Intersubjectivity and Transcendental Idealism

INTERSUBJECTIVITY

and TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

TAMES RICHARD MENSCH

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany ©

1988 State University of New York

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University, Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mensch, James R. Intersubjectivity and transcendental idealism. (SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Intersubjectivity. 2. Idealism. 3. Hussed, Edmund, 1859-1938. I. Title. II. Series. B824.18.M46 1988 121'.2 87-18047 ISBN 0-88706-751-4 ISBN 0-88706-752-2 (pbk.) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is for Josephine

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IX

INTRODUCTION

Chapter I

The Account of the Cartesian Meditations

23

Chapter II

The Grounding of the Thing and the Ego

56

Chapter III

Facticity and Intersub;ectivity

106

Chapter IV

A First Solution to the Problem of Intersub;ectivity

176

Chapter V

The Temporal Dimension of Subjective Life

204

Chapter VI

A Second Solution to the Problem of Intersub;ectivity

262

Chapter VII

Temporality and Teleology

307

NOTES

394

BIBLIOGRAPHY

419

INDEX

423

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

like to express my gratitude to Dr. Rudolf Bernet, the acting

I Director of the Husserl Archives, for the support I received in preparing WOULD

the research for this book. His assistance was invaluable. I must also thank Professor Maurice Nathanson under whose guidance I first began this work. Professors James Morrison and Charles Bell provided helpful comments on an earlier version of this book. Finally, I wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for the grants which helped support this work.

INTRODUCTION

book concerns a claim which occupied Husserl for the last decade of his life. Having adopted transcendental idealism, he became inT creasingly aware of the problem it raised with regard to intersubjectivity. HIS

How, within the idealistic standpoint, do I acknowledge the independent existence of Others-of fellow subjects? Confronted with the difficulties of such acknowledgment, Husserl did not abandon this standpoint. Rather, he sought their solution by attempting to deepen the sense of the idealism which he developed. The claim which he tirelessly sought to justify was that the very idealism which raised such difficulties, when pursued to the end, provided their solution. Without going into details, we can say that this solution rests upon the notion of a "primal ego" or, as he also calls it, a "primal subjectivity" or "life." In Eugen Fink's words, this primal subjectivity is "neither one nor many, neither factual nor essential." It is none of these because it is the ground of such qualities. As such, it exists as prior to the distinction between an individual's "primordial subjectivity and the subjectivity of other monads." It exists as the preindividual ground of the relations between this individual and other monads. 1 Thus, for Husserl, the claim that transcendental idealism can solve on its own the problem of the acknowledgement of Others actually involves a further claim: Transcendental idealism ultimately uncovers this prior, "primordial" subjectivity when it pursues its own method to the end. This method, that of the phenomenological reduction, allows it to ground our acts of acknowledging Others by uncovering the ground of all our relations to Others.

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§ 1. A FIRST DESCRIPTION OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

To clarify the above, we need a definition of transcendental idealism. It is only when we can grasp its notion that we can see how such idealism raises the problem of intersubjectivity-how, in fact, it gives the problem its special, phenomenological character. A preliminary definition of transcendental idealism can be provided by citing Roman Ingarten. As the latter observes, "The controversy between realists and idealists concerning the existence of the real world is not about the question of whether the real world, the material world in particular, exists in general. ... " Both camps acknowledge such existence. The controversy is rather "about the mode of the world's existence and what its existential relation is to the acts of consciousness in which objects belonging to the world are cognized" (On the Motives which led Husserl to Transcendental Idealism, trans. A. Hannibalsson, Phaenomenologica, No. 64 [The Hague, 1975J p. 5). For the realist, this mode is such that the objects of the world are regarded as having their own inherent qualties. An object independently possesses an essence made up of such qualities. Thus, we have a dependence of knowing on being. It is, the realist claims, precisely because an object exists with such and such qualities that it can be known as such? For the idealist the reverse is the case. To borrow a word from Husserl, the idealist protests against the realist's "absolutization" of the world (See Ideen I, ed. W. Biemel, Husserliana III [The Hague, 1950], p. 135). This protest signifies that the world's existence-rather than being prior to consciousness in the sense that consciousness depends upon it in order to know-is, in fact, an existence posterior to, indeed, dependent upon consciousness. As Ingarden writes, the protest signifies "that the existence, which is only 'for' the conscious subject and does not possess its own essence, is not to be considered as a being 'in itself' which is endowed with its own effective essence"(On the Motives . .. , ed. cit., p. 5). Transcendental idealism, then, is a doctrine that makes knowing prior to being. Its denial of being in itself is a denial that being by itself possesses an esence or nature, one which consciousness must seek out as belonging to an independently existing entity. The above does not mean that the idealist assumes that the entity has no essence, no set of qualities which distinguish it from other objects. To avoid a possible misunderstanding of Husserl's position, we must add a certain qualification to Ingarden's account. We have to distinguish between an object's having an essence "in itself" in the sense of this essence's being inherent-i.e., designating the type of being that the object itself is-and the object's having this essence "by itself." The controversy between the realist and the idealist involves the later. As we shall see, Husserl believes that even in the idealistic standpoint one can maintain that one knows an object as it is "in itself." His disagreement with the

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realist concerns the explanation of such knowledge. Is it to be understood in terms of the dependence of knowing on the object "itself" or in terms of the dependence of the latter on knowing? Husserl opts for the second. To put this position in a somewhat sharper focus, we can note that it involves Husserl's notion of the presumptiveness of the thing, i.e., the presumptiveness of both its existence and essence. The notion has as one of its conditions Husserl's characterization of a thing's givenness. He writes that lithe givenness of the thing is not just givenness through perspectives, but rather always and necessarily presumptive givenness; and this, with respect to that point of the present in which the thing is bodily given as existing in the now and existing in a certain way [i.e., with a certain essence]. Whatever is given with respect to it could be a false pretention. It depends upon the continuance of the harmonious perceptions" ("Beilage XII/' ldeen I, Biemel ed., p. 398). Now, this presumptiveness of the givenness to consciousness of the thing does not per se make the thing itself presumptive. We must add a second condition. This is the doctrine of transcendental idealism that being depends upon knowing or-to speak more preciselyits position that an object's being depends upon its being-given to consciousness. At this point, we can assert with Husserl that lithe being of the world ... exists only as the unity of the totality of appearances that continue to validate themselves" ("Beilage XIII," Erste Philosophie. 1923/24. Zweiter: Teil: Theorie der phanomenologische Reduktion, hereafter cited as EP II, ed. R. Boehm, Husserliana VIII [The Hague, 1959], p. 404, italics added). Indeed, it exists only so long as such validation occurs-i.e., so long as the appearances continue to give us the unity we call the world (See EP II, Boehm ed., p. 50).3 For the realist, on the contrary, the presumptiveness of givenness affects neither the existence nor the essence of the world of things. These, as absolute, are independent of consciousness. They have, by themselves, their being and their inherent natures. The presumptiveness of the givenness of the thing is, thus, for the realist only the presumptiveness of consciousness as it attempts to reach the latter. It is the presumptiveness of consciousness as a knower, not that of the being which consciousness attempts to know.

§2. THE PROBLEM OF POSITING SUBJECTIVE BEING

A first definition of the problem of intersubjectivity is given by Husserl in the following words. It is "how, in the attitude of the reduction, other egos-egos not as merely worldly phenomena but as other transcendental egos-could become positable as existing and, thus, could become equally legitimate themes of a phenomenological egology" (Cartesianische Meditationen, hereafter cited as CM, ed. S. Strasser, 2nd ed., Husserliana I,

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[The Hague, 19631, p. 117).Viewed in isolation, the problem appears to be one of description. What it requires for its solution seems to be a description of the "how" of my recognition of Others-i.e., of my positing them as subjects. Phenomenologically, this means a description of their givenness to me. It signifies both an account of their appearances and an account of my actions in positing them as the unities of such appearances. Once, however, we enter the context of transcendental idealism, this straight forward problem undergoes a transformation. The problem is no longer one of mere description but rather of the nature of the subject being described. To see this, we must observe that the Other is a "unity of appearance" in a twofold sense. He is such as an object-i.e., as part of the "merely worldly phenomena" as they appear to me. Here, like every other spatialtemporal object, he is, in his bodily presence, the unity of the appearances I have of him. Yet, as a subject-i.e., as transcendental-he is not the unity of appearances which I grasp but rather that of the appearances which he himself experiences. He is their unity as their center or, as Husserl puts it, as the "0 point" of their reference. This is the point out of which he himself posits objects as existing-i.e., as unities of appearances for himself. Given this transcendental sense of the Other as a unity of appearances, I cannot reduce his being to his being known or being given to me. I cannot because he himself is an embodiment of this priority of knowing to being. The priority, in other words, points to him in his own knowing and positing. Thus, to posit him as a transcendental unity of appearances, "what I must obtain is the Other," as Sartre expresses it,"not as I obtain knowledge of him, but as he obtains knowledge of himself ... "(Being and Nothingness, trans. H. Barnes [New York: Washington Square Press, 1968], p.31 7, italics added). I obtain knowledge of him as an objective unity of appearances. He obtains knowledge of himself as a subjective unity-i.e., as a center or, as Husserl also writes, as an "ego pole" of the appearances that make up his flowing stream of consciousness. Given this distinction, and given the fact that we do posit others with apparent certainty, the question arises concerning the level of being on which such positing occurs. If, with Husserl, we take up the stance of transcendental idealism, this is not the level of objective or "transcendent" being. It is not, in other words, the level of the being that is ob-jective (Gegen-standlichl in the sense that it "stands-against" us, declaring itself to be "transcendent" to us. Such being, according to transcendental idealism, is reduced to its being known by us. The Other, however, is not just something known by us; he is a knower. He is not just something standing against a subject; he is the center or the pole against which things stand. The level of being on which the Other "could become positable as exist-

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5

ing" is, thus, one radically other than that of the objective being whose absolutization transcendental idealism denies. It is, as we shall see, a level which escapes from all the characterizations of individuality and plurality which are appropriate to objective being.

§3. THE MOTIVATIONS FOR PERFORMING THE REDUCTION

For Husserl, as we cited him, the problem of Others is that of positing their existence "in the attitude of the reduction." It is only within this attitude that Others can "become equally legitimate themes of a phenomenological egology." Outside of the reduction, their existence is not a legitimate theme for phenomenology. Thus, these remarks signify that for a phenomenologist the reduction must be taken as the method which gives him his "legitimate" access to Others. It is his method of access to the level of being which is appropriate to them. As such, the "attitude of the reduction" is crucial to the problem of Others. It is what gives this problem its special phenomenological significance. We must, then, examine the reduction's character. Yet, before we consider its performance and the transcendental idealism which springs from this performance, we must first inquire into the motivations which form the context for its "attitude." Here, our questions are, "What led Husserl to propose it in the first place?" and "What are the problems which its performance is intended to solve?" Afterwards, we shall have to ask how far the resulting idealism squares with such motivations. A.

The Priority of the Epistemological Standpoint

For Husserl, the motivations for performing the reduction are epistemological. They have to do with the conditions for the possibility of knowledge. In his view, such conditions must first be secured before we can engage in a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of being. What we have, then, is the thought that epistemology must take precedence over metaphysics. In Husserl's words: "Epistemology must not be taken as a discipline which follows metaphysics or even coincides with it; on the contrary, it precedes it as it does psychology and every other discipline" (Logische Untersuchungen, hereafter referred to as LU, 5th ed., 3 vols. [Tubingen, 19681, I, 224). As he elsewhere insits: "Epistemology is situated before all empirical theory; it thus precedes all explanatory scienes of the real-i.e., physical science on the one hand and psychology on the other-and naturally it precedes all metaphysics" (LU, Tub. ed, 11/2, 21). This precedence is to be taken in the strong sense of the term. It signifies the independence of epistemology from all other sciences in its examining the conditions for the possibility of knowledge; it also signifies that such

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conditions are to be seen as determinative with regard to the postulates and claims of the particular explanatory sciences. We cannot here enter into a complete account of the arguments Husserl gives for this twofold precedence of epistemology.4 Let us simply state their main theme. A self-undermining skepticism arises whenever we violate this precedence. This can be expressed in terms of the demand that arises once we acknowledge this precedence-i.e., acknowledge the independence and priority of the epistemological (or knowing) relation: Such a relation must set its own standards for its validity. Thus, if it involves standards, such as those for logical consistency, they must be considered as inherently given with this relation in the sense of their springing from its very nature. This means that the justification of such standards cannot be externally provided but rather must be made in terms of this nature. This demand follows directly from the notion of knowing. If knowing cannot provide its own standards, it cannot justify them. At this point, it cannot even justify itself as knowing. It cannot say that when it follows its standards, the result is knowledge. Given this and given that epistemology is the science of the inherent nature of the knowing relation, the violation of the precedence of epistemology can be expressed as follows: It occurs whenever we take some other science and assert that the relations it studies are external to those of knowing and, in fact, are determinative of these latter insofar as they express standards for knowing. An example Husserl gives will clarify this. The science of evolution studies the relations involved in the struggle for existence and natural selection. What happens when we consider such relations as determinative of logical relations, i.e., those which set the standards for the logical consistency of knowledge? For Husserl, this reversal of epistemology's precedence immediately occasions a skepticism about such standards. Thoughts of a biological order intrude. Weare reminded of the modern theory of evolution according to which man has evolved through natural selection in the struggle for existence and, with man, his intellect has also naturally evolved and, with his intellect, also all of its characteristic forms-in particular, the logical forms. Accordingly, is it not the case that the logical forms and laws express the accidental peculiarity of the human species, a species which could have been different and will be different in the course of future evolution? Cognition, therefore, is doubtless only human cognition. It is something bound up with human intellectual forms, something incapable of reaching the nature of things themselves, of reaching the things in themselves (Die Idee der Phanomenologie, 2nd ed., ed. W. Biemel, Husserliana II, 1973, p. 21).

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That such skepticism is ultimately self-undermining can be seen by the fact that it calls into question the very theory upon which it is based. Evolution is not just a descriptive account. It is, concretely regarded, a tbeory based on logical inference. If the objective validity of such inference is called into question, then so is the theory itself. To avoid this fate, the theory must, at least in its own case, assume the independence and priority of the knowing relationship. It does this whenever it asserts that its arguments and inferences do reach the things themselves-and this without regard to the evolutionary considerations undermining their validity. For Husserl, the argument for the precedence of epistemology is general. It is meant to apply not just to all the particular sciences with regard to their claims "concerning the possibility of knowledge (its possible validity)," but also to "the being that is cognized by the sciences" (Idee der Pban., Biemel ed., p. 22). As such, it applies to metaphysics, defined as "a science of being in an absolute sense" (p. 23). Specifically, this means that such a science cannot make being unknowable; it cannot, if it wishes to justify itself as knowledge, give being a nature which conflicts with the possibility of knowing this nature. In this regard, metaphysics is in the same position as any of the particular sciences. Rather than being considered as independent, it must, to claim the status of science-i.e. of scientia or knowledge-be considered as dependent, indeed, as determined by the epistemological criteria for knowledge. Husserl, thus, writes, "This science, which we call metaphysics grows out of a 'critique' of natural cognition ... "(ibid.). In other words, instead of being considered as independent, "the possibility of metaphysics, of a science of being in an absolute and ultimate sense, is obviously dependent on the success of this science (of epistemology)" (ibid., p. 34). To draw a motivation from this twofold precedence of epistemology to metaphysics, we note that it implies the phenomemological reduction in two of its apparently coritradictory qualities. The reduction begins with the action of "bracketing" all assertions concerning being. We suspend our judgment with regard to their validity. But then, "in the attitude of the reduction," we go on to discuss the nature of being and to lay down standards of what can count for us as being or actual existence. The inconsistency here is only apparent. Once we follow Husserl and identify phenomenology and epistemology, the above simply follows from their precedence. Thus, as independent, epistemology is naturally "presuppositionless." Its precedence over metaphysics means that it cannot presuppose the assertions of the particular sciences about the nature of being. Such assertions, therefore, must be bracketed. This presuppositionlessness does not, however, signify a silence on the nature of being. As deter-

INTERSUB1ECTIVITY AND TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

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mining, epistemology does and indeed must determine the principles of

being emerging from its "critique" of cognition. A general sense of this determination is given in the Investigations when Husserl considers the "doubt whether the actual course of the world, the real structure of the world in itself, could conflict with the forms of thought." Given the determining priority of epistemology, such conflict is impossible. This follows because the priority signifies "that a correlation to perceivability, meanability and knowability is inseparable from the sense of being in general ... " (LU, Tub. ed., 11/2, 201). 5 B.

The Task of Securing the Possibility of Obiectively Valid Knowledge

To see more clearly the motivation which leads to the performance of the reduction, we must translate Husserl's insistence on the priority of epistemology into a task. By definition, the epistemological relation is that of knowing. In the Logical Investigations, knowing is taken in the strong, objective sense of the term. This means that it is understood as reaching the object as it is "in itself"-i.e., the object in its own qualities or nature (See LU,Tub. ed., II/I, 90). Now, for Husserl, to deny the priority of the epistemological relation is to deny the possibility of knowledge in this sense. Such knowledge, we have seen him argue, is impossible when the epistemological or knowing relation is taken as posterior-i.e., as dependent on some other, external relation such as that of natural selection. Logically, this means that the possibility of objectively valid knowledge implies the priority of the epistemological relation. Husserl's insistence on such priority thus translates itself into the task of securing the possibility of the knowledge which implies this priority. This task is one which motivates Husserl's work throughout his career. In the Logical Investigations, which generally takes a "realist" stance, Husserl writes that his goal is that of answering lithe cardinal question of epistemology, the question of the objectivity of knowledge." For Husserl, his other questions-e.g., that of the theoretical basis of logic and that of the relation of logic to psychology-"essentially coincide" with this"cardinal question" (LU Tub. ed., I, 8). Given that the task is directed to the securing of the priority of epistemology, the inquiry here is not so much whether such knowledge can exist but, more importantly, how it can. It is an inquiry into the conditions for the possibility of objective knowledge (See LU, "Prologomena," §6S-§66). The same motivation is present when Husserl, through the method of the reduction, adopts the stance of transcendental idealism. Such idealism does not rule out our knowing the object as it is in itself, i.e., having objective knowledge in this sense. Indeed, when Hussed defends his adoption of this stance, he describes his work as the continuance of his search for the conditions of the possibility of such knowledge.

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[lIt simply concerns a motivated path which, starting from the problem of the possibility of objective knowledge, wins the necessary insight that the very sense of this problem leads back to the pure ego existing in and for itself, the insight that this ego, as a presupposition for knowledge of the world, cannot be and cannot remain presupposed as a worldly being, the insight therefore that this ego must, through the phenomenological reduction and the epoch
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IO

=4 is certainly causally determined but not the truth that 2 x 2 =4" (LU, Tub. ed., I, 119).

The problem that this solution gives rise to with regard to the guiding motivation is how a causally determined consciousness could ever be in a position to grasp an ideal objective truth. Such a consciousness, as Husserl later realized, would think the object, not as it is "in itself," but as it had been causally determined to think it. This determination would include a number of contingent factors-for example, those of biological evolution mentioned above. The account of the Investigations is, then, that of a halfway house. It is one where, as De Boer puts it, "Husserl overcomes the 'naturalization of the ideas,' but not yet the naturalization of consciousness" ("Zusammenfassung," De Ontwikkelingsgang in het Denken van Husserl (Assen, 19661, p. 589). One feature of this shortfall is the fact that in the Investigations both the real and the ideal are taken as aspects of obiective being. The doctrine of this work is that the "universal sense of being" is equivalent to "that of object in general" (LUTiib. ed., II/I, 125). The subject, however, is not an object, not something "standing against" a knower. As mentioned above, he is that "against which" objects stand when they are grasped and known. A subject, then, is a "presupposition for knowledge of the world," since his being as a knower is required for things to have-apart from any mere "bodily" presence things may have to one another-an epistemological presence which results in their being known. Otherwise put: It is not as real or ideal that a subject is that-in-relation-towhich things become objectively known. Neither category is sufficient to specify him as a knower. Indeed, he is missed entirely by such categories insofar as they limit themselves to the sense of being an object. The problem that arises out of the solution of the Investigations is that of finding a category of being appropriate to the subject, one which accounts for the possibility of his possesssing objective knowledge. The motivated response of transcendental idealism to this difficulty is to consider the subject in terms of a third category of being-that of the irreal. Husserl thus writes at the beginning of the Ideen, "It will become evident that the concept of reality is in need of a fundamental limitation by virtue of which a distinction must be made between real being and individual, simply temporal being" (Einleitung," Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 7).7 The individual, temporal being which is not real, but rather irreal, is that of the experiences of consciousness. Irreality has for Husserl a double significance It signifies that such experiences are not subject to the causal determination which characterizes real being. It also signifies that the experiences of consciousness are outside the "actual" or real world which defines its entities through their casual relations. The assertion about the limitation of real being is thus also an assertion "that all transcendentally

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purified 'experiences' are irrealities placed outside of all ordering in the 'actual world'" (ibid.). This means, as Husserl elsewhere writes, that when we perform the transcendental-phenomenological reductionthat transformation of the natural and internal-psychological attitude by virtue of which this attitude becomes transcendentalpsychological subjectivity loses that which gives it the value of something real in the naively experience, pre-given world; it loses its sense of being a soul of an animal organism which exists in a pre-given, spatial-temporal nature" ("Nachwort," Biemel ed., p. 145). As such, it loses its sense of being naturally (causally) determined by this spatial-temporal nature. It becomes, as Husserl says, "the transcendental ego-i.e., the ego considered as absolute in itself and as existing for itself 'before' all wordly being which, itself, first comes to have the status of being within this ego" (ibid., p. 146). In summary, the "motivated path" which leads to transcendental idealism-and, hence,to the reduction-has essentially two stages. From the desire to avoid a self-defeating skepticism, Husserl is motivated to insist upon the absolute priority of epistemology. Such insistence transforms itself into the task of securing the possibility of objective knowledge. From this, there arises the second stage. It occurs once we see that this possibility is undermined as long as we define the knowing (or subject-object) relation in terms of the causality which defines real being. Thus, there arises the motivation, first, to remove the formal objects of our knowledge-the formal truths of logic and mathmatics-from the category of real, causally determined being. Such truths are declared to be ideal, nontemporal objects. When this proves insufficient, the temporal subject is also removed from the category of real being. Since temporality is inherent in his nature, he cannot be placed in the category of the ideal. Rather, he is taken entirely out of the division of objective being. He is considered irreal, which means that as a "transcendental ego" he is considered to be a phenomenologically reduced subject. §4. THE REDUCTION

The nature of this reduction can be seen by looking at the method by which Husserl makes the subject irreal or nonworldly-i.e., makes it stand "before" the objective world as its "presupposition." The method is, as Husserl says, that of the "transcendental-phenomenological reduction." As first noted by Theodor Celms, the reduction has two senses. It is "a leading back of every objectively (transcendentally) directed consideration

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into a consideration of the corresponding modes of consciousness." It is also "the leading back of objective (transcendent) being to the being of the corresponding modes of consciousness" (Der philnomenologische Idealismus Husserls, Riga,l928, p. 309). In its first sense, it signifies a reduction of our consideration of an object to a consideration of the experiences and experiential connections through which the object is given consciousness. As Celms writes, the second sense signifies "the denial of any positing of what is reduced"-i.e., objective, transcendent being-"as absolute." It is, positively regarded, "the inclusion of the sense of the being of the reduced in the sense of being of the basis to which it is reduced"-such basis being the just mentioned experiences and their connections in consciousness (ibid., p. 311). Both senses, as we shall see, are required by the twofold priority of epistemology. Taken in its most general sense, the phenomenological reduction, as its name implies, is a method of reducing to phenomena. In its first sense, what is to be so reduced is the consideration of objective being. Such consideration is expressed in an objective judgment or-to be more precisethe judgment's thesis or claim about such being. Initially, then, a thesis of judgment-e.g., the thesis that one is perceiving a spatial-temporal object-is to be reduced to the phenomena and connections of phenomena which form its evidential basis. In this case, the evidence is the presence of perceptual contents which are perspectivally arranged-i.e., those contents which show first one side and then another of the object. Now, the method by which this is accomplished is, for Hussed, essentialy that of suspension or epoche. I suspend the thesis of my judgment, i.e., my belief in its validity, in order to free myself to regard with unprejudiced eyes the phenomena which lead me to this belief. The logical reason for this suspension is intimately tied to its epistemological motivation. Logically, one must perform the epoche in order to avoid the fallacy of the petitio principii. This means that one cannot include the validity of a thesis as part of the evidence brought forward for this validity. If one did, one would "beg a principle" and assume what one was trying to evidentially validate. Thus, to avoid this, one must suspend one's belief in this validity; one must "bracket," as Hussed says, the claims of the judgments under consideration. When we universally apply this suspension to all the claims of the particular sciences about the nature of being, we have satisfied the first of the demands Hussed makes for the absolute priority of epistemology. Such priority involves the absolute independence of epistemology in its investigations of the conditions for knowledge. This independence, as we have stressed, requires that epistemology cannot presuppose any of the assertions of the particular sciences. It must, as presuppositionless, suspend its belief in these assertions

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in order to independently investigate their epistemological foundations-i.e., the evidence that gives them their claim to be items of knowledge. As opposed to the first sense of the reduction, which implies restraint to the point of silence with regard to the nature of being, the second does involve a thesis about this nature. It is that objective or transcendent being--including the being of the natural, spatial-temporal world-is nothing outside of the experiences of consciousness. Such being, as Husserl writes, "is according to its sense merely intentional being ... .It is a being that consciousness posits in its experiences ... beyond this, however, it is nothing at all or, more precisely, for this being a notion of a beyond is a contradictory one" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 117). In other words, "the existence of nature is only as constituting itself in the ordered connections of consciousness" (ibid., p.121). What such assertions signify is that the being of any existent thing, when reduced to its essential conditions, is only the being of the experiences and connections of experiences which allow of its positing. The ontological claim of the second sense of the reduction is, then, "that the existence (Dasein) of the thing itself, the object of experience, is inseparably implicit in this system of transcendental connections [between experiences] and that without such connections, it would, thus, be unthinkable and obviously a nothing" (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 179). We can clarify this claim by noting how it involves the irreality of consciousness in its experiences. According to the above, an object is posited through the connections obtaining between experiences. Its existence as a thing itself is "inseparably implicit" in such connections. Thus, a real spatial-temporal object is posited when our experiences are connected so as to form a perspectival series. Its existence necessarily implies the series which exhibits first one side and then another of an entity. Now, as Husserl writes, "an experience does not thus appear perspectivally" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 97). It cannot, since such appearing involves an ordering of experiences and not just an individual experience by itself. By itself, then, it must be considered as irreal. The experience has not the appearing which would allow us to posit it as real or spatial-temporal. By virtue of this it is not subiect to causality, since causal relations, as involving stretches of time and successive spatial locations, require spatial-temporal objects as their subjects. Here, in fact, we can say that the individual experiences are before all such objects insofar as it is through them or, rather, through their connections that the ongoing experience of the object, indeed, its very being for us, becomes possible. With this, we return to the idealism we initially defined. The reduction, taken in its second sense, reduces being to being known. The possibility of a being is, in other words, reduced to that of the connections

through which it is experienced and known. Such a reduction is meant to satisfy the second of the requirements for the absolute priority of epistemology. This is that the relationship of knowing is to be considered as determinative of the nature of being. The determination here is direct: Being hi, in its conditions, reduced to its being-given to consciousness. This means that the experiences by which we know are, in their connections, determinative of the very being of the known. The term Hussed uses for such determination is "constitution." Constitution is a notion implicit in the reduction. It is, in fact, the reverse of our action in performing the reduction. In the reduction,we move from the founded to the founding-i.e., to the phenomena through whose connections the founded appears. If these founding phenomena owe their own appearing to the connections occurring between even lower-level phenomena, the reduction can be exercised again. It can be employed on such lower-level phenomena-i.e., on the belief of their own independent or original giveness-to uncover an even more primitive, founding layer. Stage by stage, then, the action of the reduction is both a suspension of belief and an uncovering of founding connections and phenomena. One suspends one's belief in the unconditional or original givenness of a layer of phenomena. With this, one focuses on the lower level phenomena and the connections which condition the previous layer's givenness. Now, constitution, as the reverse of this, is the action of founding. It is the action of connecting phenomena and of the positing belief in the unity that appears through such connections. This synthetic process, at least in its initial stages, is a passive one; it is unconsciously performed. By contrast, the reduction which attempts by analysis to uncover the work of constitution is, by definition, a self-conscious effort. The hidden, unconscious process which is uncovered is, according to the first sense of the reduction, that by which we know being. According to the second, it is that by virtue of which being is. The constitution which the reduction uncovers is, then, the accomplishment of knowing by virtue of which being is. Husserl therefore writes that genuine epistemology is, accordingly, only possible (sinvoll) as transcendental-phenomenological epistemology which, instead of dealing with contradictory inferences which lead from a supposed immanence to a supposed transcendence-that of some undetermined "thing-in-itself" which is allegedly unknowable in principle-has to do exclusively with the systematic explanation of the accomplishment of knowing, an explanation in which this becomes thoroughly understandable as an intentional accomplishment. Precisely thereby, every sort of being itself (Seiendes selbst), be it real or ideal, be-

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15

comes understandable as a constituted product (Gebilde) of transcendental subjectivity, a product that is constituted in just such an accomplishment [of knowing]. This sort of understanding is the highest form of rationality (eM, Strasser ed., p. 118). The claim of rationality made here refers, we can say, to the epistemological motivation for performing the reduction. This is that of knowing being as it is "in itself." Such knowledge is, apparently, at once secured if the action by which we know the sense of being is productive of the being which bears this sense. The objectivity of knowledge and, hence, the priority of "genuine epistemology" is, in other words, here secured by the doctrine that "every conceivable sense, every conceivable being, whether the latter be called immanent or transcendent, falls within the realm of transcendental subjectivity as that which constitutes both sense and being" (ibid., p.ll7). §5. THE SOLIPSISTIC LIMITATION

Does the idealism expressed in these last remarks square with the motives for performing the reduction? What precisely is the difficulty which it raises with regard to our acknowledgement of Others? Such questions, as we shall now see, are only apparently distinct. As we wrote in discussing the notion of a motivated path, such a path should end if a solution put forward satisfies its original motivation. If, however, in the working out of this solution, new problems arise with regard to the original motivation, the path must continue. Now, the problem that does arise in working out the above solution concerns the dual character of the knowledge which claims to get the object "in itself." Such knowledge is knowledge which agrees with the inherent content of the object. Yet it is also a knowledge whose content is necessarily and universally present in all judgments concerning the object-i.e., concerning some well-defined feature or aspect of the object. As Kant points out, these two are logically equivalent. The ob;ective validity of a content of knowledge (in the sense of its agreement with the object's inherent content) analytically implies the necessary universality of such content in all valid judgments concerning the object. One can also reverse this inference. In Kant's words, the first implies the second "because when a judgement agrees with the object, all judgments concerning the object must agree with each other." In other words, insofar as each judgment states the same thing with regard to the object, each has the same content. Their agreement with the object is their universal mutual agreement. By parity of reasoning, the second implies the first, for otherwise," ... there would be

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no reason why other judgments would necessarily have to agree with mine, if it were not the unity of the object to which they all refer and with which they all agree and, for that reason, must agree among themselves" ("Prologomena," §18, in Kant's gesammelte Schriften, 23 vols. [Berlin, 191055] IV, 298, italics added).8 If, with Husserl, we accept this equivalence, we can see how, in Fink's words, we have formulated "the objectivity of objects by the character-if one will-of intersubjectivity." The formulation is such "that one cannot establish between objectivity and intersubjectivity a relationship such that one or the other is prior; rather, objectivity and intersubjectivity are indeed co-original" ("Discussion-Comments by Eugen Fink on Alfred Schutz's Essay, 'The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl,'" in Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers III, ed. I. Schutz, Phaenomenologica, No. 22 [The Hague, 1966], p. 86). Their co-originality springs from the equivalence of objective and universal validity and from the fact that the latter, as "validity for everyone," includes the notion of Others as subjects for whom a given content of judgment is valid. For Husserl, such co-originality signifies that the objective world is by definition an intersubjective world. He writes: "Considered as objective, the sense of the being of the world and, in particular, the sense of nature includes ... thereness-for-everyone, thereness as always co-intended by us whenever we speak of objective actuality" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 124, italics added). What we have, in fact, is an equivalence between the two "worlds," since for Husserl, the intersubj~ctive world is also an objective world. It is "a world for everyone, accessible to everyone in its objects" (ibid., p. 123, italics added). What this signifies with regard to satisfying the guiding motivation is readily apparent. If objectively valid knowledge does imply Others, then the securing of its possibility must also embrace the possibility of Others. Can transcendental idealism secure this latter possibility? The question concerns what Husserl calls its "solipsistic limitation." The thought of such a limitation raises anew the "cardinal question" of the objectivity of knowledge. The focus of the question is now on the relation between the individual subject which constitutes (and, hence, knows) and the intersubjective character of objective knowledge. As Husserl writes in 1920 on the edge of a manuscript: But the most difficult questions are not considered here: What characterizes subjective relativity and mathematical objectivity within the solipsistic limitation as opposed to such relativity and objectivity within intersubjectivity? How does logical universality obtain its connection to validity for "every judging subject without

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exception"? Does not also every "judgement of perception," indeed, every "solipsistic" judgment, have its "logical" validity? Thus, the problem is that of the origin of the idea of a logic which is valid for everyone and, hence, that of the idea of a universal science (Ms. B IV 12, p. 10, italics added). This "solipsistic limitation" arises because the phenomenological reduction is conceived as a reduction to my experiences and connections. It is these that serve as the evidential basis for the validity of my judgments. In the second sense of the reduction, it is from these that I am understood as positing both the sense and being of the world. The problem of the "origin"engendered by this is that objective validity, as implying other knowers, implies as well their experiences and connections. In other words, if, as the reduction demands, validity is to be judged by direct perceptual evidence of the phenomena, then objective validity, as validity both for myself and Others, seems to include a range of evidence that is not directly available to me. This nonavailabilty is simply a function of the fact that I cannot see through a fellow subject's eyes; I cannot directly intuit the phenomena that form the basis of his assertions. Husserl puts this difficulty in the following way. It concerns ... the objection by which we first let ourselves be guided, the objection against our phenomenology insofar as it claims to be transcendental philosophy and, thus, claims to solve the problems of the possibility of objective knowledge. It is that it is incapable of this, beginning as it does with the transcendental ego of the phenomenological reduction and being restricted to this ego. Without wishing to admit it, it falls into transcendental solipsism; and the whole step leading to other subjectivity and to genuine objectivity is only possible through an unconfessed metaphysics, through a secret adoption of the Leibnizian tradition (eM, Strasser ed., p. 174). This "transcendental solipsism" springs from the fact that I can verify through direct perception only those statements which are true for mei.e., those which have a merely private, subjective validity. To claim more than this, I must apparently make what Husserl terms a "metaphysical" assertion. This is a statement that cannot be phenomenologically grounded-i.e., reduced to the immediately experienced phenomena which could directly justify it. Insofar as objective knowledge does imply Others, the objection Husserl is raising concerns their existence as perceiving subjects. The objection is that such existence must remain a "metaphysical" assumption for phenomenology. We can put this in terms of the suspen-

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sian of belief with which the reduction necessarily begins. When this is exercised on the claim of knowledge to have objective validity, we must also bracket its claim to be universally valid. This necessarily involves a suspension of belief in the existence of Others as having the same perceptual evidence for an assertion as I myself have. The objection here is that there is no way to reestablish this belief in terms of direct perceptual evidence. Such evidence would demand the perception of the Other, not as an embodied subject standing over and against me, but rather, as indicated above, as an actively functioning subject-i.e., as the active center or "pole" of his consciousness and world. The above can also be expressed in terms of transcendental idealism's success in securing the possibility of objective knowledge understood as the knowledge of the object "in itself." The reduction, in its second sense, does this by making the known a "product" of the accomplishment of knowing. It thus introduces an asymmetrical relationship between the subject and the world which it knows. Such a world, which includes everything which stands against the subject, becomes the latter's product. Now, by reflecting on its own acts, the subject may be said to become aware that it is a "producer" and not a product." But this reflection only yields itself as a subject. In other words, it is the only constitutively active subject, the only "transcendental ego" which seems to be given to itself. Its givenness, then, is that of a solitary self-a salus ipse. As Husserl puts this objection: "When I, the meditating ego, reduce myself to my absolute transcendental ego by means of the phenomenological epoche, am I not become a salus ipse; and do I not remain such as long as I carry out a consistent self-explication under the name of phenomenology? Should not a phenomenology, which desired to solve the problems of objective being and already present itself as philosophy, be branded, therefore, as a transcendental solipsism?" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 121). II

§6. THE MOVE TO THE PRE·INDMDUAL GROUND

The answer of the Cartesian Meditations to this objection will be considered by us in our first chapter. At present, we may observe that the objection springs from the identification of what is directly or immediately experienced with what is my own-i.e., what is solipsistically limited to me. If the phenomena and connections I experience are only my own, then the world constituted out of such is in a private, solipsistic sense only my "product." Out of this observation, a fundamental motivation arises for Husserl. It is one tied to the guiding motivation of securing objective knowledge understood in its twofold sense-i.e., as agreeing with the object as it is "in itself" and as involving Others and, hence, universality. The

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motivation is that of seeing the individuality of the subject as itself constituted. It is, correspondingly, that of making the reduction reach beyond this individuality. In Hussed's words, one performs it until one can uncover "my 'coincidence' with Others on an original level of constitution, my coincidence, so to speak, before there is constituted a world for myself and Others . .. " (Ms. C 17 V, p. 30, 1931, italics added). This is a "radically preegological" level (see Zur Phl1nomenologie der Intersub;ectivitilt. Dritter Teil: 1929-1935, hereafter cited as HA XV, ed. I. Kern, Hussediana XV [The Hague, 19731 p. 598). On this "original level," as we shall see, constitution is not the action of an individual ego synthesizing or connecting his experiences. It is rather what first results in this ego. A merely preliminary account of the way in which Hussed characterizes this level may be presented by recalling two points. The first is that it is the task of the reduction to provide us with a method of access to the being appropriate to Others (see above, p. 4). Secondly, the relation between epistemology and ontology also defines a task; that of characterizing being such that objectively valid knowledge-knowledge involving Others and, hence, universality-becomes possible (see above, pp. 8-11). These two tasks, as is apparent from the way we have defined them, coincide. The being which makes possible objective knowledge in its universal validity must be such as to permit the access of the ego to Others. The reduction, as uncovering the level of being appropriate to Others, must, then, uncover the level which permits objective knowledge. Now, the nature of the results the reduction will achieve in accomplishing this task can be indicated in advance by recalling its character. It is, as we have said, the reverse of constitution. As for constitution, it is, for Hussed, the action of grounding. In this action, one layer of phenomena grounds (or constitutes) the next through the connections existing between its members. Implicit in this is a distinctiion between the ground and the grounded: The individual phenomena on one level are distinct from those which they constitute through their connections. An already cited example of this distinction is that between a perspectivally appearing spatial-temporal object and the individual experiences presenting such perspectives. The latter do not show themselves perspectivally. As such, they have not the same sense of being as the spatial-temporal object. With this, we can say that the action of grounding that characterizes constitution is that of grounding in the Fichtean sense. It is one where, in Fichte's words, "the ground lies, by virtue of the mere thought of the ground, outside of the grounded." The assertion springs analytically from the notion of a ground. If the ground had the same nature as the grounded-if, in other words, it had the same sense of being as the

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grounded-it would not be a gound. It would rather show itself, like the grounded, in need of a ground. What this signifies for the results of the reduction should be clear. As the reverse of the action of constituting objective, individual being, it must ultimately reach a ground of objective, individual being, a ground which has not the sense of such being. Here, we can see a further moment of the reduction in its uncovering of the ontological conditions for the possibility of knowledge. Initally-i.e., in Ideen I-such conditions were seen in terms of the being which was both individual and temporal but not real. The reduction, pushed to its next step, goes beyond this to the ground of individuality and temporality. Thus, the position of the late manuscripts is, in Fink's words, that "time is grounded in a present which creates time and is not itself in time; the division of all being (into essence and existence) is grounded in a prior unity which is neither 'factual' nor 'possible,' neither one nor many, neither an instantiation nor a kind; [and] the plurality of subjects is grounded in a depth of life before all individuation responsible for selves" ("Die Spatphilosophie Husserls in der Freiburger Zeit," Edmund Husserl, 1859-1959. Recueil commemoratif, Phaenomenologica, No.4 [The Hague, 1959] p. 113). The exact nature of this description will be considered by us in the body of our text. Here, let us apply its general sense to the reduction's task of uncovering the level of being on which we do recognize Others as subjects. This, as we quoted Husserl, is "the original level of constitution." We can get some sense of what this original level is by noting that constitution, taken as synthesis, occurs in and through time. Time is that in which experiences are placed and, hence, connected (or synthesized) so as to form persisting unities of appearing. For Husserl, this signifies that the fundamentallayers of the constitutive process are those of temporalization (Zeitigung)-this being the process by which our experiences are "timed." Such "timing" involves both the placing of experiences in time and the constitution of temporal places for such experiences. In other words, it involves the constitution of time itself in the before and after of its successive instants. Thus, the original level of constitution is that of the very beginning of the temporal process. It is that of the timeless sources of time constitution. For Husserl, this is also the level where we do have an immediate access to our Others. As he puts this: "The original source-point of time constitution is, for each individual, the experience of his present in an original mode and is, as well, the capacity of each to experience Others ... i.e., the capacity of each, within his own living present, to experience Others in an original manner and with this, indeed, to experience the original coincidence between his own and the Other's being" (Ms. C 17 I, pp. 4-5, 1931). This assertion of coincidence is meant quite literally. In

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moving to the "original sourcepoint" of time, the reduction also moves to the "depth of life" which is before "the plurality of subjects.,,9 As paradoxical and difficult to understand as it may sound, Hussed's position in these late manuscripts is that our recognition of Others as Others requires that there be a level on which we exist in an original identity with these Others. We can understand the above by observing that our recognition of Others requires our having a sense of our identity as well as difference with regard to them. Identity is required insofar as genuine recognition demands a sense of the Other, not as an object standing over and against me, but as a pole or center of experiences. To quote Sartre again on this point: "What I must attain is the Other, not as I obtain knowledge of him, but as he obtains knowledge of himself-which is impossible. This would in fact suppose the internal identification of myself with the Other" (Being and Nothingness, ed. cit., p. 317). The remark, "which is impossible," points to the requirement for my difference from the Other. Such difference is required because a simple identity, when combined with the thesis of my own individuality, would bring me to a position of transcendental solipsism. My individual, self-identical ego would be the only ego which I would ever know. Hussed's response to these two demands is, we can cay, that of avoiding their conflict by meeting each on a different level. The demand for identity is satisfied on the level of the ground; that for difference, on the level of the grounded. As satisfying both, the process of our recognition of Others is, then, a move from the grounded to the ground. It is, in other words, an implicity performed phenomenological reduction. To make it explicit is to prove Hussed's claim. It is to show that transcendental idealism has within it the solution to the problem of intersubjectivity it raises. More directly, it is to show that the reduction, which raises the problem of transcendental solipsism, overcomes this problem when pursued to the end. As we shall see, the solution involves the fact that our sense of the Other as other is, phenomenologically, that of his not being our "product." It is, positively regarded, a sense of his being a center of constitution, actively functioning in the ongoing nowness of his being. Reductively analyzed in terms of its origin in such nowness, this sense of difference reveals its ground in a layer of original identity. Such identity is not solipsistic, since it is prior to the individuality which would permit the positing of a solus ipse who "produces" his private wodd. It is, for Hussed, an identity which shines through whenever we engage in genuine recognition. It emerges whenever we recognize someone else as other than ourselvesLe., as ontologically (and, hence, morally) independent-and, therefore, as like ourselves insofar as we claim such independence. Phenomenologi-

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22

cally, this recognition corresponds to the action of the reduction as it moves from the grounded to its ground, i.e., from difference to underlying identity. Genuine recognition, in other words, as involving the recognition of otherness and sameness, implicitly corresponds to the motion of the reduction.

Chapter I

THE ACCOUNT OF THE CARTESIAN MEDITATIONS § 1. THE PRINCIPIO PRINCIPII AND THE ONTOLOGICAL PREsuPPosmON UNDERLYING RECOGNmON

s we quoted Husserl, the problem of intersubjectivity is that of posit-

A ing "other egos ... as existing" "within the attitude of the reduction."

It is only in this attitude that Others can "become legitimate themes of a phenomenological egology." In claiming success for his solution of this problem, Husserl, therefore, must also claim "that at no point" in his account of the positing of Others "was the transcendental attitude, the attitude of the transcendental epoche, abandoned ... " (eM, Strasser ed., p. 175). This epoche is a suspension of belief in a thesis and a regard to the evidence-the experience and connections-which lead to this belief. Recalling the logical point of its performance, we can say that the attitude of the epoche is abandoned whenever we commit the petitio principii mentioned by our Introduction. It occurs whenever we assume, as part of the evidence for a thesis, something tantamount to the thesis itself. In its full sense, the thesis in question is that of the intersubjective world-the world that presupposes Others in its being "co-intended" by them. Our position in this chapter is that, in phenomenologically accounting for Others, Husserl does violate the epoche. His evaluation of the evidence for positing Others makes use of a principle which assumes that the intersubjective world is already given. In this regard, we must take note of the two aspects of the problem of intersubjectiveity. In the first of these, it initially appears as a descriptive problem. It requires for its solution a descriptive analysis of our recognition of the Other in terms of the how of his givenness. What it demands, in other words, is an account of the evidence we have for the thesis of the Other. To counter an objection that may be raised against the position of

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this chapter, we observe that for some authors the problem embraces only this descriptive account. As David Carr expresses this: "The task which arises is to explain how the Other exists for him, not whether the Other exists as such" ("The 'Fifth Meditation' and Husserl's Cartesianism," PPR, XXXIV, 1973, 19). This view, we can say, arises by virtue of our ignoring the idealistic context in which this task is set. The context is that of the transcendental attitude with its epoche. Within this attitude, being is reduced to being given. This means that the question of the givenness of the Other becomes the question of the being of the Other. Thus, Husserl writes after claiming not to have abandoned the transcendental attitude: " ... our 'theory' of experiencing Others" is " ... an explication of the sense, 'Others' as it arises from the constitutive productivity of that experiencing: the sense, 'truly existing Others,' as it arises from the corresponding harmonious syntheses. What I demonstrate to myself harmoniously as someone else, and therefore have given to me, by necessity and not by choice, as an actuality to be acknowledged, is eo ipso the existing Other for me in the transcendental attitude: the alter ego demonstrated precisely within the experiencing intentionality of my ego" (eM, trans. D. Cairns (The Hague, 1960] p. 148, italics added; Strasser ed., p. 175). Granting this identification, the question of whether the Other is given to me is tantamount to that of whether he exists at all for me. In the transcendental attitude the failure of this "demonstration"-i.e., the failure to find within the syntheses of consciousness sufficient grounds for the positing of Others-becomes the admission of transcendental solipsism. We can also say that, in the attitude which reduces existence to its positability through the "constitutive productivity" of experience, this failure amounts to the transcendental denial of the Other qua existing. 1 A further consequence can be drawn from the above: To commit the petitio principii on the descriptive level is also to engage in it on the ontologicallevel. On the descriptive level, violation of the epoche concerns the givenness of the Other. Committing it involves my assuming that the Other is already given in analyzing the evidence for his givenness. Since, within the attitude of the reduction, being is reduced to being given, the assumption concerns not just the givenness but also the being of the Other. Thus, in committing it, I "beg a principle" which implicity assumes that my own being is already a being-with-Others. This means that in my analysis of the evidence for my existing Others, I already assume-as a hidden ontological principle-the being of the intersubjective world. Inadvertently, the latter, which is the correlate of such Others, has become part of my demonstration of these Others. With this, we have the second aspect of the problem of intersubjective recognition. What precisely does it mean to presuppose, as a hidden on-

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25

tological principle, the being of the intersubjective world? What would it take to justify this principle-i.e., to phenomenologically ground it? What would such a justification imply with regard to the being of transcendental subjects? The latter are subjects for whom being is being given. They constitute the sense and being of the world through lithe accomplishment of knowing." Here, our inquiry concerns the connection between the ontological principle of the intersubjective world and the nature of the subjects who are its constitutive origins. The mutual recognition of the latter is implicit in their positing of their world as intersubjective. Thus, an inquiry into the ontological principle of the intersubjective world points back to the ontological requirements for mutual recognition. With this, it serves as a clue to the being of the subjects who engage in such recognition. §2.

A FIRST DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINCIPLE UNDERLYING THE INTERSUBJECTIVE WORLD

As we quoted Celms, the phenomenological reduction in its first sense is a suspension of objective considerations in order to reflect on the modes of consciousness in which objects manifest themselves. Put in terms of its goal, it can be taken as an attempt to uncover the hidden functioning of the ego, the functioning which allows Husserl to characterize this last "as a presupposition for knowledge of the world." Now, it is in terms of this functioning that the above-mentioned hidden ontological principle first appears. At least a preliminary account of it is, thus, necessary. According to Husserl, it involves both intentionality and constitution. The former, in fact, is understood as the result of the latter. This means that the character of intentionality, the character of consciousness as consciousness of some object, is, for Husserl, to be understood as resulting from the constitutive process. This process is one of synthesis. Its fundamental form, that of "identification," leads to the presence of one thing in many. Husserl uses the perception of a die to describe its action (eM, Strasser ed., pp. 79-80). When we perceive the die, its appearances (from one side or the other) "flow away in their temporal stretches and phrases .... " The fact that, in spite of their multiplicity and transitoriness, they are nonetheless taken as appearances (as intentional experiences) of "one and the same die" is the result of a "unity of synthesis." By virtue of this synthesis, "the unity of an intentional objectivity becomes constituted as the same in the multitude of its ways of appearing." Even though we suspend our belief in the die's transcendent, independent existence, "the one and the same appearing die is continually immanent in the flowing consciousness; it is descriptively in it .... " Now, for our pur-

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poses, the crucial point of this account is the way in which the intentional object is said to be immanent in consciousness. Husserl writes that this in-conciousness is a completely unique being-in. It is not a being-in as a real, inherent component; it is rather a being-in as something intentional, as an appearing, ideal-being-in (a1s erscheinendes ldeell-darin-sein). In other words, it is a being-in as the object's objective sense. The object of consciousness, in its self-identity throughout the flowing of experience, does not come from outside into such flowing; it is rather present within it, determined as a sense. It is an intentional accomplishment of the synthesis of the consciousness (CM, Strasser ed., p. 80). The underlying principle of this doctrine is that being one-in-many is being as a sense. To conceive the intentional object as a sense, we must, then, take the descriptive character of intentionality as involving a one-inmany phenomenon. Consciousness becomes intentional, becomes consciousness of some object, when its separate experiences point beyond themselves. This they do when they can, in their multitude, be taken as experiences of some one object (see ldeen I, §36). Insofar as it is the synthetic act which itself sets up the presence of one thing in many, its result, according to its mode of being, must be described as a sense. 2 Later we shall have to look into this "synthesis of consciousness" in somewhat greater detail. For the present, we note that this preliminary schema of the functioning of consciousness gives us, on the subjective (or "noetic") side, the constitutive activity of consciousness. On the objective (or "noematic") side, it gives us objective senses. From this, the principle inherent in the notion of an "objective" world-i.e., a world "common to us all"-is easily derived. The "transcendental attitude," as Husserl defines it, is one "according to which everything previously existing for us in a straight-forward way is taken exclusively as a phenomenon, as a sense meant and preserving itself." It is taken as a "correlate of uncoverable constitutive systems" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 126). A common world is in principle, then a world of senses or meanings that are common to the subjects within it. 3 It is a world of shared meanings, such a world being a correlate of objective knowledge transcendentally understood. On the subjective side, this objective world appears as "an ideal correlate of an intersubjective experience which has been carried out and, ideally, could continuously be carried out in a harmonious manner." As Husserl also expresses this, it is "essentially related ... to constituting intersubjectivity whose individual subjects are equipped with mutually corresponding and harmonious constitutive systems." It presupposes "a harmony of the

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monads"-i.e., individual subjects. More precisely expressed, it requires "a harmony in the genesis [of objective senses] that is occuring in the individuals" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 138). §3. THE TWO NECESsmES GOVERNING THE ACCOUNT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY

The question facing us is whether or not the above can be established without implicitly presupposing it. Let us recall the special situation in which Husserl is placed once he engages in the phenomenological reduction. The reduction's suspension of the objective consideration of the world involves the suspension of our belief in its independent existence. The world, along with its objects, becomes reduced to the status of a phenomenon. It is regarded as a sense that is constituted in the synthetic processes of consciousness. Now, in such a situation, the following questions arise: "How do I get out of my island of consciousness? How can what appears in my consciousness as the experience of evidence win objective significance?" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 116). Such significance, as we have seen, implies Others. But they, too, as entities transcendent to my consciousness, seem to be reduced to the status of phenomena-i.e., to that of senses constituted in the multiplicities of my experience. In this situation, we can speak of two necessities imposed on Husserl's answers to these questions. The first is the necessity, mentioned above, of not abandoning the transcendental attitude. Now, such an attitude takes the constitutive process as fundamental. The transcendental (nonworldly) subject is thus understood as a subject "constituting both sense and actuality of being (Seinswirklichkeit)" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 97). Following this view, one must regard both Others and the resulting objective world as constituted within one's subjective processes. As Husserl expresses it, one has to say that "there are transcendentally constituted in me, the transcendental ego, both other egos and (as in turn constituted from the resulting transcendental intersubjectivity that constitutively accrues to me) an objective, common world ... " (eM, Strasser ed., p. 117). Remaining with the transcendental attitude, there must, in fact, be a distinction in levels of constitution. If the objective world is to be considered as a sense that is constituted out of data that are constituted on a more primitive level, then these last, themselves, cannot have this objective sense. To assume that they do is to assume that the higher level of constitution has already occurred. Recalling that constitution is a process of grounding, it is to assume that, contrary to their definitions, the ground and grounded have the same sense. Husserl, thus, asserts that within the more primitive, grounding level, "the sense of 'other subjects' that is in

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question cannot yet be the sense of objective, worldly existing Others" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 124). It cannot, because this sense is one that is grounded (or constituted) by its ground and, thus, is not a sense that is per se applicable to this ground. We can express this in terms of the notions of independence and dependence. The presence of the data on the constituting level is independent of that which they can constitute through their connections. The presence of the constituted, however, depends on the presence of the data which constitute it. Thus, Husserl writes of the constituting (or grounding) level in relation to the sense of the Other it constitutes: "I clearly cannot have the Other as experience and, therefore, I cannot have the sense, objective world, as an experiential sense without having this [first] level in actual experience.... " "The reverse of this," he adds, "is not the case" (em, Strasser ed., p. 127). In other words, I can have, independently, experience on the constituting level-the level that excludes the objective world. This first level is composed of "whatever the transcendental ego constitutes ... as non-other, as uniquely his own (Eigenes) . ... " It is, he claims, "within and by means of this ownness that it ... constitutes the objective world ... " (eM, Strasser ed., p. 131; see also p. 136). As we indicated, the necessity for this distinction is that of not abandoning the transcendental attitude. As such, it is intimately tied to Husserl's claim of not having abandoned the performance of the epoche. If the notion of objectively existing subjects occurred on the primary level of constitution, then the suspension of such subjects (or of the world that is their correlate) would be impossible. We would not be able to regard the ego as nonworldly in an objective sense.4 In such a case we could not apply the epoche, for intersubjectivity would be a primary category of meaning. It would be a basic category for the explication of other meanings and, hence, the application of the epoche would deprive us of the possibility of such explication. s The second necessity is, of course, the recognition of the other subject as other. This presupposes, in Husserl's words, "that not all of my own modes of consciousness belong to the circle of those that are modes of my self-consciousness" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 135, italics added). This means that, out of the data of the founding level, "the ego can form new types of intentionalities ... with a sense of being (Seinssinn) whereby it completely and totally transcends its own being." Their intended effect, the actual positing of someone other, is suspended by the epoche' that leaves us with the first level. Yet one can see that what they point to has the sense of something more than "a point of intersection (Schnittpunkt) of my constitutive synthesis" (ibid.). This recognition, as all recognition, must, of course, be transcendentally regarded as something constituted. Constitu-

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tion, however, here oversteps itself. It constitutes something, according to Husserl, it cannot recognize as belonging to its primitive "sphere of ownness." §4. THE IDENTITY AND THE APPRESENTATIVE (OR PAIRING) SYNTHESIS

How is such an "overstepping" possible? It is clear that it cannot occur by virtue of the synthesis of identification. That which appears as identically one in many perceptions is, as we quoted Husserl, immanently present within them. It does not come to them from "outside." If the Other were constituted in this way, then he would only be a "point of intersection" set up in my consciousness. As Husserl says, " ... he would merely be a moment of my own essence, and ultimately he and I would be one and the same" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 139). This can also be expressed in terms of the different levels of constitution. Taken by itself, the synthesis of identification gives me the level of data whose senses pertain to me. On this level, my modes of consciousness are modes of self-consciousness insofar as their correlates point to the immanent "intentional accomplishments of the synthesis of consciousness." In order, then, to grasp what is really other, a second type of synthesis must come to the fore. Husserl uses a number of terms to describe its process: "appresentation," "pairing," "association," and, finally, "analogizing apperception." Appresentation is an intending of the presence of one thing on the basis of the actual presence of another. Thus, on the basis of the presence of the front side of an object-e.g., a chair-I also co-intend what is not immediately present: the back. The back of the chair can, of course, become originally present. I can walk around so as to view it from the other side. For Husserl, however, the function of appresentation is not limited to such examples. It can also occur in cases where I cannot make the co-intended originally present. This is because the intention to one thing on the basis of the other does not necessarily require the fulfillment of this intention. Thus, I can co-intend things, such as the interior of the sun, which I am not in any position to make originally present. I can also mistakenly co-intend things. What I co-intend is not there. My cointending is then simply "an empty pretention." Pairing is a special case of this process of appresentation. It requires for its basis two similarly appearing objects. Here, "two data are intuitively given and ... they phenomenologically establish a unity of similarity; thus, they are always constituted as a pair." Such constitution means that the sense which is intuitively present in one of them can serve as a basis for the co-intending of the same sense with regard to the other. As Husserl expresses this, the thought of one member "awakens" that of the other.

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There is, then, an "intentional overreaching," one that results in the "intentional overlapping of each with the sense of the other" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 142). Husserl calls pairing a "primal form" of association. We can, under this title, find innumerable examples of the phenomenon he is describing. For instance, let us say that we experience a connection between a person's appearance-his style of dress, etc.-and a certain form of behavior. When we encounter another person similarly dressed, we may "pair" him with the first individual. On the basis of a "unity of similarity," there then may occur an associative transfer of sense. In harmony with our first example, we expect the second to behave in a certain way. We can also say that the presence of a given style of appearance makes us co-intend the presence of the expected behavior. Association is, of course, not always correct. Even if it is based on a number of examples, the transfer of sense can misfire. As we said, there is no necessity in the co-intended being originally present. Thus, nothing, per se, requires the transferred sense to become perceptually embodied. To take an example, there is always the possibility of disguise. A person dresses in a certain way-e.g., as a mailman. In so doing, he arouses our expectations. He does so, however, not to reveal but to conceal his intended behavior. At the basis of pairing or association, there is, according to Husserl, an analogizing apperception. As the term, analogy, indicates, it is essentially a process whereby consciousness spontaeously acts to set up a proportion. The intuitively given data which are constituted as a pair form the first two members of the proportion. An objective sense attached to the first of these gives us a third member. As for the fourth term, it is not immediately given. It is an objective sense of the second which is associatively determined by the other three members. Thus, when data are paired through a recognition of their given similarity, any additional sense that is attributed to the first is transferred associately to the second. This process goes on more or less continuously. In Husserl's words, "Each everyday experience involves an analogizing transfer of an originally established sense to a new case, with its anticipative interpretation of the object as possessing a similar sense" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 141). §5. THE CONSTITUTION AND VERIFICATION OF THE OTHER

Let us now consider this process in terms of our recognizing another subject. The intuitively given data that are paired are my own and the Other's bodily appearing. They are appearances that are to be considered as constituted on the primary level; that is to say, they are constituted through the above-described synthesis of identification. By such appear-

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ing is understood not just the body as a static phenomenon but also the body in action. A third term is given by the sense I have of my ego acting through my body-i.e., controlling its movements. The body conceived as bearing this objective sense is understood as an "animate organism (Leib)." As for the fourth term in this proportion, the Other's ego as controlling his own bodily movements, it is not and cannot be given immediately to me. The bodily appearance of the Other "does not prevent us from admitting that neither the other ego himself, nor his experience-appearances to him-nor anything that pertains to his own essence becomes originally given in our experience" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 139). The other's ego thus stands as an X, as an unknown in our proportion. This, however, does not prevent the phenomenon of pairing from occurring and, on this basis, the transfer of the sense "animate organism" to the Other in his bodily appearing. With this, the Other's ego becomes determined as a subject "like myself"-as an ego acting through his body (See eM, Strasser ed., p.143). How is this transfer of sense to be confirmed? In the identity synthesis, the sense that is established is continually confirmed. It is identically pressent in the many appearances and, thus, is continually regiven. Here, however, we are dealing with a second level of constitution. Although founded on the first, it gives us the Other as other. What is demanded, then, is a new "style of verification"-a "type of verifiable accessibility of what is not originally accessible" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 144). In Hussed's doctrine, this means that confirmation continues to be a matter of the founding level, the level of what is "originally accessible." It occurs, in other words, within the sphere of ownness, the sphere that establishes the sense of three of the terms of the proportion. It is, after all, out of the senses of this level that the sense of the Other must be constituted. Concretely, this means that the "analogizing transfer" of sense continues only so long as its basis remains intact. This basis is formed by the intuitively given data whose similarity allows them to be "paired" or associatively linked. Now, in the case of recognition of the Other, the original pairing occurs, as we said, between my body and that of the Other. This means that their appearances-primarily in the matter of their action or behavior-must continually maintain a certain similarity. In Hussed's words, "The experienced animate organism of the Other continues to manifest itself as actually an animate organism solely through its continually harmonious behavior .... The organism is experienced as a pseudo-organism precisely when it does not agree in its behavior" (eM, Straser ed., p. 144). "Harmonious," here, means harmonious with my own behavior. The Other's actions must "agree" with this in order to establsh the similarity necessary for pairing. As Hussed expresses this, the Other's

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ego is "determined as thus governing his body (and, in a familiar way, constantly confirms this) only insofar as the whole stylistic form of the sensible processes that are primordially perceivable by me must correspond to what is known in type from my own governing my body" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 148). This is also the case with the "higher psychical occurrences." They have "their style of synthetic connections and their form of occurring which can be understandable to me through their associative basis in my own style of life, a style empirically familiar to me in its average typicality" (ibid., p. 149). The way I verify my recognition of the Other is, then, through the continuing similarity of our behavior. The behavior that is primordially (or directly) perceived by me is taken as similar in type to my own. Proceeding from this basis, I constantly transfer to the Other the senses of the psychic determinations that I have directly experienced in my own conduct. In this way, I indirectly experience the Other as governing his body, as having "higher" psychic processes that are comprehensible through the typical behavioral manifestations which I showed when similar processes occured in me. That throughout all of this, I remain the standard of behavior, the standard for it harmoniousness, is, of course, self-understood. As I can never directly perceive the Other's ego, it is only through an associative transfer of the senses of my own psychic processes that he can be recognized as a subject. §6. THE DOUBLE PAIRING AND ITS RESULTS

Husserl adds an important refinement to this description in terms of the notions of the "here" and the "there." As he observes, each of us experiences his body in the mode of the "here." It is, so to speak, a permanent "zero point" by which we mark off spatial distances. The Other's body, in contrast, is always experienced in the mode of "there." It is experienced as an object among the objects of an individual's surrounding world. There is, then, a crucial dissimilarity between the appearing of my own body in the here and that of the Other in the there. Given that pairing does require similarity, we must, then, say of the Other: "Its manner of appearance is not paired in direct association with the manner of appearance which my body always actually has (the mode, here) .... "(CM, Strasser ed., p. 147). What we have, in fact, is a double pairing. The pairing with the Other's body is actually an "association at a higher level," one founded on a more primitive association. The nature of the latter concerns my ability, via my bodily movement, to change any there into a here. As Husserl writes, "this implies that, perceiving from the there, I should see the same things, only in correspondingly different modes of appearance such as would pertain

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to my being there ... " (eM, Strasser ed., p. 146). That, in fact, we do experience this to be the case leads to the phenomenon of appresentation. The presentation of objects from one position contains (as an implicit cointending) an appresentation of them from another position. According to Husserl, this phenomenon also occurs with regard to our own bodies. Tied to the possibility of my movement is the fact that "my bodily animate organism is interpreted and interpretable as a natural body existing in space and movable like any other natural body" (ibid.). Given this, the presentation of my body in the here contains an implicit appresentation of the same body "existing in space" at some distance from the here. In Husserl's words, I have the possibility of appresenting "the way my body would look if I were there." The first pairing, then, is between my body in the modes of the here and the there. It is with regard to the body interpreted in the latter mode-i.e., as there-that the Other's body comes to be paired (eM, Strasser ed., p. 147). Out of this twofold pairing, Husserl establishes (1) the otherness of the Other and both (2) the transcendence, and (3) the commonness of the world for both of us. Let us consider these points, one by one. With regard to the first, we may observe that the two pairings by which I apprehend the Other are distinguishable insofar as the first involves possibility and the second, actuality. When the Other calls to mind the way I would look were I there, the basis of this is the possibility I have of changing my position to the there. The Other, however, is actually experienced as being there. Now, the contents of the here and there exclude each other. My sphere of ownness is not such that, maintaining its unity, it can simultaneously present the world from two different positions. Thus, the fact that the pairing does involve the duality of the here and there, while I actually remain in the here, means that I must appresent the other ego as other. In other words, what is "primordially incompatible"-incompatible in terms of the primordial experiences of my sphere of ownness-becomes compatible in granting the other an actually distinct sphere of owness. It is the sphere in which the world is actually-i.e., presently-experienced from the there. By virtue of this, we can say with Husserl, "my primordial ego, through appresentative apperception, constitutes for itself another ego which, according to its own nature, never demands or allows fulfillment through direct perception (eM, Strasser ed., p. 148). It does not, for the appresented perception involves a there actually different from my here. This solution allows Husserl to add a second "intersubjective" sense to the phenomenological notion of the transcendence of the world. The first sense of transcendence is one of "transcendence in immanence." It is a function of the first level of constitution as it occurs it'- the solitary ego's sphere of ownness. According to Husserl, this first sense is an immanently

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grounded correlate of "specific types" of perceptual connections (See ldeen I, Biemel ed., p. Ill). His reference is to the types of connections which set up the perspectival appearing of a spatial-temporal object. In such appearing, no single perception counts as final-Le., as inherently excluding the possibility of another, slightly different perception of the same object. A perspectival series thus shows the possibility of an indefinite continuance; a view of one side of the object constantly calls forth the possibility of a view of another side. This means that the spatial-temporal object, which appears in such a series, itself bears the sense of something capable of indefinite exhibition. Its sense, in other words, is that of an object which surpasses or transcends the sum of the actual views which I have already had of it. Transcendence, in this account, is a function of the relation between the actual and the possible. It is, phenomenologically speaking, the surpassing of the actual by the possibilities implied by the actual. In the context of the solitary ego, the actual refers to his given perceptions. It is these, through their perspectival connections, which give the ego the implicit feeling of the possibility of having further perceptions. Here, the fact that these are immanently or directly his own perceptions justifies Hussed in speaking of transcendence as an "immanently grounded correlate" of the subject's perceptions. Now, when we do posit other subjects and posit the object as co-perceived by them a second, intersubiective sense of transcendence arises. At this point, as David Carr writes, "The object is not only irreducible to any particular acts of mine; it is also not reducible to all possible acts of mine, my whole actual and possible stream of consciousness, because it is identically the same for Others and their acts as well" (''The Fifth Meditation ... ," ed. cit., p. 18). This second, "objective" sense of transcendence involves more than the transcendence of the possible with regard to the actual. It is a transcendence involving distinct actualities. This is because the sense of a possibility surpassing my own possibilites is one which is implicit in an actuality which also surpasses my own actuality. It requires the actuality of the Other in his perceptual experiences. The constitution of this sense of transcendence thus depends upon an Other who is actually other.6 It is a function of granting the Other an actually distinct sphere of ownness. For Hussed, it is accomplished by my constituting the Other as actually there at the same moment that I am actually here. Finally, with regard to the commonness of the wodd (or "nature") for both of us, this follows according to Hussed from the description of the first pairing. The pairing of my body in the modes of the here and the there has its basis in my bodily movement. Such movement, as Hussed writes, experientially presents the same nature "only in correspondingly different

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modes of appearance." Thus, when the Other is paired to my body in the mode of the there, he too must experience lithe same nature, but in the mode of appearance: as if I stood there where the Other's body is." This means that in the appresented Other, lithe synthetic systems with all their modes of appearance are the same ... except that the actual perceptions and ... in part also the actually perceivable objects are not the same, but rather precisely those that are perceivable from there as they are perceivable from there" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 152). The reference to the identity of synthetic systems should call to mind Husserl's goal of describing the constitution of an intersubjective, objective world. Such a world is defined as a correlate of "mutually corresponding and harmonious constitutive systems." It is the world of shared meanings resulting from these systems. With his account of the constitution of the other ego (and, through reduplication of this, of a plurality of other egos), Husserl now assumes that he has reached his goal (see CM, §62). §7. SARTRE'S AND SCHUTZ'S CRITICISM OF THE ACCOUNT

As ingenious as this account obviously is, it suffers, according to Sartre, from an inherent difficulty. Even if we grant its descriptions with regard to pairing and the transfer of sense, we establish only a "parallelism of empirical egos" (Being and Nothingness, ed. ci.t., p. 316). In other words, granting that pairing occurs on the basis of similarity, the fact that the first term of the pair is a body interpreted as an animate (or a "psychophysical") organism means that the second term must also be regarded as such. Schutz expresses Sartre's point in the following manner: The appresenting term of the coupling is not my transcendental ego, but my own self-given life as psychophysical I .... And what is appresented by this pairing is first the object in the outer world interpreted as the body of another human being, which as such indicates the mental life of the Other-the Other, however, still as a mundane psychophysical unity within the world, as a fellow man, therefore, and not as a transcendental ego ("Sartre's theory of the Alter Ego," Collected Papers, ed. M. Natanson, Phaenomenologica, No. 11 [The Hague, 1973], p. 197). The difficulty, then, is easily recognizable. Since pairing is supposed to be constitutive of the Other, the Other that is constituted by this process is not a transcendental ego; it is a worldly or embodied ego. Transcendental intersubjectivity, however, is defined as a community of transcendental egos. As is apparent from Husserl's description of the transcendental-

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as opposed to the mundane, psychological-ego, the recognition of the Other as an animate organism cannot suffice to establish this intersubjectivity. The embodied psychological ego, in being transformed into its transcendental counterpart, "loses that which gives it the value of something real in the naively experienced, pre-given world; it loses the sense of being a soul of an animate organism (Leibes) which exists in a pre-given spatial-temporal nature" ("Nachwort," ed. cit., p. 145). Thus, in establishing the Other simply as an ego of an animate organism, the process of pairing cannot reach the transcendental community that is Husserl's goal. The same point can be put in a slightly different fashion. For Husserl, the ego is not part of the world insofar as it is seen as constituting the world. To view it as transcendental is to consider it as constituting; to view it as worldly or embodied ego is to consider it as constituted. The pairing of two embodied egos is, then, the pairing of two constituted products. As such, it presupposes the deeper transcendental level which results in these two. This is the level which first establishes the sense of myself as worldlyi.e., as capable of motion in space with the accompanying notions of the "here" and "there." Thus, it is also the level which establishes the sense of the Other as paired to my worldly being in the "there." Now, to establish, rather than presuppose this level, we must grasp the two subjects as constituting. What we require, then, is not a "parallelism of empirical egos," but rather one of transcendental, constituting egos. §8. THE PETITIO PRINCIPII OF THE ACCOUNT

Disagreement may be expressed with the above insofar as Husserl does make reference to the "synthetic systems" of both my own and the Other's ego. His account, he claims, shows that the Other constitutes as I do and, thus, allows me to take him as a transcendental ego like myself. A difficulty, however, still remains. It is that this interpretation is based on the associative transfer of the notion of myself as constituting. The senses that are accomplished by this constituting (the sense of nature for me) are also transferred to the Other. When, in this context, we raise the issue of the legitimacy of this transfer, a certain circularity in Husserl's exposition immediately appears. The transfer can, apparently, only be validated by itself. In other words, we presuppose the validity of the transfer in attempting to verify that it is, indeed, valid. Let us put this in terms of the epoche. As we have stressed, the epoche applied to a thesis requires a suspension of belief in the thesis. Thus, the thesis cannot be assumed in evaluating the evidence for it. Now, taken in its full sense, the thesis in question is that of the intersubjective world. Subjectively viewed, the thesis is that of a "constituting intersubjectivity

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whose individual subjects are equipped with mutually corresponding and harmonious constitutive systems." Objectively considered, it claims a harmony of the senses generated by such systems. Thus, it appears as the thesis of the world of shared senses or meanings. To establish this thesis, I must, then, establish that there is someone else besides my "primordial" ego. I must further establish that this Other constitutes as I do and, hence, that we share the meanings of the world generated by this constitution. Having performed the epoche, I cannot, therefore, make use of these theses. In other words, in evaluating the evidence which is supposed to establish them, I must keep open the possibility, first of all, that there is no Other. I must also keep open the possibility that such an Other, if he exists, does not constitute the way I do and, hence, does not share meanings with me. For Husserl, as we have seen, it is through behavior that both theses are verified. Thus, with respect to the first thesis, it is through behavior that is harmonious with my own that I posit and constantly reconfirm my positing of the Other as an embodied subiect. A break in this harmony results in the dissolution of this positing. As Husserl expresses this, "The experienced animate organism (Leib) of another continues to prove itself as actually an animate organism solely in its changing but incessantly harmonious behavor.... The organism becomes experienced as a pseudoorganism precisely if there is something discordant about its behavior" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 114). The continual harmony of our behavior also results in my positing and reconfirmation of the Other as a transcendental subiect like myself. It is what gives me the constantly reconfirmed sense of the Other as constituting as I do the objective sense of the world. It does this by allowing me to pair the Other with myself in the "there" and to take him as experiencing "the same nature, but in the mode of experience: as if I stood there where the other's body is." Harmonious behavior thus permits the associative transfer to the Other in the there of what I can primordially experience in my own case: the unchanging nature of the constitutive system with regard to the here and the there. Granting this, we can say that our positing of Others as embodied like ourselves and as constituting as we do both have their evidential basis in the harmony of our behavior. With regard to the second, the verification of our sharing of meanings is tantamount to the verification of such harmonious behavior. Can such verfication proceed without assuming that I and the Other do share meanings? Does it leave open the possibility of a negative result? This last would be the admission that there is a possible Other who is other in a transcendental sense-i.e., who constitutes differently from myself. It is easy to see that this admission cannot be made. According to the above, the Other who is positable must, first of all, be an embodied sub-

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ject. Yet the evidence for the Other as embodied-Le., as an "animate organism"- is the same as the evidence for his constituting like myself. Given that disharmonious behavior results in denial of the embodied Other, the only subjects I can posit on the basis of behavioral evidence must be transcendental subjects like myself. This foreclosing of the possibility of a negative result points to the violation of the epoche. It indicates that in positing the Other, I must already assume that we share meanings. To make this explicit, let us note that an Other for whom the world had an entirely different meaning and who acted accordingly would not have a behavior harmonious with mine. Thus, he would not be recognized as a subject by me. This means that only the behavior that is in accord with the meanings which I give to the world counts as harmonious with my own and, thus, counts as evidence for the positing of the Other as a subject. Such positing must, then, assume from the beginning a sharing of meanings by myself and the Other. This point can also be expressed in terms of the Husserlian analysis of intentional behavior-Le., the behavior indicative of the presence of actual subjects as opposed to mere things. When we act intentionally, we direct ourselves towards intentional objects. Such objects, we have seen, are present to consciousness as objective senses, senses which themselves are regarded as the accomplishments of the syntheses of our consciousness. This means that in intentional behavior, situations appear to us in a certain light. They are interpreted as having a certain meaning, a meaning which prompts us to act in certain corresponding ("appropriate") ways. Taken in this way, behavior that is harmonious with mine must be defined as behavior in accord with the meanings which I would give to a similar situation. Granting this, we can say that the behavioral evidence which I do accept as pointing to the Other presupposes that as a subject he already possesses a constitutive system harmonious with my own. It assumes that the meanings which result from this system and prompt his behavior are already shared by us. We can also say that such evidence presupposes a transfer of sense to the Other from the intentional context of my actions. This follows because such senses serve as standards for my evaluation of the harmoniousness of his behavior and, on this basis, standards for positing him as a subject. If the above is correct, then the transfer of sense-or, equivalently, the world of shared meanings established by this transfer-is not something whose legitimacy can be tested by behavior. It is something by which we test behavior. Otherwise expressed, it is a principle presupposed by our attempt to recognize the Other through his behavior. The circularity, then, of Husserl's explication is clear: its criterion for the sharing of meanings is the harmoniousness of behavor; its criterion for this last is the sharing of

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meanings. Now, the world of shared meanings is the underlying principle defining an intersubjective world. For Husserl, to assume it is to assume a correlate intersubjective community. Thus, if this principle is presupposed in evaluating behavior, such an evaluation cannot, without circularity, verify the principle. One can also say that Husserl commits a petito principii-the very thing which the epoche was designed to avoidwhen he uses behavioral evidence to verify intersubjectivity, and presupposes in the evaluation of such evidence the underlying principle of intersubjectivity. This, in fact, is to presuppose the very intersubjectivity he wishes to transcendentally establish.

§9. CONSTITUTION IN TERMS OF THE SECOND SENSE OF THE REDUCTION

We can deepen our understanding of this criticism by moving beyond the sense of the reduction as an epoche to a consideration of its second sense. This sense, as Celms writes, is a "leading back of the conditioned to its conditions" (Der Phan. Id. Hus., ed. cit., p. 310). The conditioned is composed of the being which is transcendent to consciousness. It is the being which is posited as objective or worldly-i.e., as existing within a spatialtemporal world. As for the conditions, these are composed of the experiences and connections of conscousness. The relation of the two-as the terms, "conditioned" and "conditions" imply-is one of dependence. The conditioned have being only insofar as the conditions have being. This means, negatively, that the conditioned cannot exist on its own. Positively, it signifies that the reduction is to be regarded as the incluson of the sense of being of what is reduced (Le., the conditioned) in the sense of the being of the conditions to which it has been reduced. Taken in this sense, the reduction is thus an ontological shift. It no longer concerns itself just with knowing. It is no longer simply a shift from objective to subjective considerations to explain how the subjective functioning of the ego makes it a "presupposition" for knowing. In the second sense of the reduction, this functioning becomes understood as a presupposition for the being of the object which is known. Closely tied with the move from the first to the second sense of the reduction is a change that occurs in the notion of constitution. Schutz describes this as follows: At the beginning of phenomenology, constitution meant clarification of the sense structures of conscious life, inquiry into sediments in respect of their history, tracing back all cogitata to intentional operations of the on-going conscious life .... But unobtrusively ... . . . the idea of constitution has changed from a clarificattion of

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sense structures, from an explanation of the sense of being, into the foundation of the structure of being; it has changed from explication to creation ("The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl," Collective Papers III, ed. I. Schutz, Phaenomenologica, No. 22 [The Hague, 19751 p. 83). The relation of this change to that of the meaning of the reduction follows from a point we earlier made: for Husserl, constitution is the reverse of the process of the reduction. What the reduction does is uncover layer by layer the constitutive process. Thus, the claim that the reduction uncovers the independent conditions for the being of the transcendent world becomes a claim that constitution is itself independently responsible for this being-i.e., is "creative" of it. This latter claim can be made concrete by considering three different ways of viewing consciousness. Each of these is appropriate to a different level of its self-constitution-that is, to a different sense of itself which is constituted by its own functioning. The first is the view that natural science takes of the subject. The subject is here taken as passive to the world. It is understood as causally determined by the world in both its conceptions and behavior. The second way of viewing the subject is brought about by the first sense of the reduction which suspends the above. It does so, we have stressed, in order to inqure into the experiences and acts by which the first view is affirmed. On this second level, the ego is viewed as a center of acts and intentions. Its relation to the world is one where the ego acts to interpret the sensuous data it receives from the world. Now, this view can be so interpreted that it approaches the Kantian position. For Kant, rather than being considered as passively determined by the world, the subject's conceptions of the world-including those of its spatial and temporal features-are regarded as almost totally the result of its own activity. We say "almost totally" since the externally existing "things in themselves" act to provide consciousness with a "transcendental affection"-Le., with "data." Out of such data, consciousness acts, according to its own categories of functioning, to produce the objective sense of the world. This sense, rather than being revelatory of the world "in itself," points back to the activity and categories of consciousness. In itself, Le., in its own categories, the world remains, in this view, unknowable. The relation of the third to the second view of consciousness is the same as that of the latter to the first. It is brought out by suspending the second and explaining it in terms of its constitutive origins. The view of consciousness to be constitutively explained is that of consciousness as innerworldly. It is consciousness posited as receptive-even if this be in the minimal Kantian sense-to affections from independently existing

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entities. Given that constitution is a process of grounding, the move from this level is that from the grounded to its ground. This means that the elements of the ground cannot have the characteristics of the level which they ground. Consciousness on this third level thus loses its innerworldly or receptive character. Correspondingly, the transcendental idealism which investigates this level, as Husserl writes, "is not a Kantian idealism which believes it can keep open, at least as a limiting concept, the possibility of a world of things in themselves ... " (eM, Strasser ed., p. 118). It is, in other words, unconcerned with "inferences leading from a supposed immanence to a supposed transcendence, the latter being some undetermined thing in itself ... " (ibid.). This implies, with regard to the supposed receptivity of consciousness to such entities, that it is, as Husserl says, "not an idealism which seeks to derive a world full of sense from senseless, sensuous data" (ibid.). As Fink observes, it is this abandonment of the innerwordly, receptive character of consciousness which first gives constitution the character of creation. 7 It does this, we can say, by radically transforming the character of givenness. Givenness, understood in the most basic sense of perceptual presence in the now, becomes understood as self-givenness. As Paul Ricoeur expresses this, constitution is to be taken not just as embracing the constitution of sense, but also as embracing, in its constitution of actuality, the very "fullness" of intuitive presence. s Now, this Husserlian denial of things in themselves and, consequently, of the receptivity of consciousness can be expressed in two different ways. Negatively regarded, it signifies, according to De Boer, that "transcendental consciousness does not acknowledge an 'outside' as if a world existing in itself had to force its way in 9upagev"-Le., from outside ("Zusammenfassung/' op. cit., p. 595). Positively, it signifies that consciousness is productive or creative of the very data which, on the second level, were assumed to be externally given to it. Thus, in opposition to the view that limits constitution to the function of interpreting given sense data, here we must maintain that "the appearing thing becomes constituted because in the original flowing [of consciousness] both units of sensation (Emfindungseinheiten) and unitary interpretations become constituted ... " (Zur Phllnomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, hereafter cited as HAX, ed. R. Boehm, Husserliana X, [The Hague, 1966L p. 92).9 This notion of the creative functioning of consciousness can be expanded by noting the following: If consciousness is the independent origin of the data which compose its experiences, it is also the independent or (creative) origin of the positing which results from such experiences. Now, within the transcendental attitude, being is reduced to such positing. If the object can be adequately posited-Le.,adequately grasped

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in terms of the synthesis of our experiences--then, as Husserl says, " ... eo ipso the object is truly existent--wabrbaft seiend" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 349). Thus, if it is the independent origin of its positing, it is also the independent (or creative) origin of the existence of the posited. Husserl does not shrink from applying this doctrine to consciousness itself considered in our first and second ways of viewing it. Its being on the levels considered by these views is itself taken to be a constituted product. Thus, on the second level, it is taken as receptive, as an entity within the world subject to the "transcendent affections" it receives from the things in themselves. Yet, on the deeper level, it is not receptive. The view from this level, as Husserl writes, "yields the fact that every affection springs from already constituted unities ... " (Ms. C 10, p. 5, 1931). Correspondingly, the ego which is affected is, as pertaining to the second level, an already constituted one. In Husserl's words, "The ego which has recourse to affection is always already constituted as an identical 'lasting and streaming' ego 'for' its world which is already totally constituted for it" (ibid). We can understand this last remark in terms of Husserl's position that such affections, considered as "senseless, sensuous data," i.e., as the basic "units of sensation, " are themselves constituted. Our ignorance of this fact, when we remain on the second level, leads us to suppose that such affections are externally provided. With this, we posit things in themselves. They are posited as entities independent of consciousness and acting externally to affect it. By virtue of such positing, consciousness acts to posit itself within the world. In other words, it independently constitutes itself as an entity among entities, both affecting and being affected by such things in themselves. Once the receptive ego has been constituted, we have the possibility of a further constitution--one that results in our first view of consciousness. This is the constitution accomplished by the acts and intentions of the receptive ego which results in the positing of the world which is explicated by modern science. Here, as we said, the ego is posited as passive. Its thesis is that of a bodily entity which is causally determined by the spatial-temporal nature that is posited on this level. As passive, what Husserl calls its "self-externalization" is complete. All of the activity originally ascribed to it is now placed in sources external to itself. That such self-externalization does not occur on the most original level of constitution implies that consciousness on this level is understood as totally active. It is the independent or creative source of both the data of its experiences and what is posited from this data. As such, according to Husserl, it can be understood as implicitly containing both. We can put this in terms of Celm's assertion that the reduction to this third, most primitive level is actually lithe inclusion of the sense of being of the reduced in the sense of being of the basis to which it is reduced" (Der Pblln.

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Id. Hus., ed. cit., p. 311). This does not mean that the sense of the constitutively grounded is per se present in the individual elements of its constitutive ground. It signifies, rather, that consciousness understood genetically-i.e., as a continuous constitutive process-includes both the positing and the posited (the constituting and the constituted) being. It includes, in other words, all the levels of its own being as well as those of the world's being which are correlated to these. It is on the basis of this "genetic" understanding of consciousness that Husserl can assert, "Pure consciousness ... conceals in itself all worldly transcendencies ... constituting them in itself ... " ([(1een I, Biemel ed., p. 119). Given that such constitution involves not just the transcendent but also the immanent-i.e., the sensuous experiences of consciousness-this signifies that "every conceivable sense, every conceivable being, whether the latter be called immanent or transcendent, falls within the realm of transcendental subjectivity as that which constitutes sense and being" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 118, italics added). The same understanding, we may also note, is what gives both the context and urgency to what Husserl called the "Humean problem." This is "the problem of the world in the deepest and most ultimate sense, the problem of a world whose being is being from subjective performances, and this with such evidence that another world is not thinkable at all ... " (Die Krisis der europiiischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phiinomenologie, hereafter cited as Krisis, ed.W. Biemel, 2nd ed., Husserliana VI [The Hague, 19621, p. 100).

§ 10. THE ONTOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE SHIFT IN THE NOTION OF CONSTITUTION

What is the notion of being that underlies these last assertions? An answer can be found by returning to the passage where Husserl calls what is constituted a product or creation (Gebilde) of the action of knowing. As we quoted Husserl in our Introduction "Genuine epistemology ... instead of dealing with contradictory inferences which lead from a supposed immanence to a supposed transcendence ... has to do with a systematic explanation of the accomplishment of knowing, an explanation in which this becomes thoroughly understandable as an intentional accomplishment. Precisely thereby, every being itself, be it real or ideal, becomes understandable as a constituted product (Gebilde) of transcendental subjectivity, a product that is constituted in just such an accomplishment" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 118). Reduced to plain terms, this passage asserts that being itself is a product of knowing; it is an "accomplishment" of the "intentional" process of knowing. Now, knowing, taken as such a process, is

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directed towards an intentional object. This last, as we observed, is immanent in consciousness as an "objective sense/' a sense which is the "accomplishment" of consciousness. For this accomplishment to be considered as a creation, a crucial change in the notion of sense must occur. Creation, understood in a radical manner, is an ontological affair; it refers to being. The inference, then, is that the sense, which is this accomplishment, is itself to be taken as the "being itself." To reverse this, we can say that the ontological basis of the above assertions is an understanding which, broadly speaking, takes "every sort of being itself" as a constituted sense. The Husserlian texts for this understanding are often quite explicit. He writes, for example, "All real unities are unities of sense.... Reality and world are simply titles for certain valid unities of sense essentially related to certain specific connections of pure, absolute consciousness, consciousness which bestows sense and confirms validity" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 134). Such texts lead De Boer to write: In psychology, sense is the result of an abstraction, of an abandonment of the supposedly independent existence of the external world. It concerns a limitation to what is phenomenal because the "actual" thing is seen as unreachable. In transcendental phenomenology, however, sense is being itself. At the end of the Fundnmentalbetractung, when it is said that the world can only exist as a sense or phenomenon, with this is understood the world's very mode of being ("Zusammenfassung/' op. cit., p. 597).10 This transformation of the ontological status of sense can be expressed in terms of Husserl's denial of self-existent things in themselvesentitites which in some way "affect" consciousness. As long as we posit such entitites, sense is distinguished from being. It is not the "being itself/' but rather something which requires the action of the latter on consciousness. It is what consciousness "lifts off" or abstracts from the being as the latter affects it. Its ontological status is, in other words, that of the sense of the being, the phenomenal appearance of some reality. It has not the status of the "real unity" itself. Let us put this in terms of the Kantian "psychology" referred to by De Boer. Here, the positing of things in themselves results in a total abstraction of sense from being. The "actual thing" for Kant is unknowable. Its connection with consciousness is limited to that of providing a "transcendent affection/' one which consciousness "makes sense" of according to its own categories. Now, the Husserlian equation of being with sense immediately rules out any notion of being which is distinct from sense. It, thus, rules out the notion of the Kantian Ding-an-sich,

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which is said to be unknowable precisely because it is posited as beyond any sense which consciousness could grasp. To reverse this, we can also say that the denial of an independently existing thing in itself immediately collapses being and sense. The denial signifies that there is no being beyond sense to which this latter could refer. Sense, therefore, can no longer be understood as something abstracted (or separated off) from a being which is conceived as other than sense. The above holds generally for all positions which see constituted sense as an abstraction from being. The distinction of such sense from being rests on the notion of the dependence of consciousness in its sense giving function. As long as this function is taken as requiring an externally provided material, the senses it constitutes point beyond themselves. They are taken as referring to entities whose "transcendent affection" was necessary for their formation. The result is that sense is conceived not as the "being itself" but as a dependent expression of such being. It is taken as the appearance of the latter. To eliminate this position, we must eliminate its basis. This means that the distinction collapses once we deny the notion of a transcendent affection of consciousness. At this point, consciousness becomes the independent origin of all the senses it can grasp. It becomes absolute in its sense-giving function. Insofar as such senses can no longer be considered as distinct from being, consciousness in constituting such senses, becomes understood as constituting being. Otherwise put, its sense-giving function-rather than being considered an abstraction from being-is seen as creative of the latter. This, according to De Boer, is Husserl's position. It appears as early as the Ideen when Husserl writes, "the world itself has the whole of its being as a certain 'sense,' one which presupposes absolute consciousness as the field of sense giving" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 135). The former, Husserl adds, is "dependent," the latter (absolute consciousness) is "independent." What does this signify? Given the equation between constituting sense and constituting being, the notion of creation seems unavoidable. As De Boer writes, "The expressions 'creation' and 'production' do not appear in Ideen I; but when one reads the Fundamentalbetractung as it wants to be read, namely, as a discourse about being, then the terms which Husserl does use-'independence' and 'dependence'-exactly express what he means. At that point there can be no more talk about realism or even realistic elements in Husserl's thought" ("Zusammenfassung," op. cit., p. 598)Y We can fill out this picture by noting two further positions it involves. The first is that of the all-inclusive nature of consciousness in its sensegiving function. Consciousness can conceal in itself all worldly transcendencies, "constituting them in itself," only if can, indeed, constitutes all possible worldly beings-i.e., all possible senses of the world. The in-

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clusivity of consciousness with regard to such beings (or senses) is asserted by Husserl as follows: "The attempt to conceive of the universe of true being as something that stands outside of the universe of possible consciousness ... is nonsense .... If transcendental subjectivity is the universe of possible sense, then an outside is precisely nonsense" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 117). Beside the implicit equation of sense and "true being," what is striking here is the assertion that consciousness is "the universe of possible sense." It is because every sense per se is to be found within consciousness that an outside-i.e., a sense or a being existing outside of a possible consciousness-is described as "nonsense." With this, we have Husserl's second position, which is that consciousness is "absolute" or independent in its sense-giving function. Husserl writes in this regard, "The positing of unities of sense [real, existent unities] ... presupposes sense giving consciousness which, on its side, is absolute and does not exist through sense bestowed on it from another source" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 134). The reason why consciousness does not exist through some external sense bestowal is that it is the original generator of sense. Sense is here conceived as a "one in many" whose material-i.e., the "many"-is formed out of the immanent experiences of consciousness. Consciousness, then, is the original ground of sense insofar as it is only within consciousness that the experiences and connections can be found which result in sense. This is why the place of sense is within consciousnes and, hence, the notion of a sense outside of it is "nonsense." § 11. THE PETITIO PRINCIPII AND THE CREATIVE FUNCTIONING OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The problems this doctrine raises for the constitution of Others are enormous. Their general tenor can be indicated by recalling that for Husserl the Other must first be posited as embodied in order to then be posited as transcendental. As we have seen, the evidence for both positings is the same. Now, as embodied, the Other is a "worldly transcendency." He is a constituted sense concealed in me; qua sense, he is the result of the connections within my consciousness. Considered as transcendental, however, the Other is not a sense per se. He may indeed be called the place of sense, "the universe of possible sense." But this is because he is the ground of sense. It is only within him that one finds those experiences and connections which result in sense. This is why Husserl calls the transcendental subject "absolute," and asserts that he "does not exist through sense bestowal from some other source." Given this, he cannot be constituted by me through my external act of sense bestowal. Here, we have to say that the embodied ego I confront is too much my product to be really other. As for

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the transcendental ego, as a ground of sense, rather than a sense, he entirely avoids my efforts at sense constitution. Thus, we cannot follow Husserl and say that the evidence for both the embodied and the transcendental ego is the same. We also cannot say, withoutlapsing into solipsism, that it is "the sense, 'truly existing Others,'" which "is eo ipso the existing Other for me in the transcendental attitude" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 175, italics added). If the constitution of sense is the constitution of being, then this "existing Other" exists for me simply as my product. We can express the above in terms of the demand for the constitution of the actuality of the Other. The demand arises from the original project of securing the objective validity of knowledge. Such knowledge, in implying universality, implies Others as co-perceivers of the world. Thus, it implies the transcendence of the world in its second, intersubjective character. To establish this transcendence, we require, as we indicated, the Other in the actuality of his sphere of ownness. We require him actually being there, while I am here, co-perceiving the world so as to give it its intersubjectively established sense. Now, such an actuality is not that of the Other as a constituted sense. Qua constituted, he is the result of my acts of perception. For the Other as a co-perceiver, I require him as a co-constituter. Thus, to establish the objectively known world, which is Husserl's goal, I must see it as intersubjectively constituted. For this, however, I require the Other, not as a constituted sense, but rather as an actually distinct, active bestower of such sense. It is easy to see that the constitution which begins with the Other as embodied cannot satisfy this demand. As Schutz remarks, even if we accept all of Husserl's arguments with regard to such constitution, " ... still no transcendental community, no transcendental We, is ever established. On the contrary, each transcendental ego has now constituted for himself, as to its being and sense, his world and in it all other subjects including myself; but he has constituted them iust for himself and not for all other transcendental egos as well" ("The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl," op. cit., p. 76). This view follows insofar as the constitution which does begin with the embodied Other is not a genuine reaching out to the Other as transcendental; it is rather a solipsistic "self-externalization" of each constituting individual. To make this explicit, we note that the pairing that forms the basis for such constitution is one between two worldly transcendencies. It begins with the pairing of my own and the Other's body. Now, for Husserl, the transcendental subject "conceals in itself all worldly transcendencies ... constituting them in itself." Both bodies, then, as worldly transcendencies, are within the constituting subject. It constitutes them within its sphere of ownness as real unities-i.e., unities of sense. Thus, the original pairing is between two constituted pro-

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ducts, products which point back to a single constituting subject. This implies that, proceeding from this basis, both this subject's sense of his own and his sense of the Other's body as animate and human spring directly from himself. That this is, in fact, the case can be gathered from Husserl's assertion that it is through an "analogous transfer of sense" that the Other is constituted as human. In such a transfer, the senses which do pertain to the primordial ego (in his "typical" ways of behaving) function in the constitution of the Other as an embodied subject. The Other, therefore, must appear via the transfer as a self-externalization of the senses constituted by the first. The same point can be made by observing that three of the four terms involved in the "analogizing apperception" of the Other result directly from the "productivity" of my experiencing as a primordial subject. They are (1) my own bodily appearing, (2) the bodily appearing of the Other, and (3) my own sense of self as governing my body. As in the mathematical analogue-the Euclidian proportion-the three elements determine the value of the fourth. The fourth element, the Other as subject of his body, has a value expressable only in terms of the three. Since the three are senses valid for myself (and not for Others as they have not yet been constituted), the Other, here, is only for myself. The same point follows in the reduplication of this process which creates a plurality of Others for me. Insofar as I do not consider them as independently constituting-but rather transfer to them my own processes-the being and sense of the world that is their correlate seems to keep the status of something constituted for myself alone. Once again, we come to the problem of presupposing rather than demonstrating a shared world of meanings. Insofar as a transcendental ego confronts as embodied ego, such a world must be presupposed. The sense of this embodied Other as constituting-if such a sense be grantedoccurs only by transfer from the original primordial ego. To the point; however, that a transcendental ego seeks to confront another ego as genuinely transcendental (as independently sense giving), all basis for this presupposition escapes us. In the latter case, our acts of sense giving could be understood as concealing, rather than as revealing, the Other's actual sense bestowing acts. In the former case, the problem does not arise, but only because we do not present the Other as actually like ourselves-i.e., as independently sense bestowing. Here, we may recall that a completely independent sense-bestowing ego is "absolute" in its sense-giving function. It is, when regarded on the primitive level of its constitutive process, totally active. This action results, as we said, in the production of the very data required for sense constitution. Thus, given that such constitution does not require an "outside,"

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what is constituted must ultimately be regarded as an externalization of the constituting self. With this, we can see why, on the descriptive level, the Other can only appear through a transfer of sense from the primordial ego. The description, we can say, has been shaped by Husserl's desire to make it confrom with his idealistic doctrine. The necessity imposed by such doctrine is apparent. Given its position that the ego's sense of being affected results from its own activity of positing itself in the world, the Other that it finds in this world must be a result (via a transfer) of its own activity. What this implies is that the petitio principii on the descriptive level is essentially tied to the notion of consciousnes as creative in its functioning. To the point that it is regarded as creative in its constitutive syntheses, to that point it must be taken as absolute in its sense-giving function. It is independent. Everything else derives its sense from its acts. It thus has by definition an asymmetrical relation to all that appears to be other than itself. In such a context, it is obvious that a world of shared meanings cannot be a matter of demonstration. That everything has only the meaning that the primordial ego gives to it is presupposed in the understanding of its acts of sense giving as independent or creative. Thus one cannot, without circularity, proceed to establish from such given senses the sharing of senses by the ego and its Other; for these senses cannot here count as unbiased or "objective" sources of evidence with regard to the independent acts of the transcendental Other. § 12. THE PETITIO PRINCIPII AND THE LEVEL REQUIRED FOR INTERSUBJECTlVE RECOGNmION

What is the "transcendental clue" which appears in the above? What does the last section's impasse reveal about the nature of being, i.e., its nature as presupposed by intersubjective recognition? To answer such questions, let us first recall what we said at the beginning of this chapter: It is the reduction of being to being-given which moves the petitio principii from the descriptive to the ontological level. On the descriptive level, the petitio is the presupposing (rather than establishing) of the givenness of the Other. The reduction of being to givenness is what makes this a presupposition of the being of Others. Now, a regard to our previous sections reveals what is involved in our reducing being to its givenness. Its principle is Husserl's equation of being with sense. The equation signifies that sense is no longer to be considered an abstraction. It is no longer to be considered as a dependent expression of the being which transcendently affects consciousness-i.e., independently gives it data. What we have, then, is the denial of any independent "giver" (or being) in our thought of given-

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ness. Indeed, the equation of being and sense signifies that the "being itself" is to be considered as the result rather than a cause of such givenness. It is the sense which is constituted out of the experiences and connections of this givenness. Thus, it can be reduced to the latter--i.e., to its being given--as the conditioned can be reduced to its grounding conditions. This, of course, is the phenomenological reduction considered as "the leading back of objective (transcendent) being to the being of the corresponding modes of consciousness" (Celms, op. cit., p. 309). The very same equivalence, we may also observe, is what shows the ontological character of the grounding of intersubjective recognition. Such recognition presupposes a world of shared meanings or senses. If the latter are, in principle, equivalent to being, then what this recognition presupposes is the transcendental notion of the being of the intersubjective world. We say "transcendental" since, in the attitude characterized by this term, being is understood as being-given. This understanding, however, is implicit in the equation of being with sense. Granting this, we can say that the world of shared senses is the ontological principle of the intersubjective world. It is "hidden" insofar as we do not make explicit the above understanding, that is, see how it implies the equation of being and sense. It also may be called "hidden" insofar as we do not recognize such a world as a presupposition. Here, we attempt to derive it, while presupposing it, and thus, wind up with the circularity of the petitio principii. Let us turn to the constituting subject, the subject for whom being is being-given. The equation of sense and being underlying this characterization has the following implications: As we have seen,the constituting subject, at its most basic level, is not a sense but a ground of sense. If objective being is equivalent to sense, such a subject cannot be regarded as an entity in any individual, objective sense. It must, rather, be considered as a ground of such entities. This means that the level at which we recognize the Other as transcendental must itself be appropriate to his nature as a ground. It has to allow us an access to the Other, not as a sense--i.e., as a "real unity" posited as an individual existing in the world--but rather as a ground of such. To indicate the most striking characteristic of this level, let us recall that the transcendental subject, conceived as an ultimately creative gound, "does not acknowledge an outside." This implies that the level where we do recognize him as an ultimate ground is one where, in a yet to be determined manner, we are "inside" of him. How is the approach to this level, the level of the "inside" of the Other, possible? Contrary to the position of the Cartesian Meditations, the approach cannot be through the process of constituting the Other. Two objections stand in the way of this view. The first is that constitution is a process that results in sense. Yet the actuality of the Other which is re-

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quired for Hussed's purposes is, as indicated, not that of a sense, but that of a constituter of sense. What is required, in other words, is the givenness of those experiences and connections which result for him in sense. The second objection concerns the fact that constitution, transcendentally viewed, is the process of the self-externalization of consciousness. The result of constitution is the positing of beings-including the being of the human subject-which are taken as having external relations to one another. The result, in other words, is the positing of beings which are understood as acting and suffering the actions of beings outside of themselves. Constitution, then, takes us away from, rather than towards, the level where, as inside of the Other, we recognize him as an ultimate ground. Not constitution, but rather i~~ reverse is, thus, required. We need a movement from sense back to its ground, a movement from the externality of being back to the primitive grounding level which first results in beings with external relations. With this, we have an indication of how we should approach the level required for intersubjective recognition. As we have stressed, the reduction is the reverse of constitution. This means that the approach must be provided by a radical understanding of the reduction. To simply suggest the nature of this understanding, we can observe that for Hussed, in his last years, the reduction is characterized as allowing us "to discover the absolutely functioning subjectivity, to discover it not as human, but as that which objectifies itself, at least at first, in human subjectivity" (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 265):2 The claim here is that the human subjectivity, whose woddly being is presupposed along with the wodd of meanings it shares, can itself be grounded by reductively turning to this ultimate subjectivity. NOTE

Before we continue, it would be well to consider an alternate view of constitution, one which could be used to criticize our own. This view is ably expressed by John Brough in his lengthy review of Erazim Kohak's Idea and Experience. Brough takes a realist position with regard to constitution, according to which "Hussed's notion of constitution, his 'transcendental idealism,' should be understood, not in terms of making, but of making present." Thus, "to constitute an object is to present it, not to produce it" ("Hussed and Erazim Kohak's Idea and Experience, Man and World, XIV, 1981, p. 343). This view demands that constitution not be taken as synthesis. Admitting that "if the perceived object is a synthesis of perspectives, then it will be a product ... " (ibid., p. 333), Brough declares that "Hussed does not

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hold this position." For Brough, Husserl does not "claim in Ideas I or elsewhere that the object of perception is a synthesis of perspectives" (ibid., p. 3341. One such claim, we may note in passing, occurs when Husserl writes, "The object of consciousness, in its self-identity throughout the flowing of experience, ... is an intentional accomplishment of the synthesis of consciousness" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 801. Brough seems to imply that a stress on synthesis gives phenomenology an inadmissibly Kantian cast. Yet, what intrigues Husserl about Kant is precisely his notion of synthesis. According to it, knowlege of an object is "knowledge by means of connected perceptions" (Kritik der reinen Vernun{t, hereafter cited as Kritik, B 1611. As for the object itself, it is simply "that in whose concept there is unified the multiplicity of a given intuition" (ibid., B 1371. The "multiplicity" refers to the plurality of perceptions which are "connected" or synthesized so as to result in the ongoing intuition of an object. In this intuition, we grasp the object as a one in many. The object is apprehended as one and the same thing showing itself in many different perspectives. Qua apprehended, then, the object simply has the status of a one in many. Since the being of a one in many is that of a concept or sense, this what the ob;ect is when it is present to our minds. Hence, Kant defines it in terms of its "concept." Husserl, we note, follows an almost identical line of reasoning to describe the "intentional object." As we cited him at the beginning of this chapter, the way in which an object is present in consciousness is "completely unique. It is not a being-in as a real, inherent component. It is rather a being-in as something intentional .... It is, other words, a being-in as the object's objective sense" (CM, Strasser ed., p. 80). Its presence is that of synthetic one in many established by the connections of consciousness. Now, when we declare that this intentional object is the actual object, refusing to distinguish between them, we have Husserl's position that the object is, at bottom, just such connections. In Husserl's words, "Everywhere we take 'object' as a title for the essential connections of consciousness" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 3561. This includes the "actual object" which is simply a "title" for the "connections in which the unitary X [the one in many] present in such connections receives its rational positing" (ibid.). This, of course, is simply another way of saying what for Brough should never be said: that the perceived object is just the connection or "synthesis of perspectives." In the light of such citations, which could be multiplied, what Brough seems to be doing is attempting to save Husserl from himself. This attempt is common to many of his American followers who beginning with Martin Farber have been profoundly embarrassed by the turn his phenomenology takes after the LOgical Investigations. The attempt of such scholars has been, paradoxically, to interpret Husserl's "transcendental idealism"

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in a realistic mode, a mode which is appropriate to the period of the Investigations's first edition, but is radically inappropriate from roughly 1911 onward. This point can be made in terms of Brough's chief objection to the notion of the object as "synthesis of perspectives." This is that such a view reduces the object to the acts which grasp it. In Brough's words, "Perspective and object are related as intending act and intended object. Perspective and object can be fused only at the expense of reducing object to act, a sin than which no greater can be conceived in phenomenology" (Brough, op. cit., p. 335). If we do accept their difference, then we can assert that a transcendent object exists independently of the ordered connections of consciousness. It is something beyond the fact it is posited by consciousness in its experiences. In Brough's words, "it is part of the sense of a transcendent object to exist just as it is whether perceived or not .... " It is thus distinguished from its "perspectives" (and, hence, from their connection or synthesis) which "exist only when perception, or an act based on perception, actually occurs" (ibid.). Unfortunately for Brough and his Anselmian ("that than which nothing greater can be conceived") imprecations, it is easy to cite texts which fly in the face of his interpretation. To simply stick with those which we cited in our Introduction, we may recall that for Hussed, "the entire spatial-temporal world . .. is according to its sense merely intentional being . ... It is a being that consciousness posits in its experiences ... beyond this, however, it is nothing at all or, more precisely, for this being a notion of a beyond is a contradictory one" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 117). This means that "the existence of nature is [Hussed's emphasis] only as constituting itself in the ordered connections of consciousness" (ibid., p. 121). As Hussed elsewhere expresses this conclusion, "1 thus see that the existence (Dasein) of the thing itself, the object of experience, is inseparably implicit in this system of transcendental connections and without such connections [or synthesist it would thus be unthinkable and obviously a nothing" (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 179). If we admit this, we cannot, as Brough wants to do, speak of the objects existence "just as it is" apart from its constitution. In fact, we cannot even speak of our intending the object apart from its constitution. If, as we cited Husserl, the intentional object is present as a sense and if the latter is the result of constitution, then the intentional relation is posterior not prior to the constitutive act. This, of course, is not the case in the Investigations. It sharply distinguishes between experience and act, and sees intentionality in terms of the schema: contents of experience and objectifying act. The latter makes "sense" of such contents by taking them as contents of some object. This "sense" is the intentional object whose "ideal character" distinguishes it

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from the "real" sensations. Qua sense, it can never be confused with the latter or with the act itself since both, according to the Investigations, are realities-Le., particulars lacking the one in many or ideal character of the object's sense. Their ontological nonidentity gives rise to the transcendence inherent in the intentional relation. Consciousness transcends itself to reach the object insofar as its real act interprets real, externally provided sensations to reach an ideality-Le., the perceptually embodied sense of the object. 13 For the Investigations, this sense, although a one-in-many, is not a product of synthesis understood in the Kantian manner. It is the result of interpreting sensory contents in the same way or "sense." In other words, an identity in interpretation results in the grasp of identity, i.e., in the grasp of the object that shows itself as the same when viewed from different sides. In Husserl's words, lithe interpretation according to this [same] 'sense' is an experiential character that that first yields 'the existence of the object for melll-Le., its existence as intentional (LU, Tub. ed., 11/1,383). This experiental character is one of intending a self identical object tbrough our different experiences of it. Each such experience is interpreted as originating from the same transcendent source. The source is thus seen as showing itself in each of them. Brough correctly expresses this view of the Investigations when he writes, "the object is intended tbrough the perspectives; it is perceived in them, not as them" (Brough, op. cit., p. 336). He also correctly gives the corresponding notion of synthesis when he writes, "the perceptual synthesis amounts to the consciousness that, in each different perspective or act-phase or even in acts separated by considerable intervals of time or in acts of different types, such as perception and memory, the same object is intended" (ibid.). The object is perceived "in" the perspectives since each is interpreted as a view of it. The perceptual synthesis is a consciousness (rather than a construction) of the "same" object insofar as what it synthesizes are such interpretations. It is a recognition that all such acts, as bearing the same interpretation (and, hence, the same "experiential character"), are of the same object. Here, the primitive root of intentionality is the fact of interpretation. It is prior to synthesis insofar as the act of synthesis is based on it, Le., is a synthesis of the interpretive intentions of diverse acts.14 Now, as Brough himself notes in his study of time consciousness, Husserl is forced to abandon this notion of constitution once he investigates the temporal aspects of perception. On the ultimately constituting level, the schema which sharply distinguishes between act and contentbetween interpretation and contents there to be interpreted-leads to a regress, one which as Brough writes involves "an endless series of successively more 'ultimate' levels or dimensions of consciousness" (liThe

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Emergence of an Absolute Consciousness in Husserl's Early Writings on Time-Consciousness," Man and World, V, 1972, p. 318). The regress forces Husserl to speak of the "self-constitution" of the stream of consciousness, one involving both act and content, and, hence, of a synthesis which is prior to the intentional relation. It is this notion of synthesis which prevails from 1911 onward. With it, one can no longer speak of intentionality being based on interpretation or of synthesis being at bottom just the consciousness that the same object is intended in different acts. Synthesis is rather the self-constitution of the object in the connections of experience. To see this, we must turn to Husserl's arguments that the results of synthesis are not just objects but also subjects, i.e., both poles of the intentional relation.

Chapter II

THE GROUNDING OF THE THING

AND THE EGO § 1. THE REVERSAL OF THE SEINSREDE

CCORDING

to our last chapter, when we think of consciousness as crea-

A tive, there is the thought that such consciousness does not acknowledge an "outside." Fink put this as follows: 'The world becomes understandable as the aggregate of the end results of the constitutive life processes of transcendental subjectivity; it is, thus, not outside of this life as such. And we further recognize that the idea per se of an 'outside' situated beyond constitutive being is in principle senseless" (Ms. "Die Idee einer transcendentalen Methodenlehre-Ein Entwurf einer VI. Meditationen zur E. Husserls 'Meditationens Cartesiennes'," Aug.-Oct., 1932, ed. Dr. Holl and Dr. Ebeling, Freiburg, hereafter referred to as " Proposal," p. 172; F., 172).1 The implications of this view are quite far-reaching. They concern the significance, within the phenomenological context, of such notions as creation, created being, and consciousness considered as creative. With regard to the first, we have to say that "creation" cannot be understood in terms of external relations-i.e., relations involving an outside. Thus, we cannot understand it in terms of the theological schema of a creatio mundi ex nihilo-i.e., a creation of the world out of nothing by a god who is transcendent or external to what he has created. In fact, if we take "individuality" and "exteriority" as terms characterizing the "natural" attitude's description of being, then the relation in question does not seem to involve the type of being which this attitude describes. This implies that the totality of beings considered by the natural attitude is not an "absolute" totality. There is, in other words, something beyond it. If by the word, "ontology," we refer to the study of individual beings, then such a

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study does not embrace the phenomenological notion of an all-inclusive "absolute." In Fink's words, "While the worldly concept of the 'absolute' is an ontological concept, i.e., signifies a totality of [individual] beings, the phenomenological concept of the absolute cannot be characterized as ontological-i.e., does not signify a totality of beings" ("Proposal," ed. cit., pp. 172-73; F., 173). It does not because, in the phenomenological perspective, the all-inclusive absolute includes a relation which is not ontological. The totality of individual, worldly beings is, itself, related to what cannot be considered a worldly being. This last is the creative consciousness which does not, like such worldly beings, have an outside (see ibid., p. 177; F., 178-79). The import of this for our notion of created being is expressed by Husserl in terms of a "reversal." The reversal involves what in itself is primary and what we take to be primary when, in the natural, prephenomenological attitude, we apprehend the world. In Husserl's words, There is, thus, a reversal in the usual sense of the discourse about being. The being which for us is first is, in itself, second-i.e., it is what it is only in "relation" to the first. It is not as though a blind ordering of laws had ordained that the ordo et connexio rerum must direct itself according to the ordo et connexio idearurn. Reality, both the reality of the thing taken singly and the reality of the entire world, essentially (in the strong sense) lacks independence. It is not something absolute in itself. It is not something binding itself to another in a secondary way. Rather it is absolutely nothing in an absolute sense. It has no "absolute essence" whatsoever. It has the essential nature of something which is only intentional, only consciously known or presentable, only actualizable in possible appearances lJdeen I, Biemal ed., p. 118). Carefully read, this passage makes the following assertion: Objective being-understood in the natural attitude as "reality"- is essentially dependent. In the natural attitude, objective being is the individual entity "in itself." As such, it is taken by this attitude as "absolute"-i.e., as independent. It only "binds itself"-or forms relations-to another entity in a "secondary way." The relations depend on the self-subsistent entities that are related, not vice versa. In opposition to this attitude, Husserl claims that such being is only secondary. It essentially depends upon consciousness. Fink expresses this claim in a number of ways. It involves, first of all, "the recognition that being possesses the constitutive dignity of an end

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product, a result" of the constitutive activity of consciousness. ("Proposal/, ed. cit., p. 173; F., 173). This recognition involves a reversal insofar as it involves the thought "that what we had taken as the non-relative and ultimately independent totality of beings presents in truth only an abstract layer of constitutive becoming, that the universe of beings, the world, is only a relative 'universe' which is, itself, related back to transcendental, constituting subjectivity" (ibid., p. 171; F., 172). As Fink observes, such thought involves a reversal in the very sense of being. Being, understood as individual entities, can no longer have the sense of something absolute in itself. In other words, the "totality of beings" can no longer be taken as that which functions as an ultimate ground. If this totality is only a relative universe, if it is dependent on something beyond its individual members, it must be thought of as resulting from what is other than these-i.e., from what is not, itself, a being. In Fink's words: The central, fundamental thought of transcendental idealism is: Being is, in principle, constituted in the processes of the life of transcendental subjectivity. Not just the being with transcendence's type of givenness but also, just as much, being as immanence-indeed, the whole world taken as the ensemble of the immanent interiority of experiencing life and the transcendent outside world-is a unitary constitutive product. Transcendental idealism is besi. characterized through the description: "constitutive idealism." While worldly idealism attempts to explain being by means of being, the ontological world-thesis of transcendental idealism presents the interpretation of being by means of the constitution which is "before being" (ibid., p. 196; F. 201). The significance of this for the nature of the consciousness which is considered to be creative is readily apparent. As already indicated, this consciousness cannot be considered a "worldly being." If it could, it would not be that which, for Husserl, is "first/' but only that which is "second"i.e., exists "in 'relation' to the first." In other words, it would show itself as dependent. Once again, the applicable principle is Fichte's: "The ground lies, by virtue of the mere thought of a ground, outside of that which is to be grounded." Thus, the ground and the grounded cannot have the same nature. To the point that the former shows the nature of the latter, it shows itself not as a ground, but as in need of a ground-i.e., as dependent. Granting this, and granting as well that the characterisitics of worldly being are singularity and externality of relations, these characteristics cannot be applied to consciousness as a ground. As ultimately constituting, it cannot be conceived as an individual being, i.e., as a being that has external relations with other individual beings. If we accept the above inference, then the question we are faced with is

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that of the nature of absolute consciousness in a positive sense. To indicate the answer for which this chapter will lay the groundwork, we can say that the consciousness which is truly absolute-i.e., independently creative in its constitutive function-is consciousness conceived as a singulare tantum. Insofar as it does not acknowledge an outside, it does not exist as a "numerical singular"-i.e., as one among many. It exists simply as one. Such singularity excludes in principle the notion of membership in a plurality of similar individuals. For such singularity, there are no others which are similar. This characterization applies at once to the consciousness (or ego) which is taken, not as an individual entity, but as the necessary and sufficient ground of the totality of individual entities. As a necessary ground, it is indispensable for world constitution. As a sufficient ground, it has no need of anything else for its constitutive activity. Its notion as necessary and sufficient thus excludes the notion of another, distinct co-constituter of the world since the assumption of two selfsufficient grounds of the world would rule out our calling either of them "necessary." Either would suffice and neither would be indispensable. With regard to the creatively constituting ego, we must, then, say with Husserl, "In an absolute sense, this ego is the only ego. It is not meaningfully multipliable; more precisely expressed, it excludes this as senseless" (Ms. B IV 5, "Zur Finks '6' Meditation," 1933-34, p. 26). With this, we may ask how far this uniquely singular ego is our own. Can we, in our action of constitutively "making sense" of the world, claim to be uniquely singular grounds of this sense? Can we, in Husserl's words, say, "I am the only one (das Einzige); whatever exists for me is my own from the singularity (Einzigkeit) in which I function" (Ms. C 2 I, p. 3, Aug., 1931)? To answer these questions, we must engage in a detailed investigation of the phenomenological notion of singularity. We must examine both the unique singularity which ultimately grounds and the numerical singularity (the one among many) which is grounded. Our present chapter will engage in an investigation of the latter. It will inquire into the phenomenological notion of being an individual-a one among many. What do we mean when we say that a thing exists in this way? How far can the ego itself be described as individually defined? To explore these questions in phenomenological terms is, for Husserl, to speak of constitution. It is to describe the constitution of the individual existence of both the thing and the ego. Ultimately, our sense of the constitutive stages which must obtain for the ego to be individually defined will give us a sense of its existence prior to such stages-i.e., its existence as pre-individual. It will thus lead to the subject of our following chapters: the investigation into how, in a positive sense, the ego can be called singular and yet not be taken as an individually defined member of a class.

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§ 2. DENKEN AND ERKENNEN IN KANT AND HUSSERL

At times, Husserl expresses a close sense of affinity with the Kantian method of philosophizing. He writes for example, " ... the revolution in the very nature of philosophical thought which Kant promoted and allowed to arise in the powerful, perhaps even violent proposal of a new science is still the challenge of the present; and this new science is our own task and a task which can never be abandoned in all the future" ("Kant und die Idee der Transzendentalphilosophie," May I, 1924, in Erste Pbilosopbie (1923/1924). Erste Teil, Kritiscbe Ideengescbicbte, ed. R. Boehm [The Hague, 1956] hereafter cited as EP I, p. 240). This revolution is Kant's proposal of "a transcendental, scientific theory of the essential possibility of the constitution of a true objectivity in transcendental subjectivity ... " ("Kants Kopernikanische Umdrehung ... ," Feb., 1924, EP 1., p. 227). As he elsewhere expresses this, Kant "brought about the recognition that the world, which is for us, only exists for us in our cognition and that the world for us is nothing but that which, under the title of objective knowledge, takes shape in our experiences and thought" (Ms. F I 32, "Natur und Geist," 1927, p. 114a). The reason for this sense of affinity is easy to see. For both Kant and Husserl, knowledge of an object is "knowledge by means of connected perceptions (verknilpfte Wabrnebumungen}" ("Kritik," B 161, Kant's gesammelte Scbriften [Berlin, 1911], III, 125). For both, an object is defined as "that in whose concept there is unified the multiplicity of a given [total] intuition" (ibid., B 137, ed. cit., III, Ill). What this signifies is that both understand the object as an "accomplishment of the synthesis of consciousness"-i.e., as a unity formed by synthesizing (or "connecting") perceptions. Its appearing sense, or "concept," is a function of its being one in many, i.e., its being a unity of the "multiplicity" of perceptions that form an ongoing "given intuition." In spite of this agreement, there is, as noted in the last chapter, a considerable difference between the two philosophers. The gulf separating them can be said to spring from Kant's limiting these definitions to the pbenomenal object. Implicit in the notion of this limitation is the thought of the object as existing beyond its phenomenal or sensible presence to consciousness. For Kant, this is the thought of the object as a noumenon, a thing in itself. He writes that "this concept [of a noumenon] is necessary to prevent sensible intuition from being extended to things in themselves and, thus, to limit tbe objective validity of sensible knowledge (for the remaining things to which it does not apply are specifically called 'noumena' in order to show by this that sucb knowledge cannot extend its domain over everytbing which the understanding thinks)" ("Kritik," B 310,

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ed. cit., III, 211, italics added). What we have in this passage is a distinction between Denken-i.e., the "thought" of the understanding-and the "knowing," the Erkennen of objective knowledge. As we quoted Kant, this last is knowledge "through connected perceptions." The two are not the same since Denken, rather than terminating in such knowledge, can be employed to show its limitations. Here, Denken is considered as reaching beyond what can be sensibly given and, with this, as thinking the sensible object as a "mere" representation of what, in itself, is not sensibly given. In other words, it is conceived as intending (though, not knowing) the nominal object in itself. It is such an intending which limits the status of sensible knowledge to that of knowledge of appearance rather than reality. Now, as Ricoeur notes, this distinction between Denken and Erkennen does not occur in Husserl's later work (see Husserl: An Analysis of his Phen., ed. cit., pp. 186ff). His rejection of Kant's notion of the noumenal thing in itself is also a rejection of the Kantian limitation of the applicability of sensible knowledge. Thus, the intention of thought cannot pass beyond the sensibly given since, for Husserl, the latter is not really separable from the thing in itself. In other words, the Husserlian collapse of the distinction between Denken and Erkennen is implicit in his position that the being in itself of an object coincides with its being for us in its phenomenal presence. Because of this, such presence cannot be thought of as concealing the object "in itself," but rather as constituting its very being. Here, the intention of thought is understood as reaching its final goal when it comes to rest on the connections occurring in our perceptual experience of the object. Thus, in its intending the "in itself" of the object, it misses the mark if it attempts to go beyond this experience rather than seeking a point of unification-a one in many-immanent within the perceptually given.

§3. THE POSmNG OF THE THING AS AN EXISTING INDMDUAL

To fully understand the above, we must, first of all, qualify De Boer's assertion that, in transcendental phenomenology, "sense is being itself." This assertion is based on Husserl's statements that "all real unities are unities of sense.... Reality and world are simply titles for certain valid unities of sense.... " Husserl, after making these remarks, concludes that "the world itself has the whole of its being as a certain 'sense'''-i.e., the sense which arises in consciousness considered "as the field of sense giving" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., pp. 134-35). Yet, later in the same work, he feels

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compelled to refine this position. If we take sense as that which we can objectively describe and conceptually express with regard to some entity, then its apprehension is not that of the individual existence or the "thisness" of an object. The thesis of such individual existence (or being) concerns not the sense but rather the "bearer" of this sense. Before we cite Hussed on this point, a brief glossary of his terms is necessary. The individual acts by which we apprehend an object's features are termed noeses. Their correlates are termed noema. They are the senses by which we conceptually express what we find in the object. The sum of such senses gives us the sense of the object as a whole. It is an all-inclusive noema which contains all that we can say in objectively describing a thing. It is the sense of its descriptive, conceptually expressible predicates. Hussed terms it the noematic ob;ect and writes in its regard, "The 'sense,' which we have repeatedly spoken of, is this noematic ob;ect 'in the how' along with everything the above characterized [objectively oriented] description is able to discover within it and conceptually express." "This 'how' ('Wie')," he explains, "is to be taken as precisely what the present act prescribes as actually pertaining to its noema" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 322). It is, in other words, the sum of senses which conceptually express "how" the total object is presently understood. As a final term, we have the noematic nucleus. This is considered nuclear because it is the relatively unchanging "core" of the noematic object. As such, it consists of the most stable of the object's descriptive predicates. This nucleus is the object's "sense in its mode of fullness" (ibid., p. 323). It is what we can expect to encounter when we see the object. It is its stable sense as given in the "fullness" of intuition. This sense, Hussed stresses, is not the "meant as such." This means that it is not what we intend when we focus on the "thisness" of the objecti.e., on its individual existence. In such an intention, our "glance passes through the noematic nucleus." It passes through it to the "most inward moment of the noema" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 318). The latter "is not the nucleus itself (within the objective sense) which has just been described. It is rather something which, so to speak, forms the necessary central point of the nucleus and functions as the 'bearer' of the particular noematic characteristics which pertain to it-i.e., as a bearer of the noematically modified characteristics of the 'meant as such'" (ibid.). What exactly is this bearer (Trager) of the noematic sense? Hussed uses a number of terms to describe it. He calls it "'that which is identical,' the 'determinable subject of its possible predicates'-the pure X in abstraction from all predicates"-in abstraction, " ... more precisely, from the predicate noemata" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 321). He writes, "It is the central point of unification we spoke of above. It is the point of connection or the

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'bearer' of the predicates.... It must necessarily be distinguished from such predicates, although it must not be placed beside them and [in this way] separated from them; just as, contrariwise, they are themselves its predicates, not thinkable without it, yet separable from it" (ibid., p. 3201. When it is so distinguished from the predicates, it is simply an "empty X." The terminology here is recognizably Kantian (d. Kritik, A 104-51. One may ask, what is the meant as such, when conceived as an "empty X," if not a Kantian thing in itself? The conception of this last is one of something beyond the object's intuitably presentable sense. But this seems to be what we intend when we think of this X as empty. If this interpretation were correct, our last section would be incorrect. Husserl, like Kant, would have to distinguish Denken from Erkenen. He would have to take this X as the object of the thought (Denken) which passes beyond what we can conceptually know (Erkennen). Husserl, however, unambiguously rejects this suggestion. Far from pointing to a noumenal entity existing for itself, the X exists within the senses which an entity has for us. It is only something for consciousness since it is only posited when the senses which we can predicate of the entity close up together in an individual unity, a unity in which something identical is recognized (see ibid., pp. 321-221. Stated most generally, Husserl's position is that the X is empty, but it is not beyond what we can experience. It is empty when considered in abstraction from experience. Yet as something set up by the connections between experiences, it has as its condition the presence of these experiences. Thus, to think of the X as something beyond experience-and, hence, as beyond the senses which are also part of experience-is to give it a certain misplaced concreteness. If, for a moment, we limit the term "experience" to refer to the perceptions we have of an object, the relation between the X and these perceptions can be expressed through a familiar Kantian distinction. In his Prologomena, § 18- § 19, Kant distinguishes between two elementary types of judgment. The first is a judgment expressed in the form "1 see .... " The second type, to take the simplest case, is a judgment which has the form "there is ... ," i.e., there is something there of which I am having perceptions. Now, the assertion that the object is there is distinct from the assertion that we are having a perceptual experience. As Husserl observes, the object cannot be identified with any of its individual perceptual experiences. In the flow of such experiences, it "continually 'presents itself differently'; it is 'the same,' but it is given with other predicates, with another determining content ... " (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 3201. This happens when it shows itself "from different sides," and when, in the context of our different perceptions of it, we take different "determining contents" as the predicates of the assertion "I see .... " The object, as the unity of this per-

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ceptual multiplicity (i.e., as the subject of different judgments of perception) cannot be identified with any of the individual perceptual experiences which make up this multiplicity. (See ibid.). Indeed, as something transcendent, as something whose meaning involves the notion of an indefinite continuance of such experiences, it cannot be identified with the sum of the perceptions we have actually had of it. If the object cannot be identified either with an individual perceptual experience or with the sum of such experiences, then the thesis of the object as there (the object as existent) cannot per se be a thesis (or judgment) of perception. Rather than concerning the contents of our individual perceptual experiences, it concerns their unifiability within a single referent. Regarded in terms of their contents, individual perceptions could be perceptions of any number of objects. What makes them, within the flow of experience, perceptions of one and the same object, i.e., the object considered as an individual existent, is the ordered connections which they exhibit. 2 According to Husserl, the same point holds when we refine this analysis and speak of our experience of the senses of the object. The basis of such senses are the multiplicities of perceptions directed to particular features of the object. The noetic acts (noeses) which apprehend such features are acts of synthesis. They are a grasping of one in many. As such, the object of such acts is a sense-a sense which we employ in the conceptual description of some particular feature. To grasp the sense of the object as a whole, a further act of synthesis is required. Here, we unify the senses (the "predicate noemata") which are the results of our first set of acts. Now, the object of this higher-level synthesis can be described as the noematic object-Le., as simply the sum of the object's senses. But this, our earlier description, does not do justice to the process by which it is apprehended. Our object is not simply a collection of senses, but rather their synthetic unity. It is a "real unity" considered as a "unity of sense." Its status as a one in many means that inherent in it is a "point of unification"-Le., Husserl's "empty X." The same thing can be said of the senses we obtained on the lower level. They, too, as the results of distinct acts of synthesis, must be considered as inherently containing their distinct Xs-i.e., their points of unification. In each case, we have to say that it is the ordered connections between the synthesized elements (be they perceptions or senses) which allow us to assert that they pertain to one and the same thing. Thus, as Husserl writes with regard to such an assertion, "distinct senses are related to the same object only insofar as they are capable of being ordered into unities of sense, unities in which the determinable X's of the unified [lower level] senses achieve a coincidence with each other and with the X of the total sense of the ongoing unity of sense" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 322).

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The above indicates how Husserl can make what appear to be contradictory statements in describing our intention to the "meant as such." In intending an object's individual existence, our glance, he asserts, must pass "through the noematic nucleus"-i.e., through its given, appearing sense. Yet in almost the same breath, he claims that it does not really pass through it, but rather comes to rest on what is inherent in this sense. The terminus of this glance is simply "the most inward point of the noema." The key, here, is Husserl's genetic understanding of sense. If a sense is a one in many which has been synthetically constituted, then, in intending the X which is the noema's "point of unfication," we do not really pass beyond it. The thesis of the X, which is the thesis of the object's individual existence, is also the thesis of its sense. In positing the latter, we posit it as a one in many; but to posit this is also to posit the X as a "point of unification." This is the understanding which allows Husserl to say that a real unity-i.e., an individual existent-is a unity of sense. Yet, the same understanding, with a certain change of emphasis, also allows us to speak of passing beyond the object's sense in intending its existence. When we genetically conceive of sense as a result of a process, then this "point of unification" is, as Husserl says, a "point of connection." Here, its notion reaches beyond sense to include the ground of sense-i.e., the ordered connections which allow sense to be generated as such a point. Thus, if we do distinguish the ground from the grounded, it is correct to say that in our intending the object as a "this"-Le., as an individual existence-we do pass beyond its noematic nucleus or sense. There is a certain tie between Husserl's position and the traditional metaphysics. Aristotle notes that what is truly individual is capable of standing as a subject of predication, but is not capable of being predicated of anything else. Those entities which are capable of being predicated of others are not individuals (i.e., singular things) in a primary sense. They are rather universals with regard to those entities which receive their predication (see Categories 2" 11-4b 19; Metaphysics, 107Sb, 30-32). The same thing is implied by Husserl when he speaks of the noematic object as the sum of what we can describe and conceptually express about some object. The meant as such-i.e., the existing individual-is not what we intend when we think of the predicates (the individual noemata) composing this description. To intend the meant as such, we must intend the "point of connection" between the predicates. Thus, individually regarded, the senses which we predicate of the entity could just as well be predicated of some other entity. In this, they display their "universality." They are not individual existents but are rather prior to such. They give rise to the latter through their coming together to form a " unity of sense." The same point can be made, mutatis mutandis, with regard to the constitutive elements of

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such senses. The perceptual experiences from which they arise must also be regarded as pre-individual and universal. Their universality consists in the fact that, taken in isolation, they are not tied to a definitie "this." They can, as we said, be considered to be experiences of any number of distinct objects. The claim that senses and perceptual experiences are prior to individual existence indicates the distinction with the traditional (Aristotelean) metaphysics. For Hussed, such priority signifies that they are the constitutive elements out of which the actual object arises. Their interconnections constitute the actual being of this object. Husserl expresses this in the following manner: Everywhere we take "object" as a title for the essential connections of consciousness. It first comes forward as the noematic X, as the subject of sense (Sinnessub;ekt), as the subject of the different essential types of senses and propositions. It further comes forward as the title "actual object" and is, then, a title for certain eidetically considered rational connections in which the unitary X, present in such connections, receives its rational positing (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p.356). Later, when we come to consider the role of time in the constitution of the "actual object," this position will have to be modified. For the present, however, Hussed's meaning is clear. If, indeed, an object is only a "title for the essential connections of consciousness," to distinguish its actual existence from its sense, we must point to the connections which ground its sense. It is these which give rise to the "actual object" considered as "the unitary X." In other words, the connections ground "the point of connection" which stands as the existing subject of our various predicates. Hussed's idealism is equally clear. He can claim that the actual object is only a "product" of consciousness because it is simply a point of connection-i.e., a sense-filled one in many established by such connections. Thus, it only occurs by means of the connected elements. It is there-i.e., existent-because it is "present in such connections." What this signifies is that our grasp of these elements is not to be taken as simply our particular (merely subjective) apprehension of the thing. The connected elements, (i.e., the "determining contents" and senses) pertain to the thing itself. This follows since without them there would be no connections and hence no "this," no individual existence, which we would be apprehending.

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§4. CONSTITUTION AND RATIONALITY: THE REINTERPRETATION OF ONTOLOGY

Husserl, in our last cited passage, speaks of "rational connections" and "rational positing." For Husserl, when we consider an entity a product of consciousness, it must also be considered as inherently rational. The basis of this doctrine is to be found in the relation he draws between the positing which results in such a product and rationality. He treats these two as mutually equivalent notions. Thus, the positing act is called by him an "act of reason"-i.e., a "rationally motivated" act (Ideen I, Biemel ed., pp. 335-36). As for reason itself, it is understood as "reason in the widest possible sense, a sense extended to all types of positing" (ibid., p. 348). The equivalence between reason and positing signifies the "general insight ... that not just 'truly existing object' and 'object capable of being rationally posited' are equivalent correlates, but so also 'truly existing object' and the object which is capable of being posited in an original, complete thesis of reason" (ibid., p. 349). The full assertion, here, is that the thesis of positing, which is the being there (Dasein) of an object, is equivalent to the thesis of reason which focuses on the object as something "rationally motivated," i.e., as something which can be rationally inferred from given conditions. Here we may observe that if we do accept this assertion, we also accept the final statement 'of Ideen I. This is the claim, in Husserl's words, that "an all-sided ... solution of the problems of constitution"-Le., problems involving the positing of being-"would obviously be equivalent to a complete phenomenology of reason in all its formal and material formations ... " (ibid., p. 380). The "formal" formations referred to are those of formal, symbolic logic. They concern the reasoning process in abstraction from all content. As for the "material" formations, the reference is to what Husserl calls a logic of content. This concerns the role of the material contents of our perceptions in determining our inferences. The fundamental notion of such a logic is that of the dependence of one type of content on another. Thus, the essential dependence of the contents of color and spatial shape on that of extension allows us, given the former, to infer the necessary presence of the latter. Similarly, the pitch and loudness of a tone are contents considered to be essentially dependent on the presence of a third material content, that given by our sense of duration. Here, too, the relations of dependence between such contents serve as a basis for the corresponding material inferences. 3 There is a twofold root to Husserl's identification of our formal and material processes of reasoning with the processes by which we constitute being. There is, first of all, his identification of a real entity with the unity

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of sense. The unity of the former is identified with the X conceived as the unity of predicate senses. Regarded phenomenologically, this identification implies that the thesis of the being of an object is always simultaneous with the thesis that it possesses some unified sense. As we have seen, we posit being through the "making sense" of our given perceptions, i.e., through their manifesting one in many characters. The presence of such characters is the presence of the "predicate noemata," i.e., the predicate perceptual senses. Their unifiability within a single subject of predication gives us, on the one hand, the "total sense" of the object and, on the other, the "X of the total sense"-i.e., the object considered as there, as an individual being. Granting this, we can say that the laws governing the unifiability of senses within the total sense are also the laws governing the constitution (or positing) of being. With this, we come to the second part of the twofold root. It is the identification of the laws by which we unify senses with the laws of logic-i.e., the laws of formal inference as given by symbolic logic and those of material inference as given by Husserl's logic of content. By following such laws, we can avoid both formal and material contradictions. Positively speaking, these laws allow us to bring about that formal and material unity of senses which, when intuitively present, is present as the unity of an individual being. By virtue of this identification, Husserl's conclusion follows. We can say that the rationality that finds objective expression within such "logical" laws is inherent within the process of constitution. We can also say, with Husserl, that "the ordo et connexio rerum must direct itself according to the ordo et connexio idearum." It is not, as he says, a "blind ordering" which makes this necessary. It is rather the fact that the forms of unification given by our formal and material logics are simply representations of our activities of connecting senses so as to produce the thesis of the underlying X-i.e., the individual thing. Because of this, logic has a field of applicability in our sensible, material world. The logical relations within it, relations which allow us to infer and reason about it, are actually expressions of the laws governing its constitutive grounding. This, we may observe in passing, is what makes Husserl's commission of a petitio principii fatal to his account of the positing of Others. According to the above, the violation of a rule of logical inference is also a violation of a law of constitutive grounding. This follows insofar as such laws of inference are simply mirrors, so to speak, of the laws by which the phenomenal presence of entities is established. The notion of such mirroring can be made more vivid by imagining for a moment what it would be like to live in a radically "irrational" world. Such a world would be one in which nothing, broadly speaking, made any "sense." The phenomenological picture of such a world is given by applying Husserl's assertion that "all

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real unities are unities of sense." Thus, a completely senseless, irrational world would be one where nothing-i.e., no real objects-could be posited on the basis of our experiences. Our perceptions would not fit together; no synthesis, at least no objective synthesis of them, would be possible. By way of contrast, a rational world is one where we can "infer" objects from our perceptions. Our perceptions are indicative of something being there affording us perceptions. Since a number of objects result from the operation of the same laws of "inference"-i.e., have the same factors for their constitution-such a world also allows us to encounter similar objects. We have the possibility of forming logical classes such as all As, all Bs, and so on. A rational world, thus, begins to afford us, with its stable and similar groups of objects, the possibilities of the logical inference which is based on the relations of the "essences"-i.e., the universally applicable sensesof these objects.4 The implication of this mirroring on Husserl's description of the positing of Others should be clear. If his description is accurate and if it does involve the circularity of reasoning implicit in the principia principii, then it indicates that the conscious processes by which we attempt to recognize the Other are themselves logically faulty. Given that this violation of logical inference is also a violation of the processes of constitution, the Other at this point could never appear. Such positing would simply have the status of an empty pretension; for the very laws of grounding by which the Other achieves his "being for us" would have been violated. 5 Intimately involved in his identification of the logical with the constitutive laws is what Husserl calls the "transcendental interpretation of all ontologies." To understand this interpretation, we must first sketch out the general terms by which Husserl defines ontology. We begin by noting that, in its broadest sense, "onto-logy" is conceived by Husserl as the study of the laws growing out of the logos or essence of each of the onta or beings. More closely regarded, the notion of ontology is tied to that of a "region," the region of the entities for which it is considered the ontology. The region, itself, is defined by an essence, the essence being that which specifies the type of objects which pertains to a specific region. Thus, to take Husserl's example, the essence "physical thing" specifies the objects which belong to the region of "physical nature"; and the laws springing from what is involved in this notion are the subject of the ontology of physical nature. Such general essences can, of course, overlap. Thus, the notion of an animate physical thing can be included under the notion of physical thing, and the region of the former can be considered as a subdivision of the latter's region. Similarly, the essence of a physical thing can be included in the more general essence of a perceptual thing. A crucial element in this description is the distinction Husserl makes between "for-

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mal" and "material" ontologies. According to him, there are as many material ontologies as there are general essences with a specifically definable "material" content. There is, however, only one formal ontology. The essence which defines its region of objects does not have a definite, material content, but is rather, as Husserl writes, "a completely 'empty' one, an essence which, in the matter of an empty form, fits all possible essences ... "{Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 2 This materially empty essence is that of an "object per se." As for the region defined by it, "it is actually not a region, but rather the empty form of a region as such . .. "(ibid.). Insofar as it specifies the formal relations of the objects of all possible regions-this by specifying the formal laws that pertain to the essence "object per se"-this "formal ontology also contains the forms of all possible ontologies-i.e., all 'proper,' 'material' ontologies.... " It does so, Husserl adds, because it "prescribes to them all a common formal structure" (ibid.). These ontologies, as should be readily apparent, represent the world in its rational structure. As for their laws, they are identified by Husserl with the laws of material and formal logic. Thus, the laws springing from the most general of the material essences, that of the perceptually appearing thing, are those of the logic of content. They are the laws concerning the unifiability of perceptual meanings in sensible objects. As Hussed expresses this in the Investigations, they are "concerned with the compatibility of meanings in a 'possible' meaning, i.e., a meaning compatible with a corresponding intuition in the unity of objectively adequate knowledge" (LU, Tub. ed., 11/2, 106). Such compatibility concerns the possibility of positing an object (and, hence, objectively knowing it) with the perceptual senses designated by such combinations of meanings. To turn to formal ontology, its laws are those of "pure logic" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 27). Its purity is purity from specific contents. Since it concerns simply the notion of object per se, it is able to proceed analytically and to symbolize with letters the elements whose relations of compatibility it explores. Such elements include the perceptual contents of objects insofar as "object per se," understood formally, embraces everything that can be a logical subject of an assertion. The fact that the object must include both a material and a formal compatibility of contents is indicative of the above mentioned prescriptive role of formal with respect to material ontology.6 As indicated by its name, the "transcendental interpretation" of ontology begins with the reduction. The reduction, itself, is a move from the constituted to the constituting; it is a move from the onta, considered as constituted unities, to the phenomenologically discoverable experiences and connections responsible for their presence. Now, this reduction of the onta requires a corresponding reduction (and reinterpretation) of the logos or essence pertaining to each. The essence must become understood as the

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essence of the reduced onta. Once we accept this, "then," as Husserl writes, "all ontologies, as we expressly demand, fall to the reduction" (Ideen III, Biemel ed., p. 76). We have, in other words, their transcendental reinterpretation. In a general sense, this is an interpretation in which "everything presented by the sciences of the onta, the rational and empirical sciences (they all can be termed 'ontologies' in a broadened sense insofar as it is evident that they all concern unities of 'constitution') resolves itself into phenomenological elements ... " (ibid., p. 78). Specifically, this means that "the basic concepts and axioms" of the ontologies "allow themselves to be reinterpreted as certain essential connections of pure experiences" (ibid., p. 77). As he also expresses this a few lines later, "The transcendental interpretation of all ontologies would also belong here, the interpretation, which can be accomplished through the phenomenological method, of each proposition of ontology as an index for quite definite connections of transcendental consciousness .... " Husserl's position, here, is that an individual thing is simply an "index" for a factually given set of "transcendental connections" (Ideen III, Biemel ed., p. 77). As for its essence or logos, this points to the type of connections required to set up a thing of a definite type. Such essences are the "basic concepts" of ontologies insofar as they determine regions of objects. Their interpretation as "essential connections of pure experiences" points to the fact that certain connections are essentially demanded if objects of a given type ( and, hence, of a given region) are to be posited. With this, we have the corresponding interpretation of "each position" (or law) of ontology. They become understood as laws giving us the formal rules for connecting experiences according to certain types. The "quite definite connections" they point to are those required to have an object with a certain essence. Two points follow from the above. The first is that it establishes a certain identity between essence and thing-i.e., between the species and its instance. The identity is such that given the thing, we also have its predicable essence. This follows because this essence is simply a formal representation of the connections by which we apprehend the thing. In other words, the transcendental thought of the thing involves the thought of the essence insofar as (1) the former is simply the thought of a unity established by the connections of experience, and (2) the latter is the thought of the "essential connections" which allow of the positing of this unity. Thus, to take Husserl's standard example, the thought of an individual, real existent involves the thought of the perspectival type of connections which permit this existent to appear. Since such types are, for Husserl, objectively interpretable as essences, we can say that the possibility of apprehending this existent brings with it the correlative possibility

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of predicating an essence (or species) of it. The second point involves the fact that not just essence but also the logical laws are implicitly given with the thing. These laws, which involve the formal and material compatibility of contents, have been reinterpreted. They now count as laws specifying the "definite connections of transcendental consciousness"i.e., those connections which permit the positing of an object with compatible contents of a certain kind and, hence, as an object of a certain species. Thus, like the species or essence, the possibility of such laws being applicable to the thing is correlated to the possibility of the thing's apprehension. This cannot be otherwise, given that the laws in question are, in fact, laws governing the essential possibilities of the thing's positing. It is, we can say, their inherence in such positing which makes it a "rational act." For Husserl, then, the actuality of the thing, i.e., the actuality of its connections, is a sign of the actual operation of these laws. "Rationality" and "constitution" are, in other words, simply descriptions of the ordered, lawful process by which consciousness grounds the presence of the thing. With this, we may note that we have answered one of the questions we posed about "being an individual-a one among many." We asked: "What do we mean when we say that a thing exists in this way?" Its individual existence we can now say is a function of its presence as a unity established by the connections of experience. Since this involves the thought of the thing's essence, we also have the thought of the thing's being one among many. Its individual existence includes the possibility of its being a member of a class, one of a number of similar individuals to which the same essence (and the laws underlying this) can apply. §5. THE PRESUMPTIVENESS AND IDEALITY OF THE THING

Our account of Husserl's conception of the thing would not be complete without our adding two further elements: the presumptiveness and the ideality of its individual existence. To begin with the first, its conception always occurs in tandem with that of the thing's rationality. The notions of its presumptiveness and rationality are, in fact, developed simultaneously by Husserl. Both have their roots in the notion of the thing as an "empty X"-i.e., a point of unification established by the ordering of the connections of consciousness. According to this doctrine, the thing itself, understood as such an X, is not equivalent to its appearances. Thus, its appearances cannot completely represent it. As Husserl expresses this position, "The positing on the basis of the bodily appearing of the thing is, indeed, a rational positing, but the appearance is always a onesided, 'incomplete' appearance" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 338). This one-

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sidedness arises whether we take "appearance" (Erscbeinung) as a single view of the thing or as the senses synthesized from a number of such views. Indeed, it occurs even if we take this term to denote the sum of such views and resulting predicate senses. Thus, Husserl writes, "There are objects-and all transcendent objects, all 'realities' included under the title of nature or world, belong here-which cannot be given with complete determinability and with a similarly complete intuitability in a finite consiousness" (ibid., pp. 350-51). Since, in fact, the very definition of a transcendent object is that of an entity which surpasses or transcends the finite sum of our actual views of it, this last statement follows as a matter of course. Its implication with regard to our positing of the thing is equally clear. To quote Husserl again: A real thing, a being with this sense, can in principle only "indequately" appear within an appearance which is finite or limited. Essentially connected with this is the fact that no rational positing wbicb rests on sucb an inadequately presenting appearance can itself be "final," "incontrovertible," that no rational positing, in its particularity, is equivalent with the straight-forward assertion, liThe thing is actual," but only to the assertion, lilt is actual" on the supposition that the continuation of experience does not bring about "stronger rational motives" which exhibit the original positing as one that can be cancelled in the wider context. The positing is rationally motivated only through the appearance (the incompletely fulfilled perceptual sense) considered in and for itself in its singularity (ibid., pp. 338-39). In this passage the Husserlian theses of the presumptiveness of the thing and its inherent rationality are brought together. Their common root is the notion of the thing as an X. In such a notion, the thing appears as a unity established by the forms of unifiability-the rational, logical forms. Thus, it appears as inherently rational-i.e., as a result of positing conceived as a lawful, "rational" act. The same doctrine, however, separates the thing from the views and senses we have of it. In placing the being of the thing not in the latter but rather in the ongoing unity established by their connections, it makes such views or senses (or any finite sum thereof) an inadequate representation of this being. The doctrine, then, which asserts the rationality of the posited entity, gives this rationality a factual or contingent cbaracter. This character follows from the position that such positing is "rationally motivated only through the appearance," but such appearance, as distinct from the thing, can never fully justify this positing. If it could, then the thing would not be the X. It

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would, on the contrary, be equivalent to its appearance, i.e., to what Hussed calls its "fulfilled perceptual sense." It would, in other words, be the same as the noematic object or the sum of its objective senses. Its nonidentity with the latter is, however, involved its definition as something showing itself as the same in different "appearances"-i.e., as the same object for all the multiple senses which its experience may afford us. It is inherent in its notion of being, not the noematic sense conceived as our present understanding of the object but rather the "bearer" of such. So conceived, it can never exhibit the finality of a closed concept, Le., that of a completely conceived and defined sense which is not open to addition or revision. For Hussed, the proper conception of the thing as this "bearer" is given, not by a closed concept, but rather by a "Kantian idea." "The perfect givenness of the thing . .. ," he writes, "is traced out as an 'idea' (in the Kantian sense) ...." The idea involves the notion of "an infinite process of appearing which is absolutely determined in its essential type." This infinite "continuum of appearances," he adds, "is thought of as governed throughout by a fixed, essential lawfulness" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 351). The significance of this language is apparent from the above discussions. Such lawfulness, as essential, pertains to the type of connections which are present in this infinite continuum. The connections are conceived as occurring according to the logical (or constitutive) laws of ordering which gives us a real unity-i.e., a thing which is definitely determined according to its type. Given the tie between the thesis of the X and the "rationality" (or essentiallawfulness) of the positing act, we can say with Hussed, "this continuum is more precisely defined as an all-sided, infinite one which is composed, in all its phases, of appearances of the same determinable X .... " It is, in other words, a continuum "in which one and the same constantly given X is continually and harmoniously determined 'more closely' and never 'otherwise'" (ibid.). This idea of the perfectly given thing is not that of a reality which we can intuitably encounter. The idea involves the notion of infinity; yet our actual, intuitive encounters are always finite. Thus, we can say that the idea is "Kantian" precisely because it points to a reality which is beyond the finite limits of our experience. To see what this implies as to the notion of the thing, we must return to Hussed's basic premise that being is equivalent to being given. The implication, here, is that the thesis of a thing's being is never absolute, never something that can be established by its being intuitibly given to us. Were we, in such a context, to attempt to absolutize the being of a thing-i.e., to think of it as completely given-we would not transform it into a being in itself. The thing is perfectly given only in idea. Thus, if being is equivalent to being given, its being is only

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that of "an idea in the Kantian sense." As such, it is a being for us, a being for the subjects who, reflecting on their experience, develop this idea. Once again, we have a context where the thesis of the being in itself of a thing is thought of as coincident with the thesis of its being for us. The context, in other words, demands that we acknowledge that the thing, considered "in itself," is only "for us." Summing up, we can say that the thesis of the thing as an X-Le., as an individual existent-is one that involves three interdependent notions: those of its rationality, presumptiveness, and ideality (or being for us). Insofar as these characteristics apply to every constituted entity, this is an interdependence which we shall meet again. §6. CONSCIOUSNESS AS GROUNDING THE EGO: THE "REALITY" OF THE REAL EGO

When we come to the question of the grounding or constituting of the ego, a remarkable textual difficulty faces us. Throughout his career, Husserl repeatedly asserts that the ego or subject is a constituted, "founded" unity. Yet, beginning with the ldeen, he also progressively develops the doctrine that the ego, considered as a "pure ego," cannot be taken as constituted. There is not, as some scholars imagine, a progressive development from one position to another. 7 Rather, from the time of the ldeen, both positions are maintained and developed. 8 To resolve the paradox springing from such conflicting positions, we must carefully distinguish the different concepts Husserl has of the ego. As we shall see in a subsequent chapter, the multitude of these concepts is a function of our notion of time. Because of its involvement, indeed, its identification with the temporal process, the notion of the ego is ultimately to be explained in terms of all the meanings we give to this process. At this point, we are not in a position to establish this conclusion. The work of description must first precede. Let us first distinguish the "real ego." Broadly speaking, this ego is understood as the ob;ective identity of a subject in the intersubjective world. Its "reality" is its thereness for everyone-i.e., its "objectivity," understood as that which I and my fellow subjects regard. We can also say that the real ego is the individual human being with all the characteristics which form his objective "worldly" identity. These include his social and professional position, his family ties and his personal features. The latter include both his bodily appearance as well as his "real" psychological habits and dispositions. When a person is asked, "Who are you?" he may reply, "I am a businessman, I am John's father, I am tall, a hard worker," and so forth. All of these remarks are considered answers to the "worldly," intersubjectively verifiable question of personal

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identity. As the facts of growth and education make apparent, what is referred to here is not a pure, unchanging self. It is a self that is progressively built up or constituted throughout a lifetime. This signifies, from the transcendental point of view, that "real egos, ;ust like realities in general, are merely intentional unities" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., pp.11 0-11). For Husserl, they are the constituted correlates of "pure egos," taken both individually and collectively (see ibid., p. Ill). Passing from such objective "intentional unities" to their subjective, but not yet "pure," correlates, we have the second way Husserl characterizes the ego. § 7. THE EGO OF HABITUALmES OR THE "PERSONAL" EGO

"Habitualities" refers, here, to the noetic components of constantly maintained theses. A habituality is a "lasting opinion," a subjective disposition to perform a thesis in the same way as before. An ego that has habitualities thus possesses what we objectively describe as a consistent character. It possesses a consistent attitude towards the world and consistently acts on this. Such consistency is a necessary condition for its selfidentity. As Husserl writes, "I also exist in these [my position takings] and am a priori the same ego insofar as I specifically exercise a necessary consistency in my position takings; every 'new' position taking establishes a lasting 'opinion' or a theme (a theme of experience, of judgment, of joy, of will) so that from now on, as often as I apprehend myself as the same as I previously was, or as the same who is now and was previously, I also hold fast to my themes, take them up as actual themes just as I have previously posited them ... " (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p.112). Husserl has written a great deal on this habitual or person ego. His position can be summarized by describing this ego's essential characteristics. The first of these is that, like the real ego, this subjective counterpart is a progressively constituted ego. It is, in other words, an ego of change and growth which is built up out of a series of successive, yet lasting position takings. In this constitution, one position taking-i.e., one "validation" or acceptance of a position-serves as a foundation for the next. In Husserl's words, "I exist as an ego of validities for me, validities acquired from myself. I also exist as an ego of constantly new anticipations of future validities which actively spring from myself-i.e., the new setting of goals, new intentions, aims whose active realization is a basic foundation (Urstiftung) for new acquistions, a foundation for what is voluntarily done, yet done as that which continues to be valid in the manner of something accomplished" (Ms. B I 13, VI, p.8, 1931). Examples of what Husserl is pointing to are almost too numerous to cite. We must "do" arithmetic in order to do higher math. The elementary propositions of any science are always

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the first and serve as the basis for what follows. The same can be said for our general understanding of the world. What we learn in childhood games continues to serve us in basic (though often hidden) ways as we go about the practical business of being an adult. It gives us the bases, such as the ability to speak a language, of our "present practical possibilities" (see ibid.). The second feature of this ego concerns its constant striving for unity in its growth. Insofar as its identity is constituted out of its lasting opinion-i.e., its "convictions"-the striving is actually directed to the maintenance of its personal self-identity. Thus, as Husserl writes, "I exist in my convictions (Uberzeugungen). I preserve my one and the same egomy ideal ego of the understanding-when I can constantly and securely continue to strive towards the unity of the aggregate of my convictions ... " (Ms. A VI 30, p. 54b, 1926). An important corollary of this position is that this striving for personal unity in one's lasting theses is also a striving after the unity of the world. Thus, Husserl continues the last sentence with the remark that his personal unity is maintained "when an object-world remains constantly preserved for me with the open possibility of being able to be determined more closely." The connection between the two is that between the positing and the posited, i.e., between the noetic and the noematic. Given this tie, the unity of the subject in its positing is correlated to the unity of the posited world. Husserl expresses this position in a lecture on Kant. As an ego, I am necessarily a thinking ego; as a thinking ego, I necessarily think objects; thinking, I necessarily place myself in relation to an existing world of objects; furthermore, the pure subject (the subject of the egological performance accomplished purely in the understanding) is of such a character that it can only preserve its self-identity when it can, in all its processes of thought, maintain the objectivity it thinks of as constantly self-identical. I preserve my egological unity, the unity of my subject, only insofar as I remain consistent in my thinking. Thus, if I have once posited something-an object-I must, then, in every further positing of thought remain with this. Further positings must be such that my object can and must continually count as identical for my thinking ("Kant und die Philo sophie des Deutchen Idealismus," ca. 1915, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 398).9 This position, which is ascribed to Kant, appears as Husserl's own in later manuscripts. As an example, we may take a text from 1931. According to Husserl, a personally unified ego "has constituted beforehand, in all its experiences, a unity of the experiential world .... "This means that" as a per-

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son, it thus has within itself a universal unity of life, one embracing both the actual and the possible, one which is, with respect to the validities of experience and the experiencing habituality, a universal and anticipatory unity. It possesses, in its streaming life, the active style of an ego constantly preserving itself through correcting itself as it takes positions based on experience. This is the unity of a person as someone who always possesses a world: the one, single world as a fact" (Ms. E III 9, ca. Nov. 15, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 404). Husserl's mention of the ego as preserving itself through self-correction brings us to the third point of this description. As we recall from our discussion of the object as an intentional X, the being of the object is always presumptive. Its thesis is thus always open to the possibility of correction or revision. If we attempt to conceive it as absolutely given-i.e., as an absolute being-then our conception is simply that of an "infinite" Kantian idea. For Husserl, the same point holds with regard to the world of objects. He writes that "everything in nature and nature itself, according to its essence, is not an absolute being, a being which a knower could absolutely possess and comprehend; it is rather an idea related to the correlative idea of a freely available universe of possible, harmonious experience." This cannot be otherwise, given that the individual objects of this nature are, absolutely considered, only "ideas." Thus, Husserl continues: "This last idea"-i.e., that of nature-"is related to the essence of a necessarily presumptive, supposed objectivity, that of an intentional X furnished with an open indeterminancy. It is related as a possible idea of a systematic universe of such presumptive, supposed objectivities." It is, in other words, an idea of ideas. Like its components, the individual Xs, "such an idea is a necessary, subjective product albeit a rationally motivated one ... it is inseparable from the basis that motivates it, inseparable from the experiences which, even as 'possible' and not actual experiences, have their tie to the related [experiencing] ego ... " ("Beilage XXXII," 1921 or 1922, Zur Phanomenologie der Intersubiektivitilt. Zweiter Teil: 1921-1928, ed. Iso Kern [The Hague, 1973] p. 280; hereafter cited as HA XIV). The import of these remarks with regard to the habitual ego should be apparent. Given the tie of this ego to the world, its "self-correction" by which it preserves itself is also a correction and preservation of the world. Now, the thesis of the world is in need of "constant correction" precisely because the world is never absolutely given. As a total thesis, it always remains an "intentional X furnished with an open indeterminacy." Considered as absolute, it has simply the status of a "mere idea." The same thing must be said of the ego positing this world. Given that it can preserve its self-identity only to the point that "it can maintain the objectivity it thinks of as constantly self-identical," the presumptiveness of this latter is

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also its own presumptiveness. In other words, if the thesis of the existent, self-identical object can be completely realized only in idea, the same must be said of the ego which thinks it. As Husserl says of "the ego which constantly and harmoniously preserves itself/' " ... this ego is actually a mere idea" (Ms. B I 13, VI, p. 9, 1931). It exists as "an idea giving the goal (Zweckidee) of the rational self-development of the ego, of its genuine and true 'self-preservation'" (Ms. A V 21, p. 105b, 1916). Husserl explains this by adding, "The ego necessarily strives (as an ego) for self-preservation and in this there lies-implicitly-a striving towards the ideal of absolute subjectivity and the ideal of an absolute and all-around perfect knowledge. A presupposition pertaining to this is that there be a world, at very least, that there be a physical nature which harmoniously preserves itself ... " (ibid., p.106a). This presupposition is, as we have stressed, one which can never be finally established. The posited "physical nature" exists only as an ideal; and, hence, we have the similarly ideal status of the positing ego which is correlated to this world (see Ms. B I 13, VI, pp. 9-10, 1931). This leads us to enlarge on a final feature of the "personal/' "habitual" ego. We just said that the presumptiveness of the world is also a presumptiveness of the ego which preserves itself by preserving its world. Now, the possibility of this preservation is never guaranteed. To recall a few of Husserl's statements on this point, let us note that for him, " ... the being of the world ... exists only as the unity of the totality of appearances which continues to confirm itself ... " (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 404). Given that this unity involves an indefinite continuance of appearances, it is never-except in idea-finally established. This means that the world's present "bodily self-givenness never excludes, in principle, its non-being" (ibid., p. 50). In other words, we have the continuing possibility of the collapse of our thesis of the world. Husserl expresses it this way: It is conceivable that experience-and not just for us-teems with

inherently unresolvable contradictions, that experience, all at once, thus shows itself as obstinately opposed to the demand that the things which it posits should ever harmoniously persist. It is conconceivable that experience's connections forfeit the stable rules of ordering perspectives, apprehensions and appearances and that this actually remains in infinitum the case, in short that there no longer exists a harmoniously positable and, thus, existing world (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 115). For Husserl, this possibility is also the possibility of the collapse of the ego. This follows, once we admit with Husserl, "The assertion that I remain who I am as the same transcendental ego-as the same personal ego-is equivalent to the assertion that my world remains a world" (Ms. B 113, VI,

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p. 4, Dec. IS, 1931). Granting this, "One can also say: a complete dissolution of a world in a 'tumult' [of experiences] is equivalent to a dissolution of the ego ... " (Ms. F IV 3, p. 57a, 1925). With this, we can say that the same three features which characterized the constituted thing are also displayed by the individual ego of habitualities. The latter, too, is characterized by rationality, presumptiveness, and ideality. Thus, its positing, like that of the world, is dependent on a rational, stable ordering of experiences. In order to preserve the world and, hence, itself, it must exhibit the "essential types" of connections which allow us to posit definite types of unity within multiplicity. Further, insofar as such positing involves a certain presumption with regard to the maintenance of such unities in future experiences, its own thesis, like that of the thing, remains a "presumptive supposition." It has, thus, absolutely considered, only the status of an ideal-i.e., that traced out by a Kantian idea. This does not mean that this ego is itself a thing, but only that the conditions for the being of an individual thing are, correlatively, its own conditions as an individual existent. In other words, as an ego of position takings, it exists only as a noetic correlate of the posited, noematic world. Here, what is ultimately indicated is the fact that both the subjective experience and the experienced objectivity are correlatively constituted at one and the same time. to The correlatively of noesis and noema indicates, in other words, their parallel constitution. As Husserl writes, "In the constitutive sense of all life in which the origin of all being is found, we discover that subjectivities and objectivities constitute themselves in parallel and that the subjectivities are constituted unities just as much as their objectivities are" ("Gemeingeist II," 1918 or 1921, HA XN, Kern ed., p. 203). This parallel constitution points back to a correlativity of the conditions for their constitution. §8. THE PURE EGO AS THE PURE SUBTECT OF THE PERSONAL EGO

The pure ego has a special relation to the personal ego. It is not identical with the latter and yet, as Husserl asserts, it is essentially tied to it. Their lack of identity is indicated by the fact that the pure ego is capable of being adequately grasped by an act of reflection. Each time such an act directs itself to it, it grasps it completely and grasps it as something identically the same. lI In contrast to this, the personal ego, which has only the status of an infinite, Kantian idea, can never be completely grasped. Husserl writes, "The pure ego is not the person. How do I distinguish them? The personal ego is the identical element in the change of my egolife, of my being active and being affected. It is not adequately given in

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reflection; it points, in principle, to the experiential data related to the infinite horizon of my past life and to an infinitude of advance [in the future] towards the completion of this data ... " (Ms. A VI 21, p. 20b, 1927?). Now, the pure ego does not require such an infinitude of experiences for its complete apprehension. Indeed, as Husserl elsewhere writes, "To know that a pure ego is and what it is, an ever so great accumulation of selfexperience is no more informative than a single experience of a straightforward cogito. It would be senseless to think that I, the pure ego, might not actually exist or might be quite different from the ego [presently] functioning in this cogito" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. lO4; cf. Ms. F III I, p. 240b, ca. 1915). Husserl's point, here, is that the accumulation of fresh experience does not add anything new to our knowledge of the pure ego since this ego, in fact, always shows itself as identically the same. In other words, "the pure ego, as is evident, is numerically, identically the same in all the absolutely (phenomenologically) apprehended cogitos which I apprehend in memory and is the same as the ego which can be discovered and grasped in a reflection directed to this apprehending, and so forth"i.e., with regard to a further reflection directed to this act of reflection and so on ad infinitum. (Ms. A VI 21, p. 21a, 192??). This continuous sameness of the pure ego indicates its nonperspectival givenness. It is not a unity within a multiplicity. In contrast to such synthetically constituted unities, it "does not present itself just from one side; it does not manifest itself only in particular characteristics, sides, moments which, on their part, only appear [in the multitude of their perspectives]; rather it is given in absolute selfhood in its non-perspectival unity. It can be adequately grasped in the reflective turning of one's glance back upon it as a center of functioning" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., pp. lO4-5). It is, then, the nonperspectival simplicity of this ego which allows us to grasp it in a single reflection. Since such an ego does not involve any multiplicity, it "evidently" must remain "numerically, identically the same." The contrast, here, between this simple unity and the synthetic unity of the personal ego could not be greater. The latter preserves itself by correcting itself. The very notion of the personal ego's identity involves change and multiplicity. Indeed, because of its heterogeneity with the unchanging pure ego, there is, Husserl admits, a certain duality in what I mean by my self-identity. Such an identity, conceived of as composed of the pure and personal aspects of the self, cannot be considered as a "substantial" one. In Husserl's words: "The ego's identity in the change of position takings and its identity in the change of habitualities, in which I am a past-present ego, is not yet a substantial identity. For precisely within such change, I am the same and yet constantly another; the same, so it appears, as an empty pole and another insofar as I have had constantly to

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abandon, change the 'self' who has taken a position" (Ms. E I 7, 1920s, HA XlV, Kern ed., pp. 296-97). The "empty pole" referred to here is the ego considered as a pure, nonperspectival unity. It remains the same even as

the ego of habitualities shows itself from a different "side" by taking a new position. Despite this difference, there is an essential connection between the personal and pure egos. The connection is formed by the cogito, the "I think" that is the act of position taking. Insofar as the personal ego is made up of position takings, it necessarily involves the "I" of the "I think." The latter is not "the 'self' who has taken a position"-i.e., the self that is the very act of position taking and changes with the change of this act. It is rather the self which is the subject of all such acts. It is the identical subject who can be said to have different positions. According to Husserl, this identical subject (or pure ego) must be included in the personal ego. Thus, after enunciating the differences between the two egos, he goes on to say: "This pure ego, however, lies included in the personal ego; every act or cogito of the personal ego is also an act of the pure ego" (Ms. A V 21, p. 21b, 1927). Given that the "real ego" is simply a noematic correlate of the personal, position taking ego, the same thing can be said with regard to the real ego. In other words, we can say, "there are as many pure egos as there are real egos ... ," the latter being understood as "constituted in the pure streams of consciousness [and] posited by the [respective] pure egos ... " (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). To see more clearly the nature of the connection between these three different characterizations of the ego, we must examine the doctrine of the ego as the "pure" subject of the cogito. The initial context of this doctrine in Husserl's description of the intentional character of consciousnes, its character of being "consciousness of .... " As Ideen I describes this, 'There lies in the very essence of every experience not just that it is a consciousness but also whereof it is a consciousness and in what determinate or indeterminate manner it is this ... " (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 80). According to Husserl, this character involves the notion of the ego and its "glance" (Blick). As he writes on the following page, "When an intentional experience is actual, i.e., performed in the manner of the cogito, then the subject (the 'ego') 'directs' itself within it to the intentional object. There pertains to the cogito itself an immanent 'glance at' the object, which, on its part, springs from the 'ego,' which therefore can never be absent." According to Husserl, this ego is not "an experience among experiences." It is not, in other words, something "arising and again disappearing .. with the experience ... " (ibid., p. 137). Neither is it the "glance" of the ego. As Husserl explains thiS, "The ego seems to be constantly, necessarily there ... its 'glance' goes 'through' every actual cogito to the objectivity.

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This ray of the glance (Blickstrahl) is something that changes with each cogito, shooting forth anew with the new cogito, disappearing with it. The ego, however, is something identical. Every cogito, at least in principle, can change, can come and go .... But, as opposed to this, the pure ego seems to be something necessary in principle; and, as something absolutely identical in all actual and possible change of experiences, it cannot in any sense be taken as a real component or moment of the experiences" (ibid., pp.13738).

The statement simply repeats in somewhat greater detail the passage we quoted about the heterogeneity of the pure and personal egos. The pure ego remains the same even as the personal ego shows itself differentlyi.e., avails itself of fresh experiences and, on this basis, exists in the performance of new cogitata or position takings. The ground of its absolute identity has also been noted. It is its nonperspectival character. This means, as Husserl writes in 1921, it is not, like the thing, "a one-sided, founded unity which, in the constant passage from distinct to distinct, is only describable in such [passage]" (Ms E I 6, June 1921, HA XIV, Kern ed., p. 50). Now, a founded unity is a constituted unity. It is founded on individual experiences by virtue of being constituted through their connections. What about the ego which does not appear perspectivally-i.e., which does not appear through a perspectival ordering (or connecting) of experiences? Insofar as it lacks the connections by which constitution is accomplished, it is obviously not a constituted unity. Its continual sameness is, in other words, simply a reflection of its nonconstituted status. What this signifies with respect to our experience of this pure "experiencing self" is put by Husserl as follows: "The experience of the ego, the experience of an experiencing self, has an essential pole of unity which is not constituted in these [experiences] as is the case with all temporal being where in the continuity of filled time a changing or unchanging unity constitutes itself in the filled duration"-i.e., the duration "filled" with perceptual content (ibid., p. 49). The implicit claim, here, is that as nonconstituted-i.e., as something not given through the temporal ordering (and connecting) of experiences-this ego is not experienced as a temporally extended being. As Husserl explicitly writes, 'The self, which is the 'thoroughly' identical, is not temporal or even temporally extended in the same sense as the experiences ... " (ibid.). What we have here is a further contrast between the pure ego and the "concrete self"-i.e., the personal or habitual ego. Husserl takes the latter as constituted through the connections occurring between experiences. The experiences themselves are regarded as occupying distinct positions (or extended stretches) in successively ordered time. Because of this, the ego they constitute is experienced as enduring through such successively

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given temporal positions. In distinction to this, the nonconstituted, nonperspectivally appearing ego lacks the very basis for appearing as an enduring, temporally extended entity.12 §9. lHE PURE EGO AS DEPENDENT ON EXPERIENCE, AS A CONSTITUTED SINGULAR RELATIVE TO ITS INDMDUALIZING EXPERIENCE

Let us now take note of another aspect of Hussed's doctrine of the pure ego. It is one which, in distinction to the above, leads him to claim that the pure ego can, in a certain "relative" sense, be considered as constituted. The origin of this claim is his continual insistence that the givenness of the pure ego is dependent on the givenness of experiences. This dependence, itself, is a function of the ego's position as the "pure subject" of the cogito. As before, the general context of Hussed's remarks is his description of the intentionality of consciousness. If consciousness is always consciousness of some object, i.e., some "cogitatum," then cogito and cogitatum are given together. With this, the pure "transcendental" ego is also given. Speaking of "the transcendental or absolute ego which corresponds to the human person," Hussed remarks that "I am an awake soul by virtue of a specific egological structure facing the structure of the pregivenness of the wodd." Since this pregivenness is formed by the experiences whose connections constitute the cogitata, the "awake" ego of the cogito exists only when it possesses such experiences and connections. In Hussed's words, " ... the transcendental ego is a relative ego, and egological structure facing what is pre-given to the ego ... " (Ms. C 3 II, p. 37, Nov., 1930, italics added). Hussed also expresses this dependence in terms of the contentless character of the pure ego. The necessity for the ego's lack of "material," experiential content comes from the ego's absolute self-identity. As perfectly identical, it cannot be identified with any of the changing contents of consciousness. Hence, it appears as quite distinct from what it experiences. Its purity is purity from such experience. As Hussed writes of this ego, "An ego does not possess a proper general character with a material content; it is quite empty of such. It is simply an ego of the cogito which [in the change of experiences] gives up all content and is related to a stream of experiences, in relation to which it is also dependent ... " (Ms. E III 2, p. 18, 1921). Such dependence is not just that of the "awakeness" of the ego on the presence of the stream; rather it is the dependence of it in its individuality on the stream. As contentless, the ego is not unique since it lacks the material features which would distinguish it from another ego. In other words, considered by itself apart from the stream, it has only the general character of an egological structure, an "empty form" of an ego. Hussed puts it this way: "One can say that the ego of the cogito is com-

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pletely devoid of a material, specific essence, comparable indeed with another ego, yet in this comparison an empty form which is only 'individualized' through the stream: this in the sense of its uniqueness" (ibid.). This dependence of the uniqueness of the ego on the stream has two consequences. The first is the tie among the pure, personal, and real egos. The second is the view that the pure ego can, at least analogously, be seen as constituted. With regard to the first, Husserl writes, "The pure ego, it is to be expressly stressed, is a numerical singular with respect to 'its' stream of consciousness" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 1lO). The stream is essential for the individualization of the pure ego into a numerical singular; it functions, so to speak, as the individualizing "environment" (Umgebung) of this ego. Now, since this environment is a constituting one-i.e., one resulting in the presence of realities through the connections of the stream-the tie of the ego to the stream is also a tie to the realities it constitutes. As Husserl expresses this, "The ego is only possible as a subject of an 'environment/ only possible as a subject who has facing it things, objects, especially temporal objects, realities in the widest sense ... " (Ms. E III 2, p. 46,1921). In ldeen II, this tie explicitly involves both the personal and real egos considered as constituted entities. According to Husserl, "every real ego, like the whole real world, belongs to the 'environment/ to the 'field of vision' of every pure ego .... And with this, every pure ego ... possesses the human ego, the personality as an object of its environment" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). The tie betweeen these egos can be expressed in terms of the self-interpretation of the pure ego. I( as an individual, it is "only possible as a subject of an 'environment'/' i.e., as a subject that has facing it a constituted world, then it can always interpret itself in terms of this world. It can think of itself as a real ego situated among the "things, objects" of this world. It can also think of itself as the subjective, "personal" correlate of this objective ego. What we have, then is a correlation of possibilities. The possibility of being a numerically singular ego is also the possibility of having an individualizing stream of consciousness and, with this, the possibility of this ego's self-interpretation in terms of what is constituted by the stream. Thus, as Husserl notes, to posit a real ego or a personal "human" ego is also to posit, as pertaining to these, a singular pure ego. (see ibid.). This follows since the presence of the personal ego is also the presence of the constituting environment which makes possible the presence of a numerically singular pure ego. What is ultimately pointed to here is, as we shall see, the notion of the pure ego as a center or pole of an already constituted "surrounding world." As such a center, it can always interpret itself as a real and a personal ego situated within it.

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If the pure ego is tied to a constituted environment, then the temptation arises to see it as something which is itself constituted. Husserl, at times, seems to subscribe to this position. He writes, for example, "I thus see here an essential lawfulness of the pure ego. As the one identical, numerically singular ego, it belongs to 'its' stream of experiences, which is constituted as a unity in unending, immanent time. The one pure ego is constituted as a unity with reference to this stream-unity; this means that it can find itself as identical in its course" (Ms. F III I, p. 248b, ca. 1918, second italics addedl. This position is repeated with reference to Kant. Husserl writes: "What is called constitution, this is what Kant obviously had in mind under the ruberic, 'connection as an operation of the understanding,' synthesis. This is the genesis in which the ego and, correlatively, the surrounding world (Umwelt) of the ego are constituted. It is passive genesis-not the [active] categorial action which produces categorial formations ... " (Ms. B IV 12, pp. 2-3, 19201. A close study of Husserl's doctrine reveals that these remarks are not in contradiction to the passage from the same period which we quoted above. They are not to be taken as asserting that the pure self-identical ego "shows itself perspectivally," that it is, in other words, a constituted, "founded unity" in the sense that a thing is. What is at issue in the just quoted texts is the numerical singularity of the ego. According to Husserl, the pure ego is such a singularity with reference to the constituted unity of its streami.e., its constituted "surrounding world." As we shall see, what is constituted here is not the ego but rather its reference. It is this reference which first gives it its singularity as a center or pole of a surrounding world which itself has become constituted as a singular world. § 10. HOW HUSSERL CAME TO POSIT THE PURE EGO

To make this last point, we must first raise the question of the necessity of the pure ego. What exactly are the functions that it performs which require its positing? As we quoted Husserl in introducing its notion, "Every act or cogito of the personal ego is also an act of the pure ego" (See above, p. 821. The question, here, is of the necessity of this "also." Let us give the general lines of the solution we shall explore. It consists, first of all, in the claim that the pure ego is necessary as an experiencer who is distinct from experience. Only as distinct and, hence, as "pure," can it "find itself as identical in [the] course" of experience. As we noted above, it would not be identical if it was identified with the changing contents of experience. To put this somewhat more radically, we may note that there is a certain connection between being and self-identity. Real loss of self-identity is not the change of some subject. As involving the very subject of the change, it is

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to be counted an annihilation pure and simple. The underlying thought here is that the ego must have some separation from what changes if it is to continue in being-i.e., continue to find itself as in some way connected to what it was before. Now, in the Logical Investigations, this separation is effected by a doctrine that separates act and experience. In the Ideen, however, the intentional act of the position taking ego is composed of the experiences that form the stream of consciousness. The necessary identity of the ego in the latter work thus is seen as demanding the positing of a "pure" ego; it demands, in other words, an ego whose purity is purity from the changing experiences composing its changing, position-taking acts. This first claim leads quite natually to a second. This is that the pure ego is not required for the function of synthesizing the stream of experiences. Thus, the pure ego is not to be regarded as synthesizer which organizes the stream into a constituted surrounding world. Insofar as the acts which accomplish this synthesis are distinguished from itself, it is not a constituter, but only an experiencer of an already constituted world. Hence, the acts of the personal ego can only in an analogous sense be considered as acts of the pure ego. This claim is strengthened by the fact that when we enter into the more basic layer of what Husserl calls "passive constitution," we find that neither the personal nor the pure singular ego can be considered as actively constituting. To establish these claims, we must first engage in a comparison of the Investigations with the Ideen. As is well known, the Investigations does not put forward a doctrine of the pure ego. Indeed, it explicitly denies this ego (See LU, "Investigation V," §8). Ricoeur sums up its position in the following words:"The Logical Investigations asserted that the ego is outside among the things and that subjective life is only an interconnected bundle of acts which does not require the referential center of an ego" (Husser1: An Analysis . .. , ed. cit., p. 22). This does not mean that in the Investigations there is no I or ego. It does, however, signify that its doctrine of the ego is an early form of what Husserl was later to present under the title of the "personal ego." Thus, in the Investigations, the unity of the ego is conceived as the unity of its acts or position takings. Essentially, this unity is a logical one. It is based on "the pure logical laws" which according to Husserl, spring from "the ideas of sensibility and understanding per se" (LU, Tub. ed., II/I, 197). As in the Ideen, the laws springing from such ideas are simply the subjective expression of the "rationality" of the world which is sensed and understood. In other words, the logical laws for the unity of the posited are viewed as laws which also hold for the unity of the ego that posits. Thus, the laws springing from the idea of sensibility are those of material, synthetic logic. The laws whose roots are in the pure idea of the understanding are those of

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analytic, symbolic logic. Noetically regarded, both sets of laws determine what types of acts can come together so as to found the unity of the ego which is made up of such acts. Concretely, this signifies that a particular type of act-e.g., that a perception of color-is taken as requiring a second act type-here the perception of an extension. Together with other act types which are also essentially demanded, they form the "founded unity" which the Investigations considers as the "I" or the unity of a consciousness which is sensibly perceiving. (see LU, "Investigation V," §4). The same sort of position, mutatis mutandis, is expressed for the ego that understands. Its unity is founded on the "categorial act types" of conjunction, alternation, negation, and so forth-Le., the types of conscious connections which are expressed by such words as "and," "or," "not," etc. Out of such elements, logical relations such as formal implication are composed. As for the ego which understands these relations, its unity is simply that of formal noncontradiction. In its attempts to connect perceived objects so as to "understand" and make logical assertions about their relations, it cannot contradict itself. If it did, it would violate the logical unity which defines it as an understanding subject. In Husserl's words, "An understanding without the pure logical laws would be an understanding without understanding" (LU, Tub. ed., 11/2, 197). As we cited Ricoeur, the ego of the Investigations is considered to be "outside among the things." What this signifies is that this ego is understood as receiving its sensuous data-i.e., the data of its experiencefrom transcendent sources It, thus, accepts itself as positioned within a transcendent world and as dependent on its entities for its experiences. Now, if we ignore the epistemological difficulties inherent in such "worldly" dependence-difficulties involving the causality of the world with respect to the acts of consciousness-we can remain indefinitely on the egologicallevel put forward by this early work. Within the context of the Investigations, there are, in fact, two main reasons why the ego need never be anything beyond the founded, logical unity of its acts which we have just described. The first is the book's rigid separation between experiential content and subjective act. Husserl asserts that he "can find nothing more evident" than their distinction (LU, Tub. ed., 11/ I, p. 383). As in the Ideen, the act is described as synthesizing the given contents of an experience. Its action of grasping a one in many is termed an "objective interpretation" of such contents. This means that it makes "objective sense" of the latter by taking them as contents or "sensations" of some object. But, here, the act is understood as one thing-a part of an individual reality-and, as such, it is understood as distinct from the contents or sensations which the Investigations takes as externally provided. Thus, Husserl writes, "The interpretation itself never ever allows itself to be reduced

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to an influx of sensations. It has the character of an act ... " (ibid., II/l, 381). Furthermore, " ... under the title sensations, we understand non-acts which at most experience an objectifying interpretation by means of acts" (ibid., 1st Halle ed., II, 707-708). This implies that when we reflectively regard an act itself, the sensations which its "sensuous perception" affords us are distinguished from the sensations which we receive when we perceive an external object. The act being part of an individual reality-that of the subject-and the external object being a reality distinct &om this, the contents they afford us are by definition distinct (See LU, Tub. ed., 11/2, 177 -8, 180). In other words, the contents springing from the "real act" are never those which the act itself objectively interprets when it engages in external perception. This means that we can never confuse the experiencer-i.e., the subject as an "interconnected bundle of acts"-with the contents which it externally experiences. Its logical unity is the unity of a distinct reality. As such, it manifests the unity of an experiencer distinct from experience. Hussed can thus present it as a relatively self-identical unity vis-a-vis its changing contents of experience. The second reason for the Investigations' refusal to posit a pure ego concerns the issue of functioning. The acts which make up the "personal" ego function by themselves to synthesize the stream of experiences. Their action includes both the straightforward perceptual synthesis of an individual object and the higher-level, explicitly logical "categorial synthesis." Thus, it sees no necessity to posit an ego as a synthesizer over and above the ego which is composed of such acts. When we come to the Ideen, we notice first of all a shift in terminology. "Acts," in the sense of the Investigations, are equated with "intentional experiences" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 80). These last are identified with the Cartesian cogito. Thus, just as intentional experiences "are consciousness of something", so "it universally belongs to the essence of every actual cogito to be consciousness of something" (ibid., p. 70). This equation of act and intentional experience undermines the sharp distinction the Investigations drew between the act and the experiential contents it acts upon. This occurs for a purpose. Hussed, in moving towards the adoption of transcendental idealism, does not want to picture experience as something which is externally provided. If subjective acts are taken as receptive of the experiential contents which they act to interpret, then, as just noted, the ego of such acts appears to be "outside among the things." For transcendental idealism, however, consciousness does not acknowledge an outside. To reach this position, Hussed in the Ideen continues the doctrine of the acts as active synthesizers of the stream of experiences. (We leave aside, for the moment, the question of passive synthesis). Yet, to this he adds the doctrine that the experiences of the stream, rather than being external to

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such acts, are, in fact within them. Each cogito, in other words, is understood as made up of the experiences it interprets. This new doctrine requires a distinction between the extended intentional experience or cogito and the individual momentary experiences that make it up. Not every "experience," taken in the generic sense of the term, is per se intentional. In Husserl's words, "Under experience in the widest sense, we understand everything and anything that is to be found within the stream of pure experiences, therefore, not only intentional experiences--cogitationes actual and potential, taken in their full concreteness--but all the inherent moments found within the stream and its concrete parts" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 80). "It is easy to see, " Husserl adds, "that not every inherent moment within the concrete unity of an intentional experience has itself the basic character of intentionality, that is, the characteristic of being 'consciousness of something'" (ibid., p. 81). It possesses this character not by itself but by virtue of being an "inherent moment" of the connected unity which it forms--i.e., by being part of the "concrete unity of an intentional experience." We have already encountered this position in our discussion of the empty, intentional X. Its main point is that consciousness becomes consciousness of something only when the experiences within it exhibit through their connections a "point of unification." Noetically, this means that the experiences close up together to form the more extended unity known as the intentional experience. Noematically, it means that they form the intentional unity which is the object conceived as the "bearer" of the noematic sense. While satisfying the demands of transcendental idealism, this new doctrine is not without its own problems. Once we abandon the position that consciousness has its own distinct reality and its object another, how do we distinguish between the two? Husserl expresses this problem as follows: "Originally, experientially, how does consciousness separate itself out for us? How can consciousness itself be distinguished as a concrete being in itself, namely as what is always my consciousness ... ?" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 89). The problem arises because, according to the idealistic stand-point, consciousness has no outside. Thus, my consciousness "includes the continuing perception and what is apprehended in this, the latter being the perceived entity understood as an 'opposite' to consciousness and as 'an in and for itself'" (ibid.). The problem achieves its particular urgency from the fact that according to the doctrine just presnted both the "subjective" cogito as well as the "objective" cogitatum are the results of the connections of experience. Husserl's question, then, is how these same connections can result in the distinction of my consciousness from the world, the latter being taken as its "opposite"--i.e., as something which stands over against its conscious acts.

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The answer which Ideen I gives ignores the deeper issues involved in the constitution of time. Within its own limits, however, it can suffice for our present purposes. It consists of a number of carefully drawn distinctions. We have, first of all, the distinction between the individual experience and the cogito. The individual, momentary experience is not per se intentional. The cogito, which is formed by the connections between experiences, is intentional. A second distinction is that between the individual experience and the "perceived entity." The latter, taken as a spatial-temporal reality, is something which shows itself perspectivally. Its perspectives are formed by the individual experiences which are objectively interpreted as experiences of this reality. Such experiences are never confused with the reality since, regarded individually, they cannot show themselves perspectivally. They cannot because perspectival appearing manifests itself through the ordering of connected experiences. In other words, this appearing involves a plurality of such experiences and, hence, it cannot be a feature of the appearing of a single, momentary experience (see Ideen I, §41-§42). Now, if we grant that the perspectival appearing of the reality involves the thought of an indefinite continuance of such appearing, we can distinguish this reality from the cogito which grasps it. Here, the distinction between the two is simply a function of the transcendent quality of the reality. To posit it as distinct from the cogito is to posit it as transcending the finite sum of the experiences making up the cogito. It is to conceive of it, at least in "idea," as pointing beyond these to further experiences. The difference between the cogito and the "perceived entity" is, thus, simply one between the actual experience making up the cogito and the idea of the indefinite continuance of this experience which allows us to posit the entity as "in and for itself." As we have already noted, such positing of the entity as absolute is tantamount to its positing as an infinite, "Kantian idea." It is easy to see how the perspectival appearing of a reality involves the thought of this idea. The reality which appears perspectivally is not posited as anyone of its experiences (or the actual sum thereof). It is rather posited as an "empty X." This means that it is taken as the persisting "point of connection" of such experiences. It is a point of connection which always demands further experiences to subsist as such-i.e., as their connecting point. Hence, it always distinguishes itself, qua "X," from the definite number of experiences making up the cogito. In terms of the Ideen and the original context of the positing of the pure ego, three consequences follow from the above analysis. The first is that the ego which consists of acts can no longer be considered as a relatively stable, identical subject vis-a-vis its changing experiences. It is, in other words, no longer qualified to serve as an experiencer which is dis-

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tinct from what it experiences. Previously, in the Investigations, it was regarded as one thing-i.e., a separate, "sensibly perceivable" realitywhich could exist independently of the experiences it synthesized. But now, in the Ideen, the very cogitationes-i.e., multiple acts of cogitowhich compose it as an ego of acts are themselves regarded as made up of momentary experiences. Thus, as we quoted Hussed with regard to the personal, position-taking ego, it constantly shows itself as "another" as it moves from position to position. This otherness is that of its "glance." It is the otherness of the experiences composing this "glance" which is its cogito, i.e., its act of position taking. Now, if we do assert that the ego must have some separation from that which changes if it is to continue in being-i.e., if it is not to be regarded as simply other with each new cogito-then we must look beyond this personal ego to find an identical experiencer. With this, we have Hussed's motivation for positing a "pure" ego. The doctrine that the ego's cogitationes are themselves made up of experiences leads to the demand for the purity of the ego. Such purity is understood as a purity from such changing experiences and, hence, from the changing cogitationes made up of such experiences. With this, the necessary identity of the subject is once again secured. The ego again appears as something that "can find itself as identical in its course." Here, let us observe that the positing of this ego can also be regarded as part of Hussed's answer to his qustion: "How can consciousness itself be distinguished ... as that which is always my consciousness?" As self-identical, this ego always appears as my ego, i.e., as the unchanging center to which I refer all the changing acts and experiences forming my consciousness. Indeed, it is because the latter do refer back to one and the same unchanging center, a center for which they form the necessry "environment," that they can be understood as my acts and experiences. The second consequence is that the ego which we are here motivated to posit as pure is not posited as a synthesizer of the stream. This point can be expressed in two different ways. We can say, first of all, that insofar as the pure ego is distinguished from the acts which are regarded as synthesizing the stream, it is distinguished as well from their action of synthesis. Only analogously can such acts be taken as "its" acts. A second, more profund way to express this is to observe that, according to the above, the acts themselves are composed or constituted out of the experiential elements of the stream. As we quoted Hussed, the cogitationes are both "within" the stream and are made up of "inherent moments" which are individual experiences drawn from the stream. The significance of this view for the Investigations' doctrine of acts-i.e., of acts being considered as independent synthesizers of the stream-can be put in terms of this work's pursuing a level of constitutive analysis which is less profound than that

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of the Ideen. The Investigations explores a level of constitution in which the synthetic action originally pertaining to the stream seems to be an independent action of the subjective acts. At the deeper level, which is explored by the Ideen, the acts themselves appear as constituted products of the stream. Thus, on this latter level, the stream must be considered as synthesizing itself. In other words, the very acts which formally were regarded as synthesizing the stream are now conceived as the results of the stream's own self-synthesis. The conel usion, then, is that neither the pure ego, which is distinguished from the cogitationes, nor the personal ego, which is composed of such, is ultimately responsible for the synthesis of the stream. With this, we can say that what Husserl calls "passive synthesis" is possible precisely because both the supposed "activity" of the cogito and the supposed "pasivity" of its experiential data are contained within the stream itself. They are simply different layers of one and the same, self-synthesizing stream. As Husserl expresses this, "'Passive' signifies here without the action of the ego ... the stream does not exist by virtue of the action (Tun) of the ego, as if the ego aimed at actualizing the stream, as if the stream were actualized by an action. The stream is not something done, not a deed in the widest sense. Rather, every action is itself 'contained' in the universal stream of experiences which is, thus, called the 'life' of the ego ... " (Ms. C 17 IV, pp. 1-2, 1930). Our third consequence springs directly from the fact that this 'life' of the ego is not a result of the action of the ego, the fact, as Husserl puts it, that "the individual, egological life is passively constituted in immanent time" (Ms B I 32, I, p. 16, Mayor Aug., 1931, italics added). As we quoted Husserl, the ego is "dependent" on a "stream of experiences"-the very stream that has now been identified as its life. This means that the individual ego (taken either as personal or as pure) cannot be regarded as the independent origin of the constitutive action of the stream. In other words, as dependent on the stream which it does not actively constitute, it cannot be said to be creative of the entities which result from the stream's self-constitution. Such entities form the surrounding world, the environment of the individual ego. "The ego," Husserl maintains, "is only possible as a subject of an 'environment,' only possible as a subject who has facing it things, objects ... " (Ms. E III 2, p. 46, 1921). The notion that the latter are, ultimately, passively constituted, thus, leads Husserl to assert, "In the subjectivity to which essentially belong both the ego and the 'stream of experiences,' the lasting world constitutes 'itself' for the ego, but the ego, as much as it participates by its activity"-i.e., by its acts-"in this constitution, does not create it, does not produce it (schaftt sie nicht, erzeugt sie nicht) in the usual sense, just as little as it produces its past life, produces

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its stream of original sensibility ... " (Ms. A VI 30, p. 9b, Nov., 19211. This statement holds for the personal ego, since, as we have seen, the acts by which it participates in world-constitution are both within and constituted out of the "stream of original sensibility." It also holds for the pure ego, given that it is, qua numerical singular, essentially dependent on "its" stream. This consequence has an important result for the analyses of our first chapter. As we recall, the solution put forward by Husserl was bedeviled by the notion of the creatively constituting ego. This was the ego which, in not having "outside," had to be regarded as the independent origin of its own sensibility. We can now say that this concept is not that of an individual ego. This implies that to recognize the Other as an individual is to recognize him as not being creative of the world which we share in common. This follows since our being as individuals is a being that is dependent on the stream of consciousness and, hence, on what is constituted out of this. The significance of this result will be evident in a subsequent chapter when we come to propose a solution to the problem of intersubjectivity. Returning to the question of the necessity for positing the pure ego, we can say that this ego has neither the necessity of a constituter of the stream nor that of a constituted product. The first is ruled out by the ego's dependence on the stream; the second, by its "purity" from the elements of the stream. Thus, given that the ego's purity is a purity from experiences, it cannot be considered to be constituted out of their synthesis. It is not, like the ego of the Investigations (or the later "personal," "habitual" egol, a unity which is "founded" on experience. Such purity, however, does not rule out its dependence. It still remains the ego of the cogito, the ego (or subjectl of the surrounding world which is presented by the ongoing cogito. If we think both its purity and dependence together, we come up with only a single necessity for its positing: The indispensability of a pure ego is only that of a pure, self-identical subject of a constituted, surrounding world. Its necessity is that of an observer distinct from, yet essentially dependent on this world. § 11. THE PURE EGO AS A CENTER OF ITS CONSTITUTED ENVIRONMENT

Husserl writes, quoting Kant on the just mentioned necessity, "The 'I think' must accompany each of my representations" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 1381. This means, as he later writes, " ... intentional experiences ... demand their pure ego as the subject of their functioning ... " (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p.ll OJ. The nature of this demand can be put by recalling that the cogito is an extended unity of connected experiences. It is, according

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to Husserl, a constituted product of the "life" which is the stream of experiences. Granting this, the demand for the pure ego only occurs when the connections arise which form this unity. It is only then that we can say "cogito" and from thence proceed through the Kantian proposition about the "I think" to the necessity of this pure ego. This move, for Husserl, is one to the "center" or "pole" of the stream which is our life. If we are to distinguish the ego from its life-and, with this, distinguish it from the connected unity of the cogito and from the entities posited through the cogito-then the ego only appears as their subjective center. In Husserl's words, "We distinguish the ego and its life, we say that I am who I am in my life and this life is experiencing ... the ego, however, is the 'subject' of consciousness; subject, here, is only another word for the centering which all life possesses as an egologicallife, Le., as a living in order to experience something, to be conscious of it" (Ms. C 3 III, p. I, March, 1931). As he earlier expresses this: "The central ego is the necessary ego pole of all experience and of all noematic and ontic givenness which can be legitimated by experience ... " (Ms. M III 3, XI, p. 21, Sept., 1921). For Husserl, then, the ego which is demanded by the connected unity of experience which forms the cogito is the center or pole of this experience. The cogito, or the extended intentional experience, positions the ego as its "subject" or "center," the two being equivalent terms. The notion of the pure subject as a center reveals the special character of its dependence. It is the dependence of a position on that which positions. As we quoted Husserl above, the pure ego is "only 'individualized' through the stream .... " It becomes "a numerical singular with respect to 'its' stream of consciousness"-i.e., the very stream that forms the individualizing environment of the ego. We can now say that the pure ego is such a singular only to the point that the experiences and connections making up this stream allow the presence of a surrounding, singular world. In other words, the ego exists as such a singular only by being positioned as a singular subject or center of this world. To make this concrete, we need to note that the harmonious, perspectival ordering of experiences has a double effect. It yields, on the one hand, the appearing of a unitary, spatial-temporal world. On the other, it also yields a distinct observer of this world-Le., an ego with a "particular point of view." This particularity (or numerical singularity) is simply a function of the ego's being positioned as this world's spatial-temporal center. As its spatial center, it occurs in the "here." This means that the experiences forming its constituted environment have been so arranged that the subject always stands at the referential "a-point" which marks off the distances of its world. Similarly, as the world's temporal center, the subject always oc-

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cupies the "now." In this case, its experiences position it as constantly existing between the flowing future and past. In both cases, we can say that the ego as a center is not itself constituted but is rather individualized by the constitution that gives it its surrounding world. The constitution of such a world is the individualization of its center. Thus, without the perspectival ordering of experiences, notions such as "near" and "far" and, hence, "here" would lose their experiential sense. To express this phenomenologically, we can say that an object is interpreted as approaching the "here" insofar as its appearances are ordered in time so as to progressively fill up more and more of the visual field. The limiting point of this series is the "here," interpreted as the case where the object's appearance fills up the whole of the visual field-i.e., blocks out the view of all other objects. Another factor in the setting up of our sense of distance is the rate at which an object's perspectives unfold. Thus, in a walk through a park, a distant tree appears relatively stationary while one taken as "nearer" unfolds itself more rapidly in a series of perspectival views. In this instance, distance is not necessarily measured by relative size but by the relative rates of the unfolding perspectives. Once again, the notion of a "here" is set up as an ideal limit of a progressive series-but this time the series is one of relative rates of change. 13 As these examples indicate, the notion of a three-dimensional world with oneself as a center involves both memory and anticipation. Memory is required for the retention of the series of perspectival appearances. If the experiences of an object were to vanish from consciousness the moment after their apprehension, no comparisons of large and small or rates of change would be possible. Anticipation is required because the "here," in almost all cases, is simply an ideal limit. It is something anticipated by imagining the continuance of a certain ordering of appearances-i.e., those of an object getting progressively closer. Granting this, the dissolution of the world in a "tumult" of experiences involves, necessarily, a disordering of the constitutive series composed of remembered and anticipated experiences. As such, it involves both the world's past, remembered being as well as its future, anticipated being. In Husserl's words, such dissolutions would signify that " ... I would not have the spatial-temporal field of a human life. Spatial-temporality, [spatial-temporal] persisting being would have been nullified (ware zunichte geworden). It would not have been nullified in a worldly sense"-i.e., the sense whereby an entity within an existing world is considered to be destroyed. "Rather being itself, the being of the world per se (das Weltsein aberhaupt) would have been nullified. It would have ceased ever to have been through the loss of its validity, its validity for me as an ego who would remain perplexed in my inner temporality" (Ms B I 13, VI, p. 5, Dec. IS, 1931).

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As is indicated by the context of this passage, the point here is that such dissolution, as necessarily involving both memory and anticipation, is a dissolution that affects my very "inner temporality" -i.e., my sense of myself as a center between the remembered past and the anticipated future. Husserl, thus, writes shortly before the just-quoted passasge, "That I remain who I am, as a transcendental ego, as the same personal ego, this signifies equivalently that my world remains a world" (ibid., p. 4). He immediatley follows the passage with the words: "If the world existed, it still exists; and if it exists, it existed. If it existed, it also will exist [in the future]. The world cannot cease to be; this is senseless as long as I exist and, equivalently, as long as the present exists and the past existed" (ibid., p. 5). Thus, the fact that the world is successively constituted from the temporal ordering of my experiences means that its temporal structure is parallel to my own. Its being present is, correlatively, my being present as a "central ego" with a retained past and an anticipated future. This means that the destruction of my retained past is the destruction of the world's validity for me as past. As we cited Husserl, such a destruction would signify that "it would have ceased ever to have been .... " This follows since this "have been" is for me a correlative result of the constitution which gives me a past. The same point holds, mutatis mutandis, for the world's future. As long as I exist, i.e., as long as I have a present that implies, through anticipations, a future, the world has a future. For Husserl, the above is to be interpreted in a radical manner. There is no time in a worldly sense without the constitution of retentions and protentions (i.e., anticipations). They order our experience in time and thus temporalize the world which is present through this ordering. We are not ready to discuss this constitution. Yet, we must take note of its bearing on our present theme: the individual existence of the pure or "central" ego. Without the temporal ordering of my experiences, I cannot regard myself as their referential center. Indeed, without temporalization, there cannot be a spatial-temporal center of an already constituted world. Thus, myexistence as such depends upon a constitution prior to myself, a constitution occurring on a "pre-egologicallevel" (Ms. B III 9, p. 10, Oct.-Dec., 1931). Since the ego is not yet present here, Husserl terms it a level of "non-ego." This "non-ego/' he writes, " ... we can designate as the realm of constituting association which is non-active, i.e., as temporalization ... (ibid., p. 23). Occurring before the central ego, this is a "passive" temporalization, i.e., one that occurs before any activity on its part. It is also, Husserl claims, a temporalization which results in such activity. It results in the individual ego being taken as the active center of its world. According to Husserl, this last point depends upon our viewing the temporal field both as a "fixed continuum of form" and as a field whose

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contents stream. The former arises through the constitution of the continua of what we retain and what we anticipate-i.e., the continua of pastness and futurity. The result of this constitution is the positioning of the ego as their "middlepoint." More precisely put, the ego becomes presenti.e., comes into being-as the now which we constantly occupy, the now which is at the center of our temporal field. To see this center as active, we must see the field as active. In other words, the contents placed in its "fixed continua" must not themselves be seen as fixed but rather as streaming. A later chapter will consider the origin of this streaming. For the present, we have to simply observe that such streaming is inherent in the notion of the temporalization of an experience. Thus, what we regard as past or future cannot be seen as fixed in relation to our now. Insofar as they are in time, insofar as time itself is something which is continually "passing" or streaming, they must stream. The experience which is past sinks into further pastness; future experiences constantly draw nearer to the present. We can, thus, say that the streaming of experience from futurity to pastness is a streaming through the now which we constantly occupy. This cannot be otherwise, since the very constitution which gives us a streaming past and future also positions us as a point of passage between the two. With this, we have the constitution of the ego as an active center. Its constitution as a point of passage is its constitution as a point where its experiences "well up" as present and actual. As Hussed puts this, "And in this streaming, there is constituted a lasting and remaining primal now as a fixed form for a content which streams through it ... there is constituted a fixed last continuum of form in which the primal now is a primal welling middle point for two continua [understood] as branches of the modes of [temporal] modifications: the continuum of what is just past and that of futurities" (Ms. C 21, p. IS, Aug., 1931, second italics addedl. This passage should not lead us to believe that the ego, as an unchanging and absolutely self-identical now, is itself constituted or synthesized out of the changing temporal experiences. As we quoted Hussed above, the ego's purity from experiences is also its purity from their temporality. In Hussed's words, liThe self, which is the 'thoroughly' identical, is not temporal or even temporally extended in the same sense as the experiences" (see above, p. 83; see also Mss. E III 2, p. 50; C 10, p. 211. What is constituted is this self's relation to its field, i.e., its status as a "fixed form" for the content which appears to flow through it. The individual ego appears as the point of the welling up of the moments of time precisely because of its constituted position as a "middle point" for a temporally extended content which is, itself, constituted as temporally flowing. With this, the significance of the remark about the ego which remains "perplexed" in its "inner temporality" becomes clear. If the individual ego only

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exists as a center of a temporal field, the dissolution of this field, in its continua of pastness and futurity, must amount to a dissoluton of the active, individual ego, the very ego for whom this field forms the streaming, centering environment. § 12. THE DOUBLE AVAILABILITY OF THE PURE EGO

The above allows us to make a point with regard to the pure ego's availability for our introspection. This availability is twofold. The pure ego is, first of all, available as the ego which is demanded and positioned by the cogito. It appears as the present ego of a present, ongoing act. As we quoted Husserl, a multiplicity of experiences is not necessary for its apprehension. Such a multiplicity, in fact, "is no more informative than a single experience of a straightforward cogito" (see above, p. 81). The second form of the ego's availability goes beyond this single experience. It is its availability as that which is the same in multitude of temporally distinct, reflective acts. Here, the ego appears as something "identically the same in all absolutely (phenomenologically) apprehended cogitos which I apprehend in memory ... " (see above, p. 81). As Husserl also puts this, " ... in each reflection, I find myself, and find the same ego in necessary self-coincidence" (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 411). This "self-coincidence" does not just concern the acts of memory. The ego which appears in the acts which I remember coincides with the ego I presently am and coincides with the ego of my anticipated acts. When I reflect on such acts, "there immediately emerges the original identity: in the form, I, the ego of the primal present along with the primal, original representations existing in this present, am the same ego which was present in memory along with the remembered, the same ego which, in anticipation, will be present along with what is to come" (Ms. C 16, VI, p. 28, May, 1932, italics added). As we noted, this form of availability corresponds to the demand for a selfidentical experiencer. It is the availabilty of the ego which "can find itself as identical in its course" (see above, p. 86). There are, according to Husserl, three characteristics which distinguish this second type of availability. First of all, in contrast to the first, it demands a multitude of acts. This means that we must have the capacity for memory and reflection. Without this, we could not grasp the pure ego considered as the "original identity" of past and present acts. In Husserl's words, this original identity is able to appear "by virtue of 'memories' and to these pertain, as to all acts, the capacity for the identifying repetition [of the past acts] and the capacity for reflection" on the acts which have been "repeated"-i.e., brought up unchanged to the present (Ms. C 16 IV, p. 29, May, 1932). A second characateristic of this availability is that it cannot be

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thought of as limited to a specific time. The pure ego which is available to us at one time through acts of memory and reflection is equally available whenever we perform these acts. Its sameness for us at the different times we perform such acts points back to its own sameness at the different times when it was originally present. Thus, we remember the ego as it was orginally present in temporally distinct acts. Yet, in reflecting on such memories, we find it /lin necesary self-coincidence./I Whenever it was originally present, it was always the same. Indeed, through an act of /lidentifying repetition/' it can be repeated-i.e., re-presented-and identified as the same as the present ego. For Husserl, this signifies that this ego is /lalltemporal" (Allzeitlich). He asserts that by virtue of my acts of identifying repetition /I ... there is inferred or constituted as existent the totality of my (the identical ego's) temporal existence; there is inferred my alltemporality as that of my identical being in the universality of my momentarily present, my past and my future conscious life ... " (ibid., p. 30, italics added). This /lall-temporality" leads to a third distinguishing characteristic of this second type of availability. As Klaus Held notes, what is /linferred or constituted" here is an entity which is /leverywhere and nowhere." It is everywhere insofar as it is identically present in all re-presented stretches of conscious life, be they past, present or future stretches. It is nowhere insofar as it is not defined or limited by any particular temporal location. Thus, Held concludes that this ego has /lthe mode of givenness of an alltemporal, ideal, irreal object" (Lebendige Gegenwart, Phaenomenologica, No. 23 [The Hague, 1966] p. 124). It possesses, in other words, the availability of an idea. Husserl on rare occasions does speak of the pure ego as an idea (See, e.g., Phllnomenologische Psychologie, ed. W. Biemel, Husseriana IX [The Hague, 1968L p. 476). The reasons for this are clear. Like the idea, it is grasped in an /loverreaching act" of identification; it also possesses the idea's one-inmany character and, hence, its "everywhere and nowhere" temporality. Now, such characterizations, clear enough in themselves, have unfortunately led to a certain confusion. The pure ego, qua idea, is not, as Held believes, a Kantian idea. Its availability is not limited to this form (see Held, op. cit., pp. 126-28).14 Once we grant this, we can also say that its twofold availability does not mean that we are dealing with two distinct, even contradictory concepts of the ego as Eduard Marbach maintains (see Das Problem des feh in der Phitnomenologie Husserls, Phaenomenologica, No. 59 [The Hague, 1974] pp. 289ff.). We, thus, need not follow Marbach in attempting to assert that the ego which is /ltied to the analysis of the acts of re-presentation"-i.e., the ego that appears through memory and reflection- is the only ego which genuinely deserves the title of "ego" (see ibid., pp. 298, 338-39).15

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To make these points, we must first recall that a Kantian idea involves an infinite "continuum of appearances." This is a continuum "in which one and the same constantly given X is continually and harmoniously determined 'more closely' and never 'otherwise'" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 351). The conception here is one of infinite advance in the determination of some entity. The entity appears rather like the "limit" in calculus. It has the position of a defined, yet never actually reachable limit in the advance of closer and closer determination. This, however, is not the position of the ego which appears as "identically the same" in all the cogitationes apprehended through memory. As something which always appears "absolutely" identical, it rules out any notion of progressive advance in its determination. Each further view of it does not present us with something new which could add a further determination; rather, this ego always shows itself as simply the same. This means that, in regarding its appearances, we are already constantly present at the limit. Admitting that the availability of the ego, qua idea, is not that of a Kantian idea, we can see the consistency of the two forms of its availability. Both, we can say, spring from the ego's position as a center. Thus, as the ego which is positioned and demanded by the cogito, i.e., the ego of a present ongoing act, its postion is that of a spatial-temporal O-point. It is the position of a "here" with regard to a constituted spatial environment; it is also the position of a "now" with regard to a temporally constituted environment of pastness and futurity. In the representation of a past cogito, the ego occupies the same relative position. In all remembrances of myself and my acts, I always appear as occupying the here and the now of such acts. The recollection of a stretch of past experience always includes my position as subject or center of such a stretch. It is, therefore, this central position which forms the basis for the act of identification which constitutes the idea of the ego. Indeed, the content of this constituted idea is nothing other than that which I apprehend in "a single experience of a straightforward cogito." In the latter, I have the immediate sense of myself as subject or center. In the act of identification, this sense is simply raised to the status of an "all-temporal" idea.

§ 13. THE PRESUMPTIVENESS AND PASSIVITY OF THE PURE EGO

Let us attempt to summarize the results of our examination of the pure ego. Our general conclusion is that the pure ego is the "center" of its constituted world. As Husserl tells us, this world is presumptive in its givenness and, hence, in its being. Thus, our first observation is that the same presumptiveness applies to the pure ego positioned as its center or pole. To

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put this in even stronger tenus, we can say that the dissolution of the cogito into an unconnected "tumult" of experiences involves necessarily a double dissolution. We have, on the one hand, a dissolution of the constituted world which is presented through the cogito. On the other hand, we also have the dissolution of the pure ego as demanded and positioned by the connected unity of the cogito. The disordered cogito has no definite point of experiential focus. Insofar as the pure ego is defined in terms of "the centering which all [conscious] life possesses" through the cogito, the loss of the focus is the loss of the pure ego in its raison d'~tre. A similar point can be made with regard to the pure ego's being as a numerical singular. The dissolution of the ego's individualizing environment is a dissolution of this ego's individuality. The dissolution leaves the ego "worldless." As a worldless ego, it is in the position of expressing a "here" and a "now" without a corresponding reference to the spatial and temporal fields which would give such terms an individual sense. Thus, spatially, it becomes a "here" without any correspondingly defined "near" and "far." Temporally, it becomes an expression of a "now" without any reference to a definite "before" and "after" which would temporally locate it. In both cases, then, it appears as a center without any reference to the whole whose center it is. 16 The above allows us a sense of the presumptiveness of the world which is deeper than the one which we hitherto considered. The first sense of such presumptiveness involves the giveness of the world. To this we can add the sense of the presumptiveness of the ego to whom the world is given. The first sense is based upon the world's existential status as an infinite, Kantian idea. Existing "absolutely" as such, it can never be grasped or "established" by the finite perceptions of a finite ego. This sense can now be strengened by the further realization that this finite ego is insufficient as a ground of the world. It cannot assure us of the world's continuing givenness because it itself presupposes such givenness. It is given along with its world as its center or pole. This means that what grounds the world also grounds it. Both are co-grounded by one and the same process. We can put this in terms of the "life" of the ego-i.e., the ongoing stream of experiences. As we quoted Husserl, "Every action [of the ego] is itself 'contained' in the universal stream of experiences which is, thus, called the 'life' of the ego ... "(Ms. C 17 IV, p. 2, 19301. This stream is called the ego's life because the ego "lives" through its acts, its cogitationes. But since the latter are made up of the experiences forming the stream, they do not represent a "life" which is distinct from that of the stream. Indeed, as Husserl observes, the stream is a passively occurring process. As we cited him, "'Passive' signifies here without the action of the ego .... The stream

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does not exist by virtue of the action of the ego, as if the ego aimed at actualizing the stream, as if the stream were actualized by an action. The stream is not something done (Getanes), not some deed (Tat) in the widest sense of the word" (ibid., pp. 1-2). It is rather a doer and, as such, contains all action. Thus, the stream itself is the ground of the actions by which I establish my surrounding world and, with this, my own existence as its center. Both my cogitationes and the centered world which they present are co-grounded by the same passive processes which result in the stream. To penetrate any further, we must speak of "temporalization." The processes in question receive this name because they concern the action by which experiences are placed in time so as to produce the ongoing stream of experiences. Weare not yet prepared to discuss such processes. We can, however, note that when Husserl discusses the dependence of the ego on its life (or stream), this dependence is normally expressed in terms of the temporal ordering of this life. Thus, such dependence means that "I only exist as living within this streaming life; and I only possess temporal being in its generally describable features [of past, present, and future] by virtue of the particular [temporal] structure of this life" (Ms. C 3 II, p. 4, Nov., 1930). This temporal structure is not the result of the action of the individual ego. Rather, "the individual egologicallife, taken as immanent temporality, is passively constituted" (Ms. B I 32, I, p. 16, Mayor Aug., 1931). Husserl elsewhere describes such passive constitution as "a passive, primal-associative temporalization within the lasting streaming." This "first temporalization" is productive of retention and protentions (i.e., anticipations). It "temporalizes the stream which is thereby constituted in its living temporality, a temporality which extends itself along with its temporal modalities: present (the present of the streaming), past (the just past streaming), future ... (Ms. C 16 VI, p. 29, May, 1932). The mechanics of this process will be the subject of a later chapter. We here simply observe that it is by virtue of this passive constitution of the modalities of past, present and future that "I exist in the unity of a life which, qua constituted life, bears within it a temporal order ... " (Ms. B I 32, p. 17). When I regard myself as a pure ego, this existence is that of a "middlepoint" between past and future (see above, p. 98). It is only in terms of my being in the nowi.e., in this "middlepoint"-that I can call myself the "center" or the "pole" of my life. As Husserl writes, "I am I, the center of things pertaining to the ego (lchlichkeiten), but I exist only as the ego of associatively bound unities in which everything ... possesses associative temporality" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 24, June-July, 1932, italics added). In other words, "I exist-I live, and my life is an unbroken unity of the primal, streaming temporalization in which all the multiple temporalizations are hidden ... I, that means here,

first of all, only the 'primal pole' of 'one's' life, one's primal stream in which all unities, which are called existents, temporalize themselves as persisting unities" (Ms. C 21, p. 4, Aug., 1932, first italics addedl. Husserl's doctrine, then, is clear. Insofar as the ego exists as a temporal "middlepoint," "center" or "pole," it is dependent on the temporal constitution which structures its life and positions it as such. The same point holds mutatis mutandis for the constitution which gives it its position as a "here." Indeed, as we have already indicated, such constitution is essentially temporal. A being "perplexed" in its "inner temporality" would not grasp the temporal ordering of perspectives which positions him as a center of a three-dimensional world. The retentions which constitute (or positionl experiences as occurring within definite points of the past would not occur; and, with this, the perspectival ordering of experiences would itself be lost. The result of this analysis is apparent. It is the undermining of any notion of the individual ego as a self-sufficient center of activity. As we have seen, the notion of the ego as active depends upon the cogito having already been constituted. It presupposes, in other words, a level of constitution in which the experiences composing the cogito have already been ordered and connected in time. With this, there is also the constitution of the objectivity which exists as persisting through such experiences. It is only at this level that an ego can be "active" in the sense of actively directing its glance (Blickl at an objectivity. Husserl, thus writes, "Proceeding from the deepest ground, we therefore have an essential two layeredness which we can designate as non-ego and ego .... " The first layer he describes "as the realm of the constituting association which is non-active, as temporalization." The second is "the realm of the activity which is related to the [already constituted] temporal objectivities." It is described "as the activity pertaining to the primary-streaming existents (Seiendenl, the activity centered in the ego as the identical source of all action and all the retention in memory (Behaltenl which results from action." This second layer depends on the first, for as Husserl immediately adds, "The active retention in memory (das active Behaltenl is what concerns the ego as its accomplishment, while the associatively retained (das associativ Reteniertel is that which lies before all proper being and makes possible being as something which can be accomplished through activity" (Ms. B III 9, p. 23, Oct.-Dec., 1931). Husserl's claim, here, is that all egological activity, including the activity of remembering, is dependent on the non-egological, "associative" constitution of retentions. It is such constitution, understood as temporalization, which first gives us the cogito and its objects as persisting temporal unities-unities which then can be actively retained in memory.

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The conclusion this leads to has already been noted. According to Husserl, passive constitution is what first "makes possible" persisting or lasting being. Thus, as we quoted him with regard to the "lasting world," the individual, active "ego ... does not create it, does not produce it in the usual sense" (see above, p. 93). Iso Kern expresses this conclusion in the following words: "Transcendental subjectivity is not the sufficient ground of the being of the world. World constitution, according to Husserl, is tberefore not tbe proper work of transcendental subiectivity; it is rather something which is radically given, as Husserl says, a 'wonder'" (Husserl und Kant, ed. cit., p. 298). The "wonder" includes both the being of the individual subject as well as that of the world which surrounds it. Both, in their being, are dependent on a constitution which "lies before all proper being." As non-self-sufficient, both are presumptive and both, as Kern states, are capable of "dissolution" (see ibid., pp. 297-98). These remarks apply to the individual ego, whether we take it as real, as personal, or as pure. They apply to it as an individual-i.e., as a numerically singular existent. As such, they do not apply to the consciousness (or ego) which we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. The latter is not a numerical but rather a unique singular. It is such by being a necessary and self-sufficient ground of the world (see above, p. 59). Two admissions follow from this. The first is that I cannot consider myself as this self-sufficient consciousness once I interpret myself as a numerically singular ego. The second is that such self-interpretation defines me as incapable of "passively" breaking the intersubjective harmony. The passive constitution required for this is not my own. That it is not is, indeed, the mark of my lack of self-sufficiency. Such admissions, of course, do not amount to the assertion that an intersubjective harmony actually obtains. To establish the latter, we must tum to the consideration of the consciousness which Husserl does consider to be absolute, i.e., as absolutely self-sufficient in its grounding function. It is here, as we shall see, that we catch our first glimpse of what Husserl considers to be the functioning ground of the intersubjective harmony.

Chapter III

FACTICITY AND INTERSUBJECTNITY § 1. A COMPARISON WITH KANT

BRIDGE

can be made from the considerations of our last chapter to

A those which shall presently occupy us by comparing Kant's and Husserl's positions on three points: the ego, the a priori, and facticity. In a certain sense, Husserl's doctrine can be defined as a reaction against the Kantian. The consideration of this reaction will give us the appropriate context for discussing Husserl's conception of the "absolute" consciousness. A. The Pure Ego in Husserl and Kant There are a number of remarkable similarities between Kant's and Husserl's doctrines of the pure ego. Kant calls this ego "the transcendental unity of apperception." It appears in his descriptions as a "thoroughgoing identity" (Kritik, A 116). As such, it manifests a pure, nonperspectival unity which is distinct from the changing contents of consciousness. (see ibid., B 135, B 138, B 157). A further similarity with Husserl's pure ego is its status as a referential center (or pole) of experience (see ibid., B 134). Finally and most importantly, both authors agree that the unity of this ego is essentially correlated to the unity of the appearing world. Kant expresses this correlation in terms of the "categories" or "pure concepts" of the understanding. These are defined as rules for synthesizing appearances so as to permit the intuition of a unitary object and, over and beyond this, the intuition of a unified, self-consistent world of objects. According to Kant, the thought of one's self-identity as a subject is also the thought of the objective synthesis determined by the categories. In Kant's words, "The original and necessary consciousness of one's self-identity is,

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thus, at the same time a consciousness of an equally necessary unity of the synthesis of all appearances according to [categorical] concepts, i.e., according to rules which ... determine an intuitable object for these appearances, i.e., determine the concept of something in which these appearances are necessarily connected [as appearances of a unitary object]" ("Kritik," A 108, Kant's [sic] Schriften [Berlin, 1911], IV, 82). According to this correlation, we can say that the violation of these categories or rulesif such could be imagined-results in the disruption of our intuition of a unified, objective world. Correlatively, it also results in the disruption of our consciousness of ourselves as self-identical subjects of this world. As Husserl writes, commenting on the Kantian correlation between the unity of the ego and that of its world, "Kant further believed that he could demonstrate that the categories are the concepts through which the pure ego must think the correlative object-world, the very world which the ego, itself, demands. If it is going to think of this world harmoniously or maintain itself as an identical subject of the understanding, it must, therefore, think objects according to the basic categorical laws" ("Beilage XXI," EPI, Boehm ed., p. 398). For Husserl, the same point follows because the pure ego is positioned by the world as its unitary center or pole. Thus, to think the ego's unity is also to think the unity of the world which centers or defines it. It is, moreover, to think of the operation of those rules of synthesizing or connecting perceptions which result in the constitution of this unified world. For Kant, as we shall see, this point has a fundamentally different basis. Indeed, all of his agreements with Husserl on the nature of the pure ego spring from a doctrine which Husserl explicitly denies. This doctrine is that of the ego as a noumenal ground of objective experience. As noumenal, it has the status of an experiencer distinct from its ongoing experience. It does not appear through the connected unity of a multiplicity of appearances which forms an ongoing intuition. On the contrary, as Kant writes, through the ego, as a simple representation, nothing multiple is given; a multiplicity can be given only in an intuition which is distinct from this [representation] ... " ("Kritik," B 135, Kant's Schriften [Berlin, 1911J III, 110). The fact that it cannot be represented through the "multiplicity" of an intuition gives the Kantian ego its nonperspectival character. It does not change, i.e., show itself from another side, in the change of appearances making up the intuition. On the contrary, it maintains, with regard to such changing representations, a complete identity. In Kant's words, "We are conscious a priori of the thoroughgoing identity of ourselves in all representations which can ever belong to our knowledge ... (ibid., A 116, Kant's Schriften, IV, 87). In other words, since my self-representation is not given to me by an intuition, "I am, II • • •

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therefore, conscious of the self as identical with respect to the multitude of the representations which are given to me in an intuition ... " (ibid., B 135, Kant's Scbriften, III, 110). The notion of the self as noumenal or non-intuitable cannot per se arise from intuition. What is directly posited on the basis of intuitive experience has, itself, an intuitable character. What this signifies is that the simple representation of the self as noumenal is one that arises from a deductive necessity. It springs from the ego's position as a transcendental ground of the appearing world's unity. Kant puts this point in terms of the "understanding"-i.e., that faculty which works according to the categorical rules for combining appearances into synthetic unities. He writes, "Without understanding, there would be no nature, i.e., no synthetic unity of the multiplicity of appearances according to rules .... Such nature, however, as an object of knowledge in our experience with everything which it may contain, is only possible in the unity of apperception. The unity of apperception, however, is the transcendental ground of the necessary lawfulness of appearances composing an experience" ("Kritik," A 127, Kant's Scbriften, IV, 93, italics added). This transcendental ground of nature-i.e., of the appearing world-is, as Kant remarks, not something which, itself, is formed by combination; it is rather the ground of all combination. It is that which, itself, "first of all makes possible the concept of combination" (ibid. B 131, Kant's Scbriften, III, 108). As such, it makes possible the categorical concepts which express the various types of synthetic combinations. It also makes possible the understanding in its formulation and logical employment of such concepts. It is, thus, represented as "that which contains the ground of the unity of the different concepts in judgment and, with this, the ground of the possibility of the understanding, even as regards its logical employment" (ibid.). From this, the noumenal status of the ego (or "unity of apperception") necessarily follows. The categories are rules of synthesis governing the ongoing intuition of an object. As the ground of the categories and, hence, of all objective synthesis, the ego cannot be represented as the result of such synthesis. Insofar as this result is what objectively appears, the ego cannot be thought of as objectively appearing. We can also express this in terms of Kant's concept of the ego as the uncombined ground of all combination. As uncombined, it is by definition that in whose representation "nothing manifold is given." It is the "thoroughgoing identity" which is distinct from the multiplicity of an ongoing intuition. Thus, admitting that all objective intuition occurs through the synthesis of a multiplicity of appearances, its own simple (uncombined) unity at once positions it as an "I in itself"-i.e., as the non-intuitable, "noumenal" ego (see Kritik B 158-59, B 421-22).

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If we persist in asking why we should posit this uncombined ground of all combination, we come to a second aspect of the deduction leading to this ego. It begins with our acknowledging that "an object is that in whose concept there is united a multiplicity of a given intuition" ("Kritik," B 137, Kant's Schriften, III, 13 It then adds the apparently necessary proposition that union or combination requires the action of a combiner. Where are we to locate this combiner whose action results in the intuitive presence of the object? The Kantian answer is that the action of combination or synthesis is present in the subject itself. It is an act of its very "selfhood." As Kant expresses this, there is "an action of the understanding which we may name with the general title of syntheSis in order, thereby, to draw attention to the fact that we cannot represent to ourselves anything as combined in the object without ourselves first having combined it and that combination ... can only be performed by the subject itself since it is an act of its selfhood" (ibid., B 130, Kant's Schriften, III, 107). The deduction, then, is from the givenness of the phenomenal action of synthesis to the necessity of the subject as an active synthesizer. It is as such a synthesizer that the ego can be deductively represented as noumenal-i.e., as the uncombined ground of all combination. It is also as such that it can be thought of as a referential center of the experiences it combines. In regard to this last, it is to be noted that Kant and Husserl agree that the identity of the subject requires its purity from experiences. If my subject were identified with its changing contents of consciousness, then, as Kant remarks, " ... I would have as motley and diverse a self as the conscious representations which I possess." Now, for Husserl, this thought of the subject as a simple identity vis-a-vis its changing experiences implies its conception as their referential center. The unchanging subject gives the changing experiences a unitary, subjective point of reference. By virtue of this, the experiences can be thought of as present in "one consciousness" and, indeed, as "belonging" to a pure ego conceived as the selfidentical center or subject of this consciousness. In other words, the field of experiences composing this consciousness belongs to its center or subject since the field forms the subject's essential "centering" environment. For Kant, however, this belonging has an even stronger sense. As indicated, it springs from the proposition that all combination requires a combiner. Kant writes, "The thought that the representations given in an intuition one and all belong to me is, accordingly, equivalent to the thought that I unite them in one self-consciousness or at least can so unite them" ("Kritik," B 134, Kant's Schriften, III, 110). The conclusion follows once we admit that whatever exists solely by virtue of the synthetic action of the ego-here, each of the ego's intuitive synthetic representationsnecessarily belongs to the ego (see ibid., B 135). Such belonging signifies

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that its intuitive representations are the ego's "products," Le., that they are incapable of existing without the ego. The difference between Kant's and Husserl's conceptions of the correlation between the ego's unity and unity of the world should now be apparent. As we saw in our last chapter, Husserl does not conceive of the pure ego as a transcendental ground of the appearing world's unity. Quite the contrary, the ego's unity, understood as its numerical singularity, is considered as grounded by the experiences which give it a unitary surrounding world. As dependent on these experiences, it is seen as presumptive, i.e., as capable of undergoing dissolution once these experiences are disorganized into a "tumult." For Husserl, then, it is the unity of the appearing, constituted world which necessarily implies the singular unity of the pure ego. In Kant's doctrine, the reverse order of implication holds: one's self-identity necessarily implies a transcendental unity of the synthesis of appearances and, hence, the unity of the appearing world. It does so because this self-identity is the "transcendental ground" of the unity of the appearing world. The self-identity is that of an uncombined combiner. Thus, its representation is that of an actor who has acted so as to combine appearances into a unitary world. Given this order of implication, a certain logical consequence follows: if the thought of the transcendental unity of apperception does imply the process of synthetic action according to the categories, then the violation of such action also implies the absence of this transcendental unity or Kantian ego. It does not, however, follow from this that, as we quoted Husserl, this ego "demands" for its own unity the "basic categorical laws" by which it intuits a unified world (see above p. 1071. Insofar as this demand would signify the dependence of the ego on the appearing world, it would reverse the Kantian order of implication. It would make the ego presumptive. It would make it dependent on the presence of the unified appearing world which its own unity supposedly "demands." Now, if it is a ground of the latter, it cannot be dependent on it. A condition for the world's appearing lawfulness is, as such, not conditioned by this lawfulness. We can put this in terms of the fact that, as a ground or condition, this ego for Kant is a noumenal ego. The dissolution of the world in a tumult of appearances does not affect this noumenal ego since, as noumenal, it is beyond the connected multiplicity of appearances. This point can be made slightly more concrete by noting that although the Kantian ego is the necessary and sufficient ground of the lawfullness of the world, it is only a co-ground of the world's appearance. For the latter to occur, it requires a "transcendent affection" from the things in themselves. This affection provides the necessary material for its synthetic action according to the categorical rules. Given this, we can say that the

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presence of a transcendental unity of apperception implies the presence of its synthetic action; but we must add that this action has a sensible effect only in the presence of a transcendent affection. The absence of the latter, thus, implies the absence of any appearing result of the egological action; it does not, however, imply that the ego, as understanding-as the sufficient ground of the world's lawfulness-has itself been disrupted. l B.

The Kantian Regressive Method and its Phenomenological Critique

There is, as indicated, a twofold deduction by which Kant arrives at the notion of the ego as the nouminal ground of the appearing world. As a ground, it is deduced under the principle that all combination requires a combiner, i.e., an active synthesizer. As noumenal, it is a consequence of the thought that the unconditioned ground of all combination cannot be intuited. Here, Kant presupposes that all intuition occurs through combination. Both deductions are examples of Kant's celebrated "regressive method." Broadly speaking, this is a method which proceeds from what is empirically given to deduce the universal conditions which must obtain if such givenness is to be possible. Husserl's sharpest criticisms of Kant concern his use of this method. He writes, for example, the following: One complains about the obscurity of the Kantian philosophy, about the incomprehensibility of the evidences of his regressive method, of its transcendental-subjective "faculties," functions, formations, about the difficulty of understanding what transcendental subjectivity actually is, how its functioning, its accomplishment comes about, how through this functioning objective science in toto is supposed to be made intelligible. In fact, Kant falls into his own type of mythic speech whose literal meaning certainly points to something subjective, but to a mode of the subjective which we, in principle, cannot make intuitive to ourselves, either by factual examples or by genuine analogy (Krisis, Biemel ed., p. 116). The point of this complaint is familiar to readers of the Critique. It essentially concerns a certain duality in Kant's conception of his regressive method. On the one hand, it is conceived as a regression to the phenomenal subject. Here, appearing subjective faculties and functions are conceived as serving as necessary conditions for the lawfulness of the appearing world. In this employment, many of its results appear strikingly similar to those obtained by Husserl's own phenomenological reduction. On the other hand, the Kantian method is also conceived as a regression to the ground of appearance per se. In this view, it is not the phenomenal but

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rather the noumenal subject who (along with the noumenal world) is represented as serving as a necessary condition for the appearance of the world. Thus, the faculties and functions are conceived as those of the noumenal subject and, as such, as operations which "we cannot, in principle, make intuitive to ourselves .... " With this move, the value for Husserl of the regressive method is undermined. In seeking the ground of appearance per se, the method undercuts the evidential quality of its account of how the ego functions as such a ground. Thus, the descriptions of the functioning of the ego it does provide become understood as descriptions of the functioning of the appearing ego. There is an enforced silence with regard to the actually functioning ego, which, as noumenal, is positioned beyond all phenomenal experience and description. We can illustrate this criticism with a reference to two of Kant's most important doctrines-those of the categories and of inner sense. With respect to the categories, the "given" to be regressively explained can be put in a number of ways. Each of the categorical concepts, e.g., those of substance and accident, of cause and effect, and so forth, is a way of characterizing reality. Each corresponds, according to Kant, to a logical form and also to a synthetic judgment. Thus, to the concept of causality there corresponds the form of the hypothetical assertion and also the synthetic judgment, "If there is an effect, then there must be a corresponding cause." Similarly, the concept of substance is correlated to the form of categorical assertion, "A is X," and to the synthetic judgment that A exists with the predicate X inhering in it. As these examples indicate, each synthetic judgment has the logical form which corresponds to its categorical concept. All of this is rather straightforward; yet it raises for Kant a number of questions: Why is reality categorizable at all? How can we make synthetic judgments about our experiences and claim that such judgments are not just valid for ourselves but hold for everyone regarding their objects? Finally, how can we apply our logical forms to our appearing, intuitable world? We do apply the logical forms of our assertions to what we experience and use them to deduce what we can expect to experience. What accounts for the success of such deductions? Furthermore, when our logical forms of inference are mathematized and used to construct a predictive, Newtonian account of nature, we can ask how the resulting science of nature is possible. Put in terms of givenness, our questions concern, respectively, the givenness of the categories, of objectively valid synthetic judgments, of the applicability of logic to nature and, by a certain extension of this last, the givenness of Newtonian science taken as a successful mathematization of nature. As a slight reflection shows, these questions imply each other. If nature is objectively categorizable, then, in employing our categories, we can make synthetic judgments about it. The objective validity of these

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judgments indicates the applicability of their logical forms to nature. We can further see that if certain synthetic judgments have an a priori, universal validity, i.e., hold for every possible object of experience, then these forms will also have a corresponding validity. They will validly apply to every object of experience simply by virtue of its being an object of experience. Thus, if it is true, a priori, that nothing occurs without its cause, then we are entitled to assert with respect to every state of affairs: "If it occurs, then there must be a corresponding cause." This implies that the form of a hypothetical judgment has an unlimited applicability with regard to the occurrence of experiential objects. The same argument can be made with regard to the form of categorical assertion if we can assert that a priori, every accident inheres in a substance-i.e., every predicate we make must attach itself to a persisiting being. Put in this way, we can say that the question of givenness concerns that of formal symbolic logic with its unrestricted applicability to all possible objects of experience. Correspondingly, it also concerns the givenness of synthetic, a priori judgments. Kant, in following the first aspect of his regressive method, explains such givenness in terms of "the necessary and universal connections of the given perceptions (Wahrnemungen)" by which we intuit a unified, selfconsistent world ("Prologomena," § 19, Kant's Schriften, W, 298). The explanation, in other words, is in terms of a category, subjectively understood as a universally operative rule for connecting perceptions. By virtue of its obtaining, we possess the synthetic (or connected) unity of the intuition whose objects confirm a particular type of synthetic judgment with its particular logical form. Thus, as Kant writes with regard to that which determines the synthetic judgment as necessary and, hence, as universally valid, " ... this can be nothing else than that [categorical] concept which represents the intuition as determined in itself with regard to one form of judgment rather than another, i.e., a concept of that synthetic unity of intuitions which can only be represented by a given logical form of judgment" (ibid., §21a, Kant's Schriften, IV, 304). Now, if we ignore the last few words of this passage, what we seem to have here is an invitation to an introspective, phenomenological investigation of the syntheses of consciousness. Thus, to explain the universal applicability of the logical forms to the world, we are first called upon to make a "table" or list of those synthetic a priori judgments of experience-e.g., the universal judgment of causality-which embody the basic logical forms-e.g., the form of a hypothetical judgment. We then are invited to interpret these judgments in terms of the connections obtaining betweeen our "given," i.e., our actually experienced, "perceptions." These are to be taken as the connections which "determine" our intuition in its "synthetic unity" to confirm a specific type of synthetiC a priori judgment. Tempting as this invitation is, it is one which Kant must eventually

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refuse when he propounds his doctrine of "inner sense." The regressive method, having brought Kant to the realm of "inner sense"-i.e., to the realm of direct introspection-follows its own logic and moves him beyond this. Its logic is that of proceeding from the given to explain the conditions of the possibility of such givenness. Now, for Kant, the regress to the conditions of the possibility of what is subjectively given through inner sense-i.e., through our reflections on our acts-involves his teaching on the constitution of time. What is subjectively given is simply perceptions (appearances 1in their temporal ordering. It is by virtue of their ordering in time that the connections arise which yield the syntheti~ unities of intuition. What this signifies is that temporal relations form the wbole of the sphere of what is proper to the subject. Time, thus, appears as the "formal condition of inner sense." It is that in which the representations available to this sense "must one and all be ordered, connected, and brought into relation" ("Kritik/, A 99, Kant's Scbriften, IV, 771. Granting this, a direct, phenomenolgical investigation of such relations would seem to give us the subjective conditions for the possibility of experience. In his section on the "Schematism/' Kant does, in fact, provide an analysis of the temporal relations which are required if we are to experience objects in conformity with the categories. Yet, what we have called the "logic" of the regressive method moves him beyond such analysis to inquire into the conditions of the possibility of time itself. The move, in other words, is from inner sense, the last of the directly intuitable realms, to the condition for its possibility as a field of temporal relations. Kant's teaching, here, is that temporalization is one of the bidden, constitutive functions of the subject. Briefly put, his doctrine is that being in time is not a feature of entities in themselves; it is rather something which the subject adds to them so as to make their appearance possible. With regard to our self-perception, this signifies that the temporal relations which we do observe through inner sense are relations descriptive of the appearing, and not of the acting subiect considered "in itself." Inner sense is, thus, limited to the results, as opposed to the underlying causes, of the self's activity. In Kant's words, "This sense presents even ourselves to consciousness only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves" ("Kritik/' B 152-53, Kant's Scbriften, ITI,1201·

This statement follows once we admit, with Kant, that we, qua appearance, are subject to the same conditions which we, qua active, impose to make appearance possible. In other words, insofar as the functioning of the ego appears to inner sense, it has already been subject to a second, bidden functioning which makes this appearance possible. For Kant, the nature of this ultimate functioning is necessarily shrouded in mystery. The most that can be said is that it is the constitutive functioning of the ego

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qua "transcendental ground" of the possibility of experience. In other words, Kant's conception of the ego as such a ground and his conception of it as noumenal, i.e., as something beyond experience, imply each other. Indeed, as developed by Kant, they are correlative conceptions. Husserl's reaction to this final result of the regressive method is one of sharp disappointment. The attempt to give "an intuitably redeemable sense" to the Kantian claims about the ultimate conditions for the possibility of experience must be abandoned once "we call to mind the Kantian doctrine of inner sense according to which everything exhibitable in the evidence of inner experience is already formed by a transcendental function, that of temporalization" (Krisis, Biemel ed., p. 116); hence, Husserl's complaint "about the incomprehensibility of the evidence of his regressive method." For Husserl, the root of this incomprehensibility lies in Kant's unlimited application of his method. Taken as a method which proceeds from the conditioned to its conditions, from what is to be grounded to its necessary grounds, it cannot, he believes, be applied to those things which, for us, are the grounds of all evidence. It cannot, in other words, be applied to appearance per se. The applicable principle here is, once again, Fichte's. Given that "the ground lies, by virtue of the mere thought of a ground, outside of that which is to be grounded," a ground of what counts a evidence cannot, itself, count as evidence. Otherwise put: An evidential ground of evidence is, in a strict Fichtean sense, impossible. This does not just express an analytical truth. For Husserl, it points to the fact that we cannot follow Kant and separate Denken from Erkennen (see above, p. 61). To "represent" through non-intuitive Denken a ground of evidence is for Husserl to undermine the notion of evidence itself. If evidence in the strong sense exists, then it must exhibit the quality of being self-evident (per se nota). It must show itself as being a last ground for whatever assertion we make-i.e., as something which declares itself in need of no further ground outside of itself. To ask for a ground (or reason) for some evidence is, thus, to declare that it is not evidence in the strong sense of the term. If we further say with Kant that appearance is for us the basis of our evidence, but it itself needs to be grounded on what does not appear, we have not just undermined our notion of what counts as evidence, we have also undercut the ultimate comprehensibility to ourselves of the arguments we make.

c.

Facticity and the A Priori in Kant and Husserl

In its broadest terms, the Husserlian position can be described as a reaction to this feature of the Kantian method. It embraces, first of all, Husserl's refusal to separate Denken from Erkennen. This, as we noted, involves his position that the "being in itself" of the object is equivalent to

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its being for us in its phenomenal presence. In other words, such phenomenal presence is understood as the ultimate or final ground for the positing of being (see above, p. 61). Implicit in this position is the fundamental insight that grounding (understood as constitution) cannot proceed beyond the phenomenally apparent. Ultimate appearances cannot themselves be taken as grounded phenomena. They must rather be taken as something radically given-i.e., as a final source of evidence. From this, there results the most basic definition of what phenomenology as a method is. It is a refusal to step out of the determining priority of appearance. This brings us to the second feature of the Husserlian reaction. If appearance is to be considered as a final ground, this means that it cannot be considered as determined in advance. Rather than being taken as determined by something else, it must be understood as that which ultimately determines everything else. The implication of this second feature can be introduced by making a further comparison between Kant and Husserl. Kant, we can say, must follow his regressive method in spite of its obscurity. The method is the only way he can accomplish his goal of grounding the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments. To see this, let us first recall Kant's statement that the categorical concept or rule, which determines the intuition "with regard to one form of judgment rather than another, ... can only be represented by a given logical form of judgment." If we ask why this rule cannot be directly represented, i.e., intuitively inspected, we come to a fundamental proposition on which both Kant and Husserl agree. It is that such inspection establishes only an instance of a rule. It does not establish its necessary and universal validity. Thus, inner sense, for Kant, can only give individual examples of connections between perceptions. It cannot "perceive" and, hence, intuitively establish, the necessity and universality of lithe given perceptions." The latter, however, is what is required if we are to ground a universal, categorical rule and, with this, a universal synthetic judgment based on this rule. This fundamental proposition is actually a basic insight into the nature of empirically based judgments. All such judgments are limited by the fact that whatever can be established by experience can also be overthrown by this same experience. The proof and the refutation are on the same level, springing as they do from what we experience. Given this, experience per se contains no guarantee that it will continue to validate the propositions which we draw from it. For such a guarantee, we require a notion of an a priori of experience. This is the notion of that which is universally valid-not by being grounded, like empirical propositions, on our given experience-but rather by being the ground of the very possibility of such experience. The requirement, then, is that of proceeding beyond experience to its necessary grounds. It is a requirement

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which only the regressive method, in its second aspect of proceeding to the noumenal, can ultimately satisfy. Kant's and Husserl's agreement on this point provides the necessary basis for their divergent positions. For Kant, the facticity of experiencei.e., its empirical contingency-is not something absolute or ultimate. Determining it in advance is the noumenal ego, this being conceived as "the transcendental ground of the necessary lawfulness of all appearances composing an experience" ("Kritik," A 127, Kant's Schriften, IV, 93). In his "transcendental deduction," the necessity of the categories and, with this, the necessity of synthetic a priori judgments are deduced from the uncombined unity of the noumenal ego. It is not to our purpose to give the steps of this deduction. We can, however, take note of its two fundamental premises. The first of these is Kant's position that the ego's unity implies the unity of the appearing world-i.e., a "transcendental unity" of the synthesis of the world's appearances. This means that a violation of the categorical rules for synthesizing appearances into such a unity implies a corresponding violation of the ego's unity (see above, p. 110). Its second premise is given by Kant's assertion that synthesis or "combination ... can only be performed by the subject itself since it is an act of its selfhood" (see above, p. 109). The premise here is that of the ego (or subject) understood as an active synthesizer, understood, in fact, as the ground of synthesis per se. As we said, such a ground of synthesis cannot, itself, be a result of a synthetic process. In acting to combine its experiences into an appearing world, the ego, then, must be uncombined. It must, in other words, be a simple unity, in Kant's words, "a thoroughgoing identity." With this, we can say that the necessity of the categorical rules for synthesis follows from a double implication. The violation of these rules implies a violation of the ego's unity, but this unity is implicit in the thought of the ego as the ground of all synthesis. Thus, if synthesis is to occur at all, it must, on these premises, occur through the ego, which means that it has to occur according to the categorical rules. Now, once we do have the necessity of the categories and that of the corresponding synthetic a priori judgments, the resulting rationality (or lawful structure) of the appearing world must also obtain. This is a rationality which includes, by definition, the universal applicability of logic, i.e., the logical forms of judgment, to the world. It also includes the necessity of natural science. In this regard, according to Husserl, the Kantian "presuppositions" include: "Nature as the necessary product of consciousness [understood] as rational consciousness. There is not just science as a fact. Science should and must exist. Absolute consciousness must develop itself so that science is possible" (Ms. B IV 9, p. IS, ca. 1915). For Kant, this absolute consciousness is the individual subject,

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which, as noumenal, is the sufficient ground of the lawfulness of the world and, with this, of the possibility of a rational (Newtonian) science of this world. Eidetically expressed, the presupposition here is that the world is essentially determined in advance by its grounding in the unity of this subject. Given this, we can also say that the eidos "world" with its necessary rationality precedes and specifies the factual world of experience. As is well known, all of these positions are explicitly denied by Husserl. His refusal to follow Kant in his regressive method results in his limiting himself to the empirical givenness of experience. It, thus, leads him to assert that we cannot establish a necessary and universally binding a priori for experience. For Husserl, then, the facticity (the empirical contingency) of experience is absolute or ultimate. He asserts, "The absolute which we uncover is absolute 'fact' {'Tatsacbe'}" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 13, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 403). From this position flow his denials of the successive elements of Kant's system. Thus, for Husserl, the pure, self-identical ego is not determinative of the factual course of experience. Rather than being a ground of the lawfulness which our actual experience manifests, it is grounded by such. It is, as we have seen, a "relative" or "dependent" ego. It depends on the "rationality" of experience, its stable rules of ordering experience, which give it its surrounding world. Concretely speaking, it depends upon its "life," i.e., on its ordered stream of experiences. Now, this "life" for Husserl is not such that it could guarantee the necessary continuance of the ego. It has not the necessary a priori lawfulness. In Hussed's words, " ... this life is not a life which is ideally constructable, not, let us say a 'logical' life" (Ms. B I 32, p. 19, Mayor Aug., 1931). Given the ultimacy of facticity, we must, indeed, admit, "'Factual' consciousness has no law ... " (Ms. 013 XXI, p. 137, 1907-9). It cannot fall under a law since, as absolute, the factual experience composing it cannot be prescribed to in advance. If we accept this doctrine, there is no possibility of a "transcendental deduction" in the Kantian sense. Neither the necessity of synthetic a priori judgments nor that of the applicability of logic to the world can be deduced from the presence of a pregiven, unitary subject. Husserl's position on this point dates from the period which follows the Logical Investigations. Synthetic a priori judgments, if such could be posited, would have to be considered as posterior to the givenness of experience; but, then, they would not really be prior in the sense of being prescriptive of experience. Thus, as Husserl writes in 1908, "The 'synthetic judgments a priori,' understood, however, as essential laws which are based on the idea of nature (the nature which appears to us or the nature which is taken as the basis for such types of appearance) naturally cannot prescribe any a priori

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rules for the course of experiences .... they rather already presuppose the thesis of a nature in order that they can be applied" (Ms. 013 XXI, pp. 278, 1907-9). The presupposition concerns the fact that experience has been so ordered as to make the thesis of nature possible. As Husserllater expresses this: "And Kant's transcendental questions concerning synthetic judgments a priorU ... Why must they be valid, whence their 'necessary and universal validity'? ... The factual (Das Factum) to which they can be made applicable is a subject matter for itself and must itself give an account of itself" (Ms. K IV 2, pp. 11-12, 1925). In other words, we must first see whether the factual can instantiate such judgments before we can consider the extent of their validity. Without this prior account of the factual, synthetic a priori judgments, understood as giving essential laws, can only present us with possibilities. They express only hypothetical as opposed to categorical (or absolute) necessitites. Thus, Hussed writes, "Facts are, in principle, incapable of being derived from essential laws; such laws, in the manner of ideal norms, only specify facts with regard to possibility" (Ms. F I 14, p. 49, June, 1911). They specify, in other words, the possibilities of what would obtain, if certain factual conditions were, indeed, given. They do not, however, prescribe the obtaining of such factual conditions. In Hussed's words, "These laws ... cannot pronounce with regard to an actuality ... i.e., whether or not there exists an actuality which corresponds to them. Essential laws possess a meaning for the real if something real (an individual being) can be given which falls under the essences, the ideas" (Ms. 0 13 XXI, p. 26, 1907-9). Husserl's basic position can be expressed as follows. It is that synthetic a priori judgments, in stating essential necessities, state these only hypothetically. Their fundamental form is: If the factual course of experience is such as to constitute a unified world and, with this, a unitary pure ego situated as an experiential center of this world, then the Kantian laws springing from the presence of this unitary ego do apply. It is, in other words, only at this point that the synthetic a priori judgments "must" have a necessary and universal applicability. Each of the above points may be considered as implicit in the next statement. Let us consider the following: When we proceed from factual nature and factual consciousness, the phenomenological a priori consists simply in the essences of the types of consciousness and in the a priori possibilities and necessities based on these essences. The factual (das Factische) is the course of consciousness. This holds for every case, whether or not this consciousness be sufficient for the constitution of an exact nature, i.e., our nature, and whether or not

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it be, as well, one which requires this .... It is also clear, however, that appearances and, in general, the formations of consciousness must proceed in a determinate manner in order for reason to be able to univocally designate a nature within them, i.e., indicate that the nature should be placed under them. Prior, then, to transcendental phenomenology, it is, therefore, a fact that the course of consciousness is so structured that within it a nature as a "rational" unity can constitute itself ("Beilage XX: Zur Auseinandersetzung meiner transcendentaler Phaenomenologie mit Kants Transcendentalphilosophie," 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 393). The use of the word, "rational," points to the coincidence of the theses of rationality and positing. For Husserl, as we recall, the positing of being is a "rationally motivated act." It depends upon the stable rules of ordering experiences and, hence, on the essences transcendentally conceived as specifying "the essential connections" required for positing. Without the "fact" of experience proceeding according to such rules, there is no actually obtaining a priori of nature; and, hence, there are no universally applicable synthetic a priori judgments. As we quoted Husserl, these judgments are "understood ... as essential laws" for the constitution of a nature. They specify the factual according to the "ideal possibilities" of what can be constituted from its given, empirical course. But as Husserl asks, "What use are these ideal possibilities which pertain to judgments, to evidence, and the norms which they afford when a 'senseless tumult' is there, one which, in itself, does not permit the cognition of a nature?" (Ms. o 13 XXI, p. 138, 1907-9). Not just nature is dependent on the factual course of consciousness. Without the fact of a nature "as a rational unity," there is also no ego which could be posited to observe its collapse into a "senseless tumult" of experiences. Thus, Husserl asks, "What could the ego be which has no nature facing it, an ego for whom-if nature is not even given as a sensibly approximate yet self-persisting illusion-there would, instead, be given a mere tumult of sensations?" (Ms. K IV 2, p. 14, Oct. 10, 1925). Husserl's answer to this question has already been given. The ego cannot exist without its centering environment. As he writes in the same manuscript, "a complete dissolution of the world in a 'tumult' is equivalent to the dissolution of the ego ... " (ibid., p. 10). With this dependence of both the world and its egological center on the factual course of experience, Husserl's denial of the remainder of the Kantian system follows as a matter of course. Logic has not a universal and necessary applicability. It is not valid a priori. As for the world or "nature," its rationality is not a priori determined. Hence, natural science, conceived as expressing such rationality, is not essentially necessary but, indeed,

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only a fact. With regard to the validity of the logical laws, Husserl first notes that "transcendental phenomenology reduces this validity to the essential connections, the connections of a possible consciousness whose possibilities are given." Here, Husserl's position approaches Kant's. As we recall, the logical forms of judgments are embodied by the synthetic a priori judgments. The latter, for Kant, are also reduced to the essentiali.e., to "the necessary and universal"-connections of consciousness. These are the essential "connections of the given perceptions" forming the field of a perceiving consciousness. The agreement ends at this point; since Husserl, with an eye to the factual course of consciousness, goes on to ask, "Why must the logical laws have field of applicability? In a factual nature? Transcendental logic, which as transcendental is led back to consciousness, contains the grounds for a possible nature but none for a factual nature" ("Beilage XX, " 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 394). Since facticity is an ultimate ground, it cannot be considered as something grounded. Otherwise put: It is itself the ground of the unities of ego and world which would demand the applicability of logic. The same point holds for the Kantian conception that the world must be rational. For Kant, this a priori rationality stems from the rationality of consciousness-i.e., its following the categorical rules for combining perceptions. Its ultimate ground is the noumenal ego conceived as an uncombined combiner. Having denied this basis, Husserl must assert: "It cannot be demonstrated that consciousness must be rational. It is evident from the essences of its acts that it must stand under norms. But that, according to ideal normative laws, there must be produced a unitary and, hence, a rational order of consciousness, that a nature must be able to exist, ... this is not 'necessary'" (Ms. B I 4, p. 2, 1908-9). In this passage, the norms referred to are only conditional necessities. They specify the conditions which must obtain if there is to be a unitary, rational order of consciousness. They do not, however, categorically assert that such conditions must factually obtain. Since the possibility of natural science depends upon such obtaining, Husserl cannot, then, accept the Kantian "presuppositions" he lists in this regard. He cannot assert: "Nature [exists) as a necessary product of consciousness as rational consciousness. There does not just exist science as a fact. Science should and must exist. Absolute consciousness must develop itself so that science is possible" (Ms. B IV 9, p. IS, 1915). Such statements would lead us to the idea of a rational, mathematically describable nature. This nature would be the only nature possible and would have its necessary existence from a consciousness which, broadly speaking, would follow a fixed determinate rule for its syntheses. For Husserl, "Such a fixed rule of consciousness, which would be indicated by this idea [of nature),

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need not actually be realized" (Ms. KIV 2, p. 2,1925; see also ibid., pp. 7-8). On the contrary, as he elsewhere remarks, "it does not lie within the universal essence of subjectivity that it be related to one nature and to the ideal, identical, 'the one and the same' nature, just as, on the other hand, [it does not lie with this essence thatJ every subject must universally be related or be thought of as related to the realm of the idealities"-i.e., the ideal essences and corresponding logical laws which would serve as norms for the constitution of such a nature. (Ms. B IV 12, pp. 9-lO, 1920). The relation Husserl sees between the factual world and the eidos "world" composed of such idealities should now be clear. It is that "the fact of the world (das Factum Welt) ... precedes the essential-eidos world (Weseneidos Welt}." Husserl explains this by immediately adding, "Every imagined world is already a variant of the factual and can only be construed as such a variant; therefore, the invariant eidos of all obtainable variations of the world is bound to the factual" (Ms. E III 9, p. 15, 1929). The reference to "variations" relates to Husserl's method of intuiting the essences once the latter are conceived as posterior to the factually given. The method consists in taking an example of the factually given and varying it in imagination in order to examine the essential limits of its type of givenness. Thus, to take his standard example, no matter how we imaginatively vary a spatial-temporal object, its givenness as spatial-temporal depends upon its appearing perspectivally. Now, for transcendental phenomenology, the eidos or essence is understood in terms of the "essential connections" of consciousness. What this signifies with regard to the example is that the connections, which are essentially required to set up this perspectival appearing, stand as the invariant eidos-the "one in many"of all the imagined modes of givenness in which a spatial-temporal object can be posited. Since this method starts off with the factually given, its variations and, hence, the resultant eidos, are by definition bound to the factual. As Husserl later expresses this, the "factual bears all the possibilities in itself, it contains the universe of examples which govern all the variations" (Ms. B I 13, vi, p. 2, 1931). The factual, then, determines the variations by giving them the examples which serve as their necessary starting points. It provides the factual example which we can imaginatively vary so as to come up with the possibilities of being. Let us sum up Husserl's view of the priority of the factual by mentioning three points which will be crucial for our later remarks. The first is that there is no necessary essence of perception which could be conceived as determining the factual. If there were, then such an essence, understood in terms of the Kantian a priori for connecting perceptions, would require that the subject constitute a specific world with a specifically given essential structure. The necessity of this structure would be derivable from the

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necessary essence of the subject's perceptual processes. Against such a supposition, Husserl writes: "The existence of the world is a correlate of certain multiplicities of experience marked out by certain essential formations. But it is not a matter of insight that actual experience could proceed only in such forms of connections. This cannot be inferred purely from the essence of perception per se ... "(Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 114). This follows because this essence does not present a determining necessity, but only a possibility of the factual. The realization of this possibility depends on the actual givenness of a factual course of consciousness. What we have, then, is only a correlation of possibilities. On the one hand, we have possibilities involving types experiencing (or perceiving) consciousness. "Consciousness" here designates the concrete subject and includes both the ego and its ordered stream of experiences. The ordering of the stream has a number of possibile variations, variations distinct from its present actual ordering which need not result in the ego's dissolution. On the other hand, we have possibilities involving types of existent worlds. These can be matched to those involving types of experiencing consciousness. Thus, as Husserl writes, " ... the correlate of our factual experience, called the 'actual world/ shows itself as a special case of multiple possible worlds and non-worlds which, on their part, are nothing other than correlates of the essentially possible variations of the idea of 'experiencing consciousness' with its more or less ordered connections of experience" (ibid., p. Ill). In other words, the actuality of our given world with its essential structure is simply the result of the facticity of experience having realized one of its essential possibilities. Implicit in the above is the notion that the factually given connections of experience are themselves variable. It is because these connections in their specific forms could have been otherwise that the actual consciousness and its actual world are only special cases, i.e., "possible variations." The status of the actual world as one of many "possible worlds and nonworlds/' thus, occurs in coincidence with the notion of the contingency of the factual order of things. 2 Our second point, then, is that, as grounded on the contingent connections of consciousness, the world itself has a contingent character. We have already discussed this character at length. It is one which leads Husserl to ask, once again in opposition to Kant, "Must there always exist an ego and a physical nature? Cannot consciousness collapse in a tumult of formations?" ("Beilage XIX, zur Vorlesung: Hat Kant wirklich das Grundproblem der Erkentniskritik getroffen/' 1908, EP I, Bohm ed., p. 393). Given that such "formations" or forms of connections have no a priori necessity, Husserl's answer is clear. As he writes towards the end of his career, "But is it not apparent that the being (the actual existence) of nature is an open pretension on every level ... ?" (Ms. KIll 2, p. 9,

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Oct. 10, 19351. In other words, we constantly have the possibility that lithe unity of nature resolves itself into nothing"-i.e., a "non-world" as a possible variant-" or is itself a de solving, unlawful, only empirically regulated matter with whose collapse we must come to terms" (ibid., p. 101. With this, we have what we may call the third aspect of the phenomenological notion of the contingency of being. The first aspect was given by us when we noted with Husserl that direct intuition could never completely establish the thesis of the thing regarded as a noematic bearer or "pure X." Such intuition could establish the present predicates of the thing, but not its continual existence as their "bearer." The second aspect came through the acknowledgement that the ego or subject to whom the thing was given was itself contingent or dependent on the givenness of lithe world of things, of objects." It, thus, could not serve as it guarantor. Our third aspect essentially coincides with these two since,like them, it is ultimately based on Husserl's self-imposed limitation to the givenness of experience. From such empirical givenness, a priori laws cannot be grounded. Empirical experience cannot per se establish universal and necessary rules. Such rules, however, are required if we are to establish the thesis of the thing as there, i.e., as constantly affording us, from its being-in-itself, perceptions of a certain type and ordering. As we cited Husserl, the thesis of the being-in-itself of a thing involves the notion of "an infinite process of appearing which is absolutely determined in its essential type." It involves, in other words, an infinite "continuum of appearances" which "is thought of as governed throughout by an essential lawfulness" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 3511. Now, such "essentiallawfulness," considered as applicable ad infinitum, necesarily requires the postulation of Kant's a priori. It requires what cannot be empirically established, i.e., lithe necessary and universal connections of the given perceptions" which yield the ongoing intuition of the thing. Husserl's self-limitation to the empirically given, thus, denies him the thesis of the inherent actuality of the thing. It makes all positing of being a presumptive positing (see ibid., p. 339-391. To put this in terms of the remarks of our Introduction, we can say that Husserl's self-limitation to the intuitively given leads him to the equation of being with being-given in intuition. From thence, it necessarily leads him to the presumptiveness or contingency of being. The equation of being with being-given is the essential feature of Hussed's idealism. Our third point is that insofar as this equation leads to the ultimacy of facticity and its contingency, such idealism must stand opposed to that of Kant and his followers. As Iso Kern expresses this, "In his interpretation of the facticity of world-constitution or of the 'ego of transcendental apperception,' Hussed was aware that he was in a fundamental opposition to German idealism." For the latter, as represented by

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Kant, the ego is prior to and determinative of the factual. For Husserl, the reverse is the case. Regarding the resultant contingency of both the ego and its world, Kern expresses this opposition as follows: Insofar as Husserl teaches that world-constitution or, as the case may be, the ego who possesses the world (the 'ego of transcendental apperception') does not, itself, have a basis in a transcendental subjectivity which would make this constitution necessary and permit the positing of the ego itself as necessarily possessing the worldor, better, insofar as world-constitution does not have a basis in a transcendental subjectivity which could guarantee the genesis and continuance of this constitution so that there would not continually exist for transcendental subjectivity the possibility of the dissolution of the cosmos and the 'ego of transcendental apperception'-there results for Husserl a concept of transcendental idealism which is basically different from that of German idealism (Husserl u. Kant, ed. cit. pp. 297-98).

§2. FACTICITY AND THE POSSIBILITY OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION

A.

A Transcendental Clue

As is well known, Kant never gave the problem of intersubjectivity any special attention. The reason for this is clear. This problem, for Kant, is not really one at all, since its solution falls so directly from his basic assumptions. If we reconstruct this solution, we find, first of all, that the Kantian approach to the problem is remarkably similar to Husserl's. But we also find that its solution is one which Husserl cannot accept. Insofar as Kant can be said to treat of intersubjectivity, his focus (like Husserl's) is on the issue of knowing. It concerns the claim of knowledge to objective validity. As we noted in the Introduction, such knowledge involves Others since for Kant (as for Husserl) objective and universal validity are considered to be equivalents. A universally valid judgment holds, not just for ourselves, but, as Kant writes, "holds, in the same way, for everyone else" ("Prologomena," § 18, Kant's Scbriften, IV, 298). To claim such validity for our judgment is, thus, to claim that Others judge (and perceive) as we do. How is this claim to be secured? Both philosophers attempt this by a reduction to the subjective, although each understands the results of this reduction in a fundamentally different manner. Kant's solution is contained in his assertion that the universal validity of a judgment is secured if, "in this judgment, we know the object (even though, it

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remains unknown how it may be in itself) through the universal and necessary connections of the given perceptions" (ibid., § 19, IV, 298). The guarantee, in other words, is provided by the a priori operation of a category which determines as a rule the connections of perceptions. The rule is understood as that which first makes possible the synthesis of perceptions into an objective intuition; it is, thus, seen as a rule which necessarily and universally holds for all intuiting subjects. Therefore, once we admit its "a priori" character, we also admit Husserl's "harmony of constitutive systems"-Le., the harmony of the perceptual syntheses by which individuals intuit objects. This harmony, as we recall, places the individuals in an intersubjective community. Its objective correlate is the world of shared meanings-a "nature" in the Kantian sense. By virtue of his "fundamental opposition" to German idealism, Husserl cannot avail himself of this guarantee. His stress on the ultimate character of facticity requires him to admit that neither "nature" nor the individual ego has any a priori guarantee. Thus, with regard to the first, he writes: " ... that there exists a nature, this is not at all a priori; this, even though the idea of nature be proposed and the ontological laws pertaining to it be determined a priori as the logical constituents of this idea" (Ms D 13 XXI, pp. 25-26, 1907-9). The same point holds with regard to the individual ego. Speaking of "facts and possibilities (eidetic data)/, he notes that "on the lowest level, we do not yet have an ego, a person, a physical thing, a physical and a mental world" (ibid., p. 124). For Husserl, there is no a priori guarantee that the factual and the possibilities it contains will ever result in these. With this, we may formulate the special problem which facticity presents to Husser!' If the factual course of an individual consciousness is completely undetermined, it must be regarded as purely selfdetermining or spontaneous in its formation of connections. At this point, however, there is no possibility of an intersubjective harmony. Two pure spontaneities (of two distinct factual courses of consciousness) can only accidentally and only for a time agree. In this situation, an appeal to "eidetic data" (Wesensgegenbenheiten) is no help at all in establishing a harmony of constitutive systems. Since the essence is posterior to facticity, it expresses only a possibility: the possibility of Others being like oneself if their factual courses of consciousness are the same. The establishment of a genuine intersubjectivity requires not just the bare possibility of Others. It requires that the conditions be given for their actually constituting as I do. Thus, it requires a real similarity in the factual courses of consciousness that are present in myself and Others; for only then would the essential possibilities which I find in myself be considered as actualizable in Others as well. Given this conclusion, we have a certain transcendental "clue" regard-

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ing the direction which Hussed must follow. It is one that we have remarked upon twice before. The first reference concerned the assertion that transcendental subjectivity "does not acknowledge an outside." This implies that to know such subjectivity, we must, in some sense, come into coincidence with it, i.e., approach it from the "inside." The second concerned the reversal of the Seinsrede. This signified that the ultimately constituting subjectivity, as a ground of objective, individual being, could not itself be described in terms of such being. It must, instead, be considered as pre-objective and pre-individual. In distinction to the numerical singularity of objective being, it itself must be taken as a unique singularity. Here, we may express the same general point of departure in terms of facticity. The above mentioned "problem" of facticity arises from locating its pure spontaneity in the ob;ectively individual sub;ect. This makes the intersubjective harmony between individual subjects only accidentally possible. To place the pure, undetermined spontaneity of facticity in the individual is, at best, to consider facticity and individualtiy as on the same level. At worst, it is to consider facticity as determined by the individual. Granting, however, the ultimate quality of facticity as well as the grounded quality of individual being, neither notion is warranted. Facticity can exist, on the lowest level, without there being "an ego, a person, a physical thing .... " As the "absolute" which Hussed uncovers, it is to be taken as the ground of these. The direction which Hussed is compelled to take is thus clear. Our "clue" is that since Hussed cannot proceed beyond facticity in his attempt to establish an intersubjectivity, he must proceed beyond objective individuality. The solution, in other words, must come from an examination of facticity per se, facticity as a prior determinant of individual being. B.

Facticity and the "Thought Experiment" of the Reduction

How is such an examination to be accomplished? Our general claim is that the phenomenological reduction can be conceived as a response to the problem facticity poses for the establishment of an intersubjectivity. Let us put this in terms of a remark which we made in the Introduction. We asserted "that the reduction, which raises the problem of transcendental solipsism, overcomes this problem when pursued to the end" (see above, p. 1). It raises the problem because it is mistakenly conceived as reduction to experiences solipsistically regarded as those which are mine and no one else's. As we shall see, it overcomes this problem because, when we do pursue it to the end, it passes beyond the objective individuality which is implicit in such words as limine." It uncovers the ground of such individuality in the impersonal facticity of experience. Now, the very possibility of the reduction accomplishing this task rests on the following

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point: The reduction, as Husserl conceives it, is impossible without the ultimacy of facticity. As dependent on this last, it cannot take itself as a reduction to personal or private experiences. This follows because its dependence on a truly prior facticity is its dependence on a level on which there is not yet an ego which could serve as a solipsistic reference point for the experience it uncovers. To establish this, we must first take note of the use Husserl makes of the reduction in ldeen l. It is that of overcoming the "general thesis" of the natural attitude. According to this, the world which confronts us is independently "there" (da), independently "available" (Vorhanden) for our various activities. As Husserl notes, this is a perfectly general thesis, one underlying any particular thesis about an object's existence or its specific qualities. It is assumed as an "attitude/' a stance which is taken up prior to any explicit thinking about objects. Husserl formulates it in the following words: The presently perceived, the clearly or obscurely presented [entity]-in short, everything from the world of nature which is experientially known before any [explicit] thought-all this bears, in its totality and in every one of its articulated features, the character of being "there/' of being "available." This is a character which essentially permits the establishment of an explicit (predicative) judgment of existence, a judgment agreeing with itself (Ideen I, Biemel ed., pp. 63-64). This agreement is with the character of being there or available. The object, which is asserted to exist, is asserted as there, as available to us-this, whether or not we notice it, i.e., actually experience it. When we inquire into our own availability, the answer of the natural attitude depends on how we take our being. If we take it as the being of a spatial-temporal object, our availability is simply that of a part of the spatial-temporal world. Within the natural attitude, my assertion is: "I find constantly available, as something facing me (als mem Gegenaber), the one spatial-temporal reality (Wirklichkeit) to which I myself belong as do all other persons found within it and related in the same way to it" (ibid., p. 63). We are related to it as parts of the same whole. As for the whole, it is the world; and in the natural attitude, '''The' world, as reality, is always there ... " (ibid.). If, however, I take my being, not as a thing, but rather as the experiences I have of things, my availability or thereness has a different character. The availability of the experiences making up my field of consciousness is dependent on the availability of that of which they are ex-

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periences. Consciousness, here, is a kind of mirror. The contents which distinguish it are only there by virtue of the thereness of the entity whose presence is reflected in it. Thus, taken as a field of experiences, consciousness has only a dependent being. Its availability is that of its object; it is there only if its object is present. Husserl, in arguing against this position, proposes what can be called a thought experiment. The experiment consists of disordering, in thought, the connections by which we experience objects. In Husserl's words: "Let us imagine ourselves performing apperceptions of nature, but such as are continually invalid, apperceptions which are cancelled in the process of further experience; let us imagine that they do not allow of the harmonious connections in which experiential unities could constitute themselves for us" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 132). Objectively speaking, the result is that, in thought at least, "the whole of nature" has been "destroyed"; and this includes the "animate organisms" (Leiber) of myself and Others conceived of as parts of the natural world. In other words, with the disordering, "there are no more animate organisms and, with this, no human beings (Menschen). As a human being, I would no longer exist and a fortiori there would not exist for me fellow humans" (ibid., p. 133). All the ordered connections which allowed me to posit an incarnate person as a spatial-temporal reality have, thus, been nullified. Now, subjectively speaking, the results of this disordering can be extended to the interpretation of experiences as mental states or psychological conditions of a person. In Husserl's words, "If there would be something still remaining which could permit the apprehension of the experiences as 'states' of a human ego-experiences in whose changes identical human mental traits manifested themselves-we could also think of these interpretations as robbed of their existential validity (Seinsgiiltigkeit). The experiences, then, would remain as pure experiences .... Even mental states (Auch psychische Zustilnde) point back to the ordering of the absolute experiences in which they constitute themselves ... " (ibid.). The result is the cancellation of any positing of a "mental personality, mental characteristics, mental experiences or real mental states" (ibid., p. 134). It is the dissolution of what Husserl calls the "personal ego"-i.e., the ego of the ordered connections which form the cogito. This experiment, by which Husserl actively attempts to conceive what he elsewhere speaks of as "the dissolution of the world in a 'tumult,'" leaves us, in fact, with no ego at all. Its final result is thought of as "pure" or "absolute" experiences from which no individual unities are capable of being constituted. Otherwise put, what we have here are simply experiences whose connections have been abstracted from all ordering principles. Husserl, in the Ideen, continues to call the stream of such experiences "consciousness." Yet the term now has the

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sense of an egoless streaming. It denotes simply the elements from which positing would occur if they were ordered into definite patterns. Once we have achieved this abstraction, what have we accomplished? For Husserl, the first result of this experiment is the reverse of the thesis of the natural attitude. We can still think of consciousness as "there" in its component experiences, even when we disorder the patterns which make these into experiences of some thing. Thus, consciousness, in the above defined sense, continues to be there, available for our thought after we have eliminated the conditions for the availability of the thing. Granting this, how can we say that, in principle, the availability of consciousness depends on the availability of the thing, that its Dasein has as its essential condition the latter's Dasein~ As the experiment reveals, the dependence is actually the reverse. The presence of the thing depends upon the presence of the ordered connections of consciousness. As for consciousness itself, its presence is that of something "absolute"-absolute in the sense that " ... it requires in principle no 'thing'in order to exist" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 115). As Husserl expresses this: ... it is evident that the being of consciousness, that of the stream of experience per se, would indeed be modified by a destruction of the world of things, but it would not be disturbed in its own existence. Modified, certainly! For the destruction of the world correlatively means precisely this: that in this stream of experience ... certain ordered experiential connections and also, correspondingly, certain connections of the theorizing reason which orient themselves according to the former connections would be excluded. But this does not imply that other experiences and connections of experiences would be excluded (ibid.). In other words, what is absolute is the stream itself; this, no matter what possible connections happen to obtain. This absolute quality is also expressed by Husserl in terms of the doctrine that consciousness cannot be considered to have an outside. In Husserl's words, "consciousness, considered in 'purity,' must count as a self-contained connection of being (Seinszusammenhang), as a connection of absolute being into which nothing can enter and from which nothing can slip away, a connection which has no spatial-temporal outside ... " (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 117). This lack of an "outside" follows from the fact that the spatial-temporal world and, hen-ce, the whole basis for the notions of "inside" and "outside," is considered as constitutively dependent on the prior presence of "experiences and connections of experiences." Considered in its "purity," consciousness allows of an possible connections,

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including those which result in the notion of an "inside" and "outside." Thus, the thought of a world as "beyond" it, as there "outside" of it, "is an absurdity." (ibid.). In fact, what we have here is the thought of consciousness as the ground of the world. This result immediately reveals the nature of Husserl's thought experiment. The latter is nothing more nor less than the actual practice of the reduction, regarded in its second, ontological sense. As we quoted Celms, this sense is "the leading back of objective (transcendent) being to the being of the corresponding modes of consciousness" (Der phaen, Idealismus Hus., ed. cit., p. 309). These modes are the ways in which experiences can be connected to make possible the presence of objective being. Thus, the "being" to which constituted entities are led back is not that of the individual ego considered in its pure, personal or real aspects. The thought experiment, which results in the dissolution of the ego's surrounding world in a "tumult" of disordered experiences, reveals the dependence of both the ego and its world on such connections. 3 Once we disorder the latter, what remains as "absolute"i.e., as unconditionally given-is simply the experiences themselves, the experiences in their factual givenness. C.

The Premise of Facticity

When we ask for the condition of the possibility of this reduction-i.e., for the guarantee that it can reach this "absolute"-we come to the claim we made above: The reduction is impossible without the ultimacy of facticity. Here, we can say that the reduction is in the curious position of uncovering the grounds of its own possibility of performance. To make this concrete, let us recall that it is this ultimacy which makes Husserl declare that there is no a priori, determining essence of perception. Because of this, "it is not," for Husserl, "a matter of insight that actual experiences can proceed only in such connections"-i.e., those connections which give us a coherent world (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 114). Once we admit this, then the crucial step of the thought experiment can be made. This is given by Husserl's assertion that the exclusion of these connections "does not imply that other experiences and connections of experiences would be excluded" (ibid., p. 115). Indeed, admitting that any and every type of connection is possible, the thought experiment can proceed to its end. If there is no a priori, binding form for the connections of experience, then we can conceive of the dissolution of everything posited through such connections. In Husserl's words, the lack of such a form signifies that it is thinkable that experience-and not just for us, but rather inherently-teems with unresolvable contradictions, that experience, all at once, shows itself as obstinately opposed to the demand that

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its positings of things should ever harmoniously persist. It is thinkable that experiences' connections should forfeit the stable rules of ordering perspectives, apprehensions and appearances and that this actually remains ad infinitum the case, in short, that there no longer exists a harmoniously positable and, hence, existing world (ibid.). Thus, once we assert the ultimacy of facticity and, correlatively, deny the existence of any a priori (categorical) rules for connecting perceptions, two results follow. We have, first of all, the possibility of conceiving experiences in abstraction from any binding forms. We also have the possibility of conceiving such experiences in abstraction from the world which is constituted through such forms. This second result is the possibility of the reduction to the "absolute" consciousness conceived as a stream of "pure" experiences, a stream which is independent of any given world. We can put this in the negative by noting that the denial of the absolute quality of facticity is equivalent to the assertion of an a priori form for perception. This follows since this absolute quality is facticity's character of not being determined beforehand-Le., of not standing under a priori rules. If there are such rules pertaining to what is factually given in perception, then the latter has a determining form. If it does, we have the co-givenness of consciousness and the world. Thus, in our present state, we actually intuit a world or "nature" in the Kantian sense. If the connections of experiences by which this is accomplished are a priori determined, then the givenness of the field of consciousness necessarily implies such connections and hence implies the givenness of the world which is constituted through these. At this point, the reversal of the natural attitude's thesis becomes impossible. There is no possibility of a reduction to a consciousness which is "absolute"-i.e., independent of the Vorhandensein of the world. On this premise, both consciousness and the world are always co-available. The same sort of argument can be applied to Husserl's reversal of the Seinsrede. As we said, the reversal's point is the de-absolutization of individual, objective being. For Husserl, such being is only "second." It is constitutively dependent on the being which is "first"-Le., that of consciousness considered as absolute. The fundamental principle of this reversal, as we quoted Fink, is that individual, worldly "being is, in principle, constituted ... " ("Proposal," ed. cit., p. 196; F. 201). We, thus, have to say, "The world, taken as the totality of real being, ... with the multiplicity of being as stone, plant, animal and human, ... is only a moment of that absolute." We assert, in other words, that "the world has the sense of a constituted product, that, hence, it presents only a relative 'totality' in the universe of constitution" (ibid., pp. 174-75; F. 175). Now, the world could not

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be de-absolutized or made relative if consciousness were determined a priori to produce it. Such determination would result in the co-givenness of consciousness and the world. It would, thus, imply that the "thereness" and "availability" of consciousness is not prior to the "thereness" and "availability" of the world and, hence, that consciousness cannot be considered as "first" and the world as "second." Implicit in this is the fact that when we do take consciousness as "first," we understand it as a streaming field of pure experiences. The reversal of the Seinsrede which takes it as "first" is, in other words, an implicit reduction. It states the reduction's conclusion which is that this field is "first" by virtue of being the constitutive ground of everything else. Granting this, the reversal must, like the explicit reduction, presuppose the ultimacy of facticity. Let us express this presupposition in terms of the independence of the ground from the grounded. Consciousness is "first" because of its independence of what it grounds. As a streaming field, it "needs no thing," i.e., no constituted result of its action, "in order to exist." Now, if we take the practice of the reduction as that of "bracketing" or suspending in thought the experiential connections which result in the presence of the thing, we can see how the reduction demands such independence. Without this, the point of its performance is lost. Thus, in suspending the connections between experiences, its aim is to examine the experiences themselves. If, however, the experiences were bound to the connections which form them into a synthetic unity, bound so that their own presence depended upon the presence of such connections, they could not be independently regarded. In this event, the thought experiment of the reduction would not yield a residuum. The dissolution of the world in a tumult would be equivalent not just to the dissolution of the connections through which it is posited but also to that of the experiences which occurred in such connections. It would, in other words, leave us with nothing at all. Since we do have a residuum, we can say that the pure experiences are independent of their connections. With this, we can assert the ultimacy of facticity, since it follows that such experiences are independent in determining what, if anything, results from their streaming. The same line of reasoning holds for constitution. Understood as a process of grounding, it, too, implies Fichte's axiom of grounding, namely, that the ground is both distinct from and independent of what it grounds. Thus, if the ground-i.e., the separate constituting phenomena-were not distinct from the grounded, then the constitutive process would not result in anything new. It would be a process of mere collecting and reassembling. It would not result in the presence of a synthetic unity with new characteristics-e.g., those of perspectival appearing. Furthermore, if the

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lower levels of phenomena were not independent of the unities which they constitute, the constitutive process would be impossible. As we recall, the process is the reverse of the reduction. It is one of lower levels of phenomena successively constituting through their connections ever higher levels. Thus, as the reduction descends level by level by bracketing the connections which result in each level, so constitution progressively ascends by establishing such connections. Its highest point is the thing with all its predicates and external relations. It is its being in the world. Now, if the lower levels were dependent on the higher in the sense that their givenness demanded the latter, then the distinction between the constituted and the constituting would collapse. We could no longer distinguish between constituting experience and constituted object since our experiences would not be there, available to us, without those connections which resulted in the thereness of the object. At this point, we could no longer speak of constitution as the progressive, ongoing production of something new-i.e., the object as opposed to the experiences we have of it. The very logic of its notion, thus, demands that the constitution have the same premise as the reduction: that of the independence of the constituting phenomena vis-a.-vis what they constitute. The givenness of the former does not necessarily demand the givenness of the latter, since the former can exist apart from the latter. This, of course, is what we should expect. It follows from constitution and the reduction being the reverse of each other. Both concern the same character of worldly being, even though they regard it from opposite perspectives. The one concerns itself with its possible dissolution, the other with its ongoing production. But they both presuppose the facticity of the experiential grounds for its presence. To see how deeply embedded this premise is in Husserl's teachings, we may mention two further doctrines. The first is that of the dependence of the ego on its surrounding world. This dependence is actually dependence of both ego and world on the ordered connections of consciousnsess. To establish this, we have to perform the reduction. It is the latter which reduces consciousness to a pre-egological streaming, thereby showing the dependence of the ego on this streaming. Thus, if we make the reduction impossible by denying the ultimacy of facticity-or, what is the same, by denying the independence of the elements of constituting consciousness-we close off the method by which we can exhibit that the individual ego requires its world, i.e., requires the experiences and connections which establish this world. The second doctrine which is embedded in the premise of facticity is Husserl's teaching that all constituted unities are contingent. The premise is that last grounds of such unities-i.e., the ultimate elements of

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experience-are ultimately factual. This means that they display with regard to the whole of the constituted world an unconditioned givenness. It also means that none of the levels of constitution which may follow them must do so as a matter of a priori necessity. Thus, the results of the constitutive process must, on.e and all, be regarded as contingent. They mayor may not be constituted-and this, no matter what level constitution has attained. This follows because the phenomena on one level are not dependent on the connections which result in the constitution of the next. Granting this, we have to say with Husserl, "But is it not apparent that the being (the actual existence) of nature is an open pretension on every level . .. ?" (Ms. K III 2, p. 9, Oct. lO, 1935, italics added). To express the same point in an equivalent fashion, we may note again that insofar as the constituting ground is considered as independent, it has no necessary tie to its constituted results. Given the ground, we are not necessarily given the grounded. The final assertion of Husserl's thought experiment-i.e., that "consciousness requires no 'thing' in order to exist"-is based on this point. The prior availability of consciousness, considered as an absolute field of experiential elements, is based on the fact that its own givenness does not demand that a constituted world also be given. Thus, from the point of view of the ground, the presence of the grounded must be regarded only as a contingent and never as a necessary result. With this, we come to the fourth aspect of the phenomenological notion of the contingency of being. It is one which encompasses the three which we have hitherto mentioned (see above, p. 124). The contingency of being springs, phenomenologically, from the separation of experience and ob;ect, of ground and grounded, which is inherent in the constitutive process that results in being. The basis of contingency is, then, the independence of the "absolute" consciousness which functions as the constitutive ground of objective being. We, thus, have to say that such an "absolute" can only ground contingencies since its character, as an absolute which the reduction can uncover, involves necessarily the notion of its undetermined independence or, what is the same, its ultimate facticity. §3. ABSOLUTE AND INDMDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS

A.

The Absolute in Itself

When we turn to this absolute in itself, there are a number of characterizations which come to the fore. The first of these is that it is a concrete expression of what is implied by the reversal of the Seinsrede. The reversal signifies not just the de-absolutization of individual, objective being, but also the grounding of such on the being which is pre-individual and pre-

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objective. Absolute consciousness is the latter-at least when we consider it as a field of experiences whose connections have been suspended by thought. So considered, it needs no "thing" in order to exist. Indeed, the experiences composing its being must be considered as pre-individual and pre-objective precisely because they are prior to such "things," constituting them by their connections. We can develop this last remark into a definite conception of the absolute's unique singularity by considering again what is involved in individual (non-unique) unity. As we earlier noted, Hussed places the basis of this unity in the constituting connections of consciousness and not in the experiences and perceptual predicates taken in isolation (see above, p. 64). The latter are not what we intend when we intend the "meant as such"-i.e., the existing individual. Our intentions pass from experience to object, from perceptual predicate to its "bearer." The former have, in this context, the character of universality with regard to the latter. Thus, our experiences, taken in isolation, can be considered as experiences of any number of objects. The same holds for the perceptual predicates. They, too, can be taken as one thing applicable to many-i.e., many possible "bearers" of their specific senses. In aiming at the individual entity, rather than at such "universal" features, our intention comes to rest on the point of interconnection between these features. It is their connections which make these universal elements into features of one specific entity. Granting that the thesis of objective individuality is a thesis concerning the obtaining of such connections, it cannot be made on the level of the experiences whose connections have been suspended in thought. Such experiences, then, must be regarded as pre-individual, i.e., as before the possibility of the thesis of objective individuality. Another way of expressing the above is to say that the being of such experiences is not that of one among many things, but rather that of one in many things. What is one among many has the character of numerical singularity. It is the sort of being which always involves a beyond. When we attempt to conceive of it as a totality, we conceive of it as a plurality of individual beings, one which always allows the additon to further members. Thus, to take an example, the totality of men, conceived as a totality of individual beings, is simply a collection. One can always conceive of adding another man to this collection, and this addition is its real enrichment. We can also say that within the categories of numerically singular being, the totality represents the numerical sum of non-unique individuals. The fact that this sum can always be added to signifies that we cannot, within these categories, grasp being as a unique singular-i.e., a singular not having a beyond. To achieve a conception of the latter, we must focus on the common elements of being-the elements which show

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themselves as one in many. This is being as a predicable sense and, ultimately, being as an experience considered in isolation from its connections. In strictly phenomenological terms, this point follows because sense, taken as a predicate noema, has as its basis a connected multiplicity of experiences. Further connections with other such multiplicities would make it the sense of some one existent. It is when we think of it in abstraction from these further connections that it becomes predicable of many existents. A fortiori, we have the one in many (or universal) character of the separate experiences. Regarded apart from the connections which form them into a predicate noema, they can apply to many such noemata and, hence, to the multitude of objects which are apprehended through the connections of such noemata (see Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 322). Now, such senses and experiences are unique singulars vis-a-vis the multiplicities in which they are present. Thus, to grasp the totality of men as a uniquely singular whole, we must apprehend it in terms of the predicable sense which defines its individual members. We here conceive of the sense as determining which entities are to count as members of the totality. So conceived, it cannot be enriched by the mere addition of entities which fall under its notion. The same is the case with regard to the experience. The multiplication of noemata and, ultimately, of things which exemplify its content does not result in its own multiplication as such a content. It remains one thing, an experience with a specific content, which continues to be present in many noemata and, hence, in many intended objects. The focus on the being which does not have a "beyond" is, thus, a focus on unconnected senses and, ultimately, on the unconnected experiences (understood as experiential contents) forming these senses. Only such being, as one in many, is not meaningfully multiplied by the many. In other words, since it does not possess the individuality of things, it is not multipliable in the way they are and, hence, does not possess a "beyond" as the latter do when they are grasped as collections or numerical sums. Another man can always be added to the sum of man. But there is only one defining sense of this collection if it is to be grasped as an all-embracing totality of a specific sort of entity. Granting this conclusion, these senses (and, a fortiori, the unconnected experiences composing them) give us a concrete expression of the being pointed to by the reversal of the Seinsrede. Such unconnected elements manifest with regard to the beings of the world the quality of unique singularity, of not having a beyond. This, however, is precisely what we require to distinguish them from the numerical singularity of the individual beings which they form through their connections. A second characteristic of Husserl's absolute can be introduced by recalling his statement, "The absolute which we uncover is absolute 'fact'

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('Tatsache'j" (Ms. E III 9, ca. Nov. 13, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 403). According to Hussed, "Facts (Tatsachen) are 'contingent'; they can just as well not be, they could be otherwise" (LU, Tub. ed., I, 122). As he elsewhere writes, this contingency embraces "every fact (Factum) and, thus, also the fact of the wodd ... " (EP II, Boehm ed., p. 50). If this is so, the question arises whether or not this embraces the absolute. Is the latter, qua fact, itself contingent? Husserl's answer to this question is based on the "absolute" character of this fact-i.e., its character of being a ground for everything else. He writes: "The absolute has its ground in itself; and, in its non-grounded being (groundlosen Sein), it has its absolute necessity as the single, 'absolute substance.' ... All essential necessities are moments of its fact (Factum), are modes of its functioning in relation to itself-its modes of understanding itself or being able to understand itself" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, p. 386). The import of this statement can be grasped by noting the nature of the absolute when it is characterized as an ultimate ground. So characterized, it appears as a ground of factual contingencies, possibilities, and essential necessities. In itself, however, it escapes all of these characteristics. Thus, to predicate contingency of an object, we must regard it under the aspect of possibility. This is regarding it as a "this," rather than a "that," both of which are considered as equally possible for it. To take an example, to regard it as a contingent fact that an object is here, we must view it as here rather than there, and consider both locations as possible for it. Now, the experiences of consciousness, when separated in thought, are not objects considered under the aspect of possibility. They are rather this aspect of possibility itself. They are, in other words, that by virtue of which we can consider individual things as contingent. Noetically, they are the ground of the possibility of any number of definite experiential contexts. Noematically, they can function in the constitution of any number of objects. By themselves, they are indifferent to the cogitationes and corresponding cogitata which they can come together to form. These last, for Hussed, are merely expressions or, as he sometimes says, concrete "externalizations" of the possibilities contained in the pure experiences. Here, we must recall that it is the separation of experience and objecti.e., the lack of any essential necessity in the tie between them-which permits the experiences to exist in any number of connected contexts. The ground of the possibility of such multiple contexts is the independent being of these separately regarded experiences. It is because this being is independent-i.e., has no further ground determining it, that Hussed can call it a grundloses Sein. Its "absolute necessity" signifies its not being contingent on the obtaining of any further grounds or conditions. Thus, it cannot be considered as being determined in advance to produce a single

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"actual" world. Here, the arguments by which Husserl seeks to establish absolute consciousness as a grounding field of experiences, as a field which establishes individual being, have as a consequence the contingency of such being. This means that the specific world which our connected experiences form is merely possible, Le., a contingent fact in the sense that it is possible for it either to be or not be. To reverse this, we can say that the world's relation to its ground, considered as a ground of mere possibility, is the reason why we can proceed from the world's character of factual contingency to the absolute character of consciousness considered as a ground of the world. The world's status as a mere possibility and the ground's status as an "absolute necessity" are, therefore, concepts implying each other. Hence, to view the given world in terms of its ground is to view it under the aspect of possibility. Given the above, the absolute, rather than being conceived as a mere possibility, must be regarded as the possibility of all possibilities. A mere possibility requires a ground for its actually obtaining. It is contingent upon the conditions which result in its particular realization. The absolute, insofar as it is "ground-less" or unconditioned, cannot be in this position. It is, through the connections which may obtain between its elements, itself the condition of the possibility of all possible worlds and nonworlds. We cannot, then, assert that such worlds are by chance, in the sense that their absolute condition is itself a chance, Le., something contingent. As Husserl writes, " ... chance (Zufall) includes in itself a horizon of possibilities in which the contingent (das Zufallige) signifies one of the possibilities, the very one which has actually occurred" (Ms. C I, HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 668-69 Sept. 21-22, 1934). The contingent implies such a horizon because, grasped as contingent, it is grasped as a "this" rather than a "that." Its very notion, then, includes the horizon of the "that"-Le., the possible ways it could have existed. As such, its notion points to the possibility which includes all possibilities. It points to the grounding field of experiences whose "pure" possibility remains after all possible worlds have been rendered impossible by the suspension of this field's connections. This remaining possibility-which is actually an unconditioned necessity-cannot itself be contingent since it is, in fact, a ground of contingency. It is that which we think of when we regard this object or world as contingent, as something "merely" possible and, hence, as implying the possibility of the "that." This leads to the characterization of the absolute as the horizon of all horizons. Here, it is thought of as the ground of all possible experiential horizons. The notion of a horizon has been extensively elaborated by Husser!' Its basic concept is that of a series of experiences which have been connected and, in their connections, determine the further experiences

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which can join this series. Thus, in the appearing of a spatial-temporal object, the experiences which we have grasped form the actually experienced portion of a larger horizon. This horizon is composed of the experiences which can "fit in" with the perspectival views we have already had. Such fitting in signifies, negatively, that they do not undermine the theses already made concerning the object of experience. Positively, it signifies that they join with our previous experiences so as to more closely determine the object's sense. Every real object, taken as a unity of sense, has its horizon of possible experiences which, in their "points of unification," continue to enrich and define its sense. This horizon is not just "internal" to the object; it is also what Husserl calls "external." In the latter case, it concerns the individual object in its numerical singularity, i.e., in its being one among the many objects of the world. As Husserl describes this: The individual-relative to consciousness-is nothing for itself; perception of a thing is its perception in a perceptual field. And just as the individual thing has a sense in perception only through an open horizon of "possible perceptions/' ... so once again the thing has a horizon: an "external horizon" in relation to the "internal"; it has this precisely as a thing of a field of things; and this finally points to the totality, "the world as a perceptual world" (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 165). The experiences forming the external horizon link the sense of the object to senses of the objects composing its surrounding world. The object thereby acquires its worldly sense of acting upon other objects as well as having others act upon it. Even more importantly, it is by virtue of this horizon that the object has the sense of one among many, its sense as an individual member of a group of objects with similar senses. Regarding the absolute in terms of this notion, several things can be said. The first is that the experiences forming the field of the absolute are the ground of every possible experiential context. It is by virtue of their possible connections that they form a possible horizon of experiences. Separately regarded, i.e., regarded apart from the specific connections which they can form, they can be regarded as an ultimate horizon, one which involves all possible horizons in the manner of a ground. Here, of course, we must add that just as the possibility of all possibilities is not itself a "mere" possibility, so this absolute horizon does not have the same sense as the horizons it grounds. The sense of the latter involves the notion of specific types of connections-e.g., the perspectival. The final or

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absolute horizon abstracts from all specifically given connections. Its sense includes the notion of connection as an undifferentiated genus. In other words, its all-inclusivity is a function of this lack of differentiation. Such all-inclusivity is, in fact, what allows it to function as the ground of the numerically singular being of the thing. As all-embracing, the final horizon grounds the internal and external horizons which define such being. The external horizon pertains to the thing "as a thing in the field of things"-i.e., as a one among many. This "many" does not just refer to the things which are given in an actual perceptual field. It refers as well to things with similar senses which could be given through possible variations of this perceptual field. Thus, it includes, for example, the variations of spatial and temporal position which would yield the thing as "there" instead of "here," as "then" instead of "now." This cannot be otherwise, since all the determinations which would limit the final horizon to presenting just one set of objects or conditions are foreign to its notion as an unconditioned ground. Thus, its grounding of the thing as one among many includes, a fortiori, all the many possible ways by which the thing could be given as a member of its class. With this, we may note that just as the thought of a thing's contingency implies the thought of the absolute as containing all the possibilities which the thing could have but did not realize, so the thought of the thing in terms of its horizon of possible experiences implies the thought of the absolute as its final horizon. In involving all the possible experiences involved in the thing's internal and external horizons, this latter thought embraces the entire "perceptual world" with all the possibilities of experience this involves. Such possibilities are the same as those of the final horizon when we take our given, actually perceived world as contingent. Once we do, the horizon of this world must be extended to include all possible worlds which happen not to be actualized. So extended, it reaches its terminus in the final horizon which embraces as a ground all possible world horizons. For Husserl, the same conclusion follows even when we take up the natural, pre-philosophical attitude and deny this contingency. In such an attitude, we regard the world as all that there is-i.e., as the absolute totality of existents which forms, qua totality, a unique singular. So conceived, it cannot be contingent, since there is nothing external to itself which could determine it-i.e., determine it to become other than itself. Husserl counters this view by examining what it implies. He asserts that the thing's horizon still terminates in the absolute or final horizon; for, in maintaining that the world exists as a unique singular, we have implicitly transformed its thesis. The thesis of the world becomes equivalent to that of the final horizon.

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Let us consider, for a moment, Husserl's arguments in this regard. As he observes, if we do consider the world as all there is, then it cannot exist in the same way as an individual thing. The latter is always one among many, but we are taking the world as "the totality (All) of things ... " (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 145). Thus, as the all-embracing totality which cannot have a beyond, " ... the world does not exist like an entity, an object, but exists in a singularity for which the plural is senseless" (ibid., p. 146). Granting this distinction in the manner of their being, "there is," he concludes, "a fundamental distinction in the way in which we are conscious of the world and the way in which we are conscious of the thing ... " (ibid.). In apprehending the thing, we regard it in terms of the horizon of possible experiences, i.e., the experiences which may confirm its positing and determine it more closely. In apprehending the world, we regard this horizon directly. Thus, as Husserl writes: Things, objects are "given" as presently obtaining (geltende) for us (in some sort of mode of ontological certainty), but in principle only in such a way that we are conscious of them as things, as objects within the world-horizon. Each is something, "something from" the world which is apprehended by us continually as a horizon . ... Every plural and every singular taken from it presupposes the worldhorizon. This difference between the mode of being (Seinsweise) of an object within the world and that of the world itself obviously prescribes a basically different mode of consciousness relative to each" (ibid., last italics added). According to the above, the world is regarded "continually as a horizon." This is its mode of presence as a world. Now if, in the natural attitude, we assert that the things of the world are "truly existing," we can see how this necessitates the infinite extension of the world-horizon. From the phenomenological perspective, to regard the thing as truly existing is to regard it as an infinite, Kantian idea. It is to conceive of it in terms of an infinite continuum of experiences which supposedly determine it "more closely and never otherwise." The thing, then, is "something from" the world, regarded as an indefinitely extendable horizon, precisely because its own thesis demands the indefinite extension of its own internal and external horizons. In other words, it is "of" the world in the sense of its requiring the world as an unending horizon of possible experiences. If we ask why we must regard the world as a horizon, indeed, as a final horizon embracing every possible ordering of experience, we come to the natural attitude's assertion of the world's unique singularity. The attitude assumes that only individual existents count as being; it insists that the

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world is not existent as a horizon, but only as the collection of such individuals. But this is incompatible with the thesis of the world's unique singularity. As we saw, individual entities cannot be directly grasped as forming an all-embracing totality, a totality that has no beyond. They form collections, pluralities of beings, to which further members can always be added. To engage, then, in the thesis of the world's unique singularity, we must reverse the usual sense-the natural attitude's sense-of our Seinsrede. The being which is first, in the sense of being that from which all others are, is not the world understood as a collection of entities. It is the world taken as a final horizon, i.e., as an all-embracing totality of experiences, experiences which, themselves, must be taken as pre-individual and pre-objective. In other words, to regard the world as uniquely singular, we must regard it in terms of the experiences which we described as having the "one-in-many" type of being. This is a being which is not multiplied by the various experiential contexts which these experiences can form through their connections. Only through such a regard, can we grasp them as forming a unique totality, one which is not capable of being enriched by the addition of individual instances. Granting that the absolute is this collection of pre-individual experiences, we have Husserl's conclusion. The thesis of the world as a unique singular has been transformed into a corresponding thesis concerning the absolute as a final horizon. With this, the thought of the thing as "something from" a uniquely singular world is itself transformed. It becomes the thought of its horizon terminating in the final horizon. Implicit in the above is a new way of understanding the assertion that consciousness, considered as absolute, does not acknowledge a "beyond" or an "outside." It is not just that the experiences of consciousness are prior to the constitution of the spatial distinction, "within" and "without." They are prior to every distinction which implies a "beyond." As a possibility which embraces all possibilities, as a final horizon which implies all particular experiential horizons, an absolute consciousness cannot have anything beyond itself. It is, itself, that totality which the natural attitude assumes the world to be; and this, in a far deeper sense, insofar as it grounds all possible worlds and nonworlds. Thus, we can say: Nothing, be it contingent or essentially necessary, is foreign to the absolute. This follows since the absolute is the ground of all contingencies, all "facts," as well as being the ground of all essential necessities. It grounds the latter insofar as it can, through its connections, result in a positable and, hence, in a "rational" world with its particular essential necessities. It is what gives such necessities a real significance or applicability. But, as a ground of such, it is undetermined by them. In Husserl's words, "Its necessity is not an essential necessity.... All essential necessitites are moments of its

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fact (Factums)" [Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 3861. The same sort of argument has been made about individual, worldly "facts." The absolute is the ground of such facts in their character of things which "could have been otherwise"; but as their ground, it is distinguished from them. It is not really a fact, even though Husserl writes, "The absolute which we uncover is absolute 'fact' ['Tatsacbe'I." Thus, he corrects the usage of this and similar statements by writing, "'Absolute fact'-the word, 'fact' [Factum!, is, according to its sense, improperly applied here; so also the word, 'Tatsacbe,' [literally: thing-done]. There is no doer [Taterl here. There is only the absolute which also cannot be described as [essentially] 'necessary.' The absolute lies at the basis of all possibilities, all relativities, all limitations, giving them their sense and being" [Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 6691. Such possibilities, relativities, limitations are not "beyond" the absolute insofar as it lies at their basis, i.e., stands as their unconditioned ground. Precisely as such, however, it escapes these characterizations which are appropriate only to the beings and relations which it, itself, grounds.

B. Tbe Absolute in Relation to the Individual Consciousness Let us turn now to an examination of the absolute in its relation to individuals. Since this relation is that of a ground, the examination necessarily concerns its process of grounding individuals. In the Krisis, Husserl's favorite terms for describing this process are "self-externalization" and "self-objectification." Using the metaphors of "inner" and "outer," he writes, for example: We shall learn to understand that the world, which continually exists for us in the flowing change of modes of givenness, is a universal spiritual [geistigel acquisition. It has developed as such and it also continues to develop ;:'3 the unity of a spiritual form, as a product of sense, as a product of a universal, ultimately functioning subjectivity. It belongs essentially to its world constituting accomplishment that subjectivity objectifies itself as human subjectivity, as an element within the world. All objective consideration of the world is a consideration of the "outer" lim "Aussen"l and grasps only what is outer [ Ausserlicbkeitenl, i.e., objectivities. The radical consideration of the world is the systematic and pure inner consideration of the subjectivity which "externalizes" [or "expresses"] itself in the outer [der sicb selbst im Aussen "aussernden" Sub;ectiviti1tl [Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., pp. 115-161. The same sort of language is used in raising the question of the reduction to the absolute. Here, too, the absolute is viewed as the "ultimate" subjec-

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tivity which undergoes a "self-objectification" resulting in "humanity." As Husserl phrases this question, it is: "How can it be made more concretely intelligible that the reduction of humanity to the phenomenon, 'humanity/ which is included in the reduction of the world, allows this humanity to be recognized as the self-objectification of transcendental subjectivity, the subjectivity which ultimately functions at all times and is, therefore, absolute?" (ibid., pp. 155-56). The problem Husserl is raising with his question concerns both the world and the individual subjects located in it. I( as the natural (or "lifeworld") attitude believes, the world is the totality of all that there is, the reduction cannot find fitting terms for a proper self-description. Conceived as an abstraction of consciousness from tbe world, it leaves us with nothing at all. This holds when we take our world-presentation (Weltvorstellung) as the totality of our presentations of what is.4 It also holds i( with the natural attitude, we take the world as the totality of all that is. In the former case, our abstraction empties our consciousness, qua intentional consciousness, of what is. In the latter case, our abstraction of consciousness from the world is its separation from all that is, including its own being! Furthermore, if, as this attitude believes, "To live in the world is always to live in the certainity of the world/, then an abstraction from the world is an abstraction from all the certainty that life affords (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 145). In other words, the actual practice of the reduction appears impossible as a natural, life-world activity. The individual subject, conceived as part of the world, cannot be separated from it without losing all being and certainly concerning being. The conclusion here is that either the reduction is not performable or, if it is, it cannot be described in terms of the natural, life-world attitude which it is attempting to overturn. Thus, when Husserl asks about the subjective "life" which we live in the life-world, how and in what manner can it be uncovered, how can it be shown as a self-enclosed universe for its own theoretical and consistently maintained inquiry, how can it be shown disclosing itself as an ultimately functioning, accomplishing subjectivity, the subjectivity which is responsible for the being of the world, the world for us as our natural life horizon? (ibid., p. 149), his answer is that it cannot be studied in the attitude of the life-world. In Husserl's words, "The life that accomplishes the world-validity of natural world-life does not permit of being studied in the attitude of natural world-life" (ibid., p. 151). Such an attitude makes the reduction incomprehensible. But the reduction is precisely what makes the proposed study

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of this accomplishing life phenomenologically possible. What we require, then, is a "transcendental phenomenological epoche as a total transformation of the attitude of natural life" (ibid.). We must suspend this attitude's view of the world-which includes the notion of ourselves as individuals within the world's totality-to be able to practice and understand the reduction. The above gives the context for yet another passage from the Krisis where Husserl speaks of humanity (or "human subjectivity") as the selfobjectification of the absolute subjectivity. The ground had become evident to us. The problem of the fundamental validity of the world as a world, the world which is what it is through actual and possible cognition, through actual and possible functioning subjectivity, had per se announced itself. But powerful difficulties had to be overcome in order not just to begin the method of the epoche and the reduction, but also to bring them to a full self-comprehension and, with this, to discover, first of all, the absolutely functioning subjectivity, discover it not as human, but as that which objectifies itself in human subjectivity or, [at least] at first in human subjectivity (Krisis, Biemel ed., p. 265). The claim of this passage, which is a claim implied in our previous quotations, is that the reduction cannot be understood as a reduction to a finite, individually existing subject. If we take it as an abstraction of a finite subject from the world, which is understood as the totality of finite beings, it leaves us, as we said, with nothing at all. Considered as a reducing of the world to such a subject, it leaves us with a skeptical solipsism. The latter follows because the reduction, so taken, becomes understood as a reduction of the whole to a part, i.e., a limitation of the world to one of its components. At this point, the "residuum" which remains is only the private or "merely personal" experiences of an individual. This alone is "proper" to the subject if we understand him as a mere part of the whole. It goes without saying that such a subject can never be a ground of the being of the world or its "fundamental validity." Qua individual, the subject is one among many and, hence, is not in a position to be the unique ground of many individuals. It can only be an individual or private ground of what it constitutes in its private acts. It, thus, can only constitute a world "for itself"-not an objective or true world (a "universally valid" world for many individual subjects). The inference here is readily apparent. The reduction's possibility of reaching a nonsolipsistic ground of the world is its possibility of proceed-

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ing beyond the individual. The reduction is neither the abstraction of a finite consciousness from the world nor a reducing of the world's totality to this finite consciousness. It is rather the attempt to reach a consciousness to which we can transfer the quality of the world as a totality of beings and regions of beings. Only a reduction to such an all-embracing consciousness would allow us to assert with Husserl, "We have actually lost nothing [through the reduction], but have won the totality of absolute being which, properly understood, contains in itself all worldly transcendencies ... 'constituting' them in itself" (Icleen I, Biemel ed., p. 119). For Husserl, such a consciousness is "the domain of experiences qua absolute essentialities (Wesenheiten). He writes, "It is, in itself, fixedly self-contained and yet without the boundaries which would separate it from other regions ... it is the totality of absolute being in the definite sense which our analyses have allowed to come forward" (ibid., p. 121). This sense is not that of an individual consciousness-a one among many. It is rather that of the domain of separately regarded experiences which stand as unique singulars with regard to the individuals they constitute. We can, thus, say that they are called "absolute essentialities" because they function as one in many; they are elements which, in their own being, are not meaningfully multipliable by the multitude of transcendencies which they can constitute. As our last section showed, only such a "domain of experiences qua absolute essentialities" can have the unique singularity which the natural attitude attempts to ascribe to the world. Thus, the reduction of the world in its singularity can only be to consciousness conceived as this domain. But at this point, it is not a reduction but rather a transfer of the quality of unique singularity to its legitimate possessor. The same point can be made by noting that "the fundamental validity (Bodengeltung) of the world as world" springs from the assumption that the world is "the totality of things." It is as such a totality that it is assumed to provide all the evidence which could validate any particular proposition. It is because of this that it is assumed to be a ground (Boden)of all validity. Now, the transfer of this quality to consciousness arises by virtue of two insights. The first is that it is experience that validates. The second is that the totality of things, i.e., the world, can only be apprehended as a horizon. This horizon, taken as the horizon of horizons, is that of experiences considered as "absolute essentialities." It is from these, in their various possible connections, that all validity (or obtaining) arises. The world's quality of being the ground (or root) of validity is, thus, properly assumed by consciousness understood as the field of "pure," or essentially regarded experiences. This cannot be otherwise, since it itself is the graspable totality which the world claims to be when it claims to be the ground of all possible validity.

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The results of this analysis may be expressed in terms of a metaphor. The separately regarded elements which form the domain of the absolute consciousness can be considered as an alphabet of pure experiences. What is "written" with this alphabet is the presently existing world of individual existents. The "writing" of the world is the insertion into time of the letters of this alphabet. More precisely put, it is the connection of such experiences through their being ordered according to definite temporal locations. It is this which results in the self-objectification (or externalization) of the absolute. Abstracting as we have done from the question of time, the nature of this temporal ordering cannot be considered here. It will find its place as the subject of a following chapter. As we shall see, this examination will require the performance of a reduction which is parallel and yet distinct from the reduction we have just described (see below, pp. 205-207). Our present description is, however, sufficient to give a first answer to the question which naturally arises when we read Husserl's remarks about the subjectivity that functions "ultimately/, "always/' and "everywhere." If we are its "self-externalization/, is such subjectivity one or many? Fink formulates this question in a number of ways. He notes that "the title, 'world/ does not apply to a, so to speak, private (primordial) constitutive product of an individual transcendental ego." It is rather a correlate of the "communalization of the constitutive life-processes which are realized by the transcendental community of monads." He then asks "whether, with the analytical exhibition of the transcendental monadic intersub;ectivity, constitutive life is already ultimately determined ... ?" ("Proposal/' ed. cit., p. 175; F., 176). The question, in other words, is "whether the transcendental individuation of the plurality of monads is a final determination of constituting life, one not capable of being annulled by the reduction ... ?" Given that the reduction is supposed to reach the absolute, this is also the question of "whether the absolute itself is divided into a plurality of members and [hence] subjected to individuation--or whether all divisions into pluralities of members are only self-articulations present in the absolute which itself can finally only be thought under the idea of the 'oneT' ibid., p. 176; F., 177). The same question, formulated in terms of the individuality of the subject, is, according to Fink: "whether the individuation of the transcendental ego (as an individual monad in the monadic intersubjectivity) is not a level of the self-ob;ectification of a 'unitary' ('eins-haften/) transcendental life which is positioned before all individuation ... ?" ibid., p. 180; F., 182-83). The answer to these questions should be clear. Insofar as we maintain that all individual being is constituted being (or dependent on such constitution), the unconditioned absolute cannot be characterized by (or "subjected to") the thesis of individuation. The thesis of in-

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dividual being is based on the connections of experience. Thus, it cannot apply to the unconditioned, unconnected domain of the absolute. 5 Granting this, we can pose with Paul Rocoeur a further question. It is: "In what sense and at what level ... is subjectivity still a plurality of consciousnesses, an intersubjectivity?" (Husser1: An Analysis ... ,ed. cit., p. 28). The elements which provide an answer to this question have already been given by us. They may be put in terms of three theses. The first is that the ultimate subjectivity is not an experiencing subjectivity. As we quoted Husserl, " ... there is no doer (Titter) here. There is only the absolute ... " (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 669). In itself, the absolute is the possibility of all experiential possibilities; it is the horizon of all possible experiential horizons. As such, it is prior to the intentional acts or cogitationes which are formed from the definite connections of experience. The absolute, we can say, grounds the personally experiencing egothe ego of acts-but is, as a ground, distinct from this latter. Thus, the connections which make possible an individual experiencer are only one of the possibilities contained in the domain of the pre-individual experiences making up the absolute. Our second thesis follows from this when we take this domain as a flowing stream: Granting that the ego of acts is itself constituted, the constitution of the world from the stream of experiences does not require an individual agent exterior to the stream. For Husserl, both the acting ego and its surrounding world, which appears through its acts, are passively constituted by the stream in its factually given relations. The dependence of both on the facticity of the stream is one that concerns their being as individual, connected unities. It is thus a dependence which equally applies to a plurality of individuals-i.e., to an intersubjectivity formed by a plurality of acting subjects. As Husserl expresses this, "If, proceeding systematically, we display from the bottom up the transcendental constitution of the pre-given world, it is then to be observed: We naturally presuppose the fact of the actual content [of experience] in its streaming components with respect to the essential form [of the pre-given world]. This holds just as obviously for the 'absolute', transcendental intersubjectivity per se" (Ms. E III 9, ca. Nov. 13, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 403). This passage concludes with the remark we have already quoted. The absolute which is genuinely independent is not such a plurality of individual subjects-i.e., an intersubjectivity. Rather, "The absolute which we uncover is absolute 'fact'.

II

Before we consider our third thesis, let us note certain items with regard to this "fact." It is, first of all, a noncontingent fact. Furthermore, it is not an individual egological fact. The latter follows when we regard it on the level of our "alphabet" of experience-i.e., as a horizon of horizons from which all temporal relations have been abstracted in thought. It also

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holds when we consider it, as the above passage does, as the "actual content [of experience] in its streaming components." As Husserl writes: "The structural analysis of the original present (the lasting-living streaming) leads us to the structure of the ego and to the underlying levels of egoless streaming which constantly found it. It leads back to the radically preegological through a consequent inquiry back to that which makes possible sedimented activity and to that which such activity presupposes" (Ms. E III 9, Sept. 1933, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 598). These underlying levels which "found" the sedimented structure of the personal or habitual ego are prior to what they found in their factual course. They cannot be regarded as springing from an egological source. Thus, Husserl, asserts, "The primally streaming and primally constituted non-ego is the hyletic universe [of actual experiential contents] which, in itself, is constituting and which already has constantly constituted; it is a temporalizing-temporal primal occurring (Urgeschehen) which does not occur from egological sources (aus Quellen des lch); it, therefore, occurs without the participation of the ego" (Ms. C 10, p. 25, 1931). This dependence of the egological on the factual givenness of the non-egological involves each and every ego. Our last item, then, is that insofar as such dependence on the factual results in the contingency of the individual, it also results in a similar contingency of the intersubjective community made up of a plurality of individuals. Husserl expresses this in terms of his doctrine that "a complete dissolution of the world in a tumult of experiences is equivalent to a dissolution of the ego .... " He asks, "What would an ego be which has no nature facing itself, ... which, instead of this, would be given a mere tumult of experiences?" He observes that in such a case there would be no Others for me. There could not be, since I would no longer exist. As he puts this in a pair of rhetorical questions: "And could such an ego have other egos alongside of itself, indeed, is a plurality of egos thinkable here? Would not the recognizing ego, for whom this plurality is supposed to be exhibitable, itself be unthinkable?" (Ms. K IV 2, pp. 14-15, 1925). The same point holds for Others considered as egos like myself. Insofar as they are understood, not just as objects for me, but as subjects like myself, they are, as I am, dependent on the pre-egologicallevels which found the ego. Their being as real, personal and pure egos is contingent on the factual givenness of the "hyle" not being that of a tumult. Such a tumult would make impossible the ordered unity of experience known as the cogito. It would also rule out any notion of the pure ego as a center or pole of intentionally ordered (connected) experiences. With this, we can give our third thesis: The ego, which appears as a personal and pure experiencer of the world, appears only when the experiential stream-Husserl's "hyletic universe"-is differentiated into ex-

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periences of a surrounding world. This is a world of experiences which, through its connections, allows of a distinct point of view. It can thus be characterized as a world of perspectivally appearing objects, objects among which a subject is situated at a definite place in a definite time. In a general sense, it is a world whose experiential horizons have been so structured as to place the subject in their center. It is, we asserted, from the vantage point of the here and the now, i.e., from the point of the spatial and temporal center of his experiential horizons, that the pure subject first can appear as an experiencer (see above, p. 95). This can also be put in terms of Husserl's double assertion, namely: (1) "The pure ego is, we expressly stress, a numerical singular with respect to 'its' stream of consciousness"; and (2) " ... every pure ego has ... the human ego, has personhood (persOnlichkeit) as its surrounding object (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). The individualization of the stream into one's own stream is its arrangement so as to form a distinct point of view, a O-point or center in space and time. Simultaneously, it is the connection of experiences so as to constitute the ongoing cogitationes and, with this, the personal ego of acts. In other words, it is the constitution of the acts which present one with one's own surrounding world-i.e., the world in which one is positioned as a center and in terms of which one can interpret oneself as "real." As we observed in our last chapter, the pure ego, although not itself constituted, can only appear when the conditions obtain for the presentation to it of its surrounding world. Thus, the answer to Ricoeur's question is that subjectivity is a plurality of subjects at the level where the conditions for this plurality obtain. At the constitutive level where the conditions do not yet obtain-Husserl's "radically pre-egological" level-subjectivity is not yet a plurality. At this level, however, it is also not yet an experiencing subjectivity. Here, of course, we take an experiencing subjectivity as that which possesses a distinct point of view. §4. THE HIDDENNESS OF THE ABSOLUTE

A.

The Self-Concealment of the Absolute in the Individual

For Husserl, the self-objectification of the absolute is necessarily its selfconcealment. The individual subjects in which it has objectified itself express particular points of view. They are tied to the finite surrounding worlds which define them. Thus, they are led to interpret themselves in finite worldly terms. They understand themselves as individual beings among the beings of the given world. This self-interpretation is both correct and incorrect. It is correct insofar as it concerns their objectified status. It is incorrect insofar as it fails to note the ground of this status. With regard to its correctness, Husserl writes, "It is inconceivable that, in

reflection, I do not discover myself as experiencing a world in my experiences ... " (Ms. C 7 II, p. 19, ca. June IS, 1932). This inconceivability comes from the fact that the world is my defining condition as an individual experiencer. My "self-preservation" as a pure and personal ego is, as we noted, tied to the preservation of my surrounding world. Given this, "there is always the real world; every ego must construct it (aufbauen) and himself ... " (Ms. C 17 V, p. 24, 1932, italics added). Without it, the ego could not preserve its individual being. In other words, the fact of its being an individual involves necessarily the fact of the world as the object of its constitutive cogitationes. As Husserl writes, describing this "must": "Transcendental subjectiviy is not free in its possibilities of constituting beings or non-beings. It must constitute beings. What sort of 'must' is this? The fact of this world, the fact of this I (ego), this cogito, and the fact of this stream, the stream of historicity (Geschichtlichkeit) which is this ego and from which it came to be and is becoming" (Ms. K III I, viii, pp. 4-5, 1935). The "must," then, springs from the fact of the constitution of the ego and its defining world through the "historicity" or occurring of the stream. The presence of the ego as a being signifies that the stream is constitutive of beings. On the objective level, the ego is thus perfectly justified in interpreting itself as a being among the beings of the world. Furthermore, since the givenness of the world in such constitution is itself a condition of the ego's individuality, the world along with its "Others" is not something given to it as if the ego could exist apart from the world. The world is rather always something already there-i.e., something pregiven to it. This signifies, in Husserl's words: "I have 'the' world pre-given [to me], pregiven in my intentional life. There pertains to this pre-givenness, i.e., to the pre-given sense of this world, that fellow human beings belong to it, to my world, that I mysef am objectively real within it as a human being" (Ms. C 11 I, p. 19, 1933). As justified as this view may be, it is a concealment of the absolutei.e., the egoless streaming-which objectifies itself in the individual subject. Husserl describes the nature of this concealment in a number of ways. Speaking of the absolute's "self-objectification as human personality, as humanity," he notes that this necessarily "takes place in each transcendental monad in an oriented manner, in each in the form of an individual development from birth to death ... " (Ms. A V 10, p. 20, Nov. 9, 1931). The individual subject has, in other words, a defined "lifetime." It is a period of time between birth and death which locates the individual within the natural succession of generations (See Ms. KIll 12, p. 38, 1935) As such, the ego's life is conceived as a mere section of world-time. Now, what the individual in his self-interpretation fails to realize is that this finite lifetime is a constituted rather than an unconditioned necessity. Its

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presence depends upon the prior constitution of objective, worldly time. It further requires that subjects be constituted as incarnate, i.e., as possessing bodies which are subject to birth, growth, and decay. For Husserl, this means, "Death pertains to the duration (Bestandl of the pre-given constituted world" (Ms. A VI 14, p. 3, 19301. In other words, as a phenomenon that is contingent on subjectivity's objectification as human, "death ... is an event in the world of humans, in the constituted world" (Ms. A V 20, pp. 23-24, Nov. 18, 19341. This does not make death (or birthl any less of a human necessity. But it does point out the fact that "the difference between [a] lifetime and world-time is egologically constituted, the first a mere section of the second" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 16, Oct. 19291. As constituted, a finite lifetime cannot pertain to the constituting level, the level at which the absolute functions. Here, in fact, Husserl speaks of the absolute as "preserving" itself, qua egological constitution, in its objective "modes," the latter being the constituting lives of individual subjects. The notion is one of the "universal self-preservation of the absolute in [its] lasting and remaining constitution, renewing itself in each individual person (from birth onwards 1as an invariant self-constitution ... " (Ms. C 17 V, pp. 2223, 19311. As Husserl also expresses this, we have the thought of "the absolute eternally persisting in the unending changes of its modes, at first through ordinary birth and death, but also through birth and death of humanities, etc." (ibid., p. 47). These statements point out the fact that a finite lifetime, which is a necessary result of the absolute's constitution of finite, contingent beings, is also a necessary concealment of itself in its pre-objective, unlimited character. With regard to the latter, it must be observed that the notion of the absolute as persisting and preserving itself through individual lives should not be taken as implying that the absolute is, itself, contingent on the presence of such lives. As already indicated, the absolute per se is not an experiencing, egological subject. Its unconditioned, "ground-less" character rules out every dependence, including that on individual lives. For Husserl, then, "the transcendental totality of subjects is contingent ... ," not the absolute ground of such a totality (Ms. KIll 12, p. 39, 19351. This, at least, follows once we take the absolute in its character as streaming field of experiences whose elements form the alphabet for whatever may be constituted.6 We observed above that the constitution of a finite lifetime requires the constitution of organic bodies capable of birth and death. Actually, the constitution of the sense of my own birth and death proceeds through the apprehension of these phenomena as pertaining, first of all, not to myself but to Others in their embodied character. Despite its mediated quality, this constitution does require that I possess, like my Others, an organic

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body; and this brings us to a further aspect of the self-concealment of the absolute. It concerns the individual's self-interpretation as a be souled body. In Husserl's words, "The individual, human self-objectification in each monad is a transcendental self-concealment. This occurs in the form of [its] spatial-temporal objectification as the 'soul' of its natual body and as a soul which in its psychologized (psychologisierten) being for itself, conceals in a certain way even its mental (psychisches) being: its being as a person who, for himself, is known-unknown or known in terms of a horizon, a person of a mentai life which brings both nature and world to appearance in concealed ontical and noetic hor~zons" (Ms. A V 10, pp. 2021, Nov. 9, 1931). The reference to the "psychologized" being of the soul most probably concerns to the psychologism which Husserl combatted in the Logical Investigations. According to its arguments, the soul itself is a real, worldly being. Like other such beings, it is subject to the laws of material causality. Its quality of being intentionally related to the worldi.e., of intentionally bringing it to appearance-is, thus, concealed through an interpretation which sees it exclusively in terms of the causal, spatialtemporal relations appropriate to natural bodies. Husserl's mention of the soul's knowing both itself and its world in terms of horizons brings to the fore yet another aspect of the concealment of its ground. As a finite expression of the absolute, the individual's access to both time and space is finite. His lifetime is limited, is only a "section" of world time. Because he lacks the time to explore, his access to the world's spatial dimension is also limited. In Husserl's words, he "lives ... in a 'finitude' in which the 'infinitude' of being is concealed" (Ms. A V 10, p. 21, Nov. 9, 1931). Another way of putting this is to say that he lives in a world which has the quality of being both known and unknown. He experiences it as a horizon with a central, familiar core surrounded by undefined areas which he has not yet explored. Now, as Husserl observes, this conception of "the finitude of the surrounding world," of the world's being actually explored only in part, is correlated to its sense as presumptive. The finitude of my access to it prevents me from obtaining the continuum of experiences which would establish the theses of its beings. Here, of course, "finitude" has a special phenomenological sense. In Husserl's words, "The finitude of the surrounding world, from the point of view of pure experience, does not signify an abstract limitation (determination and negation) of the cosmic infinitude.... Rather infinitude is already present in each individual reality of the surrounding world [when taken] as a intentional unity with an open horizon. In this open horizon, there is already present, in a certain sense, the ideal in-

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finity ... " (Ms. A VII 21, p. 8, June 10, 1933). This "ideal infinity" refers to the infinitude of experiences required to establish the entity's "being in itself." Given that the thesis of such being is actually that of a Kantian idea, the horizon of experiences which is required to establish it always surpasses the experiences actually available to me (see Ms. B III 7, p. 7, 1933). The same point holds, a fortiori, for the world as a whole. Even if I were to assert that the realities of my finite surrounding world are actually existent "in themselves/, it would still be the case that "the existence of the cosmos would lie under a presupposition/, namely, that of the "possibility of [my] being able to continually experience ad infinitum" (Ms. A VII 21, p. 8). We remarked above that the noncontingency of the absolute as a final horizon was tied in Husserl's thought to the contingency of the world which the absolute grounds. We can now put this point in terms of the self-concealment of the absolute. The horizon of the absolute is all embracing. As such it excludes the notion of contingency. The horizon of the world which the individual subject actually experiences is finite. It is something which the subject can only piecemeal experience and make actual to itself. The second horizon thus acts to conceal the first. This concealment is simply a function of the self-objectification of the absolute in terms of finite experiencers, each with a finite access to the world. Each is finite by virtue of being spatially embodied and, correspondingly, by virtue of possessing a finite, temporally limited lifetime. By virtue of such finitude, each must experience the world, and himself within it, as a mixture of the known and unknown-i.e., in terms of the second, finitely experiencible horizon. By virtue of this last, each must regard the world-the totality of beings and subjects, including himself-under the aspect of contingency. Taking the totality of the world as the ultimate selfexpression (or objectification) of the absolute, there is, then, a double concealment: The absolute's characteristics of all-inclusiveness and noncontingency are hidden by the partiality and contingency-the presumptiveness-inherent in our experience of the world-totality. This stress on hiddenness and concealment may be seen as Husserl's rendition of the Heideggerian themes of the "thrownness" and "finitude" of human experience. For Husserl, the individual is thrown into the world since it is "there" before him, pregiven as his condition. He is not free in its constitution; the ego must necessarily "construct it and himself." Such construction, however, proceeds under the conditions of finitude. All of the finite subject's experiential acquisitions are regarded as contingent and relative. None of them has the stamp of permanence. This living

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"horizonally"-i.e., living "in the consciousness of finitude in an infinite world"-is, for Husserl, the basic "structure of human existence" (Ms. A V lO, p. 22, Nov. 9, 1931) . .. . living as a human being, I am conscious of myself as a finite creature in the infinity of the spatial-temporal world. This world, however-this infinity, which is known in the manner of a horizon and which, in all living access to the horizon, remains ad infinitum in its horizonality-is constantly concealed even in [its] constant disclosure. And everything is concealed, even the quite well known, even one/s own human being (Menschsein), one/s own bodilyness, one/s own being as an ego; they are always in finitude, in the reality of obviousness and hiddenness, and this according to each and every [feature]. This is the structure of human existence (Dasein als Mensch), of the existence of the world for it; and there also corresponds to this, in a worldly sense, the structure of the soul/s worldconsciousness; there corresponds the structure of each possible world-conception as something finite in a horizon of infinite cognitions, as something which exists in a relativity in which no cognition is final" (ibid., p. 21). These remarks may be compared to Heidegger's when the latter asserts that "being," as revealed by Dasein, "is essentially finite" ("Was ist die Metaphysik?", Wegmarken, Frankfurt am Main, 1967, p. 17). B.

The Self-Concealment of the Absolute in Others

As Husserl constantly asserts, the "pre-givenness of the world" does not just involve my own presence as "objectively real within it," but also that of Others, of fellow human beings belonging to it (see, e.g., Ms. C 17 II, p. 5, ca. Jan. I, 1931). This pregivenness of Others as independent subjects "in and for themselves" is, as we shall see, a further aspect of the concealment of the absolute. For the natural attitude, the presence of Others is taken as a simple given of experience. Others, from our earliest experience, are given as parents, relations, siblings, and so forth. The presence of one generation is seen as biologically necessary for the next. What of the epistemological necessity for the presence of Others? Activities, such as teaching and learning, do require Others; though, this, of course, presupposes that we all share a common world. In expressing this presupposition, the natural attitude formulates it in terms of its fundamental proposition that every reality is a being in itself. To be such is to be objectively real; but this is also to be real for everyone. Thus, it adopts the Kantian equation of objec-

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tive and universal validity (validity for everyone). As Husserl puts this: "The world in the natural attitude is experienced with the sense; the world for everyone, the world which, therefore, everyone can experience and think of as the same and which everyone must insightfully determine as the same when they do experience it with insight. Correlatively, it is a world in itself. It is, namely, an open, infinite universe of individual realities, of each of the beings in itself" (Ms. KIll 12, p. 36, 1935). Here, the necessity of Others is simply that of a correlate of the in-itselfness of worldly being. When we first take up the transcendental attitude, the necessity for Others is considered along similar lines. It is thought in terms of the equivalence of being and being-given. The being of the world in its infinite extent seems to involve the necessary presence of an indefinitely extended plurality of subjects to whom it can be given. Husserl expresses this in a number of ways. What is common to them all is the dialectic of finitude and infinitude which characterizes human existence in its horizontal structure. We have, first, of all, the dialectic of the finitude of my lifetime vis-a-vis the infinitude of world-time. As Husserl writes: "My life becomes a human life in the world ... My life in its open infinitude is, indeed, finite in and according to objective spatialtemporality. It will cease as a human life in the world; I shall die." (Ms. C 8 I, p. 22, Oct. 1929). Granting this, the question is: What is the relation of my worldly finitude to the world's infinitude? Husserl's answer to this is twofold. On the one hand, he points out that the sense of my finitude, i.e., of my lifetime as bounded by birth and death, requires the apprehension of Others for its constitution. He asserts, on the other hand, that the constitutive sense I do have of Others and, corresponding to this, my sense of an infinitude of possible experiences, has its motivating, phenomenological basis in the sense of my own finitude. Self and Others, finitude and infinitude, are, in other words, correlative concepts. They are concepts which are involved in a dialectic where each demands the other for its basis. Thus, with regard to my sense of birth and death, Husserl notes that these are not personally experiencible phenomena. This follows analytically from their worldly notions as beginnings and ends of experience. To experience a beginning of experience as a beginning, one would have to experience what went before it. But before such a beginning, there is, by definition, no such experience available to me. The same holds, mutatis mutandis, for the case of death. The underlying point here is that "life and death are in ob;ective time and limit the temporal existence of every human being, i.e., limit its human duration which, like every objective duration, has its relations of coexistence, overlapping, length and short-

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ness, etc." (Ms. C 8 I, p. 23, Oct. 19291 In such objective time, to experience the beginning or the end of something is always to experience its before and after. In terms of organic life, it is to experience the birth of a living body by having an experience of what preceded it. Similarly, it is to experience this body's death by being aware of that which follows its organic cessation. Given that organic birth and death have the worldly sense of the beginnings and ends of objective experience, they cannot be personally experienced. Their worldly sense can only be given in a mediated fashion. This sense can be constituted only by my drawing an analogy between the organic birth and death of Others and the fact that I myself am an embodied subject. The conclusion, here, as Husserl expresses it, is that "my death as a worldly phenomenon can only be constituted for me when I experience the death of Others .... The death of Others is the death that is constituted prior to this. Just so in case of the birth of Others" (A VI 14, p. 3, 19301. Since birth and death do bound my lifetime, my sense that I have a finite lifetime must also be constituted. In other words, it is through my experience of Others that I have "the constituted difference between a lifetime and world-time, the first a mere section from the second" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 18, Oct 19291. From this, my "essential finitude" is easily derived. Its worldly sense is that of my having a finite access to the world; but this is inherent in my having a finite lifetime. Husserl expresses this conclusion as follows: My essential finitude shows itself here in the fact that I (and weI can reach in original experience only a finite part of nature as my natural surrounding world, although this part is, in its way, an open non-bounded part. If I perform a primordial reduction [Le., a reduction to what I can directly or primordially experience], I, thus, get a finite nature or world. Certainly this finitude is concealed so long as my birth has not been discovered, so long as I have not brought into play the co-being (Mitseinl of Others (Ms. C 17 II, p. 7, ca. Jan. I, 1931). Having asserted that the sense of my finitude requires Others for its apprehension, we can reverse this proposition. We can say that my sense of Others has its phenomenological basis in the sense I have of my own finitude. To make this point, we must first observe that my finitude implies my living in the world as a finitely accessible horizon. As we just quoted Husserl, my finitude shows itself in the fact that I can directly experience "only a finite part of nature." This part is recognized as such because it is seen as included in a greater whole-Le., that of the world which surpasses each of its parts. Now, to live in the world as a finitely ac-

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cessible horizon is precisely to experience it in this part-whole relation. It is to recognize one's experience as only a part of what would be available if one's lifetime were extended. Here, the familiar core of the subject's "surrounding world" is always bordered by the progressively less well known. Husserl puts this in terms of the "if-then" quality of subjective experience. Everything, both the consciousness of being and the assertion of being, rests on presumptive certanties in relation to my 'I can' .... If my powers were extended on and on, then something new and a new 'I can' would enter into the experiences which spring from the new and then the presumptive certainties would also disclose themselves according to the style of my experiencing life, the life which constitutes in experience (Ms. C 8 I, pp. 18-19, Oct., 1929). This "if ... then" quality signifies my continual sense of the hypothetical character of my "I can." My "I can," in thought, can always be extended; and, with this, the thought arises that, were it actually extended, a new "I can" would arise. This very thought is the mark of my finitude. It springs from my being as a finite experiencer, i.e., as someone who experiences "onlya finite part of nature." Because of this I always experience the world as a finitely accessible horizon, a horizon which I explore part by part but which always, as a whole, escapes my grasp. Once we express our finitude in these terms, it becomes a motivating basis for our positing of Others. Two elements of this basis are (1) the correlation of the world to my "I can," and (2) the surpassing quality of the world. Both are involved in my sense that it is only in relation to my hypothetically extended-as opposed to my actual-"I can" that the world ever achieves any certainty of being. Now, such certainty of being is the motivating goal of all my positing. This follows once we recall that the unity of my ego is correlated to the unity of the world in which I find myself. My ego's active striving for self-preservation is, when noematically regarded, also a striving for the harmoniousness of its multiple experiences and position takings. It is a striving towards the harmoniousness which allows it to posit the world as an existing unity. In Husserl's words, my "will to live" (Wille zum Leben) is also a "will to true being" -i.e., the being of which I can have some certainty (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 378). Thus, we have, on the one hand lithe ongoing style of an ego which, in the streaming life of position takings, constantly preserves itself through self-correction." On the other hand, we have its striving "to bring all its experiential certainties with every experiential content into a harmonious, universal certainty, albeit through the correction [of

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such certainties and content]" (ibid., Nov. 13, 1931, p. 404). The allpervasive quality of this striving towards harmoniousness and, hence, towards the establishment of being is noted in another manuscript of the same year: "And, indeed, a tendency (Tendenz) pervades all intentionality, an impulse of striving (Strebenszug) goes through it. Everything is intentionally one with everything; through harmoniousness in synthesis, everything contains constituted unity. [Thus,] a tendency towards establishment [of being qua constituted unity] pervades the whole, a tendency towards the overcoming of disharmoniousness, towards correction" (Ms. B I 32, p. 13, Mayor Aug., 1931). Given this, we can say that the establishment of certainty of being through correction is the motivating goal of all intentional life; it is what all my attempts at positing are striving to achieve. When we put this together with the fact that my primordial certainty of being is related only to my hypothetically-as opposed to my actuallyextended "I can," we have the motivating basis for my positing of Others. By myself, I can have only a hypothetical certainty of being. The goal of my positing is, however, an actual certainty. This goal motivates me to posit Others as subjects like myself-Le., as possessing the "I can," whose actual extension is required for actual certainty. Such positing can thus be looked upon as a transfer to Others of the sense of my "I can," with the result that my experiential possibilities are indirectly enlarged. As Husserl describes this indirect extension, "That portion of the world which is immediately experiencible by me is contained in this spatial-temporal infinity [of the world], but contained within it as a finitude. It is through Others, namely, and through their experiental data which I 'take over,' that my at first finite world in space and time, my experiential world, constantly expands itself" (Ms. C 17, II, pp. 1-2, ca. Jan. I, 1931). As he also puts this, "The passive extension of the world ad infinitum is an analogizing, assimilating, transcending apperception ... " (ibid., p. 8). It is a result of the analogizing, self-transcending transfer to Others-and, mediately, to the Others of these Others-of my "I can." The motivation for this transfer can be expressed both on a natural and a transcendental leveL If, in the natural attitude, "to live is always to live in the certainty of the world," then the very structure of my being in the lifeworld requires the presence of Others. This follows because the world appears as the final ground of all my certainties, but I myself, in my finitude, cannot maintain the thesis of the world-the world as the totality of all there is. For this (so I assume) I require Others, fellow subjects by means of whom the world can be extended ad infinitum. The same motivating necessity occurs on the initial stage of transcendental leveL Here, it is expressed through the notion that being is equivalent to being given. The

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world is given to me as surpassing my grasp; to establish its being, I must posit Others as subjects surpassing me to whom it may be given. What we are confronted with is a nexus of three interrelated themes: the world's surpassing quality, my finitude vis-a-vis the world, and my positing of Others as subjects actually distinct from myself. Quite apart from any question of motivation, we can say that my positing of such Others would be impossible without my acknowledgement of my finitude. This point follows directly from Husserl's analysis of the "analogizing apperception" by which I posit Others. As we recall, it is based on a double pairing. We have, first of all, a pairing of my animate body in the here and the there. We then have the pairing of the Other with myself in the there. It is by virtue of this second pairing that I posit the Other perceiving "the same nature, but in the mode of appearance: as if I stood there where the Other's body is" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 152). Now, the first pairing, as we said, involves possibility-i.e., my possibility through my "I can" to change my position, to change a given there into my here. It is, we can say, part of the hypothetical character of my "I can." In distinction to this, the second pairing involves the actuality of the Other's being there. He is taken as actually being in the position which I could hypothetically occupy, were I to change my position (see above, p. 33). With this, the sense of my own finitude enters to play its indispensable part. As an embodied subject, I am limited, at any moment, to one definite position. I cannot be in two distinct locations simultaneously, which means that, outside of the actuality of my present "here," all other positions are grasped as hypothetical-i.e., as possible positions which I could have, but did not realize. Without such finitude, my "I can" would not have its hypothetical, "if ... then" character. But without this last, the world would not have its phenomenological character of always surpassing me. Furthermore, the fact that I cannot simultaneously be both in the here and the there means, for Husserl, that the Other I do posit as presently there is actually Other (see above, p. 34). My sense of my embodied finitude is thus an essential element in my apprehension of both the surpassing quality of the world and the equally surpassing quality of Others as present within this world. Such Others are posited as subjects directly experiencing those portions of the world which are outside of my grasp. This is inherent in their surpassing quality being tied to that of the world. Thus, we come to Husserl's frequent assertion that the givenness of the world in its surpassing, horizonal 'quality is, correlatively, the givenness of Others. Their givenness, as we quoted Husserl, "pertains ... to the pre-given sense of this world." This sense is one which I acquire through my horizonal experience of the world-i.e., by virtue of the fact that my own givenness as a subject in the world is one of living "in a 'finitude' in which the infinitude

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of beings lies concealed" (Ms. A V 10, p. 21, Nov. 9, 1931). Others, then, are implicit in the world as the Others to whom this infinitude can presumably be given. They are implicit in me insofar as I live in the world as horizon, i.e., as something explicated by myself and yet as always surpassing my grasp. Thus, Husserl, in explicating the notion of "living as a human being in the world," writes, liThe world for me=the world of 'all of us' ('Wir aile'), the 'all' which exists for me, which is implicit in me" (Ms. D 14, p. 8, March, 1931). As he elsewhere puts this, liMy consistent pure selfknowledge as a bearer (Trager) of the world which exists for me and is valid for me also conceals in itself a pure knowledge of fellow subjects, fellow validators-bearers [of the world) ... " (Ms. B I 14, xi, p. 22, Sept., 1935). On the objective, human level of my finitude, this implication is simply that of Others being implicit in what we earlier called, the "second, intersubjective sense" of the world's transcendence (see above, p. 34). On the ultimate level which corresponds to the absolute, it has quite a different import. Here, the implication of Others as fellow "bearers" of the surpassing quality of the world shows itself as a transcendental concealment of the absolute. The first indication that this is the case can be given by recalling our remark that self and Others, finitude and infinitude are dialectical concepts. By this is meant that the full development of the sense of each demands that of the other. Thus, according to the arguments we have just sketched out, it is from my sense of embodied finitude-i.e., my being limited by my body only to one place at one time-that I can posit Others as actually other. These Others, however, are required if I am to posit my body's temporal finitude-i.e., its organic birth and death. Husserl remarks on the latter, "certainly this finitude is concealed so long as my birth has not been discovered, so long as I have not brought into play the co-being (Mitsein) of Others" (Ms. C 17 II, p. 7, ca. Jan. I, 1931). The full sense of my body's finitude, thus, requires the co-being of those Others which are posited from the basis of the first, spatially oriented sense of its finitude. Now, to see the complete circle of this dialectic, we need only to note what this full sense implies. According to it, Others in their succeeding generations are taken to represent the actual, unbounded lifetime against which my own finite lifetime is measured. Similarly, in their occupying positions "there" in the world, they represent the indefinite spatial extendability of the actual world against which my own surrounding world is measured in its finitude. Hence, their actuallity is understood as containing my own insofar as they "bear" and "validate" the whole of the spatial-temporal world in which I find both my embodied self and my surrounding world as mere dependent parts. This dependence is not just the formal one of the logical dependence of a part on a whole. It also has its organic component. As we quoted Husserl, it is Others who

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reveal to me the fact of my birth as a finite living body. They give it the sense of a body which comes to be from the activity of Others, a body which will cease to be. Thus, part and parcel of what I learn from them is the notion that my very being as embodied is dependent on Others, understood as existing before me. The developed sense of my embodied finitude includes, in other words, the natural attitude's view that I exist in a chain of generations, that my embodied being is the organic result of those Others who existed before my body was "given" in a worldly sense. With this, we apparently negate the beginning of the dialectic which asserted that it was from the prior givenness of my worldly, embodied finitude that Others are first constitutively given as independently existing. The transcendental understanding of this dialectic is in terms of layers of concealment. First of all, the worldly sense of my embodied finitude, a sense which includes the notion of its dependence on Others, conceals from me the role of this finitude in positing Others. If I couldn't be here at all without Others in the form of my parents, how can I say that the positing of actually existent Others depends upon the finitude of this, my "here"? Such reflections lead Husserl to write, "Worldliness is, so to speak, a transcendental blinding which ... makes the transcendental necessarily inaccessible to one and also closes off [before the reduction] any possible conception of it." (Ms. A V 10, p. 23, Nov. 5, 1931). Now, this first concealment is actually a concealment of a concealment. Once we uncover the necessary role of our body's finitude in positing Others, we still have to face the fact that oUf worldly status as embodied is itself a concealment. As we quoted Husserl, "The individual, human self-objectification in each monad is a transcendental self-concealment. This occurs in the form of [its] spatial-temporal objectification as the 'soul' of its natural organic body (Naturleibes) ... " (ibid.). This concealment is not just that of the nineteenth-century "psychologism" which we mentioned above (see p. 154). It involves the very notion of subjectivity as a worldly phenomenon. Husserl writes, "The person in the condition of his worldliness lives in pre-givenness, his own and that of the world; that is, he lives in a horizon, he lives in the consciousness of finitude within an infinite world" (Ms. A V la, p. 22). The condition of my worldliness is that of assuming that I am an embodied subject within the spatial-temporal infinity of the world. Existing as such, I necessarily experience the world in the manner of a horizon stretching from the near to the far, from the known to the unknown. This horizon, itself, is understood in a worldly, spatial-temporal sense. It is a function of the givenness of my finite body and the givenness of the spatial-temporal world, the first being located in the second. Both forms of givenness were assumed by the starting point of our

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dialectic. It took for granted that the surpassing quality of the world referred to the world's given, spatial-temporal character. In asserting that I could not simultaneously occupy both the here and the there, it also assumed the givenness of my body as a specific object in the spatialtemporal world. But for Husserl, such assumed givenness is itself a concealment. He writes immediately after the sentence we just quoted, "This structure of the pre-givenness of the world for the human being, [this structure] of the human being for himself, is now, in a second sense, that in which the human being lives in the confines of finitude: namely insofar as his transcendental being as transcendental subjectivity necessarily remains concealed to him in his natural life as a human being or, what is the same, insofar as the transcendental subjectivity lives concealed in his humanity. (Ms. A V 10, p. 22, italics added). This switch from his to the transcendental subjectivity points to the fact that the whole notion of embodiment, which allows us to posit both ourselves and Others as particular, finite beings, is itself a concealment. It conceals the singular subjectivity which "lives" in our finitude. With this, we can say that the dialectic which asserts both that my embodied finitude is a prior basis for my positing of Others and that Others must pre-exist me in order that I may be born organically-i.e., have a birth of my embodied finitude-is itself a "transcendental blinding." Rather like the Kantian antinomies which derive opposite conclusions from what is ultimately the same premise, our dialectic also throws its underlying premise into question. For Kant, we may recall, the ultimate premise is that of the final reality of the visibly appearing world-i.e., its claim to be a being in itself (see Prologomena, § 52 a-b). For our dialectic, the premise is that subjectivity is ultimately given in embodied particularity, i.e., that such particularity is its final reality. Let us put this in terms of horizon. Either, as the dialectic assumes, the horizonality of experience is a function of our finite embodiment in a surpassing spatial-temporal world or this very finitude is itself to be understood as co-given with the horizonality of experience. In the second case, the embodied finitude of myself and Others is not an absolute but only a constituted phenomenon. If this is correct, then the dialectical claims of my own and Other's embodied subjectivity to ground one another are an illusion based on the fact of their being cogrounded in a single subjectivity which "lives" in each of them. Each, in other words, becomes regarded as a self-objectification of that absolute whose "self-expressions" result in the horizonal structure of experience, and, hence, in the world and each of its individual, embodied subjects. This last position, we may observe, rests on two fundamental insights. The first is that my world horizon is, concretely speaking, the connection of my experiences into certain perspectivally ordered series. It is such con-

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nections which first give me the sense of my embodied finitude as a finitude within a spatial-temporal world. The second is that the absolute, in objectifying itself in me, must objectify itself in an experiencer who lives in horizon. This follows both in a specific and a general sense. Specifically, I am an individual experiencer only by virtue of being positioned in the center of a surrounding, perspectivally appearing world. If the absolute is to objectify itself in an individual, it must then give rise to the connections which result in such a world. But according to the first insight, this is precisely what results in the experiencer living in horizon, i.e., living as an embodied finitude within a spatial-temporal world. Generally speaking, the same point follows because the absolute, in objectifying itself in me, cannot exhaust itself in my finitude. It must surpass it. In embodying itself in a finite experiencer "in an oriented manner," it must necessarily embody itself in an experiencer whose experiences point to what transcends his actual grasp. What we have here is a living in horizon in which the "I can" always points beyond itself and, in so doing, reveals its "hypothetical" quality. Insofar as this horizonality is necessarily structured according to perspectival series, the experiencer interprets himself as living in a surpassing, spatial-temporal world, one whose central core of the familiar or the well known is always bounded by areas of the increasingly less familiar. This last sense of finitude stands at the beginning of the dialectic of self and Others, finitude and infinitude. The dialectic presupposes it when it presupposes it subjective embodiment. It is only because I am embodied that the birth and death of Others has a reference to me. Behind this sense of embodiment is the connection of my experiences into perspectivally ordered series. Similarly, my positing of Others as extensions of my "I can" rests on embodiment and, hence, on the perspectival ordering of my experience. This ordering locates my "I can" in a definite "here" ( a "here" which excludes its also being "there"). It situates this "I can" in a world of things whose perspectival appearing always points beyond what I have experienced. In this way, it reveals the "hypothetical" quality of my "I can." Granting this, Others can be seen as implicit in me in a new manner. My being in the world implies them in a sense deeper than that of their simply being fellow "bearers-validators" of the world. The implication is through the ground of my being in the world. I posit my Others on the basis of my finite access to the world; but the ordering of experiences is what results in this finite access and, hence, in my self-interpretation as finite. This ordering, then, is the basis of my positing of Others. Our conclusion acknowledges that the perspectival ordering of experiences is required for there to be an individual experiencer; but it also recognizes that

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the very same ordering gives this experiencer a sense that it is dependent on Others for the explication of the world in which it lives. Thus, it asserts that my finitely explicating subjectivity and the similar finite subjectivity of Others are both correlated to the horizonal, perspectivally ordered structure of experience. This signifies that the notion of Others as implicit in me ultimately points not to my finitude as objectively human, but rather to the ground of this finitude. What is ultimately indicated is the unconditioned or nonfinite absolute which cannot embody itself in an individual experiencer without surpassing him. This surpassing implies the Others which are also his particular, finite objectifications. Here, self and Others imply each other, not directly but through their surpassing ground. We can enlarge the above in terms of Husserl's assertion that "the disclosure of the absolute, the transcendental being, shows that even the life of each transcendental subject is a life of a finite being immersed in infinity, an infinity which reflects itself, so to speak, in the concealment of human finitude and ... manifests itself in concealment" (Ms. A V 10, p. 24, Nov. 9, 1931). The assertion of this passage is that human finitude is a concealment in which "infinity" reflects and manifests itself. Let us first take this infinity as the spatial-temporal infinity which is attributed to the world. This infinity appears in the guise of the indefinitely extendable horizons of objects-their "internal" and "external" horizons. As such, it is correlated to these horizons' perspectival structure. A perspectival series has the sense that no particular view of an object is the last, i.e., is a view that inherently excludes the possibility of other views of the object. Thus, the object which appears perspectivally has the sense of indefinite exhibition. Its own sense is that of something which is experienced through an indefinitely extendable horizon of experiences, one in which the actual views we have had are always capable of being surpassed by the possible experiences which the object seems to afford. The same perspectival structure of experiential horizons also grounds the possibility of the existence of an individual experiencer of the world. It is the perspectival ordering of experiences which allows these to have a defined O-point in space and time; but this last, for Husserl, is the pure ego understood as a subjective "center" of experience. Granting that both the ego and its indefinitely extendable world are both co-given with the perspectivality of experience, Husserl's assertion becomes intelligible. A perspectival series manifests its potential infinity in a process that conceals as it reveals. Thus, a perspectivally appearing object can only disclose one of its sides by concealing the other, the "backside," from an individual experiencer. For such an experiencer, it follows that "this world, this infinity, which is known in the

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manner of a horizon, ... is constantly concealed even in [its] constant disclosure ... "(ibid., p. 21). To this we may add the point that my own sense of embodied finitude is given to me (through the perspectival ordering of experience) as something spatial-temporal. It is, thus, naturally correlated to the concealingrevealing character of such ordering. My embodied finitude signifies that I cannot be in two places at the same time. I cannot view simultaneously both the front and the back of an object. By itself, then, it implies the object's disclosing one of its sides to me only by concealing its other sides. Thus, we can say with Husserl that the infinity of the world "manifests itself" in the "concealment" occasioned by human finitude. It does so because the very same ordering of experiences, which manifests the indefinite extendability of the world, situates me as an embodied experiencer who can only reveal by concealing. In other words, my own embodiment' indeed, my own individuality as an ego, is itself a reflection on the same horizonality by which the world manifests its spatial-temporal infinity. Accordingto the above, "infinity reflects itself ... in the concealment of human finitude" since its own sense is implicit in the latter. The "concealment of human finitude" and the perspectival sense of spatialtemporal infinity are co-grounded, correlative phenomena. Each is implicit and, in this way, "reflects itself" in the other. Now, when we turn to their ground, this reflection takes on a second, "absolute" sense. It does not signify the implication of a correlative, but rather the manifestation of the ground in the grounded. We can put this in terms of our earlier remark that the reduction is possible only when it is considered as a transfer to the absolute of the qualities which make the world a world. These qualities are the world's claims to be the all-embracing totality of beings and to be the ground of all certainty of being. Now, the manifestation of the absolute occurs through its constitutive objectification. Since, as we have seen, constitution and the reduction are the same process in reverse order, the manifestation of the absolute through constitution should evince the reverse of the transfer the reduction occasions. The "infinity" of the absolute with respect to being and certainty should manifest itself by being transferred to the world. By recalling the arguments we have sketched out, we can gain a certain indication of the nature and the necessity of this transfer to the world. According to these, the absolute, in objectifying itself in an individual, necessarily takes the form of an experiencer who sees the world as an all-embracing infinity-i.e., as possessing "the totality of absolute being" which Husserl ascribes to the absolute. As we said, the individual experiencer, if he is to exist as an egological "center," must expe-

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rience the world perspectivally. His own appearance, then, is one with his sense of embodiment and his sense of being a part of a world which, by is perspectival appearing, he necessarily takes as infinite. This last, then, is a necessary result (or "reflection") of the objectification of the absolute in the individual's finitude-i.e., in his embodied concealment. The same argument holds, mutatis mutandis, for the transfer to the world of the absolute's quality of being the ground of all certainty. If the absolute is to manifest itself in an egological center who is certain of his own existence, it must take the form of an experiencer who possesses a corresponding world-certainty. This follows since the central ego is tied to the world which centers or defines it. Thus, the unity of my world points to myself as a unity of acts and, ultimately, to myself as a unitary ego, an ego who experiences through acts. This also holds when we reverse the order of implication. Thus, my certainty with regard to my being a unitary center is also my certainty with regard to the world. Granting this, we can say that the manifestation of the absolute in the individual is not just its occurrence in a subject who necessarily lives in a world-certainty which is correlative to his self-certainty; it is also its occurrence in an individual whose certainties require that he take himself as a member of an indefinitely extended plurality of subjects. To see this, we must again observe that the world's perspectival character-i.e., the indefinite extendability of its horizons-extends the world to infinity. This character always makes the world's unity something which surpasses my own finite powers of experience and synthesis. Now, if my own egological unity is to be correlated and, indeed, given in connection with this surpassing world-unity, it must be given in relation to sub;ects which can "bear" and "validate" the later. My self-certainty, in other words, must imply the presence of those Others whose "I can" supplements my own limited abilities in establishing the world's unity. Through Others, I take myself as overcoming both the limitations of my finitude and the corresponding presumptiveness which is inherent in my positing through perspectival series. They are taken as being in a position to see, simultaneously with myself, the sides of objects which my own embodied status prevents me from viewing. What we have, then, is a second infinitude which is correlative to my given finitude as a subject. The spatial-temporal infinitude which I imply through my finite embodiment-and ultimately through my given being as a unitary center of a perspectival word-is matched by a corresponding infinitude of subjects who experience and "validate" this first infinity. The above should, of course, not be seen as denying that on the level of my ground-Husserl's pre-egologicallevel-neither my embodied status nor my self-certainty as an experiential center is an absolute necessity.

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Both are contingent on the connections through which the absolute brings about the world. The necessities here are only hypothetical. We can only assert that if the absolute does ground a world and, with this, its own objectification as a finite experiencer, then the above-described transfers do occur. With regard to the transfer of certainty, it then follows that the absolute's "infinity reflects itself ... in the concealment of human finitude" by virtue of this finitude's self-pluralization. This follows since it is only through the indefinite multiplication of such finite experiencers that the self-certainty of the absolute-Le, its own lack of presumptiveness and contingency-could ever hope to achieve any objective, constituted manifestation. Only then could the world's quality of being the totality of beings achieve, as an experienced and validated totality, the status of being the experiential ground of all ontological certainty. Once we assert that the manifestation of the absolute occurs on the worldly, objective level of "the concealment of human finitude," we must also assert that this manifestion is, itself, a concealment. This follows both with regard to the individual and the plurality of individuals. Considered in itself, the absolute's infinity is its existence as a ground of all horizons. Since an existing ego, as a center of a defined word, can only embody one of these possible horizons, the absolute's manifestation in his finitude is, by definition, a self-limitation. It is a concealment of the absolute in its infinite extent-i.e., in its ability to ground not just this individual's surrounding world but every possible horizonal structure of a world. Similarly, it can be said that the manifestation of the absolute as a plurality of finite subjects conceals its own nature as a pre-plural ground for the constitution of every possible singular subject and corresponding plurality. Here, we pass beyond the argument of our last few paragraphs. It would lead us to assume that an indefinitely extended plurality of subjects could ground the world in the certainty of its being. The assumption, however, is a further concealment. This follows because such subjects do not ultimately act as "validators-bearers" of the world in its indefinitely extendable horizons. In the finitude which pertains to each experiencer, their status, as we have seen, is simply that of correlatives to the world's perspectivally structured horizonality. We can gain a certain insight into this concealment by attempting to ground the world horizon through a subjective plurality. What prevents our success is, in the first instance, simply this horizon's basic character of always surpassing any actual subjective grasp. This holds not just for my subject but also for any finite totality of individual experiencers. The horizon remains a horizon, Le., a structure with the central core of the familiar shading off into the unknown. It is always experienced in the manner of "I-or we-could always go further." As we said, this going

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further is a function of the perspectival ordering of the experiences composing the horizon. As such, it is correlated to the first, primordial sense of an object's transcendence, its sense of indefinite exhibitability and, hence, of transcending or surpassing the experiences which I have actually had of it. This sense is not cancelled by the bringing in of other subjects. Collectively regarded, their actual experiences never equal the infinite exhibition which a perspectivally appearing world is capable of. They, too, as finite, live in the horizonality of experience or, what is the same, in the transcendence of the world they experience. In such a situation, we cannot assert that the world, as the totality of all that is, is their constituted product. The actual experiences from which they constitute are only a finite part of the whole which the world affords. Such experiences are, thus, never constitutively equal to the surpassing whole itself. Because of this, Husserl first writes, "The transcendence in which the world is constituted exists by virtue of its constituting itself by means of Others and the generatively constituted co-subjectivity." But then he immediately adds, "Correction: this explanation of transcendence is frivolous (leichtsinnig). Of course, the primordial world [of an individual subject) is finite, but the intersubjective, human surrounding world, the 'earthly' surrounding world, is also finite. It is always a cultural world, experienceable for us humans as the world of actual experience, actual exhibitability ... " (Ms. C 17 II, pp. 7-8, ca. Jan. 1, 1931). Husserl's point is that the world's transcendence, when understood in terms of the horizonality of experience, can never be a constituted result of the actual experiences of a finite totality of subjects. Rather, it shows itself in its quality of always surpassing such experiences. What about the attempt to ground the world horizon in terms of possibility-i.e., the possible experiences of continually possible new human subjects? Husserl sometimes considers this notion. He writes, for example, "We, in [our) finitude, only have a world from the finitude of the fellow subjects actually involved with us-but, in horizon, [we have) the possibility of continually new human beings entering in [to the intersubjective community)" (Ms. B III 7, p. 7, 1933). The difficulty with this attempt, as he notes in another manuscript from the same year, is the assumption it makes about being. He writes, "As opposed to the world, which is relative to constituting subjectivity, the latter, itself, may be absolutely existing. But is transcendental subjectivity something which actually exists absolutely? Does it not, itself, have a limited duration-this, when we do not wish to assume [its) being in an actually infinite time ... ?" (Ms. C 11 I, p. 2,1933). The necessity for assuming this infinite being follows from the infinite exhibitability of the perspectivally appearing world. A subjective plurality capable of apprehending the infinitely

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extendable horizon of such a world must be assumed to have a corresponding extendability. Thus, to "catch up," as it were, with this ever expanding horizon, the plurality of subjects would have to be conceived as an infinite all-embracing totality. It would have to be thought of as present everywhere, extending through infinite space and "actually infinite time." As long as we conceive of such subjects as finite, individual beings, this conception is impossible. We cannot conceive of an all-embracing totality of individual beings as long as we limit our thoughts to the categories of such beings. Given that such categories are substantiality, individuality, and plurality, they only allow us to conceive of sums or collections to which new members can always be added. Such collections of numerical singulars can never be thought of as "not having a beyond." They can never be taken as all-embracing. Apart from this problem of conceivability, there is another, related difficulty. As Husserl notes, if we are really to think of the possibility of continually new subjects, then the "openness" of possibility demands that we also conceive of the possibility that there are no further subjects. The being of unknown Others, Others which are not distinctly and determinately indicated, is a real possibility of being, a real possibility of being able to reach them; but it is not excluded that nothing will be reached, that there are final Others and "over and beyond this, there is nothing"; but that is just a mere possibility and remains a possibility. Openness remains openness. Transcendental allsubjectivity is constituted as the totality of those whom I and we have factually reached (with a horizon of the possibility of error); and this nucleus has its horizon of possible unknown, still unreached Others, with the possibility that there are no Others" (Ms. KIll 12, p. 38, 1935). This "openness" of possibility results from the Husserlian position that possibility does not itself express an a priori guarantee. Possibility for Husserl remains mere possibility as long as we exclude from its notion the facticity which would give it a "real" significance. We may express the necessity of the openness of possibility by a series of equivalent notions. The ultimacy of facticity gives us, as we said, the correlative notions of the noncontingency of the absolute and the contingency of the world which it grounds. Now, this contingency is, itself, correlated by Husserl to the horizonality of our experiences of the world. That we experience the world perspectivally means that we experience it in terms of a finitely accessible horizon. This, in turn, signifies that the world can never be completely validated by us, i.e., confirmed as an absolutely existing

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"being in itself." The world, then, is not just contingent when viewed from the vantage point of its unconditioned ground; it also remains contingent from the vantage point of its horizonally experiencing subjects. To add yet another concept to this nexus, we note that the transcendence of the world is also a function of the perspectivally structured horizonality of our experience. The senses of the world's contingency and transcendence are thus always given together insofar as they have the same condition. Granting the above, the attempt to think of an infinite plurality of subjects which could ground the world's transcendence undoes the web of these interrelated notions. Such an infinite plurality would be able to establish the thesis of the world's "being in itself." It would, then, overcome what Husserl sees as the necessary contingency of the world. With this, it would asume the position of the world's unconditioned ground. Furthermore, insofar as we conceive of such subjects as finite and embodied, we conceive them as parts of the world. The unconditioned ground of the world could therefore be understood as immanent in the world. In other words, if the world contains the guaranteed possibility of such an infinite, intersubjective plurality, it could be understood as containing with itself-i.e., within its own possibilities-its unconditioned ground. With this implication, we come to the concealment we mentioned above: the concealment of the actual ground of the world by the thought of a plurality of individual subjects acting as its ground. For Husserl, this concealment is shown to be such once we realize that subjects, in their finitude, are correlatives of the world's horizonality. This signifies that they are always given and always exist within such perspectivally structured horizonality. In terms of their own thesis, they must therefore be regarded as contingent-i.e., as dependent-on a givenness which always surpasses their grasp. In Husserl's words, " ... because horizons are just open possibilities of being and necessarily have the character of extendability (Erweiterung)-although this extend ability does not have to be fulfillable-the transcendental totality of subjects is contingent; because it always remains open, I am contingent ... " (Ms. K III 12, p.39, 1935). The basic position here is one that we have referred to a number of times. The constant extendability and openness which characterizes the perspectival horizonality of experiences forestalls every final thesis concerning being-even one's own. As Husserl writes on experiencing in horizon: "And everything is concealed, even the quite well known, even one's own human being, one's own bodilyness, one's own being as an ego; they are always in finitude, in the relativity of obviousness and hiddenness, and this according to each and every [feature]" (Ms. A V 10, p. 21, Nov. 9, 1931). Put in these terms, the assertion of this "openness" is simply another

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way of recalling the fact that the world appears contingent (or open) both from the perspective of the horizonally experiencing subjects and from the view of the ultimate facticity of their ground. In terms of such openness, there is, then, not just the possibility that we may reach Others beyond which there are no Others, i.e., that we may be prevented from infinitely extending the intersubjective community. There is also the possibility that the thesis of the entire intersubjective community-that of an existing totality of subjects-may collapse. The openness of the horizon makes us treat the thesis of a plurality of finite, worldly experiencers no differently than that of any other thesis concerning individual entities. It conceals the thesis' finality from us and, hence, makes us regard its object as something contingent. The collapse of the attempt to ground the world horizon by an actual or potential plurality of subjects returns us to our earlier conclusion. The world horizon is not the result of the pluraltiy of subjects. As correlative to such subjects, it is rather the result of what grounds both itself and such subjects. The nature of this grounding can be specified by recalling Husserl's assertion that "the absolute lies at the basis of all possibilities .... " It is, as we said, the grounding possibility of all possibilities. As such, it always surpasses not just our actual world but also every particular possible world. Included in its possibilities is, in fact, the possibility of a "non-world." It is conceivable that experience could collapse into a "tumult" with the consequent dissolution of both the perspectivally ordered world horizon and the egological centers which this horizon situates. The horizonality which the absolute grounds is, thus, an open horizonality in a double sense. It is open in the sense that it is, itself, contingent in its ordered, perspectival structure. It is also open in the sense that it contains all the possible worlds which this structure is capable of. The same assertion follows for the subjects which exist in horizonality. For Husserl, to live "in finitude, in the relativity of obviousness and hiddenness"-in short, in horizonality-" ... is the structure of human existence." Implicit in this structure is the possibility of the collapse of such human existence as well as its openness to every possible form of existing. Both follow from the surpassing quality of the ground. In surpassing its particular, finite self-expressions, the ground manifests itself in the horizonal structure of the latter by making this structure imply infinite, open-ended possibilities of being. Taking the absolute as a flowing, experiential stream whose connections can ground all possible beings, Husserl writes, " ... the totality of monadic being exists as being in horizonality, and infinity pertains to this-infinite potentiality. Infinite streaming as implying the infinities of the stream, infinity, the iteration of potentialities" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XY, Kern ed., p. 670).

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As we said, this infinitude of possibilities (or "potentialities") objectifies itself as concealment. Its very openness conceals from the intersubjective community its possible extent and its possible continuance in being. Both concealments, we may observe, can be directly derived from the description of the absolute as an alphabet of experience, i.e., its description as an assemblage of those "absolute essentialities" or "pure" experiences from which all temporal relations (and, hence, ordered connections) have been abstracted. Thus, with regard to the concealment of the extent of the intersubjective community, it is to be recalled that an examination of the essence of "man" leaves open the question of bow many men there are. The essence expresses only a common notion which can be exemplified by some number of individuals. The same point holds for the essential elements of experience, the "alphabet/, forming the absolute. They too have the character of one in many with regard to the individuals which they can form. What this signifies is that the openness of the extent of the intersubjective community-including the open possibility that it might collapse and, therefore, not have any extent at all-is simply a function of the absolute's own character. It is the latter's indeterminacy which prevents this concealment from ever being overcome. Mutatis mutandis, we can make the same claim about the concealment of the finality of the thesis of subjective being. The elements which form this being are those of the alphabet. But the latter exist independently of the unities they form. The lack of any necessary tie between the two signifies, as we said, that the dependent, constituted unities can never be regarded as necessary but only as contingent. As having no independent necessity, the conclusiveness of the thesis of their being is naturally excluded. We may sum up our conclusions by drawing out what they imply with regard to Others being implicit in me. We have, first of all, the conclusion that our positing of Others as fellow "validators-bearers" of the world horizon is itself a concealment. This concealment, we said, is revealed to be such because such subjects themselves exist and are given along with the horizonality of the world. This is shown by the fact that both their numerical extent and the possibility of their continuance as an existing, intersubjective community remains in the concealment which is inherent in the world's perspectivally structured horizonality. Our last remarks which trace this concealment to the absolute-i.e., to its inherent indeterminacy as a ground-point again to the fact that the horizonal givenness (or existence) of subjects is simply a result of their being grounded by the absolute. The concealment involved in positing Others as grounding the world horizon is, therefore, a concealment of the absolute in its own function of grounding subjects in the horizonality of their being. Let us express this conclusion in terms of the formula, "being equals

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being-given." Prior to the reduction to the absolute, it signifies "being equals being given to a subject"-i.e., to myself alone or myself in conjunction with fellow subjects. With the reduction to the absolute-i.e., to the lowest level of constituting phenomena-this interpretation no longer holds. As Husserl writes, "On the lowest level, we do not yet have an ego ... " (see above, p. 126). There is, then, no ego or subject to whom being can be given. Here, the positing of egos as ultimate factors explanatory of being shows itself as further concealment of the absolute. The absolute, in itself, is simply a giving of being which provides not just the "data" but also the egos to whom such data are given. The sign that this is so is, as we said, the very structure of egological being as being-in-horizonality. Let us now relate this to our positing of Others. As just noted, when we first enter into the transcendental attitude, the necessity for Others is thought under the equivalence of being and being-given. I am motivated to posit Others as subjects to whom the world's surpassing quality can be given. They are thought of as grounding the being of the world in its surpassing extent. Corresponding to this, I assert that Others are implicit in me by their "bearing" and "validating" the world horizon which I implicity possess in my self-consciousness-i.e., my consciousness of myself as existing within a world which surpasses me. Once, however, I do perform the reduction to the absolute level, this assertion shows itself to have the same concealing character as the interpretation of "being given" on which it is based. I then assert that the presence to me of Others as other than myself is a correlative of the transcendence, the horizonality of the world. I also claim that this transcendence and horizonality are not a result of their constitutive action. Thus, I do not see Others as "bearers-validators" of the world, but see them as "born" along with the world in its horizonality and transcendence. I see them in terms of the absolute which is the ultimate ground of such horizonality and transcendence. In correspondence to this interpretation, I see Others as implicit in me by virtue of our collective being in a grounded horizonality and transcendence. Proceeding through a self-reduction to the ground, I, therefore, see Others implicit in me by virtue of my ground's surpassing infinitude. It is a ground which always exceeds me in my finitude and, in so doing, always implies Others. Its possibilities exceed my own. Implicit, then, in its infinitude, is not just my "I can," but also the "I can" of every possible Other which I may (or may not) encounter through the horizonality of my objectified being.

Chapter IV

A FIRST SOLUTION

TO THE PROBLEM OF INTERSUBJECTMTY § 1. THE ELEMENTS OF THE PROBLEM

T

is now time to take the themes of the earlier chapters and view them

I together. Together they form what can be called a first solution to the

problem of intersubjectivity. Let us begin by reviewing our analysis of the problem. At its heart is the distinction between the factual process of recognition and the principle presupposed by this process. Factually speaking, we do recognize Others through similarities in our appearance and behavior. In attempting to apprehend the Other as a subject like ourselves, our process is one of attempting to apply or "transfer" to him those meanings with which we are familiar in our own regard. These are the meanings which are tied to our being in the world: Weare the beings to whom the world appears, the beings for whom it has certain meanings. These meanings prompt in us certain "typical" responses, pleasure, fear, and so forth, which manifest themselves in our behavior. The bodily appearance of our behavior points back to the fact that our being in the world is that of a psychophysical organism: a being that we interpret as that of a "soul" with a "besouled" or animate organism. Now, what is at issue is not this factual process of recognition but the principle presupposed by it. As we said, the principle is that of sharing meanings, of having a world of shared meanings in common with Others. Expressed subjectively, i.e., in terms of Husserl's doctrine of the constitution of meanings, the principle is that of the harmony of our constitutive systems. These are the systems which, through synthesis, generate the perceptual meanings which form for each of us our appearing, surrounding world. The legitimacy of our transfer to Others of the meanings which are

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familiar to us and form our surrounding world presupposes this principle. Without it, the factual process of recognition seems to have a certain circularity of reasoning at its basis. Considered as a rational, verificational process, it appears to involve the circularity of the petitio principii. The petitio is such that the criterion for our sharing meanings is the observed similarity of our behavior; and the criterion for the claim that our behavior is actually similar is the sharing of meanings. To break this circle, we must assume that the perceptual meanings we gather from the world, in particular, those of one another's appearing behavior, are actually similar. Expressed subjectively, we must assume in advance that the constitutive systems, which Husserl sees as generating meanings, are already harmonious. To continue this review, let us mention again the difficulties in establishing this principle through the arguments which are given in the Cartesian Meditations. Such arguments, according to Sartre, establish only a "parallelism of empirical egos." As Schultz writes, this is because their initial term is "my own self-given life as a psychophysical I" (Collected Papers I, ed. cit., p. 197). Thus, the basis for my transfer of senses to the Others as I take "like me" is, necessarily, my finite embodied being-i.e., my being within the world as a finite "empirical" (or "real") ego. "Like me" signifies being finitely embodied as I am. The first difficulty here is that although the factual process of recognition demands the bodily appearing of the Other, a parallelism of embodied egos is not what Husserl should be aiming at. What the arguments of the Cartesian Meditations require is a parallelism of transcendental egos. These, however, are not empirical. As Husserl defines them, they do not have "the value of something real in the naively experienced, pre-given world"; they do not have "the sense of being a soul of animate organism (Leibes) which exists in a pre-given spatial-temporal nature" ("Nachwort," Ideen III, Biemel ed., p. 145). As non-empirical or non-appearing, they must, in a certain sense, be considered as prior to all appearing behavior within the world. This priority receives its definite sense by the fact that the transcendental ego is the constituting ego. Given this, two conclusions follow. The first is that a harmony of constitutive systems, if it is to be established, requires a consideration of egos as transcendental i.e., as constituting. The second is that the pairing or parallelism, which Husserl establishes between embodied, appearing subjects is one which links only constituted products. So conceived, it does not establish a harmony of constitutive systems, but rather is itself a pairing which presupposes a deeper, constitutive level. A further, closely related difficulty centers on Husserl's frequent assertion that constitution is constitutive of both being and sense. Taking the two as equivalent, constitution appears to be productive or creative of the "unity of sense" which, for Husserl, is an individual, objective being. As

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we noted, two absolutely independent, "creative" subjects could only accidentally share meanings in common. A truly creative subject is one that is truly independent. The latter signifies that its constitutive activities are not limited beforehand-either formally, through presupposing a priori rules of constitution, or materially, through presupposing the independent being of the elements &om which it constitutes. Such independence, thus, means that there is no ground or reason for supposing that they necessarily constitute (and, hence, share) meanings in common. In Schutz's words, the assumption of this independence implies that each ego could creatively constitute a world with its Others "just for himself" alone. To assume otherwise is to commit the petitio. It is to assume what we have no ground for assuming: this being the harmony of their independent syntheses or, objectively speaking, their sharing in a common world of meanings. §2. CONSTITUTION AND TIlE REVERSAL OF TIlE SEINSREDE

The root of this last difficulty is not per se with the notion of constitution as productive or creative. Indeed, insofar as this notion springs from that of the absolute independence of the final, constitutive ground, it is inherent in the idea of constitution. As we remarked, this idea presupposes the independence of the constituting from the constituted (see above, p. 134). It, thus, leads us to conceive that which is ultimately constituting as ultimately "independent" and, hence, as ultimately "creative" in its action. Rather than the foregoing, the difficulty, we can say, results from our wishing to locate this creative function in the individual subject. If we do so, a number of conclusions, fatal to Husserl's attempt to constitutively ground an intersubjective world, necessarily follow. Thus, we would be forced to conclude that the plurality of subjects formed a plurality of singulare tanta-i.e., a plurality of necessary and self-sufficient grounds of the world. If we wished to avoid the apparent contradiction in this notion, we would have to suppose a plurality of separate, unconnected worlds. One world, as we remarked, could not have a plurality of self-sufficient grounds for its being, each of which was conceived as necessary for it. The final result, then, would be transcendental solipsism, the solipsism of each subject and of each subjectively constituted world. The conclusion this leads to may be expressed as follows: To locate the creative function of constitution within an individual being is to ignore the reversal of the Seinsrede. The reversal signifies, in Fink's words, that "being is, in principle, constituted ... " ("Proposal/' ed. cit., p. 196; F., 20 I) The sense of objective being is reversed &om that of an independent reality, existing in itself, to that of something constitutively dependent on

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the "life" which constitutes it. A second, but no less important reversal is implicit in the notion of constitution as grounding. As we stated, the ground must show different characteristics from what it grounds (or constitutes). The conceptions of the two, ground and grounded, are distinct by definition. Given this, we cannot talk about the constitutive ground in the same way we talk about the being which it grounds. We, thus, can understand the call for a "reversal in the usual sense of the discourse about being" in terms of the sense springing from the familiarity of our living on the level of the grounded. We must reverse this sense if we are to characterize the ground. I To make these two reversals concrete, we have only to note that all objective, real being has the characteristics of numerical singularity, of being one among many. The first reversal signifies that such being is not independent. The second signifies that it is constitutively dependent on what, per se, is not an individual, not a numerically singular being. This point applies directly to the subject considered as a "real" or "personal" ego. These aspects of its individual being are, for Husserl, "constituted objectifications." They result from the connections of experiences forming the individual cogito and forming, as well, the personal ego, taken as the unity of its cogitationes. The same point applies, in a mediate way, to the subject considered as a pure, non-empirical ego. Although this ego is not constituted, it is dependent in its singularity on the "centering" of the constituted. It receives its numerical singularity by virtue of having its stream of consciousness and its surrounding world, the latter being constituted so as to situate the ego as its spatial-temporal center. The application of this double reversal to the being of subjects prevents us from considering their plurality as a plurality of independent grounds of the world. More precisely put, the two reversals signify that we can no longer assume a plurality of independent, subjective syntheses simply on the basis of the plurality of subjects' numerically singular being. Such being is itself a function of constitutive synthesis. It results directly or indirectly from it. Thus, it follows that the plurality of numerically singular subjects-subjects which exist as one among many-is posterior, not prior, to the synthesis which is productive of numerically singular being. In other words, the creative or productive synthesis must already be given for there to be singular egos, each with its singular, surrounding world. This pregivenness, we may observe, is reflected in the passive nature of lower level constitution. For Husserl, "passive" signifies, first of all, "without the action of the ego ... " It signifies, secondly, that which is constitutive of the ego in the individuality of its life (Ms. C 17 IV, pp. 1-2, 1930). With regard to the intersubjective harmony, the import of the above

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may be expressed in a number of ways. Its negative significance is that the individual subject is not capable of breaking the passively constituted basis of an intersubjective harmony. The creative power which is capable of such disruption is not a function of its being, i.e., its an sich Sein as one thing which exists among many. Such power, insofar as it presupposes an absolute independence, is appropriate only to the lowest level of constitution. But as we quoted Husserl, "On the lowest level, we do not yet have an ego, a person, a physical thing ... "(Ms. D 13 XXI, p. 124, 1907-09). Thus, no individual is here present who could be conceived as exercising this creative power. To put the same point in terms of another strand of Husserl's thought, we note that the conception of an individual being which possesses, in its independence, creative powers, is a conception opposed to the primacy of facticity. Such primacy implies that all individual being is contingenti.e., dependent on the factual course of experiences which form the being's constitutive elements. It further implies, as we quoted Kern, that "worldconstitution does not have a basis in a transcendental subjectivity which could guarantee the genesis and continance of this constitution ... " (Husserl u. Kant, ed. cit., p. 297). This follows since the subject is itself contingent on the very facticity which permits world-constitution to take place. In Husserl's view, to deny this position is to posit, like Kant, an individual, subjective unity behind the appearances of the world. Such a subjective unity, as independent of the facticity of the appearances of the world, would necessarily be noumenal. Its independence of facticity in its following its categorical rules of synthesis signifies that it embodies an a priori of constitution, one which is determinative of the facticity of experiences. Such a return to Kantianism is, of course, the opposite of Husserl's phenomenological method. With this, we can express the positive significance of the above. We can assert that the self-objectification of the absolute into a plurality of individual subjects leads to its self-objectification as an intersub;ective community. As creatively constituting, the absolute is a unique singular. Thus, it lacks the self-otherness-i.e., ontological self-distinction-which would allow of its disharmonious self-ob;ectification. Disharmoniousness must have its ontological root. Lack of harmony in styles of synthesis presupposes that the synthesizers are actually other. It assumes that they already form a plurality of distinct beings, each of which is capable of a distinct action. Yet on the "lowest" level, the level on which the absolute does creatively constitute, there are no distinct individuals or pluralities thereof. Otherwise put: The notion of a plurality of constituters is a constituted result, not a determining factor, of the absolute's self-objectification into such a plurality. Granting this, we can think of this self-

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objectification as disharmonious only if we ignore the reversal of the Seinsrede; for we must then picture the ground-Husserl's "ultimately

functioning subjectivity"-as possessing those characteristics of selfotherness and ontological self-distinction which are appropriate, not to itself but to the individuals which it grounds. To put this in terms of individual subjects, we can say that to the point that we do consider them as creatively constituting, they must be seen as "reflections" of one and the same, uniquely singular subjectivity. The word, reflections, perhaps, gives too great a sense of their distinctness. To eliminate this, it can also be said that to acknowledge the creative function of my own constitution is to acknowledge my essential coincidence with Others in the absolute. As we shall see in the following chapter, this acknowledgement is not, for Husserl, a "metaphysical," non-intuitive deduction. It is rather one which he attempts phenomenologically to establish. §3.

RECOGNITION AND THE REVERSAL OF THE SEINSREDE

Let us now turn to the significance of the reversal with regard to our process of recognizing Others. The first thing to be observed is that the reversal implies a contradiction between our attempting to recognize the Other as individually Other and, at the same time, as a separate, independent ground of the world. We have, first of all, a contradiction involving numerical and unique singularity. The first singularity is a characteristic of that which can be individually other; while the second, as we have seen, is appropriate only to the ground of the world, the ground of the totality of numerically singular entities. The contradiction, then, is one of attempting to apply to the same subject predicates which are appropriate to radically different types of being. We essentially say the same thing when we characterize the contradiction as one involving two levels of the absolute: the absolute in itself and in the "first" of its self-ob;ectifications. It is only in itself that it is the independent ground of the world. When it is objectified as human subjectivity, it loses this quality but gains those of plurality and otherness. A third way of characterizing the contradiction is to assert that it involves the activity and passivity of the ego. As individually acting, the ego does not ground the world. The world preexists for it; in Husserl's phrase, it is "pre-given to it" as the field for its activity. The world, here, presents itself as the objects and circumstances upon which the ego can act and make a difference. In distinction to this, the passivity of the ego points to what first results in this pregiven world. The constitutive processes referred to as "passive" are those which ground the world; but, as we quoted Husserl, such passive constitution takes place "without the activity of the ego ... " Given that the pregiven world is what

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situates and, hence, individualizes the ego, this contradiction is one between processes which are prior to the ego and processes which presuppose it. It is one between the "before" and the "after" of the individual ego. 2 Now, the attempt to "recognize" or grasp as a unity this contradiction in terms must necessarily fail. We cannot recognize the Other as both a numerical singular and as a ground of all sense and being. As we earlier observed, the connection of rationality and positing is such that the logical laws coincide with those of constitution. A logical contradiction cannot constitute itself as an appearing, self-consistent unity of sense. A transcendental ego involving the above contradictions can, thus, never appear to us. It cannot provide us with an intuitive basis for its recognition. This point was implicit in the conclusion of Chapter 1. As we noted, Husserl's description of the transcendental subject as a constitutive ground of the world's being and sense prevented us from considering it in terms of the latter. It signified that the ultimately constituting subject could not be regarded as an individual ("worldly") being-i.e., as an objective "unity of sense." Thus, it can never be recognized as such. The way it could be recognized as ultimately constituting was indicated by the assertion that this subject "does not acknowledge an outside." This implied, as we noted, that the recognition appropriate to the being of such a subject was not one which regarded him from the "outside" as individually other, i.e., as a subject who is "over and against me" in the separateness of his being. It is, rather, a recognition which proceeds from my acknowledgement that I am, in some sense, coincident with him on the level of our ultimate constitution. On this level, I must, as it were, be "inside" of him; for only in this way could my recognition and this subject's self-recognition, which denies an "outside," be said to agree. Once we grant that the original demands for recognizing the Other are contradictory, we can answer the objections we have cited. The first of these is that Husserl does not consider or give any evidence for the existence of the Other as "transcendental," this being understood as his existence as an independently constituting ego. The objection, in other words, is that the only thing which Husserl actually establishes is a parallelism of constituted, singular, "empirical egos." To this, we must answer that the numerically singular ego does not independently constitute. As a pure ego, it is tied to its surrounding world as its center. Its dependence on "its" world rules out in advance the independence which would be required to ascribe to it a creative constitutive function. Thus, our answer is that there is no ego possessing the characteristics which the objection assumes. The demand that we consider the Other as other and as independently (creatively) constituting simply expresses a contradiction in terms. As

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such, there can be no evidence for its existence; its constitution as an appearing presence is an impossibility. With the above, the objection that Husserl establishes only a "parallelism of empirical egos" loses its force. He cannot establish a parallelism of independently constituting transcendental egos which are individually Other. Indeed, insofar as such a parallelism is the goal of the Cartesian Meditations, it sets itself an impossible task. Here, we should recall that a parallelism of real, empirical egos is also a parallelism of "pure" egos. For Husserl, "There are as many pure egos as there are real egos .... " In other words, if an ego posits another ego as real-i.e., lias a human being with a human personality, it then posits as implicitly belonging to him a pure ego with its stream of consciousness" (Ideen II, Biemel ed., p. 110). The tie between the two is that between the pure ego and its surrounding world. The latter is necessary for the individual being of the pure ego. Thus, as we indicated, the pure ego can always be interpreted in terms of its real, surrounding world. It can be taken as a reality among worldly realities. This interpretation is correct for the level where the ego achieves its individuality. Given its dependence on its world, the ego's objectification as a worldly reality and as a "pure" individual who experiences the world are, in fact, simultaneous. Otherwise expressed: To acknowledge another ego's separate "real" being is to acknowledge that it has become individualized, that it has become a singular, "pure" subject. This acknowledgement does not involve the notion of this ego's independence-its creative functioning. On the contrary, it is one that views the ego as a passively situated center-i.e., as a "centering" of experience qua experience of a surrounding world. As "here" in this world, it must have the sense of existing in a "pre-given spatial-temporal nature." This follows since its being as a center inherently demands the perspectival appearing which locates it as a "here" in the "there" of a given spatialtemporal world. As Thomas Seebohm writes, the difference between the 'here' and the 'there' is a difference which belongs to the sphere of [its) ownness and thus to immanence."3 By definition, then, the notion of a pure ego is distinguished from that of the independently constituting transcendental ego. It is the latter which, by virtue of its creative functioning, does not acknowledge an "outside"-i.e., a "there" which is opposed to its "here." We can, thus, say that to acknowledge the Other as a "pure" experiencer is to acknowledge him as located, as I am, in a "here"-and also a "now"-both of which are defined by a passively constituted spatialtemporal world. It is also to acknowledge his inability, parallel to my own, to break the passive basis of the intersubjective harmony. Let us relate this last point to the presupposition for recognizing Others through their behavior. The behaving subject, as embodied, is II • • •

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recognized as real. To recognize him as a pure subject like myself, I must move from his bodily, worldy reality to his wordly experience-i.e., to his existence as a center of experience of a surrounding world. The presupposition for this is, as we said, our sharing of senses. Behavior similar to my own points to the Other as a subject like myself if I can assume that it is a behavior prompted by the same typical senses of the world which I experience. It is only at this point that I can move from the bodily reality of the Other to his existence as a subject-i.e., as a subject to whom the world is given in the form of experiential unities of sense (Husserl's "real unities"). More closely regarded, this presupposition implies two others. Given, as we said, that two "creative" subjects could only accidentially share meanings or senses in common, our presupposition of shared senses denies the creative functioning of individual constitutive systems. The senses of the appearing world could not serve as independent criteria for each subject's evaluating the behavior of Others if such senses were the private constructs or individual creations of each subject. With this, we have the presupposition that the individual subjects capable of mutual recognition are passively given the senses of the world. The typical senses by which the world appears to them as a field for their activity, for their "behavior" taken in its broadest terms, are assumed to be passively constituted, pregiven senses. Now, the notion of this pregivenness, when combined with the definition of the subject as that to whom the world is given, implies a second presupposition. Subjects must not just be taken as behaving according to the pregiven senses of the world, they must also be considered as defined by the latter. In other words, bodily behavior points to the Other as a subject only if we can say that the senses corresponding to this behavior are senses which first establish individual, subjective existence. Without this, the argument which proceeds from behavior to sense and, thence, to the existent subject, cannot reach its final term. The argument demands that this final term be taken as a center of experience whose individual existence is dependent on the given senses of a passively constituted world. In its functioning in recognition, the notion of a world of shared senses must involve both the pregivenness of these senses and, with this, the notion that the giving of such senses situates and defines the experiencing subjects who apprehend them. This, of course, is the implicit basis of our statement that an acknowledgement of the Other as "real"i.e., as a bodily appearing, behaving subject-has inherent in its notion an acknowldegement of him as "pure". Here, we understand a pure subject as a center of experiences whose very being as a center is defined by the senses of these experiences.

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§4. THE REDUCTION AND THE TWO FORMS OF EVIDENCE FOR THE OTHER

According to the above, behavior can point to the existence of the Other only when placed in a shared and ontologically defining world of pregiven senses. Insofar as it is presupposed, this context cannot, itself, be established by the evidence of behavior. Thus, our first chapter related the difficulties which arise when we take behavioral evidence as establishing both the presence of a world of shared senses and the presence of the Other. In such a case, this evidence cannot avail itself of the premise of the sharing of senses. If it did, it would violate the epocM. It would assume part of what it was attempting to establish. Now, such a violation actually does arise in the arguments of the Cartesian Meditations. It arises because its arguments attempt to use behavioral evidence as their sole foundation and because, in fact, the evidential quality of behavior rests on the assumption of a world of shared senses. As a result, we have the abovedescribed circularity of reasoning where this assumption functions as an unrecognized premise for evaluating the behavioral evidence which is, then, taken as establishing this very premise (see above, pp. 38). To break this circle, this premise must be recognized as such. It must, in other words, be seen as something requiring its own evidence. Once we admit this, we can say that our verification of the presence of the Other rests, indeed, on behavioral evidence. But we also admit that the evaluation of this evidence requires a prior premise-one which demands its own mode of evidence for its verification. The nature of our access to this evidence follows from our last remarks. Since the presence of a world of shared senses is prior to the analysis of behavior, its evidence cannot be drawn from the latter. It must be drawn from what is prior to my apprehension of my putative Others and their activities. Thus, it requires the suspension of the thesis of the objective, intersubjectively valid world, and, with this, a reduction to what exists prior to this. Now, the true nature of this reduction can be given by recalling our assertion that the world, with its Others, is not something given to the individual ego as if this ego could exist apart from this world. For the mature Husserl, self, Others, and the world in which they live are all co-grounded phenomena. The reduction to what is prior to Others, thus, goes beyond my primordial sphere, understood as something private. It goes to the ground of the private or personal. Understood as providing the evidence for the premise, the reduction has a twofold character. It is, first of all, a reduction to the ground of sense-i.e., to the original giving of the senses which we experience as pregiven. Secondly, it is a reduction to the ground of the individuals who are

IN-,-T-'-CE=-R-=-SU-=-B=:
given such senses and, with this, their being as centers. Both characteristics are encompassed in the notion of the reduction as a suspension in thought of the connections between experiences. The objective senses of the world are given through such connections. As we recall, for an object to be intentionally present to a subject is for it to manifest itself as a perceptually embodied sense. Its presence is that of a unity within the multiplicities of experience, one which is established-or given-by the synthetic connections of experience. Since subjects are themselves defined in their individuality by such senses, the same point holds, mutatis mutandis, for them. A subject is an experiential center of a spatial-temporal surrounding world. Therefore, the constitution of the sense of this world through the perspectival connections of experience is, simultaneously, the constitution of the experiencing individual. We can also say that individuals are distinguished, one from the other, by their possessing different "heres" and, if they are not contemporaries, by their possessing different "nows." Both the "here" and the "now" receive their individual content from the context of a surrounding world, considered as extended in space and time. The suspension of the connections which yield a surrounding world is, then, not just a suspension of the "giving" which results in an individual, but also a suspension of what results in the distinction between different individuals. Thus, in proceeding to the ground which, in "giving" sense, is prior to sense, I also proceed to a level prior to the distinction between myself and Others. The evidence provided by the reduction should now be apparent. It is evidence for the fact that both sense and self are co-grounded. There is, in other words, a common root to the senses, whose sharing defines an intersubjective community, and the distinct Others (or "selves") who share such senses. This conclusion, we may observe, is the same as the one reached through the analysis of the horizonality of experience. The world horizon cannot be grounded by self and Others since they are co-grounded correlatives of this horizon. The perspectival connections of experience yield, we claimed, both the sense of the world in its horizonal, infinite quality, and, correlatively, the subiects who-as finite, perspectivally experiencing centers-apprehend the world horizonally. Putting this in terms of the reduction, we can say that our sharing in the senses of the world is our sharing in the individual, subjective existence which is the correlative to such senses. The original sharing is one of the ground of sense which is also the ground of our individual, finite subjectiviy. Considered apart from that which it grounds, what we share in on this original level is not the constituted sense of the world and, hence, not the constituted, worldly distinction between self and Others. Thus, we can say with Husserl that the evidence yielded by the reduction is that for "my

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'coincidence' with Others on the original level of constitution, my coincidence, so to speak, before there is constituted a world for myself and Others ... " (Ms. C 17 V, p. 30, 1931, italics added). The evidence for this prior coincidence is precisely what is required to establish our present sharing of senses. If I am in coincidence with Others on the "original level" where such senses are first constituted, then, they cannot be considered my idiosyncratic products. They must, in other words, be taken as common or "typical" for each of the subjects who arises from this original coincidence. This follows analytically from the fact that subjects do not, as individuals, preexist these senses; they, therefore, cannot be considered as their individual authors. Thus, to repeat what we earlier said in this regard, distinct individuals cannot be considered as "creators" of the world's senses. To consider myself as such a creator is only lito acknowledge my essential coincidence with the absolute." The reduction, we are claiming, is what provides the evidence for this coincidence. The character of this evidence is determined in advance by the character of the reduction. The latter is a move from the constituted to the constituting. Given that otherness of being is a constituted phenomenon, the reduction proceeds from otherness to identity. This identity is a feature of the constituting level. This signifies that when we apply the reduction to a plurality of worldly, constituting subjects, it necessarily exhibits it as what will become a co-constituting plurality. We can also say that it reveals posited, subjective otherness as an otherness which preserves, on the constituting level, an original intersub;ective identity. Within the individual, this original identity continues to manifest itself in the occurrence of passive synthesis. Such synthesis, as pertaining to the "preegological level," cannot be conceived as a function of an individually acting subject. Rather, it constantly establishes this subject's being. Now, as pointing to the pre-egological, the evidence of the reduction can never count as evidence for the individually existing Other. Its terminus ad quem is not the individual, but rather the identity or "coincidence" of subjects which exists before the constitution of otherness. If we do wish to evidentially validate the actually existing Other, we must turn to the constituted level on which such otherness is given. This is implicit in our seeking the required evidence from the observation of the Other's behavaior. Insofar as this behavior is that of an individual subject acting within the world, the evidence is drawn from the level on which there already exists a constituted world with its ontological distinction of self and non-self and, with this, self and Others. In directing itself to the level "before there is constituted a world for myself and Others," the reduction thus provides not behavioral evidence but the evidence for the premise required for its

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evaluation. The essential character of the latter is its limitation. Directing itself to the original coincidence of subjects and to the sharing of senses which this implies, it corresponds to the demand that the latter be recognized as a premise requiring its own unique evidence. Its limited character, in other words, is just what is required when we assert that the evidence for the sharing of senses cannot have the same source as that for the actually existent Other. The reduction, then, is what prevents us from violating the epocM. §5.

RECOGNmON AND THE SELF-OTHERNESS OF THE ABSOLUTE

Let us turn to another facet of the evidence for the premise. We can do so by recalling what we termed the "second, intersubjective sense" of transcendence. As we quoted David Carr, the object, considered as transcendent in this sense, "is not reducible to all possible acts of mine ... " The world of such transcendent objects bears, correspondingly, a sense which surpasses the experiential possibilities springing from my acts. This is because its second, intersubjective sense involves the notion of the actualilty of other experiencers. They are considered as simultaneous with me and yet as experiencing the object from different points of view. Each experiences the object from a "here" which is distinct from my own and which I have no possibility of simultaneously occupying along with my own "here." My inability to take up both my "here" and what for me is the Other's "there" points, of course, to the fact that my own "here" with its surrounding world is a condition for my existence as an individual experiencer. Let us put this together with the notion of Others being implicit in me. On one level, this sense is simply that of their being "fellow validatorsbearers" of the world. They are what gives the world this second, intersubjective sense of its transcendence. They are implicit in me insofar as I possess this sense. Here, I assert that my being as a center of worldly experience requires Others in order that this experience achieve its sense of implying more than the possibilities which spring from my acts. As our last chapter indicated, this notion of implicitness has a certain concealing character. It is correct on the level which sees the intersubjective plurality as grounding the being and the sense of the world I experience. It is incorrect insofar as it asserts that this level is ultimate. In other words, its insistence on one constitutive level conceals the existence of a prior level. Once we break through this concealment, a second sense of the implicitness of Others emerges. I do not see my fellow subjects as grounding with me our common world. I rather understand us, collectively, as correlates of the perspectivally unfolding, horizonally structured sense of this world. If

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the world and its subjects are co-grounded, then their implicitness in me becomes, on this new level, our implicitness in our common ground. Now, as we indicated, the thought of Others as surpassing me is inherent in the second, intersubjective sense of the world's transcendence. When I take this together with the thought of our common grounding, the following conclusion emerges. As implicitly containing Others whose experiential possibilities transcend my own, the ground, itself, must exhibit such transcendence. This does not mean that it has to contain existent Others as actual individuals. It must, however, "pre-contain" them in a manner of a ground. In other words, the ground, as a premise for recognizing actual Others, must imply possibilities surpassing my own, possibilities which I, in my embodied finitude, am in no position to realize. Our last chapter showed that this view of the ground is precisely what the reduction reveals. Indeed, the very possibility of performing the reduction is tied to the fact that it reveals a ground which surpasses me, i.e., surpasses the limited possibilities which my acts embody. Admitting this, we can qualify the assertion of our last section. We said that the move from the constituted to the constituting exhibits an underlying intersubjective identity. On the level of what is ultimately constituting, subjects are in an essential coincidence. Now, such coincidence should not be taken as implying a simple unison of constitutive systems. The preservation of an underlying identity within the otherness of individual subjects never implies that each subject reduplicates the constitutive processes of his fellows. Such a conception makes impossible the recognition that is essential if we are to admit the existence of an Other who is truly other: namely, the recognition that the world which appears from the "there" of his standpoint-though constitutively similar to my world in the "here"-is not identical to it. What underlies this recognition is, we assert, the absolute's surpassing quality. Insofar as it presents possibilities which I am in no "position" to realize, my coincidence with the absolute-and, hence, with Others-is always my coincidence with something greater than myself. To put this somewhat paradoxically, we can say that I am always more than myself when I am regarded in my identity with my ground. The self that is considered identical with the ground surpasses the self which I can grasp on the level of my objectified finitude. Given this, the objective manifestation of the ground in a plurality results in selves which manifest not just an identity of constitutive systems but also the otherness which makes their relation a harmony as opposed to a mere unison. The nature of this Otherness can be indicated by recalling our remarks about contingency. The ultimate root of subjective otherness is, we claim, the ground's surpassing quality; but the same quality is at the basis of contingency. Because the ground contains more possibilities than a finite sub-

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ject can actualize, what he will actualize cannot be known. As we cited Hussed, before the fact, "everything is concealed ... even one's own human being, one's own bodilyness, one's own being as an ego ... (Ms. A V 10, p. 22, Nov. 9, 1931). This means that a subject cannot make unconditioned assertions about these facets of his being for himself. His theses about his being are contingent on what he would experience were he to go further in his horizonal explication. His horizons are understood as having an "open" character-i.e., as not determining in advance the theses which they will confirm. Now, for Hussed, this openness results from the ground's surpassing quality in two ways. On the one hand, as involving more possibilities than the subject can ever realize, it necessarily objectifies itself in a subject whose experiences point to possibilities beyond those which are exemplified in his present theses. On the other hand, the ground surpasses the individual subject through its self-sufficiency. It is not determined in advance to produce a given individual, which means that this individual is a contingent rather than a necessary result of the ground's self-objectification. Thus, not just my theses with regard to the nature of my being but also my theses concerning the fact of my being are considered as contingent. So conceived, the thought of my contingency requires a double perspective. It requires that I view my given finitude along with the infinitude of my ground. I am a particular subject with finite characteristics; but I am always more than this when I am associated with my ground. In terms of the possibilities which the ground seems to offer me, I am, in other words, always more than the self which I can objectively grasp. The dual root of my contingency is, then, (1) the fact that on my constituting level-the level which results in what I experience as constituted objectifications-I am, myself, in coincidence with my ground; and (2) the fact that, in itself, this ground has a surpassing openness and independence of all that it constitutes. To move from this conception of my contingency to the otherness of the Other, we must first observe that contingency, when viewed from the perspective of the openness and independence of the ground, is a feature of what is possible rather than necessary. This means that to regard something as contingent is to regard it as that which could have been otherwise or, indeed, through its lack of inherent necessity, could not have been at all. We essentially say the same thing when we assert that a contingent individual's status is one of being a "this" rather than a "that." As contingent, its thought as a "this" always includes the notion of a "rather than." Hence, its notion as a contingent "this" implies the possibility of a "that," the possibilty of something which, by definition, is other than itself. Applying this to the thought of my own contingent being as "this" subject, I II

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can, then, assert that implicit in the recognition of my contingent status is the thought of another contingent subject. The latter is not simply a reduplication. Rather, in its status as a "that," it surpasses the specific possibilities objectified in my "this." To take an example, the acknowledged contingency of my being here implies that I could have been there. Instead of my existing here, I acknowledge that I could have existed there with a different surrounding world defining me. Given that I cannot simultaneously both be here and there, the thought implicit in this acknowledgement is actually one of an alter ego. It is an ego who surpasses my possibilities in his presently being there while I am here. Now, the nature of this thought, which is an implicit recognition, should be clear from its premise. This is the aforementioned coincidence of myself with the openness and independence of my "absolute" ground. The thought of my contingency is actually the thought of my coincidence with a ground which is always more than myself. Thus, the implication of the Other in my contingency is just the thought of his being implicit in the absolute which exists as my ground. As Husserl describes the latter, "It is precisely the absolute, ... lying at the basis of all possibilities, all relativities, all contingencies, which gives them their sense and being" (Ms. C I, K Sept. 2122, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 668). The absolute, then, underlies the possibilities of both the "this" and the "that." I, in my contingency, imply the possibility of Others-i.e., subjects who are other than the "this" of my objectified possibility-when my contingency is thought of in terms of my pre-objective coincidence with this surpassing ground. The words "objective" and "pre-objective" should recall the duality of the evidence for the Other. The inference from my contingency does not amount to a recognition of the Other as a distinct, objectively existing individual. For this, I require the perceptual evidence of the Other as he acts in an already constituted, objective world. In such a world, otherness-the distinction of being from being-is already given. My verificational process assumes this in attempting, through the analysis of behavior, to establish a certain type of otherness-viz., that of an embodied subject. From my contingency, I have only the inference of the Other as implicit in my pre-objective ground. Such an Other is both in coincidence with me and implicitly other than me. He is in coincidence with me since, on the ultimately constituting level, distinct individual beings have not yet been constituted. He is implicitly other since this level of our coincidence always represents more than myself when I take myself as an objectified possibility present in the world. Otherness, here, simply points to another facet of the evidence of the reduction. As exhibiting the absolute as the totality of all possibilities, the reduction always shows it as other than my

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limited, worldly possibility. It shows that the absolute can manifest itself in the self-otherness which is objectively present in a plurality of subjects. §6.

SELF-TRANSCENDENCE AND SELF-PLURALIZATION: A LOGICAL ANALYSIS

According to the above, the individual can be called self-transcendent. Associated with his ground, he always transcends or surpasses himself. This surpassing points to Others and indicates the connection between his self-transcendence and the self-pluralization of the absolute. If we do admit our self-transcendence, we can answer the question: "Why many?"-i.e., why, in Husserl's view, there must be a plurality of individual subjects. In a certain sense, the answer is logical. It follows from a mere analysis of the terms which Husserl employs in his doctrines of contingency, solipsism, facticity, and the reduction. All of these teachings imply the notion of self-transcendence; and this notion can be used in connection with them to show the logical necessity for Others. In drawing out this necessity, we need not merely conclude that the absolute can manifest itself in a plurality. Having manifested itself in me, an individual subject, it must manifest itself in Others. Here, indeed, we can say that my actuality, taken as its particular manifestation, implies the actuality of other such manifestations. This means that such Others are "logically" implicit in me because my actuality implies their actuality. The logical moves by which we can draw out these implications do not, of course, phenomenologically justify them. Such justification comes from the phenomenological examination of the terms we shall be manipulating. What our logical analysis indicates is simply the nexus of Husserl's various doctrines. It shows how the meaning of their terms forces him to conclude that there cannot be a solitary, actually existent subject. Let us begin by observing the consequences which arise when we deny the essential element of our self-transcendence-that of the transcendent or surpassing quality of our ground. To assert this quality is, as we said, to affirm that the otherness of Others is potentially present in this ground. The two are equivalent, which means that the denial of the ground's surpassing quality is a denial of this otherness. Now, such a denial brings with it a denial of my contingency. I refuse to admit that, by virtue of my ground, I am expressive of a "this" rather than a "that," e.g., a subjective "here" implying the possibility of a subjective "there" at the same time. Otherwise expressed, I assert that my being as a "this" and a "here" is essentially necessary and not something acknowledged as contingent. All of this follows since to disallow the ground's surpassing quality is to deny its otherness from myself, i.e., from the "this" of my objectified possibility. It

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is to assert, in other words, that the absolute ground contains only the possibility of my "this" -i.e., the possibility which is actualized in my subjectivity with its correlative surrounding world. This assertion immediately undercuts the dual root of my contingency. When I assume the total possibilities of the ground are exhausted in what I can objectively ascertain with regard to myself, such possibilities cannot be said to display an openness or independence with regard to myself. My possibilities are the only conceivable ones, which signifies that, in regarding myself in my coincidence with the ground, I do not apprehend myself in terms of the surpassing openness of my experiential horizon. The possibilities afforded by my future explication of this horizon are not independent of what I have already exhibited. This horizon does, of course, remain perspectivally structured; but, here, I must deny what we earlier asserted. I have to say that presumptiveness is not inherent in my positing through a perspectival series. The series simply repeats and reconfirms what I have established. Thus, all of my present theses-including those of my being for myself-are securely established; contingency and presumptiveness entirely fall away. Here, since the possibilities expressed by myself and my ground are equivalent, I become identified with my ground. The definition of one, in terms of its essential elements, is also the definition of the other. In this case, to speak of the independence of my ground is to speak of my own independence. I cannot assert that the ground is independent of my being as its objectified expression. My existence directly implies the existence of the ground as it is the only possibility contained within it. As for the ground, its existence necessarily implies my existence as a self. As expressing only my possibilities, the synthetic connections it forms between its elements are determined in advance to produce me. Thus, ground and self are, here, collapsed into one. The "alphabet" of experiences can only "write" one world with one central subject. It is no longer really an alphabet, i.e., something whose elements are independent insofar as they can be arranged to express many possible subjects. The transcendental solipsism implicit in this is a second consequence of our original denial. If, indeed, there is only the possibility of my subjectivity, I at once become a salus ipse. Others, if I posit them, are simply reduplications of my original possibility. Husserl writes that to posit another ego as genuinely other, one must be able to assert that the ego can form new types of intentionalities " ... whereby it completely and totally transcends its own being" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 135). This is not an assertion I can make in denying my contingency. As exemplifying in my "this" the only possible self, I must, rather, admit that" ....all my modes of consciousness belong to the circle of those which are modes of my self-

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consciousness" (ibid., italics added). The posited Other, then, becomes nothing more than my product. He becomes "a point of intersection in my constitutive synthesis/' one which refers back to me, i.e., to my individual possibilities of constituting my world with my Others. Such Others cannot be genuinely other--i.e., Others who can surpass me. This second consequence rests on the equivalence of my ground surpassing me, and Others, who share my ground, also surpassing me. The equivalence signifies that the denial of the one is also a denial of the other. I cannot, then, deny my self-transcendence without also denying the transcendence of the Other. Now, the denial of my self-transcendence brings about a third consequence. It implies that, along with my contingency and my being with Others, I must also refuse to admit the ultimacy of facticity. I cannot, in other words, accept the position that the factual course of experiences unconditionally determines both myself and my world. If I did, then I would have to deny that there is an a priori of perception. But I must accept this a priori once I limit my ground to expressing only the possibilities of my subject and its surrounding world. If the ground is determined in advance to objectify itself in one specific world, then the perceptual form of this world is also determined in advance. The ordering form of the experiential connections which yield the world's perceptual presence must be seen as a predetermined, a priori form. The same point follows from the statement that my equivalence with my ground signifies that the synthetic connections between the ground's elements are determined in advance to produce me. As such, they are also determined to produce the perceptual world whose experience situates and defines me as a self. Granting this, we must admit that the factual givenness of experience is not ultimately determining since it is, itself, predetermined to produce my unique possibility. A fourth consequencae can be drawn from the tie between the ultimacy of facticity and the performance of the reduction. Since the latter depends upon our admitting the former, our original denial can be shown to deny the very possibility of the reduction. To put this more directly, we need only recall that the reduction's possibility depends upon its revealing a ground that surpasses me. The denial of this surpassing, thus, immediately implies the reduction's impossibility. If a denial implies denial, then this implication can always be reversed by substituting in the corresponding affirmations. Thus, if the denial of the surpassing quality of my ground results in the denials of the ultimacy of facticity and the possibility of the reduction, the affirmation of the latter can be said to imply the affirmation of the first. Husserl's positions on facticity and the reduction, thus, both imply the surpassing quality of my ground. Now, my ground's surpassing me implies that the Others, who

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share this ground, also surpass me. Accordingly, granting that the reduction is possible, we must say that this ground contains more than my objectified possibility. It includes the corresponding possibilities of genuine Others. With this, we can explicitly affirm the connection we mentioned at the beginning of this section. We can assert that the absolute's selfobjectification cannot be essentially tied to objectification in a single subject. Only a plurality could make it objective since, by its very nature, it implies more than one. The same point follows when we reverse the implication which led to the denial of contingency. If this denial follows from the denial of my ground surpassing me, then it is equally true that the acknowledgement of my contingency-i.e., of my being a "this" rather than a "that"-implies my ground's surpassing quality. It implies it as containing both the "this" and the "that." Here, with Husserl, we think of the absolute ground as lying at the basis of all possibilities, all contingencies. We think of it as containing the possibilities of Others who supplement, in their "that," my finite possibilities as a "this." Once again, the objectification of the absolute involves a plurality. To limit it to a single subjective objectification is to deny the surpassing quality which my contingency implies in its regard. Limited to one possibility, it could not be conceived as the totality of different possibilities. Rather than having the essential indeterminacy which characterizes it as an alphabet, it would, as we said, be understood as predetermined. It would be determined to produce the one individual being whose existence would be equivalent to its own. The result of this limitation would necessarily be a transformation of its own nature. Identified with its single objective expression, it would, itself, be regarded as something individually singular. As for the objective expression, its own nature would be transformed since it would have to be considered as necessary rather than contingent. Such necessity, we noted, would be that of my own self-given existence. Thus, once I admit the contingeny of my existence, I reverse this implication. I affirm that the absolute, in its own nature, can never be limited to just one objectification. Insofar as he is such an objectification, a contingent subject, therefore, can never occur alone. The implication of the "that" in the "this" becomes, in other words, Husserl's affirmation that "a possible ego immediately implies a universe, a totality of egos coexisting with it" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 383). It must imply this totality since, as grounded by the absolute, it is only possible as contingent; but, as we just said, such a contingent subject cannot occur alone. This inference can be reformulated so that it explicitly leads to the actuality (as opposed to the mere possibility) of Others. To do so, let us list its necessary premises. The first is that the absolute is regarded as the

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necessary and sufficient ground of individuals. This allows us to say that the actuality of its constitutive results directly implies its own actuality. My actuality as a contingent individual, thus, implies the actuality of my surpassing ground. The second is that this ground can, itself, be active only as grounding a number of individuals. In its own nature, it is preobjective and pre-individual. To limit its action to a single result is, as we stressed, to transform its nature. It can no longer be regarded as an "alphabet" which is actual-i.e., acts as an alphabet-by virtue of its spelling different words. An alphabet determined in advance to spell just one word is simply that word. Another way of putting this is to observe that the inference demands that we apply the reversal of the Seinsrede to the action of the ground. If we fail to do this, then we conceive this action as arising from an individually singular agent. From the determinateness of this agent, we infer that it could ground just one determinate result. To reverse this, the result, which is understood as springing from a non-determinte, pre-singular ground, cannot have this solitary quality. Now, if my actuality implies that of my ground, and its acutality implies its grounding more subjects than myself, we have our inference from my actuality to that of Others. This inference, however, does not imply the fact of my actually recognizing these Others. For this, I require the evidence of their behavior. Here, however, the focus is on my contingency. This contingency includes the possibility that I shall never encounter most of my Others. With this, we may state another element in the above inference. It is that this contingency represents, on the level of the plurality of the grounded, the nature of the absolute ground. The latter is the totality of possibilities. The contingent subject implies, in his contingency, Others as "compossibles"-Le., subjects whose possibilities supplement his own. In Husserl's scheme of ground and grounded, the "open" plurality of subjects, thus, becomes the objective manifestation of the all-encompassing ground. Each subject, in its contingent givenness, implies other subjects and, at the same time, declares that its own inherent necessity is no greater than theirs. The openness of possibility, as we quoted Husserl, remains open· ness. There is no inference here to the necessity of Others, though their necessity is the same as my own. None of us has an absolute, unconditioned necessity. This discussion can serve as interpretive context for Husserl's remarks on the eidos of the ego. Every example of an ego, [be it taken] as actual or possible, yields the same eidos. But this eidos has the remarkable property that each of its eidetic singularities yields (as a possibility) an individual,

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transcendental ego. This is an ego which intentionally implies a universe of transcendental egos as a compos sible possibility -i.e., as a universe of possibilities that, indeed, are eidetic singularities of the edios, transcendental ego-but implies it as well as the universe of necessarily co-existing "Others" in the sense that the setting up of each ego as existing must be in accord with this universe of existing egos. The possibility of one eidetic singularity [understood] as an ego is, at the same time, the possibility of a co-existing universe of Others pertaining to this ego (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 383). These remarks can be understood as a consequence of our taking the eidos of the ego as the eidos of a "self," this being understood as the objective expression of the ground of egological being. Since this ground includes the totality of the possibilities for such a self, the eidos has this totality for its content. Its notion, in other words, is that of a universe of selves or transcendental egos, all of which are. "compos sible" in the ground. Each "eidetic singularity [understood] as an ego" represents one finite possibility, one determinate, objectified expression of 'this universe of possibilities. Yet it implies all the others pertaining to it, once we exhibit its eidos. The exhibition of this eidos occurs through the process of free variation. This is a process which varies in imagination the features which are given in our original, factual example. If this process is to continue to result in a positable ego, the variation must be of contingent features. Features necessary for egological existence cannot be varied without abandoning the notion of this existence. Thus, imagination varies such things as the "here" of an ego, transforming it to a possible "there." It only varies the notion of the ego existing as a center of some given surrounding world to show that this is not similarly transformable. Granting that the exhibition of the eidos displays both the contingent and the necessary, we can say that, in displaying the former, it does exhibit "the possibility of a coexisting universe of Others pertaining to this ego"-i.e., the ego of our originally given, factual example. This universe is simply an expression of the supplementing possibilities of the "that" which the original egological "this" implies in its contingency. Our position in this regard is expressed by Husserl's remark" ... contingency implies in itself (in sich schliesst) a horizon of possibilities in which the contingent itself specifies one of the possibilities, 9recisely the one which has actually occurred" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 668-69). The context of this remark is, we may recall, the description of the absolute. It is in terms of this context that we must widen the notion of the eidos. Originally, it was understood

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as including only the necessary, non transformable features of its original example. In relating the eidos of the ego to the surpassing quality of its absolute ground, we broaden its notion to include both the contingent and the necessary. §7. CONTINGENCY AND THE FORMATION OF TRANSCENDING INTENTIONS

Our last few sections have linked the premise for our recognizing Others to the notion of contingency. When we analyze the Other's behavior, we presuppose a harmony of the meanings which we gather from the world. Taking such meanings as constituted through the connections of experience, our premise is that of a harmony of our constitutive systems. Now, a harmony is not a unison. It involves both identity and difference. The identity of our constituting systems was traced by us to the fact that we are not the independent authors of those most basic meanings which give each of us a surrounding world. Because we are dependent on such a world-because we are contingent upon its givenness-we are not capable of breaking the passive basis for this harmony. Contingency, here, points to the level of our pre-egological identity; it indicates the preindividual coincidence of the constitutive systems which result in each subject with his surrounding world. The distinction between subjects can also be traced to the notion of contingency. My contingency implies my Others in the sense of implying other possibilities of taking up a standpoint and acting in the world. As we cited Husserl in our last section, " ... contingency implies in itself a horizon of possibilities ... " My "this" in its contingency implies the thought of the "that." It implies the horizon of possibilities taken as alternatives to my given "this." Such alternatives are not examples of simple otherness. They are linked by being variations on a common theme-that of a surrounding world with its subjective center. Insofar as subjects are contingent on the givenness of a surrounding world, they must be thought of as variations of the original identity which springs from the pre-egologicallevel. This is the identity of those constitutive systems which must be given if the basic features of a surrounding world are to be given. Contingency, then, points to the theme of subjective existence and to its variations. Having linked our premises to contingency, we may ask what the independent evidence is for the latter. As we recall, the premise for analyzing the behavior of Others cannot be established by regarding such behavior. It must have its own source of evidence. The same can be said for the notion of my contingency. It cannot imply a horizon of possibilities by virtue of my comparing my "this" with the possibilities I see exemplified in the "that" of Others. If it did, then the notion would already assume the pres-

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ence of Others and could not be used as a premise for such presence. In other words, if it assumes their presence, it would not "in itself" imply a horizon of possibilities-i.e., the possibilities pointing to Others which I must presuppose if I am to verify their presence through behavior. Such verification can only occur if the Other's behavior agrees with a possibility which is given before I encounter his behavior. This possibility is not that of my "this," for then it would not point to the Other. Yet, if it is to be prior to my encounter with the Other, my "this" must already include it "in itself." We earlier remarked that the reduction provides not behavioral evidence but rather the evidence for the premise required to evaluate behavior. It is what prevents us from violating the epoche by committing a petitio principii. The same point applies here. My "this," in its contingency, can imply "in itself" the "that" of my Others only if I perform the reduction. The latter is a suspension of the objectively existing world and, hence, of the Others present in this world. It provides the evidence that the stream of experiences which forms my "life"-i.e., my being as a center of experience-is independent of my activity. My dependence on the stream signifies that I am not self-grounding, that I do not have the unconditioned, "ground-less" being which Husserl ascribes to the absolute. Thus, I cannot, as dependent, be considered to independently constitute my being as a pure and personal ego, i.e., as a "central" observer and actor. The implication springing from the passive constitution of my life is, then, that my being is not my product. In terms of what I can accomplish and constitute, it remains a presupposed given. It is other than the being which arises from my constitutive activity. This otherness of what I am given and what I can constitute is, in fact, my contingency. It makes all my accomplishments-all my standpoints and corresponding modes of behavior-contingent on that which is not in my power. We can express this in terms of Kern's remarks quoted above. Husserl's position, this author writes, is that "transcendental subjectivity is not the sufficient ground for the being of the world." This follows because the reduction shows that it is not the sufficient ground of its own egological being-i.e., the being from which it constitutes both the world and itself as objectively real within the world. This signifies that both are in "danger" of "collapse" (Husserl u. Kant, ed. cit., p. 298). The resulting contingency is that of being capable of existence and nonexistence. It is that of lacking any inherent necessity to be. It is at this point that the features which I experience in myself and my surrounding world show themselves as possible-as opposed to necessary-results of that alphabet of experiences which is the final terminus of the reduction of my "this." Such features imply, in terms of this alphabet, other possibilities. At the basis of my con-

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tingency is, then, my exhibited self-otherness. The self that I make through my action is not the self lying at the basis of my action. Only if my being were within my power, only if I could be considered to be selfgrounded, could I, in my "this/' claim a necessary and not just a contingent status. Such self-otherness is, of course, just another expression of the selftranscendence defined above. It is the transcendence of the the ground of my being from myself. Now, this transcendence of the ground from myself is, we said, also the transcendence of Others who share this ground To express this in terms of the evidence of the reduction, we can say that, admitting that my own being is not my product, I must admit that that Other in his being is also not my product. I cannot constitute the Other without making reference to my own self-constitution. My self-existence is, according to Husserl, the primordial basis for my attempts to constitute the Other. It is that from which I perform the "analogizing apperception." That such self-existence is not within my powers shows that I lack the basis for an independent constitution of the Other. It shows that egological being per se is beyond my self-sufficient constitutive powers. With this, I reverse the implication I drew from the denial of my contingency. The denial implied that I was the only possibility. Thus, it led to the conclusion that all that was possible fell within my constitutive capabilities. Here, on the contrary, the admission of my contingency is the admission that the Other cannot be my product. He is understood as the Other whose subjective existence surpasses my constitutive capabilities. This surpassing points to the origin of those transcending intentions which are directed to the Other. It shows how, prior to its encounter with the Other, lithe ego, in itself, has and can always form afresh such new types of intentionalities, intentionalities with a sense of being (Seinssinn) whereby it completely and totally transcends its own being (Sein)" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 135). The key to the formation of such intentions is the equivalence between the ego's self-transcendence and the transcendence of his Others. It is because the ego is inherently self-transcendent that it can, "in itself/' form a transcendent intention. Its self-transcendence is shown by the fact that its self-existence (its being as an ego) is not in its power. Granting that egological being, per se, exceeds its constitutive powers, its intention to the being of its Other must, from the start, be counted as transcendent. Let us express this in terms of our statement that the ego's selftranscendence is the transcendence of the ground of its being. It is because it is not self-grounding that its egological being is not in its power. It is not self-grounding because that out of which it acts always transcends the results of the ego's action. The results are finite while the ground is in-

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finite. The latter, thus, escapes any definitions as a finitely given "this." The most we can say about it is that it is the indefinitely extendable horizon of the possibilities which stand as alternatives to my given "this." Such possibilities, we assert, form the prior, pregiven content of my transcending intentions. Since they are not exemplified in my "this/, they cannot be regarded as "modes" of my "self-consciousness." They are not "points of intersection" in my "constitutive syntheses". They transcend these, which means that they are the elements of my intention to another subject with his self-consciousness and constitutive syntheses. Since the ground of my being, out of which they arise, is not in my power, neither is the sub;ect which they point to. This intended subject is, thus, transcendent to me. Yet, when I regard myself in coincidence with my ground, he is also implicit in me. This follows since implicit in my ground are the alternatives to my ways of being and acting. On the ultimately constituting level, I must regard myself in my coincidence with my ground. But the ground surpasses the self that I objectively am. Thus, implicit in me-i.e., in my ground-is the very surpassing which points to the Other. To put this in terms of my contingency, it can be recalled that the surpassing quality of my ground gives my "this" the sense of something which "could have been otherwise." This means that my intention to my "could have been otherwise" is, at bottom, my intention to my "that"-Le., to my Other-who is implicit in the sense of my "this." Whenever I present my "this" as contingent, I always tacitly appresent (or co-intend) its alternatives. It is because of this that I "can always form afresh" the "new types of intentionalities" which point beyond myself. To sum up, the origin of the ego's transcending intentions is its underlying coincidence with its ground. On the ultimately constituting level, there are always present the elements of those intentions which point to more than the ego can objectively manifest. As prior to both the ego's self-existence and the existence of his Others, these intentions, in their elements, are simply factually given. The ego's sense that this is so is both its sense of its factual contingency and its sense that Others can exemplify the possibilities which it has foregone in becoming a factually given, finite "this." A later chapter will fill out the details of the above. For our present purposes, we need only observe how it inherently involves the notion of an intersubjective harmony. This harmony is implicit in the claim that a subject "in itself"-prior to his encounter with his Other-can intend a fellow subject. Such intentions are inherent in the individual because they spring from that out of which he acts so as to define himself as a self. They spring from the point of his identity with his ground. Now, once we grant

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with Husserl that subjects are in coincidence on the level of their ground, we have the common origin of such transcending intentions. We also have the commonality of their objects. The latter consists in the range of subjective possibilities which the connections of experience can exemplify to form a centering environment. This range is the horizon of alternatives to each individual subject. Thus, each subject is in harmony with his Others insofar as the horizons of each overlap in the horizon (ultimately, the "world-horizon") which is implicit in their common origin. Let us put this in terms of the identity and difference of subjects. With regard to the former, I can say that my intentions to Others are intentions to subjects who are like me in having a common origin. This origin makes them intend more than they can possibly exemplify. Thus, it situates them in a nexus of intentions which can only be fulfilled (and this, never completely) in their encounters with each other. With regard to difference, we can say that such encounters involve transcendence since each subject exemplifies a possibility which is other than that of his fellow subjects in their objectified finitude. This transcendence, however, is immanently grounded since these possibilities are present at the common origin of each subject's action. The special nature of the resulting harmony can be indicated by recalling the conclusion of our last chapter. It asserted that the totality of subjects is itself contingent. This totality must be considered self-transcendent in the sense that it cannot ground itself. This means that the possibilites of being and behaving which subjects exemplify are never equivalent to those of their ground. Admitting this, the harmony between subjects can never be thought of as static. It involves an openness to possibilities which have not yet been actualized. Inherent in its nature is both contingency and the possibility of newness. To further pursue these themes, we must make a radical turn in our next chapter. Thus far, our results have proceeded from considering experience apart from time. We have suspended in thought the temporal ordering of experience in order to regard Husserl's absolute as a nontemporal, static alphabet of experiences. Our consideration of the ground of the intersubjective harmony has been limited to considering this aspect of the absolute's presence. There is, however, another side. It is one which we touched upon when we said that the subject was to be considered as a temporal center, i.e., as the now-point of its temporal environment. This is the aspect which allows Husserl to say, "The absolute is nothing other than absolute temporalization" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 670). We grasp it when we perform a reduction parallel to the above-i.e., when we consider time apart from experience. Our focus on the resulting "pure" temporal process is one which regards it as purified from all reference to particular experiential contents. The absolute temporaliza-

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tion which comes into view will allow us to restate the themes of our present chapter in a less formal, more intuitive manner. Thus, we shall gain fresh insight into the distinction between the subject and his ground which is also the distinction between the constituted and the ultimately constituting. We shall also see Hussed's justification for his claim that on the level of his ground, each subject is "in coincidence" with his Others. Since these themes provide the context for regarding the subject as contingent, such contingency will receive a new expression. Indeed, as our next chapter will show, temporality itself is the fourth and most directly intuitable aspect of contingency.

Chapter V

THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF SUBJECTNE LIFE § 1. THE DUALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE

URlast chapter ended with a reference to time as an "aspect" of the ab-

Q solute's presence. In raising the issue of time, we find ourselves in a position similar to that which Husserl expresses in the middle of Ideen 1. He writes that ... time is a title for a completely self-contained sphere of problems, one of exceptional difficulty. It will be seen that our previous presentation has, in a certain sense, been silent on a whole dimension and, necessarily, had to be silent so as to maintain, free of confusion, what first comes into view only through the phenomenological attitude and what, apart from this new dimension, does form a self-consistent area of investigation. The transcendental "absolute" which we have laid bare through the reductions is in truth not the ultimate absolute. The former is something which in a certain profound and completely unique sense constitutes itself and has its source in an ultimate and true absolute (Ideen I, Biemel ed., pp. 197-98). As the context of this passage makes clear, this "new dimension" is that of the temporality of conscious life. Consciousness is not just the contents of experience but is also their ordering in time. In our focus on the formeri.e., in our presentation of the absolute as an "alphabet"-we have by and large ignored the latter. Several clarifications are necessary to understand Husserl's remark that the "transcendental absolute" uncovered by the reductions is not

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something "ultimate." It rather "constitutes itself" and, as such, "has its source in an ultimate and true absolute." The first is that this "transcendental absolute" is not the alphabet of experiences per se. Such an identification is ruled out by the remark that the transcendental absolute "constitutes itself." Constitution is a matter of the connections between the elements of the alphabet. It cannot apply to the alphabet per se since the latter is uncovered by suspending these connections. What Husserl has in mind when he speaks of the "transcendental absolute" is consciousness transcendentally understood as a flowing stream of experiences. Up to this point, the Ideen has considered this as the constitutive origin of the world. More precisely put, Husserl has thus far shown that the world, in its presence or being, is dependent on the connections arising between the experiences of consciousness as the latter streams in time. Now, if we ask why we can call this streaming consciousness "absolute," we do come to the doctrine of the absolute as an alphabet. As we recall, consciousness is entitled to be called "absolute" with regard to the world insofar as the latter depends upon consciousness and insofar as consciousness, itself, is independent of the world. Such independence signifies that consciouness is not dependent on the connections which give us a world. Its ultimate presupposition is that an experience has a being which is independent of the particular connections in which it may be engaged. From this, indeed, we come to the doctrine of the absolute as a field of separately regarded, independent experiences. This absolute is not, itself, consciousness understood as engaged in constitution. It is rather, properly speaking, only an aspect of it. It expresses a side or quality of constituting consciousness which allows Husserl to consider the latter as independent and, hence, as absolute. The remark that the "transcendental 'absolute' ... constitutes itself and has its source in an ultimate and true absolute" points, in this context, to a second aspect of consciousness, that of the dimension of time. This also expresses a quality which allows us to consider consciousness as absolute. To see this, two things are required. We must show that the presence of the world depends upon the temporal dimension of consciousness. We must also show that this dimension itself is independent of the presence of the world. The first follows as a matter of definition. The world achieves its presence through constitution; but such constitution is a temporal process. It is the synthesis of our experiences in time. Without time, then, there is no world constitution. To show the independence of time, we must consider it as the result of a reduction. As we indicated in our last chapter, we can consider experience apart from time. We can also consider time apart from experience. The first consideration occurs through the "thought experiment" which in-

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volves our progresssively stripping from our experience all those connections which allow us to posit individual objects. We, thus, bracket every consideration of the temporal positions of the contents composing an objective experience. Here, the independence of such contents from their given connections is their independence vis-a-vis their arrangement in a particular temporal sequence. As is obvious, this independence of experiential content from definite temporal positions is also an independence of the latter from the former. If content is independent of time, then it also follows that the moments of time do not per se demand to be filled with some particular experiential content. Thus, such moments can occur even though the contents they bear are not such as to permit world constitution. In other words, the givenness of time is independent of the presence of a constituted world. Its moments can be given even though the contents they bear result simply in a "tumult" of successive sensations. With this, the temporal dimension of consciousness appears as an aspect of the absolute. We can also say that, corresponding to the reduction to the absolute's presence as an alphabet, we have the possibility of a second reduction, one to its presence as a pure temporal process. The "purity" of the alphabet is its purity from all predetermined temporal ordering or connecting. The corresponding purity of the "absolute" temporal process is its purity from all predetermined experiential content. In general terms, the conditions for the possibility of both reductions are the same. They begin with a constituting consciousness which requires for its activity both content and time. To perform each reduction, we require the independence of its residuum-be it content or time-from the determinate qualities of that which we bracket when we perform the epoch!!. Given that we bracket either content or time, and given that contents are independent of their particular temporal ordering if and only if time is independent of the particular contents it bears, these two possibilities of bracketing come down to the same thing. Thus, in spite of what we just said, they do not really designate two separate reductions. They are not, in fact, two separate ways of reducing the world to a tumult of sensations. What they indicate is simply two possible intepretations of the reduction conceived as a suspension of the relations between content and time, the relations which permit world constitution. What they point to, then, is the duality of the aspects of the ground of this constitution. This duality does not mean that we are dealing with two concrete wholes. Our focus is rather on two independent aspects of one and the same whole. To put this in terms of an analogy, we note that color and figure manifest the same kind of independence as content and time. We can conceive of color apart from figure insofar as a particular color does not inherently demand a particular figure. The same point holds in reverse

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order. This ability to separately consider color or figure does not mean that they are independent wholes. Color is experienced as the color of some figure. Similarly, figure cannot be distinguished from its background without its having some color. The same relationship obtains between content and time. Contents are experienced in terms of the temporally flowing, experiential stream. The latter is experienced as a flowing of contents. This holds even though a particular content does not inherently demand a particular temporal position or vice versa. The mutual dependence of color and figure can be indicated by saying that each demands and is, in some sense, founded on a third quality, that of extension. Extension, itself, is capable of exhibiting all possible colors and shapes. In this as well as in its independence of any particular color or shape, it stands as their grounding possibility. Color and figure are, we can say, "aspects" of extension. The same point can be made, mutatis mutandis, for content and time. Each, considered separately by means of the reduction, represents an aspect of one and the same quality-that of the absolute's being the grounding possibility of all possible synthetic formations. The alphabet of contents is an aspect of this feature insofar as it exists independently of any particular temporal ordering. Contents have the possibility of being arranged in every possible temporal ordering. To reverse this, we note that when we abstractly regard the pure temporal process, we consider its moments as "containers" capable of holding every particular experiential content. We, thus, can say that all experiential contents are possible with regard to the moments of time, this being implicit in our asserting that all temporal orderings are possible with regard to the alphabet of contents. Both possibilities come to the same thing; or rather, they are aspects of one and the same thing. Weare simply regarding in different ways the absolute's quality of being the world's unconditioned ground. It is the possibility of all the world's possibilities. Because of this, it can be designated as uniquely singular. As we have stressed, unique singularity signifies not having a beyond, not being one among many. The totality of possibilities does not admit of any possibility beyond itself. It is, by definition, unique. Both time and content, in their representation of aspects of this all-embracing possibility, thus, represent aspects of what, in itself, is uniquely one. §2. THE QUESTION OF THE "PLACE" OF ABSOLUTE TEMPORALIZATION

The last section asserted that temporality expressed a "side or quality of constituting consciousness," one which allows us to consider it as independent of the results of its activity. When we reflect upon this, we find a certain ambiguity which we have encountered before (see above, p. 59).

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What is the ultimate reference of this side or aspect which allows us to consider consciousness as absolute? The reduction which reveals it begins necessarily with a particular constituting consciousness. We perform the reduction on ourselves, each on his own individual consciousness. Such consciousness, however, is not independent. The reduction shows its tie to its surrounding, constituted wodd. The question, then, is where are we to locate this aspect of constitution? Is its reference to the temporal dimension which I encounter in my constituting life, or does it refer beyond this to a prior level? Both interpretations can find support from passages drawn from Hussed's manuscripts. In favor of the position that the absolute, considered as temporalization, is radically pre-egological, we can turn to the following statement: The absolute is nothing other than absolute temporalization; and even its interpretation as the absolute which I directly encounter as my stationary streaming primordiality is a temporalization, a temporalization of this into something prim ally existing (zur Urseienden). Therefore, the absolute totality of monads-i.e., the primordiality of all the monads (allmonadische Urtl1mlichkeit-only exists by virtue of temporalization (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 670). According to this passage, my "stationary streaming primordiality" is, itself, the result of an absolute temporalization. The latter, in temporalizing my streaming, allows me to be there as something "primally existing." Thus, my interpretation of the absolute temporalization as something I encounter in myself-i.e., in my primordiality-presupposes this very temporalization. Without it, my primordial being as an ego would not exist, which signifies that, in itself, this temporalization is an aspect of what is prior to me. The same point can be drawn from a pair of earlier manuscripts. Husserl asserts that "temporalization possesses its 'layers' ... the 'layers' beneath the ego (unterichliche 'Schichte') and the egological 'layers'" (Ms. B II 9, p. lO,Octo.-Dec., 1931). In other words, first there is "the primal being, the inherently self-temporalizing absolute ... then the primal being as [an) ego ... " (Ms. C 5, p. 14, 1931). The same point holds for the totality of monads. If the primal being of each exists by virtue of a pre-egological temporalization, then all the monads in their "primordiality"-Le., in their being as egos-have the same condition. When we turn to Hussed's statements on the pre-individual unity of the absolute, further support for this position can be found. In the manuscript we first cited, Hussed focuses on "the primal modality of temporal

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co-existence," a modality which springs from "a temporalization of the primally temporalizing primordialities." He writes in this regard: We can, therefore, speak of a single, stationary, primal aliveness (Lebendigkeit)-that of the primal present which is not a modality of time. We can speak of it as the aliveness of the totality of monads. The absolute itself is this universal, primordial present. Within it 'lie' all time and world in every sense. Itself streaming, [it is] actually taken in the strict worldly sense of being "present" (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 668). This primordial aliveness is, for Husserl, that by virtue of which individual subjects live and function. As such, its unity must be thought of as prior to that of their individual lives. The latter, as arising from it, must be considered as a constituted level of this pre-individual aspect of the absolute. Thus, we read on the next page of the same manuscript: Everything is one-the absolute in its unity: the unity of an absolute self-temporalization, the absolute in its temporal modalities temporalizing itself in the absolute stream, the "stationary aliveness" of the primal present, of the absolute in its unity-the unity of everything!-which in itself temporalizes and has temporalized everything that is anything. Within this, the levels of the absolute: the absolute as an absolute, "human" totality of monads (ibid., p. 669, second italics added). The doctrine of the above passages seems obvious. If temporalization is prior to the being of an individual ego, if, indeed, it results in this ego's "primal being," then it cannot result from the functioning of the latter. This means that absolute temporalization is an aspect of what is prior to me in the singularity of my functioning. Husserl, however, seems to deny this conclusion when he writes: "I am the only one (das Einzige). Whatever exists for me is my own from the singularity (Einzigkeit) in which I function" (Ms. C 2 I, p. 3, Aug., 1931). This statement must be understood as including the existence of time. Indeed, from the very same manuscript which we quoted in support of temporalization's pre-egological character, we read: "I am. It is from me that time is constituted" (Ms. C I, HA XV, p. 667). Here, the individual subject seems to take up the stance of the absolute. If he does, then presumably "all time and world" would have to be found within him. In support of this conclusion, we may cite Husserl's remarks about the "'human' temporalization" which occurs within the members of a developing monadic community. He claims that " ... ac-

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tually implicit within their individual living present (mrer individuaellen lebendigen Gegenwart) is the world, the human totality of monads, etc." (ibid., p. 669). This ambiguity with regard to the aspect of time points to a deeper ambiguity. Time is an aspect of what, itself, is uniquely one. It is, we said, an aspect of unique singularity of the absolute. When Husserl declares that "everything is one," his reference is to a pre-egological unity. The "absolute 'human' totality of monads" is declared to be one of "the levels of the absolute," a level which results from an original temporalization. The inference, here, is that unique singularity pertains to this original level. Its "place" is to be found in that "single, stationary, primordial aliveness" which is prior to the multiplicity of individual egos. We can, however, find passages asserting the opposite conclusion. Thus, Husserl argues that each individual ego must affirm, " ... I am also unique. I am not a numerical singular (numerisch Einer), a human being among others, a one among many ...." Each subject, in regarding himself, finds "the non-numerical singularity of the ego-the ego simply, the primal pole, the primal source of the streaming functioning ... " (Ms. B I 32, V, p. 19, Spring, 1934). This is because I am given as the only center of experience which I can directly encounter. As such, I am the only thing to which I can affix the title "I." In Husserl's words, "The I is absolutely unique ... the Other is my Other and, as such, he is not 'I' ... " (Ms. B I 14, XI, p. 25, Sept., 1935). The same point follows when we regard the subject as the being to whom the world is given. Here, the subject, in his own being given, stands "as a presupposition for all presence" (ibid.) This means, as Husserl earlier writes, "Everything which I discover and can discover as existent presupposes my being. The certainty that it exists, or possibly exists, is my certainty, etc." (Ms. B III I, pp. 7-8, ca. Nov. I, 1929). In other words, my subjectivity, which I experience as the being to whom all other being is given, stands as a unique presupposition for all further experience of givenness. The same claims of uniqueness are made with regard to the notion of the ego as a constituting center. If the ego is a unique presupposition for givenness or presence, then, as a constituter of the same, it must also be unique. It must, in other words, take itself as a uniquely singular ground of world constitution. Such a ground is, by definition, not meaningfully multipliable. This signifies for Husserl: In an absolute sense, this ego is the only one. It does not allow of being meaningfully multiplied. Put more pointedly: it excludes this as senseless. The implication is: The 'surpassing being' (T]bersein') of an ego is nothing more than a continuous, primordially streaming constituting. It is a consitituting of various levels of existents (or

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"worlds") ... (Ms. B IV 5, 1932 or 1933, HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 58990). The solipsism implicit in this passage is readily apparent. An ego which is not "meaningfully multipliable would not have Others whom he could recognize as egos like himself. This inference, however, is denied by Husserl. Thus, when he asserts that he is "not a numerical singular," not "a one among many," he immediately adds, "and yet, at the same time, I am just a man, just one among a whole collection of men" (Ms. B I 32, V, p. 19). In asserting the ego's unique singularity, what is actually asserted in "one's own life and other lives; I myself, the absolutely non-numerable, singular ego in connection with other egos-i.e., multiple egos and myself as one among many-and each ego, however, as a non-numerical singular ... who constitutes a world that is non-numerically singular as existing for himself" (Ms. B I 22, V, pp. 20-21, Spring, 1934). This passage concludes with the words, "How is this to be understood?" The difficulty here is one which we have noted before. A plurality of unique singulars, all of the same type, is a contradiction in terms. A uniquely singular ground of the world is its necessary and sufficient condition. By definition, it is simply one. If I ignore this, a certain paradox appears. When I take myself as the ground of everything conceivable, I have to assert that "every conceivable transcendental ego ... is one which must be constructed from my actuality and from my capacity [for constitution]" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 383, note 1). Yet, if I assert that other egos are also uniquely singular grounds of the world, I would have to add as Husserl does: "Every conceivable transcendental ego is only conceivable as such [i.e., as transcendental] insofar as it is from its being that I am actual and possible for it. Yet, its being, taken here as a possible being is only possible from myactuality" (ibid.). What we confront, then, is the paradox of each ego being considered as a product of his Others even as he considers his Others as his products. The paradox springs from each ego claiming, "My being is the apodictic ground for everything which has sense and being for me." To posit the Other as able to make this claim is to assert that "out of my apodicticity, I posit the being of the Other as a ground which exists apodictically for itself, a ground for everything which exists for it including myself and my apodicticity" (ibid.). The above returns us to an issue which occupied us in our last chapter: that of the identity and difference of the individual with regard to his preindividual, uniquely singular ground. The paradox of a pluralty of egos, each claiming to be a uniquely singular ground of being (including the being of its Others) is a paradox springing from the coincidence of each II

ego with its ground. To use the language of our third chapter, the paradox springs from the manifestation of the ground in the concealment of human finitude. We can also say that each ego claims its uniqueness in terms of its identity with its "apodictic" ground; but in terms of such identity, its uniqueness entails its pre-egological coincidence with its Others. Thus identified with its ground, each ego has what Husserl calls a "surpassing being" (Ubersein). It transcends itself in its worldly individuality once it takes up the standpoint of its ground. For Husserl, the latter is "a continual, primordially streaming constituting. It is a constituting of various levels of existents (or 'worlds') .... "The reference here is to the absolute considered as the process of temporalization-i.e., as the ordering of contents in time so as to produce the levels of synthetic, constituted existents. The project of this chapter will be to consider our self-surpassing in terms of this process of absolute temporalization. More precisely put, we will consider it in terms of the origin of temporalization-i.e., in terms of "the primal present which is not a modality of time," but rather its source. We will regard this source both in itself and in its relation to the individual subject. In this way, we shall consider the temporal dimension of our coincidence with our ground and, hence, with each other. In involving our self-surpassing, this dimension, as we shall see, will entail our contingency as finite individuals.

§3. THE TEMPORAL REDUCTION

We have spoken of the reduction which uncovers the process of temporalization as an abstraction based on a change of focus. We turn our attention from content to time. We consider the temporal flow of consciousness apart from the particular contents it bears. Now, to reach the source of the temporal flow, we require something further. The search for a constitutive source implies that we take time as a constituted phenomenon. For Husserl, this involves the notion of retentions and protentions. Thus, a content appears to flow into pastness because we apprehend it through a constantly increasing chain of retentions Each further member of this chain marks it as increasingly past. Similarly, a content appears to advance from the future because of a chain of protentions, the length of which determines our sense of its futurity. It is the decrease of the chain which gives us the sense of the content approaching the present. The exact description of this process will have to wait for our final chapter. For the present, we need only to accept a single point. If we scramble the order of our retentions and protentions, the ego becomes "perplexed" in its "inner temporality" (see above, p. 96). This implies that it is the ordering of renten-

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tions and protentions which constitutes our sense of contents occupying definite positions in the past and the future. Such an ordering is not a connecting of different contents. It is a connecting of different presentations-different "short-term" memories and different anticipations-of one and the same content. These different presentations do not occur in different moments of extended time; rather, their connections are what first results in our apprehension of such moments. Granting this, we can say that a bracketing of such connections is a suspension of our sense of the flowing past and future understood as parts of extended time. For Husserl, this suspension forms the heart of the temporal reduction. It can be called a "reduction within the reduction" insofar as its context is the temporal flow as such, the latter being uncovered by the above mentioned abstraction. What remains after we perform this suspension? In a general sense, Husserl's answer is determined by the notion that constitution is a process of grounding. Inherent in this notion is the distinction between the ground and the grounded. The latter achieves new predicates through the connections obtaining between the grounding or constituting phenomena. When we bracket these connections to observe the constituting phenomena, these predicates must disappear. As Husserl puts this in terms of temporal constitution: The phenomena which constitute time are, therefore, objectivities which are evidently different in principle from those that are constituted in time. They are neither individual objects nor individual processes; and the predicates of such cannot be sensibly applied to them. Thus, it is senseless to say of them-to say with the same meaning [which is applicable to the constituted]-that they are in the now or that they were previously, that they temporally succeed one another or that they are simultaneous with each other, etc. (Zur Pbllnomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, Boehm ed., [The Hague, 1966], pp. 74-75). We can gain a specific sense of these remarks, which were written 1905, by adding a later insight. "The performance of the phenomenological epoche" is, Husserl writes, to be understood as "a radical 'limitation' to the living present and a desire to speak only about this ... " (Ms. C I 3, p. 2, Nov., 1930). Thus, once I bracket the connections between retentions and protentions which give me my past and future, I am limited to this "living present." We cannot say that this present is "in the now" understood as a moment which will slip into the past. Equally, it cannot be taken as a limiting point between the past and the future. The bracketing of the con-

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nections which yield our sense of extended time rules out these interpretations. What remains is simply my "primal present," the present which is "not a modality of time." As we might expect, Husserl's statements on this reduction are marked by the ambiguity we encountered in our last section. If, as we cited Husserl, "It is from me that time is constituted," then a reduction to the ground of time is a reduction to myself. It is a reduction to my living present as it functions as a ground of constitution. In support of this position, we can cite the passage: "One requires a reduction within the transcendental reduction to grasp, in a more complete manner, the streaming immanent temporalization and time, to grasp the primal temporalization, the primal time.... This is the reduction to the streaming, primal 'immanence,' to the primal unities constituting themselves in this [immanence] ... " (Ms. C 7 I, pp. 31-32, Jan.-July, 1932). "Primal 'immanence'" signifies what is primally within me. Thus, the reduction, appears to lead to myself as a "presupposition for all presence." Against this, we can place Husserl's claims that temporalization is pre-egological, that it possesses" 'layers' beneath the ego." This implies that the reduction to primal temporalization is a reduction to what is before me. To reach its underlying levels, " ... I must not terminate the reduction in my bracketing of the world and, with this, my spatial-temporal, real human being in the world." I must exercise it "on myself as a transcendental ego and as a transcendental accomplishing, in short, as a transcendental life" (Ms. C 2 I, p. II, Aug., 1931). When I do perform this reduction, I reach what Husserl terms" ... the pre-being (Vor-Sein) which bears all being, including even the being of the acts and the being of the ego, indeed, the being of the pre-time and the being of the stream of consciouness [understood] as a being" (Ms. C 17 IV, p. 4, 1930). All of this results from primal temporalization. When I regard this temporaliation, I find as "constituted" formations "all the levels of existents for the ego and also, correlatively, the ego itself" (ibid., p. 5). Two points can be drawn from these remarks. The first is a general one concerning individual beings or existents (Seienden). The move from being to pre-being implies that all such existents have a temporal being. As Husserl explicitly says: "Temporalization, this is the constitution of existents in their temporal modalities. An existent: a present existent with the past of the same existent, with the future coming to be of the same. Thus, in an original sense, existent = original, concrete presence. It is persisting presence which 'includes,' as non-independent components in the stream of presences, both past and future" (Ms. C 13, III, p. I, March, 1934). In other words, "Every concrete individual persists in time and is what it is because, constantly becoming, it passes from presence to presence" (Ms. E

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III 2, p. 2, 1934). As already noted, when we suspend the connections of the retentional and protentional chains, we suspend objective time. We suspend its constant becoming, which means that we also suspend the notion of persisting in time. With this, we bracket the individual existent understood as the "concrete presence" which persists through the moments (or "presences") of time. Applying this to the individual subject, we can say that it is no longer present as an ego of habitualities. It no longer has its persisting "themes" or ways of approaching the world. As for its status as a pure ego or center of its temporal environment, this too must be bracketed. The "now" which it represents is stripped of the pastness and futurity which made it a center. (see above, p. 97). Granting this, the reduction in passing from the individual existent to the "pre-being" which is its ground, passes from the individual ego to its pre-individual ground. If we take it as a reduction to what is within me, i.e., to my "streaming primal'immanence,' we have to say that within me there is something prior to me. Our second point, then, is that, qua individual, I exist in time. This existence, however, is based on that which, per se, is not an individual object or process. It is based on that which is present, but not present as a modality of time. §4. TEMPORALIZATION AND ANONYMITY

The result of the temporal reduction is described by Husserl both as "present" and as "streaming"; yet a temporal sense is denied to these terms. Thus, Husserl writes: 'The regressive inquiry, which begins with the epoche, leads to the primary, stationary (strehende) streaming; in a certain sense, it leads to the 'nunc stans,' the stationary present. Properly speaking, the word 'present' is unsuitable in this context insofar as it already indicates a modality of time" (Ms. C 7 I, pp. 30-31, June-July, 1932). His point, here, is that a "modality of time"-such as the past, the present, or the future-involves time's ordering. To be in time is to be in a moment fixed in successively ordered time. Such moments slip from presence to pastness. Thus, the now of the present slips into the "just past" and, thence, to further degrees of pastness. In contrast to this, the present uncovered by the epoche is, Husserl observes, "now" and only 'now'." When he calls it a "stationary present," this does not mean that it is static-i.e., a dead present as opposed to one that is living. He wards off this interpretation by calling it a "stationary streaming." We can explain this by saying that because it remains now, it is stationary; but because of this, it can be said to stream with regard to what does not remain now. Thus, its stationary quality is also its transcendence of the moments of successively ordered time as they slip into pastness. The sense of this con-

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tinual transcendence is that of its continual streaming with regard to such moments. As Husserl observes, this streaming cannot, itself, be considered as occurring in time. Its "place/, so to speak, is in the constant present, the present that is not a modality of time. As such, it lacks the sense of being extended through time. This streaming, living present is not what we elsewhere, also in a transcendental-phenomenological sense, designated as the stream of consciousness or stream of experiences. It is, per se, not a "stream" according to the pattern of what is properly a temporal (or even a spatial-temporal) whole .... The streaming, living present is "continuously" being qua streaming (Stromendsein), but it is not such in an apartness of being (Auseinander-Sein). [It is] not [such] in the being that has spatial-temporal, worldly-spatial extension or the being that has "immanent" temporal extension. Thus, [it is] not [such] in the apartness which is called succession, succession in the sense of the apartness of positions in what can properly be called time (Ms. C 3 I, p. 4, 1930). In other words, we can say that this present streams; but we cannot say that it streams in the "apartness" of time. The strict sense of this stationary streaming can be given by contrasting two different ways of viewing the living present. Before the reduction, this present appears to be that through which objectively extended time flows. Thus, from the standpoint of the now which I constantly occupy, time seems to stream towards my nowness from the future and away from it into pastness. The nowness which I occupy appears as a stationary point of passage for the flowing of the extended temporal stream. The reduction, however brackets the connections which result in the "apartness" or extension of time. After its performance, I limit myself solely to my immediate nowness or "living present." What the reduction invites me to do is to regard this passing through my present simply in the context of this present. When I do, then what appeared to transit through it shows itself as a "welling up" within it. Passing through, in other words, is exhibited as the successive production in this present of what comes to be regarded as the successive moments of time. This present's stationary streaming is its constant action of generating time. 1 Two points follow from the above. The first is Husserl's claim that the living "present is 'absolute actuality'; it is actuality in the proper sense as that which is primally productive" (Ms. C 17, Sept. 20-22, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 348). The claim concerns the present which is "prim ally temporalizing (Urzeitigend)" and, by virtue of this, "primally generating (Ur-

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zeugend)." For Husserl, this present is actuality in the sense of being in act, the act being the welling up which is productive of the distinct moments of time. As we cited him above, "The absolute itself is this universal, primordial present. Within it 'lie' all time and world in every sense. Itself streaming, [it is) actuality in the strict, worldly sense of 'being present''' (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934, ed. cit., p. 668). In other words, "Both time and world are temporalized in the absolute which is the stationary streaming now" (ibid., p. 670). Thus, the present, in temporalizing-i.e., in producing the moments of time-is that which makes things actual in the worldly sense of being present in time. Our second point is that this production of time is not itself in time. It is not something occurring in "the apartness of positions" which characterize time. It occurs in the present, the primal nowness, which has been brought into view by suspending this apartness. Such apartness is a constituted phenomenon. It is a matter of the connections between retentions and protentions which fix the moments of time in an extended, successive order. As such, it is a necessary level for world constitution considered as a process of synthesizing the contents which are successively given to us. The condition of such constitution is the production of the successive positions of time, i.e., of time itself in its apartness. As Husserl observes, the ultimate basis of this condition cannot itself be conditioned by it. Thus, the welling up of time is not itself to be described in terms of the apartness of time which will result from it. This means that it must be understood "as a constitution, a temporalization, a temporal becoming which is a pre-becoming, not a becoming in an ontical, a constituted sense" (Ms. B I 14, XI, p. 18, 1934). Becoming in an "ontical" sense refers to world constitution. It concerns the becoming of synthetic, "real" unities in already constituted time. "Pre-becoming" refers to the coming to be of time itself, i.e., of the moments which will be retained and protended so as to give us a sense of a definite, successive order. These points may seem abstract; but we can make them concrete by relating them to the nowness of our functioning. Such nowness signifies that the individual subject is immediately present to himself as he performs his various acts. The acts slip away into pastness. Action becomes past action. "But I," Husserl says, "the identical [subject) of my acts, am 'now' and only 'now' and am, in my being as an accomplisher, still the accomplisher of the action ... " (Ms. C 10, p. 26, 1931). The same point can be expressed vis-a-vis the object of my action. In my ongoing act of perceiving an object, I constantly share a now with the latter. The now of the object, however, constantly slips into pastness. The present tone of a melody gives way to another. Its now is replaced by the next in the order of succession. "Yet this temporalization," Husserl remarks, "ought not to

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cover up the fact that I am egologically-continually-streamingly now and only now ... ," this as the "performer" of the perception (ibid.) There is, we can say, a double necessity for this constant nowness of the perceiving, acting subject. If the subject himself became past, he would cease to be an actor. What is past is fixed. It is not an accomplishing but a having accomplished. On the objective side, this constant nowness is required so that the object can successively unfold its contents. If the subject were to remain fixed in the moment when he perceived a particular content, he could not apprehend any others. The possibility of such further apprehension is the possibility of the moment with its content slipping into pastness vis-a-vis the perceiving subject. This, however, is the possibility of the subject, in his constant nowness, transcending the distinct moments of successively ordered time. When we turn the reduction on this last possibility, we see that it is based on the welling up of time. This welling up appears as a transcending if we view it in the context of what wells up-i.e., the constituted moments of time. The latter depart into pastness while their source transcends them by remaining present. Transcendence, then, is required for perception; and the reduction reveals its dependence on the "stationary streaming" or welling up of time. The same point holds for all egological actions. As Husserl observes, the ego in its constant selfpresence "is stationary and remaining in a special sense: it, itself, does not stream [away in time], but it does act. It posits its thesis (setzt seinen Satz), and this acting is a letting loose from itself. It is a primal welling up, a creative allowing to depart from itself of that which, itself, streams, namely, the acts (Ms. B III 9, pp. 13-14, Oct.-Dec., 1931). Thus, the departure in time of our contents of experience is also the temporal unfolding of our perceptual acts. Composed of nonintentional contents, the acts synthesize them into intentional unities. The "streaming" of these acts is the departure of their contents. The welling up upon which this is based also allows the acts themselves to depart. It gives the ego which remains now the possibility of performing new acts. In this context, a certain identification seems all but inevitable. If the ego acts by virtue of "a primal welling up" and if the source of this welling up is the living present, then the acting ego, qua actor, seems to be identical with this present. Husserl, in fact, does equate "the primal-phenomenal, concrete stream of the present" with "transcendental subjectivity [taken) in the primal form of its being." Such a form is "the primally streaming present." Describing the latter, he asserts, "This, in fact, is the 'primal phenomenon' which all transcendental, regressive inquiry leads back to the method of the reduction" (Ms. C 2 ~p. 13, Aug., 1931). I perform the reduction on myself, on my own subjectivity. Thus, the nowness

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which it discovers at the source of egological action appears to pertain to my very selfhood as an accomplishing ego. As Husserl puts this conclusion: " ... the ego which is always now and remains now (which, as a stationary and lasting now, is actually not a now in an objective sense) is this living, this 'supertemporal' (iiberzeitliche) now, [is] the ego of all accomplishing ... (Ms. C 10, p. 29, 1931). These remarks may be taken as a consequence of the statement we earlier cited: "I am. It is from me that time is constituted." A question, however, remains as to the identity of this "I am./I The ego, taken as a persisiting, individual unity is constituted through the successive moments of time. How can we identify this with the ego whose functioning includes the welling up of time? As Husserl observes, the attempt to identify the two is fraught with difficulties. Paradoxes and infinite regresses appear. They spring, we can say, from the distinction between the constituting and the constituted. If to be a Seiende-an individual existent-is to be in time and if time itself is constituted, then we cannot say that time constitution is the result of the functioning of an individual existent. The individual ego, taken as a constitutor of time, would then require for its own being in time-i.e., its own individual existence-a prior constitution of time. If we were to assert that this prior constitution is itself the result of the functioning of an individual, we would then have to posit another individual ego behind the first, and so on indefinitely. In Husserl's words, we would constantly face "the renewed distinction between the constituting and the constituted ego and egological time." We would be led back lito an infinity of transcendental egos," each constitutively responsible for the next (Ms. B 114, XI, p. 18; see also ibid., pp. 16-17,1934). The same regress appears when we speak of the streaming life of the ego. Husserl writes: "I exist in my streaming life. I am, as it will appear, not this streaming life itself; but I am who I am; only within the ontological form of this streaming life .... The regress appears when I say that the ego "temporalizes the first immanent sphere [the sphere of its streaming life], but itself only exists by virtue of a temporalization, and so on again and again" (Ms. C 3 III, p. 7, Nov., 1930). A remarkable conclusion arises out of this regress. We can reach it by recalling Husserl's doctrine that all real, individual existents are unities of sense. As we earlier put this, the thesis of the X, which is the thesis of the object's individual existence, is also the thesis of its sense. Both follow from the fact that the object is posited through the synthesis of our successive experiences. The result of this is a one in many-i.e., the object which is present as one thing exhibiting itself in many successive appearances. Its one-in-many character makes it a sense. It also makes it a Seiende since it means that we grasp it as persisiting through the successive moments of /1

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time. Now, we can break the above regress by distinguishing the ego which "temporalizes the first immanent sphere" from the ego which "exists by virtue of a temporalization." The latter, we can claim, is a real unity and, hence, a unity of sense. As for the former, we must say that it is prior to such. Thus, if it is from me that time is constituted, I cannot say that I am, as its constituter, in time. 2 If I did, the regress would recur, since I would have to say that the constituter of time requires time in order to be such a constituter and, hence, requires a prior constitution of time. This cannot be my status, if, as Husserl insists," ... I am the actor of the nunc stans," for here he associates me with the "primal willing up" which, in constituting time, permits my action. (Ms. B III 9, p. 25, Oct.-Dec., 1931). Thus, as the nunc stans' actor, I must be before all connectedness in time; I must be before all the individual existents and corresponding senses which arise through the synthesis of what I temporally experience. Qua functioning, I am, therefore, without any objective sense whatsoever. Strictly speaking, Husserl's conclusion is that I am anonymous as a constituter of time. None of the names which can be drawn from the objective senses of the world apply to me in my ultimate functioning. As we have presented it, this conclusion is a matter of logical deduction. It arises from our applying the principle, "What is ultimately constituting is not itself constituted" (Ms. B I 14, XI, p.19, 1935). For Husserl, however, my anonymity is also something which I can immediately encounter. All I have to do is attempt to grasp myself as functioning. When I do, a dichotomy opens up between myself as functioning and the object of this functioning. In Husserl's words, "Whenever I am occupied with myself and my specific egological functions, I have this distinction between what I am occupied with and myself, Le., between my being actively engaged and that with which I am actively engaged.... The actively functioning '1 do,' '1 discover,' is constantly anonymous." When I turn my attention to the latter, "it is brought up by a new functioning ego," an ego which is not, itself, attended to (Ms. A VII, II, pp. 90-92, Oct. 26, 1932). As Husserl elsewhere puts this: ... the ego which is the counterpart (gegenaber) to everything is anonymous. It is not its own counterpart. The house is my counterpart, not vice versa. And yet I can turn my attention to myself. But then this counterpart in which the ego comes forward along with everything which was its counterpart is again split. The ego which comes forward as a counterpart and its counterpart [e.g., the house it was perceiving] are both counterparts to me. Forthwith, I-the subject of this new counterpart-am anonymous (Ms. C 2 I, p. 2, Aug., 1931).

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This inability to grasp myself as presently perceiving arises from the necessities inherent in perception. For an object to unfold its contents to me, I must remain now while the moments bearing its contents depart into pastness. Thus, the object whose sense results from the synthesis of these contents is not now in a primary sense. It arises from a retaining in the now of what, in fact, has departed from the now. This means that its contents are presently grasped as occupying the positions of departed time. Without this, what is synthesized from them, the object itself, would not be seen as persisting through these positions-persisting even as they continue to depart from the present. For Husserl, this analysis implies that, "I am always ahead of myself" when I attempt to objectively grasp myself (Ms. C 16 VI, p. 7, Aug., 1932).3 This cannot be otherwise given the contrast between the nowness in which I function and the departure from it which is required for objective apprehension. To cite Husserl again: "In reflection, I encounter myself in the temporal field in which my just past (mein Soeben) has functioned ... But in the now point, I am in contact with myself as functioning" (Ms. A V 5, p. 3, Jan., 1933). When I turn to this point of contact, I find something other than the "given" of my objects, something which is distinguished from the "pregivenness" of the world taken as the totality of existing objects. As Husserl expresses this: "Functioning subjectivity is constantly presupposed, proceeding ahead (Voraufgehende); but it is not pre-given. The world, the universe of existing objects is pre-given, pre-given to us as functioning existents who possess in our functioning the sense of their [Le., the objects') being. This functioning is constantly anonymous ... " (Ms. K III 4, p. 8, 1934-35). What is not anonymous are the objects which are given to us with a nameable sense. What is anonymous is the subjectivity which goes before the latter, constantly "ahead" of them in its nowness. It is the subjectivity which is associated with the giving which precedes all objective givenness. Thus, in contact with myself as functioning, I am in contact with the stationary streaming now. It is the latter whose streaming gives the given. In Husserl's words, "The primal phenomenon of the streaming is the phenomenon of all phenomena, of all existents for us in every possible sense; for everything exists in the primal streaming as 'giving itself' within it and, in the broadest sense, exists as a self, a persisting unity in its streaming moments" (Ms. C 2 I, p. 13, Aug., 1931). It exists, we can say, by virtue of the welling up of time, the very welling up which makes possible temporal departure and, hence, objective givenness. With this, we can see why Husserl chooses to break the above regress by insisting that he is, indeed, "the actor of the nunc stans./I The anonymity of the functioning subject which results from this position is a directly observable phenomenon. As such, it serves as evidence confirm-

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ing it. In other words, my very inability to grasp myself in the nowness of my being points to this nowness as a giving which is distinct from the objectively given. For Husserl, then, this nowness is what I am in the core of my functioning; but as such, it is distinguished from what I am in any objective, worldly sense. To put this in terms of the theme of this chapter, we can say that this nowness represents the temporal dimension of our coincidence with our ground. In coincidence with it, we engage in perception, we function. Yet in the same coincidence, we transcend our worldly identity. We surpass ourselves as objective unities, which means that the names appropriate to the latter are not appropriate to ourselves. §5. TEMPORALIZATION AS THE CONSTITUTION OF TRANSCENDENCE

As we noted in our last section, the welling up of time appears as a transcending when we take it in the context of what wells up-i.e., the constituted moments of objective time. According to the way we view it, we can say that such moments transcend the present as they depart into pastness; we can also say that the present transcends these departing moments in its remaining now. No matter what our perspective, the basic phenomenon here is one of constant separation. There is a continual distinction between the constituting and the constituted. Thus, on the one hand, we have the now which is engaged in primal temporalization, the now which is not, itself, a modality of time. On the other hand, "we have, in this primal temporalization, the primal present, the primal past and the primal future, themselves as constituted temporal modalities which, for their part, stream ... " (Ms. C 7 I, p. 17, June-July, 1932). This streaming can be expressed in terms of the timelessness of the original present. The latter is not a modality of time since it cannot be positioned so as to be fixed within its successive ordering. Granting this, its "objectification" or "appearance" as a present moment of time is one with its escape from this position. To speak in terms of the present's transcendence, we can say that it is constantly "ahead" of itself-i.e., ahead of its objectification as a position in time. Its timelessness, then, implies its departure; and its departure is the occasion for its further appearance in what will be the next position in time. It is, thus, always appearing as the next present; yet even as it appears in time, it is always departing from this appearance to what will be the next. This departure, we can say, is its anonymity. It is its inability to be grasped in terms of the fixed, objectively given positions of time. Reversing our perspective, we can speak of the departure from the now of the "constituted temporal modalities" formed by such positions. Here, the timelessness of the now, i.e., its distinction from such positions, implies the streaming of these modalities.

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Either way we look at it, the phenomenon we face is that of separation. For Husserl, this signifies that "in the primordial sphere, worldly perception (Wabrnebmung von Weltlicbkeiten) and the world separate themselves ...." This sphere is that of "the being of streaming as a stationary lasting" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 2). It is the sphere of the streaming of time understood as the continual separation of the stationary present from the present which is its constituted appearance. By virtue of this separation, an original temporal distance opens up. It is the distance which allows the object to be a Gegenstand-i.e., to be present as "standing against" the subject. The nonidentity, the transcendence implied in this standing against is temporal. In other words, the original transcendence is that of the constituting now as it distinguishes itself from its constituted appearance. In transcending its appearance, it remains now. As for the appearance itself, it becomes, vis-a-vis the constituting now, a ;ust past now. It appears as what bas welled up, what bas been let loose from its constituting source. This process goes on continually and its result, for Husserl, is the continual "intentional modification" of the constituted into greater and greater pastness. As more and more just past moments successively intervene, an increasing temporal distance opens up between what was once "just past" and my stationary lasting present. If I speak of this modification as resulting from my transcending my present appearance, then I can say with Husserl, "In every present taken as a phrase and, thus, in the stationary lasting present, I am such that I transcend my present being" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 5). Reversing my perspective, I can also say that this momentary "present being" transcends me as it slips into pastness. Here, I assert: "The not now transcends the now; in particular [it transcends] the [present] consciousness of the not now. Thus, the continuity of intentional modifications (Abwandlungen) is a constant continuity in which one originally apprehends transcendence. What is transcended is always consciousness." Thus, in the modifications which successively turn my present appearance into a just past appearance, my present, functioning consciousness is itself transcended. Directing myself to what stands over and against me, I grasp myself "not as the self I am but as the self I was" (ibid.). No matter what perspective we embrace, the claim of the above is clear. It is that "in streaming, a self-transcending is continually accomplished; namely a past is constituted ... " (Ms. C 7 I, p. 6). In the streaming away from myself of my temporal appearances, I achieve the temporal transcendence of becoming past to myself. This cannot be otherwise given that I identify myself with the originally constituting now. From the perspective of the constituted, the appearing of this now is one with its departure from this appearance. Its timelessness is its transcendence, its escape from the

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fixed positions it constitutes. Reversing our perspective, we can say that this escape is its constitution of time. It is its "letting loose" of the moments of successive time, its "creative allowing [them] to depart from itself." It is, thus, its continual creation of temporal transcendence-the transcendence of what, temporally speaking, seems to "enter" my constant now and what "passes away to make place for another" (Ms. D 13 III, pp. 9-10, July 7, 1933). As Husserl puts this, "In the whole continuity [of time], I am ... the present, primary-actual primordium which originally constitutes what is originally past and future ... I exist in the streaming creation (schaffen) of transcendence, in the creation of self-transcendence, of being as self-pastness, self-futurity and self-presence." These constituted modalities of time succeed one another in their successive order. In distinction to this, "I exist, I in the lasting (Wahren) which I am; and I am always already such lasting in this type of being which is one of a multiple, continuous transcendence of my primal modal being as now" (Ms. C 7 I, pp. 5-6). The "type of being" (Seinsart) referred to is that of streaming, understood as the streaming away from "my primal modal being as now." Because the latter, in its remaining now, does not itself stream into pastness, it can be called "lasting." Because it lasts, there is the phenomenon of transcendence, i.e., the primal now's being transcended by what does not last but rather departs into pastness. Two conclusions follow from the above. The first is that the timeless, "lasting" subject distinguished itself from its temporally unfolding objects by not possessing the "over-againstness" of the latter. Its self-presence is its lack of the temporal distance which would allow it to be objective. It, thus, remains anonymous. 4 This anonymity, however, is constantly changing to its opposite. The ego which is not over against itself, i.e., not self-transcendent, "exists," as Hussed writes, "in the streaming creation of transcendence." A regard to the presently functioning ego is, then, a regard to "the primordium in its first temporalization, in its first existential mode of creating temporal transcendence, the transcendence which is originally created in the stationary [streaming] present and is always already constituted" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 7). The constitution of this transcendence is the constitution of the over-againstness of objectivity. It is the constitution of the "outside" of the functioning ego. With this, we have our second conclusion: This outside is not externally given to an ego. In De Bohr's language, "transcendental consciousness does not acknowledge an outside" because this outside is something which it, itself, gives or constitutes (See above, p. 41).

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§6. EGO-COGITO-COGITATUM

The above allows us to speak, at least in a preliminary way, of the temporal underpinnings of this threefold distinction. For ease of presentation, let us first turn to the division: A.

Cogito-Cogitatum

To distinguish these, we must recall a point we earlier made: The cogitatum or perceived object is understood as other than the perceiving cogito insofar as it is taken as offering us more than what is actually contained in the cogito. In other words, the connected experiences making up the apprehending cogito are seen as only a finite part of what could be grasped in viewing the object. These are experiences "of" the latter in the sense that they are only a part of what the object can provide. Now, for an object to have this indefinite availability, none of the experiences it affords can be understood as the last of a series. Each actual experience must call up the possibility on another, and so on indefinitely. It is because of this indefinite availability that an object can have the character of a unity of sense, i.e., be a unity in many appearances. As we earlier observed, a true one in many does not per se specify the multitude of its many. It rather leaves indefinite the actual number of the latter. Granting that the manyness of the objective unity is that of its appearances in time, the indefinite continuance of the latter demands the indefinite continuance of time itself. Time must be such that the appearances occupying its moments can continually succeed one another. Thus, if time is constituted, its moments must be continually constituted and constituted such that each gives way to the next. Like the appearance it bears, each moment must declare that it is not the last, that, in fact, the very possibility of its existence is equivalent to the possibility of what is to come. With this, we can say that the temporal dimension of the object's transcendence arises from time's nontemporal and, hence, unvarying constitutive root. To put this in terms of the welling up of the now, we can say that insofar as this action is prior to time, it does not have the "time" in which it could vary. As Husserl expresses this invariability: "In streaming, taken as stationary, the [temporal] stream constitutes itself. 'Stationary' signifies [its] unvarying being (Stllndigsein) as a process-the process of primal temporalization" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 31, June-July, 1931). This stationary welling up or streaming of the now can, of course, be viewed in the context of its results. Here, the timelessness of the constitutive now appears as its

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inability to be fixed in a given position of time. Thus, even as this now appears as a now in time, it seems, in this view, to be departing to what will be the next such appearance. By virtue of this departure, no given moment (or "appearing" now) can be the last. Indeed, the momentary now is such that its possibility is one with that of the succeeding moment. This follows since the present moment exists by virtue of its origin; but the latter is the now which cannot appear except through departure. Thus, the very departure which allows the present moment to exist as the timeless now's appearance is "even now" creating the "space," so to speak, for a new appearing-i.e., making possible the next moment of time. To relate this to Husserl's distinction between the cogito and cogitatum, we must consider the latter as a unity of sense. At the basis of this unity is a recurrent pattern of perceptions. By virtue of it, an object continually exhibits itself as the saple. Each recurrence of this pattern reconfirms our original positing. When we add to this process our feeling of the indefinite continuance of time itself, the object is taken as being able to show itself as the same in an indefinite number of instances. It achieves the status of being a unity of sense. So conceived, the transcendence of this unity-i.e., its distinction from the cogito-is based upon the contrast between the finite, elapsed time of the cogito and the indefinite continuance of time itself. The cogito is "of" the cogitatum because its finite time is seen as only part of the time available for the full appearance of the cogitatum. In other words, the latter surpasses the cogito because its status as an objective unity involves an objectification of our sense of the continuance of time. This insight, we may observe, is essentially Kantian. Kant writes, "To time, itself unchangeable and abiding, there corresponds, in the [field of] appearance, the unchangeable in existence, i.e., substance ... " ("Kritik," B 183, Kant's Schriften, III, 137). To relate this to the above, we can take the abiding of time as its inability to "fUn out." Its unchanging abiding is its "unvarying being as a process." When we see this feature as a condition for the possibility of positing substance, we essentially repeat the arguments we have just given. Like the cogitatum, substance is posited as other than the cogito by virtue of its abiding. Even when the cogito is directed elsewhere, substance is thought to abide and, as such, to constantly offer to the cogito the possibility of its further experience. This, however, is only possible if time itself abides. Only then can we have the substance qua abiding, i.e., qua its unending potential for self-exhibition in a series of appearances. The thought of the substance's continuance, thus, "corresponds" to the thought of the continuance of time in which the substance's appearances can manifest themselves. Ultimately, its permanence "corresponds" to the permanence of the original now. It is this, which in

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constantly remaining now, can never "run out" as it objectifies itself in time. B.

Ego-Cogito

The temporal basis for this distinction seems clear. As far as we have gone, we can say with Husserl, "The ego in its most original originality is not in time" (Ms. CIa, p. 21, 1931). We can also say that everything which is in time is not the original ego. In Husserl's words, "The presently streaming present, understood as an immanent [temporal] stream, is already thoroughly non-ego; and everything which is constituted and continues to constitue itself within it is the non-ego on various levels" (ibid.). Thus, the nontemporal ego is not the cogito understood as a temporally extended act. Similarly, it is not the persisting cogitatum. 5 Both must be regarded as "levels" of the non-ego. There is, however, a certain ambiguity in Husserl's treatment of this distinction. Statements occur which seem to undermine the nontemporal character of the ego pole. Thus, in one manuscript, Husserl first asserts, "Naturally, it is senseless to consider the ego as temporal"; but then he continues a couple of lines later: "Immanent time is the constant and necessary form of the environment of the ego, and it remains a priori its environmental form. Afterwards, the necessary temporal relatedness of the ego makes possible a kind of temporalization of the ego: namely, the constitution of an objective temporal world.... " As a part of the latter, there is constituted "the human ego which exists in the world, the ego which becomes identified with the [original, non-temporal] ego pole ... " (Ms. E III 2, p. 50, date uncertain). In another passage, this "necessary temporal relatedness" becomes understood as the ego's inseparable oneness with the temporal: "The original ego, and what is originally its own, is inseparably one (untrennbar eins) with what, first of all, primally exists for it. It is one with the temporalized as such; or rather, it is one with the living temporalization in which the immanently temporalized is constituted as a unity" (Ms. C 3 III, p. 22, March, 1931). The question is, how are we to understand this being "one"? How can Husserl assert both the nontemporality of the ego and its being "inseparably one .. , with the temporalized as such"? Here, we return to the question which occupied us in our second section: Is the ego other or is it one with its temporal acts? To resolve the above, we first observe that, as temporally constituting, the ego must be considered as nontemporal. We shall not repeat Husserl's arguments in this regard. Their conclusion is always the same. It is that "in its original functioning, the functioning pole is never in the temporal field" (Ms. A V 5, p. 3, June, 1933). This does not mean that this pole does

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not have a relation to the temporal. It constitutes the temporal. Thus, the very functioning which demands that the ego not be considered as temporal--Le., as fixed in the field's successive ordering-also demands that it cannot be thought of apart from time. Its notion as originally functioning-Le., as a "living temporalization"-involves the notion of constituted time. Concretely speaking, this signifies that the functioning ego implies its cogito. It is never without its cogito, although it can never be identified with the latter. For Husserl, their relation is one of stationariness to streaming, this being understood as the relationship of actor to act. The crucial statement of this is one which we have already cited. Everything which is contained in the streaming [of time] streams. It possesses the indescribable, primal form of streaming.... Yet the ego is stationary and remaining in a special sense: it, itself, does not stream, but it does act. It posits its thesis, and this acting is a letting loose from itself. It is a primal welling up, a creative allowing to depart from itself of that which, itself, streams, namely the acts (Ms. B III 9, pp. 13-14, Oct.-Dec., 1931). The import of this passage is plain. As a temporal process, the cogito or act can be understood as the result of the ego's constitution of time. By virtue of the latter, we have temporal departure. A constituted moment recedes into pastness as successively constituted moments intervene between it and its constitutive origin. The moment manifests the action of streaming away from its "stationary and remaining" origin. Now, this action is the underlying action of the cogito. In other words, the unfolding cogito-the ongoing act-is, temporally speaking, just this streaming away. It is the manifest result of the ego's "primal welling up"-Le., the ego's "creative" letting loose of the moments of time from itself. The same point can be made by calling the cogito the temporal appearance of the functioning ego. This description follows from two of our earlier conclusions: (1) the functioning ego is such by being identified with the anonymous now, and (2) the now in time is the appearance, the objective expression of an original, anonymous now. Admitting that the now in time streams away, we can say that the "action" of the cogito, which is that of constantly streaming away, is the appearance of the anonymous now, i.e., its appearance as constantly functioning to produce time. What we have, then, is an exhibition of the ego's functioning by means of the result of such functioning. It is an exhibition in time. Husserl makes this point while speaking of the presently reflecting ego. "The ego reflected upon in reflection is not the living pole, but the latter is exhibit-

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able in reflection as anonymous, as functioning. What is exhibitable is that its functioning is constantly temporalized; and, thus, the functioning exists for the actively functioning ego in the field of its conscious [temporal] possessions" (Ms. A V 5, pp. 2-3, Jan., 1933). If we restrict ourselves to speaking of the ego's functioning as temporalization, the assertion that the original "functioning is constantly temporalized" is almost a tautology. Being temporalized (or placed in time) is, by definition, the result of such functioning. Thus, the original now functions to constitute time by becoming temporalized-Le., by appearing in time. That its appearance as a moment of time is one with its escape from such signifies that its functioning appears as the departure of this moment. A constituted now appears to stream away. The constant streaming away of such momentsunderstood as the temporal dimension of the living cogito-is thus, per se, the temporal exhibition of the original now's (the ego pole's) functioning. It is also, we note, an exhibition of the latter's anonymity, i.e., of the fact that it "is never in the temporal field." This follows because the moments which we can objectively grasp are not the same as their original source point; they rather are those which are departing from this. Anonymity, then, is exhibited as the a-point of such departure. We can pursue these thoughts on the relation of the constituting now to what it constitues by returning to Husserl's claim, "The present is 'absolute actuality'; it is actuality in the proper sense as that which is primally productive." Its being in act, we said, is the "welling up" which yields the departing moments of time. "As such," Husserl continues, "it exists ontifying [or objectifying] itself in the temporal mode. Primally temporalizing, it has temporal being as its ontical acquisition. Prim ally generating, it always has already generated temporal being. Constantly in the present, I [am] the possessor of the acquired [temporality]. Always in the present of my acquisitions, always apprehended as the ego who I am and as the same as the ego I was, I have a lived life behind me and have what I have acquired from this, etc.... (Ms. C 17, Sept. 20-22, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 348). Reflecting on this passage, several things can be said. The first is that my being in the constituting present is my existence as surrounded by the results of its constitution. As we quoted Husserl, "immanent time" becomes my "constant and necessary" environmental form. The thought of such an environment is, thus, correlated to the thought that my present constitutes immanent time. Furthermore, my relation to this environment is necessarily that of its center or a-point. The constituting present always appears as the present between the anticipated (or not yet constituted) future and the given, already constituted past. Existing in this central present, I thus, always exist in the point from which futurity and pastness is measured. Once again, we may observe that it is precisely

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because I exist at this O-point that I must remain anonymous. To objectively appear to myself, I must, according to Husserl, transcend myself. A certain temporal distance must open up. Thus, I can imaginatively anticipate what I will be in the future. I can also recall what I was in the past. Both are transcendent to me insofar as the one lies "before" me, the other "behind." When, however, I confront my present being, no such temporal distance is available. My being at the center is my lack of self-transcendence. This being, thus, exhibits my anonymity. These remarks allow us to return to a conclusion which we earlier touched upon. Although I am anonymous as the center of my temporal field, this does not prevent me from asserting that I can, as a center, be considered as the result of a constitutive process. According to Husserl, "I exist in the unity of a life which, as constituted, bears in itself an immanent temporal order ... " (Ms. B I 32, p. 17, Mayor Aug., 19311. It is the order of pastness and futurity in which I am situated at the O-point. Insofar as this environing temporal order is thought to be constituted so is my position at its center. What we have, then, is the constitution of my "central" being through the constitution of that which centers me-i.e., that in relation to which I can be called a center. This means that to the point that I can be said to constitute this temporal environment, I can be said to constitute myself as its temporal center. Whether or not "I" can be considered to be active on this fundamental level is, of course, deeply problematical. What we can say is that the constitution of this environment is one with the constitution of my appearance as active. It is the constitution of the streaming which, for Husserl, is the underlying action of the ongoing cogito. Such action appears as ongoing because temporal constitution is itself ongoing. Appearing moments are always being added to the temporal field. Thus, the field is constituted as streaming. Since I am always at the center of this field, this streaming can be seen as my constantly shifting my position. From the perspective of the field, my remaining at its temporal midpoint is my constantly transcending what was "just now" its center before this slipped into pastness. The centering environment shifts and, with it, the midpoint between the past and anticipated future undergoes a displacement. A change of perspective is, however, always possible. What appeared as the motion of the center can appear as its own "letting loose," its own action of allowing the moment which was the center to be added to the past. In other words, from the perspective of the center, which is that of my constant present, I do not appear to change my position. I seem, rather, to be the actor whose action is the welling up of the positions of time. We can put this even more directly by beginning with this welling up. For Husserl, welling up is the action of the present which is "absolute ac-

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tuality." Insofar as the action of this present results in its being surrounded by a past and an anticipated future, its action appears as that of the present which divides the two. It appears as my action since my being as a central ego is my presence at the temporal mid-point. In a certain sense, my appearance as the source point of time matches my reality. Actually present in the center of the field, I am in coincidence with the source point. In the anonymity which characterizes my being at the center, I am, in fact, indistinguishable from the present which is "primally generating." It is in terms of the foregoing that Husserl's remarks on the temporal constitution of the nunc stans must be read. He writes that the original now's "basic structure is that of constituting itself as the nunc stans of a unitary streaming .... " In this, it appears, not just as "a stationary and remaining primal now," but also as a "primal source point"-Le., as "a primally welling primal now" (Ms. C 2,1, p. 15, Aug.,1931). As the context of these remarks indicates, Husserl is not asserting that the ultimately constituting now is itself constituted. What is constituted is its appearance as such. Thus, his focus is on its "primal phenomenal being," this as "originally apprehended" in its phenomenal character (ibid.) This character requires that the original now be viewed in relation to what can appear. More precisely, it must be viewed in terms of the streaming which is the temporal appearance of its functioning. When we take this view, we can say with Husserl: A lasting and remaining primal now constitutes itself in this streaming. It constitutes itself as a fixed form for a content which streams through it and as the source point for all constituted modifications. In union with [the constitution of] the fixed form of the primally welling primal now, there is constituted a two-sided continuity of forms that are just as fixed. Thus, in toto, there is constituted a fixed continuum of form in which the primal now is a primal welling middle point for two continua [understood] as branches of the modes of [temporal] modifications: the continuum of what is just past and that of futurities (ibid.). Despite its somewhat labored prose, this passage has a clear doctrine. It is that the constitution of the now as a "fixed form," through which time appears to flow and in which its moments appear to well up as present and actual, occurs "in union with" a second constitution-that of the continua of the past and the future. With the latter, we have the constitution of the temporal environment which allows the source of time to appear as a "middle point" within this environment. In other words, we have the constitution of the "phenomenal being" of this source.

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If such being is not "mere appearance," but rather reveals the reality of which it is the appearance, then we can draw a sharp distinction between Kant's and Hussed's doctrines of the anonymity of the functioning subject. This distinction arises in spite of certain similarities between the two. For Kant, as for Hussed, anonymity arises because of the limitation of the "inner sense" of reflection. "This sense," Kant writes, "presents even ourselves to consciousness only as we appear to ourselves, not as we [presently] are in ourselves" ("Kritik" B 152-53, Kant's Schriften, III, 120). Both agree that our appearing functioning is the result of a second, undedying functioning-that of temporalization. For Kant, however, the latter is always a hidden functioning. It is a condition for the possibility of appearance, but is, itself, concealed by such appearance (see above, p. 114). What is concealed is the noumenal ego since it, for Kant, is the actor who functions to constitute time. Turning to Hussed, we cannot say that behind the appearing ego, there is concealed a second, the first being lithe mere appearance" of the latter. The acting ego is inseparable from its appearance since, as a central ego, it requires the temporalization which makes it appear as a middlepoint. This may be put in terms of Hussed's statement that the actual ego, lithe living pole ... is exhibitable in reflection as anonymous, as functioning." Anonymity, here, does not point back to a non-appearing self, but rather to a process which is prior to the self. The appearance of the self is not the latter's concealment but rather its individualization. Thus, the individual ego appears as the "place" of temporalization; it appears as the point where time wells up. With this, the original functioning which establishes the "living pole" is exhibited as the ego's own functioning, i.e., as the streaming of its cogito. With regard to the anonymity of the original functioning, which is that of a giving which is distinguished from what is given, this, too, is exhibited in the ego's phenomenal being. It is exhibited by the central ego's lack of self-transcendence. As the place of the streaming of the cogito, it is not "over against itself," but rather appears as the point where transcendence and, hence, givenness first emerge. We can also note that, fixed as it is between the past and the future, the ego appears not just as a primal welling up but also as "a stationary and remaining phenomenon. Here, it mirrors the constant nowness and the timelessness of the ultimate source of time. The latter, we recall, is stationary or invariant since it is prior to the time which is required for change. In all this, the presence of phenomenal being of the subject does not conceal, but rather manifests, the features of its source. For Hussed, then, the "living pole" exhibits itself as anonymous and functioning since these are the conditions for its existence as my living pole. The conditions point back to what is prior to such existence, but not individually prior. Thus, apII

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pearance and reality are not to be considered as having distinct referents, i.e., as assignable to two different entities, one somehow standing behind the other. What we confront is simply the process which results in a self, a process whose characteristics and origin become exhibited when we examine this self's functioning. Let us put this in terms of another description by Hussed of this functioning. The whole primal welling up, amidst the streaming away [of the past] and the streaming towards of what is to come, is the unity of a stationary and remaining primal phenomenon. The welling up is a stationary and remaining change, the primal phenomenon of my "I act" ("lch tue") in which I am a stationary and remaining ego and, indeed, am the actor of the "nunc stans." I act now and only now, and I "continuously" act (Ms. B III 9, p. 25, Oct.-Dec., 1931). This passage takes my appearance as an actor of the nunc stans as a feature of my stationary streaming. I appear to act insofar as "amidst" the "stream ing away" and "streaming towards" of the past and the future, there is a stationary point of passage, a point where the welling up of time appears. In other words, action is manifest at the place through which time appears to stream and in which its moments appear to well up as present and actual. Insofar as this is my place, the welling up appears as the welling up of my action. It appears as the action of the cogito of my central ego. Given that this ego is, itself, established by the streaming of what comes to be taken as its cogito, we can see why it is never without its cogito. The central ego is not just the place of the streaming of the cogito, it is also the place which is established by what, in this very establishment, comes to be regarded as its "I do." Thus, situated in this place, which is that of the appearing nunc stans, it "continually" acts. Indeed, the cessation of its action would be its own loss of place, i.e., its dissolution as a central ego. Returning to our comparison with Kant, we can see why, in this context, the appearing actor is the same as the actually existing actor. The latter, qua individual, is not a noumenal subject which is somehow to be seen as "behind" the streaming of its acts. His existence is actually co-given with such streaming. Thus, when we search for something behind the appearing action, we do not find a self at all. We find what is prior to every individual entity or process. This, in fact, is why this prior factor's predicates are predicates of the appearing individual. Individuals cannot be predicated of individuals. What can be predicated is that which is common to many individuals, a one which appears in the many. When we apply this to the original now in its relation to the phenomenal being of subjects, we do

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not just claim that its pre-individual processes are the common origin of such being. We also claim that its processes appear within it, i.e., appear as features predicable of its individual existence. The result of the above is that we can predicate timelessness of the appearing ego. This, however, does not rule out this ego's undergoing a certain temporalization. Because it cannot exist without its cogito, it must "continuously act." The result of this action is its extended temporal environment, an environment in which it can be seen as "co-temporalized." In Husserl's words: In the constancy of the primal phenomenon in which I am the active now, there springs forth the act as a temporalized process. In its temporality, I myself have my position in time. I am, in a certain sense, a co-temporalized ego. With the extended egological act, I have my extension, my temporal duration. Thus, I am given to myself as an existent extended through time-streamingly given as what has just past away and yet persis tingly exists. This means that I am given to myself as the "nunc stans" which is presently graspable, capable of being experienced, thematized by me; this, in new acts which, when I allow them to actually spring forth from me, become immediately temporalized, and so on again and again (Ms. B III 9, pp. 25-26, Oct.-Dec., 1931). We can explicate this passage in terms of our assertion that the cogito is the temporal appearance of the functioning ego. The cogito's welling up is this ego's exhibition when, in its functioning, it assumes the position of the active now. The welling up is the exhibition of this now's production of time. Concretely this means that my givenness as active, i.e., as the welling up of the cogito, is the givenness of the streaming away of my acts from myself. The self-temporalization this involves results in my temporal selftranscendence and, with this, in my becoming "objective" to myself. In other words, when viewed in terms of the temporal environment which is its result, my streaming can be regarded as temporally extended. Since this streaming is my temporal appearance, I can say that "I am given to myself as an existent extended through time." The result is my self-constitution as an objective, persisting being. This, by implication, is my constitution as a concrete, individual being in time. When Husserl, in this context, speaks of his being "presently graspable" as a nunc stans, his reference is to this objectively extended temporal being. More precisely, it is to the nunc stans which stands over against him as he recalls his past action. As we earlier put this, "In all remembrances of my past acts, I always appear as occupying the here and the now of such acts" (See above, p. 101). It is as

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their O-point that my being as a nunc stans can be "thematized"-i.e., be made the subject of an act of identification which brings together the self I recall and the self I am. The possibility of such identification does not cancel my central anonymity, since whenever I confront myself in recollection, the self I recall is one who could not, when he functioned, grasp his central being. Thus, even when I do thematize my extended being, I still appear as the anonymous center of such being. This center can be said to "persist" through the "times" which are recalled by me, since, in every remembrance, I always appear as the self-same place where the streaming seems to originate.

§7. lHE LEVELS OF SUBJECTIVE BEING

We can explore the deeper nature of this thematization by restating two items from our last section. The first is the essential anonymity associated with my lack of self-transcendence when I regard my present, "central" being. The second is the constitution of my being-at-the-center through the constitution of my centering environment. If we ask how these two fit together, then, as indicated in our last section, we must say that the ego's constitution is its individualization. It is the determination of anonymity into what each ego can call "this, my anonymity." This conclusion may be put in terms of the fact that the nunc stans (or constant temporal center) is not directly graspable. It is apprehended only insofar as it is constantly undergoing objectification in successive time. In Hussed's words, the apprehension is through "acts ... which become immediately temporalized." Thus, the ego is apprehended as something which "externalizes" or "expresses" itself in its temporalized act-i.e., in the streaming cogito. The latter places it in time-i.e., in a surrounding temporal environment; and it is only in terms of such placing that the ego can be thematized as the place of the cogito. Placed in time, it constantly excapes from this positioning in order to remain at the center of its environment. Its placing and its escape from place give it its status as the now between the streaming past and future. Together they make it into the place of the streaming understood as the welling up of time from time's "midpoint." Another way of expressing this is to say that my being an ego in the central now requires both the objectivity of the constituted as well as the anonymity involved in this now's departure from the objectively known-i.e., the objectively constituted in time. What I can objectively grasp is, first and foremost, my stream of consciousness. The latter is something which I can characterize as a "this." Thus, for Hussed, it is "in relation" to this stream, that the ego can be characterized as this ego-i.e., as "a numerical singular" (see [deen II,

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Biemel ed., p. 110). Its singularity involves its relation to a singular, knowable stream. Now, because this relation is that of its being the stream's center, the ego's anonymity is also required. Anonymity-as implying its departure from the constituted-gives it the temporal distances which are needed for the stream to objectively appear. Without such departure, it itself would not be constantly situated at the appearing stream's center. The ego is, thus, a singular by virtue of an essential anonymity which makes it the anonymous core of a knowable, objective stream. With this, its constitution becomes understood as the specification of anonymity in terms of a knowable and singular stream. For Husserl, of course, the full notion of my subjectivity involves all three of its aspects: ego, cogito, and cogitatum. It includes, therefore, anonymity, streaming, and constituted, objective sense. Their relation can, perhaps, best be seen through the image of peeling an onion. Let us take the outer layers as representing my fully constituted sense as a being in the world, i.e., my sense as an objective, persisting being. Peeling off a few leaves, I find as a presupposition for this sense or (cogitatum) the fact that "I am given to myself as an existent extended through timestreamingly given as what has just past away and yet still persistingly exists" (Ms. B III 9, pp. 25-26, Oct.-Dec., 1931). Proceeding further, I find "the primal phenomenon in which I am the active now." This is the welling up of the moments of time which yield my being as the cogito-i.e., my phenomenal being as "the actor of the 'nunc stans'" (ibid.). From this streaming, I pass to the place of the streaming, the nunc stans or stationary now in which the streaming appears as a welling up. This nunc stans is the very center of the onion. Yet, objectively regarded, it is nothing at all. Once the layers which define it have been peeled away, I am confronted with sheer anonymity. Regarded together with the surrounding layers, it is still this, my anonymity. Without such layers, the this and the my fall away. Thus, it is no longer viewed as the anonymous, stationary center of the flowing time which I have experienced. It is rather the now considered as stripped of its association with every given temporal field. The stationary quality of this now is absolute. It is not, as before, a quality which follows upon our taking up of a particular standpoint in the constitutive relation-that of the "central ego" in a constituted field. In fact, insofar as we have bracketed (or "peeled away") the surrounding layers of constituted time, the relation of constitution has itself been bracketed. With this, even the now's action of constituting the temporal field, i.e., the phenomenon of its welling up, loses its sense. Such welling up cannot be seen as a "departure" or "le~ting loose" since we have bracketed the transcendence, the distance which is the correlate of such departure. The central ego, with its central anonymity, must of course, be

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seen as constituting. It only exists by virtue of the constitution which both establishes it as a center and, by virtue of this, makes it appear as a central source point. The same, however, cannot be said of the now whose anonymity has been stripped of all determination by a streaming field. Its sheer anonymity is devoid of every essential necessity-including that which would require us to consider it as constituting. Placed in time, it will, as a matter of essential necessity, escape from this place. It will appear as a welling up, a letting loose from what will come to be regarded as the place of the central ego. There is, however, no necessity that such placing shall occur. The same point can be made by noting that through an analysis of the essence of "now," we can assert that the now in time is the appearance, the objective expression of the original, anonymous now. We cannot, however, conclude from this that the original now must appear, i.e., must have an objective expression. This follows because, when we bracket constituted time to directly regard its origin, we lose the sense of the now "in time." The time in which the now is placed has been peeled away. As we put this in describing the reduction, the now which is uncovered does not pertain to a moment which "slips into the past." Thus, it cannot be seen as transcending this moment as the latter departs and, hence, as remaining a present "between the past and the future" (See above, pp. 213£). Certainly the reduction, in its penultimate moment, does exhibit the now as "primally temporalizing," i.e., as "primally generating" through its welling up. Welling up is exhibited by regarding, in the context of the present, what appears to transit through the present-i.e., the moments of constituted time. When, however, we abstract from all consideration of such moments, even the phenomenon of their constitution as a welling up or letting loose disappears. The now is primally generating; but its own being, as revealed by the final moment of the reduction, does not demand that it be such. Like the alphabet of contents, its being is independent of its constituted results. Thus, its stationary presence is not a stationary being-at-thecenter, a feature which demands the placing and escape from place which characterizes the central ego. Existing prior to its constitutive results, the now's stationary presence requires no constitutive action at all. Stripped of all relation to a temporal field, the now that remains as our residuum can be said to be unique. There is no "present" beyond itself which would allow it to be seen as a one among many. Its stationary quality includes, then, the notion that there is nothing beyond itself into which it could move or be placed. We can also say that since all the moments of time outside itself have been bracketed, this now represents, in its presence, the whole of time. By definition, such a whole cannot "become" or change itself into another time. To add a further element to

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its description, we note that this reduced now is both pure "presence" and pure"absence." This description is not a contradiction, since the references of these terms are different. "Absence" refers to the lack of objective presence; it is the absence of entities understood as beings within time. Their absence is a result of the absence of an absence, i.e., the absence of those temporal distances which would allow temporal beings to appear. Here, we may take the peels of the onions as representing constituted layers of being. When we do so, this nothingness at the heart of the onion signifies a nothingnes at the heart of being. It is the absence of individual beings (Seienden). To turn to the other term of our description, we observe that this absence or nothingness is, itself, a result of the residuum's (the reduced now's) sheer, unique presence. It is a function of its uniqueness insofar as that which does not have a present beyond itself does not allow of the temporal distance-the "opening," as it were-into which a being could appear. Thus, if we assert that being (Sein), as opposed to individual beings (Seienden), is understood as presence, we must take this objective nothingness as a feature of the absolute, unconditioned being of the residuum. It is, in other words, a feature of its ousia (or being) understood as parousia (or presence).6 A further element must be added if our image of the onion is to represent the relation of the layers of subjective being. The image is static while the relation is dynamic. We must, then, imagine our onion as set in motion, as constantly moving outward from its anonymous core. This motion represents the continuous passage from ego to cogito to cogitatum. Temporally, it represents the passage from what Husserl calls the "nontemporal" or "super temporal now" to the "active now" and, thence, to the now that is regarded as fixed in the order of time. Each of these notions of the now corresponds to a particular notion of the subject-the subject regarded as ego or cogito or cogitatum. The actively functioning subject involves all three. More precisely, its temporalization involves it in a continuous transition from one to the next. Thus, the cogito appears as a streaming which fixes itself in the cogitatum-i.e., in a stable, persisiting unity of sense. Similarly, the ego appears as that which "expresses" itself in its acts. Indeed, insofar as it is experienced as objectifying or incarnating itself in time, it can be "thematized" as a point of passage between the nontemporal and the temporal. The ego can be taken as the place where anonymity transforms itself into what can be temporally grasped. The above allows a certain insight into Husserl's remarks on the uniqueness of the ego. At issue in our discussing these was the referent of his assertion: "In an absolute sense, this ego is the only one". Is this ego mine, or is the referent to something which surpasses me? In a certain sense, we cannot directly answer this question. Insofar as I thematize my

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ego as a point of passage, I take myself as standing between what is the "only one" and what is one among many. For Husserl, as we stated, the uniqueness of the ego is tied to its anonymity. It is uniquely singular insofar as it is not objectively present but, rather, a "presupposition" for objective presence. In other words, its unique singularity is a function of its absence from the realm of temporally constituted, individual beings. Thus, to the point that the ego is temporally incarnate, it is not uniquely singular. The constituted ego has its "temporal position," its "extension" in time. Regarded in terms of the objective, temporal continuum, it can be taken as expressing just one of many possible positions or extensions. Turning to the thematically given ego, we see that it has neither the numerical singularity of being just one among many nor the unique singularity of being "the only one." It is at the borderline of a process that begins in uniqueness and ends in individuality. In other words, as the place of the streaming, I am between the designations "one in many" and "the only one." Thus, because my own status is ambiguous with regard to such terms, I cannot unambiguously state my relation to "the only one." If I attempt to place my being on one side or the other of this divide, I still cannot escape this ambiguity. As we cited Husserl, "I exist in the streaming creation of transcendence, of self-transcendence" (Ms. C 7 I, p. 5, June-July, 1932). What this means is that I have to say that "it is from me that time is constituted." Yet, I also have to claim that my full subjectivity involves my being a result of this constitution. Insofar as my being involves my functioning core, it is, as Husserl says, a "surpassing" being (l1bersein). Thus, concretely taken, I am transcendency in motion. Existing in the process which creates transcendence, I exist in the constant motion which proceeds from anonymity and uniqueness to objectivity and individuality. This cannot be otherwise if I include the ground of time and if the very process which moves me from ego to cogito and, thence, to cogitatum is temporalization. My temporalization must result in my progressive constitution as a this. In other words, as involved in the process of temporalization, "I" am constantly on the move towards the self-limitation of temporal incarnation. The description of this "I" is, then, necessarily ambiguous in the sense that either we take it as borderline or, in attempting to unambiguously fix it, we find that it constantly changes.

§8. COINCIDENCE IN THE GROUND-COINCIDENCE WITH OTHERS

The fact that the subject is constantly in motion does not mean that we cannot perform the reduction, that we cannot, through its practice, regard

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the origin of this motion. As part of the process of the subject's becoming incarnate, this origin can be called "subjectivity." The reduction to the living present is the radicalized reduction to that subjectivity in which everything is accomplished which is valid for me-i.e., to that subjectivity in which all ontological sense (Seinssinn) is sense for me as experientially apprehended, obtaining sense. It is a reduction to the sphere of primal temporalization in which the first and originary (urquellenmllssige) sense of time comes forward-time as the living, streaming present. All further temporality-be it "subjective" or "objective," whatever be the sense which these words might take on-receives its ontological sense and validity from this present (Ms. C 3 I, pp. 3-4, 1930). The explicit claim of this passage is that, if I do identify my subjectivity with the living present, then I identify it with the source of ontological sense and validity for me. This source is the temporal dimension of my coincidence with my ground. For Husserl, as we recall, this ground is "the pre-being which bears all being, including even the being of the acts and the being of the ego, indeed, the being of the pre-time and the being of the streaming of consciousness [understood] as a being (Ms. C 17 IV, p. 4, 1930). Identified with subjectivity, this "pre-being" still holds its position as the origin of all the ontological sense assumed by the words "subjective" and "objective". With this, we have the claim which the context of the above passage makes explicit. As the origin of the senses which pertain to all individual existents, the ground (i.e., the living present) is prior to such. It is not, then, my living present. When, in self-meditation, I return to my living present in its full concreteness, the living present as the primal ground and source of everything which presently and actually obtains for me as a being, then I find that this present is not mine as opposed to that of other human beings. And it is not mine as the present of an existent [individual] human being with a body and a soul (Ms. C 3 I, p. 3). In its concrete presence as a primal ground and source, it is, in fact, preindividual. To continue to call this ground "subjectivity" is, first of all, to remind oneself that it is uncovered by the reduction. Within me-i.e., within my subjectivity-the reduction discovers what is prior to me. I call this "subjectivity" insofar as it is at the core of my functioning being. Its welling up results in the appearance of my welling up. Having established my tem-

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poral environment, it becomes the welling up of the "middle point," i.e., the welling up of the ego taken as the place of the cogito. This place, we can say, is coincident with that which establishes it. It is coincident with its source, which means that it is coincident with that which is prior to the distinction between self and others. As such, it does not just express the point of my coincidence with my ground. It expresses my coincidence with Others-in Husserl's words, "my 'coincidence' ('Deckung') with Others on the original level of constitution, my coincidence, so to speak, before there is constituted a world for myself and Others" (Ms. C 17 V, p. 3D, 1931).

This coincidence is in terms of the source of the temporalization which, in producing different, content laden environments, results in different egos. Each of the latter can call this source "mine" since its welling up appears as his welling up. Yet the central anonymity common to each place of this welling up still points back to a level of mutual coincidence. Anonymity, as we have said, signifies a lack of self-transcendence. Thus, each subject, in regarding his own central being, does not find those temporal distances which would allow him to formulate the distinction between ego and object. This means that he cannot speak of his Other as somehow standing over and against himself. The source, when taken as prior to those temporal distances which result from its streaming, must be regarded as prior to every thesis of objective being, every thesis of individual, persisting being. Husserl puts this in terms of the atemporality or lack of temporal extension of the ego pole. There is, indeed, community [of self and Others]-the word "coincidence" has, unfortunately, the connotation of extended coincidence (Deckung in Extension), of association .... [The ego's] life, its appearances, its temporalization have an immanent extension in the stream's time, and so does that which is within the stream as something materially, temporally constituted. Everything which is temporalized, everything temporalized by the streaming modes of appearances within the immanent temporal stream and then, once again, by the 'external' (spatial-temporal) appearances, has a unity of appearance [and hence] a temporal unity, a duration. [But] the ego as a pole does not endure. Therefore, also my ego and the other ego do not have any extensive distance in the community of our being with each other. But also life, my temporalization, has no distance from that of the Other. (Ms. C 16 VII,'pp. 5-6, May, 1933). Our coincidence or community (Gemeinshaft) is, as indicated, our lack of self-transcendence vis-a-vis our present being. It is the lack of those temporal distances which could distinguish us.

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The final assertion that not just ego poles, but also lives-i.e., temporalizations-are in community returns us to Hussed's claim that we can speak of a "temporalization of temporalizations, a temporalization of the primally temporalizing primordialities, i.e., an inner communion (Vergememshaftung) of the same" (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934, HA XV, p. 668). We, thus, have the assertion of "a single, stationary primal aliveness-that of a primal present which is not a modality of time." This is "the aliveness of the totality of monads" (ibid.). The claim that monads temporalize and, hence, share a "life" in common comes from the fact that we cannot distinguish them once we limit our regard to the source of their temporalization. Our temporalizations could be distinguished if each of us could assert that his temporalization was the result of his activity. For Hussed, however, the reverse is the case. Each subject appears as individually active because of a prior temporalization. It is the latter which results in his "phenomenal being" as a source point, as a welling up within a specifying environment. When we bracket this environment-i.e., peel the onionwhat remains, as we noted, is a present which does not have a beyond. The temporal distances which would allow us to distinguish this present from other such presents have been stripped away; and, with this, we lose the condition for regarding the ego as one among many actors. "His" action, in other words, no longer possesses the temporal determinants which would make it his. The claim of the above is remarkable. We search almost in vain for language to describe it. Fink expresses it in terms of the "idea of a primal ego, a primal subjectivity," one which is "prior to the distinction" between self and Others (see note 1 to the Introduction). This idea is not a metaphysical abstraction, but rather something which the reduction exhibits. The latter displays the uniqueness of the functioning which results in the plurality of individual lives considered as temporally extended, persisting phenomena. Thus, following Fink, we can say that the "primal ego" is the ego of coincidence, the coincidence of the anonymous centers of these extended lives. We can say that the welling up of these centers, when differentiated by differing contents, results in the plurality of persisting lives; yet, before this differentiation, we really cannot speak, in the plural, of centers at all. Hussed, himself, chooses the language of "modes" of the "absolute." "The absolute itself," he writes, "is this universal, primordial present"i.e", the present in which egos are in coincidence (Ms. C I, HA XV, p. 668). Each individual, temporally extended life is seen as a "mode," a way in which the absolute expresses itself in a given, persisting subjectivity. This language, we may recall, appears in a position which we noted in our third chapter (See above, pp. 152f). There, the absolute is seen as the "life"

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which individuals live and temporally express. We, thus, have the concept of "the absolute eternally persisting in the unending changes of its modes, at first through ordinary death and birth, but also through the birth and death of humanities ... "(Ms. C 17 V, p. 47, 1931). In itself, however, the absolute does not persist. It persists only in its constituted, temporalized expressions. The latter endure, i.e., have their defined "life times." The absolute, like the ego poles whose coincidences it expresses, is prior to such enduring. Thus, "persistence" applies immediately to individual lives and only mediately to the absolute insofar as it is their "aliveness." Husserl uses the word, erfallen-to fill up, impregnate, fulfill, accomplish or realize-to express the relation between the two. The absolute is "now," persisting in the streaming changes of its modes. Awakeness, sleep, death as [its] modes. Eternity, non-temporality, and temporality. The all-temporal identity of structure; the invariant forms of the totality of temporality and the temporalized. What is is invariably stationary and remaining fills up (erfallt), stationary and remaining, a transcendental-absolute egological community. It accomplishes (erfallt) a stationary-remaining coexistence of egological subjects of an experiencing (or conscious) life; this, in the stationary and remaining steaming of a primal present (ibid., pp. 21-22). Interpreting Husserl, we can say that the absolute's "aliveness" (Lebendigkeit) refers to its constant generation of the moments of time. It is the process of temporalization considered at its origin. What this process "fulfills" or "accomplishes" is, first of all, the creation of those temporal distances which result in the "over and against" of objectivity and, hence, distinguish each ego, qua subject, for all that is not itself. The process is, secondly, the accomplishment of the very persistence through time by virtue of which the absolute can be said to persist "in" its temporalized modes.?

§9. COINCIDENCE AND PRIMAL EMPATHY

The notion that there is no extensive distance between ego poles raises the question of empathy. Such poles exist in a streaming present, a present that manifests the "aliveness" just defined. Husserl asks, "Does there also pertain to this [present] empathy understood as a primal empathy-not the empathy which is explicating-but rather a primal intentionality, a manifestation of the continuity with Others ... ?" (Ms. C 17 V, p. 32,

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1931). The "explicating" empathy functions in the analogous transfer of sense to the Other. It explicates the Other's bodily behavior by attempting to transfer to him my own sense of self as an embodied subject. The question is whether there is an empathy before this-i.e., an empathy which exists before the constitution of the embodied behavior which the second empathy interprets. The same question is put in terms of the functioning of the present in which I exist, i.e., the functioning which is prior to the realities which stand over and against me. Husserl asks: "Am I only conscious of Others in the way that I am conscious of other realities? Am I not conscious of Others in my functioning ... ?" (Ms. B I 22, V, p. 22, 1934). These questions are only rhetorically posed. Their answer is known from the start. Thus, for Husserl, once "I deconstruct [the constituted world] and return to the primordial," I find that "in the realm of the primordial, there also belongs all my empathy" (Ms. C 17, II, p. 2, ca. Jan. I, 1931). At the center of my primordiality is my functioning. Expressed in its terms, the assertion of empathy becomes the claim: " ... in the primally performing life of functioning, I am conscious of my "we" and nonreflectively conscious of myself as a functioning ego" (Ms. B I 22, V, pp. 21-22). This nonreflective self-consciousness refers to the distinction between consciousness taken "as functioning and taken as an 'accomplishment' of this functioning." Husserl reminds us that "the correlate of a performing is not [itself] a performing. The ego as a theme of reflection, as a theme of the performance springing from reflection, is no longer the primal, constantly performing ego who is nonreflectively aware of himself" (ibid., p. 21). The focus of this nonreflective self-consciousness is, then, my anonymity. I am nonreflectively aware of myself as a functioning which escapes every designation as a nameable, objectively given "this." Thus, the claim that I am aware of Others in my functioning is not a claim regarding an objective presence. The "we" is not present as a constituted result of my functioning. It is not grasped through a synthesis of temporally given, departing experiences which, in their departure, stand over and against my primal functioning. The assertion is that both the "I" and the "we" are present in this functioning quite apart from what it constitutes. The nature of this presence can be specified by recalling Husserl's words, "When ... I return to my living present ... , [it] is not mine as opposed to that of other human beings" (Ms. C 3 I, p. 3). It is not one among many such presents, i.e., the presents of many distinct subjects. Rather, it is uniquely one. Granting this, we can say with Husserl: "I experience Others and, naturally, with regard to myself, I have self-experience. I discover that 'in my now, I experience the Other' and his now. I discover my

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now and his now as existing in one ... " (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 332). This experience of Others is Husserl's "primal empathy," an empathy which is prior to that which explicates the constituted, objective senses which pertain to self and Others. At the basis of such senses is the functioning which constitutes them. At the basis of this last is the unique living present in which all functioning poles exist in coincidence. Empathy-Ein-fablung-means literally feeling or experiencing in another. Here, it is interpreted on the level where the functioning nows of ego poles are seen as "existing in one" underlying now. Accordingly, to say that I experience Others in my functioning is to say that when I am nonreflectively aware of myself, I am aware that "my ego and the Other's ego do not have any extensive distance in the community of our being together" (Ms. C 16 VII, p. 6). Because of this, there is a common constitution of those senses which individual subjects explicate in later, less primordial acts of empathy. The fact that they do share senses in common points to primal empathy and the common temporal origin of such senses. The main point here is that subjects can experience themselves as grounds of the world-i.e., of its senses. They can grasp themselves, not as worldly individuals, but as prior to such. Granting this, my self-experience as a functioning ground is also my experience of Others insofar as the distinction, self and Others, does not yet obtain on the level which is constitutively prior to individual givenness. We can, thus, say that the assertion of an "I" is, on this level, the assertion of a "we"-or, rather, it is the assertion of neither considered as separate individuals. For Husserl, then, I am the sub;ect who produces the world which obtains for me. ... I

am such, however, on the underlying basis (Unterground) of an intentional producing (Bildung) of pre-worldly being understood as a founding (Fundierung) of the latter. In this founding, my Others first exist for me.... Within the primordial "world" ... is founded empathy, the apprehension of the Other. Therein, primordial nature, which is other as a nature which contains another ego, achieves its existential obtaining through a modification (appresentation). [Before this founding] the ego [is] in coincidence with Others (Ms. B III 4, pp. 65-66, ca. Sept. I, 1933).8 Interpreting Husserl, we can say that before there is given the explicating empathy which appresents the Other, the Other as other (as fremde) does not existentially obtain for me. Before this, he only "exists," so to speak, in the coincidence which is at the origin of all production understood as

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founding. Thus, it is only retrospectively that I can speak of a "we" on the original level. What I require to do so is, as initially noted, a sense of the motion of the reduction (see above, pp. 21£). This is a motion which brings me from the intersubjective world with its Others back to the original residuum. It is in terms of this movement that I can see the residuum as containing my Others, not explicitly but rather implicitily as their ground. Otherwise expressed: When I reverse the sense of direction of this movement, I see the residuum as productive. It is understood as engaged in the process of founding or constituting the "pre-worldly being" which will ultimately yield self and Others. § 10. UNIVERSAL AND PRIMORDIAL TIME

When we speak of an objective, common time, we think of a common ordering of temporal positions, one which is the same for the objects we experience. Time is considered as that in which things are ordered. Thus, according to their temporal positions, events can be considered as successive or simultaeous. The same point holds when we speak of the simultaneity of subjects and observe that their sense of the passing of time seems to come from the changing, successive quality of their experiences. 9 Husserl writes, "In the broadest sense, the form of the universal coexistence of all the souls is the universal time which is contained within the souls themselves as experience (Ms. C 17 I, Sept., 1931, HA XV, p. 334). Here, the assertion of a universal time becomes that of a common timing of experiences. Each co-present subject experiences the world "at the same time" as his Others, each experiences world-time as something common insofar as the experiences of each have been simultaneously temporalized. Concretely, this means that the experiences of each undergo change at the same equitable rate. For each, a momentary experience changes into a just past experience, and thence into a just, just past experience, and so on in such a way that temporal coincidence obtains not just in a shared present but also in the moments which preceded this. This simultaneous temporalization is, of course, nothing other than Husserl's "temporalization of temporalizations." To assert it is to assert "a temporalization of the prim ally temporalizing primordialities, i.e., an inner communion of the same" (Ms. C I, Sept. 22-23, 1934, HA XV, p. 668). The leading idea here is that of reduction. The claim of a universal objective time is reduced to a corresponding claim about the experiences which constitute objects. It becomes an assertion about the synchronization of subjects' experience. This is seen as a temporalization of temporalizations. It is a temporalization of the flowing and passing away of the experiences by which each subject obtains his sense of the temporality

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of experienced objects. What is the phenomenological basis for this synchronization? Can we reduce it to something which we directly experience? For Husserl, the answer is provided by the reduction to the origin of time. At the basis of our objective temporal coincidence is a pre-objective coincidence in the original now. Our experience of our oneness in this now is also a primal empathy by which we grasp the unity of our temporalizations . . . . this universal time ... is a higher order time which has sprung from the intentional coincidence of souls in their being for one another. The primal source point of this temporal constitution is, for each, the experience of his primal modal present and the ability of each to experience Others, other egos, other concrete monadic souls. It is the ability, first of all, to "perceive" Others, i.e., the ability, within one's living present, to experience Others in a primal manner and, with this, to experience the primal coexistence of one's own and the Other's being (Ms. C 17l, Sept., 1931, HA XV, p. 334).

For Husserl, subjects are in "intentional coincidence" by virtue of the fact that the intentions they form are temporally coincident. This means that the experiences constituting such intentions are timed together. It is because of this that they can be said to simulaneously intend one and the same object. Now, the evidence for such objective simultaneity is not, ultimately, a matter of such worldly phenomena as making appointments and keeping them. A subject who always temporalizes his world faster or slower than Others would not experience this on a worldly level. The flow of experiences which gives him his sense of world-time would not per se contradict this sense. What is required is our ability to experience, not the results but the "primal modal present" which is the source point of temporal constitution. It is the coincidence of subjects in this present which makes their experience of this present an implicit experience of Others. Thus, at the basis of an assertion of intersubjective time is an experience of an underlying unity. It is an experience of the oneness of the present in which each co-present subject functions as an experiencer. We, thus, return to the remark we cited at the beginning of this chapter: "Everything is one-the absolute in its unity; the unity of an absolute self-temporalization, the absolute in its temporal modalities temporalizing itself in the absolute stream, the 'stationary aliveness' of the primal present, of the absolute in its unity-the unity of everything!-which in itself temporalizes and has temporalized everything that is anything" (Ms. C I, HA XV, p. 668). This passage continues with a listing of the results of this

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absolute temporalization: the '''human' totality of monads," "reason," and "history in the strict (prllgnanten) sense." All of these are termed "levels" of the absolute. They are such insofar as they are manifestations of its original unity. Thus, humanity, understood as an interrelated totality of subjects who are "for one another," is such by virtue of a common temporalization. The appearance of reason, understood as a progessive unfolding and systematization of our common "logic of experience" is also a result of the original unity of temporalization. So is history, taken as a collective accomplishing of interrelated, human goals. None of this would be possible without the coincidence of the intentions of subjects. This means that each subject must be able to say, "In my multiple experiences [forming my intentions,] I experience a world in union (in eins) with Others, Others whom I co-experience as existing in the world" (Ms. A V 5, March 7-9, 1930, HA XV, pp. 64:"65). Husserl, in seeking an evidential basis for this assertion, examines "my subjective temporality as the form of my phenomena." He finds a "we-present, a we-past, a we-future." He then asserts, "Everyone in his immanent present finds this immanent present in coincidence with the present of every other person and finds it enclosed in the present as an intersubjective present" (ibid., pp. 65-66). These last remarks are from a manuscript directed "to the beginning of the 'Second Meditation'" (ibid., p. 64). It is as this point that the Meditations raises the problem of transcendental solipsism. Thus, in the second section of this meditation, Husserl writes of the phenomenology which results from the reduction, "Certainly, it begins as a pure egology and as a science which, so it seems, condemns us to solipsism, albeit a transcendental solipsism" (eM, Strasser ed., p. 69). The question he faces is how, without abandoning the reduction, he can escape from this solipsism. Here, his answer is that, temporally speaking, the experience uncovered by the reduction is not, at its lowest level, private or "merely" subjective. At this level, experience has a "we" character, one corresponding to a "wepresent." The answer, in other words, is the same as that which can be drawn from a passage cited in our last section: "I discover that 'in my now, I experience the Other' and his now. I discover my now and his now as existing in one (in eins), so also my appearances and his, my appearing [object] as obtaining for me and his [as obtaining for him], but both as the same" (Ms. C 17 I, Sept., 1931, HA XV, 332). This sameness is temporal. What is the same is the streaming departure of appearances, the very departure which is at the basis of our sense of time. The object which is grasped as a unity of the departing appearances is taken as that which persists in time, i.e., persists through the temporal distances created by this

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constant departure. Thus, the temporal sameness in our grasp of the appearing object is a function of the unity of our nows, i.e., of our having one and the same living present from which such departure is ascertained. With this, we also have the temporal dimension of the answer to the objection: Can I not think of an Other who is genuinely Other-i.e., an Other whose constitutive style is radically different from my own? As already noted, the lack of any objective, worldly evidence to support this hypothesis does not dismiss it. My constitutive processes might cover up those of the Other. Since my objective evidence is based on such processes, I cannot expect it to point outside of itself to something radically distinct. Against such a view, Husserl writes: Every other ego possesses an egological structure, one which I apodictically grasp as an essential structure within me.... I cannot think of the Other as other, for--in a primordiality and in a common, synthetically harmonious, intersubjective world existing in this [primordiality of the] living present, in this [present's] previous self-temporalization and in this [present's] apodictic anticipation of my future-there exists apodictically for me an intersubjective and objective world, a world which contains all Others in the same style of being, the style of the living present, etc. (Ms. K III 12, pp. 3334, 1935). Reduced to its essentials, the claim of this passage is that I cannot think of an Other as other and think of him as engaged in this living present. The givenness of the latter is, as already noted, the givenness of a "we-present" and, with this, the givenness of a "common ... intersubjective world existing in this living present." To affirm the genuine otherness of the Other, I must, then, assert that his style of being is not that of my own-i.e., is not a being-in-and-through the living present. For Husserl, such an assertion is impossible. There is no factual basis which could give it any meaningful content. The appeal, here, is not to my constituted worldly experience, but rather to the functioning which is at the basis of all my constitution. lO At the heart of my constitution is the fact of my living present. It is what I affirm each time I assert that I presently function. Here, we may recall that facticity is not something determined beforehand by the essence. It is what is given as a presupposition for all "free variation," conceived as a process of uncovering the essence or eidos. Thus, I must take account of the constant factual givenness of my living present in every thought which I can have of possible Others. In Husserl's words:

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The possibilities of varying in imagination the eidos [of a possible ego] do not float free in the air. They are rather constitutively related to me in my facti city, in my living present which I factually live, the living present which I apodictically encounter along with everything lying within it which can be uncovered (Ms. K III 12, p. 35).

When, in thought, I attempt to eliminate the fact of this living present, I do not conceive of a possible variant of myself, one which could stand as a conceivable alter ego. The elimination of this fact is the elimination of my functioning. It is a cancellation of my ego's aliveness. Given this, a conceivable Other who is alive, who is engaged in functioning, must be an Other who exists in the living present. The same point holds, mutatis mutandis, for the Other's "egological structure"-i.e., its "style of being" as temporally constituting insofar as this is identified with "the style of the living present."ll Carefully regarded, the "fact" of the living present is rather special. I can conceive of its elimination with regard to my surrounding world; I can think of it as ceasing to animate my acts. I cannot, however, vary this fact in the way that I can vary other facts. Other facts have some given objectively representable content. In the free play of fantasy, I can take the features or arrangements of these and imagine them otherwise. Directly regarded, my living present offers no such opportunities. It "lives" by transcending such objective features, by constantly being "ahead" of them. Because of this, its life and its anonymity are one and the same. Thus, I cannot use it to imagine a possible Other who is other in the fact of his living present. We say essentially the same thing when we assert that I cannot vary my being in the living present so as to yield the thought of a functioning Other who is not in the present of "my" functioning. Both presents must be taken as the same since in the absence of any nameable content, there is no possibility of a distinct "mine" and "thine." With this, Husserl's answer to the solipsistic objection is thus seen to turn on an "absolute fact" which underlies and yet is distinct from the nameable, objectively describable facts I can encounter. § 11. CONTINGENCY AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE

The distinction between the fact of the living present and all other facts I encounter turns on a traditional, yet important, distinction. This is the difference between essence and existence, i.e., between what a thing basically is and the fact that it is.12 The underlying "what/, defined as the

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essence, can be uncovered through the process of free variation. The latter allows us to take a given fact and to distinguish between the accidental and the essential. The accidental can be varied without changing the thing's being what it basically is-e.g., its being a spatial-temporal object; the essential cannot. Thus, I cannot say that a spatial-temporal object can show itself only from one side, that it has no "back." To admit this kind of variation is to cancel per se the notion of its spatial-temporality. As indicated in our last section, this process of free variation can be applied to every fact with a nameable, objective content. Given such content, we can always proceed from the accidental to the essential. It is only when confronting the fact of the living present that such variation becomes impossible. The present's lack of objective content thus points to an absence of any uncoverable essence. It indicates that this present does not tell us what a thing is. In characterizing a thing as present, we simply pronounce on whether it is, i.e., on the fact of its being presently or actually existent. A strict phenomenological account of this distinction can be given by recalling Husserl's "transcendental interpretation" of the essence. The latter is taken as expressing the "essential connections" of experience which must be present if a thing with a particular essence is to appear. In other words, the essence is a rule for ordering our experiences in time, a rule which is required if a particular, synthetically constituted "what" is to be experienced. Thus, if I am to experience a spatial-temporal object, myexperiences must be connected so as to form a perspectivally ordered series. The essence of a spatial-temporal object, qua spatial-temporal, is the rule for the perspectival unfolding of its contents in time. Now, if we say that an object exists, it is "because, constantly becoming, it passes from presence to presence." As we recall, an existent or entity (Seiendes) signifies a "persisting presence" (see above, p. 214). It exists because it is now and continues to be now. This means that its existence or actuality is such nowness. As we cited Husserl, nowness per se is the "primally generating," if anonymous, cause of an entity's being present and actual. "Itself streaming," it is "actuality in the strict worldly sense of 'being present'." "It is actuality in the proper sense as that which is primally productive." "Primally temporalizing," it is the act of the entity's existence since its action of producing the distinct moments of time allows an entity to be continuously now as a persisting presence (see above, pp. 216f). Granting this, a concrete being is both existence and essence. Existence (or continued nownessl is required if it is to pass from presence to presence. Its essence is required as an ordering of contents involving this passage. What existence does is make the essence into a rule that obtains for an actually occurring temporal passage. It becomes an actually obtaining "what"-i.e., a rule for suc-

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cessively ordering contents which is embodied in a given, persisting presence. The fact that both existence and essence are required for an entity to be does not mean that they are the same. Existence, by its very anonymity, is other than the nameable essence and, hence, is other than the finite entity which possesses a definite essence. Let us put this in terms of the persisting presence of a spatial-temporal thing. This entity persists through the departure of its contents in time. The fact of this departure results in its objectivity. The order of the departure yields its essence-i.e., its being this rather than that type of objectivity. This departure, however, is a departure from that stationary or non-departing nowness whose action is the act of existence, the very "to be" of the thing. Thus, the thing is objectively present with a definite essence in its constant separation-in its dynamically flowing otherness-from the act of its existence. Another way of expressing this is to say that a thing exists only through a process which constantly surpasses its given being. The process is that of temporalization. Temporalization surpasses the given by constantly giving-i.e., by constantly adding to the given yet another now. This next now is required for a thing's continuous presence; yet it is not inherent in it. The persisting thing is only present through its departure into pastness. But this ongoing departure requires the continuous production of additional moments which, as they become successively past, increase the pastness of those which preceded them. As we just said, the next now or moment is not inherent in the thing's given unity. The latter consists of already given contents and temporal positions, which means that the addition of moments surpasses what is already given in an objective sense. With this, we can say that temporalization is a giving which both surpasses the objective givenness of the thing and, in so doing, brings the latter about. The contingency of a thing follows as a matter of course from the above. What is given is always given as contingent insofar as it relies on an addition to itself for its continuing givenness. Thus, its "to be," understood as the welling up of time in the stationary streaming now, is not inherent in the thing's objective givenness. Its contingency is its dependence in its "to be" on a non-inherent or "external" ground. This contingency is present in the whole of nature considered in its objective character and essential knowability. As Husserl writes in 1935, "But isn't is apparent that the being (the actual existence-die wirklich Existenz) of nature is an open pretension" (Ms. K III 2, p. 9). For Husserl, the pretension involves the fact that "time and world are temporalized in the absolute which is the stationary streaming now" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 670). It involves the fact that "the absolute"-conceived as a pure act-"is nothing but absolute temporalization" (ibid.). The pretension is that this

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temporalization will continue. Nothing in the objectively given world can assure us of its continuance. This follows from the fact that what is at issue is not its givenness, but rather giving-i.e., the constant addition to such givenness. Since the essence of a thing pertains to the ordering of its contents in already constituted time, it pertains to the objective realm-i.e., to the realm of what is already given. As such, its consideration does not remove this "pretension." An appeal to the essential structures of givenness cannot establish that the addition to givenness will continue-i.e., that the given will continue to be present and actual. As Husserl writes of the laws springing from the essence of things: "These laws ... cannot pronounce with regard to an actuality-i.e., whether or not there exists an actuality which corresponds to them. Essential laws possess a meaning for the real if something real (an individual being) can be given which falls under the essence, the ideas" (Ms. D 13 XXI, p. 26, 1907-09). In other words, "such laws ... only specify facts with regard to possibility" (Ms. F I 14, p. 49, June, 1911). The same point is expressed in terms of the transcendental logic which delineates the formal relations between essences once the latter have undergone their "transcendental interpretation": "Transcendental logic, which as transcendental is led back to consciousness, contains the grounds for a possible nature, but none for an actual nature" ("Beilage XX," 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 394). As we recall, the original context of these remarks was Husserl's stress on "factual nature and factual consciousness." Factiticity was ultimate in the sense that it was not determined beforehand by the essence conceived as a rule for connecting experiences. The obtaining of this rule was considered as dependent on the factual-i.e., acutally occurring-course of experiences. We can now say that it is ultimately dependent on the fact of the temporalization which underlies this actual occurring. When we objectively consider an entity's essence, we bracket this fact. We suspend the consideration of the giving by which the entity persists. As such, in considering its essence, we abstract from the consideration of its existence. 13 Thus, an essence, regarded in itself, is no longer a rule for a presently obtaining temporal passage. It has, as we indicated, a hypothetical character. It asserts: If an entity of a certain type is to be given, then a certain ordering of contents in time is required. The giving of the moments of time is not a result of this rule; it cannot be derived from it. On the contrary, it is what the rule itself presupposes for its actual obtaining. Thus, when Husserl writes, " ... the phenomenological a priori consists simply in the essences of the types of consciousness and in the a priori possibilities and necessities based on these essences," the "necessities" referred to are only hypothetical. They

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only specify the "possibilities" of essences being given. The fulfillment of such possibilities requires "the absolute which is the stationary streaming now." It requires, in other words, the act of existence-the fact of the "primal temporalization"-which fulfills the essence by progressively making it be in time as the essence of a persisting entity.14 The situation is no different when we turn from the given to speak of giving in relation to its results. Placed in the given of time, the original now will escape from this place. As a matter of essential necessity, it will appear as a giving, i.e., as a welling up or a "letting loose" from what will come to be regarded as the place of the central ego. This, however, does not mean that the central ego must appear. The most we can say is that if a central ego is given, then it must appear as a "middle point/, i.e., as a central "source point" of constitution. Similarly, we can say that if the original now is to appear as a moment of time, this appearance will not be such as it fix it; it will not make it the last such appearance. This, however, does not remove the "pretension" that temporalization will continue. It does not allow us to assert that the original now must appear, that it must have a relation to the given. Regarded in itself, the original now presents a sheer anonymity, one that is devoid of any tie to the given. Its otherness from that which it objectively constitutes means that, in directly regarding it, we have no phenomenological basis for saying that it must "give"-i.e., that its constitution is a categorical as opposed to a hypothetical necessity. The fact that the original now need not constitute does not mean that it need not be. This would only follow if its being were dependent (somehow grounded) on its results. For Husserl, however, the reverse is the case. The now, conceived as a dimension of the absolute, has an absolute necessity, a necessity corresponding to its complete independence. As Husserl puts this, "The absolute has its ground in itself; and, in its goundless being (grundlosen SeinL it has its necessity as the single 'absolute substance"/ (Ms. EIII 9, Nov. 5,1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 386). This statement can be understood in terms of the principle, "What is ultimately constituting is not, itself, constituted" (Ms. B I 14, XI, Sept., 1935, p. 19). Thus, considered as ultimately constituting, the absolute is without a prior constitutive ground and can be called "ground-less" (grundlos). It can, in other words, be considered as a self-grounded or self-caused "absolute substance/' one having "its ground in itself." Its action, then, is purely spontaneous. It is not contingent on the obtaining of anything outside of itself. This means, as Husserl immediately adds: "Its necessity is not an essential necessity which permits the contingent. All essential necessities are moments of its 'fact' ('Factums'), are modes of its functioning in relation to itself.... ,,15 The functioning referred to is that of primal temporalization.

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The latter results in temporal transcendence and, with this, in objectivity understood as the quality of standing over and against a subject. Insofar as they are objective, all essential necessities are "moments" of the absolute's fact-i.e., are dependent on the fact of its functioning. This, of course, is why such necessities are hypothetical, why they only express possibilities. For actual existence, we require the temporalization which turns a possible ordering of contents in time to an actual ordering. The fact of such temporalization is, thus, prior to all essential necessities as that which allows them, whatever their particular character, to be actually obtaining necessities. It is in this sense that Husserl can speak of "the absolute" as "lying at the basis of all possibilities, all relativities, all limitations, giving them their sense and being" (Ms. C I, HA XV, p. 669). With regard to temporalization, the necessity of the absolute is not that of a specific possibility or specific set of objectively given entities. It is rather that of the presence which makes such be-this no matter what they are. Thus, what we confront in the temporal dimension of the absolute is not a necessity based on essences, but rather one based on existence. In Husserl's words, we confront the necessity of "actuality, itself streaming, in the strict worldly sense of being present." Unlike the essential necessity "which permits the contingent"which itself is contingent on temporalization and which leave open contingency in areas not specified by its general rules-this existential necessity is all-embracing. To express this tautolOgically, everything that is is. The necessity of its being is prior to the obtaining of any further necessities. Considered as the necessity of nowness per se, nowness in its otherness from objectively given entities and their essential structures, it is an absolute necessity. We may express this in terms of the anonymity of such nowness. We can, as we said, conceive of something being different by varying in imagination its objective features. The absence of objective content in nowness per se means that we cannot in this process conceive of it as other than what it is. Can we conceive of it as simply not being? We can, after all, imagine the nonexistence, the permanent absence from nowness, of an entity which once was present. Against such a supposition is the assertion that such nowness is "not a modality of time." Considered in itself, i.e., apart from the time it constitutes, it is absolutely stationary. Thus, its non temporality is its being constantly present. It is its being, in an absolute sense, a "nunc stans." As stationary, it cannot change. What we have been calling its "existential necessity" is, in fact, its inability to depart from the constant nowness which it is. That which can so depart is what it constitutes. Indeed, the latter, as "persisting presence" has its being through departure. This is its lack of existential necessity. Thus, we can say that given that anything is present and actual, the original now must

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be. Its being is such that it must always be-and this, unchangingly. The reverse propostion does not hold. The being of this now does not imply that its constituted results, which lack its necessity, must continue to obtain. As we have delineated it, the situation of the absolute now is exactly parallel to that of the absolute conceived as an alphabet of contents. Both embody a complete independence with regard to the results of constitution. This, indeed, is why the reduction, in bracketing these results, can uncover them. Requiring "no thing in order to exist," they can be viewed apart from every constituted reality. We can also say that both are "ground-Iess"-i.e., are not the result of any prior constituted activity. They are not deteremined beforehand, which means that both may be considered to be "ultimately factual." Their independence, thus, signifies, a certain pure spontaneity. Not tied to what they may result in, they are also not determined by any ground or cause to result in any particular given. In other words, their status is such that they can only result in contingencies in the sense that what may follow from them has, in itself, no necessity. Since what they have already constituted does not determine what they can constitute, their action always contains the possibility of newness. It can surpass what has already been given. These common features point back to the conclusion of our first section. The alphabet, as the origin of content, and the original now, as the origin of time, are both aspects of the absolute which, in every sense, lies "at the basis of all possibilities." They are features of the absolute as the possibility of all possibilities. They are, in other words, ways of regarding its action of grounding every possible relation between content and time. Such relations may result in a synthetic whole-i.e., a constituted given. But they need not. As we said, the moments of time do not, per se, demand that they be filed with some particular experiential content. The contents they bear could result in nothing more than a "tumult," a chaos of experiences. If we ask why this is so, we have to say that the moments, themselves, still have the anonymous character of their origin. They are not contents, but rather containers of contents. As such, they lack the sensuous quality, the given "what," which could allow us to draw a necessary relation between them and what they contain. Thus, there is no possibility of applying a logic of content to this relation. This logic, we recall, specifies the dependence of one type of content on another. It asserts, for example, that if pitch is given, then loudness must also be present. Here, however, we are dealing with a relation between content and the presence which is other than content. This otherness is a function of the moment's original anonymity. It springs from the lack of content which allows it to have a relation to every possible content. It can contain it without altering

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it. That this is so indicates something more than the contingency of an entity's existence tout court. It implies the lack of necessity of its what conceived as an ongoing relation between its content and time. We cannot conclude this section without observing that although we have just spoken of moments as containers, this does not imply that time, per se, consists of discrete units. For Husserl, it does not proceed atomistically, but rather "streams." Behind such streaming is the lack of any inherent distinction between time's moments. Their what-or rather their inherent lack of what-is always the same. Because of this, they form, not a collection but continuum. In a certain sense, such moments can be said to bind a being together as it persists through time. They are its existence; and as long as a thing does exist, it exists continously and not intermittently. This holds even though, at every point, this existence remains contingent. § 12. THE CONTINGENCY OF THE MONAD

The question of the contingency of the monad can be raised in terms of its factual character. What are the possibilities included in the fact that it exists? We can set the context of this question by looking at Husserl's description of this fact. The first thing, then, is the fact of the I am (ego). This fact, however, only exists in the style of infinitely open possibilities which distinguish themselves through the actuality of life itself. All eidetic possibilities are, therefore, pre-contained (im voraus beschlossen) in its style form. They are not individually determined (individuell bestimmt); but as [a subject of] transcendental phenomenology, they are a priori constructable and theoretically graspable. (Ms. B I 13, VI, p. 3, Oct. I, 1931). To understand this passage, we must first observe that its referent is the method of free variation. Husserl is discussing the "disengagement [of the essence] through pure fantasy, the passing over into pure possibilities, the move to the pure ideas" (ibid.). At issue is the relation of "the fact of the I am" to the "pure possibilities" which the essences or "pure ideas" delineate. Now, the fact that I exist is the fact that I am in the stationarystreaming present. The latter is "my living present which I factually live" (Ms. KIll 12, p. 35, 1935). Thus, when Husserl speaks of the "style form" of the fact that I am, his reference is the ego's style of existing in and through this living present. Similarly, the assertion that all eidetic possibilities are pre-contained in this style form is a claim that they are

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pre-contained (or predetermined) by this present. With this, we can understand Husserl's point that they are "not individually determined," but rather "distinguish themselves through the actuality of life itself." Taking this "actuality" as the streaming of time which proceeds from the present's "primal welling up," we can interpret this in terms of our last section. The welling up of time is, we stressed, required if the essenceconsidered as a possible ordering of contents in time-is to appear (or "distinguish" itself) as an actual ordering of conscious life. This means that all eidetic (essential) possibilities are "pre-contained" in the "style form" of the living present since if they obtain, they must obtain through its determination, Le., through the action of its style form. That this action occurs without any necessary relation to a particular content means that it does not determine the ordering of contents-i.e., individually determine the "what" of the essence. Let us restate our question in a more precise form. The passage we cited states that "the fact of the I am"-Le., the fact of the living present" ... exists in the style of infinitely open possibilities." Among the possibilities included in my existence are those of birth and death. How do I understand this? How does the fact of the living present include the contingency of a monad or concrete subject? To understand Husserl's answer, we must distinguish between "the fact of the I am," understood as the fact of the anonymous center of a monad, and the monad itself. The full notion of a monad involves both the thought of a center and that of the content laden time which surrounds it. Considered simply as centers, "monads," as Husserl remarks, "can neither begin nor end." Indeed, so considered, "the transcendental totality of monads is self-identical" (Ms. A V 22, p. 45, 1931). Such a totality is not a plurality at all. It is simply the point of identity of monad with monadLe., the point of coincidence of their anonymous centers in the original present. This present, we stressed, has a categorical necessity. It cannot begin nor end. If we were to assume that the death of a monad meant this present's elimination, then the coincidence of monads would mean that, with his death, all would die. Husserl, of course, does assert that "transcendental totality of monads is contingent" (Ms. K III 12, p. 39, 1935). Yet, given the original present's necessity, we cannot say that the contingency of monads is this present's contingency. Contingency pertains to monads insofar as they are the results of its functioning. Concretely, this means that we do experience the death of Others without our own demise. We continue functioning in the world while Others do not. For Husserl, then, "death ... is an event in the world of humans, in the constituted world" (Ms. A V 20, pp. 23-24, Nov. 18, 1934). It pertains to a monad qua constituted, i.e., it pertains to its temporally extended, content laden life.

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To see this contingency as arising from "the fact that I am," we must turn to Husserl's account of birth and death. His starting point is the ego's being-alive, i.e., its functioning. As we cited him, the living ego "acts, it posits its thesis; and this acting is a letting loose from itself, a primal welling up .... " The welling up of this acting is temporalization. Thus, before its being-alive, i.e., prior to its birth, such temporalization does not occur. Husserl, accordingly, describes birth as a transition from a "primal sleep" to a "primal awakening": The "primally sleeping ego" is "that which possesses nothing as an existent and has nothing pre-given; it is, equally, an ego which is temporalizing nothing and has not temporalized anything as an existent." Because of this, it is an ego which "does not, in any sense, have an actual consciousness of anything and, thus, does not have a habitual directedness to anything. Therefore, it is not even temporalized for itself. In other words, my 'primally sleeping ego' or monad is nothing for itself ... " (Ms. A VI 14, p. 7, 1930). This does not signify that this ego is nothing in itself-i.e., nothing at all. What Husserl is describing is similar to the phenomenon that occurs in the dreamless sleep which does not give any sense of the passage of time. To the point that the sleeping ego does not temporalize-and, hence, does not have a sense of departing time-it may be regarded as a life which is collapsed into its center. In other words, the lack of its functioning implies its reduction to the now which is prior to all objective temporalization. Stripped of its being for itself, its being in itself is its being in the anonymous, original present. The latter remains with its categorical or absolute necessity through all of its contingent expressions. Thus, to the point that the statements about the "primally sleeping ego" have a referent, it is to that now concerning which Husserl writes: "The absolute is 'now,' persisting in the streaming changes of its modes. Awakeness, sleep, death as its modes" (Ms. C 17 V, p. 21, 1931).16 With the mode of awakeness, we do have temporalization. The ego's birth is the beginning of its "primal temporalization." The departure in time brought about by this temporalization creates those temporal distances in which objects can appear, can be temporalized into existents. As awake, my ego can be said to act. With the temporalization inherent in my acts, I can achieve "my being for myself in temporality." In other words, intentionality appears in the form of "consciousness of something"; and this includes my self-objectification-i.e., my being "something for myself, the human self which I now am ... " (Ms. A VI 14, p. 7). The same points, but in reverse order, are made about death. Death is the collapse of the wakefulness just described. In a certain sense, it is a return to the egological state which existed before birth, i.e., before the temporalization which gives the ego its life. It is, thus, the "cessation of all conscious life

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and, with this, also the cessation of the ego as the identical pole of this life and [the cessation] of the capacities pertaining to it" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 8, Oct., 1929, italics added). This is not a collapse into nothingness; it is rather a return to the now which is the independent origin of this life. What remains is the now which, in temporalizing, first resulted in the ego's presence as a pole, i.e., a middlepoint, of its life. The reason why this collapse is a possibility of "the fact of the I am" is that this fact is distinct from what it factually constitutes. The fact in question is the fact of my now; but this now, which is the independent origin of my life, is such by constantly distinguishing itself from my life in its objective givenness. This givenness includes the essential structures or rules for ordering experiences which, with a particular sensuous content, make my life my life. Such structures are part and parcel of my habitualities, my capabilities as an ego pole. The now actualizes them by making them obtain from present to present. It does this, however, only through its constant transcendence of the momentarily present. Husserl, thus, writes, "Present, I exist in continual dying as something present ... " (Ms. D 14, May 7-9, 1934).17 This dying is a "dying away" into pastness of the moments which make up my objective life. It is their separation from the now which is the source of this life. On the one hand, this separation is an absolute necessity if my life is to be objectively given-i.e., exist in time. On the other, this same necessity implies my contingency. All of the arguments of our last section apply here. My life, as inherently other than its constitutive origin, has no inherent claim on this origin. It cannot demand that what is constituted continue to be constituted. Thus, like every other constituted formation, its necessary otherness from that which actualizes it and maintains it in being is its contingency. Such otherness is its lack of any inherent necessity to be or to continue to be. Thus, the essential structures which characterize the necessities of a life have the possibility of no longer having a field of applicability. If they cease to, then a regard to the subject is no longer a regard to a full monad, i.e., to a center and a centering, content laden life. Only the anonymous center remains; and, without its environing life, it can no longer be regarded as this, my anonymity. It becomes anonymity stripped of the "this" and the "my." In other words, it becomes the now which, for Husserl, is before all division into mine and thine. This is the now which "pre-contains" such divisions simply as part of its "infinitely open possibilities."ls We can conclude this chapter by reducing this argument for our contingency to its most elementary terms: The now, which is the source of my self-existence, is always "ahead" of me. Because it is, I cannot seize it so as to fix it as something which I have, once and for all, grasped or acquired.

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Thus, I cannot posit my self-existence with the certainty of a thesis which cannot be overthrown. It must remain a contingent thesis. Behind this reasoning is the point that, from the perspective of the constituted, the now appears as ever new, ever lapsing into pastness, constantly transcending itself and, hence, constantly other than itself. As such, the now appears as the pure form of the factual in its contingency. As we cited Husserl, "facts are contingent." Their very meaning as facts is that "they could be otherwise." From the perspective of the constituted, the ever new now is the very possibility of otherness, i.e., of a new stage for settling the world's accounts. This otherness is a possibility springing from lithe fact of the I am" when we take this fact as including both the original, timeless now and the time it constitutes. Since the original now can remain now only by transcending its objectification in time, it can remain now in time only by appearing as the ever new now of successive time. Taking such newness as facticity, we can say that facticity is the inevitable result of the appearing of the nunc stans in time. Since the fact of our existence is that of such appearing, it includes by definition, our contingency. All of this, of course, is from the perspective of the constituted. Yet, we cannot avoid the conclusion of our contingency when we shift to the standpoint of the original, constituting now. From its own perspective, the original now is never other. It remains continuously now. This nowness, however, is conjoined with anonymity. As such, it lacks any relation to the constituted and, hence, any basis for our supposing that it must continue to constitute. We can also say that the sheer uniqueness of its presence is such that we cannot use it to posit our non-unique, individual existence.

Chapter VI

A SECOND SOLUTION

TO THE PROBLEM OF INTERSUBJECTNITY § 1. lHE QUESTION OF lHE OlHERNESS OF lHE OlHER

IVEN

Hussed's doctrine of the uniqueness of the now in which egos

G function, it is not surprising that the question which initially con-

fronts him is not that of the compatibility of functioning egos. If that by which they function is one, then such compatibility may be assumed. The first question is that of the otherness of egos, i.e., their distinctness as numerical singulars. This, as Hussed remarks, is the "reverse" of the usual way of posing the question of intersubjectivity. We do not, as is usual, first assume a plurality and then pose the question of compatibility. Having performed the reduction on an individual, we rather ask how the structures we uncover must involve a plurality. Thus, for Hussed there is not, first, a plurality of souls and the question: Under what conditions are they "compatible" with one another in their existence? Rather, the question is: When I am certain of a soul and when (in self-giving intuition) I steep myself in its proper essence, how can I gather from this that it is merely "a" soul and can only be as such? How can I infer that this soul must point to other souls in its very essence, that this soul is, indeed, an in-and-for-itself, but yet only has sense in a plurality which is grounded in itself and which must develop from itself (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 20-22, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 341). The problem, here, concerns the "proper essence" of a soul. A regard to it must show that the soul is only "a" soul-i.e., one soul among many. The same regard, however, must also show that this multitude is ground-

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ed in the soul and develops from it. This essence, then, expresses a duality in the soul's relation to the intersubjective plurality. On the one hand, it points to an ultimate ground of the intersubjective plurality; on the other, it points to the soul as a grounded member of such a plurality. We can also say that since this essence involves both the ground and the grounded, it points to what is self-grounding. The essence is such that the soul, in grounding a plurality, includes the ground of its own objectification as a member of this plurality. When we ask how we can "infer" the above from the "self-giving intuition" of a soul's essence, we must keep in mind the duality of ground and grounded. For a soul to ground itself as a member of a plurality, it must, as a ground, contain more than its objectified expression as "a" soul. The possibilities inherent in it as a ground must, in other words, surpass the realization provided by its numerically singular, objective being. If this were not the case, then its objectified expression would be limited to one soul and not to a plurality (see above, p. 193). Thus, on the level of the ground, what Hussed requires to establish the otherness of souls is the evidence of the ground's surpassing quality in relation to its objectified expressions. This evidence can be taken as the contingency of such expressions. As we concluded in our fourth chapter, " ... the acknowledgement of my contingency-i.e., of my being a 'this' rather than a 'that'-implies my ground's surpassing quality." As for the evidence for this contingency, this, according to our last chapter, is provided by the very fact of subjective existence. Since this is the fact of the appearing of the nunc stans in time, it inherently involves contingency. Any direct evidence of the ground's surpassing quality must, of course, involve the reduction. It is the latter which, in exhibiting the ground as the possibility of all possibilities, displays i~ as surpassing the possibilities of a finite subject. What about the level of the grounded-i.e., that of the individual members of the intersubjective plurality? Hussed writes in this regard, "Monads in the plural, coexisting monads as a possibility: inherent in this is that the being of one leaves open the possibility of the being of the other" (Ms. C 17 I, HA XV, p. 335). This leaving open (offen lassen) is, we can say, the objectified expression of the surpassing quality of the ground. If the possibilities of the ground surpass any particular objectified expression, then that expression exhibits this by showing itself as one among many-i.e., as a member of a whole horizon of possible souls. Its status as one expression of a surpassing ground means that it does not exhaust the possibilities of being "a" soul. Its being, qua grounded, thus, allows the inference of alternate possibilities understood as alter egos. According to the above, the notion of grounding on the original, con-

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stitutive level is matched by the notion of "leaving open" on the level of constituted objectifications. If the ground must, through its surpassing quality, objectify itself as a plurality, then each member of this plurality must leave open the possibility of other members. Here, the otherness of ground and grounded is expressed by the surpassing nature of the ground; and this is matched, on the objective level, by the otherness implied in the notion of alternative possibilities. To add a word of caution, this doctrine must not be taken as signifying that its propositions could be verified by two separate regards, one to the ground, another to the grounded. A regard to the ground does not per se, reveal its surpassing quality. Understood as the original present, it represents the "radically pre-egological" level. As such, the individual soul is not, per se present within it. Thus, the individual soul, as that which is surpassed, must be regarded if we are to regard the ground as surpassing. Similarly, to speak of a soul as implying its alternative egos, we must consider both itself and its ground. The latter is what situates it in a horizon of alternative possibilities. The soul implies these, not as an independent "in and for itself/' but rather in its dependence on something greater. With this, we see that it is the full essence of the soul which must be regardedi.e., its essence as containing both ground and grounded. To focus on either is to involve oneself in a certain misplaced concreteness. It is to ask for an evidence of otherness which neither aspect of the soul can provide when separately regarded. l With this proviso, let us take as our focus the leaving open which occurs on the level of the grounded. §2. LEAVING OPEN AND THE NUNC STANS

For Husserl, when I speak of my being as a ground of the world, the reference is to my coincidence with the primal present. The latter forms the nonworldly, anonymous core of my worldly being. It is what gives me my being as a functioning center of my world. Regarded in itself, it does not just ground my world. As we quoted Husserl, there is present "within it ... all time and world in every sense." Thus, to the point that I imply this present, I imply something more than a private ground. Let us put this in terms of the notion of leaving open. When Husserl speaks of the being of one monad leaving open the possibility of the being of another, he adds that "the possibility of my monadic being is present in my actuality ... " (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 20-22, 1931, HA XV, p. 335). I am actual as a functioning center by virtue of my being in the primal present. The claim, then, is that my being in this primal present-i.e., in nowness per se-is, on the objective level, my leaving open the possibility of other individuals in this same nowness. There are a number of ways in which this claim can be understood.

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The first involves an argument which we already mentioned when speaking of a subject's dependence on the stream of experience which passively constitutes his individual life. This dependence signifies that egological being is not within the subject's constitutive powers. He cannot actively constitute either his own or another's life. We can deepen this argument by saying that nowness per se is not within my constitutive powers. The primal temporalization of such nowness is at the origin of the passive constitution of my life. It gives me my being as the center of this life. Yet, as we noted, this nowness is always "ahead" of me. I cannot objectively grasp it. I cannot posit it as my constituted product since, as ultimately constituting, it is not itself constituted. Here, a familiar conclusion arises when we assert that such nowness is my actuality and also claim that "the possibility of my monadic being is present in my actuality .... " It is that the possibility of my monad is the possibility of a contingent entity. My actuality is dependent on a radically pre-egological factor, one which is not a product of my individual activity. In a certain sense, this actuality is not "mine" at all. Identified with nowness per se, it is prior to all division between "mine" and "thine." It is only when we speak of "a" soul that we can speak of a definite possessor. What possesses this nowness is part of the soul insofar as the soul's essence includes its ground. Yet it is also other than the soul insofar as it indicates what is prior to its being "a" soul. Since primal nowness surpasses my constitutive powers as "a" soul, I cannot be said to constitute Others in the nowness of their being. My being as "a" soul, a being which is grounded in a surpassing, pre-egological nowness, thus leaves open the possibility of other souls who are similarly grounded. This means that each soul must be considered as other in the sense that no soul can be considered as the product of other, already individualized souls. The surpassing quality of the ground thus expresses itself in the fact that Others must be regarded as surpassing an individual's constitutive powers. To put the same point in a slightly different fashion, we can say that when we regard the soul's full essence, we regard both the primal, constituting nowness and the individual expression of this which such primal nowness surpasses. In implying more than what the individual can constitutively accomplish, this nowness implies the possibility of this "more" in a specific sense. It implies the possibility of more than one individual soul, more than one specification of primal nowness. A second way to understand the claim of leaving open is in terms of the notion of self-identity. One aspect of my self-identity is given through my thematization as a O-point functioning in time. As we earlier put this, "In all remembrances of my past acts, I always appear as the here and the now of such acts." In a certain sense, what I confront through memory is a plurality of selves. The self's temporalization is its pluralization insofar as

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it constantly situates it in a different environment. This environment results in a succession of central egos. Through memory, I recall distinct members of this plurality. In this situation, thematization is a matter of an act of identification. Apprehending what is the same in all these remembered selves, the act gives me my sense of always being a center in successively different temporal environments. I, thus, achieve my sense of self-identity as a center persisting through time. This identity includes my present being insofar as I also take it as in time, i.e., as a center defined by a surrounding, content laden time. A different aspect of self-identity appears when I examine the origin of time. Here, I focus on my "ego in its most original originality"-i.e., on it in coincidence with primal nowness. As we cited Husserl, such an ego is "not in time." This means that "in its original functioning"-i.e., its functioning in coincidence with the origin of time-"the functioning pole is never in the temporal field" (Ms. A V 5, p. 3, June, 19331. Such functioning results in the temporal field and, hence, in the "apartness of time." When, however, we take it as a feature of the now which is "not a modality of time," we cannot describe in such terms. In Husserl's words, this now's functioning "is 'continuously' being as streaming (Stromendsein), but it is not such in an apartness of being" (Ms. C 3 I, p. 4, 19301. Thus, to affirm the identity of the ego which functions to constitute time, I must assert "a continuity which is basically different than the external continuity of an extension" (Ms. C 16 VII, p. 6, May, 19331. An external continuity gives me my self-pluralization, i.e., my objective self-otherness as a series of past selves. It provides the elements for my identity as a persisting center. Yet, as Husserl observes, "The constant ego, the constant source, [is] not identical through an act of identification, but rather is such as a primally single being (ureinig Seinl existing in the pre-being (vor-Seinl which is the most primal ... " (Ms. A V 5, Jan., 19331. What we are confronting are two forms of self-identity: one before time and another posterior to it. These two forms are, in fact, indicative of the duality of the soul's essence. Its full essence includes its notion both as ground and grounded. It comprises its notion as functioning before time to ground "all time and world" and its notion as a result of such functioning. To grasp its self-identity on the functioning level is to grasp it in its unique, "primally single being." Thus, insofar as I take myself as a presently functioning self, my identification with my past functioning selves involves my taking them not as past but as present in the unique nowness of all functioning. Such nowness is before all placing in time, before all temporal departure into pastness. As such, it does not, per se, include the pastness of the self. The apprehension of my functioning self-identify is therefore founded on the lack of temporal distance between my past and

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present functioning selves. It is the apprehension of such selves "in communion/' i.e., in the single now which remains once we bracket temporal distances. The assertion of my pretemporal self-identity should not be understood as a denial of my identity as a synthetically constituted, persisting being. This would only be the case if, in asserting the former, I denied the reality of the elements-the past selves-which constituted the latter. Yet, the past selves do exist. They exist as the results of the functioning self. Thus, as our last chapter pointed out, the ego is "transcendency in motion." Its self-temporalization is its passage from uniqueness to individuality-i.e., from one form of self-identity to another. By virtue of the temporalization which creates its successive environments, it itself undergoes "a kind of temporalization." It is successively pluralized through its relation to successively different environments. In an ongoing act of identification, it is continually identified as one and the same. In this context, temporalization can be seen as a process which mediates between these two forms of a soul's self-identity. To reverse this, we can say that, as involving temporalization, the soul's full essence necessarily involves both forms. For Husserl, what is indicated by my pretemporal self-identity is the leaving open of the nunc stans. If I am in communion with my past selves in the constant now, then I also have to say that this communion includes my potential Others. To return to a passage which we cited in part: There is, indeed, community ...There is community [of self and Others] in the same way as there is such with regard to my nontemporally extended one and the same ego which supports the temporality which streams and constitutes. Community with oneself [i.e., one's past selves] and with Others is concerned with the union of ego-poles. My ego as an ego which is now and my past ego-the pole-have no distance; there is no temporal stretch between them ...The ego as a pole does not endure. So also my ego and the other ego in the community of our being with each other do not have any extensive distance [from one another] ... (Ms. C 16 VII, p. 5, May, 1933). Granting this, I cannot assert my functioning self-identity without appealing to a level which is nonexclusive. If my persisting self-identity is founding on my functioning self-identity, then it must leave open the possibility that the same founding includes Others in their persisting identity. This follows from the duality of my essence. This duality includes both what is private and what, in its uniqueness, can be common. It in-

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cludes the identity of "a" soul and the identity of that which is prior to this. To affirm my self-identity in terms of this essence, I must, then, accept a level of my being which implies that there could be Others making the same affirmation. 2

§3.

MEMORY AND EMPATHY

A remarkable conclusion arises when I admit that I and my Others (supposing they exist) share a common ground for our functioning and, hence, for our being temporally objective. This implies that, on the level of my coincidence with this ground, I bear the same relationship to my objectified self as I do to my objectified Others. Let us put this in terms of memory and empathy. My relation to my objectified self is through memory. The latter provides the elements for the synthesis of my persisting unity. My relation to my Others occurs through empathy."Empathy," here, is not to be taken as the "primal empathy" discussed in the last chapter. It is rather to be understood as that which reaches out to my Other in his objective presence. Expressed in these terms, the conclusion is that memory and empathy delineate the same basic relationship. They spring from a common root which is the level of my coincidence with my ground, and they express this ground's common relation to both myself and Others considered as objective. If we grant this, then memory must leave open the possibility of empathy. I cannot deny the relation of empathy without also denying that of memory. This follows since the claim of the above is that I am in contact with my Other in the same basic way that I am in contact with my past. Husserl makes this claim again and again in the 1930s. A couple of passages will suffice to grasp its general tone. In empathy-in originally understanding Others [as other] and possessing them as persons in the co-present-I am in contact with them as I am with a thou (Ich mit dem Du). I am in contact with the other Ego in a way similar to that in which, through the distance of memory, I am in contact-am in a community of consciousness-with my past I. ... Although the Other is [in a] bodily, worldly [sense] external to me, yet in spite of this externalizing mode of separation, he is in internal coincidence with me. For even my "I was" and "I am now" have their externality. I was in Paris, now I am in Freiburg, etc." (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 20, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 416-17).

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Thus, even though space and time separate me from my past existence, through memory I remain "in contact (in Fahlung)" with this existence. The assertion is that my relation to the Other is like this. Another manuscript from the same year puts this in terms of the intentional presence established by synthesis. I say as well [that the Other is] "outside" of my monad, but this existing outside is itself included in my monad as an intentional unity which is confirmed through the harmonious course of representations (Vergegenwartigungsverlaufe). Just as my own past is included in my present as an intentional unity of my multiple memories, a unity which is harmonious albeit by correction, and just as my past is not nothing within me (not nothing within my proper being as a present being) but rather possesses actuality and constantly maintains this within me as my past, i.e., possesses actuality in the continuing perceptions which stream from present to present: just so, the Other, the co-present [person] is not nothing within me, but rather is within me as my Other; and I am who I am only as bearing in myself this Other and all Others" (Ms. C 17 I, Sept., 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 336). The main assertion of this passage is clear. Insofar as they are objectively present, both self and Others have an intentional presence. Each is an "intentional unity"-i.e., a one in many-which is established through the synthesis involving the "harmonious course" of my experiences. Hussed's last remark-that he is who he is only by supporting both his objectified self and his objectified Others-returns us to our initial observation. As functioning, he is who he is in his coincidence with the source of this functioning. The source, however, bears the same relation to Husserl and his Others. As temporally objective, they are both the results of the source's functioning and, thus, are equally supported by the same functioning. To put this in terms of memory and empathy, let us note with Hussed their common features. The first is that both lack original presence. For memory, this is immediately clear. When Hussed remarks, "Isn't perception the unreachable limit of intuition through memory, he answers by observing that if we crossed this limit, the remembered would not be remembered, "but would be present." In others words, we would have eliminated "the pastness of memory." Empathy also has an unreachable limit. As Hussed draws the analogy, "In the same way, the givenness of the

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Other's concrete present in empathy cannot have the full intuitability of self perception .... Empathy can never become perception" (Ms. E III 9, Sept., 1933, HA XV, p. 598). The reason for this is equally clear. If my perception of the Other reached the point of my self-perception, i.e., my perception of myself as presently functioning, then the otherness of the Other would be eliminated. We cannot have both perceptions for "one would eliminate the other in their coincidence ... "(ibid.). This annalogy is tighter than it first seems, for if an original "selfperception" is the limit of empathy, it is also the limit of self-remembering. This limit can never be reached, for if I were to achieve "the full intuitability of a self-perception/' I would grasp only the anonymity of the presently functioning self. Here, the realm of the intuition in which subjects are immediately present to themselves-i.e., present without any intervening temporal distances-is actually a realm which is focused on what is prior to the self. It directs itself to the level where selves presently function; but this is a level where they are identified with the original present in its stationary streaming. Thus, as Hussed here observes, "The structural analysis of the original present (of the stationary,living streaming) leads us to the structure of the ego and to the lower levels of nonegological streaming which constantly found this structrue .... " Itleads, in other words, "to the radically pre-egological" (ibid.). Granting this, the full intuitability of self and Others can only occur by reaching a level where the distinction of self and Others no longer obtains. This level ties memory and empathy together insofar as it is the limit of both. It is also their intersection point since to reach it is to eliminate their separate objects. To reverse thiS, we can say that from the perspective of this limit, which is that of the original present, memory and empathy are not distinct. With this, we have a second feature which memory and empathy share. They are both presentative, but neither can directly present its object. Both, then, must be considered as forms of re-presentation (Vergegenwilrtigung). When I remember an external object, this is immediately clear. Memory re-presents what I originally perceived. Its nonoriginality consists in the fact that it cannot directly grasp the nowness which once animated the contents of a perception. In its grasping the past as past, this nowness must, in a certain sense, present itself as absent. The same point holds for self-remembering, though here we must add a qualification. For Hussed, I am objective to myself "as an intentional unity of my multiple memories." This, we must add is the only way in which I can be objective since a direct grasp of my nowness yields only the anonymity of my functioning. Turning to empathy, we must with Hussed say, "Empathy is also re-presentation/' and for the very same reason (Ms. B I 22, V. p. 23,

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1930s). I have to grasp the Other as a unity of multiple memories. I have to grasp his nowness as absent, i.e., as at a remove from the nowness of functioning. A direct presentation would simply identify him with my functioning. We have just contrasted self-remembering with the memory directed to an external object. The re-presentational quality of the latter can, we implied, be matched to what was once a direct presentation. In this, it is distinguished from self-remembering and empathy. Here, re-presentation must count as an original mode of apprehension since I cannot directly grasp a self. On closer inspection, this contrast is deceptive. Strictly speaking, there is no direct presentation of an object as an object. All objective unities require what Husserl calls lithe harmonious course of re-presentations." In other words, taking re-presentation in its general sense as a presenting again of what was once originally present, it is a feature of all objective constitution. This is immediately evident when we note that in constituting an object, the contents I directly apprehend constantly give way to others. They are continuously departing into pastness as the object temporally unfolds its contents to me. Now, if these contents are not to vanish the moment I apprehend them, they must be made present again. Only as co-present with my ongoing act can they be synthesized into a persisting unity of sense. Thus, a "direct" perception of an object requires temporalization and the opening up of temporal distances. It also requires the overcoming of these distances through re-presentation. If an object cannot be constituted except through the re-presentation of its constitutive elements, then it is in the same position as the intentional unities of self and Other. Re-presentation must count as its original mode of presence. It cannot be apprehended without re-presentation since prior to this, I am limited to the immediate content of nowness, a content which, objectively speaking, is anonymous. The above does not mean that there is no distinction between memory and straightforward perception. As we shall see, we can distinguish between levels of re-presentation. In "long-term" memory, I re-present to myself the results of an earlier perceptual synthesis involving re-presentation. The original re-presentation occurring in straightforward perception may be distinguished from that of memory by calling it "retention" or "short-term" memory. This distinction does not obviate a point which Husserl is attempting to make in speaking of perception, memory and empathy as forms of representation. As an essential element in all synthesis (all grasp of unity in multiplicity), re-presentation gives us a temporal distinction between the constituting ego and the unities it constitutes. It results in the contrast between the original nowness of constitution and the nowness pertaining to

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distinct coexisting or co-present objects. Limiting ourselves to what is immediately present, i.e., to nowness stripped of all re-presentation-self, Others, and, indeed, the objects of external perception are indistinguishable. Yet out of this nowness a difference is constituted, a difference whereby I can say, "The Other exists for me as a co-present ego .... I possess his present as a co-present ... " (Ms. C 3 III, p. 33, March, 1931). Husserl puts this in terms of the "absolute ego" and the "new synthesis" which is required to make this assertion. The absolute ego is the ego which in streaming constancy constitutes and has constituted the world. Within it, as the basis of this universal constitutive performance, there is present the selfalienation (selbst-entfremdung) of monadization and, hence, the constitution of a monadic universe of mutually equivalent and essentially similar monads. The latter display themselves in the absolute ego as a distinct temporal sphere which can be differentiated or [what is the same, they display themselves] as a universal co-existence .... In establishing a community of monads as a monadic universe within monadic time, we have a new synthesis, one which, in temporalizing, produces a unity within multiplicity, a unity of co-existence, that of a single time to which immanent times or immanent unities-the streams of experience and their centering ego poles-all belong (Ms. E II I, Jan. 15, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 636). This "new synthesis" moves us beyond primal empathy. In the latter, when I regard the Other in terms of immediate (nonsynthesized) nowness, I assert, "I discover my now and his now as existing in one ... " (Ms. C 17 I, HA XV, p. 332). Here, however, nownesss is presented as absent, i.e., at a remove which allows it to be "a distinct temporal sphere which can be differentiated. " This result is the work of re-presentation as it functions in every temporal synthesis. The now in its absence is the now that has departed into pastness. My re-presenting it is a returning it to presence. As such, it is a presentation of what has departed from presence. The recalled now, insofar as it implies this departure, is not the same as the original now which served as its point of departure. Hence, its return to presence makes it copresent rather than coincident with the latter. The same point can be made in terms of Husserl's assertion that self and Others are objectively present as constituted, intentional unities. Such unities presuppose the fact of temporalization. Thus, when I assert that I am "in contact" with my

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past self through re-presentation, I am presupposing the temporalization which first made this self depart into pastness. The case is no different for my objectified Other or, indeed, for the inanimate objects which I synthesize along with my objective self. The otherness implicit in their temporal coexistence is an otherness which the departure, the flowing into pastness, of already constituted time imposes between the originally present and the re-presented. Thus, as presupposing temporalization, representation does not directly present the original present. It can only represent it in terms of what has departed from it. Because of this, its result is never the sheer coincidence which characterizes the point from which this departure occurs-i.e., the original present of the "absolute ego." Quite the contrary, objects whose temporal syntheses involve an equal remove from this present-i.e., a flowing off of contents into equal degrees of pastness-can be apprehended as coexistent and, hence, as simultaneous with each other. Another section will be required to complete Husserl's parallel between memory and empathy. Let us conclude by expressing this section's result in terms of leaving open. Our initial claim was that we cannot deny the relation of memory without also denying empathy. We can now say that memory must be such that it leaves open the possibility of empathy since what makes it possible-which is the action of re-presentation-is also what makes empathy possible. Both depend on our grasp of nowness as absent. Both require its re-presentation as the nowness which stands over against the original present of functioning. Let us put this in terms of simultaneity. Simultaneity is the existence of nonexclusive presents. Each such present permits the possibility of other, simultaneous presents existing "outside" of itself. Simultaneous presents are thus distinguished from the uniquely singular, exclusive present of the pretemporal now. If the latter is thought of as their ground-i.e., that which bears them as its temporal exhibitions-then the otherness of ground and grounded is a condition for the leaving open-i.e., the non-exclusivity-of simultaneity. Concretely speaking, this otherness is accomplished by temporal departure. Such departure, as overcome but not annihilated by re-presentation, is what gives us the temporal condition for simultaneity.3 This condition, we should note, is inherent in the full essence of the soul. As involving temporalization, this essence is expressive of the otherness of ground and grounded. It includes both primal nowness and the re-presented nowness which has the possibility of co-presence. As including in its notion the continuous transition from one to the other, this essence inherently leaves open the possibility of other, co-present souls or "monads" on the objective level.

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§4.

REPRESENTATION AND THE PRESENTATION OF THE ABSOLUTE

When we consider simultaneity to be a result of re-presentation, we are making an implicit assumption. We can draw it out by observing its limitation. Re-presentation distinguishes between the original and the rerepresented present. It is also capable of distinguishing between the copresence of different types of pastness. Confronted with the same degree of pastness, however, its powers of differentiation fail. Confining ourselves to the "pure" temporal process, the re-presentation of that which involves the same degree of departure is, in fact, the same. It leaves open the possibility of simultaneity--i.e., of nonexclusive presents; but it does not contain the conditions which are sufficient to distinguish these presents into a plurality. Let us put this in terms of the analogous case of considering extension by itself. A pure concept of extension will allow us to distinguish between spatial positions. It cannot distinguish between one and the same position. For this, we require time. We must make the distinction: "here at times x, y, or z." To reverse this, in distinguishing the same time, we must be able to say: "now at positions x, y, or z." Phenomenologically speaking, this distinction between positions is provided by sensuous content. The temporal stream must be content laden. Its contents must succeed each other in an order which yields the perspectival appearing of a visual field if we are to have the possibility of re-presenting different yet simultaneous locations in a three dimensional world. Granting this, we cannot speak of self and Others as co-present without assuming content. Indeed, without this assumption, we cannot differentiate ego from ego. Considered as a temporal center, the ego is only an "empty form." It is something which is individualized or made "concrete" by the content of its stream. In Husserl's words, "My original temporal being, my being as a temporalizing-temporalized stream of life (and within this, the ego as a center, as the ego of this stream) is concrete as an immanent temporal form which is continuously filled." What fills it is "the content which composes the perception of the world" (Ms. C 7 II, p. 16, ca. June IS, 1934). This position is repeated again and again with minor variations. Content is said to be what distinguishes my world as my own. It is what underlies the relativity of the world--Le., the world as it appears to me as opposed to my Other. As such, it distinguishes us as centers viewing the world in its different aspects. Husserl, for example, asks: "Can the other ego, the other concrete streaming present be the same as mine? But, each, as apperceiving the same world, must necessarily have different aspects, etc. (and only so, can he be an Other). Accordingly, he cannot have the same fields of sensation with the same data of sensation, etc." (Ms E III 9, Sept., 1933, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 598).

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Behind this necessity for different sensuous contents is the fact that, regarded as "the identical persisting pole in the changes of immanent temporal events," the ego is not yet individualized. "I have always said," Husserl writes, "that the pure ego is abstract; it is concrete only through the content of the streaming present" (Ms. C III 3, p. 28, March, 1931). It is through such changing content, as opposed to its invariant temporal form, that the ego achieves its uniqueness, its distinction from its Others. Thus, for Husserl, "The absolute uniqueness [of the ego] lies in the content of the ego itself, [this] notwithstanding the universal form, the universal essence through which the ego is an ego" (Ms. C 8 I, p. 23, June-July, 1932). The latter is the universal form of temporal centering. It results in the "streaming center 'now,' the streaming just past and what is to come ... " -i.e., the advancing future. With content, we have "the center of the 'absolute here' which corresponds to the now and pertains to it" (Ms. B III I, p. 85, end of Oct.-Nov. 4, 1929). For this here and now to be unique-i.e., be distinguished from those of co-present Others-differing contents must enter in. We stress this point because of what it indicates about the basis of representation. When Husserl writes that along with memory, "empathy is also re-presentation," he adds a third feature which they share in common. An original presence is at the basis of what they re-present. Presupposing temporalization, they both presuppose an original making present. As Husserl describes this: Every re-presentation has the constantly streaming making present (Gegenwilrtigung) as its "foundation." In this making present, I am the ego in its primal mode, the non-numerically singular ego, the functioning subject of the life which makes present, the subject in which the present is apprehended in its primal mode (Ms. B I 22, V, p.23, 1930s). This making present, which is the foundation of re-presentation, is a function of the original present. It is what is uniquely singular. I can be called the "non-numerically singular ego" because my functioning is identified with its functioning-i.e., its making present. Thus, I apprehend this present in its "primal mode" when I apprehend it as the uniquely singular core of my functioning. In this context, to call memory and empathy forms of re-presentation implies the following claims: Both must be considered as grounded by the original making present. Both must synthesize their objects by re-presenting what is contained in the uniquely singular present. Since this present is unique, the original (nonrepresented) presence of self and Others must be the same. Yet, through re-presentation, both must be distinct. With this, we set the character of the basis for their

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re-presentation. If we are to have distinct heres corresponding to the now, content must enter into this basis. Thus, this original present must contain content, a content appropriate to its "non-numerically singular" status. In other words, its presence must be that of the absolute whose underlying character is exhibited by the aspects of both time and content. Let us take a moment to clarify this last assertion. We earlier remarked that time and content are part of the absolute insofar as they are features of its being the ground of all possible syntheses. We now assert that this ground is present in the anonymous core of subjective functioning. Here, we have a dual claim. Insofar as time is an aspect of the absolute, we are asserting that, pre-objectively, the whole of the time required for every possible synthesis is present in the pretemporal now of this core. Considering the absolute as an alphabet of contents, we are asserting that the alphabet, itself, is present in this now. In other words, in the nowness of our functioning, we do not just have the contents of the impressional moment-i.e., the sensuous contents of our immediately present visual field. Our claim is that this nowness contains the totality of the content required for every possible synthesis. To show that the whole of time is present in the core, we must return to the arguments dealing with our functioning self-identity. As we cited Husserl, this identity is that of "a prim ally single being existing in the prebeing which is the most primal" (Ms. A V 5, p. 5, 1933). The pre-being is the pretemporal now which must, as we said, be considered as a uniquely singular presence. Thus, it includes, pre-objectively, the whole of time since it does not have a beyond. Insofar as it is prior to extended time, it cannot be thought of one among many nows, each being considered "external" to the others. Pre-objectively, there is no such thing as a temporal distance, which means that the original now is simply the presence which comes to be successively exhibited by extended time. In other words, what we confront here is not a one-among-many phenomenon, but rather that which manifests the character of one in many. The pretemporal now is the presence manifesting itself in each successive moment. As present, none of them are outside it-this, even though, objectively speaking, they can be said to depart from it, i.e., become past. The above can also be put in terms of our earlier remark that the now in time is the objective exhibition of the pretemporal now. Granting this, we can say with Husserl, "When the ego is exhibiting its past, when it is actually remembering and finding itself in successive being, it is, in fact, exhibiting its full present, exhibiting what it is now, what [pre-objectively] lies within it as an ego" (Ms. A V 5, p. 10, Jan., 1933). The basis of this statement is Husserl's assertion that "the ego is continually a pole; it has no breadth, no [temporal] extension; it has nothing of the character of apart-

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ness ... " (ibid.). This signifies that, in functioning to constitute time, "the present ego is self-shaping (sich selbst gestaltend) and bears within itself its past self-shapings" (ibid.). The ego "bears" (tri1gt) its past self-shapings through its acts of re-presentation of what it originally presents or exhibits. It shapes itself through the "streaming making present" of its life. In this way, its exhibition or "explication (Auslegung) leads necessarily to the time of consciousness and to its self-temporalization as a quasiextension of the ego over time ... " (ibid.). The key point, here, is that representation depends upon presentation; but the latter is a temporal exhibition of what is pretemporally present in the ego's core. This implies that the ego becomes in time what, in a certain sense, it already is before time. Per se, its "'living present' is not the stream of consciousness"-i.e., the stream of impressional moments (Ms. C 2 I, p. 22, Aug., 1931). Thus, the temporal exhibition of what is in this present is not an exhibition of something which, per se, is already temporal (See ibid.). When the ego is exhibiting "what it is now," it is engaged in a temporal self-making or selfshaping. It is involved in a motion from what, pre-objectively, contains "all time and world" to what, objectively speaking, is only a particular exhibition of this. With this, Husserl's position may be stated as follows: In the original present, with its lack of temporal distances, we cannot distinguish self and Others or the objects of our surrounding world. In this present's "all at once," the past, the momentary present, and the advancing future are "now" but are not yet distinguished. It is through presencing and representation that we have these distinctions; and, hence, self and Others can become particularized into subjects, each with his distinct here and now. Since such particularization involves content, let us turn to our second claim, namely, that the alphabet of contents is present in the anonymous core of the functioning subject. As we recall, such an alphabet is an aspect of the absolute insofar as it is an alphabet, i.e., insofar as it is independent of any particular ordering. As such, the contents forming it have the possibility of being arranged in every possible temporal ordering and, thus, help to ground every possible synthesis. To speak of contents in this way is to make them anonymous in an objective sense. Prior to their arrangement in a definite ordering, they are prior to all objectively nameable unities of sense. They are simply the elements of such unities, elements which are abstracted from all temporal orderings. Their "place," then, is in that which has "no breadth, no [temporal] extension." They are not in time, but rather in the pretemporal now which is at the core of subjective functioning. "Exhibiting what it is now," this core produces the present impressional moment with its limited content. It does this repeatedly. This "spelling out," so to speak, of what it contains produces the definite tem-

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poral order of contents which results in objectification. Pretemporally, however, this core is what it will be in time. That is to say, it must be regarded as already containing all the contents which impressional moments successively exhibit. 4 With this, we have the context for Husserl's position that, on the level of the original making present, memory and empathy have a common root. Their source is within me insofar as it forms my functioning core. Yet it results in more than what I can, through memory, apprehend as myself. Including content, it results in what I can subsequently re-present as my co-present Other. Don't we finally arrive at the fact that even what is hidden (das Verborgene) in sedimentation and [its] activization still plays its role in the living present as the present of a concrete subjectivity; [don't we arrive at the fact] that streaming being (constituting qua streaming each and every entity for me) contains in a concentrated fashion [the] entity in itself in its temporality in itself. It is what it is (in its manner of being) precisely as the living present, as the living constituting present; and, hence, as pertaining to this, it is what it is as the potentiality for such [world] constitution ... There [in the living present] every Other, every other ego, every other transcendental being-present is also constituted in me, constituted precisely as a streaming co-present subjectivity which is, itself, concrete in its streaming living present. This, just as there is streamingly constituted in me my own temporality of being as a past being, as a concrete streaming present and this [as a present] for every past" (Ms. C III 3, p. 32, March, 1931). The point of the first part of this passage is that the constitutive potentiality of the living present extends beyond what the passage of time has laid down (or sedimented) as a subjective possession. Reactivated, this acquisition can play its role in constitution. Yet constitution employs even what is "hidden" in such activization (Weckung). It has at its disposal the content of the living present-i.e., the present which "is what it is" precisely as the potential for an all-embracing world constitution. The passage's closing remarks focus on the fact that the constitution of myself as a "concrete streaming present" requires the constitution of my past. This past makes the present "concrete" by making it appear as the leading edge of an extended life, i.e., as a present "for" a definitely given past life. Here, Husserl's claim is that the verytemporalization which gives me a past and, hence, gives me the data which I can synthetically re-present as my persisting self performs the same service for my Other. The claim, then, is

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that the original making present which results in subjective concreteness is ultimately "the origin of Others and of myself as one among many within the objective world ... " (Ms. K III 4, p. 77, Jan. 20, 1936). What is being asserted is, in fact, our co-constitution. Because of this, Husserl can say: "I exist as a streaming present; but my [objective] being for myself is itself constituted in this streaming present .... The Other exists for me in the same way ... "(Ms. C III 3, p. 33). This notion of existence "for me" should not be taken in a solipsistic sense. It is not as a solis ipse that I can assert that "every Other ... is also constituted in me." In fact, my relation to my re-presented Other is a convertible one. Thus, Husserl, switching to the term appresentation, writes of the Other: "He is appresented in me and I am appresented in him ... I am a subject for everything that exists and a subject for all those who, themselves, are subjects for everything that exists including myself. The absolute subject bears Others in himself as self-appresentations ... " (Ms. C III 3, p. 33). His point is that this absolute subject is not my objective subjectivity. It is rather the constituting, originally presenting core of my subjectivity. Because of the uniquely singular, pre-egological character of this core's temporalization, Husserl can speak of "the 'primordial' and the re-presented Other in the streaming now." He can assert that lithe stream does not just have a self-implication but also the implication of other streams-the constitution of unities within the stream ... I and Others as [constituted] unities in the stream" (Ms. D 14, p. 8, March, 1931). The "primordial" Other is, in fact, the same as my primordial self. Both are indistinguishable in the stationary streaming now. From the point of view of this now, both self and Others are represented or constituted unities. Thus, each subject, in taking up the standpoint of his ground can be said to bear both his objective Others and himself as self-appresentations. They are re-presentations of what the self's core originally presents. s Let us put this in terms of memory and empathy. If from the standpoint of my ground, the Other can be considered as my self-appresentation, then from this standpoint memory and empathy are not distinct. They become distinct after individualization, i.e., after the specification of anonymity through a surrounding, content-laden environment. It is only at this point that I can speak of memory as recalling what is distinctly my own. Empathy also appears in its proper character. It becomes a function of self-transcending intentions. These are the intentions which reach out from my living present to that of the Other, both being understood as presents which are individuated by differing environments. Now, the fact that the full essence of my soul includes both levelsthat of my ground and that of this ground's objectification into what is proper to me-allows me to make opposing assertions. I can assert that

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memory and empathy are not distinct. I can also claim the opposite. Hussed, focusing on the full essence of the soul, attempts to combine the perspectives of both assertions by writing: " ... in the originality of empathy, i.e., of a co-remembering instead of an [ordinary] remembering (einer Miterrinerung statt einer Widererrinerung), the being co-present of Others is a self-remembering of Others (ein Selbsterinneren der Anderen) in the course of which the being co-present of Others is understood as that of another living present which related to my living present. The co-being of Others is inseparable from me in my living making-present of myself ... " (Ms. C III 3, p. 34). The co-remembering of Others, which is directed to their co-presence, depends upon the individualization of self and Others into distinct unities. As such, it is a function of the grounded (objectified) level of the soul. This co-remembering, however, is a self-remembering of Others on the grounding (pre-objective) level of the soul. From the perspective of the latter, the relation of living presents, concretely taken as co-present centers, results from their being simultaneous objectifications of an original pretemporal present. They are both self-appresentationsi.e., self-rememberings-of this present since the originally present "self," which is here thought of as remembered, is not yet considered as the self of an individual which stands over against his Others. If this is the case, then we have a reciprocity which allows a second interpretation of "the self-remembering of Others." We can say that my co-remembering of the Other is his self-remembering since the object of what counts for me as empathy has the same origin as the object of the Other's self-remembering.6 The same points hold with regard to Hussed's assertion, "The co-being of Others is inseparable from me in my living making-present of myself (meinem lebendigen Sichselbst-Gegenwilrtigen .... " Once again we have a duality of reference. It is in coincidence with my ground that I make myself present. It is as something made present (as an objectified presence), that I exist with "the co-being of Others." Since the full essence of my soul includes both references, this co-being is inseparably tied to my making present. There are two ways to understand this last assertion. We can say that the co-being of Others is dependent on my making present. Here, we focus on the basic notion that re-presentation rests on presentation. We assert that everything present in a nonoriginal way must be grounded on the originally present. A second understanding goes further than this. It claims that I cannot make myself present without also appresenting the co-being of Others. In other words, such co-being does not just imply my making present, but also the reverse. This last, of course, is Hussed's position. As we cited him, the "soul must point to other souls in its very es-

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sence .... " Accordingly, it "only has sense in a plurality which is grounded in itself and must develop from itself" (Ms. C 17 I, Sept. 20-22, 1931, HA XV, p. 341). To move from the first to the second understanding, we must draw out what is implied in "my living making-present of myself." Insofar as this involves what is originally present, its basis is the anonymous core of my functioning. On the one hand, this core is that by virtue of which I am a self-i.e., a functioning center. It is, on the other hand, the absolute in both of its aspects. This means that in the nonextended unity of my core, I possess the totality of time and content required for every possible synthesis. As we earlier put this, the core by which I function contains the possibility of all synthetic possibilities. Now, this core is the original presence which re-presentation presents. It thus follows that my self representation must include its presence. My "living making-present of myself" must, in other words, involve the re-presentation of that present by virtue of which I am a self. Since the latter contains more than the possibilities which I can objectively manifest, its re-presentation must involve my re-presentation in a context which includes other possibilities. As a consequence, I can only make myself present as one among many subjective possibilities of being and behaving. This can be put in terms of the assertion that the soul "only has sense in a plurality which is grounded in itself." For Hussed, this means that the soul (qua re-presented) has a sense only as a member of a plurality grounded in itself (qua originally present). Thus, as a constituted unity, it has its sense only in terms of the open ended plurality of constitutive possibilities which are grounded in its original present. Such a plurality is grounded in itself insofar as it constitutively functions in coincidence with what surpasses its objective presence. Yet, if we grant this, it is senseless to conceive of a solipsistic soul. To be a soul, it must be a self. This means that its essence must include its status as re-presented and as originally present. As originally present, it has an anonymous core of its functioning. Yet, the re-presentation of this core, which yields the objective presence of a soul, always surpasses it and, hence, makes us understand it as "a" soul-i.e., as one among many possible manifestations of subjective existence. Qua represented (or what is the same), qua constituted, it must, then, always leave open the possibilities of its Others. §5. CONTINGENCY AND RE-PRESENTATION

Our last section concluded that I cannot re-present myself without representing other possibilities of being and behaving. This should not be taken as indicating that all such re-presentations are on the same level.

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Thus, it does not mean that the Other is present to me in the same way that I am present to myself. My self-presence depends upon the presencing of my core. The latter results in the stream of impressional moments which I take as my stream of consciousness. The synthesis of its contents gives me my world with my Others. Admitting this, I cannot say that my self re-presentation involves my viewing the world from multiple perspectives. Only one perspective is actual for me. Our conclusion accepts this, but asserts that this perspective is re-presented in terms of a horizon of possible alternatives. Each is an alternative which could be actualized by a different presencing-i.e., a different series of impressional moments. Let us put this in terms of the double perspective which our last section attempted to maintain. From the perspective of the absoluteconsidered as the non-extended unity of my core-my objective presence is the same as the presence of the Other. As we said, the absolute, in its own nature, cannot be limited to one objectification. Thus, if it does objectify itself, its objectification cannot occur alone. For Husserl, this means that "a possible ego immediately implies a universe, a totality of egos coexisting with it" (Ms. E III 9, HA XV, p. 383). In other words, the possibility of the presencing, which gives me my impressional stream of consciousness and, hence, my world, immediately implies the possibility of other presencings-other streams. Since no objectification of the absolute can occur alone, we may, of course, extend this. We can assert that the actuality of my stream implies the actuality of Other streams. Now, from the absolute's perspective, all streams are self-explications. All temporally exhibit its nonextended content. Here, the absolute subject bears all subjects as self-appresentations-i.e., as re-presentations of what is contained in its original presence. This perspective both is and is not my own view of the matter. It is insofar as I limit myself to the sheer anonymity of my core-i.e., regard this core through a reduction which brackets everything which has temporally departed from it. It is not my perspective insofar as I regard my anonymity as specified by what my core presents-i.e., regard it as "this," limy" anonymity. In the second case, I take up an individual as opposed to an absolute perspective. With this, the Other appears as another specification of anonymity. Thus, I distinguish the presencing which results in my being present as a center of my world and the presencing which results in the Other. One presencing-one resulting stream of impressional moments-is said to pertain to me; and its alternative is taken as pertaining to the Other. The second takes its place in the horizon of possibilities surrounding the specification of my core. It becomes one of its alternate possibilities: a presencing which could have but did not specify it. Here, the Other's presence to me becomes a matter of leaving open. Ire-present

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myself such that I leave open the possibility of the presencing which results in him. This leaving open, taken as a regard to alternative possibilities, becomes empathy insofar as such possibilities become the objects of my self-transcending intentions. Out of the alternatives to myself, I form intentions that reach beyond the specification of my anonymity to other specifications. When we combine both perspectives, we assert that the Other represents myself as more than myself. This means that the self-transcending intentions of empathy exhibit possibilities which are inherent in my ground and also that such possibilities surpass what I exhibit in my ob;ective presence. These intentions, then, are not fulfilled by me. They are filled by the presence of those Others whose ways of being and behaving objectively appear to correspond to them. The Other's behavior is seen in terms of an alternative presencing, one which I still recognize as related to mine insofar as my own presencing implies its alternatives. The question we face in regarding this doctrine is how can it be delineated in terms of re-presentation. How does re-presentation actually result in the intention to the Other? Our difficulty stems from the fact that re-presentation depends upon making present. The making present which I directly experience results in my stream of impressional moments. Its re-presentation gives me myself. If I vary this making present, then I have an alternate presencing, one whose re-presentation results in an alternative self. Yet, how do I perform this second re-presentation? How can I speak of a re-presentation which depends on a presencing (and on a consequent stream of impressional moments) which I do not directly experience~

To answer this question, we must return to the notion of contingency. This notion plays a crucial role in the doctrine that the absolute cannot be limited to one objectification, i.e., to one making present which results in the presence of a solitary subject. If it were so limited, then this objectification would have to be considered as its necessary result. The subject, in its objective presence, would not be considered contingent. When we reverse this implication by assuming that the subject is contingent, we deny its premise. We assert that the absolute cannot be limited to exhibiting itself in just one subject-i.e., in the single presencing which underlies this subject (see above, p. 195). As is obvious, the linchpin of this argument is the assertion that the objectively present subject is contingent. Given that re-presentation is the original mode of objective presence, this can be considered as included in the assertion that all re-presentations have an inherently contingent status. To establish this, we must recall that re-presentation presupposes temporal departure. In grasping an objective presence, I must re-present

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what has departed from the original present. This present, in its constant making present, is the very "to be" of the objects which I grasp. Yet, as we noted, it is not inherent in their own objective presence. Qua re-presented, objects are at a temporal remove from their "to be"; they are present by virtue of their not being now in an original sense. We can, thus, say that all represented objects are inherently contingent since that by virtue of which they continue to be-the presencing or giving of the original present-is not directly grasped in their presence. As we earlier put this, they continue to be given insofar as their givenness is added to. They depend on a giving-an original temporalization-which is a temporal remove from their objective presence. If we turn to regard this giving, the contingency of what we re-present is not dispensed with. We rather lose objective givenness since we reach the anonymity which is prior to all re-presentation. This is why re-presentation is the original mode by which we grasp objective presence. This mode, however, must grasp a contingent presence. Contingency, of course, does not just pertain to the fact of an object's existence. It also affects the temporal ordering of contents which gives us the object's what-i.e., its essence. There is no inherent necessity in this "what," since contents, per se, do not have any necessary link to particular temporal positions. We can also say that as part of the given, an object's essential structures lacks any existential necessity-i.e., any necessity which would demand that they continue to be given as the structure of an objective world. This means that such essential structures are variable. They do not determine what must be-and, hence, what must continue to be. They only express possibilities; they are the structures of what is contingently given-i.e., what could have been given with different structures. Here, of course, the contingent is thought of as an alternative, a "this" rather than a "that." As we cited Husserl, "contingency inherently includes a horizon of possibilities in which the contingent itself signifies one of these possibilities, precisely the one which actually occurred" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 669). At the basis of such contingency is the original present. Its making present, i.e., its temporalization of what it pretemporally contains, results in the stream of impressional moments. As such, it makes the essence actual as an order which obtains for successively given contents. To this, however, we must add a consideration springing from the independence of time and content. The fact that temporal positions are not tied to particular contents signifies that the primal present, in its primal temporalization, is independent of what it makes present. Such independence implies (1) its capacity for actualizing different essential structures, (2) the lack of any necessity for a particular structure to obtain, and (3) the placing of a

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given structure in a horizon of alternatives which could just as well be actualized. This directly applies to the re-presented unity of my life with its sedimented "essential" structures which I call my habitualities and capabilities. The contingency of this unity is the possibility of varying these structures. It is the possibility of alternative lives with alternative habitualities and capabilities. A double conclusion follows from the above. First of all, in establishing the contingency of the re-presented subject, we have secured its nonsolipsistic nature. From the absolute's perspective, all subjects are its representations. All have departed from its original presence and, hence, all must be regarded as contingent. Given that the absolute cannot objectify itself in a single, contingent re-presentation, our conclusion follows. This re-presentation cannot occur alone. Turning to the individual's perspective, we have a similar result. The individual's objective presentations are considered as contingent insofar as they do not directly manifest the presencing-the original temporalization-which makes them present. The latter appears only as a represented presencing. It is re-presented as the continuance or persistence of the presented object. Furthermore, when the individual turns to regard the immediate content of his presencing he finds that the stream of impressional moments doesn't directly manifest but only re-presents the nonextended content of the original present. This present is independent of what it presents; its original, if anonymous presence is the origin of all making present. As the original presence underlying all re-presentaiton, it must be what is ultimately re-presented. Yet such re-presentation to be faithful must manifest the origin's independence. Granting this we can say that to re-present the origin in terms of what it presents is to apprehend the latter as contingent. The origin presents itself as the present impressional moment. Re-presented in terms of the latter, the origin appears as the moment whose content could have been otherwise. The same point holds when I synthesize my representations of successive impressional moments. This synthesis gives me my objective presence in my world. To re-present the origin in terms of myself and my world is to see them as having an origin which is independent of their presence. In other words, the independence of the origin is re-presented in the contingency of what results from it. It is re-presented as the inclusion of the result in a horizon of alternatives, alternatives which could be actualized by other streams of impressional moments. From this, it is clear what is wrong with the objection which we raised. We do not go far enough when we say that re-presentation depends upon a presencing which results in my impressional stream (m.y stream of consciousness). To see how the intention to the Other can be grounded in this

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presencing, we must add that this presencing is, itself, the result of a representation. Thus, as we earlier noted, the moment of time is the appearance, the objective expression of the original, anonymous present (see above, p. 228). It is not the same as the original; it is its temporal representation. As such, it re-presents what is prior to my temporal, individual existence in terms of what establishes this existence. It represents the pretemporal now as a member of the stream of momentary content-laden nows. The independence of the former is re-presented as the contingency of the latter. Thus, inherent in the givenness of my making present-i.e., in the temporalization which is the heart of my functioning life-is a could have been otherwise. This points beyond my functioning to another life. It forms, when I become fully concrete, an intention to another, equally concrete subject. When we combine the perspectives of the absolute and individual subjects, a further point can be made. The absolute cannot be re-presented as a single, contingent subject. From its perspective, I cannot occur alone. Thus, my becoming concrete is not just the sign that I intend Others who are equally concrete. It also signifies that the absolute has objectified itself in more than myself. Here, the absolute is viewed as grounding both my self-transcending intentions and the Others who, if I encounter them, would act so as to fulfill what I intend. Their behavior, in other words, would be the manifestation of an alternate presencing. Let us attempt to deepen these reflections. According to the above, there is a common root to my self-presence and my self-transcending intentions. My contingency and my empathy are also seen as co-grounded. The givenness of what I re-present as myself is, by virtue of its contingency, matched by an intention to its could have been otherwise. To see more clearly the tie between the two, we can turn to a passage which we have already cited in part. Every re-presentation has the constantly streaming making present as its foundation. In this making present, I am the ego in its primal mode .... My functioning life, however, is not just [this] making present. It is a re-presenting which constantly modifies the making present, the present [which has been presented] and the ego of making present .... The function which re-presents does not change the stream which makes present. In its own continuity during its own streaming, the re-presenting functioning has the presenting stream as its constant lower stratum (Untergrund) .... Re-presentation, then, is an "intentional modification" of making present, one on the basis of the making present which is presently functioning; but the latter is not modified through re-presentation. The living making present

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is not [itself changed into] the re-presented. All re-presentation is making present "as 'if" (Ms. B I 22, v, pp. 23-24, 1934). The distinction which Husserl is attempting to make is one between a modification which actually transforms what it modifies and one which leaves it untouched. Thus, the re-presentative function does not interfere with what is presented in the stream of impressional moments. Similarly, it does not affect the living-making present which results in this stream. What it does is intentionally modify the material of its basis by presenting it "as if" it were other. We can clarify this by proceeding up the hierarchy of re-presentations. At its beginning, there is the original present which my functioning core re-presents in its "living making present." The resulting temporalization re-presents the timeless now as if it were successively present. We thus have the stream of impressional moments, each of which appears only to depart into pastness. To engage in a perceptual synthesis, I must retain them. This retention (or short-term memory) re-presents the past moment as if it were present. The same point holds for long-term memory or ordinary remembering. The latter re-presents my earlier action of perceptual synthesis. Remembering, I recall not just the results of this syntheses but also myself as engaged in perception. What I do is re-present this synthesis as if it were presently occurring. In none of these cases do I eliminate the basis for my re-presentations. Thus, my "living making present" does not dispense with my original present. The latter still appears as the anonymity of my core. In temporalizing, my core still appears as pre-temporal-i.e., as that which is "now and only now." Similarly, the retention of the impressional moment does not dispense with its having departed. If it did, then the retained moment would be indistinguishable from the present impressional moment. In other words, my re-presenting what I have made present would replace my originally functioning making present. But, as we cited Husserl, the latter is not changed into the former. My original making present doesn't become its re-presentation. Thus, to grasp the retained moment as past is only to apprehend it as if it were present. It is to regard it as a temporal alternative to the present, content-laden moment. The same point can be made with regard to ordinary remembering. What it recalls is not transformed into a present perceiving. It is represented as a past perceiving that is brought up as an alternative to my present perceiving. With empathy, we have a further modification, one which modifies the results of all our previous modifications. To form a self-transcending intention, I must re-present another "ego of making present." The present which results from my making present must be treated as if it were the

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Other's. To do this, I must re-present my memories as if they were the Other's. Only in this way can I re-present and, hence, intend the Other's present as if it were the leading edge of an alternative past. This, of course, involves the whole hierarchy of modifications since an alternative past is a result of alternative perceptual syntheses, alternative retentions and ultimately an alternative making present. Here, we should note that to place empathy in this hierarchy of a re-presentations is to emphasize that it is also a modification which leaves its base intact. The re-presentation directed to the Other does not change my self-representation. It does not imply that the Other is present in the way that I am. What I re-present on the basis of my self-presence is an alternative to this presence. As such, it is the object of a self-transcending intention. The fundamental insight here is that all re-presentation is contingent. It, thus, inherently has this "as if" character. It presents its material as if it were other, and its own results are themselves capable of being represented as if they were other. From the standpoint of the original present, whose presencing is the "lower stratum" of re-presentation, these alternatives are all inherently possible. The re-presentation of this present which yields my impressional stream is its exhibition as one s11ch alternative. It is also the implicit presence of the could be other of this alternative. The alternative, then, has the capacity to be re-presented as if it, itself, were other. Thus, I can re-present my past impressional moment as if it were a present moment because, in terms of its origin, it could just as well be made present now. Similarly, the independence of the primal present is such that what counts as my past perceptual synthesis could just as well be a present perceptual synthesis. The original present's capability of presenting what I experience in different temporal orders, thus, signifies that I can re-present my experiential life as if it were rearranged so as to form an Other's. Indeed, since re-presentation achieves its object through the constant mode of taking an alternative to the given and treating it as if it were present, its inevitable terminus is my re-presenting myself as if I were another co-present subject with a different life. We can put this in terms of our earlier remarks. According to the above, a subject can re-present something as if it were other because, regarded in terms of the origin of re-presentation, it could just as well be other. This means that the origin is not tied to a specific re-presentation. It is, in fact, the independent ground of all its subsequent re-presentations. Because of this, such independence stands as the condition of the possibility of the transformations worked by re-presentation. As we earlier put this, we re-present the independence of the origin in terms of what follows from it by grasping the latter as contingent. The re-presented is seen as

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that which could have been otherwise and, hence, as that which can, itself, be re-presented as if it were otherwise. Accordingly, we can say that the givenness of a result of re-presentation is matched by an intention to an alternative result. This intention is inherent in such givenness insofar as the given is ultimately a re-presentation of the original presence which implies, in its independence, both the presence of the given and that of its alternative. Re-presentation, then, is necessarily the transforming regard which takes its objects as if it were other. It must result in an alternative to the presence it re-presents. This follows since this alternative is, itself, a representation of what is inherent in the independence of the origin of all presence. Thus, to take an example, such independence means that it is possible for the primal present to presently appear as the moment which I take as past. This possibility is re-presented through the transforming regard which takes this departed moment as if it were present. When I re-present departed moments as if they were present, I am, in fact, re-presenting another essential characteristic of the original present. Objectively speaking, I have "infinity existing only in the form of temporality, existing as the temporal succession of finitudes" which successively depart into pastness. Pre-objectively, however, this infinity "is included in the nunc stans" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 379-80). Thus, the nunc stans (or original present) is the "all-at-once" of "the temporal succession of finitudes"-i.e., the successive impressional moments. I re-present this all-at-once by re-presenting these departed moments as if they were still present. This all-at-once character, insofar as it is re-presented, determines the character of all subsequent re-presentations. It makes them always treat their objects as if they were present. Thus, its ultimate result is my intending the co-presence of a fellow subject. For Husserl, this co-presence is simply an objective re-presentation of the fact that, pre-objectively, my now "is not mine as opposed to that of other human beings" (Ms. C 3 I, p. 3). It re-presents the fact that in the original now, "I discover my now and his now as existing in one" (Ms. C 17 I, HA XV, p. 332). § 6. THE FORMATION OF SELF-TRANSCENDING INTENTIONS

It is time to turn to the mechanics of empathy-i.e., to the details of the process by which I take the Other as an object of a self-transcending intention. Our chief text here is a passage where Husserl completes his parallel between memory and empathy. Both are considered as particularizations of "memory" (Er-innerung) understood as a general form of looking inward.

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Transformation (Verwandlung), the transformation of the ego amidst the transformation of consciousness and the transformation of the correlate of consciousness. All this is inseparably one. All this is memory (Er-innerung). Its particularizations are [my] ordinary remembering (gew(jbnlicbe Erinnerung) of "what I have earlier experienced," [my] co-remembering (Miterrinerung) understood as the representation of what counts as co-present in the perceptual field but is not itself perceived, and [my] pre-remembering (Vorerinnerung) which, beginning with what is self-present, re-presents the pre-intended which agrees with this as what is to come, as what will be valid in the future. He then immediately adds: Empathy, a novel particularization of this universal remembering, is also re-presentation. It is a higher order re-presentation insofar as it transforms, at least implicitly, all these re-presentations. In fact, however, every mode of re-presentation can re-present the re-presentations of all other modes. Every mode can be a transformation of them. (Ms. B I 22, v, pp. 22-23, 1934). According to this passage, Er-innerung may be described as a general form of looking inward which re-presents and transforms what is inwardly present. Hussed's crucial, though implicit, point is that the first three types of re-presentation-ordinary remembering, appresenting and anticipating-are sufficient to give me my concreteness. Together they define me as a subject who has a definitely given past and specific anticipations with regard to the future. The transformation of these elements of my concreteness thus yields a different subject. He is conceived as an alternative middlepoint of an alternately specified temporal environment. Before we look more closely at this process, there are two things which must be kept in mind. The first is the dependence of empathy on memory. Without the latter, there are no objective Others as objects for my empathy. In Hussed's words: "As a human being, I am objective along with my Others. The Others are not for me originally objective from my memories (Erinnerungen) as something originally remembered. They do, however, presuppose my memories at that according to which they are modifications" (Ms. KIll 4, p. 77, 1936). Our second point is that the process of modification is present throughout the hierarchy of re-presentations. Thus, it is not as if I first become objective and then modifications sets to work to produce my objective Other. Rather, as we cited Hussed: " ... every mode of re-presentation can re-present the re-pre-

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sentations of all other modes. Every mode can be a transformation of them" (Ms. B I 22, pp. 22-23). This means that in the process of my becoming objective to myself, I have an interplay of the modes of re-presentation which achieve this objectivity. As we shall see, the lower modes found the higher. I cannot anticipate unless I appresent; I cannot appresent unless I remember. This, however, does not mean that I cannot remember what I appresented, that I cannot appresent what I anticipate. Each higher mode is, in fact, subject to the transformations occasioned by the lower. The result is the constant formation of alternatives to the re-presentations which come together in my sense of my objective being. When the latter is complete-i.e., fully defined-so are its alternatives. The alternatives grow up in parallel with the elements for my self-representation. What we have, then, is a co-grounding of my sense of self and my intentions to my Others. This co-grounding allows me to say that "I am who I am"-i.e., a fully concrete self-"only as bearing in myself the Other and all Others" (Ms. C 17 I, Sept., 1931, HAXV, p. 336). When I am concrete, the process of re-presentation which gives my definite status is accomplished; and the process which intends my Others as distinct alternatives is also complete. We can give the mechanics of this process by first turning to the stages by which I achieve my definite status. In the passage we have cited, the first stage is that of ordinary remembering. This, of course, is not the absolutely first stage, since memory implies that I have something to remember. Ordinary remembering re-presents the action of a past perceptual synthesis. This synthesis presupposses short-term memories-i.e., my retentions of past impressional moments. For Husserl, then, my ordinary remembering "points back to memories which are not yet memories of objects and to memories which are not yet [objective] selfrememberings" (Ms. K III 4, p. 76). The transformation worked by this short-term memory is that of re-presenting the past impressional moment as if it were present. Its result is my concreteness as a presently perceiving self. This is a position-taking self, a self which posits objects out of its perceptual syntheses. Ordinary remembering adds to this concreteness by increasing its temporal depth. It recalls what I have done or failed to do. As such, it is a re-presentation of my past position taking selves-a treating them as if they were present. What Husserl calls "co-remembering" extends this concreteness by further specifying the objects which arise from my perceptual syntheses. It re-presents (or appresents) the features of my surrounding world which count as co-present-this, even though such features are not directly perceived. Thus, in appresentation, Ire-present the back of a chair while I perceive the front. This second type of representation leads to a third. In "pre-remembering," I anticipate that I

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could see the back of the chair. The back of the chair is taken as "agreeing"-i.e., as fitting in harmoniously-with the "self-present" front. My concreteness in this case involves my futurity, i.e., what I shall do or fail to do. It is easy to see the order of these types. I cannot anticipate unless I appresent. Since I anticipate what I appresent-e.g., the back of the chairthe latter focuses the intention of my anticipation. Similarly, I cannot appresent without my memories. I appresent the back of an object because fronts and backs have been paired in my memories (see above p. 3~). My memories, then, determine the intention of my appresentation. They, in fact, specify its content. Thus, the more the present case resembles what I recall, the more specific is my appresentation. The transformation worked by these re-presentations is equally clear. Like ordinary remembering, appresentation and anticipation re-present as present something which is not itself present. Thus, in its bringing past experience to bear on the present, appresentation takes what is not perceived-e.g., the back of the chair-as if it were present. This "coremembering" may be seen as a transformation of ordinary remembering insofar as it treats a remembered relationship-e.g., that between fronts and backs-as if it were co-given with my present perceptual experience. Anticipation (or "pre-remembering") works a similar transformation on appresentation. It projects it forward to the future thereby anticipating that the future will confirm my appresentation. Here, I treat the not yet as if it were present-i.e., as if its features were already those of my present appresentation. With this, we should note that in the actual process of my becoming concrete, these modes of Er-innerung hardly ever occur in a pure form. My memories of myself include the recall of my past appresentations and the anticipations which are based on these. They help form the content of my remembering what I have done or failed to do. What I have done is seen as a fulfillment of my past anticipations. What I have failed to do is viewed as a lack of such fulfillment. The same point can be made by saying that to the point that my anticipations are not an empty intending, they involve the expectation that what I recall will, in its general features, be repeated. The structure of the remembered thus prefigures the future I anticipate. This, of course, is why Husserl calls anticipation a "pre-remembering." This description of the stages by which I achieve my concreteness is necessarily one-sided. As we cited Husserl, " ... I am who I am"-i.e., a fully concrete subject-"only as bearing in myself the Other and all Others." This means that my concreteness implies the concreteness of my intentions to my Others. It also signifies that my self-transcending intentions are inherent in the sense I have of myself as fully concrete. Thus, to

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describe the stages by which I achieve my objective presence, I must take account of the stages by which I form my intentions to Others. This can be put in terms of Husserl's assertion that empathy is a "higher order re-presentation," one which "transforms" the re-presentations which give me my concreteness. As we pointed out, empathy's object is intended in terms of the alternatives of such re-presentations. The Other is re-presented in my intention as having different memories and, as a consequence, different appresentations and anticipations. Accordingly, he is re-presented as having done what I have failed to do and, as not having accomplished my particular actions. Hence, he is differently situated with respect to his future. The latter is prefigured by a different past. Now, these differences cannot imply that he is intended as a subject whom I cannot encounter-i.e., that I intend him as occupying a world which is inaccessible to me. For Husserl, my concreteness-i.e., my objective presence in the world-requires my intentions to him. This signifies that his presence in the world is intended as a presence which helps to establish and confirm my worldly presence. My Other and I must therefore be thought of as co-present subjects. We must be taken as subjects who, in intending their own objective presence in the world, intend each other as part of the same world. To see how the transformations worked by empathy achieve this result, we must begin by recalling that a subject's objective status involves that of the world. He is objective as part of an objective world. The world's objectivity is defined in terms of its universality-i.e., its being apprehended as the same world for everyone. For Husserl, the initial basis of this objectivity is my inner plurality. "Everyone," in the first instance, is limited to the coexisting plurality of my re-presented past and future selves. Each of these remembered and anticipated selves is re-presented as having a world, i.e., as having synthesized its unity out of his multiple experiences. Insofar as this unity is the same for all, it is taken as continuously the same for me. When we turn to objectivity in its full sense, the world's thereness for me is included as an element of its thereness for everyone else. The world is taken as the same-i.e., as exhibiting the same unity-both for myself and for Others. Now, if we take empathy as a transformation of the re-presentations which yield my inner plurality, it is clear that the second sense of objectivity is actually an overlay on the first. The inner plurality which makes up my Other is intended as a series of alternatives to my own inner plurality. This means that each of these alternatives is taken as a remembered or anticipated self who has his world and that these worlds come together in a unity which defines a central self who has one and the same world. This world is a variant, an overlay of my world. In fact, it is my world; though it is re-presented not as I experience

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it but as I could experience it through an alternative course of action. We essentially say the same thing when we note that the possibility which I re-present as my Other's world is a possibility which is inherent in my world. It appears whenever I re-present what I have done or failed to do. The notion of my failing to do what I could have done implies that my world was such that I could have acted otherwise. While mentioning anticipations, this derivation of an "objective" world mainly relies on my remembering. Indeed, it could have been formulated exclusively in terms of my memories and their transformations. This is not the case for the process which establishes my own presence as an object in the world. To consider this presence as the same for myself and my Others, I must bring in appresentation. When I do, my Other appears as the unity of the re-presentations which vary my appresentations of myself as "there." Let us say that I stand facing a chair. I perceive its front and appresent its back. My appresentations of its back can be varied. I can conceive of an appresentation which is directed to its front. This implies a standpoint which directly presents what I appresent-i.e., the chair's back. The schema can be applied to my bodily presence. Its objective thereness for me-understood as a thereness which is located in space-is always a function of my self-appresentations. Given my permanent position in the "here," I can only appresent, never directly perceive, myself as "there." Thus, my bodily unity is, for me, a synthesis of s'uch appresentations. If I vary these, then I can conceive of the standpoints from which I could be directly perceived. A synthesis of such variations would yield the unity of my bodily appearing for the Other who successively occupies such standpoints. Since the unity of the perceived is correlated to that of the perceiver, it would also yield the re-presentation of myself as if I were this Other. Here, the synthetic unity of my consciousness is represented as the Other:s unity as he synthesizes what he experiences-i.e., my body-from his successive standpoints.? Two conclusions follow from this analysis. The first is that my thereness for myself and for my Other are related constructs, the second construct being an overlay on the first. Since the second construct is established by the appresentations of my self-appresentations, my thereness for the Other must be harmonious with my thereness for myself. The second conclusion is that the Other whom I intend as perceiving myself is a transformation of my appresenting self. This is a transformation accomplished by appresenting my acts of self-appresentation and synthesizing the results into a harmonious perceiving of myself. The increase of concreteness this brings about is clear. I and my Other do not just share a common world, we are also co-present within it. By appresenting my selfappresenting, I intend the Other as perceiving myself. Adding another layer

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of appresenting, I can take the other as appresenting bis self-appresentations. With this, I take him as intending myself as someone perceiving bim. The result is our co-presence as mutual perceivers. The last stage of concreteness is given by anticipation. Its form is Husserl's "pre-remembering which, beginning with the self-present represents the intended which agrees with this as what is to come: ... " Subjectively regarded, what is "self-present" is my already accomplished "thisness." It is my presence as a finite subject who possesses "these" characteristics and not others. This finitude involves my memories of what I have done or failed to do. Even more immediately, it involves my "fresh past," i.e., what I have just accomplished. Accordingly, it includes the standpoint-the "here" in the world-I have just taken up. As Husserl writes, "This 'fresh past' ('friscbe Vergangenbeit') projects its structure on the future. The future is harmoniously prefigured according to the constituted past .... the ego expects that what is prefigured will itself become present through actualization, through the fulfilling present" (Ms. C 4, p. 1, Aug., 1930). Thus, having taken up my standpoint in a new "here," I expect that my surrounding world will show itself in a manner which is harmonious with my earlier standpoint which, itself, is taken as fulfilling or failing to fulfill the anticipations of still earlier standpoints. In this way, my present is linked to my successively given pasts. As already indicated, the re-presentation of alternatives to my past has a cascading effect. Insofar as such alternatives vary my "here," they vary what I appresent. As such, they also vary what I anticipate-i.e., what I intend from the standpoint of the "here." In other words, these different pasts make me prefigure the future differently and, hence, envision alternative futures. Now, these futures are not those prefigured by that past which has yielded my present thisness. They do, however, remind me that wbat is prefigured by my past is not predetermined by it. Thus, a regard to the could have been otherwise of my past situates my present thisness in a horizon of alternative possibilities. It makes me regard myself as contingent-i.e., as "one of the possibilities, precisely the one which has actually occurred." As a consequence, my own present thisness has an open character. It, too, is seen as implying its own range of possibilities. What I shall do or fail to do is not determined by it. Rather, my actions are seen as determining which of these possibilities will be actualized. To put this in terms of anticipation, we can say that the sense of the future has a double horizon. Those futures which are not prefigured by my past are seen as the futures which I have foregone through my past actions. Those which are still within my powers are those which I confront in my present choice of a course of action. In anticipating the latter, I anticipate that the future will continue the relation between the could have been otherwise of my

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past and the alternatives to my present thisness. Thus, I take my present status as pointing to the future in such a way that I confront the alternative possibilities of my future. The origin of this double horizon is, of course, the independence of the primal present. Re-presented in terms of the past, this independence is represented as the contingency, the could-have-been-otherwise of my past. The cascading effect of the re-presentation of such alternatives gives me the horizon of futures which are based on pasts which are different than mine. When I anticipate, the same relation is projected into the future. Thus, in anticipation, I re-present the future as present, thereby treating my present manner of being and behaving as if it were past. Once again, the independence of the primal present manifests itself in the contingency of its re-presentations. I am confronted with the could-havebeen-otherwise of what, in anticipation, appears as my past being and behaving. Correlatively, I re-present as present the alternative futures which could spring from such alternatives. To add an important, if obvious, point, we may note that nothing in my originally present being prevents this transforming action of re-presentation. A direct regard to my present being reveals only anonymity-an anonymity which neither confirms nor rejects any alternative. This is why I must anticipate in order to concretely regard alternative actions resulting in alternative futures. In representing my present ongoing action as past, I give it the temporal distance which allows it to be objectively determinate. I thus grasp it as having the determinate characteristics which can be varied so as to yield its specific alternatives. Each of these alternative courses of action, if followed through, would yield a different future. Yet, given my finitude-i.e., my status as occuying this (and not another) standpoint-only one of these futures can be brought about. In a certain sense, such actualization involves a double result. The fulfillment of my intentions when I choose a given course of action results in my growing concreteness. It adds to the content of my accomplished "thisness." It also results in my externalizing a whole series of possibilities which were originally inherent in my thisness. Thus, the fulfillment of my intentions to my chosen thisness is also the fulfillment of its alternatives in their otherness. They become foregone possibilitiespossibilities which I could have but did not realize. In other words, the fulfillment of their otherness is one with my achieved this ness ruling them out. To apply this to my intentions to my Other, I must see him as having an alternative past, an alternative present with different appresentations and, hence, as having an alternative future. In this process, I grasp him as other than myself and yet as like me. He is a different subject insofar as he

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is taken as embodying possibilities which my achieved thisness has excluded from my future. He is like me insofar as he is taken as fitting in with the horizon of my alternatives. In the latter case, he is understood as a possibility of being and behaving which would have been instantiated in my "this" if my life had taken a different course. To see how far such empathy extends is to see what could be varied in the notion of a life. I can re-present what my life would have been had I made different choices, had I, for example, pursued a different career. I can also imagine what it would have been if its uncontrollable factors had been different. Thus, I can imagine what my life would have been had the circumstances of my birth been different-Le., had I been brought up in a different environment. The limit of such variations is set by Husserl's statement: "The first thing, then, is the fact of the I am (egol. This fact, however, only exists in the style of infinitely open possibilities which distinguish themselves through the actuality of life itself" (Ms. B I 13, VI, p. 3, Oct. I, 1931). As we earlier remarked, the "fact of the I am" is the fact of the living present. This present cannot be varied, since it must be given for a life to be given. Its givenness, however, does not limit the possibilities of a life. As an aspect of the absolute, this present inherently implies the totality of life's possibilities. In a certain sense, then, we can say with Husserl, "The totality of human possibilities is present in the newborn child, while it is fate, a matter of fact (Schicksal, Factuml which of these will become developed capabilities (VermOgenl and which will ultimately become actualized in their [initial] environment and in the future environments they [subsequently] enter" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 384, note 11. This, of course, does not mean that every child has the potentiality to become, say, a Mozart. The focus, here, is on the totality of possibilities, a totality which is at the basis of every "this" including that of the newborn. Such a totality is, properly speaking, prior to the newborn since his birth is already a "fact" which implies the limitations of finitude. As such, it already implies the existence of some potentialities rather than others. 8 Accordingly, the fact of birth is already an achievement of a thisness which forecloses possibilities. The foreclosure of possibilities continues throughout a person's life. Each of his actions cuts off a possible future in order to actualize another. Thus, in choosing to do this rather than that, I avail myself of the possibilities inherent in the this and externalize those afforded by the that. Insofar as I intend the Other as the person I would be if I did have a different set of anticipations, the process of foreclosure is matched by the growing concreteness of my intentions to my Others. Each choice, in foreclosing a possibility which was available to me, enriches the stock of alternatives to my anticipations. Each such alternative allows me a fresh

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intention to my possible Others. We can put this in terms of the Latin root of "intention/' which signifies a stretching out or forth. My intention to my Other is my stretching forth to a possibility which was originally available to me through the ground of my thisness. This means that the otherness of the Other-i.e., the fact that I must extend myself to meet him-is a function of my own "stretching out." It is, in part, a function of my externalization, through my choices, of the possibilities originally available to me. Correlatively, this otherness is a function of what my choices result in-i.e., the growing concreteness of my thisness. With regard to the newborn child, we can say that the fact of my birth already implied a multitude of Others since it implied a finite thisness and, hence, the foreclosure of a whole range of possible futures. Such subjects are not like me in the sense that I could have chosen to have a life like theirs. They are my alternatives on the level of the original givenness of the circumstances of my life. They are like me insofar as they express what I could have been given had I been a different manifestation of my ground. To see how my intentions to my Others confirm and establish my concreteness, we must again consider the Other as an extension of my "I can." As including my future, my concreteness involves the anticipation that my theses concerning my worldly being will, in fact, be confirmed. In this regard, the future is seen as an extension of my "I can"-i.e., my ability to confirm these theses. Thus, I assume that "if my powers were extended on and on, ... then the presumptive certainties [of my theses] would also disclose themselves according to the style of my experiencing life" (Ms. C 8 7, p. 19, Oct., 1929). I assume that if I could go further, then my extended "I can" would confirm what my past prefigures with regard to my future. Now, as we recall, for Husserl the thought of this extension involves my Others. It leads me to posit them as actually having the extension which I anticipate. As we earlier put this, I intend my Others "as possessing the '1 can' whose actual extension is required for actual certainty" (see above, p. 160). This means that I transfer to Others "in an analogizing, assimilating, transcending apperception" my anticipated "I can." I re-present this "1 can" as present, thus assuming that my anticipated experience is presently available to my Others. The result is my intending my Others as persons who can confirm my theses. Thus, the Other in the "there" is intended as having the experience which I anticipate I could have had if I had taken up his standpoint. With this, I treat our collective experience as harmonious-i.e., as confirming my theses from alternative perspectives. Insofar as these theses concern myself as objectively present, this confirmation helps to establish what I take to be my concreteness.

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Let us take a closer look at the role that pre-remembering plays in the above. Its general form is that of re-presenting the future as if it were present. Thus, pre-remembering re-presents as present the self which I anticipate in choosing this rather than that course of action. To result in the re-presentation of my Other, pre-remembering must focus, not on what I anticipate, but rather on what I anticipated in the past. Its material must be given by memory. I must, then, remember the alternatives which once were included as possibilities of my thisness. These are the alternatives which once confronted me in the choice of expressing my "I can." Each possible choice had its series of anticipations and each was thought of as leading to a disclosure of the world "according to the general style of my experiencing life." Since I could only choose one course of action at a time, most of these anticipated disclosures never occurred. Now, when I remember my earlier action of choosing, I treat it as if it were presently occurring. This means that I treat the harmonious experience I anticipated but never followed up as if it still lay in my future. When I turn my pre-remembering on this "future" experience, I re-present it as if it were present. Ire-present myself as having had the experience which, in fact, I chose not to have. The result is a re-presentation of myself in terms of an excluded "I can"an "I can" which once was anticipated as confirming my theses. Considered as present, this "I can"-which is different from my ownbecomes intended as that of a co-present subject. The latter is taken as a subject who can confirm my theses. Pre-remembering thus leads me to intend the self I once anticipated as actually present in the form of the Other. It does this continually as my growing concreteness closes off some possibilities and opens up others. This process continually multiplies my intentions to my Others since the more I become defined as a this, the more my finitude implies the horizon of its alternatives. As a consequence, my other egos define my thisness ever more closely and are seen as confirming it from their perspectives. This analysis simply follows Husserl's dictum: " ... every mode of representation can re-present the re-presentations of all other modes. Every mode can be a transformation of them." Let us conclude by observing that we can add the mode of appresentation to the above description of preremembering transforming memory. In appresentation, I take my Other as regarding me as someone who perceives him. When I apply this to the above, I reverse the relation just delineated between self and Others. I take myself as'an alternative to these Others. I, thus, understand myself as someone confirming their presumptive certainties with regard to their theses. As a consequence, I and my Others are seen as forming a continuously developing, self-confirming totality.

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§7. EMPATHY AND FREEDOM

Let us turn &om the detailed analyses of our preceding section to consider a conclusion which is implicit in their arguments: They imply that empathy and freedom have the same basis. This follows because both involve the sense of alternatives. If empathy is the intending of the Other in terms of my alternatives, freedom is the choice between alternatives. Without my sense that there are alternatives, I would not be aware of having aims in life, i.e., of confronting choices, of freely deciding to do-and to be-"this" rather than "that." Such awareness, like that of empathy, is based on the all-inclusive nature of my ground. It is because my ground implicitly contains every alternative and is, in fact, that in and through which I act, that my action has the feeling of freedom. As springing &om the ground, it always involves a choice between alternatives. To express this in terms of re-presentation, we can say that the root of my freedom is the independence of my ground. Because the ground could have expressed itself in an alternative objectification, its independence signifies its ability to surpass any particular objectification. Ire-present this independence by being aware of the alternatives to the already given and, in anticipation, by being aware of the alternatives which could be given through my actions. The fact that such alternatives are implicit in the presenting core of human action means that they are alternatives which could be made present by such action. Thus, in anticipation, I do not confront them as abstract possibilities, but rather as possible choices of a course of action. Since each such choice implies an alternative anticipation of what I shall be, I have my sense of freedom in my choice of my "this." The above does not imply that there are no limits to my embodied freedom. Equally, it cannot be taken as asserting that there is no distinction between active and passive constitution. If subjects through their freedom could break the pre-individual, passively given basis for their constitution, then each could be considered as purely spontaneous in his constitution. This would make impossible the notion of an intersubjective harmony (see above, p. 178). To avoid this result, we must first draw a parallel between the contingency of freedom and that of constitution. Their contingency results &om their self-surpassing quality; and this is correlated to the surpassing quality of their ground. In each case, what is surpassed is the given. Thus, a free act cannot be completely determined by what has gone before. It has an ultimately factual quality which means that what is given in time does not completely determine its present choice. There is, then, an irreducible element of contingency (of not being determined beforehand) in both the

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choosing and the given it results in. Now, the same contingency follows from the surpassing quality of all constitution, be this active or passive. What is constituted is contingent because it is not self-determining. This means that its givenness is surpassed by what will be given. Each addition to the given, each new content-laden moment, is not completely determined by what preceded it and, hence, each is a surpassing of the latter. So regarded, the contingency of the given which results from freedom is also this given's contingency qua constituted. Both forms of contingency are considered as resulting from the pure spontaneity of the absolute which underlies all givenness. Thus, the alternative selves which I confront in choosing my "this" are the possible results of such spontaneity. Similarly, the re-presentation of such spontaneity in terms of my present action appears as my freedom in choosing between these alternatives. When I turn to consider myself as an already constituted thisness, I cannot say my givenness nullifies my freedom. Since my being as presently acting is never objectively given, I cannot take what is objectively given-i.e., my achieved thisness-as presently acting. The conclusion follows whether I take my achieved thisness as actively or passively constituted. In neither case does the constituted lose its character of being surpassed. In neither case does it present itself as active-i.e., as a self which is presently choosing a "this." Give the above, we can maintain what seem to be opposing doctrines. We can say with Husserl that "the individual, egologicallife is passively constituted in immanent time" (Ms. B I 32, I, p. 16, Mayor Aug., 1931). We can also assert our freedom in choosing our thisness. The key point here, as in the whole of this chapter, is the assertion of the duality of the individual's essence. My essence is such that I can claim both my identity with my ground and my difference from it. Qua constitutively given, I am not free. I am free only to the point that, in my primal constitution, I exist in coincidence with my ground. So regarded, my freedom can be said to be a manifestation of being in its distinction from essence-i.e., a manifestation of the being per se which cannot be limited to a given entity with its particular essence. Concretely, this means that my freedom is my coincidence with the primal present-the present "which is actuality in the proper sense as that which is primally productive" (Ms. C 17, HA XV, p. 348). This present makes everything be present; yet since it is not inherent in the objective givenness of individual entities, it gives them only a contingent presence. Now, my duality is such that I act in and through the original present; yet I can only objectively grasp myself in terms of what is not originally present. As a consequence, my freedom always appears to be transforming itself into the opposite. It is manifested as a surpassing of the given which results in the constitution of a new given. It, thus, follows

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the paradigm of the original present which surpasses the given by a giving which results in yet another given. The resulting objectively fixed order of time is, we can say, the concealment of the spontaneity which generated it. Here, the fixed character of memory, which comes with already accomplished time, designates what is not in my power. What is in my power is the addition to this. In other words, my coincidence with my ground-Le., my freedom-is my capability to surpass my given being as presented through my memory. We can combine this with the notion of the passive constitution of my life "in immanent time" by noting that such constitution essentially concerns memory. It concerns the defining environment which results from my memories as they occur in immanent time. Now, to assert that there is a level of passive constitution is to observe with Husserl that "transcendental subjectivity is not free in its possibilities of constituting beingS or nonbeings. It must constitute beings" (Ms. KIll 1, viii, p. 4, 1935). This follows from the fact that the dissolution of its surrounding world is its own dissolution as an active center. The freedom to break off the passive synthesis which results in this world is, therefore, a self-cancelling abstraction. If a subject could engage in it, he would cancel his objective givenness. He would, in other words, disrupt that part of the duality of his essence which defines him as a central actor. The distinction between active and passive synthesis is clear from the above. Passive synthesis concerns what must be accomplished if I am to maintain my "individual, egologicallife." Active synthesis concerns the type of life I lead. It functions in my choice of the type of self I want to become. As resulting from my freedom, this becoming is a surpassing of my given being as it is presented through memory. Such surpassing constantly adds to memory, constantly reshaping my given being. The process is such that the past necessarily prefigures the outlines of my future since the addition to my memories cannot disrupt their defining me as a self. These remarks on freedom allow us to give an extra dimension to the following passage of the Meditations: ... that I, who am, can be conscious of someone else-someone I am not, someone who is other than me-presupposes that not all of my modes of consciousness belong to the circle of those which are modes of my self-consciousness .... the problem is how to understand the fact that the ego, in itself, has (and can always construct anew) intentionalities of such a new kind, intentionalities with a sense of being whereby it totally transcends its own being (eM, Strasser ed., p. 135).

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The being which is transcended is my being in its thisness. The modes of consciousness which are not apprehensions of my thisness are those directed to its alternatives. In the Meditations, the condition of the possibility of the escape from my thisness through transcending intentions is not yet given. We confront the teaching that what I am directly given is always my own. It comes together to form my "this," i.e., the sense of my being as a given, concrete individual in my world. It is Husserl's addition of the doctrine of the surpassing ground of my "this" which provides the key to my constant self-transcendence. The absolute confounds my "this" in its objective anonymity, in its escape from being characterized as a "this." Its all-inclusiveness situates the "this" as contingent, as a member of a horizon which contains its alternate possibilities. It also gives my essence its dual character. I am more than the "this" which I objectively grasp. Acting out of the ground of my being, I constantly surpass my objective being. To put this in terms of freedom, we can say that the formation of transcending intentions-intentions to "someone I am not"-is already inherent in my confrontation with my future possibilities. My intentions to what I could be are structured by the duality of my essence. On the one hand, they are anticipations arising from the givenness of my past. On the other hand, they surpass this givenness by virtue of my coincidence with the origin of givenness. The same point holds with regard to their fulfillment. The duality of my essence is such that only one of these possibilities can be actualized by me. The fulfillment of my intention to my chosen "this" is, as we said, the externalization of its alternative possibilities. They become foregone possibilities, possibilities which transcend my present capabilities. This transcendence is a result of the objective part of my essence, the part which gives me my individuality as a center. In coincidence with my ground, I can intend multiple possibilities of being and behaving. Yet, in active synthesis, my freedom is always finite. I can only act to fulfill one of these alternatives, since the fulfillment of more than one would disrupt the identity of my life. It would result in my dissolutiion as an individual center of the world which defines me as a "this." Since freedom and empathy have the same basis, the same point can be made with regard to my intentions to my Others. They are also structured by the duality of my essence. From the perspective of my ground, what I re-present through my memories is not distinguished from what I represent through empathy. This follows insofar as the ground of the presence of each is the same. The separation of memory and empathy comes through the second part of my essence-that of my objectively present being. In other words, it comes through the fulfillment of my intentions to my chosen "this" which is also an alienation of its alternatives. Thus, I

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remember the possibilities of being and behaving which I chose to actualize; while in empathy, the alternatives of such possibilities function as the elements of my intentions to my Others. The same duality structures the way in which the appearing Other fulfills my intentions to him. Such fulfillment is a matter of his appearing as my alternative-as my alter ego. He must show himself as other than me-i.e., as manifesting a possibility of being and behaving which transcends the capabilities of my achieved "thisness." Yet, in his actions, he must also show that he is like me. Our similarity refers to our common origin, i.e., to that part of our essence which is the same. Accordingly, I recognize him as like me insofar as his actions re-present one of the possibilities of being and behaving which is implicit in our common origin. I recognize this as a possibility which was originally open to me or, by extension, as a possibility which could have been open to me if the circumstances of my life had been different. In either case, he is similar insofar as his action exhibits a possibility of selfhood which is implicit in the freedom which is at the origin of my own self-surpassing. Thus, he is seen as like me insofar as his actions manifest the freedom which is the basis for my self-development. To fill out this picture, we must recall Husserl's assertion that the ego is "self-shaping" in its self-development. This means that when it finds "itself in successive time, it is, in fact, exhibiting its full present, exhibiting what it is now, what [pre-objectively] lies within it as an ego" (Ms. A V 5, p. 10, Jan., 1933). What is pre-objectively now designates that part of my essence which is common to myself and my Other. It designates my primordiality as containing "all time and world." Implicit within it is not just my bodily appearing but also the bodily appearance of the Other. Both are part of this primordiality's objective exhibition as it unfolds (or "finds") itself in time. In this context, the Other's appearing is an exhibition to me in my situatedness-a situatedness which points to the objectively finite aspect of my essence. It is also an exhibition of me insofar as my functioning is one with this primordiality taken as the non finite aspect of my essence. Thus, the possibility which the Other actualizes is inherent in me because one aspect of my essence-the aspect which makes me free-is this primordiality. As something foregone, as a possibility which is permanently other, the possibility exhibited by my fellow subject also has its basis in me. Yet, this time its basis is the aspect of my essence which makes me an already situated, finite "this." This leads us to take note of a theme which will be central to our last chapter. The duality of my essence is such that the process of my selfshaping can be described in teleological terms. A teleological process is one which is determined by the not-yet. This means that what will be accom-

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plished by this process is not just its goal but also its determining ground or cause. Let us apply this to Husserl's assertion that the ego, "in finding itself in successive time," is actually "exhibiting what it is now." This statement implies that the ego is, qua now, what it will be in time. What it will be is its not-yet, its goal. What it is now in a pre-objective sense is the primordiality which grounds its action. If what the ego will be is implicit in the ground of its action, if in some sense the two are identical, then its self-shaping can be called teleological. The goal designates what will be; but this can be seen as grounding the process of the ego's actualization insofar as the possibilities of the goal are coincident with those of the ground of the ego's actualization. Here, the duality of the ego's essence allows us to call it self-actualizing. Its full essence includes not just the "thisness" which is its goal, but also the primordiality which brings the latter about. Our conclusion is essentially unaffected by the fact that such primordiality implies more than the "thisness" which is the ego's finite goal. That its primordiality includes "all time and world" means that it implies more than what the ego can exhibit through its nontranscendent intentions. Thus, if the ego achieves its goal through its exhibiting the possibilities of its ground, its goal actually implies more than itself. In other words, because the possibilities inherent in its ground surpass what it can intend as itself alone, it must re-present what "lies within it as an ego," not just as its own possibilities but also as the possibilities of those Others who are intended as establishing and confirming the thisness which is its goal. The same teleological identification of the ground and the goal can be applied to freedom. This is also an identification which implies my Others, since my freedom involves my sense of alternatives. To put this in terms of leaving open, it can be said that, as free, I always possess the horizon of my empathy. I have the sense of my could have been otherwise, which means that my being and behaving leave open the possibilities of Others. Now, as we said, the surpassing quality of the ground is matched by the "leaving open" of that which it grounds (see above, p. 263f). This indicates that freedom is not just rooted in the independence of my ground. In a specific sense, it is my ground. Freedom determines (or grounds) my being as a self that preserves itself through its choices and actions. It allows me to preserve my unity by allowing me to constantly correct myself as I take positions based on my experience. This determination, however, is teleological. The content of my freedom is my future possibilities regarded as goals. As such, it is a determination by the not-yet. The crucial point with regard to such determination is that a plurality of results is inherent in it. Freedom cannot be limited to producing the self I shall become. If it were, it would not be real but illusory freedom. Real

1Sc:.:. M"--_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ,306 INc:..T~E~R~S=:UB~T~EC~TI~VI,-"TY-"--,-A,,,-N:..::D,-T::.:RA=N.:..::S-=C=EN:..:..:D=-=E=NT-,-,,-,-~=L--=:ID=-:EA=L::.:

freedom involves the spontaneity of not being determined beforehand. It is, in fact, the openness of my ground projected forward as the openness of my goal. This openness is its inclusion of multiple possibilities and is itself mirrored by my openness to these. With regard to myself, this openness appears as my freedom in choosing my "this." With regard to Others, it appears as the openness of my empathy. The fulfillment of both considered as intentions follows from my primordiality being both a ground and a goal-i.e., something which, containing its own cause, is self-shaping. Thus, through my surpassing primordiality, I exist as part of a process which surpasses me. It is because of this that I possess the "distance"-the openness-in which I can form my intentions to my future "thisness" and to my Others. The same reason allows me to say that I exist as part of a process which can fulfill such intentions. The basic phenomenon here is that of my primal present's remaining not-yet by containing more that what it objectively presents. This "more" is not just the freedom at the core of my being. It is also the non-appearing self of the Other. As that which distinguishes human from merely mechanical behavior, it is the object of my "analogizing transfer" of my sense of selfhood to my Other. This transfer can be made because freedom as self-surpassing inherently involves self-pluralization. It implies something more than what can be given by any specific individual. Thus, freedom appears as the ground of my leaving open and, hence, of my intentions to Others. It also appears as the goal of such intentions insofar as what fulfills them is the manifestation of freedom in the appearance of the Other. He is recognized as like me insofar as his actions imply more than himself. He is seen as a self insofar as he acts to surpass himself.

Chapter VII

TEMPORALII'Y AND TELEOLOGY § 1. THE "TELEOLOGICAL GROUND" OF TEMPORALIZATION

USSERL

declares that "teleology ... , [taken) as an ontological form,

H determines the universal being of transcendental subjectivity" (Ms. E

III 9, Nov. 5,1931, HAXV, Kern ed., p. 378). He speaks of the teleology "immanent" within subjects "as the form of their individual being, as the form of all the forms in which subjectivity exists" (ibid., p. 380). He then goes on to assert that "teleology can be exhibited as that which concretely and individually determines, that which ultimately makes possible and thereby actualizes all being in its totality" (ibid.). These far-reaching claims can be understood in terms of a series of assumptions. Teleology can be taken as determining "all being" if we assume that it determines transcendental subjectivity in its constitution of every type of being. The constitutive process is inherently temporal. As we cited Husserl, it is the result of the "welling up" of time. Specifically, egological action "is a primal welling up, a creative allowing to depart" of the constituted-Le., of the egological acts and their objects-in time (see Ms. BIll 9, pp. 13-14, Oct.-Dec., 1931). If we assume that this "primal welling up" is teleologically determined, then so is the constitution which it results in. Thus, teleology becomes "the form of all the forms" in which subjectivity manifests itself when we assume that it is the form of the temporality which constitutively grounds subjective existence-i.e., its existence as an active center.l We can reformulate these assumptions in terms of Husserl's statement: "Teleological creatures (Wesen) live in a universal teleological temporality, a temporality in which a specific teleological causality has its form ... " (Ms. K III 4, p. 48, 1934-35). They possess this temporality

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because "each transcendental ego has something innate. Within itself, it innately bears the teleological ground of its streaming, constituting, transcendental life. This is a life where the ego, in temporalizing its world, temporalizes itself as a human being" (Ms. E III 9, p. II). This statement identifies what is "innate" to an ego with what functions as the ground of its temporalization. The latter, of course, is the primal present. As we cited Husserl, this present is what is "primally temporalizing." To call this ground "teleological" is, thus, to assume the teleological nature of this present. We can thus say that, for Husserl, the universality of teleology is premised upon the teleology of the "constituting, transcendental" lives of individual egos; but this assumes the teleological structuring of what is "primally generating"-i.e., the primal present understood as the ground of these constituting lives. The above may be applied to the arising of individual egos and also to the community of egos. As we cited Husserl, "The ego, itself, is constituted as a temporal unity. As a lasting and remaining ego, it is an already acquired (and, in continuous acquisition, a continuously further acquired) ontical unity" (Ms. C 17 Sept. 20-22, 1931, HA XV, p. 348). This unity is that of the ego as an active center of its life. If the temporality which constitutes this unity is teleological, then so is the very coming to be of the ego. Thus, we can speak with Husserl of "the new awakening (Erwachen) of egos as genuine egos, as centers of acts in relation to a surrounding world, the awakening, therefore, of [their] constitutions of 'existents/ ultimately, of a world-horizon-as a teleology included in the universal teleology" (Ms. E III 5, Sept., 1933, HA XV, p. 595-96). Teleology, in determining temporality, determines everything which follows from it, including our arising as egos. The same point holds for the intersubjective community. The teleological structuring of temporalization allows us to identify "the awakening (Erwachen) of transcendental all-subjectivity" with "the awakening (Wachwerden) of the teleology immanent within it ... " (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, p. 380). This teleology is understood as determining the forms of its collective life. This means that intersubjective relations are considered to be teleologically structured. As a consequence, our recognition of Others involves not just a focus on the present but also on the not-yet. It involves a recognition of the goals which determine both our individual and collective actions. As we shall see, the consequences of this view will ultimately lead to a transformation of the notion of intersubjectivity. The "problem" of recognizing Others will ultimately become located as a problem for practical reason. First, however, we must turn our attention to the premise behind all of these statements, that of the teleological constitution of time.

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Our immediate effort will be to follow Husserl's arguments as he proceeds from our apprehension of time to the "teleological ground" of temporal constitution.

§2. TIME CONSCIOUSNESS AND ITS DIAGRAM

When we first mentioned the temporal reduction, we said that our sense of extended time is dependent on the ordering of our retentions and protentions (our short-term memories and anticipations). This ordering constitutes our sense that our experiences occupy different positions in extended time. A bracketing of all consideration of retentions and protentions is, in fact, a bracketing of the sense of extended time. Its result is a reduction which Husserl characterizes as "a radical 'limitation' to the living present," the present which is "not a modality of time" (see above, pp. 213-214). These remarks were made only in passing. Our present focus, however, demands that we ask: What, precisely, is the phenomenological meaning of the terms "retention" and "protention"? How does their ordering constitute our sense of time? The easiest way to specify the meaning of "retention" is through a pair of diagrams which Husserl provides. First, however, we must add a word of caution. Following Husserl, we will be speaking of "now points" and "impressional moments." There are, however, no such points. As Husserl notes, the now point or discrete impressional moment "is only an ideal limit, something abstract which can be nothing for itself." He adds that "this ideal now is not distinct toto coelo from the next now, but rather continuously mediates itself with the latter" (Zur Phaenomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, ed. R. Boehm [The Hague, 1966], p. 40, hereafter cited as HA X). In other words, just as a continuous line is not made up of discrete points, although points can be identified by cutting the line, so time should not be conceived as made up of distinct moments. It, too, is a continuum. Indeed, its continuous quality is implicit in its representation by the continuous lines of the time diagrams. Behind this continuity is, we may recall, the lack of any inherent distinction between time's moments. Insofar as such moments are not per se tied to definite sensuous contents, they do not inherently exhibit what could distinguish one moment from the next. As we earlier put this, their what-or rather their inherent lack of a what-is always the same. Another, teleologically oriented reason for the moment's being "nothing for itself" will be explored by us later. This will involve the moment's dependence.

IN.:cT~E~RS~U~B~T~EC::::TI~V1~TY~A~N~D:.-T~RA~N:.::S.::::CE~N~D:::.:E~N~T~~~L-.::ID~EA=L~IS~M~_ _ _ _ _ _~310

With this, we may turn to the diagrams: A

P

E

p'

AE The series of now points AA' Sinking down EA' The continuum of phases (the now point with its horizon of pastness)

A' A

E_ The series of nows which can be filled with other objects (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 28)

E-.

.------------i

~

I I I I I

I

A' We shall begin with an ob;ective reading of these diagrams. By this, we mean a reading which takes time as something already given and attempts to analyze the components of our sense of this givenness. The first such component is the series of successively given now points. The horizontal lines of our diagrams designate successively given time. Reading from left to right, each of the points of these lines represent later moments. The vertical lines designate a second component. They represent the "horizon of pastness" which is associated with each given moment. To descend the vertical is to enter into an increasing sense of pastness. Hussed draws the diagonal lines of his diagrams to indicate the connection of this sense of pastness with the sense of successively given time. If we exclude its topmost point, the points of vertical line EA' can be considered as the endpoints of lines drawn parallel to the diagonal line AA'. With the advance of time-i.e., with the movements of line EA' to the right-such endpoints descend along EN. This sinking down represents an increase in the sense of pastness associated with such endpoints. The diagonal lines, which connect these points to the moments of successively given time, thus represent the "sinking down" into pastness of such moments. The moments, having been experienced as present, are experienced as "just past" and then as just "just past" and so forth. The experience is one of time's expiration, of time's passing away-which requires, of course, an experience of time's moments as expired-i.e., as having passed away.

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When Husserl draws the diagonal lines AA', PP' parallel to each other, this parallelism designates the equitabiltity of the sense of expiration. Contents are apprehended as sinking into pastness at the same rate. This signifies that their original order of succession is not temporarily scrambled while they are grasped as expiring. In other words, the order of points given by the intersections of the diagonal lines with the vertical is also the order of the successively given now points. As a consequence, the horizon of pastness associated with a now point is taken as reproducing the horizon of the successively given moments which preceded this now point. For Husserl, the vertical line also designates enduring time-i.e., time apprehended as duration. To see how this is so, let us examine a problem for which the diagram is supposed to give a solution. Suppose I see a bird flying through the garden. How have I been able to "see" this? What is required, with regard to my sense of time, to grasp this flying or, for that matter, any motion at all? To grasp the flight as temporally extended, I must grasp its moments as successive-i.e., as occupying distinct temporal positions. The successively grasped moments cannot, however, disappear from consciousness the instant after their apprehension. To grasp the flight as a whole, I must retain them in the present-the present of the ongoing act of apprehension. Thus, what is required is both the temporal distinction of these moments and their simultaneous presence in the ongoing now. The vertical line designates the fulfillment of both demands. Its points signify temporally distinct, successive moments insofar as to each is attached a successively greater sense of "sinking down" or expiration. The points, however, are all given along with the now (the topmost point of the vertical line). Thus, they represent a retention, in the ongoing now, of the moments which were successively apprehended. For Husserl, then, we apprehend an extended temporal event, e.g., a melody "not just because the extension of the melody is given point by point in an extended perception, but also because the retentional consciousness, itself, still 'holds fast' the expired tones in our apprehension and, hence, produces the ongoing unity of the consciousness which is directed to the unitary temporal object, e.g., the melody" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 38). This "retentional consciousness" is made up of the retentions or short-term memories of the successively given content-laden moments. The elements of this consciousness are all co-present on the vertical, which means that this line can be said to represent our retentional consciousness. Insofar as the latter is made up of our present retentions of successively past events, its "unity" is that of an overlay of simultaneity on succession. Let us take a closer look at this solution The diagonal lines designate, we said, the sense of expiration, of "sinking down" into pastness. Now,

IN~T~E~R~S~U~B~m~C~T~IW~TY~A~N~D~T~RA~N~S~C~EN~D~E=N~T~~~L~I=D~EA~L=I=SM=-_______________ 312

this sense is that of greater and greater removal of a past moment with its impressional content from the ever new, momentarily actual now. This sense of constant removal, of removal proceeding at a uniform rate, is that which first gives us the sense of a content-laden moment as occupying a definite position in the past. The moment, according to Hussed, is sensed as sinking into pastness at just such a rate as to fix it in a definitely given order of past (or expired) moments (see HA X, Boehm ed., p. 64). The best way to see this is to analyze this "sinking down" along the diagonal line into its horizontal and vertical components. With each new stretch of time, the retention of a past moment is brought up to the present. As such, it remains on the vertical which represents our present retentional consciousness. Yet, with each new stretch, the retention also moves down a corresponding distance on this vertical line. The downward moment, thus, corresponds to the movement of the vertical line to the right as it advances to a new now point in the horizontal line of successive time. To say that a past impressional moment is experienced as expiring at a constant rate signifies, here, that the downward movement of its retention has a fixed ratio to the horizontal advance of time. This gives us our sense of this moment being fixed in the order of past time since this downward movement is just such as to permit the present retention to keep the same diagonal (or retentional) reference to the same point in the past. A

E

E'

E"

B

A'"

A'" A"A' A The line of diagonal reference A'B, A"C The advance of successive time BA", CA'" The increase of the sense of expiration AE:EA'::A'B:BA"::A"C:CA'"

One can also put this by saying that it is our sense of constant expiration which constitutes for us the givenness of a content of a definite point in the past. Applied to a multitude of contents, all expiring at the same rate, but distinct in their degrees of pastness, this sense allows us to grasp in the now, the order of successive time. A

P

E E'

P"

A' A"

A'"

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As we said, the parallelity of the diagonal lines indicates that this order is not scrambled with the advance of time. This, however, requires that the increase of our sense of expiration for each of these contents-as represented by the downward movement of their retentions-must always be a constant function of the advance of time. What precisely is this sense of expiration? According to Husserl, it "has the character of a continuous shading off (Abscbattung)." As the perceptual process continues, we can speak of a "continuous passage" from what is actually perceived to that which is immediately and then mediately retained (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 29). Husserl also describes this sense as a "constant continuum of retentions such that each later point is a retention of the earlier" (ibid.). In other words, we have an impression of a content in the now. This impression is retained, then this immediate retention is itself retained, and so on in a serial fashion. The result is "a continuous chain of retentions of retentions" of the original content (ibid, p. 199). Our last diagram may be taken as applying this to a multitude of contents. The contents originally given along line AP are retained on line A"P' which is itself retained on line A"'P". Proceeding along one of the diagonal lines, e.g., line A"' A, we can say that each retention retains all the retentions that preceded it and, thus, retains the original content to which all the retentions on the line are serially related. Each, however, also modifies this content. Each of the retentions adds a sense of greater expiration or pastness to it. In other words, the sense of the pastness of a content that a retention contains becomes, in a retention of this retention, a sense of past pastness, i.e., a sense of greater pastness or further expiration. If we ask what, strictly speaking, is this sense of pastness, two things can be said. The first is that we experience its increase through the sinking down of our present retentions. This sinking down is their self-modification-i.e., their modification into retentions of themselves. Thus, in our diagram, PA' sinks down to P' A", and P' A" is the retention of the retentions along PA'. Our second point becomes apparent when we view the diagonal lines as chains of retentions. Here, we have to say that the sense of pastness is a relational sense. It is the sense of the serially ordered retentions-i.e., retentions of retentions-which intervene between the present moment and that of an original impression of a sense content. How far back can this retentional chain stretch? As indicated by the phrase, "short-term memory," our actual retentional consciousness is always finite. If we wish to recall a distant event, we must rely on the action of long-term memory. We must re-present the results of an earlier action of retaining departing moments. Having said this, however, we must mention that the opposite view of retentional consciousness is implied by Husserl's position. We can, in fact, argue that the retentional consciousness is infinite.

IN.~T~E~RS~U~B~m~C~TI~W~TY~A~N~D~T~RA~N~S~CE~N~D~E~NT~~~L~1~D~EA~L=I=SM~_______________ 314

As we said, we grasp successive time through our retentions. Our retentional consciousness gives us our sense of the present moment as a moment in time by locating it as the leading edge of past time. From the perspective of our apprehension of time, an earlier time must pertain to any moment which is grasped as being in time. Each moment, if it is not to be anonymous, i.e., timeless, must be apprehended with its locating "horizon of pastness." An already expired and, hence, retained moment is also necessarily grasped with its horizon of later time. This points to Husserl's "law" that "an earlier and a later time pertain to any time" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 10). Here, a second "law" is easily derived. If every moment, located in the fixed order of time, must have its horizon of pastness, then we have to say that "the fixed temporal order is an infinite two-dimensional series" (ibid.). The horizon of pastness accompanying each moment assures us that no moment is the first. Thus, the fixed temporal order gasped by retention must be "infinite" in the sense of having no beginning. This infinity is, in fact, a function of the two-dimensionality of experienced time. A one-dimensional temporal series would simply be the successively given time which is designated by the horizontal line of the time diagram (line AE in our last figure). The retained horizon of pastness accompanying each moment allows us to draw a vertical line beneath each point of the horizontal. These vertical lines designate the second, retentional dimension of experienced time. Since this second dimension is what first allows us to posit successive time, and since it does not allow us to posit its beginning, we have the infinity of time's first dimension. This infinity carries over to the retentional consciousness itself. As Husserl expresses this, "The diagram takes no notice of the limitation of the temporal field. It does not assign an end to the retentions and ideally a consciousness is, indeed, possible in which everything is retentionally present" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 31, footnote 1). In other words, if we can imagine no end to past time, then the "horizon of pastness/' which consists of the retentions of such time, also has no end. Thus, the vertical line, which designates this retentional consciousness, could "ideally" be drawn infinitely downward. A later section will discuss the nature of this allembracing consciousness. For the present, we stress that although it is implied by an individual's retentional consciousness, the latter is always finite. The individual's grasp of time thus implies a temporal horizon which surpasses his actual apprehension. §3. TEMPORAL DEPENDENCE AS UNDERLYING KANT'S CONDmONS FOR COGNmON

According to our last section, the sense of expiration is that of a serially ordered, constant process. The nature of this process can best be seen by considering in somewhat greater detail what cognition requires of our

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sense of time. These requirements were first outlined by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. On this point, Kant seems to have directly influenced Husserl. The latter's copy of the Critique shows the signs of a frequent reading. In particular, the passages discussing these requirements are heavily underlined in pencil and ink? Two of these requirements have already been mentioned by us. We can, however, profitably review them by following Kant's formulations. The first involves the fact that the apprehension of a temporally extended object involves a "multiplicity" of temporally distinct impressions. Such an apprehension, as Kant writes, would be impossible "if the mind did not distinguish time in the succession of impressions following one another" ("Kritique," A 99, Kant's Schriften, IV, 77). The impressions must be given distinct temporal positions. They must, we can say, be inserted into definite, unchanging positions in objective, successively given time. The second condition is that of reproduction. As Kant says, " ... if I were to lose from my thought the preceding impressions ... and not reproduce them when I advance to those which follow, a complete presentation would never arise ... "(ibid., A lO2, IV, 79). The requirement, then, is that of making co-present the impressions which I must distinguish according to successive temporal positions. For Husserl, the retentional process satisfies both requirements by retaining (or reproducing), at each temporal position, the content which was retained in the previous position. Thus, at every moment of my apprehension, the past is brought up to the present. In the series of such moments, the past is serially retained. Yet, these copresent retentions continue to be temporally distinguished. This follows when we grant that the sense of their distinction-of greater or less pastness-is a relational one: a sense of a retention being related to its original impression through the intervening retentions of retentions. This admission allows us to meet a third requirement for cognition. Retention can fulfill its function of bringing the past up to the present only if we are capable of recognizing that the retained content is the same as the content originally given in the past. In Kant's words, "Without the consciousness that what we think is, in fact, the same was what we thought a moment before, all reproduction in the series of presentations would be useless" (ibid., A 103, IV, 79). In other words, without this consciousness, the reproduced would appear as something new. Retentions would not be temporally distinguished from the impressions which we are presently experiencing. Now, the consciousness that a retention is not a new presentation is a consciousness that what it retains-i.e., its content-is something past. This consciousness is guaranteed if we grant that a retention presents what it retains through a series of retentions and grant as well that a consciousness of this series is, in fact, that of the pastness of the retained.

IN~T~E=R=S=U=B'=E=C~TI~W~TY~A~N_D~T~RA~N=SC=E=N~D~E=NT~~=L~I~D=EA~L~IS~M~_______________ 316

The precise nature of this consciousness of pastness can be elicited by contrasting the independence of a new presentation with the dependence of a retention. The former does not exhibit a dependence on what is not presently given, the latter does. Husserl writes that a retention, in itself, "is a momentary consciousness of an expired phase and also a basis for the retentional consciousness of the next phase"-i.e., a basis for a retention of this retention (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 118). This means that a retention cannot be given unless what it retains is first given, the latter being the retention that serves as its basis. The same holds for each of the members of the retentional chain. Together, they form a chain of dependencies. The chain is anchored in its first member, which is here understood as an originally given presentation. How does the attachment of this chain to the presentation exhibit the latter's pastness? The answer takes us to the origin of time's intentionality. We are aware of a retention's dependence by virtue of its functioning as a sign-i.e., by its pointing beyond itself. The dependence of its being in the now upon what is not now is exhibited by its reference. It refers beyond itself, in its present givenness, to that upon which it is immediately and, then, mediately dependent. Reference to something else is, however, the primitive form of intentionality. We, thus, have two possible descriptions of the retentional chain, the first being the inner of which the second is the outer manifestation. Since the members of the chain are all dependent, the chain can be described as a "continuity of constant changes ... inseparable into phases and points of the continuity that could exist for themselves" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 27). Since dependence, or incapability of existing for oneself, shows itself in intentionality, the chain can also be described as possessing a "diagonal intentionality" (QuerintentionaliWt), one proceeding back from the present retention to the independently given "primary datum" (ibid., p. 81). The phenomenological distinction between a new presentation and a retention should now be apparent. The former presents its content immediately without any further temporal reference. As for the latter, it presents what it retains through a serially structured intentionality. In other words, it presents it through a continuous chain of retentions of retentions, each of which is understood as retaining all the previous members of the chain. Now, since each of the members, by virtue of its dependence, is intentionally "of" the previous members of the chain, none of them, as a retention, can claim an independence or newness. Thus, each member presents itself as a non-new or past moment. With this, we can see how each adds the modification of pastness to what it retains. To grasp an originally given content through a series of retentions, each of which presents itself as a past moment, is to grasp it through a stretch of past time.

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Temporally speaking, the content's appearance is also the appearance of the pastness through which it is given. This follows since we cannot retain this content without also retaining the pastness which is presented by each of the retentions of the content. Thus, the content is presented as an impression which is at a temporal remove from our present act of retentioni.e., our retention of all the retentions which are dependent on the content's original givenness. We can also say that the increase of this chain of retentions involves the increase in our sense of the pastness of the impressional content since each additional member of the chain adds the modification of not-newness or further pastness to it. The crucial point in this analysis is that of the serially structured dependence of the members of the retentional chain. Each retention, in its now, is dependent on a retention which, relative to it, is not now. It is this dependence of the now of each retention on the relative not-nows of what precedes it which must be assumed if we are to explain how the resulting diagonal intentionality involves a sense of pastness, i.e., a sense of the givenness which is no longer now. Otherwise put: Dependence on the notnow manifests itself in an intentionality which presents this not-now. This intentionality proceeds along the retentional chain, whose members are dependent, each upon the next, until it ultimately results in a presentation of the impressional content in its pastness. We must, a fortiori, also assume this dependence to explain our apprehension of successively given time. Such time corresponds to the increasing sense of the pastness of a content as from moment to moment we successively move from retention to retention of this content. The simultaneous apprehension of a multitude of successively given moments, all expiring at the same rate, arises from our retentional chains being linked to a multitude of contents. The different lengths of these chains give us our sense of the different degrees of pastness pertaining to such moments. There is a further necessity for the possibility of cognition. Beyond the recognition that the retained impressions are the same as the originally given ones, we must, according to Kant, have the recognition that the retained "form a whole." The multiplicity of contents that we retain in the now must be viewed as united "into a presentation" ("Kritik," A 103, Kant's Scbriften, IV, 79). This requires, we can say, the same inseparable unity in the vertical direction as we uncovered in the diagonal. As we have seen, each moment of the diagonally represented retentional chain is "of" a previous moment in this chain because it cannot exist or be conceived without the latter. To repeat Husserl's remarks: "We know with regard to the phenomenon of expiration that it is a continuity of constant changes, that it forms an inseparable unity, inseparable into temporal stretches that could exist for themselves and inseparable into phases and into points of

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the continuity that could exist for themselves." Now, the diagonal lines of retentions end, at every moment, in a vertical line, one which represents the presence of the retained at that moment. With this, we can say that the same inseparability exists in the vertical direction. No single retention of the vertical line can be grasped in isolation from the later members of this line. This follows because the present retention's reference to a past moment occurs serially through all the moments separating it from this past instant. Its reference thus demands the moments which followed this past instant. These moments, however, are themselves retained on the vertical. Accordingly, each moment of the vertical line, by virtue of the fact that it has sunk down and is grasped as such, implies these later moments of time. Its having sunk down is, we can say, a consequence of the presence on the vertical of those retained moments which separate it from the topmost, now point of the vertical. Here, of course, the diagram simply represents the fact that the sense of the pastness of what we retain demands a sense of the time which followed it. As Husser! puts this: " ... every past indicates a future ... " (Ms. E III 9, p. 19, 1929). It "has its horizon of futurity which has already fulfilled itself ... " (Ms. C 17, Sept. 22, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 344). Because each of the moments of this already fulfilled horizon are retained on the vertical, each of our present retentions points beyond itself. Each has a vertical reference to our retentions of later moments The retention of what has been, thus, implies the "protention"-or forward referenceto what comes later. A

B

A'

B' A"

t I

A"B' The line of protentional reference running through our present retentions

AA", BB' The lengthening chains of retentions of retentions

As before, the root of this protentional reference-or, in Husserl's words, "vertical intentionality" (UlngsintentionaliUlt)-is simply dependence. As we said, a dependence on the not-now manifests itself in an intentionality which presents this not now. The "not-now," here, is not the past, but rather the future. This different sense of the not-now follows from the fact that vertical intentionality rests on the diagonal intentionality in which the not-now does have the sense of pastness. In the above diagram, the retentions of later moments (along line A"B') are con-

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nected to these moments (along line AB) by decreasing retentional chains. Each of these chains, by virtue of its diagonal intentionality, presents a not-now in its pastness. Yet, since the chains decrease as we ascend the vertical, these retained moments along A"B' exhibit a decreasing sense of pastness. Accordingly, a dependence on these later retentions is a dependence on what is relatively future. Concretely, this means that my grasp of a retained impression includes a grasp of what followed it. The intentionality implicit in its dependence on the retentions which follow it-the retentions along A"B'-unites its apprehension with a grasp of its already fulfilled horizon of futurity. Thus, the retained "form a whole" in my apprehension. Their contents, in Kant's words, are united "into a presentation." To see how this presentation results in the givenness of an enduring object, we must turn to a further requirement for cognition. Husserl writes that through the vertical intentionality "immanent time constitutes itself. This an objective time, a genuine time in which there is duration and the change of what endures" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 83). He adds, in an appendix, "Duration is the form of something that endures, the form of an enduring being, of something identical in the temporal succession that functions as its duration" (ibid., p. 113, italics added). Kant makes the same point when he calls the synthesis which allows us to recognize an enduring object a "synthesis of recognition in a concept" ("Kritik," A 103, Kant's Scriiten, III, 79). A concept is a one in many. Thus, we must be able to recognize identical characteristics within the multitude of our distinct impressions in order to say that our impressions are of something identical-are impressions of an appearing object with definite qualities. The same point holds when we abstractly consider duration itself. The moments are recognized as moments of a duration when they exhibit an identical character. In considering duration per se, i.e., in considering time as abstracted from content, we are, of course, performing the first temporal reduction (see above, p. 205). This reduction reveals that the moments of time are not per se tied to particular contents. As such, it shows that the identical character we are seeking is the quality of the moments' being, one and all, empty containers for possible contents. How does this recognition of identity in multiplicity actually occur? As we have seen, the temporal process exhibits a twofold structure of dependence. Dependence in the diagonal direction results in impressional moments' being retained with distinct temporal referents. In the vertical direction, its result is that our retentions of such moments are united with one another in the ongoing present. In Husserl's words, the intentionality which arises from this dependence "is constitutive of the unity of these primary memories within the flux" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 80). As a conse-

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quence, our presently held retentions have a twofold reference. Each is distinct insofar as it intentionally refers to a distinct moment in the past. Each, however, is unified with a portion of the retentions along the vertical insofar as the pastness of what it retains implies later moments which are themselves retained. We, thus, have a situation where we are required to think the retentions along the vertical as temporally distinct in their reference to past impressions and, yet, as forming a continuous wholei.e., as incapable of "existing for themselves."3 This second condition points to the required element of unity. To grasp our presently held retentions as a whole is to grasp them in their coincidence. It also is to grasp them such that their similar qualitites reinforce one another. This present coincidence and consequent reinforcement of an element of quality is the appearing of one in many.4 When, for example, we take an object and, in turning it, continually view its features, the same contents appear again and again. The object repeats itself as it again shows the sides which we earlier viewed. According to Husserl, the object is experienced as the same-i.e., as a one in many-by virtue of the coincidence and reinforcement of these recurring contents of our experience. Each of the contents is retained in the ongoing present. This means that each is placed in a "unity of coincidence" with the other retained contents. This coincidence does not affect their temporal references; each content remains, in its reference, something originally experienced at a given point in successive time. The coincidence, however, does generate the reinforcement of qualities that are the same. Like a series of overlapping transparencies, the coincidence of what we retain results in the reinforced appearance of what is the same and, to a lesser degree, of what is similar. Husserl writes in this regard: ... "lines of likeness" run from one [retained content] to another and, in the case of similarity, "lines of similarity." We have, here, a certain mutual relatedness (Aufeinanderbezogenheit) which is not constituted in a reflective act of drawing relations, a relatedness which, prior to all "comparison" and "thinking/, stands as a presupposition for the intuitions of likeness and difference (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 44). This "mutual relatedness" follows upon the union of the retentions of like contents, i.e., upon the coincidence which results from their protentionally directed, temporal dependence. In the late manuscripts, Husserl uses the term "merging" (Verschmelzung) to describe the situation. He writes: "The whole of the hyletic material is united in passive temporalization-even what is heterogeneous. Here, however, every thing har-

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monious is united in the particular mode of merging" (Ms. E III 9, p. 21, 1929). In other words, everything retained is brought together in the "concrete now"-the vertical of the time diagram. But, in this, there is a particular coming together. We have "through similarity, a homogeneous merging" (Ms. CIS, p. I, 1931). This is "a continuous merging according to similarities" (ibid., p. 5). By virtue of this, the merged qualities "stand out." They reinforce each other and, hence, distinguish themselves from the heterogeoneous qualities whose union does not result in their merging (see Ms. C 131, pp. 10 ff, Jan., 1934). This merging gives us the object's "noematic nucleus"-i.e., the connected, relatively stable features which allow us to recognize the object in its appearances. The same point can be made about the duration of the object's appearing. Here, as we indicated, the similar quality which is brought into coincidence is each moment's character of being an empty container for some possible content. The similarity of moments, insofar as they are not inherently tied to particular contents, results in their own merging. In Husserl's words, "All of the moments in the streaming, which pertain to the different, [successively] simultaneous local data of the impressions, are completely alike and, as such, merge ... " (Ms. C 7 II, p. 9, June, 1932). With this, we have the unity of the duration which corresponds to the unity formed by the merging of the object's sensuous contents. As Husserl writes, in discussing our grasp of a melody: ... primarily merging, the temporalizations unite together and thereby produce a unity of a temporalization for all the times [of particular tonal impressions-i.e., for] their temporalizations and times. Here, however, the homogeneity of the tones plays its part. The unities [of the retained tonal impressions] merge according to their contents and the times [of such impressions] merge according to the constant, homogeneous form which arises from the homogeneous temporalization (Ms. CIS, p. 5, 1931). In both cases, the merging results in the Kantian "synthesis of recognition in a concept"-i.e., in the apprehension of a one in many. The contents we experience become contents of some object by virtue of the merging of the qualitative elements, a merging which produces each of the object's features. For the same reason the moments bearing these contents become moments of the object's duration. Each moment, in its ability to bear every possible content, is of the duration which exhibits all the object's contents. Enduring, of course, is enduring through successive time; a duration is one time made up of a multiplicity of successively given moments. Thus,

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in the apprehension of a duration, the retained impressional moments must not, in their merging, lose their distinct temporal referents. This condi-

tion is satisfied by the fact that the vertical intentionality, which results in this merging, cannot occur without the occurrence of the separate, diagonal intentionality. The latter, as we recall, is what gives our retained impressions their sense of being more or less past and, thus, permits the vertical intentionality which proceeds through our retentions from the past to what is relatively future. Summing up, we can say that this section's analyses have an overriding theme: Cognition requires the dependence of the moment. Dependence along the retentional chains gives us the diagonal intentionality of each of our retained impressions. Each is intentionally "of" an originally given past impression. Dependence in the vertical direction gives us the corresponding vertical intentionality. Here, each retention is not just "of" the subsequent retention of a later impression. It is actually "of" the object which appears through the merging of our retained impressions. 5 This "ofness" includes the object in its present, momentary givenness since dependence in the vertical direction proceeds through each of the retentions of the later moment until it reaches the presently given impressional moment. Thus, without the twofold dependence of retained impressional moments, we would not have the consciousness of either succession or duration-and, hence, would not be able to grasp an object as enduring through successive time, i.e., as enduring up to the present moment.

§4. THE SUBJECTNE READING OF THE TIME DIAGRAM

An important conclusion is implicit in the above. This is that perceptual experience and its object are co-constituted. As Hussed puts this, "In the same impressional consciousness in which the perception is constituted, precisely through this [process], the perceived object is also constituted" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 91). In other words, " ... necesarily the one is constituted with the other" (ibid., p. 92). This constitution does not imply that experience and object are the same. They have, as we earlier noted, different manners of appearing. Thus, if our object is a spatialtemporal thing, it can show itself perspectivally. Its enduring involves change as it shows itself first from one side and then from another. This is not the case with an experience of the thing. In Hussed's words, "An experience does not, like a thing, show itself perspectivally" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p.97). This co-constitution of experience and object in their different manners of appearing results, for Hussed, from the twofold intentionality of the temporal process. By virtue of the diagonal intentionality proceeding

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from our present retentions, there is constituted our sense of a phase of experience as something extended along a given stretch of successive time. This phase may embrace the perspectival appearing of some object. The phase, however, does not change-i.e., appear perspectivally-as it is constantly retained as one and the same stretch of past experience. We can also express this by saying that the retentional process does not exhibit the change of perceptual contents which would be required for the phase to perspectivally appear the way a thing does. As Husserl writes of the flux of retentions of retentions: "In principle, no phase of the flux can be broadened out into a continuous succession, i.e., the flux cannot be thought of as so transformed that the phase extends itself into an identity with itself" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 74). The claim here is that when we limit ourselves to pursuing the diagonal intentionality of our retentions, we do not have the phenomenon of self-identity manifesting itself through a succession of contents, a phenomenon that does characterize the perspectival appearing of a thing. Because of this, as Husserl concludes: "There is, thus, lacking here every object that changes; and, insofar as 'something' goes on in every process, there is no question here of a process. There is nothing changing and, therefore, there can be no talk of something enduring" (ibid.). To grasp this enduring, we must turn to the intentionality which proceeds in the vertical direction. The latter is constitutive of the object as an identity which persists through a multitude of changes. Behind these changes is a constant adding to the retentions which form the ongoing now's horizon of pastness. The intentionality unifying our present retentions is constantly merging them with the retentions we have "just now" acquired from the ongoing perceptual process. Thus, the identity generated by this merging is, by virtue of the addition of constantly new contents, an identity which persists through the changing contents of our experience. Once we see experience and object as resulting from the diagonal and vertical intentionalities of our retentions, their co-constitution follows as a matter of course. It follows because, as Husserl writes, these two intentionalities are "like sides of one and the same thing." They are distinct; yet they are "intentionalities which promote one another and are interwoven in the single, unique flux of consciousness" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 83). Thus, the diagonal intentionality, which gives us our sense of successive time, is interwoven with the vertical intentionality which proceeds from the retention of an earlier moment to that of a later. In the time diagram, the vertical line is simply the advancing front of the retentional chains. The process of this advance, which results in the retention of a phase of experience, also results in the present retentions forming the vertical. The advance, thus, continuously gives rise to the vertically directed intentionality which yields the experienced object.

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A further consequence of the interweaving of the two intentionalities was mentioned in our last section. It is the constitution of the intentional relation between experience and object. This relation is that of multiplicity to unity. An experience is "of" an object because its content is one of many similar contents whose merging forms a particular feature of the object-e.g., its color. It is because of this that we say that the object exhibits itself in the multiplicity of our experiences, each experience pointing to what the object is in one of its particular features. Another result of the "twofold intentionality of our retentions" concerns consciousness itself. Speaking of this dual intentionality, Hussed writes that by virtue of it lithe flux of consciousness constitutes itself as a unity ... " (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 80). He adds, with regard to the temporality implicit in the references of our retentions, "This pre-phenomenal, preimmanent temporality intentionally constitutes itself as the form of time constituting consciousness [and intentionally constitutes itself] in this consciousness itself" (ibid., p. 82). The point of these remarks is that, with the constitution of experience and object and the intentionality linking them, we have the constitution of consciousness itself as a distinct temporal form. In other words, before the constitution of successive and enduring time, we cannot speak of the unity of consciousness. Such a unity embraces experience in its relation to the appearing object; but without the intentionalities which arise from our present retentions, this relation does not obtain. We can put the same point slightly differently by saying that without the constitution of successive and enduring time, there is no central acting ego. Before such constitution, the temporal field which allows the ego to appear as a center does not obtain. Because of this, there is no "acting" in the sense of the ego's allowing its acts to temporally depart from itself. This means that the constitution of time cannot be taken as following from the action of an already given ego; it is, as we have stressed, a "passive" constitution. With this, Hussed and Kant come to the parting of their philosophical ways. For Kant, the temporal requirements for cognition give the conditions for the appearing of the subject. The acting subiect, which constitutes its appearance by satisfying these conditions in its temporal constitution, does not itself appear. Thus, for Kant, the "inner sense" by which we grasp our temporal unity presents us "only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves" ("Kritik," B 152-53, Kant's Schriften, III, 120). "In ourselves"-i.e., inherently-we act to posit experiences in successive time, to reproduce in the present the experiences which have successively departed, and to synthesize what we reproduce into the unity of a persisting object. Yet such action springs from our non-appearing being, i.e., our being as a "noumenal," nontemporal actor. We reverse this position when

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we assert that our being "as genuine egos, as centers of acts in relation to a surrounding wodd" is a being which results from temporal constitution. At this point, the arising of the process of temporal constitution is our own arising or "awakening" as active egological centers. To uncover the ground of this process, we must reverse our reading of the time diagram. Up to now, we have given an ob;ective reading of the diagram. We have assumed that the "horizon of pastness" attached to the now point is the result of our retaining successively given impressional moments. Thus, we began with the assumption of successively given time and attempted to analyze how, through the process of its retention, we acquire our sense of successive time. Hussed, however, also gives a sub;ective reading of the diagram. Here, he assumes as given only what is immediately present in the "concrete," ongoing now. In such a now, we find the data along the vertical-i.e., the co-present retentions which, per se, are not in successive time. As for the diagonal lines designating the chains of retentions of retentions, we are not immediately given the extension of these lines through successive time. In other words, the drawing of these lines is considered the result of an interpretation based upon our immediately given retentions. So is the drawing of the horizontal line which designates "the series of now points" in successive time. Thus, in this second, subjective reading, such now points (or impressional moments) are not taken as immediately given. They are rather considered as constituted from the data on the vertical. This shift in the reading of the diagram may be put in terms of the meaning Hussed gives to the term "retentional modifications." Such modifications are not seen as modifications of a content which is already given in the fixed order of successive time. They are rather modifications which fix (or insert) this content in a temporal order which they, themselves, constitute. In Hussed's words, We believe, accordingly, that by virtue of the constancy of the retentional modifications (Abwandulungen) and the circumstance that they are constantly retentions of the constantly preceding ones, there is constituted in the flux of consciousness the unity of the flux itself as a one dimensional quasi-temporal order (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 82, italics added). This dimension, which is represented by the horizontal line, is "quasitemporal," since it does not include time's second dimension, that of enduring or persistence in time. It is simply the fixed order of successively given, content-laden moments. As we mentioned above, we grasp this order because the contents we experience collectively expire or sink into

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pastness at the same rate. When we see this "sinking own" as constituted by the process of retentional modification, we are asserting the constitution of this "one dimensional quasi-temporal order." We can put this in terms of the first thing we confront in a subjective reading of the time diagram. This is the modification of the contents which are given in the vertically represented horizon of pastness. The modification is constant; and it can be diagramatically represented by the contents moving downward on a lengthening vertical line as new retentions are constantly added to what we presently retain. Hussed calls our present retentions "a multitude of modified primary contents which are characterized as retentional modifications of primary contents in their now character." He claims that by virtue of the process of their retentional modification, "these primary contents are carriers of primary interpretations, interpretations which in their flowing connectedness constitute the temporal unity of the immanent content in its sinking back into pastness. 'Contents,' in the case of perceptual appearances, are just wholes of appearances that are constituted as temporal unities" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 92, italics added). The "primary interpretation" which is given to a content by its retentional modification is, of course, an interpretation of its degree of pastness. Diagramatically speaking, this interpretation is given by the distance along the vertical which separates this content from the momentary now or topmost point of the vertical. The "retentional modification," which forms the basis for this interpretation, is diagramatically represented by the downward movement of the content on the vertical. It is, in other words, represented by the modification which changes the content's place along the vertical. The same view of temporal constitution appears in the late manuscripts. They invite us to consider the downward motion of the vertical line as representing the phases of a content as it "appears in the now point, is now, is immediately modified into the just past and, in the modification of a [further] just pastness of this just past, etc., is [a content] fixed as the same, as the same in the changes of its temporal modalities .... " In other words, "it is precisely through this process [of retentional modification] that it is constituted as the same, as an identical point in the fixed form of the primal now and the just past, etc." When we apply this to a multitude of contents, all undergoing the same modification, we see that "there is constituted an identical form with identical temporal positions as phases of this form and as identical 'concrete' unities ... " (Ms. C 21, p. 17, Aug., 1930; see also Ms. D 15, p. 1, Nov., 1932). The claim of the above is that the process which we took to be that of the retention of an already given moment is, in fact a process constituting this moment. It constitutes it as an "identical, immanent temporal position" in departing time (Ms. C III 3, pp.

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26-27, March, 19311. Such a constitution is, then, the insertion of a content into what comes to be constituted as the fixed order of such time. It is its constitution as a content which is impressionally given at a particular moment in such time. Because of this, Hussed can affirm: "All impressions, the primary contents as well as the experiences which are 'consciousness of' [some object) constitute themselves in primary consciousness" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 891. In other words, quite independently of whether the vertical intentionality merges our contents so as to allow them to be taken as experiences of some object, the retentional process still constitutes them as impressions-i.e., as "data" which we interpret as successively "given" to us. In a certain sense, this position is similar to Kant's. For Kant, the insertion of a content into a definite temporal position is also the result of time constitution. Such constitution involves the successive "reproduction" of a content, a reproduction which allows it to be grasped as the same content with the same departing temporal reference. Ultimately, of course, this constitution is traced to the functioning of a timeless subject. Yet, even here, Hussed's position does not explicitly differ from Kant's. Thus, given his distinction between the constituting and the constituted, Hussed must say, "The phenomena which constitute time are objectivities which are evidently different in principle from those which are constituted in time" (HA X, Boehm ed., pp. 74-751. The predicates which are applicable to the latter-such as having a definite temporal position or enduring through a succession of such positions-"cannot be sensibly applied" to the constituting phenomena (ibid.l. Thus, our present retentions are not per se in time. Only that which is posited out of a retention's ongoing modification-i.e., the content in its self-identical temporal position-is considered to be given at a definite time. Accordingly, if we regard consciousness as composed of the data on the vertical, it seems that "we cannot speak of a time of the ultimately constituting consciousness" (ibid., p.781· Even this interpretation of consciousness does not fully capture the timelessness which Hussed feels compelled to ascribe to it. He writes in an appendix that "subjective time constitutes itself in an absolutely timeless consciousness which is not an object" (ibid., p. 112, italics addedl. "Consciousness," here, cannot refer to the data on the vertical. Although, as constantly now, they are not in time, yet they are constantly undergoing retentional modifications. As such, they are not absolutely timeless. In other words, to reach the absolutely timeless, we must abstract from the downward movement of the vertical. Behind this movement is the successive addition of new retentions, each new retention occasioning the "sinking down" of the retentions which preceded it. Thus, to speak of

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what is absolutely timeless, we must abstract from this addition and the multiplicity it implies. Is this the noumenal ego which is posited by Kant as the timeless source of temporal constitution? Kant does say that the ego is a "throughgoing identity" ("Kritik," A 116, Kant's Schriften, IV, 87). Its unity is such that when we attempt to represent it, "nothing multiple is given" (ibid., B 135, III, 110, italics added). Yet, as already indicated, this explicit agreement conceals a disagreement. For Kant, temporalization is a function of an individual actor. The ego's noumenal unity is the "transcendental ground" of the fact that its temporal constitution satisfies the requirements of cognition. It is, thus, a ground of its own appearing as a knowable presence. For Hussed, however, there is no hidden actor behind the appearing ego. The individual actor is the appearing ego. This means that the "absolutely timeless" source of temporalization is prior to it but not individually prior. The source is the pre-individual condition for the constitution of every individual unity, including that of the acting subject (see above, p. 232). Another section will be required to get at the ground of the temporal process and, hence, at the ground of our own arising as appearing, acting egos. For the present, we note that Hussed's reference to an "absolutely timeless" source of this process points beyond the subjective reading of the time diagram. In regarding the vertical of this diagram, we have only reached the end of the first stage of the temporal reduction. We can conclude by recalling this stage and relating it to the subjective reading. In this way, we can gain an insight into how the diagram represents the "living present" which is uncovered by this stage. Before I perform the reduction, my constant nowness appears, as we said, to be a point of transit for the moments of successive time. Time seems to stream towards me from the future and to depart into pastness. After I perform its first stage, I limit myself to considering only my immediate self-presence. With this, the passing through appears as a "welling up" in my "living present" of the moments which, before the reduction, I assumed were already given-i.e., as already extended through objective time (see above, p. 216). To relate this to the time diagram, we have to note that the downward movement of its vertical represents what Hussed later calls the "stationary streaming" of the living present. As Hussed writes of this present, "It contains within this streaming the continuity of the intentional modifications of the momentary, primal mode: now" (Ms. C 71, p. 5, June-July, 1932). Such modifications are this now's retentional modifications. The latter constitute distinct temporal positions. Thus, the welling up of "moments" from my living present is, as constitutive of objective time, actually a welling up of retentions. In

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Hussed's words, "As [pertaining to my] constant present, the functioning [of temporalization] is constantly a primal functioning, but it is also a constant letting loose (Aus-sich-entlassen) of retentions ... " (Ms. A V 5, pp. 45, Jan., 1933). Thus, the functioning is stationary insofar as the retentions on the vertical, i.e., the retentions which have been "let loose" (or added) from its topmost now point, are all constantly now. 6 Yet it is also a streaming functioning because, by virtue of this letting loose, the retentions stream, i.e., constantly move downward on the vertical. As we earlier noted, this downward movement is just such as to have a retained impression keep its identical reference to one and the same position in the past (see above, p. 312). In a subjective reading of the time diagram, we can say that this downward movement is what constitutes this position in its streaming into further pastness. A'

A

R

R'

A, A' The moment as posited in successive time R R' The "sinking down" of the retention

As the retained impression sinks down, it undergoes a further retentional modification. Its tie to its increasing line of diagonal reference indicates that it is modified into a retention of the very retention it "just now" was. The diagonal lines are drawn to designate this relation of retention of retention. Yet, as Hussed remarks, such retentions "are included in one another" (Ms. C 17, Sept. 21-22, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 346). This means that all the members of a retentional chain are included in the retention which is present on the vertical. The diagonal line is simply a diagramatic representation of the contents of the present retention. Thus, it is from the latter that an impression's temporal position is constituted. When we depict the present retention as moving downward on the vertical, we are representing its constitution of this position in its flowing into pastness. Weare also diagramatically depicting the constant modification which makes every retention continuously include further retentions of itself. This view, as we said, is that which is afforded by the end of the first stage of the reduction. The second stage leaves us with the nunc stans. It leaves us with the timeless now which is stripped of all relation to tem-

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porality. Before we reach this final stage, we can still speak of a moment in time as the appearance, the objective expression, of the nunc stans. We can also say that the nunc stans's appearance as a moment in time is one with its departure from this appearance. This follows because, as Husserl writes, "When we return to the primal now," we find that it "has modified itself and is modifying itself in the modes: the retentional and the protentional ... " (Ms. C 7 I, p. S, June-July, 1932). In other words, its objective appearance is one with its retentional modification, a modification which posits it as a moment in time. This is why this now's temporalization is "a constant letting loose of retentions." Such letting loose is, in fact, the now's constant self-modification. The retentions which express this modification are the retentions of itself as particular temporal positions. Its successive departure from these positions follows from the fact that, in remaining constantly now, it distinguishes itself from its retentional modifications-the very modifications which result in the increasing pastness of its temporal appearances. Here, of course, it can also be said to have a protential modification. As constantly now, it is always appearing as what, with the further letting loose of retentions, will come to be considered as the next now. How does this relate to the final stage of the temporal reduction? Before we reach this stage, the letting loose of retentions appears as the engine of the temporal process. To justify the claim that there is an "absolutely timeless" origin of time, we must see how this engine-this letting loose of retentions-is itself implicit in the timeless, absolutely stationary now. §5. THE TELEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF TEMPORAL CONSTITUTION

What does it mean to speak of a timeless ground of a process? If we take a process not as a series of random events but as directed towards a fixed goal, then this goal appears as its timeless element. As Aristotle first observed, the goal is that towards which the process advances. As fixed, it is the one thing in the process that does not progress (see PhYSics, 19S b, 1-3). Thus, to speak of a process's timeless element as its ground or cause is to understand this as its goal-i.e., as its "final cause." It is to implicitly identify the goal and the ground and, hence, to see the process as teleological. Now, the goal of the temporal process is nothing less than time itselftime as the totality of its moments. When we take this process as having a timeless ground, we must see this goal as its ground, which is to take temporalization as a teleological process. But, how can we understand time itself as such a ground? How can we identify the totality of time with the "timeless now"-the now that is revealed by the last stage of the reduction?

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To answer these questions, let us first return to the stance of our third section. This section began by assuming the existence of the moments of successive time. It viewed the temporal process in terms of its results-i.e., in terms of its goal having, in part, already been accomplished. Its question was: How do we grasp already accomplished time? Its answer was to point to the dependence of the moment, seeing such dependence as the origin of time's intentionalities. As we said, intentionality, in its primitive root, is the reference of one thing to another. A moment refers to the moments surrounding it because it is dependent-i.e., is "nothing for itself" without such moments. Thus, the dependence of the present retention on the moments preceding it gives rise to a diagonal intentionality presenting these moments. This presents them as past-i.e., as something retained, as opposed to something impressionally given. Such dependence, then, was considered as responsible for the retentional process itself. The chain of retentions of retentions was seen as a chain of dependencies, each retention retaining in its now the not-now upon which it was immediately dependent. In other words, the serially structured dependence of such nows gives rise to a serially structured intentionality, the presentations of which are the retentions. Similarly, the dependence of the moment on the moments following it was taken as yielding a corresponding vertical intentionality. Here, the "protentional" reference of past moments signified that every apprehension of a retained event includes a grasp of what followed it. The reason we mention this is that it provides the second of the three conditions which must be met to answer our initial question. To see the totality of time as the ground of the temporal process, we must, first of all, see it as the ground of every moment of time. It must ground it as "nothing for itself," which means that it must ground it as dependent on all the other moments of time. The second condition requires that we see dependence as the origin of time's intentionalities and, hence, as the origin of the retentional and potentional processes. As for our third condition, this was given by our last section. Taking up its stance, we must see the intentionalities which proceed from the moment as productive. Thus, in accordance with our second condition, the dependence of the now on the not-now has to be seen as manifesting itself in an intentionality springing from the now. Our third condition requires that this intentionality be taken not just as presenting the not-now, but also as constituting the notnow as part of the order of objective time. The result is what my be called a "teleological circle." It is a circle in which the totality of time-understood as the goal of a process-brings itself about by grounding this process. Thus, the whole of time, understood as grounding the moment in its dependence, brings about the intentionalities which are based on such dependence. It, thus, results in the re-

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tentional and potentional processes; and such processes, constitutively understood, bring about the progressive realization of precisely this same whole of time. Since the second and third conditions have been the subjects of our last two sections, let us begin by turning our attention to the first. The notion of the totality of time as the ground of every moment comes when we see every moment as dependent on every other and, hence, as dependent on the totality of moments. Thus far, we have spoken of the dependence of the moments of past time. Husserl writes in this regard: We can temporally divide, in a certain manner, separate into pieces a concretely filled duration. This, however, does not mean that these pieces of time can be considered as concrete individuals or that they can be filled durations of independent, concrete individuals" (Ms. E III 2, pp. 2-3, 1921). This implies that no moment of already experienced, "filled" time can be conceived apart from the moments which precede and follow it. In the forward direction, such dependence proceeds to the present moment-i.e., the present givenness of an experienced object. Yet, we posit this object as "transcendent" insofar as we take it as surpassing our already acquired experience of it. What we do is anticipate that it will continue to provide us with further experience. For Husserl, the root of this transcendence is the fact that the dependence of time does not end at the present moment. It passes through it, linking it with the moments of anticipated or future time. To see this, let us recall our earlier argument that no moment of past time can be the first-i.e., stand as an absolute beginning of time. For a moment to be initially given as a moment in time, it must, as we said, have its locating horizon of pastness. When the moment sinks down into pastness, this retained horizon accompanies it. Thus, it prevents us from taking the past moment as a beginning of time-i.e., as something with no pastness relative to it (see above, p. 314). Now, the linchpin of this argument is the fact that the present moment must have this horizon of pastness. This follows because it is not something capable of existing or being conceived by itself. As we cited Husserl, such a moment is "only an ideal limit, something abstract which can be nothing for itself." This means that it is "not differentiated from the not-now, but rather continuously mediates itself with the latter" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 40). The fact that it can only exist in continuous connection with what surrounds it signifies that it is "impossible" to conceive of a now "which nothing preceded" (ibid., p. 70). Hence, as we said, we must always give it its locating horizon of pastness. The

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same argument can be made with regard to the future. The "not-now" which surrounds the present moment also includes what follows it. Thus, the mediation of the now with the not-now implies that we cannot conceive the present moment as the last instant of time. We must give it a horizon of anticipated, future time. The result is Hussed's "a priori law" according to which "there pertains to every time an earlier and a later time" (ibid., p. 10). If we ask why the present moment cannot exist by itself-why it must exist only as an "ideallimit"-we come to the fact that retentions are required to insert a moment into the fixed order of successive time. Since this insertion is in terms of past-i.e., retained-time, the positing of a present moment is something that occurs in terms of "a continuum which advances towards an ideal limit" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 40). It is posited, not directly, but as a limit of our retentions of past moments. As such, it is linked to every moment which precedes it. It is "nothing for itself" because its positing as the leading edge of past time depends upon the givenness of the moments of past time. The same can be said about each of these past moments. Each was first presented as the leading edge of its past. Having sunk into pastness, it still possesses its own horizon of pastness. Indeed, a moment's position in past time is partially dependent on this horizon. We say "partially" because these past moments also have their protentional reference. Each is dependent, in its pastness, on the moments which are presented as following it. Since the present moment is posited as the limit of this series, it too shares this protentional reference. Posited as objectively present, its givenness is that of something over against me in my nowness. Indirectly, of course, it is posited as now. Thus, it is given as a present protending the nowness which is always "ahead" of it.7 In other words, its givenness is such that the dependence of time passes through it, linking it with the nowness which will appear as the next moment. It is easy to extend the above argument so as to see every moment as dependent on every other. All we need to do so is to see the dependence which passes through the present as embracing the whole of future time. The future is grasped in anticipation which means, as our last chapter showed, its presence is a matter of the re-presentation of what we have already experienced. Thus, in anticipating the future as objectively given, we depict its moments as having the same relations of dependency as those which link together the past. By virtue of their dependency, the moments of the past are characterized by an intentionality which points beyond them. Accordingly, the same feature appears when, in anticipation, we re-present such moments as occupying the future. Not only are its moments depicted as dependent, but such dependence passes through

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every moment we might conceive as terminating the future. So conceived, the future cannot have an end, i.e., a last moment which does not point beyond itself. With this, we move from the thought of the dependence of time's moments to that of time's infinity. From the latter, we can see how time as a whole can serve as a ground for ea,ch of its moments. Yet, before we do so, let us pause and make clear to ourselves the levels of dependence which are implicit in our arguments. We first have the dependence which characterizes moments qua objectively given as part of the fixed order of time. Here, the infinity of time-its not having objectively presentable first and last moments-is derived from the dependence of such moments. No moment can be the first since each requires its horizon of pastness. None can be the last since every moment that is ob;ectively presented as now has already entered into the "over and againstness" of past time. As such, it is dependent on the nowness in relation to which it is objective, the nowness which is always "ahead" of it, always appearing as the next now. To move to the next level of dependence, we must consider the process through which moments are objectively presented. Here, the dependence of moments appears as a function of the retentional process. Thus, the fact that each moment occurs with its locating horizon of pastness can be traced to each moment being the limit of a series of retentions-i.e., its being the limit of the co-present retentions along the vertical which present this horizon. Similarly, the dependence of each moment on what follows it can be traced to the protentional intentionality running through these retentions. Each retention, in its having "sunk down/' depends on further retentions having entered the vertical. With this, we may speak of a third level of dependence. This is the original dependence which results in time's intentionalities and, hence, in the retentional process itself. The retentions on the vertical yield the moments of past time because each may be seen as including a whole series of retentions of retentions. Each such retention, in its now, is dependent on a retention which, relative to it, is not now. As such, it gives rise to an intentionality presenting the latter. The result, as we said, is the presence of the past-i.e., the moment which is presented as retained rather than as impressionally given. Once we engage in a subjective reading of the time diagram, this final form of dependence can be taken as pre-objective. It pertains to a process of retentional modification which, prior to the objective presence of time, results in such presence. Put more radically, this dependence results in the very existence of that which it makes intentionally present. The obvious question here is how we can speak of the dependence of moments before such moments actually exist. In speaking of the third form of dependence, we refer to the "nows" and "not-nows" of our various

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retentions; and, in a subjective reading of the diagram, we assert that their relation-ultimately, their dependence-results in time. As such, it is what results in the distinction between the now and the not-now. How is this possible? Given the dependence of the moments composing the retentional chain, we can, as we have done, derive the dependence of every moment we posit as part of the totality of time. Arguing backwards, we can say that insofar as the totality of time is continuous, i.e., is composed of moments which are nothing for themselves-the same dependence must, in an objective reading of the time diagram, be ascribed to the "nows" and the "not nows" of the retentional chain. They are linked in relations of dependence which ultimately stretch to include the whole of time. Now, when we avail ourselves of the above mentioned teleological circle, we assert that the dependence that pertains to the totality of time grounds the dependence of the moments of our retentions. But then we turn and say that this dependence among our retentions gives rise to the productive intentionalities which result in the accomplishing of this very same totality of time. This circle is implicit in the move from the objective to the subjective readings of the time diagram. Having spoken of dependence in the context of presenting the moments of already accomplished time, we turned and considered the results of such dependence-the retentional modifications-as constitutive of time. With this, the initial dependence becomes involved in a process in which it is both a feature of its goal and a determining ground. Thus it is seen as functioning as part of the process's final cause. To return to our argument, we note that the dependence of moments is both immediate and mediate. The moment is immediately dependent on the moments which surround it. Since the latter are also dependent on their surrounding moments, the moment is mediately dependent on these. In other words, every moment is linked to every other through a serial chain of dependencies. As such, its ultimate dependence is on nothing less than the whole of time understood as the unending totality of its interdependent moments. When applied to experiences, the above conception gives us Hussed's claim that "temporality ... designates not just something universally pertaining to every experience, but a necessary form binding experiences with experiences" (Ideen I, Biemel ed, p. 198). An experience, in having its time, is necessarily and formally bound to other experiences. This follows because its first and last moments are linked through a chain of dependencies with the moments surrounding this experience. Several conclusions can be drawn from this. The first is that the independence of a contentladen moment is a formal impossibility. In Hussed's words: " ... no concrete experience can count as fully independent. Each, in its connection,

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'stands in need of completion.' This, according to its form and type, is not just any connection. It is rather a linked connection (gebundener Zusammenhang)" (ibid., p. 202). Here, the continuity of experience follows from the continuity of time. The latter follows from time's dependence-i.e., from the fact that each of its moments is "nothing for itself." Another conclusion is that every experience, by virtue of its duration, necessarily "takes its position in an unending continuum of durations-a filled continuum. It necessarily has an all-sided, infinite, filled horizon of time. This also signifies that it belongs to an infinite 'stream of experience.'" The individual experience, in having its finite duration, can begin and end, "but the stream of experiences can neither begin nor end" (ibid., p. 198). This unending quality of the "continuum of durations" follows from the arguments that there cannot be a first or last moment of time. The Kantian tone of Husserl's remarks is unmistakable. They imply that, although time in its moments is transitory, time itself, considered in its wholeness, is not transitory. In Kant's words, "time ... is unchanging and abiding." This means that "time does not flow away (verll1uft sich nicht)," for, if we regard it as a whole, then there is no "time"-Le., a time outside of the wholeness of time-into which it could flow ("Kritik," B 183, III, Kant's Schriften, 137). For Husserl, this quality of time as a whole is also the quality of the stream of experiences. The latter, as structured by the form of time in its wholeness, "can neither begin nor end"-Le., progress into another time. Let us recall our repeated assertion that a whole which does not have a "beyond" is a unique singular. Such a singular exists simply as one and not as one among many singulars, each having the same nature. Why is it that we must regard time as unique? Why cannot we think of it only in terms of finite durations-Le., think of it as finite times among finite times? What we are actually inquiring about is the basis for Kant's assertion, "The infinity of time signifies nothing more than that every determinate quantity of time is only possible through the limitations of one single time taken as a ground underlying [this quantity]" ("Kritik," A 32, Kant's Schriften, IV, 37, italics added). An answer can be provided by admitting that the Kantian conditions for the objective grasp of successive and enduring time require the dependence of the moment (see above, p. 322). The resulting interdependence of time's moments doesn't just lead to the thought of the infinity of time; it also requires us to speak of time as a whole-Le., as a continuity of nonindependent stretches. For Husserl, the dependence of a moment is, mediately, its dependence on this whole. Thus, in the view which sees time as objectively graspable, this whole must be taken as the ground of each moment. Furthermore, if a moment of time must be thought of as "nothing for itself" and, hence, as ultimately dependent on

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the whole of time, then the thought of the moment's existence implies the thought of this whole's existence-i.e., the existence of the "unchanging and abiding" totality of moments. We can also say that the dependence of the moment demands the independence of time in its wholeness. Only as independent can the latter function as the ultimate ground of each of its moments. Independence, here, means: not being dependent on another "time" in order to be. The thought of the moment in its dependence thus leads to the thought of the whole of time as a "single time"-i.e., as a unique singular. In other words, it implies its thought as the abiding totality of its moments, a totality which, in its all-inclusiveness, excludes another time and, thus, has no "beyond" in terms of its dependence. How does this totality or whole function in the temporal process? Before we answer this question, we should emphasize the difference between a teleological process and processes as they are ordinarily understood. The common understanding of a process is that its actuality depends upon the actuality of its agent. In other words, the cause must be actual in order for the effect to be actualized. This view is not just that of modern physics with its focus on efficient causality. It also finds expression in the interpretation of formal ontology which takes this as the science of the principles from which the actual relations of facts can be derived. The principles, as exemplified by Platds "really real" (;'[0"" are regarded as causes pre-existing the relations which they determine. 8 In distinction to this, the determining grounds of a teleological process are not objectively given before the relations which instantiate them. They are first brought into objective being by these relations. This does not mean that the facts which are related have no inherent necessity in their relations-i.e., no determining ground for their being related in particular ways. It does, however, signify that this necessity is not to be found in an already existent cause of the process forming these relations, but rather in a goal towards which this process is directed. The goal, in other words, is the determining ground of the process. This means that what is to be actualized-i.e., the goal-determines the being of the actual and, in so doing, brings about its own progressive actualization. 9 To see the temporal process as teleological is to show that it does involve this identity between ground and goal. Let us put this in terms of the fact that when, with Husserl, we equate actuality and presence, we seem to be asserting that only the presently given moment is actual. The past moments have expired and the future moments are not yet given. lO Yet Husser! also asserts that the present moment is "nothing for itself." To be in time, it must be dependent on such non-actual moments; indeed, it must be dependent on their totality, time as a whole. The latter can thus be taken as determining the being of the actual moment-i.e., as grounding it

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in its dependence. In so doing, it makes possible the intentionality which is based on the dependence of the now on the not-now. As we said, this intentionality presents this not-now. It makes the past moment present in the form of a retention; and it makes this retention refer to the past moment. Concretely, this means that the dependence of the now on the moments preceding it yields a diagonal intentionality which can be read in two directions. It can be read as making the earlier moments present in the form of retentions-the very retentions which are the now's co-present "horizon of pastness." It can also be read as providing the intentional references of our present retentions to successively given moments in the past. Here, our present retentions refer to the transitory moments of time. Yet, taken in themselves, i.e., in their co-presence with the ongoing now, such retentions do not pass away. Nothing retained has to be lost. In Husserl's words," ... ideally a consciousness is, indeed, possible in which everything is retentionally present" (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 31, footnote 1). We can thus say that the ultimate result of the dependence of the moment is the progressive actualization of time as Kant defined ittime as transitory in its moments and abiding in its wholeness. Time's presence in the form of retentions is its presence as abiding-this, even though these retentions in their "sinking down" present its moments as transitory. Here, of course, we must add that such abiding requires that we speak of the dependence of every moment, not just on the moments which preceded it, but also on those which follow it. The intentionality occasioned by this dependence of the earlier moments on the later allows us to speak of a vertical intentionality running through our retentions of such moments. Its result is the "merging" which yields the abiding of time in the form of an already accomplished, objective duration. To speak more specifically of the progressive actualization of this duration, several things are required. First, we must say that temporal dependence does not end at the present moment or actual "now." It passes through it to the next. We must also say that the dependence of the now on the next now exhibits itself in an intentionality presenting the latter. If, in accordance with our third condition, we take this intentionality as productive, then the intending of the next now constitutes it in its actual givenness. The result is a new now and, hence, the modification of the present instant into what is no longer a new now, i.e., its modification into a just past instant. The latter does not vanish, but is rather made present again as a retention. A subjective reading of the time diagram, taken in isolation, would allow us to speak of only our present retentions as immediately given. It would see the intentionality which produces the next now as Husserl's vertical intentionality. This, it would claim, is the origin of time. It unifies

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our present retentions into an accomplished duration. Passing through our present retentions, it always points to what will be given as the next moment. Considered as producing what it intends, it would thus advance this duration from present to present by constantly adding the next moment to it. Yet behind such intentionality is the dependence of moments; and behind this is the independence of time considered as an abiding totality of moments. As already indicated, the latter is the goal of the process which results in an increasing duration. But since it is what grounds every moment's dependence, it can also be considered as the ground of this process. The teleological nature of this conception becomes apparent when we say that the process which results in the abiding totality of time is, itself, the result of the moment's dependence on this same totality. Thus, we have the "teleological circle" mentioned above. As we said, our ordinary understanding of a process demands that, in speaking of the existence of the effect, we presuppose the existence of the cause. In such an understanding, nothing can be self-caused-i.e., bring itself into existence through its effects. This, however, is precisely what we are asserting with regard to the totality of time. Weare asserting a productive intentionality, based on dependence, which progressively brings about the object of this dependence. Our claim is that the whole of time, which grounds the intentionality of each moment (and is, in fact, its ultimate object) causes its own ob;ective existence through this same intentionality. Here, of course, we must add that, in any finite time, this whole cannot exist as something actually given. Its objective givenness as an accomplished duration would require the totality of time. It would demand the actual retention of all of time's moments which would, itself, imply the exhaustion of time-i.e., the pastness of all of its moments. Thus, as long as time continues, such a whole remains a goal of this process. As determining the process, it functions as its teleological ground. Since, in fact, there is no time outside of the wholeness of time into which this whole could progress-i.e., change and become other than itself-this ground is absolutely timeless. The identity of ground and goal contained in the notion of the whole of time signifies, then, that this whole is a timeless not-yet permanently bringing itself into being. All of this, of course, requires our granting that the intentionality which arises from a moment's dependence is, in fact, productive. To review our conclusions, we can say that since this dependence is twofold, so is this requirement. Thus, we must assert that the intentionality which proceeds from the present moment to the next is actually productive of this next moment. Its bringing the new now into existence is one with the passing away or expiration of what was "just now" the present moment.

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Since the later cannot vanish if duration is to be accomplished, we have. the second part of this requirement. The intentionality based on the dependence of the present moment on the moment preceding it must be taken as re-producing the latter-i.e., as making it present again in the form of a retention. The notion of this twofold, productive intentionality occurs in a manuscript from 1933. In it, Husserl considers "egological intentionality (volitional intentionality in the widest sense)," including, as part of this, the intentionality found in social and sexual drives. He asks whether, quite apart from any transcendent references to actually given Others, such intentionality "has a preliminary stage (Vorstufe), one prior to a developed world-constitition." He answers in the affirmative and sees its "primordiality" as a systematic drive-literally a "drive system" (Triebsystern). The last is understood as "an original lasting streaming." His point is that our relations to Others have their basis in the intentionality of time. I I He then continues: In my former doctrine of internal time-consciousness, I treated the intentionality that is hereby exhibited simply as intentionality: directed to the future as protention and modifying itself, but still preserving its unity as retention .... May we not or rather must we not presuppose a universal driving intentionality (TreibintentionaliWt), one which unifies every original present into a lasting (stehende) temporalization and which, concretely, propels (forttreibt) it from present to present in such a way that every [temporal] content is the content of a fulfillment of the drive (Trieberfallung) and is intended before the goal? [Must we not presuppose that this intentionality] also [propels it] in such a way that in each primordial present there are transcending impulses (Triebe) of a higher level that reach out into every other present, binding them like monads together, in the course of which they are all implicit in one anotherimplicit intentionally? (Ms. E III 5, Sept. 1933, HA XV, Kern ed., pp. 594-95). Husserl concludes this reflection with the assertion, 'This would lead to the conception of a universal teleology," one based on a "universal intentionality" (ibid.). What precisely is this "universal, driving intentionality"? The passage just quoted makes the claim that it is responsible for the temporal process itself. Thus, the intentionality acts to unify "every original present into a lasting temporalization." It forms, we can say, out of the successively given nows, time as enduring or "lasting." It also acts to propel this endur-

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ing "from present to present." In this, it is productive of the ever new now which adds to the quantity of accomplished duration. The nature of this productive intentionality is given in the next clause. One the one hand, the enduring and the ever new now are to be regarded as contents "of a fulfillment of the drive"-i.e., the intentional drive towards temporalization. On the other hand, they are "intended before the goal"-i.e., before they actually exist. What we have here is an intentionality which produces what it intends. The temporal contents whose presence would fulfill its intention are intended before they exist and this intending is, in fact, a bringing of these same contents into objective existence. Hussed, then, is asserting that there is a driving intentionality directed towards temporalization, one which has as its "goal" new moments and a consequent increase of the duration. It is an intentionality which fulfills itself by bringing into existence and retaining in existence new moments. In Husserl's words, what we have is the "nucleus of a primal modal intention, one which simply arises and fulfills itself" (ibid., p. 594). We confront, in other words, an intentionality which is responsible for both its intention and its fulfillment. The teleological conception that here arises becomes apparent once we translate this into the terms of the dependence of the moment. We then assert that such "driving intentionality" is a reflection of dependence. The dependence it expresses is that of every present, actually given moment on the abiding wholeness of time. This dependence is mediate. It occurs through the immediate dependence of the moment on those that surround it. This means that, as "nothing for itself," a moment's actuality requires the actuality of the surrounding moments. Its being in the now requires their being in the now. Their present givenness has, in turn, the same requirement, and so on serially throughout the whole of time. Thus, with regard to the future or not yet existent moment, Hussed can claim that the very being of the presently given moment is one with a driving intentionality, an intentionality that drives it to appropriate the future moment and bring it into a present givenness. There is, in other words, a drive in each "original present," one which, by virtue of its dependence, "propels it from present to present." Each present that is brought into existence is a "fulfillment" of this drive, even though it did not exist when it stood as the drive's goal. The same dependence and resulting intentional drive also exists with regard to the immediately past moment. This moment, which no longer exists, is appropriated by the present in the form of a retention. As Hussed elsewhere writes: "Necessarily linked to the consciousness of the [present] now is the consciousness of the just past which is, again, a now. No experience can cease without the consciousness of its ceasing and having ceased, and this is a new fulfilled now" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 200).

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The reason why the consciousness of the now requires the consciousness of the just past now is that the present now, as "nothing for itself," cannot be given without the just past now. Thus, the intentional drive which is based on the now's dependence is one that fulfills itself by reproducing or retaining the past instant. This is why the givenness of the latter is a "new fulfilled now." Since this intentional drive also fulfills itself in making the future present, its result is both the progression of time and the retention of its moments. It progressively realizes the whole of time as an accomplished duration, moving this duration from present to present by constantly adding to it. To see the teleological character of this process, we need only repeat our earlier remarks. The whole of time-which cannot be actualized in any finite time-exists as the telos or goal of the temporal process. But it also determines the process itself by virtue of its being the ground of the moment's dependence. Thus, as a "not-yet," the whole brings about its own progressive actualization-this by determining what does actually exist in the immediate sense-i.e., by determining the intentionalities of the present, appearing moment. Having seen how such a whole can be conceived as the teleological ground of the temporal process, let us turn to our second question: How can we identify it with the "timeless now"-the now that is reached by the last stage of the reduction? For such an identification, several things are required. As standing at the origin of time, the nunc stans is pre-objective. Thus, we must be able to say that the whole of time is not actually objective, but only has a pre-objective existence. We argued that this whole functions as the ground of every moment by containing all its moments. Accordingly, we must be able to make the same assertion about the nunc stans. Granting that the whole of time is pre-objective, we must say that the nunc stans pre-objectively contains all the moments of time. Finally, we must also see the nunc stans as determining each appearing moment as dependent. Like the whole of time, it must be seen as grounding the appearing moment as an instant which is "nothing for itself." The first condition is easily satisfield. When we say that the whole of time determines the temporal process as its "not-yet," we are asserting that it does not yet objectively exist as an accomplished duration. As the process's ground and goal, it is, in fact posited as pre-objective. Since it cannot be objectively given in any finite time, it determines the temporal process prior to its being objectively given-i.e., as that which has a pre-objective being. What about our second condition-the condition which requires us to see the nunc stans as pre-objectively containing all the moments of time? Our previous two chapters touched upon this. Thus, our sixth chapter,

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speaking of the stationary now which is at the core of our functioning, asserted that "pre-objectively, the whole of the time required for ev('- 'ossible synthesis is present in the pre-temporal now ... " (see above, p. 276). Our fifth chapter made the same point in terms of the notion of unique singularity-the very singularity which characterizes the whole of time. We noted that when we bracket constituted (objective) time, the now that remains is absolutely unique. Once we perform the reduction, there is no present "beyond" it. This means that this timeless, stationary now represents in a reduced fashion the whole of successive time. It is the original presence which each moment of time successively displays in its being now. For Husserl, this display can be considered an objective exhibition of what the stationary now implicity contains. Speaking of "the constant, absolute, concrete self-temporalization" of this now, he writes that ... in this-this is the occurring (Geschenen) of temporalizationits stationary being exhibits itself (legt sich aus) in identifiable unities, unities which are one and the same in the changes of the stream, persisting in their unity, constant of their streaming, but constantly changing their temporal modes [Le., their temporal positions vis-a-vis the now]. The unit (Das Eine) has its temporal unity in these temporal modes; but all the temporal modes are already present in the simultaneous total now which, as stationary, is a whole with all these temporal modes as moments ... (Ms. D 13 III, p. 16, July 7,1933). Interpreting Husserl, we can say that the constant streaming of objective moments exhibits the constant or "stationary" quality of temporalization. The moments, themselves, exhibit the stationary now at the origin of temporalizaiton. They exhibit the now whose constant quality makes the temporal process constant. Thus, as exhibitions of this now, all the temporal modes or moments are "already present" within it. As "parts" of this now, they "dwell within it non-independently" (ibid., p. IS). The same point about exhibition was made in our last chapter. As we cited Husserl, "When the ego is ... finding itself in successive being, it is, in fact, exhibiting its full present, exhibiting what it actually is now, what actually lies within it as an ego" (Ms. A V 55, p. 10, Jan., 1933). In other words, in its production of time, "the present ego is self-shaping and bears in itself its past self-shapings." Per se, "it has no breadth, no temporal extension .... But its exhibition necessarily leads to the temporality of consciousness and its self-temporalization as a quasi-extension of the ego over time" (ibid., pp. 10-11). The assertion of this passage is that the ego

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becomes in time what, pre-objectively, it already is before time. Thus, when

the ego is engaged in temporal self-making or self-shaping, it is exhibiting what it is now in a pretemporal sense. The ego considers itself to be in time

insofar as it "bears within itself its past self-shapings." It does this by retaining the results of its self-shaping or self-temporalization. Such retentions form the data on the vertical line of the time diagram, a line which is taken as attached to the ego's ongoing now. As we said, the vertical line is not, itself, the "absolutely timeless" origin of the temporal process. Per se, it represents "the quasi-extension of the ego over time." It is a first exhibition of what the stationary now pretemporally contains. A second exhibition is given by the moments which are posited as departing in time-this through the constant modification (the "stationary streaming") of the data on the vertical. With this, we have the actual extension of the ego over time. To complete this picture, let us recall that not just the totality of time is included in the stationary now, but also the alphabet of contents-Le., the totality of the content which is required for every possible synthesis. This means that, in regarding the original occurring of time, we confront a "non-temporal process of formation (Bildungsprozess) which does not have a beginning or an end," one in which "the temporal data of sensation arise from the non-temporal elements [Le., the alphabet] of sensation" (Ms. E III 2, p. 49, 1921). With the temporalization of content, the ego can appear as a particular center. In Hussed's words, it can appear "as the ego-center which gives temporal presence to sense (sinn), as the center which stands in the presence of time, as the center in relation to which past and future time have a sense-filled (Sinnhaft) relation" (Ms. C 3 III, p. 35, March, 1931). If we ask how all the modes of time are "already present" in the ego's now, we can say that they are present as a goal. This is the first way in which Hussed can speak of "infinity existing only in the form of temporality, as a temporal succession of finitudes, but [also as] included in the nunc stans" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 378-78). The whole of infinite time is required to exhibit what is included in the nunc stans. Thus, the latter remains, throughout this infinite exhibition, the goal of this process. It is also, however, its ground. To repeat Hussed's remark: "Infinity ... in the form of temporality" is implicitly "included" (beschlossen) within it. Thus, the nunc stans is the not yet objectively actual referent of the dependencies which stretch from each actually given moment to the whole of time. As such it is also the ground of the streaming temporalization of each ego. Here, we conceive it as grounding all the moments of time in their dependency and, thus, as grounding the very

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process which leads to its own progressive exhibition through the ego. We can secure this last point-which is our third condition-by speaking of the present moment as the appearance of the nunc stans. To call it an appearance of the latter means, first of all, that it re-presents the latter in its quality of original presence. This quality is such that "all the modes of time are already present" within the stationary now. As we cited Husserl, they "dwell within it non-independently." They exist in the nonextended identity of original presence-a presence which comes to be successively exhibited in extended time. The appearing moment thus represents its original identity with all other moments through its being "nothing for itself"-i.e., its being nothing apart from the latter. Objectively regarded, it appears as dependent on what precedes and follows it. It cannot be objectively now-i.e., be an appearance of the nunc stanswithout its surrounding moments also being brought into the now. Insofar as this dependence expresses itself in an impulse or drive (Trieb), we can say, with Husserl, that "in each primordial present, there are transcending impulses ... which reach out into every other present .... " These impulses "propel" or "drive" our ongoing nowness from "present to present." Thus, to say as we did earlier that the appearance in time of the nunc stans is one with its departure from this appearance is, ultimately, to say that its being in time is one with its streaming-i.e., its being the ongoing now. It cannot be in time without the intentional drive which makes it streamingly appropriate the future and retain the past. This follows since both "temporal modes" are included in the nunc stans, the very thing that its appearing is progressively exhibiting. Thus, in its self-exhibition, the nunc stans is Husserl's "primal present"-the present that is "primally temporalizing." Insofar as this "primally generating" present is teleologically conceived as the ground of the ego's temporalization, Husserl can write: "Each ego has something innate. Within itself, it innately bears the teleological ground of its streaming, constituting, transcendental life" (Ms. E III 9, p. 11, 1929).

We can describe the relation between the nontemporal nunc stans and its temporal appearing in ontological terms. Time, we said, represents the "whether it is" of the object. It is the presence which makes things be present and actual-this, no matter what they are. Thus, when we speak of the original unity of time, we are speaking of the unity of being itself. As embodying this unity, the nunc stans is presence per se-i.e., being per se. It signifies being in its Parmenidean character, the character by which we tautologically assert, everything that is is. The move to appearances is, as Parmenides indicates, a move to plurality. In time, the now appears as continuously modifying itself. This modification is simply the successive,

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serial display of its original unity. It is a modification of the original unity of being into the continuity of existence-a continuity which implies plurality. Let us put this "move to plurality" in terms of Husserl's doctrine that objective time is constituted out of the continuous modification of what is given in the now. Diagramatically, the data of the now form the elements of the vertical line. Their modification is their downward moment along this line. This movement represents the entrance into the retained of the already appropriated future-the future which has already become now. It also represents the increasing "pastness" of the retained. Here, each retention, in its sinking down, becomes modified into a retention of itself. As such, it adds a further degree of pastness to the content it retains. Relative to this increasing pastness, the now of our co-present retentions appears to advance. There is a shift in its relationship to the extended time which is presented through these retentions; and this shift gives it its appearance as an ongoing now. We, thus, come to Husserl's doctrine that temporalization is "a primal functioning ... a constant letting loose of retentions" (Ms. A V 5, pp. 4-5, Jan., 1933). Diagramatically represented, it is a letting them descend along the vertical. The key point here is that the presence of "identifiable" moments, "persisting in their unity" as they depart into pastness, requires the constant sinking down of the data along the vertical. This, in turn, requires the constant addition to the vertical. It is in terms of this doctrine that we can speak of the nunc stans' appearing in time as demanding its modification-a modification which results in the plurality of moments. For Husserl, the nunc stans cannot appear as a now in time without its appearing as an ever new now, Le., as an ongoing nowness vis-a-vis a departing temporal field. We can explain this modification by pointing to the fact that the nunc stans surpasses every moment in its containing all moments. It, thus, cannot appear as a moment without surpassing this appearance. As we earlier put this, it is always "ahead" of its appearance; it is constantly appearing as what will count as the next moment. Behind this continuous reappearance of the nunc stans is the dependence of each of its appearances. The present moment displays the nunc stans-i.e., is its objective appearance-in the requirement that it cannot appear alone. Its objective presence ultimately requires the presence of all the moments which are implicit in the nunc stans. Thus, it displays the nunc stans in its dependence. Mediately dependent on the whole of time, it is immediately dependent on the next moment- the next appearance of the nunc stans. Thus, its very givenness as the appearance of the nunc stans demands the reappearance of the nunc stans. It requires its reappearance as the next moment. The present moment, as dependent, must appropriate this next moment in order to be.

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Given that this appropriation is one with the moment's own "modification" of sinking into pastness, the appropriation is, so to speak, the "engine" of the downward movement along the vertical. It is the engine of the "letting loose" of retentions. Hence, it also brings about the presentation of the successive time through which our ongoing now appears to move. The above, of course, simply translates what we said about the dependence of the moment on the whole of time into the corresponding terms of the moment and the nunc stans. The moment's dependence on the whole of time is, pre-objectively, its dependence on the nunc stans. To reverse this, we can say that its dependence on the nunc stans is a relation which the moment must objectively exhibit as its dependence on the whole of time. This follows since such a whole, with its infinity, is the objective counterpart of the nunc stans-i.e., the one thing which could completely exhibit it. The point of our translation is simply to locate the timeless, allinclusive whole of time within us and to see it as a pre-objective factor teleologically determining our own temporalization. §6. TIlE INDMDUAL'S HORIZONAL RELATIONSHIP TO TEMPORAL CONSTITUTION

Before we draw out the implications of the last section, we should guard against a misunderstanding. We began by speaking of our subjective experience of time. We then argued that such experience is constitutive of time. This might lead the reader to suppose that time is our subjective product. Such a reader would take the retentional process as constitutive of time and see this process as something occurring as an effect of a given, individual subject. For Husserl, this is not the case. The individual subject is not a ground or cause of time. He first appears because time grounds him. Thus, when we speak of the retentional process as constitutive, this does not mean that this process arises &om a subject who is "there" before its action. The process is rather that from which the individual can be said to arise or "awaken." Once constituted, the subject appears as a person who retains and thereby grasps departing time. He also appears as the center of an already constituted temporal field. He appears as the now from which retentions are constantly being let loose. As such, he seems to be that in and through which time is retentionally constituted. Yet, as should be obvious, this appearance has validity only insofar as we identify the subject with his ground-i.e., with the now which, in constantly modifying itself, actually serves as the engine of the retentional process. The same point can be made by noting that the constitution which is directed to the abiding totality of time requires an infinite retentional

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consciousness-one which "takes no notice of the limitation of the temporal field" (see above. p. 314). Insofar as we have a finite lifetime, such consciousness is not our own. Yet we imply such a consciousness (or at least its basis) when we admit that we cannot posit a first moment of time. Here, our time consciousness implies what surpasses our limited retentional consciousness. More particularly, it implies the duality of our essence-a duality which includes both our identity and difference with our ground. Such a duality is implicit in Husserl's remarks: Every monad has its immanent temporality. In this temporality, there is a beginning taken as a beginning of its entering-into-relationship with other monads in its becoming worldly (Verweltlichung) within objective time. This is also a form of co-existence, (in the broad sense) a form of communalization. If the monad appears as a new actor in world time, he also, finally, departs. When being and non-being are real temporal being, then previously he did not exist and later he will not exist. In the immanence of a monad, a beginning is a limit of its worldly self-constitution. A "pre"-beginning, does this have a sense? Can it have one? The limit of self-constitution is the [initial] limit of the developmental structure of a child, of the whole person in the world. If one could say that this is not the beginning of being, but rather that of worldly development and of being in the world, and that, therefore, the co-existence of monads extends beyond that of the world, so one could try to interpret this as follows: The monad's being is a being in and for itself in a self-constitution which never begins or ends in immanent temporality. A particular form of this constitution, which does have a beginning and an end, is the world accomplishing (verweltichende) constitution in which the modad becomes a monad living in an environment (eine umweltlich lebende wird) and [as such is a monad who] consciously, constitutively experiences other monads as worldly realities, entering into relation with them (Ms. C 8 2, pp. 6-7, Oct., 1929). Interpreting Husserl, we can say that according to one part of a monad's essence, he does have a beginning. Accordingly, he has a limited retentional consciousness. Yet another part of his essence is such that we can say that a monad exists in "a self-constitution which never begins or ends." This, of course, points to an unlimited retentional consciousness. Husserl goes on to express the relation between a monad's finitude and infinitude in terms of "world time" and transcendental time." In real world time, "only the [finite] lifetimes of monads are realized." Yet behind

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them, standing as their ground, is an unbroken, transcendental time. "This naturally has no gaps; it is a perfectly continuous (vollkommene geschlossene) infinity." From its vantage point, "the realization [of a monad's finite lifetime] is not an affair of this monad alone, but rather concerns all the monads. The totality of monads is what it is in a universal monadic causality which is an intentional and teleological causality of monads existing in and for themselves. They are for each other because they are dependent on each other in their being for each other" (ibid., p. 7, italics added). For Husserl, then, there is an unbroken transcendental time which corresponds to the "self-constitution which never beings or ends." This is the time which grounds the individual lifetimes of the monads, making them imply each other insofar as they are parts of one unending time. My finite retentional consciousness refers to my finite lifetime, i.e., to a limited segment of "world time." Yet this consciousness implies more than it actually retains-i.e., it implies Husserl's unending retentional consciousness. As such, it implies Husserl's transcendental time-the unending time which corresponds to this unending consciousness. Several things can be said about this time. To the point that it brings about the "intentional and teleological causality of monads," it reminds us that "each ego has something innate. Within itself, it innately bears the teleological ground of its streaming, constituting, transcendental life" (Ms. E III 9, p. II, 1929). This ground, as we said, is the primal present. The constant, unending quality of its constitution is what allows Husserl to speak of each monad's being as existing "in a self-constitution which never begins or ends." When he mentions the "intentional" causality of monads, we are reminded of Husserl's position that the intentional, subject-objection relation is first given through the intentionalities of the retentional process. This is another instance of the fact that the "perfectly continuous" time accomplished by the primal present is, in its unending quality, a time which corresponds to Husserl's all-embracing retentional consciousness. The nature of this consciousness can be discovered by looking at an individual's finite retentional consciousness. As we said, behind his retention of moments is the dependence of moments. This dependence stretches beyond his finitude lifetime to include all the moments of time. As such, it does not just ground his retentional processes-i.e., his intentionalities, his being environmentally alive as a spatial-temporal centerit also grounds the retentional process of every individual. This implies that Husserl's all-embracing retentional consciousness is simply this dependence of moments. The latter becomes an actual, objectively finite retentional consciousness by grounding this finite consciousness. Our point may be put in terms of the last section's assertion that temporal depen-

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dence does not signify that all the moments of time are already given-i.e., are "there" before they are retained. Temporal dependence is teleological. It successively produces its objects which means that it successively results in the moments on which each present moment is dependent. Subjectively speaking, its result is the "thereness" of such moments in the form of the present retentions animating the stationary streaming now. This "thereness" is also the presence of a retentional consciousness-one which can be differentiated by particular sensuous content. What we have, then, is a kind of retentional "thickening" of time which underlies not just my retentional consciousness but also that of each member of the monadic totality. The individual's relation to this temporalization can be clarified by turning to the doctrine of horizonality. As we cited Husserl, every moment has its "horizon of pastness ... /' every experience, in having its temporal position, "takes its place in an unending continuum of durations-a filled continuum. It necessarily has an all sided, infinite, filled horizon of time" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 198). Implicit in these remarks is the claim that the horizonality of experiences has its origin in the horizonality of time. This cannot be otherwise given that time is the form in which our experiences are cast. Thus, when we abstract from time, what we have is simply the alphabet of contents, an alphabet composed of the nontemporal elements of experience. It is through the formative process of temporalization that "the temporal data of sensation arise from the nontemporal elements of sensation" (Ms. E III 2, p. 49, 1921). Time, we can say, is the "writing" by which this alphabet is temporally arranged so as to spell out a given world. For Husserl, as we shall see, the horizonality of the world is an objectification of the formal necessities involved in this writing-necessities which can lead to the presence of subjects. To secure this conclusion, we must first turn to an examination of the features of the notion of horizon. In tracing these back to the temporal process, we will uncover their relationship to Husserl's all-embracing retentional consciousness. The notion of horizon is, as we said, that of a series of experiences which have been connected and, in their connections, determine the further experiences which can join this series (see above, pp. 139f). Now i( we ask what first links experiences together so as to give them the possibility of forming a series, we come to the first of the features of this notion: that of dependence. Experiences can form themselves into a horizon by virtue of their dependence. Since this dependence demands their indefinite continuance, the "internal horizon" of a real object cannot end. This implies that for an experience to count as an experience of a real object, it must be a member of an indefinite series of experiences directed to

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it. Each such experience demands the possibliity of a futher experience, an experience of the object from a different perspective or side. Without this possibility, the object could not be posited as a "real unity"-i.e., as a perceptual sense which exhibits itself in an indefinite range of examples. Thus, to say that an object is intentionally present as a sense is to say that our actual experience of it is always surrounded by an indefinitely extendable horizon of further (potentially acquirable) experiences. Indeed, insofar as an object's "true being" demands that our experience indefinitely continue to confirm it, such being is reducible to an unending horizon of mutually confirming experiences. With this, we have a second feature of the notion of horizon. Experiences are horizonally linked together insofar as they point to an underlying unity, a unity of which they can be said to be experiences. Experiences can be said to mutually confirm or validate each other insofar as they continue to disclose the presence of a persisting unity of sense. These features are, of course, conditions for the perspectival appearing of an object. A real object's internal horizon is composed of the perspectival appearing which indefinitely continues to manifest the presence of a persisting sense. Both characteristics are grounded in the temporal process. Thus, the indefinite continuance of experiences points back to the dependence of the moments bearing these experiences. By virtue of such dependence, temporality, as we cited Husserl, "designates not just something universally pertaining to every experience but a necessary form binding experiences to experiences" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 198). Like the moment of time, the experiences which fill it can only exist as part of a greater whole. Dependence is also the temporal condition of the presence of a persisting sense. It yields the vertical intentionality running through our present retentions. It thus results in that merging and reenforcement of retained contents which can yield the presence of this sense. Strictly speaking, temporality is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for perspectival appearing. By virtue of its diagonal and vertical intentionalities, the temporal process is inherently synthetic. It is inherently directed towards the production of an appearing unity. It is not, however, invariably successful. Its synthesis can become frustated. What we took to be an object's internal horizon may turn out to be only a series of "empty anticipations." Failure is possible because positing requires not just temporal synthesis but also an appropriate content. Thus, a successful positing requires similar contents. Only these can reinforce each other in the merging occasioned by temporal dependence. With this, another feature of horizonality emerges. Since particular contents are not inherently tied to particular moments, the horizon grounded by the dependence of moments always remains contingent. In other words, a horizon may fail as

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a horizon. It may cease to manifest an underlying unity. Thus, even though the temporal process is inherently synthetic, the unity it attempts to synthesize is never something which must obtain. Throughout our experience of it, the unity remains something whose continuance can be cancelled. Husserl writes, "Everything has its internal and external horizons" (Ms. C 7 II, p. 6, June, 1932). We can make the same points about these external horizons that we have just made with regard to the internal. They also manifest an indefinite continuance and point to the contingent presence of an underlying unity. Such a unity, as we earlier noted, is not that of a thing but rather that of the world. Thus, to move from the internal to the external horizons of a spatial-temporal thing is to focus on it as a thing within a spatial-temporal world. It is to link its perception to a broader perceptual field. In other words, its apprehension is joined to the apprehension of the things which surround it. The apprehension of each of the latter is similarly joined to the apprehensions of its surrounding objects. For Husserl, the ultimate terminus of this expanding series of external horizons is lithe totality, 'the world as a perceptual world.''' (Krisis, 2nd Biemel ed., p. 165). This is the world which is posited as lithe totality of things" (ibid., p. 145). Since an individual can never actually experience this totality, he has to say: "this world exists for me in a core of experiencibility and [in] a horizon of the unexperienced" (Ms. C 7 II, p. 6, June, 1932). The individual, in a certain sense, can also assert this about each of the objects within the world. Each has its unending, internal horizon of potential experiences. What distinguishes the world horizon is that we see it as the ultimate ground of the validity of our individual positings. As we cited Husserl: liTo live is always to live in the certainty of the world. In other words, "I always have the certainty of the world in each and every thing" (Ms. A VII I, p. 5, Dec. 1933-Jan. 1934). This follows from the thing being posited as something "of" the world. An individual experience is "of" a thing only insofar as it forms part of a series manifesting the thing's underlying unity. Similarly, a thing is "of" the world only when this set of experiences is part of a greater set-one which manifests the perceived world's unity. This means, with regard to particular sets of experiences directed towards particular things, as one takes place, it always presupposes others having objective validity. It always, thus, presupposes for the observer the universal ground of the validity of the world" (Krisis, ed. cit., p. 151). In other words, we cannot posit a thing as something "of" the world-i.e., as having a worldly sense-without also positing the underlying unity which is the sense of the world. To posit a worldly reality, we II

II • • •

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must engage in an expanding, external horizon of experiences, each experience presupposing for its validity the presence of further confirming experiences. Such a horizon cannot be thought to be complete-i.e., to ultimately ground the validity of any of its elements-until it embraces lithe totality, 'the world as a perceptual world.'" Here, the objects of the world "have their actuality for us only in the constant movement of making corrections-in the revisions of their validities-this, as an anticipation of an ideal unity" (ibid., p. 148). This "i deal unity" is both the underlying sense of the world and the harmonious unity of objects in one perceptual world. As the latter, it embraces the totality of an object's relations to all other objects; and this includes the totality of the ways in which such objects are implied in any single object's positing as something "of" the world. We can also say that such relatedness presupposes an underlying unity-a unity which we presuppose is saying that an object is something "of" the world. Thus, as we remarked with regard to an object's internal horizons, our experiences of it are horizonally linked together-i.e., form parts of one horizon-only insofar as they manifest an underlying unity. The same point obtains when we speak of the external horizons of a thing. It is only insofar as the experiences composing such horizons manifest the world's "ideal unity," its unity as a single sense, that we can speak of these experiences as forming parts of one all embracing world horizon. For Husserl, then: liThe world is not constituted as an individual reality is. It is the original, constantly changing horizon which yet remains one. It is the unthematic horizon which is present in every individual reality" (Ms. A VIII, p. 4, italics added). Since the world represents the totality of things, this world horizon is not just singular but uniquely singular. Taken as the totality of what we can experience, it cannot have a beyond. To cite Husserl again: " ... the world does not exist like an existent entity or object. It rather exists in a singularity for which the plural is senseless. Every plural and singular that can be drawn from it presupposes the horizon of the world"-i.e., the world as the totality of our actual and possible experiences (Krisis, Biemel, ed., p. 141). To put this in terms of validity, we can say that to posit a thing as a worldly entity is to place its internal horizon in the context of the external horizons which give it its defining, worldly sense. 12 As we explicate these external horizons, our experiences confirm or fail to confirm our theses concerning its being in the world. Defined in terms of the world, the object receives its sense from its relations to other objects; and the same can be said about these objects. Thus, the horizons which manifest these relations must expand until they embrace the whole of experience. For

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Husserl, it is this whole, taken as a uniquely singular, self-confirming totality, which we ultimately presuppose in any particular claim about being in the world. Behind this presupposition is the world's temporal givenness. The horizonality of such givenness is what results in the horizonality of our experience of the world. In Husserl's words: Horizonality pertains to everything which I can claim as actively experienced, as actively grasped or graspable. Everything has its internal and external horizons. It has them as the potentiality that it can be brought into experiential apprehension as something coexisting, co-valid [with the other things I grasp.]. An enquiry into the most general meaning of horizon aims at the universal form of the world as the present world of experiences, the world as I now find it and have always found or can [in the future] find it. Both the world as presently experienced by me and every [individual] thing which I experience as worldly have temporal modes of givenness. The primal form of these (the primal mode) is the streaming present with the horizonality which streamingly pertains to it, the horizonality of the temporal modes" (Ms. C 7 II, p. 6, June, 1932). Time, therefore, is the "universal form" of my experience of the world. The horizonality which pertains to such experience is "the horizonality of the temporal modes." As we said, this horizonality is based upon temporal dependence. For Husserl, such dependence makes temporality a "form binding experiences with experiences" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 198). Thus, like the moment of time, the experience which "fills" it can only exist as part of a greater horizon, i.e., as part of an "all-sided, infinite, filled horizon of time" (ibid.). The result is Husserl's notion of an expanding horizon of experiences. This is a horizon which cannot be complete until it embraces the totality of experience-i.e., the whole of the experiential world. Implicit in this notion is the thought that nothing less than the whole of experience can serve as the grounding condition for each individual experience. The possibility of the latter is dependent on the former. This means that the worldly being and validity of an experience is dependent on a totality of experiences which, in not admitting a beyond, is both self-referring and uniquely singular. To trace this to the form of time is simply to repeat our assertion that the whole of time is the grounding condition of each of its moments. Each moment of time is immediately dependent on those which surround it, hence each is mediately dependent on the whole of time. The latter is the ultimate object of the intentionalities which spring from the mo-

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ment's dependence. Thus, every moment of time is one with every other in finally having the same intentional reference. Every moment is a moment "of" the same whole of time. This whole, then, is completely selfreferring. It does not point beyond itself, but only to itself. Granting this, the unique singularity of time can be said to be the "primal form" of the unique singularity of the world. It is what makes the world a world-i.e., a totality of objects whose experience does not refer beyond itself to yet another world. If we take the worldly being of an experience as its being temporally given, i.e., its being a "datum within the objective order of time/, this is also conditioned by the form of temporal dependence. The intentionalities arising from such dependence are what first allow us to place an experience in time-i.e., posit it as a "datum." Since such a "datum" has its worldly validity as an experience "of" the world, this too can be traced to these temporal intentionalties. The latter unify our experience and, in so doing, situate it in a greater whole. In other words, their action is such that just as each moment is "of" the whole of time, so each experience which fills it is "of" the world which is structured by this whole. We can pursue this last point by recalling that experiences are horizonally linked together only insofar as they manifest an underlying unity. For Husserl, the "ideal unity" of the world is something aimed ati.e., is a goal-"in the constant movement of making corrections" and revising validities. It is, in other words, a teleological unity. In its present state, "the world ... exists, but exists in 'contradiction' with itself. It exists but does not exist insofar as it is always existent in relative true being and relative non-being" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5,1931, HAXV, Kern ed., pp. 380-81). Neither its true being nor its non-being (our cancelled positing) are absolute. Both are relative to what we shall uncover in our expanding horizon of experiences. Now, if we ask why our experiences are horizonally linked together-i.e., why they are directed towards manifesting an ultimate unity, why, in other words, this unity stands as the ideal, teleological goal of our experiences-the answer is to be found in the horizonality of time. By virtue of this horizonality, time is inherently synthetic. No limit can be set to the diagonal and vertical intentionalities which arise from the dependence of its moments. This means that its own all-embracing unity as a single time is its inherent, teleologically determining goal. It is because of this that filled time, i.e., our actual experience, is inherently directed towards the unity of a single world. This does not mean that this world must obtain. For Husserl, "Every fact, and thus, the fact of the world is, as universally admitted, contingent qua fact. This implies, assuming that it exists, that it could be different from what it is; [it implies] that it could, perhaps, even not be" (EP II,

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Boehm ed., p. 50). Thus, the facticity of the world remains such that it is possible for the worldly horizon to break up into a tumult of sensatons. The teleological determination of our experiences does not dispense with this facticity. It is rather its temporal compliment. This follows because when we say that the world has a factual, contingent character, we mean that it cannot be fully determined beforehand. Its past givenness does not completely determine what will be given. The teleological perspective does not deny this; it rather speaks of what will be given as helping to determine what is given. Thus, teleologically speaking, the ideal unity of the world functions to determine the world as its not-yet. Since the determination by this not-yet implies a lack of complete determination by the past, the results of already accomplished syntheses remain contingent. We will return to this point in a later section. For the present, it is enough to say that teleological determination does not prevent the appearance of what, from the perspective of the already constituted, is an inappropriate content. Such a content, taken as factually given, can disrupt the results of temporal synthesis-this, even though the temporal form of synthesis continually structures our experience. Husserl's notion of the "ideal unity" of the world can put in terms of a general claim underlying this and our previous chapter: The world as it exists through time is the self-objectification in time of the nunc stans. As our last section indicated, the nunc stans is the original, pre-objective unity of the moments of successive time. It manifests itself in their interdependence and, thus, in the horizonality of filled time. It is because of this that our experiential world is a world-i.e., an interdependent whole. Its being a whole is, in fact, a presupposition for its appearing in contradiction with itself. What is unrelated is simply other. It is only when it is seen in terms of a unity which should objectively obtain that its lack of apparent unity-i.e., its self-contradiction-can be claimed. Husserl's assertion that the world "exists but does not yet exist" has its sense in the context of this "should." The unity presupposed by his assertion that the world exists in self-contradiction is an all-embracing unity, one which should obtain but does not do so. It is taken as a goal of the world's progressive actualization. This goal is inherent in the temporal process which is teleologically directed towards the realization of the wholeness of time. As the ultimate referent of every determinate quality of time, this wholeness is what makes each time a part of the unity of a single time. Each time is "of" the whole insofar as it is part of a process manifesting this temporal unity. Yet, objectively speaking, the whole of time is such that it can never manifest itself in any finite time. The dependence of each time on the whole of time is, then, its dependence on the not-yet. It is its dependence on a goal-i.e., on a unity which has not

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yet been objectively achieved. Since dependence expresses the relation of grounding, this is also the dependence of every moment on its preobjective ground-i.e., on the nunc stans. Thus what we confront is a dependence on a ground which, as a goal, objectively realizes itself through such dependence. When we regard time as filled with content, the same assertion can be made about the world. For Husserl, the world horizon, in its unique singularity, grounds the being and validity of every experience taken as an experience "of" the world. Yet this horizon is, itself, what these experiences themselves collectively realize. Thus, the ideal unity of the world is both a ground and a goal of the process of the world's realization as a temporally unfolding structure. The key point here is that the ideal unity of the world is that of time. It is the unity of the nunc stans objectively exhibiting itself in the temporal dependence which structures the world horizon. With this, we may recall why we initially asserted that the horizonality of the world springs from the necessities involved in temporalization. Our claim was that such necessities can lead to the presence of individual subjects. To reach this conclusion, we must focus on one last feature of Husserl's notion of horizon, namely, its intersubjective character. As we mentioned in our third chapter, the givenness of the world in its horizonality is, correlatively, the givenness of Others. Others are implied by my horizonal being or, more precisely, in my positing my being in the context of a surpassing world-horizon. They are implied as IIfellow bearersvalidators" of the world-horizon. (see above, p. 162). This does not mean that the world-horizon is the result of the constitutive actions of individual subjects. They are rather, as we said, "born" along with the world in its horizonality and transcendence. They are correlates of the latter. To merely indicate our arguments in this regard, they start from the premise that the horizonality of our experience is its perspectival character. The perspectival ordering of experience is correlated to a defined 0point in space and time. Thus, it corresponds to the ego taken as a "pure" center of experience. It is also correlated to this ego's embodied finitude. A perspectivally experiencing ego has a real component-i.e., is also a "real" ego-insofar as it experiences itself as spatial-temporally situated and, hence, as incapable of being in two places (two "heres") at the same time. The same perspectival character of experiences is linked to the infinity of the world in which the subject finds himself. This infinity results from the unending character of the perspectival series composing the internal and external horizon of objects. With this, we have Husserl's assertion that lithe life of each transcendental subject is a life of finite being immersed in infinity" (Ms. A V 10, p. 24, Nov. 9, 1931). His being as a finite center is inherently correlated to an infinite world horizon. But the latter,

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in surpassing his finite being, is correlated to Others. The concept of this horizon includes the possibilities of other centers-other finite subjects who are "there" while he remains "here." The key term of the above is "correlated." Subjects do not ground the world horizon. As the correlative of such subjects, this horizon is rather the result of what grounds both itself and such subjects. The ground, in surpassing its finite self-expressions (i.e., individual subjects), manifests itself in the horizonal structure of their experiences. It makes such experiences imply infinite, open-ended possibilities of being; and this includes the possibility of an unending plurality of fellow subjects. Let us put this in terms of Husserl's position that the horizonality of the world is based on the horizonality of time-the latter being a result of the necessities involved in temporalization. The first such necessity is the dependence of the moment. The second and the third are the resulting diagonal and vertical intentionalities. Now, the reason why the perspectival arrangement of experiences is a correlate rather than a ground of the central ego is that both appear through temporal synthesis. Given the proper content, both are temporally constituted. As we said, the unending character of perspectival appearing is the result of the dependence of the moment. Its one-in-many character is given by the interweaving of time's intentionaliities. These are the very same intentionalities which situate the ego in the ongoing, central now. Temporalization, in fact, involves the co-constitution of all the elements of the intentional relation. It is a constitution of them in their different manners of appearing. Within it, the perceptual experience is distinguished from the perceived object, and the perceiver of this object appears as the ongoing center of his perceptual process (see above, pp. 322-324). Furthermore, by virtue of the horizontalperspectival character of his perceiving, the perceiver takes himself as "a finite being immersed in infinity." His finite experience is understood as part of the nonfinite world-horizon, the very horizon which is taken as implying his Others. Behind this horizon is, of course, the dependence of the moments of content-filled time. Indeed, temporally considered, the world-horizon is ;ust this dependence. Since Husserl's all-embracing retentional consciousness has also been identified with such dependence, we can equate the world-horizon with this non{inite consciousness. This means that the latter has the same relation to my finite retentional consciousness that the world-horizon has to its finite part which I call my actual, "lived," experience. In fact, the relation is the same as that between Husserl's perfectly unbroken "transcendental time" and the "real time" of my finite lifetime. This relation can be variously characterized. It is, we can say, a relation between the explicit and the implicit, i.e., between that which is explicitly

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experienced and that which is only anticipated by means of horizon. It can also be called the relation of the part to the whole, where one takes the part as dependent on the whole and, hence, as implying it. All of these characterizations spring from temporal dependence. Such dependence yields the intentionalities which result in the "real time" of a lifetime. The "life" of this lifetime is the set of experiences which have become unified into a distinct retentional consciousness. The finitude of this consciousness includes its being spatially, temporally situated since the very process which grounds it also allows it to experience the world perspectivally. Yet the dependence of the moment, being inherently unlimited, stretches beyond this consciousness. Thus, it places it in a horizonal context, one which implies, as equivalent possibilities, other centers of experience, other lives and lifetimes. This means that I have to say that, by virtue of the dependence of the moment, the intentionalities which ground me could just as well have grounded Others. I imply these Others since my own being, as grounded by this dependence, indicates a greater whole-one capable of "bearing" and "validating" not just myself but also an unending totality of finite subjects. Such subjects, as we cited Husserl, are both "monads existing in and for themselves" and "are dependent on each other" (see above, p. 349). The nature of this dependence is teleological since it is on a whole which is brought into existence through their collective existence "in and for themselves." Otherwise put: The whole of time, in grounding the dependence of its moments, brings about the intentionalities which result in the existence of monads in and for themselves. In so doing, it brings about its own progressive actualization as something objective-i.e., as the time which stands, with the world, over and against such monads. The dependence of monads on each other is, on one level, their dependence on the world conceived as a ground of being and validity. On another level, it is their dependence on the temporal wholeness which makes the world a world. As such, it is also the interdependence of monads since they are, collectively, that in and through which this wholeness comes about. Here, of course, we should reemphasize that we cannot speak of the world, of its experience, or of experiencing monads without taking content into account. It is only when content is given that a monad can appear as a spatial-temporal center-i.e., as "here" in a perspectivally appearing, spatial-temporal world. Before this, there is no ego; there is only the abstract form of temporal synthesis. For Husserl, this form is particularized through a particular content. Since this content has factual character, the particular monad which can result must be contingent. So must the world and its correlate: the transcendental totality of monads. The above may be put in terms of a series of requirements. For a par-

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ticular subject, we require a particular environment. What we need is the differentiation of contents through time. In other words, we need the selfsurpassing (or "self-modification") of the nunc stans since this, as we said, is the "engine" of the temporal process. Now, insofar as this self-surpassing yields the horizonal-perspectival character of experience, it can result in the monad in the horizonality of its experiential being. Thus, it can be said to ground its implication of Others through such horizonality. Yet the very sense of this horizonality implies contingency. It must, if it is based on the self-surpassing which generates new moments. Each such moment, insofar as it surpasses the previous appearances of the nunc stans, represents, we asserted, "a new stage for settling the world's accounts" (see above, p. 261). It represents a newness which surpasses and thereby puts at risk the already constituted. Having said this, we must add that this newness which puts the world at risk is not, ultimately, a sign of the moment's independence. Qua content-laden, its factual character does point to its independence vis-avis the past-i.e., its not being completely determined by the content of what has already been given. But this independence is matched by a dependence on the not-yet. Temporally speaking, it is dependent on the whole of time. Qua content-laden, it is dependent on that "full" absolute which includes both time and content. Thus, its content-filled presence surpasses the already constituted because it is the manifestation of Husserl's absolute present, the present in which "there 'lies' all time and world in every sense" (Ms. el, Sept. 21-22,1932, HA XV, p. 668). In other words, each content-filled appearance of the absolute surpasses what has been by being a partial manifestation of all that has ever been or will be. The full manifestation of the absolute present is nothing less than the world-horizon understood as an "all-sided, infinite, filled horizon of time." The fact that the moment cannot be without this horizon and yet can disrupt it, points to this horizon's all inclusive character. It is a character which includes the possibility of its own dissolution through the very moments which actualize it. This, as we shall see, involves a corresponding possibility for the monads who collectively actualize the world horizon. The possibilities of the horizon include the possibility of such monads disrupting it. §7. THE RATIONAL AND THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL'S RELATION TO TEMPORAL CONSTITUTION

Before we take up the theme of this disruption, two further items need to be considered: Husserl's positions on reason and God, God being taken as reason's telos. Both are extensions of the doctrine of horizonality

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Horizonality is connected to reason through the notion of positing. A "tumult" of sensations does not form a horizon. Our experiences, we said, are horizonally ordered when they manifest an underlying unity. Since the latter is the sense of the posited object, horizonality and positing are correlative notions. The same point holds for the world-horizon. Our experience of the latter is correlated to our positing the world's underlying sense or "ideal unity." Each object is "of" the world insofar as it own unity fits into that of the world. Our perceptions are "worldly" insofar as they posit being as being-in-the-world. They are "worldly" when they include the sense of the world in the senses of their particular objects. As Husserl writes, this implies that "every worldly perception inherently bears, as a horizon, its sense of being as something all-temporal" (Ms. B III 4, p. 39a, Dec., 19321. All-temporality is required because the whole of time is required to manifest the sense of the world. In itself, the world "is nothing but the idea of the infinitely extended, harmonious totality of all experiences, of all momentary living presents, of all [such subjective presents] that are presently actual or were actual or will in the future be actual, and of all the possible experiences indicated as co-valid in these subjective times" (Ms. B III 7, p. 3, 19331. If horizonality involves positing, it also involves reason. This follows because a positing act is an "act of reason." As we cited Husserl, "'truly existing object' and 'object capable of being rationally posited' are equivalent correlates" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 3491. At the basis of this equivalence is the fact that positing is essentially a "making sense" of our experiences. It is a grasping of their one-in-many character where the unity stands for the one thing of which we are having many experiences. Here, the laws by which we grasp this unity in multiplicity are taken as the "rational" laws-Le., those of logic (see above, p. 681. We can focus on the temporal aspect of this equivalence by considering one of these laws, that of noncontradiction. It states that the same thing cannot, in the same sense, be and not be. If we take being as being present in time, we can see how this law may be reinterpreted in terms of the intentionalities constituting the temporal field. Such intentionalities do not just place contents within self-identical moments, they also unify these contents into the persisting presence of self-identical objects. Furthermore, they result in our own identical presence. They help give each of us a distinct "here" and "now" with regard to a content-and objectfilled environment. Thus, to say that we or our objects could both be and not be in the same objective, worldly sense is to disregard the temporal intentionalities which help establish this sense. It is to assert that such intentionalities are and are not operative in some specific instance. With this, we can make the more general point that the formal or "analytic"

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laws of rationality can be reinterpreted as laws of positing and the latter can be understood as laws of temporal synthesis. Here, the a priori character of the formal logical law finds its roots in the a priori character of such synthesis-i.e., in the fact that such synthesis must obtain if a real object is to be given; this, no matter what the object's particular character. Thus, the universality of the logical law follows once we reinterpret it in terms of the diagonal and vertical intentionalities which unify our consciousness, the intentionalities which "make sense" out of our experiences by providing the temporal basis for the positing of an object as a one-in-many.13 As we said, such intentionaHties are "temporal necessitites." Along with the dependence of the moment, they give the necessary conditions for temporalization, thus grounding the horizonal structure of the world. In serving as the basis for the underlying unity correlated to this structure, they also ground the world's rationality. Thus, given the equivalence between rationality and positing, the fact that time is inherently synthetici.e., inherently directed towards positing-means that it is inherently directed towards rationality. Husserl puts this in terms of "motivation." He writes that "the unity of temporalization, of the objective temporalization of a world ... , is a unity of developmental motivation" (Ms. E III 4, pp. 28-29, 1934). This is our motivation to make sense of our experience, i.e., to posit its underlying unity. Behind such motivation is the fact that we "live in a universal teleological temporality, one in which an inherent teleological causality has its form ... " (Ms. KIll 4, p. 45, 1934-35). The form springs from the dependence of the moment, a dependence which always links the moment to a greater whole. The resulting teleological causality is manifested by every whole of time as it functions as a not-yet for the moments which are its parts. Each moment, in its dependence, if "of" this greater whole; each is also "of" the object which is synthesized through the intentionalities springing from this same dependence. The object, then, is not just a goal of this synthesis. Through its temporal form, it is also its ground. It is a notyet which, in a certain sense, "motivates" its own positing. The same thing can be said about the whole of time and, indeed, about its correlate: the world. To assert that time is inherently synthetic is to assert the teleological causality of the world. It is to claim that we are temporally motivated to posit the world's ideal or "rational" unity. When we speak simply of our motivation, we do not fully capture what Husserl has in mind. The "teleological temporality" which motivates us to posit the world is also that which grounds us as positing subjects. Expressed in terms of the correlation between horizonality and rationality, this means that the temporal grounding of subjects as correlated to the world horizon-as subjects who appear as the "bearers-validators" of the

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existing world-is also their grounding as subjects who appear to bear and validate the world's rationality. Furthermore, if we say that individual, subjective existence is horizonally grounded, we must also say that it is rationally grounded, both forms of grounding being ultimately traced to time. In each case, we have an example of the "teleological causality" of the world-this, through the temporalization which gives rise to the world. Let us put this in terms of the equivalence of rationality and positing. For Husserl, such equivalence signifies that "the world in general (Uberhaupt) ... has, in essential necessity, the form of the logos, of true being .... " This "logos" is the world's ideal rational unity which is also its "true" posited being. The teleological causality of the world allows Husserl to fill this out by adding: "In order that there can be the world and the subjectivity constituting it (the world ... thathas ... the form of the logos ... ), the world must, preceding from pre-being to being, also constitute rational persons within itself. Reason must already exist and must be able to bring itself to a logical [rational] self-disclosure in rational subjects" (Ms. E III 4, p. 25, 1934). The point of this passage extends beyond the simple conclusion that world-constitution, as an affair of reason, requires the presence of rational subjects. Given that constitution occurs in and through subjects, the selfconstitution of the world must include the constitution of subjects as the means through which it can proceed. The implicit point of this passage is that this relation is teleological. We can put this in terms of our assertion that the world-horizon grounds both the being and validity of our experiences and yet is, itself, made actual by such experiences. Here, the same point is implicitly being made about the world's "logos"-i.e., the ideal unity which links our experiences into a world-horizon. This logos brings itself about through the positing activities of individual subjects; and these are subjects which come to be as elements of its own self-constitution. On the one hand, we must say that "transcendental subjectivity brings about its own sense of being and that of every worldly reality to the level of the logos" (Ms. E III 4, p. 31, 1934). On the other hand, we must also claim that "the logification (logifizierung) of transcendental subjectivity, of the totality of monads, is part of logical self-constitution.... " In other words, "the logos of the constitution of the logos includes itself ... ," i.e., includes its self-constitution through the rational agency of individual monads (ibid., p. 33).14 Such agency, we can say, is grounded by reason, but grounded by it as its not-yet. Here, the ongoing constitution of the world's logos is matched by the progressive development of our reason. To bring our own rational development to the level of the logos is our constant, if unacknowledged goal. In Husserl's words:

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The lower stage [of rational development] does not yet know anything of the future stage, the stage which will become intentional on the basis of its intending [i.e., the intending springing from the lower stage]. Its becoming, however, is a coming to be which is directed towards reason. Naturally, it does not have any knowledge of true being. This is the accomplishment of the reason that has [already] come to be. Yet, precisely the ego which I am in accomplishing this, the ego which I apodictically am and which I am in my human community, exhibits a coherence in its development, a development which is necessarily proceeding towards reason .... Being does not exist before "human beings" and their reason. It exists rather in and through them. And yet it does exist in its preliminary stages as the pre-rational becoming rational-in the course of which, however, reason is presupposed as existing, as "constituting after the fact" ("nachkonstituierend") both true being as pre-rational and the development [of such pre-rationall being] through already existing reason. Reason, as ultimately constituting being, as constituting in an ultimate sense the being of all relativities of being [i.e., of all relatively "true" beings], is in a way beyond all being. Yet it is, in itself, a level of being, a level which is "recognized" through already existing reason (ibid., p. 29). According to this passage, reason is a "level of being" insofar as it is present in a given person and the particular rational world which confronts him. Such a person is, of course, a member of a "human community" and his world in its full sense is a result of a collective positing. When Husserl asserts that reason is "beyond all being/, he means that it is beyond all constituted being-i.e., beyond the developmental stages of our human being and those of the world we posit. Here, it appears as the ground and the goal of positing. As such, it gives us our coherent development, a development which, even though we are unaware of it, is directed "towards reason." This relation between the ground and the goal is, of course, ultimately temporal. Because it is, we can understand it in terms of the grounding of the retentional consciousness of the monad. By virtue of the temporal intentionalties which underlie the passive constitution of its unity, this consciousness is inherently positing. Its grounding is such that it "must constitute beings" (Ms. K III I, viii, p. 4, 1935). Thus, given the equivalence between rationality and positing, it is also inherently rational. It "must/' in its passive synthesis, posit a world which objectifies the rational laws of temporal synthesis. This, of course, is only half the story. Rationality is not just a matter of passive synthesis. As involving the correction and harmonization of the elements of our passively given world, it requires active

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synthesis (see Ms. B III 7, p. 2, 1933). To understand this, it is necessary to turn to the nunc stans which is the ultimate ground of our retentional consciousness. As the anonymous center of this retentional consciousness, the acting ego has a point of identity with the nunc stans. The individual manifests this identity in his finite freedom-i.e., in his confronting alternative possibilities. Such freedom, we can say, moves him beyond his already constituted world (on the lowest level, the world of passive synthesis) and allows him to question it. In other words, by virtue of his freedom, the subject does not just stand in a "this" world-a world with no possible alternatives. He can pose the question, "Why this rather than that?" He can ask why the world is as it appears-i.e., what is the reason for its appearing as it does?ls Temporality, thus, brings about a double grounding of the ego. It results in the ego as a center of passive synthesis-a synthesis which is correlated to its being a center. It also results in the ego as an active synthesizer. Here, the subject, in its central egological being, acts out of the freedom which manifests his identity with his ground. For Husserl, this double grounding allows us to say "passivity [is] always there, always present as a basis (Grundlage) for freedom .... " It also allows us to assert that the subject, in his identity with his surpassing ground, surpasses this basis. In Husserl's words, " ... every person is per se autonomous. He freely chooses and decides in a way that surpasses (aberschreitet) the present ... " (Ms. E III 4, p. 23, 1934). As a fresh positing, this surpassing is an enrichment of our passively constituted world. On its higher levels, it is also an enrichment of the results of our already accomplished active synthesis. It is a surpassing which constitutes reason in its further development in both humanity and the posited world. The consequence of this view is that "the development of man as man is accomplished in autonomy as the development of autonomy-i.e., as the development of reason" (ibid.) This co-development of our reason and freedom-i.e., "autonomy"-follows from the fact that both are grounded in the absolute whose temporal aspect is the nunc stans. The absolute manifests itself in both our freedom and reason; hence, they both manifest the identity of ground and goal which is inherent in the absolute's selftemporalization. Human development is thus a development towards freedom and reason which unfolds itself in freedom and reason. They are goals of this development and are also means for achieving their own realization is us. To cite Husserl again: Raising himself to the levels of conceptual, judgmental and, finally, phenomenological reason, man performs his explicating constitution in himself. As rational, he unfolds (entfaltet) the rational dis-

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position (Vernunftanlage) which is founded (angelegte) in himself, a disposition which is already developed in its lower stages. He unfolds his disposition for perfect freedom in his will for perfect freedom, whereby the goal, as something foreseen but not yet clarified, is already apprehended and guiding. He must already be in freedom to realize freedom. He must already be in freedom: With a beforethe-fact-certainty (Vorgeweissheit) of the goal, in actually free activity, he deliberates, continually reflects, unfolds his intentions; he sets up his methods and finally brings about science as a method which is, itself, a free product of reason and also a part serving it. It serves the reason which can be developed, the reason which is, itself, a being in process. Such reason functions in freedom (aus Freiheit) for the universal being in the process of its ongoing constitution (Ms. E III 4, p. 26, 1934). Interpreting Husserl, we can say that just as "reason functions in freedom/, so freedom functions in reason. Thus, we cannot be free and be the slaves of ignorance, of irrational fears and prejudices. The latter bind us to a given world-a "this" world-just as surely as impenetrable physical barriers do. To reverse this, reason functions in freedom insofar as the latter is the very possibility of questioning this world. Freedom is present from the start as our possibility to surpass the given and, hence, to question why this world-initially our practical, every day world-should be given rather than one of its alternatives. To move to a deeper level of analysis, we can say that "the universal being" mentioned by the passage is that of the world which includes both our freedom and reason. This world is the objectification of Husserl's absolute, and a number of points can be drawn from this. The first follows from the absolute's status as our ground and our goaL Since the absolute manifests itself in freedom and reason, both must be present from the start. In other words, just as we must already be free to move toward freedom, so from the beginning, reason grounds its own development. As Husserl writes concerning reason: From the beginning, man has knowledge of the world; but in possessing this knowledge, he must first acquire it-a telos situated at infinity-through infinite work. From the beginning, man is a rational being. From the beginning, he has reason, but first he must, in the course of his history (in levels of his historical modes of being, in his historicityL acquire reason. From the beginning, he is human and must become human (Ms. E III lO, p. 19, 1934).

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The phrase, "from the beginning," refers to our ground-i.e., to the absolute whose self-objectification gives both our passively constituted world and the freedom to develop and explicate its rational structure. The mention of "infinite work" also points to the absolute-this time, however, in its being projected forward as our goal. It refers to a world and a "knowledge of the world" which would correspond to a full manifestation of the absolute. Our second point stems from the fact that the whole of time is required for this manifestation. This means that the goal is infinitely distant. This teleological ideal, "world," i.e., transcendentally [regarded], this ideal of the concretely constituting transcendental subjectivity, is not and never will be temporally given in the sense that a factual, transcendental subjectivity is. It is an idea, indeed, the idea of an "absolutely perfect" intersubjective community, a community which does take its origin from us, but one lying completely and totally at infinity (Ms. E III I, p. 4, 1931). As Husserl also expresses this: To both the "streaming, self-confirming world" and its "changing, transcendental all-subjectivity ... , there corresponds as an absolute pole-idea, the single absolute understood in a new, super-worldly (aberweltlich) . .. super-human, super-transcendental subjective sense. This is the absolute logos ... lying beyond them [i.e., beyond both the world and its subjects] as an infinitely distant pole" (Ms. E III 4, pp. 60-61). As already indicated, such an ideal is that of the full objectification of the absolute which contains "all time and world in every sense." It is an ideal embracing the rational unity of the world-i.e., its logos-and the rational subjects through which this logos is realized. Both are conceived as fully developed, fully self-confirmed. 16 The intersubjective character of this ideal leads to our third point. It is that I imply Others in my rationality. Here, the implication is the same as that which we considered in discussing the notion of horizon. The world horizon implies Others as correlates to its infinitude. Since this infinitude is also that of the logos manifested by the world horizon, the same implication can be drawn. Other, fellow co-workers in reason are implied by the notion of the logos since its being "situated at infinity" means that it can only be realized through an open ended plurality of rationally positing subjects. Such subjects are implied in me insofar as this logos is my "specifically human" telos-is that which I strive to realize as a rational animal-and yet is something surpassing my individual powers of attainment. My directedness toward this telos is, then, my being directed to the

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open-ended community in and through which it is realized. In other words, to say that "man is already pre-given to himself as man, as a rational being" is to assume the pregivenness of "all individual subjects (monads) in a universal horizon, one in which all the co-monads are always implicit" (Ms. A V 20, p. 3, 1934). This horizon is that of reason disclosing itself in rational subjects. Grounded in reason, such subjects imply Others in their manifesting reason. This cannot be otherwise, given that the freedom in which reason functions itself implies a plurality of results (see above, pp. 305-306).

Husserl calls the "absolute logos," taken as a "polar idea," "the one, the true and the good." "In the striving which encompasses each and every being," it is "that towards which all finite being is directed; [it is] that towards which all transcendental subjective being lives as living being, as the being which constitutes truth" (Ms. E III 4, p. 61, 1934). He ascribes to this telos "a surpassing reality (Uberrealiwt), a surpassing truth, a surpassing actuality, a surpassing in-itselfness which first gives true sense to all relative finite being and all transcendental monadic being" (ibid., p. 62). He does not stop here, but identifies this telos with God. Thus, in another manuscript, we read: "God, himself, is not the monadic totality. He is rather the entelechy lying within it; this, as the infinite telos of the development of 'mankind' from absolute reason, as the telos necessarily regulating monadic being and regulating it from its free decisions" (Ms. A V 22, p. 46, Jan., 1931). This identification of God with the logos is not just a feature of Husserl's later philosophy. As Stephen Strasser has written, "Throughout his whole life, both as a person and a philosopher, Husserl contended with the problem of God."ll Thus, as early as 1911, he identifies the "idea" of God with that of a telos of "the most perfect [intersubjective] life in which the most perfect world constitutes itself ... " (Ms. F 114, p. 43). This view of God develops in parallel with the doctrine of the logos. Indeed, some of the most striking expressions of the latter are theological. A few examples will bring this out. As we cited Husserl, the logos "is beyond all being and yet is a level of being." Itself unchanging, it requires individual subjects for its progressive, "worldly" realization. It must manifest itself as the "reason" of constituting subjects in order to be present as the constituted, rational unity of the world. A similar point is made about God. Our striving to constitutively bring about the logos is called the "absolute wilL" As Husserl describes the latter: The universal, absolute will which lives in all the transcendental subjects and which makes possible the individual, concrete being of the transcendental totality of subjectivity is the divine will. This,

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however, presupposes the whole of intersubjectivity-not that this precedes this will, not that this will is impossible without this whole (in the way that the soul, perhaps, presupposes the living body); rather [it presupposes it] as a structural level without which this will cannot be made concrete (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, P. 381, italics added). The relation, here, is teleological. It is one in which God, taken as the logos, progressively achieves his objective presence by manifesting himself in a plurality of rationally constituting subjects. In other words, God achieves his worldly presence through his "promoting a separation [of himself] into a plurality of individual, unitary consciousnesses, consciousnesses in which a most perfect 'world' constitutes itself" (Ms. F 114, p. 42, June, 1911). This point carries over to God's objective self-understanding. 18 For Husserl, reason or the logos becomes aware of itself through the activities of individual subjects. In them, reason exists as "a level of being." Constituting and explicating the results of their constitution, such subjects are not separate from reason itself. Because of this, they confront the objective presence of reason in one another-i.e., in their explications (see Ms. E III 4, p. 27). Similarly, God's objective understanding occurs through us "because we cognizing humans (erkennende Menschen) are, indeed, egos into which the absolute ego has split itself ... " (Ms. F I 22, p. 22, Nov., 1917). This means that "God ... is the eternal, unchanging, uniquely singular being who reveals himself in the ego, and this implies ... he reflects himself, he creates an image (Abild) of himself in the form of a consciousness, an image which, however, is not separated from God himself" (Ms. F I 22, p. 37). Since individiuals are not separate from God, they become the means of his objective self-consciousness. God, the absolute being, who is inherently unchanging, who, himself, does not become, in eternal necessity reveals himself in the form of a pure ego. He, thus, externalizes himself in an infinite series of self-reflections in which he depicts (abildet) himself in himself as the formations of consciousness. [He does this] first in an obscure form and then with increasing purity and lack of concealment, ultimately coming to the purest self-consciousness. In the process of this development, he splits himself, as it were, into a plurality of finite human subjects. His freedom, the freedom of his absolute self-determination, becomes their personal freedom (Ms. F 122, p. 39).19

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The last three quotes are from Husserl's lectures on Fichte's Menschenheitsideal. As such, they are part of Husserl's exposition of Fichte's position. Yet, in an appendix to these lectures, Husserl embraces Fichte's doctrine as containing an insight "which is determined to become a strict theory in the future" (Ms. F I 22, p. 61). With respect to Husserl's own career, we can say that it forms a leading idea, what Husserl calls a "guiding star," which motivates his own development. 2o In the 1930s, this development culminates in the doctrine of the "total absolute." In a certain sense, Husserl's doctrines of God, freedom, rationality, and horizonality are just different ways of expressing the latter. They all ultimately concern the absolute which, as "total," grounds both time and its sensuous content. Taken as the goal of its self-manifestation, this absolute is unvarying. 21 Yet, it can also be said to be involved in change insofar as it grounds the development of subjects, the very subjects in and through which it achieves its objective presence. 22 The temporal component of this absolute is the nunc stans. God, taken as the "absolute being," is simply the theological expression of the content-filled, pre-objective nowness by virtue of which each subject is a subject. Thus, as such nowness, God acts in subjects through the temporal "letting loose" of their acts. He also constitutes the individual being of subjects by grounding their being as central egos-i.e., their being as "midpoints" of content-filled environments. It is in this sense that He can be said to "split himself" into a pluality of functioning subjects. Here, the original identity between God and his "reflections"-i.e., the identity which allows us to say that He is "not separate" from the latter-is that of nowness per se. The same point can be made about the claim God's freedom becomes our "personal freedom." As we said, the root of this freedom is the surpassing quality of the nowness at the core of our being. This quality points to the totality of the possibilities pre-objectively present in our anonymous, central nowness-the very nowness through which we act. Our teleological relation to God can also be traced to Husserl's "total absolute," in particular, to its being our ground and our goal. In the following, somewhat obscure passage, Husserl expresses this relation as involving a "super-worldly, super-human pole": I with the Others. There are [other) egological subjects, and I am ahead of them, objectifying them and myself, I [who am) the ego pole of [objectifying) acts. I live directed towards the world and directed towards them as worldly [Others), I [who am) with them as a pole of life, as a co-accomplisher of objectivities, of the [temporal) streaming. We [are) never satisfied as goal-directed, as directed in

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our aiming at relatively finite goals, as driven beyond such supposedly final goalS .... A higher level reflection and a new aiming (Zielung) beyond all [finite] worldly goals: a free self-determination from self-understanding and the understanding of humanity, from the understanding of the absolute as being [present] in all I and we. "Teleology" discovers that God speaks in us. God speaks in the evidences of the decisions, in the modes of infinity which [course] through all finite worldliness. I exist-am on the way (Wege). Where does the path (Weg) lead? What is my way? My way to the infinite which, at every stage, bears witness to me that here I am proceeding rightly and, at every false step, witnesses that here I am proceeding blindly and in error. Here, I am doing my thing-what is my concern (Sache); here, I am not. All the right paths lead to myself, but to me through my co-egos, my co-egos with whom I am inseparately myself, am inseparately this ego. They lead to God who is nothing other than the pole. The path, beginning with each ego, proceeds as his path (the ego who begins with me is another ego; just as I, who begin with him, am another ego); but all these ways lead to God, the same super-worldly (aberweltlich), super-human pole; this, not as separate ways converging at at point [in the futuret but rather in an indescribable intermingling (Ms. K III 2, pp. 105-106, 1934). The philosophical doctrine which informs this mediation should be familiar. At its heart is Husserl's position on the duality of our essence. One part of our essence allows Husserl to say: liThe ego is super-temporal (aberzeitlich). It is the pole of the modes of the egological relations to the temporal" (Ms. E III 2, p. 50, 1934). In other words, when considered as identical with its ground: "This ego is the only one in an absolute sense. It does not allow of being meaningfully multiplied. Put more pointedly, it excludes this as senseless. The implication is: the surpassing being (abersein) of the ego is nothing more than a constant, streaming constituting. It is a constituting of distinct, graded totalities of existents (or 'worlds') ... " (Ms. B. IV 5, 1932 or 1933, HA XV, p. 590). Thus, each subject, identified with the nowness at his core, can claim to objectify both himself and Others. His action, however, is not his own in any individual sense. As springing from a "super-temporal" pole, it is rather the action of a common ground. It is the action of the absolute which is every "absolute I and we/' this being God conceived of as a "super-worldly, super-human pole." As already indicated, the teleology inherent in this pole's temporalization gives a teleological character to each ego's constitution. Each ego's

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"path" begins with God and has God as its ultimate, ideal terminus because of the identity of ground and goal exhibited by this temporalization. Thus, God can be taken as the content-filled nowness out of which each ego's path is constituted. He can also be conceived as the goal of egological paths in their "indescribable intermingling." All the "right paths" lead to God insofar as they work together to objectively exhibit the pre-objective content of such nowness. Behind this conclusion is an extremely simple inference. Admitting the identity of ground and goal, the notion of a common ground leads to that of a common goal. If the ground is nontemporal in the sense of being beyond time-aberzeitlicb-then so is the goal. The latter is beyond what can be realized in any finite time. The same inference holds when we say that the action of the "super-temporal" ground is prior, not posterior, to the individual lifetimes of finite subjects. Here, we conceive it as "alltemporally" at work (see above, p. 243). Projected forward as our goal, it unites humanity "throughout its generations." As we cited Husserl, "the unity of [the ground's] temporalization, of the objective temporalization of a world in which subjects are co-objectified, is a unity of the developmental motivation"-i.e., the motivation to develop towards this infinitely distant goal (Ms. E III 4, pp. 28-29). The same inference holds with regard to the content of this goal. If we assert that the ground pre-objectively expresses the totality of human possibilities, then this is what humanity strives to realize in its objective development. Thus, to say that "the absolute totality of monads, or the totality of monadic primordiality, exists only from temporalization" is also to assert that "the totality of monadic being exists as being-in-horizonality and [that] infinity pertains to thisinfinite potentiality, infinite streaming implying the infinities of the stream, infinity, and iteration of potentialities" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, p. 670). The "infinity" refers to the streaming away of the whole of time, an "infinite streaming" which is required to express the ground of time. The "infinite potentiality" and "iteration of potentialities" refer to the possibillities inherent in our ground. Their realization is the goal of the development which increases and actualizes our own potentialities. To put this in terms of freedom is to say that the freedom inherent in our ground becomes concretely realized in the development which progressively opens up new ways of being and behaving for humanity. By this we mean a development which increases human self-determination by adding to the alternatives available to it. In such a process, God's freedom can be said to progressively become our own insofar as the possibilities which form its content begin to define our own possibilities. Freedom, of course, is not just the choice between alternatives. As action within a teleological context, it has its specific temporal form. So conceived, its

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ground is the nowness which inherently embraces every possible alternative and which, in its self-temporalization, is inherently directed towards synthesis. The "primal form of such temporalization-and, hence, of synthesis-is that of what-will-be determining what is. This, however, is the form of the "teleological causality" which is a necessary feature of freedom. If we put this together with the fact that God is both the ground and the goal of our freedom, the following claim emerges: When freedom is properly directed-i.e., when it takes as its task the explication of its ground-then "God speaks to us in the evidence of our decisions. In other words, in expressing its ground, human freedom is a freedom for the manifestation of God in the progressive work of world-constitution. This, of course, presupposes another feature of freedom-that of the rationality evinced in positing and correcting our positions so that they can come together to synthetically constitute the world. The implication, here, is that an improperly directed freedom is one that has cut itself off from rationality. Husserl's theological writings are, needless to say, quite controversial. Louis Dupre, for example, focuses on the fact that God requires individual subjects for his objective manifestation. He is immanent within them as their ground. Dupre writes: "No theism, however, could accept a God who is identical with transcendental subjectivity or even one who needs it as an essential part of himself. From this point of view, Husserl's later philosophy is perhaps even further removed from a true transcendence than his earlier. A strange observation in view of the fact that his personal convictions became increasingly theistic!" ("Husserl's Thoughts on God and Faith," PPR XXIX, Dec., 1968, p. 212). Stephen Strasser, on the other hand, focuses on the fact that God is the "entelechy" of the monad-all. He is the infinitely distant goal of monadic development. For Strasser, " ... God is the principle of development who does not himself develop ("Das Gottesprobleme in der Spiitphilosophie Edmund Husserls," Pbilosopbicbes Tabrbucb der Gorres-Gesellscbaft, vol. 67, 1959, p. 137). His transcendence is assured since, as an infinitely distant goal, he is never equivalent to transcendental subjectivity.23 This transcendence is also God's objectivity: liThe God who forms the absolute idea of a pole [or goal] for developing human reason must possess an objective being, i.e., one independent of subjective reason" (ibid., p. 139). From our perspective, we can say that both interpretations are onesided; that is, each emphasizes only balf of the relation between God and subjects. To focus on God as the ground of subjects makes Husserl's position appear pantheistic. God is everywhere subjects are. Similarly, to focus on Husserl's assertions that God is a goal situated "at infinity" makes his position appear theistic-this, at least insofar as it emphasizes the tranII

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scendence which most theistic thinkers ascribe to God. The first focus is Dupre's; the second Strasser's. For Husserl, however, God is both the ground and goal of subjects. As such, he is both immanent and transcendent. In neither case, however, is he identical with subiects. This follows since his transcendence as their goal is also his transcendence as their ground. As we stressed, the goal is not something which can be realized by any finite totality of subjects in any finite time. To put this in terms of the ground, we can say that it, too, surpasses its manifestation by any finitely evolving subjective totality. The ground's "absolute" status implies that it is capable of grounding, not just the presently existing totality of subjects, but every possible totality; and this implies that no finite subjective totality is equivalent to this ground. Thus, when Husserl writes that "the transcendental totality of subjects is contingent," he means that it is just one of many possible expressions of its ground. Its contingency is its lack of identity with the latter, i.e., its not being an objective expression which is equivalent to its all-embracing and, hence, noncontingent ground. As we earlier noted, contingency embraces both the nature-the "Sosein"-and the existence-the "Dasein"-of objectively given subjects. Subjects could be other than what they are. They could also not be. The second follows because subjects achieve their objective presence by departing from the nowness which is the "to be" of their being. In Husserl's words, each subject must say, "Present, I exist in continuous dying as something present ... " (see above, p. 260). This dying is a dying away of the moments that make up a life. Our worldly life is contingent because the constituting nowness which results in its objective Dasein is distinct from this.24 When, with Husserl, we identify God with such nowness, he cannot be identified with such Dasein. §8. FACTICITY AND TELEOLOGY

It is easy to see how facticity and teleology come together in Husserl's thought. Their connection appears in the consideration of our "rationally motivated" positing of being. Such positing is inherently presumptivei.e., factual and fragile. As we cited Husserl, " ... no rational positing is equivalent to the straightforward assertion: 'the thing is actual' ... , this, in an 'incontrovertible' sense" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 339). This follows from the distinction of the thing and its appearances. Althought its "positing is rationally motivated only through the appearances (the incompletely filled perceptual sense)," the thing is not the appearances which motivate its positing (ibid.). As their "bearer," it is an "empty X." It is a unity established by the forms of unifiability-Le., the rational, logical forms which are "transcendentally reinterpreted" as the forms of the con-

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nections which obtain between appearances. Thus, the thesis of underlying unity-the X which is not an appearance-allows us to say that the thing is the same in different appearances; but it also makes us say that the appearances, as not equivalent to the thing, can never finally (or "incontrovertibly") justify the thing's positing. We can also express this nonequivalence in terms of the fact that appearances are connected in time. Because of this, the forms of unification are forms of temporal synthesis; they are forms which establish the unity of a thing as an ongoing, temporal unity. This is a unity which is actual only in its passage "from present to present." Its positing as actual thus requires this passage; in other words, it requires its further appearing. Given this, its actuality "can only 'inadequately' appear with an appearance which is [temporally] finite or limited" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 339). In other words, its "adequate positing requires an infinite process of appearing" (ibid., p. 3S 1). The consequence is that only an infinite set of appearances could be equivalent to the ongoing unity of the thing. With this, the theme of teleology appears; for the presumptiveness or facticity of the posited reality immediately situates rationality as a telos. Conceived as concretely embodied-i.e., as part of constituted existencereason is not given before constitution or even, in a final sense, with the presence of the ongoing process of constitution. This follows since its incontrovertible givenness as a structure of "true being" requires the same "infinite process of appearing" that this "being" does. It is, in other words, the terminus ad quem, not the terminus a quo of the constitutive process. Thus, if reason or the logos does determine the constitutive process, it must determine it as a goal-as a "term toward which" the process proceeds and not as something given in any final sense. Husserl expresses this point by saying, "Because the rationality which facticity actualizes is not such as the essence demands, in all this there lies a wonderful teleology" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 139). The essence cannot "demand" such actualization since, as the rational structure of being, its own incontrovertible givenness is the terminus ad quem of the factual course of world-constitution. There is, then, no contradiction in our asserting that the telos or goal of world-constitution is the concrete embodiment of reason and that, all the same, this embodiment, at any given time, is controvertible. Viewed in terms of what Husserl calls "the fact of the world"-the world as presently posited from already given experience-one can, indeed, conceive of reason's ending along with this fact. The contingency of the world-the possibility that it could be otherwise, that it could, perhaps, even not beis also the contingency of the rationality it embodies. This possibility is also that of the reduction. The reduction is the suspension of reason taken

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as the form of the connections by which we posit a world. So regarded, the reduction's "thought experiment" results in the suspension of reasoni.e., its end in the realm of constituted existence. We can uncover the inner connection between facticity and teleology by turning to their temporal root. The ultimate principle here is the distinction between the ground and the grounded. Temporally, this appears as the distinction between the nunc stans and the successive moments which form its appearances. To derive facticity from this distinction is to note that from the perspective of such moments, being constantly now is being constantly new. What remains now constantly occupies a new position within successive time. Thus, the nunc stans appears in time as the flowing or streaming now, the now whose essential characteristic is facticity. As we said, facts are contingent; their very meaning as facts is that they could be otherwise. In its streaming, the now which we occuy is constantly other. From the perspective of already constituted time, it is ever new, ever lapsing into pastness, constantly transcending itself and, hence, constantly other than itself. As such, it is the pure form of the factual in its contingency. This contingency affects everything temporally constituted. Even if an entity has endured through a whole series of past nows, the newness of each coming moment formally involves the possibility of its otherness, i.e., its contingency (see above, p. 261). Such newness, then, is facticity in its temporal root. Its pure temporal form is that of the nunc stans which appears constantly new, constantly transcending the positions of the time that is becoming past even as the nunc stans objectifies itself as a new moment in successive time. As we said, such newness is simply a function of it remaining constantly now and, thus, of slipping away from any fixing or objectification of it in a definite temporal position. Given this, we can define the temporal origin of facticity as the placing and, hence, the escape from place of the nunc stans in successive time. The nunc stans, of course, is what places itself in time. Its relation to its successive appearances occurs through its self-temporalization. Insofar as the latter results in newness, facticity characterizes everything it temporally grounds. Since the self-temporalization of the nunc stans is inherently teleological, what we confront here is the grounding of constituted existence in both its facticity and teleological structure. This point may be put by recalling the reason why the nunc stans cannot appear in time without surpassing its appearances. The reason is its constant nowness; but this means that it transcends its momentary appearance because it is always more than this appearance. It is, per se, the original identity of all its appearances-i.e., of all the momentary presents. As we cited Husserl, "all

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the temporal modes"-all the moments composing past present and future-"are already present" within it. It is their identity as manifesting nowness or original presence. They manifest the latter insofar as they are appearances of the nunc stans, and they are such appearances through the nowness of their existence within the nunc stans. Since such original presence is before the "apartness" of extended time, such moments, thought of as existing within the nunc stans, can also be thought of as existing in essential coincidence with one another. For Husserl, they dwell within it "non-independently." Thus, when the nunc stans places itself in time, its appearance as a temporal moment must manifest this lack of independence. A moment cannot be in time without transcending itself to appropriate the future and retain the past. This follows since it only exists as an appearance of the nunc stans; and the latter is an original identity which can only show itself as such through the dependence of its appearances. To reverse this, we can say that, as dependent, the momentary appearance can be only by transcending itself and becoming part of a greater whole. The result of this is not just the constant self-transcendence of the nunc stans as it appears in time and, hence, the facticity of the givenness which is constituted through this process. The argument which proceeds from the original identity of moments to the dependence of each appearing moment also leads to the teleological structuring of such givenness. In other words, the dependence of the moment grounds both the "fact of the world" in its facticity and the inherent movement of this fact towards the "ideal unity" of the world. It gives us the intentionalities which unify time and structure its process. The goal of the process is the realization in time of the interdependent totality of moments which, atemporally, is already present in the nunc stans. We, thus, have the horizonal structuring of givenness whose ongoing correlate is the horizonal unfolding of the world's underlying, ideal unity. Given that this process is teleological, facticity itself is teleological. For Husserl, to affirm the facticity of the world-Le., its "could have been otherwise"-is also to affirm its becoming other than what it is. It is to affirm that the process of such becoming is teleologically directed to an ideal unity of constituted existence, a unity which embodies the logos or reason. Since teleology and facticity have the same root, we can reverse the order of these assertions. We can say that to affirm teleology is also to affirm facticity. Here, we assert that the world's teleological becoming involves risk. Its becoming other than what it is could lead to its dissolution. This follows because the basis of both is, ultimately, the distinction of the constituting from the constituted. It is the distinction between the nunc

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stans and the moments which exemplify its original identity through their multiplicity and mutual dependence. Resulting in newness, this distinction necessarily involves contingency. §9. THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE "PROBLEM" OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY

There are a number of ways we can express the significance of our last section's conclusion. The first is to note that Husserl can ask: "Can reason begin or end in constituted existence? Can the constitutive process which it has ultimately, spontaneously set at work be in vain?" He answers these questions by asking, "Can it be otherwise than that reason is supertemporally and all-temporally at work ... ?" (Ms. E 1114, p. 30,1934). Yet he can also maintain that the constituted embodiment of reason-"the transcendental totality of subjects"-is contingent (Ms. K III 12, p. 39, 1935). Its contingency is part of "the fact of the world"; this, even though the world's becoming is structured by the reason "at work" within it. We can express this theologically, an expression which involves the issue of our freedom. Husserl can affirm that God is always at work, that God "speaks in the evidence of the decisions" of individual monads and that He regulates monadic being through "its free decisions." Yet this does not prevent the possibility of the withdrawal of God. Such a withdrawal can be brought about by our turning away from God-i.e., from the "proper paths" leading to him. This is also a possibility of our "free decisions." It follows from the nature of our freedom which is our ability to surpass the already given. As such, it has its temporal root in the surpassing quality of the nunc stans. By virtue of this grounding, freedom has its teleological character. The same quality, however, also gives it its factual, contingent character. Thus, on the one hand, we have the teleological structuring of freedom which consists of the progressive development of freedom in freedom, the development which is directed to the increase of our potentialities. On the other hand, we have the fact that freedom, as the means of its own development, can turn on itself. Its contingent character signifies that its progressive advance is not pregiven; it implies that freedom can serve as the means for its regress; it can suppress itself and even "end" in the realm of constituted existence. To speak of the temporal root of this last possibility is to give only half the picture. Its full context is provided by the formal equivalence of the two aspects of the absolute: time and content. As an alphabet, the absolute is the totality of contents in a pre-objective sense. It is such contents before they are synthesized (or "spelled out") into objective unities. An equivalent assertion holds with regard to the absolute's temporal aspect. Preobjectively, the absolute is the totality of moments. As the nunc stans, it is

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time's moments before they successively appear in synthesis. The upshot is that time and content are equally features of the absolute's surpassing quality; indeed, the surpassing quality of the nunc stans is formally equivalent to that of the alphabet. In both cases, a determination by the whole-i.e., by the possibilities of all that can ever be-surpasses the determination by the part which has already occurred. As we earlier put this, the surpassing quality of the absolute follows from its being the possibility of all the possibilities involving the synthesis of time and content. The absolute, then, may be called a "fact," but it is not factual in the sense of being contingent. In Husserl's words, its "fact is not one of the possibilities among which another could just as well be. The 'just as well' concerns only the 'subjective decision' of subjectivity in its state of finite clarity and in relation to its factual horizon" (Ms. K III 12, p. 41, 1935). Since the absolute does embrace every possible factual horizon, it cannot be otherwise. It includes the possibilities of what is given and what could have been given-i.e., the alternatives to the given-and, hence, is characterized as "lying at the basis of all possibilities" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, p. 669). It thus includes all the possibilities of our merely "subjective" decisions. Such possibilities can be seen as "regulating monadic being ... from its free decisions" (Ms. A V 22, p. 46, 1931). They can also be seen as including the possibility of its collapse. Thus, the possibilities of the absolute regulate our being by appearing as the possibilities of our finite freedom. They are the possibilities which we confront in our "finite clarity." Now, one of these possibilities does directly involve the collapse of monadic being. As experience shows, individuals can choose to end their objective lives. They can commit sucide. In a certain sense, this possibility corresponds to that of the reduction's dissolution of the connections which give us our objective world; though here the dissolution is in fact and not just in thought. As we said, the reduction's possibility is that of reason's "end in constituted existence." The factual possibility corresponding to the collective performance of this thought experiment would be lithe possibility of intersubjective 'suicide'," a possibility which Husserl sees as included in the open endedness or "infinity" of our "life horizon" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 13, 1931, HA XV, p. 406). Somewhat prophetically, he notes that this horizon also includes the possibility "of a universal murder of humanity, the murder of the whole of humanity"-this, through the action of humanity itself "if it did possess this power" (Ms. E III 4, p. 9, ca. July, 1930). Today, of course, humanity does possess this power. Within the possibilities encompassed by its freedom is not just that of turning away from the absolute-i.e., of not developing its freedom through its freedom. We are also free to engage in our self-destruction. If the absolute lies at the basis of

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our possibilities and, hence, of our freedom, it must, therefore, be seen as grounding this terminal possibility. These considerations lead to a certain transformation of the problem of intersubjectivity. It becomes a practical problem insofar as we can, through our practices, eliminate humanity. If we do, our freedom will have eliminated the context in which self, Others, and the problem of their relations have an applicable sense. This possibility of the collapse of humanity may be ranged with the possibilities which involve its regress: the possibilities of freedom suppressing itself. Against these, we have the possibilities of developing freedom in freedom. These are the possibilities of a collective advance of humanity, an advance where we constantly expand the possibilities for human being and behaving. To put this in practical terms is to note that two life-world attitudes correspond to this dichotomy. On the one side, we have tolerance; on the other, intolerance. The common meaning of these terms is clear; but to give them their phenomenological sense, we must locate their meanings in the context of our discussion. Their general framework is provided by the notion of the absolute as the possibility of all possibilities. Corresponding to this, we have the notion of humanity as the means by which such possibilities are actualized. It is in and through humanity that the absolute objectifies its possibilities. In other words, its temporal self-constitution is our own. Another general notion determining the concepts of tolerance and intolerance is that of the goal of this constitution. In Husserl's words, this goal is "the idea of infinite perfection, the idea of perfect, individualsubjective being"-that of a monad-"within an infinitely perfect, allembracing intersubjective community." This goal, of course, is infinitely distant. Since its realization involves the whole of time, we have "its inconceivability as a completed form, as an actual form of a conceivable (intuitively imaginable) transcendental existence" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931, HA XV, p. 379). Let us explore this last notion further; it will lead us to a corresponding notion of tolerance. Even though an achieved goal is inconceivable, it can still be understood as a limit of a process whose stages are conceivable. 25 Here, we may take the limit of a perfect subjective existence in a perfect community as implying a final fulfillment of what it means to be human. For Husserl, our advance towards this goal is an advance towards our "true being." It is an advance, we can say, which increases the fullness of our being. Such fullness does not mean completion in a static sense. It does not mean, for example, that the characteristics which are observed to pertain to humanity are to be regarded as completely filling out the conception of being human. Since we are dealing with a goal that is "inconceivable as a completed form," such fullness is to be understood in terms of an in-

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definitely extended horizon involving anticipation and fulfillment. Thus, fullness as fulfillment is a provisional term in which every human accomplishment is taken as fulfilling the notion of being human and also as an anticipation of further potentialities for being human. According to such a conception, we can, for example, say that the accomplishment of human speech opens up a whole range of potentialities-civil society, commerce, etc.-to the possibility of being actualized. Each of these, when actualized (or fulfilled) in some particular way, points, in anticipation, to further potentialities. As is obvious, "fullness" represents a teleological ideal. It is a goal towards which this horizonally structured process of anticipation and fulfillment tends. It is also that which we ourselves bring about through our own actions. As we said, the absolute's self-constitution is our selfconstitution. This means that our goal is nothing less than the synthetic, collective actualization of all the human possibilities inherent in the absolute. This can also be put by saying that the full self-objectification of the absolute as an "all-embracing intersubjective community" is, itself, the goal which the intersubjective community strives to realize. With this, we return to the conclusion that an individual's recognition of Others involves a recognition of the absolute. We can express this in terms of the distinction we started with: that between the ground and the grounded. Ontologically, this is the distinction between being as such and individual beings. The former can be defined phenomenologically as the totality of possibilities, a totality which is self-realizing. My ontological status as a being-my finitude-is shown by the fact that I can actualize one possibility of my being, i.e., can engage in a specific course of action, only by neglecting other possibilities. Because of this, my finitude implies a plurality when it is viewed in a teleological framework pointing to the harmonious realization of all possibilities. Given this finitude, it is only through a plurality of subjects that possibilities can be collectively actualized. The conclusion, here, is that my recognition of Others and their possibilities is implicit in my recognition of the absolute as a teleological goal. Seen in terms of this goal, my finitude situates me in a selfacknowledged being with Others. What we have, then, is "the formation according to goals [and, hence, according to a "highest goal"] of human being as social, as being-along-with-one-another (Miteinandersein) ... " (Ms. A V 24, p. 3, fall 1934). The equivalence of ground and goal allows us to make the same point about the ground. Our recognition of Others and their possibilities is also a recognition of the absolute taken as "lying at the basis of all possibilities." This point follows from the arguments of our previous chapter where we concluded that the presence of Others is a re-presentation of the absolute-i.e., of the possibilities inherent in the latter. Since the ground

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always contains more than the possibilities of the given existent which is its particular re-presentation, this existent always contains more than itself. It re-presents the multiple possibilities of its ground by implying what could be co-grounded. In Husserl's words, "The fact that something is specifies, at any given time, a realm of co-possibilities, a totality of that which can or cannot coexist with it" (Ms. E III 2, p. 2, 1921). This means that "beginning with the 'contingency' of the temporal position and of the ego" occupying this position, a totality of co-possible egos can always be derived. The totality is "one which the ego, varying its temporal position, itself traces out." Thus, we can vary the "now" of our here. We can imagine that we are here at an earlier or later time. We can, correspondingly, vary the "here" of our now, i.e., position our now in a different "here" by imagining that we are now "there." The result is a view of the horizon of the possibilities of being now-i.e., being a temporal center of a particular, content-filled environment (Ms. KIll 2, p. 44, Oct. 10, 1935). As we said, such possibilities form the elements of our self-transcending intentions. They allow me to transcend my particular modes of self-consciousness and intend those of my Others. The Others whom I do recognize as embodying these alternate possibilities objectively re-present my ground in its surpassing quality. Their recognition is correlated to my recognition of this ground insofar as the first recognition is the second's objective component. Once again, the ultimate principle is the distinction between being and beings. An individual being is such-i.e., is a definitely given "what"-by embodying one of the possibilities whose totality points to being itself. The fact that it is not being itself makes it contingent. Its contingency, in other words, points back to being itself as the totality of possibilities, the very totality in terms of which it can be said to be contingent. Thus, as we cited Husserl: "Contingency includes in itself a horizon of possibilities in which what is contingent signifies one of the possibilities, the very one which actually obtained" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, p. 670). An individual entity includes this horizon "in itself" insofar as its presence represents its ground. The independence of the latter-the fact that, as allembracing, it could just as well have grounded something else-is represented by the horizon of alternative possibilities. Summing up, we can say that the general framework for the notion of tolerance is one in which the absolute is both the ground and the goal of my recognition of Others. The possibilities inherent in it as a ground become explicit in its self-constitution as a perfect intersubjective community. Thus, it does not just provide me with my self-transcending intentions; it also sets the goal of these intentions. Ultimately, they can only be satisfied in a community which perfectly embodies the ideal of "fullness."

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Defined in these terms, the notion of tolerance appears as a life-world attitude which is required for progress towards this goal. On the most basic level, it is an openness to the possibilities inherent in my ground and goal. Specifically, it is an openness to the possibilities of the fullness of human being, Le., to the harmonious realization of all the possibilities involved in such being. Husserl, in this context, speaks of the "communalization" of the ideals of being human. This involves the mutual affirmation of such ideals. I affirm that the Other's ideals are "mine" and he does the same with regard to my own, though we both do this in a "mediate fashion." Thus, as Husserl writes, I affirm "his ideals as his, as ideals which I must affirm in him, just as he must affirm my ideals-not, indeed, as his ideals of life but as the ideals of my being and life" (Ms. E III I, p. 7, 1931). The same point is made with regard to different societies. Societies are "not egotistical"-Le., not intolerant-if they can affirm one another's "particular goals and particular accomplishments" (Ms. A V 24, p. 4, fall 1934). Full tolerance is termed "love"-Liebe. It is an "ideal case" of a "complete harmony/' a case where I can say of the Other: "his existence, his life is as if it were mine." The "as if" signifies that love is an affirmation of the Other's existence in the Other. As the opposite of egotism, it is not an identity of the lover and the beloved. Rather, "it is a particular manner of empathetic congruence" (Ms. E III 2, p. 19, Jan. I, 1935, italics added). Husserl calls a society formed from such love relationships a "love society"Liebesgemeinschaft. This is another description of the telos of human development, one involving a "perfect individual-subjective" existence within a "perfect intersubjective community." Conceived according to the increase of love relations, the realization of this telos (or limit) would be a community in which the intentions of empathy were fully realized. Each would affirm his Others' existence as if it were his own, and the objective behavior of his Others would never disappoint him. This means that within his own primordiality he would find the possibilities which Others objectively realize; conversely, his own accomplishments would be recognized by his fellows. Their ideas and goals would be affirmed by him as his own, and vice versa. Such affirmation would, of course, be mediate. It would consist in an affirmation of the possibilities inherent in himself whose realization stands not as his own but as another's goal. For Hussed, the "love" animating such a community "is infinite, absolute and universal ... "(Ms. E III 4, p. 20, July, 1930). Traced to its roots, it is a love of the absolute conceived as the totality of subjective possibilities. The early lectures on Fichte interpret this theologically. Human love, is a "desire for the eternal"-Le., for God as He is present in my neighbors (see Ms. F I 22, pp. 42,53-54, Nov., 1917). It is actually a love

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for "the eternal, unchanging, uniquely singular being who reveals himself in the ego" (ibid., p. 39). Insofar as God is the "entelechy" or goal of the monad-all, his presence appears in my and my neighbor's goals. Collectively, his presence is in the goal of "fullness." He is also, of course, the ground of our progress towards this goal. Here, his presence is manifested in my own and my Others' freedom. God's "freedom, the freedom of his absolute self-determination, becomes their personal freedom"-this, in their grounding their worldly being in multiple possibilities (ibid.). Such freedom, as we noted at the end of our last chapter, is the ultimate object of the transfer of selfhood whereby I take the Other as a subject like myself. It is the sine qua non of an empathetic as opposed to an egotistical relationship. Granting this, the Liebesgemeinschaft in which empathy was fully satisfied would also be a society in which God was "all in all." At this intuitively inconceivable limit, He would exhibit his presence in all intersubjective relations. Since this exhibition involves the harmonious realization of possibilities, our remarks on tolerance should not be construed as implying that it is a concept devoid of all definite content. The notion of "proper ways" leading to God implies that there are improper ways. Thus, tolerance is not an open acceptance of every possibility of human behavior-this, regardless of its effect on Others. Tolerance is directed to maximizing the collective realization, the synthetic union of human possibilities. As such, only those possibilities which do not permanently exclude other possibilities fall within its purview. This means that, as a positive, practical ideal, it embraces as values to be realized only certain possibilities: those which permit the actualization of further possibilities within the horizon of being human. Those whose actualization results in harm, in the narrowing of the potentiality for humanity in individuals, it forbids as a negative command. If it did not forbid them, it would contradict itself. It would include both teleological progression and its opposite. It would be directed to the goal of fullness of human being and, at the same time, embrace actions contrary to this goal's realization. If the former lead to God, the latter lead away; they lead not to his presence, but to his withdrawal. A few common examples will make this clear. Tolerance, understood negatively as a prohibition-ultimately, as a prohibition of intoleranceforbids lying and theft. The first, to the point that it is collectively actualized, undermines the possibility of speech to communicate verifiable information. Thus, lying undermines those human possibilities, such as civil society, which presuppose this possibility. Theft, when collectively actualized, has a similar effect on the possibility of possession and, hence, on the possibilities, such as commerce and investment, springing from this. Insofar as lying and theft cut off such possibilities, they result in a

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narrowing of human potentialities and are actually acts of intolerance. Tolerance, however, is directed to the expansion of our potentialities. Because of this, it is never a static notion. Within the schema of anticipation and fulfillment, its structure at any given time is determined by the stage of our advance towards fullness of being. 26 Intolerance can be defined as the opposite of tolerance. It is an attitude which promotes not progress towards our "ought to be," but rather regress. Its result is the reduction of the possibilities actually available to us. Thus, the thief attempts to limit the possibilities of possession to himself, cutting them off from Others. Of course, a thief cannot remain a thief and succeed in this attempt. His action presupposes that Others will continue to possess the goods he wants, that the possibilities of possession can always be reinstated. The case is quite different with intolerance in its extreme form. Here, it appears as radical evil: the evil that strikes at the root of things. The effect of this evil is such that it cannot be made good again; that is to say, its effect is a possibility which is permanently foreclosed to us. Applied to the human community, its result, then, is the permanent closing off of the possibilities of being human. Such evil may take the form of the destruction of the historical records of a particular society; it may proceed beyond this and include the permanent suppression of the society'S native language; a further expression of it would be the wholesale destruction of the members of the society-all these actions being intended to eliminate the possibilities of being and behaving which its members manifest. As the history of our century indicates, radical evil is a factually given, human possibility. It has actually obtained in our century's destruction of cultures-those, e.g., of Turkish Armenians and Eastern European Jews. It most extreme form would be humanity'S wholesale destruction through nuclear war. It would be Husserl's "intersubjective suicide," i.e., the "murder of the whole of humanity." This could be accomplished by a humanity possessing a sufficient stockpile of nuclear weapons, a humanity divided into two competing systems, each seeking the elimination of the possibilities expressed by its rival. As the experience of our century indicates, such exemplary evil exists in a continuum with the more common, everyday forms of intolerance: intolerance expressed as a negative attitude towards some particular ethical or cultural group. As witnessed by our age, intolerance of an ethnic group can precede their destruction. It contains the germ of radical evil insofar as its manifests the attitude that Others who think and act in a certain way are not to be accounted as genuinely human?7 With this attitude, not just my relation to these Others but also my tie to the ground of these relations is partially severed. Such Others are not recognized as human subjects "like myself"- which signifies that I do not recognize the absolute as im-

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plicitly containing both my possibilities and those of the group I cannot tolerate. Now, my self-transcending intentions are formed from such possibilities. In empathy I grasp my primordiality as if it were another's. I re-present it as if it received a different objective expression. Thus, the objective presence of the Other is taken as a re-presentation of an original presence-that of the absolute with its surpassing possibilities. When empathy fails, the ground seems to be no longer available for the action of representation. Insofar as this action is based on its presence, we can speak of intolerance as a sign of its absence-i.e., as signifying the withdrawl of the ground. The same point can be made about the absolute taken as a goal of human fullness. Intolerance is an attempt to banish the striving towards this goal. It directs itself against already realized human possibilities or against possibilities which are present as anticipations springing from these. Thus, it typically takes the form of attempting to narrow or at least bold static the meaning of being human. In the former case, it attempts an actual regress from the ideal of human fullness. In the later, its attempt is to eliminate the teleological action of this ideal as a goal. Once again, we can speak of a partial severing of our tie with the absolute. Coincident with our nonrecognition of the human possibilities manifested by Others is a nonrecognition of the absolute. Its presence in the form of an animating teleological goal becomes withdrawn. This withdrawal of the absolute, as both our ground and goal, can, of course, be expressed theologically as the withdrawal of God. As long as we exist, it remains a partial withdrawal. A complete withdrawal would be occasioned only by the extreme of intolerance, this being the lack of recognition which would result in our "intersubjective suicide." The question we face in considering the withdrawal brought about by radical evil is that of the condition for its possibility. What, phenomenologically speaking, is its ultimate, "metaphysical" ground. 28 An answer may be found in turning to the principle we started with: the distinction of the ground and the grounded. Expressed as the ontological difference between being and beings, this is a principle which is essential to the inner connection between facticity and teleology. The dependence of the moment which underlies facticity and teleology is itself an elementary expression of this difference. At a higher level, the difference appears in my finitude. My finitude is my not being equivalent to being itself-i.e., my not being the self-actualizing totality of possibilities. It is shown by my "could have been otherwise"-my factual contingency in embodying one possibility rather than another. As we cited Husserl, this contingency attaches to my "subjective decisions," in my "finite clarity," to realize myself as a specific this. My finitude is thus concretely shown by the fact that I

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can permanently close off possibilities for myself. Indeed, I must, since I can actualize one possibility of being only by neglecting other possibilities. As we said, my recognition of the absolute as a teleological goal-one which points to the collective, harmonious realization of all possibilitiesdemands my recognition of Others and their possibilities. My finitude, when seen in terms of this goal, situates me in a self-acknowledged being with my Others. Turning to our collective being, ontological difference reappears in our finitude. Conceived as the totality of factually given subjects, we do not express the totality of human possibilities. We are not the absolute considered as a telos, since the latter requires the whole of time to achieve its complete factual presence. Thus, the collective being of presently given subjects is itself something finite. It has its "could have been otherwise," which means, in Husserl's words, "the transcendental totality of subjects is contingent." As not yet expressing the totality of possibilities, its subjective decisions regarding its own development remain contingent. Its finitude is shown by the fact that it can, through its collective actions, permanently foreclose possibilities. In other words, like the individual, it is finite in the sense that it can, through its actions, close off possibilities for itself; though, unlike the individual, this cannot be made up by an appeal to a greater collectivity-i.e., Others. This follows because it, itself, is this collectivity. Radical evil is this permanent foreclosure of possibilities. Thus, radical evil-or the potentiality for such-is itself the mark of the collective finitude of humanity. It is also, we can say, the phenomenological sign that human beings do not equal being itself. The ontological distinction between the two is shown by the fact that the possibilities present in the absolute can be permanently lost to humanity. If the ontological difference did not obtain, humanity could find within itself the potentiality to make good again all those losses which have made its history calamitous. That it cannot signifies that it is not its ground, that it can partially or, in an ultimate catastrophy, even totally be cut off from its ground. These possibilities of withdrawal are inherent in the absolute conceived as the entirety of possibilities. It itself grounds radical evil by including even the possibility of permanently foreclosing possibilities. Thus, radical evil is a constant human possibility. The attempt to completely foreclose it would involve the very foreclosing of possibilities which it itself is. It would be rather like attempting to overcome evil by engaging in it in a radical sense. The fruitlessness of this attempt can be seen in the fact that the very possibility of such evil is also that of our finitude. It is inherent in the ontological distinction and, thus, in the transcendence of being itself-i.e., our ground and our goal-from ourselves. In other

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words, it is because the absolute itself, through its necessarily finite selfobjectifications, grounds the distinction between being and beings that radical evil is inherent in the possibilities open to ourselves as finite beings. 29 Another way to express this is in terms of our freedom. Freedom also presupposes the ontological difference since, in its most general sense, it is the surpassing of particular beings by being itself. Thus, freedom presupposes the presence of my ground taken as the totality of possibilities, a totality which I recognize as presenting possibilities which surpass those embodied in my given "this." I am free to the point that I can surpass such given being in my choice between alternate possibilities for its development. These possibilities form the content of my freedom; they are inherent in the openness-the "alphabet"-of my ground. Projected forward, they become the openness of my goal. The same thing may be said about the temporal presence of my ground-Le., its presence as the nunc stans. Here, the ontological difference shows itself in the distinction between my ground's constant nowness and the moments which form its appearances. Thus, temporally speaking, the surpassing quality of freedom is a function of the "letting loose" of new acts from this constant nowness. It is a function of my self-transcendence as I remain constantly now while my objective being departs in time. Such acts embody the possibilities which are inherent in my pre-objective nowness, possibilities which surpass those which I have already realized. They can, however, also contradict the latter. What has been "let loose" can be permanently lost insofar as what I now bring forth does not fulfill it, but rather closes off its anticipated horizon. If my freedom stems from my coincidence with my ground, so does my empathy. The content of my freedom, which is that of the presence of my ground, is also the content of my empathy. This content gives me the transcending intentions which are essential for the recognition of the Other and his possibilities; it allows me to affirm as "mine" possibilities which are objectively manifested not in me, but in my Other and his animating nowness. At its heart, such recognition transfers to the Other the openness, the freedom, which I find my own primordiality. So regarded, freedom is essential for the acts of recognition which result in the web of social relationships. Yet the openness of freedom also includes the possibility of denying such relationships-this, through the practice of intolerance. Thus, among the possibilities of freedom is that of limiting freedom. Our freedom includes the possibility of permanently foreclosing the possibilities of being and behaving which once were within the compass of freedom. Here, the fact that we can permanently limit our freedom, that we can foreclose the possibilities that form its content shows that we

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are, as constituted entities, not our own ground. The intolerance which does not recognize the Other and his possibilities, which, in fact, suppresses the latter results, as we said, in the withdrawal of the ground. This is also the withdrawal of our freedom insofar as it is the closing off of the possibilities which form its content. That we are capable of this points once again to the distinction of being and beings. Our freedom presupposes our finitude-our status as a being-since it exists in the surpassing of this. As such, it presupposes finitude's contingency-i.e., the fact that the possibilities it embodies can not be and, hence, can be permanently lost to us as finite beings. If we ask how freedom can deny freedom without at the same time affirming itself, we come to another expression of the ontological difference. It appears as the duality of our essence-i.e, in the fact that we are and are not the ground of our finite being. In our identity with the openness of this ground, we can exercise the freedom which results in its denial. In our otherness from the ground, i.e, in our status as finite, constituted realities, the freedom which we have abandoned can be permanently lost to us. The openness of the possibilities from which we choose tC' constitute our "this" can, in other words, involve a "this" which is closed to such possibilities. It can involve a "this" which takes itself as already manifesting the totality of possibilities and, thus, denies the possibility of recognizing alternate ways of being and behaving. Here, finitude takes itself as infinitude. We deny the ontological difference which is at the heart of our freedom, i.e, of our ability, qua finite, to surpass ourselves. Now, the possibility of taking up this stance, which is essentially solipsistic or "egotistical," is always open to us. In our primordiality, the ontological difference does not yet exist. Thus, each ego, with an eye to this primordiality, can claim to be "unique." Each can assert, "I am the only one." It can deny its status as a being by asserting that it is an "ego ... which does not allow of pluralization in any meaningful sense, which excludes this as senseless ... "(Ms. B IV 5, 1932 or 1933, HA XV, p. 5901. Because of this, egotisticalor intolerant behavior is always possible. Since, in our freedom, there is a coincidence between ourselves and our ground, we can always confuse the two sides of our essence-i.e., our finitude with our infinitude. Our finitude is our existence as a being-a "this"-in the world. Thus, the collaspe of the ontological difference in favor of our finitude is actually the withdrawal of the surpassing quality of infinitude from our present, worldly being. It is our being fixed in a "this-world" whose horizons have been emptied of all references to the new. Of course, as long as we continue to be present, we continue, temporally speaking, to surpass ourselves. The teleology which is inherent in our temporality continues its action. Yet its action is not such that it can

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avail itself of the new. The possibilities of the whole of time are suppressed by the very freedom they engender. Thus, our self-surpassing in the form of availing ourselves of further moments of presence becomes a mere repetition: a simple re-actualization of already acknowledged possibilities. 3D An important corollary of the foregoing appears when we recall that, for Hussed, reason functions out of freedom; this, just as much as freedom, in its further development, functions from reason. This implies that when we speak of a regress, it is one that includes both freedom and reason. Reason functions "out of freedom" (aus Freiheit) since its action is that of active synthesis. It involves choice, which means that the development of humanity towards reason is itself a matter of choice. Thus, just as we can chose to undermine freedom, we can stop the advance of reason. We can do so by suppressing the question of reason: "Why this rather than that?" To pose this question is to call to mind alternate possibilities of being, behaving, and thinking. As such, the suppression of the question pertains to intolerance. When the "that" of the alternate possibility exists in some social or racial group and yet is not recognized as pertaining to humanity, what we have is a situation where humanity is set in opposition-in contradiction-to itself. If the conflict is irremediable, the action of reason, which is that of synthesis, no longer has an effect in human affairs. In a certain sense, it has reached an "end in constituted existence." Our remarks on freedom allow us to specify in a practical and moral way our relation to the being of beings. The latter is our ground, and its full objectification is our goaL Thus, as our ground, it manifests itself in our ability to be free (and, hence, in our ability to pose the question of reason). As our goal, it takes the form of the perfect intersubjective community-Hussed's Liebesgemeinschaft. In the latter, we recognize each other as embodying the mutually supporting possibilities inherent in our rational freedom. Now, the ground can never be fully manifest; which means that, as our goal, it can never be completely realized. This follows from the ontological difference. That being is not beings signifies that being per se can never be reified; it can never be considered a permanent human possession like some real physical or psychological feature. Teleologically conceived, its full objectification always remains transcendent to us; it is present only as a goal directing our lives. This goal is an inherent one insofar as its progressive realization is through the actualization of our possibilities. It embodies reason in the sense that it is rationally explicable in terms of the progressive synthesis of such interdependent possibilities. In the last two features, it is rather like Aristotle's final cause. For Aris-

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totle, the full grown tree is the goal which the sapling attempts to realize through its biological activities. The tree rationally combines and expresses the possibilities inherent in the sapling. What sets apart Hussed's conception of the goal from the Aristotelean with its biological references is, of course, the ontological difference. This difference does not just set this goal at infinity, it also transforms the nature of its realization. Expressed as freedom, the difference signifies a lack of real necessity in the absolute taken as our ought-to-be. Inherently, the sapling ought to be a tree. Indeed, it can only become this when the biological conditions for its development are present. As such, this goal is part of its factually given nature. We, however, need not manifest the absolute. This follows because the latter can be realized only through the openness of our freedom. Now an inherent, rationally explicable goal, which is realized through free activity, is a value. As such, our practical and moral relationship to the absolute is a relation to value. Here, the doctrine of the absolute turns into a doctrine of value. It becomes a theory which grounds the notion of value by showing how it is rooted in the structure of what is. By the latter we mean the structure of being in its relation to beings. When we speak about value, our focus is not on what-is in the sense of what is factually given. It is on what ought to be realized through our freedom. For Hussed, we may note, values form the context in which the question of the ground first arises. He writes: "It is not facticity per se, but facticity as the source of possible and actual values advancing to infinity which first compels the question of the 'ground'-which naturally does not have the sense of a thinglike, causal source" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 139). The ground is not "thinglike"-is not a cause as something already existing in nature-because it, itself, is not factually given. As the being of beings-i.e, as lying at the basis of all possibilities, all relativities, all contingencies-it is, rather, what grounds nature's facticity. When we are compelled to raise its question, it is initially in response to prior questions, questions concerning why the facts permit the realization of values, e.g., those of rationality and culture (see ibid.). For Hussed, the general answer to these questions is that the ground must be teleologically conceived. As such, it is present to us in the very values which raise its question. Thus, as already indicated, its practical, moral relation to us is that of the values of goals which we freely attempt to realize. Hussed's mention of "possible and actual values advancing to infinity" simply points to the ground's all embracing character, one which finds expression in the multiplicity of ideals included in the Liebesgemeinschaft. The ontological distinction which is based on this all embracing character of being itself signifies that value remains value. It is something that factually given subjects can only partially manifest. Thus, the absolute, by virtue of its distinction from in-

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dividual beings, must always remain transcendent as a value, Le., as a goal directing the lives of finite subjects. The Krisis reflects on the fact that the direction it provides can be lost. Husserl's much quoted remark, lithe dream is over," can be taken as referring to the dream of inevitable human progress. Since the absolute both draws humanity to itself and includes the possibility of humanity's turning away and losing its way, this dream is rightly over. In its stead, we have the awakening of self-responsibility. For Husserl, "A human being is a human being in his self-responsibility." The same holds for the human community (Ms. E III 9, p. 81, 1933). The later, has, in fact, an allembracing responsibility. Its "self-responsibility has its domain in the totality of being, the totality of life and ... the totality of the life-world" (ibid., p. 82). The negative side of this is that the human community can, through its actions, cause a breakdown in the life-world. It can disrupt the web of social relationships which form the life-world's framework. Its responsibility for the totality of being and life is not just a responsibility for this intersubjective life-world. It is, as already indicated, a responsibility for the absolute ground of such totalities. Our own actions are the means by which this ground becomes manifest as the totality of what is. In other words, the world which progressively manifests the absolute through its indefinitely extended horizons is something realized through our own syntheses. Having grounded us, i.e., having given us our basis in passive synthesis, the absolute exists "regulating [ourl monadic being from its free decisions"-Le., through our processes of active synthesis. Its presence, then, is a matter of our taking responsibility for what we freely choose to value, to constitute and accomplish. This responsibility for the ground is a self-responsibility since the ground, with its multiple possibilities and original presence, forms the core of our selfhood. It is the freedom which allows us to take responsibility. As a corollary, we may add that an "awake" humanity, in its awareness that progress is not inevitable, knows that evil and intolerance can never be permanently overcome. They can only be continually and responsibly combated. We may end by remarking on how the problem of intersubjectivity is here transformed. Intersubjectivity is not a given, fixed feature of reality. Considered as something unchanging, it is an ought-to-be, a value. As factually real, it is not fixed but is in progressive development, a development which includes the possibility of regression. As we have seen, to approach the absolute in teleological and practical terms is to approach it under the aspect of value. This means taking a moral stance with regard to the possibilities which are included in our humanity. It also signifies a recognition of our responsibilities with regard to these possibilities; and this implies a recognition of the possibility of permanent loss through our

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actions. Regarded in these terms, the problem of intersubjectivity becomes eminently practical, one which involves both individual and collective self-responsibility. To view the ground of intersubjectivity as a value is to value as well those actions of ours which preserve a relation to this ground. It is to value them as involved in the realization of the ought-tobe-the value-of intersubjectivity. Thus, intersubjectivity (the world of shared meanings) is not something which we first must theoretically establish in order, then, to act. In its character as our ought-to-be, i.e, as the ideal of a shared human fullness, it is given to us as a possibility, a possibility which we ourselves must realize through our actions. In this regard, the problem of intersubjectivity is transformed into that of caring for the factually given (and, hence, fragile) web of human relations. It is a web, a nexus, into which we are born and which we ourselves must maintain and expand. Our finitude, when acknowledged, both necessitates this web and finds its moral expression within it. This expression points both to Others in their finitude and to the infinitude lying within them waiting to be expressed.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION Fink's remarks are worth quoting at some length. He writes: "In his late manuscripts, which were written after Cartesianische Meditationen, Husserl ... sees the difficulty involved in simply transposing structures of the intramundane multiplicity of subjects into the transcendental realm.... he arrives at the curious idea of a primal ego, of a primal subjectivity which is prior to the distinction between the primordial subjectivity and the transcendental subjectivity of other monads. He seems to try, to some extent, to withdraw the pluraltiy from the dimension of the transcendental. In the same context, Husserl also tries to circumvent the difference between essence and fact by going back to the primal facticity of transcendental life which first constitutes possibility and thereby variations and-as an objectification (Vergegenstilndlichung) of variational multiplicities-also constitutes essence. According to Husserl's ideas in these very late manuscripts, there is a primal life which is neither one nor many, neither factual nor essential; rather it is the ultimate ground of all these distinctions: a transcendental primal life which turns itself into a plurality and which produces in itself the differentiation into fact and essence" ("Discussion-Comments by Eugen Fink on Alfred Schutz's Essay, "The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl'," Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers III, ed, I. Schutz, Phaenomenologica, No. 22 [The Hague, 1966) p. 86). Here, I must express my gratitude to Dr. Rudolf Bernet of the Husserl Archives in Louvain for providing me with Fink's indices to the late manuscripts. Dr. Bernet's assistance in tracking down the manuscripts referred to by Fink was an example of genuine collegiality. 2 This is the position of Husserl's Logical Investigations. See, e.g., LOgische Untersuchungen, 5th ed., 3 vols. (Tiibingen, 1968) I, 15,228, II/I, 90, 94f. Robert

1

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4

5

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Sokolowski, who attempts to continue phenomenology in its realistic attitude, puts this point in terms of the "multitudes of appearance" in which an object is presented: "These multitudes are not subjective forms imposed on a distinction-free thing; they are what the object engenders when it is at work being intellected and perceived .... And it is this work of the ob;ect-being intellected and perceived-which phenomenology intends to register" (Husserlian Meditations [Evanston, 19741, p. 107, italics added). See also Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 115. On the resulting facticity (or contingency) of the world and its constitution, see Iso Kern, Husserl und Kant, Phaenomenologica, No. 16 (The Hague, 1964), pp. 293 ff. Frederick Olafson seems to have missed this point when, taking up a realist stance, he writes: "It would also be a mistake to suppose that, as constitutive, intentionality is a literal production or creation of the object since it may very well turn out that the constituted object does not exist, and this it could hardly do if it owned its existence to the intentional act," ("Hussed's Theory of Intentionality in Contemporary Perspective," Nous, 9,1975, p. 81). For Hussed this is not the case. An object can exist as an "intentional accomplishment" of consciousness, indeed, as its "constituted product" (Gilbilde) and still turn out not to exist. If an object "exists only as the unity of the totality of appearances which continue to validate themselves," then its existence presupposes the continuation of this validation. The fact that further appearances might disrupt this unity does not mean that the ongoing act of constitution never occured. It did, but it ultimately turned out to be unsuccessful. For a summary of these arguments as they are presented in the Logical Investigations, see J. R. Mensch, The Question of Being in Husserl's Logical Investigations, Phaenomenologica, No. 81 (The Hague, 1981), pp. 9-33. The reference to the "Prolegomena" which follows this statement is to the arguments establishing the priority of epistemology. In the Ideen, the resulting correlation of being to knowability is expressed as follows: "To every object that truly is, there corresponds (in the a priori of unconditioned essential generality) the idea of a possible consciousness in which the object itself can be grasped originally and perfectly adequately. Conversely, if this possibility is guaranteed, eo ipso the object is one that truly is" (Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 349). See LU, 1st ed., 2 vols. (Halle a. S., 1900-1901), II, 249-5 I, 284. On the causal determination of the knowing subject, see ibid., II, 332, 356. The second edition of the Investigations omits or rewrites these passages in an attempt to make the work's positions consistent with those of Ideen I which appeared the same year, 1913. One may compare this to the Investigations' position: "What is 'inside' of consciousness just as what is 'outside' of consciousness is considered as real by us. What is real is the individual with all its characteristics: it is a here and now. For us, temporality is sufficient as a characteristic feature of reality" (LU, Tub. ed., II/I, 123). This doctrine of the equivalence of objective and universal validity was accepted by Husserl from a very early period. In the Investigations, it is used to

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establish the "ideal" (or "one-in-many") character of the content of knowledge. Such a content was considered to be ideal insofar as it was the one thing necessarily instantiated in all valid judgments concerning the object. Hussed writes: "And just as the being or validity of universals, as in other cases, is equivalent to ideal possibilities-namely, in respect to the possible being of empirical instances which fall under these universals, so we say the same thing here. The assertions, 'the truth is valid,' and, 'there are thinking creatures possible whose judgments comprehend the relevant contents of meaning,' are equivalent" (LU, Tiib. ed., I, 129). The latter possibility-i.e., that of the "thinking creatures"-is in the Investigations, with its realist stance, simply taken for granted. As such, the securing of the possibility of objective knowledge is not thought of as embracing the task of securing the possibility of Others. This last, as we note in our text, first becomes an issue with the adoption of the reduction and the idealism this entails. 9 This "depth of life" involves for Hussed the thought of a "primal ego." As Fink writes: " ... in these late manuscripts, the thought of a primal ego (UrIch) appears, [it is] an ego that is prior to the distinction, ego-alter ego, being an ego that first allows the plural to break forth from itself" ("Die Spl1tphilosophie Husseds," ed. cit., p. 113). This ego, as we shall see, expresses the original unity of individual egos before their objectification as enduring entities located in successive (objective) time.

CHAPTER I: THE ACCOUNT OF THE CARTESIAN MEDITATIONS 1 Intimately involved with Prof. Carr's position is the notion that phenomenology never argues or demonstrates; it only describes. Prof. Carr thus writes concerning the objection that Hussed commits a petitio principii, "Such an objection would be pertinent only if Hussed were constructing an argument. Since it seems to be wrong to construe Hussed as advancing an argument (indeed, as conceived by Hussed, phenomenology never argues), I cannot agree that this objection is valid" ("Comments on Prof. Mensch's paper, 'Intersubjectivity and the Constitution of time," [Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1981]). Sokolowski expresses a similar position when he writes, "The submission of phenomenology to the way things are means that as philosophy it is content to describe these unities and manifolds without trying to explain why they are like this. Hussed would take any such attempt at explanation to be a metaphysical construction" (Husserlian Meditations, [Evantson, 1974] p. 103). To this, we must say that the notion that phenomenology never argues or explains, when literally applied to Hussed's works, is inaccurate. No reader of Hussed can fail to acknowledge or appreciate his often subtle and involved argumentationin particular with regard to his presentation of the "theory of the reduction." This leads us to observe that, according to Hussed, a theory is distinguished from mere description by its use of logical inference and, hence,

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argumentation. As opposed to being a "mere collection" of descriptive truths, a theory is a logical unity of these, one which attempts to deduce certain given truths from other more basic ones. Now, to deny phenomenology the status of a theory is, for Hussed, to deny from the outset its claim to be a "rigorous science." Indeed, it is to deny per se its status as a science. This follows, for as Hussed writes: 'The essential unity of the truths of a science is a unity of explanation. But all explanation points to a theory and ends in the knowledge of the basic laws, the principles of the explanation" (LU, Tub. ed., I, 233). This means that "scientific knowledge is, as such, grounded knowledge (Erkenntnis aus dem Grund). To know the ground of something is to see the necessity for its being the way it is" (ibid., I, 231). Granting this, to say that phenomenology cannot argue or deduce is to say that it has no explanatory power at all. It is to assert that it can never achieve the status of a science. Far from being in such a position, constitutive phenomenology is essentially concerned with explanation. As we noted in our Introduction, constitution is the process of grounding. To account for something by means of its constitution is, thus, to attempt to give an account "aus dem Grund." The goal of this account is that of seeing "the necessity" for the constituted object's "being the way it is." "Necessity," here, refers to the basic "laws" and "principles" which govern the constitution of entities. Correspondingly, "Erkenntnis aus dem Grund" refers to a knowledge of the grounds of such constitution. What are the stages of the constitutive process which must be gone through if an entity of a certain type is to become intuitively present? What are the laws and principles governing the ordering of such stages? This inquiry is phenomenological insofar as these grounds are to be made intuitively evident. It also can be described as a phenomenology of reason insofar as it attempts to uncover the "rational motivations" for our judgments. Such motivations are termed "rational" to the point that they spring from the laws of evidence. We implicitly follow such laws whenever we distinguish rational from irrational assertions by weighing the evidence for their respective claims. Hussed holds that this evidence is constituted through our constitution of entities-i.e., the objects with which our judgments must agree. Thus, a phenomenological account of the laws of evidence-Hussed's "phenomenology of reason"-is also an account of the constitution of the entities answering to such evidence. Hussed, accordingly, makes the following claim: A complete "phenomenology of reason" is equivalent to "constitutive phenomenology." Each, in fact, coincides with "phenomenology in general"-i.e., phenomenology considered as a science (see Ideen 1. Biemel ed., p. 380). With this, we can see why Hussed's commission of a petitio principii is fatal to his account of the constitution of Others. Such a logical error would be of relatively minor importance if, indeed, Hussed were compiling a simple list of descriptive facts. What he is attempting, however, is an "indubitable transcendental explication" (zweifellose tranzendentale Auslegung). The petitio, in violating the rules for such an explication, robs the account of its explanatory, scientific character. More specifically, the petitio assumes the presence, on the level of the ground, of a thesis which, as something to be

39 8

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2

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grounded, is supposed to be present only at a higher level. It, thus, violates "the basic laws, the principles" of the constitution of that evidence which is supposed to validate my judgment regarding the Other. This doctrine first appears in the Logical Investigations. There is, according to Husserl, a fundamental fact of cognitive experience: "The fact, namely, that all thinking and knowing is directed to states of affairs whose unity relative to a multiplicity of actual or possible acts of thought is a 'unity in multiplicity' and is, therefore, of an ideal character" (LU, Halle ed., II, 9). Granting this, we have to explain "how the same experience can have a content in a twofold manner, how next to its inherent actual content, there should and can dwell an ideal, intentional content" (ibid., II, 16). The latter is the object's content regarded as a sense-i.e., as a unity in the multiplicity of the actual experiences we can have of it. As in the Cartesian Meditations, its presence to consciousness is described as an "ideal-being-in" consciousness. See also LU, Tub. ed., I, 171, 175f; II/I, 94f. We shall, throughout this book, follow Husserl's usage in equating sense (Sinn) and meaning (Bedeutung). Our reasons are essentially the same as Husserl's: "Meaning and sense count as synonymous for us. On the one hand, it is, precisely with respect to this concept, very convenient to have parallel terms which one can alternately use especially in investigations like the previous ones where it is precisely the sense of the term, meaning, which is under investigation. On the other hand, something else comes into consideration, namely the deeply rooted practice of using both words as equivalent" (LU, Tub. ed., IIIl, 52-53). We cannot, for this reason, agree with Schutz's criticism of the "second epoche"-the epoche which, for Husserl, brings us to the primary level of constitution. According to Schutz, the performance of this epoche eliminates not just the sense of "objective, worldly existing Others," but also the data required for the constitution of this sense. If we grant this, the primary level is not genuinely primary with respect to Others; it does not contain elements which, while individually lacking the sense, "Others," constitute this sense by coming together. At this point, the sense, "Others," must itself be considered as a non-constituted, primary datum of experience. This follows since it has no lower level constitutive basis. Here, if we still accept the theory of constitution, according to which the more primitive level constitutes the less primitive, there is no more primitive level than that on which the sense of Others first appears. The epoche which attempts to suspend this sense, thus, overreaches itself. Indeed, insofar as it attempts to pass beyond the genuinely primary level, it leaves us with nothing at all. This criticism, however, follows only if we agreee with Schutz that there cannot exist data for the sense, "Others," without this sense itself being present. See Schutz, "The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity ... ," ed. cit., pp. 59f, 83. Schutz embraces this conclusion in the following words: "It is to be surmised that intersubjectivity is not a problem of constitution which can be solved within the transcendental sphere, but is rather a datum of the life-world. It is the fundamental ontological category of human existence in the world and therefore of all philosophical anthropology. As long as man is born of woman,

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intersubjectivity and the we-relationship will be the foundation for all other categories of human existence. The possibility of reflection on the self, discovery of the ego, capacity for performing any epoche ... are founded on the primal experience of the we-relationship" ("The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity ... "ed. cit., p. 82). What this implies with regard to Schutz'S own position is that sociology and not egology (in the Husserlian sense) is the primary philosophy. 6 We agree with Quentin Lauer when he writes: "There is ... justification to Husserl's contention that there is here an approach to the problematic of existence. In explicating the 'sense' of the Other, which is already contained implicitly in the very conception of an objectivity which must be equally valid for all possible subjects, the theory of intersubjectivity recognizes that the Other must be a 'real' subject, if objectivity itself is to have any 'sense' at all" (Phenomenology, its Genesis and Prospect [New York, 1965] p. 159). As already noted, David Carr disagrees with this. He claims that the "task" of such an explication does not involve the question "whether the Other exists as such" ("The Fifth Meditation ... " ed. cit., p. 19). Such disagreement is all the more surprising since he himself points out that transcendence is a function "of possible acts implied in any actual one"-Le., any actual act. Thus, if, as he says, there is a transcendence in which the object is "not only irreducible to any particular acts of mine" but "is also not reducible to all possible acts of mine," whence does this transcendence spring? It cannot arise as a function of the possibilities implicit in my actual acts. As a function of possibilities which surpass my own, it must refer to the "possible acts" implied in an actual act which is not my own. It implies, in other words, the act of an actually existing Other. 7 The fact that givenness can no longer be ascribed to consciousness' receptivity to a transcendent affection "exhibits," according to Fink, "the productive character of transcendental intentionality." He writes: "The mental ["innerworldly"] intention is essentially receptive; it is performed with an understanding of itself as an approach to a being in itself that is independent of it .... When we no longer interpret transcendental life as receptive, its special character still remains undetermined. It is the constitutive interpretation of it that first exhibits it as creation (als Kreation). No matter how difficult and doctrinaire the determination of the essence of constitution as productive creation might sound, at least its opposition is thereby indicated to the receptive character of the worldly-factual (mental) life of experience, a life which fosters the notion of being in itself" ("Die phanomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwiirtigen Kritik," Studien zur Phitnomenologie 1930-39, Phaenomenologica, No. 21 [The Hague, 1966] p. 143). Fink's use of the word, Kreation, is especially Significant. When asked by the editors of Kant Studien to review this piece, Hussed wrote for its "Preface": "... I have thoroughly gone through this article and I am delighted to be able to say that there is not a sentence within it that I do not make my own, that I could not expressly acknowledge as my own conclusion" (Studien zur Phitn., ed. cit., p. viii).

8 Ricoeur puts this in terms of sense and presence. Constitutive activity is not

/NTERSUBTECTIVITY AND TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

400

limited to making sense out of some given presence. The "fullness" of perceived presence which a constituted sense embodies is itself to be considered the work of constitutive activity. Thus, if we say that actual perceptual presence is the sign that some actuality is given to us, the constitution of this presence is the constitution of it givenness. In Ricoeur's words, " ... one last gap still remains to be filled in between what we shall henceforth call the 'sense' of the noema and actuality .... Transcendental phenomenology aspires to integrate into the noema its own relation to the object, i.e., its 'fullness,' which completes the constitution of the whole noema.... To constitute actuality is to refuse to leave its 'presence' outside the 'sense' of the world" ("Introduction to Ideas I," Husserl: An Analysis of his Phenomenology, trans. E.G. Ballard and 1.E. Embree, Northwest Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Phenomenology [Evanston, 19671, p. 23). Another way of putting this is to say that the inclusion of presence in sense makes the constitution of sense the constitution of actuality, once we identify actuality with sense filled presence or, what is the same, with sense as including presence. 9 For Fink this means that there is no ultimate "heteronomy" between "sensuous hyle" and "intentional form,"-i.e., between sensuous data and the interpretive acts of consciousness. He writes: "Even the hyle, which at first is presented as a non-intentional moment of the act is constituted along with the intentional form of the total act itself in the depths of the intentional selfconstitution of phenomenological time, a self-constitution that does not occur through acts" ("Die Phanomenologische Phil. E. Husserls ... ," ed. cit., p. 146). 10 De Boer, here, echoes Fink's position. Speaking of the noema (the objective sense of an entity), Fink writes: "If the psychological noema is the sense of an actual intentionality, a sense that we distinguish from the being itself to which it refers, then, in opposition to this, the transcendental noema is the being itself.... The psychological noema refers to an object which is independent of it, an object that manifests and identifies itself in the noema. The transcendental noema cannot ... refer to an object beyond itself that is independent of it; it is the entity (Seiendes) itself" ("Die Phanomenologische Phil. Ed. Husserls ... ," ed. cit., p. 132-33). 11 Richard Holmes takes the opposite position. He attempts to show that Husserl's idealism is not "metaphysical," i.e., does not involve assertions about constituting being, by distinguishing sense from being. Commenting on Husserl's assertion that "the real world exists, but is essentially relative to transcendental subjectivity since it can have its sense as existing only as an intentional sense product (Sinngibilde) of transcendental subjectivity" ("Nachwort, Ideen III, Biemel ed., p. 153), Holmes writes, '''Relative to' could mean that the objects are dependent on consciousness of them in that they are created by, or owe whatever existence they have, to transcendental consciousness. Given this interpretation it is easy to see how Husserl could be thought to be a metaphysical idealist. He would be claiming that all that actually or possibly exists is relative to and dependent upon consciousness" ("Is

NOTES

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Husserl Committed to Idealism?," The Monist, UX, 1975, p. 105). For Holmes, this is not Husserl's position. Husserl's focus is on sense, not being. Thus, instead of the above, Husserl is actually maintaining that "the senses are essentially relative to consciousness; they are not absolutes in themselves, they are senses for consciousness. There is no sense independently of some actual or possible consciousness" (ibid., p. 106, italics added). This "epistemological idealism" with regard to sense cannot, given that sense is not being, translate itself into a corresponding metaphysical idealism: "Thus, the result that these existential senses are relative to consciousness says nothing about the metaphysical status of objects ... ," i.e., about whether they, as opposed to their senses, are "relative to consciousness" (ibid.). What Holmes would have to do to make his position convincing is to demonstrate, rather than imply, his fundamental position that once the "transcendental turn" is accomplished, we can continue to distinguish the constitution of being from that of sense. Our position is that this is not possible when we come to treat of time constitution. 12 For further references in the Krisis to this absolute subjectivity which objectifies itself in a plurality of human subjects, see ibid., pp. 115f, 155f. See also Ms. A V 10, Nov. 5,1931, pp. 20f,23f; early references to the same subjectivity include Ms. F I 22, Nov. 1917, pp. 21ff,37ff. This subjectivity, as we shall see, is that of the "primal ego" referred to by Fink in footnote 9 of the Introduction.

13 Thus, for Husserl, to understand intentionality is to understand "how the same experience can have a content in a twofold sense, how next to its authentic, actual content, there must and can dwell an intentional, ideal content" (LU, Halle ed., II,16). The former is "a real part (ein reales Bestandstack) of my concrete seeing" (ibid., II, 326); the latter is not. Hence, "what is predicated of the appearing [i.e., of its actual sensuous content) is not also predicated of what appears in it" (LU, Tab. ed., II/I, 350-51). It is this distinction of being which Brough is attempting to maintain in asserting that perception and object belong to two separate dimensions and, therefore, can never form a whole. Husserl, however, found this distinction ultimately insupportable. See The Question of Being in Husserl's Logical Investigations, ed. cit., pp. 149-59. 14 In Husserl's words, "the phenomenological form of identification is essentially grounded in the founding acts as such, i.e., grounded in what these are and contain over and beyond their representing contents" (LU, Tub. ed., II/2, 174). Beyond these contents which are there for interpretation, these acts contain our interpretive intentions. Thus, "identity is not an immediate form of unity of sense contents. It is rather a 'unity of consciousness,' a unity which is grounded in one or another consciousness (repeated or differing in contents) of the same object" (ibid., II/2, 175). In other words, rather than being founded on the differing contents of the object, the "unity of consciousness" is founded on the identity of the interpretive intentions animating the different apprehensions of the object.

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CHAPTER II: THE GROUNDING OF THE THING AND THE EGO 1 The second pagination, indicated by "F.," will be that of Fink's typescript. This text, we note, is of particular interest since it is annotated by Husserl. He also wrote a number of appendicies for it which have been transcribed by Guy Kirkhoven at Louvain. Hussed thus appears to have taken an active collaborative part in its composition. 2 Hussed's position can be illustrated by an analogy with our experience in an art gallery. A finite number of colors are used in the paintings, yet each is different. It is the ordering of the colors on the canvas which makes this so. This makes the colors into colors of this one painting rather than another. 3 Investigation III of the LU is largely devoted to this synthetic, "material" logic. For a summary of the LU's doctrine on this topic, see The Question of Being in Husserl's Logical Investigations, ed. cit., pp. 66f. lOOf. 4 The thought that is explicitly logical is termed by Hussed "categorial" thought. It directs itself to the apprehension of states of affairs (Sacbverbalte). It actively explicates the formal relations existing between individually perceivable objects or features thereof. The claim that the phenomenology of the constitution of being coincides with the phenomenology of reason (i.e., of categorial thought) signifies, then, that the forms of unification which are the explicit themes of such thought are implicitly present in our positing of our wodd. Categorial thought, in other words, simply makes explicit-makes an object of reflection-the formal structures of our prereflective positing. 5 We emphasize this point because it is often ignored. Prof. Carr writes, for example, "That the actual process by which we recognize the other person might be 'circular' in some sense-e.g., involve reciprocally justifying hypotheses or the like-seems to me not objectionable as such-it might just be an accurate description of how it works" ("Comments ... ," Halifax, N.S., 1981). Our position is that, given the tie between rationality and positing, this circular, conscious process would not "work" at all-i.e., result in an actual positing recognition. As we shall see, this holds even when we accept Hussed's claim that actual conscious life is not necessarily logical. Hussed's remarks to this effect do not undermine the correlativity of rationality and positing, but rather emphasize the "presumptive" quality of both. 6 In the Investigations, the prescriptive role of logic-both formal and material-extends to the actual occurrence of contents in consciousnes. Hussed writes: "It is, accordingly, at once clear how far the logical laws and, in the first instance, the ideal laws of 'authentic' thinking also claim a psycbological meaning and also regulate the course of factual mental events. Each genuine 'pure' law, which expresses a compatibility or incompatibility grounded in the nature of particular species, limits, when it relates to a species of mentally realizable contents, the empirical possibilities of psychological (phenomenological) coexistence and succession. What is seen to be incompatible in specie cannot be united or made compatible in empirical instances (LU, Tab. ed., 11/2, 198). The assertion of this passage is that the logical laws necessarily have a

NOTES

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9

10

11 12

13

14

403

field of applicability. In the Ideen, however, there is only the assertion of a conditional necessity. Its position, as we shall see, is: If the course of factual mental events is to result in the constitution of an objective world, then the logical laws must apply to our factual perceptual contents. See Kern, Husserl and Kant, ed. cit., pp. 288ff; also Eduard Marbach, Das Problem des Ich in der Phl1nomenologie Husserls, Phaenomenologica, No. 59 (The Hague, 1974), pp. 303ff. Marbach goes so far as to assert that the nonconstituted "'pure ego' ... does not actually deserve the title of 'ego'" (ibid., p. 338). In other words, "as a concept of an ego, it must be rejected" (ibid., p. 339). The notion of the ego as a constituted (or "founded") unity occurs in the Logical Investigations (1900-1901). The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness (1893-1917) analyzses in detail the ego's temporal constitution. In Ideen II, written between 1912 and 1924, the constituted ego reappears under the title of the "personal ego." This personal ego is a theme of Husserl's writings till the end of his career in the late 1930s. With respect to the pure, nonconstituted ego, its concept is extensively developed in Ideen I (1913). It is also present in Ideen II and in a number of manuscripts of the 1920s. In the last decade of Husserl's life, it becomes the subject of a thorough analysis. The analysis concerns its nature as a "nunc stans." Here, it appears as a preobjective "anonymous ego." Our fifth chapter will consider in detail this final development of its notion. There is a certain ambiguity with regard to the reference of this passage. Does it refer to the ego of habitualities or to the pure, nonconstituted, singular subject? Both, as we shall see, require a unity in the posited world for their selfmaintenance. This doctrine first appears in the lectures on internal time consciousness. See HA X, Boehm ed., pp. 91-93. This statement will have to be modified when we come to speak of the "anonymity" of the pure ego. The exact nature of our experience of this non-enduring ego will be the subject of Chapter V, where we will consider Husserl's description of the pure ego as a pretemporal, preobjective "nunc stans." These examples are from the visual estimate of distance. Corresponding examples can be taken from the auditory, olfactory, and even tactile senses. Thus, a series of sounds increasing in volume is taken as approaching the "here," so also a series of progressively stronger odors of some substance. We also have the perspectival series of tactile sensations-e.g., those of the muscular effort of focusing our eyes as objects approach the "here," even those of the "straining" to hear as a sound diminishes. All of these temporally ordered series play their part in our actual estimations of distance. The passage in Ideen I (p. 202, Biemel ed.) on which Held in his book (p. 127) bases this interpretation concerns not the pure ego but rather the personal ego. The former, as we have stressed, is abstracted from all experiences. The latter, as an ego made up of acts, is constituted by the experiences whose connections form these acts. Now, what is called a Kantian idea, in the passage

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404

which Held cites, is the stream of experiences considered as a totality. Given, as Husserl says, that "the stream of experiences is an infinite unity"-i.e., continues without end-no finite series of reflectively directed perceptions can grasp it as a whole (see Ideen I, Biemel ed., p. 200). The thought of it as a unified totality, like the corresponding thought of the world which is constituted from the stream, is, thus, that of an infinite, Kantian idea. As we have quoted Husserl, the former thought is that of the personal, as opposed to the pure, ego. See above, pp. 80-81. 15 Marbach's rejection of the pure ego is a rejection of the ego "which cannot be constituted as a personal ego in Husserl's sense ... " (Das Problem . .. , ed. cit., p. 338). It is, in other words, a rejection of the pure in favor of the personal ego. The difficulty with Marbach's position is that he tends to identify the personal ego with the idea of the pure ego which occurs through re-presentation. This second form of availability of the pure ego-i.e., its availability as an alltemporal idea-does not, however, yield the personal ego. The personal ego, absolutely considered, is a Kantian idea; Kantian ideas involve the notion of a progressive advance in the determination of an entity. But the idea of the pure ego, given that this ego always remains perfectly identical, does not involve any such notion of progressive advance. The pure ego, as a nonperspectival unity, does not admit of being "more closely" determined. What this signifies is that the personal ego, qua Kantian idea, is in contradiction to the pure ego only when we (mistakenly) take it as the idea of the latter. But this is not Husserl's position. 16 These remarks will turn out to have a positive significance when we consider Husserl's use of the phenomenological reduction to bracket the temporal environment of the ego. The resulting pure now will become an essential conception in his attempt to provide a pre-individual ground for the intersubjective harmony.

CHAPTER III:

FACTI CITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY

1 Apart from sensibility, this synthetic action is limited to the purely logical employment of thought. The "pure reason" which engages in this employment attempts to synthesize all the concepts of the understanding into one interrelated whole. In Kant's words, its attempt is "to combine all the acts of the understanding, in respect to every object, into an absolute whole" ("Kritik," B 383, Kant's Schriften, III, 253). The result of this attempt is "metaphysics" with its various propositions and systems of pure thought. 2 Thus, we do not just have the possibility of different worlds but also the possibility of one world varying or passing over into another. In Husserl's words, "Transcendental phenomenology, as a pure doctrine of the essence of consciousness, leaves many possibilities open .... According to transcendental phenomenology, there exists not only different possibilities [of different natures or worlds] but also the possibility that factually different 'natures pass over into one another,' the possibility that factually, in the unity of a factual

NOTES

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consciousness, there (intuitivelYI appears for a period of time a sensible nature of one sensible form and then again a sensible nature of another sensible form, the possibility that, by intervals, an exact and then a vague nature or world constitute themselves at different times, the possibility that there does not exist for consciousness, once and forever afterwards, a nature which is one and continually self-identical" ("Beilage XX," 1908, EP I, Boehm ed., p. 3921· Thus, Husserl to be consistent must assert that the "ontic unity" or being of the ego is something acquired, i.e., temporally constituted. He writes, for example, "The ego is itself constituted as a temporal unity. It is, as a lasting and remaining ego, an already acquired (and, in constant acquisition, continually acquiredl ontic unity" (Ms. C 17, Sept. 20-22,1931, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 3481. The nature of this constitution will be a subject of Chapter VII. As Husserl writes, expressing this view: "The presentation of the world (Weltvorstellung) is not a presentation among my presentations. It is a universal movement (Bewegungl and a synthesis in this movement of all my presentations; it is a synthesis of such a kind that everything which is presented goes together, as being mutually valid, in the unity of a world which is the correlate of the constantly becoming and already accomplished unity of all my presentations, the presentations which I have, had, and will have" (Ms. K III 6, p. Ill, Autumn, 19341. We are in agreement with Fink as to the answer to his questions. The absolute or ultimate subjectivity is, he writes, "a primal life which is neither one nor many, neither factual nor essential; rather it is the ultimate ground of all these distinctions: a transcendental primal life which turns itself into a plurality ... " (see note 1 to our Introductionl. It will also follow when we make the reverse reduction and, instead of abstracting temporal relations, abstract the experiential contents which the latter order-this to bring out the pure form of time.

CHAPTER IV: A FIRST SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY 1 Ludwig Landgrabe expresses this in terms of the distinction between being itself and beings. Husserl's later phenomenology takes the stance that "metaphysics ... is in need of a new beginning, a new foundation .... Accordingly, the sense of the phenomenological method is to be conceived as the question concerning the origin of each thing which is given to us as a being ... " ("Die Bedeutung der phanomenologischen Methode fur die Neubegrunding der Metaphysik," Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Philosophy, eds. E.W. Beth, H.J. Pos, and J.H.A. Hollak [Amsterdam, 1949], p. 12191. For Landgrabe, the result of this radical inquiry into the origin or ground of every individual being is an awareness of the distinction between being and individual beings. The being of the ground, the being which is ultimately giving, cannot be interpreted in terms of the individual beings-including

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human beings-which it grounds. As he expresses this insight: "Being, itself, however, is not a being but rather that which allows us, at any given time, to say of the beings, the 'things/ 'it exists' and 'it is such and such'" (ibid., p. 1220). 2 In Husserl's technical terminology, the contradiction is one between the "associative temporalization" which first results in the ego as a temporal center, and the "acts" of the already constituted, "central" ego. 3 "The Founding of Dilthey's Hermeneutic in Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology." Proceedings of the 16th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle (Toronto, 1984), p. 21.

CHAPTER V: THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF SUBJECTIVE LIFE 1 As Husserl describes this: "In streaming, taken as stationary, the [temporal] stream constitutes itself. 'Stationary' signifies being constantly (Stilndigsein) as a 'process'-the process of primal temporalization ... " (Ms. C 7 I, p. 31, June-July, 1931). 2 Husserl came to this conclusion relatively early. Thus, we read in the 1905 lectures on time consciousness, "We can no longer speak of a time of the ultimately constituting consciousness" (Zur Phan. d. Inneren Zeitbewusstseins. Boehm ed., p. 78). This means, as Husserl adds in an appendix, "Subjective time constitutes itself in an absolutely timeless consciousness which is not an object" (ibid., "Beilage VI." p. 112). 3 This remark occurs in the passage: "If, in the primal original stream, we perform a reduction to the things which are primal-original, if we suspend all representations (Vergegenwartigungen), then we take things only as what they themselves are in the original present. Or rather: I do this. But this 'I do/ itself pertains to this. I see the 'I do' in a reflection, then I see this reflection through a [further] reflection. I am always ahead of myself. I meditate on myself and, as such, am already, in fact, reflecting." The reflecting ego is the functioning ego; it is not the ego which has been fixed in objective time by such functioning. In Husserl's words, "Functioning, I only exist as this reflecting ego [present] in the reflecting acts, while the things previously apprehended along with the previous ego are objective, are that upon which I function" (Ms. A V 5, p. 4, Jan., 1933). See also Ms. C III 3, pp. 2-3, Nov., 1931. 4 As Klaus Held puts this point: "The fact that the ego cannot grasp itself in its active functioning-its anonymity-and the fact that it streams away from itself are one and the same. Could the ego which possesses the intentions which it, itself, performs, the ego which is the welling up of such intentions, be graspable-phenomenologically speaking, a non-thought-then this would signify that it would not, by its passive streaming, permit the opening up of an original distance in its functioning present" (Lebendige Gegenwart. ed. cit., pp. 128-29). The "non-thought" here is that of the actively functioning ego being objective to itself by virtue of being fixed in an objective position of

NOTES

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7

8 9 10

11 12

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time. So conceived, it would flow with this position into pastness. It would, thus, never become separate from this position. No original distance between itself and this position would ever open up; therefore, it would never actually become objective to itself. See, e.g., Ms. C 2 I, pp. 11-12, Aug., 1931; Ms. B I 22, pp. 16-17, Mayor Aug., 1931. Heidegger expresses a similar view when he remarks that "the authentic, metaphysical questioning about the being of the individual being (Sein des Seienden)" arises when we consider the problem of nothingness. When we do, "nothingness (das Nichts) does not remain a vague opposite to the individual being (Seiende), rather it shows itself as pertaining to its being (Sein)" ("Was ist Metaphysik," Wegmarken [Frankfurt am Main, 1967], pp. 16-17). For both philosophers, nothingness seems to be a sign of the ontological difference, i.e., of the fact that being (Sein) is not individual beings (Seienden). Another expression of the relation between the "absolute" and the individual ego occurs in Husserl's lectures on Fichte's Menschenheitsideal. Husserl writes, "we cognizing humans are individual egos into which the absolute ego has split himself ... " (Ms. F I 22, p. 22, Nov. 8-17, 1917). This process results in a plurality of individual egos, but the absolute ego at their origin remains pre-plural. Thus, "this ego cannot be some individual, human ego. Human sub;ects are members of the world. They are, in the idealistic sense, quite mediated formations within sub;ectivity. ... the pure or absolute ego is nothing other than the sub;ectivity in which (according to the ordered play of accomplishing actions) the phenomenal world first comes to be with all its human egos" (ibid., pp. 21-22). The "is" of this last sentence has been marked as inserted by the transcriber. See Aristotle's Physics, II, chap. II, 218b 21; Hume's Treatise, I, Part I, Sect. III, ed. Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1973), pp. 34-35. Thus, it is not an appeal to a level in which disagreements about worldly time-e.g., the Newtonian versus the Einsteinian view of universal simultaneity-can occur. Such disagreements are "higher level" because they presuppose the mathematization of our experience. They also presuppose the existence of Other subjects and their ability to communicate the results of their experiments. For Husserl, of course, this is precisely what is at issue. Given his focus, universal time (universale Zeit) must not, in his texts, be taken on an abstract, theoretical level. It is not to be thought of as the time which is assumed to be coincident with a universal mathematically conceived space, a space which may be empty of subjects. It is rather the common time of a humanity which is in active, ongoing contact with itself. Otherwise put: The focus of Husserl's problematic is the behavior which we directly encounter and attempt to interpret according to the schema: if I were in a similar situation, would I behave in a similar way? For Husserl, all views of worldly time presuppose this schema. Our final chapter will analyze the particulars of this common style. Aquinas expresses this distinction in terms of the observation that I can know

IN~T~E~R~S~U~BT~E~C~T~lV~ITY~A~N~D~T~RA~N~S~CE=N~D~E=N~T=~=L~I=D=EA=L=I=SM=-_______________408

what something is without knowing whether it is. He writes: "1 can know, for example, what is a man or a phoenix and yet not know whether these may exist among the things of nature. It is, thus, clear that existence (esse) is other than essence or whatness" (De Ente et Essentia, chap. 4, ed. Rolland-Gosselin, Kain, 1926, p. 34). If they were the same, then from knowing the what, I could know the whether, i.e., existence would be included among "those things which are the components of the essence" (ibid.). 13 Cf. Aquinas's statement on the essence or nature considered in itself: "It is, thus, clear that, absolutely considered, the nature of man abstracts from every sort of existence (a quolibit esse) ... " (De Ente et Essentia, chap. 3, ed. cit., p. 26). The corresponding statement by Hussed is: " ... the positing and, in the first instance, the intuitive grasp of an essence implies not the slightest positing of any sort of individual existence. Pure truths about essence contain not the slightest assertion about facts . .. " (Ideen I, §4, Biemel ed., p. 17). This position can lead to a serious misinterpretation of Hussed's position. Were we, mistakenly, to equate phenomenology with an examination of essences, we could conclude from this that phenomenology must be silent about questions concerning existence and being. This, however, makes unintelligible Hussed's assertion that "the effort of my phenomenology has always proceeded from the subjective back to the existent (Seienden)" (Adelgundis Jaegerschmid, "Die Letzten Jahre Edmund Husseds-1936-1938," Stimmen der Zeit, 199, Heft 2, Feb. 1981, p. 134. Entry recorded March 16-17, 1938). In abstracting from being, one abstracts from the living present which is the central core of consciousness. In Hussed's words, "One simply abstracts from being (Sein) and brackets the consciousness in which being first becomes alive and remains alive (lebendig wird und lebendig bleibt" (ibid., p. 131, entry recorded on April 8, 1931). For Hussed, this "ontologism" is a "dangerously deceptive doctrine (eine ganz gefahrliche Irrlehre)," one which misrepresents the purpose of his phenomenology (see ibid.). Richard Holmes seems to fall into it when he takes Hussed's "transcendental turn" as a move from the existent to its "existential sense." See "Is Hussed Committed to Idealism?" The Monist, 1IX (1975), pp. 103-105. 14 Once again, there is a parallel with Thomas, at least if we follow Etienne Gilson's interpretation. For Thomas, according to Gilson: "Essences may well represent the balance sheets of so many already fulfilled essential possibilities, but actual existences are their very fulfilling, and this is why essences are actually becoming in time, despite the fact that a time-transcending knowledge eternally sees them as already fullfilled .... Thus, becoming through esse is the road to fully determined being ... " (Being and Some Philosphers, 2nd ed. [Toronto, 1952], pp. 183-84). 15 This sentence continues: " [They are] its modes of understanding or being able to understand itself." The point of this seems to be that the absolute cannot objectively grasp itself without its actually becoming an object-i.e., without its objectifying itself in time through its functioning.

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With this, we have the answer to the question, "Are the worldly events of birth and death transcendental indices for a non-wordly, trans-natural (abernaturliche) monadic mode of being, indices for a passage to a mode of being which, in principle, is inaccessible to the methods of worldly knowing?" (Ms. A V 20, p. 27, Nov. 18, 1934). The "non-worldly ... monadic mode of being" is the being-now which underlies the monad's being in the world. The now's inaccessibility to the methods of objective "worldly knowing" is its objective anonymity. Thus, when Husserl asks, "Is birth ... intuitably conceivable? Is death an event which can be intuitively realizable ... ?", his answer is that they are "per se, precisely in-conceivable ... The 'evidence' is, so to speak, non-intuitibility ... " (Ms. C 17 V, p. 17, 1931). What we confront is the evidence of anonymity. It is the evidence of a passage to the now per se, the now apart from those temporal distances which permit objective appearing and, hence, conceivability. See Fink, "Proposal," ed. cit., pp. 67-71; F. 7580. 17 Reprinted in Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Hwserl, ed. M. Farber (New York, 1968), pp. 324-25. 18 Whether such possibilities include that of the "revivification" of an individuallife is, of course, not answered here. Certainly, after periods of dreamless sleep revivification does occur. On awakening, what has been retained from the past is once again made alive-i.e., made part of our ongoing life-by being added to by the living present. The fact that during such sleep the retained remains and yet is not consciously grasped indicates that retention, per se, is not a conscious act. Consciousness occurs with the revivification of the retained. If we follow this line of thought, we can sketch out the possibility of something akin to a doctrine of personal immortality. The crucial element of this doctrine is given by Aquinas when he writes: " ... once the soul has acquired its individual being by having been made the form of some particular body, that being always remains individuated" (De Ente et Essentia, chap. 5, ed. cit., p. 39). For both Husserl and Aquinas, having a body is having a unique, individuating "here." It is the possession of a worldly place which can never be simultaneously occupied by something else. Phenomenologically, it signifies the uniqueness of the individual's experience in his "here"-i.e., its never being equivalent to the Other's experience in the "there." If, after death, the experience which corresponds to the "here" could be revivified, then, from a phenomenological perspective, a "resurrection of the body" would occur and, with this, we would have a personal immortality. This, of course, is only speculation. In the manuscript A VI 14, written in 1930, Husserl denies the analogy between waking from "periodic sleep" and waking from the "absolute sleep" of death (see p. 45). No reason, however, is given for this denial. If it is not his final position, then we have at least some phenomenological basis for Hussed's personal beliefs, which became increasingly religious and, apparently, included a belief in resurrection. See "Die letzten Jahre ... ," ed. cit., p. 129. 16

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CHAPTER VI: A SECOND SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF INTER SUBJECTIVITY 1 Husserl's notion of "reconstruction" is implicit in this regard to both the ground and the grounded. He writes that the world "is already constructed; its construction becomes actually visible (sichlich) in reconstruction." Here, we view its higher levels in terms of the lower and then view the lower in terms of the higher. In this way, we reconstruct the constitutive processes which must be assumed if the higher levels are to be given. Thus, for Husserl, the task of reconstruction is "to reconstruct the pre-temporal present from the starting point of the accomplished world in which we constantly have the present and in which we ourselves are present in the same way as Others; now, upwardly directed, to reconstruct from this [pre-temporal present] the primordial time of the temporal modalities, to reconstruct primordial experience and the experiential world; from this (an abstraction since such primordiality is unthinkable alone), through the consideration of empathy in its levels of validity, to reconstruct the origin of Others and that of myself as one among many within the objective world ..... (Ms. KIll 4, p. 77, 1936). This procedure, we note, is to be sharply distinguished from that of Kant's regressive method. The latter ends in what is noumenal and, hence, in processes which we cannot make visible to ourselves. For Husserl, however, the "construction" (or constitution) uncovered by reconstruction "becomes actually visible." Here, the viewing of the higher in terms of the lower is meant to serve as a "transcendental clue" in our intuitively examining the nature of each. So understood, Husserl's project is our own. Our last chapter followed him in the reconstruction and examination of "the pre-temporal present." Our present chapter will concern itself with empathy and the reconstruction of the simultaneous presents which self and Others involve. 2 Klaus Held expresses this conclusion as follows: "According to this basic experience of itself [as functioning], the ultimately functioning transcendental ego must leave open the possibility of another, unique 'I function.' The peculiar kind of uniqueness of my 'I function' accordingly excludes solipsism. As inherently factual and anonymus, it points to the possibility of co-presents which are just as factual and anonymus" (Lebendige Gegenwart, ed. cit., p. 163). For Held, the leading idea here is that the anonymity of my present makes my self-experience include a level which is prior to any thought of a singular subject or a corresponding plurality. So regarded, "it [i.e., the ego experienced in its present anonymity] can so little be thought of as an objective unity and, in general, so little be primarily thought of as a unity that, for the most original understanding of the nunc stans, the thought of an inner plurality, at very least, is essentially equivalent to the thought of its unity." This inner plurality is "the pre-temporal, unavoidably anonymous connection between ego and ego" (ibid., p. 169). It is the thought of plurality before it is, via objectification, distinguished from unity-i.e., from the unity of one of the members of the plurality. 3 On this level, Husserl's position approaches that of Hegel. We have two re-

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quirements for the co-present now. First, it must be other than the original, pretemporal now. Second, it must be identical with it. This second requirement focuses on the fact that the co-present now must be present. Its actual givenness is its existence in the constantly present, pretemporal now. The two conditions are satisfied by seeing co-presence as the result of a Hegelian "negation of a negation." At the point of its original welling up, the momentary now is identical with the pretemporal now. Departing into pastness, it is ' not identical. Co-presence arises when, in re-presentation, we negate this negation in a manner which stilI preserves it. As Hegel describes the logical structure of this process: "First, I point out the Now and it is asserted to be the truth. I [then) point it out, however, as something that has been . .. But, thirdly, ... I then supersede, cancel, its having been ... [I) negate thereby the negation of the now and return, thereby, to the first position: that [the) Now is" (Phenomenology of Mind, tr. BailIe [London, 1966), p. 156). This "return is, in fact, a recall of the now to presence. 4 The corollary of this is that the stream of impressional moments, each with its distinct "hyletic" content, is itself constituted. As Hussed observes, the hyletic content "affects" the subject, it "provokes" (Reize abt) it "and motivates the subject to activity"-ie., the activity of objective synthesis. Yet this does not mean that hyletic content is prior to all constitutive activity. Rather, "the 'hyletic' is constituted as what is first 'objective' in the immanent temporal form" (Ms. E III 2, p. 45, 1930s). It is constituted as the content of an impressional moment which appears to stream towards the original present, pass through it, and stream away. So taken, it is "objective" in the sense of being placed in the temporal field which stands over and against the subject's nowness. What we have, here, is a constitution of both acts and content, ie., a temporalization "in which all the acts proceeding from the ego and the affections proceeding towards it passively constitute themselves as immanently temporal" (Ms. C 17 N, p. I, 1930). With this, we also have the constitution of the ego understood as the "middlepoint"-ie., as the active center-of its temporally extended life. We do not, however, have the constitution of the source of temporalization. For Hussed, then, "we must make the distinction: On the one side, we have the temporal stream of consciousness and the transcendental ego of acts which is related to this temporality ... on the other side, we have the primal ground of temporalization, the primal ego ... "(Ms. C 2 I, p. 12, Aug., 1931). As the ground of temporalization, the primal ego is the ground of the hyletic. This means that it is the ground of its "provoking" the central ego since it makes hyletic content appear to approach the ego from the future and enter into its acts which along with such content depart into pastness. Since, however, the source of such temporalization is not in time, we cannot speak of it as having a future or a past. What we can say is that the hyletic, through its temporalization, displays or exhibits (auslegt) what the primal ego pretemporally contains. As such, the hyletic appears as the impressional content of the transcendental ego of acts and, indeed, appears as something "given"-a datum-provoking its acts. 5 Each subject can therefore say, "I bear (trage) in myself all Others as selves

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which are appresented or can be appresented and I bear my [objective] self in the same way" (Ms. C III 3, p. 33). As Husserl elsewhere put this: ..... we have ... monads which are implied in me as an ego, which are implied in my monadic being and which, indeed, are implied in every monadic being. Each is a monad among monads, and each is an ego which of itself inherently implies (von sich aus in sich impliziert) the monadic world; and as such, each is implied in me, implied in the one primal ego" (Ms. A V 20, pp. 13-14, 1934). Expressed in terms of co-presence and appresentation, this becomes the assertion: "As an absolute, streamingly existent, concrete present, I possess the Other's present as a co-present. I possess him as appresentatively manifesting himself as himself within me. But I also possess him as manifesting himself as possessing me in my self-manifestation in him, possessing me in his living present as constituted in the manner of a co-present" (Ms. C III 3, p. 33). The point of this is that in acknowledging the Other as having a living present (the very same present which allows me to function as a "concrete present")' I also acknowledge the complete reciprocity of our relations. Each ego, qua primal ego, i.e., qua the living present, takes up the standpoint from which all Others are appresented as co-presents. 6 As in note 3, we can express Husserl's position in terms of a Hegelian negation of a negation. The assertion that memory and empathy are the same is negated when subjects are individualized. This assertion that memory is not empathy is itself negated when I assert that the object of my empathy-the Other himself-is the object of the Other's self-remembering. As before, we have what Hegel calls a determinate negation-i.e., a negation which overcomes yet preserves what it negates. Thus, the last assertion does not imply that empathy and memory are the same in the sense that the object of my empathy is the object of my self-remembering. This would imply that self and Others are not distinct-the levels of our first assertion. The last assertion presupposes their distinction as preserved yet overcome by a self-transcending act of empathy. 7 This double appresentation corresponds to Hussed's double pairing, which we described on pp. 32ff. The first pairing links my bodily presence in the "here" and the "there." The second links its appresented presence in the "there" with the Other who is considered as actually occupying the appresented standpoint. As our text shows, this second pairing is also accomplished by an appresentation. 8 Thus, Hussed follows the sentence we quoted with the question: "But what kind of potentiality (Potentialitat) is this?" Strictly speaking, "the totality of human possibilities" is not a potentiality since it is not directed to a specific actualization.

CHAPTER VII:

TEMPORALITY AND TELEOLOGY

1 If we accept this, then we have to say with Husserl, "Human being is a teleological being and an ought-to-be (Sein-sollen), and this teleology prevails

NOTES

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3

4

5

6

7

S

413

in each and every egological action and purpose ... " (Ms. KIll 6, p. 253, Aug. 5-8, 1936). We are referring to Husserl's copy of Karl Kerlsbach's 2nd ed. of the Critique [Leibzig, 1878], which is listed under the Husserl Archieve library signature, BQ 217. See pp. 50-55, 58-63, 114-123, 146-47 of this copy. As Husserl writes: "We can temporally divide, in a certain manner separate into pieces, a concretely filled duration. This, however, does not mean that these pieces of time can be considered as concrete individuals or that they can be filled durations of independent, concrete individuals" (Ms. E III 2, pp. 2-3, 1921). In other words, since past moments imply those that follow them, there are no independent retentions of such moments along the vertical. If our present retentions were concrete individuals (see note 3), they could never !be brought into a real coincidence. Our viewing them together would be the viewing of a collection. Our present retentions, however, are not individuals, but rather constituents of appearing individuals. As such, their nonindependence points to their pre-individuality. Thus, for Husserl, "If I direct myself to a tone, I am attentively settling into [my retention's] 'vertical intentionality.'" He immediately adds/The enduring tone is present, constantly extended in its enduring, when I continuously experience a unity embracing the primary sensation-i.e., the sensation of the present tonal now-land] the primary memories of the series of expired tone points ... " (HA X, 82). This unity is caused by the merging of the tonal contents whioh is, itself, caused by the merging ofthe retentions bearing these contents. The ultimate factor, here, is simply that of the temporal dependence of the moments that are retained. This is the first cause of the merging. Only that which is constituted through their diagonal intentionality is in extended time. The constituted depart into pastness, the constituting phenomena do not per se depart. See Ms. C 3 III, p. 39, March, 1931. This means that the moment which is posited as objectively "now" is not the nunc stans. To reverse this, we can say that to posit the nunc stans as an objective moment in time is always to lose it. Its objective positing loses it because it assumes its temporal transcendence, and such transcendence is the departure of the posited into the "over againstness" of past time. Thus, insofar as it is its limit, the objectively posited now is part of the continuum of past· time. The nunc stans, however, constantly transcends this continuum insofar as it remains pre-objectively now. This is the case for the ftfrq or forms as conceived by both Plato and Aristotle. For Plato, the forms present "a kind of being which is always the same. uncreated and indestructible" (Timaeus. 52a). They possess "the very actuality of to be·!.... 6uuia &uTil TOU f[vaL (Phaedo. 78d). For Aristotle. the actuality of the forms is characterized as 6uuia €VEQ'YHa-a "being at work" that acts to determine empirical reality by informing its matter. Aristotle, of course, does equate the formal and final causes of processes, thus making the form into a goal. As causative, however, such goals are already achieved. An actual tree actually manifests the form which was the goal of its development. It is as an already achieved goal-i.e, as a full grown tree-that it acts as a formal and

INTERSUBTECTIVI1Y AND TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

414

final cause of a process-the process which, through its seeds, will bring about another tree bearing its form. For Husserl, however, the goal of a teleological process does not have to be actually given to be effective. See Ms. F I 14, p. 45, June, 1911. To take an example from ordinary life, let us say that a person wants to become a marathon runner. He is not yet a marathon runner. This goal is a not-yet, i.e., a moment in his future. Yet, if it is seriously held, it determines his present. It causes the person to train. In determining his actual process of training, it progressively realizes itself in the form of actual marathon runner. As indicated, by our last footnote, this determination does not depend upon there ever having been a marathon runner before this person set this as his goal. In this vein, Husserl writes, "Phenomenologically considered, only the [present] now point is characterized as an actual now, i.e., as a new now ... " (HA X, Boehm ed., p. 65). The ultimate basis of this position is that time is responsible for all egological intentionalities insofar as it is what first brings about "the new awakening (Erwachen) of egos as genuine egos, as centers of acts in relation to a surrounding world ... " (Ms. E III 5, Sept. 1933, HA XV, Kern ed., p. 595). Aristotle's remarks about the indefinability of individual things pertain to this "worldly" sense. He writes: "But when we come to the concrete thing, e.g., this circle, i.e., one of the individual circles, ... of these there is no definition, but they are known only by the aid of intuitive thinking or of perception" (Meta., VII, ch. 10, 1036',2-6, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. R. McKeon [New York, 1941t p. 807; see also Meta., 1039', 15-20). Perception with its intuitive thinking grasps, we can say, the internal horizons of a thing. The worldly sense of a thing, however, corresponds to its external horizons. The latter, in linking it to other similar objects give us the "universal" terms from which we can compose its definition. Such a reinterpretation at once gives the logical law a field of applicability in the posited, objective world. This teleological relation is also put by Husserl in the following set of rhetorical questions: "Can reason begin or end in constituted existence? Can the constitutive process which it has ultimately, spontaneously set in motion be in vain? ... Can it be otherwise than that 'reason is super-temporally and alltemporally at work, presupposed as a disposition or plan (Anlage) [and] as its actualization, presupposed as the coming to be of real rationality ... ?" (Ms. E III 4, p. 3~). Here, reason is "at work" in the same super-temporal, all-temporal sense that time-constitution itself is. The latter is what is inherently synthetic and, hence, rational. Cf. Heidegger's remarks in "Vom Wesen des Grundes/' Wegmarken (Frankfurt am Main, 196 pp. 68-69. Commenting on the principle, "reason is why this exists rather than another, " he asserts, "Freedom is the origin of the principle of reason." For Heidegger, however, there is no definite telos of reason. Thus, for Husserl, first we have "the absolute in its temporal modalities tem-

n

NOTES

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18

19

20

415

poralizing itself in the absolute streaming ...." Then, "within this," we have "the levels of the absolute: the absolute as the absolute, 'human' totality of monads, the absolute as reason and [as existing) in the temporalization of reason, [then) the development of the rational monadic totality, history in a meaningful sense" (Ms. C I, Sept. 21-22, 1934, HA XV, p. 6691. All of this, for Husserl, is part of the absolute's progressive temporal manifestation. "Das Gottesprobleme in der Spatphilosophie Edmund Husserls," Philosophiches Jahrbuch der Gores-Gesellschaft, vol. 67, 1959, p. 131. The intensity of Husserl's theological interests in the 1930s is attested to by the conversations recorded by Adelgundis Jaegerschrnid. She reports that while Husserl claims that phenomenology "ultimately leads to God, the absolute," he also asserts, "I am attempting ... to reach God without God" (Gesprache mit Edmund Husserl 1931-36," Stimmen der Zeit, 199, Heft I, Jan. 1981, p. 49, p. 56, remarks recorded on April 28, 1931 and Dec. 19351. The "without God" refers to the practice of the phenomenological epoch!! on the received tradition. It involves the withholding of judgment on the assertion of the Bible and on the "proofs, methods and positions" employed by confessional theology. See also Jaegerschmid, "Die letzten Jahre Edmund Husserls (1936-19381," Stimmen der Zeit, 199, Heft 2, Feb. 1981, for a continuation of her account. Whether this is the only way God understands himself is not at issue here. Husserl's point concerns the fact that God cannot grasp himself as actually ob;ective without being so-i.e., without objectifying himself in time through his functioning. The correlate of this progressive manifestation of God in the "formations of consciousness" is humanity's own progressive development. In Husserl's words: "There corresponds to this a continuous, graded process of advancement in the development of humanity, i.e., of human beings in their development towards the ideal" (Ms. F I 22, p. 381. As Husserl also puts this: "To write the history of this ego [i.e., God), of this absolute intelligence is, therefore, to write the history of the necessary teleology in which the world as a phenomenal world comes to advancing creation, to its creation within this intelligence" (ibid., p. 221. Because this manifestation of God is our own development, indeed, because we are "egos into which the absolute ego has split himself, we can, through an intuitive absorption (schauende Vertiefungl into what pertains to the pure essence of the ego, of subjectivity, reconstruct the necessary sequence of the teleological process in which the whole world and ultimately we ourselves ... have been formed ... " (ibid.1 For Husserl in the 1930s, such "reconstruction" involves proceeding from the "pre-temporal present" to the "primordial time of the temporal modalities," and from thence to "primordial experience and the experiential world," ending with the attempt "to reconstruct the origin of Others and that of myself as one among many with the objective world" (see note I, Chap. VII. The "intuitive absorption into what pertains to the pure essence of the ego" is taken as an investigation of its pretemporal present. In the language of the appendix, this means that such development is similar

[NTERSUBJECTIVlTY AND TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

21

22

23

24

416

to that of the other "rigorous sciences" which begin with fruitful, if unclarified insights and whose "whole development is determined as if from a guiding star" (Ms. F I 22, p. 61). For Husserl, Fichte's main insight is "to conceive the world as a teleological product of the absolute ego ... " (ibid., p. 23). We should, however, note that certain features of this view are present in the earlier manuscript F I 14. Thus, this manuscript also conceives of God as a telos of human development and as pluralizing himself in subjects-though it expresses these positions more tentatively. "The total absolute is, in advance (im voraust always what it is; and it already exists in advance, existing in this manner on all levels, identical simply as what ought to be in this tendentiousness [of monadic development]" (Ms. C 17 V, p. 30,1931). This presence involves the absolute's self-understanding. Referring to "the single, 'absolute substance/" Husserl claims, "All essential necessities [e.g., those of the "formations of consciousness"] are moments of his fact, modes of his functioning in relation to himself-his modes of understanding or being able to understand himself" (Ms. E III 9, Nov. 5, 1931; HA XV, p. 386): Thus, as Strasser points out, Husserl distinguishes his conception of God from that of the Aristotelean metaphysics. For the latter, God is the "maker"-i.e., the totality of all the informing forms. Thus, it conceives of God "according to the schema of the full grown tree being the final limit of development" (Ms. E III 10, p. 18). For Husserl, however, God is never practically realizable. See Strasser, op. cit., p. 142. On this level, Hussed's position parallels that of Aquinas. Commenting on the statement, "Socrates in the market-place is other than himself at home/' Aquinas writes that the assertion follows because Socrates varies "according to his existence (esse), i.e., according the principle that accepts the prior and the posterior" (In I Sent. d. 19, q. 2, a. 2, Solutio; ed. P. Mandonnet, [Paris, 1929L 1,470). This means that the otherness of his esse is the otherness of the now in which he finds himself. The fact that this now is constantly departing into pastness and, thus, requires constant replacement distinguishes his esse from that of God. The latter's now is an "eternal now." His now does not depart, which means that" ... the devine being is per se stationary (stans) ... " (ibid., d. II, q. I, a. I, Solut., ed. cit., I, 63). In distinction to finite beings, God, Aquinas asserts, has none of his nowness or existence outside of himself. Speaking of the "perfection of the divine existence (essel/' he writes: "That of which there is nothing outside of itself is perfect"-i.e., complete. "But our existence has something outside of itself, for it lacks that which presently precedes it and what is future. But in the divine existence there is nothing past or future. Hence his total existence is perfect; and because of this, existence more properly pertains to him than others" (ibid., d. 8, q. I, a. 1 Solut., ed. cit., I, 195). The contingency of a finite being, follows once we admit that esse can be understood "either simply or relatively; simply according to the present time, relatively according to the times that are other than the present" (In I Perihermeneias, lect. 5, no. 22). Thus, our existence outside of the present-our existence "according to a past or future time"-is only existence in a relative

NOTES

25 26

27

28

29

417

sense (ibid.,lect. 3, no. 13). Our esse simpliciter or actual existence is existence in the present. Since our present does depart into pastness, making us "outside" of ourselves, this esse or existence is contingent on our present being renewed. This renewal, we may note, is not something predetermined by our essence. For Aquinas, our essence, as other than our existence, is other than our present nowness. Thus, presence or existence in a given time is an accidental, as opposed to an essential, predicate of a finite entity: "Moreover, existence in this or that time is an accidental predicate" (in X Metaph., lect. 3, no. 1982). How far Hussed was aware of this parallel is not known. He is, however, reported as saying: "In spite of everything, I once believed-today, it is more than belief, today it is the knowledge-that precisely my phenomenology, and only this, is the philosophy which the church can use-this, because it goes together with Thomisim and extends Thomisic philosophy" ("Gesprache," ... ed. cit., p. 55, entry recorded on Sept. 4, 1935). This claim of an advance may refer to Hussed's belief that he has provided a phenomenological justification for Aquinas's metaphysical position. The analogy, here, is with calculus. When x= I, (x2 -1 )/(x-l) is not defined; yet we can conceive of a definite limit of this function as x approaches 1. These examples are, of course, Kantian. It is as a positive ideal, rather than as a negative prohibition, that tolerance defines a morality that is different from the Kantian. Its positive position is, perhaps, closest to the humanism (humanitas) of the ancient wodd as exemplified by the statement: "I am human, I deem nothing human foreign to me." Such humanism, it must be stressed, is not to be interpreted in the manner of Heidegger's "Brief fiber den 'Humanism us.' " It is not something that demands that we already have a fixed idea of what human being is. Intolerance also includes racism. Its attitude is exemplified in the following snatch of dialogue from Huckleberry Finn. "Huck: It warn't the groundingthat didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder head. Aunt Sally: Good gracious! anybody hurt? Huck: No'm. Killed a nigger. Aunt Sally: Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt." (Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, chap. 32; Signet Classics, CQ 953 [New York, 1977], p. 216). For Hussed, the "problematic ... of the irrationality of the transcendental fact which expresses itself in the constitution of the factual world and factual mental life" is "metaphysics in a new sense" (EP I, 1923-24, ed. R. Boehm, HA VII, [Haag, 1956], p. 188, note). Since radical evil is part of such irrationality, involving as it does a regress of reason, the question of its ground can be called "metaphysical" in this new sense. What is new about this metaphysics is its confrontation with irrationality, i.e., with the possibility of humanity's factual collapse. Theologically speaking, this transcendence of the absolute is God's transcendence. Hence, the very possibility of radical evil is an argument against DupH!'S position that Hussed envisages "a God who is identical with transcendental subjectivity" (see above, p. 373). If this were the case, then radical evil would not result in what we called "the withdrawal of God." This leads us to

INTERSUBTECTIVITY AND TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

418

note the theodicy implicit in Hussed's position. The question of how God could permit evil to exist is, here, reduced to that of how he could permit the existence of finitude. In other words, as long as we accept the necessity of the distinction between God and creatures, we have to accept the possibility of evil. 30 There is a certain analogy between this state and Heidegger's notion of "insistence." The latter involves a "forgetting of the totality of being" (des Seiendem in Canzen) and an insistence that the part which we already know is this totality. (See "Vom Wesen der Wahrheit," Wegmarken [Frankfurt am Main, 1967], p. 91). A much darker, psychologocial description of the empty repetition we are pointing to is given by Shakespeare in Macbeth's speech: "Tomorrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time ... " (Macbeth, Act V, scene v., 18-20). Macbeth has, through intolerance, emptied out his horizons.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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IN-,-,T:...:E=-R=-=-SU::cB=.!.'=-EC::cTI=-=-,-,VI:.::TY~A=-N=D_T=-=RA.::..=N=S-=-CE=N--",D=-=E=-NT,-=:A=L-"lD=-=E=A=L=IS=M=--- _ _ _ _ _ _ _420

tesiennes.''' Ed. Dr. Holl and Dr. Ebeling. Freiburg, unpublished, 1932. ___. "Die phanomenologische Philo sophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwartigen Kritik," Stucnen zur Phanomenologie 1930-1939. Phaenomenologica, No. 21. The Hague (1966), 79-178. ___. "Die Spatphilosophie Husserls in der Freiburger Zeit," Edmund Husserl. 1859-1959, Recueil commemoratif. Phaenomenologia, No.4. The Hague (1959),99-115. ___. "Discussion-Comments by Eugen Fink of Alfred Schutz's Essay, The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl,''' in Schutz's Collected Papers III. Ed. I. Schutz. Phaenomenologica, No. 22. The Hague (1966),84-91. Gilson, Etienne. Being and Some Philosophers. 2nd ed. Toronto, 1952. Hegel, G.W.F. The Phenomenology of Mind. Trans. J.B. Baillie. London, 1966. Heidegger, Martin. "Was ist die Metaphysik?" Wegmarken. Frankfurt am Main (1967), 1-19. ___. "Vom Wessen des Grundes," Wegmarken. Frankfurt am Main (1967),21-71. _ _ . "Brief liber den Humanismus," Wegmarken. Frankfurt am Main (1967), 145-194. ___. Yom Wessen der Wahrheit," Wegmarken. Frankfurt am Main (1967), 73-97. Held, Klaus. Lebendige Gegenwart. Phaenomenologica, No. 23. The Hague, 1966. Holmes, Richard. "Is Husserl Committed to Idealism?" The Monist, LIX (1975), 94-114. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford, 1973. Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations. Trans. Dorion Cairns. The Hague, 1960. ___ . Cartesianische Meditationen. Ed. S. Strasser. 2nd ed. Husserliana I. The Hague, 1963. _ _. Die Idee der Phanomenologie. Ed. Walter Biemel. 2nd ed. Husserliana II. The Hague, 1973. ___ . Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phanomenologie. . Ed. Walter Biemel. 2nd ed. Husserliana VI. The Hague, 1962. _ _ . Erste Philosophie (1923/24), Erster Teil, Kritische Ideengeschichte. Ed. Rudolf Boehm. Husserliana VII. The Hague, 1956. _ _. Erste Philosophie (1923/24), Zweiter Teil, Theorie der phanomenologischen Reduktion. Ed. Rudolf Boehm. Husserliana VIII. The Hague, 1959.

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_ _ . Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie, Erstes Buch. Ed. Walter Biemel. Husserliana III. The Hague, 1950. _ _. Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie, Zweites Buch. Ed. Marly Biemel. Husserliana IV. The Hague, 1952. _ _. Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie, Drittes Buch. Ed. Walter Biemel. Husserliana V. The Hague, 1971. _ _ . Logische Untersuchungen. 1st ed. 2 vols. Halle A. S., 1900-1901. _ _. Logische Untersuchungen. 5th ed. 3 vols. Tubingen, 1968. _ _ . "Nachwort," in Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie, Drittes Buch. Ed. Walter Biemel. Husserliana V. The Hague, 1971. _ _. Phanomenologische Psychologie. Ed. Walter Biemel. Husserliana IX. The Hague, 1968. _ _ . Zur Phanomenologie der Intersubiekivitat. Zweiter Teil: 1921-1928. Ed. Iso Kern. Husserliana XIV. The Hague, 1973. _ _ . Zur Phanomenologie der Intersubiektivitat. Dritter Teil: 1929-1935. Ed. Iso Kern. Husserliana XV. The Hague, 1973. _ _ . Zur Phanomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1893-1917). Ed. R. Boehm. Husserliana X. The Hague, 1966. Ingarten, Roman. On the Motives which led Husserl to Transcendental Idealism. Trans. A. Hannibalson. Phanomemologica, No. 64. The Hague, 1975. Jaegerschmid, Adelgundis. "Die Letzten Jahre Edmund Husserls (19361938)," Stimmen der Zeit, 199, Heft 2 (Feb., 1981), 129-138. _ _ . "Gesprache mit Edmund Husserl 1931-1936," Stimmen der Zeit, 199, Heft 1 (Jan., 1981),48-58. Kant, Immanuel. "Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1. Aufl.)," Kant's [sic] gesammelte Schriften. Ed. Konigliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 23 vols. Berlin (1910-1955), IV, 1-252. _ _. "Kritik der reinen Vernunft (2. Aufl.)," Kant's [sic] gesammelte Schriften. Ed. Konigliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 23 vols. Berlin (1910-1955), III, 1-594. _ _ . Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 2nd ed. Ed. Karl Kerlsbach. Leibzig, 1878. (Husserl's personal copy, Husserl Archieves, Louvain: BQ 217). _ _ . "Prologomena," Kant's gesammelte Schriften. Ed. Konigliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 23 vols. Berlin (1910-1955), IV, 253-383. Kern, Iso. Husserl und Kant. Phaenomenologica, No. 16. The Hague, 1964.

INTE-,=:::..:RS:::.;U::.:B~TE::.:CT::..::..:.M..:...:..=.TY..:.....:..:AN=-=D---,T:...:RAN-==-:..::S.=CE=N-,-,D=-=E=-NT-=-::.:.:'AL=-=ID=-=EAL=:::::IS.:..:.MO--_

---'422

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Landgrabe, Ludwig. "Die Bedeutung der phanomenologischen Methode fur die Neubegrundung der Metaphysik," Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Philosophy. Eds. E.W. Beth, H.J. Pos, and J.H.A. Hollak. Amsterdam (1949), 1219-1221. Laurer, Quentin. Phenomenology, its Genesis and Prospect. New York, 1965. Marbach, Edward. Das Problem des Ich in der Phllnomenologie Husserls. Phaenomenologica, No. 59. The Hague, 1974. Mensch, James. The Question of Being in Husserl's Logical Investigations. Phaenomenologica, No. 81. The Hague, 1981. Olafson, Frederick. "Husserl's Theory of Intentionality in Contemporary Perspective," Nous, 9 (1975), 73-83. Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl. Ed. M. Farber. New York. 1968. Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. Princeton, 1982. Ricoeur, Paul. Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology. Trans. Edward Ballard and Lester Embree. Evanston, 1967. Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. H. Barnes. New York, 1968. Schutz, Alfred. "Sartre's theory of the Alter Ego," Collected Papers 1. Ed. Natanson, Phaenomenologica, No. 11. The Hague (1973), 180-203. ___. "The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl," Collected Papers III. Ed. I. Schutz. Phaenomenologica, No. 22. The Hague (1966), 84-91. Seebohm, Thomas. "The Founding of Dilthey's Hermeneutic in Husserls' Transcendental Phenomenology," Proceedings, 16th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, Toronto, 1984. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. London, 1954. Sokolowski, Robert. Husserlian Meditations. Evanston, 1974. Strasser, Stephen. "Das Gottesprobleme in der Spatphilosophie Edmund Husserls," Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Gorres-Gesellschaft, vol. 67 (1959), 130-142. Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn. New York, 1977.

NAME INDEX

Aquinas, Thomas, 407-408, 409, 416417 Aristotle, 65, 330, 390-391, 407, 413, 414,416 Bernet, Rudolf, 394 Brough, John, 51-55,401 Carr, David, 24, 34, 188, 396, 399, 402 Celms, Theodor, II, 12,39,42, 131 De Boer, Theodor, 10,41,44-45,61, 224,400 Dupre, Louis, 373-4, 417

Holmes, Richard, 400-401, 408 Hume, David, 407 Ingarten, Roman, 2 Jaegerschmid, Adelgundis, 408, 415 Kant, Immanuel, 15,40,52,60-61,63, 77,94, 106-126, 164, 180,226,232233,315-319,324,327-328,336, 404, 410, 417 Kern, Iso, lOS, 124-125, 199,395,403 Kirkhoven, Guy, 402 Kohak, Erazim, 51 Landgrabe, Ludwig, 405 Lauer, Quentin, 399

Fichte, J.G., 19,58, 115, 133,370,383, 407 Fink, Eugen, I, 16,20,41, 56-57, 132, 148,39~ 396,399,400,405

Marbach, Edward, 100,403,404 Mensch, James, 395

Gilson, Etienne, 408

Olafson, Frederick, 395

Hegel, G.W.F., 410-411, 412 Heidegger, Martin, ISS, 156,407,414, 417,418 Held, Klaus, 100, 403, 406, 410

Plato, 413 Ricoeur, Paul, 61, 87, 88, 149, lSI, 399-400

424

NAME INDEX

Sartre, Jean Paul, 4, 21, 35, 177, 178 Schutz, Alfred, 35, 39, 47, 177, 399-400 Seebohm, Thomas, 183 Shakespeare, William, 418

Sokolowski, Robert, 395, 396 Strasser, Stephen, 368, 373-374, 416 Twain, Mark, 417

SUBJECT INDEX

absolute-as absolute fact, 118, 137138, 144 as the primordial present, 208-209, 242-243, 254-256 concealing itself in individuals, 151, 152-164 concealment of, 162, 166, 166-175 necessity of, 138, 143-144, 254-256 persisting through the lives of individual subjects, 152-153, 242243 pluralization of, 168, 175, 192-196, 410 surpassing quality of, 165, 166, 173, 189-190, 192-196,263-264,374, 379 absolute consciousness-an alphabet of experiences, 148, 174, 204-205, 256,344 can only ground contingent entities, 135, 139, 256 defined, 205 field of separately regarded experiences, 130-131, 136-139, 147 horizon of all horizons, 139-144 not an experiencing subjectivity, 149

pluralization, 149-151,405 possibility of all possibilities, 139, 140, 173, 256 pre-individual, 136, 187 time and content as aspects of, 207,256,276,344 ultimate ground, 131, 133, 138, 256 uniquely singular, 137, 143, 148, 150 absolute ego, 272, 281, 369, 407, 408, 416 absolute logos, 367 absolute temporalization, results of, 248,414-415 affection and action, 42, 411 analogizing apperception, 30, 160-161 analogizing transfer of sense, 30, 31, 38,48,244 anonymity-of ego, 220-222, 229-230, 232, 235-236, 378-379, 406-407, 410 of nunc stans, 235, 237-238 appresentation, 29, 33, 291, 194-295 being-as being given, 3, 13, 14, 50, 74-75, 175 as constituted sense, 44-46, 50 irreal, 10-11, 13

SUB[ECT INDEX

being (continued) presumptiveness of, 3, 102, 123124, 134-135, 252-253 birth, 157-158,409 categorial thought, 402 causality, 9-10, 11, 13, 154 cogito-action of, 228 as temporal appearance of functioning ego, 228-229, 234 non-intentional elements of, 90 coincidence (community) of self and others, 19, 20, 241, 267 compossibility of subjects, 195, 197 constitution-as creation, 39-43, 4546, 56-58, 94, 178-179, 399-401 as grounding, 19, 133-134,213,397 as specification of ego's anonymity, 232-233, 235-236 as synthesis, 25-26, 52-55 levels of, 27-28 of duration, 319-322 of ego's appearance as active, 98, 230-231 of flux of consciousness, 324 reverse of reduction, 14,40, 134 transcendental subjectivity insufficient for, 105, 199 contingency-as a premise for forming transcendent intentions, 200-210 of world, 78-79, 102, 123-124, 135, 173, 252-253 implied in distinction between essence and existence, 252-257 implied in distinction between ground and grounded, 135, 190 implies other subjects, 191, 192194, 198 implies the surpassing quality of the absolute, 192-193, 194 of monad, 257-261 of transcendental totality of subjects, 171-173 death, 153, 157-158,258-260,409

426

dependence-of experience, 225-226, 332, 335-336, 350-351 of moment, 316-320, 322, 332-335, 351 of retentions, 316, 343 diagonal intentionality, 316, 318, 322, 323 duality of soul's essence, 191-192, 211-212,215,239,262-264,266, 281,301,303,348,371 ego-as actor of the nunc stans, 220, 221, 233 as Kantian idea, 78-79, 80-81, WOW I, 403-404 as point of temporal passage, 98, 238 as transcendency in motion, 239 death of, 153, 157-158,258-260 depends on surrounding world, 8485,93,95, 134, 152 eidos of, 196-198 noumenal, 107-108, 110,115,232233 of the LU, 87-89 self shaping, 276-277, 304 self surpassing, 192-196,212 uniqueness determined by content, 274-275 See also pure ego. ego of habitualities-correlated to constituted world, 77-79 dissolution of, 79-80 presumptiveness, 79 progressively constituted, 76-77 unity of, 75, 77 egological action-temporal basis for, 218 eidetic phenomenology, 408 empathy-as re-presentation, 270-273, 287-288, 289, 293 primal,243-244 and freedom, 300, 303-304, 305306,368 epistemology-presuppositionless, 7 priority of, 5-6, 8

SUBlECT INDEX

essence, 71, 251, 253, 408 existence as distinct from essence, 250-252,407-408,417 existent defined, 214, 251

427

external, 140, 141,352,414 internal, 140,350-351,414 presupposes dependence, 350-351 world, 142-143, 164-165, 169-171, 173 facticity-of consciousness, 118, 124 horizonality-and reason, 361-362 premise for constitution, 133-134 basis in time, 354 premise for the reduction, 128, 131human being-fullness of, 380-381 132, 133 humanism, 417 premise for the reversal of our Husserl's parallel with Aquinas, 416Seinsrede, 132-133 417 temporal root of, 261, 376 hyle, 400, 411 transcendental clue, 126-127 finitude-as requiring idealism-defined, 2, 58 intersubjectivity, 157-161, 168, resulting from reduction, 13-14 381,387 Husserl's vs. Kant's, 124-125 of human being, 154, 155-156, 157, identity synthesis, 25-26, 63-64 158, 173,386-388 intentionality, 53-54, 82, 88-90 free variation, 122, 197, 250, 251 based on temporal dependence, 316 freedom-and empathy, 300, 303-304, based on a unity of interpretative 305-306, 388 intentions, 53-54, 401 and primal presence, 303, 388 diagonal, 316, 318, 322, 323 and reason, 365-366, 390, 414 ideal and real contents of, 53-54, and teleology, 304-305 398 and the analogyzing transfer of inseperability of diagonal and sense, 306 vertical, 324 and the duality of the soul's results from constitution, 25-26 essence, 301-302, 389 temporal constitution of, 316, 322, 324 God-as self pluralizing absolute ego, universal driving, 340-342 369 vertical, 318, 322, 323, 338-339, as super worldly, super human pole, 413 371 intersubjective harmony, 180-181, as telos of monadic being and 189,201-202 development, 368, 384, 416 intersubjective suicide, 379-389 both immanent and transcendent, intolerance, 380, 385-386, 417 373-374 goal of phenomenology, 415 his freedom becomes our own, 370, judgments of experience and perception, 63-64 372-373 not identical to subjects, 374, 417Kant's vs. Husserl's-approach to the 418 problem of intersubjectivity, progressively manifesting himself 125-127 in humanity, 415 conception of the anonymity of the horizon-exhibits underlying unity, ego, 232-233 351,361 conception of idealism, 124-125

428

SUBJECT INDEX

Kant's vs. Husserl's (continued) conception of the pure ego, 106-111, 117-119 conception of the transcendental deduction, 117-119 knowing, prior to being, 2, 3, 43-44 living present-as absolute actuality, 216-217, 229 as being in act, 217, 252 as pre-individual, 240 fact of, 249-250, 257-258, 260, 261, 297 not stream of consciousness, 216, 227, 277, 411 logic-applicability to reality, 68, 72, 121,362,402-403,414 formal and material, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72 transcendental, 121, 253 memory and empathy-as determinate negation, 412 as modes of re-presentation, 270271 lack original presence, 267-271 motion, grasp of, 311 motivated path, 9, 11

requires the whole of time for its exhibition, 344 objectifying act, 53-54, 89 ontological difference, 238, 381-382, 386-387,389, 391, 405-406, 407 ontology-transcendental interpretation of, 69-71 others-as bearers-validators of the world, 162, 169-173, 174-175 as correlates of my "I can," 159161,168,298 as implicit in me, 162, 166, 174-175,188-189,192,201,292, 412 as involving alternative possibilities, 288-289, 291, 293, 296-298 as self appresentations of the absolute subject, 279-280 as unity of appearance, 4

pairing, 29-30, 47-48 of the here and there, 32-33, 35, 161 passive synthesis, 93, 102-103, 104105, 149, 187,301-302,322-324, 411 petitio principii, 12,36-39,49,68, 177,396 natural attitude, 56, 57, 128, 141, phenomenology of reason, 67, 397, 142-143, 156 402 negation of a negation, 410, 412 primal ego, 1, 242, 394, 396, 397, noematic X, 62-63, 64-65, 68 411, 412 non-ego, 97, 104, 227 primal life, 1, 394, 405 primal present, not a modality of nothingness responsible for the time, 214 ontological difference, 238, 407 nouminal thing in itself, 61 problem of intersubjectivity, nowness of functioning subject, 217transformation, 380, 392-3 pure ego-as O-point, 95-97, 102, 166, 218 nunc stans-as anonymous, 236-413 229-230 as independent, 237, 255 availability of, 99-10 1 as parousia, 238 constitution of, 84, 86, 97-99, 103, as the whole of time, 215, 237 230-231 not a modality of time, 255 dissolution of, 96-97, 99, 102, 105, represents being in its Parmenidean 120 character, 345 does not synthesize, 87,92

SUBJECT INDEX

429

makes present "as if", 287-288 individualized by the stream, 84, 92 retentional consciousness-infinite, non-perspectival, 49 314,348-349 non-temporal, 83,220,227 not creative, 93, 178 presumptiveness of, 102-105 second epoche, 398 purity from experiences, 87, 92 Seinsrede, reversal of, 57, 127, 132, subject of the cogito, 82-83 135, 143, 178-179 self-identity-of the functioning ego, radical evil, 385, 387-388, 417 266 rationality-contingency of, 120-121, of the persisting ego, 265-266 375-378 of the pure vs. personal ego, 81-82 self-responsibility, 392-393 of posited world, 68-69 sense-as involving presence, 400 real ego, 75-76, 85 reason-and freedom, 365-367, 390, equivalent to meaning, 398 ideal character of, 27, 398 414 its unity equals real unity, 44-45, and positing, 67, 361-362, 374-375, 65,67-68,219,220,351 412 simultaneity, 273-274 beyond being, 364, 366-367, 378, solipsism, 16-18 412 species and instance, 71 contingency of, 120-121 level of being, 364, 367 substance-temporal basis for, recognition of others-implicit 225-226 reduction, 21-22 teleolgical process defined, 304-305, through behavior, 31-32, 37, 183184, 185 330,337,414 teleology-and facticity, 374-377 reconstruction, 410 determining the actualization of reduction-and assertions about being, 307-308 being, 7-8, 13,408 as a transfer of unique singularity, temporal reduction-abstraction of time from content, 202, 205-206 147, 167 as transforming ontology, 70-71 limitation to living present, 213-215 cannot be described in natural reduction to pre-being, 214-217 attitude, 145-146 to original present, 406 premise of behavioral evidence for recognition, 183-184 to the welling up of time, 218 temporal synthesis, Kantian reverse of constitution, 14 thought experiment of, 129-131 conditions for, 315-322 to ground of senses and selves, 186- temporalization-defined, 214 infinite regresses, 219 187 invariability of, 225 to the pre-egologicallevel, 185-186, of the ego, 227-229, 234 214 of the temporalizations of monads, two senses of, 10-14, 39 See also temporal reduction 209, 242, 246-247, 248-249 pre-temporal, pre-becoming, 217 re-presentation-contingency of, 283thing-Kantian idea of, 74-75, 142, 285,288 depends on presencing, 275, 286 155

SUBTECT INDEX

thing (continued) as empty X, 52, 62-63, 66, 72, 73, 78 presumptiveness of, 72-75 time-constituted through the letting loose of retentions, 328-329 continuous, 257, 209 duration, 311 expiration or "sinking down" of, 310-311,312-313,315-317 horizonality of, 350 independent of particular content, 206-207 infinity of, 225-226, 334 non-transitory as a whole, 336, 338 originates in timeless consciousness, 213, 327-328 passive constitution of, 325-330 time as a whole-included in the nunc stans, 342-344 pre-objective, 342 time diagram-objective reading, 310325 subjective reading, 325-330 tolerance, 380, 383-384, 417 transcendence-in immanence, 33-34 intersubjective sense of, 33-34, 188, 399 temporal basis for, 222-224

430

transcendental ego, 36 unique singularity-of consiousness, 59, 137, 147 of nunc stans, 237 of time, 336-337, 355 of ultimately constituting ego, 210211, 238-239 of world, 142-143,355 validity, universal and objective, 1516, 157,395-396 value, 391-393 vertical intentionality, 318, 322, 323, 413 as productive, 338-339 world-horizon, 142-143, 164-165, 169-171, 173, 358 ideal unity of, 352-353, 355 logos of, 363 of shared meanings, 26, 50, 185 self-objectification of the nunc stans, 356 teleological causality of, 357-359 teleological product of the absolute ego, 416 variability of, 123, 404-405