Abstract
The question of “what is a self” is probably the most puzzling and persistent in philosophy. It announces itself with the Oracle at Delphi’s injunction: “know thyself.” Such an injunction, of course, presupposes that there is something there to be known, that the self can stand there as an object of knowledge, that the knower can know himself. Knowing himself, he can know himself as knower. This means that he can grasp the very performance which is himself as knower, is himself as this grasping of himself. As even these slight reflections show, the task of fulfilling the Oracle’s injunction involves a certain mystery. Either the self is empty or it involves everything. The circle of my apprehending myself apprehending myself is, in its self-reference, devoid of content. Content seems to arise once I admit that, knowing myself, I do not know an object. I know that by which objects are known. Here I assert that the self is that in and through which they are present. Its mode of presence is their modes of coming to presence. As such, it hides itself behind them. Presenting itself as their place, it itself seems placeless. Its content is given by its objects and their modes of appearing. This implies that to know it, I would have to know what could fill it, what objects I could possibly know. For this, however, I would have to know the knowable world itself. Is the self then a world? It does not seem so. Embodied, it is subject to various accidents, including injury, decay, and death. Psychologically, it also has its vulnerabilities, its habits, its peculiarities. An entity among entities, a being within the world, how can it claim to be a world?
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References
The continuity of the attempts to pursue it is, in part, shown by the intense efforts now devoted to Artificial Intelligence. It may be, as Heidegger writes, that philosophy has become “cybernetics.” As such, however, it still continues to pursue in AI the question, what is a self. See “The End of Philosophy,” in On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stanbaugh ( New York: Harper and Row, 1972 ), pp. 57–8.
Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), Hua I, p. 118 (hereafter CM)..
Paul Ricoeur, Husserl, An Analysis of His Phenomenology, trans. E. Ballard and L. Embree (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 196 p. 107.
This is the point of the Schlußwort to the Krisis.
Lester Embre gives a framework for investigating them in his article, “Reflection on the Ego,” in Explanations in Phenomenology, eds. Carr and Casey ( The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973 ), pp. 243–252.
Paul Ricoeur, Husserl, An Analysis of His Phenomenology, op. cit., pp. 53-
This, even though it is “no real moment (reeles Moment) of [immanent time],” Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen phänomenologie and phänome-nologischen Philosophie, Zweites Buch (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952) (hereafter Ideen II), Hua IV, p. 103. The translations from Husserl are my own. For the English text, see Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book (hereafter “Ideas II”), trans. Rojcewicz and Schuwer ( Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989 ), p. 109.
Ideen II, §§24, 28, pp. 104–05, 118, Ideas II, p. 111.
Thomas Seebohm,“The Other in the Field of Consciousness,” in Essays in Memory of Aron Gurwitsch, ed. L. Embree (Washington DC: University Press of america, 1984), pp. 292–93.
CM, §28, p. 97.
Ibid., “Sinn and Seinswirklichkeit konstituierenden transzendentalen Subjektivität. ”
To call it creative involves, of course, a shift in the notion of constitution. As Schutz describes this: “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 clarification of 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,” Collected Papers [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966], III, p. 83 ). p. 77.
In an absolute sense, this ego is the only one. It does not allow of being meaningfully multiplied. Put more pointedly: it excludes this as senseless. The implication is: The ‘surpassing being’ (’Uebersein’) of an ego is nothing more than a continuous, primordially streaming constituting. It is a constituting of various levels of existents (or ’worlds’).“ (Ms. B IV 5, 1932 or 1933 in Zur Phaenomenologie der Intersubjektivitaet III [The Hague, 1973], Hua XV, pp. 589–90).
See Klaus Held, Lebendige Gegenwart (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), p~ p. 127–8. See also ibid., pp. 124–5 for the first two concepts.
See Gurwitsch, “A Non-egological Conception of Consciousness,” in Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 287–99. Edie writes, in comparing Husserl to Sartre, “The final fact of the matter is that Husserl’s theory of consciousness is just as nonegological as Sartre’s; it is only more complete” (“The Question of the Transcendental Ego: Sartre’s Critique of Husserl,” Husserl in his Contemporary Radiance: Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle [Waterloo, 1992 ], pp. 279 ).
We are referring, of course, to his first major philosophical work, The Transcendence of the Ego, trans. F. Williams and R. Kirkpatrick ( New York: Noonday Press, 1957 ).
Ibid., pp, 98–9,106.
See Eduard Marbach, Das Problem des Ich in der Phaenomenologie Husserls ( The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974 ), pp. 338–9.
The Self,“ Psychology, Briefer Course (New York: H. Holt and Co., 1948), p. 203. Husserl acknowledges his debt to ”James’ genius for observation in the field of descriptive psychology“ in a note in the Appendix to the Second Investigation. See Logical Investigations, 2 vols., trans. J.N. Findlay (New York: Humanities Press, 1970), vol. I, p. 420.
William James, Psychology, Briefer Course, op. cit., p. 216.
As the passage continues: “In the nature of its contents, and the laws they obey, certain forms of connection are grounded. They run in diverse fashions from content to content, from complex of contents to complex of contents till in the end a unified sum total of content is constituted which does not differ from the phenomenologically reduced ego itself” (Logical Investigations vol. II, op. cit., p. 541).
Ibid., p. 549.
Ibid.
Thomas Seebohm, “The Other in the Field of Consciousness,” op. cit., p.
ldeen I, p. 123.
An ego does notossess 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 ).
One can say that the ego of the cogito is completely 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“ (Ms. E III 2, p. 18, 1921).
CM, p. 76.
He continues: “The pure ego is unique ‘for each separate stream of experiences,’ it is ’a non-constituted transcendence’—a transcendence in immanence” (“The Question of the Transcendental Ego: Sartre’s Critique of Husserl,”op. cit., pp. 271–2).
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 egological life, i.e., as a living in order to experience something, to be conscious of it’ (Ms. C 3 III, p. 1, March, 1931). As he elsewhere expresses this: “I am I, the center of the egological (Ichlichkeiten)” (Ms. C 7 I, p. 24, June-July 1932, italics added). “The ego… is the center of radiating or receiving rays with regard to all conscious life, the center of affection and action, of all attention, grasping, relating, connecting… ” (Ideen II, p. 105, Ideas II, p. 112). Often the “center” is called a “pole”: “I exist-I live… `I`-that means here, first of all, only the ’primal pole’ of one’s life, one’s primal stream (Ms. C 2 I, p. 4, Aug., 1932, italics added). ”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 ).
Once again, we may observe a difference in relative rates of departure. Temporally distant objects seem to recede into pastness at a slower rate than the objects we have recently experienced. The same holds with regard to the approach of objects in the anticipated future. The nearer they are to the now, the faster they seem to draw near.
Edmund Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), Hua XI, p. 205.
Ibid., p. 204.
Ms. C 7 I, p. 6, 1932.
Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, vol. II, op, cit., p. 549. Husserl, in the 1930’s echos Natorp’s words when he writes: “... the ego which is the counterpart (gegenüber) to everything is anonymous. It is not its own counterpart. The house is my counterpart, not vice versa. And yet I can turn my attention to myself. But then this counterpart in which the ego comes forward along with everything which was its counterpart is again split. The ego which comes forward as a counterpart and its counterpart [e.g., the house it was perceiving] are both counterparts to me. Forthwith, I—the subject of this new counterpart—am anonymous (Ms. C 2 I, p. 2, Aug. 1931 ).
Ms. C I, Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Dritter Teil: 1929–1935, ed. Iso Kern (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973); Hua XV, p. 667.
According to Husserl, my “stationary streaming primordiality” is, itself, the result of an absolute temporalization. The latter, in temporalizing my streaming, allows me to be there as something “primally existing’ (Ms. C I, Sept. 22–23, 1934, Hua XV, p. 670). Temporalization is thus an aspect of what is prior to me. The same point can be drawn from a pair of earlier manuscripts. Husserl asserts that ”temporalization possesses its ‘layers’… the ‘layers’ beneath the ego (unterichliche ’Schichte’) and the egological ‘layers’ (Ms. B II 9, p. 10, Oct.-Dec. 1931). In other words, first there is “the primal being, the inherently selftemporalizing absolute… then the primal being as [an] ego. ” (Ms. C 5, p. 14, 1931).
Ms. C I 3, p. 2, Nov. 1930. Husserl sometimes speaks of this as a “reduction within the reduction”—i.e., a reduction within that which first reveals transcendental subjectivity: “One requires a reduction within the transcendental reduction to grasp, in a more complete manner, the streaming immanent temporalization and time, to grasp the primal temporalization, the primal time…. This is the reduction to the streaming, primal ‘immanence,’ to the primal unities constituting themselves in this [immanence]…” (Ms. C 7 I, pp. 3132, Jan.- July 1932). As he also describes it “… I must not terminate the reduction with the bracketing of the world and, with this, my spatial-temporal, real human being in the world.” I must exercise it “on myself as a transcendental ego and as a transcendental accomplishing, in short, as a transcendental life” (Ms. C 2 I, p. 11, Aug. 1931). When I do perform this reduction, I reach the pre-egological—i.e., what Husserl terms “… the pre-being (Vor-Sein) which bears all being, including even the being of the acts and the being of the ego, indeed, the being of the pre-time and the being of the stream of consciousness [understood] as a being” (p s. C 17 IV, p. 4, 1930 ).
Husserl also speaks here of the “primal functioning” of temporalization as a “constant letting loose (aus sich entlassen) of retentions” (Ms AV5, pp. 4–5, Jan. 1933). Strictly speaking, the sense that the moments which well up immediately depart into pastness is a function of such retentions, i.e., of the “interpretations of pastness” which they carry.
Ms. B III 9, p. 25, Oct.-Dec. 1931.
Ms. B III 9, pp. 13–14, Oct.-Dec. 1931.
The “non-ego… we can designate as the realm of constituting association which is non-active, i.e., as temporalization…” (Ibid., p. 23, Oct.-Dec. 1931). See also Ms. C 16 VI, p. 29, May 1932.
The latter, the individual ego, can never be regarded as creative. The former, however, might be—this insofar as we view it as the absolutely prior source of the actuality which nowness brings. This source, however, could never be regarded as egological since, by definition, it is part of what Husserl calls the “non-ego” or “pre-egological” layer of functioning.
Passive synthesis is what originally provides me with the objects I manipulate in my active synthesis. In Husserl’s words, “... anything built by activity necessarily presupposes, on the lowest level, a passivity that gives something beforehand. Pursuing this, we encounter constitution through passive genesis. The ready made object which, so to speak, steps forward complete as an existent, as a mere thing… is given, with the originality of the ‘it itself,’ in the synthesis of a passive experience” (CM, p. 112). The conclusion then is: “Thanks to this passive synthesis,... the ego always has an environment of objects” (Ibid., p. 113). Similar assertions are made with regard to the elements of the stream of experiences: “’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 ).
Edmund Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis, op. cit., p. 126.
ldeen II, p. 112, Ideas II, p. 119.
UIbid.
Ibid., p. 113, p. 120.
Ibid., p.119, Ideas II, p. 126.
lbid.
For an account of this see J. R. Mensch, Intersubjectivity and Transcendental Idealism ( Albany: SUNY Press, 1988 ), pp. 309–330.
ldeen II, p. 113, Ideas II, p. 120.
Ibid., p.117, p.124.
Ibid., p. 251, p. 263.
Ms. C 15, p. 5; 1931. This doctrine initially appears in the Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness. As Husserl describes it in this early work: ‘lines of likeness’ run from one [retained content] to another and, in the case of similarity, ‘lines of similarity.’ We have here a certain mutual relatedness (Aufeinanderbezogenheit) which is not constituted in a reflective act of drawing relations, a relatedness which, prior to all ’comparison’ and ’thinking,’ stands as a presupposition for the intuitions of likeness and difference“ (Edmund Husserl, Zur Phaenomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966], Hua X, p. 44 ).
See Ms. C 13 I, pp. 10 ff, Jan. 1934.
See Ideen II, pp. 251–2, Ideas II, pp. 263–4.
As Schutz expresses this conclusion: “It is to be surmised that intersubjectivity is not a problem of constitution which can be solved within the transcendental sphere, but is rather a datum of the life-world. It is the fundamental ontological category of human existence in the world and therefore of all philosophical anthropology. As long as man is born of woman, intersubjectivity and the we-relationship will be the foundation for all other categories of human existence. The possibility of reflection on the self, discovery of the ego, capacity for performing any epoché… are founded on the primal experience of the we-relationship” (’The Problem of Transcendental Inter-subjectivity… “ op. cit., p. 82).
This may be the reason why Husserl, after the Cartesian Meditations, turned in the C manuscripts of the 1930’s to analysis of the ego as a temporal form. See, e.g., Ms. C 16 VII, p. 5, May 1933.
It is, thus, an answer which includes the Sartrean view of the self as embodying freedom and transcendence.
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Mensch, J. (1997). What is a Self?. In: Hopkins, B.C. (eds) Husserl in Contemporary Context. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 26. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1804-2_4
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