Abstract
Husserl’s concept of “primal I” (Ur-Ich) is well known but difficult to understand. In this chapter, I present a clue to figuring out what is at stake in this concept. First, I refer to Husserl’s claim that the primal I cannot be pluralized. This claim can be understood in the sense that this ego is neither one of many egos nor a single all-encompassing entity. Second, in order to show that this character of “neither-one-nor-many” is not anything extraordinary, I shall refer to the fact that in natural languages we encounter this same character. Finally, I will address the problem of our fundamental perspective from which we most usually see the world. By doing this, I will claim that the seemingly strange character of the “primal I” indicates an experience that is “too obvious” to face in our daily life.
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Notes
- 1.
An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the conference Consciousness and the World at Tongji University in Shanghai, held on June 3–4, 2016. I appreciate the valuable comments I received from participants at the conference, which helped me to elaborate the ideas in this paper.
- 2.
- 3.
See Hua III/1, §24.
- 4.
This passage clearly shows that the problem of “primal I” is addressed in relation to the problem of intersubjectivity. In principle, the concept of “primal I” is strongly connected to the fundamental constitution of intersubjectivity. This applies at least to the works Husserl officially published. Zahavi seems to miss this point when he criticizes my work (Taguchi 2006) for ignoring the connection between “primal I” and “primal consciousness” (Zahavi 2015, p. 7). I do not deny that there is a connection between them, but the problem of primal consciousness should be distinguished from the problem of primal I, insofar as the former is analyzed without regard to intersubjectivity.
- 5.
The following discussion of this section is based on Chapter V of Taguchi 2006.
- 6.
Theunissen 1965, 151ff.
- 7.
In this sense, Husserl’s description of ego’s “unique sort of philosophical solitude” in the epoché seems misleading. Antonio Aguirre also remarks that in regard to the unique I such an expression as “solus ipse” loses its meaning (Aguirre 1982, pp. 44–45).
- 8.
Schelling also says that “I” is neither one nor many in the empirical sense. See Schelling 1958, p. 107. However, Schelling emphasizes the absolute unity of the I that is distinguished from empirical unity.
- 9.
Fink 1976, p. 223.
- 10.
- 11.
See also a detailed discussion on the primitive perspective of our subjective life in Taguchi 2018.
- 12.
For Husserl, the transcendental question can be formulated as follows: “How is the naïve obviousness of the certainty of the world, the certainty in which we live—and, what is more, the certainty of the everyday world as well as that of the sophisticated theoretical constructions built upon this everyday world—to be made comprehensible?” (Hua VI, p. 99/96) Husserl also describes the subjective phenomena in the life-world as follows. “It is a realm of something subjective which is completely closed off within itself, existing in its own way, functioning in all experiencing, all thinking, all life, thus everywhere inseparably involved; yet it has never been held in view, never been grasped and understood” (Hua VI, p. 114/112).
- 13.
This view was not abandoned after the transcendental turn of Husserl’s phenomenology. In Einleitung in die Philosophie of 1922/23, Husserl repeats almost the same statement (Hua XXXV, p. 8). As for the interpretation of phenomenological praxis as “science of the obvious,” see also Taguchi 2006, Chapter I.
- 14.
Which is abbreviated as Hua followed by the roman numeral corresponding to the volume. The volume numbers of Husserliana are shown in the reference list. (E.g. “Hua XXXV” refers to the volume 35 of Husserliana [Husserl 2002].) The English translations of the quotes from the Crisis are taken from D. Carr’s translation (Husserl 1970), whose pages are shown after a slash (e.g. Hua VI, 188/184). The translation of a passage from Logical Investigations is taken from J. N. Findlay’s translation (Husserl 2001), where pages are shown in the same way.
References
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Taguchi, S. (2019). Neither One Nor Many: Husserl on the Primal Mode of the I. In: de Warren, N., Taguchi, S. (eds) New Phenomenological Studies in Japan. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 101. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_5
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