Abstract
What does it mean to be a community and to be in a community? Can this social phenomenon be analogized to an individual person with her interwoven opinions, wants, and desires? Or is a community a phenomenon sui generis that requires its own methods and tools for research? Concretely: What does it mean that a community may achieve certain acts? And what about the intentional object of such an act, which (following the Husserlian school) has also been referred to as “social act”? These questions raise the methodological ones: how is it even possible to characterize a community, such that it can be said to issue social acts? And how can such an inquiry be carried out, does it require an outside perspective or one from within a community, or can it be done by both?
The original version of this chapter was revised: Belated correction has been incorporated. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97861-1_17
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31 January 2019
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Notes
- 1.
Although some may see significant differences between both terms—phenomenology of intersubjectivity being perhaps committed to transcendental phenomenology , social ontology perhaps erring on the side of realism —I take them to be more or less synonymous here. As will become clear in the further discussion in this paper, any designation as “transcendental ” or “realistic” is inessential for the phenomenon under discussion here. The success of this analysis is, thus, independent of Stein ’s and Walther ’s rejection of Husserl ’s transcendental turn.
- 2.
Such a narrative need not be un-phenomenological or even trivial. As Carr (1986) has shown, narrative belongs necessarily to a community , though he leaves open the question whether or not such a narrative is empirical only or can have a priori (or transcendental ) status. As far as I can judge, I cannot see how a narrative could be transcendental .
- 3.
Cf. also ibid. 98, where she speaks of the “Copernican” turn in sociology , “by taking the conjunction of subjects and the meaning of this conjunction as starting point and only from here views and evaluates itself and the other subjects, as well as their relations. […] Only where this attitude has been achieved—both in the external observer as well as in the members of the community —it seems to us that a real sociology becomes possible, above all a sociology of the community .” (All translations, unless otherwise noted, are by the author.) I will return to this “Copernican Turn.”
- 4.
Cf. Husserl (2002, 92–98), where Husserl analyzes so-called empty intentions (Leerintentionen), cf. also ibid. Appendix IV, 240 ff., esp. 244.
- 5.
It would be one theme to explore the commonalities between Walther ’s analyses of failed unification and Heidegger ’s concept of inauthenticity (Uneigentlichkeit) in Being and Time. Heidegger is mentioned frequently in Walther ’s book and commended for his advice, which (given this early period, Being and Time was not published until five years later) must have sprung from discussions between them.
- 6.
This point may be seen as the beginning of Walther ’s mysticism, i.e., such a metaphysical -real essence is “normally” a black box but can be opened through mystical experiences. I prefer not to venture into this dimension of her thought, not because I dismiss it, but because I see this as transcending the sayable and hence beyond “normal” philosophical discourse.
- 7.
One may perhaps cite here Gehlen ’s anthropological thesis of the human being as a creature of lack (Mängelwesen) that by necessity founds institution for the sake of self-preservation, cf. Gehlen (2004, 5–8, 46–49). This aspect may add the “genetic” anthropological dimension as to why individuals “need” communities to flourish.
- 8.
This example was taken, in the spring of 2016, from the public discussion in France, as reported by media at the time. After a brief discussion in the spring of 2016, the issue has been dropped entirely by the French government despite an increase of home-grown terrorism.
- 9.
This seems to be the opinion of the figure of Rediger in Houellebecq ’s recent novel Soumission (cf. Houellebecq 2015, 215–235). As a member of a radical Muslim group , which has taken over France in 2020 (as imagined in the author’s dystopia), he suggests that the success of Islam in France rests on the hollowness of the French culture, since it has abandoned Christianity.
- 10.
I thank the participants of the conference in the spring 2016 in Paderborn for their helpful discussion points, esp. Alessandro Salice , Hans Bernhard Schmid and Sara Heinämaa . All shortcomings of this paper are the author’s.
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Luft, S. (2018). Do We-Experiences Require an Intentional Object? On the Nature of Reflective Communities (Following Gerda Walther). In: Luft, S., Hagengruber, R. (eds) Women Phenomenologists on Social Ontology. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97861-1_10
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