 'stops' at the Augenblick simply because a new experience has yet to begin. However, Sartre does not draw the further conclusion from his analysis that an ending does not necessarily entail a new beginning, and, so, joins the other two in missing that the resumption of experience remains a-temporal, i. e. begins as Spatialization, as has been previously discussed here.