The Appearance of the Other Ego in Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology
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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 5-8-2020 The Appearance of the Other Ego in Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology Paul Zipfel Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Zipfel, P. (2020). The Appearance of the Other Ego in Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1887 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. THE APPEARANCE OF THE OTHER EGO IN EDMUND HUSSERL’S PHENOMENOLOGY A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Paul F Zipfel May 2020 Copyright by Paul F Zipfel 2020 THE APPEARANCE OF THE OTHER EGO IN EDMUND HUSSERL’S PHENOMENOLOGY By Paul F Zipfel Approved April 3, 2020 ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. Lanei Rodemeyer Dr. Jay Lampert Associate Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ Dr. Vlad Niculescu Associate Professor of Philosophy (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. Kristine L. Blair Dr. Dan Selcer Dean, McAnulty College & Graduate Chair, Philosophy Department School of Liberal Arts Associate Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT THE APPEARANCE OF THE OTHER EGO IN EDMUND HUSSERL’S PHENOMENOLOGY By Paul F Zipfel May 2020 Dissertation supervised by Professor Lanei Rodemeyer In this work I investigate Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological analyses of the appearance of the other ego in order to elucidate the essential components of the sense of the other ego: co-constitution, inaccessibility, and a unique process of verification. I open with an example illustrating the way in which other egos appear to me as different from ordinary objects in the world. When one looks outside in a storm and sees a branch rapping on the window, it is not an alarming experience. However, were another person to be rapping at the window, the experience would be quite different. This is because there is a difference in the way that animate and inanimate bodies are given to me. Elucidating this difference in givenness is the goal of the dissertation, and I conclude Chapter I by clarifying some phenomenological topics that will be used throughout the rest of the analyses: the lived body, appresentation, and association. iv In Chapter II, I argue that the other ego appears first and foremost in her co- constitution, which is given to me in two ways: in my experience of the world as co- constituted by others and in my experience of her active engagement in the world. First, Husserl emphasizes the appearance of the world as there for more than just me, as shared. In the appearance of the world as such, the other ego is experienced in her constitutive accomplishment: I experience objects as constituted by more than just me, as given to other constituting activities of consciousness in addition to my own. Second, these other constituting consciousnesses are given as centers of constituting activity. I experience the world as constituted by other egos and oriented around the bodily center of that constitution. In other words, just as the world is oriented around the “here” of my constituting activity, so does the other ego appear as a “there”, which is a “here” for her, around which the world is also organized. In this way, the other ego appears in her co- constituting the world and in the world as co-constituted by her. The clarification of this two-fold sense of co-constitution allows for a description of the transcendental sense of co- constitution at play in my constituting consciousness. Following Zahavi’s analysis of Husserl’s concept of open intersubjectivity, I argue that the sense of the other ego as a co- constitution is operative in my objective constitution of the world. This means that, within my very experience of the world, the other ego’s constitutive contribution is already at work. Thus, in my experience of the objective world, the co-constitution of the other ego appears. In chapter III, I argue that what distinguishes my stream of constitution from the stream of constitution of the other ego, her stream of co-constitution, is accessibility. My experiences, my constituting activity, are given to me as accessible, and the co-constituting v of the other ego appears to me as inaccessible. Phenomenologically speaking, accessibility is a special type of originality, which is best understood in relation to Husserl’s distinction between direct and indirect givenness. Husserl says that a phenomenon is given directly to consciousness when it gives itself; in other words, something is given directly to me when its appearance is not mediated. This means that a phenomenon is given indirectly when it is not itself given; rather, an indirectly given phenomenon is given through something else. This is important in the discussion of the appearance of the other ego in her inaccessibility, because Husserl says multiple times that the other ego is directly given. However, he also says that I cannot have a direct perception of the other consciousness. I argue that Husserl’s distinction means that I have a direct experience of the accomplishment of the other ego’s constituting consciousness, but I experience her conscious activity solely as enacted. What is not directly given to me, because it is only indicated, is the enacting of this conscious activity. Thus, the other ego is directly given to me in her co-constitution, but the enacting of this co-constitution is indirectly given to me. That the other ego’s enacting of her constituting consciousness cannot be directly given to me comes down to originality. My consciousness is given to me as original because it has a unified temporal context: my experiences are given such that they belong to me and can be ordered as temporally related within my experience. The consciousness of the other ego, that is, the enacting of her co- constitution, is structurally incapable of being given in such a unified temporal context. Because her experiences have a different temporal context than my own, they are unoriginal. While I do have a direct and original experience of her consciousness, it can only accord with my unified temporal context insofar as it is an experience of her enacted conscious activity. The enacting of her consciousness indicated in my direct experience of vi her conscious activity cannot be unified with my temporal context. Thus, the other ego appears in her inaccessibility, because if the enacting of her consciousness were directly given to me, or if her experience were given as unified with my temporal context, that is, originally my experience, then her consciousness would simply be a mode of my own consciousness, as is the case for my past and possible future consciousnesses. Thus, the sense of the other ego as a co-constitution must always appear to me as inaccessible. In Chapter IV, I argue that the final component of the sense of the other ego is the unique process of verification through which the inaccessible co-constitution comes to its full givenness. I show that Husserl has a tripartite structure of verification: an empty intention comes to a coincidence with an intuition, which can be fulfilling, disappointing, or somewhere in between. I then demonstrate that this tripartite structure is operative at all levels and in all of the various ways in which the process of verification occurs. For Husserl, the way in which the process of verification plays out depends upon the content being verified and the level of consciousness at which this process occurs. I specifically focus on the unique type of verification that Husserl calls corroboration (Bestätigung), or a secondary verification, because this horizonal verification occurs on the periphery of experience. As I attend to this or that object, my continuing experience is given to me as unified because the horizon of my stream of consciousness is harmonious. Accompanying my experiences, then, are empty intentions aimed at the horizon of my experiences – the background noises, the colors and lighting, the emotions and embodied sensations of living in the world. These empty intentions are largely ignored, such that I do not attend to their strivings. However, were I to suddenly have a change in my horizonal experience, the corroboration of said experience would be broken. The process of verification in vii corroboration is unique because the corroborating empty intentions need not coincide with fulfilling intuitions proper; rather, the empty intentions of corroboration coincide with empty intentions aimed at the same sort of fulfillment. Thus, the unity of my experience arises in the continuing corroboration of what is strived for in horizonal empty intentions. This same sort of verification is at play in the appearance of the other ego, because the intuitive fulfillment of the other ego cannot arise in the same way as what is strived for in other verifying syntheses, such as judgment verifications. Rather, the inaccessible co- constituting of the other ego is always verified in the continuously harmonious appearance of what can only be intended emptily. In this way, the verification of the other ego is a horizonal corroboration of my intersubjective experience. I cannot verify the appearance of the other ego through an intuitively fulfilling synthesis, which is obvious from the analysis of inaccessibility. But, through continuously harmonious intersubjective experience, the appearance of the other ego becomes verified in the corroboration of the empty intentions aimed at her inaccessibility.