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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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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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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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.

IN~TE-=R~S~U=B=~=C~T~lW~TY~=A~N=D~T~RA~N=S=C=EN~D~E=N~T=~=L~I_D~EA~L=I=SM=-________________ 60

§ 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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64

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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65

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 • • •

/I

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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

n

IN~T~E=RS==U~B'~E~C~TI~W~TY~A~N~D~T~RA~N=SC=E=N~D~E=N~T=~=L~I~D=EA~L=IS=M=-_______________ IIO

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.

IN~T~E=R=S~U=B'=E~C~TI~W~TY~A~N~D~T~RA~N~SC=E=N~D=E=N~T=~=L~I=D=EA=L=~=M=-~~~~~~___ 148

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

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~_______________ 154

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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