Phenomenology 2010, Volume 5 : Selected Essays from North America, Part 1 : Phenomenology within Philosophy 9789731997742, 9789731997735

Citation preview

PHENOMENOLOGY 2010 Volume 5

Selected Essays from North America Part 1

Phenomenology within Philosophy

Series post scriptum — OPO Editors: Lester EMBREE (USA), Ion COPOERU (Romania) Editorial Board: CHEUNG Chan-Fai (Hong Kong); Ivan CHVATIK (Czech Republic); LEE Nam-In (Republic of Korea; Zeljko LOPARIC (Brazil); Victor MOLCHANOV (Russia); Thomas NENON (USA); Rosemary R. P. LERNER (Peru); Hans Rainer SEPP (Germany); TANI Toru (Japan); Roberto WALTON (Argentina); YU Chung-chi (Taiwan)

PHENOMENOLOGY 2010

5

SELECTED ESSAYS FROM NORTH AMERICA Part 1 Phenomenology within Philosophy Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON

Zeta Books, Bucharest Arghos-Diffusion, Paris 2010

¤

¤

Zeta Books, Bucharest

www.zetabooks.com

© 2010 Zeta Books for the present edition. © 2010 The copyrights to the essays in this volume belong to the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronical or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN GENERAL: 978-973-1997-81-0 (paperback, 5 volumes) 978-973-1997-82-7 (ebook, 5 volumes) ISBN VOLUME 5.1: 978-973-1997-73-5 (paperback, volume 5.1) 978-973-1997-74-2 (ebook, volume 5.1)

Table of Contents

Introduction to Volume 5: The Breadth of Phenomenology Michael D. Barber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 I. Edmund Husserl 1. The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body in Light of a Methodological Understanding of Constitution: An Experiment in Phenomenological Practice (I) Elizabeth Behnke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2. The Justification of Norms Reflectively Analyzed Lester Embree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 3. What does the Question of Origins Mean in Phenomenology? Saulius Geniusas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 4. From Violence to Evidence? Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity: Toward a Postcolonial Phenomenology of Humanity George Heffernan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 II. Contemporaries of Husserl 5. Scheler and the Task of Human Loving Zachary Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 6. In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God Eugene Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 7. What is the Outside?

Leonard Lawlor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

6

Table of contents

8. Heidegger’s Later Phenomenology: Allowing the Subtle Appearance to Emerge through the Din Douglas F. Peduti, S.J . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 III. The First Generation 9. Freedom, Fatalism, and the Other in Being and Nothingness and The Imaginary Bruce Baugh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 10. Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action Eric Duffy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 11. The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith or Reading Being and Nothingness in Reverse Matthew C. Eshleman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 12. On the Life That is ‘Never Simply Mine’: Anonymity and Alterity in Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray Emma r. Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 13. Art and the Deflagration of Being: Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Aesthetic Phenomenological Method Matthew J. Goodwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 14. Between Oneself and Another: Merleau-Ponty’s Organic Appropriation of Husserlian Phenomenology Shazad Akhtar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 15. The Pregnable Subject: Maternity and Levinas’s Relevance to Feminism Sarah LaChance Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 16. Ethics, Eidetics, and the Ethical Subject: A Critique of Enrique Dussel’s Appropriation of the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas Michael Barber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 17. The Dual Role of Testimony in Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting David Leichter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Table of contents

7

IV. Other Authors and Themes 18. Recovering the Tragic: Exploring the Ethical Dimensions of Rape-Related Pregnancy Caroline Rebecca Lundquist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401 19. Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model for the Co-Constitution of Self and World Peter Westmoreland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Introduction to Volume 5 The Breadth of Phenomenology by Michael D. Barber St. Louis University [email protected]

This volume of selected philosophical essays from North America is part of a celebration of phenomenology in 2008. That celebration found its clearest expression in an international meeting of representatives of various local phenomenological organizations throughout the world belonging to the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations (OPO) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong under the leadership of Professor Chan-fai CHEUNG and his staff under the guidance of Joyce CHEUNG. The meeting, which took place between December 15 and 20, 2008 and included nearly 100 presentations, was supported by Dr. Edward CHENG, the Executive Committee and the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, Inc. This meeting in Hong Kong was the third in a series that began with the meeting in Prague 2002, was followed by one in Lima in 2005, and a fourth is planned for Segovia in 2011. The OPO recognizes five regions of the world and these assembled essays developed from the Hong Kong conference in 2008 are divided by region: Asia-Pacific, Euro-Mediterranean, Latin-America, North America, and Northern Europe. Each region is again producing a set of collections of essays entitled in general Phenomenology 2010 and written by authors representing local phenomenological organizations, each organization being entitled maximally to two representatives. There are two parts of PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

10

Michael D. Barber

the North-American volume in this 2010 collection, one dealing with phenomenological analyses of problems pertaining to disciplines beyond philosophy and this one, dealing with phenomenological philosophy in the sense of critical treatments of issues addressed by distinguished philosophers within the phenomenological tradition. This introduction is continued at the start of the second part and, among other things, lists there the new local phenomenological organizations that have been founded in North America since Phenomenology 2005 was published. Even though this volume represents half of the essays from the North American region, it reflects the breadth and scope of interest that characterized the international meeting of phenomenologists in Hong Kong. It contains nineteen essays from Canadian and United States phenomenologists representing thirteen different phenomenological organizations. This volume is organized roughly—give that there is an inevitable overlapping—in terms of the historical figures in the phenomenological movement, beginning with Edmund Husserl, and then following with sections devoted to the Contemporaries of Husserl, The First Generation after Husserl, and Other Authors and Themes. Of course, each of these section headings often embraces a variety of philosophers, with, for example, “The First Generation” including the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, and Paul Ricoeur. In addition, in each section the essayists take up different aspects of the thought of these figures in the tradition or find novel applications to areas that these figures might never have anticipated. One has the sense in these essays that phenomenology is a growing philosophical movement encompassing a rich variety of thinkers and topics, across generations and across continents. To the extent that one acquires this sense in reading this volume, this volume will have conveyed to its readers what those who attended the meeting Hong Kong in 2008 experienced. The summaries of essays that follow in the order in which these essays appear in the volume expose one to the breadth and

Introduction to Volume 5

11

pluralism that characterizes the phenomenological movement in our day. Elizabeth Behnke, beginning with Merleau-Ponty’s eventual rejection of constitution and his recognition of the body as a “never completely constituted object,” undertakes a rich phenomenological investigation of the different types of that incompleteness on the basis of Husserl’s comments that reveal the body to both be and not be a thing (insofar as it can never be completely constituted). It is, then, a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing.” Rather than give up constitution, Behnke explores constitution itself as understandable only from within the practice of constitution, continually guided by the attitude of reduction, ordered to noetic and noematic dimensions, and operative in a variety of settings and problem contexts. She concludes by contrasting the practice of constitution with phenomenological philosophy’s building of systems, though they are also complementary. Lester Embree analyzes Husserl’s comments on the courageous and good warrior in “The Prolegomena” to the Logical Investigations by explaining first of all the unreflective apprehension of the warrior’s behavior and then the reflective examination of how such behavior correlates with encounterings and intuitive processes, noetic and noematic dimensions, and the three species of thetic or positional components in Erlebnis: believing, willing, and valuing—the latter of which is central for norms. Justification, a higher level of reflection (e.g., whether courage is rational or not), considers the motivations at play and the foundedness of valuing ultimately on evidencing. Saulius Geniusas analyzes Husserl’s notion of “horizon,” which makes possible the appearance of phenomena, is constantly reconfigured as experience alters, and is relative to one’s present situation. Every appearance refers to every other in its horizon within an implicit system of reference, and every appearance refers to a horizon of potential modes of appearance, in

12

Michael D. Barber

which validation can be achieved. Horizons also characterize the experiencing of objects and embrace ultimately the whole world. While these dimensions of horizon are bound up with objects experienced, the horizon of subjectivity, including the whole life of consciousness, is implicit in each lived experience of the world—and an examination of origins leads toward both subjectivity and the givenness of phenomena. Starting with some criticisms of the Eurocentric-sounding phrases of Husserl’s Crisis, George Heffernan turns to Amartya Sen’s argument that the source of violence between groups lies in some groups conceiving themselves as having a destiny that sets them against others, whom they take to belong to one group alone, namely the one opposed to their group. As opposed to this “singularist” view, Sen proposes human diversity based on a multiplicity of identities. Husserl, however, granting the manifolds that account for diversity, still opts for an identity across those manifolds, an identity based in common human rationality and reflection that lead to respect for the multiple identities common to all humanity and that resists the violence that those who think themselves “destined” are prone to inflict on others. Zachary Davis explores the task of human loving through Max Scheler’s experiential, rather than a substantialized, dualism between life and spirit, that is, in the lived interplay between drives and ideas. Spiritualization of life consists in directing lifedrives in accord with the dictates of deeper values. Love is the intermediary between life and spirit. Eros, the loving movement of life, functions as an urge toward these deeper values, and it leads to sacrifice on their behalf in a manner that renders lower (life) values not bad in themselves, but merely less meaningful. Love, as agape, the loving movement of spirit, aims at goodness and opens one’s eyes to higher values and thereby produces humanization, namely a unifying of life and spirit as one becomes who one is, despite the tensions.

Introduction to Volume 5

13

Eugene Kelly weighs two theses of Max Scheler’s philosophy of religion: that essential knowledge of God is universal to humankind and that this knowledge is irreducible to any experience of a uniquely religious kind. Finding the first thesis plausible because of the pervasive distinction between the absolute and the relative at the root of intentional awareness of the world, Kelly is not convinced of the second thesis. For Scheler, empirical experiences of dependency, for instance, presuppose an antecedent (religious) awareness of that on which we depend, an awareness born of our irreducible capacity to view God’s light spread over all things (in lumine Dei) prior to any proofs for God’s existence. For Kelly, though, the phenomenological evidence does not exclude other sources of knowledge whose origins are not always transparent to us. Retrieving Heidegger’s notion of “thinking” as an endeavor to move beyond inherited forms of representation, language, and things, Len Lawlor locates the “outside” for which thinking searches not in a Platonic other world but within this world, as immanent. Husserl’s notion of intentionality exemplifies the movement of experience toward the outside that characterizes thinking. The process of temporality, basic to experience, can be thought of, too, as including within itself an outside lying between the repetition of the past and the novelty of the nowevent. The oscillation between repetition and novelty takes place around this “outside,” the place where each one “leaks” (fuite) into the other and escapes the prison of each. Douglas Peduti argues on behalf of Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology. Criticizing Husserl’s alleged solipsism and his view of reality and its accessibility and accentuating the importance of access to the world over the reality accessed, Peduti finds Heidegger’s turn to Being-in-the-world and the unveiling of hidden Being more adequate. After Being and Time, Heidegger undertook a “destructive retrieval” to break through accepted concepts and the linguistic turn to reinstate community. Ereignis,

14

Michael D. Barber

the manifestation of Being to meditative thinking; Vorsicht, the looking ahead that allows reality to appear; and the falling silent of language on the way to Being—all assume prominence in Heidegger’s later thought and enable him to achieve the conjunction of multiplicity and unity that eluded Hegel and Derrida. Even though others have interpreted Jean-Paul Sartre as espousing solipsistic positions, such as the beliefs that the disruption of one’s world by the other is catastrophic and that hell is other people, Bruce Baugh offers a surprising interpretation of Sartre. He shows that an all-powerful consciousness in a world of its own making would be enslaved to itself and self-enclosed, as if in a dream world. Such a solitary consciousness would collapse into a present without a real past or future. Similarly, the Other, outside my world, never my projection, situates me in space; makes possible a genuine exteriority of objects, visible to her as they are not to me; and enables the kinds of genuine judgments on the efficacy of my acts that would be impossible for me alone. Interpreting Sartre’s Being and Nothingness as phenomenology of action that starts with self-reflection disclosing how beingin-itself is organized by being-for-itself in such a way that reality appears as “human,” Eric Duffy proceeds to examine anguish. Anguish is produced when one reflectively recognizes for-itself ’s meaning-endowing activity and thereby discovers its other possibilities. However, one’s concomitant awareness that the future at stake is one’s own and that not to decide is also to decide to act leads one to counter-anguish. Likewise, the collapse of projects in Nausea issues in a counter-nausea pointing toward decision and action. Matthew C. Eshleman argues that “bad faith” in Sartre needs to be understood in terms of social engagement rather than as a solipsistic occurrence. Hence, Sartre’s discussion of it early in Being and Nothingness needs to be interpreted in the light of the later introduction of Being-for-Others and of the discussion of existential psychoanalysis. While preserving the plausibility of

Introduction to Volume 5

15

bad faith through a nonthetic awareness of one’s freedom to transgress socially proposed identities, an awareness lying between thematic awareness and the unconscious, Eshleman also comments on Sartre’s Cartesian methodology of gaining a foothold in solipsistic consciousness and subsequently filling out that consciousness’s broader context. Emma Jones examines criticisms of Merleau-Ponty’s anonymous body, the pre-personal connection between organism and world, our cleaving to the world, which sexual and cultural differences inflect. Jones argues that the pre-personal character of this anonymity ought not be equated with a neutrality that codes white and male, that such anonymity does not ensure communication but makes it possible, and that it refers not to a self-enclosed entity but a process of world engagement that prevents self-coincidence. Jones compares such anonymity with Luce Irigaray’s discussion of air that is the precondition of personal subjectivity and the site of potential communication and that connects subjects while allowing for their autonomy. Merleau-Ponty, according to Matthew Goodwin, moved away from the traditional understanding of phenomenological reduction through his study of artists. “Slackening intentional threads,” in Goodwin’s view, implies passively allowing the world to appear but also moving actively toward transformative expression—a process artists exemplify insofar as they present the world as coming into being and open up new dimensions of being through their active interventions and bodily movements (e.g., painting). As instances of artistic transformations of experience, Goodwin points to Cezanne, who from abstractly separated facial features was able to bring forth a human gaze, as if from stone, and Renoir, who, beginning with the visible Sea of Cassis, brought to expression the stream of The Bathers as if for the first time. Shazad Akhtar examines the relationship between Husserl and Merleau-Ponty by considering the progression of Merleau-Ponty’s texts and his discussion of the phenomenology and eidetic

16

Michael D. Barber

reductions. Akhtar shows how Merleau-Ponty’s thought converges with Husserl’s or even moves in directions Husserl only indicates (e.g. toward greater engagement with the natural and social sciences), and how it discloses the limits to reflection’s transparency or to its ability to grasp essence. Sarah LaChance critizes Levinas’s writings as reflecting patriarchalism, though she entertains Lisa Guentner’s view that Levinas does not set out to dictate women’s roles or rights, but describes parallels between mothers’ responsibility and broader ethical obligations. Criticizing Levinas also for neglecting the ambivalence of feeling in mothering, LaChance paradoxically suggests that recognizing that ambivalence heightens a mother’s sense of the vulnerability of her child, thereby evoking more caring. Michael Barber explores how Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel’s ethics of liberation makes use of Levinas’s ethical perspective. Barber argues that Dussel assimilates that perspective too closely with cognition and ontology and overlooks the eidetic nature of Levinas’s claims, which imply that the other, too, ought to assume the role of the responsible “I.” Further, Dussel does not recognize the resources ethics offers for producing a self, particularly for the victims of globalization. The paradoxical nature of testimony, revealing a past it never exhausts and uncovering what happened while also showing how it continues to have meaning in the present, is the focus of David Leichter’s discussion of Paul Ricoeur’s Meaning, History, Forgetting. Leichter summarizes various meanings of the trace, of which testimony is the primary form, and he presents the different types of testimony: the archive, the historian’s narrative, and the unrepresentable representation of trauma. The structure of testimony appears in its asymmetry, in the giver’s “Something happened, I was there, believe me, or ask someone else,” in the trustworthiness of the witness, and in its habitus character. History involves critically re-appropriating testimony in a reconstructive endeavor that makes the historian another witness. Finally there is the testimony related to twentieth century atrocities undertaken as

Introduction to Volume 5

17

part of a debt, aimed at an excess, and suffused with ethical dimensions. Caroline Lindquist sensitively considers the heart-wrenching tragedy of rape-related pregnancy, and she opposes moralistic judgments about the agent’s decision and recommends instead supporting or comforting her while making the decision and afterward. Lindquist analyzes pro-life propaganda against abortion or for putting the child up for adoption, and she faults its rhetoric for transmuting a tragic situation into a golden ethical opportunity to conform to a prescribed gender role and for claiming that mothering is therapeutic and abortion harmful. Lindquist shows how the American ethos that resists acknowledging luck and morally assesses people for things that are not up to them is inappropriate for cases of rape-pregnancy, in which the having to choose itself is not up to the victim. Alternate possibilities for thematizing such pregnancies are explored, the most promising being feeling pity for the tragic situation, acknowledging to victims one’s own vulnerability, and legitimizing victims’ entire lived experience. Peter Westmoreland develops Rousseau’s account of the differentiation and constitution of self and world as described by the Savoyard Vicar. While the Self as agency differentiates between itself and the world, sentiments pertain to the Self ’s interior and sensations convey input from exterior elements. The Self, however, is penetrated by the World and the earlier mentioned distinctions are not so easy to draw, especially insofar as the presence of the world via sensations is felt on the interior of the Self. This experience reveals the unity of mind and body and the inseparability of the body from the Self, though, for purposes theological consolation, the Vicar admits the possibility of substance dualism. On the basis of this analysis, Westmoreland asserts that the Self is a differentiating and constituting being, setting off its Self from the world and yet correlating inner sentiment of and outer sensation.

1 The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body in Light of a Methodological Understanding of Constitution: An Experiment in Phenomenological Practice (I)1

Elizabeth A. Behnke

Study Project in Phenomenology of the Body [email protected] Wir brauchen nicht nur Erkenntnis der Ziele, der Richtlinien, der Richtmaße, der Methoden, der Stellungnahme zu anderen Erkenntnissen und Wissenschaften. Wir brauchen auch die wirkliche Durchführung. Wir müssen die Wege selbst beschreiten. (Edmund Husserl, 25.IX.06. [24/445])2 Doch all das zu expliziter Einsicht zu bringen, das erfordert sehr umfassende und verwickelte Auslegungen. Aber durch die ersten, allgemeinsten und vortastenden Besinnungen, die nur die Funktion haben können, in ihrer antizipierenden (vorahnenden) Evidenz einen wirklich gangbaren Weg für weitere Besinnungen vorzuzeichnen, ist nun jetzt in der Tat ein solcher schon bestimmt vorgezeichnet—ein Weg, der mit seinen Ergebnissen allerdings erst im wirklichen Begehen seine wirkliche Gangbarkeit und “Fruchtbarkeit” erweisen muss. (Edmund Husserl, IX.31. [34/291]) Die Einheit eines Weges ist die des Weges zu einem Ziel oder Zweck, mag der Zweck auch nicht am Ende liegen, sondern in der Wanderung selbst …. (Edmund Husserl, 20.XI.31. [15/419]) Das weist darauf hin, daß Husserls Philosophie … beständig sich offen hielt …. Sie ist Methode in dem einfachen Wortsinne eines Denk-Weges. … Alles ist offen, alle Wege führen ins Freie. (Eugen Fink, 3.VII.59.)3 PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

20

Elizabeth A. Behnke

ABSTRACT: Merleau-Ponty’s appropriation of Husserl’s reference to the lived body as a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing” transforms the sense of the phrase. My aim is to recover Husserl’s original sense by turning not only to his writings, but to the relevant experiential evidence. I show that any attempt to account for the constitution of the body as a thing necessarily presupposes a body that is constituting rather than constituted, then suggest how “constitution” can be understood methodologically rather than metaphysically, concluding with some reflections on how descriptions produced through Husserlian phenomenological practice both sustain and outrun specific positions in phenomenological philosophy.

I. The initial context and motivations for the inquiry In Phénoménologie de la perception, Merleau-Ponty (1945, 108) writes: En tant qu’il voit ou touche le monde, mon corps ne peut donc être vu ni touché. Ce qui l’empêche d’être jamais un objet, d’être jamais “complètement constitué,” c’est qu’il est ce par quoi il y a des objets.

His footnote refers to “Husserl, Ideen, T. II (inédit).” This reference can be traced to the following sentence in §41b of the Husserliana edition of Ideen II: Derselbe Leib, der mir als Mittel aller Wahrnehmung dient, steht mir bei der Wahrnehmung seiner selbst im Wege und ist ein merkwürdig unvollkommen konstituiertes Ding. (4/159)4

But Merleau-Ponty appropriates and develops the motif of the “incompletely constituted” body in his own way. Briefly, he begins, as we can see, by rewriting the motif, substituting “never ‘completely constituted’” (italics added) for “remarkably incompletely constituted,” and referring to an “object” rather than a “thing.” Then in other passages he not only extends this motif

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

21

beyond the body to the world, but links the notion of the “never completely” constituted with that of the “already” constituted, developing these themes in such a way as to argue against the need for a “constituting” subject at all; ultimately, he rejects the notion of “constitution” altogether, on the grounds that it presupposes a pregiven field of being that it cannot itself provide. But all of this is accomplished by giving the notion of constitution an ontological interpretation in the first place.5 The need to provide a Husserlian critique of Merleau-Ponty’s reading of the motif—and of the ontological interpretation of constitution that is both assumed and effected in this reading—was the initial point of departure for the present paper. Thus although I will not be returning to the issue of Merleau-Ponty’s Husserl-reading here, one aim of the essay is in fact to supply some of the materials necessary for a robust critique of that reading. However, the larger question driving the present inquiry is really one of phenomenological practice. For it is not enough to suggest that a certain thinker “fails” to bring a “Husserlian” context of understanding to a Husserlian text; it is also necessary to provide a positive alternative by considering what would count as a “Husserlian” approach. What, in short, does it mean to approach a problem in a Husserlian way? And just how are we supposed to go about it?6 Of course, there are a number of ways to do this. But in order to exemplify at least one of these ways in action, I propose that we take the motif of the “incompletely constituted” body as a test case, and see what we can learn by attempting to work it out in a Husserlian manner.7 I will accordingly begin by examining the sense and the research horizon of the motif of the lived body as a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing” in Husserl; then I will take up the question of what understanding of “constitution” I am operating with. Finally, I will address the broader issue of the relation between phenomenological research and phenomenological philosophy in general.

22

Elizabeth A. Behnke

II. … in der phänomenologischen arbeit … a. Preliminary remarks (1) Clarifying the working approach Our point of departure would seem to be prefigured by the initial context of motivation: it would seem to make sense to start with the passage in Ideen II identified above. But this passage in particular requires some preliminary philological reflection, for it has been suggested that Stein, and not Husserl, was the actual author of these words, and moreover, that these words were drafted as part of Stein’s effort to clarify the notion of constitution—an effort that was devoted precisely to shifting Husserl’s draft in the direction of a non-idealistic understanding of constitution (Sawicki 1997, 153–62; cf. 73–89). I have addressed some of the philosophical implications of this possibility elsewhere (see Behnke 2002). Here, however, the issue is a more basic one: does Husserl himself actually say anything about the body as a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing” in documents that we do have reason to believe are manuscripts in his own hand? The answer is yes, and I will review some sample passages below, appealing to Husserl’s lectures and research manuscripts not in order to claim that they necessarily represent philosophical positions he would want to maintain in an “official,” published work, but in order to take advantage of one of the chief merits of phenomenology as a research tradition: namely, any phenomenological description, no matter what its literary status, can be read as an “invitation to evidence” (cf. Behnke 1997, §1). In other words, it presents an opportunity to cash in the empty intentions guarded in the words of the text for the relevant experiential evidence itself. This will require, for example, entering an appropriate attitude, taking up an appropriate experiential style and standpoint, developing an “appropriate sensibility” (Sokolowski 1974, 108f.), and in general, doing whatever it takes to find the phenomenon in question for ourselves—which is necessary not only to confirm or correct the written description, but to understand the very sense of the claim(s)

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

23

made in the description in the first place (cf. 20-1/319–26). In short, the working procedure of the present inquiry must include, in principle, a particular kind of participatory reading that focuses on matters themselves rather than on the philosophical interpretation of these matters. And it is only in this way that we will reach the research horizon of phenomenological practice that functions as the effective context guiding how the words on the page are to be read.

(2) Clarifying the working problem

Before turning to a survey of relevant passages on the body as a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing,” we must recognize that the notion of “incompleteness” appears in a number of contexts within Husserl’s work. Even a preliminary identification of these problem-horizons can serve the present investigation in a double way. First, a provisional thematization of a range of examples will allow us to consider which of them might be relevant to our current working problem, and which we might want to set aside for separate investigation. But in addition, taking a moment to reflect on some of the types of incompleteness that Husserl brings to light may eventually help to bring out some of the “preunderstandings” shaping our initial access to the matters in question—presuppositions that may themselves have to be given a genuinely phenomenological “realization” (19-1/24). For the moment, though, let us begin by acknowledging that one of the most important notions of incompleteness in Husserl is that of perceptual incompleteness per se, so that spatial things are necessarily given “one-sidedly,” by way of an interplay between what is currently actually perceived “from here” (i.e., from my own situated standpoint) and what is horizonally co-intended; this sense is already featured in the 1907 Dingvorlesungen, for instance, and is a recurring theme in Husserl whenever it is a question of the givenness of something transcendent.8 Moreover, there is another fundamental incompleteness pertaining to whatever is

24

Elizabeth A. Behnke

given temporally (including transcendental experiencing itself), insofar as the now serves as the reference point in a way that is analogous to the “here.”9 We also find degrees of completeness of both “itself-givenness” and “clarity” in general (17/293). And specific types of horizons of possibilities can be incompletely actualizable, specific types of phenomena can be incompletely accessible in principle or accessible in various degrees of completeness according to our capabilities, and so on.10 Of course, a number of these can come into play within the motivational context of a complex problem-horizon, as in, for example, Seebohm’s 1989 essay on “Apodiktizität. Recht und Grenze,” which takes up the issue of the degrees and types of completeness and incompleteness of Evidenz under the guiding motivation of the question of what kind of “absolute” Evidenz is required for an epistemically oriented project of ultimate grounding (Seebohm 1989, 81). Another example of a more complex case occurs in the account of how the ideal objects of geometry are indeed constituted as identical transtemporal objectivities: the objectivity of the ideal formation “has not yet been completely constituted” until its repeatability has been guaranteed in principle by means of a persisting and reactivatable sign transcending all concrete instances of reactivation (6/371). Finally, there is also a distinctively ethical sense of incompleteness or imperfection that emerges, for example, in the third of the Kaizo articles (see especially 27/33ff.). Thus although this inventory of incompletenesses may itself be incomplete, at least it alerts us to the fact that there can be a spectrum of Vollkommenheit—Unvollkommenheit in more than one area. Yet the present investigation cannot simply seize upon the descriptive findings presented in each and every passage about incompleteness and apply them to our own working theme. Instead, we must read these descriptions (and indeed, all Husserlian descriptions) in light of the experiential evidence sustaining them in order to appreciate the distinctions relevant to the style of experience in question in each case. Our chief task here is nevertheless to become sensitive to the precise types of incompleteness that are at stake in

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

25

the motif of the body as a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing.”

b. Selected textual examples

First, let us examine the passage that initially motivated the present study: Mit der beschriebenen Auszeichnung [i.e., “die einzigartige Auszeichnung, daß er den Nullpunkt all dieser Orientierungen in sich trägt”—4/158] hängen andere Eigentümlichkeiten des Leibes zusammen. Während ich allen anderen Dingen gegenüber die Freiheit habe, meine Stellung zu ihnen beliebig zu wechseln und damit zugleich die Erscheinungsmannigfaltigkeiten, in denen sie mir zur Gegebenheit kommen, beliebig zu variieren, habe ich nicht die Möglichkeit, mich von meinem Leibe oder ihn von mir zu entfernen, und dem entsprechend sind die Erscheinungsmannigfaltigkeiten des Leibes in bestimmter Weise beschränkt: gewissse Körperteile kann ich nur in eigentümlicher perspektivischer Verkürzung sehen, und andere (z.B. der Kopf ) sind überhaupt für mich unsichtbar. Derselbe Leib, der mir als Mittel aller Wahrnehmung dient, steht mir bei der Wahrnehmung seiner selbst im Wege und ist ein merkwürdig unvollkommen konstituiertes Ding. (4/159)

Several descriptive points are made here. One concerns distancing—I cannot remove myself from my own lived body, nor can it withdraw from me (here we will set aside the questions raised by the limit cases generally termed “out-of-body” experiences). Another point concerns the familiar perspectival foreshortening in which certain body parts are often visually given—consider, for example, the view I can obtain of my own feet while standing—while yet another concerns the invisibility in principle of certain other body parts for me, as when, for example, I try to look at my own ear (for these points we will set aside the task of describing such possibilities as mirror images of my body; photographs, films, videos, and computer imaging of

26

Elizabeth A. Behnke

my body; presentifications of my own body in intuitive phantasy; quasi-intuitive anatomical apprehensions; and so on).11 But the passage also makes a more general claim—namely, that the very means of perception “stands in its own way” of perceiving itself; one literal exemplification of this would be when I close one eye and try to look for it with the other eye, only to find that my own nose gets in the way. On the whole, then, not only are there limits to my freedom to vary the standpoint from which I see the peculiar “thing” in question, but there are correlative limits to the appearances of it I can obtain. And all this is summarized at the end of the passage by saying that the lived body is a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing.” Standing in the background of the entire description, however, is the root assumption that the lived body is indeed a “thing,” i.e., that there is a sense in which the phenomenon, “Leib,” is appropriately addressed in terms of the ontological region, “Ding.” Now as I have indicated, some doubts have been raised about the authorship of this passage. Let us accordingly look for further descriptions in Husserl’s writings of the peculiar incompleteness pertaining to one’s own lived body. Here I shall proceed with a chronological survey of texts; below I shall provide a more systematic clarification of matters. An early engagement with the phenomenon concerned is found in the Dingvorlesungen (1907): Der Leib ist zunächst ein Ding wie ein anderes, insofern er (obschon nur in beschränktem Maß) auch sich so konstituieren kann wie ein anderes Ding. Auf die Hand hinblickend, sie mag ruhig auf dem Tisch liegen, können wir die Augen bewegen, wir können den Kopf hin- und herbeugen und auch ein wenig den Oberkörper u.dgl., und das gibt in fest bestimmter Weise immer andere Erscheinungsreihen. Freilich, herumgehen können wir um die Hand und so um unseren eigenen Leib nicht, wir können uns nicht beliebig annähern und entfernen. … Populär gesprochen: Jedes Ding in aller Welt kann mir davonlaufen, nur nicht mein eigener Leib. Ich kann mich in bezug auf einen gesehenen

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

27

Leibesteil annähern oder entfernen …, aber nur in ganz beschränktem Maß: Ich könnte mich gedehnt denken so, daß die Füße schließlich im Unendlichen sich verlören, aber dann wäre mein Leib unendlich und nicht im Unendlichen verschwindend …. Der unendlich ferne Fuß hätte immer noch seine stetige Verbindung mit dem übrigen Leib, mit der Brust usw., die ihre endliche Entfernung vom Ich-Punkt behalten und, sich im Rand des Feldes verlierend, dort immer dieselbe nächste Entfernung haben vom Ich-Zentrum. (16/280) … es bewegt sich der Ich-Punkt immer mit, bei aller Bewegung entfernt sich das Ich nicht, der Leib bewegt sich, ohne sich zu “entfernen” …. (16/281)

Given the emphasis on vision in the Ideen II passage, it is also worth mentioning that the Dingvorlesungen refer to the reference point from which objects are “near” or “far” as being not the whole body, but an unseen part of it that is located in the head, behind the eyes, and that functions as the “absolute here” while itself remaining outside the sphere of what is or could be presented (16/227f.); this is characterized in Ideen I (3-1/350) as the “invisible center of all depth-orientations familiar to us as an ideal limit-point which we ‘localize’ in the head.” Thus we can take note that along with the theme of the non-optional bodily situatedness of the “seer” and the correlative theme of the limited modes of appearance of my own body as an externally “seen” thing that has, so to speak, “missing pieces,” we also have a theme here of the “invisibility” of the ideal vanishing point of visual experiencing. At this point, let us take note of the fact that the same descriptive “findings” can be marshaled in service of various descriptively oriented investigations oriented toward different topics or conducted under different motivations. Thus although the 1907 descriptive passages cited above initially appear in the context of an investigation whose leading example is the visual perception of spatial things—and whose fundamental finding is

28

Elizabeth A. Behnke

the constitutive role of kinaesthetic patterns and possibilities in experiencing these things—they are echoed in the course of a passage on the constitution of the other psyche in “empathy” or “interpretation,” in a draft originally meant as part of the transition from Ideen II to Ideen III: Könnte ich meinen Leib, der faktisch immerfort mein Orientierungszentrum in sich hat, also immerfort mein reines Ich begleitet und ihm erscheint, “von mir weg rücken,” so würde er all die Erscheinungsreihen darbieten, die andere Dinge darbieten, er ist in sich ein Ding wie ein anderes, nur daß er nicht weggerückt werden und daher nur in beschränkten Erscheinungsgruppen erscheinen kann. So hat auch das dem äußeren Ding “Leib eines Anderen” eingedeutete Ich sein nicht wegrückbares Ding “eigener Leib,” und dies ist im Sinne der Einfühlung eben dasselbe, das als Träger der Einfühlung oder Eindeutung erscheint. (5/109)

And here too, as in the Ideen II text we began with, the descriptive theme of our bodies as “things we cannot move away from” brings us into difficulties, since it is this very same body whose movements enable all perception, including perception of itself: Wir haben in unserem Falle des Leibes schon vorausgesetzt, daß dieser als Ding dasteht; Ding ist er aber für uns in der Erfahrung nur durch mögliches freies über ihn Hinwegtasten, Hinwegsehen u.dgl., das seinerseits doch als Leibbetätigung aufgefaßt ist, wobei die Auffassung des Leibes als Dinges wiederum auf mögliche Leibesbewegungen zurückweist, so daß wir in Verlegenheit zu geraten drohen. (5/121)

In research manuscripts from 1914 or 1915, Husserl addresses the entire question of whether or not I can get an external appearance of my own lived body, and describes how touching the body predelineates its visibility in principle, or even how inwardly sensing (spüren) one’s own body predelineates it as both touchable and visible (see 13/Texts Nr. 8, 9, 12). Yet not everything that is horizonally indicated in this way can be brought to fulfillment. Thus

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

29

Husserl both imagines a counterfactual body and acknowledges the limited range of bodily appearances that are actually possible for me: Hätte ich, wie bewegliche Hände, um alles an mir zu betasten, so bewegliche Augen (auf handartigen Stielen) zum alles Sehen befähigt, so würde mein Leib so und so aussehen. (13/255) Meinen Leib finde ich als Körper vor, zum Teil sehe ich ihn, zum Teil betaste ich ihn, ihn dabei partiell zugleich sehend oder auch nicht sehend. Die Erscheinungsweisen sind dabei ähnliche wie die von Dingen sonst, meine Hand, mein Fuss, meine Nase etc. erscheinen so wie Körper, wenn auch die Variierbarkeit der möglichen Erscheinungen für sie und so für den Leib überhaupt beschränkt ist. (13/270)

But although a perceived transcendent thing “is in principle only incompletely given” (13/321), it can indeed come to givenness step by step (13/322), and this is not the case for my own lived body, which is thus distinctively different from another’s lived body: I can imagine my own specific bodily “here,” but I cannot actually perceive it (13/325f.). By around 1916, Husserl is emphasizing that any other physical body is freely movable relative to the constant nullpoint of orientation provided by my own lived body, which, however, can neither recede into depth nor draw nearer to me (16/308); my lived body, considered precisely as a lived body, can therefore never have an external appearance, so that, visually speaking, the here where I stand is, as it were, a “gap” or “hole” in space (16/367). Thus the movement of my own lived body is presupposed for the constitution both of things at rest in space and things in motion across space, but if we restrict ourselves to lived bodily experience in the strict sense, this fundamental “I move” does not yet have the significance of the objective movement of a physical body: … dieses Ich bewege mich “noch nicht” phänomenale Körperbewegung meines Leibes besagt. Der Leib ist da “noch nicht” konstituiert. (16/369)

30

Elizabeth A. Behnke

References to the phenomenon in question continue in Husserl’s research manuscripts from the 1920s and early 1930s. In a 1921 text, for example, Husserl notes that the first lived body to be experienced as a physical thing is that of the other, and my own lived body is likewise constituted as a physical body only mediately, by way of the detour of the other (14/62f.; cf. 15/647). But this is not just an analogy whereby my own lived body is interpreted according to the model of the other lived body I perceive; instead, it has to do with the role played by a constituting intersubjectivity, as we can see in another text from 1921 or a bit later where the limitations of a solipsistic inquiry are indicated: Denn während das äussere Ding sich als volles physisches Ding konstituiert, kann das der Leib nicht. Er kann als Ganzes nicht als räumlich bewegt erfahren (wahrgenommen) werden, und selbst, wo Leibesteile als räumlich bewegt erfahren werden, so nur wesentlich beschränkt. Also der Leib ist nach seiner Konstitution als räumliches Objekt ein Analogon des äusseren physischen Dinges—und doch in der solipsistischen Anschauung nicht wirklich ein Ding? (14/76)

Thus just as a nature that is only considered in relation to a single subject is “incompletely objectivated” at first, and becomes “completely objective” only when it is intersubjective nature (14/415), so also with the lived body: Mir selbst ist mein Leib so nicht gegeben, sondern als Zentralobjekt in meiner “Bewusstseinswelt” gegeben, als Zentrum einer äusseren Dingwelt und selbst nicht als Ding im vollen Sinn. Aber folge ich den Appräsentationen der “Einfühlung,” so ist eben dieses unvollkommene Objekt für jedermann als äusseres erfahrbar …. (14/416)

As we know, Husserl continued to rethink familiar material as part of his regular working practice, and so the theme of what is indeed available in primordial experience of one’s own lived

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

31

body continues to show up in research manuscripts dealing with the question of how my own lived body is eventually constituted as a thing among things (cf., e.g., 15/645). For example, in a text that is probably from February 1927, we find the following remarks on the “incompleteness” pertaining not only to my visual experience of my own lived body, but also to my corresponding tactile experience of my own surfaces: Visuell: Mein Leib ist unvollständig sichtlich. Aber wie bei einem Aussenobjekt das Tastbild mitbedeutet das zugehörige Gesichtsbild, und wie ebenso für die sichtbaren Teile des Leibes das Gesichtsbild sein Tastbild mit sich führt und umgekehrt, wirklich oder appräsentativ, so überträgt sich für die unsichtbaren Teile meines Leibes ein Gesichtsbild auf das Tastbild als seine Mitbedeutung (mehr oder minder leer, unvollkommen bestimmt natürlich); es ist eine Vorstellung, die freilich unrealisierbar ist und bei der Konstitution meines Leibes im Streit mit dessen Eigenheit. Die Augen kann ich nicht sehen, obschon es denkbar wäre, dass es so wäre, dass ein Auge das andere sehen könnte, wie eine Hand die andere tastend erfährt. Aber das widerstreitende Faktum ist damit nicht beseitigt. Trotzdem habe ich vom Tastbild und nach Analogie äusserer ähnlicher Tastkörper her motiviert ein visuelles Bild meiner Augen. … Doch habe ich nicht auch zu sagen: Die Betastung meines Körpers ergibt als Tastbild ein sehr “unvollkommenes” Nullbild. Hände und Füsse, Kopf kann ich so frei und vielfältig abtasten wie äussere Objekte, nicht aber den ganzen Leib; es bleiben Teile, zu denen ich schlecht zukann, wie zum Rücken, aber ähnlich zu Dingen hinter mir, ich kann mich bei diesen umdrehen. (14/517)

But no matter how many times I turn around, my own back will never wind up right there in front of me, within easy reach of my touching hands; restrictions remain (cf. 14/518f.), for there are necessarily limitations in the modes of appearance of my own lived body that are available to me (15/29)—and these include limitations in the tactile as well as the visual sphere. Husserl’s explorations continue to makes use of colorful counterfactual bodily possibilities—for example, in a text from

32

Elizabeth A. Behnke

August 1931, he imagines having a neck like a giraffe so that he could see his back, or having independently functioning eyes on arms so that each eye could look at the other (15/245; cf. 13/255, cited above). But it remains the case that when he scratches his back, the visual appresentation through which he also “sees” his back is an “anticipated mode of appearance” that cannot be fulfilled in “actual visibility” (15/246). And in another text from August or September 1931, he illustrates the limited possibilities of perspectivation pertaining to the parts of my own lived body by pointing out that I cannot throw my own hand and have it fly away from me (15/263), adding: Abgesehen davon, dass er als mein Leib einzig ist dadurch, dass er erfahren ist als mein Totalorgan und gegliedert in Organe, in denen ich das fungierende Ich bin, und so, dass in diesem Funktionieren alle Dingwahrnehmung statthat und auch die Wahrnehmung des Leibes selbst, durch sich selbst also, ist der Leib auch einzigartig konstituiert dadurch, dass er sozusagen halb und halb als Ding erfahren ist und doch nicht für ihn erfahrbar ist dingliche Bewegung—so wie diese eben ursprünglich sich konstituiert in perspektivierenden Phänomenen. (15/264)

Thus parts of my own body only take on perspective in the full sense when they are cut off.12 Similar themes are examined once again in a further manuscript that probably stems from September 1931 (see 15/Beilage XVIII; cf. Text Nr. 17) and yet again at the end of May 1932 (see 15/Beilage XVI); the latter text not only contains another evocative example— Beim Kleid am Rücken kann ich mich auch durch Ausziehen desselben und vor meinen Leib Hinhalten oder getrennt Hinlegen visuell überzeugen …. Aber es ist doch evident, dass ich das für den Leib selbst nicht kann. (15/272)13

—but also expands the discussion of privileged objects that are not completely perceivable from all sides to include “die Erde als

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

33

Bodenkörper” (15/275). And with this we have come full circle, as it were, to another text that Merleau-Ponty refers to in Phénoménologie de la perception (and other works)—namely, to the 1934 “Umsturz” text, which not only deals with the difficulty of constituting the earth itself as a physical body, but also includes a reference to my own lived body as something that cannot move away from me.14 Finally, although there are many other pages bearing upon our working problem, let us conclude our survey of texts with the following passage (probably also from 1934): Kann überhaupt mein Leib wie ein Ding überhaupt wahrgenommen, aufgefasst werden? Also hätte er dasselbe Korrelat an Subjektivem unter dem Titel sinnlicher Wahrnehmung wie ein anderes Ding? In Wirklichkeit hat er das nicht. Mein Leib und die Aussendinge sind nicht ganz gleich “konstituiert.” Mein Leib perspektiviert sich nicht, als ganzer genommen, als Nahding und Fernding. Als ganzer ist er nicht konkret wahrnehmbar in aller Sinnlichkeit. Wie ist mein Leib für mich original konstituiert— wahrnehmbar, rein wahrnehmungsmässig bewährbar? (15/648; cf. HM8/291 [13.I.33.])

Thus the descriptive trajectory culminates in a transformation of its own starting point (the assumption that my body is a thing). I shall be returning to this below. First, however, let us pause for a provisional summary. It is clear that several recurring themes—or several facets of the same phenomenon, as it were—emerge in this admittedly incomplete series of relevant passages. To recapitulate, we can distinguish themes pertaining to the external appearance of one’s own body and its parts (as perspectivally foreshortened, variable only within certain limits, simply invisible for me, or perhaps having motivated potential appearances for me that are nevertheless unrealizable), along with related themes pertaining to sensory modalities (including horizonal references between modalities, as well as visual incompleteness, tactile incompleteness,

34

Elizabeth A. Behnke

and the possibility of an inward sensing irreducible to either touch or vision); correlative themes pertaining to motility (including both the role of bodily motility in perceiving one’s own body and the limitations of freedom arising in this regard, especially concerning the possibility of distancing oneself from one’s own body); and more complex themes pertaining to the constitution of Leib as Körper (i.e., as fully externally surveyable, and experienceable as moving objectively in space, both of which require a constituting intersubjectivity). And in delineating these themes, Husserl has recourse to a number of phantasy variations having to do with counterfactual amplification of our bodily-kinaesthetic possibilities on the one hand and counterfactual severing of the perceiver from the body that serves as the organ of perception on the other. But in the end, what comes into view is the very presupposition that set the entire series of examples in motion—namely, that the lived body is indeed a thing at all (albeit a thing of a distinctive kind). How can this be understood more precisely?

c. The motif itself as a constitutive problem

The 1907 and 1912 statements of the motif cited above begin by having “already presupposed” (5/121; cf. 16/280) that my own body is a thing among other things, and it is only against this background that its own peculiarity in being a “remarkably incompletely constituted” thing can stand out. To put it another way, it is as though the “incompleteness” of the external perception of one’s own body is not just some adventitious disappointment of an arbitrary expectation, but is a “remarkable” modification of an essential “completeness” that would seem to be guaranteed in advance by the presupposition itself: such incompleteness is, if you will, a structural “abnormality” (or better, an “anomaly”) that points to a pervasive “normality” serving as its tacit standard. Now this pervasive tacit “normality” is none other

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

35

than the natural attitude, with its deeply rooted habit not only of routinely operating with the practical/perceptual category or paradigm of the “thing,”15 but of automatically assuming the world as a world of ready-made things that exist fully and completely in their own right, even if a situated experiencer can only bring them to “appearance” partially and perspectivally. Yet it is precisely this “completed,” ready-made world that is opened up for research in another light by the transcendental-phenomenological epochē and reduction. Accordingly, if one wants to address the motif of the “remarkably incompletely constituted” body from within a constitutive-phenomenological attitude, it will be necessary to address the presupposition, “body as thing,” from within this attitude as well.16 And the task would be to show how (and to what extent) one’s own body can indeed be constituted as a thing—under what sorts of experiential motivations, in what kinds of experiential modalities, through what sorts of apprehensions informed by what kinds of attitudes, and so on. In short, it is by taking what is promised in the presupposition, “my own body as a thing,” as an achievement that we can begin to display both the sense and the limits of the motif of the lived body as a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing.” Such a procedure would allow us on the one hand to specify the sorts of idealizations (or other accomplishments) that are involved whenever the experiential correlate is a “completely constituted” thing (of whatever sort), while still permitting us on the other hand to respect the various ways in which certain (though not all) sorts of experienced “incompletenesses” are indeed experienced-as modifications (privations, disappointments) of an expected greater degree of (experientially realizable) completeness. Moreover, we would also be able to entertain the possibility that the experiential evidence will ultimately fail to sustain the proposed apprehension (“body as thing”), so that it has to be canceled in favor of an alternative apprehension motivated by the experience itself.17 How could all this be worked out?

36

Elizabeth A. Behnke

d. Various ways of working out the problem within a Husserlian research horizon Let us begin our sketch of how this problem could be approached by returning to the celebrated statement of the motif in §41b of Ideen II, and inquiring into its sense purely within the framework of descriptively motivated constitutive investigations. First of all, there is an immediate and obvious sense in which the lived body, as described in this passage (4/159), is an incompletely constituted “thing”: what is described is “only the lowest stratum (phantom) of the thing” (16/339),18 not the full causal thing as a real thing within the causal nexus of material nature (a theme mentioned immediately after the motif, in §41c of Ideen II, as well as at the opening of §41). Moreover, the descriptive attitude from which the motif stems not only involves an abstractive reduction to the primordial, but also, within this, a further restriction to the visual,19 considered in this context purely as a sheerly visual “appearance” that is taken without relation to the tactile (or to other senses), but does indeed refer back to the kinaesthetic “circumstances” under which it is seen (see 4/19f., 22). Were we then to attempt to proceed to a more completely constituted thing-phantom within the primordial sphere, we would be led to the many descriptive passages concerned with the celebrated touching/touched example. What would have to be highlighted here is the synthesis of identification between that which is touched from outside like any other thing, and that which is felt as uniquely “mine.” Moreover, we could add descriptions of the specifically intersensorial givenness of one’s own lived body (e.g., the way its visibility points to its touchability and vice versa), as well as of the localization of the kinaestheses in distinctive sorts of somaesthetic sensations (Empfindnisse). And Husserl does indeed carry out both sorts of analyses (although as we have seen, there are limits to the realization of what is intersensorially predelineated). Here we would be led to analyses of what Husserl terms the “specifically somatological” perception of one’s own

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

37

lived body,20 showing, for example, that certain important classes of somaesthetic sensations do not occur randomly, but arise in motivated correlation with kinaesthetic patterns and possibilities (including, e.g., “holding still” or “ongoingly maintaining contact with something” as well as overt “gestures”).21 Another important point emerges in Michotte’s discussion of tactile-kinaesthetic bodily experience in his 1946 work on the perception of causality. For if we consider our own body perceived purely kinaesthetically, it displays a very different sort of incompleteness than the one meant in §41b of Ideen II: in contrast to the paradigmatic display of a visual thing as a figure sharply profiled against a ground from which it is distinguished by a clearly delineated contour (a paradigm, by the way, that does not hold for all visual experience— consider the visibility of a fog that we are engulfed in), the “edges” of the kinaesthetic body are not clearly defined. Even if we consider, not kinaesthetic capability per se, but the localized somaesthetic sensations felt when moving, “the whole of the kinaesthetic field of bodily sensations is filled by the body,” so that it does not have the completeness of a “good Gestalt” standing out against a broader field serving as its background, but is coextensive, as it were, with its own “field.”22 But in any case, the experience of seeing and touching my own body in the same way as I see and touch other things—the experience of the body-as-object—still points back to the body-as-organ, to the operations and achievements of a seeing and touching body whose own manner of givenness is not at all that of a typical “thing.” To continue clarifying this matter constitutively, we would have to return to the theme of the perceptual incompleteness of “things” in general—a vast topic in its own right. In the first place, the sense of the motif could be shown to hinge on the issue of perspectivation in the case of my own lived body. Thus it is not simply that I factually see “from” a vantage point from which I cannot collect enough “visual data” at one time for this particular visible object to be “completely constituted,” since every visual

38

Elizabeth A. Behnke

thing is given by way of one-sided “presentations” without the essential “completeness” of the perceptual thing itself being impaired (precisely because my kinaesthetic capabilities allow me to explore its various sides).23 Instead, it is that one’s own lived body peculiarly fails with regard to another key criterion of thing-experience per se beyond sheer horizonality (i.e., one-sided presentation referring to not-yet-experienced sides)—namely, the possibility in principle of approaching or withdrawing from the thing in question. For whether I run through the full array of kinaesthetic possibilities that are in fact available to me, or appeal to phantasy variations that alter my kinaesthetic capabilities, I inevitably experience an insurmountable restriction with regard to my kinaesthetic ability to distance myself from this particular “thing,” my own lived body, which thus appears to meet some but not all “thing”-criteria. And this finding arises from an essential interconnection between experiencer and experienced: considered in terms of the how of their givenness, both the “typical” thing and the “atypical” one (i.e., my own body) point back to a situated motility as their constitutive correlate. From another angle, however, the failure of perspectivation could be shown to have its force only within the restriction to a solipsistic sphere; the incompleteness of constitution that is meant here (i.e., availability for visual experience in the manner proper to visible things in general) vanishes with the turn to a constituting intersubjectivity, not only because this particular thing, my own lived body, can be successively given, a side at a time, for other observers from more angles than I myself can readily see it, and not only because I can be simultaneously seen from many angles by many observers, but because I am visible for others within the framework of the type of distancing that is typical precisely of thing-givenness: I can indeed move or be completely moved away from the other’s situated/motile vantage point, and can thereby move out of view (which is not possible for me in the case of my own lived body, whether or not I am at all occupied in thematizing

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

39

its visibility or realizing this visibility experientially). Thus the constitutive correlate for the body that is “completely constituted” as a thing is still “someone’s” ability to move freely with respect to it.24 From here, one could go on to pursue the reification of the body as a “thing” for and within objective science, which does go on to consider this body as a physical thing in the full causal-material sense.25 Or one could launch into an account of other historical/cultural, intersubjective modes of constituting bodies as “things” in various senses. These might include, for example, not only bodies as things whose potential labor is to be harnessed much as we might tap the force of a river to produce hydroelectric power, but also the sense of the body as a commodified visual thing that is always “on display” and “under surveillance,” even where this “surveillance” has been internalized and is carried out by the very person whose body has been relentlessly made into an ever-available visible object.26 It can be shown, however, that the latter kind of domination and disappropriation can only prevail if it succeeds in numbing our somaesthetic sensibility and laming our kinaesthetic integrity and autonomy. And although we may not be entirely immune to this kind of commodification, there are healthy strategies of resistance that allow us not only to evade and disable its violations, but to awaken our bodily-kinaesthetic experience from the sensory-motor amnesia that serves as the functional condition of possibility for such objectification.27 In other words, inquiring into the how of the givenness of the body as a socially objectified thing of this type reveals that the correlative constitutive style of experiencing involves a crucial suppression of a particular kind of kinaesthetic awareness lived in action from within. Finally, there is yet another line of development that could be carried out by returning to the primordial sphere once again28—a line of development according to which my own lived body could be more completely constituted as a thing than it is in strictly visual experience were we to incorporate descriptions of our practical commerce with things, including not only the experienced resistance of things to my body’s actions, but the felt counterresis-

40

Elizabeth A. Behnke

tance of my body to theirs. Moreover, a particular kind of experience can be studied (and has been studied, by Husserl and by others) in which my own lived body opposes or resists “me” and is accordingly experienced as “thinglike.”29 Yet this thinglike body can impede “my” holding-sway in cases of illness, injury, or fatigue precisely because the one to whom I am referring when I say “I” is a kinaesthetic “consciousness,”30 or more precisely, because what is thereby resisted, restricted, or refused is the tendency toward concrete current fulfillment of kinaesthetic possibilities already functioning either as abiding acquisitions or as available (although perhaps previously unrealized) potentialities pertaining to the “practical kinaesthetic horizon” (11/15) itself. If, on the other hand, my body is “incompletely constituted” as a thing in this particular sense—if, for example, I marshal my own weight in such a way as to partner the pull of the earth in poised balance and unerring momentum, so there is no separate “body,” but only a fully effective movement—then once again, this “body” (i.e., the body that is not a “thing,” but is the very enaction of movement) can itself only be brought to experiential evidence (itself-givenness) within a special type of kinaesthetic awareness that does not posit the “body” over-against the dative of manifestation, but has, as an awareness, a completely different kind of structure.31 Once again, whether I experience my body as akin to “things” or utterly unlike them, we can inquire back from what is experientially given in each case to the constitutive kinaesthetic performances through which precisely these correlates are given. By now, it should be clear that the key thrust of the motif in Husserl is to show that although the lived body does display many characteristics of a thing—and, we may add, is certainly often subjected to various further modes of reification—it does not fully fit this pattern; it does indeed resist being “completely constituted” as a “thing.” Here two further major lines of development could be worked out. In the first place, we could describe the constitution of the lived body in terms of the model of a “tone” rather than a “thing” (i.e., as an ongoing process of embodiment,

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

41

where this word connotes the “how” of “bodying,” not the insertion of something non-bodily into a body).32 In the second place, however—and this is the move that Husserl is really getting to— we could show that the lived body is not completely “constituted” precisely because it is constituting: when considered in terms of the how of their givenness, both that which is initially presupposed— the body as a thing—and that which is proposed as a challenge to this presupposition—the body as a remarkably incompletely constituted thing—point back, at each level of the analysis, to the functioning kinaesthetic consciousness that has been termed the “body as constituting.”33 In other words, both the experiential evidence that sustains the presupposition and the experiential evidence that invalidates it (or at least limits its scope) entail an essential reference to the same constitutive “conditions”: the experiencing in which both types of evidence emerge is kinaesthetic experiencing.34 Thus if what falls away in Merleau-Ponty’s development of the motif of the “incompletely constituted” body is the paradigm of “constitution” itself, in Husserl the methods of constitutive phenomenology remain in force, and what falls away is the paradigm of the “thing.” But what understanding of “constitution” is presumed here? III. Points toward a working understanding of a methodological sense of constitution35 The working understanding of constitution to be sketched out here is not necessarily “authorized” by Husserl, as it were, in some significant text from a particular period where he explicitly espouses the methodological understanding I am presenting. Rather, my aim is to suggest an understanding that is not only broad enough to cover findings from all periods of his work, but generous enough to embrace not just what Husserl says “about” constitution, but what he does (cf. Ströker 1997, 32, 118)—and moreover, what is doable under this title as the abiding possibility of a research style, whether this style is taken up by Husserl, or by me,

42

Elizabeth A. Behnke

or by others. Thus what follows in this section is not textual exegesis or interpretation, nor does it offer a defense of the claims made. Instead, it provides a collection of introductory hints that may encourage those who would like to carry forward some Husserlian research for themselves through actual phenomenological practice—more specifically, through constitutive-phenomenological investigation. And these hints were developed on the basis of the lived experience of attempting to do constitutive phenomenological research, along with the related lived experience of approaching Husserl’s own research reports in the “participatory” way mentioned above—i.e., reading them not as a “spectator,” but as a co-participant within a shared research horizon, “performing” the “score” of the descriptions by cashing in the empty linguistic intentions for the appropriate type of fulfilling experiential evidence, and on this basis, confirming, canceling, correcting, criticizing, or contextualizing Husserl’s concrete results in the specific case under consideration. In other words, although what is said here certainly relates to our commerce with texts, the points I want to make are not derived from reading “definitions” of the term “constitution,” but emerge on feeling one’s way into constitutive research in action and absorbing certain skills proper to phenomenological practice, including, among other things, performing certain types of refraining, working within certain types of attitudes, and so on. Within this research horizon, then, I find it very helpful to avoid thinking of “constitution” (be it “active” or “passive”) as a real process or event in the world, and to take the term instead as a title for (purely phenomenological) correlations disclosed by constitutive phenomenological investigation. In other words, I recommend setting aside any attempt to derive the technical phenomenological sense of the term “constitution” from any of its mundane significations. Instead, I propose that we allow its scope and significance to arise purely from within the practice of constitutive analysis itself.36 More specifically, the notion of constitution (and

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

43

correlatively, the attitude proper to constitutive investigation) must be understood in its intimate intertwining with transcendental phenomenological epochē and reduction; with the recourse to Evidenz; with the universal a priori of correlation (6/§46); and with phenomenological analyses of time and temporalization. Thus, for example, constitutive research stands under the sign of the transcendental phenomenological epochē and reduction, understood not as a momentary act, but as the institution of a habituality (34/105)—of an abiding horizon of possibilities, so that the research is not just conducted “after” the reduction, but “in” it, and under its ongoingly renewed sway.37 And the domain of phenomenological research that is thereby opened can quite specifically be delimited as what I will term the experiential dimension (here taking “experience” in transcendental rather than mundane terms). What is especially important for the methodological understanding of constitutive phenomenology, however, is that “experience”—more precisely, experiencing, experienced, and their correlation—is not only the field that is to be researched, but the means of research: we do not merely turn “to” experience (in a broad sense that includes, e.g., mathematical and philosophical thinking as distinctive modes of experiencing), but we turn to it experientially, i.e., by considering the appropriate experiential evidence (Evidenz). The degrees of evidentiality or itself-givenness are best thought along the dimensional axis, as it were, of the emptyfilled distinction, complemented by the vague-distinct spectrum (cf. Sokolowski 1974, §§5f.). Yet it is not necessarily always helpful to invoke ontologically-laden terms such as “presence,” nor is it always appropriate to take perception and its modalizations as a model, despite the importance of perception in everyday life, and despite the legitimacy of descriptions that show perceptuality to be presuppositionally nested in other important modes. “Itselfgivenness,” in other words, must be understood and explored in purely experiential terms, and evaluated by purely experiential criteria concerning the “how of the givenness,” which need not entail that modes of evidentiality run parallel to traditional distinctions

44

Elizabeth A. Behnke

concerning “primacy” in every case: “Selbstgegebenheit” and “Leibhaftigkeit” are not synonymous in all research contexts, although they are in some.38 Furthermore, as correlation-research, constitutive investigation is not confined to a “noematic” focus, but always includes the turn to the “noetic” side of the correlational a priori—i.e., the turn to the “experiencing” along with the turn to the “experienced,” and always in terms of the correlation (cf. Funke 1989, 24). Yet such research need not rely on making the activities of “experiencing” into “objects” of “reflection,” standing at the far term of a new intentional arc so that the description is always retrospective. Instead, we can make use of a radically different sort of “reflexivity” or “lucid awareness from within,” an immediate living-through that allows us to appreciate the ongoing “how” of our experiencing “in the act”—including, for example, the ongoing manner of “receivingness” that is correlative to the how of the “givenness” of the phenomenon in question.39 And although this possibility is usually only granted for “mind” or “consciousness,” if it is granted at all, it is also available as a lucid bodily self-awareness of the body as constituting (see Behnke 1984/2006). Moreover, constitutive research is not confined to the analysis of correlations between “acts” and “objects,” but must also investigate “attitudes” and their correlates, with the term “attitude” here taken first of all in the broad sense that is at stake when we contrast the natural attitude and the phenomenological attitude, or the naturalistic and the personalistic attitude, or perhaps a theoretical and a practical attitude; all such attitudes can become the theme of constitutive-phenomenological research (as can more specific attitudes), and indeed, must be considered even when we are investigating acts, for attitudes “inform” acts and open the meaning-horizons within which the meant objects stand as such. But in addition, acts “realize” or “actualize” capabilities (15/194), and the latter must be investigated in their constitutive correlations with these horizons as well. In other words, constitutive research can be used not only to study all sorts of intentionalities

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

45

other than acts (cf. Mohanty 1972, 116ff.), along with their correlates, but also to show how such intentionalities are intertwined with (or presuppositionally entailed within) specific types of “actobject” correlation. Throughout, however, the practice of constitutive investigation must be sensitive to its intersections with phenomenological analyses of time and temporalization—and this holds good whether we are carrying out new investigations of our own, or appreciating those of others (which requires following along with the investigations experientially). The present paper cannot hope to do justice to the complex issues that are at stake here, but I can at least make a start by offering an alternative to the usual frameworks for discussing Husserl’s notion of “constitution.” Typically, commentators distinguish an “early” Husserl of “static” phenomenology from a “later” Husserl of “genetic” phenomenology, pointing to a shift in research focus from “active” to “passive” synthesis and addressing constitution in particular in terms of a contrast (or a tension) between “production” or “creation” on the one hand and “reception” on the other.40 But it is also possible to distinguish between two sorts of constitutive correlates that correspond to two sorts of phenomenological time analyses. On the one hand, we find (at a rather high degree of universality) that the correlate of the constitutive performances concerned is an identical transtemporal unity: the temporal synthesis of the phases of consciousness themselves (quite apart from whatever is intended in these phases) founds further achievements in which multiplicities are synthetically united into sense-wholes41 whose unity transcends whatever is offered in each streaming now and whose identity and structural integrity are maintained when, for example, we return to them in recollection. On the other hand, we find (again at a rather high degree of universality) that the correlate of the constitutive performances concerned is a possibility that is henceforth effectively available, whether as an instituted sense-formation inaugurating an apperceptive style that can come into play once again when awakened by appropriate motivations (see 17/317, 320), or

46

Elizabeth A. Behnke

as a sedimented style of experiencing forming part of the habitus of transcendental life (see Funke 1957/1981). Constitution can therefore be understood in terms of the acquisitions that it makes possible42—acquisitions that have their own “historical” genesis (be it active or passive) in the transcendental life in question, but exert an ongoing dynamic efficacy, enriching both the powers or possibilities at the disposal of the experiencer and the givens of the experiential world (cf. HM8/163ff.). Recognizing the latter notion of constitution can be particularly helpful in making sense of Husserl’s references to the “not yet constituted” (cf. 16/369, cited above) and the “already constituted” (cf., e.g., HM8/49, 111, 162, 164). For example, in a text from October 1929 (HM8/154–56)—thus written after the examination of sedimented acquisitions and their apperceptive “aftereffect” in Formale und transzendentale Logik (see especially, e.g., 17/§85, Beilage II)—Husserl refers to “den immer schon bisher konstituierten Leib” (HM8/155; cf. 15/305) for whom all of the objects in the most immediate near-field are in reach, pointing out that since the world is accessible in general through the I’s own lived body, its world “setzt also allzeit den schon konstituierten Leib voraus” (HM8/157). Yet what sense does the phrase “already constituted body” have here? Husserl offers a valuable clue when he writes, “Aber schließlich muss sich auch der Leib in seiner Wahrnehmbarkeit und Verfügbarkeit konstituiert haben in einer Genesis” (HM8/155). It is clear that the phrase “already constituted” refers to a prior genetic constitution; what is interesting, however, is the double direction in which the relevant genetic analyses are to be carried out, for the body is to be considered not only in its “perceivability,” but also in its “effective availability”— as a nexus of powers and possibilities “at my disposal.” In its perceivability, the body is, as we have seen, a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing” according to the evidence of my own eyes, and the “sense-history” (17/215) of the intersubjectively constituted sense-formation, “my own body as a thing among things in the world” (cf., e.g., 34/50), must therefore become a

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

47

theme for investigations of the sort indicated above (as well as for analyses specifically directed toward the “mundanizing” apperception—see, e.g., HM8/345). But what is at stake with the body “at my disposal” is not a mundane, transcendent object whose modes of appearance are to be traced back to the constitutive achievements making such givenness possible: instead, it is a matter of the constitutive kinaesthetic performances of primal motility itself. In a sense, then, the body that must be “already constituted” here is precisely the body as constituting, and “constitution” must refer to the acquisition of habitus, rather than to the integrative consciousness of an object given through adumbrations.43 Hence the genetic analyses at stake here would refer to our initial mastery of our own kinaesthetic capabilities (see, e.g., HM8/225f., 326ff.), as well as to the increasing refinement of these capabilities—including our very capability for affection (HM8/199)—and to the practical possibilities they open up. It should be clear by now that constitutive inquiry can take many directions and is hardly restricted in its themes; rather, the thematic focus will arise from the interests and aims of the researcher. Thus to do constitutive research does not in and of itself prescribe whether or not, say, an explicit “act” of a thinking subject is always necessarily involved in the type of experience being investigated, or whether a theoretical rather than a practical attitude is always at stake, and so on. On the contrary, for this way of understanding constitution, the practical-bodily correlation between primal “motility” and practical/perceptual “horizonality” is just as much a finding of constitutive analysis as is the complex correlation between a “determinate world in itself amenable to objective scientific investigation” and the historically sedimented accretions of objectifying/naturalizing attitudes, practices, etc., whose myriad “moves” and “moments” (e.g., the geometrization of lived space and the algebraization of geometry) can be laboriously brought to light instead of “languidly” accepted as a framework we simply “live along in.”44 Thus when we do constitutive research, we simply find what we find, whatever this may turn out

48

Elizabeth A. Behnke

to be in a given instance, and to take up the theoretical practice of constitutive research does not entail that the attitudes and correlations that are disclosed in this research will always be, for example, those of a “theorizing” consciousness and its objects. “Constitution,” in short, refers to the style of research used to disclose the findings, to the methods and not to any particular set of results.45 Moreover, bringing to light the correlations elucidated in constitutive-phenomenological research does not entail co-positing what is posited in the experiences and attitudes studied. Hence laying bare the correlation-structure of an inherited cultural formation does not automatically entail espousing this experiential style and its correlate: understanding constitutive correlations cannot be equated with endorsing the formations that serve as the leading clues for the investigation. Instead, a constitutive-phenomenological analysis may actually help to expose the status quo, thereby liberating it from its unquestioned assumptions, which can in turn allow alternatives to emerge.46 It has also been my experience that constitutive-phenomenological research need not be confined to the subsequent clarification of the “pregiven,” but can be used with the “emerging” as well—i.e., in cases where a genuine “birth of meaning” is indeed underway. But the research still stands within the reduction and thereby within the correlational a priori, always taking into consideration the style(s) of experience and comportment that are correlative to the emerging possibility, including, for example, the question of the governing attitude. Finally, descriptive constitutive research is inherently unfinished business (cf. Lotz 2007, 4). It is historically situated; it cannot predict in advance what emerging phenomena and styles of experience will be calling for investigation; its critical clarifications are warranted, but they are also open in principle for revision.47 It is for this reason that the task of ultimate epistemological grounding must be a project of phenomenological philosophy as first philosophy, and is not simply a matter of descriptive phenomenological research.48 However, criticisms directed to the former are not automatically valid against the latter, even if a particular

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

49

philosopher (e.g., Husserl) has in fact linked concrete investigations with this type of overarching philosophical project. Separating out a methodological understanding of phenomenological research, and distinguishing “phenomenology” in this sense from phenomenological “philosophy,” can be helpful to all concerned, including not only proponents of phenomenological philosophy as “rigorous science,” but also philosophers of other persuasions; what is not particularly helpful is to conflate constitutive-phenomenological research itself with assumptions pertaining either to any specific set of results produced by this research or to any specific motivations for undertaking it. IV. In the thicket of description When Ingarden visited Husserl in the fall of 1927, Husserl asked him to undertake the task of preparing the 1917/18 Bernau time-investigations for publication. But Ingarden had to refuse— not only for personal and practical reasons, but because he simply didn’t believe that anyone other than Husserl himself could actually do the job: Husserl hat mir selbst gesagt, daß die Manuskripte nicht genügend ausgereift waren, um einfach rein äußerlich zum Druck vorbereitet werden zu können. Sie mußten aktiv weiter gedacht— und das heißt in der phänomenologischen Arbeit—weiter intuitiv durchforscht und nachgeprüft werden. In dieser Sachlage war mir klar, daß niemand von uns die Husserlsche intuitive Forschung ersetzen konnte. Ich—und wahrscheinlich auch andere, mehr als ich vorbereitete und begabte Kollegen—würden da bald auf Sachlagen stoßen, welche zu Differenzen mit Husserl führen müßten und infolgedessen auch andere Problemperspektiven—als diejenigen, die Husserl im Sinne hatte—eröffnen würden. Kurz: nur Husserl selbst konnte es machen. (Ingarden, “Erläuterungen zu den Briefen Husserls,” in Husserl 1968, 154f.)

Thus it would seem that for Ingarden, phenomenological research is functionally inseparable from the researcher’s own philosophical

50

Elizabeth A. Behnke

convictions. Fink too (1966, 2) insists that any specific analyses produced by phenomenological research have to be subordinated to an overarching system guided by a fundamental philosophical question. But although Husserl certainly recognized the importance of larger philosophical goals that can serve to motivate individual analyses, he also emphasizes the need for actually carrying out these analyses: “We must walk the paths themselves. We must solve the individual problems step by step” (24/445). The price of this is well known—Husserl is notorious for failing to bring his philosophy to systematic completeness precisely because he keeps getting bogged down in descriptive detail.49 At the same time, however, his philosophy continually evolved, and it is often assumed that this is because the contents of these analyses continually compelled him to revise his philosophical position or to broaden his philosophical program. But that is not the whole story, for the very style of experiencing that comes into play when one puts phenomenological method into practice—the lived activities involved in turning to the experiential evidence itself, refraining from uncritically accepting sedimented presuppositions, and letting the descriptive horizon lead you—is different from the experiential activities involved in articulating a philosophical system, and indeed, to engage in the former is to exercise a practical-effective epochē on the latter. We might even say that phenomenological method, as practice, must necessarily place any particular set of philosophical commitments in brackets—including those of phenomenological philosophy (of whatever sort). It is in this way that such practice can begin to loosen the binding force of inherited philosophical problems and inherited ways of posing them, thus opening the possibility of shifting them rather than solving them in the same terms in which they were initially posed. And this, I think, is because the very act of engaging in Husserlian phenomenological practice suspends not just specific previous or proposed philosophical positions, but the very performances through which any such positions whatsoever are maintained.

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

51

The true point of this paper, then, is not just to explore the motif of the body as a “remarkably incompletely constituted thing” or to put forward a series of specific suggestions concerning “constitution.” Rather, by attempting to answer, by way of a test case, the question of just what it is we are supposed to do when Husserl the researcher tells us to go and do likewise, I am both offering a sample case for an eidetics of phenomenological practice, and speaking on behalf of such practice in general. Of course, I am not suggesting that we abandon the task of interpretation and critique, or that we stop philosophizing with and about Husserl in general. But I am claiming that phenomenological practice—the actual exercise of phenomenological method—is just as much a part of the phenomenological tradition as is phenomenological philosophy. And for me, the “research” component is not only equally as important as the “philosophizing” component, but is indispensable for any genuine phenomenological philosophy, since it serves both to warrant what is said in such a philosophy, and to keep it historically open. In other words, if we relate to Husserl’s work solely as a “ready-made” philosophy to document or to deconstruct, to comment upon or to criticize, we run the risk of missing something essential to this work itself: namely, that it offers a method that we too can and must put into further practice.50 But there is a justifiable phenomenological sense in which it can be said that the only way to check the validity of this very claim is to take up Husserlian phenomenological practice for oneself, and to speak from it, not merely “about” it. Thus the brief inventory of incompletenesses offered earlier must be supplemented by the recognition of an essential incompleteness of the present text (or of any text serving as a report of research conducted in accordance with Husserlian phenomenological practice), for if such a text is truly to do its job, it must issue an open invitation to be read in light of the relevant experiential evidence. Yet such evidence is not to be found “between the lines” or “in the margins” of this text (or even on the pages of the other works cited). Instead, we must turn to the living streaming experiencing of

52

Elizabeth A. Behnke

a researcher who is actually performing the reduction and carrying out the analyses (Fink 1966/1970, 112/106) on the basis of his/ her own firsthand access to the phenomena in question (201/319, 326). In this way, yet another incompleteness—the incompleteness of what any investigator can manage alone—can become a passageway to a contrapuntal conversation through which phenomenological practice itself simultaneously fills its own open horizons and renews their very openness in further unfurling paths and byways, moving toward the heart of the matters themselves—and our own essential complicity with their incomparable radiance. Works Cited Aguirre, Antonio. Genetische Phänomenologie und Reduktion. Zur Letztbegründung der Wissenschaft aus der radikalen Skepsis im Denken E. Husserls. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970. Bartky, Sandra Lee. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1990. Behnke, Elizabeth A. “World without Opposite / Flesh of the World (A Carnal Introduction).” Felton, CA: California Center for Jean Gebser Studies, 1984 (rpt. Study Project in Phenomenology of the Body, 1990, and now available at www.lifwynnfoundation.org); “Pasaulis be opozicijos / Pasaulio kūnas.” Trans. Giedrė Šmitienė. Literatūra 48(6) (2006), 124–56. ———. “Ghost Gestures: Phenomenological Investigations of Bodily Micromovements and Their Intercorporeal Implications.” Human Studies 20 (1997), 181–201. ———. “‘Remarkably Incompletely’: A Contribution to the Study of the Constitution-Problematic in Merleau-Ponty.” Research symposium on Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl, Delray Beach, FL, 1999. ———. “Hylē, Empfindnisse, field, and frame: An experiment in phenomenological practice (II).” Section II.C of “Phenomenology of Embodiment / Embodied Phenomenology: Emerging Work.” In

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

53

The Reach of Reflection. Ed. Steven Crowell et al. Boca Raton, FL: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology / www.electronpress.com, 2001, 94–117 (= 2001a). ———. “The immediacy of primal motility: An experiment in phenomenological practice (III).” Husserl Circle, Bloomington, IN, 2001 (= 2001b). ———. “Merleau-Ponty’s Ontological Reading of Constitution in Phénoménologie de la perception.” In Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl. Ed. Ted Toadvine and Lester Embree. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002, 31–50. ———. “Embodiment Work for the Victims of Violation: In Solidarity with the Community of the Shaken” [based in part on “The problem of localization: An experiment in phenomenological practice (IV),” unpublished]. In Essays in Celebration of the Founding of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations. Ed. CHEUNG Chan-Fai et al. www.o-p-o.net, 2003; “Il lavoro somatico per le vittime della violenza: in solidarietà con la comunità degli scampati.” Trans. Achille Brunazzi and Arcangelo Licinio. Biblioteca Husserliana. Rivista di fenomenologia, Monografie, Vol. 1 (2009), Krisis, ed. Arcangelo Licinio, available at http:biblioteca_Husserliana. com/krisis/Behnke_Krisis2.pdf (= 2009a). ———. “Body-as-constituting / Body-as-constituted: An experiment in phenomenological practice (V).” Husserl Circle, Georgetown, 2004 (= 2004a). ———. “On the Dynamization of Phenomenological Concepts: An experimental essay in phenomenological practice.” Focus Pragensis 4 (2004), 9–39 (= 2004b). ———. “Bodily protentionality: An experiment in phenomenological practice (VI).” Husserl Circle, Dublin, 2005; “Bodily protentionality.” Husserl Studies 25 (2009), 185–217 (= 2009b). ———. “Bodily relationality: An experiment in phenomenological practice (VII).” In Phenomenology 2005. Vol. 5. Selected Essays from North America. Ed. Lester Embree and Thomas Nenon. Bucharest: Zeta Books, 2007, 67–97. ———. “Interkinaesthetic affectivity: A phenomenological approach.” Continental Philosophy Review 41 (2008), 143–61 (= 2008a). ———. “Husserl’s Protean Concept of Affectivity: From the Texts to the Phenomena Themselves.” Philosophy Today 52 (SPEP Supple-

54

Elizabeth A. Behnke

ment 2008), 46–53 (= 2008b); “El concepto proteico de afectividad en Husserl: De los textos a los fenómenos mismos.” Trans. Germán Vargas Guillén and Harry P. Reeder. Anuario Colombiano de Fenomenología 3 (2009), 55–68 (= 2009c). ———. “The Human Science of Somatics and Transcendental Phenomenology.” Žmogus ir Žodis 11:4 (2009), 10–26 (= 2009d). ———. “The Socially Shaped Body and the Critique of Corporeal Experience.” In Sartre on the Body. Ed. Katherine J. Morris. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 231–55 (= 2010a). ———. “Working Notions: A Meditation on Husserlian Phenomenological Practice.” In Advancing Phenomenology: Essays in Honor of Lester Embree. Ed. Philip Blosser and Thomas Nenon. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010, 45–70 (= 2010b). ———. “Null-Body, Protean Body, Potent Body, Neutral Body, Wild Body.” In Time, Memory, Institution: Merleau-Ponty’s New Ontology of the Self. Ed. Kym Maclaren and David Morris. Forthcoming. Bernet, Rudolf, Iso Kern, and Eduard Marbach. Edmund Husserl. Darstellung seines Denkens. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1989 [2nd rev. ed. 1996]; An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1993. Biemel, Walter. “Die entscheidenden Phasen in der Entfaltung von Husserls Philosophie.” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 13 (1959), 187–213; “The Decisive Phases in the Development of Husserl’s Philosophy.” In The Phenomenology of Husserl: Selected Critical Readings. Ed. and trans. R. O. Elveton. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1970, 148–73. ———. “Foreword.” In Husserl: Shorter Works. Ed. Peter McCormick and Frederick A. Elliston. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981, xi–xiv. Cairns, Dorion. Conversations with Husserl and Fink. Ed. Husserl-Archives. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976. Claesges, Ulrich. Edmund Husserls Theorie der Raumkonstitution. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964. Dodd, James. Idealism and Corporeity: An Essay on the Problem of the Body in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. Fink, Eugen. Studien zur Phänomenologie 1930–1939. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

55

———. “Die phänomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwärtigen Kritik.” Kant-Studien 38 (1933), 321–83; rpt. in Fink 1966, 79–156; “The Phenomenological Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Contemporary Criticism.” In The Phenomenology of Husserl: Selected Critical Readings. Ed. and trans. R. O. Elveton. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1970, 73–147. ———. “Was will die Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls? (Die phänomenologische Grundlegungsidee).” Die Tatwelt 10 (1934), 15–32; rpt. in Fink 1966, 157–78; “What Does the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl Want to Accomplish? (The Phenomenological Idea of Laying-a-Ground).” Trans. Arthur Grugan. Research in Phenomenology 2 (1972), 5–27. ———. “Das Problem der Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls.” Revue internationale de philosophie 1 (1939), 226–70; rpt. in Fink 1966, 179–223; “The Problem of the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl.” Trans. Robert M. Harlan. In Apriori and World: European Contributions to Husserlian Phenomenology. Ed. William McKenna et al. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981, 21–55 (= 1981a). ———. “L’analyse intentionelle et le problème de la pensée spéculative.” In Problèmes actuels de la phénoménologie. Ed. Herman Leo Van Breda. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1952, 54/55–86/87 [German/French on facing pages]. ———. “Operative Begriffe in Husserls Phänomenologie.” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 11 (1957), 321–37; “Operative Concepts in Husserl’s Phenomenology.” Trans. William McKenna. In Apriori and World: European Contributions to Husserlian Phenomenology. Ed. William McKenna et al. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981, 56–70 (= 1981b). ———. “Die Spätphilosophie Husserls in der Freiburger Zeit.” In Edmund Husserl 1859–1959: Recueil commémoratif publié à l’occasion du centenaire de la naissance du philosophe. [Ed. Herman Leo Van Breda and Jacques Taminiaux.] La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959, 99–115. Funke, Gerhard. “Transzendental-phänomenologische Untersuchung über ‘universalen Idealismus,’ ‘Intentionalanalyse’ und ‘Habitgenese.’” In Il compito della fenomenologia (Archivio di filosofie no. 1). Padova: Casa Editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, 1957, 117–54; “A Transcendental-Phenomenological Investigation Concerning Universal

56

Elizabeth A. Behnke

Idealism, Intentional Analysis and the Genesis of Habitus: Archē, Phansis, Hexis, Logos.” Trans. and ed. Robert M. Harlan. In Apriori and World: European Contributions to Husserlian Phenomenology. Ed. William McKenna et al. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981, 71–113. ———. Phänomenologie—Metaphysik oder Methode? Bonn: H. Bouvier, 1966; Phenomenology—Metaphysics or Method? Trans. David J. Parent. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1987. ———. “Kritische Phänomenologie.” In Husserl-Symposion Mainz 27.6./4.7.1988. Ed. Gerhard Funke. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur / Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1989, 7–32. Hanna, Thomas. Somatics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1988; rpt. New York: Da Capo Press, 2004. Hart, James G. “Constitution and reference in Husserl’s phenomenology of phenomenology.” Husserl Studies 6 (1989), 43–72. ———. “The entelechy and authenticity of objective spirit: Reflections on Husserliana XXVII.” Husserl Studies 9 (1992), 91–110. Heffernan, George. “On Husserl’s Remark that ‘[s]elbst eine sich als apodiktisch ausgebende Evidenz kann sich als Täuschung enthüllen …’ (XVII 164:32–33): Does the Phenomenological Method Yield Any Epistemic Infallibility?” Husserl Studies 25 (2009), 15–43. Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana. Den Haag / Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff / Kluwer Academic Publishers / Springer, 1950ff. ———. Husserliana Materialien. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers / Springer, 2001ff. (= HM). ———. “Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen Ursprung der Räumlichkeit der Natur.” [Ed. Alfred Schutz.] In Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl. Ed. Marvin Farber. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940, 307–25. ———. Briefe an Roman Ingarden mit Erläuterungen und Erinnerungen an Husserl. Ed. Roman Ingarden. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968. Ingarden, Roman. “Die vier Begriffe der Transzendenz und das Problem des Idealismus in Husserl.” Analecta Husserliana 1 (1971), 36–74. Johnstone, Albert A. “Oneself as Oneself and Not as Another.” Husserl Studies 13 (1996), 1–17.

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

57

Kern, Iso. Idee und Methode der Philosophie. Leitgedanken für eine Theorie der Vernunft. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975. ———. “Selbstbewußtsein und Ich bei Husserl.” In Husserl-Symposion Mainz 27.6./4.7.1988. Ed. Gerhard Funke. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur / Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1989, 51–63. Landgrebe, Ludwig. “Seinsregionen und regionale Ontologien in Husserls Phänomenologie” [1956]. In his Der Weg der Phänomenologie. Das Problem einer ursprünglichen Erfahrung. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1963, 143–62; “Regions of Being and Regional Ontologies in Husserl’s Phenomenology.” Trans. William McKenna. In Apriori and World: European Contributions to Husserlian Phenomenology. Ed. William McKenna et al. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981, 132–51 (= 1981a); also trans. Richard Cote in Landgrebe 1981b, 149–75. ———. “Reflexionen zu Husserls Konstitutionslehre.” Tijdschrift voor filosofie 36 (1974), 466–82; “The Problem of Passive Constitution.” Trans. Donn Welton. Analecta Husserliana 7 (1978), 23–36; trans. rpt. in Landgrebe 1981b, 50–65. ———. The Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl: Six Essays. Ed. Donn Welton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981 (= 1981b). Larrabee, Mary Jeanne. “The contexts of phenomenology as theory.” Human Studies 13 (1990), 195–208. Lotz, Christian. From Affectivity to Subjectivity: Husserl’s Phenomenology Revisited. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard, 1945. Meyer-Drawe, Käte. “Der Leib—‘ein merkwürdig unvollkommen konstituiertes Ding.’” In Phänomenologie im Widerstreit. Zum 50. Todestag Edmund Husserls. Ed. Christoph Jamme and Otto Pöggeler. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989, 291–306. Michotte, Albert. The Perception of Causality [1946]. Trans. T. R. Miles and Elaine Miles. London: Methuen, 1963. Mohanty, J. N. “Husserl’s Concept of Intentionality.” Analecta Husserliana 1 (1971), 100–132. ———. The Concept of Intentionality. St. Louis: Warren H. Green, 1972.

58

Elizabeth A. Behnke

———. “Understanding Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introductory Essay.” In Apriori and World: European Contributions to Husserlian Phenomenology. Ed. William McKenna et al. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981, 1–20. ———. The Possibility of Transcendental Philosophy. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985. ———. “Husserlian Transcendental Phenomenology: Some Aspects.” In Edmund Husserl and the Phenomenological Tradition: Essays in Phenomenology. Ed. Robert Sokolowski. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988, 175–81. ———. Transcendental Phenomenology: An Analytic Account. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Sawicki, Marianne. Body, Text, and Science: The Literacy of Investigative Practices and the Phenomenology of Edith Stein. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. Schuhmann, Karl. Husserl-Chronik. Denk- und Lebensweg Edmund Husserls. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977. Seebohm, Thomas [M.] Die Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der Transzendental-philosophie. Edmund Husserls transzendental-phänomenologischer Ansatz, dargestellt im Anschluss an seine Kant-Kritik. Bonn: Bouvier, 1962. ———. “Apodiktizität. Recht und Grenze.” In Husserl-Symposion Mainz 27.6./4.7.1988. Ed. Gerhard Funke. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur / Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1989, 65–99. ———. “Leben von Innen und Außen.” In Die Struktur lebendiger Systeme. Zu ihrer wissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Bestimmung. Ed. Wolfgang Marx. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991, 79–104. ———. “The Paradox of Subjectivity and the Idea of Ultimate Grounding in Husserl and Heidegger.” In Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy. Ed. D. P. Chattopadhyaya et al. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992, 153–68. ———. “Intentionalität und passive Synthesis. Gedanken zu einer nichttranszendentalen Konzeption von Intentionalität.” In Husserl in Halle. Spurensuche im Anfang der Phänomenologie. Ed. HansMartin Gerlach and Hans Rainer Sepp. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1994, 63–84.

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

59

———. “The Apodicticity of Absence.” In Derrida and Phenomenology. Ed. William R. McKenna and J. Claude Evans. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995, 185–200. Sokolowski, Robert. The Formation of Husserl’s Concept of Constitution. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964. ———. Husserlian Meditations. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974. Sowa, Rochus. “Wesen und Wesensgesetze in der deskriptiven Eidetik Edmund Husserls.” Phänomenologische Forschungen (2007), 5–37 (= 2007a); “Essences and Eidetic Laws in Edmund Husserl’s Descriptive Eidetics.” Trans. John Noras with Thiemo Breyer. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 7 (2007), 77–108 (= 2007b); “Essences et lois d’essence dans l’eidétique descriptive de Edmund Husserl.” Trans. Véronique Decaix and Claudio Majolino. Methodos 9 (2009), on line 25 Feb. 2009. Ströker, Elisabeth. Husserls transzendentale Phänomenologie. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1987; Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. Lee Hardy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993. ———. The Husserlian Foundations of Science. 2nd rev. ed. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. Toombs, S. Kay. The Meaning of Illness: A Phenomenological Account of the Different Perspectives of Physician and Patient. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992. Zaner, Richard M. The Problem of Embodiment: Some Contributions to a Phenomenology of the Body. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964. ———. The Context of Self: A Phenomenological Inquiry Using Medicine as a Clue. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1981.

Endnotes 1. This research report was first presented at the Husserl Circle, Seattle, 2000, and I am grateful to participants for their comments and questions. The present version includes substantially the same descriptive material, but incorporates some new references; I have also reorganized and updated the reflections on the methodological sense of

60

Elizabeth A. Behnke

“constitution.” For further “experiments in phenomenological practice,” see Behnke 2001a (II), 2001b (III), 2003 (employs research results from IV), 2004a (V), 2005/2009b (VI), 2007 (VII). Work is still underway on the constitution of the Nullhaltung (VIII) and the problem of inner spatiality (IX), and the series of experiments as a whole is meant as preliminary studies for a book whose working title is This Body that is Not a Thing: A Husserlian Investigation of Embodiment. 2. Cf., e.g., 17/11, 251, 262, 273, 278; 1/48; 6/16, 440 (but see also 27/234). All citations in this form refer to Husserliana, cited by volume number/page number(s) or section (§) number(s); references to Husserliana Materialien will use the abbreviation HM, followed by the volume number/page number(s). 3. Fink 1959, 114; cf. Heffernan 2009, 42. 4. Although the English translation of Ideen II speaks here of a “remarkably imperfectly constituted thing,” I have used the word “incompletely” because of the importance that Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the phrase has taken on in the secondary literature; see, e.g., Meyer-Drawe 1989, and cf. the chain of references documented in Johnstone 1996, 7ff. 5. A more detailed account of Merleau-Ponty’s development of the motif in Phénoménologie de la perception was presented in Behnke 1999; see also Behnke 2002. 6. Cairns (1976, 26) reports that Husserl’s work on the German version of the Méditations Cartésiennes interrupted his work on “another, larger, all-embracing book” that “was to bring much that the existent manuscripts do not contain—among other things, methodological elucidations of the way one approaches and develops a phenomenological problem.” Even in the absence of such explicit elucidations, however, we can at least walk with Husserl along the “paths themselves” in such a way that we ourselves can experience his practice from within, and thereby become “part of the inquiry” (Biemel 1981, xii). 7. Note that the present experiment in phenomenological practice assumes the researcher’s engagement with previous phenomenological work on the matters of interest, rather than the case of a completely fresh turn to matters considered independently of other phenomenologists’ description of these matters. 8. See, e.g., 16/§§59f. (cf. 16/224), 11/§1, HM8/181; cf., e.g., 14/349, and see also 14/359, where the monad itself is, as transcend-

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

61

ent, “only incompletely ‘actualized’” in any “actual,” current, concrete self-apperception. 9. See, e.g., 25/Beilage V, especially 222ff. 10. See, e.g., 14/110, 526; 15/95f., 142, 229, 241, 631. 11. The issues I have identified as types of experience “to be set aside here” nevertheless point to further descriptive tasks, as do, of course, the various types of “incompletenesses” mentioned above. Thus we can already see that the very attempt to zero in on a specific theme for descriptive research has the immediate consequence of a kind of proliferation of related tasks that are now experienced as “undone descriptions.” In other words, entering the overall attitude and research horizon proper to phenomenological practice in order to focus, descriptively, on a particular experiential possibility can motivate further research that is not arbitrary, but stands in intimate connection with the chosen task (and may even provide clues needed for accomplishing it). 12. Cf. 15/654; Cairns 1976, 19. 13. Cf. 15/663, for clothes as examples of near-things that may be partially invisible to me because, like certain body parts, they can be hidden from view by my body itself. 14. Husserl 1940, 313f.; cf., e.g., 15/280. 15. That this habit is not obligatory is already shown by, for example, martial arts practices in which awareness is not necessarily directed toward “things” at all, but is geared in with the texture of interactions, alert for openings, and so on. 16. Other modes of approach are, of course, also possible. For example, one could address the presupposition of the body as a “thing” by pursuing historical investigations tracing the long heritage of dualistic ontological doctrines (be they Platonic, Christian, or Cartesian) severing mind, soul, or spirit from its receptacle, prison, or tomb of crumbling, sinful, extended flesh. Another approach is taken in Dodd 1997, which focuses on the body as res extensa, res materialis, and res temporalis. Elsewhere, I have addressed the presupposition that the body is a thing in terms of a critique of the psychophysical apperception—see Behnke 2004a, §§2c, 4c; 2005/2009b, §2; and especially 2009d, Part One, B. 17. Hence the proposed strategy is to take the initial presupposition (experience of the body-as-thing) seriously, testing its evidentiality

62

Elizabeth A. Behnke

while allowing at the same time for the possibility of its falsifiability (cf. Sowa 2007b, 102ff., 106). 18. See, e.g., 15/Beilagen LV, LVI on the constitution of “Oberflächendinge,” and cf. 652 n.1. 19. Cf. Schuhmann 1977, 408, where the term “visual reduction” is cited as appearing in connection with the issue of perspectivation in a research manuscript (D 10/55–60) from the end of May 1932. Note that all of the manuscripts gathered under the D 10 signature would appear to be relevant to our theme (see Schuhmann 1977, 408–10, and 15/Beilagen XVI, XVII). 20. See, e.g., 14/56, 60ff., 77, 90, 374, 482; cf. also Behnke 2009d, Part One, A. 21. Cf. 15/Beilage XVIII. Note that the constitution of one’s own sensed body as a relatively stable “inner thing” (or quasi-thing)—more specifically, of a distinctive thing-phantom whose various regions can be successively explored by a moving “ray of attention”—often involves the “flowing” or “seeping” in of an “anatomical apprehension” organizing the hyletic stratum (see Behnke 2001a), which can, however, also sustain other apprehensions (see Behnke 2008a, 150; 2008b, 49f./2009c, 67). 22. Michotte 1963, 204 (and see also 201ff.); cf. Cairns 1976, 6, and Behnke 1984/2006. Related points are addressed in Johnstone 1996, 7–9. Further descriptive work could demonstrate that the kinaesthetic field can be lucidly lived with various degrees of clarity and determinacy; of supreme importance here is the indeterminacy and lability of a kinaesthetic “null”-configuration that is not yet committed to a particular task or gesture, but is open to any movement, including genuinely new kinaesthetic possibilities that may emerge spontaneously in response to the emerging needs of a fluid situation (see Behnke forthcoming, especially §§3f.). 23. See, e.g., 15/132 on that which is “completely experienceable” in the sense that what is horizonally included in its experiential sense is perceivable in principle for me, myself. 24. Cf., e.g., 15/18 on the “fremde Leibkörper” as the “Urobjekt,” i.e., “die erste der intersubjektiv werdenden Transzendenzen” (cf. 1/153; 14/110). Of course, the important theme of reciprocity of perspectives comes into play here as well.

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

63

25. The relentless naturalization of the body in positivistic science not only has ethical implications for medical practice (cf. Toombs 1992), but has contributed to motivating the current interest in phenomenology of the body as a recovery operation, retrieving and rehabilitating the unique experiential possibilities native to the lived body itself. 26. See Bartky 1990; cf. Behnke 2010a, 241ff. 27. The notion of sensory-motor amnesia is taken from the works of Thomas Hanna (see especially Hanna 1988/ 2004); see also Behnke forthcoming, §3. 28. Recall that “primordial” is not equivalent to “solipsistic,” but refers to what I can and do experience originaliter—see 15/51. 29. See, e.g., 15/652ff., and cf. Zaner 1981, 55ff.; Toombs 1992, 72f. 30. Cf. 15/286: “‘ich selbst’ …, was hier besagt: Ich, das transzendentale Ich, mit meinen transzendentalen kinästhetisch-erscheinungsregierenden Aktivitäten …”; see also Claesges 1964, especially Part III. 31. See Behnke 1984/2006; cf. 1997, 183f. 32. See Zaner 1964, 249, and see also Behnke 1997, 184; 2005/2009b, §2. 33. Cf. Kern 1975, 47; Landgrebe 1981b, 41, 44, 51f., 63, 120, 159; Mohanty 1985, 163, 242; Ströker 1993, 136f., and 1997, 103; Behnke 2004a. Larger issues at stake here include the paradox of subjectivity (see, e.g., 6/§§53f.; cf. Seebohm 1992), here played out on a bodily level. 34. Although apodicticity has often been discussed in the context of what George Heffernan has christened “triple-A type” evidence, yielding cognitive results that are simultaneously absolute, adequate, and apodictic qua indubitable (see, e.g., Heffernan 2009, 19—but see also 34, 35, 39), Seebohm suggests that “an evidence is apodictic if any reflection on the mode of such a givenness reveals in its own underlying structure what is in question” (Seebohm 1995, 199); cf. Seebohm 1989, 86: “Nach diesem nicht mehr naiven, sondern kritisch Begriff der Apodiktizität ist etwas in apodiktischer Evidenz gegeben dann und nur dann, wenn eine Reflexion auf diese Gegebenheit eben diese Gegebenheit selbst wieder in sich schließt, was in einer höherstufigen Reflexion zu einer selbst wieder als apodiktisch zu erweisenden Evidenz gebracht werden kann.” And although I cannot go into this in any

64

Elizabeth A. Behnke

detail, perhaps something like the latter understanding is at stake here: the notion of the body as constituting—taken as a nexus of capabilities proper to “Ich, das transzendentale Ich, mit meinen transzendentalen kinästhetisch-erscheinungsregierenden Aktivitäten” (15/286)—is itself presupposed in any attempt to demonstrate, on the basis of the appropriate experiential evidence, that the body is a constituted thing (irrespective of how “complete” such constitution may be). In other words, the body that is not (completely) constituted precisely because it is constituting is structurally presupposed in exhibiting the very evidence for the body as constituted, and the apodicticity in question refers to the insight that the body as constituting is presumed in any attempt to deny it or to replace it with the body as constituted. 35. On the difference between a “methodological” and a “metaphysical” sense of “constitution,” see Mohanty 1981, 12f.; Landgrebe 1967/1981a, 146ff./135ff. (or see 1981b, 154ff.), and cf. Funke 1957/1981; Behnke 2010b, a, §5. A classic survey of Husserl’s notion of constitution in general is provided in Sokolowski 1964, while helpful briefer introductions will be found in Ströker 1987/1993, B, II, §3, and C, II; Bernet, Kern, and Marbach 1989/1993, Ch. 4. See also the remarks in Mohanty 1988, 175ff., and 1989, 150ff., and cf. 17/§§85, 94, 97f.; 1/§§17–22, 37–39; 6/§§46–49. A number of essays by Fink—see, e.g., 1933/1970, 1934/1972, 1939/1981a, 1957/1981b— have often shaped the way in which the philosophical implications of the notion of constitution have been addressed, and Landgrebe 1974/1978 has been influential as well. Here, however, it is not possible to pursue the discussions of constitution in the literature in any detail. 36. On difficulties associated with mundane senses of the term “constitution,” cf. Fink 1957/1981b, 334f./67f.; Seebohm 1991, 91ff., and 1994, 67ff. The point is already made in Fink’s 1933 Kant-Studien article that what “constitution” signifies “can be indicated solely through the enactment of constitutive investigations” (Fink 1966/1970, 143/134; cf. Fink 1966/1981a, 218/50), and see also Seebohm 1962, 161, on such expressions as “Konstitution der Gegenstände”: “Ihr Sinn bestimmt sich aus der transzendental-reduktiven Methode.” John Drummond (personal communication) has indicated that the way in which I am understanding “constitution” in this context gives too much weight to the experience of the phenomenologist. However,

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

65

since my theme in the present section is not, e.g., “the role of anonymous pregiving sense-constitution in our everyday experience of a ready-made world,” but precisely what sense of “constitution” is at stake for someone engaged in practicing constitutive-phenomenological investigations, the Rückfrage to the phenomenologizing transcendental life would seem to be entirely appropriate here; cf. Larrabee 1990, 195, on using phenomenological methods—e.g., “analyzing the correlation of phenomenological noema to phenomenologizing noeses”—to carry out the “critical examination of phenomenological activities” in what would then be a true phenomenology of phenomenology. 37. Cf., e.g., 15/70f., 75. The essential interconnection of “constitution” and “reduction” is already emphasized in Fink’s 1934 article (see Fink 1966/1972, 176/24), and see also Seebohm 1962, 94; Funke 1981, 94; Ströker 1993, 105. 38. Thus, for example, if we are studying “non-intuitive co-meant horizons” (cf., e.g., 15/90), it is these themselves (and not some fullfledged perceptual “presence”) that we must turn to, experientially, in order to reach the Evidenz on the basis of which we can describe, say, the registers of determinable indeterminacy that are at work in the type of apperceptive foreshadowing concerned (see Behnke 2010b, §4). Cf. 15/20, where Husserl is contrasting phenomenological explication with “metaphysical construction,” and characterizes phenomenology as proceeding within the framework of pure “intuition,” only to add immediately, “oder vielmehr der reinen Sinnauslegung durch erfüllende Selbstgebung.” In other words, the inherited term “intuition” is recast by Husserl in terms of a transition from something emptily meant to the fulfilling itself-givenness of this something (see Behnke 2004b, 23f.), taken broadly enough that even the “empty” can itself be given, firsthand, precisely as “empty” (cf., e.g., HM8/42). 39. On the style of reflexivity meant here, see, e.g., 10/291, 33/207 (cf. the discussions in Hart 1989, 51f., 62f.), and see also, e.g., Seebohm 1962, 138; Mohanty 1971, 127, and 1972, Part Three, Chapter One; Funke 1989, 27; Kern 1989, 52f., as well as Ingarden 1971, 53, 55; Funke 1981, 83. (Note, however, that the terminology varies, with some using “erlebt” for the moment of reflexivity and some using “durchlebt.”) Of course, both reflection, in the customary sense, and recollection come into play in articulating formal descriptions, and

66

Elizabeth A. Behnke

even in formally recognizing the “evidential” as such. Moreover, it is undeniable that descriptive work often requires an immediate appeal to the retentional. Nevertheless, I find much to be learned within protentional reflexivity, i.e., through inhabiting the leading edge from within; cf. Behnke 2005/2009b. For more on the “how of the receivingness,” see Behnke 2004a, §3.d, and 2007, 78ff.; cf. 2008a, 2008b/2009b. 40. This way of posing the question is typically traced back to Fink’s 1933 essay (see 1966/1970, 143/133f., but cf. also 1957/1981b, 334f./67f.; 1959, 109)—see, e.g., Mohanty 1972, 115f., and cf. Sokolowski 1964, 217. Other ways of expressing a contrast are also possible; for example, Biemel (1970, 158) contrasts “production” and “restitution,” and Landgrebe 1974/1978 refers to the contrast between “sense-formation” and “creation” in Fink 1952, 78/79 (which also uses the language of a receptive/productive contrast). The contrast between constitution as “sense-bestowal” and constitution as “transcendental production” is also analyzed in Mohanty 1972, 107ff., especially 113ff. But see also, e.g., Seebohm 1962, 161f.; Funke 1966/1987, 90f./67f.; Ströker 1997, 93f. 41. See, e.g., 11/§27; Funke 1981, 76, 84; Ströker 1993, 105, 146f., and 1997, 92, and cf. Behnke 2005/2009b, §6 (but see also 2004a, §2.a). Note that I am referring to, e.g., temporally individuated adumbrations of a perceived thing, and not to controversies concerning the apprehension of some sort of sheer sensuous “material”; in Husserl’s mature thought, even the “hyletic” is taken as the correlate of transcendental kinaesthetic-affective life. 42. Cf., e.g., Aguirre 1970, xxi, §§29f. As Husserl points out, the very formations passively constituted as “selfsame” in identifying syntheses are themselves preserved as acquisitions—see, e.g., 17/319ff. Thus the two approaches to constitution that I am sketching here must not be taken as mutually exclusive: one set of investigations is concerned with how unities are experienced across multiplicities, and the other with how experiential life is not a matter of isolated pulses that vanish without a trace (cf. 17/253f.), but of abiding capabilities that continue to come into effective operation in the further course of the experiencing life in question, shaping both its styles of experiencing— including the very possibility of functioning as an “integrative” consciousness, as well as more specific apperceptions and acceptances—

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

67

and what is experienced in them. Thus the latter understanding encompasses the former, but cannot be limited to it. 43. The entire question of the constitution (qua acquisition) of kinaesthetic capabilities vs. the constitution (qua integrative synthesis) of a (temporally) appearing object to be investigated in the how of its givenness is significant for the question of Edith Stein’s editorial work on Ideen II, which bears, after all, the subtitle “Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution.” According to Sawicki, Stein’s alterations of Husserl’s original draft (and especially of the material on the body) were motivated in part by her project of avoiding an idealistic understanding of constitution (see Sawicki 1997, 155, and especially 159, where Stein’s letter of 3 February 1917 to Ingarden is cited) by granting (logical) priority to a bodily life that is “essentially anchored in the natural world” (Sawicki 1997, 77) rather than to a constituting transcendental subjectivity. As Sawicki (1997, 75) writes in summarizing Stein’s view, “the body must already be there and functioning before constitution can get underway”—or in Stein’s own words to Ingarden in the letter mentioned (Sawicki 1997, 159), “Eine absolut existierende physikalische Natur einerseits, eine Subjektivität bestimmter Struktur anderseits scheinen mir vorausgesetzt, damit sich eine anschauliche Natur konstituieren kann.” However, the notion of “constitution” at stake here is not only restricted to the “integrative” sense, referring to “the unification of a series of adumbrated appearances” of an identical thing (Sawicki 1997, 74; cf. 108), but is oriented solely toward object-constitution. In contrast, the notion of constitution as acquisition of effective capability (which is, of course, a notion that may not have been available to Stein in her work for Husserl) offers a way of understanding the constitutive function of kinaesthetic consciousness as a moment in the structure of transcendental life itself. Thus Stein’s issue has more to do with her commitment to a realistic ontology than with any necessary choice between the priority of the “bodily” or of “constitution” per se. 44. Cf. 27/110; Hart 1992, 102–104, and see also Ströker 1993, B, II, §3, on “reality” itself as a constitutive problem. 45. Working out this point in detail would require distinguishing various species of “results” of constitutive research, not simply as “findings” specific to a given “topic” (e.g., the lived body), but in terms of various types of constitutive “performances” (and their respective cor-

68

Elizabeth A. Behnke

relates), e.g., “adopting a particular attitude,” “making a particular kind of distinction,” “re-valuing,” “accepting,” “apperceiving-as … ” or “building up on the basis of something pregiven,” and so on. In other words, precisely which performances will be disclosed is not necessarily prescribed in advance (e.g., as performances entailing some kind of hylomorphic scheme) solely by choosing “constitutive phenomenology” as the research method. (An exception to this, however, might be the uncancellable implication of temporal synthesis in any constitution of “identity” whatsoever.) And the approach to a methodological sense of constitution recommended here also sets aside any philosophical-ontological interpretations whatsoever of constitution itself (whether in favor of “idealism” or “realism,” or of a fundamental origin to which both of these senses can be traced back, etc.), although we can, of course, approach being-as-meant through constitutive analyses (see, e.g., Ströker 1993, 107). 46. In this way constitutive-phenomenological research can indeed play an ethical-critical role in cultural renewal, and, as a new type of theoretical praxis, may have more specifically “practical” implications and applications as well (cf., e.g., 6/329, 333f., 336). 47. Cf., e.g., Funke 1966/1987, 60/45, 101/75, 109/81, 141f./104f. 48. See Funke 1966/1987, 109/81, 117ff./86ff., 123/90f.,137/101f., 164/121; cf. Aguirre 1970, §6. 49. See, e.g., 15/lvii, lxi; cf. n. 11 above (but see also the highly critical comments in Fink 1959, 110). 50. Cf., e.g., Larrabee 1990, 206. The open iterability of phenomenology as a research tradition that can always be taken up “again” has, as the correlate of this “again,” the figure of “another”—and not just any other, but another researcher within a shared research horizon. However, this need not imply complete uniformity among utterly interchangeable researchers; on the contrary, the researchers’ situated differences contribute to the open-endedness of a tradition that is ongoingly renewed and enriched by their irreplaceable individual activities. In other words, it is as though each researcher who works out a phenomenological description is composing a score for others to perform, each in his/her own fashion (within the limits suggested by the score— which may, of course, have to be revised after their performance). And it is these subsequent performances that are to fulfill the research

The “Remarkably Incompletely Constituted” Body

69

requirement of “intersubjective verifiability.” However, the latter requirement does not compel all the participants to write the same kind of score: “performability” stands at a higher degree of universality than any specific feature (or coherent set of such features) pertaining to a particular theme, genre, or style.

2 The Justification of Norms Reflectively Analyzed Lester Embree

Philosophy, Florida Atlantic University The Organization of Phenomenological Organizations [email protected] ABSTRACT: Beginning from the equivalence of “A warrior ought to be courageous” and “A courageous warrior is good” in Husserl’s Prolegomena, the attempt is made to show how what these statements refer to are constituted in processes especially of valuing and are justified.

Introduction In his “Prolegomena zur reinen Logik” (Logische Untersuchungen [1900]), Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) offers a quite memorable analysis and example of what a norm is (for those unfamiliar with it, the English translation of the most relevant passage is in Appendix I of this essay): “A warrior ought to be courageous” is equivalent to “A courageous warrior is good.” Plainly, this transforms a norm into a value judgment. Husserl expresses this equivalence in a straightforward attitude, i.e., he does not analyze and describe how norms are constituted and justified. I have not noticed such a reflective analysis related to this account in the other publications of Husserl’s lifetime, and, if such an analysis occurs in work edited from his Nachlass, I am also unfamiliar with it. The present account is, in any case, not PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

72

Lester Embree

an interpretation of Husserl’s texts but a brief attempt at some constitutive phenomenology after the manner of the mature Husserl. In the first section below I attempt to develop Husserl’s example in a vivid way, in the second section I take a purely possible referent of his propositions as a clue to the components of the encountering in which such a case is constituted, and in the third section I consider briefly how norms can be justified. Conduct in a Firefight It is unlikely that the hearer or reader of the present analysis has been in combat, but it is likely that she has seen news footage or fictional film depictions of situations like the following and in any case can easily feign it as a possibility. In a firefight, there are two groups of warriors within range of each other, firing rifles, and taking cover behind such things as rocks and trees. Members of each group are seeking to kill members of the other group and their motivation is at least that of “kill or be killed.” In order to aim and shoot the rifles effectively, a warrior must expose part of her head and thus risk being shot herself. To do so is courageous. To keep one’s head down and either not shoot at all or shoot without aiming one’s rifle is cowardly. Seeming cowardice can be understood and excused for warriors in their first firefights or suffering from mental or physical wounds. But what is courageous and cowardly for healthy and experienced warriors is clear. To refer to such an example is to focus on things beneath the stratum of mental life in which propositions are formed and connected, but the pertinent types of the things referred to are cointended, types being unclarified universal essences or eidē, so such an example has an implicit general bearing. Through freephantasy variation, the eidē vaguely given beforehand can be further clarified, but they already seem clear enough for present purposes. And on the basis of encountering such an instance of

The Justification of Norms Reflectively Analyzed

73

martial courage (or cowardice), one can think and express the propositions “A warrior ought to be courageous” and “A courageous warrior is good” and posit their equivalence. (“A warrior ought not to be cowardly” and “A cowardly warrior is bad” can also be formulated, but hereafter the positive evaluation will be given priority in this exposition.) To be able to assert that “A courageous warrior is good,” one needs first of all to be able to recognize a warrior and the sort of conduct deemed courageous. Taking cover, shooting, and being shot at is warrior conduct and exposing oneself to enemy fire in order to shoot well-aimed shots is courageous warrior conduct. Courage can be affirmed of a warrior and then the subject matter called “courageous warrior” can have objectivated positive value or “goodness” predicated of it. This is not difficult to see and the equivalence of a proposition of that structure and the proposition, “A warrior ought to be courageous” as referring to the same matter and equivalent to, but not identical with, the first proposition also seems not difficult to see, which might be why Husserl did not pursue the matter further. One can of course abstract from content and produce the combination of propositional forms, “An S ought to be, do, or have p” is equivalent to “An S that is, does, or has p is good.” The first proposition in this combination is the form of a norm, often at least in Anglophone philosophy also called an “ought,” which is to say a recommendation made to an Other and/or oneself and not an imperative, command, or “shall,” such as “Thou shalt be courageous!” although these are sometimes confused in ordinary parlance, where what are actually commands are expressed “politely” as recommendations. I. The Constitution of a Norm What has been said thus far has been done so in the straightforward or unreflective attitude, i.e., things ideal as well as real

74

Lester Embree

and fictive if not serious have just been described without reference to how they are intended to, including in syntheses. What one finds if one reflects are, generally speaking, what Husserl calls Erlebnisse (and, in addition and perhaps more subtly, things-as-intended-to). Husserl’s expression, Erlebnis, has been translated into English in several ways, e.g., as “experience” and “mental process” and even as “lived experience,” which seems an awkwardly mechanical rendering of “expérience veçue,” but I prefer to use “intentive process” and “encountering” alternatively, both of these expressions seeming to me better able to cover modes of believing, valuing, and willing as well as thinking and experiencing. Following ultimately Samuel Alexander, I emphasize the difference between “-ing” words and “-ed” words. Upon reflection, a phenomenologist can not only observe seriously or fictively and then analyze and describe encounterings but also things, including warriors in firefights, as-encountered. In other words, one can practice what Husserl calls noetico-noematic analysis. Where the noematic is concerned, such things as manners of givenness, values, and uses can be discerned, but I will focus on the noetic here, although nowise exclusively. To analyze the constituting of a thing, one takes the purely possible thing encountered (or intended) as a clue to how it is constituted and then reflects on serious or fictive encounterings of it. To take the propositions offered by Husserl as clues would lead to reflective analysis of the correlative thinking and judging. Better is to take as a clue a case that the propositions could refer to, e.g., a warrior in a firefight. Then there is at least a reflectively feigned case of encountering a warrior who is courageous (or cowardly). This encountering can be directly experienced by her fellow warriors in the firefight who see her conduct there or it can be indirectly encountered by members of an awards committee (or a court martial) who depend on testimony by the

The Justification of Norms Reflectively Analyzed

75

fellow squad members and other data, which nowadays can include satellite videos. I find a somewhat simplified taxonomy of intentive-process components sufficient for an analysis like this. In this taxonomy there are two genera of components.1 On the level of experiencing, there is the indirect experiencing by the awards (or court martial) committee and that is what makes their encountering indirect. The encountering by the fellow squad members in the firefight is relatively direct and indeed outwardly perceptual although only appresentively so. (I hesitate to call this experiencing “empathy” because I have noticed too many Anglophone Husserlians affected by this word such that they seem to consider this “Other-experiencing,” as I prefer to call it, a predominantly valuational rather than experiential process.) The warrior also encounters herself through self-experiencing and indeed presentively so. The second kind of component discernible in an Erlebnis is thetic or positional and, the problem of wishings aside, there are three species, which are best called believing, valuing, and willing. (How such positings as well as experiencings can be primarily and secondarily passive as well as Akte, is also disregarded for present purposes.) There seems no difficulties where believing is concerned. If the fellow squad member is seen to be using her rifle in one way, she is courageous (and in another way, she is cowardly). The seeing here justifies prima facie the believing in it and is Evidenz, which I prefer to render as “evidencing” since too often “evidence” signifies things other than intentive processes in ordinary and legal English. Husserl says somewhere that “Evidenz ist Erlebnis” which signifies that, e.g., it is not the knife with the accused person’s fingerprints and the victim’s blood on it that is Evidenz for Husserl, but the seeing of them by the laboratory technician who is testifying or “giving evidence.” There is also a component of willing in the case under analysis. The warrior can will herself to act courageously and her

76

Lester Embree

squad leader can command her to do so. But, for the constitution of norms, what is crucial is the valuing involved. Prepredicatively, the warrior can approve of her own courageous conduct (or disapprove her own cowardice) and her fellow squad leaders and also the committee that might award her a medal (or court martial her) can also value (or disvalue) her conduct. Valuing is central to whether she can have goodness (or badness) predicated of her courageous (or cowardly) conduct. In other words, the value of the conduct is constituted in valuing and this predominates in the encountering of her conduct. II. The Question of Justification If what has now been said suffices to show how courage (and cowardice) is prepredicatively encountered, the level of Husserl’s propositions can next be attained through the categorial forming of the subject and the objectivating and predicating of goodness (and badness). But this only accounts for how it is that one can say that some warrior conduct is good (or bad) and indeed may be recommended to be (or not to be) engaged in. This analysis has not yet addressed the question of justification, i.e., of whether courage is right or rational and cowardice not. As I understand Husserl, a positing is justified when it is founded upon and motivated by evidencing. Whether it is a matter of direct self-experiencing or of direct or indirect Other-experiencing, there is experiencing that can play the role of evidencing in the case analyzed. People are always motivated by past encounterings to behave and to evaluate themselves and Others in various ways. This is where critical examination needs to consider not only the motivation but also the foundedness of the valuing component on the evidencing and, correlatively, the reflectively discernable value and givenness of the thing valued. A dedicated pacificist does not try to kill Others even in they are trying to kill her. The valuing of oneself staying alive for the sake of others may

The Justification of Norms Reflectively Analyzed

77

be a strong motive and only loosely related on the part of the warrior to the evidencing of the need to shoot most effectively at the enemy. At least as important in this connection is how the fellow squad members and the awards committee (or court martial) has its valuing motivated not only by the evidencing of the warrior’s conduct but also is tightly founded on that evidencing. More colloquially speaking, these others can base their valuing on “really seeing” seriously or fictively what the conduct was in the situation. (There is a second norm here concerning how those who judge are obliged to proceed; it seems analyzable in similar fashion, and will not be pursued here.) And, on the basis of such justified valuing, the judgers can go on to form and express propositions of the two sorts and also the equivalence between them, as Husserl did in the “Prolegomena.” In other words, it is right that warriors ought to be courageous rather than cowardly. And with an ought then justified, a constitutive phenomenologist can go on to investigate a “shall,” i.e., an imperative or command, but that is beyond the scope of this brief reflection, which has only sought to show how oughts are constituted and justified. * * * In sum, the present analysis has accepted from Husserl that an ought or norm implies a value judgment and goes on to take a purely possible referent of such a judgment as a clue to the components of encountering in which that referent is constituted prepredicatively, especially including evidencing and valuing, and finally examines how evidencing can justify the valuing in which the attributed value is constituted.

78

Lester Embree

Appendix I “‘A soldier should be brave’ rather means that only a brave soldier is a ‘good’ soldier, which implies (since the predicates ‘good’ and ‘bad’ divide up the extension of the concept ‘soldier’) that a soldier who is not brave is a ‘bad’ soldier. Since this valuejudgement holds, everyone is entitled to demand of a soldier that he should be brave, the same ground ensures that it is desirable, praiseworthy etc., that he should be brave. The same holds in other instances. ‘A man should practice neighborly love,’ i.e., one who omits this is no longer a ‘good’ man, and therefore eo ipso is (in this respect) a ‘bad’ man. ‘A drama should not break up into episodes’—otherwise it is not a ‘good’ drama, not a ‘true’ work of art. In all these cases we make our positive evaluation, the attribution of a positive value-predicate, depend on a condition to be fulfilled, whose non-fulfillment entails the corresponding negative predicate. We may in general take as identical or at least as equivalent the forms ‘An A should be B’ and ‘An A that is not B is a bad A,’ or ‘Only an A which is a B is a good A.’” (Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, trans. J. N. Findlay (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), Vol. I, p. 82.)

79

The Justification of Norms Reflectively Analyzed

Appendix II Taxonomy of 17 (?) Intentive Process Components Wishful(?) Positing

Volitional Valuational

Encountering “doxic”

“thinking”

“Experiencing” Indirect Direct

Endnotes 1. See Appendix II.

diswilling neutrality willing disvaluing “apathy” valuing disbelieving neutrality believing

“linguistic” depicting indicating perceiving remembering expecting

3 What does the Question of Origins mean in Phenomenology? Saulius Geniusas

Philosophy Department, James Madison University Schutzian Research Center [email protected] ABSTRACT: In what follows, I address the question of origins in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology. I argue that both the sense and the methodological justification of the phenomenological question of origins derive from the problematics of the horizon. I show that Husserl’s notion of the horizon entails two dimensions of sense: the horizon is a horizon of reference and of validity. As a system of reference, the horizon embraces all the implications that each appearance draws to other appearances. The qualification of the horizon as a system of validity entails a further realization that an actual appearance entails references not only to other actual appearances, but also, and even more importantly, to other potential modes of appearances. I interpret the phenomenological question of origins as the question that traces the concealed senseaccomplishments, which qualify the sense of any appearing objectivity. On the basis of what is stated above, I argue that (1) the horizon as a system of validity clarifies the sense of the question of origins, and that (2) the possibility of the question of origins is secured by the horizon as a system of reference. The basic question phenomenology is in the process of raising … can be formulated as that concerning the origin of the world…. Just as the world is what it is only in terms of its ‘origins,’ so is this origin itself what it is only with reference to the world.”1

PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

82

Saulius Geniusas

It is widely recognized that the question of origins occupies a central place in phenomenology. And yet, both the meaning and the possibility of this question remain enigmatic. On the one hand, the question appears clouded in methodological obscurity: It is by far not obvious if phenomenology does not trespass its methodological boundaries when it directs its attention to what it calls the origins of sense-formation. On the other hand, it is also puzzling what the posing of this question is meant to accomplish: To uncover the concealed history that underlies given phenomena—what significance can such an accomplishment have for phenomena under scrutiny?2 In what follows, I would like to argue that both the sense and the methodological justification of the phenomenological question of origins derive from the problematics of the horizon. More precisely, I would like to show that the problematics of origins itself has its source in Husserl’s full-fledged notion of the horizon, interpreted as both a system of validity and a system of reference. The Horizon and Fringe of Consciousness The problematics of the horizon is a supreme example of a large set of themes that phenomenology has inherited from psychology. Admittedly, the few interpreters who have in a direct way thematized the notion of horizon suggest that we call Husserl the founder of the horizon-problematics.3 Yet Husserl’s writings themselves hardly justify such a view. Consider, for instance, Husserl’s remark in the Crisis: “James was, as much as I know, the only one who, under the title ‘fringes’ became aware of the phenomenon of the horizon” (Hua VI, 267). Consider also Dorion Cairns’s observation: In 1894 Stumpf called Husserl’s attention to James’ Psychology, and Husserl felt on reading it that James was on the same track as he. The notion of horizon and many others he found there. He had planned to publish a series of articles in the Philosophische

What does the Question of Origins mean in Phenomenology?

83

Monatshefte, but he published only the first, and decided to wait to see what James had done. (Cairns 1976, 36)4

These brief references make it patently clear that the phenomenological problematics of the horizon has its sources in William James’s analysis of the fringe of consciousness. Yet this realization does not mean that the phenomenological problematics of the horizon merely reiterates Jamesian insights. In Husserl’s writings, starting with its discovery in Ideen I (1913), the horizon-problematics undergoes numerous transformations, which lead to the realization that the horizon is a specifically genetic phenomenon. I have already briefly alluded to the two most distinguishing features of the genetic phenomenality of the horizon: the horizon is both a horizon of reference and the horizon of validity. My task here is not that of bringing the phenomenological notion of the horizon into a critical comparison with the notion of the fringe of consciousness. My task is rather that of showing how the full-fledged notion of the horizon delimits the conceptual space within which the phenomenological question of origins obtains its sense and its justification. Preliminary Determintion of the Horizon Let me turn to a brief analysis of what the horizon means in everyday speech. Such a brief analysis will allow me to derive three dimensions of sense that are central to the phenomenological notion of the horizon. The horizon, one says, is the line at which the ocean or the sea meets the sky. The horizon is the limit that constrains our visual field. Without having a place within a horizon, no phenomenon can ever appear to us. Such belongingness to the horizon as a necessary condition of manifestation exposes the word’s etymological sense: the Greek horizein means to delimit. This is the first sense of the horizon I wish to distinguish: the horizon is what de-

84

Saulius Geniusas

limits, i.e., what determines each and every phenomenon; it is what allows objectivities to manifest themselves as meaningful. The horizon, I remarked, is a line that marks the intersection of the sea and the sky. It is, however, a peculiar line. Its peculiarity consists in the fact that it is neither drawn, nor can it be drawn. If we were to draw it, we would already see what lies beyond it. In this regard, by positing a limit, consciousness immediately removes it. Yet things appear different in regard to a line that in principle evades determination: The more we approach it, the more it recedes. The outermost limit of the horizon draws back from us exactly to the extent that we advance toward it. This is the second sense of the horizon I wish to highlight: the horizon is a limit that is in principle unsurpassable. Yet even though the horizon is unsurpassable, our concrete awareness of the horizon can always be modified and enlarged. We enlarge the horizons by changing the situation we find ourselves in: by drawing nearer to the indeterminate line or by moving away from it. We thereby obtain the third sense of the horizon: the horizon is relative in regard to our current situation. We thereby obtain a threefold determination of the horizon. First, the horizon is inseparable from delimitation and thus from the sense of appearing phenomena; secondly, the horizon is a versatile limit, which is in principle unsurpassable; and thirdly, the horizon is essentially relative in that it is dependent upon our situation. All these dimensions of sense are crucial for the phenomenological appropriation of this everyday word. Yet precisely because the phenomenological employment of this term is, to borrow a phrase from Gadamer, an attempt to expose “the logical instinct inscribed in everyday speech,”5 it cannot be only an uncritical adoption of how this notion figures in its common use. Therefore, the next step I wish to take is that of singling out two central dimensions of sense that belong to the horizon as a philosophical notion. It will be important not to overlook that

What does the Question of Origins mean in Phenomenology?

85

these two dimensions of sense unfold on three different layers of experience. A Phenomenological Determination of the Horizon Consider the arresting example Merleau-Ponty provides in his Phenomenology of Perception: When I look at the lamp on my table, I attribute to it not only the qualities visible from where I am, but also those which the chimney, the walls, the table can ‘see’…. I can therefore see an object in so far as objects form a system or a world, and in so far as each one treats the others round it as spectators of its hidden aspects…. The completed object is translucent, being shot through from all sides by an infinite number of present scrutinies which intersect in its depths leaving nothing hidden. (Merleau Ponty, 68-69)

This example forcefully reveals what is distinctive about the phenomenological notion of appearance. While it belongs to the very sense of objectivity that it can appear, an appearance itself is possible only within a system of appearances, within which each mode of appearance refers to others. This reference that each appearance draws to the system of appearances is precisely what constitutes the horizonality of the horizon. We thereby obtain the first sense of the horizon as a philosophical notion: the horizon is the implicit system of reference (Verweisungshorizont), which embraces all appearances, due to which an actual appearance is an appearance of a particular objectivity. Yet as we take a closer look at what this system of reference entails, we notice that it is primarily the presence of potential modes of appearances that are given along with the actual ones. To return to Merleau-Ponty’s example, the manner in which the lamp on the table “appears” to the chimney or the walls is not merely entailed in my actual perspective; rather, these non-actual “appearances” determine the sense of what it means to see this

86

Saulius Geniusas

particular object in front of me as a lamp. The implication of potentiality within actuality reveals the second sense that belongs to the horizon as a philosophical notion: the horizon is the horizon of validity (Geltungshorizont). That is, the implicit reference to potential modes of appearance embraces my actual appearance; and only so does my actual appearance become an appearance of a particular objectivity. Yet the horizon does not exclusively belong to appearances; the intending of these appearances is just as horizonal. Not only does the sunset I see through my window appears within a horizon; my seeing of the sunset also has its own unique horizons. These horizons are of a temporal nature: each “now” carries with it the horizon of the past and the future. And just as in the case of appearances the horizons proved to be not only systems of reference but also systems of validity, so here also the co-presence of potential experiences (Erlebnisse) co-determines the sense of the actual ones. Otherwise put, the horizon, conceived both as the horizon of reference and a horizon of validity, qualifies not only objects of experience but also the experiencing of the objects of experience. I do not know of a better illustration of this type of horizontality than the one we find in William James: Into the awareness of the thunder itself the awareness of the previous silence creeps and continues; for what we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder pure, but thunder-breakingupon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it. Our feeling of the same objective thunder, coming in this way, is quite different from what it would be were the thunder a continuation of previous thunder…. The feeling of thunder is also a feeling of the silence just gone; and it would be difficult to find in the actual concrete consciousness of man a feeling so limited to the present as not to have an inkling of anything that went before. (James, 240-241)

This is by far not an unusual experience. A color succeeding another is modified by the contrast; silence sounds delicious after noise; in music one set of sounds alters the feeling of others;

What does the Question of Origins mean in Phenomenology?

87

and consciousness itself retains, as James has it, “a kind of soreness” as a condition of present experience. All these examples are meant to suggest that, as James puts it, “the significance, the value, of the image is all in this halo or penumbra that surrounds and escorts it,—or rather that is fused into one with it and has become bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh.” (James, 255) Thus far I have shown that the horizon, interpreted as the horizon of reference and the horizon of validity, unfolds on two distinct phenomenological levels. The first level is that of the objects of experience; the second—that of the experiencing of the objects of experience. There is, however, yet a third level that proves to be no less horizonal. I am referring to the horizon of world-experience. Within the present context, I will characterize the world-horizon only in its most general features. When we watch the sunset across the sea, we are aware that the horizon that limits our visual field is relative in regard to our current situatedness. Yet we are also aware that we can occupy any other position within the horizon. Moreover, we are also aware that each change of position would bring about the expansion of the horizon. So our consciousness of being able to occupy a vast variety of different positions carries with it the awareness of a horizon that is no longer limited by our actual situatedness. To be sure, the horizon still remains relative in that it remains bound to our concrete situation. Yet this bond no longer indicates its limit. The horizon reveals itself as limitless. This consciousness of a horizon that extends beyond all limits bespeaks our basic world-experience. The Phenomenological Question of Origins My foregoing analysis has shown that Husserl’s robust notion of the horizon entails two dimensions of sense: the horizon is a horizon of reference and of validity. Moreover, this two-dimensionality of the horizon has been shown to unfold on three levels

88

Saulius Geniusas

of experience, viz., those of the object of experience, the experiencing of the object of experience, and finally, of the world-experience. Yet what is the significance of such a conception of the horizon for our understanding of the question of origins in phenomenology? What is the phenomenological question of origins? It is the question that addresses the concealed sense-accomplishments, which form the configurations of sense that embrace each and every appearing phenomenon. The concealed sense-accomplishments can become a phenomenological theme because the sense of appearing phenomena is not exhausted by what consciousness actually intends. The actually intended content is fused with the sedimented habitualities of consciousness and has become, as James would have it, “bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh.” Or put otherwise, what is actually intended is always shot through with dimensions of sense that exceed pure phenomenality. It is this non-phenomenal excess that is in question when phenomenology raises the question of origins. And thus, to raise the question of the hidden accomplishments of sense means to inquire into that “a priori”6 which forms the sense of appearing phenomena. Yet to disclose what underlies the question of origins is not yet to clarify how the question itself can be either meaningful or even possible. On the basis of the analysis undertaken in the previous section, I would like to suggest that while the horizon as a system of validity clarifies the sense of the question of origins, the possibility of the question of origins is secured by the horizon as a system of reference. Let me start with the second claim. The phenomenological question of origins finds its justification in the notion of the horizon conceived as a system of reference. Husserl’s most forceful account of the horizon as a system of reference can be found in Erste Philosophie II, under the headings of the double reduction and of intentional implications. These notions account for how the non-manifest dimensions of

What does the Question of Origins mean in Phenomenology?

89

sense, despite the fact that they evade phenomenality, find their place within that sphere that phenomenology aims to thematize. More particularly, the concealed accomplishments of consciousness can be treated phenomenologically because they are implicated within the present appearance or lived-experience. Thus their concealment notwithstanding, the dimensions of sense, which stem from habitualities of the ego, can be transformed into phenomenologically accessible themes. Yet if to raise the question of origins is to follow those intentional threads, which the notion of intentional implications unfolds and secures, then the question of origins is nothing other than an investigation directed at the horizon of subjectivity. Such is the case because, as Husserl’s analysis in Erste Philosophie II shows, the horizon of subjectivity reveals itself as the implication of the whole life of consciousness within each lived-experience. Thus to claim that consciousness is horizonal is to suggest that consciousness is a store of accomplishments; and to ask the question of origins is to render the genetic make-up of these accomplishments thematic by revealing how each of them either presupposes, or is presupposed by the other ones. We thereby see how the question of origins finds its methodological justification within the genetic notion of the horizon, when the latter is interpreted as a system of intentional implications. Yet as we already know, the horizon is not only a system of reference, but also a system of validity, and while the former accounts for the methodological possibility of the question of origins, the latter discloses the task that underlies such a regressive inquiry. So as to uncover the motivational framework that underlies the posing of the question of origins, we need to follow through what the notion of intentional implications entails. This notion indicates that the mere givenness of phenomena does not guarantee the givenness of their sense; that in truth, this sense continues to evade us even when the epoche and the reduction secures the givenness of phenomena in a phenomeno-

90

Saulius Geniusas

logically justifiable way. But if phenomena are given in such a manner that their sense remains concealed throughout their manifestation, then such an “empty” appearing clarifies the goal that underlies the posing of the question of origins. The task is that of uncovering those dimensions of sense which pertain to appearing phenomena, yet in such a way, that to a direct glance they remain concealed. Otherwise put, the motive that underlies the question of origins consists in the need to uncover those hidden dimensions of sense, which render the phenomenality of phenomena possible. Thus phenomena given here and now remain the fundamental theme of phenomenology, even when it raises the question of origins. The directedness to past accomplishments is a detour phenomenology takes so as to reveal the full sense of what presently confronts us. The very posing of the question of origins is driven by the realization that the sense of the presently given phenomena does not “stare us in the face” and that it can be uncovered by means of a detour into the “history” of subjectivity. The question of origins is so closely tied to the problematics of the horizon that it is hardly an exaggeration to suggest that in phenomenology, the question of origins is the question of the origins of the horizon. Concluding Remarks: The Question of Origins as the Inquiry into the Origins of the Horizon The most significant advantage of the outlined approach to the horizon-problematics consists in the following: this approach holds the promise of disclosing those dimensions of sense that, while they are overlooked in a number of alternative frameworks, are of paramount significance for our understanding of who we ourselves are. By legitimizing the question of the origins of the horizon and considering this question the very problematics of the horizon, Husserl’s phenomenology discloses

What does the Question of Origins mean in Phenomenology?

91

concealed and sedimented accomplishments of subjectivity. One can highlight these hidden manifestations of our own selves with the help of an expression which, even though not employed by Husserl himself, is exceptionally well suited to characterize the specificity of his phenomenology. Through the horizonproblematics, we enrich our understanding of who we ourselves are by disclosing the plasticity of experience. This expression is meant to suggest that horizons have their own genesis within our life. It is the malleable nature of experience itself that generates the horizons of sense which engulf appearing phenomena. Thus each experience we undergo leaves a permanent imprint upon us: while each experience “streams in,” there is a sense in which it does not “stream away”: we retain it as a sedimented sense; we retain it as our own habituality. It is experience itself that generates new types of experience, i.e., new horizons of sense, which in their own turn guide our subsequent experience. It is precisely due to sedimentations, and more generally, to habitualities, that we can have horizons as general frameworks of sense that embrace concrete appearances. Yet so as to uncover the logic that governs over the formation of our own habituality, it is necessary to raise the question of the origins of the horizon. We thereby see why the horizon-problematics, interpreted through the question of its origins, is absolutely essential for our understanding of who we ourselves are: The horizon-problematics reveals that subjectivity is a “store“ of sedimented accomplishments due to which the world is given to us not as a set of meaningless data but as a meaningful whole. If the Delphic dictum “Know Thyself ” can still be considered philosophy’s abiding vocation, then the phenomenological problematics of the origins of the horizon holds the promise of disclosing unseen features of our own selves and of opening new avenues for the further pursuit of this ever-lasting philosophical enigma.

92

Saulius Geniusas

Bibliography Cairns, Dorion. 1976. Conversations with Husserl and Fink. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Fink, Eugene. 1966. “Die phänomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwärtigen Kritik.” In Studien zur Phänomenologie 1930-1939. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1971. “Hegel und die antike Dialektik.” In Hegels Dialektik: Fünf hermeneutische Studien. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Husserl, Edmund. 1950. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, Edmund. 1959. Erste Philosophie. Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. Rudolf Böhm. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, Edmund. 1976. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften un die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, ed Walter Biemel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. James, William. 1950. Principles of Psychology. Volume I. New York: Dover Publications. Kwan, Tze-Wan. 1990. “Husserl’s Concept of Horizon: An Attempt at Reappraisal.” In Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XXXI, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Marion, Jean-Luc. 1998. Reduction and Givenness. Investigations of Husserl, Heidegger, and Phenomenology. Trans. Thomas Carlson. Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1976. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith. New Jersey: The Humanities Press.

Endnotes 1. Eugene Fink, 1966. 2. As Husserl himself formulates it in Ideen I, “für die Frage nach Sinn und Wert unserer Erkenntnisse sind die Geschichten dieser Erb-

What does the Question of Origins mean in Phenomenology?

93

schaften ebenso gleichgültig, wie es für den Wertgehalt unseres Goldes die Geschichte der seinen ist” (Hua III, 45). 3. As, for instance, Tze-Wan Kwan contends, “it is Husserl who first consciously ‘institutes’ the concept of horizon and markedly unfolds it into a full-blown problematic” (Kwan 1990, 305). 4. The passage derives from a conversation Cairns held with Husserl on September 22, 1931. 5. See Gadamer 1971. 6. For the phenomenological sense of the notion of a priori and its bond to the horizon, see EU, 32.

4 From Violence to Evidence? Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity: Toward a Postcolonial Phenomenology of Humanity George Heffernan

Philosophy, Augustinian College, Andover, Massachusetts The Husserl Circle [email protected] ABSTRACT: In The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936) Edmund Husserl describes how the crisis of the European sciences represents a crisis of European humanity, which in turn involves a crisis of human identity. In Violence and Identity: The Illusion of Destiny (2006) Amartya Sen explains how some human beings get others to see themselves in terms of a singular unique identity instead of in terms of their disparate but shared identities. This paper investigates Husserl’s and Sen’s approaches to human identity and diversity and explores their respective applications to and implications for humanity, rationality, and solidarity.

Introduction: Phenomenology and the Crisis of Human Identity In a series of works from the “Prague Treatise” and the “Prague Letter” (1934),1 through the “Vienna Lecture” (May 1935)2 and the “Prague Lectures” (November 1935),3 to the Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936),4 Husserl poses the problem of a human entelechy (German: Entelechie; Greek: entelechia) by inquiring into whether there is a specifically human completeness and how human beings might achieve it. Postulating that the transformation of human potentiality into PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

96

George Heffernan

actuality is a matter of human identity and diversity, he first examines Greek humanity particularly, then European humanity specifically, and finally essential humanity generally. In the Krisis, Husserl posits that a ‘rational purpose’ is “born into” European humanity with the Greeks and questions whether it is also the entelechy of all humanity:5 Damit allein entscheidet sich, ob das dem europäischen Menschentum mit der Geburt der griechischen Philosophie eingeborene Telos, ein Menschentum aus philosophischer Vernunft sein zu wollen und nur als solches sein zu können—in der unendlichen Bewegung von latenter zu offenbarer Vernunft und im unendlichen Bestreben der Selbstnormierung durch diese seine menschheitliche Wahrheit und Echtheit, ein bloßer historischfaktischer Wahn ist, ein zufälliger Erwerb einer zufälligen Menschheit, inmitten ganz anderer Menschheiten und Geschichtlichkeiten; oder ob nicht vielmehr im griechischen Menschentum erstmalig zum Durchbruch gekommen ist, was als Entelechie im Menschentum als solchen wesensmäßig beschlossen ist.

Such passages convey the impression that Husserl is an axiological colonialist in that he holds ‘European values’ to be more valuable than non-European ones.6 Intent and effect can diverge, and his “Eurocentrism” presents a rhetorical problem for those who understand his phenomenology in a postcolonial mode. It is doubtful whether Part One of the Crisis, which, as its title, “The Crisis of the Sciences as an Expression of the Radical Life-Crisis of European Humanity,” indicates, represents Husserl’s phenomenological protreptic,7 is suitable for motivating non-Europeans to do his transcendental philosophy. For him, it is a matter of whether the telos of a part of humanity, that is, Greek humanity particularly and European humanity specifically, namely, to become a humanity based on philosophical reason, can be a goal for the whole of humanity generally. At stake is an answer to the question not only about the Greek entelechy particularly or the European entelechy specifically but also about the human entelechy generally:8

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

97

Erst damit wäre entschieden, ob das europäische Menschentum eine absolute Idee in sich trägt und nicht ein bloß empirischer anthropologischer Typus ist wie “China” oder “Indien”; und wieder, ob das Schauspiel der Europäisierung aller fremden Menschheiten in sich das Walten eines absoluten Sinnes bekundet, zum Sinn der Welt gehörig, und nicht zu einem historischen Unsinn derselben.

Husserl’s “Eurocentrism” is also a philosophical problem. The issue is not “political correctness,” a notion that has been criticized, often vehemently and sometimes justifiably, but “philosophical judiciousness”: whether colonial phenomenology does justice to postcolonial phenomena. In the “Vienna Lecture,” for example, Husserl writes something that he tones down for the Crisis:9 Es liegt darin [in unserem Europa] etwas Einzigartiges, das auch allen anderen Menschheitsgruppen an uns empfindlich ist als etwas, das, abgesehen von allen Erwägungen der Nützlichkeit, ein Motiv für sie wird, sich im ungebrochenen Willen zu geistiger Selbsterhaltung doch immer zu europäisieren, während wir, wenn wir uns recht verstehen, uns zum Beispiel nie indianisieren werden.

In addition to this undiplomatic remark, there are “ethnically incorrect” passages in the “Vienna Lecture” which have been edited out of the Crisis, for example:10 Wir stellen die Frage: Wie charakterisiert sich die geistige Gestalt Europas? Also Europa nicht geographisch, landkartenmäßig verstanden, als ob danach der Umkreis der hier territorial zusammenlebenden Menschen als europäisches Menschentum umgrenzt werden sollte. Im geistigen Sinn gehören offenbar die englischen Dominions, die Vereinigten Staaten usw. zu Europa, nicht aber die Eskimos oder Indianer der Jahrmarktsmenagerien oder die Zigeuner, die dauernd in Europa herumvagabundieren.

Looking past the dated designations (today one speaks not of “Eskimos” but of “Inuit,” not of “Indians” but of “Native Amer-

98

George Heffernan

icans,” not of “Gypsies” but of “Roma”), one must wonder: What to make of this view of the world and its peoples? What does “Europe” mean? “European humanity”? Is there a humanity different from the European? If so, wherein lies the difference in “character” (Charakter) and “culture” (Kultur) between humanity generally and European humanity specifically?11 With respect to the “Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology,” what does “European science” mean? Is there another kind of science? If so, wherein lies the specific difference between science generally and European science specifically? And what are ‘European values’? Are there ‘non-European values’? Are ‘non-European values’ less valuable than ‘European values’? Are all values valuable, but some more valuable than others? Can only ‘European values’ possess absolute validity, whereas all others can claim merely relative legitimacy? If one may not dismiss Husserl’s formulations as the idle musings of an old colonial European whose philosophy is inapplicable to the new postcolonial non-European world, one must comprehend the specific concerns involved by a general query: How should Europeans deal with non-Europeans? As Husserl states:12 Aber wenn wir in einen fremden Verkehrskreis verschlagen werden, zu den Negern am Kongo, zu chinesischen Bauern usw., dann stoßen wir darauf, daß ihre Wahrheiten, die für sie feststehenden allgemein bewährten und zu bewährenden Tatsachen, keineswegs die unseren sind.

How can phenomenologists achieve that mutual recognition and respect which enables some to describe and prescribe “the things themselves” from the perspective of others? The fact that such assertions as those cited occur side by side with statements about the possibility of identifying what “normal Europeans, normal Hindus, Chinese etc.” have in common does not neces-

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

99

sarily entail any inconsistency or contradiction on Husserl’s part.13 It does indicate the urgency of the global issue involved, namely, how to do justice to the otherness of others. As Husserl emphasizes:14 Ich meine, wir fühlen es (und bei aller Unklarheit hat dieses Gefühl wohl sein Recht), daß unserem europäischen Menschentum eine Entelechie eingeboren ist, die den europäischen Gestaltenwandel durchherrscht und ihm den Sinn einer Entwicklung auf eine ideale Lebens- und Seinsgestalt als einen ewigen Pol verleiht.

There is no indication that Husserl is thinking of a philosophical anthropology here;15 nor is this the occasion to inquire about the relation between phenomenology and anthropology.16 Yet there is a kind of intellectual and spiritual (geistig) paternalism here, since Husserl understands philosophers as “functionaries” for all human beings:17 Wir sind also—wie könnten wir davon absehen—in unserem Philosophieren Funktionäre der Menschheit. Die ganz persönliche Verantwortung für unser eigenes wahrhaftes Sein als Philosophen in unserer innerpersönlichen Berufenheit trägt zugleich in sich die Verantwortung für das wahre Sein der Menschheit, das nur als Sein auf ein Telos hin ist und, wenn überhaupt, zur Verwirklichung nur kommen kann durch Philosophie—durch uns, wenn wir im Ernste Philosophen sind.

The “we” (“wir”) and the “us” (“uns”) suggest that Husserl also understands European philosophers as “functionaries” for all philosophers.18 Is there a special relationship between a specifically European humanity and the specifically human entelechy? If such a relationship does exist, what are the consequences for non-European human beings and for their ability to achieve a specifically human completeness? According to Husserl’s narrative in the critical texts, the crisis of European sciences particularly, the crisis of European humanity

100

George Heffernan

specifically, and the crisis of world humanity generally are inextricably linked phenomena. Also, the crisis of European humanity is inevitably a crisis of European identity. Finally, the crisis of European identity is ineluctably a crisis of human identity. Yet human identity is a vexed issue, to which Amartya Sen has recently devoted his book Violence and Identity: The Illusion of Destiny.19 His argument consists of an analysis of how a few human beings use the illusion of a destiny to do violence to the identity of many human beings by getting them to see themselves in terms of a singular or solitary unique identity instead of in terms of the plural, different, and disparate but shared identities that make them not only who they are but also diversely different from one another.20 The aim of this paper is to investigate Husserl’s and Sen’s approaches to human identity and diversity, in order to evaluate their relative merits and demerits, as well as to explore their respective applications to and implications for contemporary human beings. The guiding question of the inquiry is whether, in regard to the basic issues of humanity, rationality, and solidarity, phenomenology can transcend the narrow colonial perspective to achieve a broad postcolonial horizon.21 Sen on Identity and Violence Sen starts by shifting attention “from the notion of being identical to oneself to that of sharing an identity with others of a particular group.”22 The relevance of this perspective lies in the fact that, given a world in conflict and the many different ways in which people’s identities and their conceptions thereof influence their actions, one of the key factors in empowering people to commit acts of violence against one another is the exploitation of the prejudice that “the people of the world can be uniquely categorized according to some singular and overarching system of partitioning.”23 This partitioning of people is the characteristic feature of a “singularist” or “solitarist” account of hu-

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

101

man identity, which views human beings, and has them view themselves and others, as members of exactly one group only.24 Once the salient classifications were nationality and class; now they tend to be civilization (or culture) and religion.25 Evidently one must add not only ethnicity26 and race27 but also clan28 and sect29 (not to mention: tribe30) to this list.31 Thus one notices a tendency for some people to divide others into Christians and Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, Serbs and Croats and Muslims, Hutus and Tutsis, Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds, and so forth. This tendency conflicts, Sen says, not only with the old-fashioned conviction that “we human beings are all pretty much the same,” but also with “the less discussed but much more plausible understanding that we are diversely different.”32 Because it neglects human diversity, the one-dimensional account of human identity is an effective way of almost always misunderstanding nearly everyone, as the binary opposition between Westerners and non-Westerners shows.33 Sen argues that the singularist or solitarist view of human identity is not only morally wrong in a normative sense but also “phenomenologically” (sit venia verbo: he does not use the word) wrong-headed in a descriptive sense: “Misdescription and misconception can make the world more fragile than it need be.”34 The “violence of identity”35 resulting from the “illusion of destiny” can have a conceptual component in the confused sense:36 … conceptual disarray, and not just nasty intentions, significantly contribute to the turmoil and barbarity we see around us. The illusion of destiny, particularly about some singular identity or other …, nurtures violence in the world through omissions as well as commissions. We have to see clearly that we have many distinct affiliations and can interact with each other in a great many different ways ….

It is easy, for example, for some Christians to get other Christians to see Jews only as Jews, for some Israelis to get other Israelis to see Palestinians only as Palestinians, for some Serbs to get

102

George Heffernan

other Serbs to see Muslims only as Muslims, for some Hutus to get other Hutus to see Tutsis only as Tutsis, for some Sunnis to get other Sunnis to see Shiites only as Shiites—and also vice versa in all cases. The sad fact is that no one who knows the state of the world is surprised at these phenomena. Why these phenomena occur is far less clear. The strength of Sen’s analysis is that he eschews appeals to the “common humanity” of the human beings involved in chronic conflict.37 Instead, he explicates the “plural” and “diverse identities”38 (“multiplicity of identities”39) implicit in each individual and indicative of the fact that “we are diversely different”40 or that “we are different in many diverse ways.”41 For example, a Hutu is not just a Hutu, and the person may share more identities with some Tutsis than with other Hutus: relative, farmer, neighbor, classmate, teammate, fellow worshipper, and so forth. In addition, the person may share more identities with others, both Hutus and Tutsis: Kigalian, Rwandan, citizen of a developing country, African, human being, and so forth.42 Because each does ‘contain multitudes,’ not only poetically but also practically, each can choose among plural identities, emphasizing those which are shared with others rather than those which are not.43 Sen concedes that one’s choices are constrained by conditions and circumstances; he denies that one’s decisions are determined by forces beyond one’s control. Thus identity becomes a question not of destiny but of liberty. Yet the weakness of Sen’s analysis is also not to be overlooked, and it is useful to employ phenomenological structures to exploit his sociological analysis of human identity as a foil for Husserl’s transcendental understanding of it. Husserl on Identity and Evidence The philosophical problem of human identity is not reducible to a psychological question about personal identity. Hume tries this empirical approach and shows, not by intent but by

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

103

effect, that there is a real distinction between the naturally perceived self and the transcendentally apperceiving ego.44 From a phenomenological standpoint, there are three formal structures that appear in the investigation of identities and manifolds and that play key roles in the description of human identity and diversity.45 First, there is the structure of parts and wholes:46 Wholes can be analyzed into two kinds of parts, namely, pieces, which can be and be presented apart from their respective wholes, and are therefore independent parts or concreta, and moments, which cannot be or be presented apart from their corresponding wholes, and are thus dependent parts or abstracta. Applied to human identity, this distinction suggests that people in their relations with others may take something about them that is a moment for a piece, thereby isolating one dimension of their diversity from the other parts and from the whole. Yet it is crucial to understand human beings in terms of their integral multiple identities and not to commit the fallacy of a fragmentation that reduces them to only one of the many identities that constitute them. Viewing human beings as members of one affiliation only, whether it is culture or ethnicity or religion or whatever, involves taking “pars pro toto” in a way that falsifies their real selves. Second, there is the structure of presence and absence, on the objective side, or emptiness and fullness, on the subjective one.47 Phenomenology teaches that consciousness is “consciousness of.” Yet one needs both the presence and absence of things and the emptiness and fullness of intentions to make sense of this notion. With respect to identities in manifolds, whether of things or persons, the point is that they do not exist and are not thinkable as functions only of either presence or absence or of either emptiness or fullness. Being finite, human beings do not have presence without absence or emptiness without fullness. Nor do these phenomena collapse into one another, for they are

104

George Heffernan

distinct but inseparable members of dynamic dyads. Identities and manifolds emerge because the ones become thematic within a horizon within which the others are operative. For example, one human being cannot have another human being given as possessing only one identity without any accompanying diversity. Hence it takes an extra effort, a negative achievement, to become narrow-minded and mean-spirited. Third, there is the structure of rest and motion:48 “All things flow,”49 so all human beings go with the flow. From the fact that the evolution of the human species proceeds so gradually as to be virtually imperceptible and practically unobservable, it does not follow that it is theoretically correct that it does not occur. Something similar holds for individual human development. It remains to investigate the relevance of this phenomenon for an understanding of the identity and diversity of human beings. These three formal structures intersect as the infrastructures that clarify the phenomenon of identity in manifold as a superstructure. While identity in manifold is operative in the perception of material objects, it also functions, in a different manner, in the apperception of human beings. For example, as persons may show certain sides of themselves to some but not to others, so some cannot perceive all aspects of others. Moreover, identities in manifolds are operative in, and can be thematized in relation to, both selves and others. In fact, the identities in multiplicities of objects are inconceivable without the identities in multiplicities of selves and others. As a result, the world in which human beings live is inexplicable as a solipsistic fiction.50 Operatively, the identities of natural selves constitute themselves in, through, and beyond the manifolds. Thematically, they are given as being clearly distinguishable from their manners of givenness by parts and wholes, presence and absence, and rest and motion. Something similar holds for transcendental egos. These identities in manifolds may be elusive, evanescent, and exiguous. Yet both the experience of such identity in diversity and the evi-

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

105

dence of it can be described in great detail by the careful style of philosophizing characteristic of Husserlian phenomenology.

A big difference emerges between Husserl and Sen with respect to the apprehension of the relation between identity and diversity. Husserl understands human identity as the identity of manifolds, whereas Sen understands human diversity as a multiplicity of identities. Husserl attempts to articulate the descriptive structures that make it possible for identity to appear in and through multiplicity. Sen tries to explicate the numerical affiliations that enable multiplicity to emerge in and through identity. For Husserl, the identity comprises the manifolds. For Sen, the multiplicities compose the identity. The clue to the shift lies in the verbal difference between Husserl’s language of “identity in multiplicity” (or “manifold”) versus Sen’s talk of “multiple identities” (or “diverse diversities”).51 Yet the difference is substantive. Husserl’s idea of human identity is founded on something qualitative, whereas Sen’s notion of human diversity is grounded in something quantitative. Husserl actualizes an essential possibility, namely, rationality,52 whose potential Sen underestimates.53 This has important philosophical consequences. An Attempt at a Husserlian Critique of Sen on Human Identity and Diversity Husserl understands both things and persons as ‘identities in manifolds.’ Sen apprehends not things but persons as ‘multiplicities of identities.’ Husserl provides for both the identity and the multiplicity of individuals. Sen emphasizes the quantitative diversities of individuals but not their qualitative identity. He focuses on the number of affiliations between individuals, and

106

George Heffernan

expects that such associations be numerous enough to provide sufficient common ground for individuals to recognize and respect their shared multiple identities. Yet how does one get from the theory of multiple identities to the practice of unifying diversity? Only then can one disillusion people of destiny and prevent the violence that is done in the name of this dangerous illusion. First, Sen neglects the fact that Israelis and Palestinians, Serbs and Albanians, Sunnis and Shiites, et ceteri will not reconcile merely because someone evokes their shared multiple identities. If it is correct that “in our normal lives” we understand ourselves “as members of a variety of groups,”54 it is also true that it requires a certain level of awareness to misunderstand ourselves as members of one group only and others as members of another disjunctively opposed group only. How does the ignorance of exclusion occlude the knowledge of inclusion? Sen sees the question,55 but not an answer. Is it because of weakness of will—one knows and wants good but does evil? Is it because the motivation to do evil is greater than that to do good, since there is more pleasure, power, and profit in the former than in the latter? Is it because the relationship between identity and violence is dialectical, in that, as identity generates violence, so violence creates identity, in a vicious circle?56 Is it because people fear the consequences of taking a cosmopolitan position under threatening circumstances? Is it because of a lack of education specifically or cultivation generally and the accompanying inability to transcend a limited horizon? Is it because of the ineluctable opaqueness of human moral motivation, the inscrutable workings of a primordial sphere of irreducible ownness, whereby even the (im) moral agents themselves, overwhelmed by overdeterminacy and muddled by multicausality, cannot accurately or adequately say why they have perpetrated the most indescribable evil?57 In the face of unfathomable evil one enters a dark realm in which it is necessary to suspend one’s belief in the principle of sufficient

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

107

reason in order to maintain the salutary skepticism that prevents one from accepting speculative hypotheses of a transcendent sort, for example, the original sinfulness of all humanity (pace Augustino). Furthermore, scrutiny of Sen’s several lists of multiple identities suggests that the problem to which he seeks a solution is one of what German designates as “Bildung,” which goes far beyond what English refers to as “education.”58 His lists of multiple identities are laden with items that would not usually be shared by people likely to kill other people on the basis of a solitary identity in the first place. For example, his lists typically include being a vegetarian, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, an environmental activist, and many such attributes.59 Yet his lists exclude such shared identities as being someone who has been promised a banana plantation to kill a neighbor who has never farmed more than an acre. The particular individuals whose multiple identities Sen describes may provide anecdotal evidence for the validity of his hypothesis that the more identities one shares, the less likely one is to let those identities be reduced to a solitary identity and thus to allow oneself to be moved to violence by the illusion of a destiny. Yet these particular individuals can hardly be said to be representative of the general groups whose tensions Sen would resolve. Altogether Sen uses just three case studies to illustrate particular individuals of multiple identities, namely, Amartya Sen,60 Kwame Anthony Appiah,61 and Cornelia Sorabji.62 Yet do the élite have effective solutions to everyman’s and everywoman’s problems? Finally, one must wonder whether people do naturally understand themselves as ‘multiplicities of identities.’ Although one should be skeptical of a relationship of cause and effect in this respect, the extent and depth of one’s understanding of oneself vis-à-vis others appears to be a function of the quantity and quality of one’s cultivation and education. As Socrates says that “the unexamined life is not worth living,”63 so Husserl suggests

108

George Heffernan

that ‘the unexplicated phenomenon is not worth experiencing.’ The Delphic “Know thyself!” entails a Husserlian “Know others!”64 As Camus illustrates with Meursault in The Stranger,65 those who do not exercise a certain degree of reflection cannot achieve the appropriate level of self-awareness required to recognize and respect the multiple identities that provide the common ground between themselves and others, thereby preventing the violence that is driven by the illusion of a destiny.66 Sen is better able to diagnose the illness than to propose a cure or therapy. The absence of a treatment of why human beings disown their robust multitudes of benevolent identities for an impoverished singularity of malevolent diversity is consistent with the focus on how moral agents should achieve good rather than on how immoral agents would wreak evil. Yet has the preoccupation with multitudes of identities hindered an articulation of that salutary singular identity which might work for the common good of humanity? Is there a shared human identity that is a positive force?67 How might one describe it?68 Husserl sketches an answer, namely, rationality (Rationalität), especially in the shape of “philosophical reason” (die philosophische Vernunft) understood not only as a singular difference shared by quantitatively many individuals but also as a multiple identity qualitatively clarified by them.69 Conclusion: The Postcolonial Horizon of a Phenomenology of Humanity Given their prima facie colonial character, Husserl’s phenomenological reflections on European identity exhort us to transcend his perspective and apply his philosophy to our present situation, for, though it is relatively more postcolonial, it is no less critical than his. Sen’s sociological analyses of human identity show that the violence towards others driven by a singular or solitary view of one’s destiny that ignores our multiple

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

109

identities and diverse differences is not less dangerous for being based on an illusion. Both Husserl and Sen raise questions to which we must find answers if the world is to become a place in which “alle Menschen werden Brüder,”70 an idea that moved Husserl to sigh with pathetic nostalgia: “Kein größerer Kontrast ist denkbar als derjenige mit unserer Gegenwartssituation.”71 Does the same hold for “our present situation”? Several groups suggest specific questions: Who so relates to Europe today, as—thus Husserl again—the “Chinese” and “Indians” did in his day, and how should Europeans relate to them? Is it those Turks who resist integration into German society, or those who favor Turkey’s membership in the European Union? The African minorities who inhabit urban centers in France, or the many Africans who risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Italy or the Atlantic Ocean to gain Spain? Those Muslims who enjoy Western rights but preach Islamic duties, or those who feel that Westerners apply a double standard in their dealings with them? The Roma who must struggle for their civil rights in some Eastern European countries? The Mexicans who enter “illegally” those parts of the United States which were once annexed from their country by the “right” of conquest? Who are “our”—thus Husserl again—“Eskimos” and “Gypsies,” and how should we relate to them? How should Europeans—and that includes U.S.-Americans,72 according to Husserl—deal with these and other others, philosophically, phenomenologically, and postcolonially? These are questions of human identity and diversity. The answers that Husserl and Sen suggest widen our horizon to include Palestinians and Israelis, Sunnis and Shiites, Serbs and Kosovars, Hutus and Tutsis, and so forth. Relying on the singular identity that is founded on our common humanity as defined by the rationality unique to us as world-constituting transcendental egos, Husserl presents a qualitative approach. Trusting in the multiple identities that are grounded in our diverse differences as exhib-

110

George Heffernan

ited by the affiliations peculiar to us as world-dwelling human beings, Sen proposes a quantitative approach. Neither approach alone is sufficient; together they are necessary. It is not acceptable, for example, to concede that “even the Papuan is a human being and not an animal,”73 but to assert that one “humankind” (Menschentum), namely, “the European humankind” (das europäische Menschentum),74 represents “the higher humanity” (die höhere Menschlichkeit) over other humankinds.75 Husserl seems to catch himself out on this: “Aber hier liegt nun der Gefahrenpunkt!”76 Detailed descriptions of particular individuals are decisive; all else is abstract thinking. Husserl’s menacing encounters with the National Socialist regime from 1933 to 1938 represent a case in point.77 So does the tragic fate of Edith Stein. His focus on the problem of “empathy” (Einfühlung) was pioneering; her work on a solution was prophetic. He approaches intersubjectivity primarily from a theoretical-scientific standpoint, apprehending it, in its cognitive mediation, as a necessary condition of objectivity.78 She approaches intersubjectivity ultimately from a practical-personalist perspective, grasping it, in its affective immediacy, as a sufficient condition of subjectivity.79 The work of Jan Patocka deserves special recognition, since it combines phenomenological reflection on existential issues and humanistic concerns with philosophical resistance against political persecution and totalitarian power. Husserl emphasizes that the lifeworld be distinguished from the idealized world of European science; Patocka insists that the natural world not be separated from the real world of human existence.80 The victims of radical heterophobia, from Elie Wiesel81 and Primo Levi82 and Anne Frank83 to Immaculée Ilibagiza,84 have generated a vast and valuable literature. Its humanistic message is that it is evil to think that, because they are not like us, others are evil and thus to be eliminated.

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

111

Classical phenomenology lacks a systematic ethical, political, and social philosophy, but provides a useful account of rationality,85 including its axiological aspects of humanity and solidarity.86 It indicates that the essential distinctions between human beings are not cultural or ethnic or racial or religious but ethical or moral:87 Die wahren, einzig bedeutungsvollen Kämpfe unserer Zeit sind die Kämpfe zwischen dem schon zusammengebrochenen Menschentum und dem noch bodenständigen, aber um diese Bodenständigkeit bzw. um eine neue ringenden.

Values distinguish people in the essential respect and constitute their identity and diversity in the normative sense. On the normative character of the entelechy of European humanity specifically and all humanity generally Husserl observes:88 Sie [Völker] sind geistige Einheiten, sie haben, und insbesondere die Übernationalität Europa hat keine je erreichte und erreichbare reife Gestalt als Gestalt einer geregelten Wiederholung. Seelisches Menschentum ist nie fertig gewesen und wird es nie werden und kann sich nie wiederholen. Das geistige Telos des europäischen Menschentums, in welchem das besondere Telos der Sondernationen und der einzelnen Menschen beschlossen ist, liegt im Unendlichen, es ist eine unendliche Idee, auf die im Verborgenen das gesamte geistige Werden sozusagen hinaus will. Sowie es in der Entwicklung als Telos bewußt geworden ist, wird es notwendig auch praktisch als Willensziel, und damit ist eine neue, höhere Entwicklungsstufe eingeleitet, die unter Leitung von Normen, normativen Ideen steht.

However guided-slash-misguided Husserl may have been by his phenomenologically rigorous but ideologically rigid concept of philosophy as Wissenschaftslehre founded on and grounded in ‘the Greek distinction’ between doxa and episteme,89 the notion that the ‘supranational’ Europeans did—but the ‘special-national’ Asians and Africans did not—have their own philosophies is

112

George Heffernan

philosophically untenable.90 With respect to the specifically European character, Husserl takes on a daunting task:91 “Die geistige Gestalt Europas”—was ist das? Die der Geschichte Europas (des geistigen Europas) immanente philosophische Idee aufzuweisen, oder, was dasselbe ist, die ihr immanente Teleologie, die sich vom Gesichtspunkt der universalen Menschheit überhaupt kenntlich macht als der Durchbruch und Entwicklungsanfang einer neuen Menschheitsepoche, der Epoche der Menschheit, die nunmehr bloß leben will und leben kann in der freien Gestaltung ihres Daseins, ihres historischen Lebens aus Ideen der Vernunft, aus unendlichen Aufgaben.

With respect to the generically human entelechy, it is the vocation of “philosophy as infinite task” to question answers as well as to answer questions.92 The fact that the live world has a long way to go to overcome its colonial roots is cogent evidence of the need for postcolonial studies from a phenomenological perspective.93 Hence the scope of the present investigation has been strictly limited. Yet the result is a firm step in the right direction of a postcolonial phenomenology of humanity, rationality, and solidarity. Endnotes 1. Edmund Husserl, Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937), Mit Ergänzenden Texten, ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp (Dordrecht/Boston/London 1989) (Husserliana XXVII), 184–221 and 240–44. 2. Idem, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie: Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague 19762) (Hua VI), 314–48. 3. Idem, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Ergänzungsband: Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934–1937, ed. Reinhold Smid (Dordrecht/Boston/London 1993) (Hua XXIX), 103–39. 4. Idem, Hua VI, 1–276. 5. Ibid., 13:18–30 (Hua VI is cited by page and line). Cf. Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, tr. David Carr (Evanston 1970), 15: “It is the

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

113

only way to decide whether the telos which was inborn in European humanity at the birth of Greek philosophy—that of humanity which seeks to exist, and is only possible, through philosophical reason, moving endlessly from latent to manifest reason and forever seeking its own norms through this, its truth and genuine human nature—whether this telos, then, is merely a factual, historical delusion, the accidental acquisition of merely one among many other civilizations and histories, or whether Greek humanity was not rather the first breakthrough to what is essential to humanity as such, its entelechy.” 6. Hua VI, 3:26–8, 4:2–5, 20–27, 5:21–3, 7:4–10, 10:39–11:5, 11:30–35. 7. George Heffernan, “Die phänomenologische Protreptik: Husserls Aufruf zur transzendentalen Philosophie, erläutert am rhetorischen Leitfaden der ‘Krisis’-Idee,” Existentia 16 (2006), 47–80 (the author submitted the paper in a scholarly form and is not responsible for it as printed). 8. Hua VI, 14:11–17. Cf. Carr, 16: “Only then could it be decided whether European humanity bears within itself an absolute idea, rather than being merely an empirical anthropological type like ‘China’ or ‘India’; it could be decided whether the spectacle of the Europeanization of all other civilizations bears witness to the rule of an absolute meaning, one which is proper to the sense, rather than to a historical non-sense, of the world.” 9. Hua VI, 320:18–24. Cf. Carr, 275: “There is something unique here [in our own Europe] that is recognized in us by all other human groups, too, something that, quite apart from all considerations of utility, becomes a motive for them to Europeanize themselves even in their unbroken will to spiritual self-preservation; whereas we, if we understand ourselves properly, would never Indianize ourselves, for example.” 10. Hua VI, 318:33–319:2. Cf. Carr, 273: “We pose the question: How is the spiritual shape of Europe to be characterized? Thus we refer to Europe not as it is understood geographically, as on a map, as if thereby the group of people who live together in this territory would define European humanity. In the spiritual sense the English Dominions, the United States, etc., clearly belong to Europe, whereas the Eskimos or Indians presented as curiosities at fairs, or the Gypsies, who constantly wander about Europe, do not.” 11. Hua VI, 319:2–11: “Es handelt sich hier offenbar unter dem Titel Europa um die Einheit eines geistigen Lebens, Wirkens, Schaffens: mit all den Zwecken, Interessen, Sorgen und Mühen, mit den Zweckgebilden, mit den Anstalten, den Organisationen. Darin wirken die einzelnen Menschen in mannigfachen Sozietäten verschiedener Stufen, in Familien, in Stämmen, Nationen, alle innerlich geistig verbunden und, wie ich sagte, in der Einheit einer geistigen Gestalt. Den Personen, Personenverbänden und all ihren Kulturleistungen soll damit ein allverbindender Charakter erteilt sein.” Cf. Carr, 273–4: “Here the title ‘Europe’ clearly refers to the unity of a spiritual life, activity, creation, with all its ends, interests, cares, and endeavors, with its products of purposeful activity, institutions,

114

George Heffernan

organizations. Here individual men act in many societies of different levels: in families, in tribes, in nations, all being internally, spiritually bound together, and, as I said, in the unity of a spiritual shape. In this way a character is given to the persons, associations of persons, and all their cultural accomplishments which binds them all together.” 12. Hua VI, 141:19–23. Cf. Carr, 139: “But when we are thrown into an alien social sphere, that of the Negroes in the Congo, Chinese peasants, etc., we discover that their truths, the facts that for them are fixed, generally verified or verifiable, are by no means the same as ours.” 13. Hua VI, 141:23–142:11: “Stellen wir aber das Ziel einer für alle Subjekte unbedingt gültigen Wahrheit über die Objekte, ausgehend von dem, worin normale Europäer, normale Hindus, Chinesen usw. bei aller Relativität doch zusammenstimmen—von dem, was doch allgemeinsame lebensweltliche Objekte für sie und für uns, obschon in verschiedenen Auffassungen, identifizierbar macht, wie Raumgestalt, Bewegung, sinnliche Qualitäten und dergleichen—so kommen wir doch auf den Weg objektiver Wissenschaft. Wir machen mit der Zielstellung dieser Objektivität (der einer ‘Wahrheit an sich’) eine Art von Hypothesen, mit denen die reine Lebenswelt überschritten ist.” Cf. Carr, 139: “But if we set up the goal of a truth about the objects which is unconditionally valid for all subjects, beginning with that on which normal Europeans, normal Hindus, Chinese, etc., agree in spite of all relativity—beginning, that is, with what makes objects of the life-world, common to all, identifiable for them and for us (even though conceptions of them may differ), such as spatial shape, motion, sense-quality, and the like—then we are on the way to objective science. When we set up this objectivity as a goal (the goal of a ‘truth in itself ’) we make a set of hypotheses through which the pure lifeworld is surpassed.” 14. Hua VI, 320:24–9. Cf. Carr, 275: “I mean that we feel (and in spite of all obscurity this feeling is probably legitimate) that an entelechy is inborn in our European civilization which holds sway throughout all the changing shapes of Europe and accords to them the sense of a development toward an ideal shape of life and being as an eternal pole.” 15. Hua VI, 320:29–34: “Nicht als ob es sich hier um eine der bekannten Zielstrebigkeiten handelte, die dem physischen Reich der organischen Wesen ihren Charakter geben; also um so etwas wie biologische Entwicklung von einer Keimgestalt in Stufen bis zur Reife mit nachfolgendem Altern und Absterben. Es gibt wesensmäßig keine Zoologie der Völker.” Cf. Carr, 275: “Not that this is a case of one of those well-known types of purposeful striving which give the organic beings their character in the physical realm; thus it is not something like a biological development from a seminal form through stages to maturity with succeeding ages and dying-out. There is, for essential reasons, no zoology of peoples.”

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

115

16. Husserl, “Phänomenologie und Anthropologie” (1931), Hua XXVII, 164–81, and “Letter to Lucien Lévy-Bruhl,” March 11, 1935, Husserliana: Dokumente Abteilung 3: Briefwechsel, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Elisabeth Schuhmann (The Hague 1994), 7, 161–6. 17. Hua VI, 15:28–36. Cf. Carr, 17: “In our philosophizing, then—how can we avoid it?—we are functionaries of mankind. The quite personal responsibility of our own true being as philosophers, our inner personal vocation, bears within itself at the same time the responsibility for the true being of mankind; the latter is, necessarily, being toward a telos and can only come to realization, if at all, through philosophy—through us, if we are philosophers in all seriousness.” 18. Hua VI, 336:32–4: “Ständig hat Philosophie in einer europäischen Menschheit ihre Funktion als die archontische der ganzen Menschheit zu üben.” Cf. Carr, 289: “Within European civilization, philosophy has constantly to exercise its function as one which is archontic for the civilization as a whole.” 19. New York/London 2006. 20. Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity (Princeton 2005), and Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (New York 2001). 21. Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London 1992); Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London 1994); Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton 2000); Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction (New York 1988); Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, Mass. 2000), Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York 2004); Vinay Lal, Empire of Knowledge: Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy (London 2002); Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony (Berkeley 2001); Albert Memmi, The Coloniser and the Colonised (Boston 1967); Sankar Muthu, Enlightenment Against Empire (Princeton 2003); Ashis Nandy, Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism (Delhi 1983); Edward Said, Orientalism (New York 1978), Culture and Imperialism (London 1993); Gayatri Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, Mass. 1999); Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford 2001). 22. Sen, op. cit., xii. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., xii–xiv, xvi, 1–17, 20–21, 23–5, 42–6, 48–9, 57–8, 76–7, 83, 146–7, 173–82 (“singularist approach”), and xii, 79, 82, 99–100, 146, 168, 178–82, 185, 187n. (“solitarist approach”). 25. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York 1996).

116

George Heffernan

26. David Rohde, Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre Since World War II (New York 1997), and V. P. Gagnon, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s (Ithaca/London 2004). 27. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York 1992), and Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975– 79 (New Haven 1996). 28. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (New York 2007). 29. James Baker, Lee Hamilton et al., The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward—A New Approach (New York 2006), and Peter Galbraith, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (New York 2006). 30. Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford 2005), and Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, tr. Paul Bessemer (New York 2006). 31. There are also ways of partitioning people that are socially harmful but not physically violent. Cf., e.g., Walter Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (New York 2006). 32. Sen, op. cit., xiv. 33. María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Boston 2002), and Zachary Karabell, Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence (New York 2007). 34. Sen, op. cit., 46. 35. Ibid., xiii, xv, 1–3, 16–17, 21, 76, 79, 172–6, 178–80, 187n. 36. Ibid., xiv. 37. Ibid., xiv, xvi, 3–4, 7–8, 16–17, 45, 119. He is skeptical of comunitarianism: Ibid., 4–5, 20, 32–3, 36. 38. Ibid., xii–xiv, xvi, 13, 17, 19, 28–9, 45–6, 60, 67, 75, 78, 83, 112, 118, 134, 146–9, 159, 166, 168–9, 174, 176, 179–82, 186. 39. Ibid., 83, 168. Cf. 79, 99 (“multiple identities”). 40. Ibid., xiv (with italics), xvi (without italics). 41. Ibid., 45. 42. Ibid., 4, 174, 176. 43. Ibid., 149–69. 44. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch (Oxford 1978), bk. 1, pt. 4, sec. 6. 45. Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology (Cambridge 2000), 22–41, 112–29, 146–55. Cf. Idem, Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things (Evanston 1974) and Presence and Absence: A Philosophical Investigation of Language and Being (Bloomington 1978), passim.

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

117

46. Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, Erster Teil: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer (The Hague/Boston/Lancaster 1984) (Hua XIX/1), 227–300. 47. Idem, Ibid., 30–110, and Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, Zweiter Teil: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer (The Hague/Boston/Lancaster 1984) (Hua XIX/2), 533–775. 48. Plato, Parmenides, 138b7–140d8, 144e8–146d2, 155e4–157b5, 160b5–163b6, 163b7–164b3; Theaetetus, 153a1–153d7, 154e7–155e2, 155e3–157d6, 179d6–181b7, 181b8–183c8; Sophist, 248a4–249d5, 249d6– 251a7, 254b7–255e7. 49. Idem, Cratylus, 401d4–5, 402a8–10, and Theaetetus, 160d6–8. Cf. Heraclitus, frag. 214. 50. Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ed. Stephan Strasser (The Hague 1950 ff.) (Hua I), 43–183, esp. Meditations II and IV. The problematic Meditation V is hardly Husserl’s last word on intersubjectivity. 51. Sen, op. cit., 13. 52. Hua VI, 11:11–16: “Verliert der Mensch diesen Glauben [an die Vernunft], so heißt das nichts anderes als: er verliert den Glauben ‘an sich selbst’, an das ihm eigene wahre Sein, das er nicht immer schon hat, nicht schon mit der Evidenz des ‘Ich bin’, sondern nur hat und haben kann in Form des Ringens um seine Wahrheit, darum, sich selbst wahr zu machen.” Cf. Carr, 13: “If man loses this faith [the faith in reason], it means nothing less than the loss of faith ‘in himself ’, in his own true being. This true being is not something he always already has, with the self-evidence of the ‘I am’, but something he only has and can have in the form of the struggle for his truth, the struggle to make himself true.” 53. Sen, op. cit., 170–86, notwithstanding. Reason is mentioned, e.g., on xvii: “The prospects of peace in the contemporary world may well lie in the recognition of the plurality of our affiliations and in the use of reasoning as common inhabitants of a wide world, rather than making us into inmates rigidly incarcerated in little containers.” 54. Ibid., xii (repeated on 4): “In our normal lives, we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups—we belong to all of them.” 55. Ibid., 175: “But there is a big question about why the cultivation of singularity is so successful, given the extraordinary naïveté of that thesis in a world of obviously plural affiliations.” 56. I draw on Kenji Yoshino, “We Contain Multitudes,” New York Times Book Review, May 14, 2006, 35. 57. Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, tr. Linda Coverdale (New York 2005) (Une saison de machettes [Paris 2003]), and Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (New York 2007).

118

George Heffernan

58. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Gründzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (Tübingen 1960), 7–39, esp. 7–16. 59. Sen, op. cit., xii–xiii, 19, 24, 99, 159–60. 60. Ibid., 19. 61. Ibid., 99. 62. Ibid., 159–60. 63. Plato, Apology, 38a. 64. Hua I, 39:25–6, 183:4–5. 65. Albert Camus, L’Étranger (Paris 1942). 66. Sen, op. cit., 103–19, esp. 109–12 and 117–19, sends mixed signals on the role of education in the formation of a person’s understanding of identity and appreciation of diversity. 67. Sen does mention Adam Smith’s notion of humanity’s prudent selfinterest (op. cit., 22, 195), yet not his concept of “sympathy,” understood not normatively as implying one’s acceptance of another’s actions as adequate without further ado, but descriptively as involving one’s tolerance of another’s actions as appropriate under the circumstances. Cf. The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London 1759). 68. Is it social-economical self-actualization? Cf. Sen, Development as Freedom (New York/Oxford 1999). The focus of the earlier work is most evident in Identity and Violence, 149–86. 69. Hua VI, 337:33 ff.: “Vernunft ist ein weiter Titel. …” Cf. Carr, 290 ff.: “Reason is a broad title. …” 70. Hua VI, 8:7–11. 71. Ibid., 8:11–12. Cf. Carr, 10: “A greater contrast with our present situation is unthinkable.” 72. Amy Chua, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—And Why They Fail (New York 2007); Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire (New York 2004); George Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (Oxford 2008); Walter Hixson, The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven 2008); Josef Joffe, Überpower: The Imperial Temptation of America (New York 2006); Charles Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Cambridge, Mass. 2006); Herfried Münkler, Imperien: Die Logik der Weltherrschaft—vom Alten Rom bis zu den Vereinigten Staaten (Berlin 2005); Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York 2008). 73. Hua VI, 337:34–5: “… in diesem weiten Sinne [Vernunft] ist auch der Papua Mensch und nicht Tier.” Cf. Ibid., 337:39: “Aber so wie der Mensch und selbst der Papua ….” Cf. Carr, 290. 74. Hua VI, 314:4–5, 318:31–2, 36, 320:25–6, 39 (cf. 336:33). Cf. Carr, 269, 273, 275 (cf. 289). 75. Hua VI, 337:33–338:14. Cf. Carr, 290–91.

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

119

76. Hua VI, 338:15. Cf. Carr, 291: “But now this is the danger point ….” 77. In “Husserl on Universalism and the Relativity of Cultures,” a paper presented at the Third Triennial Meeting of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations, Chinese University of Hong Kong, December 15–20, 2008, Dermot Moran argues that the critique of “universalism” that National Socialist intellectuals, e.g., Friedrich Würzbach (1886–1961), aimed at Husserl is evidence that his Eurocentrism, however imperialistic toward other cultures it appears today, did not involve any violent, virulent racism, and that it was a moderate, tolerant position for its time. My sense is that Husserl’s relatively benevolent yet irritatingly condescending colonialism is an expression of his cultural-political Weltanschauung, which is, of course, not National Socialist but “habsburgisch-hohenzollerisch” or, in a word, “wilhelminisch”—though I would need another paper to clarify and justify this characterization. 78. Hua VI, 189:26, 213:13, 218:23, 234:4, 246:23, 247:33, 249:35, 251:38, 253:5, 258:25–6, 32, 259:3, 38, 262:8, 27, 30, 33. Cf. Hua I, 124, 134, 149, 162, 173. Cf. also Husserl, Formale und transzendentale Logik: Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft, ed. Paul Janssen (The Hague 1974) (Hua XVII), 13, 64, and Erste Philosophie (1923/24), Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. Rudolf Boehm (The Hague 1959) (Hua VIII), 134 f., 174, 176, 181, 190. Cf. finally Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann (The Hague 1976) (Hua III/1), 11, 325, 328, 352; Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, ed. Marly Biemel (The Hague 1952) (Hua IV), 79–84, 167–72, 190–200, 228–9, 347; and Drittes Buch: Die Phänomenologie und die Fundamente der Wissenschaften, ed. Marly Biemel (The Hague 1952) (Hua V), 109–112, 125–8, 142, 144, 150. Replete with references to “Einfühlung” are Hua XIII–XV: Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Texte aus dem Nachlass: Erster Teil (1905–1920), Zweiter Teil (1921–1928), Dritter Teil (1929–1935), ed. Iso Kern (The Hague 1973). 79. Zum Problem der Einfühlung (Halle an der Saale 1917) (On the Problem of Empathy, tr. Waltraut Stein [The Hague 1964]). 80. Le monde naturel comme problème philosophique (The Life-world as a Philosophical Problem), tr. Jaromír Danek and Henri Declève (The Hague 1976) (Czech original [Prague 1936]). 81. Night (New York 1960/2006) (La Nuit [Paris 1958]). 82. Survival in Auschwitz (New York 1959) (Se questo è un uomo [Milan 1947]). 83. The Diary of a Young Girl (New York 1952/1995) (Het Achterhuis [Amsterdam 1947]). 84. Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (New York 2006). For the terror without the theodicy cf. Philip Gourevitch, We Wish To

120

George Heffernan

Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families (New York 1998). 85. Hua I, 91–9, III/1, 314–37, VI, 1–17, XVII, 273–95, XIX/2, 632–44, 710–33, etc. 86. Husserl, Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre 1908–1914, ed. Ullrich Melle (Dordrecht/Boston/London 1988) (Hua XXVIII), and Einleitung in die Ethik: Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920 und 1924, ed. Henning Peucker (Dordrecht/Boston/London 2004) (Hua XXXVII). Cf. Husserl’s five essays on “renewal” (Erneuerung) (1922–4), the first three of which are the Kaizo Articles (1923–4), Hua XXVII, 3–94. 87. Hua VI, 13:2–5. Cf. Carr, 15: “The true struggles of our time, the only ones which are significant, are struggles between humanity which has already collapsed and humanity which still has roots but is struggling to keep them or find new ones.” 88. Hua VI, 320:34–321:8. Cf. Carr, 275: “They [peoples] are spiritual unities; they do not have, and in particular the supranational unity of Europe does not have, a mature shape that has ever been reached or could be reached as a shape that is regularly repeated. Psychic humanity has never been complete and never will be, and can never repeat itself. The spiritual telos of European humanity, in which the particular telos of particular nations and of individual men is contained, lies in the infinite, is an infinite idea toward which, in concealment, the whole spiritual becoming aims, so to speak. As soon as it becomes consciously recognized in the development as telos, it necessarily also becomes practical as a goal of the will; and thereby a new, higher stage of development is introduced which is under the guidance of norms, normative ideas.” 89. Hua VI, 332:8–13 (cf. Ibid., 11:16–18). Cf. Carr, 285 (cf. 13). 90. Hua VI, 329:36–331:18. Cf. Carr, 283–5. Husserl thinks that it is “perverse” (verkehrt), a “falsification of sense” (eine Sinnesverfälschung), to speak of “Indian and Chinese philosophy and science” (indische und chinesische Philosophie und Wissenschaft). Cf. Ram Adhar Mall and Heinz Hülsmann, Die Drei Geburtsorte der Philosophie: China, Indien, Europa (Bonn 1989), and Ram Adhar Mall, Philosophie im Vergleich der Kulturen: Interkulturelle Philosophie— Eine neue Orientierung (Darmstadt 1995). 91. Hua VI, 319:12–20. Cf. Carr, 274: “‘The spiritual shape of Europe’— what is it? [We must] exhibit the philosophical idea which is immanent in the history of Europe (spiritual Europe) or, what is the same, the teleology which is immanent in it, which makes itself known, from the standpoint of universal mankind as such, as the breakthrough and the developmental beginning of a new human epoch—the epoch of mankind which now seeks to live, and only can live, in the free shaping of its existence, its historical life, through ideas of reason, through infinite tasks.”

Husserl and Sen on Human Identity and Diversity

121

92. On “Philosophie als unendliche Aufgabe” see Hua VI, 73:38, 319:20, 323:37–8, 324:1–2, 35–6, 38–9, 326:15, 336:17, 27–30, 338:4, 17–18, 35, 339:1, 10, 341:5, 26. Cf. Carr, 72, 274, 278–80, 289–91, 293–4. 93. In phenomenological discourse about alterity, solidarity, and universality, the “idea of Europe” has retained its validity in a world dominated by postcolonial imperialism. Cf. Rodolphe Gasché, Europe, or the Infinite Task: A Study of a Philosophical Concept (Palo Alto 2009).

5 Scheler and the Task of Human Loving Zachary Davis

Philosophy, Saint John’s University Max Scheler Society of North America [email protected] ABSTRACT: Max Scheler’s late work takes a peculiar turn toward a more speculative approach to phenomenology, particularly the work carried out under the titles of philosophical anthropology and metaphysics. I argue in this paper that this shift in Scheler’s approach does not render this late work as abstract, but rather deepens his investigations into the meaning the most fundamental and concrete human act, the act of love. Scheler’s late work ultimately demonstrates that loving is the task of being human.

Scheler comments at the end of his life that the question concerning the meaning of the human being has dominated his thought more than any other question ever since the “first awakenings of his philosophical consciousness” (GW IX, 9). 1 This comment comes in the midst of a fundamental shift in this philosophical approach calling the unity of his work into question. The shift in thought is a move away from phenomenological investigations toward more speculative investigations taken up under the headings of philosophical anthropology and metaphysics.2 Scheler never makes clear why he has decided to take such a turn in his thinking. What is clear is that he did not take this turn because he regarded phenomenology as an impoverished approach or attitude. He does seem to suggest in his work on the sociology of knowledge that it is necessary to pursue anew such speculative investigations in order to resist the totalPHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

124

Zachary Davis

izing reductivism of positivism and to open philosophical pursuit to the unique access afforded to thought by metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. 3 The purpose of this paper is to show how Scheler’s later reflections deepen his understanding of human being, and more particularly, how it deepens the most significant activity of the human being, loving. I undertake this project within the context of Scheler’s problematic dualism of life4 and spirit found in his philosophical anthropology. Scheler’s late dualism, I argue, is an expression (and thereby a description) of the unique sense and task of human loving. The dualism of life and spirit is a becoming unity motivated by two distinct forms of loving, eros and agape. Human loving is not a singular activity, but a singular task, a process by which two irreducible forms of loving realize the deeper spiritual values. It is the same task introduced in Scheler’s Formalism now only rooted the task of loving in the greater movements of the history of human becoming. The Problem of Dualism in Scheler’s Late Work That Scheler’s philosophical anthropology harbors a dualism is, as one commentator has remarked, incontestable.5 Scheler himself describes the relation as such in numerous passages (e.g., GW V, 360; GW X, 146; GW XI, 193). At least initially, no other conclusion could be reached given Scheler’s insistence that life and spirit are irreducible to one another and have their own unique courses of development.6 Scheler’s conclusion of a dualism between life and spirit comes after a distinctive refutation of the modern philosophical dualism between the physical and the psychic, between the body and the soul. The type of dualism maintained through the modern era from Descartes to Kant is a substantial dualism, holding that the body and soul are of two distinct substances. For Scheler, spirit and life are not substances. Both are movements, undergoing creative transformation.

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

125

Spirit is the openness to value and ideals, the manner by which the world comes to have meaning. By definition it is non-objectifiable, but the way in which the world’s object-hood is given. Life is the dynamism of existence, the ever becoming and striving for continued existence. In his earlier work, Scheler rejects a substantial conception of the body in his treatment of the lived-body (Leib). So-called inner or psychic experiences, experiences of the “self,” are interwoven within the lived body. (GW II, 412) The distinction between self and body, between the psychic and the physical is a false dualism. Modern dualism rests upon an impoverished notion of consciousness and self-consciousness. Assumed is that the body makes no contribution to the self or to the meaning of the world. For Scheler, consciousness is an embodied consciousness. The experience of the self and the world, inner and outer consciousness are embodied experiences, are experiences of the lived-body. This is not to deny a consciousness of my physical body, my Körper, but rather to affirm the human condition: human beings have a body and are of the world. If Scheler then rejects the traditional dualism of modernity, what type of dualism does he then attribute to the relation of life and spirit? Scheler does suggest that his dualism is a “new” dualism. (GW XII, 143) But what then is new about this type of dualism? Is it a variation on the traditional type or is it different in kind? And if it is wholly new, why call it a dualism? There is no easy answer to these questions. The secondary literature on the problem of dualism in Scheler’s philosophical anthropology is as diverse as it is extensive.7 A glance at Scheler’s own descriptions of the relationship between life and spirit lends little to no aid as well. They are often imprecise and at times contradictory. For instance, he describes the relation as that of a unity (GW XI, 192; GW XII, 238), and then also as one of original tension. (GW XI, 209) Further seeming contraries are the relation as one of opposition (Gegen-

126

Zachary Davis

satz) (GW IX, 62) and then of solidarity (GW XI, 201; GW XII, 209). The less sympathetic and more critical commentaries on Scheler’s philosophical anthropology point to these seeming contradictory descriptions as evidence for not only an irresolvable dualism but deep confusion in Scheler’s late thought. If, however, we take Scheler at his word that he is developing a new dualism and given that he adamantly rejects the traditional dualism of the moderns, these seeming contradictory descriptions must be taken as fully consistent and revealing of the relationship between life and spirit. A new dualism, in other words, maintains a relation that is both one of original tension and opposition and also one of unity and solidarity. Seeming contradiction, hence, does not indicate a confusion on Scheler’s part, but a commitment to the phenomenon as it is given and experienced. What is this phenomenon wherein the relation of life and spirit is disclosed? It is the human being, or rather being human. My suggestion that Scheler’s new dualism is not threatened by contradiction, but that contradiction speaks to his commitment to the phenomenon does in no way resolve the problem of dualism. Rather, it merely reveals the challenge that must be thought. The problem of dualism in Scheler’s philosophical anthropology cannot be dismissed at the outset, but understood from the beginning, on it own behalf. At least initially, then, I am not in search of answers to the question, but in search of the way in which to grasp and then to formulate the question. What is the relationship between life and spirit? This question assumes that there is a relation. Whether there is a relationship between life and spirit, Scheler is unequivocal. His approach is not to begin with either life or spirit, and then to think the relation. He begins with the fact of human existence. The question then becomes, what is responsible for human being? What determines human being as human? His answer: “everything takes place in the interplay (Spielraum) between ideas and drives”

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

127

(GW VIII, 80). The interplay is between two movements having their own integrity and courses of development. Consequently, the human being is not the summation of life and spirit (GW XII, 55), but the manner in which these two movements relate to one another. To be true to the dynamic character of these two movements, it would be better to write that the human being is the event in which these two movements become united. The human being is the Treffpunkt of these two movements (GW XII, 226), constituting the peculiar place the human being maintains in the cosmos. The difficultly in coming to terms with the interplay of life and spirit is thus not that there is a relationship, but how life relates to spirit and how spirit relates to life. With great consistency, Scheler writes that the only means by which spirit relates to life is through guidance (Leitung) and channeling (Lenkung). (GW IX, 54) Spirit is not creative of existence and in this respect is powerless. It functions as the sluice gates through which the driving river of life may course (GW VIII, 40). The only “power” spirit possesses is the power of attraction and repulsion, the power to say “no” to the streaming course of life (GW IX, 42). This “no” functions not as a resistance to life, but to select and steer life toward a different direction. (GW VII, 186) How then does spirit direct and channel life? The Process of Spiritualism The movement of life is inherently directed by the drive for the greatest fulfillment with the least amount of resistance.8 Spirit directs this course toward greater fulfillment in value and meaning. Life on its own accord does not disclose value. The “no” of spirit toward life is a choice in favor of value depth rather than mere superficial, quantitative fulfillment. Spirit is the movement toward depth. Scheler calls the process by which life comes under the direction of spirit as the ideation (GW IX, 62)

128

Zachary Davis

or spiritualization of life (GW V, 234). Through the process of spiritualization, life takes on a determinate course. Human existence hence becomes meaningful, i.e., human, in the spiritualization of life. Life is not without its own unique contribution in this process of spiritualization. Spirit has only the power to disclose value. It cannot realize the deeper values in existence. The drive of life is the power of realization: fatalité modifiable (GW VIII, 24). Without life, the deeper spiritual values cannot be nor be efficacious. In spiritualizing life, spirit becomes powerful. Deeper values and ideas come to direct the course of history through determining the real factors, the meaning of politics, economics and the family. “Spirit idealizes life—life alone is able to posit and realize spirit in actuality” (GW IX, 62). The interplay between life and spirit is a process of increasing the power of spirit. Originally, the “lower” is the powerful and the “higher” the powerless (GW IX, 52). Spiritualizing life, directing and channeling the life drives according to the dictates of the deeper values, grants power to values and ideas. The sense of history is the empowerment of spirit through life (GW IX, 81). Spiritualization is the task of being human, the realization of deeper values. As tied to the course of history, spiritualization can then also be described as the task of humanity. Scheler’s notion of spiritualization assumes a union of life and spirit to be possible. His “new dualism” appears then as two independent movements that form a union out of a relation of mutual cooperation. There is from the outset a significant problem with such a description. The problem arises by virtue of the nature of life and spirit. According to Scheler’s description of the power of spirit, spirit directs and channels life according to its force of attraction, the power of value to attract and repel. However, Scheler has stated clearly that life is value blind. How can life be attracted or repelled by that which it cannot see or even recognize

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

129

as such? Life is a movement seeking ever greater fulfillment. How can life be fulfilled by value depth if it cannot make qualitative, value distinctions? There is no impetus for life to move to deeper values. This series of questions could easily be answered if spirit possessed some other type of power. Not only is spirit powerless in the ways of life, it is also necessarily passive (GW XI, 189). Control and domination are powers alien to spirit. Spirit can certainly use its powers of attraction to end in domination, but its directive powers are not rooted in control. All spirit has the power to do is attract and repel by the force of its value depth, the higher or richer quality of existence it has to offer.9 Hence, the “no” according to which spirit directs life is offered as a gift, a gift that is willingly accepted or refused. Spirit cannot make life love it. For life to be directed and channeled by spirit, life must love spirit on its own accord. 10 Not only is there a question of how life relates to spirit, but also a question of how spirit relates to life. Spiritual values are not realized without the dynamism of life. Why does spirit desire or need the deeper values to be realized? Spirit is directed by the movement of love, the movement of value disclosure. Value disclosure is not dependent upon reality for its disclosure. For example, the goodness of peace is not predicated upon its actual existence. The ideal of peace is necessarily good. What then motivates spirit toward life? What interest does spirit have in life? Life does not offer value, only the power of realization. If spirit needed life, then this would imply a lack or type of privation in spirit. In the disclosure of deeper values, spirit knows no lack. Spirit does not want. It is rather the openness to value, dwelling in the richness and depth of value. The fullness of value is in no way contingent upon existence. Spirit may love and appreciate that which may never exist. Spirit does not need the real in order to love.

130

Zachary Davis

The question regarding the relation between life and spirit is thus a question of motivation. What motivates life to surrender itself to the direction of spirit and what motivates spirit to concern itself with life altogether? Scheler’s new dualism appears to be an even stronger version of the traditional dualism. Not only are they two independent movements, but they are also movements that do not appeal to one another. If we are to take Scheler at his word and understand his new dualism as a type of unity, we must then discover the force or forces that mediate the relation between life and spirit. The Eros of Life and the Agape of Spirit It comes as no surprise that Scheler declares love to be the mediating force in the relation between life and spirit. Human being is loving. In his working notes to his unfinished philosophical anthropology, Scheler makes a distinction in the modes of loving, a distinction only made implicit in his earlier works. For Scheler, there are two modes of human loving, eros and agape. Each enjoy their own peculiar mode of access to the world, others and God. Eros is the loving movement of life and agape is the loving movement of spirit. As the intersection of life and spirit, the human being is the intersection of eros and agape. In the process of spiritualization, the relation between life and spirit is mediated by these two modes of loving. Through eros, life tends toward spirit; and through agape, spirit tends toward life (GW XII, 114 and 246). How these modes of loving function as the mediating force between life and spirit is the subject of this section. For eros to function as the motivating force in the movement of life toward spirit, it must resolve two of the initial questions from the above section: How is life attracted to spirit if life is indeed value-blind and Why would life freely give itself over to

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

131

the guidance and direction of spirit? The answer to these questions is rooted in the unique mode of access afforded to spirit. As a vital spiritual being, human beings participate in two distinct forms of solidarity, the solidarity of all living beings and the solidarity among all spiritual beings. Participation in both forms requires a particular form of access. In respect to the solidarity of living beings, the only means of access is through outer and inner practice and activity, through a “vital grasping” (GW IX, 162). Hence, only as living beings do human beings gain insight into the vitality of life and of other living beings. It is not an insight afforded to spirit. Membership into the solidarity of all living is felt from within and a part of the natural world. “Nature is home, brother, sister in the human being (Franciscus). The human being is not a foreign guest that has come into nature. At every moment, the human being drinks from nature’s breast and its lust is the same as that of the worms” (GW XV, 186). In the context of his reflections on the relationship of eros and bodily perception, a perceiving of objects by the body nonrelated to spirit, he writes that the life drives have “a pure dynamic and emotional understanding of nature as a field of expression” (GW VIII, 274).11 The expression given by nature is, as Scheler suggests a few pages later, in its most basic form that nature is more than merely an object (GW VIII, 279). Objects of nature are living objects and therefore irreducible to the objectifying categories of the mechanistic natural sciences. This insight into the vitality of beings is afforded only to the human being qua living being, or rather to the erotic love the human life-drives have for its environment (GW VIII, 270). Through the erotic disposition the human being as a living being has to its environment, the world is given as alive, as that which bleeds when cut, grimaces when in pain and smiles when warmed. The cosmic empathy of eros does not teach the human being of the value of life as such, but that beings breathe; eros is the purest blossom (Blüte) of life (GW XII, 234). As Merleau-Ponty would later

132

Zachary Davis

write, experience is “endowed” with its “vitality and fruitfulness,” a “comprehension blindly linking body to body.”12 Eros does not lay the foundation down for an ethic. Ethics is reserved for spiritual beings (GW VIII, 278). Nonetheless, it does place us into contact and the world in a manner not accessible by spirit. The co-suffering and pity with the world of eros is amoral, it is a merely a sharing with other living beings in the world. Scheler makes this point in a one of his most moving passages found in the later manuscripts, “We feel the Japanese earthquake and in the world war, in the Russian starvation, a God who screams out and suffers. This God is neither good nor evil. The world, its becoming lived body, is for us a simple expression of God’s condition” (GW XII, 25). Insight into the vitality of life and living beings does not form the basis of an ethic, but the solidarity shared by all living beings.13 Although the solidarity of all living beings cannot strictly speaking lead to an ethic, nor is the vitality felt of other living beings a grasping of the value of life as such, Scheler does indicate how erotic insight does direct the course of human action according to a restricted sense of the value of life. Spiritual value insight into the rank order of values gives the obligation that life shall never be sacrificed for the sake of utility or pleasure alone. Eros does not give commands, but does meaningfully retard the use of power and control over living beings that would disregard its status of a living being. The “grotesque” consequences of a non-erotic relation to the world is seen in the mechanistic sciences and its representation to the world (GW VIII, 279). According to the later work, eros would be the loving disposition to the world that does provide the foundation for a vitalistic ethic, what is made possible by eros, its vitalistic ethic, is a devotion of the divinity of life in all creatures, a devotion profoundly exemplified in the person of Saint Francis. Life as that which to share in, as that which to feel and suffer with, is an insight only given to the human being erotically.

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

133

What this unique form of access afforded to eros demonstrates is that life is only value blind in a restrictive sense. Life does not grasp values as such, the value of life as life, the value of the holy as holy. As Scheler writes, “The Urge is, however, even without spirit, always goal-oriented, but also alogical, value free and purposiveless” (GW XII, 262).14 But it does grasp value as it relates both to their vitality and immediate environment. “Our impulse (Drang) is not absolutely blind… but rather erotically, value guided real principle and phantasy principle… Furthermore, impulse is not ‘blind’ as a pure mechanical power, but rather goal driven from itself and only spirit-blind, or better spirit indifferent (indifferent toward spiritual values)” (GW XI, 193-194). Objects for mere living beings have a “Bezugscharacter,” a drawing power. The ripe tomato hanging from its vine is given as “something to eat”; the soft grass cushioned by the warm sun as “something to sleep upon.” This drawing power is due an erotic relation. Spirit does not teach us of the burst of flavor awaiting us in the bite of the tomato. The tomato draws us to it because we have a body, a body that loves the taste and delight of ripeness. This drawing power the objects in the environment have upon the vital being cannot be simply accounted for by quantitative measures. In the drive for fulfillment with the least amount of resistance, life makes qualitative distinctions. These distinctions are not based upon the same value quality distinctions found in spirit. Life does not prefer the deeper spiritual values over the mundane, superficial ones. Its order of preferencing has an aesthetic component. As Scheler notes, “life is for the production of the ‘beautiful life’” (GW XV, 161). By the beautiful life, Scheler means the life rich with vitality, a life drowning in the joy of being a living being. The recognition of an aesthetic dimension in the movement of life does not answer the question as to how spirit attracts life. All I have done thus far is introduce a qualitative preferencing in

134

Zachary Davis

its erotic movement. The only manner by which life grasps the spiritual values erotically, as Scheler suggests, is when the deeper values are embedded within the environment. Life prefers the spiritual values only in so far as they meaningfully contribute to the future and growth of the organism (GW XII, 131). In order thus for spirit to be attractive to life, there must be some vital interest at stake. “The human being may not effect them [the drives] through direct confrontation, but rather must learn too overtake them indirectly through replacing their energy for valuable tasks, tasks the conscience realizes as good and are attractive to the drives” (GW IX, 54). Yet, is spiritualizing life in accord with the deeper values more enjoyable? Does the ascetic experience bring more joy at the level of life than the hedonistic experience? This question has been all too often misconstrued as a choice between the joys of the spiritual life and the joys of the inclinations and appetites. Posed in this manner, the ascetic life has been portrayed as a life of sacrifice, a sacrifice of the vital joys for the sake of spiritual bliss. According to the relation Scheler sees between life and spirit, this question must be understood in a much different way. It is not a question of whether spiritual values are more enjoyable then vital values. Rather, the question is whether life guided by the spiritual values makes life more enjoyable. Stated in this way, spiritualization is not a sacrifice of the vital for deeper values. The vital becomes qualitatively preferable. “That which is affected by the inhibition of spirit is always incomparably more diverse and richer” (GW VIII, 40). In directing and channeling, enabling or inhibiting the course life may take, spiritual values demonstrate how robust the vital can be.15 The key notion in revealing the structure of eros and thus the motivation force that tends life toward the spiritual values is the notion of “sacrifice.” The notion of suffering is central to his essay, “Der Sinn des Leidens”. In Ressentiment, Scheler writes: “life urges (Drang) us to sacrifice” (GW III, 76). Terminologically, the clue connecting up this early description of life with Scheler’s

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

135

later descriptions is his use of “Impulse” (Drang). Though there is no reason to believe Scheler was thinking of his earlier descriptions in Ressentiment when he was writing his philosophical anthropology and metaphysics, the repeated use seems more than a mere coincidence. The non-coincidence lies in the sense of the word urge, its descriptive meaning. Almost unbeknownst to himself, Scheler was still working out the matter of sacrifice in his philosophical anthropology. The impulse to sacrifice that is life is the manner by which life continues. Sacrifice is growth and existence (GW III, 76). An apparent paradox lies at the very core of life itself. Life is growth and seeks to continue living at all cost; this is the sense of the movement of life. However, the only manner by which life can grow is to die, to sacrifice itself, in the sacrifice of the part for the whole. For Scheler, the meaning of suffering as little if nothing at all to do with the physical sensation of pain. What the zealous ascetics and the crass-utilitarian liberals have overlooked is the sense of sacrifice implied in suffering. Suffering for the sake of suffering has absolutely no meaning, and to follow Nietzsche, speaks merely to the ressentiment of the religious type. Physical pain is not the reason for suffering, but the consequence of a sacrifice, a sacrifice of the superficial for value depth. Sacrifice is always for something (GW VI, 42), and thus suffering bears with it a meaning that transcends the immediate feeling of physical pain. “The life seeking its new, higher condition, whose movement itself is sacrifice, welcomes within itself the new ‘higher” condition and takes its leave of the old condition” (GW VI, 46). Life becomes anew in the sacrifice of the old, of the superficial, lower values. Death and destruction are not a condition of growth or transcendence. There is no nihilism in Scheler. Poverty does not give rise to riches, the destruction of the lower values is not creative of the higher. The higher, deeper values are disclosed only through the act of love, through the embrace of higher, deeper

136

Zachary Davis

values. Sacrifice is not blind, suffering always already has a meaning. Sacrifice is for something, the deeper values are pre-given. In this respect, Scheler writes, the “sacrifice is prior to pain or joy” (GW VI, 47). The willingness to give up the superficial pleasures of the body is not motivated by the poverty of pleasure. One does not suffer because the more superficial values are evil. One sacrifices for the sake of the deeper, because the deeper values are so good. Sacrifice and thus suffering are wholly void of negation and destruction. This point will come to have particular relevance for the relation between life and spirit. The sacrifice of life for spiritual values and ideals does not mean that life is without value. Life drives surrender to the demands of the spiritual solely because of the depth and greatness of the spiritual. “In a deep and formal sense, every sacrifice of a representative suffering and every suffering is a sacrifice. Every suffering --: Suffering of the part for the whole and suffering for the realization of a higher value” (GW VI, 333). If there is to be a sense of purification associated with the act of suffering, it comes in the recognition of how absolutely fantastic and brilliant the deeper values are. “It (purification) means that the pain and suffering of life is directing our spiritual vision more and more at the central (spiritual) goodness of life and at the goodness of the holy… It means therefore not the creation of an ethical of religious quality, but the cleansing and dissolution of the real (Echten) from the unreal, slowly purifying the refuse of the lower from the higher in the center of our souls” (GW VI, 69). Again, the lower, more base values are not rendered as bad in themselves, but as much less meaningful than the higher, deeper values of spiritual existence. They are superficial only in respect to the deeper. Suffering is that process when the distinction is made clear, when the superficial are disclosed as superficial and the deeper as truly meaningful to human existence. For the human being, it is the evidential experience that the “lifevalues should be sacrificed for the spiritual values” (GW II, 124).

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

137

The “something” for which the sacrifice is made is the higher, is the deeper, more spiritual existence, and as from the outset, directed to the deeper, the lower is “freely given-up” (GW III, 75-76). Life as the urge to sacrifice may now be re-interpreted as the urge to the deeper values, as the willingness to surrender itself for the glory of the spiritual. What life surrenders is a life lived merely in accordance to the superficial values of pleasure and utility. It achieves in the sacrifice a more meaningful life, a life lived for the spiritual. Human life transcends the values of mere existence. The urge of life to sacrifice is the urge to transcend itself, to become more than it in principle can become. “The primary tendency of life is not the tendency to adapt itself to the given milieu, but to transcend, to re-value and newly capture everything of the given milieu” (GW II, 287). Life’s urge to transcend itself, to sacrifice itself in view of greater goodness, is not merely the pulse of life that runs through the human being, but all living beings in general. Having discovered the erotic movement of life toward spirit, we must turn our attention to the movement of spirit toward life. To recall, the apparent difficulty in understanding this movement is the motivation spirit has for life. What does life have to offer spirit? Spirit is directed toward the fullness of value and ideals. The love of value and ideals is not contingent upon their existence. We can love and appreciate values in spite of their non-existence and lack of efficacy in the world. I have indicated that powerless spirit becomes empowered through the spiritualization of life. Values such as goodness and justice are only realized when they guide and channel the life drives. But the realization of value and the empowerment of spirit do not answer the question concerning motivation. What interest does spirit have in power? Power is not necessary for the disclosure of value. Scheler’s contention is that the movement of spirit toward life is mediated by agape. Agape is a movement of love motivated ultimately by goodness. It is thus for the sake of goodness

138

Zachary Davis

that spirit takes up the role of guide in the spiritualization of life. Spirit does not need life and the structure of agape is structurally distinct from eros. Spirit’s love of life is a consequence of the abundance of goodness, an abundance only afforded to the movement of agape. To the best of my knowledge, Scheler does not make use of the term agape anywhere else but in his late philosophical anthropology and metaphysics. It seems to be a term meant specifically to describe the relation spirit bears to life. The introduction of this term is not followed by any extensive treatment by Scheler. He uses the term as if it needs no introduction. By contrast, eros takes up a significant portion of his later reflections. I find it hard to believe that Scheler thought he was introducing a new notion of loving with his use of agape. The use of agape seems to be only a natural extension of his earlier work on love. Eros appears to be the new notion, while agape the old notion. For these reasons, I take the definition of agape to be synonymous with his definition of love given in works such as Formalismus and Formen und Wesen der Sympathie. Love as the originary intention and thus the originary spiritual act is the disclosure of value. Co-given in the givenness of value is the order or preference of values. An object, for example, is given as valuable and given as belonging to a sphere of value that stands in preferential order in respect to other value spheres. Both the value of the object and the ethos are contingent upon the manner of loving of the person. An order of valuation is an order of loving. Love does not create value, nor does it create the order of values. Rather it is the originary act through which values and the rank order are given (GW X, 361).16 The order of values or ethos in turn directs the future movement of love, informing who and how we are to love. Loving is preferencing, valuing, and holding the world in relief. There is no other way of being than a being already committed to an ethos, the order of one’s heart. An ethos is co-originary with the being of being hu-

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

139

man. “It is impressed in the human being as directly as the joy in the laughter, the anger in the knit of the brow (im Runzeln der Stirne) and in the shaking of the fist” (GW VI, 187). Scheler will often describe love not merely as an act, but a movement, a movement from lower to ever higher values. Bernard Waldenfels has quite keenly, I believe, suggested that Scheler would have better been better served to describe the order of value and value experience in terms of depth and not a rank order of higher or lower.17 Unfortunately, none of the secondary literature and discussion of Scheler’s value theory has taken Waldenfels’ advice. Following Waldenfels’ suggestion, the movement of love would be better described as a movement of deeper value, or rather a movement in the experience of the infinite depth of value. As Scheler himself wrote, “love loves and sees in the beloved always something much more than what it merely has and possesses at hand” (GW X, 358). Higher and lower values are descriptive of the experience of the depth of value, a depth that grows in and through the act of love itself. It is the quality of the experience that Scheler is attending to in these descriptions of love and value, not the hierarchy of higher or lower values as they relate to the objective order of values. Rather than speak of a rank order of values, Scheler should have spoken of the depth in the quality of experience. Yet, what makes this access possible is the willingness to become that which is other. Such willingness is the movement of love; love in the most formal sense is “transcendental participation” (GW VIII 204; GW IX, 112). The original openness to that which of value and meaning is love of the object. To grasp the object, to intuit its essence or Sosein means first to love the object, to be willing to become like it is. For this reason, all knowledge presupposes the act of love. Love is the primordial act in which humans are able to grasp any possible object whatsoever (GW VI, 96). The relationship between spirit and the world is mediated by the movement of love. Only in love, will

140

Zachary Davis

the Sosein be grasped, will the meaning of the object reveal itself. The object only reveals itself to spirit in the giving of oneself over to the object, in the willingness to lose oneself in favor of the object. It is a relationship of wanting to know what the object is in itself, beyond expectation, over and against one’s desire for the object. One must lose oneself to gain the object. The appearing of an image or of a meaning in the intellectual act, e.g., in the act of simple perception, or similarly the increasing fulfillment in the givenness of the object in increasing love and interest, is not the activity of the knowing subject who forces him or herself into the finished object, but simultaneously an answerreaction of the object itself: a “self-giving” (Sichgeben), a “selfdisclosure” (Sicherschliessen) and an “opening” (Aufschliessen) of the object, i.e., a truly self revealing (Sichoffenbaren) of the object. It is a “question” of “love” to which the world “answers,” and in which the world “discloses” itself and therein the world itself originally comes to its full existence and value (GW VI, 97).

Love is the unique intention wherein the givenness of the beloved does not generate greater desire for the beloved, but a greater sense of fulfillment (GW X, 358). Spiritual values are given originally only through the act of spiritual love. Love does not create values, but the way in which values come to be for us. In this respect, Scheler writes, “love is ‘creative’ for a person in the sphere of relative ‘existence’ (Dasein)” (GW VII, 157). Every subsequent act of spirit is rooted in the original “creation” of value in the act of love. Knowing, judging, perceiving presuppose the act of love. We only come to know, to judge, to perceive, that in which we have already taken an interest. The world is already held in relief, structured by an order of preferencing prior to it existing-for-us. Love “makes us see” by opening our spiritual eyes for “ever higher values of the beloved object” (GW VII, 160). Spirit’s ability to direct and channel the course of life is rooted in the power of value to repel and attract. Values grab our

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

141

attention by a force other than physical. It is a force of attraction. The place to begin is not the question concerning what values attract us, but rather that we are attracted to value. Values have a power over us. Beautiful music makes us stop and listen. The arresting photo stops us in our tracks, while the eloquent orator moves us to march. As spiritual beings, human beings are allowed access to values but also placed under their power. That values and ideas have a power of their own is undeniable. Spirit does not operate within the same sphere of power as does life. It has a power all its own. The connection between Scheler’s earlier descriptions of love with agape is crucial in understanding the motivating force moving spirit toward life. In particular, it is the material apriori founded in the disclosure of value that is pertinent here. For Scheler, an essential relation exists between the existence of values and the ideal ought. (GW II, 100) Not only is the existence of a positive value itself a positive value, but also positive value ought to exist. The exact opposite axiom holds for negative values. Existence of negative values is itself a negative and consequently negative values ought not to exist. Value disclosure is an obligation and responsibility. Positive values give themselves as that what ought to be: they ought to be because they are good. There is thus apriori no neutral attitude in the movement of love. To love as a spiritual being, to participate in the movement of agape, is to commit oneself to the realization of positive, deeper values. There is no choice offered to be responsible for the existence of positive values. Attempts at a neutral stance such as political apathy are from the outset irresponsible and a movement of value negation. A spiritual, loving being is morally responsible. The question of motivation is a question of moral responsibility. Life offers the only means by which to realize value; it is the movement of dynamic existence. Spirit does not love life as a means to an end. Agape is the realization of the goodness of

142

Zachary Davis

existence. Spirit loves life from goodness (GW XII, 114) and because it is good. Hence it is not a matter of desire and does not spring from a privation in spirit. The movement toward life is wholly affirmative and an embrace of that which is good. There is no actual question of spirit’s motivation. Spiritual love is already the movement toward existence, a movement necessarily entailed by the goodness of agape. A movement motivated by the love of goodness is the movement of obligation. Spirit moves toward life because it is what ought to be done. The love spirit has for life is not merely for what life is, but what it ought to become. Spirit returns from the “realm of essences” to reality in order to make life better (GW IX, 40). The movement of agape is the movement of moral responsibility. What motivates spirit is what ought to be done, the necessity of realizing deeper values. The deeper the value the deeper the commitment and motivation becomes. Spirit’s obligation to life is never finished. Love teaches that one could never love enough. Obligation deepens according to the depth of value disclosure. Eros afforded the human being access to the vitality of life. Agape affords us access to goodness, the goodness of positive values and their existence. The dualism of life and spirit is not a problem of overcome or a battle of two opposing forces. It is the convergence of two distinct modes of access. This is not to deny possible conflict of these two movements as a consequence of their distinct modes of access. Tensions between life and spirit do and can exist. The problem eros and agape resolve is the possibility and motivation for the spiritualization of life. Life’s value blindness and spirit’s powerlessness are not obstacles in the relation between the two, but the means by which life erotically embraces spirit freely and the means by which the agape of spirit realizes the goodness of existence. “Spirit and life are ordered according to one another” (GW IX, 67). It is the human being that realizes this order in a single being.

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

143

The meaning of the human being is an investigation into the process of spiritualization. Spiritualization is the manner by which spirit guides and channels the movement of life. Through this process life takes on a more determinate course, a course distinguished by a qualitatively richer, more beautiful sense of fulfillment. For spirit, spiritualization is a process of empowerment. Spiritual values and ideals come to have a real force and activity as they are realized in existence, in the life of the individual and culture. Scheler’s new dualism has shown that spiritualization is not a process of mastery or domination. It is a process inspired and cultivated through two distinct senses of loving. Life is erotically drawn to the beauty of spirit, and agape directs spirit toward life for the sake of goodness. Loving as the Task of Human Becoming Spiritualization can be a movement away from value depth and toward the shallow or even destructive values. Scheler’s rejection of any form of universal reason or ideal means that at any given moment there is either a tending away or a tending toward, a tendency presupposed in the “metaphysical origination of spirit and reason” (GW XII, 66). Rather then speak of a theory of human evolution, wherein we would have to assume some type of continued progress in the meaning of humanity, Scheler suggests holding a theory of transformation. “For the transformation is just as often a humanization as it is a bestialization” (GW XII, 100). By humanization, Scheler means the realization of deeper values in and through the movement of life. Bestialization is the exact opposite movement, a movement toward the more shallow values. These two movements are expressions of the movement of love and hate respectively. In fact, love and/or hate would have to be considered the motivation and determining factor as to which direction an individual or culture make take. Human-

144

Zachary Davis

ization must be understood both as erotic and agapic, a movement open to the beautiful and a movement open to goodness. Since the movement of spiritualization is not given in advance and consequently determined in each and every moment of life, spiritualization must also be considered the task of being human. The question concerning the meaning of the human being is a question of who the human being can and ought to become. Spiritualization is distinctively a human task, for the human being is the intersection of life and spirit. This holds true for both the individual and collective person. How the process of spiritualization takes place in the individual and collective unity is through the types of acts. Individual spiritualization takes place through intimate acts, collective spiritualization through the collective acts of each member. Whether it is possible to be a humane person in a bestial culture is not a question entertained by Scheler. Spiritualization goes to the core and heart of the person. The better question is how I am contributing to the course of spiritualization in being who I am. That I live in an inhumane world calls my being, i.e., fullness of loving, into question. The human being as a process of spiritualization is thus not a thing, but a direction (GW XI, 220). Whether this direction is a tendency toward humanization or bestialization is determined by the relation between life and spirit, as manifest in the individual or collective unit. Humanization is a tendency toward the unity of life and spirit, while bestialization is the tendency toward opposition and tension. The human being is not a “natural unity” (GW III, 194). There is thus no original position or state from which the human being has fallen. The unity of human being is a unity in the becoming, a unity formed in the humanization of life. Scheler’s so-called “new dualism” is descriptive of the unity that can and ought to become, descriptive of the task of human being. “The ‘good of the person’ is not the highest task of the human being, rather the good of the whole human being, of the value-creative human being according to the rank order of

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

145

values. That is preferencing the higher [deeper] values in character and action” (GW XIII, 50). That the human being is of two distinct natures does not fix the human being in some location between animal and God. Human being is rather a becoming, a “between,” “border,” and “transition” (GW III, 186). Life and spirit are movements driven by distinct modes of loving. These movements are never at rest or come to rest in the realization of a particular designation. Eros and agape are modes of access that continually open life and spirit respectively to the most profound secrets of the world. Human beings become neither more animal-like nor more Godlike. Human beings become more or less humane. As a becoming, the being of human being escapes all attempts at a definition. (GW III, 186). If we were to attempt a definition, it would have to be a question of the how, not the what. For “the way something is and its being are inseparable” (GW XV, 187). Humanization and bestialization are thus styles of becoming, the manner by which the individual or culture coordinates the movements of life and spirit. In either form of spiritualization, life becomes transformed, becoming more or less than it was. Spiritualization takes place only through the transformation of life. The task of being human is not to rid spirit of the burden of life or in the context of politics to rid the world of power. Hence, when Scheler describes the human being as the “intention and guest of transcendence itself ” (GW III, 186), he is not suggesting that spirit moves beyond life. Spiritualization does not change the nature of life. Rather it makes life more or less beautiful. “Life is ‘transformation’ (Wandlung), not ‘change’ (Veränderung)” (GW XI, 184). There is no overcoming of life, but a becoming more than life, becoming more than a mere vital being. Scheler can then write that the human being is the sufferer of life and even that the human being was born of suffering (GW XII, 109), and not mean that life is to be overcome. The suffering of life is the taking of

146

Zachary Davis

life beyond itself through life, that the spiritual values cannot be without the work of life. Life and spirit are open to one another in love. Yet, how is this opening up first experienced? Do humans tend originally toward bestialization or humanization? Scheler again seems contradictory on this point. At times in his later writing he describes the original condition of life and spirit as a unity (GW XII, 55). Then at other times writes of an original tension between life and spirit (GW XI, 209). The answer to these questions is again found in the resolution of the apparent contradiction. By an original unity of life and spirit, Scheler means that both life and spirit realize their most profound and deepest expressions only through a unity. Perhaps the best expression for what Scheler means by a unity here is his notion of solidarity. He describes the relation between life and spirit as such in his later writings (GW XII, 221; GW XI, 201). Though unique and independent movements, only together do life and spirit discover what they truly may become. The relation of solidarity is a relation given originally but realized in the present and future. It would make no sense to speak of the solidarity between persons if a sense of unity and feeling of responsibility were not given in advance, as conditions for and not the consequence of being with one another. The end is given in the beginning and it is the human being wherein spirit and life find their unity (GW XII, 235). It only makes sense to speak of an end at the beginning if being is thought as becoming. Unity is the task of spiritualization, a process that takes place over the life of the individual and the generations of a culture. There is no doubt that the relation between life and spirit is experienced often as a tension. We need go no further than our emotional life to demonstrate such a tension. Feelings such as guilt and shame are indicative of the tensions what one ought to be and what one is. Life’s resistance to spirit is felt in feelings such as anguish (GW VI, 76). As Kant has

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

147

so poignantly illustrated, there is often little joy in doing one’s duty. Scheler’s work on virtue is helpful in understanding life’s resistance of spirit. A conflict between the life drives and one’s duties disclose an impersonal relation to goodness. A duty is a duty precisely because it is experienced as that which is unbearable, i.e., non-joyful. “Goodness becomes beautiful when it becomes easy” (GW III, 17). Humanization is the process by which goodness comes to be experienced as joyful, for humanization is only possible when life freely gives itself over to the guidance and direction of spirit. The process of spiritualization is wholly personal and individual. It cannot by dictated from above or from the outside, as is the case with duty. Scheler does not suggest that there is no learning curve in the process of spiritualization. Spiritualization as a personal task means rather that the individual learns how to recognize the beautiful in goodness over time, through the hardships and difficulties in life. The way we become is what we become. “True humanity” is realized by living the tension most fully. It means that the “fire of life and the passions” are not suppressed but become an expression of the deepest values (GW III, 195). There is then an “upheaval” (Umschwung) of this tension, taking life and spirit beyond themselves through themselves (GW XII, 220). Living the tension most fully means to realize the beauty of goodness and the goodness of beauty. “Whoever withstands this maximal tension in the most profound manner without dying, that is the next God, the best servant of the eternal ground” (GW XII, 114). As there is no predetermined direction that politics or spiritualization may take in the course of one’s life or through the generations of a culture, there is no predetermined style as to how the human being must take up the task of spiritualization. How the individual or culture undertakes this task is unique to each. Every individual is a “new creation” of the unity of life and

148

Zachary Davis

spirit (GW XII, 132). The style of spiritualization is what distinguishes the individual and culture. In the course of spiritualization, an individual and culture discover who they are and what they can become. The task of spiritualization is thus the task of becoming who one is. It is possible, all too possible, to fail in this task. Overcoming and redeeming the emergence of the horrors of past and present must now become synonymous with the task of humanization. It is possible to become other than what we have been, but this new way can only be realized through life and the real factors that harbor the presence of what we have been. The task of becoming human assumes the responsibility for what we have and shall become. Endnotes 1. Scheler writes this Preface approximately a month before he dies and after having already experienced significant heart trouble and pain. His death is becoming increasingly imminent and Scheler does give instruction on how to approach his work, giving a detailed “reading list” on how to trace the question of the human being throughout his work. 2. In his excellent article, Art Luther takes issue with claims that Scheler has left concrete lived experience in favor of a more abstract approach. See Art Luther, “The Articulated Unity of Being in Scheler’s Phenomenology. Basic Drive and Spirit,” in Max Scheler (1874-1928) Centennial Essays, Ed. Manfred Frings (The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1974). I am not in disagreement with Luther on this point. To describe Scheler’s turn as a turn to the speculative only means that he is no longer working from particular phenomenon, but has moved to questions such as the movement of life and spirit prior to the event of the human being, i.e., prior to the human being and persons coming into existence. 3. I understand these sociological investigations as the “entrance” into Scheler’s metaphysics and philosophical anthropology (GW VIII, 11). D. Frisby is fully correct in emphasizing the metaphysical roots of Scheler’s sociology of knowledge and in criticizing commentators such

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

149

as Kenneth Stikkers for attempting to treat Scheler’s sociology as unrelated to his metaphysics. Frisby’s critique of Scheler ultimately falls well short of its mark, due primarily to his misreading of Scheler’s metaphysics. Frisby renders Scheler’s metaphysics as merely speculative and fails to comprehend how Scheler’s metaphysical reflections spring from the experience of being human. For Frisby’s critique see, D. Frisby, “Max Scheler: From Sociology of Culture to the Sociology of Knowledge,” in Alienated Mind: The Sociology of Knowledge in Germany 19181933. The reference to Stikkers is to his “Introduction” to Max Scheler. Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge, translated by Manfred Frings (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980) 4. In order to simplify matters, I choose to use the term “life” rather than either “impulse.” Angelika Sander has convincingly shown that Scheler uses the terms “life” (Leben) and “impulse” (Drang) interchangeably depending on the context. When Scheler is taking up an investigation from a philosophical-anthropological regard, he uses the term “life.” When he is in the context of his metaphysics, he uses the term “impulse.” The meaning remains the same in both types of investigations. It is a matter of emphasis and descriptive clarity that he chooses one term over the other depending on the context. Since my investigations into this notion are directed primarily by a concern for his philosophical anthropology and politics, the term “life” tends to be more consistent with Scheler’s own descriptions. For a further discussion on the distinction between life and impulse see Sander, “Askese und Weltbejahung: Zum Problem des Dualismus in der Anthropologie und Metaphysik Max Scheler,” in Vom Umsturz der Werte in der modernen Gesellschaft, II. Kolloquium der Max-Scheler-Gesellschaft (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1997). 5. Xiaofeng Liu, Personwerdung: Eine theologische Untersuchung zu Max Schelers Phänomenologie der “Person-Gefühle” mit besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Kritik an der Moderne (Bern; Peter Lang, 1996), p. 75. Hereafter all references to this work are cited as “Liu” with appropriate page reference. 6. Kenneth Stikkers has argued in his essay “Ethos. Its Relationship to Real and Ideal Sociological Factors in Max Scheler’s Sociology of Culture” ( Listening Vol. 21 No. 3, 1986, pp. 243-253), that life and spirit spring from Alleben, suggesting that spirit is somehow reducible to life or that life is creative of spirit. I have since spoken to Stikkers about his position in this article and Stikkers has admitted that this analysis runs

150

Zachary Davis

contrary to Scheler’s thought. Stikkers’ search for a founding unity to life and spirit as a means to overcome the problem of dualism is well motivated. I show later that the unity between life and spirit is not original, but one in the making. Stikkers’ analysis in the above article is static rather than dynamic, as demonstrated by his chart on page 251. 7. I do not wish to give an exhaustive account of the secondary literature on the problem of dualism. Generally, the discussion has become a distraction from the more central themes in Scheler’s work. Nonetheless, the diversity and contrast in the literature speaks not necessarily to a deep confusion in Scheler’s thought, but to the richness of his descriptions. It is possible to group the literature under certain tendencies. Some have sought to resolve the ambiguity through Scheler’s notion of a becoming God. These attempts follow Scheler’s claim that the human being is structurally identical to God and thus attempt to root the unity of the human being in the original unity of God. See Felix Hammer, Theonome Anthropologie? Max Scheler Menschenbild und seine Grenzen (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), Heinz Leonardy, “‘Es ist schwer ein Mensch zu sein,’ Zur Anthropologie des späten Scheler,” Phänomenologische Forschungen, Band 28/29, 1994, and Xiafeng Liu, Personwerdung: Eine theologische Untersuchung zu Max Schelers Phänomenologie der “Person-Gefühle” mit besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Kritik an der Moderne (Bern: Peter Lang, 1996). Others have sought to find a unity to Scheler’s dualism directly through the human being. Angelika Sander argues that Scheler never intended a dualism. See her essay “Askese und Weltbejahung: Zum Problem des Dualismus in der Anthropologie und Metaphysik Max Schelers,” in Vom Umsturz der Werte in der modernen Gesellschaft, Gerhard Pfafferott, editor (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1997), p. 49. Peter Spader has also argued that there is no dualism in Scheler’s conception of the human being, maintaining that life has already become spiritualized in the emergence of the human being. See Spader’s Scheler’s Ethical Personalism: Its Logic, Development and Promise (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), p. 205. Although Edward Vacek never seriously considers the problem of dualism, he does conclude that it is a relationship of solidarity. See his essay “Max Scheler’s Anthropology,” Philosophy Today Vol. 23, No. 3, Fall 1979, p. 246.

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

151

A further grouping still under the general heading of a unity to Scheler’s dualism is those authors focusing primarily on the becoming nature of the human being. Ram Adhar Mall resolves the dualism by arguing for a becoming solution, a unity in the making. See his “Schelers Idee einer werdenden Anthropologie und Geschichtsteleologie,” Phänomenologische Forschungen, Band 28/29, 1994. Manfred Frings understands the becoming as a resolution to the appearance of an antagonism between life and spirit. See his The Mind of Max Scheler (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997), p. 278. In a similar fashion, Arthur Luther writes that the task in human becoming is not to resolve the tension between life and spirit, but to live the tension most fully. See his “The Articulated Unity of Being in Scheler’s Phenomenology. Basic Drive and Spirit,” in Max Scheler (1874-1928) Centennial Essays, Ed. Manfred Frings (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), p. 21. The commentators listed thus far have all sought a type of resolution to Scheler’s dualism by arguing for a unity to his thought. There are a number of commentators who find the tension in Scheler’s late dualism irresolvable and problematic. See Kurt Lenk, Von der Ohnmacht des Geistes: Kritische Darstellung der Spätphilosophie Max Schelers (Tübingen: Hopfer Verlag, 1959), Ernst Cassirer, “’Spirit’ and ‘Life,’” in The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed. Paul Arthur Schlipp (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1958), p. 855-880, and Eugene Kelly “Vom Ursprung des Menschen bei Max Scheler,” in Person und Wert, Eds. C. Bermes, W. Henckmann, H. Leonardy, and his Structure and Diversity. Studies in the Phenomenological Philosophy of Max Scheler, Phaenomenologica, No. 141 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1997). 8. Scheler recognizes the aim of the life urge to be threefold: a maximization of reality (Realen) and qualitative forms, and a minimization of strenuous energy output. (GW XI, 186) 9. Herein, however, lies the problem. Is not the ability to guide and channel a form of power? The tension in Scheler’s thought is due to a too restrictive definition of power. Again, what Scheler says defies what he means. My objective in this section is to describe the type of power spirit has. The power of spirit is discovered in the experience of value or rather in the manner that value draws and demands our attention. Spirit is the movement wherein values first come to be for us; spirit is the movement of love. As such, spirit possesses the power of value, a value wholly distinct from the power to create. The power of value is

152

Zachary Davis

the power to entice, to elicit without any other force but the force of goodness. 10. For a critique of Scheler’s notion of a powerless spirit see Kurt Lenk, Von der Ohnmacht des Geistes: Kritische Darstellung der Spätphilosophie Max Schelers (Tübingen: Hopfer-Verlag, 1959). Although I believe Lenk fails to understand the subtlety of what Scheler means by a powerless spirit, he does raise some of the most important and challenging questions. 11. Scheler further relates this field of expression to the “imagecreating feature of Alleben.” I have only briefly touched upon Scheler notion of the image and its relation to the life drives in the first section of this chapter. The meaning and significance of Alleben and the image (Bild) is not crucial for my purposes here concerning eros. Almost nothing is mentioned in the secondary work on Scheler regarding Bild and Alleben, and is a project that still needs to be written and explored. 12. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Trans. Colin Smith (New York: Routledge Press, 1994), p. 157. 13. Although the solidarity of all living beings cannot strictly speaking lead to an ethic, nor is the vitality felt for other living beings a grasping of the value of life as such, Scheler does indicate how erotic insight does direct the course of human action according to a restricted sense of the value of life. Spiritual value insight into the rank order of values gives the obligation that life shall never be sacrificed for the sake of utility or pleasure alone. Eros does not give commands, but does meaningfully retard the use of power and control over living beings that would disregard its status of a living being. The “grotesque” consequences of a non-erotic relation to the world is seen in the mechanistic sciences and its representation to the world (GW VIII, 279). In his article “Die Lebenswerte in der Rangordnung der Werte,” Eberhard AvéLallement suggests that life may not elicit a command, but a “relative right.” In this respect, he writes, there is a “vitalistic ethic.” (Avé-Lallement, 91) There is no explicit connection made between the vitalistic ethic and eros by Avé-Lallement, but I believe this is due to his concentration on Scheler’s earlier work. According to the later work, eros would be the loving disposition to the world that does provide the foundation for a vitalistic ethic, and what is made possible by eros, its vitalistic ethic, is a devotion of the divinity of life in all creatures, a devotion profoundly exemplified in the person of Saint Francis. Life as

Scheler and the Task of Human Loving

153

that which to share in, as that which to feel and suffer with, is an insight only given to the human being erotically. 14. In his essay, “Vom Ursprung des Menschen bei Max Scheler,” Eugene Kelly provides a discussion of the valueless goals of the life urge and correctly places it in the context of Scheler’s critique of Darwinian evolution theory. I return to this article later in the context of spiritualization. Though I disagree with Kelly’s concern that Scheler’s metaphysics is too speculative and thus a step backward from Scheler’s phenomenological approach in his value ethics, Kelly does insightfully locate the locus of the relation between life urge and spirit at the “origin of the human being.” Kelly writes, for example, “Our life as the life of the Ens a se fully becomes a place of battle, where every life may spontaneously grasp new commands and new possibilities. Every life may just as well deny such insights” (p. 270). 15. Scheler’s work on ressentiment and modern morality again provides an illuminating example to help answer these questions. In trying to account for how utility came to be preferred over life, a reversal Scheler find at the heart of the modern ethos, he compares two types of asceticism, traditional and modern. This distinction is one that Scheler borrows from Max Weber in Weber’s work Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Scheler renders the ideal functioning within the traditional asceticism, the asceticism of traditional Christianity before Luther and Protestantism, as the maximum enjoyment of pleasure in the smallest amount of the pleasurable or useful thing. By contrast, modern asceticism operates under the ideal of the least amount of the pleasure in the maximum amount of the things or useful object (GW III, 130-131). Modern asceticism and its operative ideal has led to a endless drive to consume, preferring the efficient to all other means of production. The spirit of capitalism has not changed the drive for pleasure at the vital level. Life still seeks enjoyment. It has transformed how pleasure is felt in worldly objects. Both forms of asceticism take hold only in so far as life becomes enjoyable. Life only allows itself to be directed by that which promises greater fulfillment. Traditional asceticism demonstrates, however, that the small can be experienced at the vital level as more. The freely chosen life of poverty is not at the expense of pleasure, but for the sake of it. In the context of his work on ressentiment, Scheler uses this experience to show Nietzsche’s failure in grasping the core of the Christian

154

Zachary Davis

ethos. Christianity under the direction of its traditional asceticism is not a negation of life, not a denial of the flesh, but a celebration of the vital. Life is enriched through the deeper spiritual values. 16. To be clear and to avoid any criticisms that Scheler is somehow ontologizing or “Platonizing” values, Scheler asserts “I love no value, but always something that is valuable” (GW VII, 151). Value disclosure is a manner of loving a person or thing according to its ideal value being, who that person is or what that object is. 17. Bernard Waldenfels, “Wertqualitäten oder Erfahrungsprüche?”, Vom Umsturz der Werte in der modernen Gesellschaft, Ed. Gerhard Pfafferott (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1997).

6 In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God Eugene Kelly

Philosophy, New York Institute of Technology Max Scheler Society of North America [email protected] ABSTRACT: The paper evaluates two theses central to Max Scheler’s philosophy of religion: that essential knowledge of God is universal to humankind, and that this knowledge is irreducible to any experience outside itself. We examine the phenomenology of the fivefold process whereby we obtain knowledge of the Absolute. The conclusion is that the first thesis is plausible, and the second less so. However, the defense of the second thesis led Scheler to a fruitful phenomenology of religious experience as seeing the world in the light of God. The paper evaluates this world-view as an alternative to the scientific Weltanschauung.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevski’s character Ivan considers Voltaire’s dictum, “S’il n’existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l’inventer.” Man, Ivan says, has invented God. “But the wonder of it,” he adds, “is that such a notion of the necessity of God could creep into the head of such a wild and wicked animal as man.” The point is well taken, though it surely begs the question of the wickedness of humankind. Perhaps it is precisely the wicked, like Ivan, who have had to invent God. Max Scheler once noted (235) [241]1 that a strong temptation to evil exists in men of deep spiritual nature. Ivan senses the evil in the world too closely and perhaps in himself too intensely, as Scheler might diagnose his case, for him to know God spontaneously; he therefore wonders from where came the idea of the necessity of God. PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

156

Eugene Kelly

The response Scheler might have made to Ivan’s musing is complex and profound, and it possesses implications for us today that neither Ivan nor Voltaire could have imagined. Scheler’s response rests on two significant theses: that knowledge of the Absolute is necessarily a universal phenomenon in humankind, and that it is irreducible to and not derivable from any human experience outside itself. Are his claims true, however? Is Ivan mistaken, as Scheler thinks he is, in his assumption that the idea of God has entered persons’ minds surreptitiously, as it were, planted in this unpromising soil by an animal need for shelter, or by the vicissitudes of life, or the machinations of some wise or wicked men? Could it, therefore, eventually be supplanted by more adequate conceptions of the human condition? Further, can Scheler’s essential phenomenology of religion possess salutary value in contemporary moral disputes between scientists and spokespersons of religion on just these matters? We will confine ourselves in this paper to an examination of Scheler’s thoughts on God and our knowledge of Him that he developed during his middle period, and refer exclusively to the essays in Vom Ewigen im Menschen and Vom Umsturz der Werte. Wolfhart Henckmann has observed2 that “[by the 1920’s,] Scheler no longer considered religion to be an essential category of the human spirit.” The remarks of Scheler to this effect in the later work to which Henckmann refers (Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens) may, I think, be quite consistent with Scheler’s claim in Vom Ewigen im Menschen that knowledge of the sphere of the Absolute is primordial and not derivable. What he gives up, in the end, is his own performance of the religious acts and their correlates that are typical of the Christian religion, while maintaining their essential validity for the Christian religious experience. To the end, he holds fast to the Ens a se. We may assert, then, that the two theses we consider here are at least consistent with the later work. Indeed his later work shows a religious attitude toward the objects of his metaphysical speculations.3

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

157

Whether the absolute entity posited by his later metaphysics may legitimately make itself amenable to what we commonly call worship is a question I will not presume to answer. But there is no question that Scheler continued to believe that religion and religious knowledge was sui generis, unfounded, necessary for, and natural to, the human species. The idea of God is not innate (195), but rather is a datum of non-inductive experience of essence that is peculiar to the finite mind (197). We come to know God through a fivefold process: 1) In the order of foundation in which the world as value and meaning becomes manifest to finite spirit ontogenetically and phylogeneticaly in acts of love; 2) in the revelation of the absolute being to persons in primordial religious acts that are unified, homogeneous and simple (178) and its threefold articulation as Ens a se, as omnipotent, and as holy; 3) in the identification of the divine nature by analogy with features of the world seen in the light of God, a process that begins with the identification of God as Spirit (the natural revelation); 4) in the articulation of ideas of God via the self-revelation by grace of the divine and omnipotent Ens a se to individuals, and via God’s self-revelation to prophets, according them a role as the messengers of God’s will to humanity in the form of revelation; and 5) in the mediation of mankind’s experience and knowledge of God by the historical and social contexts in which such grace and revelation occurs. Religious acts are a) voluntary, b) subject to correction by phenomenological re-enactment of them and of their object, and c) provide, therefore, genuine knowledge of what is intended in them, that is, the nature of God, though not of God’s existence. This experience is closed and autonomous (350), does not conflict with knowledge in any of the other spheres of knowledge, and its foundations are in fundamental harmony with the focal points of religious belief of the other religions of the world that developed in the Iron Age: there is an Ens a se, it is holy, and it is omnipotent.

158

Eugene Kelly

The defenses of thesis (a) of universality, and thesis (b) of irreducibility take the following forms in Scheler. a) The universality thesis maintains that human beings, and indeed the finite mind as such (262), has an apprehension of the Absolute that lies at the root of our intentional awareness of the world. Scheler notes (171) “Der Bezug des Menschen auf das Göttliche ist . . . für das Wesen des Menschen konsitutiv.” Love and hate, as defining characteristics of spirit, are the deepest sources of our knowledge of Self, World, and God; they open and close us to a realm of meaning and value. Without them, human beings would be locked, as animals are, in an environment, and incapable of intentional acts. The foundational object, or first evidentiary datum, of spirit’s frail awareness, is that “there is not nothing”—that is, absolute nothingness—and the second datum metaphorically “covers up” the first, namely the datum “there is absolute being,” as an item of essential, not existential knowledge. This sphere of the Absolute is thus second of the spheres of being in the order of foundation after the sphere of values. The primary function of love and hate, upon which the initial evidentiary datum of the not-being of absolute nothingness is founded, is to open us to these spheres. Scheler’s exhibition of these matters does not describe nonmetaphorically how the second evidentiary datum, that of absolute being, arises out of the first. It surely does not do so by means of a logical inference, for “that there is absolute being” does not follow from “there is not nothing,” and its status as an essential relation (Wesenszusammenhang) is not phenomenologically evident. The relationship is clearly not a simple given, an Urphänomen or axiom, as it were. Yet Scheler notes in support of his thesis that even the atheist cannot avoid the distinction between absolute and relative being, as far as he recognizes his own contingency and finitude, for the recognition of one’s own finitude presupposes a category of absolute being. No doubt the distinctions between the limited and the unlimited, the contingent and

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

159

the necessary, appear to have deep roots in our minds and our languages, whatever their provenance, necessity, and universality. Scheler writes in “Vom Wesen der Philosophie” that the failure to distinguish sharply the absolute from relative being is called relativism; yet the relativist is the absolutist of the relative (for his relativism presupposes insight into the Absolute) (Cf. GW 96). A person is therefore essentially either a believer or an idolater. I find nothing implausible or even ad hominem in this idea, for it is hardly a condemnation of idolatry. The idolater, in Scheler’s view, merely requires a kind of phenomenological therapy to correct his idolatry by means of clear insight into his own capacity for religious experience. Perhaps therefore the claim that the awareness of absolute being is universal has a certain plausibility. b) The human capacity, Scheler believes, for executing religious acts is founded only in the primordial givenness of the essence of the Absolute as the second primary datum. It is therefore irreducible to our experience of items in any of the other spheres. Consequently, Scheler denies that we derive our knowledge of the absolute from empirical experience, such as Schleiermacher’s celebrated doctrine that our experience of the Divine is founded in the experience of dependency.4 We could not feel such dependency unless we possessed an antecedent awareness of that on which we were dependent. As a corollary, Scheler notes that we cannot account for the origin of religion any more than we can account for the origin of language. A person does not develop to religion; one can only turn away from the Absolute, for it is native to one’s mind or, alternatively, the essential structures that are available to the human mind in religious experience may be deepened or distorted by knowledge of a different kind. Thus any naturalistic explanation of monotheism as a response to the physical and social conditions of our evolving species, or by means of putative laws governing our psychosexual development, such as that attempted by Scheler’s contemporary Freud, would fail before the phenomenology of the necessary and essential order of

160

Eugene Kelly

foundation of intentional acts. Knowledge of the Absolute must be available before it can be nurtured or distorted by the conditions of psychosocial development. Does this second thesis possess as much plausibility as the first? Note that the universality thesis does not imply the irreducibility thesis. An idea may be universal to humankind, yet be derived from some unknown psychic mechanism, whatever phenomenological facts may later be given to the developed mind. No empirical or phenomenological data can decide this issue. We can demonstrate the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of a phenomenological resolution of the irreducibility thesis in two ways. Let us take the phenomenology of the levels of value-types as a paradigm of the phenomenological procedure in Scheler’s hands. Scheler changed the number of value-types at one point, increasing it from four to five. This alone need not be taken as in indication that phenomenological insight lacks apodicticity, only that it is subject to accretion. One may have insight that is perfect, yet incomplete. The key question here is whether the added fourth level of value-types—that of the utility values— and its placement between the fifth and third level is irreducible to the others, as it ought to be if it is a primordial phenomenon whose exhibition is based upon phenomenological insight, or whether it is derived, for example, from an augmentation and variation of the class of values of pleasure and pain. This crucial issue, which has implications for our notion of phenomenological evidence itself, seems not to be a decidable one, yet its isomorphism with Scheler’s claim of the irreducibility of the sphere of religious acts is clear. The possibility of the derivation of the religious sphere from, say, the experience of the authority of our fathers as we shrink from the guilt of psychosexual conflict and then transfer our anxiety and conflict to a new and augmented, yet perhaps more merciful, paternal authority, cannot, I believe, be excluded by any available phenomenological evidence.

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

161

Scheler’s argument for irreducibility is, however, not merely phenomenological, though it does not consider the possibility that unreflective levels of experience may create imaginary objects and prompt beliefs that empirical science might one day make available to exploration. He adds to his argument a demonstration that the intentional acts in which the Absolute is first perceived have roots in regions of the mind beneath empirical awareness and give us data that transcend empirical knowledge and are hence not reducible to it. We have seen Scheler argue that even if we were prompted by psychological need to seek a resolution in religious faith of an internal conflict of some kind, we must already possess some prior living knowledge of the Absolute before that possible resolution can become available to us. His further reasoning is reminiscent of St. Augustine, who argued, especially in De Libero Arbitrio and in De Magistro, that we possess an awareness of a possible happiness that is greater than anything we have experienced in this life. This awareness must therefore require an illumination of the mind by God, through which our cognitions perceive truths that cannot be known by sense experience. The resulting truths are necessary and apodictic. In De Trinitatis 12, Augustine postulates the idea of a divine light that allows us fallen beings to perceive the certainty and necessity of some truths presented to our judgment; only because of the divine light are these truths discernable as necessary and eternal by persons. For Augustine, this light was an explanation of the (fallen) mind’s ability to perceive such truths, and it is posited as a metaphysical reality designed to solve an epistemological problem. Scheler attempts to bolster the irreducibility thesis by using the Augustinian doctrine in a new, different, and, if I may say so, in an illuminating way. The expression “in lumine Dei” in Scheler appears, on my count, three times in “Wesensphänomenologie der Religion.” It contrasts with such phrases as “per lumen dei” (190) and “in lumine mundi” (194). Scheler, of course, thinks men to be less

162

Eugene Kelly

“fallen” than Augustine does;5 he believes, as his epistemological foundationalism requires, that phenomenology gives us the means to discern truly and to perfect our knowledge of the essential (eternal and necessary) aspects of the world. The meaning with which he invests the Latin expression is perhaps best expressed in a footnote to 176 [180-81]. It is precisely in the primordial religious act that we become aware of God as in a mirror. We come to see the world’s being and essence “in the light” of (formal) divinity. We no longer see God directly; the sun is, as it were, “at our back” as for Faust: “Im farbigen Abglanz haben wir das Leben.” Scheler thus attributes to us an irreducible capacity to view God’s light as spread over all things, for the sphere of the Absolute founds all other spheres; its content transcends the finite world. Divine illumination, for Scheler, gives us neither certitude nor content. It is not an intentional act. We see in this light the relation of created things to eternal supersensible realities of which there is no direct vision in this life. We see the world in a new way: the mirrored light of God in all things enables the awed engagement by which we long to peer beyond the known. It inspires the peculiar act of love that Scheler calls reverence. A further key to the meaning of “in lumine Dei” in the phenomenology of the religious act is the experience of the “suffusion” (hineinleuchten, 168) of the world and its essential structure by the infinite divine reason. The being of the world, or of nature, or the certainty with which its essence and structure is known, is not thereby affected; this “pouring in” is not an act of creation. But in that light we see the world mystically, as it appears in Giovanni Bellini’s great work “St. Francis in the Desert”: the painting seems to depict not a moment of natural revelation, but of sudden grace. Nothing of the nature of the things changes at that moment—everything is just as it appears naturally—but the light. In that light, Francis perceives God as in a mirror. Like him, we can see the same natural everyday objects

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

163

in a new way, once we have already accepted the testimony of our primordial wordless experience of the Absolute, and assured ourselves of God’s existence. As in the “farbigen Abglanz” we have life, so upon and in the things suffused by the light of God the religious mind enjoys the presence of God. God’s spirit is the light that infuses all things, even knowledge itself (298-99) with glory. Indeed, Scheler’s “Wesensphänomenologie der Religion” is precisely a re-enactment of the religious acts executed in lumine Dei, in which we see the same essential structure of the world revealed by phenomenology, as in a mirror by which God becomes darkly visible, and His nature becomes expressible in analogies with things. Scheler invites us to re-experience, in his Aufweisen, the acts peculiar to the religious awareness. This procedure culminates in the isolation of what Scheler calls the irreducible characteristics of the religious act: 1. the transcendence of the world of its intention; 2. its ability to be fulfilled only by the “divine”; 3. its fulfillment only by the adoption of a self-revealing divine character that gives itself to man, such that all knowledge of God is knowledge through God. (244-45) [250]. Such acts, which occur prior to empirical experience, intend meanings transcendent of empirical experience, which, again, cannot be derived from it. Yet we cannot conclude to their superempirical origin. The reverential motivation of his inquiry, and his use of the term “adoption” (Aufname) in the third characteristic, both point to an ambiguity in Scheler’s procedure. Is Scheler’s “Wesensphänomenologie der Religion” merely a descriptive science of the ideal essential acts and their objects executed by a person who has in some extraphilosophical manner assured himself of the existence of the Ens a se?6 Or is Scheler’s work itself a contribution to a new kind of natural theology that is apologetic in intention, that is, it attempts to assure us of the legitimacy and plausibility of the religious life? Initially the answer would appear to be that it is not apologetic, since Scheler rejects all means of establishing God’s

164

Eugene Kelly

existence that do not emerge from religious experience itself. Specifically, Scheler’s hostility to the traditional proofs of the existence of God is based not simply upon the undesirability of allowing metaphysics to move from its rightful sphere as ontology, or the science of being, to that of the science of the real, because it then will enter inevitably into conflict with empirical science. His hostility is rather to the forgetfulness by natural theologians that their proofs are founded upon a prior experience of God. Without such experiences, the premises of theology would be literally incomprehensible, perhaps a valid example of falling to the verifiability criterion of meaningfulness. Scheler first finds this forgetful attitude in Aquinas, who passes from the world to God rather than from God to the world: for Scheler, we see the world in the light of God, not God in the light of the world. The latter puts the horse of natural religious experience before the cart of discursive knowledge. Proofs are hence futile, for their meaning presupposes what they are trying to prove, and they distort the soul’s true road to God, and its “capacity for intuitive emotional contact with the Divinity,” (239) [244]7 which encourages symbolic attributions to God as mirroring Himself in the world. All of reality is suffused with mind: this is a phenomenological, but not analytical Wesenszusammenhang. But only religious experience, not discursive inference, can see the world in this light. In faith, the mind proceeds by analogies that pass from the nature of the illuminated objects to the nature of the light that shines on them. It sees the act of divine creation mirrored in the work of the artist; the divine love for each person is mirrored in love of one person for another; in temporal phenomena we see eternity reflected; in spatial phenomena the ubiquity, in magnitude the immesurability of God. In genuine religious experience, the first mirror of God in the world is the human spirit (191). We experience spirit as the primary creation of God, and as His self-revelation in man as a reflected glory, and in this act we experience ourselves as a mirror of

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

165

God: we enter in this way for the first time in possession of ourselves as persons. We come to see the Absolute reflected in spirit before we see it reflected in the physical world. The connection between God and the world as its omniscient creator is then mediated by finite spirit as it takes part epistemically in the essential structure of the world. Here, of course, we have begun to enter the Western religious perspective on God: that He is personal spirit, and man is created in His image as the microcosmic spirit. At this point, and only then, do we proceed, in Scheler’s estimation, to form analogies between God as the holy omnipotent absolute spirit and the world created by Him as the omnipotent Artist. God becomes known as spirit—and so as a person—in the objects of the world (in lumine mundi) by our first learning to see the world in the light of God. The religious man enacts a movement of the soul that Scheler says is “wie ein unerhörtes geheimnisvolles Drama in den tiefsten Tiefen der Seele” (183), in which appears the special dignity of the human spirit and its function as the primary mirror of God. “A single soul would suffice to make God knowable to us as spirit” (193). In this process appears also the sublime indifference of our knowledge of God to our knowledge of the world. No changes in scientific paradigms will change our idea of the spirituality of God and the created objects of the world as reflected in the divine spirit (194). But in turn we see again the futility of attempts to “prove” God’s existence by means of inferences such as the cosmological arguments. Our knowledge of God does not deepen our knowledge of, say, the complexity of biological structures (as some argue today under the rubric of intelligent design), nor does knowledge of these structures deepen our knowledge of God. As a further example of our knowledge of God as mirrored in the world, Scheler holds that in natural religious experience God is given as will. If so, the theological dispute whether God’s infinite reason renders His acts of will (understood as overcoming resistance) superfluous or impossible would have to be answered

166

Eugene Kelly

negatively, despite whatever theological scruples may remain. Theologians must listen to their prophets. Theology must also take account of how we grasp the world in religious experience as the effected, die Bewirkte, and not simply as dependent upon the Ens a se (pace Schleiermacher). In the divine light, reality has initially the character of a willful decree. There is an essential connection between primordial becoming-real and being desired (Gewolltwerden, 216). God wills the reality of each thing; He “wants eternally what he loves, and lovingly affirms it as value” (219). Thus the religious consciousness sees the action of the human artificer as a mirror of God’s affirming love of the values that He wills to realize in His creation. Touching in its pathos is Scheler’s remark that art is not an escape from fallen reality, but the effort to capture the world as it came from the hands of its Creator, when it shone more brightly as His mirror, and to offer us a promise of future salvation (231). This descriptive phenomenology of religion, which investigates religion from the inside, as it were, of religious experience, rather than discursively as in theology and the philosophy of religion, liberates religion from science and philosophy while tying it to all human knowledge by means of the phenomenological exhibition of its givens. Yet—to return to our earlier question—Scheler’s intentions are also normative and apologetic, for he attempts to establish the legitimacy of what otherwise might be the unbridled exercise of the imagination. Faith, according to Scheler, is not a groundless leap toward the Absolute; he considers faith of a Christian sort to be reasonable, though its categories are subject, of course, to correction by phenomenological analysis. How then is it related to empirical science, and what is the epistemic status of faith? Scheler’s belief in the unity and foundational integrity of all knowledge is well known. All knowledge arises from love, and human beings naturally and universally desire to possess the things of the world truly as God knows them (cf. 199), that is, in their

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

167

essential truth. This is not Faust’s prideful desire to know what holds the world together physically in its inmost reaches, or Tennyson’s desire to know the flower in the crannied wall “all in all,” but the desire to know the essential structure of the world and the empirical laws of its operation, an aim that is possible by means of essential phenomenology primarily, and natural science secondarily. Yet in both forms of knowledge, the empirical and the phenomenological, the extent of a thing’s being transcends one’s grasp of it. Thus the need for, and the edifying value of, humility and reverence. “Die Rehabilitierung der Tugend” explores the value of the religious virtue of reverence in its function as a spur to knowledge of the world: [A] class of things tends to become “free” for scientific inquiry when a deeply engaged and spiritualized reverence toward things has already penetrated to a level of its existence closer to one of the invisible sources of the visible world. The level that is more distant from those sources and more turned toward our senses then becomes “cold,” and comes to be seen as amenable to scientific analysis. If one studies more closely the diverse epochs of progress, for example in astronomy, one will perceive at its source the continuous growth of a new and deeper reverence for the invisible. One will find, for example, that a new and deeper reverence had developed in advance of the detachment of feelings of reverence for the visible night sky, in which attitude the idea of the “heavens” had undergone a religious purification and spiritualization. Thus it was not too much but rather too little genuine reverence toward the divine and the world that had hampered the progress of astronomy.

Reverence as such is love that seeks the being of an object beyond its empirical givenness; it allows us to sense a greater profundity in the thing than we can perceive. It is a form of the love for all being and essence that convinces us that the world is not exhausted by our current knowledge of it. It inspires us to push ahead, like the lover into the being of what he loves, in the search for a deeper truth. Religious reverence does not interfere

168

Eugene Kelly

with the empirical and phenomenological exploration of the world, but provokes and energizes a deep exploration of the parts of the world that have already passed beyond the discoveries of science. As a religious act, it seeks the divine nature mirrored in the intentional object. In science, reverence seeks a deeper understanding of the physical constitution and lawlike behavior of its object. If we now explore black holes and superstrings and singularities, and the neurophysiological basis of consciousness, the reverential attitude in Scheler’s sense is not absent from them who seek, even if they have abandoned the notion of the Absolute as spirit, and divorced themselves from Abrahamic religion, as did Scheler himself. Scheler’s own attitude toward nature in his essay on the rehabilitation of virtue is the moral earth in which took root his phenomenological and sociological works, in which he castigates science for disregarding a wide range of phenomena to focus upon the measurable and practical aspects of things8 and classifies scientific knowledge as inferior to philosophical knowledge of essence. No doubt, humility and reverence would lose their power to inspire our inquiry if we were not able to accept the world as the created mirror of God, much as the awe, or hubris, or chutzpah, that science may inspire as it draws many of us into scientific inquiry would be quickly dispelled if we discovered that the world is not, in its inmost nature, as science depicts it. Gertrude Himmelfarb, the author of an important work on Darwin and his age,9 noted recently that contemporary scientists—she mentioned Edward O. Wilson and James Watson as examples—who revile religious mythmaking in the name of science have evidently not learned humility, that is, “an appreciation of the limits of science, of what science does not know and cannot know.”10 The comment of Owen Flanagan, in a recent book,11 that “there is no longer any place [in the brain] for the soul to hide,” given the growth in our knowledge of the operations of that organ, ignores, I think, the depth of our ignorance of how the mind works—if in fact “works” is the proper word.

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

169

The ferocity of current conflicts between religious and secular persons forgets the common ground between them. It is not that the two sides play different language games, or require different leaps of faith; if that were so, they could not even grasp the gulf that separates them, they could only hope the other side vanishes because of its unwelcome political or moral stances. Yet their epistemic positions cannot be reconciled, for the phenomenological and empirical data that would allow one side to vanquish the other are absent. No doubt Scheler, too, is guilty of dismissing cavalierly his positivist opponents by calling science merely knowledge for practical power, but his attitude in the essay on the rehabilitation of virtue is not so dismissive of science. Although he never makes evident the earliest beginnings of essential knowledge, he does not beg the question by saying that it is the light of God that enables us to obtain it. He presses love into service as the deepest horizon of spirit, for it opens us to knowledge of essence. Can we monitor that awakening, inchoate mind as it grasps in order and in turns, the essential structure of the world to which it awakens? To do so retrospectively does beg the question of its foundational quality: what appears as a foundation in retrospect may not be one in fact. In sum, it is plausible but not evident that knowledge of the Absolute is universal, and yet unpersuasive and unevident that it is underived. Our intellectual origins, sadly, are not transparent to us, as Scheler imagined. No doubt the difference in fundamental ontology that separates Scheler from naturalistic theses concerning our awareness of a realm of the Absolute is considerable. By this I mean not simply the difference between naturalist or supernaturalist metaphysics. Rather, what emerges from the horizon of what is still unknown may appear to inquirers as bearing a value worthy of religious reverence, or one inspiring scientific curiosity. The sphere of the unknown always stands as a background to the known. The religious man plunges into that sphere of our ignorance not with curiosity, but with reverence and humility. He begins with the indubitable

170

Eugene Kelly

reality of the sphere of the Absolute, and, drawing from his deepest experience, proceeds to identify the unknown with the Ens a se, Brahman, the Buddha-mind, or with Being itself. He explores lovingly that sphere for its content, believing that the content reveals more momentous features of reality than does ordinary perception. Today’s naturalist dismisses all natural human reverence toward the divine as emanating from human frailty at worst or a mistake in reasoning at best, and he considers the content of religious experience as an unreliable indicator of what is real, and rejects its articulation in human culture. Religion, as Santayana noted, is simply poetry that takes itself seriously as science, and, to naturalists, God-seekers are poetic dreamers who let themselves forget they are dreaming, and who are simply seeking to escape the human condition. Both sides may be wrong in ways they do not yet suspect.12

Endnotes 1. All page references in brackets refer to Scheler’s “Probleme der Religion,” Gesammelte Werke, Band 5, 6th edition, Bouvier, Bonn, 2000. The page numbers in square brackets refer to the English translation of the fourth edition (Bernard Noble, translator: New York, Harper, 1960). 2. Max Scheler, München, Beck, 1998, 138. 3. Cf. Gesammelte Werke, Band 15, 182-84. 4. Cf.: The Christian Faith, Edinburgh, 1999. 5. He notes (335) that one consequence of the Fall is Adam’s loss of completely adequate knowledge of God. Scheler apparently believes that the fallen state of the world is not only a truth inseparable from theism, but phenomenologically evident (230). This fascinating claim appears to imply the irreducibility of the notion of sin. It forms the source of humankind’s neediness in the face of irredeemable evil, of loss, and our abiding sense of sorrow. That we can trace this fallenaway aspect of the human condition to the religious experience of a Fall from grace antecedent to our creation is, however, hardly phenomenologically evident.

In lumine Dei: Scheler’s Phenomenology of World and God

171

6. Scheler argues in “Die Wesensphänomenologie der Religion” that the process whereby one assures oneself of the existence of God may take two forms: the direct and the indirect. In the first, Scheler appears to refer to something like a spontaneous leap of faith; in the second, one goes from the consideration of the essential assumptions of one’s culture to an entirely new level in which those assumptions are taken to be true. 7. Scheler notes in the essay, “Warum keine neue Religion? (GW 5)” that it must be counted a fault, and not an error, not to hear the whisper of the personal loving deity in one’s deep personal nucleus. He forgets that this failure is hardly a fault if one has not assured onself of the existence of the Ens a se. 8. As he argues, for example, in Gesammelte Werke, Band 10, 209-10. 9. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (New York: Norton, 1962). 10. The New Republic, December 12, 2005, 31. 11. The Problem of the Soul (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 6. 12. This paper was read at a meeting of the Max Scheler Society of North America in conjunction with the meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in April 2006.

7 What is the Outside?1 Leonard Lawlor

The Pennsylvania State University Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy [email protected] ABSTRACT: This small essay is part of a book project called “Early Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy: Towards the Outside” (under contract with Indiana University Press). Examining key texts in Bergson, Freud, Husserl, Heidegger, MerleauPonty, and Foucault, the book lays out a kind of narrative. The narrative aims to show that these thinkers contain conceptual components from which emerges a research program. There are four components: the overcoming of metaphysics (understood as Platonism); the starting point in immanent, subjective experience; the transformation of immanence into multiplicity; and a new form of thinking adequate to multiplicity. The crucial component is the transformation of immanence into multiplicity. Multiplicity is the outside.

Although his reading of Foucault might be contested, it seems correct when Deleuze says that Foucault’s thought concerns thought itself, “the arrow shot by Heidegger, the arrow par excellence.”2 Here of course Deleuze is referring to Heidegger’s 1954 What is Called Thinking.3 Heidegger plays on the question formulated in the book’s title, making it ask not only what is called thinking, but also what calls for thinking. What calls for thinking, according to Heidegger, is the fact that we are not yet thinking. The response to the question of what calls for thinking means that, for Heidegger, unlike Descartes, thinking is not a natural ability. Thinking requires a stimulus to get started. But it especially means that the form of representations, mental representations, does not PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

174

Leonard Lawlor

answer the question of what is called thinking; representation does not define, for Heidegger, what thinking is. Therefore, for Heidegger, thinking consists in thinking outside of the inherited forms of representations, outside of things that we can recognize, in perception, by means of these forms. Here we have used the word “outside” for the first time. Perhaps, in the tradition of Continental Philosophy, which is really the tradition of Heideggerian thought, the outside means precisely the informal or the non-formal. And clearly in 1966 when Foucault publishes his essay on the writer Maurice Blanchot, which is called “La pensée du dehors,” “The Thought of the Outside” (not “The Thought from the Outside,” as Massumi has it in the English translation), Foucault means a thought that moves beyond representation, beyond the accepted forms of representation as they function in language and perception.4 To think means to think otherwise. This formula—to think is to think otherwise (to think otherwise then the inherited forms of language and representation) has several implications, which I would like to lay out in this short essay. First, the formula gives us a problem to solve: how to escape from the inherited forms of thinking? At the end, I shall return to this problem. Second, with this formula, “to think means to think otherwise,” we see that the term “the outside” overlaps with the term “the other.” To think otherwise is to think outside. So, the large discourse of alterity that we find in Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy, in Levinas, for example, coincides with the discourse on the outside. And, of course, Levinas’ 1961 book, Totality and Infinity, bears the subtitle, “An Essay on Exteriority.”5 The outside also overlaps with the term “openness,” as we find it in Merleau-Ponty’s 1964 The Visible and the Invisible; for Merleau-Ponty openness refers to the openness of a perceptual field which extends as far as the horizon beyond which I cannot see.6 The idea of a horizon suggests escape; as I said a moment ago, I will return to escape at the end. But third, notice that the outside does not at this moment overlap with the term “the external” or “the exterior” (despite the subtitle of Levinas’

What is the Outside?

175

important book). Or, at least, we have to notice that the relation of the outside to the exterior is complicated. In order to understand the term “the outside,” we have had to make some conceptual distinctions. The outside is not exactly the external (but we will return to this association between the outside and the external). The term “the outside” takes on the meaning it seems to have in Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy because Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy is defined by the project of anti-Platonism. And the phrase which announces the project of anti-Platonism is Nietzsche’s phrase that God is dead.7 Nietzsche’s phrase means that now we try—unlike in Plato and in traditional metaphysics—to think only about what remains within this world. In other words, there is no second, transcendent world, as in Platonism; there is no afterlife as in Christianity; in short there is no God. Our philosophical concern is now with life on earth, immanent to this world. You see that if we are abandoning any attempt to think a transcendent world of forms which is external to this world, then the term “the outside” (in the strict sense, in the sense that we are trying to determine) does not mean transcendence—even though “the outside” coincides with “the other.” The transcendent world of forms, like a heavenly God, is external to this world. The outside however is equivalent to immanence, even though “immanence” means within, within this world, remaining within this world. But anti-Platonism, being an attempt to make philosophy be immanent to this world, to the earth, or even to experience, implies that the outside is really the inside. So, now let us look at the inside-outside distinction, which is also called the immanence-transcendence distinction, as we find it in phenomenology, in Husserl’s philosophy. Here we enter the most difficult idea. In classical and very basic Husserlian phenomenology, immanence means subjective experience happening right now.8 The access to this experience comes by means of the method Husserl calls “the epochē.” Appropriating the Cartesian idea of

176

Leonard Lawlor

doubt, Husserl defines the term “epochē” as suspension. The method of the epochē then consists in suspending or bracketing out (doubting) any natural beliefs or opinions in there being a world in itself, a world in itself or a thing in itself which is transcendent to experience. In other words, I accept the appearances just as they show themselves—without referring them to any object behind or above the appearances, any object external or transcendent to the appearances. So, immanence means to remain within the appearances, within experience. Husserl will frequently speak of the epochē giving us access to inner experience.9 But he shows as well that when we go through this method of suspension of belief in an external or transcendent world (again the epochē is the method of anti-Platonism), we find that inner experience (indeed, all experience) is intentional. We discover that the structure of all experience is intentionality, which means directedness toward an object, toward something “outside.” But intentionality then means that the outside is inside or at least that the outside is implied within the movement of experience: “toward the outside.” How does Husserl conceive intentionality?10 With intentionality, with the intending of an object, we have, according to Husserl, a relation within experience of a formed subject intending a formed object. Here is an example. When I say to myself, “I see the apple tree through the window,” I have the form of that sentence in mind -- and then I can walk over to the window and look at the apple tree, which fulfills or confirms or verifies this sentence. This example shows that intentionality is a relation of one form to another form, the relation of a linguistic form to a perceptual form. With intentionality, Husserl therefore remains within the structure of recognition, the structure of having a form in mind (in a linguistic utterance) to which a perception (the form of the object) corresponds. Nevertheless we do not have to stop with the structure as Husserl conceives it. We can penetrate deeper into this process or structure. We can ask about the movement of directedness from one form to another form.

What is the Outside?

177

Asking about this movement leads us to the question of the limit, the limit involved in this relation of form to form. To ask about the movement from the form of my sentence to the form of my perception, I must ask about the structure of experience in general, or the most basic condition of experience. In Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy, the answer to the question of what is the most basic condition of experience is time or the process of time: “temporalization.”11 We were just speaking about the form of the sentence and the form of the perception. We said, when I think to myself “I see the tree through the window,” I have the form of that sentence in mind—and then I can walk over to the window and look at the apple tree, which fulfills or confirms or verifies the sentence. The “then” in this description means that the verification of my intention comes later, in the future. The words “then” and “later” indicate that we are talking about a temporal process, which we must now consider. If we most basically describe the process of time, we notice two things. First, there is always a now point which is different from every now I have ever experienced before; in its newness or novelty the now is always an event. So, on the one hand, we have the force of the event happening right now. The second aspect of temporalization, however, is that there is always some memory attached to every now; no matter what, there is the retention of the now that has just elapsed. In order to understand this immediate retention, think of the experience of music. To hear a melody, you have to retain some of the notes which have already elapsed. The retention means that there is always a repetition of the now, which leads me to anticipate the future. But the anticipation means that the now is not an event; it is the repetition of the past. So, on the other hand, we have the force of repetition of the past. These two forces are inseparable in experience. The force of the event is inseparable from the force of repetition; or we have the form of the repetition inseparable from the form of the now-event. What lies between the two forms or the two

178

Leonard Lawlor

forces? Here we must say that there is some sort of limit between them, but a limit that constantly associates the now-event with the repetition of the past or that constantly associates the repetition of the past with now-event. The limit between the two forces therefore is porous. What is this limit? We would have to say that the limit, being neither one nor the other, is nothing. The use of these negations (“neither one nor the other,” “nothing”) means that between them lies the in-formal, a gap or a hiatus that has no form at all. The hiatus between that has no form at all is really the outside. With the idea of a porous limit, with the idea of porosity, we can return to the association of the outside with the external. The idea that the limit between the two forms is porous—the word “porous” literally means a passage or channel—means that one form, so to speak, “leaks” into the other form all the time. In French the word for “leak” is “fuite”; “une fuite” is how you say in French “a leak.” But “fuite” also means “flight”—so that, when we say that one form is leaking into the other, it means that there is a kind of flight from one form to the other form across the informal or even into the informal. Therefore, if I find myself captured within the form of the repetition of the past (captured within accepted linguistic forms, within common opinions or even clichés), I can always search for a line of flight, I can search for the place where the repetition leaks into novelty. And likewise, if I find myself captured within the form of the now-event, then I can always search for the place where the novelty “leaks” into the form of repetition. You can see that I used the word “capture” to describe this search. The idea of capture makes us think that either one form or the other is a kind of prison, a prison from which we are trying to escape or flee. This is why I said we would return to an association between the outside and the external. We are trying to escape from this interior space of the prison, to the outside. How are to make this escape? What is involved in this search for an exit? Earlier I had described the process of time not only

What is the Outside?

179

in terms of two forms but also in terms of two forces. To make the escape from repetition, I must—I have no other choice—I must make use of the force of the event; to escape from the event, I must—again I have no other choice—I must make use of the force of repetition. Through these two forces, I can find what Deleuze has called “une ligne de fuite.”12 This phrase is usually translated into English as “a line of flight,” but it could also be rendered in English (and rendered badly) as “a place where things leak out.” It is this search for the line of flight or leak, this search for a means of escape from the prison or forms, to get out to the exterior, this search for an escape is really thinking. So, we have returned to Heidegger’s question, and even provided a sort of answer to the question of what is called thinking: to escape. Endnotes 1. This essay will be the basis of the conclusion to a book I am in the process of writing called Early Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy: Toward the Outside (for Indiana University Press). 2. Gilles Deleuze, Foucault (Paris: Minuit, 1986), p. 124; English translation by Seán Hand as Foucault (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 116. 3. Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, tr., J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper Colophon, 1968). 4. Michel Foucault, “La pensée du dehors,” in Dits et écrits I, 19541975 (Paris: Quarto Gallimard, 2001), pp. 546-567; English translation by Brian Massumi as “The Thought from Outside,” in Foucault/ Blanchot (New York: Zone Books, 1987), pp. 7-58. Massumi’s English translation is reproduced in Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Volume 2: Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology (New York: The New Press, 1998), pp. 147-169; here the title is “The Thought of the Outside.” 5. Emmanuel Levinas, Totalité et infini. Essai sur l’extériorité (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1961); English translation by Alphonso Lingis as Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969).

180

Leonard Lawlor

6. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible (Paris: Tel Gallimard, 1964), pp. 195-198; English translation by Alphonso Lingis as The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), pp. 148-151. 7. Friedrich Nietzsche, Morgenröte, Idyllen aus Messina, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, Kritische Studienausgabe, 3 (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmBH and Co. KG, 1988), pp. 480-482; English translation by Walter Kauffman as The Gay Science (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), pp. 181-182. 8. Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book. Tr., Fred Kersten (The Hague: Maritnus Nijhoff Publishers, 1983). 9. See, for instance, Husserl’s Encyclopedia Britannica entry on “phenomenology” in Edmund Husserl, Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with Heidegger (1927-1931), translated and edited by Thomas Sheehan and Richard E. Palmer (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997). The original German is found in Edmund Husserl, Phänomenologische Psychologie, Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925 (Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968). 10. This discussion of intentionality is based on Husserl, Ideas I, paragraphs 87-91 and on the Sixth Logical Investigation; see Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, II/2: Elemente einer phänomenologishen Aufklärung der Erkenntnis (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1980), Chapter I, pp. 8-48; English translation by J. N. Findlay as Logical Investigations, Volume II (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), pp. 675-706. 11. The following discussion of temporalization is based on Derrida’s deconstruction of phenomenology. See Jacques Derrida, La voix et le phénomène (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967); English translation by David B. Allison as Speech and Phenomena (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974). 12. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Mille Plateaux (Paris: Minuit, 1980), p. 305; English translation by Brian Massumi as A Thousand Plateaus (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 249.

8 Heidegger’s later phenomenology: Allowing the Subtle Appearance to Emerge through the Din Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center [email protected] ABSTRACT: Heidegger’s turn to Being-in-the-World accentuates how human beings have access to the world. Heidegger’s destructive retrieval makes possible the unveiling of hidden Being and the recovery of community that Husserl’s solispsism overlooks. Through Ereignis, Vorsicht, and the falling silent of language on the way to Being, Heidegger’s later thought can achieve the synthesis of multiplicity and unity that Hegel and Derrida were unable to find.

Phenomenology has come under many guises from the time of its conception in 1890s. From Edmund Husserl’s approach of pure givenness sans interpretation, to the hermeneutical phenomenology of Heidegger’s Being and Time, and finally, to nuanced phenomenology that limits the role of the person as in Heidegger’s later phenomenology, called “Vor-sicht.” Indeed Lester Embree lists four major phenomenological faces: the search for universal essences in realistic phenomenology, constitutive phenomenology employing transcendental Husserl’s epochê and reduction, the humanistic existential phenomenology made famous through the efforts of Sartre and Levinas, and hermeneutical phenomenology of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur. Indeed the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology’s 764 pages covers the topic expansively. While oftentimes quite different, each version of phenomenology offers us both advantages and disadvantages. Some solutions and new problems emerge out of the fray. This essay will discuss not so much the varieties of phenomenology, but some PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

182

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

of the difficulties and solutions while lifting up Heidegger’s later phenomenology as the best possible solution. On the one hand, phenomenology assists philosophical pursuits. It peels away preconceived patterns of thought and methods of investigation, enabling us to reengage issues in fresh ways. More importantly, phenomenology allows us to discard outmoded, encrusted philosophical methods which obscure more than they reveal. Phenomenology, too, broadens the philosophical field, wherein anyone who, with a sincere desire to learn can take up the project of philosophy. Relegating rarefied scholarship and rigid argumentation a more modest role, phenomenology reflects on what is accessible to all. What is accessible to all is the question at hand. Each of the above four models of phenomenology highlights either fundamental contents or method as the ground; or they focus on the role of the person as the ground determining the contents or method. In either case, phenomenology secures the philosophical quest upon a fixed method or content or it hinges the pursuit upon the human person. But both approaches end in the absence of any secure ground. This groundless issue continues to draw dark clouds overhead as the 21st century lodges serious doubts on the ability to isolate both a fixed content or method and a fixed understanding of the subject. Has phenomenology gone the way of other bygone philosophical systems? A simple denial would not suffice; the answer is both yes and no. Yes, phenomenology as a science of finding the ground for all phenomena is no longer accessible. But phenomenology as engaging the philosophical problems of our complex world today is still quite viable. We argue that indeed phenomenology is most helpful, if we see phenomenology as a way of interfacing the world as it is—a vibrant and ever-changing reality, of which we are intimately related. As the world changes, so too does our philosophy, as do we. Other philosophies cannot compare with phenomenology’s ability to address adequately our changing world.

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

183

The first issue which arises from our question is whether phenomenology can access what is called under several names: the world or “what is,” sometimes called reality. Husserl’s phenomenology of the modern era had such an access to this given world as its goal. Husserl brought the matter of philosophy to its ultimate originary givenness, and that means that the originary givenness’ own presence [Präsenz] is accessible to all. This type of accessibility would entail a fundamental sameness of reality as well as the ability of every human to be able to access it uniformly. To know reality and to be able to communicate that knowledge has been at stake in the modern world since Descartes. It seemed that Husserl had an insight to solve the subject/ object dichotomy. If, however, our post-modern world has shown us anything in the last century is that neither of these claims is tenable. Both reality and its accessibility are questioned. No evidence of sameness on either side appears, whether sameness of the subject or the object, leads many to despair of attaining any resemblance to truth. Doubts abound that we can know reality as it is; evidence mounts that communication can occur among peoples and cultures, and even the subject as a unified self seems under siege. Our world seems hopelessly chaotic: as one great blooming, buzzing confusion, to credit William James.1 But we shall not take the route of nihilistic despair at the face of such an amorphous, elusive problematic. Rather, we look at nihilism and nothingness squarely. As both Nietzsche and Heidegger have shown, nihilism and nothingness have a great deal to teach us of ourselves and our world. Apropos of the times in which we live (wherein post-modernity revels in nihilism and nothingness), Heidegger shows us that nothingness is the groundless ground from which we begin. While other philosophies cannot argue from nothing, phenomenology is quite at home. Against the wall of darkness we can place our first step toward a new line of philosophical investigation. From this foothold, we take our first step into Heidegger’s “Vor-sicht.” “Vor-sicht” is the means of

184

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

accessing what has been sought and called “truth” regarding the world and the human, and proffers options toward the future; it allows the non-apparent to appear. This once implicit, now explicit conclusion draws us toward our second premise. More in question than the ground of inquiry is the process of inquiry itself. What does “accessible” mean? On this point Husserl writes: “[t]hroughout phenomenology one must have the courage to accept what is really to be seen in the phenomenon precisely as it presents itself rather than interpreting it away, and to honestly describe it. All things must be directed accordingly.”2 Accessibility relates to what presents itself. For Husserl a century ago, the appearance of “what is” was axiomatically given, if we but looked intently. Now we see that Husserl understood that the fundamental mode of presenting was given as well. Husserl’s phrase at the end of his preface of Logical Investigations soon becomes phenomenology’s banner slogan: “Back to the things themselves.” And therein was Husserl’s solution: uncover through the fundamental presenting of that which presents itself and we can access the world. But we can no longer afford such presuppositions. For the 21st century, the real question is not finding the “what is” that we can access, but the question is how does the presenting of “whatever is” occur. Does it occur through our conscious efforts, our senses, both in tandem, or in combination with something more fundamental? Whether what appears is true or false, something does appear. It is this appearing that draws our attention today. If we return to the things themselves in the ordinary world, whatever they are or whatever they might mean, then we can access that which presents itself, even when it is not fixed or false. It is the accessing or the presenting that intrigues us today. Let us turn back to what we understand things to be, so that the accessing itself might appear. Seeing this avenue as plausible, Heidegger famously writes in Being and Time: To the things themselves! [»Zu den Sachen selbst!«] and with these words joins Husserl in the way of phenomenology;3

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

185

for Heidegger this seemed a better, more concrete4 access to Being and a warning to interpret only what is really to be seen in the phenomenon. Being is that which is, but is not apparent. Heidegger’s method here was hermeneutical phenomenological and its content was things or beings. Heidegger’s phenomenology, like Husserl’s, saw itself as descriptive and avoiding of all thoughtlessly accepted philosophical standpoints or directions.5 While the descriptive phenomenology of Husserl searched for the essential structures of consciousness by examining phenomena, Heidegger sought Being, not within our consciousness, but in the structures of beings by examining the meaning and ground of what appears or more specifically the existential structures of humans, who are Beings-there or, as coined by Heidegger, Dasein. Such a position enabled Heidegger to avoid the common charges against Husserl, that his was a philosophy of solipsistic consciousness. The best Husserl could accomplish, his detractors claimed, was a multiplicity of singularities, wherein no communication could occur. To avoid this charge, Heidegger’s phenomenology soon took a different pathway from Husserl. According to Heidegger too, Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology could not find its way out of its solipsism of the subject and consciousness; Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology,6 developed in Being and Time, attempted “to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself ” 7 … through discourse.8 In other words, solipsism is overcome in Heidegger’s phenomenology because discourse relates human with each other in a fundamental condition as beings-in-the-world. Moreover, for Heidegger there is not any bifurcation of subject and object, no singularities, only related entities in a related word. Furthermore, Heidegger’s discourse among humans would not begin with the self or with the world, but with how things show themselves to us as Being-in-the-world [In-der-Welt-Sein]. Rather than the foundation of knowledge, which grounds all forms

186

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

of knowing, Heidegger wants to look deeper toward Being, which allows relatedness among all entities. Yet, immediately what we find in everyday life is that Being hides “in” beings. As so the appearance of separate subjects has a deeper, hidden reality of gathered entities. Using the clues of everyday language,9 we encounter the hiddenness through a formal indicator [formalen Anzeige]10 of how the cover-up occurs and underlying truth that sometimes that Being reveals itself as concealed. The process of following these clues is what we call phenomenology. Phenomenology traces this path in order to unveil Being. Furthermore, phenomenology unveils the covered-up-ness [Verdecktheit] on the way toward Being. Covered-up-ness is the counter trajectory of phenomenology. In fact Verdecktheit is the reason for the need of a fundamental ontology, for we must uncover layers of ontology to find a fundamental ontology by interrogating Dasein phenomenologically. In other words, phenomenology would not be necessary, if Being were not to hide from humanity and if humanity were not to hide from Being. Said positively, phenomenology alone is viable because Being remains hidden to us. Soon Heidegger himself noticed that fundamental phenomenology introduced difficult, knotty problems, for it relied on a Kantian notion that every human person has fundamentally the same ability to decipher the conditions of the possibility of knowledge. But we have no evidence of this. What I think I see and what I write, I can no longer presume that the reader sees or understands. It is not simply a matter of writing more clearly or listening more intently. There is always a leap between the most authentic, gifted speaker and his audience. Ambiguity is endemic to our situation. To unknot this difficulty and move beyond the confines of fundamental ontology of Being and Time, Heidegger engaged in what has been called a destructive retrieval. Engaging both philosophy and literature, Heidegger breaks through accepted concepts, only

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

187

to find that they are not only constructed, but also they are false, for they relate to the world as stationary entities. But the world is always changing throughout time and space. Heidegger finds in this destructive retrieval that the human person is both involved in the interpretation of objects in the world, but also is active in transforming him- and herself in the process. How can such concepts express such a fluid, changeable world? The second difficulty lay in the fact that, even if such concepts could express a changeable world, how could we know whether these concepts are universal. Or expressed in another way, how can I know that what I see and relate with concepts is what another person understands me to be relating. Concepts seem too unchangeable to string together the relatedness of changeable situation. How could we best convey our changeable world, of which we are already related and yet are set in opposition to it? How to better express our changeable word? For a considerable time, Heidegger sought language as the way toward expressing the world. Language was community based, conveyed both fixed things and changing reality. Heidegger’s linguistic turn seemed to answer his quandaries. Unlike singular consciousness, a phenomenology based on language permitted communication without leaps of faith. And for communication truly to occur, each person must be intimately related in a community as a person, who relates more deeply to reality than simply as an individual subject. For this reason, Heidegger needed to turn from a humanistic, hermeneutical phenomenology to a less anthropocentric approach toward inquiry. With a fixed person at the center, knowledge seemed accessible for a modern world. But presently, with a changeable and non-uniform humanity and with a changeable world, knowledge slips through our fingers. Rather than our holding knowledge, we are in need of a new phenomenology in which we are but a player in the game of knowing, not its dealer. It is this new type of phenomenology in which we look today. We look to “Vor-sicht” and meditative thinking in the Ereignis.

188

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

First we look to Ereignis. It is not simply an event or occurrence. It is the manifestation of Being through humans, their fundamental knowing awareness and the world, both in its fixity and its changeability. Through these four elements Being shows itself. It is this showing, that we base our new phenomenology. It is neither fixed nor controllable. Likewise, human are not its sole creator. Why does Heidegger show this new understanding of the situation? For Heidegger these four elements of Being’s manifestation is a better way than simply through humanity alone, for there are forces that out of our control and yet Being still reveals itself as concealment in non-human elements as well. Being, though, still needs man to listen. Being emerges through such a situation. In order to relate the early phenomenology of Being and Time to the middle period of destruction of logic toward the Ereignis, Heidegger rethinks the way we understand and relate to the world and ourselves. Meditative thinking as the lens through which Ereignis shows itself lies between thinking and perceiving, or perhaps “deeper” than both. Meditative thinking, then, does employ logic and the tools of philosophy as well as the faculties of sensation. But in meditative thinking, a person is also is aware of these limitations and all-pervasive moodedness of the situation; a person always is in some mood, indicating his relatedness to the situation. In short, Heidegger’s meditative thinking thinks not in absolute terms, but in those of relatedness. We, for our part, use and misuse phenomenology and logic to respond to the world, but now this process is a mooded situated and but one aspect of Ereignis. While hermeneutical phenomenology occurs through Dasein’s eyes alone, Ereignis with meditative thinking occurs through our eyes but now with Ereignis showing through our eyes. We cooperate with what Being reveals in its concealment. It is this relational attitude between us, the world and Being that prevents us from holding any situation as once for all. This is the parameters of allowing the non-apparent to appear as Ereignis.

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

189

Since the human person is but one part of the process of phenomenology, we see a person as having “Vor-sicht.” That is, the person “looks ahead” to the possibilities that line the horizon. The person sees probabilities of what may occur, but knows full well, that any seeming surety is simply possible. As such, the role of possibility is not merely a “wished-for” desire, but possibilities lie in knowing that the person is not entirely in control, and at times, not at all in control. With these conditions, the person still makes decisions and sees what lies before him. This horizontal aspect is always already part of a person’s constitution; with it a person cooperates with Being. But still another difficulty arises here that plagued Husserl before; this type of phenomenology alone is highly suspect of being solipsistic too. If a person were in her own world, then all would be well. But one readily apparent element appears that we live in a shared world. Consequently, Heidegger turns to a shared aspect of humanity. For this reason, Heidegger turned to language. Our relation to language is corporate. We live in, and use language in communicating with one another. Moreover, Being is a type of communication, even in its hiddenness. As hiding, Being communicates to us that it is hidden. Thus, language is indeed a better model of emerging Being and knowing awareness than thought or light or logos would be, for language is always relational, never an isolated reality. Language too conveys well this hidden/revealed situation of Being. Language is ambiguous in the fact that it reveals and conceals. More precisely, language is ambiguous because Being is ambiguous. Subsequently, Heidegger hoped that language could lead us closer to Being. But ordinary language led Heidegger to realize that words fail us; words fail to properly correspond between the world and our thoughts, fail to reach that which unifies the related world as separate entities—namely, language fails to reach Being. Language simply falls silent on the way toward Being. And herein lies Heidegger deft linguistic turn that differs from all other linguistic

190

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

turns. Language is rooted not in its explicit relation to Being, but to Being’s concealment, in its silence. Silence is the non-apparent now apparent. Facing silence, we are disquieted; but even in our unease, silence draws us. In our failure to reach Being, we are transformed through an awareness of its silence. We relate to the silence in a way that speaks to us. Or more precisely Being speaks to us in its concealment as what Heidegger sees as originary language. Then, in listening, we respond to the disquieting silence with words in common language. Hence, ordinary language is a response to Being’s originary silence. Language is deeply relational. Originary language “needs” humanity to hear it and we entities to express what we have heard in Being’s silence. But more than simply relational and silent, language is relational primarily as silence. From this silence we cannot help but to develop a response to silence, to that silence, originary language has shown itself to us. We listen to it and we speak of the non-apparent made apparent. We are drawn to forge words to convey the situation. In the ensuing dialogue between the silence of the hidden Being and our dialogue with each other, through the ages we come to terms that common language tries to capture. Meanings and methods develop. Logic and fixed philosophical concepts fit into this schema here as long as we maintain their provisional, not fundamental status in the venture of phenomenology. Communicating with that which is beyond what is communicable, beyond our ability to control, humanity sees itself as continually transformed in its relationship to hiddeness of Being11 and its sometimes revealing itself. Being reveals itself when our fixed patterns of thoughts, have rusted into patterns that frames the world with us in ways that no longer can stay together. Whether the stress of partial framing of the situation of a man’s inability to cope with his addiction, or the inability for a political system to withstand its own corruption, we becomes distressed at our inability to control,

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

191

cope or even communicate. Or whether our worldview is totally framed in such a way that situate humans and the world as simply expendable resources—belying our any semblance of freedom—the distress of which places us into a relationship with Being. In a flash, Being reveals itself. In being drawn in this way, we move toward an new epoch. Like that of the Copernican, American, or French revolutions have led us; each transforms not only one person, but humans as a whole and the way the see ourselves, the world, and what is possible. From this insight Heidegger wrote in 1963, “Mein Weg in die Phänomenologie” [“My Way to Phenomenology”].12 Rather that using concepts of traditional philosophy or the ontological terminology of Being and Time with Being as presencing, Heidegger now sees a new way of phenomenology, as looking ahead [Vor-sicht]. This new type of phenomenology of looking ahead, then, allows us to grasp the holding sway of Being, the changeability of who we and our world are, as looking ahead as possibility [Möglichkeit].13 Not simply a descriptive phenomenology, Vor-sicht offers new possibilities of man and beings as transformed by Ereignis. These new possibilities are distinctly different than the horizontal-transcendental phenomenology of Being and Time. As noted earlier the horizontal-transcendental phenomenology of Being and Time, analyzes the existential structures of Dasein. That is to say that it looks through the eyes of humanity to see that which appears. In contrast “Vor-sicht” is not simply a descriptive phenomenology. In addition to describing what appears to humanity as a way of understanding humanity better, “Vor-sicht” is a fore-seeing. Neither relying simply on perception nor thinking, “Vor-sicht” relies on ontological priority. To explain this shift, we think of the phrase: we hear because we have ears. Ontological priority shifts this phrase to convey that we have ears, because we are a hearing people. From “Vor-sicht” we can perceive and think.

192

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

More than describing characteristics of humanity, “Vor-sicht” relies upon the manifestation of Being in Ereignis. Being manifests itself through humans, but also through fundamental knowing awareness which comes to humanity. Being also manifests itself through “reality,” which appears both as permanent and changing. While these elements can only be noticed by a person, they are outside anyone our control. For this reason, “Vor-sicht” describes more than humanity. It describes Being’s manifestation through us as originary type communication, which allows for subsequent communication. It is this originary type of communication that opens up new vistas of thinking and perceiving. Since it is of originary communication, “Vor-sicht” as a phenomenology looks forward beyond strict principles of physics, anthropology, and communication. It can venture into areas that defy our current notions of the world. For instance, quantum mechanics has long held that our ability to convey subatomic activity in any of our descriptive models are simply poor estimates. What we can understand with our concepts never “touches” its reality. Similar claims have been leveled concerning our conceptual framework for general relativity. Rather than a conceptual framework, fluid terms of probability are more suitable. “Vor-sicht” relies simply not on human concepts and framework, but upon Being as it manifests itself to us. Thus, theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity are based not simply on our conceptual “world,” but on Being more properly seen. “Vor-sicht” affords a broader way that simple, humanistic phenomenology. It allows possibilities that defy our framework, yet interfaces with our ordinary framework to draw us forward into Being’s manifestation. Being manifests itself in ways that is best described in terms of new possibilities. Looking toward new possibilities, we are drawn to a new understanding of regional ontologies and new frameworks of metaphysics. Grounding anthropology, political theory, even religions in Ereignis, we can allow ourselves to envision new pos-

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

193

sibilities, beyond competing rights and the false clarity of legal terminology. We can look forward to a new understanding of ourselves that doesn’t rely on heavily individualized terms of defining. Rather we can come to appreciate issues of freedom more in terms of related communities. Modern theories of state as bounded units could give way to a more flexible conception of political theory. Likewise, terms of defining religions can tolerate other religions, knowing that such terms never capture the absolute. For instance, Heidegger converses with a Thai Buddhist monk, Bikkhu Maha Mani on September 28, 1964 in BadenBaden. The monk describes what meditation means for Eastern humanity: “The ‘I’ dissolves, until in the end only one thing remains: the Nothing.” Thus, the relationship for Eastern thought is subject dissolves into Nothing. “But this nothing is not nothing,” continues the monk; “it is just the opposite—fullness. No one can name this. But it is nothing and everything—fullness.”14 Heidegger responded: “That is what I have been saying throughout my whole life.”15 The monk responded in turn: “Come to my country; we understand you.”16 Ostensibly, the dissolving of the “I” might seem to be Heidegger’s answer to the Western subject vis-à-vis Being. But in that same conversation with the monk, Heidegger discusses the effects of technology. In his thirst for Western technology, the monk could not understand such deleterious dehumanizing effects of technology, already witnessed in the West. The monk left the silence of his order and joined an American television company.17 And we surmise from Heidegger’s story that dissolving the “I” is not the answer, it leads to an equally disastrous “group think.” But what specifically is the answer, Heidegger is still silent. Indeed silence is the answer. One reason for Heidegger’s silence on the human person is contained in what we have developed as Western philosophy. On October 30, 1965 Heidegger offers a lecture in Amriswil, Switzerland “Das Ende des Denkens in der Gestalt der Philosophie”

194

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

[“The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking”].18 Its theme reiterates what we already know: philosophy as metaphysics has reached its end, but what does this mean? The end or purpose of philosophy and thinking go beyond metaphysics and traditional ideas of thinking. Both have a more originary source and broader ken. The end is not Derrida’s foundering of thought on apocalyptic invocation of “ends.” Rather, Heidegger’s thinking remembers the tasks of Heraclitus and Parmenides: to protect the interplay of unconcealment and concealment of Being. For Hegel, thinking is a dialectic movement in which the matter of thinking as such comes to itself, comes to its own presence [Präsenz]. But for Heidegger in Being and Time thinking is the clearing as the open region for everything that becomes present and absent. “This is a ‘primal phenomenon’ [»Urphänomen«].”19 Now for Heidegger, Ereignis with man allows the proper clearing and Presencing [Lichtung und Anwesenheit].20 This is the purpose and the entirety [Gestalt] of philosophy. The purpose of philosophy is to open humanity to Ereignis. Between Western philosophy and its destruction, between Hegel and Derrida, arises a new way. While Hegel draws all things into Absolute knowing at the expense of individuals, and while Derrida allows only multiplicity without any unity, Heidegger draws a way between the two which reflects better the world as both a changing reality with permanence. Heidegger’s new way of phenomenology, more properly speaking, allows Being to appear in the way that it appears, as a concealment. Being appears as Ereignis with humanity’s help, but not solely through humanity. Thus, Heidegger’s new phenomenology incorporates both multiplicity and also unifies the multiplicity in the originary language. Thus Heidegger’s way is between. This calls for new, more flexible ways of conveying who we are, how we know and how we are related, yet separate. Hegel unifies at the cost of the individual, Derrida preserves the individual at the cost of a disunified chaos. Heidegger offers a way that preserves both together as separate.

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

195

Primarily related together, then appearing as separate entities, Being emerges in beings as the groundless ground of Heidegger’s new phenomenology. Neither thinking nor perception can alone answer our original question of how we can both access the world and communicate with others. Heidegger’s new way of “Vor-sicht” grants us both the freedom that humans have and places into context with that which is always already given. Phenomenology as “Vor-sicht” offers us a better approach of meditative thinking that is rooted in a changing, doubting world. “Vor-sicht” allows reality to appear, all-the-while engaging our past methods of investigation. Cautiously, we look to phenomenology as a way forward. Heidegger’s latter phenomenology, we argue, allows the subtleness of Being to emerge as the groundless ground, “unifying” all appearances as communication. Ereignis emerges through the din. In answer to our original question is indeed pertinent: is phenomenology still relevant today. Our answer is yes in “Vor-sicht.” Endnotes 1. William James, The Principles of Psychology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1981) 462. 2. Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, trans. F. Kersten (Dordrecht, NE: Kluwer, 1982) 257. 3. Another translation could be: “To the matter itself!” See Heidegger, GA 2: 46, 221/Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1962) 58, 209-210. See Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen (Tübingen, DE: Niemeyer, 1968) 1. 4. Gesamtausgabe 2: 1/19. 5. One must admit that Heidegger’s claim of utter disassociation with all philosophical standpoints is indeed in itself such a claim. Heidegger, at this point in his thought, does not seem to be able to counter this criticism. 6. Etymologically, Heidegger breaks phenomenology into its two ancient Greek components: fainesqai, means to show itself; and

196

Douglas F. Peduti, S.J.

logoj is the account of that which is seen—one might call it discourse. Phenomenology gives us a relational revealing, an account. See GA 2: 36-52/49-63. 7. GA 2:46/58. 8. Heidegger distinguishes the many senses of “discourse” which are inadequate, and the adequate sense in which he means “discourse.” He concludes his analysis on “discourse” in section §7, B: “When fully concrete, discoursing [Reden] (letting something be seen) [Sehenlassen] has the character of speaking [Sprechen]—vocal proclamation in words [stimmliche Verlautbarung in Worten]. … an utterance [stimmliche Verlautbarung in Worten] in which something is sighted in each case.” In this early formulation of language we see how the character of letting something be seen also has the character of speaking. The question we will constantly pose is precisely this dual character of language of speaking and letting things be seen. What should the reader should not overlook in all the details is that phenomenology has the character of speaking. GA 2: 44/56. 9. In Being and Time language is pivotal. While Heidegger never called language a tool in Being and Time, like that of a hammer; it is, nonetheless, the means by which Dasein seeks Being. Broadly speaking, then, I argue that Heidegger at times does hold language to be used like a tool in its serviceability: it is the tool of excavation, but is also the means of covering over. Language then is the thread into the labyrinth of the ontic toward the ontological. Language, understood thusly as tool, is integral to Heidegger’s project even from its earliest conception. Later understandings of language emerge out this “language as mere tool” notion, where Heidegger explicitly calls language a tool, when employed ontically. See GA 4: 37/“Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry” (1936), wherein Heidegger writes: “Die Sprache dient zur Verständigung. Als dazu taugliches zu Werkzeug ist ein »Gut«.” [Language serves to facilitate understanding. As an appropriate tool for this purpose, it is a ‘good.’] See also GA 12: “On the Way to Language” (1950s) for similar usages. 10. GA 2: 155/Being and Time 152. A formal indicator is one that indicates or gestures, but it indicates not a “form” as in sense of the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition; rather, it indicates some of the content of the phenomenon, but a content of which can never be exhausted. See Richard Polt, The Emergency of Being: On Heidegger’s Contributions (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 2006) 37. There Polt notes that

Heidegger’s later phenomenology

197

Heidegger’s clearest explanation of formal indication occurs in Heidegger’s 1929 The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 296-97. 11. GA 14: 60-62/“Summary” 51. 12. “Mein Weg in die Phänomenologie” is found in GA 14 and Stambaugh’s English translation is included in Time and Being. 13. GA 14: 102/“My Way to Phenomenology,” Time and Being 82. This is offered as a 1969 supplement. Heidegger holds it emphatically in italics. 14. Heinrich W Petzet, Encounters and Dialogues with Martin Heidegger, trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) 170-180. 15. This statement lends credence to the thesis that Heidegger’s work was consistently seeking Being. 16. Encounters 181. 17. Encounters 182. 18. This essay first appeared in a French translation by Jean Beaufret and François in Kierkegaard vivant (Paris: Gallimard, 1966). It is found in Klostermann’s series GA 14 and the English translation in Time and Being. Another English version is found in Basic Writings. Both English versions are translated by Joan Stambaugh. 19. GA 14: 81/“The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” Basic Writings 442-443. 20. GA 14: 90/“The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” Basic Writings 449.

9 Freedom, Fatalism and the Other in Being and Nothingness and The Imaginary Bruce Baugh Department of Philosophy, Thompson Rivers University Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy [email protected] ABSTRACT: “Hell is other people,” but the absence of the Other, rather than being paradise, would be its own kind of hell: the fatalism of dreams, in which a possibility is no sooner conceived than it is realized. Freedom of action requires a resisting world and a temporal gap between intention and outcome, which requires that things be other than they are for consciousness, which requires the presence of the Other.

Introduction Sartre’s theory of interpersonal relations is too readily summed up in his catch-phrase, “Hell is other people.”1 Sartre does not just mean that sometimes other people can be in the way, a nuisance, an obstacle, or downright hostile; the very existence of other people is a constant threat. The Other, by seeing me and forming global judgments about my acts, my character, and my appearance, carries off an image of me into the inaccessible reaches of her subjectivity. Nor is this image a mere illusion or projection on the part of the Other: in shame, in indignation, and even in pride, I acknowledge that the Other sees me, that I am that person judged by the Other.2 The Other even enjoys a privileged point of view compared with me: the Other can actually step back and regard me objectively, from “outside,” whereas PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

200

Bruce Baugh

when I step back, my “self ” goes with me; I am too close to myself to know myself (BN 142, 361). “Am I lazy or hardworking? I shall doubtless decide the question if I ask others who know me and get their opinion.”3 Although I am free to disagree, my opinion is a merely subjective conviction about myself: at some fundamental level, “As I appear to the Other, so I am.” (BN 320). Since I grasp who I am through the mediation of the Other’s consciousness of me, “the being-for-itself of my consciousness—and consequently its being in general—depends on the Other” (BN 320). If my very being-for-self depends on the freedom of the Other, then the Other’s freedom threatens me at the deepest level (BN 358). In just the same way, I am a threat to the Other. Because of this mutual threat, “Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others” (BN 475). According to the standard interpretation, Sartre holds that each consciousness would be happiest if it could exist on its own. The sudden appearance of the Other constitutes my “original fall” into an objective world in which I am vulnerable to the judgements and actions of other people (BN 352) and so enslaved by their freedom (BN 367). Yet although there is certainly some basis for this view, it ignores passages in Being and Nothingness and other early works by Sartre in which Sartre argues that an all-powerful consciousness living in a world of its own would exist in a dream-world in which instead of being totally free, consciousness would be totally enslaved, albeit not to others, but to itself. A world without others is a world in which freedom, rather than being unlimited, is impossible. Other people may be hell, but without them, life would be a nightmare. The Look The most dramatic presentation of the theory of the Other as threat comes in Sartre’s well-known discussion of “the look” (le regard) in Being and Nothingness, a scenario in which Sartre dis-

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

201

plays his considerable flair as a dramatist and novelist. Suppose, says Sartre, I am engaged in an act of voyeurism, of looking through a keyhole and listening through a door. Alone, I have no “self ” to which I can refer my acts as their cause or origin, because “I am a pure consciousness of things,” things which appear to me as pure correlatives of my own possible acts: “Behind that door a spectacle is presented as `to be seen,’ a conversation as `to be heard’” (BN 347). My consciousness of the present is absorbed by the correlative future possibilities of certain further actions and of how things in the world will appear when those actions are performed. My ends organize everything I see as means or obstacles to their realization: the door is presented as “to be handled with care,” the keyhole as both affording and limiting my access to the scene that plays itself out on the other side of the door. Yet I am not explicitly aware of myself performing those actions, or of those ends as belonging to my self: I lose myself in the world, “drunk in by things as ink is drunk in by a blotter in order that an instrumental-complex oriented toward an end” may appear as “a certain objective structure of the world” which “refers my freedom to me in the form of tasks to be freely done” (BN 348), but without the tasks being presented as “to be done by me.” I am this project of seeing and hearing without knowing that I am. All this changes when “all of a sudden I hear footsteps in the hall. Someone is looking at me!” (BN 349). I am transformed from a pure act of perceiving into the object of someone else’s perception, which organizes the world according to a different set of ends. I “escape myself,” not toward the tasks in which I am absorbed, but toward an Other (BN 349) who is “the permanent flight of things toward a goal… which escapes me,” a goal which regroups “all the objects that populate my universe” and confers on them aspects that exist only in relation to the Other (BN 343). My whole world disintegrates and flows away from me and toward the Other like water down a drain (BN 342-3), beyond the world in a limitless flight (BN 350). At the same time, I become

202

Bruce Baugh

aware of myself as a being in the world rather than as a pure presence to the world: being seen means that “I am vulnerable, that I have a body which can be hurt, and that I occupy a place” in a space organized by and oriented toward the Other, and that I am unable to escape this gaze before which I am defenceless (BN 349). In a world and a space that is no longer mine, I have nowhere to run and no place to hide. The Other is an unseen gaze that cannot be located in my world, and confers on my whole world the possibility of being seen by the Other (BN 353-7). I and everything I do stand exposed before this unseen gaze which by simply seeing me and my actions is able to transcend them and transform them into means toward its own ends, thereby robbing me of my possibilities and my freedom. On the face of it, the irruption of the Other is a catastrophe for the formerly solitary consciousness. From a dream world that existed only for me, I have been plunged into a nightmare world that does indeed exist for me, but as a world over which I no longer have any control. The real meaning of this world exists only for the Other, and the Other’s freedom controls mine, opening a gulf between what I think I am doing (running away from a threat) and what I really do (running into a trap): what had been my possibilities of doing and being are now “dead” possibilities, vulnerable to an Other whom I can neither anticipate nor control (BN 352-4). In this paranoid hell, the former solitary reverie appears as paradise lost, freedom in its innocent and wild state. The world that had been entirely the object of my enjoyment now belongs to another: as Sartre puts it, I am no longer master of the situation (BN 355/EN 305). Action and Dream Let us take another look at this lost paradise. In solitude, things are organized around my end according to “an order that is the reverse of the causal order: It is the end to be attained that

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

203

organizes all the moments that precede it” as means or obstacles (BN 348). In effect, the future determines the past—and Sartre says that we should take this expression more literally than people usually do (BN 181-2). This determination of the past and present by the future would seem to be definitive of action and of freedom: “the end or temporalization of my future implies a ground (or motive); that is, it points toward my past, and the present is the upsurge of my act” (BN 563). Past or present objective states of affairs and subjective states of being have a value and meaning as reasons for acting only in light of an end that goes beyond the world and the self as these are in the present, toward a future world and self that do not yet exist but are grasped as possibles to-be-realized. Without “a transcending of the given toward a result to be obtained,” states of affairs would be indifferent, of no relevance to the question of whether or not to act, and neither an action nor an intention would be possible (BN 575-81, 613). The determination of means by ends and of the given or the past by the future is thus identical to freedom itself. The solitary reverie would be freedom without any impediment save for those consciousness constituted for itself as obstacles—as in the child’s game where one imposes on oneself the obligation not to step on any of the cracks separating the segments of the sidewalk. But let us look more closely. In an order where the future determines the moments leading up to it, the past and present lose their independence from the future, and in that case, the causal efficacy necessary for action to effect any real change in the world is lost as well. Sartre argues that the distinction between real action and mere wishing is that real action requires a temporal intermediary separating the present projection of an end from its future realization: If conceiving is enough for realizing, then I am plunged into a world like that of a dream in which the possible is no longer distinguished from the real. I am condemned henceforth to see

204

Bruce Baugh

the world modified at the whim of the changes of my consciousness… The distinction between the simple wish, the representation that I could choose, and the choice having been abolished, freedom disappears with it (BN 620-1)4

A genuine end must be “separated from us” by “a set of “real existents” which can be modified only insofar as the actual nature of those existents permits, and consequently freedom is possible only as involved in “a resisting world” in which things do not automatically or instantly bend themselves to my will (BN 621). In other words, freedom requires that the future result be separated from the present intention by the thickness of some delay or temporal gap. A future that is not separated from the present and past by moments that exist independently of it becomes merely the projected shadow of the present, absorbed into the actuality of the present. Similarly, the past that ceases to be held at a distance from the future end that determines it becomes merely the retrospective projection of “what must have been” in order for the future end to have been realized, a mere quasi-past, with no temporal distance from the realized end. Such a past can only be imagined, not remembered; it is the virtual double of the present. The future of a wish, likewise, cannot be anticipated, because to conceive of such a future is to cause it to be present to consciousness, and so it also virtually doubles the present in a future without distance. Past and future collapse into the present, and with this temporal collapse, the possibility of effective action, or freedom, vanishes. For the solitary consciousness, there would only be a vague present, without the depth of a real past or the horizonality of a real future. Sartre has described this condition in The Imaginary:5 a purely solitary consciousness is a dream consciousness. Dreams can be defined as that state in which the world is present only to a single consciousness; the ostensible “others” in the dream are not real subjects, but simply products of the dreamer’s imagination.

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

205

In the entirely private and solipsistic world of the dream, no Other can cause objects to be reoriented toward a different point of subjectivity and its aims, because I am the only one there. If the Other seems to threaten me in a dream, that is only because I “make believe” that an Other exists who poses some danger to me, but the Other and the threat are non-existent. In short, the dream is “a perfect realization of a closed consciousness… that one absolutely cannot leave and on which it is impossible to take any external point of view” (I 165). It is thus a world from which the Other is excluded in principle. For that reason, in the dream, no one else threatens my sovereignty as subject. It would appear that, as the Surrealists thought, in dreams my freedom is unlimited: nothing and no one can hinder me. But “contrary to what one might believe, the imaginary world is given as a world without freedom: no more is it determined, it is the opposite of freedom: it is fatal” (I 169). Rather than the dreamer determining what happens through action, “events are given as unable not to happen, in correlation with a consciousness that cannot prevent itself from imagining them” (I 169). Consciousness is bewitched, spellbound, enchained by itself, without recourse against itself, caught in its own snare.6 It cannot free itself from this world because it is fascinated by its objects, obsessed by their “questionable” character, which derives from these objects not being separated from consciousness by any real distance. As immanent to consciousness, the imaginary objects cannot be “observed” in the manner of real objects, but only “quasi-observed” in the way in which consciousness “quasi-observes” itself in reflection (I 8-11, 167-9). Consciousness is thus absorbed in its objects because it is unable to detach itself from them, and is unable to feel or think things otherwise than in the form the image actually presents at that moment (I 168). Its objects, correlatively, lack the independence and resistance of real objects that would allow those objects to be revealed “bit by bit” in a series of complementary perceptions of

206

Bruce Baugh

their various aspects, and lack the independence and “coefficient of adversity” that would make possible the temporal separation between conceiving the end and realizing the result necessary for genuine action or freedom (see BN 428). Dream consciousness has “entirely lost the function of the real,” and cannot leave the “irreal” stance of the imaginary, because to affirm the real, it would have to become perception, and while dreaming, it cannot perceive, or even conceive of what a perception is; “it has lost the very notion of reality” in comparison to which it could grasp the unreality of its images (I 164-5). In dreams, things are just what consciousness makes of them; reality, as something independent of consciousness, is strictly speaking inconceivable to a dreaming consciousness, however much that consciousness might try to persuade itself of the reality of what it imagines. The dream consciousness is cut off from the real because it lives in a present that only suggests a past and a future, but without the separation between past, present and future that would make possible either memory or anticipation. One cannot remember in a dream: one can only imagine a past (I 168). It is true that some dreams have a “plot,” and that the images are presented in a temporal sequence of before and after, but the dreamer only believes that such temporal unfolding takes place; without the fulfilling of the retentive and projective intentions in a perceptual “evidence” that would make the “intended” past and future real, and would give them a relative independence from the present, this temporal sequence is merely the imaginary periphery unfolding forward and back from the central, present image (I 166-7). Real memory presupposes the reality of the past (BN 160, I 181-2); in remembering an event, consciousness directs itself “towards the past where it awaits [consciousness] as a real event,” rather than summoning up an image to represent something either not given or given as absent, i.e. as unreal. For that reason a single genuine memory would shatter the dream world and place consciousness before the real through

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

207

perception (I 168). The dream world likewise has no possibilities either, since possibilities can be grasped only in relation to a real world (I 169). A possibility is a future state of affairs that one can anticipate or foresee on the basis of what appears to consciousness in the present, as the meaning “of a present form in development,” that is, as the further development of a present perception (I 182, BN 181-2), rather than as the present representation of a future non-existing state of affairs. The real future is one which consciousness must wait to see unfold; as Sartre rather cheekily put it, “If time is real, then even God will have to `wait for the sugar to dissolve’” (BN 191). But in dreams, anticipating and waiting are impossible, and consequently so is the modality of the possible: The dreamer does not say, `I could have had a revolver,’ but all of a sudden he has a revolver in his hand. But too bad if at that moment the thought occurs to him that in waking life would be expressed in the form, `but what if the revolver is jammed’! This `if ’ cannot exist in the dream: this rescuing revolver, at the very moment when it is needed, is jammed. (I 169-70)7

In a dream, as in a story, the future is a destiny: it is an imaginary future that is presented as something that will come of itself, “in its time,” but which I can neither foresee nor alter (I 169). Thus, in the dream, consciousness has neither a real past nor a real future; neither the real past which links consciousness to facticity, nor the real future through which consciousness flees facticity and individualizes itself (BN 285). There is no temporal synthesis of a past state of affairs (facticity) from which one transcends toward the future (possibility), the present moment of acting to realize an intention, and the future realization of that intention in a new state of affairs. There are only imagined pseudo-memories of an imaginary past, and forebodings of an imaginary and unforeseeable future. Time has collapsed.

208

Bruce Baugh

World and Time If time has collapsed, the world has collapsed with it. In dreams, images do seem to have both a temporal location (in a before-and-after sequence) and a spatial location (a person is walking down a hallway to a door), but in truth, “there is no imaginary world” (I 167). The dream world is merely “sensed” or “felt” as surrounding the dream image, without being seen, and without the possibility of being seen by consciousness directing its attention to what lies beyond the frame of its present image (I 166). The images in a dream each have their own world (I 166), or more precisely, have an “atmosphere of a world” that is the undifferentiated mass of imaginary time and space which surrounds each particular image and forms its “internal qualities” or immanent property (I 167). This is due to the “essential poverty” of the image: the image does not bear any essential relation to the rest of the world; it is nothing more than the consciousness one has of it (I 9-10). In perception, by contrast, “no `thing’ can appear without maintaining an infinity of relations with other things,” and “this infinity of relations… constitutes the very essence of a thing” (I 9), making every “thing” overflow itself in the infinite further perceptions I could have of it and which would give the thing in a fulfilled perceptual intention as a whole object, “in person” (I 9, 163). It is this infinity of relations with other things and other possible perceptions—past, present, and future—which constitute the “world” of the perceived object, and which the dream image lacks. The dream image is entirely its present; it is as it is for consciousness at this moment. It does not indicate any fulfillment in other images, for any images succeeding it will have their own “immanent” world, unconnected from prior or subsequent images. In that sense, in dreams, as Sartre puts it, consciousness is “the victim of its own omnipotence.”8 It cannot will, “for only the resistance of something real enables one to distinguish what is possible from what is, and to project the possible beyond what

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

209

is. Here as everywhere, the real is prior to the possible” (WD 37/ CDG 52-3). The same would apply to any omnipotent mind capable of producing objects simply by conceiving them: If… simple conception is enough to produce the object intuitively, if no inertial resistance is encountered, if there is no temporal lag (décalage) between conception and realization, God is dreaming. … He is captive to himself and cannot will anything. Divine omnipotence is equivalent to a total subjective servitude. (WD 37/CDG 53).

“The tragedy of the absolute Creator, if he existed, would be the impossibility of getting out of himself, for whatever he created could only be himself ” inasmuch as they follow directly from the Creator’s will (BN 753). In short, if there is no independence of the created in relation to its creator, then the creator, like the dreamer, is trapped in a world of immanence, without objectivity, without temporality, and without freedom. Far from being the guarantor of the permanence of objects for consciousness, a Berkeleyan omnipotent God would dissolve objects into a series of impressions governed not by laws of cause and effect, but by a fatalism according to which the later event is the sufficient reason for what precedes it. The supposed Paradise of a world all to oneself, where one’s wish commands and things are entirely as they are for me in light of my ends, turns out to be its opposite: Hell. The question is whether a solitary consciousness is necessarily a dream consciousness, or whether consciousness could have access to the real in the absence of the Other. How can there be a gap between wish and realization; how can the world and its objects maintain their independence and resistance to my will? What is lacking in the dream consciousness that blocks off access to the real? It is not consciousness or unreflective self-consciousness which are lacking; consciousness is still “intentionality,” and so presence to its noematic objects and non-thetically aware of its

210

Bruce Baugh

consciousness of those objects. There is “temporality” in the sense of a “stream” of conscious states and acts that succeed one another, and there is even an awareness of this flow in the dream consciousness’s non-thetic or nonreflective self-awareness. What is lacking is the genuine separation of temporal moments that would allow them to be joined together in the ek-static temporal synthesis that unites moments of perception or of action into a meaningful totality, and this separation is lacking because consciousness’ objects offer no resistance to it: to conceive of the object as having a certain quality entails that the object has that quality, without any process of causal determination being involved. So what is lacking is the transphenomenal being of objects, the “being-in-itself ” of objects that prevents their esse being reduced to their percipi (BN 23-4). In experiential terms, as we have seen, the independence of objects is manifested in the perceptual object’s “overflowing” itself by having a multitude of aspects which must be encountered one after another, over time, and which do not present themselves in the same instant that consciousness considers them: consciousness is forced to wait for things to reveal themselves. Consciousness is capable of grasping the real, then, through its apprehension of the object as having aspects which are both real and not present, and which could constitute the intentional object of acts of remembering and anticipating. The question is whether a solitary consciousness is capable of this. My hypothesis is that it is not. In the dream state, consciousness cannot even conceive of its image-objects as being other than they are at present, and that, says Sartre, is both what makes the dream image so fascinating and gives it its air of fatality. For that reason, a dreaming consciousness cannot conceive of other real but non-present aspects of the image that it could unite to the present image: that constitutes the worldlessness of the dream image. Dream objects have no hidden side; there is nothing behind the façade they present, and the dream consciousness thus does not even apprehend that they present only a façade:

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

211

the dreamer believes what he sees, and is entirely absorbed in what he sees. World and Others How different is that from the solitary voyeur looking through the keyhole, during that moment when the spectacle he views is presented as existing for him alone? For the voyeur to apprehend what he perceives as having aspects other than those present to his consciousness, he would have to conceive of seeing the scene from a different point of view: that is, from the standpoint of someone else. Correlatively, he would have to grasp his own point of view as limited, and that the difficulty of seeing more than he can ascertain through the keyhole is a result of his being spatially situated in the hallway, on the other side of the door. Yet he cannot apprehend himself as having a determinate spatial location except from the standpoint of the Other: “The Other’s look confers spatiality on me” (BN 357) by taking the distances which unfold between me and objects in accordance with my projects and enclosing them within a set of distances which are not given to me. It is only in the world of some Other that I can be situated in space as a thing among things: “If I am able to conceive of even one of my properties in the objective mode, then the Other is already given” (BN 361). Similarly, the voyeur cannot apprehend a further revealing of hidden aspects of the object without being situated in time: not the mere flow of subjective consciousness, in which past, present and future blend together in the present image, but a time which is not subject to his whim, a time which is not simply for him but also for others. “Universal temporality is objective” (BN 280), and requires the temporalizing of the Other. “Only a for-itself [other than me] which temporalizes itself can throw me into time” (BN 362), that is, into a time in which objects are present to me and to the Other “at the same time” in an “absolute temporalization” which is neither my own nor the Other’s (BN 357). Universal

212

Bruce Baugh

time is the condition of our co-presence to the world, a co-presence revealed in my experience of being seen by an Other to whom I am present at the same time that the world is present to me (BN 376-7). It is this co-presence to a single world which allows the Other’s future to be an alternative future of the world which I inhabit, rather than of some other world, and which situates me in objective time and space. In order to await or anticipate, something must separate the present of consciousness from the future that would answer consciousness’s questions. The separation of the future from the present corresponds to the objective spatial situation of the voyeur: he cannot see now certain aspects of the scene because he does not now occupy a different point of view. In short, real time and real space, and the real objects available to perception and action, differ from the imaginary sort through the presence of the Other. It is through the Other that there is a world for me; without the Other, there would be only the dream’s “swarm of impressions” (I 168) without articulation and development. There would be no genuine exteriority of objects to me or of temporal moments to each other.9 Without the Other as an extramundane presence, as the external point of view on my world, the world and all its objects would dissolve in the flux of conscious impressions. If there is only me, then the being of things is reduced to their being-for-me and to their being-perceived; they have no independence from me and can offer no resistance. Without the other, each appearance or phenomenon would be isolated from all the others in the same way in which dream images are isolated, and rather than an infinity of relations among things and an infinity of aspects of a thing constituting the world, there would only be an atmosphere of worldliness attached to each image as an immanent property. Sartre says that “a world’s resistance is contained within will as a principle of its nature” because “the necessary lag between the [realized] goal and the conception of the goal” results from the whole world being “interpolated between my consciousness and

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

213

its ends” (WD 38/CDG 53-4), but a resisting world in which my actions can objectively succeed or misfire requires an interpretation of things and actions other than my own; it requires that the world exist also for an Other. Even if we suppose that the very materiality of the world allows it to resist my goals (a supposition Sartre allows for in the Critique of Dialectical Reason),10 if the inert resistance of things is “ordered in a hierarchy of motivations and a hierarchy of tools” according to my ends (WD 41/CDG 57), then their resistance is entirely relative to me and entirely dependent on my interpretation and evaluation of them. To use Sartre’s example, if I stay home because it is raining, and I determine the rain as a reason for staying home by determining myself to remain indoors “in consideration of the consequences of my acts” relative to my goals, then this amounts to transcending the rain toward myself and making an instrument of it according to my own will or pleasure (BN 362). If I had willed or viewed things otherwise, the rain would have ceased to have been an obstacle to going out. Thus, material objects as such cannot limit my freedom inasmuch as their meaning as obstacles depends on me. The same goes for the degree to which my actions succeed in realizing my objectives. To distinguish an action from a wish, it is necessary that I not be the sole judge of the efficacy of my acts or of the means I employ. It is only through the intermediary of others that my actions can really succeed or really fail rather than just seeming to do so. If I am the sole judge in these matters, then actions, means, things and results dissolve into my interpretation of them, and those shift according to my whim, such that I cannot determine with any certainty the degree to which the completed action corresponds to the projected goal which motivated it. In fact, I cannot separate the act from what I wish it to be, or, which comes to the same thing, from what I fear it might be. In that case, I cannot really and effectively separate the completed action from the intention in order to determine to

214

Bruce Baugh

what degree the act succeeded. I remain trapped in immanence, a prisoner of my own omnipotence. It is the Other who causes things to overflow themselves by having real aspects that are not present to me and do not depend on me, aspects that exist in relation not to my ends or my future but in relation to those of another freedom bearing another future. The Other is thus an essential aspect of the very being of consciousness as presence-to a world of things having transphenomenal being irreducible to their being-for-me and whose status as means or obstacles relative to my ends does not depend on me alone.11 By causing my world to drain away to a point of view that is entirely outside my world and inaccessible to me, the Other converts the world into a real world, instead of the pseudo-world of the dream that is wholly and solely for me. For this to occur, it is necessary that the Other not be an object or point of view within my world, for that would reduce the Other to something that exists for me. The Other who can take an external point of view on my world must be totally Other: beyond my world, and not a phenomenon within it (BN 307, 359-67), not present to me, but absent. Only then can my world be more than just a world-for-me, that is, a dream, because only then can things have aspects which are both real and yet absent (to me). It is through being-seen by an absent and extra-mundane subject that I have a world.12 It does not follow from this, however, that the Other and I cooperate in building an objective world. On the one hand, Sartre agrees with Husserl that “the ontological structure of ‘my’ world demands that it also be a world for others” (BN 363), but in the next breath, he states that the Other contributes to the “objectivity” of my world only insofar as the Other is an object within my world. As a subject, the Other “cannot contribute to reinforce the world” but rather “undoes” or “disintegrates” my world, and in such a way that this disintegration and the world of the Other are both for the Other and in principle in accessible to me: “I cannot know it or even think it” (BN 364). Sartre’s

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

215

argument here is that the Other as a subject who is not localizable in my world constitutes a hidden side of things which cannot be revealed through my own further experiences, but which are radically independent of me (see BN 307-9). Yet it is precisely because I cannot know or “project” the Other, because the Other is entirely outside of my world, that there is a “beyond the world” that renders things in the world truly transphenomenal, such that their being is not exhausted in their being for a subject (BN 361). Just as the Other as subject is inaccessible to me, so I as subject am inaccessible to the Other. Since each consciousness constitutes itself as a radical refusal of the Other, “no totalitarian and unifying synthesis” of points of view is possible (BN 339). In that case, “no universal knowledge can be derived from the relation between consciousnesses” (BN 328), and one consciousness does not complete another’s awareness of an object to constitute some neutral and objective world seen from the point of view of a universal subject (BN 323, 360). It is just this lack of a harmonious synthesis of points of view which prevents the being of things being reducible to our knowledge of them and delivers each subject from an “idealist” world of total immanence by giving things aspects which are hidden or beyond their appearances to consciousness (see BN 336). The independence of each consciousness from the Other is thus what assures the independence and resistance of things in the world. “We encounter the Other; we do not constitute him” (BN 336), and as “the Other is by nature outside the world” (BN 317), the encounter with the Other takes place neither in my world nor the Other’s. In short, by stripping each subject of its “distanceless presence to the world,” the otherness of the Other is “that by which distance comes to the world” and plunges each subject “into the heart of a world complete with its distances and instruments” (BN 360-1), the world in which the voyeur can be on the other side of a door which has properties and dimensions not subject to his will. This is the world of means and ends in which action and freedom are possible.

216

Bruce Baugh

Conclusion “If I am able to do something—anything—it is necessary that I exercise my action upon beings whose existence is in general independent of my existence and in particular independent of my action” (BN 650), which requires that things be more and other than the meaning they have in relation to my projects as means or obstacles. “To do in a resisting world by means of a victory over the world’s resistances” (BN 650) requires being “thrown into a world of existents thoroughly indifferent to me” and having relations with each other which differ from their relations to me constituted by my project (BN 651); that is, it requires being in a situation that exists not just for me, but for others, and others whose subjectivity cannot be the object of my knowledge or experience. Only then is it a situation whose being exceeds its beingfor a subject, whether we are speaking of one subject or many. Freedom can only exist in a situation, in the midst of a resisting world, and every situation has its outside, its dimension of exteriority, “its being-outside-for-others” (BN 673). Insofar as the world for others, and I along with it, are in principle inaccessible to me, that is an alienation of my being and my world in the Other. But alienation is inescapable “since it would be absurd to even think of existing otherwise than in situation,” which makes alienation before the Other “a sort of centrifugal force in the very nature of freedom… which causes everything which it undertakes to have always one face which freedom will not have chosen, which escapes it” and exists entirely for the Other (BN 673-4). The alternative to this alienation is quite simply the nightmare of fatalism, in which there is no distinction between the conception of an end and its realization, and consciousness is defenceless before itself, ensnared and bewitched by its own power, trapped in a magical world of horror in which “deterministic barriers have given way” and consciousness acts on things “at a distance,” without the intermediary of a world of things that are other than their being-for-consciousness.13

Freedom, Fatalism and the Other

217

If this hypothesis is correct—and it is only a hypothesis—then rather than hell being the Others, hell is being alone. Without the Other, I would be condemned to the fatalism of the dream, as only the Other can give the future the independence from the present and the presence at a distance of things to consciousness required by freedom. Without the Other, there would be neither temporality nor a world of objects transcendent to my consciousness: it is the Other who not only gives my existence its “outside” as an object for another consciousness, but which gives things and the world their “outside” as things whose being exceeds their being for me. “The being of human-reality must be for-itself-forothers” (BN 298), and even though each is for-itself insofar as it is a refusal of the others (BN 377), it is through this negation of all by each and of each by all that each consciousness receives a world from the indefinitely plural Other which consciousness is not. It is the other who restores to the world its charm and its horror, and makes me “a thing among things, a human among humans.”14 It is true that it is also through the Other that I am in danger in the world: that I am vulnerable insofar as I am something that can be acted on by Others or by material forces. But without that vulnerability and exposure before the world, I would have no access to the world. An entirely private world is no world at all. Endnotes 1. Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis clos, in Sartre, Théatre (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), p. 167: “Pas besoin de gril, l’enfer, c’est les Autres” (Garcin). 2. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press 1992, c1956), pp. 348-52, 383; hereafter BN. 3. Jean-Paul Sartre, La transcendence de l’ego (Paris: Vrin, 1966), p. 68. 4. Translation altered. See Sartre, L’être et le néant, edition corrected by Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre (Paris: Gallimard, 1998, c1943), p. 528. Hereafter EN. 5. Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Imaginaire (Paris: Gallimard, series Idées, 1985, c1940). There are two translations : Bernard Frechtman, trans., The

218

Bruce Baugh

Psychology of Imagination (New York: Citadel Press, n.d.); Jonathan Webber, trans., The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination (London and New York: Routledge, 2004). References to Webber’s translation hereafter given as I. 6. L’Imaginaire, 326-7. 7. Translation altered; see L’Imaginaire 328. 8. Sartre, The War Diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre, November 1939-March 1940, trans. Quinton Hoare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), p. 37, hereafter WD; Sartre, Carnets de la drôle de guerre (Paris : Gallimard, 1983), p. 53, hereafter CDG. 9. See Jean Hyppolite’s commentary in his translation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: La phénoménologie de l’esprit (Paris: AubierMontaigne, 1941), vol. 1, p. 162 n. 24: “For the master, the objective world is without resistance, it is the object of his enjoyment (his selfaffirmation).” It is only through the intermediary of the slave, and the slave’s labour, that the world takes on objective qualities, even for the master. 10. See Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason, vol. 1, Theory of Practical Ensembles, trans. Alan Sheridan-Smith (London: Verso, 1982), esp. pp. 85-92; Critique de la raison dialectique; tome I, Théorie des ensembles pratiques (Paris: Gallimard, 1960). 11. See BN 146: “The presence of the for-itself as for-others is even the necessary condition of the constitution of the for-itself as such.” 12. See Jean Wyatt, “The Impossible Project of Love in Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, Dirty Hands and The Room,” Sartre Studies International 12/2 (Fall 2006): 1-16. As Wyatt explains, the character of Pierre, in Sartre’s short story The Room, is able to live in an entirely subjective world, created and defined by himself such that the others in it have the status of objects, only because he is psychotic; in other words, the absence of genuine being-for-others is equivalent to psychosis (p. 7). 13. See Sartre, Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, trans. Philip Mairet (London: Methuen, 1962), p. 86 and BN 360. 14. Sartre, “Une idée fondamentale de la phénoménologie de Husserl : l’intentionnalité,” in Situations I (Paris : Gallimard, 1975, c1947), p. 42.

10 Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action Eric Duffy Philosophy, St. Vincent’s College Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center [email protected] ABSTRACT: Sartre’s Being and Nothingness intends to establish a “phenomenology of action,” where being-for-itself is structured by the law of consciousness and intentionality. Choice organizes the situation while being determined by the limitation of facticity. Anguish and nausea are twin structures that concern the breakdown of the for-itself’s relation to its freedom and to objects as meaningful, respectively. Sartre’s The Imaginary clarifies the central conceit of the novel Nausea. Finally, the discussion of anguish and nausea provide central insights into Sartre’s theory of subjectivity and phenomenology of action. “I understand now: one had to begin living again and the adventure was fading out.”1 “I shouldn’t complain: all I wanted was to be free.”2

The ultimate task of Being and Nothingness is to establish a “phenomenology of action,”3 that is to say to provide a concrete philosophical account of the human subject acting in experience. Sartre’s ontological account of experience provides what we can term its transcendental conditions. Sartre’s subject, i.e., being-for-itself, is structured by the law of consciousness that states consciousness is necessarily consciousness of something.4 The law of consciousness is intentionality and provides the two conditions of awareness and something of which one is aware. The phenomenology of action accounts for how being-for-itself, PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

220

Eric Duffy

understood as a particular human subject, lives its freedom in situation via projects and acts. Choice organizes the situation while being determined by the limitation of facticity. When abstracted from experience through philosophical reflection, Sartre’s subject is being for-itself. When Sartre’s subject lives its own freedom engaged in a situation of experience, it is an individual human subject. In a situation, the for-itself relates both to its own freedom and objects as meaningful. Anguish and nausea are twin structures that concern the breakdown of the for-itself ’s relation to its freedom and to objects as meaningful, respectively. Examining Sartre’s discussion of anguish in Being and Nothingness provides a framework by which we can examine nausea. Taking our point of departure from Being and Nothingness, we examine Sartre’s The Imaginary to clarify the central conceit of the novel Nausea. Finally, the discussion of anguish and nausea provide central insights into Sartre’s theory of subjectivity and phenomenology of action. In the discussion of anguish in the “Origin of Negation” section of Being and Nothingness, Sartre states: “it is this counteranguish which generally puts an end to anguish by transmuting it into indecision. Indecision in its turn calls for decision. I abruptly put myself at a distance from the edge of the precipice and resume my way.”5 One goal of Sartre’s philosophy is to make everyone aware that we are free, not in the sense that we are capable of acting, which is obvious, but in the sense that we must necessarily act in each and every situation, for even not to choose is an act. Anguish is the apprehension of one’s possibilities in a situation as mine. While anguish puts one out of circuit and at a distance from one’s possibilities, neutralizing one from engaging in action, anguish is necessarily accompanied by counter anguish that places one back into the world and both calls for one to act and ontologically makes a decision or choice possible. We will establish a so-called “counter nausea” that neutralizes nausea and reconnects one to meaningful objects. Nausea refers to the

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

221

breakdown of meaning, or of being-in-itself escaping contingently conferred categories of meaning, or what Sartre means by de trop. Both counter anguish and counter nausea are structures of the for-itself that lead to decision, i.e., entail the necessity of acting. We find a moralizing thread that calls for us not to remain in either anguish or nausea that also allows us to understand what anguish and nausea are. In Being and Nothingness Sartre provides a phenomenological ontology of the structures of experience, centered in his theory of subjectivity, that revolves around the for-itself and its situated freedom. Sartre possesses a two-level view of the subject: an appositional relational consciousness of everyday engaged acting and a thematic reflective self-consciousness. Reflection provides the methodology of phenomenology that allows one to grasp and describe ontological structures of experience. In his book The Imaginary Sartre says of phenomenology: “the method is simple: produce images in ourselves, reflect on these images, describe them, which is to say, try to determine and classify their distinctive features.”6 Reflection provides certainty regarding the contents that the act of reflection turns to, making phenomenological descriptions certain. Sartre is not merely providing an encyclopedic list of ontological structures of the for-itself, but is ultimately concerned with grasping how the individual lives freedom via choice and act in situation, i.e., a phenomenology of action. Early in Being and Nothingness Sartre delimits Being into the categories of being-for-itself and being-in-itself, and the two spheres are connected through the nothingness of the for-itself. Sartre does this as a means to establish the general ontological structures of experience. In lived experience, being-in-itself exists as an object and being-for-itself exists as a subject. In action, being-in-itself and being-for-itself are not isolated dimensions found alongside one another. There are two levels on which being-for-itself and being-in-itself relate to one another, corre-

222

Eric Duffy

sponding generally to the two levels of the subject. In ordinary lived experience, objects are being-in-itself and appear as independent of the individual, being-for-itself, and establish limitations determining the individual via facticity. For example, if one wants to know an object found in experience, one must conform to how it is itself to understand it as such. This is to say that knowledge strictly speaking is not left to whim and caprice. However, on a deeper structural level, the in-itself is made possible ontologically by the very nature of the for-itself. Sartre’s ontological is the transcendental making experience possible. Being-in-itself is a positive plenum that only exists for the subject, and in order to be organized into objects being-in-itself must be organized by being-for-itself. As Sartre states in “Existentialism is a Humanism,” the world is necessarily a human world. It is necessary that Sartre locate the origin of nothingness and map its limits and structure. Being when ultimately understood as being-in-itself is what it is, which is to say it is inert, passive, and positive. Following a tradition stretching back to Parmenides, nothingness or negation cannot come from being-initself because that being is and nothingness is not. Early in Being and Nothingness, Sartre is interested in the conduct of questioning as a fundamental conduct of the individual, even though in the end any conduct would serve the purpose, and realizes both that a question cannot be asked without negation and that negation is founded in nothingness. “Nothingness must be given at the heart of Being, in order for us to be able to apprehend that particular type of realities which we have called négatités.”7 Nothingness is not and thus its status as being is a status borrowed from Being itself. Further, since nothingness is not, it cannot nihilate itself because there is nothing to be nihilated. By examining the conduct of questioning, Sartre has discovered a being “of which the property is to nihilate Nothingness, to support it in its being, to sustain it perpetually in its very existence,

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

223

a being by which nothingness comes to things.”8 Nothingness comes from consciousness because consciousness is nothingness. Consciousness is the being by which nothingness enters because nothingness is an ontological structure of consciousness. Consciousness is always relational, as established by the law of consciousness, and consciousness relates to the objects through different relational attitudes. Sartre is investigating this conduct of questioning and its ramifications in order to establish the two basic modes the for-itself can have toward the world, along with discovering the means and impetus to return to engagement through projects. Every question admits of a possible negative answer such that every thing under examination can unveil itself as nothing. We learn two things from this: that the given before us is presupposed to float between being and nothingness and that the questioner can always detach or disassociate itself from the questioning situation. Sartre states that, “This means that by a double movement of nihilation he nihilates the thing questioned in relation to himself by placing it in a neutral state, between being and non-being.”9Thus we have the ground from which nausea and anxiety arise. Consciousness as nothingness introduces negativity through its own structure in the world, and “we see nothingness making the world iridescent, casting a shimmer over things.”10To make the world iridescent is to construct or organize its possibility ontologically through choice, i.e., situated freedom. Nothingness makes the world iridescent in experience insofar as through freedom, that is rooted in nothingness yet necessarily connected to a facticity that limits it, the for-itself organizes a situation as an ensemble of meanings and values. We now have, crudely speaking, the mechanism allowing for anxiety and nausea to arise because nothingness makes the world iridescent, but can easily plunge us into darkness or nausea. At the same time the individual as questioner is detached from the

224

Eric Duffy

world or situation at hand and anguish arises as this detachment from my possibilities as “mine” on the plane of reflection. A driving goal of Sartre’s philosophy is to establish the means that provide us access to the objects that are given in experience. Objects given in ordinary experience are négatitiés at the ontological transcendental level. According to Sartre, “Nothingness must be given at the heart of being, in order for us to be able to apprehend that particular type of realities which we have called négatités.”11Nothingness presides over the ordering of being-initself into an arrangement of “human reality.”This allows the world to be discovered as a nexus of interrelated négatitiés. Sartre is establishing the original conditions that make Heidegger’s instrumentality and a posteriori empirical or ontic activity possible. Speaking of négatitiés, Sartre states, “However these realities are of a very peculiar nature; they will indicate immediately as essential relation of human reality to the world. They derive their origin from an act, an expectation, or a project of the human being; they all indicate an aspect of being as it appears to the human being who is engaged in the world.”12 Objects have meaning conferred upon them by projects. It follows that the breakdown of projects entails dissolving meaningful objects into the plenum of the in-itself, on the one hand, and the for-itself ceasing to act, on the other hand. Anguish and nausea are intimately related. Examining anguish in Being and Nothingness and nausea in Nausea and The Imaginary, we see Sartre moralizing about how these moods, or this affectivity, are necessary as an irrevocable part of our being such that they should not be blindly avoided because we must necessarily act. But at the same time we also see how and why we are to seek to escape the breakdown of projects without denying anguish and nausea their value in our situatedness. Sartre explains how anguish and nausea call for us to enter into new projects while new projects arise from failed projects. The discovery of anguish and nausea provides, immanently, the way to return to the world and the call to do so.

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

225

We realize that “man is the being through whom nothingness comes to the world” but must discover how this is lived in the world of experience.13 Nothingness via anguish is a translucency that is consciousness’ relationship to its own freedom and hence its possibilities as “mine.”Nothingness via nausea is a viscosity of consciousness’ relationship to the opaque in-itself as meaningful or meaningless. Nature is a positive plenum or a full positivity that is a real chain of being determined by efficient causality. This is to say that at the level of ordinary experience being produces being. The for-itself as the origin of negation “must be able to put himself outside of being and by the same stroke weaken the structure of the being of being.”14Freedom is an order of causality that itself is not determined by efficient causality. Anguish and nausea each weaken the being of being, allowing the for-itself to live its freedom, but they can also be crises for the individual. If that which can be a crisis is also that which allows the individual to live its freedom by organizing possibilities into projects, then Sartre is arguing that we must recognize these fundamental structures of our lives as pads from which to launch our projects. The for-itself is a relational consciousness that is necessarily consciousness of something, meaning consciousness is a nothingness with borrowed being that negates the de trop plenum of being-in-itself to construct situations and thereby experience. Fundamentally, “man’s relation with being is that he can modify it.”15 But how does the for-itself modify Being? Freedom dissolves fixity. “For man to put a particular existent out of circuit is to put himself out of circuit in relation to that existent. In this case he is not subject to it; he is out of reach; it cannot act on him, for he has retired beyond a nothingness.”16 Through freedom, the subject can remove itself from the “great chain of Being.” The act of reflection is the means by which the for-itself puts itself out of circuit. This realization requires that we ask what this freedom, the nothingness beyond which we retire, is.

226

Eric Duffy

What does it mean to retire beyond freedom? The for-itself lives situated freedom through projects, choices, and acts, while ontological freedom is the condition making situated freedom possible. The subject is ontologically free because the subject is either always free or never free. We can neither relinquish nor lose the ontological capacity for freedom. It follows that to retire beyond nothingness must be to retreat from the plane of action to the plane of reflection that can take the form of either anguish or nausea. Consciousness is a temporal phenomenon and not an immanent spatial thinking thing. The for-itself is ec-static, establishing temporality as part of the phenomenology of action. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explain how being-for-itself temporalizes itself. The conduct of retiring beyond a nothingness, as all conducts are, is a temporal process, and “it assumes that the human being reposes first in the depths of being and then detaches himself from it be a nihilating withdraw.”17 This establishes the binary relationship the for-itself has—the individual through projects is always situated, but the failure of projects plunges the for-itself into the full de trop plenitude of beingin-itself through focusing either on the viscous nausea of the plenitude or its own possibilities as “my” possibilities, possibilities which I am fully responsibly for and must necessarily choose. The things of the plenitude are full actualities, and therefore can only refer to themselves. This is to say that a desk is a desk. When these full actualities are constructed from the plenitude by the nothingness that the for-itself is, a situation is created because meaning and relations are established. Negativities or nothings arise from consciousness in a situation because the foritself encounters things that should or could be part of the situation and are not. Sartre tells us we “continually use négatitiés to isolate and determine existents.”18 Ontologically, négatitiés structure lived experience through acts arising from the freedom of being-for-itself.

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

227

What is the structure of reflective self-consciousness? Sartre claims that nothingness is the ground of negation because it conceals negation. This is intriguing because “freedom is the human being putting his past out of play by secreting his own nothingness,”19 and, further, “consciousness continually experiences itself as the nihilation of its past being.”20 Reflective selfconsciousness is the relational consciousness allowing the foritself to grasp thematically the temporal process in which it is engaged, which in relation to its own possibilities is anguish. Anguish is a mode of consciousness wherein the for-itself is conscious of its being as free to act in the situation and required to do so. When disconnected from acting, Sartre informs us, “There ought to exist for the human being, in so far as he is consciousness of being, a certain mode of standing opposite his past and his future, as being both this past and this future and as not being them.”21 Sartre follows Heidegger who follows Kierkegaard in the manner that fear is distinguished from anguish. Anguish is the relation that the for-itself maintains to its own possibilities in a situation, while fear is a relation to an external threat. Put differently, anguish is the for-itself ’s relation to how it will act in a situation while fear is the for-itself ’s relation to how the situation will act upon it. Sartre clarifies that “fear and anguish are exclusive of one another since fear is unreflective apprehension of the transcendent and anguish is reflective apprehension of the self; the one is born in the destruction of the other.”22 Typically, one moves between the two, but Sartre wants to examine the situations where pure anguish arises, i.e., anguish disconnected from fear. In the state of pure anguish and its anticipations “I am given to myself as a thing; I am passive in relation to these possibilities; they come to me from without; in so far as I am also an object in the world, subject to gravitation, they are my possibilities.”23 The “my” modifying possibilities is precisely what concerns us in anguish. Possibilities as mine become conducts of mine: they become

228

Eric Duffy

possible ways of behaving I can adopt in the face of the situation. But just as negativity arises in questioning, negativity arises in possibilities as “my” possibilities. Sartre tells us, “not only is it not strictly certain that they will be effective; in particular it is not strictly certain that they will be adopted, for they do not have existence sufficient in itself.”24 Quoting Berkeley, Sartre claims that “possibility of being is only an ought-to-besustained.”25I cause my possibilities to exist. I choose them to be adopted. But at the same time I choose which possibilities are not to be chosen. “I alone am the permanent source of their non-being, I engage myself in them; in order to cause my possibility to appear, I posit the other possibilities so as to nihilate them.”26 Not only am I responsible for choosing which possibility to pursue in exclusion to the possibilities not to be pursued, but also I am responsible for sustaining the pursuit of the chosen possibility while sustaining the rejection of the other possibilities. An example from Roquentin would be good. My possibilities are possible precisely because there is nothing external to me determining what will be adopted. I am not determined by the Great Chain of being. Anguish arises in its purity precisely because there is nothing external to me determining what conduct I will adopt and nothing separating me from my possibilities. I am not determined in my choice by the efficient causality of nature. At the same time to choose a possibility is not sufficient to realize it because it is only possible. Once a choice to act is made, the individual must work to realize that possibility in the real world. We can now connect anguish and counter anguish. As Sartre further clarifies the nature of anguish, he states that “To avoid fear, which reveals to me a transcendent future strictly determined, I take refuge in reflection, but the latter has only an undetermined future to offer.”27 What does this mean? The indeterminacy of anguish reveals to the for-itself the structure of freedom and the necessary obligation of having to act through

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

229

its own choice. “In establishing a certain conduct as a possibility and precisely because it is my possibility, I am aware that nothing can compel me to adopt that conduct. Yet I am indeed already there in the future; it is for the sake of that being which I will be there at the turning of the path that I now exert all my strength, and in this sense there is already a relation between my future being and my present being.”28 We grasp the nothingness that founds negation. I am not identical to this being that I am going to be; I am not determined to select this or that possibility; it is not determined that this or that possibility will be effective. But anguish grips me in the face of “my” possibilities because I am in fact related to the future self I will be. Sartre’s argument for this is quite simple. If I were not the self I am going to be, then I would not care about what I am going to do or who I am on the way to becoming who I will be. Anguish then is that which reveals to us that “I am the self which I will be, in the mode of not being it.”29 The future is what is possible: insofar as the future is not determined, there is a future rather than the future. I will become something. I am on my way to being someone, and I become this precisely through my choices of my possibilities. Thus, “anguish is precisely my consciousness of being my own future in the mode of not-being.”30 As I will become someone, counter anguish transmutes anguish to act. Let us clarify what kind of structure counter anguish is in our lives and what its ramifications are. A possibility as “mine” is revealed to be my possibility because it is not determined to be necessarily the effect following from the situation as cause. The possibility is mine or not mine only if I choose it or choose not to do it and then sustain this decision. Possibilities belong to freedom and not to nature. The possibilities in themselves are ineffective just as the motives leading to the nexus of possibilities are ineffective. It is not sufficient to wish. Reality only comes to be from the decision of a self I am not yet and the actions employed to realize the chosen possibility. This ineffectiveness of

230

Eric Duffy

motives and the possibilities they lead to is counter-anguish. Anguish arises in its pure structure when on the plane of reflection I realize that I must act by choosing one of my available possibilities, but that these possibilities only have reality, are only determined to be existent, if I choose. Thus, while I must act, there is nothing determining me to act one way or another except my own choice. The possibilities as my possibilities seemingly stun me as I struggle with what is to be done. Anguish is the space removing me from concrete activity and thereby distancing me from what I fundamentally am—projected activity. But anguish is revealed as a fundamental structure of situated freedom and is what allows one to act because anguish itself already includes a way to return to the activity that it has separated one from. The absolute responsibility that I must be the one to act and inject reality into the possibilities through decision and action such that they are brought into being and sustained is transformed into indecision by counter-anguish because I realize that in fact nothing can determine me to act, save myself. It is not necessary that I pursue this specific course of action over that one. I am not a marionette controlled by the great chain of cause and effect making the continuity of being sing and dance. This indecision leads to decision because I realize I must act. Anguish arises from the breakdown of a project as the awareness of my engagement in the project. By allowing us to understand that we are necessarily the being who is projected into the future, we eventually return to the plane of action from the plane of reflection and enter into a new project. Roquentin’s journey through nausea indicates the relation between anguish and nausea. In Being and Nothingness Sartre establishes that the human world of meanings and defined objects comes to be through situated concrete human beings engaging in projects. Roquentin, the hero of Nausea, lives the structure of anguish as his project of writing a biography of Rollebon breaks down, plunging him into a pure anguish from

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

231

which he eventually decides to enter into a new project. But Roquentin also experiences nausea, the viscous oppression of the de trop of the plenitude of being on his senses. In Being and Nothingness Sartre examines the structure of anguish in regard to the translucency of consciousness regarding its freedom as its own freedom. But the same structure applies to nausea: the relation to the viscosity of being arises when objects lose their meaning and appear in their sheer contingency. Being is given meaning through my actions and thus through my projects. Upon the collapse of my structure of projects, it follows that being is revealed as it is discovered in the plenum without meaning. In the novel Nausea then Sartre is moralizing because nausea, like anguish, is a necessary structure of our lives that reveals being to us as it is in-itself. But nausea is not an end point to reside in because it, just like anguish, provides a return to meaning because it calls for the reengagement in projects through what we term here counter nausea. We will parallel Sartre’s discussion of nausea with his discussion of anguish as a structure of freedom while also explaining the structure of the breakdown of meaning through referencing Sartre’s The Imaginary. Roquentin tells us how the world should be according to an ordinary understanding of instrumentality: “Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them: they are useful, nothing more.”31 But in nausea, this structure of lived everyday exigencies is altered. Roquentin is horrified by the viscous nature of the de trop of being overwhelming him: “But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts.”32 What leads to the change in Roquentin’s situation from everyday engagement to nausea? His project fails. He has lost his goal and the vibrancy, let alone possibility, of his book on Rollebon. As early as February first Roquentin tells us that “I understand nothing more about his conduct.”33 Other historians do this, so why can’t Roquentin? “For a long time,

232

Eric Duffy

Rollebon the man has interested me more than the book to be written. But now the man…the man begins to bore me.”34 Roquentin has lost touch with the world of meaning because he no longer believes he is dialoguing with the world as it was in itself in the time of Rollebon. He tells us “I have the feeling of doing a work of pure imagination.”35 The failure of his project happens when meaning grasped as epistemological exigencies fades into the plenum, such that he is left with bare thises. Roquentin has nausea because his project of Rollebon has been his reason for being, and that reason is rapidly growing hollow, thereby dissolving the organization of his situation. We have seen that anguish removes the for-itself from an engaged temporal continuity with itself, placing its past and future before it as unable to determine the choice in the present. Nausea removes the in-itself from its temporal continuity with itself as the object appears to the for-itself. Nausea is a viscosity like a fog where objects overflow the relations, which are framed by the project organizing the situation, that provide meaning. In nausea objects confront the individual as a bare plenum that escapes organization and meaning. Roquentin describes the viscosity of nausea as “Fog had filled the room: not the real fog that had gone a long time ago—but the other, the one the streets were still full of, which came out of the walls and pavements.”36 The object’s loss of continuity with itself is its loss of meaning. Rollebon is the object of Roqeuntin’s book, and when Rollebon loses his connection to this historical past, he loses meaning for Roquentin. Thus a historical biography, Roquentin’s project, fails.“I’m not writing my book on Rollebon any more; it’s finished, I can’t write any more of it. What am I going to do with my life?”37 The loss of the project is tied to the meaning of the ensemble of objects and values that is the situation, keeping in mind that the situation is organized by the for-itself ’s project as it relates to facticity.

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

233

What is Roquentin gripped by in this fog of nausea? He is overwhelmed by the appearance of the ephemeral nature of things. It strikes him that the words he writes are only letters. “That has disappeared too; nothing was left but their ephemeral spark.”38 Why? Because all there is “the present, nothing but the present.”39 Without a past giving a mooring to the project and an expectation aimed at through a plan, the situation dissolves into components that can relate to one another in an indeterminate set of ways, entailing indeterminacy and a lack of meaning. The for-itself is only a plan that is aware of itself. It is an expectation and striving that constructs the world of experience as meaningful. What part of this plan that is aware of itself breaks down in order for nausea to arise and grip the individual? We find our answer in The Imaginary. According to the law of consciousness, consciousness is always conscious of something, and this entails that consciousness is always relational. There are three relations that consciousness can maintain toward an object: a perceiving relation, a conceiving relation, and an imaging relation. These three relations are the three ways the for-itself can posit the object. Perception posits that object as really existing. In perception the object presents itself in its singularity as a set of infinite profiles and infinite relations given in a series of appearances. In The Imaginary Sartre characterizes perception’s work as an apprenticeship, as perception must synthesize through retention and pretension the profiles and relations of the object, its Anschattungen, to experience the object as it is. If the perception is detached from its temporal elements of retention and protention, then it loses its coherence. But how does this breakdown arise? The three attitudes that the for-itself can maintain toward an object must be synthesized in order that the for-itself can be aware of the object and be able to cognize the object. Conceiving of an object through concepts grasps what the object is completely and all at once because it grasps the distinctive or defin-

234

Eric Duffy

ing features simultaneously as a unity. Conceiving does not have an apprenticeship to serve, as perception does, because it grasps the object all at once through what Sartre terms a concrete concept. The traditional epistemological problem Sartre encounters is how a general concept can relate to singular objects in their particularity. Sartre follows the strategy Kant employs in the B deduction of the Critique of Pure Reason to connect general concepts that can be predicated of every instance of itself and particular things by employing the image as a schema connecting the two sources of cognition. The image posits the object as nonexistent because while the image represents real features of the object, it neither grasps every feature completely as the concept does, nor is the object existing immanently in the image and thereby immanently in the mind. Objects are in nature or the world of experience. Sartre describes the image as a degraded knowledge or signification, which is how the image is able to be the framework by which one connects the concept of an object in general to a particular singular instance of the object. While perceiving is mediate, the image is immediate. Sartre states, “we see now that the image is a synthetic act that links a concrete, not imaged, knowledge to elements more properly representative. An image is not learned: it is organized exactly as the objects that are learned, but, in fact, it is given whole, for what it is, in its appearance.”40 Following the broad outlines of Kant’s so-called Copernican revolution whereby objects must conform to the subject to be able to be known, Sartre is arguing that one finds in the image what one puts in the image. We know that perception involves the de trop infinity of relations constituting an object. Objects exist simultaneously as this overflowing of infinite relations and as the particular singular “this.” The image is the middle ground connecting these two dimensions because, as Sartre states, “to exhaust the richness of my current perception would take an infinite time.”41 Imaging is a relation that consciousness has to an object. In discussing the image involved

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

235

Sartre states “the object of an image is never anything more than the consciousness one has of it.”42 When this image is lost due to a breakdown of the project, then the for-itself is confronted by the infinite relations defining an object, represented as a viscous fog. The subject possesses the attitude that the object is knowable in principle, though not at the moment. On the one hand, the individual is confronted by the de trop indeterminacy of the object that consists at this moment of an inchoate series of appearances; while on the other hand, the individual is confronted by the drive to knowledge and the possession of objects via concepts. The loss of a goal to be realized in the future removes the unifying thread of the project, and consciousness is put at a distance from living its situated freedom: “a consciousness is a synthesis through and through, thoroughly intimate with itself: it is at the heart of this synthetic interiority that it can join, by an act of retention or protention, with a preceding or succeeding consciousness…one consciousness is not the cause of another consciousness: it motivates it.”43 Through the image, knowledge becomes intuition. The image is defined by intention according to the law of consciousness. The image springs forth from the for-itself ’s spontaneity, and when unschematized the image is naked and bare, resulting in nausea. While the image is defined by intention, intention is defined by knowledge. What we here term counter nausea is the striving for determinacy. Knowledge can exist in what Sartre terms a “free state” when it is not connected to a particular object. The structure of determinate experience is image—intention—knowledge. The knowledge that defines the intention is an act: “it is the active structure of the image.”44 The degradation of knowledge into the image passes from the free state of knowledge, which is essentially a general abstract idea, to the intentional structure of imaging consciousness relating to a perceived object. The last theme we need from The Imaginary in order to be able to explain nausea and counter nausea is affectivity. Sartre

236

Eric Duffy

denies affective states exist in the subject because there are affective consciousnesses instead. Consciousness is translucent and always related to some object toward which, through intentionality, consciousness transcends itself. Sartre denies a so-called “solipsism of affectivity.”45 Feeling and affectivity do not provide pure subjectivity, nor is it the case that feelings are not connected to objects. According to the law of consciousness, consciousness is always necessarily related to something, whether the something be determinate or indeterminate. In Sartre’s own words, “Reflection delivers us affective consciousnesses. Joy, anguish, melancholy are consciousnesses. And we must apply to them the great law of consciousness: all consciousness is consciousness of something. In a word, feelings have special intentionalities, they represent a way—among others—of transcending.”46Nausea is not a solipsistic feeling removing the for-itself from the world of experience. Nausea is an affective relational consciousness wherein consciousness is related to the plenum of being of the being-in-itself as overflowing a meaningful structure supplied by the for-itself. Nausea is the affective structure of things disconnected from meaning, while perception still gives being in a plenum and conceiving calls for the “free state” of knowledge to be connected to the plenum. Sartre summarizes the issue as follows: “the image, if it is given as the lower limit towards which knowledge tends when it is degraded, is also presented as the upper limit towards which affectivity tends when it seeks to know itself. Is the image not a synthesis of affectivity and knowledge?”47 Counter nausea is the striving to synthesize the “free state” of knowledge and the real given of perception. We can now understand Roquentin’s realization of what nausea means: “Now I knew; things are entirely what they appear to be—and behind them…there is nothing.”48 Objects are what we make them through projects. Objects are not metaphysically real things independent of and external to the subject. Objects are

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

237

real and appear as real. But objects only appear to a subject and appear via a structure defined by projects. Roquentin is gripped by nausea when his iridescent world dissolves into meaninglessness when his book on Rollebon can no longer be completed. But this broke down palace of failed projects is not a place in which one is to take residence. Nausea calls us back to acting through the mechanism of counter nausea. The experience of nausea is the reflective space in which Roquentin can find himself and his possibilities and projects as his. In this situation, the I is realized, that is the character of my, or mineness. According to Roquentin, this realization that results from the ruined project is “sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light.”49 This existence is my existence. “The thing which was waiting was on the alert, it has pounced on me, it flows through me, I am filled with it. It’s nothing: I am the thing. Existence, liberated, detached, floods over me. I exist.”50Nausea contains in itself the framework to return to engaging in projects.“At this very moment—it’s frightful—if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire: the hatred, the disgust of existing, there are so many ways to make myself exist.To thrust myself into existence.”51 Roquentin via counter nausea realizes his own existence as the necessary author of values. He is brought into the realm of indecision and then decision—to a project. Roquentin realizes that he must necessarily act.“Nothing has changed and yet everything is different. I can’t describe it; it’s like the Nausea and yet it’s just the opposite…when I question myself I see that it happens that I am myself and that I am here.”52 This is counter nausea. We reach indecision because everything is equal in light of the fundamental revelation of nausea. “Now I know: I exist—the world exists—and I know that the world exists.”53 Nausea, by providing the individual this realization, spurs them onto decision because “I realized that there was no halfway house between non-existence and this flaunting abundance. If you existed, you had to

238

Eric Duffy

exist all the way.”54 With all of this, Roquentin rediscovers projects, engaging in a new one, thereby allowing meaning to flood back into the world. “Night falls. On the second floor of the Hotel Printania two windows had just lighted up.”55 Roquentin writes. The ultimate goal of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness is to establish a phenomenology of action. He wants to marshal the resources of philosophy in order to provide an account of how the human subject lives situated freedom. This “how” is why Sartre provides an existential psychology to grasp the way in which values and meaning affect a subject, are understood by a subject, and created through the choices of a subject. The individual must necessarily act in every situation, for even not to act is an act. The temporal continuity of an individual’s personal identity is discussed under the aegis of existential psychology. Sartre examines this topic in relation to other topics like history and politics in later works. The subject must always act and projects are the manner by which the subject structures experience as meaningful. For this reason, the phenomenology of action accounts for the act as it arises from engaged freedom. Counter anguish and counter nausea are structures involved in the breakdown of projects that serve as calls to action. Each transmutes the removal of oneself from action to indecision and then decision. Through counter anguish and counter nausea, the for-itself organizes a new project that constructs a new situation that brings about an ensemble of meanings and values in experience. Endnotes 1. Sartre, Jean Paul. Nausea. Trans. Lloyd Alexander. New York; New Directions, 1964. p. 39. 2. Ibid., p. 65. 3. Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel Barnes. New York; Washington Square, 1956, p. 431.

Anguish and Nausea as Calls to Action

239

4. Sartre, Jean Paul. The Imaginary. Trans Jonathon Weber.New York; Routledge, 2004, p. 68-9. 5. Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel Barnes. New York; Washington Square, 1956. p. 69. 6. Sartre, Jean Paul. The Imaginary. Trans Jonathon Weber.New York; Routledge, 2004. p. 5. 7. Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel Barnes. New York; Washington Square, 1956. p. 56. 8. Ibid., p. 57. 9. Ibid., p. 58. 10. Ibid., p. 58. 11. Ibid., p. 56. 12. Ibid., p. 59. 13. Ibid., p. 59. 14. Ibid., p. 59. 15. Ibid., pp. 59-60. 16. Ibid., p. 60. 17. Ibid., p. 61. 18. Ibid., p. 64. 19. Ibid., p. 64. 20. Ibid., p. 64. 21. Ibid., p. 65. 22. Ibid., p. 66. 23. Ibid., p. 66. 24. Ibid., p. 67. 25. Ibid., p. 67. 26. Ibid., p. 67. 27. Ibid., p. 68. 28. Ibid., p. 68. 29. Ibid., p. 68. 30. Ibid., p. 68. 31. Sartre, Jean Paul. Nausea. Trans. Lloyd Alexander. New York; New Directions, 1964. p. 10. 32. Ibid., p. 10. 33. Ibid., p. 13. 34. Ibid., p. 13. 35. Ibid., p. 13. 36. Ibid., p. 76. .

240

Eric Duffy

37. Ibid., p. 94. 38. Ibid., p. 95. 39. Ibid., p. 95. 40. Sartre, Jean Paul. The Imaginary. Trans. Jonathon Weber, New York; Routledge, 2004. p. 9. 41. Ibid., p. 9. 42. Ibid., p. 9. 43. Ibid., p. 25-6. 44. Ibid., p. 57. 45. Ibid., p. 68. 46. Ibid., p. 69. 47. Ibid., p. 72. 48. Sartre, Jean Paul. Nausea. Trans. Lloyd Alexander. New York; New Directions, 1964. p. 96. 49. Ibid., p. 98. 50. Ibid., p. 98. 51. Ibid., pp. 99-100. 52. Ibid., p. 54. 53. Ibid., p. 122. 54. Ibid., p. 128. 55. Ibid., p. 178.

11 The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith or Reading Being and Nothingness in Reverse1 Matthew C. Eshleman

University of North Carolina Wilmington North American Sartre Society [email protected] ABSTRACT: This essay argues that Sartre’s notion of bad faith cannot be adequately understood, unless one takes the latter half of Being and Nothingness into serious consideration. Sartre employs a Cartesian methodology; consequently, his analysis proceeds from abstract simples to complex, concrete wholes. As his analysis becomes progressively concrete, Sartre revises two abstract claims made early in the text. Only after one appreciates that Sartre, strictly speaking, abandons a non-egological view of consciousness and an absolute view of freedom can one make sense out of several especially vexing features of bad faith. But we know that no soul is willingly ignorant of anything. Plato, Sophist (228c)

In light of the enormous amount of attention paid to Sartre’s notion of bad faith, and from both sides of the continental-analytic divide, it seems unlikely that another essay on bad faith can make much, if any, scholarly contribution.2 The wide range of interpretations seems exhaustive and extends from the coherence or incoherence of Sartre’s account of bad faith, to the pervasiveness of bad faith, to the impossibility of not being in bad faith, to varying degrees of bad faith, to the concept’s helpfulness in understanding forms of oppression like racism.3 While one PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

242

Matthew C. Eshleman

finds little agreement in the details, commentators often claim that bad faith is poorly understood.4 Perhaps some, but certainly not all of the disagreement concerns the fact that while a great deal of commentary on bad faith focuses primarily, often exclusively, on the rather short second chapter of Part I of Being and Nothingness titled “Bad Faith,” Sartre’s most concrete analysis of bad faith does not occur until Parts III and IV.5 Of course, some have noted that Being and Nothingness, taken as a whole, is well understood as a treatise largely on bad faith.6 Few, however, have appreciated that the chapter “Bad Faith” cannot be adequately understood without a close examination of the second half of Being and Nothingness, or so this essay argues.7 This is so, in part, because many varieties of bad faith involve pseudo self-objectification.8 When performing self-objectifying forms of bad faith (what Sartre calls the attitude of seriousness), one treats oneself in a quasi thing-like fashion, attempting to ascribe or deny qualities to oneself, as one does material objects, while having some awareness that (straightforward) self-predication necessarily involves ‘falsification.’ Problematically, in the chapter “Bad Faith”, Sartre lacks the technical resources necessary to explain the ascription or denial of determinate qualities to one’s self, e.g., being a waiter, not gay, or courageous, etc. This, however, does not become clear until Part III, where Sartre claims that “I cannot confer on myself any quality without mediation or an objectifying power which is not my own” (BN 274, EN 333). Since Others provide this mediating and objectifying power, the Other is “the necessary condition of all thought which I would attempt to form concerning myself ” (BN 271, EN 330). Consequently, Others must objectify me before I can attempt a pseudo-objectification of myself and a complete analysis of bad faith must consider technical details of Sartre’s treatment of Others in the later portions of the text. Others, however, are not simply the theoretical condition for the possibility of bad faith, which they are, but bad faith is

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

243

essentially a concrete, social phenomenon. Bad faith always involves engagement in a social world, where social forces pressure one into assuming a social identity. As Sartre argues, “there are indeed many precautions to imprison a man in what he is, as if we lived in perpetual fear that he might escape from it, that he might break away and suddenly elude his condition” (BN 59, EN 99).9 That prevalent forms of bad faith involve collusion with or resistance to socially enforced identities is a point somewhat difficult to cull from the chapter titled “Bad Faith.” Here I am in good company. Robert Stone argues, while “it is easy to infer that the lie to oneself is purely inward and free of interpersonal references”, “this impression—reinforced by Sartre’s own treatments—is false” (SBFA 246).10 This misleading impression often leads commentators to focus their attention (solely) on the chapter “Bad Faith.” If Stone’s analysis is correct, it demands that we consider the details of Sartre’s account of intersubjectivity, before bad faith makes much, if any, sense. Now Stone’s analysis has been helpful in writing this essay; however, he makes several further claims that are mistaken (or perhaps in certain cases only misleading). Understanding these errors helps to set up a central theme of this essay. Stone argues, “if we make explicit the interpersonal origin and reference immanent in bad faith…we shall find ourselves running afoul of [Sartre’s] general account of consciousness as empty, ego-less, and transparent to itself ” (SBFA 246). Centering his analysis on Sartre’s well-known waiter example, Stone points out that the café patrons enforce the social identity of the waiter who, in turn, attempts to prove to himself that he is a waiter by establishing it in the minds of others. As Sartre explains, on the one hand, “the public demands of them that they realize it as a ceremony” and, on the other hand, that “they endeavour to persuade their clientele that they are nothing but a grocer, an auctioneer, a tailor” or a waiter (BN 59, EN 99). Thus, the bad faith effort to-be-a-waiter comprises a dual-function, social pressure

244

Matthew C. Eshleman

and simultaneous complicity to that pressure. Stone concludes, “now if other-initiated repression is thus internalized by a feigned replacement of my agency and judgment with that of another, then there seems to be an immanent presence of another’s ego in my consciousness that is incompatible with Sartre general picture of consciousness as egoless” (SBRA 250). While talk of internalization may seem to be out of place in the context of Sartre’s early work, it will be later shown that Stone is generally correct in this claim, though not in all of the details. Social pressures do lead to the internalization (intériorisation) of social identities and the feigned replacement of my agency with that of another; see BN 509-531, EN 591-615. Stone also correctly argues that, as consequence of internalization, Sartre runs “afoul” of his initial account of consciousness as egoless. However, contra Stone, Sartre recognizes this problem, for Sartre revises his view accordingly. As argued elsewhere, and as will be rehearsed below in detail, upon the introduction of Others in Part III, Sartre, strictly speaking, abandons his nonegological view of consciousness (BN 260, EN 318).11 Stone missteps, then, when he says there “seems to be an immanent presence of another’s ego in my consciousness”; for Sartre clearly argues that the objectifying gaze does, in fact, introduce an objective self or socially formed ego that “haunts” pre-reflective consciousness. The introduction of an objective self turns out to be crucial to understanding (self-objectifying forms of ) bad faith. Specific details are discussed below, but, for now, suffice it to say, the reflective apprehension of radical freedom provokes anxiety. In response to anxiety, bad faith ascribes (or denies) and believes in quasi-objective character traits, where these traits play an indirect role in forming self-imposed (albeit ‘illusory’) limits to (but not the complete denial of ) freedom. By “taming” or limiting freedom, bad faith mitigates anxiety (BN 580, EN 669). For instance, Sartre’s (serious) waiter ascribes to himself objective

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

245

waiter-like characteristics precisely to conceal the possibility of having-to-be (play act) someone else. Problematically, however, consciousness must be intrinsically aware of itself qua absolute freedom, where by ‘absolute’ Sartre means—in the first half, but only the first half, of Being and Nothingness—that freedom is without limits, other than those limits it imposes upon itself (BN lv, EN 22). This means that being-for-itself must recognize its unlimited freedom in the attempt to limit itself, because the very act of self-limitation is itself an unlimited free act. Consequently, if freedom were genuinely without limits, as Sartre initially suggests, the leap of bad faith would be too great. It would be impossible to believe, even badly, in one’s own limitations. Sartre, however, abandons his unlimited (absolute) view of freedom, and, eventually argues that my freedom finds its limits in the freedom of Others (BN 525, EN 608). One can, as a consequence, believe in limited freedom, since there is a genuine sense in which freedom is limited. Bad faith plays on a genuine sense of limitation and (indirectly) misconstrues it in a deliberate act of willful ignorance. Thus, while Sartre’s initial account of bad faith is incoherent, a coherent, though incomplete view of bad faith can be culled from the text, if and only if one reads Being and Nothingness as a whole. On this reading, the chapter “Bad Faith” is methodologically misplaced and should have come at the end of Being and Nothingness where Sartre discusses existential psychoanalysis, or so it will be argued. At the very least, the chapter “Bad Faith” should be read again after having read the text as a whole. The Puzzle of Bad Faith In the chapter “Bad Faith,” Sartre contrasts bad faith with garden-variety lies. In the case of an ideal lie, the liar knows the truth withheld from the person to whom the liar lies. In contrast, bad faith concerns a lie to oneself, with the important

246

Matthew C. Eshleman

qualification that the lie occurs within the unity of the same consciousness. By “within the unity of the same consciousness” Sartre rejects efforts to divide mental life into conscious and unconscious realms, where an unconscious self dupes a conscious one. In a rather cursory critique of Freud, Sartre argues that dividing mental life only puts off the problem of bad faith, because one must explain how the censor, or whatever mediates the two realms, is conscious of the drive to be repressed (BN 53, EN 91-2).12 When therapists approach the truth, patients often go through various patterns of resistance like anger, obfuscation, or ending therapy altogether. So understood, there must be some awareness of the truth to be avoided, in the effort to avoid it, in order for the resistance to be possible. Sartre’s point, then, is that one must, in some sense, be aware of that about which one lies (or conceals), while simultaneously, in some other sense, be duped by or believe in the lie. “I can in fact wish ‘not to see’ a certain aspect of my being only if I am acquainted with the aspect which I do not wish to see. This means that in my being I must indicate this aspect in order to turn myself away from it” (BN 43, emphasis added, EN 82). But how can someone simultaneously be aware and unaware of that from which one hides when the very notion of hiding seems incoherent with the introduction of awareness? It is one thing to hide something from someone else, but wholly another to hide something from oneself, while being aware of that which is hidden. Does it make sense to say that “hiding” or “lying” takes place, if there is awareness of the hidden or lied about? Or do we have here a rather clear abuse of language? A partial solution might be found in the fact that Sartre equivocates in his account of the “indication” of that from which one hides. Sometimes Sartre claims that I must “know in my capacity as deceiver the truth which is hidden from me” (BN 49, EN 87, emphasis added), whereas, at other times he talks about a “vague [obscure] prejudicative comprehension” (BN 66, EN 106) or

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

247

“non-thetic awareness” of that which is hidden. Sartre settles this matter at the end of the chapter “Bad Faith” when he explains that “non-thetic consciousness is not to know” (BN 69, EN 110). Bad faith does not involve knowing something, while simultaneously denying knowledge of it. One only has a non-thetic awareness of that which one denies. Perhaps, then, bad faith involves hiding from a vague nonthetic awareness of some unpleasant truth by moving to the level of reflective consciousness. So understood, bad faith involves a dance in between two levels of consciousness, where one level is somehow aware of that from which the other level hides. While there might be some truth to this approach, it cannot be the whole story. Each reflective act of consciousness includes non-thetic self-awareness. Hence, the reflective act must itself be non-thetically aware of that from which one attempts to hide in the very act of hiding it. In other words, the reflective act must be aware of its own subterfuge in its very performance. But this seems impossible, for how can consciousness trick itself while being aware that its trick is a trick, even if such awareness is nonthetic? While some commentators who conclude that bad faith is impossible are not Sartre scholars, Ronald Santoni offers a Herculean, book length study of bad faith (and related concepts like good faith and authenticity) and he arrives at a similar conclusion: Given the totally translucent nature of consciousness and the troubled nature of belief, we must still say that, in the strict sense of successfully and completely hiding a truth from oneself, within the unity of a single consciousness, ‘lying to oneself ’ is not possible for Sartre.13

To be sure, Santoni argues further for a qualified sense in which we can understand bad faith. This qualified sense is explained below, where, drawing on some of Santoni’s insights, I argue that Santoni is only partially correct. For although there is

248

Matthew C. Eshleman

much to recommend in Santoni’s book, most of his careful analysis of bad faith remains confined to the first half of Being and Nothingness.14 Preliminaries Although Sartre’s most concentrated analysis of bad faith occurs in the Chapter “Bad Faith,” his analysis “logically depends” on points made earlier in the text.15 Developing a few of these earlier central themes proves crucial to my overall interpretation. In the preface, Sartre indicates that anguish provides the motivation for many, if not all, varieties of bad faith, where anguish involves “the recognition of a possibility as my possibility” (BN 35, EN 73). For a possibility to be my possibility nothing can determine or force me to choose to do or not do something qua its being possible. If something is possible for me to do, it must also always be possible for me not to do it. Just why the mere apprehension of any possibility per se should provoke anguish is unclear, until Sartre clarifies the matter by contrasting anguish with fear. Unlike anguish, fear involves something distinct and generally out of one’s control. A soldier might fear death in an impending battle; whereas, she may experience anguish over the uncertainty of how she will comport herself in face of that fear. Unlike the distinctness of death that lies outside of one’s control, anguish arises from the indistinctness of an open future of possibilities from which one must choose, and, hence, control. Of course, it is understandable that soldiers experience anguish when contemplating the open future of possibilities on a battlefield, especially since it includes a probable death. But why should the mere awareness of an indistinct future per se provoke anguish? On this point Sartre may be thought to stack the deck, for his examples of anguish are generally comprised of dangerous or extreme situations: a soldier’s confrontation with death, someone walking on the edge of a precipice, and a man who just

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

249

lost all his money in a stock market crash (BN 29, EN 66). Consequently, these examples can lead one to believe that only dangerous or extreme situations motivate anguish. Such an impression is false. In the case of a rich man in the aftermath of a stock market crash, it is not death that provokes anxiety, but the demand to dramatically revise his social identity. Those who committed suicide after the ‘29 crash had lost their way of life and could not manage the demand to radically revise their social identity. As it turns out, it is not the mere awareness of possibility that provokes anxiety. Rather, anxiety results from the confrontation with the possibility of significantly revising one’s way of life (social identity).16 Of course, since consciousness is intrinsically aware of itself (qua freedom), it seems to follow that experiences of anguish should be common. They are, in fact, rare. Part of the reason for this is that anguish occurs only at the reflective level of consciousness, when, most of the time, we live unreflectively (BN 39, EN 77). Since unreflective consciousness apprehends possibilities by enacting them, as opposed to first contemplating them (BN 36, EN 74), possibilities are not explicitly recognized as being mine, and, hence, they do not provoke anguish. In order to experience anguish, one must stand back, as it were, and take a reflective distance from one’s possibilities, in a way that puts possibilities into question as one’s own (BN 37, EN 75). However, even though most of life is lived unreflectively, self-reflection is not altogether uncommon. Consequently, Sartre must explain why we do not always or even often experience anguish during reflective moments. The requirement for this explanation initiates Sartre’s considerations of the various ways in which one attempts to conceal, disguise, disarm, or ignore anguish-provoking freedom. Sartre initially considers the attempt to believe in a psychological determinism (“a nature productive of our acts” (BN 40, EN 78), a strategy to prevent anxiety. Belief in psychological

250

Matthew C. Eshleman

determinism potentially disarms anguish, because if one can successfully believe psychological determinism is true, one can judge freedom to be an illusion “due to the mistaken belief that we are the real causes of our acts” (BN 40, EN 78). On the assumption that I am not the free cause of my actions, the apprehension of possibilities is an error (I could not have done otherwise than I did), and, hence, anguish can be written off as a mere psychological aberration. Thus, belief in determinism provides “a reflective defense against anguish” (BN 40, EN 78). Sartre, however, recognizes that his analysis here is rather crude. One cannot believe in a full-blown psychological determinism, because the evidence for a complete determinism is never “given as a reflective intuition.” One cannot, in other words, even pretend to believe that one is merely a robot. Consequently, Sartre develops a second, more nuanced line of analysis. Rather than attempting to believe in the impossible, namely that psychological forces necessitate all actions, one attempts to believe in (objective) qualities that merely limit the range of free possibilities, e.g., being a waiter or a woman of integrity. Hence, one believes in a weakened or tamed freedom that does not provoke anguish. To accomplish this, one must distract oneself from possibilities that lie outside of one’s character, and, hence ignore those possibilities that, if acted upon, would require significant revision of one’s way of life.17 So understood, it is not the reflective recognition of possibility per se (to do or not do any particular action) that provokes anguish; rather it is the recognition that one can always become someone significantly other than who one is by acting radically ‘out of character’ (BN 464, EN 542) and becoming, as it were, someone else.18 Sartre rather unexpectedly (and inexplicably) drops the issue of distraction and initiates a second, incomplete account of the attempt to believe in objective character traits. “It is a matter of apprehending my freedom in my self as the freedom of another. We see the principal theme of this fiction: My self becomes the

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

251

origin of its acts as the other of his, by virtue of a personality already constituted” (BN 42, EN 80). In this case, one attempts to apprehend oneself as one apprehends others, namely in an objectifying fashion. For instance, apprehension of the postman (call him Pierre) includes the ascription of a set of objective characteristics (wears a blue uniform, endures inclement weather, has a spirited stride, likes to flirt, fears large dogs) that implicitly circumscribe the postman’s action. Thus, in the (attempt to) view oneself as another, one ascribes (analogizes) “objective character traits” to oneself, from which actions are believed to emanate.19 At this point in his discussion, Sartre gives few details about quality-ascription; he does, however, indicate the role Others play in bad faith in a footnote (to the quote given above) where he refers the reader to Part III, Chapter One (BN 42, EN 80). Furthermore, Sartre gives no technical details of the role Others play in quality-ascription in the chapter “Bad Faith.” These technical details, however, turn out to be crucial. For what we do not yet learn is that consciousness does not and cannot experience itself as it experiences Others. Nor can it objectify itself, even if only in a quasi manner, unless it has previously been objectified by Others. As Sartre argues nearly three hundred pages into Being and Nothingness, I cannot be an object for myself…and when I naively assume that it is possible for me to be an objective being without being responsible for it, I thereby implicitly suppose the Other’s existence; for how could I be an object if not for a subject. Thus, for me the Other is first the being through whom I gain my objectness. If I am to be able to conceive of even one of my properties in the objective mode, then the Other is already given (BN 270, EN 329).

Only rather late in the text does Sartre makes the direct connection between intersubjectivity and bad faith explicit: “the consciousness of bad faith which has for its ideal a self-judgment—

252

Matthew C. Eshleman

i.e., taking toward oneself the point of view of the Other” (BN 528, EN 611). So far so good, however, even if all of this is correct, one might still wonder just how necessary it is to draw on later portions of the text in order to decipher bad faith. How does the objectifying gaze help us to make sense of out bad faith and in a way that cannot be appreciated by reading the chapter “Bad Faith” alone? If the Other’s objectifying gaze merely made self-objectification possible, drawing on later portions of text would be unnecessary. The objectifying gaze, however, results in something of much greater consequence, namely it essentially modifies my structure. This “essential modification,” in turn, requires rather significant revision to Sartre’s account of being-for-itself and freedom and these revisions are fundamental to making coherent sense out of bad faith. The Role Others play in Bad Faith Sartre’s well-known example of someone caught in the act of surreptitiously spying through a keyhole (BN 259, 317) marks a fundamental turning point in Being and Nothingness. “Moved by jealously,” of my ex-lover, I resort to spying on her through a keyhole, however, “all of the sudden I hear footsteps in the hall. Someone is looking at me! What does this mean? It means that I am suddenly affected in my being and that essential modifications [modifications essentielles] appear in my structure” (BN 260, EN 318, emphasis added). Notice that this claim about essential modifications in my structure should be quite puzzling, since, to this point in the text, my being has been considered totally unaffected by anything except my consciousness (BN lv, EN 22).20 This point can hardly be understated. Sartre’s analysis demands considerable revision of what has gone before. As Sartre explains, “so long as we considered the for-itself in isolation, we were able to maintain that the unreflective consciousness can not be inhabited by a self... But here the self comes to haunt the unreflective

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

253

consciousness” (BN 260, italics mine, EN 318).21 When Sartre says, “in isolation” he is referring to Parts I and II where he tacitly employed a methodological solipsism demanded by his Cartesian methodology, a point developed in more detail in the conclusion to this essay. Thus, the late introduction of the objectifying gaze leads Sartre to theorize the irruption of a self (what turns out to be my being-for-Others) at the level of prereflective consciousness. Consequently, strictly speaking, consciousness can be understood as non-egological only when considered solus ipse, that is, in abstraction. For this reason, Sartre admits, during Parts I and II, he was not talking about flesh and blood humans, because intersubjectivity is a necessary condition for being a “man” (BN 282, EN 342). In fact, Sartre’s most fundamental concept, namely being-for-itself, cannot be adequately understood in the first half of Being and Nothingness, because, as Sartre obscurely warns in Part I, “the presence of the for-itself as for-others is the necessary condition for the constitution of the for-itself as such” (BN 95, italics mine, EN 139). Only in Part III do we finally learn that the Other is “the necessary condition of all thought which I would attempt to form concerning myself ” (BN 271, EN 330). In light of these new considerations Sartre revises his account of subjectivity. Whereas Sartre initially considered being-for-itself to be pure possibility (BN 95-102, EN 139-147), and the ego to be solely self-constituted, Sartre now claims that I do not produce this self that modifies my structure (BN 261, EN 319). This leads to a new definition of the psychological self. As Sartre explains, “now we can grasp the nature of my Self as-object: it is the limit between two consciousnesses as it is produced by the limiting consciousness [i.e., the Other] and assumed by the limited consciousness” (BN 286, italics mine, EN 346). By definition this self is no longer simply (my) possibility since “we are dealing with my being as it is written in and by the Other’s freedom,” thus, “it is the limit of my freedom” (BN 262, EN 320, translation slightly modified).

254

Matthew C. Eshleman

Sartre eventually concludes, “something of myself—according to this new dimension—exists in the manner of the given; at least for me, since this being which I am is suffered” (BN 523-4, EN 606). Or to put matters more dramatically, “I am a slave to the degree that my being is dependent at the center of a freedom which is not mine and which is the very condition of my being. In so far as I am the object of values which come to qualify me without my being able to act on this qualification or even know it, I am enslaved” (BN 267, EN 326). Put one more way, the Other “moulds my being and makes me be, [the Other] confers values upon me and removes them from me; and my being receives from it a perpetual passive escape from self ” (BN 366, EN 433). It is this passivity that bad faith preys upon. When one believes in an objective set of characteristics that indirectly limit freedom, one is not altogether mistaken that one’s freedom really is limited. As Sartre eventually argues, Nevertheless, the Other’s existence brings a factual limit to my freedom. This is because of the fact that by means of the upsurge of the Other there appear certain determinations which I am without having chosen them. Here I am—Jew, or Aryan, handsome or ugly... Thus something of myself - according to this new dimension—exists in the manner of the given; at least for me, since this being which I am is suffered (BN 523-4).

The trick is to explain how, given that there is a sense in which one really is Jew or a waiter, in what sense does believing that one is a waiter a form of bad faith. To begin an answer this question, we must turn to Part IV. Interiorization and Objectifaction While social identities are enforced by Others, they also involve an active process that Sartre, very late in the text, calls “interiorization” (BN 509-531, EN 591-615).22 His discussion is quite difficult to follow for at least three notable reasons. First,

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

255

Sartre’s account of interiorization must not vitiate freedom. Others may mold our being, which we massage, as it were, into our projects, but we must appropriate this molding in a way that does not render us unfree. Consequently, Sartre performs a delicate dialectical balancing act between social determinism and freedom, and his analysis is not always perspicuous. Second, Sartre’s analysis moves entirely too quickly, is too short, and, therefore, does not provide sufficient detail. Third, and most importantly, Sartre’s analysis of interiorization is initially couched in terms of understanding techniques for appropriating the world (BN 512, EN 594). Thus, at this point, his discussion neither appears to correlate to his earlier discussion of the gaze in Part III nor to the slightly later discussion of interiorization. Sartre eventually identifies appropriation with interiorization (BN 523, EN 605-6) and, consequently, one must go back and reread the discussion of techniques of appropriation in light of interiorization. Interspersed in Sartre’s discussion are three issues relevant to understanding bad faith: (a) interiorization, (b) activity, and (c) and non-cognitivism. Inescapability. Sartre sometimes calls objectification enslavement; however, he more generally calls it alienation, in the sense that “I am something which I have not chosen to be” (BN 524, EN 607). Sartre argues that this alienation is inescapable (BN 525-26, EN 608-9), so that “I am not able not to assume [my being-for-Others]” (BN 529, EN 612). One must always strive towards being someone, where the being towards whom one strives is necessarily socially prescribed, e.g., a waiter. However, while one must interiorize some social identity, one never coincides with the social identity interiorized. In other words, social roles are not totalizing in, at least, the following two senses. First, each social role comes with some leeway in terms of how it is adopted (one can be proud of or embarrassed by being a waiter, one can work hard at doing one’s job or just get by). Second, while one cannot escape, barring suicide, from the ontological

256

Matthew C. Eshleman

necessity of having to be someone, particular social roles can be escaped.23 For this reason, Sartre calls them “unrealizables-to-berealized” insofar as one must actively adopt a stance towards how one interiorizes some role, without ever achieving (or being) it. Activity. As Sartre explains, “I do not limit myself to receiving passively the meaning ‘ugliness,’ ‘infirmity,’ ‘race,’ etc…they can appear only with a meaning which my freedom confers on them” (BN 528-9, EN 612). Consequently, social identity proves to be a hybrid being comprised of imposed practices and meanings, which then must be interpreted and enacted in one’s own idiosyncratic manner. Call this the freedom requirement of interiorization. Take, for instance, the social reality of my whiteness. I can ignore it, deny it, embrace it, over-value it, be critical of or embarrassed by it etc. (BN 524, 529, EN 606-7, 612). Incidentally, Stone argues that all “internalization” is inauthentic (SBRA 254). Since internalization is inevitable, he argues further that authenticity is unobtainable (SBFA 250, 253). This suggests that bad faith must also be unavoidable. While it seems to me that Stone’s interpretation here is mistaken, this issue cannot easily be resolved, largely because Sartre offers no sustained analysis of authenticity in Being and Nothingness.24 Nonetheless, a few speculative words may help to shed some initial light on my final account of bad faith. Sartre argues that one must adopt some attitude towards any particular unrealizable-to-be-realized identity (BN 529, EN 612). Two attitudes are, presumably, basic, namely inauthenticity and authenticity. Returning to my whiteness, although I cannot easily escape it (without taking rather extreme measures like suicide or perhaps skin pigmentation and or relocation to another culture lacking this racial designation), the practical inescapability of my whiteness does not necessitate accepting whiteness from the point of view of bad faith. I need not appropriate my whiteness either in a way that masquerades as a (deceptive) limit to my freedom (I cannot dance because I am white), or in

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

257

such a way that over-values my existence at the expense of Others (racism). It is the necessity to freely appropriate social identities that entails the possibility of complicity to social pressure. Ignoring or denying that complicity results in bad faith. I can deny (or more likely ignore) my active role in the maintenance of discriminatory racial identities (merely by existing my privileged white existence) in bad faith or presumably I can attempt to appropriate whiteness differently, in some non-discriminatory way. (c) Non-Cognitive. Putting things this way, however, is potentially misleading, for it is mistaken to maintain that this process is (primarily) cognitive. Strictly speaking, I can neither know my social identity (at least not in the same way that I know material objects) nor escape the existential necessity of appropriating some identity. My social identity is given to me only as a series of empty intentions, for which there can be no fulfilling intuitions. “Speech alone will inform me of what I am; again this will never be except as the object of an empty intention; any intuition of it is forever denied to me” (BN 524, EN 606). By “empty intention” Sartre borrows terminology from Husserl’s Logical Investigations. According to Husserl, empty intentions are meaningful propositions that await evidence—what Husserl calls a fulfilling intuition—that confirms or disconfirms the proposition in question. For instance, the proposition “there is heavy traffic downtown” is meaningful, but empty, unless one goes downtown and fulfills it with a sensory intuition of traffic (or, alternatively, fulfills it in the comfort of one’s own home with an imaginative intuition). So understood, one never has a fulfilling intuition of the empty intentions regarding one’s social identity. Consequently, access to one’s social identity is necessarily mediated by Others, through empty linguistic phrases. In fact, language is my being-for-Others, “that is, it is the fact that a subjectivity experiences itself as an object for the Other” (BN

258

Matthew C. Eshleman

372, EN 440). Although Sartre repeatedly employs visual metaphors when he talks about consciousness reflecting back upon itself and taking itself for an object, by the later portions of Being and Nothingness, it becomes clear that when we reflect upon ourselves we do not literally “see” anything. What we do is hold an internal monologue about ourselves. We employ language to form implicit analogies between Others and ourselves that allow us to tacitly conclude the objective qualities ascribed to Others also apply to us (BN 527, 610). Bad faith, then, is really a “natural” overconfidence in language, akin to Husserl’s natural attitude, which we use to intentionally mischaracterize ourselves. Hence, all first order claims to “know oneself ” are inherently enmeshed in bad faith. The Puzzle of Bad Faith Resolved? Even so, we may still wonder how bad faith operates and to what extent one recognizes the concealed truth of the situation? Three points should be recalled here. First, the epistemic elements of bad faith, in most cases, must be understood in terms of an indirect denial of freedom. Second, the indirection of bad faith does not entirely deny freedom; rather it involves an attempt to limit or tame freedom. Third, there is a genuine sense in which freedom is limited, just not in the way that people in bad faith believe. Take Sartre’s example of the first date. To be sure, as has been suggested, this example can be read in terms of Claudette’s (my name for the woman) employing a clever strategy to control her situation, in complete lucidity, in order to accomplish her own ends. She toys with Pierre (the postman), like a cat toys with a mouse.25 But remember that it is 1943. Suppose further, going beyond the text, that Claudette comes from a traditional Catholic upbringing, carries a rosary, and prays every morning. She has an existential “need” to protect her wholesome and chaste charac-

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

259

ter, which, in turn, limits her freedom. Thus, while, at the most immediate level, Claudette wishes to put off making a decision without undermining the charm of the evening, more fundamentally, she “cannot”give in too quickly to the Pierre’s sexual advances without forfeiting her social identity. Thus, Claudette’s “misinterpretation” of the Pierre’s sexual advances (as well intentioned) serve not only put off a decision, but also, and more importantly, it bolsters her social status of being a good Catholic.26 However, while Claudette’s belief in Catholicism “requires” that she does not capitulate to sexual advances on first dates, it does not necessitate it. When the candlelight catches Pierre’s handsome features just so, a counter-desire manifests in an ephemeral, reflective glimpse of her horrendous freedom: the dramatic, life-changing, sensual possibility of sleeping with him tonight is always possible. The breath taking awareness of this possibility motivates her bad faith. So she distracts herself from his hand and focuses on their conversation, which now turns to the recent declaration by Pope Pious XII that places Sartre’s dirty works in the Index.27 Does she not hope to convince Pierre of her chastity, as if this could safeguard herself against capitulation to his advances? But just what does Claudette conceal from herself, given that she must be non-thetically aware of her freedom to capitulate in the very effort to conceal it. To be sure, Claudette has a nonthetic awareness of freedom’s possibility that runs counter to the limits required by Catholicism. The tension between the two, however, results from indirection. She does not silently think, “I cannot have sex with Pierre.” Rather, she plunges headlong into their conversation, thereby distracting herself from her sexual possibilities. During their conversation she might focus on her Catholicism, attempting to reinforce it in Pierre’s mind. But suppose that Pierre feels the courage of wine to makes a pass: he leans in tight and kisses Claudette on the nape of her neck, whispering sweet desire into her ear. Unlike his taking her hand this cannot be so easily ignored. She flinches, pulls back, and in righteous

260

Matthew C. Eshleman

indignation exclaims, “Good Catholics do not have sex of first dates.” She is correct! Well almost. Beliefs held in bad faith must have some plausibility. Just as one cannot believe in a thoroughgoing psychological determinism, one cannot believe in limited freedom when freedom is absolute. However, Claudette can believe in her freedom-limiting social identity, because there is a genuine sense in which Otherconferred social identities do in fact limit her freedom. Her Catholic identity involves a set of social meanings that frame how she interprets the world and what others think about her. It also involves a set of rights (she can go to certain places that Jews cannot, she will be respected by certain people). Finally, it establishes the limits within which she must choose, with the important caveat, in order to remain Catholic. Thus, Claudette’s collusion with her socially reinforced Catholic identity does not provide the kind of limit she believes. She believes capitulation to Pierre’s advance is impossible. Of course, it is not and she senses this, for she could take pleasure in transgressing her Catholic identity or abandon Catholicism altogether. However, while the real limits of her social identity do not preclude acting contrary to its prescribed rules, the transgression of these limits comes with a heavy social cost. What will Others think if she gives in too easily? More importantly, how costly would this action be to her, insofar as it would require a fundamental alteration to her way of life?28 No matter how costly, however, she can sleep with Pierre. But bad faith ignores this ‘can’ and plays upon an equivocation between facticity and transcendence. She is simultaneously free and not free, just not in the way she wishes to believe.29 Social objectifications introduce a genuine element of passivity into her being, which allow her to badly believe in objective limits, while she must simultaneously comprehend that these limits must, nonetheless, be freely transcended. But just how clearly does she comprehend her self-imposed subterfuge?

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

261

Santoni correctly argues “in the strict sense of successfully and completely hiding a truth from oneself, within the unity of a single consciousness, ‘lying to oneself ’ is not possible for Sartre” (BGAS 42). This is, however, true by definition. Bad faith cannot involve a complete hiding; otherwise it would require an unconscious. Nor can it involve full-blown, thematized awareness of both the intention to deceive and its “hidden object.” What makes Sartre’s analysis difficult to parse, in part, regards the fact that non-thetic awareness (of the freedom to transgress her social identity) can neither be awareness in the thematic, reflective sense of awareness nor can it be unconscious. Sartre’s analysis of bad faith operates in a non-cognitive space in between opacity and lucidity, a point made clear when Sartre replaces Freud’s notion of the unconscious with bad faith (BN 461, 463). Consequently, Santoni’s claim that there is a sense in which bad faith is a kind of cynical lie is misleading (BGAS 48). Ideal cynical lies (to Others) require not only thematic knowledge of both the concealed truth and the direct intention to conceal it, but also, and more importantly, a positive “inner disposition” [disposition intime] (BN 48, EN 85). By positive inner disposition, Sartre means that it would be true, in an unambiguous way, to say that the liar’s secret intention is to lie. In contrast, bad faith involves neither thematic-knowledge (or belief ) of the concealed truth nor thematic awareness of the intention to conceal it. Further, unlike the cynical liar whose secret intention is unambiguously to lie, the intentions of bad faith are necessarily ambiguous. She asserts her Catholicism to deny his advances and she denies his advances in order to assert her integrity. Now suppose that Pierre challenges Claudette’s assertion that her Catholicism bars capitulation to his desire for sexual adventure. When Pierre directly points out that Catholicism does not necessitate her self-denial of pleasure, she stairs at him straight in the eyes and exclaims, “yes, you are right, I choose not to sleep

262

Matthew C. Eshleman

with such a pimp!” She is no longer in bad faith about herself. She has now counter-objectified Pierre. If it still seems puzzling how someone can entertain contradictory attitudes towards oneself, it should be noted that, at the outset of the Chapter “Bad Faith,” Sartre poses the phenomena of bad faith in terms of a regressive question: “What must be the being of man if he is to be capable of bad faith” (BN 55, see also 45, EN 94, 83)? Sartre has already elaborated upon bad faith in the preceding chapter, discussed in Part I of this essay. So understood, Sartre assumes the reality of bad faith and works his way backwards towards a regressive conclusion about human reality. The issue is not that bad faith seems paradoxical and defies explanation. Rather, Sartre analyzes bad faith in order to reveal something peculiar about human reality, namely that human reality is paradoxical (read ambiguous), and, in some sense, defies explanation. Hence, his well-known regressive conclusion: “The condition of the possibility for bad faith is that human reality, in its most immediate being … must be what it is not and not be what it is” (BN 67, EN 108). Only an ambiguous being can affect itself with bad faith, and, thereby, maintain contradictory, freedom-limiting beliefs about itself. As someone once said, professional philosophers have a fantasy that whenever anyone thinks a contradiction their head would explode.30 If this were true, in Sartre’s view, at least most, probably all human bodies would be headless. It is difficult to deny that we often entertain contradictory attitudes and beliefs about ourselves. A brief perusal of the literature on cognitive dissonance sufficiently establishes this point. While philosophers typically interrogate phenomenon like this solely in epistemic terms, Sartre’s analysis not only includes important epistemic elements, but it also reveals that the roots of this issue are existential and indicate something about our ambiguous being.

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

263

Conclusion: Reading Being and Nothingness in Reverse Bad faith cannot be adequately understood until after having read the entirety of Being and Nothingness. Only after reaching this text’s conclusion, can one can return to the Chapter “Bad Faith” and untangle its complexities. This is so, because bad faith is ineluctably an intersubjective, social phenomenon. Sartre, however, does not formally analyze intersubjectivity until quite late in the text. Incidentally, Stone is mistaken when he concludes his essay by arguing “Sartre, by reducing this social context to a mere occasion for an antecedent project of bad faith … overlooks the inherently social aspects of bad faith” (SBFA 246). Sartre does not overlook the inherently social aspects of bad faith. To the contrary, Sartre clearly recognizes that social elements play a necessary role in making bad faith possible. Bad faith comprises a dramatic game, necessarily played with Others, which cannot be won, though the perpetual losing provides a satisfying obfuscation. The point here, however, is that the requirement to reread the chapter “Bad Faith” after having closely read whole text arises in light of Sartre’s Cartesian methodology. Sartre’s analysis moves from the simple and abstract to the complex and concrete, i.e., from the mere being of consciousness (BN xlv-lxvii), to solipsistic consciousness (BN 3-218), to disembodied intersubjectivity (BN 221-302), to embodiment (BN 303-359) and finally to embodied, intersubjectivity in concrete social situations. This incrementally, additive process requires significant revision to claims made earlier in the text. Consequently, Sartre’s primary concepts—being-for-itself, being-in-itself, freedom, anxiety, bad faith etc.—look very different at the end of the text when compared to its beginning. If correct, exegesis of these terms must carefully track the gradual changes in meaning as Sartre’s analysis becomes increasingly complex. So understood, the chapter “Bad Faith” is methodologically misplaced for the following reasons. First, the primary function of

264

Matthew C. Eshleman

the chapter establishes the regressive conclusion that human reality is what it is not and is not what it is. However, Sartre has already sketched this ambiguity in the preface and established bad faith. Sartre could easily have elaborated on the ambiguity (in ontological terms) in “The Immediate Structures of the For-Itself” and (in temporal terms) in “Temporality.” Second, bad faith, with all of its uncertain moral implications, is primarily a psychological phenomenon rooted in a social world. It would have made sense had Sartre given his most sustained analysis of bad faith in the chapter on existential psychoanalysis. After all, Sartre intends this notion to replace Freud’s unconscious. Endnotes 1. This essay was first published in Sartre Studies International, Vol. 14, No. 2, (2008), along with a long critical response from Ronald Santoni (“Is Bad Faith Necessarily Social?”). Without Professor Santoni’s excellent work on bad faith, I would never have been able to write this essay. And it is an honor to have his critical acumen turned towards my essay. In that same volume, I have a short response to Santoni (“Bad Faith is Necessarily Social!”) that clarifies a few points and argues a stronger thesis, namely that all forms of bad faith are necessarily social. My thesis, here, in the original essay, is somewhat weaker: only certain forms of (self-objectifying) bad faith are necessarily social and that an adequate understanding of these forms of bad faith requires that one take Parts III and IV of Being and Nothingness into close consideration. That being said, I have left this essay unrevised, which is not to say that it would not have benefit from taking Professor Santoni’s critical analysis into consideration. It would so benefit; however, revising it would also have required too many strucutural changes and my response to his well-taken critique can be found in the aforementioned volume. All citations are given to both English and French editions of Being and Nothingness. English quotes come from the Philosophical Library (New York, 1956) edition (and not the 1966/84 editions), and are cited BN followed by the page number. With regards to the French, in

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

265

a few cases, I give slightly altered translations to those of Hazel Barnes’. Citations to the French follow the English citation and refer to the Gallimard edition, NRF, (1971), indicated by EN and a page number. 2. The secondary literature on bad faith is enormous. For examples of straightforward, analytic treatments of bad faith see Gregory McCulloch’s Using Sartre, (London: Routledge, 1994) and Michael Hymers’ “Bad Faith,” in Philosophy 64 (1989): 397-402. For more continentally sympathetic treatments, see Phylis Sutton Morris’ “Self-deception: Sartre’s Resolution of the Paradox” in Jean-Paul Sartre: Contemporary Approaches to his Philosophy, ed. H. Silverman and F. Elliston (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1980): 30-49. See also Joseph Catalano’s collection of essays Good Faith and other Essays (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). Ronald Santoni’s book length treatment Bad Faith, Good Faith, And Authenticity in Sartre’s Early Philosophy (Philidelphia: Temple University Press, 1995) also deserves special mention. 3. McCulloch op. cit. rejects Sartre’s notion as incoherent. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty misreads Sartre as claiming that it is logically impossible not to be in bad faith. See her “Belief and Self-Deception,” Inquiry 15 (1972): 399. That bad faith comes in degrees, see Josephe Catalano’s “Good and Bad Faith: Weak and Strong Notions” (op. cit.). Lewis Gordon offers an interesting analysis of racism that employs bad faith; see his Bad Faith and Anti-Black Racism, (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1989). 4. See for example Anthony Manser’s essay “A New Look at Bad Faith,” in Sartre: An Investigation of some Major Themes, ed. Simon Glynn, (Aldershot: Avenbury, 1987), 55-70. 5. For an especially egregious example of a poor analysis of bad faith that make no textual references beyond the chapter “Bad Faith”, in fact, one that seems only to comment on a single paragraph, see D. Z. Phillips’s “Bad Faith and Sartre’s Waiter,” in Philosophy 56 (1981): 23-31. Although the ensuing discussion pieces by Leslie Stevenson, Philosophy 58 (1983), R. F. Khan’s Philosophy 59 (1984), and Jeffery Gordon Philosophy 60 (1985) offer a few correctives to Phillip’s myopia, none of these authors venture much outside the chapter. 6. Simone de Beauvoir claims, “Being and Nothingness is in large part a description of the serious man and his universe” in The Ethics of Ambiguity, 46. For a similar claim see also Christina Howell’s book,

266

Matthew C. Eshleman

Sartre: The Necessity of Freedom, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 14-26, esp. 16. 7. One noteworthy exception to the trend in narrowly focusing solely on the Chapter “Bad Faith” includes a few essays by Joseph Catalano, especially “Successfully Lying to Oneself: A Sartrean Perspective,” Good Faith and Other Essays, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 127-149. In that work, Catalano claims that the full significance of bad faith cannot be fully developed without an examination of Chapter 2 of Part IV on existential psychoanalysis. While Catalano admits that specific manifestations of bad faith are determined by social conditions, he does not develop this point. Nor does he explain the technical role of how Others are necessary for bad faith, a point I will discuss below. 8. I say “many varieties,” because instances of bad faith cover an extremely wide range of phenomena, especially if one includes examples from later portions of the text. Sartre gives as examples of bad faith: being a waiter, denying one is homosexual, a frigid woman (who denies experiencing pleasure but gives objective signs of such experience), a first date (where a woman misinterprets the intentions of a man), attributing sadness to oneself, attributing courage to oneself, various forms of love, all acts of voluntary deliberation, the unwillingness to admit one is wrong, the attribution of any objective quality, psychological trait, social identity (or function) to oneself, an inferiority complexe, and all projects premised on the desire to be God. Needless to say, Sartre’s examples of bad faith differ considerably, so much so, one may well wonder whether the term ‘bad faith’ is over burdened. That said, Sartre analyzes bad faith along three main lines. The first (arguably predominant) line concerns various forms of self-objectification or the attitude of seriousness. The second line analyzes epistemic issues involved in accepting beliefs on inadequate evidence. The third somewhat less frequent line concerns normative questions like belief in objective values or rights. Sometimes the first two lines overlap. All cases of self-objectification involve epistemic issues. However, all of the epistemic cases do not seem to require an act of self-objectification for them to be possible, at least not directly. This essay primarily concerns only the first line. 9. Sartre does not adequately analyze social pressures that imprison us and this makes his analysis of bad faith rather lopsided. The bulk of

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

267

Sartre’s analysis of this kind of bad faith is from the first person point of view, namely how I take attitudes in bad faith towards myself that are complicit with social pressure to imprison me in my role). Sartre rarely considers how the bad faith of Others plays an integral role in social pressure, nor does Sartre analyze the fact that social pressures do not weigh equally on all people. 10. See Stone’ s essay, “Sartre on Bad Faith and Authenticity”, in The Philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre, ed. Paul Author Schilpp, (La Salle: Open Court, 1981), 246-56, (hereafter cited SBFA). Phyllis Sutton Morris briefly explores self-deception in relationship to others, see her essay “Self-deception: Sartre’s Resolution of the Paradox”, in Jean-Paul Sartre, ed. Silverman, Hugh & Elliston, Frederick, (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1980), 36-7. 11. Sartre argues, “So long as we considered the for-itself in its isolation, we were able to maintain that the unreflective consciousness cannot be inhabited by a self; the self was given in the form of an object only for the reflective consciousness. But here the self comes to haunt the unreflective consciousness.” See my “Two Dogmas of Sartrean Existentialism” in Philosophy Today, Volume 46, Issue 5, (2002) for an account of this revision. 12. For helpful but not altogether satisfying analyses of Sartre’s critique of Freud, see Lee Brown and Alan Hausman’s “Mechanism, Intentionality, and Unconscious: A Comparison of Sartre and Freud” and Ivan Soll’s “Sartre’s Rejection of the Freudian Unconscious”, both of which can be found in The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre: The Library of Living Philosophers Volume XVI, ed. Paul Schilpp, (LaSalle: Open Court, 1981). While Sartre is generally believed to reject the unconscious outright, such an analysis oversimplifies matters. Sartre accepts an unconscious in The Transcendence of the Ego. What he rejects, as early as The Transcendence of the Ego, are mechanistic models of mind that are used to account for psychic blindness. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre’s rejection of the unconscious should be read in a similar fashion, as the rejection of a philosophically untenable, materialist account of mind, even if the position Sartre attacks is an oversimplification. Notice, however, that Sartre does not merely reject Freud. He borrows considerably from Freud, and offers what Sartre takes to be a more adequate account of psychic blindness. Bad faith plays a key role in this account, a role that cannot be appreciated until rather late in the

268

Matthew C. Eshleman

text—see for example BN 461 and 463. While I cannot here develop how bad faith replaces Freud’s account of the unconscious, this issue awaits a capable expositor. 13. Op. cit. 42. Of course, if such complete hiding of a truth were possible, it would not, by definition, be bad faith. This issue returns towards the end of this essay. 14. Santoni’s extremely close textual analysis of bad faith occurs primarily in the first three chapters of his book. However, in these chapters, the majority of his references are to the chapter “Bad Faith,” with only a few references to Part II and no references to either Part III or IV. 15. See for example Joseph Catalano’s treatment of this point in Good Faith and Other Essays, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 127. 16. Sartre gives a second, separate but related account of anguish that suggests anguish involves more than the mere recognition of the ever-present possibility of radically revising one’s character/social-identity. According to Sartre, since I am the source of all value (BN 38, EN 75-76) and meaning (BN 40, EN 77), “nothing, absolutely nothing justifies me in adopting this or that particular value” (BN 38, EN: 76). Thus, the (reflective) awareness of freedom includes awareness of open future but it also includes an awareness of the radical subjectivity of value. So understood, the (reflective) apprehension of freedom provokes anguish for two separate but related reasons: (1) recognition of freedom confronts one with an indeterminate future that always includes the possibility of radical life revisions, where (2) such revisions are made without any justification that warrants one choice being more justified than any other. 17. Sartre only mentions distraction a couple of times in the Chapter “Bad Faith”; however, it seems to me that it plays a more important role in bad faith than generally indicated in the secondary literature. Adrian Mirvish proves to be a notable exception. He offers an excellent account of how distraction operates using Gestalt delineations, though he couches his discussion in terms of ignoring, as opposed to distracting. See his essay, “Good Faith, Bad Faith, and the Faith of Faith,” in Sartre Alive, ed. Ronald Aronson and Adrian van den Hoven, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 301-323. 18. It is worth noting here that in the first half of Being and Nothingness Sartre’s account of anguish makes it sound like anyone, at any moment, can make choices that are dramatically out of character. This

The Misplaced Chapter on Bad Faith

269

turns out to be true but only in an importantly qualified sense. In Part IV, Chapter One, Sartre claims that one could always have done otherwise than one in fact did do, but that the more interesting question is at “what price” (BN 453-4). He then argues that not all actions are equally easy to perform, since some actions require greater revision to the organic totality of one’s projects than others. (This is an important existential insight rarely discussed in the secondary literature). Consequently, enacting dramatic life changing possibilities is very costly, existentially speaking. A future task involves clarifying what precisely existential cost means. 19. For an interesting discussion of emanation, see Sartre’s The Transcendence of the Ego, (New York: Noonday Press, 1957), translated by F. Williams and R. Kirkpatrick, where Sartre anticipates bad faith in his various discussions of magical thinking. 20. See The Transcendence of the Ego, op. cit. 39 where Sartre claims “consciousness…can be limited only by itself.” 21. Sartre equivocates in his use of language when it comes to his treatment of this ‘essential modification’. Sometimes he calls it a ‘self ’, ‘Ego’, ‘Self-as-object’ (BN 260-268), Me and Me-as-Object (BN 285), and character (349-50). Sartre settles on calling it my being-for-others (BN 286), which eventually becomes an unrealizable-to-be-realized (BN 527-29). Some of these changes can be accounted for in light of Sartre’s Cartesian method, discussed below. 22. Stone claims that Sartre “virtually drops the whole thematic of bad-faith-as-internalized-negation at this point and concentrates on its infraconscious machinations” (SBFA 247). Whereas Stone seems to be referring solely to the Chapter “Bad Faith” with this remark, Sartre’s analysis of interiorizaiton does not take place until quite late in the text. Stone does not discuss, mention, or quote any of the passages where Sartre analyzes interiorization. 23. There are a couple of complicating issues Sartre does not really address here. First, some social roles like being waiter are, at least for some, relatively easily traded for some other role; whereas social identities like being a white man are much more difficult to escape. Escape from whiteness would require quite radical actions: suicide, or perhaps skin pigmentation and or relocating to a different culture. Second, Sartre fails to develop the point that some social roles are enforced with much greater social pressure, such that acting contrary to social roles

270

Matthew C. Eshleman

will be more costly for some than others. These lines cannot be pursued in detail, though a few remarks follow in the conclusion. 24. The best account of authenticity can be found in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity where she offers a series or necessary and sufficient requirements. See my forthcoming, “A Call for a Change in Tactics: Beauvoir, Sartre, and the Fate of Existentialism or Beauvoir and Sartre on Freedom, Intersubjectivity, and Normative Justification,” in Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of Influence, ed. Christine Daigle and Jacob Golomb, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008) 25. To be sure, a complete analysis must take Pierre’s bad faith into consideration: how he views Claudette as a sex object, as an absolute Other, and how he tacitly defines himself as superior in relationship to women in general. 26. In fact, her Catholic project conditions her interpretive framework and facilitates her (bad) belief that the Pierre’s intentions are pure. For a suggestion one how interpretations might be conditioned by our social identity, see BN 328: EN 392-3. 27. A bit of literary license is taken here. Sartre’s works were not put in the Index until 1948, at which point, Catholics caught reading any of Sartre’s works were to be excommunicated. 28. The social-existential cost of acting contrary to socially prescribed roles is more complicated than I am here making it out to be. Sartre never adequately analyzes the social cost of actions and his analysis of existential cost is too brief (BN 453-4). The later regards the fact that not all actions are equally easy to perform. Some actions require a much greater revision to the organic totality of one’s projects, e.g., someone raised in a progressive environment will find it easier to engage in premarital sex; whereas, although Catholic woman can have premarital sex, even on first dates, doing so is existentially more costly. 29. Sartre eventually argues that my-being-for others that results from social objectification is “ultimately not a head-on obstacle which freedom encounters but a sort of centrifugal force in the very nature of freedom, a weakness in the basic ‘stuff’ of freedom which causes everything which it undertakes to have always one face which freedom will not have chosen, which escapes it and which for the Other will be pure existence” (BN 526). 30. I cannot remember whom, perhaps it was Robert Nozick.

12 On The Life That is “Never Simply Mine”: Anonymity and Alterity in MerleauPonty and Irigaray1 Emma R. Jones

University of Oregon Merleau-Ponty Circle [email protected] ABSTRACT: In this paper, I suggest that Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of anonymity in the Phenomenology of Perception bears a strong resemblance to Luce Irigaray’s discussions of the elemental. I argue that reading these two accounts together helps to counter some of the critiques waged by feminists against the language of anonymity, because anonymity—like the elemental—does not in fact function as a positive substratum that would shore up sameness and prevent the rupture of difference. Instead, anonymity names the way in which the subject is always already disrupted by its encounter with and belonging-to the natural world.

Merleau-Ponty’s invocations of an “anonymous” level of life and an “anonymous” body, both in his Phenomenology of Perception and in later works, have spawned much dialogue and criticism among feminist scholars. At the heart of these discussions lie concerns about commonality and difference. For example, is a theory of human communication or commonality that is based upon a conception of bodily “anonymity” sufficiently able to account for sexual, racial, or cultural differences between people, which may themselves occur at the level of bodily comportment? Does Merleau-Ponty’s assumption of an underlying bodily commonality betray an unwillingness to think through difference as primary and crucial?2 Is Merleau-Ponty’s “anonymous” body-subject, in other words, just another way of theorizing the self-same PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

272

Emma R. Jones

masculine subject of philosophy, without allowing for a true encounter with alterity? On the other hand, we might wonder exactly how we are to achieve any kind of empathy or “solidarity” without theorizing some commonality between people. What does it mean to theorize difference as radical and primary? And does this move prevent us from adequately understanding the complex interplay of connection and rupture, sameness and difference, that occurs in the course of any human communication?3 It seems that the discourse of “anonymity” rests squarely in the center of these debates, serving as a fulcrum around which feminist scholars (and others) voice their concerns about identity and difference, about the possibility or impossibility of communication, and about the ethical consequences of the language of anonymity itself. But what exactly is anonymity? What does Merleau-Ponty’s “anonymous body” mean? My contribution to this dialogue begins with these questions. What if, indeed, anonymity itself were a concept that could help us mediate between identity and difference, sameness and otherness? In this paper I suggest that Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of anonymity in the Phenomenology of Perception bears a strong resemblance to Luce Irigaray’s recent discussions of the elemental—and of breath or air in particular. I argue that reading these two accounts together helps to counter some of the critiques waged by feminists (including Irigaray herself ) against the language of anonymity, because anonymity—like the elemental—does not in fact function as a positive substratum that would shore up sameness and prevent the rupture of difference. Instead, I believe anonymity names the way in which the subject is always already disrupted by its encounter with and belonging-to the natural world; and, furthermore, this constitutive disruption is shared by all body-subjects. Thus, as we will see, anonymity does name something shared, but what is shared is precisely the encounter with difference itself.

On The Life That is “Never Simply Mine”

273

The Language of Anonymity Shannon Sullivan, in her article “Domination and Dialogue in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception,”4 subjects Merleau-Ponty to a scathing critique focused on the notion of anonymity. Sullivan understands anonymity very broadly, arguing that Merleau-Ponty theorizes the body in general as “an anonymous body that has no particularity—such as that provided by gender, sexuality, class, race, culture, nationality, individual experience and upbringing and more.”5 She writes that MerleauPonty bases his theory of intersubjectivity on the assumption of a “neutral” and anonymous body that “guarantees an intersubjective world”6 by virtue of the fact that I can recognize similar structures of intentionality between my body and the body of another. Such a version of intersubjectivity, Sullivan argues, devolves into a monologue between the subject and himself, as the “anonymous” (white male) body ends up simply projecting onto the behavior of the other an assumption of sameness where sameness might not actually be found. Sullivan offers an example of a dialogue between two subjects—a male friend and Sullivan herself—where each misinterprets the bodily gestures of the other based on assumptions gathered from the subject’s own bodily habits. She then goes on to offer an alternative model of intersubjective communication, upon which one offers possible interpretations of a situation as “hypotheses” to be confirmed or disconfirmed in dialogue with the other. She writes that “[r] ather than try to discover the familiar in another, we need to first make what seems familiar to us strange.”7 But is this a fair reading of how bodily anonymity actually functions in Phenomenology of Perception? Sullivan makes two assumptions in particular here that seem to me unfounded: she takes anonymity to function as a would-be “guarantee” of intersubjective communication, and she understands “the anonymous body” as a body stripped of all particular characteristics, and hence as “neutral.” Since “neutrality,” however, is usually coded as white

274

Emma R. Jones

and male, Sullivan concludes that the “connection” supposedly discovered between subjects on the basis of their bodily anonymity is actually more often a projection onto another of a privileged subject’s own projects and self-understanding. But is MerleauPonty’s suggestion that the anonymous body is “pre-personal”— indeed, a “prepersonal [sic] cleaving to the general form of the world”8—the same as the suggestion that it is “neutral?” Are we speaking here about a suspiciously “neutral” subject or universal human body without specificity? What exactly does “pre-personal” or ‘impersonal” mean in this context? To understand this it is helpful to turn to Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the body as an “inborn complex” in his chapter on “The Body as Object and Mechanistic Physiology.” MerleauPonty says the following: There appears round our personal existence a margin of almost impersonal existence. . .which I rely on to keep me alive; round the human world each of us has made for himself [sic] is a world in general terms to which one must first of all belong in order to be able to enclose oneself in the particular context of a love or an ambition. . . . [M]y organism. . .plays. . .the part of an inborn complex.9

Merleau-Ponty here calls the anonymous body a “complex” because he sees its repetitive temporality as similar to that of a neurosis: pre-personal time is cyclical and underlies all of our projective strivings. We also see in this quote that “anonymity,” or “impersonal” existence, rather than naming a set of supposedly neutralized or universal bodily characteristics, merely names the level of those bodily functions that are not specifically “human.” If the human world is the world in which we say “I,” then the prepersonal is the indefinite singular-plural pronoun “on.” This level consists in involuntary bodily functions “which I rely on to keep me alive”—it names the impersonal connection between my organism and the world that first makes possible my personal existence, with its various projects and ambitions. This does not mean

On The Life That is “Never Simply Mine”

275

that we don’t imbue natural bodily functions with “human”—and thus culturally specific—meanings, but rather that it is these very impersonal and automatic functions that allow for this personalization in the first place. Indeed, “[p]ersonal existence is intermittent”10: it emerges occasionally from this cyclical movement of bodily impersonality that enables me to engage with the world in a “human” fashion. The “anonymous body,” then, is not a neutral human body. As Ann Murphy points out, it does not name a kind of “universal affectivity.”11 It is not even a name for the body itself, but for the very process of “cleaving” to the world. Merleau-Ponty clearly states: “It is not some kind of inert thing; it too has something of the momentum of existence.”12 Thus, contra Sullivan, the “anonymous” body cannot be thought of as some kind of self-enclosed entity that each person would possess—some set of assumptions about how every body engages the world. The anonymous names rather that level of life at which the differentiation between the world and the body-subject is not yet effected once and for all. Though Merleau-Ponty does not indeed discuss how sexual or cultural differences might inflect the way these anonymous processes are carried out, this does not invalidate the notion that there is in fact something—some bodily and worldly process—that precedes and enables my individuated viewpoint, and is in this sense “pre-personal.” The “anonymous” cannot be a projection of the personal body-subject onto the world, because it is precisely that relationship which enables the self-givenness of the personal, “Isaying” subject. But might not Sullivan reply that to situate anonymity as the condition of the emergence of specificity or difference is to situate sameness before difference and so to erase alterity? I would respond that this criticism would only hold up if the “anonymous” could indeed be shown to be a positive substratum—something substantial, that, as Sullivan claims “is able to be the backdrop that ensures communication.”13 But for Merleau-Ponty the anonymous is not a positive “backdrop” or substance. The anonymous

276

Emma R. Jones

names that which is precisely disruptive of sameness to the extent that we would align sameness with the self-enclosed interiority of a subject. Take, for example, Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of sleep, which appears several times throughout Phenomenology of Perception as a prime case of “anonymity.” Merleau-Ponty writes: “I am breathing deeply and slowly in order to summon sleep, and suddenly it is as if my mouth were connected to some great lung outside myself which alternately calls forth and forces back my breath.”14 Sleep cuts across the particular, human world of the body-subject and the impersonal, “outside” force of life or nature that moves within and enables the very being of the particular subject. Sleep as anonymous, then, is simultaneously internal and external—it inhabits and yet exceeds even our very bodies. Thus, Sullivan is incorrect in assuming that the body itself simply equals anonymity for Merleau-Ponty: in fact, both the “anonymous” and the “personal” are levels of the body-subject. And further, the “anonymous” disrupts rather than ensures any sense of unity we might have had, since it precisely shows how the body-subject itself is not self-sufficient but requires a kind of open-ended collaboration with the world in order to exist and persist at all. Thus, as Silvia Stöller notes in her reply to Sullivan, MerleauPonty’s account of perception itself (as this “prepersonal [sic] cleaving to the general form of the world”) leads to “a double noncoincidence, i.e., also a double difference: one in relation to the other and one in relation to myself.”15 As Merleau-Ponty puts it: “Between my sensation and myself there stands always the thickness of some primal acquisition which prevents my experience from being clear of itself.”16 My very implication in the physical world by way of perception and by way of my ongoing bodily processes prevents me from coinciding even with my self: this suggests that anonymity names a condition of both differentiation and sameness, and not, as Sullivan would have it, an “original wholeness that precedes our individuation.”17 Indeed, anonymity cannot be an “original wholeness” if it is precisely what prevents total clarity and self-presence. Stöller mentions in a footnote that

On The Life That is “Never Simply Mine”

277

the term “indifference,” both in English and German, “can also mean a state of being not yet differentiated. . .a not yet realized difference.”18 Perhaps in trying to think through both anonymity and Irigaray’s elemental air as figures of indifference—processes or undergoings that are at once disruptive and unifying in that they hold in tension the possibility of sameness and differentiation— we will better come to see how anonymity functions to enable our personal being as well as our communication and commiseration with others—without, for all that, securing or “insuring” it. Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray Air is a crucial figure for Irigaray’s more recent writings, because it enables human life and speech, while at the same time exceeding these phenomena. The task of cultivating our relationship to air, or breath, has become a primary ethical task for Irigaray, insofar as air is precisely what mediates between internal and external, sameness and otherness. In The Way of Love, Irigaray discusses the role of air in the task of a new kind of ethical dialogue between two sexually different subjects. The air, in this case, preserves the space between different subjects, while simultaneously allowing them to communicate. Further, in her short essays, “The Age of the Breath” and “From The Forgetting of Air to To Be Two,”19 Irigaray speaks about breath as a guarantee of autonomy, a figure of independence even as it is a figure of dependence. Thus, bringing these discourses to bear on the debate about Merleau-Ponty’s language of “anonymity” is crucial, insofar as it opens up the possibility that anonymity can be thought as a kind of ethical figure—again, however, without being thought as a sufficient condition for ethical treatment of others or for successful intersubjective communication. Irigaray herself does not perceive the relation between her own work and Merleau-Ponty’s to be unproblematic. She critiques Merleau-Ponty in An Ethics of Sexual Difference for what she sees as a narcissistic element in his ontology of the flesh (in particular,

278

Emma R. Jones

in the chapter of The Visible and the Invisible titled, “The Intertwining—the Chiasm”). However, some commenters have noted that Irigaray’s thought is not straightforwardly “critical” of Merleau-Ponty’s, insofar as she shares some of his most fundamental assumptions. Judith Butler describes their relationship in a particularly nuanced fashion. For example, Butler points out the way in which Irigaray is already dependent upon Merleau-Ponty’s articulation of the embodied subject: Hence, for Merleau-Ponty, the embodied status of the ‘I’ is precisely that which implicates the ‘I’ in a fleshly world outside of itself, that is, in a world in which the ‘I’ is no longer its own center or ground...only upon the condition of this philosophical move. . .does Irigaray’s intervention become possible.20

Butler’s aim is to show the extent to which Irigaray’s own thinking is “intertwined” with Merleau-Ponty’s, and, through this, to suggest ways in which the notion of “implication” does not necessarily erase the alterity of particular beings or subjects. Irigaray herself, due to her philosophical method, is fully “implicated” in Merleau-Ponty while at the same time differentiating her ideas from his and opening up a space of otherness at the heart of his text itself. Indeed, “[h]is text is disclosed as having her text intertwined within his terms, at which point his text is centered outside itself, implicated in what it excludes, and her text is nothing without his, radically dependent on that which it refuses.”21 This suggestion of the non-coincidence of the terms “implication” and “sameness” ironically points to the way in which Irigaray perhaps fails to take into account the fact that if the body-subject for Merleau-Ponty is “implicated” in the world by way of its undergoing of “anonymous” processes, this does not necessarily enclose Merleau-Ponty in a solipsistic universe where the world is only a projected version of the subject who always fails to think the material/ maternal as its enabling condition. Butler highlights this nicely by pointing out the way in which the “I” becomes “no longer its own center or ground,” when it recognizes that it is constitutively

On The Life That is “Never Simply Mine”

279

subject to the undergoing of anonymous processes or of what Irigaray would call the elemental. Thus, despite Irigaray’s critique, I find that the two accounts have more in common than not. The Remembering of the Air as a Locus of Ethics There are several reasons why air becomes the privileged locus of Irigaray’s ethical and spiritual thinking. As I have already suggested, the first and perhaps most important seems to be that air belongs to the world itself and thus “neither to the one [subject] nor the other.”22 Thus it constitutes what Irigaray calls the “inappropriable,” which is exactly that to which we must cultivate a relation in a culture where masculine subjects have unfailingly appropriated the otherness, not only of sexually different subjects, but also of materiality itself, and subjugated it to their own master discourses. In The Way of Love Irigaray writes: “Air is what is left common between subjects living in different worlds. It is the elemental of the universe, of the life starting from which it is possible to elaborate the transcendental.”23 Here we see clearly that air at once allows for connection and respects alterity. The subjects are said to reside “in different worlds,” but nevertheless they are able to communicate because the words of each are sustained by “the elemental of the universe.” In remembering that our words always proceed from a place of silence and a substratum of physicality, Irigaray suggests that we can cultivate a respect for differences precisely by dwelling-within the otherness we confront within ourselves as a result of this belonging-to what exceeds us so radically. To refer back to Merleau-Ponty, it is in the recognition of anonymous life as a disruptive undergoing that we would become able to approach the other as other, without subsuming her into our world.24 Furthermore, air names not only that which connects subjects, but that which, crucially, allows for their autonomy. Irigaray writes that “[b]reathing signifies taking care of one’s own life. . . . It is a vehicle both of proximity and distancing, of fidelity and of

280

Emma R. Jones

destiny, of life and of cultivation.”25 And: “Breathing, in fact, corresponds to the first autonomous gesture of a human living.”26 Thus, for Irigaray, the air connects what Merleau-Ponty calls the anonymous—the impersonal, pre-human—with the “human,” or personal level of living. The fact of our physical dependence on the world unites us, but we can nevertheless cultivate our relationship to this physical world that penetrates and enables us in our own way. Further, breathing signifies autonomy because it is the precondition of personal subjectivity and the mark of separation from the mother. Nevertheless, Irigaray stresses that we cannot forget our debt to the mother—nor to the anonymous life itself— which gives us the gift of air. She writes: “I can breathe in my own way, but the air will never be simply mine.”27 For this reason it is a figure for both autonomy and alterity: it is that which allows us to be who we are while at once reminding us of our partiality and preventing us from appropriating the other, with whom we share this air—and who, we may find, appropriates it, relates to it, differently. Thus, the physical process of living would threaten to disrupt our unified personal subjectivities even as it is their precondition, for “[l]ife is never simply mine, because it is always already received from the other and presence to the other, but also becomes it comes to be thanks to this shared air and atmosphere.”28 Compare these words of Irigaray’s to a crucial passage on anonymity from Phenomenology of Perception: My life must have a significance which I do not constitute; there must strictly speaking be an intersubjectivity; each one of us must be both anonymous in the sense of absolutely individual, and anonymous in the sense of absolutely general. Our being in the world is the concrete bearer of this double anonymity.29

This quotation connects the anonymity or “generality” of life with intersubjectivity. But, as the comparison with Irigaray may help us see, it does not connect it in a causal fashion, as though anonymity were the efficient cause of “successful” intersubjectiv-

On The Life That is “Never Simply Mine”

281

ity. Nor does it suggest that I have knowledge of the other based on knowledge of myself: rather, even my own life “must have a significance which I do not constitute”—this receptivity or undergoing itself is what “unites” subjects; the elemental is that within which we all dwell and to which we must cultivate a relation. Thus, as Sonia Kruks puts it, “Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodied existence is not to obscure or deny differences. Rather, it is to point to the tensions of difference and commonality and to suggest that embodiment offers a site of potential communication and affirmative intersubjectivity.”30 I would add that it is the language of the anonymous itself that points to these “tensions of difference and commonality.” Anonymity subtends the personal world in a fundamentally disruptive way, and enables—but does not ensure—intersubjective communication. Furthermore, Merleau-Ponty’s appeal to “generality” does not suggest, as Sullivan would have it, that we “try to discover the familiar in another,” but rather that anonymous intersubjectivity occurs at a pre-reflective level—there is a certain level of (potential) communication prior to any striving. But this does not negate the fact that, on a reflective level, we must actively try to understand subjects different from ourselves while respecting their otherness. Indeed, for Irigaray, the elemental air remains the primary way in which we might begin to think this very task. Conclusion Criticisms of Merleau-Ponty’s language of “anonymity” are focused on the concerns that anonymity is another name for a suspicious kind of “universal” embodiment or embodied neutrality, that anonymity would name a supposed “guarantee” of intersubjective communication that would devolve into a monologue, and that anonymity names a complicity with the world that encloses the subject in an economy of “the same.” However, I have argued that these critiques are misleading in that they view “the anonymous body” as a self-enclosed entity, whereas Merleau-Ponty’s

282

Emma R. Jones

language of anonymity refers more often to a process. Furthermore, this process is in fact disruptive of the interiority of the subject that is named “the same,” or “monological.” Merleau-Ponty’s account takes the dependence of our personal subjectivities on the physical world as precisely a site of otherness and—to link this with Irigaray’s discussion of air—as a site of possible ethical cultivation. Considering Irigaray’s understanding of the air helps us to see how the anonymous might name that which exceeds yet informs us: that which guarantees our autonomy only to the extent that it is always received “from the other,” from the mother or from life itself. Merleau-Ponty thus situates alterity at the heart of the subject, in the very processes of perception and living.31 Alterity is present in the fact that “. . .my body, which through my habits ensures my insertion into the human world, does so only by projecting me in the first place into a natural world which can always be discerned underlying the other.”32 However, at the end of this analysis we are left with the question of the connection between the anonymous and the personal. Irigaray’s call is to cultivate a personal relationship precisely to the anonymous, and to do so in a way that respects the alterity of the (sexually different) other: for he or she will have a different relationship to the air, the anonymous, that we nevertheless share. For Merleau-Ponty, it seems that this question remains open; but I hope to have shown that he theorizes the anonymous as a site where alterity is encountered, and not as one where it is forcefully suppressed. Endnotes 1. This paper was selected as the 2008 winner of the M.C. Dillon award for best graduate student paper and presented at the September 2008 meeting of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle in Toronto, ON. My thanks to all the members of the Merleau-Ponty circle. 2. The second type of criticism is advanced primarily by those influenced by Levinasian thought, as well as by Luce Irigaray, while the first criticisms proceed more generally from feminist phenomenologists and

On The Life That is “Never Simply Mine”

283

pragmatists. Nevertheless, I think these criticisms address similar problems, and see this paper as addressing both types of concern. 3. As Sonia Kruks writes in her essay “Merleau-Ponty and the Problem of Difference in Feminism,” in Feminist Interpretations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, eds. Dorothea Olkowski and Gail Weiss (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006). 4. A version of the paper also later appeared in her book Living Across and Through Skins. See Shannon Sullivan, “Domination and Dialogue in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception,” in Hypatia vol. 12, no. 1 (Winter 1997); and Living Across and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001). 5. “Domination,” 1. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., 9. 8. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (New York: Routledge, 2006/1962) 97. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ann V. Murphy, ““Language in the Flesh: The Politics of Discourse in Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Irigaray,” in Feminist Interpretations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. p. 261. 12. Ibid. 13. Sullivan, 5. 14. Merleau-Ponty, 246. 15. Silvia Stöller, “Reflections on Feminist Merleau-Ponty Skepticism,” in Hypatia vol. 15, no. 1 (Winter 2000) 177. 16. Merleau-Ponty, 251. 17. Sullivan, 5. 18. Stöller, 181n. 19. Which first appeared as the Italian introduction to L’Oubli de l’air chez Martin Heidegger. 20. Judith Butler, “Sexual Difference as a Question of Ethics: Alterities of the Flesh in Irigaray and Merleau-Ponty,” in Feminist Interpretations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, p. 118. 21. Butler, 109. 22. Luce Irigaray, The Way of Love, trans. Heidi Bostic and Stephen Pluhacek (New York: Continuum, 2002) 23.

284

Emma R. Jones

23. Ibid., 67. 24. I am aware that Merleau-Ponty does not always specifically focus on air in his discussion of the elemental. A full consideration of the relationship of air to other anonymous bodily processes is beyond the scope of this paper, however. I think that we can draw a connection between the air and the anonymous as such, in terms of its ethical enabling power, but the specifics of how to “cultivate the relation,” as Irigaray would put it, to different spheres of the elemental, deserves far more discussion. 25. Luce Irigaray, “From The Forgetting of Air to To Be Two,” in Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger, eds. Nancy J. Holland and Patricia J. Huntington (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001) 311. 26. Luce Irigaray, “The Age of the Breath,” from Key Writings, ed. Luce Irigaray (New York: Continuum, 2004) 165. 27. “From The Forgetting of Air,” 312. 28. Ibid., 311. 29. Merleau-Ponty, 521. 30. Kruks, 42. 31. In this way he differs substantially from Levinas, who, in Totality and Infinity, characterizes the realms of the elemental and of perception as enclosed within the economy of “the same.” 32. Merleau-Ponty, 342.

13 Art and the Deflagration of Being: Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Aesthetic Phenomenological Method1 Matthew J. Goodwin

St. Cloud State University Merleau-Ponty Circle [email protected] ABSTRACT: This essay compares artistic and phenomenological methods to show how Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s artistic examples develop his method as a distinctly active and transformative phenomenology. This reverses one view that artists complete something like a phenomenological reduction in order to more adequately express the given. Instead, MerleauPonty turns to artists who manipulate, torment, and deflagrate being. Rather than avoiding presuppositions, artists employ them through passively constituted habits to see how they change and are reciprocally changed by their materials. Finally, rather than identifying certain artists or works as phenomenological, this recognizes Merleau-Ponty as ushering in a distinctly aesthetic method of phenomenology.

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology takes up artistic themes so frequently it can be easy to conclude that artists are phenomenologists “par excellence.”2 According to such a view artists are able to show what is given without presuppositions, in a way comparable with the phenomenological reduction. Rather than claim that artists demonstrate this philosophical technique I want to show instead that Merleau-Ponty reverses the relationship: he develops his own phenomenological method by moving away from the traditional reduction through careful study of the active techniques of artists. Rather than offering examples of passive levels of constitution as one sees in Edmund Husserl’s middle-period manuscripts, PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

286

Matthew J. Goodwin

Merleau-Ponty finds in artists the active, manipulative, and transformative techniques by which they interfere and meddle with the given in order to bring it into being.3 Artists, in his words, distend, disintegrate, deform, torment, do violence to, break the skin of things, and deflagrate being.4 Such active terms are a strong contrast to the notion of artist as passive observer and go well beyond a phenomenological method of reduction developed by Husserl. Merleau-Ponty’s examples are attentive to artistic processes and develop a phenomenological method in response to them. Artistic techniques actively reveal the passive levels of constitution by inserting habitual bodily movements and perception into materials, thereby modifying them and bringing something new into being. In short, taking up Merleau-Ponty’s language, I would say that art gives to phenomenology a way to describe the transformative aspects of perception. Examples of artistic techniques offer an alternative to the epoché, a philosophical technique of avoiding presuppositions, choosing instead to posit presuppositions to see what develops when they encounter the world. In fact, artists demonstrate such a commitment to active forms of expression that their work is often derided either as childishly manipulative or dangerously subversive. To make the case that phenomenology gains from the active manipulations of artists I first highlight the active sense of the phenomenological reduction employed by Merleau-Ponty in contrast to the passive sense of the reduction known better through Husserl’s works. I show that this active sense is derived directly from artists long recognized as influencing Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, including Paul Cézanne, Paul Klee and Auguste Renoir. But I also show that his use of these artists suggests that they are more transformational than they are usually thought to be. I conclude that a phenomenological method informed by artists is an active instrument for transforming the world rather than describing it as it is given to consciousness. This establishes that art is much more integral and collaborative with phenomenology

Art and the Deflagration of Being

287

than is typically recognized, and encourages phenomenologists to continue looking to the sparks created by the activities of contemporary artists. Passive Receptivity and Active Transformation The phenomenological attitude is frequently compared with an artistic attitude, and for very good reason: Merleau-Ponty’s texts consistently turn to artists’ testimonies to describe the central aspects of perception. For him, art helps to elucidate the structure of objects, the body, the other, the world, and the fundamental aesthetic relations of time and space. Each of these themes is approached perceptually, as the coming-into-being of the visible, and it is through artists that Merleau-Ponty explores these relations. In Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty compares the expressive body to a work of art, like a picture or a musical piece.5 This comparison serves a discovery in phenomenology without actually comparing it to a philosophical method. In other words, he is using art in order to describe the way the body is given in general. The experience of a work of art demonstrates how an optimal view of something is achieved in collaboration with my own movements so I see it more clearly. I may step back and to one side, or tilt my head in order to see it just right, depending on how the object calls on me to see it more completely.6 This aspect of ordinary perception occurs in all artistic creation, sometimes sending artists to great lengths, seemingly far away from the subject of a work of art, in order to present it in its fullness. To articulate how ideas are generated in bodily gestures rather than the body being simply a vehicle for their communication, Merleau-Ponty turns to Cézanne who reflecting on his technique for painting fine detail says “it is the body which points out, and which speaks.”7 The artist seeks a technique to elaborate what is ordinarily passed over because it is passively constituted. One such technique is to show the reflection on the surface of the eye so that

288

Matthew J. Goodwin

a portrait appears to have the power of vision.8 But modern techniques go beyond realist depictions to make the visible appear with the full sense of reality. Cézanne’s soup bowls, for example, present the impossible visual perspective of the inside of one bowl beside another seen from the side, thereby giving the lived experience of intending objects beyond a single given perspective of them.9 Merleau-Ponty appeals to other artistic techniques to highlight synaesthestic experiences, in keeping with Cézanne’s saying that a painting should be able to present even the smell of the scene along with its color.10 Elsewhere, colors are elaborated in terms of the emotional states they elicit in relation to the forms drawn by Kandinsky.11 Still further, Merleau-Ponty describes sensation itself as possessing the poetic power to blend different elements together like the words of a sentence. Sensations, he says, “represent the elements from which the great poetry of our world is made up.”12 He continues this analogy between visual and literary arts when he cites Claudel’s observation that painters use color in the same way linguistic data are used in speech.13 These examples extend further than poetic imagery, symbolism, association, or analogy; artists reveal principles of formation originating in perceptual experience carried through to the completion of a work of art. This is the case when Merleau-Ponty compares Cézanne’s discovery of a motif in painting with how the eye focuses and organizes depth in the visual field.14 For MerleauPonty, artists offer different avenues for elaborating diverse experiences of the coming-into-being of the visible; whether it is a distant object, a scent, or an emotion, a perceptual something is rendered visible by a specific artistic technique. These examples from artists encourage us to consider what Merleau-Ponty says in the preface to Phenomenology of Perception about the phenomenologist who begins by “slackening the intentional threads which attach us to the world and thus brings them to our notice.”15 But exclusively looking at this passage makes it is easy to overstate the basis of similarity for art and phenomenology

Art and the Deflagration of Being

289

as simply stepping back and taking in a scene and letting it give itself. For Merleau-Ponty, this “wonder in the face of the given” or “slackening of intentional threads,” is not passivity in the constitutive sense of openness or letting-be, but rather, a technique employing alternately passive and active moments. My goal here is to explicate those neglected active moments and show how strikingly active and even confrontational they can be. In addition to using art as a tool for describing phenomena, there is a deeper connection between art and phenomenology as a method, as a manner of bringing things into being and a true “laying down of being.” According to the imagery Merleau-Ponty uses, slackening intentional threads does not disengage them outright but uses them to manifest something new. In his unpublished text, The Prose of the World, he describes loosening the ties between the order of knowledge and the perceptual order to “preserve and transform the perceived world into the spoken world.”16 Slackening intentional threads enables something of visual interest to come into focus and become an object of expression. If I see something remarkable then it elicits a comment, an exclamation, or perhaps even a work of art from me. The transition from perception to speech is active and transformative because the visual, the sonorous, and the written are different elements. What I see can never be perfectly captured by words alone or by painting alone—this is why artists invent techniques to present things differently. In fact, any attempt of reproduction, even by a photograph, alters and minimizes the profound appearance of the real. This has been the task of every artist who has ever grappled with the shortcomings of expression to create a living relation of the elements that one finds in the world. It is the same thing we do whenever we see the world and remark upon it, but artists commit their entire lives to sustaining this problem, to evoking the indeterminate in order to bring something more into being. Slackening intentional threads is not wholesale creation but a step that brings one to encounter the “unmotivated upsurge of the

290

Matthew J. Goodwin

world.”17 The world at first appears indifferent to my gaze, but when I am moved to remark upon something it arises as a thematic interest. This is when artists say the world speaks through them and when they feel most passive. This initial impression in ordinary perception leads conceptual understanding to posit the object as pre-existing and as possessing coherence regardless of our perception. If reflection rests with this observation then I am unable to witness the coming-into-being in its fullness—namely, by contributing to it and being constituted by it in turn, thereby accompanying it and not just letting-it-be. The “upsurge of the world” is the appearance of the world as a theme to which I respond and about which I speak. This technique is what phenomenology learns from artists who present the world as it is cominginto-being. It is what Cézanne is after when he says he attempts to rejoin nature, and what Balzac seeks when, as Merleau-Ponty puts it, he wants to “understand what interior force holds the world together and causes the proliferation of visible forms.”18 These artists are seeking the incendiary source from which the world surges forth full of life and with the surplus of features that renew our interest to look further into it again and again. Like a child exploring a riverbank, prodding and digging into muddy, rocky textures with a stick, the artist is responding to and continuing a theme discovered by continually inserting oneself into the world. Artists do bring a child-like wonder to the world, but this necessarily involves some degree of interactive alteration, if not outright oppositional destructiveness. The artists’ prodding activity generates forms of transcendence “that fly up like sparks from a fire.”19 These forms are the affective forces, the matter of passive syntheses proper: vague shapes, colors and background sounds in our perceptual field before they are identified as objects in an artwork.20 Affective forces are the objectlike forms pregnant with what comes into being as a perceived thing. A familiar example is Merleau-Ponty’s description of ship masts coming into view in the foreground against a background of trees from which the ship was at first indistinguishable.21 The

Art and the Deflagration of Being

291

colors and shapes do not immediately cohere around a central axis identifiable as either a ship or a forest. But something is amiss and the world seems slightly out of balance and weighted in a direction that attracts my enquiring gaze. These affective forces and the objects that spring into view through them are the sparks, the forms of transcendence, and they are generated only by my movement through the world. Only after walking, tilting my head, squinting eyes or otherwise modifying my relative position to certain features does the scene organize into discreetly identifiable objects. In the case of art, there is always first the intervention of the artist, whose activities generate the shapes and colors that are later organized into perception. In the hands of an artist these active techniques are no mere intellectual reflections, but transformative acts, sometimes even violent and revolutionary ones, to which one commits one’s entire being.22 Artists know well how fateful each mark on a canvas can be. Like staking out a political position or declaring loyalty or love, a properly placed mark may bring a portrait to life or, if it is misplaced it becomes a different concept and different picture altogether—and not necessarily a mistake. The reduction understood in this highly active transformational way is one that interacts with and changes the world. For these reasons it is very important to notice that MerleauPonty uses the imagery of fire to suggest what arises from slackening intentional threads. At this point what the phenomenologist attends to is identified simply as intentionality, but it is described here as a by-product of combustion. Intentionality is, by this analogy, the very heat and light produced by fire, a violent impact or a combustive reaction. Such fire consumes being, but it does not destroy it altogether; rather, like the consummation of romantic passion, it has the potential to feed and create life.23 Art itself is a political and marital commitment of passion: both an assertion of individuality and a fusion of separate elements.

292

Matthew J. Goodwin

Depth and the Deflagration of Being Artists create forms of transcendence through the “deflagration of being,” according to Merleau-Ponty’s description of what happens to the visual world in the hands of Cézanne.24 He says Cézanne recognizes that the external form of a thing is secondary to its becoming visible. What “causes a thing to take form” and become visible is not any internal principle or external structure, but its relations to other, different modes of being. Cézanne shatters the external visual shell of space by mixing up the views of fruit bowls placed side-by-side: depicting the inside of one and the side of the other simultaneously. Paul Klee likewise breaks the “form-spectacle” in order to present color that is not a copy of natural color but the phenomenal experience of that place “where our brain and the universe meet.”25 In each case a specific problem of depth is generalized from one dimension of being to others; the space of the bowl is generalized to multiple perspectives, and the problem of color is generalized to that of space. Depth is not simply the perceptual organization of spatial dimensions, but of the relation of space in general to altogether separate elements, which Merleau-Ponty calls a reversibility of dimensions, or a global locality.26 The reversibility of dimensions recalls the formulation of the reversibility of touch. In its contact with the world the body constitutes itself in a doubled, touching/ touched relation. The lived-body is never purely subject or purely object. It continually slips from one aspect to the other, from touching to being touched, from active subject to passive object, from constituting to constituted. The lived-body is always both of these simultaneously but can never be consciously intended as such simultaneously. In a similar way things of the world have their reversible relations within the world. Depth is not just a spatial relationship between things; it is the reversibility of them. Recognizing a lamp in a visual field situates it in contrast with the table on which it sits. But this does not mean the lamp is seen as potentially

Art and the Deflagration of Being

293

occupying a different position relative to the table. Instead, the table simultaneously reflects the lamp and ‘sees’ a side of the lamp not visible to me.27 Depth, furthermore, is the experience “of a global ‘locality’—everything in the same place at the same time, a locality from which height, width, and depth are abstracted, of a voluminosity we express in a word when we say that a thing is there.”28 One is immediately connected with other places and things through dimensions more primordial than the spatial relations of things or of any single given thing.29 The perceptual field before my eyes is seen all at once, although only select portions are focused enough to be considered perception of things. The reversibility of dimensions and the global locality is this necessary connection of all things together that comes under my perceptual gaze, and this primordial depth that comes alive in the perceptual world is what artists such as Cézanne are after. The primordial depth is found by Cézanne by a “deflagration of being,” when things lose their identities as distinct things but thereby burst forth more brilliantly than any isolated, determinate object.30 Things are first rendered into their reversible dimensions and their global locality before they become things. Depth is not the result of a rational calculation organizing perceptual elements: “[d]epth is born beneath my gaze because the latter tries to see something,” because perception seeks “the most determinate form.”31 The active role of the artist is found already in the basic visual activity of focusing on something in depth. Two separate monocular images become a singular, living, and binocular vision by first looking, by “awakening to the world,” and inserting oneself into the picture.32 Clearly differentiating this act from constitution of the given, Merleau-Ponty says vision “is not a synthesis, it is a metamorphosis” of the seen, transforming it into something it has never been before, bringing the visible into being rather than making something visible that is already existing.33 To bring something into focus is to render it in depth, a depth it does not already possess but which it gains by engaging perception

294

Matthew J. Goodwin

through different dimensions or, what is the same, through different materials, as when vision becomes speech. In a working note to The Visible and the Invisible titled “Philosophy and Literature” Merleau-Ponty describes philosophy, not only as being speaking through the subject, but as simultaneously creation and reintegration of being.34 Phenomenology is itself such a creation and a “supreme art.” Not just any construction or arbitrary fabrication, however; it attempts to become a “pure construction” insofar as it returns to the origin of construction. Merleau-Ponty calls this “radical creation,” and it is the presupposed, primordial basis for the idea of truth as correspondence. It is a contact with being that creates being while requiring my creation to experience it. Philosophy returns to the origin of construction as to the upsurge of the world, and this is why it needs art; the intellectual pursuits of philosophers alone simply cannot generate the sparks or forms of transcendence. That is, philosophy does not move about and experiment with materials in the ways artists do. I will now look at some specific ways artists do this in Merleau-Ponty’s texts. General Artistic Techniques: Cutting, Manipulating, and Throwing Out of Focus Manipulating and transforming the visible in artistic creativity is not a reduction in the traditional Husserlian sense because it produces something new through the interplay of the medium in which an artist works. The artist responds to the given by altering it, sometimes half closing one’s eyes or tilting one’s head to remove the natural organization of the perceptual field.35 This renders events into a pure spectacle described by Merleau-Ponty in The Structure of Behavior as acceding to “surreality.”36 Around the same time that Merleau-Ponty writes this, surrealists such as Max Ernst are experimenting with collage, a technique involving cutting, manipulating, and replacing images in unusual arrangements to mix up the subconscious dream life with the real. In photography

Art and the Deflagration of Being

295

Mann Ray uses photomontage and techniques of process manipulation such as solarization to insert chance and randomness into his work. It is, according to Merleau-Ponty, “in the name of a truer relation between things that their ordinary ties are broken,” and artists do this principally by changing the element in which the given is found.37 In “Eye and Mind” Merleau-Ponty shows exactly how a change from one element to another brings about a truer relation. In order to transform something visible, such as the moon, into a drawing on paper, one must determine how to display its size relative to the field in which it appears. To show it either as “big as a house” or as “small as a quarter” requires that I fall back upon myself to generate a unit of measure between the two alternatives.38 There is a movement back and forth—an opening of dehiscence—from one object to another, from the moon to the coin or to the house on the horizon. As attention is focused on one, the other is temporarily lost such that there is never true coexistence of the moon with either the coin or the house except in my perception. I arbitrate their simultaneity by transferring their relationship into my depiction. In these transformations the world is rendered newly significant by first being “hollowed out” and “worked from within.”39 The artist renders the world in living vibrancy by multiplying and inserting chiasmatic relations which multiply significant connections and present things with the depth that entertains our interest. Rather than allowing something to simply give itself the artist adds dimensions to it, “making contingency vibrate within it.”40 A photograph, according to Merleau-Ponty, does not depict movement as well as painting because it limits contingencies; it captures only a literal place and time. Théodore Géricault is able to realize movement in his painting of horses running in Epsom Derby only because the horses’ limbs are depicted in positions they could never physically hold in a single moment.41 This is an example of the artist modifying the perceptual given in

296

Matthew J. Goodwin

order to present movement through a modified version of the visible in a different element. Merleau-Ponty cites Paul Klee to describe this technique of rendering movement in painting. According to Klee, the artist brings together two invisible extremes into the visible axis of the work, thereby rendering it more than just the “frontal properties of the visible” that reach the eye. 42 Thus, in Epsom Derby the horses are one axis about which invisible dimensions of being unfold according to a general motif of movement. Manipulating the visible medium in a creative act, the artist works at the crossroads of two invisibles. The lower invisible, the body’s passive, postural latency, is the primordial faith in the stability of one’s footing and orientation with the ground. This gives us the ability to judge distance, weight, or texture, and prepares the body for certain movements such as walking through a narrow corridor or on slippery rocks. In artistic creativity, as in any exploration, the body extends itself to look and to see further. This movement requires temporarily losing one’s ground by stepping away from it, and thereby transcending the lower invisible of one’s postural latency. Giving up one’s ground for the higher invisible is more properly a style or technique. Such groundlessness takes considerable practice, simultaneously requiring reference to the ground but also bold, if only temporary, rejections of it. The lower invisible of the body’s postural latency and the higher invisible of stylized movements are united by the artist in creative activity. Something catches fire in the artist, engulfing the body and leaping from the artist’s hand to the work of art.43 The artist follows a motif from the perceptual world to the one that is being created, from the lower invisible to the higher invisible, and continues the motif into the modifications of the visible given. The circuit begins in the visible fragments of being perceived and expressed through a body that is grounded and staking a position upon the ground. Stepping away from the ground, the artist returns to the visible through the creative gesture and finds new, temporary support through the artistic medium.

Art and the Deflagration of Being

297

The role of the medium in which an artist works must not be underestimated, for this is where the invisibles of lived-body and style unite and multiply the dimensions of being. Artists are familiar with handling particular tools and wielding them in ways that embody the style of the artist. They are accustomed to the ways in which tool and medium interact. The circuit is completed every time a gesture leaves a mark. The initial marks are compared with whatever motif initiated the movement and the circuit is taken up again and again until the expression is complete—a finality judged only in terms of the initial motif. This circuit does not end with a single work, but occurs over a lifetime, continually modifying the technique through its own interaction with the visible. Each movement away from and back to the visible alters and further opens new dimensions of being. The artist adds a layer to an initial figure, fills it with color, draws a new line, and undertakes innumerable possibilities opened up by this interchange between visible and invisible.44 To offer some examples of this crossing of invisibles in the visible medium, and to see what it accomplishes, I now turn to Cézanne and then to Renoir. Cézanne: Regarding the Face as a Stone In order to describe perception Merleau-Ponty turns to the techniques with which artists approach their subjects and their materials. He shows Cézanne’s development from an abstract focus on “the moral physiognomy of action” in his earliest work to an “exact study of appearances” in his later work.45 It is my position that Merleau-Ponty is most interested in artists’ developments from one type of expression to another. Rather than discuss any single work in detail, he describes the choices artists face over a lifetime of attention to their motifs, the gradual evolution of techniques, and their changes from one preferred medium to another. When Cézanne seeks a motif he begins by intervening and injecting his own ideas about what he sees. If he is moved to paint

298

Matthew J. Goodwin

an emotion, then he paints a pre-human world utterly devoid of life or feeling. If he wants to paint appearances of things he paints a world without culture or science. This is the mental preparation for his technique and, although much like a reduction in this early phase, it is quickly replaced by something more invasive. In both cases, regardless of the subject, he first paints a pre-human world populated only by objects in order to witness the cominginto-being of human nature, culture and science.46 He paints whatever is distinctly not his subject in order to provide a place for it to appear. When painting a portrait, for example, he regards the face as a stone or as an object.47 Such manipulation of the given enables him to see human significance as it comes into being through his own gestures. Again, the painting is the visible axis through which the artist rises up from the invisible postural latency to invisible style. He completes a circuit from the ground, through the body and its acquired techniques, onto the pigmented canvas where it becomes a new ground for his next gesture. Each successive gesture responds to the initial marks, to their successes or failures, and to the limitations of the medium. An emotionless, stone-like face acquires humanity through his gestures as he paints the mystery that is “renewed every time we look at someone—of a person’s appearing in nature.”48 Cézanne does not seek an adequate way of presenting a given emotion. He becomes the site of the appearance of emotion through his interaction of material that is altogether lacking emotion. Merleau-Ponty relates Cézanne’s techniques of painting an inhuman world in the chapter “The Thing and the Natural World” of Phenomenology of Perception. In this chapter he is not concerned with the way the other is given but with the familiar presence of inanimate things. He employs Cézanne’s techniques to show that things are given reflexively, as accessible to my scrutiny while seeming to look back into me. Objects are not given as cold, distant, and impenetrable, but as inviting, available to my touch, and open to meaningful exploration. It is by virtue of this intimacy and familiarity that artists shape their materials and subsequently

Art and the Deflagration of Being

299

report that nature seems to speak through them. When Cézanne seeks the pre-human he is seeking after the principle by which nature becomes visible, not just as any thing, but as this woman or this man in this place and this time. What is remarkable is that immaterial human nature in fact appears through inanimate material. Regarding the face as a solid, stone-like thing, Cézanne penetrates beneath the surface features of lips and eyes to an invisible structure of an altogether different medium from human emotion. By considering what it takes to physically move inert stone into a human gaze, Cézanne employs the first invisible of his own lived-body rather than the visible surface features of the body he wishes to paint. His first efforts required new attention because he focused only on the features he thought were most recognizably human, whereas the emotions of the face are “not the ‘givens of sight.’”49 Eyes and lips are only given as abstractly human, as the prosaic or literal qualities of a perceived person when they are themes of scrutiny. Such features as the color of the eyes, the shape of the nose, or the presence of facial hair disappear while engrossed in conversation. When one breaks through the surface features one is most attuned to the other’s emotions and expressions, and is confronted by the human element that really does move stone. Cézanne’s paintings satisfy his original motivation for expression only after he forces the sensible arrangements of things into a different medium.50 This is a violence to the given that renders it meaningful through a new visible form. This is different from the violence done by science, which objectifies the other and loses the meaning in favor of abstraction. The artist incorporates the principle of appearing into the body and finally imprints it into matter where human emotion proves strong enough to shape stone. Painting a face as a stone is a technique of manipulating the given that develops the essence of an emotion through its visible dimensions. I have primarily focused on how Cézanne does this with portraits but, keeping in mind the context of Merleau-Ponty’s

300

Matthew J. Goodwin

discussion in “The Thing and the Natural World,” he also does this for his landscapes. Just as Cézanne’s portraits enquire into the visible “geometric planes and forms” through the underlying, invisible “rules of anatomy and design,” his landscape paintings likewise pursue the invisible “geological structure” and “geological foundation” of landscapes.51 Rather than paint from the features available to the eye, he rearranges it to see what new lines are created, whether through anatomy or geology. In the end, this is artistic meddling: to study the geology of a landscape is not to study what is immediately given, but to dig into it and see what one can turn up. Cézanne is following a direction initially suggested by the given, but which goes beyond the given, and requires that he insert himself into the appearing in order to bring the given more completely into being. To look at the face as a stone and the landscape as a geometric structure is not the final goal to be depicted in the painting, but the means required by this scenario and for this artist to follow a chosen motif and bring the person or the landscape into being through painting. Merleau-Ponty’s account of Renoir provides another example of such artistic meddling with the given. Renoir: Enquiring of the Sea for the Stream Merleau-Ponty recounts André Malraux’s story about PierreAuguste Renoir painting The Bathers, a work depicting women bathing in a woodland stream.52 The story is that rather than studying the stream depicted in the painting Renoir was looking at something altogether different: the Sea of Cassis. This is because his painting is not concerned with the givens of sight that confront him frontally. He moves from one visible to another altogether different visible in order to avoid painting the stream in a prosaic, literal sense, as when Cézanne went first to the eyes and lips to paint the face. One can imagine how an unsuccessful attempt to paint the stream might appear. As with any surface there is a tendency to paint a body of water with a single texture or tone,

Art and the Deflagration of Being

301

as a single mass of consistent and invariable water, which is what one cognitively recognizes it to be. This idea of water is obtained by reflecting upon what is first passively constituted, but such water is not the natural liquid that invites one for a summer bathing. Renoir’s painting is a study of visible water, which makes water visible by joining the genesis of constitution and making it come into being. The difficulty is readily seen also in photography, which flattens features of objects into limited spatial depth resulting in objects that are acquired like mathematical entities—fragments of being—instead of the living visible that captivates Renoir and moves him to paint. The problem is how to render the whole scene in its appearing and to make it come into being as for the first time. If it were only a matter of being receptive to the given in order to capture it as it appears, then it would not contain within it the affective allure—the motivating fullness on the side of the object, the incendiary source for passive constitution. The work of the artist provides this motivating stimulus out of which both passive and active constitution is generated. The sound, the smell, the movement, and the feeling of the scene, all of the different elements must be there if he is to render the stream and its bathers visible. This is accomplished by generating dimensions of being through the interplay of disparate items, by inserting oneself and one’s passively constituted postural latency into the matter. The water of Renoir’s painting acquires generality, recognizable as a manifestation of water, through the visible style of his movements. The water follows the circuit from visible spectacle through Renoir’s physical gestures, and back again into the visible work of art. “Each fragment of the world,” Merleau-Ponty says, “contains all sorts of shapes of being” and can be made to express a “general way of being.”53 A fragment of being is joined with a manner of looking; it is a physical skill and mastery of a medium but also a manner of selection. Looking at the sea to work out a detail of the stream, Renoir situates himself and takes up a position together with these innumerable elements. When the stream

302

Matthew J. Goodwin

originally becomes visible to him it is a result of his movement beyond himself, beyond his immediate perception and the position he holds. What he sees there moves him further to yet another place. Seeking a firm spot from which to stand, so to speak, after the initial disorientation over how to make the water appear—he turns to another manifestation of water. According to Merleau-Ponty, what is learned by this particular dehiscence of the visible is the sea’s interpretation of the typical form of liquid substance shared by all water, including that of the stream. This is not the eternal essence of water, but a local and mobile expression of essence in a particular place and time. It is a sensible idea.54 This idea forms around one fragment of being, the stream where the women are bathing, and shows the coming-intobeing of the visible by first traveling through a form altogether different from what is originally given. Conclusion A central feature of some of Merleau-Ponty’s most important artistic examples is that artists manipulate and transform the given in order to make it say more than it does on its own. An artist spends a lifetime developing a style of expression and knows quite intimately the relationships between subject and object that phenomenology seeks to describe. Artists work by inserting their passively constituted techniques, their manner of questioning, their preferred instruments, and their style of using them. They deploy these elements against what is given while simultaneously shaping the material or the medium they have chosen. Artists know the shortcomings of their expressions and how they distort and do violence to whatever it is they wish to capture. Rather than seek unobtrusive techniques that allow the world to be, they insert themselves into the matter, multiply the dimensions, and bring the world more fully into being. By running contrary to the given and inserting themselves into it, artists are able to accompany constitution at the genesis of being. They move about, juxtapose, and

Art and the Deflagration of Being

303

deform the given to see it in its truth; a deflagration that neither destroys altogether nor creates from nothing, but distills to its finer essence. Merleau-Ponty’s use of artists shows how phenomenology, so often romanticized as clearing away presuppositions about objects is, on the contrary, quite comfortable deploying presuppositions and generating forms of transcendence that fly like sparks from the fire of their conflict. Endnotes 1. A version of this paper was presented as the M.C. Dillon Memorial Lecture to the Thirty-Second Annual Conference of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle in Memphis, TN. Many thanks go to Galen Johnson and all other participants for their helpful comments at the conference, and especially to Lawrence Hass and Galen Johnson for their help with subsequent revisions. 2. Marjorie Grene, “The Aesthetic Dialogue of Sartre and MerleauPonty,” Journal of the British Society of Phenomenology, v. 1, #2 (May 1970), 63. See also Mauro Carbone, “The Time of Half-Sleep: Merleau-Ponty between Husserl and Proust,” p. 150, fn. 1. Carbone cites G. Florival as saying that Proust “reveals himself instinctively to be a phenomenologist avant la lettre.” 3. See H. L Van Breda, “Merleau-Ponty and the Husserl Archives in Louvain,” Texts and Dialogues, ed. Hugh J. Silverman and James Barry, Jr., trans. Michael B. Smith et al, (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1992). Also, compare this with Husserl’s Phantasy, Image Consciousness and Memory (1891-1925), trans. John B. Brough (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005). From this collection of Husserl’s explicit discussions of art it is easy to see the development Merleau-Ponty brought to the table. Husserl’s account is focused upon art as an object of image consciousness, while Merleau-Ponty’s account always focuses on the artists’ creative processes. 4. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence,” Signs, trans. Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 78, hereafter Signs; “Le langage indirect et les voix du silence,” Signes (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), 98, hereafter Signes. Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (New York: Routledge,

304

Matthew J. Goodwin

1998), 124, hereafter Phenomenology; Phénoménologie de la perception, (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), 282, hereafter Phénoménologie. Signs, 54, 78, 81; Signes, 68, 97, 101. Prose of the World, ed. John Wild (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 48; La prose du Monde (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), 67. Phenomenology, xx. Phénoménologie, xvi. “Eye and Mind,” The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics, ed. James M. Edie, trans. Carleton Dallery (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 181-182; L’Oeil et l’esprit (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 69-70. Phenomenology, 124; Phénoménologie, 282. “Eye and Mind,” 180; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 65. 5. Phenomenology, 150-151; Phénoménologie, 176-7. 6. Phenomenology, 302; Phénoménologie, 348. 7. Phenomenology, 197-198; Phénoménologie, 230. 8. Phenomenology, 309; Phénoménologie, 357. 9. Phenomenology, 260; Phénoménologie, 300-301. 10. Phenomenology, 318; Phénoménologie, 368. 11. Phenomenology, 210; Phénoménologie, 244. 12. Phenomenology, 321; Phénoménologie, 370. 13. Phenomenology, 389-391; Phénoménologie, 446. 14. Phenomenology, 262; Phénoménologie, 303. 15. Phenomenology, xiii; Phénoménologie, viii. 16. The Prose of the World, 123-124; La Prose du monde, 173. Emphasis added. 17. Phenomenology, xiv; Phénoménologie, viii. 18. Cézanne’s Doubt,” Sense and Nonsense, ed. John Wild, trans. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Patricia Allen Dreyfus (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 12-14, 18; “Le Doute de Cézanne,” Sens et non-sens (Paris:Gallimard, 1961), 21, 31. 19. Phenomenology, xiii; Phénoménologie, viii. 20. According to Husserl, passive syntheses are the background for subsequent active syntheses in cognitive judgments of things. When Merleau-Ponty refers to artists, however, he is not beginning with either active or passive syntheses, but with active manipulations, which produce the material that will be used in passive and active syntheses. For the relation of active and passive syntheses, see Edmund Husserl, Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis: Lectures on Transcen-

Art and the Deflagration of Being

305

dental Logic, trans. Anthony J. Steinbock (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001). 21. Phenomenology, 17; Phénoménologie, 24. 22. Phenomenology, xx. Phénoménologie, xvi. 23. For more on this see Northrop Frye, “Preface” to Gaston Bachelard, “The Psychoanalysis of Fire,” trans. Alan C. M. Ross (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), vi. 24. “Eye and Mind,” 180; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 65. 25. “Eye and Mind,” 180-181; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 65. 26. “Eye and Mind,” 180-181; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 65. 27. Phenomenology, 68. 28. “Eye and Mind,” 180-1; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 65 29. “Eye and Mind,” 172; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 44-45. See also Phenomenology, 266; Phénoménologie, 307-308. 30. Cf. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, ed. Claude LeFort, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 218; Le Visible et l’invisible, ed. Claude Lefort (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 271, hereafter Le Visible et l’invisible. 31. Phenomenology, 262-263; Phénoménologie, 304. 32. The Visible and the Invisible, 8; Le Visible et l’invisible, 23. 33. The Visible and the Invisible, 8; Le Visible et l’invisible, 23. 34. The Visible and the Invisible, 197, Cf. 174, 185; Le Visible et l’invisible, 250-251, Cf. 227, 240. 35. Phenomenology, 308; Phénoménologie, 355. 36. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behavior, trans. Alden L. Fisher (Pittsburgh : Duquesne University Press, 2002), 167; La Structure du comportement (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1942), 181. 37. Signs, 56; Signes, 71. 38. Signs, 49; Signes, 61-62. 39. Signs, 64; Signes, 80. 40. Signs, 50; Signes, 63. 41. “Eye and Mind,” 185; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 80. 42. “Eye and Mind,” 187-8; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 85-86. 43. “Eye and Mind,” 188; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 86. 44. See Signs, 45; Signes, 57. 45. “Cézanne’s Doubt,” 11; “Le Doute de Cézanne,” 19. 46. Cf. “Eye and Mind,” 168; L’Oeil et l’esprit, 32.

306

Matthew J. Goodwin

47. The Structure of Behavior, 166-7; La Structure du comportement, 181. “Cézanne’s Doubt,” 10-11; “Le Doute de Cézanne,” 18. 48. “Cézanne’s Doubt,” 16; “Le Doute de Cézanne,” 27. 49. The Structure of Behavior, 167; La Structure du comportement, 181. 50. Phenomenology, 322; Phénoménologie, 372. 51. “Cézanne’s Doubt,” 17; “Le Doute de Cézanne,” 28-29. 52. Signs, 55-56; Signes, 69-70. 53. Signs, 56; Signes, 70. 54. The Visible and the Invisible, 149-151; Le Visible et l’invisible, 196-198.

14 Between Oneself and Another: Merleau-Ponty’s Organic Appropriation of Husserlian Phenomenology Shazad Akhtar

Marquette University Seminar on Phenomenology and Hermeneutics [email protected] ABSTRACT: Merleau-Ponty’s “existential” reading of Husserl has long been controversial in phenomenological circles. In this paper I present this reading in a new light by arguing that the style and substance of Merleau-Ponty’s own philosophizing are organically interwoven with his interpretation of Husserl. This is a case of mutual implication: one cannot fully “buy” Merleau-Ponty’s Husserl without accepting certain “Merleau-Pontyean” figures of thought, but reciprocally, one cannot understand these figures without situating them within the stream of Merleau-Ponty’s reading and appropriation of Husserl. The bulk of the paper concentrates on the latter side of the equation through a systematic reconstruction of Merleau-Ponty’s as a “Husserlian” phenomenology.

The question of what phenomenology is, including what its ultimate tasks are, has never ceased to be posed and pondered by its many diverse practitioners. Naturally, people have looked to Husserl, the effective founder and pioneer of this philosophy, for answers to this question—but while some find them here, others see only more questions. Merleau-Ponty was unique, in this regard: he found an answer, but it happens to be one that continues to surprise us because of its counter-intuitivity. On Merleau-Ponty’s reading, Husserl’s are questions of human existence, the paradoxes of incarnate subjectivity, the finitude of human knowlPHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

308

Shazad Akhtar

edge—none of which the “textbooks” at first suggest to be central to the German philosopher’s agenda. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that ever since Merleau-Ponty introduced his Husserl to the world, phenomenology has not been able to stop wondering over the enigma that is the Merleau-Ponty/Husserl relationship.1 The stakes are as high as ever, as evident from a (relatively) recent account like this one by Lester Embree: It is daunting to recall the historical era in American phenomenology of our youth that is best called ‘Phenomenology and Existentialism’ if only because, in that great upsurge of energy, Husserl was, incredibly, read by so many as the father of existential phenomenology, a paternity that still needs challenging.2

There are many, particularly on the “Husserlian” side (hopefully this sort of label will mean less by the end of this paper), who share Embree’s sentiment and regret what they perceive to be Merleau-Ponty’s misappropriation of Husserlian phenomenology (at least insofar as the former portrays it as Husserlian).3 There are also those from the “Merleau-Ponty side” of things who lament the French philosopher’s constant references to Husserl, finding them unnecessary and misleading given the ultimately trans-phenomenological nature, they claim, of Merleau-Ponty’s undertaking.4 Others, of course, from Dan Zahavi5 to Renaud Barbaras6— coming from two different directions—stress the indissoluble link between the two philosophers. It is certainly hard to deny that this link exists, but the precise relation between Merleau-Ponty and Husserl is an uncannily difficult code to crack. “Does MerleauPonty get Husserl right?” is just the first of many questions that arise. Others include: Is there a “right” Husserl—a “true” Husserl, at all? Should Merleau-Ponty’s self-described fidelity to Husserl’s ideas be trusted7? Should we see Merleau-Ponty as a kind of Husserlian, finally, and even Husserl (or one of possibly several “Husserls”) as a proto-Merleau-Pontyean? To start at the end and work backwards, so to speak, my quick answers to these questions, respectively, would be: yes, Merleau-

Between Oneself and Another

309

Ponty gets something profoundly right about Husserl, that is a particular strain of him that must be separated carefully from the rest; no, there is no “true” Husserl, since many live possibilities remain open ones in his cavernous thought; yes, Merleau-Ponty’s self-understanding as a phenomenologist of a Husserlian vein is grounded in truth; and finally, yes, there is a sense in which Husserl and Merleau-Ponty are reciprocally intertwined, such that, to use the latter’s words when speaking of himself and Husserl, “it is not possible even in principle to decide at any given moment just what belongs to each.”8 This is a lot to show, however, in a single essay, so I have limited my goals in this paper to just two: First, to show—through textual evidence—how Merleau-Ponty reads and appropriates Husserl, and second, to suggest ways in which his philosophical relationship9 to Husserl exemplifies and embodies certain characteristically Merleau-Pontyean “figures of thought.” That is, Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of Husserl, I want to say, in many ways simply follows the same pattern as his general philosophy, such that to accept one is, to a large degree, to be much readier to accept the other. Here is at least one clue as to why some readers, though not all, don’t accept Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Husserl. Merleau-Ponty’s Husserlian Phenomenology: By Text I would like to begin this section with an epigraph of sorts, an early (1947) quotation from Merleau-Ponty which sets the stage for the rest of his (prematurely curtailed) philosophical career. When philosophers wish to place reason above the vicissitudes of history they cannot purely and simply forget what psychology, sociology, ethnography, history, and psychiatry have taught us about the conditioning of human behavior. It would be a very romantic way of showing one’s love for reason to base its reign on the disavowal of acquired knowledge. What can be validly demanded is that man never be submitted to the fate of an external nature or history and stripped of his consciousness.10

310

Shazad Akhtar

In a certain way, this passage conveys the essence of MerleauPonty’s philosophy of man11: the enigmatic nexus of the inner life of consciousness and the outer being of Nature, the ambiguous middle-space in which human existence unfolds and (partially) finds itself. In Merleau-Ponty’s view, Husserl saw the same enigma, and increasingly came to see that it could not be solved through an appeal to “absolute consciousness,” a reflective-constitutive “possession” of the world,12 any more than it could be solved by scientific naturalism and its deterministic laws. Hence the “existential” thrust of Merleau-Pontyean phenomenology and the persistent Merleau-Pontyean claim that Husserl himself enters “existentialism” in the third, “life-world”-based phase of his philosophy. But how does Merleau-Ponty get all of this from Husserl, and how does he parlay it into a new vision of “human reality”?13 A. Husserl in PP PP is dominated by the preoccupations and methodological innovations of phenomenology. And Merleau-Ponty makes it clear in his famous “Preface” that it is Husserl’s version of phenomenology that he has chiefly in view.14 Most if not all of the major questions of the Husserl/Merleau-Ponty nexus, and Merleau-Ponty’s manner of interpreting Husserl, are present in at least germinal form in the short but pregnant “Preface.” Merleau-Ponty enumerates the three major themes of Husserlian phenomenology—the phenomenological reduction, eidetic reduction, intentionality— and, one by one, endorses and repackages them in “existential” terms. Thus we learn that the phenomenological reduction in fact “belongs to existentialist philosophy.”15 On what basis does Merleau-Ponty argue for a specifically existentialist understanding of phenomenology? In a footnote (one of many with revealing remarks about Husserl) later in the book, Merleau-Ponty explains the link as follows:

Between Oneself and Another

311

Husserl’s originality lies beyond his notion of intentionality; it is to be found in the elaboration of this notion and the discovery, beneath the intentionality of representations, of a deeper intentionality, which others have called existence. (PP 141n)

This “deeper intentionality” is of course what Merleau-Ponty variously calls “motor intentionality” or “operative intentionality,” the spontaneous, pre-conscious (or “anonymous”—another Husserlian word) intentionality of the body oriented towards its environment. Husserl himself had a great deal to say about such “operative intentionality”—it is in fact his idea. Thus Merleau-Ponty is—under this meaning of “existence”—merely emphasizing a certain line of Husserlian investigation. One of the consistent themes of Merleau-Ponty’s thinking—it is, in fact, one of the fundamental premises of his general philosophical outlook—is his opposition to “idealism.” The reason—or one of them—is that of the “opacity” of the world to consciousness. Idealisms manage to render consciousness “transparent” to the world.16 Merleau-Ponty’s opposition to “idealism” is therefore clear, but whose “idealism” he is referring to—Kant’s or Husserl’s, for example—is not. There are some who take it to be motivated against Husserl17, but A. D. Smith, to take an excellent recent example, shows convincingly that it is only a Kantian (or Neo-Kantian) kind of idealism—which Merleau-Ponty targets repeatedly throughout PP as the quintessential form of “intellectualism”— that threatens to imply this kind of transparency, namely by making it a condition of any sort of experience at all.18 Husserl’s opposition to Kantian constructivism in fact paves the way for Merleau-Ponty’s own appreciation of perception as an “openness” to the world. (PP xix) We are open to the world, but it is not enclosed within us or pre-fitted to our categorial thought. This is exactly why the determination of the world through essences is always fraught with peril and shot through with contingency.19 But it is also why Husserl’s return to the “things themselves” is so important and revolutionary.

312

Shazad Akhtar

As a general rule, most of Merleau-Ponty’s declarations in the “Preface” can be seen to be in conflict with many features of, say, the Husserl of Ideas I, though much less so with the “genetic phenomenology” of Husserl’s later period. Take, for example, Merleau-Ponty’s statement that phenomenology is a “phenomenology of origins,” or that it captures meaning “as it comes into being.” (PP xxiv) This is nothing but Husserl’s “Sinngenesis,” as Merleau-Ponty himself ackowledges. (PP xxi) And while it is hard to see Husserl saying “the world is not what I think, it is what I live through” (PP xix) using just these words, what does come to mind is Husserl’s intensive later investigations into “passive synthesis”—the pre-thetic constitution of the world. That is, I “live through” the world even as I constitute it because I constitute it “anonymously,” much in the way I so orient myself to the world through “bodily intentionality.” B. Husserl in Merleau-Ponty’s Later Work It is only appropriate to begin here with PS, which chronicles the lasting philosophical significance of Husserl (and his “shadow”). By itself it demonstrates much of what I am trying to show in this paper, namely the inseparability of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical contribution and his reading/appropriation of Husserl. The piece begins with some crucial remarks by Merleau-Ponty on his own hermeneutical approach to past philosophers like Husserl, some of which has been cited already above. MerleauPonty warns against our being seduced into “reducing” a philosopher strictly to what he said—to what is “objectively certified” of him. Merleau-Ponty’s “middle way” in this particular case is between “objectivism” on the one hand and pure arbitrariness on the other. Thus: an “objective” history of philosophy would “rob” great philosophers of “what they have given others to think about.” Yet neither should we engage in “meditation

Between Oneself and Another

313

disguised as a dialogue.” He points out that it is a false dilemma to claim that interpretation leads either to “inevitable distortion” or “literal reproduction.”20 Merleau-Ponty then quotes favorably from Heidegger on the “unthought-of ” elements in philosophers’ works; in Husserl there is an “unthought-of element in his works which is wholly his and yet opens up onto something else.” (PS 160, my italics) Note the paradoxical “is wholly his” and “onto something else.” Merleau-Ponty is tracing out Husserl’s own process of self-transcendence—and thereby making manifest what is latent, but of course the full “manifestation” turns out to be the texts of Merleau-Ponty. The boundaries of “self ” and “other” are porous indeed. The “unthought-of ” in Husserl is thereby given voice in Merleau-Ponty, but it is important to realize that there is no clear dividing line between “unthought” and “thought” in this, or perhaps in any other, case. Thus in Husserl, existential phenomenology is half-thought, or somewhat-thought, while in Merleau-Ponty it is more-fully-thought or re-thought.21 As we have seen already, Merleau-Ponty consistently maintained the belief that Husserl evolved over time into the “existential” Husserl of the “life-world.” In reference to Husserl’s idea of the life-world Merleau-Ponty urges: These late analyses are neither scandalous nor even disturbing if we remember everything which foretold them from the start. They make explicit that ‘world’s thesis’ prior to every thesis and theory, this side of understanding’s objectifications, which Husserl has always spoken of, and which has simply become in his eyes our sole recourse in the impasse into which these objectifications have led Western knowledge.” (PS 180)

He knows that Husserl would protest. Hence, later on, we encounter this revealing phraseology: “Willy-nilly, against his plans and according to his essential audacity, Husserl awakens a wild-flowering world and mind.” (PS 188-9, my italics) Husserl’s later thought—very much building on the earlier—suggests

314

Shazad Akhtar

a new direction without necessarily fully taking it. Merleau-Ponty revels in showing through liberal quotations that in Ideas II, Husserl freely grants ontological priority to material Nature over Spirit in one breath, even as he prioritizes transcendental consciousness in another. (PS 164-5, 171) From these and other hints he concludes that: “Husserl’s thought is as much attracted by the haecceity of Nature as by the vortex of absolute consciousness.” (PS 165) Merleau-Ponty then stresses the mutual “encroachment” (PS 176) and reciprocal Fundierung (PS 173, 176-7) of different orders of being, sensible and ideal,22 citing Husserl’s own words again to seal the case. (PS 177) PSM, an essay from 1961, offers a more prosaic but also thoroughly revelatory assessment of Husserlian thought and his Merleau-Ponty’s own self-circumscription within its berth. It represents the thinker’s mature conclusions on one of the major themes of phenomenology since its inception, namely its precise relation (or non-relation, as the case may be) to the sciences— both natural and “human.”23 It is primarily psychology that Merleau-Ponty is concerned with, not surprisingly (given his long engagement with Gestalt psychology in particular). The central problematic here is the “paradox” of essence and fact. The essay is particularly illuminating because of the way it demonstrates Merleau-Ponty’s strategy of striking a “middle way”— through and not despite Husserl—between historicism and relativism on the one hand and essentialism (and, implicitly, determinism) on the other. What Merleau-Ponty wants to maintain, and claims that Husserl himself achieves even if belatedly, is truth in the midst of indeterminacy, essence within existence, and, strikingly, “eternity” with “contingency.” (PSM 92) In all of this, he views the human sciences sympathetically (and in fact all sciences—there is no clear separation made here between natural and human sciences ontologically speaking, even if their methodologies differ). The reason for this sympathetic view is that human sciences, in their own way, are doing precisely the

Between Oneself and Another

315

same balancing act, albeit without the self-reflective anxiety that philosophy brings with it. It is in this sense that Merleau-Ponty declares that there is no clear dividing line between the two. (PSM 72) Once again he seems to be at odds with Husserl, who insists on the separateness of transcendental phenomenology from all sciences, but Merleau-Ponty tells a different story that relies, as usual, heavily on “evolutionary developments” within Husserl himself. Merleau-Ponty sees a burgeoning recognition in Husserl of the “reciprocal envelopment” of psychology and phenomenology but also, more broadly, fact and essence. Thus he makes several detours to chronicle the story of Husserl’s “profound development” away from absolute essentialism, for example with the case of language.24 (PSM 80) In PSM, what is key to note in all of this is not just what Merleau-Ponty says but why he is saying it: he draws Husserl into his own fight against the naturalism of psychology and the empirical sciences, invokes him to make his own case—indeed, to defend his own phenomenological approach to the questions at hand. It is in this light that we can appreciate Merleau-Ponty’s description of phenomenology itself as a negotiated mean between skepticism and absolutism. Merleau-Ponty does not so much want to modify the phenomenological method as bring it into living contact with the rest of the intellectual conversation: Husserl is seeking to reaffirm rationality at the level of experience, without sacrificing the vast variety that it includes and accepting all the processes of conditioning which psychology, sociology, and history reveal. It is a question of finding a method that will enable us to think at the same time of the externality which is the principle of the sciences of man and of the internality which is the condition of philosophy…” (PSM 52)

Husserl thereby finds the “roots of reason in our experience” (PSM 52)—just as Merleau-Ponty, we might add, finds his own roots in Husserl.

316

Shazad Akhtar

VI is the hardest of Merleau-Ponty’s works to assess in terms of its relationship to Husserl. Partly this is because the work is unfinished, with explicit references to Husserl lying in a large number of “Working Notes” whose proper interpretation is anything but clear25; but also because its references or allusions to Husserl are by now so interwoven in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical imagination that they come and go veiled or unannounced. This is not the case entirely: the last page of the final famous chapter “the Intertwining—the Chiasm,” for example, has fulsome praise for the German founder.26 Nonetheless, at least two of the chapters, the first and third— ”Reflection and Interrogation” and “Interrogation and Intuition”—can be read fruitfully as critical meditations on Husserl. Just as one could easily say that PS deals primarily with the phenomenological reduction and PSM with the eidetic, the same, I think, can be said for chapters 1 and 3 of the VI, respectively. Once again it becomes clear, when one sees it this way, just how systematic Merleau-Ponty’s reading and re-readings of Husserl truly are. The substance of the VI chapters will be brought out throughout the following section.



II. Merleau-Ponty’s Husserlian Phenomenology: By Theme A. The Phenomenological Reduction

It is a bromide by now that there is no issue more important in Husserl’s thought than the phenomenological reduction (and epoché).27 So suspicions have arisen over Merleau-Ponty’s having supposedly curtailed or compromised the purity of the reduction, chiefly and most famously in the “Preface” of PP: …we must break with our familiar acceptance of it [the world], and also, from the fact that from this break we can learn nothing but the unmotivated upsurge of the world. The most important lesson which the reduction teaches us is the impossibility of a complete reduction. (PP xv)

Between Oneself and Another

317

But these famous or infamous sentences do not, in MerleauPonty’s eyes, indicate a break from Husserl. They merely stress consciousness’s “…dependence on an unreflective life which is its initial situation…” (PP xvi) According to Merleau-Ponty, again, Husserl already thematized this life as the problem of the “lifeworld,” having stressed the primacy of facticity and existence over the once- or twice-removed approaches of, say, scientific empiricism on the one hand and Kantian idealism on the other. The point of the passage is to reveal the paradoxicality of the reduction, namely, the fact that it is only through an act of total commitment to reflective life that the impossibility of such a commitment is revealed. In this way, the reduction gives us over to our existential selfhood. And this is why the phenomenological reduction “belongs to existentialist philosophy.” I don’t think we should undervalue the fact that Merleau-Ponty endorses the phenomenological reduction. Indeed, he regards it as central to his philosophy. It is, after all, the reduction that brings us to the “natural attitude” before “naturalism” and its blosse Sachen. (PS 163) It is what allows us to “slacken the intentional threads which attach us to the world” ever too tightly to see ourselves. (PP xv) He later describes the reduction in similar terms as “the link, which is indeed a schism established by life between our thought and our physical and social situation,” adding that it nevertheless “never leads us in any way to negate time or pass beyond it into a realm of pure logic or pure thought.” (PSM 49) In other words, then, Merleau-Ponty accepts even the “schismatic” aspect of the reduction28, so long as it is not taken to mark a departure from the finitude of lived horizons. Merleau-Ponty’s reduction is one of two movements: the movement “out of ” nature—that is, the moment in which one breaks out of one’s “natural” condition, the passive slumber of everyday life; and the moment of back into it, that is, to a recognition of one’s finitude.29 Initially, through bracketing and the shift from the natural attitude to the transcendental attitude, I “see” or “gain possession of myself ”; reflection sharpens my

318

Shazad Akhtar

consciousness and brings it into self-consciousness. But the self is not apart from nature; in some way it cannot account for itself, it belongs to nature even as it transcends it. The second part of this movement is what Merleau-Ponty thinks must be reasserted against certain trends—and not just those of “transcendental Husserl”: … the essential difference between my point of view and that of a philosophy of understanding is that, in my view, even though consciousness is able to detach itself from things to see itself, human consciousness never possesses itself in complete detachment and does not recover itself at the level of culture except by recapitulating the expressive, discrete, and contingent operations by means of which philosophical questioning itself has become possible.” (Primacy 40)

Closely tied up with the phenomenological reduction is the dialectic of the “natural attitude” and the “transcendental attitude.” Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of these attitudes preserves elements of both continuity and discontinuity between them, in keeping with the paradoxical nature of the reduction.30 On the one hand the reduction takes us beyond natural attitude, but this is only “half the truth.” (PS 162) Merleau-Ponty’s considered judgment is that “It is the natural attitude which, by reiterating its own procedures, seesaws in phenomenology. It is the natural attitude itself which goes beyond itself in phenomenology—and so it does not go beyond itself.” (PS 164) The transcendental attitude is not abandoned or declared nonsense; but one attitude does not relate to the other as “false” to “true.”31 In the end, we must embrace the “contradictory characteristics”— which, says Merleau-Ponty, Husserl himself purposefully assigns it—of the reduction. (PS 161) It is true that Merleau-Ponty cannot accept some of what Husserl regards to be the consequences of the reduction, such as the privileged perch of “absolute” (reflective) consciousness.32 After all, the “incompleteness” of the reduction also means the limitedness, in that sense, of reflective thought. But in reading

Between Oneself and Another

319

the later Merleau-Ponty in particular, it becomes increasingly clear to one that the he has essentially folded the transcendental attitude, the stand-point of phenomenological consciousness, onto that of self-consciousness or “reflection” as such. This is no mere semantic sloppiness, nor is it an obvious transgression against Husserl himself. It is a consequence of his rejection of the strong division between psychology and philosophy, manifest throughout PSM, for example; reflection is not merely a “naturalistic” psychic act, to be sharply delineated from the heroic flight of a transcendental reduction. Given this re-orientation, Merleau-Ponty’s attacks in VI on the “philosophy of reflection,” as he calls it (VI 43), appear to be directed not at Husserl as such but at a kind of idealism that Husserl sometimes affirms, but which stems more deeply from Kant (and the Neo-Kantians). At first, this is admittedly not obvious. Take the following passages: A philosophy of reflection, as methodic doubt and as reduction of the openness upon the world to ‘spiritual acts,’ to intrinsic relations between the idea and its ideate, is thrice untrue to what it means to elucidate: untrue to the visible world, to him who sees it, and to his relations with the other ‘visionaries.’ (VI 39)

and again: …let us repeat that we reproach the philosophy of reflection not only for transforming the world into a noema, but also for distorting the being of the reflecting ‘subject’ by conceiving it as ‘thought’—and finally for rendering unthinkable its relations with other ‘subjects’ in the world that is common to them. (VI 43)

It may seem now that Merleau-Ponty is “at last” rejecting Husserl in no uncertain terms. None of these criticisms, however, is new. Merleau-Ponty has already rejected transcendental idealism in PP, with its assumptions of the “transparency” of the world to reflective thought.33 Indeed, the ghost of the “Preface”

320

Shazad Akhtar

haunts this chapter of the VI in more ways than this, as is evident from the following two claims: “It is essential to the reflective analysis that it start from a de facto situation,” (VI 44) and “the search for the conditions of possibility is in principle posterior to actual experience…” (VI 45) These are of course nothing more than restatements of the “existential” turn taken in PP and already discussed above. But a careful reading of this chapter reveals that MerleauPonty’s real target is Kantian constructivism, which he gives credit to Husserl for piercing through: this is what Husserl brought frankly into the open… that is: every effort to comprehend the spectacle of the world from within and from the sources demands that we detach ourselves from the effective unfolding of our perceptions and from our perception of the world, that we cease being one with the concrete flux of our life in order to retrace the total bearing and principal articulations of the world upon which it opens. (VI 45)

Indeed, Merleau-Ponty is not so much against “reflection” (or the transcendental attitude) as he is against a certain philosophy of reflection which effectively excises all consideration for the role of the “pre-reflective” in epistemological life. This is the heart of his opposition to Kant and, indeed, the Kantian inflections of Husserl’s own self-styled “transcendental” phenomenology.34 A philosophy of reflection by itself …leaves untouched the twofold problem of the genesis of the existent world and of the genesis of the idealization performed by reflection and finally evokes and requires as its foundation a hyper-reflection where the ultimate problems would be taken seriously. (VI 46)

This, in effect, is Merleau-Ponty’s identification of the “limits of phenomenology”—and a fulfilment of his promise to make of phenomenology a “phenomenology of phenomenology.”35 But because the “foundation” Merleau-Ponty refers to is in fact less

Between Oneself and Another

321

determinate than reflection, and more of an exploration of its never-fully-recoverable underside, it is not a replacement of the “existential Husserl” but in fact merely a further development of it. Merleau-Ponty’s disagreement is with “pure correlation” of “subject and object,” at least in an idealistic or quasi-idealistic construction (VI 47), and again with the notion of a “universal mind” (VI 49). But he sees Husserl as on the path of questioning these: “In recognizing that every reflection is eidetic and, as such, leaves untouched the problem of our unreflected being and that of the world, Husserl…agrees to take up the problem which the reflective attitude36 ordinarily avoids—the discordance between its initial situation and its ends.” (VI 46; see also PS 163 and 179) Merleau-Ponty finally comes to the idea—by way of Schelling, it would seem37—that philosophy as “reflection” must ultimately give way to a thinking of the rich middle between the knowable and the unknowable, the ideal world of thought and the real world of “wild being.” For this is the spring of human spirit, the soil of the self. Remarks Toadvine, “this state of continual beginning, of the need for continual reexamination of the paradoxical foundations of a reflection that attempts to grasp its own unreflective origins, could be considered the orienting theme of Merleau-Ponty’s own phenomenological method.” (Toadvine 240) This sort of method clearly covers Merleau-Ponty’s own “reexamination” of Husserl, himself the (effective) “origin” of phenomenology itself and, for Merleau-Ponty, the “unreflected” that is “paradoxically” reflected in Merleau-Ponty’s own phenomenological investigations.

B. Essences and the Eidetic Reduction

Commentators are divided over whether Merleau-Ponty accepts the eidetic reduction, but the evidence is plain that he was deeply preoccupied by the Husserlian notion of “essences” from first to last. It is true that he has little patience for the intuition-

322

Shazad Akhtar

ist resonances of Husserl’s Wesenschau, which he here calls a “myth” (VI 115-6) and there redescribes it as the “emergence of truth in and through the psychological event.” (PSM 53) What becomes clear is that Merleau-Ponty is seeking a middle way between essentialism and nominalism, and he thinks Husserl, in the end, was doing exactly the same. This is why he cites the Husserlian distinction between “exact” and “morphological” essences (PSM 67), the unlikeness of mathematics to phenomenology (PSM 67), Husserl’s own strict parallelism between the realms of the eidetic and the empirical, a random passage to this effect in “Die Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,” (PSM 72) and so on. Furthermore: “[Husserl’s] notion of an experienced essence, or an eidetic experience, contains in germ the consequences I have just drawn from it.” (PSM 72) What Merleau-Ponty is communicating is a shift he sees in Husserl from a pure philosophy of reflection—an orientation towards the logical, theoretical, transcendental, eidetic—to a philosophy of existence in which, we find out, reflection plays a crucial but non-foundational38 role. It is in this light that Merleau-Ponty understands both the phenomenological and eidetic reductions. To take the latter first, Merleau-Ponty explains that phenomenology is about not only “essences” but also “facticity.” This follows from phenomenology’s being about “achieving direct and primitive contact with the world.” (PP vii) Ideality is now characterized in purely instrumental terms: the eidetic reduction “prevail[s] over facticity” through ideality, though the “prevailing” is for the sake not of ideality but rather for a grasping of the things themselves—the “fish” that are caught with the “fisherman’s net.” Surely Merleau-Ponty is right that we do not reach the things by dwelling only on (or “in”) essences. We may not reach the things as completely as we wish, but there is something between absolute knowledge and total ignorance. In this respect it is helpful to remember that Husserl understood himself to be something of an “empiricist,” which by itself implies that he privileges facts over essences, but was vaguely aware of

Between Oneself and Another

323

the fact that reflection can only know essences—hence engendering the most enduring epistemological paradox of MerleauPonty’s meditations.39 According to Merleau-Ponty, at least, …we can say that the problem with which we were concerned at the beginning [of PSM]—must we be for fact or for essence, for time or eternity, for the positive science of man or philosophy?— was bypassed in the later thought of Husserl. Here he no longer considers essence as separated from fact, eternity from time, or philosophic thought from history. (PSM 93)

Just what are essences? In Merleau-Ponty’s eyes, essences are the manner and style of being only: the Sosein and not the Sein. And just as there is an essential “incompleteness” with respect to the phenomenological reduction, so there is a limit also on imaginative variation—thus there is no pure eidos, no “total variation.” Furthermore, eidetic variation is not just done in phenomenology, but in all sciences. In one place Merleau-Ponty admits: “In presenting the matter as I have, I am pushing Husserl further than he wished to go himself.” (PSM 72) MerleauPonty wants to admit of a “fundamental homogeneity” of the “inductive and essential” modes of knowledge, which Husserl always maintained was impossible. But Husserl’s own thinking, including his focus on the concrete and lived stream of life, forces on us an “inevitable dialectic of the concept of essence.” III. Conclusion This essay began by suggesting an integral relationship between Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy and his reading of Husserl. This has been shown, I hope, through the course of my recapitulation of and commentary on this reading, but this may now be supplemented and reinforced with some analogies. Thus, Merleau-Ponty stands to Husserl, I want to say, much as humanity, in Merleau-Ponty’s Husserlian philosophy, stands to the “world,” that is the “pre-existent Logos” (PP xxiii) or “that jointing and

324

Shazad Akhtar

framing of Being which is being realized through man” (PS 181). Or again, Merleau-Ponty is as language (or logos—the “theme of philosophy”) is to the “pre-language of the mute world” (VI 126), or finally, as Spirit is to Nature, the first finding a voice in the second, the second finding its depth in the first. The holistic vision that emerges here—of man and world, spirit and nature—is only prefigured or sketched in outline in Merleau-Ponty’s writings, but it is determinate enough to show how Merleau-Ponty could have ascribed so much of his philosophy40—in my view validly—to another philosopher, Husserl, who for his part nevertheless went so much of the time in a contrary direction. Merleau-Ponty’s views of reciprocity and reversibility, identity and difference, paradox and the “between”— they are all relevant to and implicit in his developmental—and organic—appropriation of Husserlian thought. There are obvious but fateful consequences to this sort of reading of the Merleau-Ponty/Husserl relationship. If we accept Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Husserl, we implicitly reject much of Husserl’s self-interpretation—his stated intentions, and his framing of the transcendental-phenomenological project. But is this not familiar hermeneutical territory? It is indeed an invoking of the hermeneutic topos of “knowing the author better than he knew himself.” But even this is not so simple, since, on Merleau-Ponty’s account, Husserl already knew what Merleau-Ponty “knows” about Husserl, just not with the same clarity or univocity. It is to Merleau-Ponty’s lasting credit that, decades before Donn Welton’s The Other Husserl41, Merleau-Ponty had already painted a vivid portrait of the inner conflictedness of Husserl’s thought. He had already identified and embraced “the other Husserl,” who he knew already as the “pre-jection” (my word, but Merleau-Pontyean in spirit) of himself. It is true that Merleau-Ponty does not feel himself constrained by the history of “traditional” interpretation of Husserl’s works, or by what Husserl may have believed he himself was accomplishing through his own philosophizing. But in this way Merleau-Ponty’s attitude towards Husserl is much like that of

Between Oneself and Another

325

a healthy child towards its parent: adulation is balanced by critical judgment, emulation by creative initiative. Would we want anything else? In one place Merleau-Ponty nicely summarizes his understanding of the meaning and progressive evolution of Husserl’s philosophy: “thus, a philosophy [Husserl’s] which seemed, more than any other, bent upon understanding natural being as the object and pure correlate of consciousness rediscovers through the very exercise of reflexive rigor a natural stratum in which the spirit is virtually buried in the concordant functioning of bodies within brute being.”42 Traditionally, the plausibility of MerleauPonty’s reading of Husserl has been thought to turn on whether one accepts Merleau-Ponty’s narrative of Husserl as a vaguely self-divided, Janus-faced figure who displays an increasing but never fully consummated interest in the under-side of transcendental “reflection”, or whether one sees him rather as a more or less consistent Olympian champion of “pure consciousness.” But what I have tried to do, in my small way, is to say rather that what makes Merleau-Ponty’s reading plausible is an acceptance of Merleau-Ponty’s own style and substance of thought, since his Husserl-reading and his own philosophizing are intertwined. But this brings out a kind of special paradox, whereby the line between the two thinkers becomes wholly blurred, exactly as if we were entering the “intermonde” Merleau-Ponty writes about variously in his works.43 For if Merleau-Ponty is right that he is (in so many words) a Husserlian thinker—at least, a thinker of Husserl’s inner thoughts—then it turns out that to accept Merleau-Ponty’s “Husserl” under the banner of accepting him (Merleau-Ponty)—is to have already accepted Husserl. This might for some be hard to believe, but then again, perhaps, in its own way, it may only be the radical fulfilment of the idea of a “hermeneutic circle”!

326

Shazad Akhtar

Endnotes 1. Surely James Edie was presciently correct in musing, in 1964: “that Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of Husserl has been and will continue to be contested is beyond doubt.” (In Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Primacy of Perception. Ed. John Wild. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964) Pp. xvii-xviii, fn10. I refer to this essay collection as a whole as “Perception,” and the namesake essay/discussion from it (“the Primacy of Perception and Its Philosophical Consequences,” tr. James Edie), “Primacy.” 2. Bernet, Rudolf; Iso Kern; and Eduard Marbach. An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1993 (p. xi) 3. For example, Elizabeth Behnke: “On the whole, then, MerleauPonty’s Husserl-reading is characterized by an interpretive engagement with the content of Husserlian texts rather than a concern for adopting a phenomenological attitude, consulting experiential evidence for ourselves, and carrying Husserl’s research tradition further. …And since Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Husserl has had a profound influence on the way Husserl’s work has been received in general, the overall effect has been to perpetuate a climate of interpretation in which Husserlian themes and terms are typically approached in light of received philosophical problems and received ways of posing them, all at the expense of the possibility of appropriating phenomenology as a living research horizon.” Behnke, Elizabeth. “Merleau-Ponty’s Ontological Reading of Constitution in Phénoménologie de la perception.” In Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl. Eds. Ted Toadvine and Lester Embree. Dodrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002, p. 31 (pp. 49-50) This volume will be referred to hereafter as “Reading.” 4. This appears true of Claude Lefort and March Richir, both of whom speak of Merleau-Ponty’s ultimate “break” with phenomenology. See Claude Lefort, Sur une colonne absente: Ecrits autour de Merleau-Ponty. Paris: Gallimard, 1978 (p. ix); and Marc Richir, “Le sense de la phénoménologie dans Le visible et l’invisible,” in Esprit, no. 66 (June 1982), p. 125. (Cited by way of Bettina Bergo’s “Philosophy as Perspectiva Artificialis: Merleau-Ponty’s Critique of Husserlian Constructivism.” In: Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Husserl at the Limits of Phenomenology. Ed. Leonard Lawlor with Bettina Bergo. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press 2002, p. 178.) Bergo’s article referred to hereafter as “Bergo.”

Between Oneself and Another

327

5. Zahavi, Dan. “Merleau-Ponty on Husserl: A Reappraisal.” In Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl. Eds. Ted Toadvine and Lester Embree. Dodrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. (pp. 3-29) 6. Barbaras, Renaud. The Being of the Phenomenon. Trs. Ted Toadvine and Leonard Lawlor. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004, p. 312: “Also, Merleau-Ponty’s ontology does not break with phenomenology; it is rather phenomenology’s most significant achievement…” 7. There are skeptics in this regard. Thomas Seebohm, for example, reveals his suspicion when he writes: “Merleau-Ponty is in every respect honest in his attempts to ‘save the face’ of his honored master in the light of the new developments introduced by him and others.” In other words, Merleau-Ponty’s encomia on Husserl reflect his desire to save Husserl from himself, rather than any real debt owed by one to the other. (Seebohm, Thomas. “The Phenomenological Movement: A Tradition without Method? Merleau-Ponty and Husserl.” In “Reading,” p. 59) 8. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. “the Philosopher and His Shadow.” In Signs. Tr. Richard M. McCleary. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1964 (p. 159). Hereafter “PS.” 9. Husserl and Merleau-Ponty did not have a personal acquaintance. Thus by “relationship” I of course refer throughout this essay to the relationship between their philosophies. 10. See “Perception,” p. 24. 11. Here as elsewhere, I use “man” instead of “humanity” only in order to reflect the style of the source author. I do of course use the latter term wherever I am representing my own views alone. 12. “Originally a project to gain intellectual possession of the world, constitution becomes increasingly, as Husserl’s thought matures, the means of unveiling a back side of things that we have not yet constituted.” (PS 180) See also Merleau-Ponty’s warning in the same essay: “to think is not to possess the objects of thought; it is to use them to mark out a realm to think about which we therefore are not yet thinking about.” (PS 160) 13. The current section is one of two that reconstruct Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy as a “Husserlian” phenomenology. Because Merleau-Ponty generally writes pieces and not piecemeal (a reflection of his largely becoming an essayist between The Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and the Invisible), it is important to examine this material text by text; but at the same time, this approach tends to occlude the genuinely systematic way he engages with the principal themes of Husserl’s

328

Shazad Akhtar

phenomenology, such as the two reductions. I have thus tried to combine both approaches—textual-historical and thematic-systematic—by organizing the second section around the same material discussed in the first, only now by theme. Different things become apparent through each approach. In terms of texts, I will draw primarily on the “Preface” to the Phenomenology of Perception (Tr. Colin Smith. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962; hereafter “PP”), the essays PS and “Phenomenology and the Human Sciences” (In “Perception”; essay referred to hereafter as “PSM”), and Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible, translation by Alphonso Lingis. Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois, 1969 (Hereafter VI). (Note: I will be citing from the paperback edition of the Smith translation of PP; amazingly, page numbers of the hardcover and paperback editions for the most part do not align.) In the interest of economizing on space, I have omitted any sketch of the historical background of the Merleau-Ponty’s reception of and acquaintance with Husserl, in historical terms. An excellent account has, luckily, been provided in a remarkable chronicle compiled by Ted Toadvine for “Reading.” See: Ted Toadvine, “Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl: A Chronological Overview.” In “Reading,” pp. (pp. 227-286) (Hereafter “Toadvine”) 14. After all, he explicitly relegates Being and Time (Heidegger being the other major phenomenological alternative to Husserl, excepting Sartre, who himself appropriates Husserl and Heidegger) to the status of a detailed development of Husserl’s own philosophy. This stated preference for Husserl over Heidegger (and Scheler) is repeated elsewhere, for example, in PSM: “Husserl, who defined philosophy as the suspension of our affirmation of the world, recognized the actual being of the philosopher in the world much more clearly than Heidegger, who devoted himself to the study of being in the world.” (PSM, 94) Merleau-Ponty calls Heidegger “dogmatic” in the same passage. This attitude towards Heidegger suggests that Merleau-Ponty is, in a way, “taking Heidegger back” for Husserl. Thus when Merleau-Ponty uses a term like “being-inthe-world” or “facticity” in the “Preface,” it is always, ironically, to the benefit of Husserl. Against those who would argue for an equal Husserl and Heidegger (at least the Heidegger of Being and Time) influence on the thinker, I think these indications help dispel that impression, though there is admittedly much room for debate on the matter. 15. Lest we imagine this to be a veiled attack on Husserl, we need only consult a later footnote later in which Merleau-Ponty defines

Between Oneself and Another

329

Husserl himself as “existentialist”—in his last or “third” period of philosophizing, that is. Indeed, this “tripartite” division of Husserl’s thought becomes a regular motif in Merleau-Ponty’s Husserl-interpretation. For as in PP, in PSM Merleau-Ponty singles out for their importance Husserl’s “last ten years” (PSM 46), though he also claims that “from the beginning to the end of his career, Husserl tried to discover a way between logicism and psychologism” (PSM 48)—that is, between strict logical necessity and the pure contingency of facts. Thus it is useful to note that already in the “Preface” Merleau-Ponty makes reference to Husserl as a contradictory philosopher. (PP viii) 16. “…a logically consistent transcendental idealism rids the world of its opacity and its transcendence.” (PP xiii) 17. See, for example: Bergo, Bettina. “Philosophy as Perspectiva Artificialis: Merleau-Ponty’s Critique of Husserlian Constructivism.” Printed as the “Afterword” of: Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Husserl at the Limits of Phenomenology. Ed. Leonard Lawlor with Bettina Bergo. Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois, 2002. Bergo argues: “It seems fair to conclude that Merleau-Ponty set about to clear any idealist residue from the path of the later Husserl, and, in so doing, pushed numerous concepts of his own.” (p. 162) But is this right? I certainly don’t take Merleau-Ponty to have ‘set about” to re-interpret Husserl; on my reading, he simply set about to philosophize, and Husserl gave this philosophizing its principal direction. 18. Smith, A. D. “the Flesh of Perception: Merleau-Ponty and Husserl.” In Reading Merleau-Ponty: On Phenomenology of Perception. Ed. Thomas Baldwin. New York: Routledge, 2007 (pp. 10-11) 19. Merleau-Ponty’s strong emphasis on “opacity” and “contingency” does, of course, expose him to the dangers of skepticism and relativism, both of which he confronts as necessary threats to face. He sides with the skeptics like Hume and Montaigne up to a point—arguing that they are nevertheless “too timid in the return to the positive aspect after their skeptical criticisms.” (Primacy, 29) He addresses the challenge of relativism and the threat of scientism exhaustively in PSM, which we will come to below. (We might wish to keep in mind that the same “soft relativism” that emerges in Merleau-Ponty may have begun to creep into Husserl already in the latter’s investigation into the multiplicity of historical and cultural “life-worlds”—the Zulu, etc.) 20. PS 159-161. Both of these positions have the common premise of “positivism”—here, another word for “objectivism”—according to

330

Shazad Akhtar

which, I take him to mean, there is some fully determinate and finished text before us, which we may either duplicate or distort, but nothing in between. 21. Reading Merleau-Ponty on the “unthought,” Bergo echoes the common view when she states that “the question of Merleau-Ponty’s reading … is a question of finding the latencies in the text and developing them such that they appear to bring to light an unthought dimension.” (Bergo 158-9) Taken on its own, this is too simplistic. This becomes evident when one observes the sheer volume of quotations Merleau-Ponty uses in a way that employs their literal and overt meaning. One is tempted to say that so many of Husserl’s “latencies” manifest themselves quite well! 22. It would of course take a detailed study of Ideas II itself to confirm Merleau-Ponty’s reading of it; but even a noted Husserl scholar like Steven Galt Crowell concedes that there is at least the appearance of this sort of paradox in the text: “In the course of his attempt to determine the idea of nature in Ideas II, Husserl encounters an apparent ‘vicious circle’… Are persons ‘components of nature,’ then, ‘subordinated’ to it, or does the very constitution of nature presuppose the non-natural realm of spirit?” (Crowell, Steven Galt, “The Mythical and the Meaningless: Husserl and the Two Faces of Nature.” In Issues in Husserl’s Ideas II. Eds. Thomas Nenon and Lester Embree. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996, p. 81). 23. By the “sciences of man” Merleau-Ponty has primarily psychology and, to a lesser degree, sociology and ethology in mind. (Another lecture course entitled “Phenomenology and Sociology” focuses on some other aspects of the same problem, this time emphasizing the namesake science, though it uses much of the same language as PSM, and is much shorter.) Of course, what is arguably most important of all for MerleauPonty is the relation of philosophy to history. But although we call history one of the “humanities” as opposed to ‘social sciences,” it is precisely the empirical, contingent factor of historicality that makes it akin to the human sciences in Merleau-Ponty’s sense. This is also why he treats the threat of “historicism” along with that of “relativism” as he opens the essay. 24. Thus for the later Husserl, argues Merleau-Ponty, “there is no question any more of constructing a logic of language, a universal grammar, but rather of finding a logic already incorporated in the world.” (PSM 82)

Between Oneself and Another

331

25. I have tried deliberately to avoid the use of the fragmentary “Working Notes” that accompany these chapters due to their indeterminate nature. I have also stayed away from the slightly over-exposed (but admittedly important) notion of “the flesh.” There is luckily plenty of remaining relevant material for the present task from the rest of the text. 26. “In a sense the whole of philosophy, as Husserl says, consists in restoring the power to signify, a birth of meaning, or a wild meaning, an expression of experience by experience…” (VI 155) 27. For this essay I will not make a distinction, as Merleau-Ponty did not, between the “phenomenological’ and the “transcendental’ reductions, but rather treat them as one. 28. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty insists elsewhere that “the sensible order is being at a distance” (PS 167-8) in order to stress the futility of teleological accounts of the world that bind the “inner” and the “outer” by a secret “aim.” 29. One might call this a “circle of finitude” which, moreover, bears obvious and open affinities with aspects of Hegelian thought. 30. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Themes from the Lectures at the Collège de France 1952-1960. Tr. John O”Neill. Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois, 1970. (p. 108) Hereafter “themes.” Merleau-Ponty approvingly speaks of the moment when “philosophy becomes the enterprise of describing living paradoxes.” 31. It is interesting in this regard to note that Husserl had already been writing—privately—of “Der ‘transzendentale Idealismus’ als Synthesis von natürlicher und transzendentaler Einstellung.” See: Husserl, Edmund. Husserliana XXXIV: Zur Phänomenologischen Reduktion (Texte aus dem Nachlass 1926-1935). Ed. Sebastian Luft. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002, p. 15 (Hereafter “Husserl’) 32. Merleau-Ponty critiques the annihilation of the world experiment (see, for example, PS 173-4) but otherwise gives even the description of the reduction in Ideas I a warm reception. (See PSM 56) 33. “A logically consistent transcendental idealism rids the world of its opacity and its transcendence.” (PP xiii) 34. Merleau-Ponty announces his position clearly already in the “Preface” of PP: “Descartes and particularly Kant detached the subject, or consciousness, by showing that I could not possibly apprehend anything as existing unless I first of all experienced myself as existing in the act of apprehending it.” (PP x) Merleau-Ponty calls this the “idealist return to consciousness” which he expressly disavows. See also: “Husserl’s

332

Shazad Akhtar

transcendental is not Kant’s…” (PP xv) It is of course the Kant of the first “Critique” that Merleau-Ponty has in mind in such remarks. He is far more sympathetic and even indebted to the third “Critique.” 35. Husserl’s phrase, in fact. See Husserl, p. 176 36. Note the terminology—”reflective” for “transcendental.” 37. Schelling is discussed in detail in Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on “Nature.” (Nature: Course Notes from the Collège de France. Compiled and with notes from Dominique Séglard. Tr. Robert Vallier. Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois, 2003, esp. pp. 36-52) For an excellent treatment of Schelling’s role in Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy see: Patrick Burke, “Creativity and the Unconscious in MerleauPonty and Schelling.” In Schelling Now: Contemporary Readings, ed. Jason M. Wirth. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005 38. In a strictly ontological sense, that is—reflection is still for Merleau-Ponty the foundation of the activity of philosophy, since “unreflective experience is known to us only through reflection…” (PP 49) It is this sort of insight that sets the stage for the later notion of “hyper-reflection.” 39 See PP 57fn44 40. Obviously I do not make a sharp distinction between the philosophies of the “earlier” and “later” Merleau-Ponty. The material presented in Sections I and II of the present paper afford, I think, ample (though obviously not exhaustive) evidence that this is so. 41. See: Welton, Donn. The Other Husserl: The Horizons of Transcendental Phenomenology. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000. 42. Themes, p. 83 43. See, for example: VI (48, 84) See also the reference to “intercorporeality” in PS (168)

15 The Pregnable Subject: Maternity and Levinas’ Relevance to Feminism Sarah LaChance Adams

University of Oregon Society for Interdisciplinary Feminist Phenomenology1 [email protected] ABSTRACT: In Levinas’ Otherwise than Being, the mother appears as the prototype of ethical subjectivity, complete being for the other. Adams argues that Levinas appropriates the maternal perspective without concern for the actual complexities of motherhood. He especially neglects the (very common) experience of maternal ambivalence and women’s desires for independence. Ironically, Adams claims, Levinas provides the most valuable insights to mothering as an ethical practice when he is not speaking of mothers, women, or the “feminine” directly. In particular, he illuminates the temporality of maternal ethics and its complex relationship to freedom. The greatest advantage of not having children must be that you can go on believing that you are a nice person: once you have children, you realize how wars start.2 Fay Weldon

Over the thirty year span in which Emmanuel Levinas wrote Time and the Other (1947), Totality and Infinity (1961), and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), the feminine and maternity became increasingly central to his ethics. Nevertheless, the question remains as to whether or not this change can be considered progress from a feminist point of view. Otherwise than Being could be read as a radical inversion of patriarchy. In arguing for a PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

334

Sarah LaChance Adams

relational ontology, he uses maternity as a metaphor, effectively making the childbearing woman the purest, most perfect example of ethical subjectivity. Even so, Levinas has been rightly criticized by scholars for his treatments of the feminine and of maternity. In this essay I describe how Levinas’ understanding of motherhood denies the complexity of maternal experience. His idealized account, if taken to heart, could be detrimental to actual mothers. Ironically, Levinas provides the most valuable insights to understanding mothering as an ethical practice when he is not speaking of mothers, women, or the feminine directly. In Time and the Other, Levinas claims that solitude, which is “an absence of time” is overcome in the relationship with the other.3 “The other is the future. The very relationship with the other is the relationship with future.”4 After a brief discussion of eros, Levinas concludes that one cannot overcome solitude via the erotic alone.5 The subject remains a subject, communication is a failure.6 Eros remains important however in that it leads to fecundity and “…time is essentially a new birth.”7 That is, another’s natality can give one time, the future. However, this birth must be the birth of a son to a father: How can the ego become other to itself? This can happen only in one way: through paternity. Paternity is the relationship with a stranger who, entirely whole being Other, is myself, the relationship of the ego with a myself who is nonetheless a stranger to me.8

It is because the son is so similar to the father, because he seems to be the father himself, that the father identifies with him. However, the father also realizes that the son is not himself, he is a distinctly other person who will inhabit a future that the father will never know. This ambiguity in the relationship between father and son causes the father to recognize his own ambiguity in relationship to himself. Just as his son is both self and other to himself, so he too is self and other to himself. This is how the father discovers the truth of his subjectivity, that he is a stranger to himself.

The Pregnable Subject

335

In Totality and Infinity Levinas presents an ethics based on a phenomenology of the face. As Levinas describes it, the face indicates the presence of an unknown infinity. Realized suddenly, it provides an abrupt leap of understanding. However, this understanding is not knowledge of the person, as though one suddenly knows what that person is about. On the contrary, it is an awareness that one does not know, that this person is wholly other to oneself, utterly unique. The other’s infinity is always more than one comprehends it to be. When one sees the other as a body, a personality, a set of thoughts, symptoms, behaviors, attitudes or feelings, these are signs of an unreachable world. To have a proper respect for the other means to recognize that one can never fully know him. The mere presence of the other challenges the free reign of one’s spontaneity, because when one moves about the world without regard for the other, one bumps into her. Thus, the face tells us that to be impetuous is to be violent. In Totality and Infinity, Levinas recognizes women more explicitly, although little is added to the feminine role in ethics. In this book, he identifies the feminine with voluptuosity and hospitality. Feminine voluptuosity is important to ethics because its telos is the birth of the son, and this birth initiates the father into ethical responsibility. Still, the feminine beloved appears without a voice and without a face, which means, in Levinas’ scheme, that she has no ethical standing and no personhood. The beloved is opposed to me not as a will struggling with my own or subject to my own, but on the contrary as an irresponsible animality which does not speak true words. The beloved, returned to the stage of infancy without responsibility—this coquettish head, this youth, this pure life ‘a bit silly’—has quit her status as a person. The face fades, and in its impersonal and inexpressive neutrality is prolonged, in ambiguity, into animality. The relations with the Other are enacted in play; one plays with the Other as with a young animal.9

336

Sarah LaChance Adams

Similarly, while feminine hospitality is vital to ethics, it does not admit women to participate in ethics. Hospitality is important because it prepares the place for the welcoming of the needy stranger. The woman provides that which the man has to offer— good soup, a warm fire. Yet ultimately it is the man’s place to invite the stranger into the home, while the woman remains invisible and inaudible: “And the other whose presence is discretely an absence, with which is accomplished the primary hospitable welcome which describes the field of intimacy, is the Woman.”10 Though the absent-presence of the woman is essential, she remains an ethical non-entity.11 In Time and the Other and Totality and Infinity, ethics and the emergence of a truer understanding of oneself begins with the birth of a son; in Otherwise than Being, they begin before birth, in the maternal body. In contrast to his previous focus on the “concrete situation”12 of paternity, he turns to maternity as a metaphor: The evocation of maternity in this metaphor suggests to us the proper sense of oneself. The oneself cannot form itself; it is already formed with absolute passivity. In this sense it is the victim of a persecution that paralyzes any assumption that could awaken it, so that it would posit itself for itself. This passivity is that of an attachment that has already been made, as something irreversibly past, prior to all memory and recall.13

Surprisingly, Levinas is not referring to the fetus or child when he says that the oneself is passively formed via maternity, in a time irrevocably lost to memory. While the mother gives physical existence to the child, the child bestows the mother with the “proper sense of oneself,” “complete being ‘for the other.’”14 It is the mother (with child) who is this absolute passivity, the victim who is the prototypical ethical subject, the sufferer of this inevitable amnesia; and pregnancy—“the gestation of the other in the same”—is the archetype for responsibility.15 In this view, to be a mother means to be “devoted to the others, without being able to resign,” “incarnated in order to offer itself, to suffer and to give.”16 The maternal

The Pregnable Subject

337

metaphor helps him to make clear how subjectivity, properly understood, is “an irreplaceable hostage”; how as ethical beings we are all victimized, held captive, and persecuted.17 He believes that serving the other in this way is not an alienation from oneself because “I am summoned as someone irreplaceable.”18 That is, ethical responsibility is the true foundation of the self; the self is epiphenomenal to its responsibility for the other. Thus, in this text, pregnancy and motherhood are the image of all ethical relations. It is significant, however, that maternity is invoked by Levinas specifically as a metaphor. Men are not excluded from these relations as women were in the earlier works. Why does Levinas shift his focus from paternity to maternity? In some respects this change is an improvement. In The Gift of the Other: Levinas and the Politics of Reproduction, Lisa Guenther points out that in introducing maternity, he addresses his previous “neglect of the flesh.”19 “…the maternal body gives herself, her skin stretching to make room for an Other; she not only provides but actually becomes a dwelling-place for the stranger. For Levinas, the maternal body gives despite herself, without having chosen to give…”20 It is true that the maternal body gives to the fetus without the mother needing to will it. The very calcium from her bones will be leached for the developing baby if necessary. Empirical facts such as these can support the belief that instances of ‘involuntary generosity’ exist.21 Most importantly, however, the example of maternity helps Levinas to break more completely from the notion of the independently existing ego than he could before. When Levinas works from the example of the father, the subject always exists (albeit imperfectly) before the child arrives, but the mother embodies permeability to the other. In Time and the Other the self begins in solitude until the other makes communication, and most importantly, time possible; in Totality and Infinity the other gives one ethics and freedom. However, in Otherwise than Being responsibility for the other is the source of one’s own uniqueness; the child is conceived before the mother can be born.

338

Sarah LaChance Adams

From a feminist point of view, does Levinas make progress in his representations of women? In his early works, he writes from a heterosexual, patriarchal point of view.22 The significant players are all masculine; the feminine and maternal are always depicted from a masculine point of view. In Time and the Other, the father’s relationship to the son is the central human relation, woman’s most important function is to provide a son. Mothers and daughters do not participate in egoism or ambiguity, in time or the future. In this work, Levinas disappoints women in the classic way, he fails to acknowledge their participation in humanity. Totality and Infinity adds little to improve this. Even though Levinas seems to try to honor women in his descriptions of hospitality, they are still regarded within their traditional, restrictive role. Furthermore, his characterizations of voluptuosity are overtly sexist; insofar as the feminine beloved is voluptuous for Levinas, she has no ethical status. It is not as easy to come to a conclusion regarding Otherwise than Being. Initially it might appear to be a dramatic overturning of his earlier ideas. A relational ontology takes hold.23 Ethics and intersubjectivity seem to be a matriarchal affair. However, it is a problem that women gain their selfhood and ethical standing through bearing children. What about the women who are childless by choice, by chance, or because of infertility? What about adoptive mothers who did not gestate the other within? Are they not models of the ‘proper’ sense of themselves? Are women not to be as valued for their other achievements and abilities? Another problem with Otherwise than Being is that its characterizations of maternity seem to be at odds with women’s reproductive freedom. For example, Sonia Sikka notes that abortion could never be ethical under Levinas’ picture of maternity: Notice what happens, in this regard, if one introduces, into the portrait of ideal maternity painted by Levinas, the image of a woman who, in order to secure her own well-being, chooses to eject the other whom she harbors within her body. From the perspective of Levinas’s ideal mother, must not this latter woman,

The Pregnable Subject

339

whether or not her choice is guaranteed by the law of the land, be judged as monstrous? It must, I think…24

Obviously, the fact that abortion becomes a quintessentially unethical act in Levinas’ philosophy would be problematic for many feminists. Likewise, if a woman is able to use birth control, give her children up for adoption, or even ask for help with the children, then this gives the “irreplaceable hostage” a way out of her bondage. In these ways Levinas’ project seems to be at odds with many feminists’ aims. Levinas image of the suffering, captive mother looks even worse when we pair it with his language that is evocative of sexual violence. As Chloé Taylor indicates: Evoking as Cynthia Willett has noted, both the ‘violation’ of a feminized subject and ‘pregnancy against one’s will’, Levinas writes that the subject has the other ‘in his skin,’ is ‘penetratedby-the-other,’ and this involuntarily, ‘despite itself,’ ‘a sacrificed rather than sacrificing itself. One is ‘torn up from oneself in the core of one’s unity,’ in a ‘nudity more naked than all destitution,’ and ‘whitens under the harness’ in the ‘form of a corporeal life devoted to expressing and giving. It is devoted, and does not devote itself’. Drawing intentionally or otherwise on metaphors of concubinism, rape and involuntary impregnation, this subject is responsible for the other who is not in ‘his’ skin, like a phallus, like a fetus, whether or not ‘he’ chose to have it there.25

Even if we assume that Levinas does not intend to advocate violence against women, what is to prevent his philosophy from being used rationalize misogyny? Levinas states in Time and the Other that he does not want to “ignore the legitimate claims of feminism…”26 Unfortunately he does not elaborate on what he takes these claims to be or how he intends to recognize them. Thus, this nod to feminists is not very reassuring. What of mothers who do not want to submit to the “proper sense of oneself” according to Levinas? What about women’s desire for freedom? For independence? For a self that is whole unto

340

Sarah LaChance Adams

itself, not invaded by the other? Levinas might say that these women suffer from the same delusion as western philosophy. To be without a choice can seem to be violence only to an abusive or hasty and imprudent reflection, for it precedes the freedom non-freedom couple, but thereby sets up a vocation that goes beyond the limited and egoist fate of him who is only for-himself, and washes his hands of the faults and misfortunes that do not being in his own freedom or in his present. It is the setting up of a being that is not for itself, but is for all, is both being and disinterestedness…Responsibility for the other, this way of answering without prior commitment, is human fraternity itself, and it is prior to freedom.27

Feminists have struggled for the rights to make choices, to enjoy freedoms, to be “for-herself ” in spite of pressure to live for others. Historically, their existence as “responsibility for others” has not been the basis for participation in “human fraternity” but exclusion from it. Levinas does not acknowledge that the desire for freedom from the demands of the other are contextualized by different material, historical and cultural situations. Supporters of Levinas could respond to the above charges in a variety of ways. They could argue that Levinas does not mean to denigrate women by describing them as passive; he means to demonstrate that ethical “agency” involves a radical passivity. Thus, if women appear submissive in Levinas’ account, this demonstrates that they are ethically empowered. Although women find themselves in their traditional place in Levinas’ writings, he elevates the status of these roles. In this regard, Levinas is in agreement with care ethics theorists who seek to affirm the value of feminine caretaking.28 Still, these theorists have also been accused of reinforcing a patriarchal perspective.29 Affirming the value of the feminine is not automatically a feminist move. The best defense for Otherwise than Being comes from Lisa Guenther’s The Gift of the Other: Levinas and the Politics of Reproduction and “‘Like a Maternal Body’: Emmanuel Levinas and the Motherhood of Moses.” She argues that Levinas is not trying to

The Pregnable Subject

341

dictate women’s roles, rights or behavior, but rather to describe some parallels between the responsibility of mothers and a broader ethical obligation that we all bear. “In this sense, maternity would not refer to a biological or social imperative for women to reproduce, but rather an ethical imperative for each of us to bear the stranger as if she were already under my skin, gestating in my own flesh.”30 She supports this conclusion through analysis of some of the biblical passages cited by Levinas in his discussions of ethics and maternity. In one example Moses asks god why he has made him responsible for the people of Israel. He likens his responsibility to that of a mother for her children: “Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a suckling child, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors’?”31 Levinas cites this passage in a discussion of one’s responsibility to the stranger. “In proximity the absolutely other, the stranger whom I have ‘neither conceived nor given birth to,’ I already have on my arms, already bear, according to the Biblical formula, ‘in my breast as the nurse bears the nursling.’”32 Levinas employs the maternal metaphor here to demonstrate the depth of the ethical obligation one bears toward the stranger. In stating that ethics is similar to the maternal relationship, Levinas holds open the possibility that even a stranger can be taken in and cared for as family. As in the poignant ending of the Grapes of Wrath in which a young mother whose baby has died feeds a starving man from her breast, by making one into a mother, the child calls forth a radical generosity that can also be applied to others. Guenther claims that by providing Moses as the model of maternity, Levinas rejects any straightforward association between mothers (or women in general) and ethical obligation. The biological fact of incarnation in a female body need not condemn me to a destiny of childbirth, nor does incarnation in a

342

Sarah LaChance Adams

male body free me from the responsibility of bearing the Other ‘like a maternal body.’ In this sense, maternity becomes more than a social role or fixed biological destiny, either of which would bind the identity of women to childbirth and child rearing. By understanding maternity ethically as the embodied response to an Other whom I may or may not have ‘conceived and given birth to,’ we recognize maternity as a locus of responsibility, without expecting women to bear that responsibility alone.33

For Guenther the fact that the ethical calling is that one be “like a maternal body” means that the ideal of mothering need not map onto the reality of mothering perfectly. Rather, she thinks there is an appropriate gap between what is and what ought to be in Levinas’ ethics. Even if one is empirically a mother, one may not succeed in being the kind of mother Levinas describes. Being “like a maternal body” is something that even actual mothers would need to aspire to. Although Guenther admits that there is a gap between Levinas’ description of mothers and their real life experiences, nowhere does he acknowledge that a mother might loose patience, act selfishly, be violent toward her children, or be limited in any way in her capacity to give. He never equivocates; he thinks that the mother’s vulnerability, permeability, responsibility and devotion are complete. Ultimately, Levinas does presume to understand maternal response and responsibility, but in fact he employs a stereotype that is as ancient as the Old Testament. In reality, mothers are not the self-immolating saints that Levinas describes, but this does not negate the ethical significance of mothering, or Levinas’ relevance to maternal ethics. On the contrary, maternal experience can elucidate many of Levinas’ insights, and vice versa. However, for this relationship to be mutually beneficial, the true complexity of mothering must be taken into account. In an essay of this length I can only gesture toward the richness of the mother-child relationship. I will do so through a brief introduction to the phenomenon of maternal ambivalence.

The Pregnable Subject

343

Maternal ambivalence can be described as mothers’ extreme and contradictory feelings toward their children—love and hate, anger and tenderness, pity and cruelty, contentedness and rage. These conflicting feelings correlate with opposing impulses—to both harm and protect, to both abandon and nurture. In first person accounts of maternal ambivalence, women describe a passionate love for their children paired with fantasies of suicide, infanticide or accidental death as the only way out of motherhood. In Maternal Thinking, Sara Ruddick conveys the experience of a sleep-deprived mother who has a vision of killing her much-loved, but sick and crying baby. On the thought of killing her child, she throws up violently, then protects the child from herself by riding the bus with her all night, feeling that she will not hurt her if she is not alone.34 In Down Came the Rain: My Journey through Postpartum Depression, Brooke Shields describes an intense desire to protect her newborn daughter Rowan, but she also has a recurring fantasy of seeing her daughter’s body slammed into the wall. It occurs to her that the baby is like the creature in Alien that destroys the host as it exits the body. She also calculates whether she is at a high enough distance from the ground to kill herself by jumping out the window.35 In Of Woman Born, Adrienne Rich attests to a similar despair: “And I am weak sometimes from heldin rage. There are times when I feel only death will free us from one another, when I envy the barren woman who has the luxury of her regrets but has a life of freedom and privacy.”36 Rich affirms that maternal rage may be more common than we realize. She describes an evening with a group of women poets and their discussion of Joanne Michulski, a mother of eight who chopped up and decapitated her two youngest children on her front lawn. Although Rich’s friends were all women who loved and cared for their children, “every woman in that room who had children, every poet, could identify with her.”37 In Misconceptions: Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood, Naomi Wolf describes her own struggle between the need to care for her child and her own conflicting interests:

344

Sarah LaChance Adams

On another day, I became engaged in writing again for the first time in months. It was one of those rare good days when a writer can loose herself in time. Caught up in my excitement, I stayed too long at the office. It meant that I was late for a feeding. By the time I snapped out of my state of concentration and raced out of the building to run the few blocks to cross the street to reach our house, I was very late indeed. Christine, our new caregiver, was standing on the other side of the busy boulevard, holding the baby, on her way over to come get me. The wind was whipping Christine’s hair and skirt, and the baby was howling. I tried to lunge across, but with six lanes of traffic roaring between us, I couldn’t. I felt guilty almost to the point of crying at the baby’s hunger, but in the midst of my guilt, intertwined with it, was a sheer vexation, almost a childlike anger, at having had to interrupt my work.38

While Wolf does describe “a longing for caring,” even a desire to run into traffic to reach her daughter, she also feels a desperate yearning for uninterrupted concentration. This is not a superficial irritation. Even if a mother wants to care for her children, when she looses sleep, freedom of movement, guilt-free work time, and alone-time, this is a real loss that can drive women to despair. This brief look at the experiences of mothers introduces aspects of maternity that Levinas does not consider—the desire to flee from one’s caretaking duties, fantasies of murder and suicide, and feelings of rage. On these accounts, while mothers have the intense desire to protect, to even sacrifice themselves for their children, these same children can become sacrificial victims both in fantasy and on suburban front lawns. In each case mothers deny the picture that Levinas paints. Even when a mother loves her child as deeply as Levinas’ idealization predicts, this does not mediate the intensity of her conflicting feelings. Especially for mature adult women, they frequently experience an individuated sense of self that existed before the birth of the child, and that does not exist only to serve, but also to flourish in and of itself. And the flourishing of a woman can sometimes be at odds with the raising of children.

The Pregnable Subject

345

If Levinas intends to accurately describe mothering, he has provided a very poor, one-sided account. If, as Guenther suggests, Levinas describes an ideal to which mothers can aspire, then he lets us down in this regard as well. Idealizations of mothering only make its practice much more difficult. When mothers think that they should be able to give to their children infinitely, and are unable to do so (as no human could), they feel guilty, angry, worthless, ashamed, depressed, and fearful of the judgment of others. These feelings can cause a paralysis of mind and body, making it difficult to respond to one’s child at all, let alone appropriately. Contra Guenther, I argue that in his characterizations of maternity, Levinas is too far from the “what is” to help us with “what ought to be.” His hagiography of mothers will only be counterproductive. What is more helpful to women is an accurate understanding of their own experiences, and for this the maternal icon must be dethroned. In Torn in Two: The Experience of Maternal Ambivalence, Rozsika Parker describes ambivalence as an achievement that can ultimately enhance the mother’s responsivity to her child. However, this requires that she let go of the maternal ideal, and recognize her own limitations in the face of the tremendous weight of her responsibility. One mother, Selma, attests to this: Last week when he wouldn’t stop crying, I shook him, which I know is a really bad thing to do. Afterwards I thought about it, and found myself admitting, really for the first time, the full weight of his dependence on me—acknowledging that the baby is entirely dependent on me for twenty-four hours a day—and what a huge drain that is. The funny thing is that since then his crying has not got to me in the same way.39

As Selma lets go of the maternal ideal and its accompanying guilt, she recognize her own limitations. This diminishes her hostility toward her son and enables her to respond more appropriately to his needs. Parker states: “I think the conflict between love and hate actually spurs mothers on to struggle to understand and

346

Sarah LaChance Adams

know their [child]. In other words, the suffering of ambivalence can promote thought—and the capacity to think about the baby and child is arguably the single most important aspect of mothering.”40 Interestingly, the ability to acknowledge one’s limitations as a mother can facilitate an ethical response to the child. If Levinas’ hagiography is meant to show us the way to be good mothers, then his efforts are counter-productive. It is more helpful to mothers to understand the reality of their situation. In this regard, Levinas can still be of service. Oddly enough, he is most helpful to illuminating maternal experience when he is not speaking of women, the feminine, or maternity directly. To see how, we will consider two narratives of real-life (maternal) commitment. In Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency, Eva Kittay describes an interaction between her disabled daughter Sesha and Sesha’s long-term caregiver Peggy. The story seems to describe the moment at which Peggy felt committed to care for Sesha. Peggy had not wanted to take the job, but agreed to a trial week. During this week, Peggy was working on some exhausting physical therapy with Sesha: I sat her down in her stroller and sat down on a park bench. I realized I was simply too exhausted from the effort. I thought, how am I going to do this? How can I possibly do this job? When I looked down at Sesha and saw her little head pushed back against her stroller moving first to one side then to another. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing. Until I traced what her eyes were fixed on. She had spotted a leaf falling, and she was following its descent. I said ‘Thank you for being my teacher, Sesha. I see now. Not my way, your way, slowly.’ After that I fully gave myself over to Sesha. That forged the bond.41

Shields also describes a moment at which she found herself committing to care for her daughter in spite of its difficulty: At the hospital exit, as expected, we were met by cameras and comments. The photographers asked the baby’s name and tried to get a close-up of our five- day-old daughter. I was struck by

The Pregnable Subject

347

how much of an intrusion this was. I was accustomed to it, but it felt different where she was concerned. It felt extremely personal and even more invasive. Suddenly I didn’t want them to know her name, nor did I want the cameras in her little face. I regretted putting her through this but felt as if I didn’t have a choice. A wave of fear washed over me, and I instantly thought something was going to happen to her out there. I sought the refuge of the locked car. Rowan didn’t cry once. As I entered the waiting vehicle, a smile frozen on my face, Rowan looked straight up at me as if to say, “Mom, these people are too close.” I looked down at her and was taken aback by the directness of her gaze. Once again, she seemed wiser than I felt. Silently I made a promise to protect her.42

Both of these stories describe a moment of commitment in response to the face of the other. Taking Rowan out into the world for the first time makes Shields suddenly aware of the child’s vulnerability. The cameras (that Shields is so used to) in “her little face” seem threatening. This child is so small, and looks to her for protection. “Mom, these people are too close.” Sesha’s observance of the leaf, and the expression of wisdom in Rowan’s eyes are indications of their unique perceptions of the world, suggestions of an inaccessible infinity. For Levinas, to have a proper respect for the other means to recognize that one can never fully know her. In both cases, the mothering person witnesses something in the face of the child—wisdom, intentionality, and also vulnerability. This epiphany compels her to give herself over, to promise to protect. The face exposes the other to us. To expose another is to leave them in a dangerous situation, to expose a baby means to leave it outside to die. Thus, the other’s face reveals them to us, but they are revealed as vulnerable. For this reason, Levinas says “the epiphany of the face is ethical.”43 The appearance of infinity in the face is accompanied by the awareness of defenselessness, and thus, the call to be ethical. As with Sesha and Rowan, the other’s infinity is revealed along with their needs for protection and nurturance. Ironically, however, the other’s vulnerability also commands a certain power. “Infinity presents itself as a face in the ethical resis-

348

Sarah LaChance Adams

tance that paralyses my powers and from the depths of defenceless eyes rises firm and absolute in its nudity and destitution”.44 This is what George Kunz calls “the paradox of power and weakness.”45 The weak person is powerful because she calls the powerful to respond to her needs. “The child and the ill person calling me to their aid, those suffering poverty inspiring my compassion, even the irresponsibility of an enemy urging me to help them become responsible points to this paradox.”46 In this sense, the ethical person is rendered passive by the other. This susceptibility—the hungry cry of Wolf’s daughter, Rowan’s “little face” and “little body,” Sesha’s “little head”—compels. According to Levinas, we are constantly constrained and motivated by others. Yet this does not mean that we are not free. For Levinas, no person is a sovereign subject and the ability to assert one’s will against others is domination, not freedom. Instead he argues that freedom is made possible by ethical responsibility. “Conscience… is the revelation of a resistance to my powers that does not counter them as a greater force, but calls in question the naïve right of my powers, my glorious spontaneity as a living being. Morality begins when freedom, instead of being justified by itself, feels itself to be arbitrary and violent.” 47 Ethics is freedom called into question, but freedom is also defined by the opportunity to be ethical. Freedom begins when one suspends her rights in favor of another, when he controls his caprices, when she restricts her reign. Freedom is not an exertion of power, but the exercise of restraint. Thus it is a paradoxical opportunity; one’s response to the other is not enforced, but it is compelled by the power of weakness. Shields describes this kind of obliging devotion. She pledges to care for her daughter even when the difficulty of it leads her to suicidal and murderous thoughts. Peggy’s choice to become Sesha’s caregiver was also freely compelled. In caring for Sesha she enters a sort of voluntary servitude. Kittay says that Peggy had not wanted to take the job but that by the end of the one week trial, “it was already nearly too late to quit. Sesha had worked her way into Peggy’s heart.” 48 As Kittay

The Pregnable Subject

349

describes it here, Peggy’s commitment to Sesha was not a simple choice. She had not wanted to take the job and it was not forced on her, yet she felt compelled to take it. Her adoption of Sesha had an odd temporality to it. “It was already nearly too late too quit.” In fact, the time to commit or quit would have been right then, at the end of the one week trial. While she could point to a moment of commitment—when she witnessed Sesha’s infinity—it was also as if the obligation began before any deliberate or reflective choice. Levinas believes that this is the temporal structure of all ethical commitment. He does not think that responsibility arises from commitment, but that commitment already presupposes responsibility. “The relationship of proximity… [is] anachronously prior to any commitment.”49 For Levinas, the relationship of proximity is obligation. And, obligation is perpetually anachronistic; its time is never the present. Indeed, this could be said of Shields’ commitment to Rowan. When she pledges to care for Rowan outside the hospital she is already obligated to her by virtue of their proximity. But when did this obligation begin? When she decided to conceive? When she began fertility treatments? When Rowan was conceived? When she was born? There is no clear answer, no clear origin for her obligation. “This is an anarchic plot, for it is neither the underside of a freedom, a free commitment undertaken in a present or a past that could be remembered, nor slave’s alienation, despite the gestation of the other in the same, which responsibility for the other signifies.”50 Obligation is an-archic; it is without arché. An arché establishes the beginning of linear time, but we are always already within time. We cannot witness the arché. Although we may remember a commitment made to the other, the obligation that is its origin is immemorial. This emphasizes once again the passivity of the ethical actor, but it also stresses that the obligation arising from the other’s face is not causal. Causal relationships presuppose a linear temporality, but obligation does not submit to this temporality. The “cause” of ethical obligation has no present, it has always already happened. So, although we are compelled by the face of the other, we are not determined by it.

350

Sarah LaChance Adams

The opportunity to be ethical establishes freedom, and with this freedom comes the possibility to abandon or even to murder. Levinas even recognizes the existence of ambivalence in ethics, although he does not give much attention to our impulses toward war and violence. In “Peace and Proximity” Levinas says: “By starting with this extreme straightforwardness of the face of the other (autrui), we have previously been able to write that the face of the other in its precariousness and defenselessness, is for me at once the temptation to kill and the call to peace, the ‘You shall not kill.’ The face which already accuses me makes me suspicious but already claims me and demands me.”51 It is because violence would be so easy, that the command “thou shalt not kill” makes sense. Vulnerability, therefore, is no straightforward call to be ethical. We may want to make way for the passing cyclist, and also to push him down. We may want to soothe the crying baby, and also toss her out the window. Mothers are often shocked by their desire to do violence to their children especially given how small and defenseless they are, but weakness can inspire malice as well as nurturance. What, then, sways us one way or another? According to Levinas the impulse to harmonious coexistence is more fundamental: “War presupposes peace, the antecedent and non-allergic presence of the Other; it does not represent the first event of the encounter.”52 According to Levinas, one does not usually feel hostile towards the other, their existence does not chafe us. Pacifism, not murder, is precedent. Of course, murder, neglect, abuse and abandonment happen everyday, “the call to peace” does not always succeed. Nevertheless, in some cases, the temptation to do violence could renew one’s desire to do good, to protect the other more adamantly than before. This idea is redolent of Parker’s claim that maternal ambivalence can actually improve a mother’s ability to care for her child. When a mother, who above all wants to nurture and protect her child, has hostile impulses towards him, this can challenge her thinking in a way that ultimately makes her a better mother. Perhaps it is true in general that the caring impulse may be strengthened by the cruel.

The Pregnable Subject

351

Conclusion Ultimately, while some scholars applaud Levinas’ ethics as replacing a tradition of individualism with a relational ontology, as providing a necessary feminine counterpoint to the overly masculine history of ethics, the concern remains that it may not be sufficiently feminist. In Levinas’ account women only gain selfhood and ethical status in their roles as housekeepers, lovers to men, and mothers. Nothing could be more in keeping with patriarchy. He has been thoroughly and rightly criticized by feminists for these failures, and therefore no simple appropriation of his ideas is possible. My critique focuses on his appropriation of the maternal perspective without consideration for the character of the experience for actual women. Levinas draws on the dog-eared stereotype that women, and especially mothers, naturally care for others and find themselves in this service. While I agree with Guenther that it is important to consider the role of the body in our considerations of self, other and ethics, the functions of the maternal body cannot stand for the maternal (or even the pregnant mother) as a whole. While the maternal body may give itself in this way, the mother does not necessarily. In using this image of the maternal to make his point about the epiphenomenality of the self, Levinas dismisses the way in which mothers may already feel their lives and selves to be complete before the arrival of a child, and disregards the struggles that women often face when they are expected to give over their lives to their children. Although Levinas’ theory is highly problematic when he speaks directly of the feminine and maternal, other aspects of his philosophy do provide some insight into our thinking on the relationships between mothers and children. In this paper I have only had the space to mention a few. Admittedly, it is very disappointing that Levinas did not consider the mother-child relationship in light of some of the more dynamic elements of his theory—like those concerning the ambiguity of self and other, and our ambivalence between violence and pacifism. But this should not stop us from doing so. Although the maternal metaphor helps him to

352

Sarah LaChance Adams

conceive his relational ontology, I believe we can keep his theory of intersubjectivity while disposing of the metaphor. This will change the emphasis of our ethics; it will need to stress ambiguity and ambivalence more strongly. But I will need to save my explication of how this will work for a longer essay. Ultimately, while Levinas should incite our ambivalence, in this case, we need not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Endnotes 1. I would like to thank the participants of the Society for Interdisciplinary Feminist Phenomenology’s 2008 institute, and the participants of the conference on Philosophical Inquiry into Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 2. Quoted in Rozsika Parker, Torn in Two (Great Britian: Virago, 2005), 6. 3. Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the Other, Trans. Richard A. Cohen, (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987), 57. 4. Ibid., 77. 5. Ibid., 84-90. 6. Ibid., 88. 7. Ibid., 81. 8. Ibid., 91. 9. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, Trans. Alphonso Lingis, (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 263. 10. Ibid., 155. 11. While I hold to the idea that when Levinas speaks of the feminine, he refers to women, not all scholars believe this is the case. For example, Diane Perpich, “From the Caress to the Word: Transcendence and the Feminine in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas,” Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas, Ed. Tina Chanter, (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 28-52. 12. Levinas, Time and the Other, 78. 13. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, Trans. Alphonso Lingis, (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 104. 14. Ibid., 108. 15. Ibid., 105. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., 124.

The Pregnable Subject

353

18. Ibid., 114. 19. Lisa Guenther, The Gift of the Other: Levinas and the Politics of Reproduction, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 95. 20. Ibid., 95-96. 21. It is worth noting that many women do not experience such happenings as an example of the generosity of the maternal body, but instead as a parasitic leaching by the fetus. 22. This problem has been thoroughly documented by feminists. See, for example: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Trans. H. M. Parshley, (New York: Vintage Books, 1952); Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley Eds, Re-reading Levinas, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); Tina Chanter Ed., Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas, (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001); Luce Irigaray, “The Fecundity of the Caress: A Reading of Levinas, Totality and Infinity, ‘Phenomenology of Eros’” An Ethics of Sexual Difference, Trans. Carolyn Burke & Gillian C. Gill, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). 23. Many feminists have also proclaimed the necessity of such an ontology. For example, care ethicists argue that individualist notions of the self stand in stark denial of the mother-child relationship, and of the fact that our existence is dependent on others before we can even entertain the possibility of solipsism. 24. Sonia Sikka, “The Delightful Other: Portraits of the Feminine in Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Levinas,” Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas, Ed. Tina Chanter, (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 109. 25. Chloé Taylor, “Levinasian Ethics and Feminist Ethics of Care.” Symposium, 9.2 (2005): 229. Taylor quotes: Cynthia Willett, Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities, (New York: Routledge, 1995), 84; Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 49-51; and Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other, Trans. M. Smith and B. Harshav, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 49. 26. Levinas, Time and the Other, 86. 27. Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 116. 28. Some examples include: Eva Feder Kittay, Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency, (New York: Routledge, 1999); Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Second Edition, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 29. For example: Sandra Bartky, “Feeding Egos and Tending Wounds: Deference and Disaffection in Women’s Emotional Labor,” Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression, (New York:

354

Sarah LaChance Adams

Routledge, 1990); Claudia Card, “Gender and Moral Luck,” Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics, Ed. Virginia Held, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 79-98. 30. Guenther, The Gift of the Other, 6-7, emphasis added. 31. Numbers 11:10-12, Harper Collins Study Bible, Revised. Ed. Harold W. Attridge, San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1989. 32. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 91. 33. Lisa Guenther, “’Like a Maternal Body’: Emmanuel Levinas and the Motherhood of Moses,” Hypatia 21.1 (2006): 131. 34. Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989), 65-67. 35. Brooke Shields, Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression, (New York: Hyperion, 2005). 36. Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born, (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1986), 21. 37. Ibid., 24. 38. Naomi Wolf, Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and The Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 211. 39. Quoted in Rozsika Parker, Torn in Two: The Experience of Maternal Ambivalence, (London: Virago Press, 1995), 23. 40. Ibid., 8-9. 41. Eva Kittay, Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency (New York: Routledge, 1999), 12. 42. Shields, Down Came the Rain, 59-60. 43. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 199. 44. Ibid., 200. 45. George Kunz, The Paradox of Power and Weakness, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). 46. Ibid. 133. 47. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 84. 48. Eva Feder Kittay, “‘Not My Way Sesha, Your Way, Slowly’: ‘Maternal Thinking’ in the Raising of a Child with Profound Intellectual Disabilities,” Mother Troubles, eds. Julia Hanigsberg & Sara Ruddick, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), 12. 49. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 100-101. 50. Ibid., 105. 51. Emmanuel Levinas, “Peace and Proximity,” Basic Philosophical Writings, Eds. Adriaan Peperzak, Simon Critchley, & Robert Bernasconi, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 167. 52. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 199.

16 Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject: A Critique of Enrique Dussel’s Appropriation of the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas

Michael D. Barber

Saint Louis University The Alfred Schutz Research Center [email protected] ABSTRACT: Enrique Dussel’s Ética de la Liberación en le Edad de la Globalización y de la Exclusión is undoubtedly one of the most important books of the last ten years in the current of thought known as “liberation philosophy,” and this book is valuable for the way it seeks to incorporate the thought of Emmanuel Levinas into a philosophy addressing global oppression and exclusion. However, Dussel fails to appreciate fully the distinctiveness of ethical experience according to Levinas as well as the significance of the eidetic features of Levinas’s account in particular for the understanding of subjectivity. Furthermore, in his discussion of subjectivity in the Ética, Dussel neglects how ethical responsibility can produce a powerful subject. As a consequence, he overlooks how this possibility, which in its generality is available to oppressors and victims of globalization alike, can be realized by the victims becoming responsible for other victims and coming to fear, as Levinas puts it, the murder of the other more than their own death.

Ethics Early in his Ética, Dussel, in reaction to what he takes to be the formal morality of Jürgen Habermas, argues that discursive reason presupposes a “type of ethical rationality that is more radical ”1 an “ethical-originary reason”2 that “recognizes the other as equal.”3 PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

356

Michael D. Barber

Although it might appear that Dussel is appealing to Levinas’s idea that one must go beneath the said, the content of discourse, to the saying relationship, on many counts this cannot be the case. The saying relation, proximity, is not part of a plot of cognition, and hence equating the saying relationship with “recognition” or a type of “rationality” is to conflate the saying with the kind of reasoning focused on discursive content. For Levinas, ethical openness to the other “is complete not in opening to the spectacle of or the recognition of the other, but in becoming a responsibility for him.”4 Furthermore, the other experienced within the saying relationship is not experienced as one’s equal in a type of reversible or universalizable relationship as reason might anticipate, but rather the other is experienced as commanding from a height in the sense that I, in the initial moment of the encounter before the equalizing intervention of the Third, cannot require of the other the sacrifice and substitution that the other requires of me.5 Later, though, Dussel speaks of a more profound step that leads beyond this earlier described pre-originary ethical rationality that yielded a recognition of the other as an autonomous, free, and distinct subject. This new step involves the “simultaneous response as responsibility in the presence of such recognition, prior to the call of the victim to solidarity.”6 Though it is not clear how there could be responsibility without the prior call of the victim (or the other) to which such responsibility is a response, Dussel seems to concur with Levinas’s position when he remarks that we are trapped into responsibility “before being able to reject it or assume it.”7 In this more profound step, it is the face of the hungry and suffering other, ethically re-cognized, which “traps” (atrapa) us into responsibility. Dussel adds further that the condition of the possibility of critique rests with the “recognition of the dignity of the other subject, of the victim, but from a specific dimension: as living,”8 and this “‘re’cognizing him [is] a knowing (conocer) of him ‘from’ his traumatic vulnerability.”9

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

357

One could grant that recognition of the other’s hunger or vulnerability must play a role in our experience of responsibility for him or her, but this recognition would have to be something akin to the immediate and non-theoretic recognizing that the other is human (and not a table) since for Levinas we do not theoretically deduce our responsibility to the other; it is that responsibility that leads us to theorize. This immediate recognizing, according to Levinas, amounts to a cognitive taking in of the other as an “intentional correlate of disclosure,”10 but he stresses that immediately such “phenomenality defects into a face.”11 That is, one is jolted out of an attitude of representation or knowledge toward the other into being responsible for him or her. However, when Dussel suggests that we recognize the “dignity” of the other person, he seems to import terminology that has a Kantian ring to it and suggests a more theorized kind of recognition of the other. Furthermore, though he acknowledges that the new step involves a “simultaneous response as responsibility,” his repeated stress after that acknowledgement is on the “recognition” or “cognition” of the other—words that are used six times in the paragraph and a half after the acknowledgment. The emphasis on recognizing the other seems to attenuate the radical metamorphosis that the presence of the other effects, from cognizing the other into being responsible for her, with the result that the ethical relationship is assimilated to a cognitive one. As in his earlier discussion of “ethical-originary reason,” Dussel seems to be construing the ethical relationship in the cognitive terms that for Levinas falsify it. Levinas asserts that he is not claiming that the other related to ethically escapes knowing, but only “that there is no meaning in speaking here of knowledge or ignorance.”12 Another indication that Dussel does not see the distinctive ethical dimension of the relationship with the other is his repeated treating the other as occupying a distinctive metaphysical position in relationship to the totality.

358

Michael D. Barber

The ethical judgment of practical, critical, negative reason is trans-systemic, and if the system of the “comprehension of being” (in the Heideggerian sense) is the ontological, it will then be pre- or trans-ontological: a judgment that proceeds from the reality (realidad) of the negated life of the victims, in reference to the ontological totality of the given system of ethics. In this sense we have stated that “beyond” (más allá) (jenseits) “being” (if “being” is the fundament of the system) there is still the possibility of affirming the reality of the victims. What is being discussed here is the alterity of the Other “as the other” of the system. It is the alterity of the victim as oppressed (for example, as a member of a class) or as excluded (for example, a poor person), since the exteriority of “exclusion” is not identical with that of “oppression.”13

In a footnote, Dussel considers as parallel thinkers Zubiri, Sartre, and Levinas, all of whom separate off from “being” (ser) “reality (realidad),” which includes the “de suyo” of Zubiri, the future dialectical totality of Sartre, and the other in the positive Exteriority of Levinas. Schelling, too, is cited for his refusal to identify reality with being.14 The problem here is that Dussel seems to plot being and the other-beyond-being, or reality, in relation to each other, on the same map in which both are visible from a meta-viewpoint that encompasses in one system these two different ways in which things “are,” these two different classifications of entities. Reality, which is different from being and beyond being, would have to be classified as non-being relative to being, as Dussel himself affirms in his reading of Marx, whose concern, like Schelling’s, is with the Non-Being beyond self-enclosed Hegelian Being. However, for Levinas, being and non-being unfold within a dialectic which, as every dialectic, remains “a determination of being”15 and the negativity repelling being is “submerged by being.”16 Dussel’s meta-ontological standpoint here resembles his politico-sociological metasystemic view—which is itself systemic—that locates the poor or the lower class persons on the outside of a system, as a “there” in relationship to a “here,” but within a more encompassing system of

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

359

coordinates in which the system and those outside it are now situated. This treatment of the ethical relationship in metaphysical terms is reinforced insofar as Dussel lumps together Levinas’s idea of exteriority with the concepts of Sartre and Zubiri that deal with meta-ontological “reality” and so remain ontological.17 However, despite the usual metaphysical connotations of historical terms such as the “Same and the Other” or “Infinity,” in Totality and Infinity these terms are used in an entirely different sense, describing a relationship of ethical responsibility to another in which the other is given primarily not as an entity but as one to whom one is ethically obligated, as is indicated by Levinas’s comment that “one must measure oneself against infinity, that is, desire [i.e., be responsible for] him.”18 Similarly, in Otherwise than Being, Levinas focuses not on what is involved in being otherwise, such as reality being a different kind of being than being, but rather on what is otherwise than being, that is, what has nothing to do with the ontological concern of locating different modes of being on a map. The otherwise than being deals with what take place when one is thrust into a relationship of being responsible to another. An example of the difference between ontology and ethics has to do with the subject’s experience of temporality. While the subject engaging in ontology arranges different entities or types of being synchronously, pulling everything into a synthetic vision in the present, in the ethical relationship one experiences time as diachrony insofar as one’s responsibility depends on the prior summons of the other rather than on some commitment to the other that one makes first. The result is that one never seems able, out of one’s own resources, to catch up with a summons to responsibility already there. The ontological intent to pull diverse elements together into a synthesis is disrupted in the ethical relationship.19 Though there is here an “outside”20 which cannot be stated in terms of being or in terms of entities, Levinas recognizes the ambivalence involved in even talking about this relationship since he admits that Otherwise than Being brings back “into the bosom of being all signification allegedly conceived beyond being.”21 The on-

360

Michael D. Barber

tological form of the said, the content that presents entities in relationship to each other, betrays the saying relationship, and yet it is in that very said of Otherwise than Being that the saying relationship, the beyond being, also shows itself. Hence Levinas can claim “the beyond being does and does not revert to ontology; the statement, the beyond, the infinite, becomes and does not become a meaning of being.”22 In fact, Levinas argues that if one can even see this problem of the betrayal of the saying in the said, it is because one has recognized the difference between the said and the saying relationship. It seems to me that, insofar as Dussel interprets the beyond being in a meta-ontological sense that is still ontological, he in the end does not grasp the distinctiveness of Levinas’s ethical relationship. Just as this ethical relationship is not a matter of cognition and therefore of knowledge or ignorance, so also it is not a matter of ontology and therefore of being and reality. Further evidence that Dussel overlooks Levinas’s understanding of the “beyond being” is the fact that Dussel does not feel the ambivalence, feel that his said betrays a saying relationship that is other than it. Nowhere in Dussel’s ethics is there a recognition that it itself is said and therefore a betrayal of the saying about which it speaks, even if it is also a showing of the saying.23 II. Eidetics By taking account of this difference between the philosophical viewpoint that speaks of the ethical relationship and the actual being-in-the-relationship, one might be able to respond to a criticism by Dussel of Levinas to the effect that he, along with Horkheimer and so many others, adopts “the ‘perspective’ of the philosopher-critic and not precisely that of the victim himself.”24 Taking the point of view of the victim for Dussel implies discussing how the victim, who might be naïve with respect to a critical theory such as Horkheimer’s and yet who is the origin and fundament of such a theory, might finally come to arrive at a critical everyday

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

361

conscience. In a footnote, Dussel elaborates how he himself has over time come to see that one must first enter into the viewpoint of the victim before subsequently describing the victim’s reactions from the perspective of the expert, who may be “practically committed”25 to victims in their struggle. To be sure, Levinas adopts the perspective of the philosopher, trying to establish in phenomenological terms the distinctiveness of the ethical sphere and the ethical relationship as opposed to a cognitive relationship with another, in response to such philosophical interlocutors such as Heidegger, Husserl, and Hegel. Dussel, at this point in his book and by contrast with Levinas and the other philosophers, seems to be engaged in a more concrete, practical kind of discourse, aimed at describing how to go about developing the victim’s conscience and at understanding the victim in the midst of a practical struggle. This concrete, practically oriented discourse takes place on different theoretical plane than Levinas’s, and, although Levinas is not taking up the victim’s perspective, he does not do so only because his investigation is pitched at a different level of abstraction. It is also clear, of course, that Levinas’s more abstract approach would mandate precisely the attentiveness to the viewpoint of the victim that ought to characterize the expert involved practically in the victim’s struggle. However, insofar as both Levinas and Dussel are engaging in theorizing at all, they are both at one remove from being in an ethical relationship with the other or the victim, and in such a relationship one finds oneself quintessentially obliged to take the perspective of the victim. In this sense, Levinas, who explicitly recognizes the distinction between theorizing and being in such a relationship, shows himself more aware of the limits and ambivalence of his own theoretical perspective and therefore perhaps in a better position to be more responsive to the viewpoint of the other, or the victim, than Dussel. While Levinas’s philosophical discourse has in view the other and the demands of the ethical relationship that it both betrays

362

Michael D. Barber

and shows, it is also philosophical, that is, it brings back into the bosom of being all signification conceived beyond being. Although it depicts what occurs when facing the other, namely that phenomenality collapses into a fact, that cognition is subverted into being obligated, in a distinctive kind of relationship that must be conceived in an other than ontological way (e.g., between entities), still it is as if Levinas is presenting philosophically essential features of this distinctive relationship (e.g., its distinctive temporality, type of sensibility, the “extreme urgency”26 of its assignation as opposed to representation, its resistance to assemblage, etc.). It is as if he is describing what Husserl called a “region of being,” the ethical, which really is unlike other regions of beings, such as those of material bodies, psyches, or the social world, which are more factual in character and do not involve the subversion of cognition that takes place when being ethically summoned by another. Though Levinas is correct that we cannot tell the other to sacrifice herself, which would be preaching human sacrifice, by depicting what is essentially, or to use the phenomenological term, eidetically, involved in confronting another ethically, he is at least intending to present a description, which he hopes that all—victims and oppressors, poor and rich—will be able to recognize as constitutive of ethical experience. While everyone might be able to identify with the other who makes an appeal to the “I,” Levinas’s emphasis is on how the ego, whosesoever it may be, experiences responsibility. “The ego involved in responsibility is me and no one else”27 and not some sister soul, with whom one might pair up and of whom one might require substitution and sacrifice. Because of the eidetic nature of Levinas’s account, victims, as well as oppressors, are summoned to responsibility, insofar as they are an “I,” by their others, and hence it cannot suffice to assign them the role of the other only.28

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

363

III .The Ethical Subject One such eidetic, structural feature of the ethical relationship has to do with how ethics produces a subject. In the second section of the final chapter of his Ethics, Dussel discusses “the question of the subject,” tracing the contemporary dissolution of the modern self beginning with the cogito, shared by Descartes and Husserl; to Heidegger’s concrete, corporeal Being-inthe-World; to the self denied by Luhmann’s system and eliminated by Althusser; and to the fluid, complex, split self of post-moderns such as Foucault. At the end of this trajectory, Dussel devotes a single paragraph to both Levinas’s and Freud’s view of subjectivity, and there he emphasizes how for Levinas subjectivity lies as a subjectum beneath Husserl’s view of consciousness and therefore resembles Freud’s complex view of subjectivity with its roots in the unconscious.29 At this point, Dussel claims to pass to a “more radical”30 level of subjectivity in which the “concrete, living human subject is the ultimate criterion of subjectivity.”31 This subject is the starting point, continuous reference, and content of the knowing consciousness since all knowing is only a moment in the production, reproduction, and development of life. It is this ultimate purpose on behalf of which his ethical-material universal principle, that is developed in part one, requires us to act and to which all philosophical argumentation is subordinated. This subject is revealed as that of the victim dominated by the system, who issues interpellations, who can no longer live and cries out in pain, and who is hungry and asks for food. Victims like this in turn unite with each other in a community of life as members of a social movement, but Dussel insists that the subjects making up such a community and that community itself, which constitutes a socio-historical subject, can only become subjects by becoming critically self-conscious of the system that causes their victimization. Dussel’s point of identifying subjectivity with the concrete, living subject, then, is to give priority to the victims of world globalization, who be-

364

Michael D. Barber

come identified with the other of Levinas, as opposed to the “I” within the system, presumably Dussel and those of us whose social-economic status has preserved us from being deprived of life’s basic necessities. Dussel makes this clear when he comments: “He who dies ‘was’ someone: a subject, the ultimate real reference, the criterion of the definitive truth of ethics. The Other is the victim who is possible and caused by my functional action in the system. I am responsible.”32 There are two difficulties here, though. First of all, Dussel’s view that Levinas converges with Freud in emphasizing a subjectivity beneath consciousness overlooks the fundamental insight into subjectivity that a careful reading of Levinas’s work discloses, namely, how ethics produces a powerful subjectivity. Totality and Infinity, which begins with the self overwhelmed and seemingly almost decimated by its discovery that in the face of the other it is a “usurper and murderer,”33 climaxes with the view of the fearless, strong moral hero, who takes the salto mortale of fearing the murder of the other more than death. One thinks of Oscar Romero, for example, more worried about the slaughter of innocent peasants in El Salvador for whom he spoke out than he was about his own death, with which he had been threatened by Roberto D’Aubisson and his military accomplices, who eventually executed him. Through his ethical preoccupations, Romero, originally timid and fearful, became a mighty self, the kind of self that “displaces its center of gravity outside of itself, to will as Desire and Goodness limited by nothing.”34 One can be so taken up with the other’s suffering, as was Romero, that one is not afraid for one’s own death, almost unafraid of death itself, unbounded in one’s courage, and exemplifying “the singular being par excellence.” In his ethics, Dussel does consider the figures of Mohandas Ghandi and Martin Luther King, who also exemplify the immensely powerful self that ethics produces, but Dussel neglects the subjectivity they realized and takes them instead for repre-

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

365

sentatives of a nonviolent political tactic (táctica) that is usable only in certain determinate circumstances, namely where there already exists democratic respect for human rights. The first problem, then, is that when Dussel considers the dissolution of the modern self, he sees Levinas’s contribution to a refurbished notion of the self only in that Levinas, like Freud, focuses on a self beneath consciousness. He overlooks how the ethical service of the other can turn one “toward the resources of its own interiority”35 and produce a subject more powerful than any other. Instead, he locates the ultimate criterion of subjectivity in the concrete, living subject, which globalization oppresses and formalist philosophers neglect.36 A second problem has to do with Dussel’s tendency to identify the victim of globalization with the other. To be sure, this identification takes place from the viewpoint of Dussel, the author of the Ética, and there is something admirable about him speaking from the position of his “I” and conceiving himself as responsible for the other, particularly the victim of globalized injustice. Levinas, too, agues that in ethics one must always begin from one’s self, since, “Alterity is possible only starting from me.”37 However, Levinas’s presentation of the ethical relations takes place on such a level of eidetic generality that the “I” cannot be narrowly limited, even by Dussel’s magnanimity, to himself the author of the Ética or to me, since I am also ensconced in the center of the system; nor is the role of the other to be confined to one of being a victim of globalization. Consequently, although I am obligated to the victims of globalization, my other, and cannot demand that they sacrifice or substitute for me, they, insofar as they too are an “I” and, insofar as they live an authentically ethical life of the kind that Levinas describes, are obliged to be responsible for their others, their fellow extra-systemic victims (or even intra-systemic oppressors). The eidetic level of Levinas’s analyses prevents, then, the victim of globalization from being reduced to the role of the other—a

366

Michael D. Barber

possibility that could result from Dussel’s laudible and frequent tendency in his Ethics to identify himself with the intra-systemic I who is obligated to his extra-systemic other. The eidetic analysis thereby reveals in addition how a victim, in his or her role as “I,” can come to be a powerful self after the pattern of King, Gandhi, or Romero, who each did not set out to be a powerful self, but who were so taken up with the other’s suffering as to be able to fear the murder of the other more than their own death—a possibility for self-realizing not clearly recognized in the discussion of subjectivity in Chapter 6. These heroes, all of whom belonged to groups that everyone would consider victims of globalization and intra-systemic injustice, ended up being mighty subjects not principally by assuming the role of being a victim but of being an “I” responsible for other victims. In fact, the idea of even taking oneself to be an other or, assuming the role of victim, that is, being “another for the others,”38 only becomes possible for Levinas through the mediation of the Third and through an application to oneself of the responsibility originally evoked by the other in the face-to-face relationship. In fairness to Dussel, it is important to recognize that he acknowledges on several occasions that victims are co-responsible, in mutual solidarity with each other in community, that they “recognize re-sponsibly the other victims as victims,” 39 and that their common interpellation creates solidarity. Indeed, he even speaks about the future utopia involving the development of the life of every ethical subject in community, victims first, but also oppressors. However, these references are not always and entirely clear. For instance, it is one thing responsibly to recognize another as a victim, where the responsibility appears to be attributed to one’s recognizing, and another thing to take the further step of being so responsible for that other that one would fear more for the other’s murder than one’s own death. In addition, the references to co-responsibility might refer not to one’s responsibility to or for another, but instead to a different

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

367

kind of responsibility, that which derives from working together against a common enemy, the system. Dussel suggests as much when he at one point claims that victims’ solidarity results from their common interpellation instead of their interpellation resulting from a more primordial solidarity, although in another context he does suggest that solidarity among victims precedes the interpellation.40 It is important to be clear that the responsibility and solidarity that results from engaging with others in a common undertaking (which could include as an example, the co-responsibility of the Nazis against their Allied enemies) differs from the radical responsibility that one victim would take for an other and that moral heroes like King, Gandhi, and Romero exhibited.41 In fact, the bulk of Dussel’s discussion of the community of victims has to do not with victims assuming responsibility for each other, but rather with them becoming conscious, cognitively aware, of their condition of being victims. Chapter 5, for instance, concerns how the community of victims arrives at a consensus among themselves and at the development of an “anti-hegemonic validity.” The discussion of Paolo Freire’s pedagogy, for example, focuses on concientização, the development of an ethical-critical consciousness, and even the example of Rigoberta Menchu has to do with her coming to evaluate critically her past, to discover her negative relationship with the system, and to become conscious of herself as a victim. Most of Chapter 5 has to do with the victim’s discovery of how he or she has been covered over, ignored, or negatively affected by the system and of how “the ‘critical consciousness’ emerges from the ‘naïve consciousness.’”42 To be sure, moral heroes such as King, Gandhi, or Romero had to become first conscious of how they and their co-victims had been victimized, but far more impressive is the ethical commitment to their co-victims that supervened upon that consciousness and that eventually led to their fearing more the murder of these victims more than their own death. The cognitive bias characterizing Dussel’s reading of Levinas seems to be influencing and circumscribing his understanding of the ethical subjectivity of victims.43

368

Michael D. Barber

The ambiguity of roles and motivations appears in a passage in which Dussel asserts that the point of departure has to be the negated-oppressed and affected-excluded other. Dussel writes: “The point of departure is the victim, the Other . . . The new point of departure originates from the ethical experience of the ‘exposition’ in the face-to-face: ‘My name is Rigoberta Menchu,’ or the ‘Here I am’ of Levinas (opening one’s shirt and unveiling one’s breast before the bullet of the discharged gun).”44 It would seem that Menchu, whose process to conscienticization Dussel has just described, is the victim, the other, here presented as standing up and identifying herself as a victim over against the system, as the other over against the “I” of the system, who, in the cara-a-cara, is exposed to and responsible for her. But Dussel then places in apposition the expression “Here I am,” which for Levinas refers not to the other but to the “I” of Isaiah 6:8,45 who is responsible to and for the other. Then, via the parenthesis, Dussel interprets this “I” as standing up against the system symbolized by a firing-squad gunning down those who resist it. It would be a stretch to claim that this quotation presents Menchu as assuming the role of “I” rather than the other, but even if one granted that she does assume the “I” stance, it would seem that she does so more in defiance of the system that she has just discovered has victimized her rather than in responsibility for her other, the co-victims of the system. Of course, it is quite possible that the reason why a victim exposes his breast to the firing squad would be because of his commitment to other victims. It is also quite possible that victims would work together against a common enemy, as mentioned above, because of their deeper, underlying solidarity with other co-victims. However, it is also possible that such actions could flow from a sense of blind hatred for the system upon discovering one’s own oppression or exclusion at its hands or from the wound to one’s narcissism that accompanies the discovery that it is one’s own self that has been victimized. While such hatred or narcissism can be efficaciously tapped in order to effect social transformation, they fall short of the motivation of moral heroes such as

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

369

King or Romero or Gandhi who were able to set aside self-preoccupation or self-directed pathos over what had happened to them (being victimized) or what might happen to them (their impending death) in order to prevent the other’s murder. Such a focus on the murder of the other, which displaces to the sideline preoccupations with oneself, makes possible the fearlessness that these heroes and many other victims of injustice have exhibited. To the extent that one’s motivations are self-oriented, one would be less likely to manifest the self-abandon and ultimate courage that moral heroes show. By focusing on victims’ defiance of the system, their cognitive coming to be aware of how they have been victimized, and the solidarity they experience in working for liberation together, Dussel, it would seem, has captured important features of victims’ struggle for liberation. But he seems to have left out the core experience, their being so responsible for other victims that they fear the murder of the other more than their own death and that they, by focusing on that murder rather than their own death, end up with an irrepressible self, limited by nothing. Conclusion Of course, in exploiting the resources of Levinas’s thought, Dussel can use those resources as he pleases since he is not writing as a Levinas scholar trying to be as faithful to Levinas’s texts as possible. What I am suggesting here is that he fails to appreciate the distinctiveness of ethics, the impressiveness of its force in contrast to cognitive approaches to the world, and the eidetic nature of Levinas’s philosophy that makes the position of the “I,” responsible for victimized other, available to victims too. Such responsibility for others, in which one paradoxically surrenders preoccupation with oneself, is able to produce a subjectivity more powerful than all the other routes to self-identity that Dussel explores. Surely incorporating these aspects of Levinas’s thought would have made Dussel’s ethics of liberation that much the stronger.

370

Michael D. Barber

Endnotes 1. Enrique Dussel, Ética de la Liberación en le Edad de la Globalización y de la Exclusión (Mexico: Editorial Trotta, 1998), 211. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1997), 119. 5. Ibid., 48, 61, 69, 79, 84, 87, 90, 97, 126; Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), 35-36, 101, 195. 6. Dussel, Ética de la Liberación, 371. 7. Ibid., 371. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 90. 11. Ibid. 12. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 89. 13. Dussel, Ética de la Liberación, 300. 14. Ibid., 305n.9. 15. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 3. 16. Ibid. 17. Enrique Dussel, El Último Marx (1863-1882) y la Liberación Latinoamericana (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1990), 352-361. 18. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 84 19. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 19. 20. Ibid., 17. 21. Ibid., 155. 22. Ibid., 19. 23. Ibid., 3, 19-20, 156. 24. Dussel, Ética de la Liberación, 332. 25. Ibid. 392n.241. 26. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 19, 87. 27. Ibid., 126. 28. Ibid. Levinas presents an eidetic analysis of the “I” perspective in which it finds itself unable to preach sacrifice and the eidetic account invites any “I” into this responsibility. To claim that the eidetic

Ethics, Eidetics, and The Ethical Subject

371

account “preaches” the very sacrifice (by requiring the other to the responsibility of the I) that it forbids any “I” to engage in ignores the different, philosophically critical level on which the eidetic account is pitched and fails to see how eidetic description presents structures that an interlocutor must recognize for him or herself. Hence it isn’t “preaching.” Still, the fact that it can seem to be a preaching of sacrifice to the other may have to do with another way in which the inescapable character of the said seems to betray the saying. 29. Dussel, Ética de la Liberación, 513-521. 30. Ibid., 521. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 524, see also 129-143, 187, 521-528. 33. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 84. 34. Ibid., 239. 35. Ibid. 246. 36. Dussel, Ética de la Liberación, 542-543; Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 236, 239, 244-247. 37. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 40, see also 35-36. 38. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 158. 39. Dussel, Ética de la Liberación, 372. 40. Ibid., 372. 41. Ibid., 304, 372, 421, 460, 525. 42. Ibid., 433. 43. Ibid., 309, 310, 317, 411, 416, 417, 419, 421, 431, 435, 438, 439. 44. Ibid., 417. 45. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, 145, 199n. 11.

17 The Dual Role of Testimony in Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting David Leichter

Marquette University Seminar on Phenomenology and Hermeneutics [email protected] ABSTRACT: This paper explores some implications of Ricoeur’s conception of testimony. Testimony plays two roles: it enables us to know what actually happened and it reveals how the past continues to be meaningful. However, these two roles generate a peculiar problem: the meaning of the past, as bearing witness, cannot be exhausted by a narrative account of what happened. Furthermore, since testimony situates a people within a tradition and raises suspicion on such a narrative by showing that it does not fully bear witness to the past, Ricoeur’s understanding of testimony opens a site for ethical and political challenges.

Introduction and Thesis Primo Levi describes a peculiar problem arising between events that occurred in the past and the current understanding of such an event. He speaks of a “gap that exists and grows wider every year” between things that actually occurred in the German death camps and “things as they are represented by the current imagination fed by approximative books, films, and myths.”1 This temporal gap is, he writes, more generally a problem of “our difficulty or inability to perceive the experience of others.”2 In what follows, I follow Levi’s suggestion that the problem of understanding the past is akin to the problem of understanding the Other. PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

374

David Leichter

Elie Wiesel, another survivor of the camps, provides a clue to help understand the relationship to the past by claiming, “if the Greeks invented tragedy, the Romans the epistle, and the Renaissance the sonnet, our generation invented a new literature, that of testimony.”3 The literary discourse appropriate to the age, Wiesel suggests, is that of testimony. Because testimony arises from trauma, and is a response to traumatic events, it is capable of displacing and challenging how a community understands itself and others. By opening such a gap, testimony has a paradoxical structure. On one hand, as Levi suggests, despite the testimony of the survivors of the Shoah, there will always be a gap between the current understanding of such events and the understanding of the events as they were lived. On the other hand, as Wiesel suggests, the language that defines the relationship between the present and the past is embodied through testimony. As such, testimony names a particular problem that both binds the present to the past, while nevertheless maintains a separation between them. In order to develop an understanding of testimony and the role the witness plays, I turn to Paul Ricoeur’s mature philosophical anthropology, focusing particularly on Memory, History, Forgetting.4 Ricoeur suggests that testimony operates between two distinct domains: it connects the phenomenology of memory to the epistemology of the historical sciences. On the one hand, as part of a phenomenology of memory, testimony means bearing witness to something that cannot be seen or fully articulated. This sense of testimony is tied to an ambition—that of being faithful to the past. In doing so, this sense of testimony reveals the witness’s commitment to something that gives meaning to what happened. On the other hand, as part of the epistemology of the historical sciences, testimony refers to the eyewitness account of an event that actually happened, thereby providing the raw material for the historian’s account. Testimony, in this sense, is objectively verifiable because it is a first-hand account of facts and events. However, these two roles generate a peculiar problem: testimony, as bearing witness, cannot be exhausted by a narrative ac-

The Dual Role of Testimony

375

count of what happened, even though such a narrative is necessary for understanding who the witness is and what actually happened. There is, I argue, an excess of meaning when someone bears witness that can even challenge received historical narratives. In such cases, the meaning of testimony is not reducible to what the historian can do with it; rather testimony does something to the historian and to the identity the historian forges through her narrative account. I argue that the two senses of testimony can help illuminate Ricoeur’s unique conception of subjectivity because testimony appeals to a critical process through which history uncovers the truth of what actually happened while at the same time reveals how the past continues to have meaning by having an effect on the present. Since testimony situates events and a people within a historical tradition and can raise suspicion on such a narrative by showing that it does not fully bear witness to the past, Ricoeur’s understanding of testimony can open a site for ethical and political challenge. My essay proceeds by first introducing the problem that structures Memory, History, Forgetting—the problem of representing the past—and shows why testimony is one particularly interesting solution to this problem. I then develop the role testimony plays in a phenomenology of memory and the epistemology of the historical sciences. I conclude by suggesting how the historian’s fidelity to testimony enacts a political and ethical response to the otherness of the past. The Trace and Representation of the Past A particular enigma guides the trajectory of Memory, History, Forgetting. Ricoeur wonders “what is there to say of the enigma of an image, of an eikon…that offers itself as the presence of an absent thing stamped with the seal of the anterior?” (MHF, xvi). Indeed, the paradox of the past is such that “past things are abolished, but no one can make it be that they should not have been”

376

David Leichter

(MHF, 280). This complex problem is not new to Ricoeur. In Time and Narrative he developed an account of the way that the historian’s work can “stand-for” (Gegenüber) the past. However, Time and Narrative sets aside the problem of memory, in particular, the notion of communal memory and the ways that communities are reconfigured through their memorial practices. Memory, History, Forgetting emphasizes the role that testimony and other traces of the past can play in structuring communal identity. The ambition of memory is to provide an image of the past, of something that has been. The image of the past, Ricoeur suggests, is “from the outset associated with the imprint, the tupos, through the metaphor of the slab of wax, error being assimilated either to an erasing of marks, semeia, or to a mistake akin to that of someone placing his feet in the wrong footprints” (MHF, 8). The problem of the tupos raises the question regarding the fidelity of the image to what it represents, thereby exposing memory to the possibility of manipulation for ideological purposes and, more broadly, the threat of forgetting. Forgetting poses a threat to remembering because it renders the temporal distance between the present and the past evident. This tension between our present experience and the recollection of that experience as past, implies a temporal and epistemological gulf that renders the human historical condition fragile. Temporal distance thus renders the human condition fragile and vulnerable to forgetting, which challenges memory’s duty to represent the past by erasing memories of it. Focusing on the conditions of possibility for representing the past, Ricoeur examines the trace. He writes, “the problematic of the imprint and of the relation between the eikon and imprint… has produced a procession of difficulties that have continued to overwhelm not only the theory of memory, but also the theory of history, under another name—the ‘trace’” (MHF, 13). Because the problem of the image of the past is intimately tied to his understanding of the trace, and because Ricoeur characterizes testimony as “the first subcategory of the trace,” (MHF, 170) it will

The Dual Role of Testimony

377

be useful to first sketch his understanding of this enigmatic phenomenon. As early as Time and Narrative, Ricoeur suggests that the trace names the problem of representing the past. In that work, he suggested that the past appears as past because it has left something behind.5 A trace, in David Kaplan’s words, “is a vestige left behind, a remnant, or relic that provides clues of what the past is like.”6 Traces of the past, which can become documents and monuments, bears witness to the reality of what actually happened. As such, the trace names the paradox of representing the past: “on the one hand, the trace is visible here and now, as a vestige, a mark. On the other hand, there is a trace (or track) because ‘earlier’ a human being…passed this way” (TN3, 119). Despite its present existence, the trace signifies that something happened in the past. What has happened has passed away, but in passing away it leaves behind a trace that refers back to the past. The trace, in other words, simultaneously belongs to the time of the present and the time of the past because it preserves the past in virtue of its remaining present. The trace is left by the past and even functions to stand for the past, thereby connecting the time of the historian to the lived present. However, the analysis in Time and Narrative only hints at what Jean Greisch calls the “depressingly multiple meanings” of the trace.7 In Memory, History, Forgetting, Ricoeur identifies three distinct meanings in the idea of the trace. The first refers to the material “on which historians work” (MHF, 13). Here, the trace is to be understood in terms of the remains of the past—such as oral testimony, ruins, archaeological sites, pottery shards, documents, and the like. The historian’s work is to arrange such remains, and integrate them into the present, providing them with a new meaning. These traces, once taken down in writing, can become documents to be placed in the archive. The traces expand our knowledge of the past because they can become a record of the past, situated and organized in an institution that both conserves and preserves them against further deterioration. The written trace

378

David Leichter

thus plays a central role in the historiographical process, and even, Ricoeur suggests, defines writing in its most general sense. The second meaning of the trace reveals a psychological dimension that impinges on an individual or community’s identity. Ricoeur describes this second meaning of the trace as “the impression as [the result of ] an affection resulting from the shock of an event that can be said to be striking, marking” (MHF, 14). In this guise, the trace appears as a lasting impression of an original event. While footprints and tracks left in the ground are obvious examples, this form of the trace is also manifest as psychic wounds, or the memory of an injury that can still be called to mind. The imprint is something that makes an impression on us, and indicates the lasting effect of such an event. Ricoeur describes this form of the trace, which he sometimes refers to as a “psychical” or “affective” trace, as “the passive persistence of first impressions: an event has struck us, touched us, affected us” (MHF, 427). This affective trace remains in our mind, while maintaining the mark of absence and distance. However, the threat posed to such psychic memories is not so much the threat posed by the constant march of time. Rather, as Greisch notes, “if there is a threat here…it is in fact that the unerasable that we would prefer to bury in the past might come back to haunt us.”8 Traces of what affected us cannot be fully erased, and even continue to have an effect on who we are. These lasting imprints can compel a witness to testify. Despite all attempts to erase the past, there always remains an element of the past that cannot be erased, that nevertheless persists because something happened. The third, and final, conception of the trace that Ricoeur notes is the corporeal, cortical imprint that is the focus of the neurosciences. Here, there is a kind of substratum that connects the impression left by experience and the material imprint on the brain. Such a trace, remaining in the province of the neurosciences, can become the objects of a scientific analysis and holds the promise of an objective map of the brain and the corresponding states to which it gives rise. Forgetting, on this account, is not only a mal-

The Dual Role of Testimony

379

function of memory but can also be explained by indicating the erasure of the cortical imprint due to deterioration or degeneration of brain tissue. For the purposes of this paper, I focus on the tensions that arise between the first two senses of the trace, leaving aside the understanding of the trace proffered by neurosciences.9 These three conceptions of the trace reveal a dialectical tension between presence and absence at the center of the problem of representing the past. However, at this point, we have merely indicated that the trace operates a negotiation between the present and the past by leaving a mark or vestige. I will examine how the trace does so in the third section, where I examine how the historical operation relies on the trace in its attempt to develop an account of what actually happened. Testimony, as mentioned above, is the primary form of the trace, and may be considered as the trace par excellence. It often takes the form of the documentary trace precisely because the historian can take down testimony through a written deposition. In these cases, testimony illuminates the tension between present and past because it participates in the ambition of memory to be faithful to the past, and to the initial impression that motivated the impulse to testify. It also participates in the historiographical aim of accurately representing a past event and preserving it from effacement. These two operations imply that testimony and witnessing have an empirical, even juridical dimension of seeing something with one’s own eyes, and, at the same time, a political and moral dimension of bearing witness to a truth about humans that transcends historical facts and cannot be directly seen. What it means to remember thus extends beyond the confines of the mind toward the communal, public, and moral sphere in which history occurs. By placing the possibility of representing the past in relation to the problem of selfhood, Ricoeur reveals a particular tension that becomes more apparent as he moves from the phenomenology of memory to the epistemology of the historical sciences, and finally to the hermeneutic analysis of the human condition. Ricoeur

380

David Leichter

understands this tension in terms of the relationship between memory and history, and specifically whether and how the truth of the historian’s writing aligns with what David Pellauer calls the veracity of an individual or group’s memories.10 Whereas the historian attempts to provide a correct description of what is past, an individual appeals to the integrity of her own memory. Ricoeur identifies three roles that testimony plays in the relationship between memory and history. First, testimony comprises the basic material constituting the historian’s archives to which she can return and reexamine. Second, testimony appears at the end of an epistemological inquiry, as the historian’s representation of the past through narrative. Finally, as is clear in the testimonies of those who have survived the atrocities of the twentieth century, testimony cannot be reduced to a representation. As such, testimony suggests the impossibility of representing traumatic events in images, and casts doubt on the intention of historical narratives to be truthful. These three roles will help us see the function of testimony in writing history and how testimony resists such incorporation. The Eidetics of Testimony The analysis of testimony takes us “with one bound to the formal conditions of the ‘things of the past’ (praeterita), the conditions of possibility of the actual process of the historiographical operation” (MHF, 161). By presenting testimony as what provides the conditions of possibility for writing history, Ricoeur suggests that testimony plays a transcendental role: without testimony, writing history is impossible. As we shall soon see, because Ricoeur associates the trace and testimony with the concept of debt, testimony also operates as the transcendental condition for meaning in history. Testimony invigorates history with meaning because it brings memory to language through the declarative statement, and enables the historian to adjudicate between competing testimonies. As such, testimony operates between a first-

The Dual Role of Testimony

381

person account and the historian’s impartial account of what actually happened. To elaborate the transition between the oral, declarative stage of testimony and the compilation of written documents that constitute the historian’s archives, Ricoeur identifies six features of testimony. These six features indicate a gap that opens “between the saying and the said of any utterance,” which allows testimony to be detached from the witness herself and pursue what Ricoeur calls its “literary career” (MHF, 166). First, testimony is a two-sided relationship: on one hand, the witness asserts the factual reality of a past event; on the other hand, the listener certifies or authenticates the declaration. This relationship is asymmetrical. The witness knows something that the audience does not, as such, the witness must be presumed to be trustworthy. This suggests testimony is quasi-empirical because the witness essentially states that “something happened.” Testimony thereby occupies a space between the trustworthiness of the witness and a belief inherited by the audience. As such, the witness’s trustworthiness is countered with suspicion. Second, the claim that something happened is inseparable from the self-designation of the subject and her avowed presence at the site of facts so described. To capture this feature, Ricoeur points out a “triple deictic” in this self-designation: the first-person singular, the past tense of the verb, and the mention of a there in relation to a here (MHF, 164). The witness, in effect, says, “Something happened. I know because I was there.” Thirdly, asserting one’s presence at an event introduces a dialogical situation. In developing her account, the witness asks to be believed. In other words, not only does the witness say, “Something happened. I was there,” but contained in such an assertion is the appeal, “believe me.” This process of accrediting the belief suggests a quasi-juridical dimension to testimony, manifest in an ongoing dialectic of suspicion and confidence. Because the witness appeals her own trustworthiness, the “accreditation comes down to authenticating the witness on personal terms” (MHF, 164). With

382

David Leichter

this, the process of authentication not only assesses the veracity of the witness’s claims but also appraises the moral character and integrity of the witness herself. As a result, fourthly, the possibility of suspicion opens a public space for contesting the claim. The witness says, “Something happened. I was there, believe me”; the following additional claim is implied: “If you do not believe me, ask someone else.” The witness must accept that her testimony may be questioned, and the possibility that she may have to respond to challenges of her account. Testifying is inherently public, akin to making one’s debut in the political space of appearance, to borrow a phrase from Hannah Arendt, insofar as the witness enters into a realm where opinions are exchanged and different perspectives on events can come into view in order to come to some understanding of what actually happened. The ability to respond to a challenge indicates the fifth dimension, further supplementing the moral character of the witness’s trustworthiness. Take, for example, the false witness. The false witness is not merely one whose testimony is factually incorrect, but rather one who intends to mislead and deceive the audience. Similarly, the faithful witness is not one who replicates word-for-word what she previously said, but rather suggests her ability to “stay steadfast about this testimony over time” (MHF, 165). In this manner, testimony aligns with the ability to keep one’s word. This is a dimension of the self that is irreducible to sameness over time. This dimension of selfhood, which Ricoeur names “ipseity,” is like the self who promises. The witness, for Ricoeur, “must be capable of answering for what [she] says before whoever asks [her] do to so” (MHF, 165). The witness’s faithfulness and fidelity to what she believes establishes a connection between the testimony the witness provides and the concept of attestation central to Ricoeur’s later work. Ricoeur suggests that the grammar of “I believe-in,” is connected to testimony “inasmuch as it is in the speech of the one giving testimony that one believes” (OA, 21). The fact that the

The Dual Role of Testimony

383

witness appeals to her own trustworthiness as a reliable source enables Ricoeur to associate the ability to testify with truthfulness. Finally, testimony secures the set of relations constitutive of the social bond. Ricoeur describes it as a “natural institution” because it ensures trustworthiness among people by enables us to have confidence in what other people say. The confidence secures “every exchange, contract, and agreement, and constitutes assent to others’ word, [which is] the principle of the social bond, to the point that it becomes a habitus of any community considered” (MHF, 165). The ability to trust others ensures the interdependence of human actions and extends to the shared bond of a common humanity. The shared bond provides the tenuous and fragile solidarity of a people in those forums that affect the political community and makes room for rational argumentation through disagreements and differences of opinions. Testimony and History With the structure of testimony revealed, we can now turn to an examination of how testimony is the condition of possibility for the historiographical operation. Testimony, as we saw above, contains three statements: “I was there,” “believe me,” “if you do not believe me, ask someone else.” The historian’s work begins with written testimony, which represents a site for the collection, preservation, and classification of historical documents. Statements can be detached from their author, as Ricoeur reminds us, and thereby take on a life of their own. At the same time, however, testimony, witnessing, and the trace ensure the continuity of memory with history. Ricoeur suggests that testimony and witnessing ensure the transition between memory and history because “we have nothing better than our memory to assure ourselves of the reality of our memories—we have nothing better than testimony and criticism of testimony to accredit the historian’s representation of the past” (MHF, 278). In this section, I will sketch how the notions of the trace and

384

David Leichter

testimony reveal the complexity of what Ricoeur calls the “historiographic process.” Internal to the understanding of the trace, according to Ricoeur, is a dialectic of clue and testimony (MHF, 174). This dialectic ensures the coherence of the historian’s appeal to documents for proof. At the heart of the operation of accrediting, tracing clues back to their causes, “will be the concept of document, made up of clues and testimonies, whose final amplitude rejoins the initial one of the trace” (MHF, 175). As such, there is a hermeneutic circle between the trace and the document—the trace that something happened refers the historian to the archives and documents in order to verify it, and at the same time the document refers the historian back to the trace in order to let the people of the past speak for themselves. As Ricoeur shows in Time and Narrative, the task of the historian is essentially narrative in nature. The historian, for Ricoeur, erects a bridge between the “objective time” of events in the world and the phenomenological experience of time by using several instruments to provide the reader with a representation of the past. The final, perhaps ultimate, connection between these two forms of time are archives, documents, and the trace. The historian’s “raw material” is comprised of testimonies, clues, and documents that present themselves as a kind of “sign-effect” of something that came before and caused it. Narrative thus is a process of interweaving presence with absence. Whereas fiction has latitude to imagine the world as it could be, historical writing is tied to the ambition of retrieving the past just as it really happened. Historical writing figures “what I would have seen, what I would have witnessed if I had been there” (TN3, 185). However, historical narrative does not dispassionately recount the causal relationship among facts and events. The representation of the past, in narrative, transports the reader into the past such that the reader, too, can testify to the reality of historical events as if she actually witnessed them. Historical writing therefore crisscrosses the temporal

The Dual Role of Testimony

385

distance between the present and the past, and reveals how the past remains efficacious in the present. The reality of the past, Ricoeur writes, “is supported by an implicit ontology, in virtue of which the historian’s constructions have the ambition of being reconstructions, more or less fitting with what one day was ‘real’” (TN3, 100). By relying on the trace, the historian’s work enables history to be the history of the living. Historians work proceeds “as though [they] knew themselves to be bound by a debt to people from earlier times” (TN3, 100). The introduction of debt reveals an ethical dimension animating historians’ projects. When the debt to the dead “stops giving documentary research its highest end, history loses its meaning” (TN3, 118). Historical narratives allow the reader to experience past events, and, befitting its status as a reconstruction, it stands for those events as events that actually happened. The past thus calls out to the historian to incite her to retell what happened and critically examine those sources to ensure that justice is being done to those stories. In other words, the historian becomes another witness to what happened. If the historian’s account comes under scrutiny, she can respond, like the original witness, with the claim “if you do not believe me ask someone who was there.” The historian is called upon to respond to the reality of the past by negotiating the always tenuous dynamic between treating the past as present and treating the past as absent. To see how the historian is able to do so, Ricoeur emphasizes the function of the trace. As we saw above, the trace is “left by the past, it stands for it” (TN3, 143). This structure of “standing-for” brings the otherness of the past closer to the present. Ricoeur explains this structure by analyzing the “great kinds”: the Same, the Other, and the Analogous. To think of the past under the order of the Same is to “reenact” the past in the present. Doing so dulls the sting of temporal distance. Against this, Ricoeur notes that historians do not know the past as such, but only “their own thought about the past” (TN3, 146). Thinking the past under the continuity of the Same cannot repay the debt owed the dead. To think the relationship

386

David Leichter

between the past and the present as wholly discontinuous has equally problematic results. To think the past as wholly Other, makes us “strangers to the customs of past times, to the point that the otherness of the past in relation to the present is more important than the survival of the past in the present” (TN3, 149). To think the past as Other, then, fails to incorporate a principle of identification and continuity with the past. Ricoeur sees the kind of the Analogous in the form of a hermeneutic transfer by analogy as the way that the debt to the past motivates the historian’s research. The sign of the analogous transports the reader to the past by refiguring it as similar to the reader’s own experience. As such, historians do not so much construct history as they do reconstruct it. This reconstruction, Ricoeur notes, “is first of all that of someone with an unpaid debt, in which they represent each of us who are the readers of their work” (TN3, 152). The historian renders due to what once was and to what is. In so doing, the historian appropriates the witness’s testimony and divests it, as much as possible, of its absolute foreignness. Because it belongs to a different time, the historian must examine and situate testimony in order to ensure that the narrative retains its plausibility. In divesting the otherness of testimony through the transfer of analogy, narrative has the “capacity to found or reinforce the community’s identity consciousness of its identity, its narrative identity, as well as the identity of its members” (TN3, 187). The historian’s task is ethical insofar as it brings to light events with “considerable ethical intensity” (TN3, 187). The historian’s task, therefore, is not one of commemorating monumental events that establish a nation. Rather, by adhering to testimony of those that suffer through the events of history, the historian’s task allows the reader to feel the suffering of the past, and see the horrible as horrible. The historian’s ethical task in writing history preserves the particularity and specificity of past suffering without trying to justify or exculpate the victimizer’s actions. Along these lines, Ricoeur writes, “either one counts the cadavers or one tells the story of the victims…this almost negative epic preserves the memory of suf-

The Dual Role of Testimony

387

fering, on the scale of peoples” (TN3, 188-189). By focusing on the testimony of those who suffered through a traumatic event, historiography can live up to the task of memory and tell the story of the victims. Because they “put into question…the trustworthiness of spontaneous testimony, that is, the natural movement of having confidence in the heard word, the word of another,” (MHF, 180) historians are, thus, a link to the past. The science of history is critical because its explanation of the past relies on the historian’s natural suspicion of testimony’s credulity and its initial claim to be trustworthy. By pitting discordant testimonies against each other, the historian attempts to weave a plausible narrative that represents how the past actually happened. In so doing, the written work enters the public sphere and actually “makes history.” In writing an account of what actually happened, “the history book crowns the ‘making of histories,’ leading the author back into the heart of ‘making history’” (MHF, 234). In order to convince the reader that the events described actually happened, the historian can only respond by, in Ricoeur’s words, putting “the scriptural phase back in its place in relation to the preliminary ones of comprehensive explanation and documentary proof ” (MHF, 278). In other words, the historian becomes another witness to what happened. If the historian’s account comes under scrutiny, she can respond, like the original witness, with the claim, “if you do not believe me ask someone who was there.”11 Testimony as Resisting Representation Testimony, the document, and the trace animate historical research. Nevertheless, it also appears that testimony cannot be so easily incorporated into a narrative account. Ricoeur writes: “in some contemporary forms of deposition arising from the mass atrocities of the twentieth century, it [i.e., testimony] resists not only explication and representation, but even its being placed into some archival reserve, to the point of maintaining itself at

388

David Leichter

the margins of historiography and of throwing doubt on its intention to be truthful” (MHF, 161). Certain testimonies and accounts from witnesses, such as Primo Levi’s Drowned and the Saved, Elie Wiesel’s Night Trilogy, and even Art Spiegelman’s Maus, force readers and listeners to confront “literally extraordinary limit experiences,” and thus pose “a problem of reception that being placed in an archive does not answer and for which it even seems inappropriate, even provisionally incongruous” (MHF, 175).12 Indeed, such testimonies call into question our ability to understand human action because they transmit such an extreme inhumanity that it finds no common measure between witness and listener. A common response is to situate such events within a causal, even teleological framework, that allows events to be emplotted within a narrative structure. These studies often attempt, all too quickly, to weave seamlessly such events into a continuous temporality in order to ensure that the present can fully understand and explain the past. However, historicizing such traumatic events as genocide, imperialism, and totalitarianism strips them of their singularity, conflates giving an explanation with giving a justification, and commits a gross injustice against the horror of the victims’ suffering, especially to those who did not survive. As a result, though these testimonies can be framed by the historical narratives, they cannot be absorbed into the narrative account. In order to understand the reasons for testimony’s resistance to being incorporated into a narrative structure, I return to the structure of indebtedness. The debt, as we have seen, is an ethical call, demanding that historians bind themselves to the past and as a transcendental condition, ensuring meaning in history. However, this debt is a peculiar debt, irreducible to a relationship of simple exchange and remittance. The debt of history cannot be fully repaid, rendering the historian “insolvent,” and in a peculiar ethical bind (TN3, 143). Ernst Gerhardt aptly summarizes the impossible situation thusly, “while it is necessary to obey the conceptual obligation of debt in order to guarantee the meaning of history, it is fundamentally impossible to satisfy this debt.”13 In what fol-

The Dual Role of Testimony

389

lows, I will suggest that despite being insolvent, the debt calls the historian to respond to such a debt. Their insolvency functions not to make ethics impossible but is rather the condition of possibility for an ethical response. In order to establish why the debt cannot be repaid there is “another enigma” residing at the heart of the relationship between the historian’s representation and the image of the past (MHF, 280). Recall that the distinction between the image (eikon) and imprint (tupos) introduces a complex dialectic between presence and absence. Ricoeur pursues this dialectic to “the condition of anteriority of the past in relation to the narrative that is told about it” (MHF, 280). By calling attention to this anteriority, Ricoeur draws on two senses of the past initially suggested by Heidegger’s explication of the temporality of Dasein. Ricoeur writes “the absent thing itself gets split into disappearance and existence in the past” (MHF, 280). The first, and perhaps more common, meaning of the past is as no longer present. This absence is intended by the present image, which comprises the aim of the historian’s work, and suggests that past events have disappeared and have ended. Speaking of the past as no longer indicates the past’s disappearance and absence. Rather than describe the past as no longer (Vergangenheit), Ricoeur draws Heidegger’s claim that we first experience the past as “having-been” (Gewesenheit). Experiencing the past thusly suggests that it has a peculiar reality and ontological character. By suggesting that we experience the past as having been Ricoeur calls attention to how the past affects selfhood. The things of the past are completed in a sense, “but no one can make it be that they should not have been” (MHF, 280). There is, in other words, an excess of the past, an excess that will always have been. The past is never done with us, even though we would like to think that it is finished and we have gone beyond it. The past’s having been suggests “the complete anteriority of the past with respect to every event that is dated, remembered, or forgotten” (MHF, 442). This anteriority to the past, Ricoeur suggests, ensures that there is

390

David Leichter

much more in the past than we have remembered, and that offers itself as a resource for the work of remembering. The concepts of having been, the trace, and debt, as Jean Greisch notes, connects us, directly, or indirectly, with death. 14 Ricoeur’s meditation on the debt re-inscribes a sense of carnality, affectivity, and flesh missing in Heidegger’s account of being-towards-death. Precisely because death is the “ineluctable destiny of the object-body,” we experience the loss of loved ones as a rupture of community and communication (MHF, 358-359). At such moments, our lost loves, who no longer answers, “[constitute] a genuine amputation of oneself to the extent that the relation with the one who has disappeared forms an integral part of one’s selfidentity” (MHF, 359). Ricoeur, following Levinas, suggests that the experience of death, especially the violent death of murder, “lays bare…the mark of nothingness” (MHF, 360). Violent death, in the form of murder and genocide, is in a word, senseless and unjustifiable. The question thus becomes, how can we live with death? Indeed, in the experience of loss, wherein we can no longer communicate with our loved ones, “there is the task of mourning, which involves internalization of the irredeemable object of our love as well as the attempted reconciliation with the loss i I tself.”15 Mourning can help us come to terms with both the lives of others and our own lives. As such, Heidegger’s focus on being-towarddeath is misplaced, and Ricoeur suggests the very opposite—to approach such testimonials from the perspective of life. The historian’s task is not merely a retrospective looking back at those who are no longer there, but rather a gaze that is “directed toward the living who existed prior to becoming the ‘absent of history’” (MHF, 362). The absent of history, those who have died and who have not yet been heard, resist being made into yet another form of presence and are, as Michel de Certeau suggests, that which history itself misses.16 In order to show how history can transform death to life, Ricoeur suggests that we consider “the historiographical operation

The Dual Role of Testimony

391

to be the scriptural equivalent of the social ritual of entombment, of the act of the sepulcher” (MHF, 365). The act of burial transforms the absence of the past into an inner presence, and the sepulcher itself “becomes the enduring mark of mourning” (MHF, 366). The act of writing history cannot be reduced to a mere catalogue, database of facts, or a compilation of artifacts in a museum, but is sanctified through the act of writing. However, we should not understand the image of the sepulcher or graveyard negatively. Following Michel de Certeau, Ricoeur suggests that writing plays the role of a burial rite that “exorcises death by inserting into discourse.”17 Additionally, historical writing also performs a “symbolic function,” that allows a community to situate itself by giving itself a past.18 By making a place for the dead, historical writing establishes a place for the living. By bringing death to language, historian’s writing has a performative and emancipatory function. Burying the dead of history assigns a place for the present, a place that must be filled and sets a task for those present. The result of the historian’s insolvency expands collective memory by posing a critique of social narratives by reconsidering how the testimony of those who live through traumatic experiences have been silenced, forgotten, or otherwise marginalized from the received understanding of who we take ourselves to be (TN3, 118-119). In order to bridge the historian’s gaze, which is directed back to the absent of history and the future, Ricoeur suggests that the “assumption of the debt that marks our dependence on the past in terms of heritage” enables the historian to preserve the properly ethical function of the debt missing in Heidegger’s work (MHF, 363). From those traumatic memories, the historian must extract an exemplary value, which is directed toward the future. To show this, Ricoeur develops an existential analysis of being-indebted and being-towards-death in order to anchor testimony in his philosophical anthropology of the “capable human.”19 Attestation appears in the mode of being-a-whole and being-toward-death, and as such has its full meaning developed

392

David Leichter

in the three temporal ecstasies. He writes: “it is possible to consider testimony…in its retrospective forms….as a correlate of the past of attestation bearing on the potentiality-of-being apprehended in the figure of anticipation” (MHF, 362). Furthermore, the modality of making-possible “finds the opportunity to be actualized in the correlation between the attestation of the future and the attestation of the past” (MHF, 362). Attestation in the present frames how we understand the future modality of attestation, as when we make a promise, and the modality of the past, as when someone bears witness to the past. To bridge the future and the past Ricoeur emphasizes the concept of being-indebt, which marks human existence as dependent on a transmitted heritage. By calling attention to the ways that we are affected by the past, Ricoeur emphasizes the psychical meaning of the trace and testimony. Indeed, to be able to witness the past becomes possible in those extreme moments of trauma where such an ability was denied. By listening to testimonials, the historian experiences the past in such a way to be affected and transformed by it. The social bond that is reinforced by testimony is itself an intergenerational bond, which secures the being of a community. The bond constitutive of this intergenerational transmission is figured especially in notion of debt or guilt. The debt owed the dead refers us to the way that tradition has been transmitted, giving a community a heritage. However, “the debt does not exhaust itself in the idea of a burden either: it relates the being affected by the past to the potentiality-of-being turned toward the future” (MHF, 381). Traces of the past leave a lasting impression, as when we hear the traumatic testimonies of Holocaust witnesses. The result of our being affected by the past makes us responsible for how we respond to the claims that the past makes upon us. Because we are continually affected by the past, Ricoeur recognizes that “if...the facts are uneffaceable, if one can no longer undo what has been done, nor make it so that what has happened

The Dual Role of Testimony

393

did not occur….the sense of what has happened is not fixed once and for all” (MHF, 381). Rather, the fact that the past is never fully done with us allows us to interpret and reinterpret what happened. The result of this, Ricoeur continues, is that “the moral weight tied to the relation of debt with respect to the past can be increased or lightened” (MHF, 381). To return to the testimonies of those who came before us is not a nostalgic restoration or a re-actualization of a bygone era. Rather, to go back to the testimonies is “a matter of recalling, replying to, retorting, even of revoking heritages” (MHF, 380). By reinterpreting the past, historiography is able to retrieve buried possibilities, fulfill or let go of promises, hold oneself and other responsible for actions, or even forgive oneself and others for their actions. While there always remains the threat of forgetting and covering over the atrocities of history, Ricoeur suggests that in considering the past as having-been, there is a kind of “forgetting kept in reserve” (oubli de reserve, MHF, 414). The documentary trace remains “external” to the extent that it remains within the context of the social institution of the archive. There is also the persistence of the trace, such as when an event strikes us and makes an impression on us. The trace, Ricoeur suggests, remains “while keeping the mark of absence and of distance” (MHF, 427). This form of forgetting is a forgetting that preserves and even makes memory possible. The reason for this, Ricoeur suggests, is hidden in the ontological structure of our having-been. The reserve of forgetting thus has a positive sense, such that we can return to the testimonies of the past and listen to obscured voices and respond to the claims that they make upon us. In short, the reserve of forgetting ensures that the testimony of past others is an opportunity to reevaluate who we take ourselves to be. Ricoeur’s analysis suggests that not only does history try to codify memory, but that memory itself can challenge the historical narrative. He writes that “the philosopher’s contribution lies here in the critique directed against a treatment of the past

394

David Leichter

in terms of a tool, an utensil” (MHF, 377). This suggests that the meaning of the past, which is accessed through the testimonials of the witness, is not to be reduced to a mere tool in the historian’s box. The past, in other words, is not to be understood solely in terms of compiled facts or pieces of data that can be sifted. Rather, the existential import of the past refers the historian to an unpaid debt, which can never be fully settled. Indeed, there is something that resists being incorporated into the historian’s narrative, while nevertheless giving the historian something to think about. Conclusion Ricoeur’s conception of testimony, I have suggested, plays on the double meaning of witnessing. By emphasizing how testimony plays an ambiguous role, Ricoeur’s conception of testimony reveals his conception of subjectivity. Testimony at once attests to the assurance of being oneself, acting and suffering. This ensures that the self must confront her own responsibility for her actions and the uncertainty of what is given. Testimony guarantees the fragility and responsibility of the self and community. The self arises out of its cultural, historical situation. At the same time, the self is also capable of inaugurating something new. and as such reveals an ethical, political, and even religious dimension. These two forms of identity are irreducible to one another, while nevertheless constitute the self. Ricoeur’s conception of subjectivity suggests that the historical present is the time of action, wherein new meanings can arise. Testimony, I have suggested, helps illuminate how something new can arise from the intersection of the subject’s cultural and historical situation and ability to inaugurate something new. As such, testimony is the condition of possibility for the speaking, acting, subject. The witness speaks from the past, by articulating how she has been wounded by events that occurred.

The Dual Role of Testimony

395

On one hand, testimony refers to the eyewitness’s account of what happened. This sense of testimony situates the witness in a particular point in time, and can be elaborated by expounded on the concrete context in which the witness makes her claims. The historian relies on this form of testimony in order to weave a narrative and adjudicate the truth or falsity of the witness’s claims. In this case, testimony is caught up in an empirical and epistemological discourse that can always be enriched by the historiographical operation. This dimension of testimony reveals those narratives, histories, and accounts that structure the possibilities for understanding who we are. On the other hand, testimony suggests bearing witness to something that cannot be seen or reduced to the facts of what happened. This dimension, as I have shown, suggests that the witness’s testimony is not fully reducible to its epistemological qualities. By calling attention to this aspect of testimony, Ricoeur indicates a performative dimension to witnessing. The witness, in this second sense, experiences her testimony as part of a vocation, a call to which she must respond. Here, the witness articulates an experience whose meaning is discontinuous with, and even an inversion of, our everyday understanding. As such, testimony connects us with the experience of the past while also challenging our identity. The past that is revealed through this sense of testimony allows historians to experience the past as a debt owed to the past and makes them responsible for responding to the ways the past affects us. I will close by returning to Primo Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved. He explores eye-witness accounts in order to judge what happened, though he does so in such a way that we cannot avoid recognizing that such a judgment is always subject to revision. Indeed, he often warns us that we are so dazzled by our ability to make sense of the past and to incorporate testimony into our understanding of what happened, that we often forget how fragile and tenuous our relationship to our historical existence, and

396

David Leichter

history itself, is. Testimony can thus serve to remind us of our fragility, and in doing so it can help form how we understand the debt we owe to others and to the past. Works Cited Gerhardt, Ernst. “A Return of the Repressed: The Debt of History in Paul Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative.” Philosophy Today Vol. 48, no. 3 (Fall 2004): p.245-254. Greisch, Jean. “Trace and Forgetting: Between the Threat of Erasure and the Persistence of the Unerasable” Diogenes 207: pp. 77-97. Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. Trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Vintage Books, 1989: p. 157. Pellauer, David. Ricoeur: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum, 2007 Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative. 3 vols. Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19841988. ———. “Temporal Distance and Death in History” Gadamer’s Century: Essays in Honor of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Ed. Jeff Malpas, Ulrich Arnsuald, and Jens Kertscher. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002: pp. 239-255 ———. Memory, History, Forgetting. Trans. David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Wiesel, Elie. “The Holocaust as Literary Inspiration” in Dimensions of the Holocaust. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1977

Endnotes 1. Primo Levi. The Drowned and the Saved. Trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Vintage Books, 1989: p. 157 2. Ibid., p. 158. 3. Elie Wiesel. “The Holocaust as Literary Inspiration” in Dimensions of the Holocaust. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1977): p. 9 4. I avoid a discussion of his 1972 essay “Hermeneutics of Testimony.” While there are affinities between his essay and his treatment of

The Dual Role of Testimony

397

testimony in Memory, History, Forgetting, the latter work is enriched by the resources provided by the three volumes of Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another. The theological implications of testimony, which he examines in a series of essays compiled in Figuring the Sacred, fall outside the scope of this paper as well. I will remain agnostic on the prophetical and kerygmatic domains of testimony, and instead will develop the ethical and political dimensions in his conception of testimony. 5. In this manner, Ricoeur’s conception of the trace can be linked to the first of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, “Ausdruck und Bedeutung.” I obviously do not have the space here to contrast Ricoeur’s conception of the trace with Husserl’s nuanced understanding of how something can indicate something, nor with Derrida’s or Levinas’s conception of the trace. 6. David Kaplan. Ricoeur’s Critical Theory (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003): p. 57. 7. Jean Greisch “Trace and Forgetting: Between the Threat of Erasure and the Persistence of the Unerasable” Diogenes 207: pp. 77-97 (80) 8. op. cit., p. 82. 9. For an illuminating account of the exchange between Ricoeur and the contemporary French neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux, see Bernard Dauenhauer’s “What Makes Us Think? Two Views.” Reading Ricoeur. Ed. David Kaplan (Albany: SUNY Press, 2008): pp. 31-46. 10. David Pellauer. Ricoeur: A Guide for the Perplexed. (London: Continuum, 2007): p. 114. 11. This final phase suggests that the continual re-formation of a community’s identity through the stories it tells cannot remain the same over time. Historical reflection, according to Ricoeur, is a kind of interpretation that belongs to a second-order reflection that “draws together all the phases, thereby underscoring at one and the same time the impossibility of the total reflection of historical knowledge on itself and the validity of history’s project of truth within the limits of its space of validation” (MHF, 333). This brief statement suggests that the testimony used in the documentary phase necessarily influences how the historian interprets what actually happened. As such, the process of historical interpretation is to enter into dialogue with the testimonies of the past, which comprise the second sense of tradition named above. 12. To be fair, Spiegelman’s Maus is not an eye-witness account of the Shoah. Rather, he intertwines the perspective of a survivor of the Holo-

398

David Leichter

caust with the perspective of someone who did not directly experience the horrors. However, Spiegelman returns to his own inability, both as an author and as a son of a survivor, to come to terms with the Shoah. As a son of a survivor, he is a witness to what the Holocaust has done. 13. Gerhardt continues, “Ricoeur does not consider insolvency a function of a structural impossibility as so doing would negate any ethical force the debt might possess.” While Gerhardt’s essay focuses mainly on Time and Narrative (1989), Memory, History, Forgetting suggests, as I hope to make clear, that the insolvency of the debtors is the condition of possibility for responding to the call of the debt. Ernst Gerhardt “A Return of the Repressed: The Debt of History in Paul Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative.” Philosophy Today Vol. 48, no. 3 (Fall 2004): p.245-254 14. Greisch, p.89. Clearly, the subject of death can become an object of historical inquiry—namely by developing an account of how various cultures understood the meaning of death, how they constructed memorials, and describe their practices of mourning. However, a narrative that represents the past “as the kingdom of the dead seems to condemn history to offering to our reading no more than a theatre of shadows, stirred by survivors in possession of a suspended sentence of death” (MHF, 365). 15. Ricoeur, “Temporal Distance and Death in History” Gadamer’s Century: Essays in Honor of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Ed. Jeff Malpas, Ulrich Arnsuald, and Jens Kertscher (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002): pp. 239-255 (243) 16. Indeed, Michel de Certeau’s L’absent de l’histoire, which is a touchstone work for Ricoeur, suggest that the “dead are those who are missing from historical discourse,” Ibid, p. 246. 17. De Certeau, L’absent de l’histoire, as cited in “Temporal Distance and Death in History” p. 247. 18. Ibid., p. 247. 19. In Oneself as Another, Ricoeur understands the self in terms of its abilities, which includes the ability to speak, to initiate and suffer action, to give an account of oneself, to be responsible for one’s actions, and to have actions imputed to her. In Memory, History, Forgetting, Ricoeur conceives memory as a capacity on the same level as these other abilities. This conception of remembering avoids conceiving it as a foundation for knowledge and as a fragmented illusion or fiction that

The Dual Role of Testimony

399

bears no relationship to the world. The mode of truth appropriate to remembering is attestation. Attestation is, as Ricoeur states, “irrefutable in terms of cognitive proof and subjected to suspicion by virtue of its character of belief ” (MHF, 392). To attest something is not merely to say that something happened, but rather that one has a belief in something. This constitutes a kind of moral dimension of selfhood, irreducible to mere sameness over time. The truth of mnemonic capacities occupies a place between trust and suspicion, and in order to maintain such a ground, Ricoeur’s conception of the capable person is an analogical unity that is revealed through a narrative.

18 Recover the Tragic:

Exploring the Ethical Dimensions of Rape-Related Pregnancy Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

University of Oregon Society for Interdisciplinary Feminist Phenomenology [email protected] ABSTRACT: There are few phenomena more tragic than raperesultant pregnancy; faced with such pregnancies, rape victims are forced to make incredibly difficult and often heart-rending decisions. Yet both public and academic discourse on rape-pregnancy fails to acknowledge the profoundly tragic nature of these decisions, and also tends to implicitly or explicitly blame victims who opt for abortion or adoption. This paper critiques the use of praise and blame in relation to rape-resultant pregnancies, emphasizing the harmful effects of moral judgments on pregnant rape victims, and calls instead for a new ethical paradigm that acknowledges the deeply tragic nature of this phenomenon.

Introduction: Judging Sophie It is fascinating to watch a lecture hall full of undergraduates who, in their introductory ethics class, have been asked to solve a moral dilemma. Sophie’s choice, perhaps; they start out tentatively, afraid to make assertions one way or the other.1 Then someone asks what Kant would say, or favors, “maximizing utility,” or proclaims “there is only one good solution: do nothing!” The volume in the lecture hall rises as the fledgling ethicists become more entrenched in their views, holding their ground against other, equally vociferous classmates. Soon the observer can scarcely follow a PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

402

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

single strand of argument over the tumult of impassioned young voices. By this point the lecturer’s purpose has been fulfilled—the students are able to apply moral arguments and frameworks in order to solve moral problems—never mind that their solutions, if we consider them in depth, may feel somewhat arbitrary and equally dissatisfying. What the lecturer does not tell the students—what we, who take agency for granted, can scarcely admit to ourselves—is that our ethics, whatever their form or source, can only take us so far in a world that is not up to us. We love to assign praise and blame, but where action is required despite oppressive constraints, our moral assessments begin to sound presumptuous— or rather—they should sound that way. Would it be right to praise Sophie—really praise her, for choosing her son, or to reprimand her for not choosing her daughter? After all, the situation was not up to her—there was no action that, under normal circumstances, she would or should have preferred. Yet—and this is key—all can immediately understand her suicidal remorse years later. For us, the witnesses to such tragedy, the question ought not to be how should we judge the agent’s decision, but rather how might we best comfort and support her while she is making that decision, and, especially, after that decision has been made? Sophie’s story is of course fictional, but it illuminates our own tragic vulnerability: through no fault of our own, we may at times be forced to make decisions from which regret will follow necessarily regardless of the action we choose. Sophie spent a lifetime devoured with remorse for a decision that was hardly worthy of the name; no doubt she would have mourned the loss of her other child equally. I contend that her dilemma—like the dilemma faced by women who become pregnant via rape— dwells in a tragic region outside the realm of ordinary morality, or at least beyond the proper reach of praise and blame. In my decade or so as a fledging ethicist, I have never confronted a more complex or heart-wrenching phenomenon than

Recover the Tragic

403

rape-related pregnancy. Its tragic nature is implicitly acknowledged in contemporary political/policy discourse—all but the staunchest “pro-lifers,” at least pay lip service to the view that ‘an exception should be made’ in cases of sexual violence—rape and incest. My fear, drawn from years spent attentive to American public discourse on reproductive rights, is that many who appear to favor this policy also, and unapologetically find fault with women who take advantage of it, and even find fault with those women who, though they carry a rape-pregnancy to term, opt for adoption.2 Where they do not explicitly find fault, many condemn with absent praise, their praise reserved for those Christ-like paragons of altruism: pregnant rape victims who opt for continued gestation and—especially—for mothering. The deep social, political and ethical significance of rape pregnancy is often ignored by scholars and the public alike, though it appears to be ignored for diverse reasons. In the United States, public opinion so clearly favors access to emergency contraception and abortions in cases of rape that it is generally a moot point in abortion debates. Feminist theorists, who have been laudably attentive to issues surrounding reproductive rights, seem inclined to minimize the significance of rape-related pregnancy on two grounds. First, they argue that given the established legal precedent for allowing rape victims to access abortions, the focus ought to be on expanding reproductive rights generally. And second, they argue that rape victims who seek abortions do not in so doing explicitly reject their sexual and social roles, or as Mary Boyle argues, “The woman who has been raped and seeks an abortion does not pose quite the same threat [as a woman who has consented to sex]” (Boyle 59-60). Dismissiveness on either ground is unjustified. As to the first: although abortions may at present be legally permissible in cases of rape, we should not assume that rape victims possess the legal, material or emotional resources necessary to obtain them. As to the second: pregnant rape victims also experience the pressure to conform to assigned gender roles; in fact, sometimes this pressure is used explicitly to coerce them into

404

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

keeping unwanted rape-pregnancies (more on this point below). Conventionally, ethicists have ignored the issue of rape altogether, and so too the issue of rape-pregnancy.3 Since the 1970’s, however, the phenomenon has received sporadic attention. Sadly, the vast majority of the ethical literature has revolved around the supposed personhood and/or rights of the fetus, said little or nothing of the tragic nature of the phenomenon, and wholly failed to acknowledge the phenomenological uniqueness of the rape-pregnancy experience. On the whole then, both academic and public discourse surrounding rape-related pregnancy has been sadly anemic. But why should that matter—is it really prudent to devote our time and attention to such a marginal facet of the reproductive-rights debate? After all, as Pro-lifers are inclined to remind us, only 2-3% of annual abortions in the U.S. involve extreme circumstances—including rape/incest. This statistic is compelling, though perhaps misleading; 2-3% sounds minimally significant, but a recent large-scale study on sexual violence in the United States (drawn from the National Women’s Study) concluded that among adult women alone about 32,000 pregnancies result from rape/incest each year.4 The same study concluded that the majority of rape-related pregnancies actually occur among adolescents—bringing the total to more than 65,000. Further, anti-abortion attitudes may be contributing to the “23%” statistic just mentioned. You see, until the 1980’s, in the U.S. it was conventional for women who conceived via rape or incest to carry the pregnancy to term, then put the child up for adoption, or, though less frequently, to seek an abortion. But this trend has changed and changed dramatically in recent decades— in America today, many women who conceive via rape are opting against abortion and adoption. This change happens to coincide with rising social pressure on rape victims to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, and to raise the resultant children. So perhaps our 2-3%, even assuming its accuracy, does not tell the whole story. Of course, even if rape-pregnancy does not deserve broad public consideration,5 it still ought to attract the

Recover the Tragic

405

attention of feminist social theorists, phenomenologists and ethicists. Popular ethical views place tremendous pressure on pregnant rape victims. As both a feminist phenomenologist and an ethicist, I feel a moral obligation to scrutinize such views carefully and, should they be found to rely on dubious assumptions or misrepresentations of women’s lived experience, to offer up coherent objections and viable alternatives. My purpose in what follows is thus twofold: first, to explore some of the ways in which rape-pregnancy is being ethically thematized in contemporary discourse, while suggesting why and how this characterization might be harmful; and second, to offer up—though only in outline—alternative ways of ethically thematizing rape-pregnancy. This paper lays the ground for what I take to be a highly relevant ethical-phenomenological project, one which can give those affected by rape-pregnancy new and empowering ways to narrate their lived experience; and one which can give the rest of us—witnesses to their tragic situation—alternatives to the tyrannical language of praise and blame. I hope you will come to share my suspicion of the praise that is assigned to women who carry rape pregnancies to term, and/or raise the resultant children, but more importantly, I hope you will come to share my revulsion at the blame that is assigned, whether explicitly or implicitly, to those rape victims who opt for abortion or adoption. Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: Pro-Life Propoganda and RapePregnancy Anti-abortion sentiment runs rampant in the United States. On several occasions during my time at the University of Oregon, I have passed protesters waving offensively grotesque antiabortion propaganda in from of the school union and library. Still, to my mind the most insidious anti-choice communication is that which is aimed at pressuring pregnant rape victims not to

406

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

consider abortion or adoption. Sometimes this communication is blatantly propagandistic.6 At other times it takes the form banal punditry on various conservative television and radio programs. But the most prevalent form— and the form which, I suspect, is most likely to do harm— consists of a groundswell of often deceptive Internet pages and sites aimed at convincing pregnant rape victims not to seek abortions, and/or not to consider adoption. We all know that the Web is a Pandora’s Box of opinions in which extremists of every stripe find a venue for self-expression; we need not take their opinions seriously, of course. But in this case perhaps we should take them seriously, and for several reasons. Most rape victims do not seek immediate medical, legal or psychological attention—only one in four women under the age of 25 will report her assault—most crave anonymity. Moreover, since the majority of sexual assaults in the United States involve a known perpetrator—sometimes a family member—, and in many cases the victim is a minor, we can see why victims might lack the emotional or even material resources to seek the help of qualified professionals. The Internet, which the vast majority of Americans can access from home or work, provides a safe and secure place for rape victims to seek information, advice and comfort. Understandably, it is increasingly the first place victims of sexual assault go. Scott Berkowitz, the president and founder of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAIIN), explains that in the U.S. half of all rape victims, by virtue of being underage, belong to “a generation that is doing everything online.”7 Although RAIIN maintains a conventional hotline, their online “hotline,” receives over twice as much traffic. As Berkowitz notes, “younger victims are overwhelmingly saying they have a hard time talking about [rape]” —even over the phone. But they report feeling comfortable sharing their experiences online. Although the merits of this particular use of the Internet are hotly contested, the fact remains that victims of sexual assault—

Recover the Tragic

407

including those who are or think they might be pregnant— are flocking to the Web for advice and support. When pregnant or possibly pregnant rape victims go to the Internet they may, if they search hard, find some unbiased practical advice and information—or even counseling like the type that RAIIN offers. But even if they do, they will also likely find, competing for their attention, a new brand of anti-abortion website dedicated to shaming the victims of sexual assault into carrying pregnancies to term, and/or to raising the resulting children. This type of site is often incredibly deceptive—luring victims in with promises of advice, support and understanding. Once they are snagged, victims are exposed to manipulative and often highly persuasive anti-abortion rhetoric.8 This rhetoric (unsurprisingly) often involves religiously or politically conservative assumptions. It also tends to involve a handful of key ethical assumptions— assumptions echoed in and bolstered by the uniquely American ethos—and therefore likely to accepted uncritically by those steeped in this ethos (more on this later). For the purposes of illustration I have chosen a brief excerpt from one Website, and though I will acknowledge great variation in the style and content of these sites, this excerpt captures a few of the key underlying ethical assumptions expressed in most (written by a male author): I cannot blame a woman for desiring to justify an abortion intellectually and emotionally in this case […but] in the hearts of mothers, love should win out. Love that sacrifices and gives life, instead of taking it, should be the goal. Just as Jesus loved us and sacrificed Himself for us so that we might have life, so too should the mother give life to the child. Is it fair? No. It was not fair for Jesus to die for us either, but He did it anyway. He showed us what true love really is.9

There is a great deal to unpack here. We might note, for example, that the author assumes the following:

408

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

1) A pregnant rape victim, by virtue of being pregnant, is also/already a “mother,” and so ought to think and act like one. 2) Qua mother—the rape victim has a moral obligation or destiny: to give life to the/her child. 3) This giving of life (because it is not “fair”) entails self-sacrifice, and so qua mother, the rape victim must also be an altruist: ‘love that sacrifices should be the goal.’ Each of these assumptions merits pause— we could certainly read them with a view to uncovering embedded gender norms. But what I find most disturbing about the above rhetoric, and Pro-life rhetoric on rape-pregnancy in general, is its implicit ethical content. There seem to be two beliefs at work here: first, although opting for abortion in the case of rape would not be “bad,” exactly, it would not be good either. Second—and this is an ethical assumption that most of us likely share—given the choice between an act that is at best forgivable and a truly exemplary act, one ought generally to opt for the latter. But there’s more to say; beneath the surface of these rather ordinary ethical beliefs is a thematization of rape-conception that I find deeply troubling. Note how in the above rhetoric the martyrdom-like altruism of the pregnant rape victim is likened to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross; the unwanted pregnancy is woman’s cross to bear. In an odd and disturbing way, then, the rape conception becomes a supreme moral opportunity: an opportunity to do more than ordinary morality can require; to be more than forgivable, indeed to be more than good—to be like Christ. Thus the tragic nature of this type of situation (where an event which was not up to the moral agent forces a heartbreaking decision) is appropriated and transmuted into a golden ethical opportunity, all the more convenient in that it allows the victim to live up to a prescribed gender role: altruistic giver of life. Let me pause to note one more assumption. Self-sacrifice necessarily entails an end, a for-the-sake-of-which. In this case the end or goal of the altruistic act is the presumed good of the fe-

Recover the Tragic

409

tus/child. The author takes for granted that if the rape victim opts to continue the pregnancy and raise the child, things will go well on both counts. I have noted the same assumption in the ethical literature on rape-pregnancy. This empirically testable assumption is sadly dubious. As I have illustrated in past work, rape-resultant pregnancies are phenomenologically unique—often experienced by the pregnant subject either as radical upheaval—physical and psychological torture (rejected pregnancy), or not subjectively experienced at (denied pregnancy).10 In both cases, the pregnancies tend to involve serious medical complications. Assuming a successful birth—and in this case we ca not assume one—rape victims who attempt to raise the resultant children do not tend to fare well as mothers, nor do the children (the often forgotten victims of rape-conception) fare well when raised by their birth mothers. All of these problems might be remedied by increased social, material and psychological support for pregnant rape victims, mothers of rape-resultant children and the children themselves. But at present, such assistance is in short supply and our society seems content to leave these women with their crosses to bear: coerce, praise, forget appears to be our preferred formula. The explicitly Christian sentiments at work in the above example are frequently echoed anti-abortion rhetoric, but even where religious overtones are subtracted, the powerful underlying ethical theme remains; by doing the best thing possible, the victim can triumph over her oppressor—goodness can triumph over evil; freedom can triumph over facticity; a despicable act of sexual violence can be magically transmuted into a state of maternal love11 Not only does this triumph allow the agent to maintain—indeed bolster—her moral integrity, but, we are to assume, it also has the power to help her heal. The characterization of pregnancy as ‘rape-therapy’ is quite prevalent in Pro-life rhetoric. The belief here is that the ‘minor inconveniences’ associated with

410

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

pregnancy, childbirth and mothering pale in comparison to the therapeutic value of these experiences. But this view is simply preposterous; rather than ameliorating the situation, these events introduce a multitude of new physical, emotional and material stresses that serve to exacerbate the upheaval associated with sexual violence.12 This would be the case even if rape-related pregnancies were phenomenologically indistinguishable from pregnancies in general; again, in general, they are not, nor are the associated birth experiences, nor are the ensuing maternal experiences. The view that pregnancy, birth and mothering present only minor inconveniences is itself deeply insulting; the suggestion that these minor inconveniences are no different when they result from an act of sexual violence is both insulting and fatally naïve. Maternity is no prescription for rape-healing. The shadow side of the ‘pregnancy as healing’ approach is that of ‘abortion as harm,’ a theme that has been taken us by some of the more conscientious Pro-lifers, or at least by those who want to appear to be so.13 The standard approach is illustrated in David Reardon’s article, “Rape, Incest and Abortion: Searching Beyond the Myths,” replicated on the quasi-academic Pro-Life website After Abortion.14 In this piece, Reardon draws from a firsthand account of a twelve-year-old incest victim who, having become pregnant by her abuser, had an abortion and later came to regret her decision. Twenty-five years after the abortion, Edith Young writes: Throughout the years I have been depressed, suicidal, furious, outraged, lonely, and have felt a sense of loss... The abortion which was to “be in my best interest” just has not been. As far as I can tell, it only “saved their reputations,” “solved their problems,” and “allowed their lives to go merrily on.” ... My daughter, how I miss her so. I miss her regardless of the reason for her conception.15

Reardon uses Edith’s account of person trauma as justification for the view that “the welfare of the mother and child are

Recover the Tragic

411

never at odds, even in sexual assault cases. Both the mother and child are helped by preserving life, not by perpetuating violence.” The Internet is plastered with accounts like Edith’s: expressions of loss and remorse over abortions that were ‘rationalized’ as a fair response to rape or incest. Often such women argue that they were pressured by family, friends, physicians or social workers into agreeing to an abortion. There are thus two key claims at work in the ‘abortion as harm’ approach: (1) abortion causes emotional trauma, and (2) abortion is sometimes coerced. There is something legitimate in both of these claims, which helps to explain their superabundance in Pro-Life propaganda, but neither point necessarily justifies the view that pregnant rape victims ought to carry their pregnancies to term (in turn justifying the praise assigned to women who do so). These claims ought to be addressed separately. First, we certainly ought to take women’s experiences of abortion seriously, and we cannot deny that many or most women experience ambivalent feelings following abortion, including feelings of regret, loss and shame. Thus there is something reasonable in the claim that abortion can strain women psychologically, and add to the trauma of sexual violence. But Pro-Lifers routinely ignore the fact that pregnant rape victims are in a tragically strained situation in which feelings of loss or regret are likely to follow whether they opt for abortion or not. In either case, these women are cutting off a future made possible through the rape-conception: cutting off the possibility of not having a child, or the possibility of having one.16 We ought to acknowledge that, “There is probably no psychologically painless way to cope with an unwanted pregnancy whether it is voluntarily interrupted or carried to term.”17 We ought further to acknowledge that the psychological strain is likely to be substantially increased in cases where the pregnancy resulted from sexual violence. But there is a more ethically pressing point to be made here: when Pro-lifers continually highlight women’s feelings of shame, guilt and remorse

412

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

in order to bolster anti-abortion rhetoric, they effectively morally legitimize those feelings. There is a fine line between acknowledging the feelings that women have following abortion (which are unquestionably determined in part by social forces that encourage such feelings) and reifying those feelings as morally legitimate. In Pro-life propaganda the message is clear: women feel guilty about having abortions, even in cases of rape, and they ought to feel that way. This cruel belief allows for absurd conclusions, such as Reardon’s conclusion that twelve-yearold incest victim Edith ought to have had and reared a child, and is right to feel ashamed of not having done so. The second claim associated with the ‘abortion as harm’ stance is that abortion is often coerced, especially in cases of underage pregnancy associated with rape and incest. Citing Carol Gilligan’s work on women’s ethical decision-making, Reardon argues that even where women are not explicitly ‘forced’ to have abortions, “a woman may choose abortion in an attempt to please others rather than herself ” (AW 136). Whether an abortion is chosen for a pregnant rape victim or chosen by her in order to please others, there are relevant questions to be addressed. For example, vis-à-vis minors who conceive via rape, we need to ask whether or to what extent medical paternalism is justified; broadly speaking, to what extent ought minors to make their own medical decisions?18 If they are deemed incapable of making these decisions, then who ought to make them on their behalf? Is the case different for minors who have been sexually victimized? Issues of paternalism are notoriously difficult, and I cannot pretend to offer a solution here (nor even, perhaps, to ask the right questions). But as to the second sort of choosing— choosing to please others—I will say a word. I agree with Reardon and other Pro-lifers who argue that we ought not to assume that rape victims will want to opt for abortion or adoption. But I feel that a relevant question in once again being ignored, namely: why do pregnant rape victims increasingly want to carry

Recover the Tragic

413

their pregnancies to term? Here again is an extraordinarily difficult question, and one which ought to be approached with proper humility. I cannot help but think of the tremendous pressure on rape victims (and women generally) to keep unwanted pregnancies. Popular ethical thematizations, including those addressed here, are one facet of this overwhelming social force. We cannot deny that this pressure may be conditioning women’s very desires such that what women ‘want’ is really just another expression of what others would have us do. Pro-life propaganda works on desire—and it is meant to—but in so doing it risks serving as the very sort of coercive force that Reardon and his ilk claim to be wary of.19 Rape-Pregnancy and the American Ethos Just as there are legitimate questions hidden beneath the spurious façade of the ‘abortion as harm’ position, so too might there be something legitimate in the ‘pregnancy as healing’ stance. Even if carrying a rape-resultant pregnancy to term would not pave the way for an easy recovery, might it allow for a sort of moral recovery? There is admittedly something appealing about encouraging an apparently altruistic choice over a merely forgivable one, and thereby allowing for moral and personal triumph. The myth of ‘pregnancy-as-healing’ is especially appealing since we want so much to see rape victims recover. Perhaps this is why we so seldom question the praise assigned to the mothers of rape-resultant children. But still I am reticent. My reticence stems from a more general suspicion regarding the peculiarly American —and in my opinion flawed—way of assigning praise and blame, one facet of what I take to be the American ethos. To elucidate the uniquely American ethos, we might consider the notion of moral luck, drawn from Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel.20 The Stoic distinction: “some things are up

414

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

to us, and some things are not,” yields confusion when considered in the light of our actual moral assessments. Though we know it would be silly to praise or blame an agent for something that was not up to her, we do in fact tend to do so—praising, for example, the outcome of her action even as we realize that the outcome depended on luck, or blaming a member of a disadvantaged class for failing to improve her circumstances, even though she may have had few if any opportunities to do so. The American up-by-the-bootstraps myth is especially conducive to the dubious use of praise and blame. The United States, as we are all perpetually reminded, is ‘the land of freedom and opportunity,’ or rather the land of ‘you are free and so must make your own opportunity.’ We love to tout this freedom; we love to assume our autonomy; we love to praise those who, having succeeded, cite their freedom; we love to disapprove of those who, having failed, cite oppressive constraints, or rather ‘make excuses for themselves.’ We only want to hear about bad luck in cases where it is appropriated after the fact as a thing overcome—evidence of the agent’s moral tenacity. This touting of autonomy coupled with a tendency to deny the role of luck is a double-edged sword; the same type of thinking that leads us to admire figures like Michelle Obama also leads us to disdain the “unsuccessful”; to quote a student: “Who cares if I leave trash on the floor? It’s the janitor’s fault he is a janitor.” In America we believe there is a proper ethical posture in relation to the Stoic distinction, and this posture emphasizes freedom over constraint, autonomy over luck. We ca not bear to acknowledge the role of luck in our personal success or failure any more than we can bear to acknowledge that we do in fact morally assess people for all kinds of things that are not up to them. To acknowledge the former would threaten the very idea of autonomy and thus morality; to acknowledge the latter would call into question our preferred ethical posture: the posture of judgment. In America we do not sit passively as witnesses to the unfolding of a world that is not up to us, instead we judge the

Recover the Tragic

415

purposive actions of autonomous, free moral agents. We cannot release this posture, lest we begin our descent down that slippery slope that ends in the utter dissolution of morality If my characterization of the American ethos is correct, then it stands to reason that we tend to praise—indeed make martyrs of—rape victims who adopt responsibility for the fact of their pregnancy and thus take up the ensuing roles as child bearers and mothers. It also stands to reason that we find fault with the victims who err on the side of the oppressed—who cite, for example, the fact that the pregnancy was not up to them as sufficient reason for choosing not to take it up. For a pregnant rape victim to focus on the unlucky circumstance which forces her to make a terrible choice, would be, we feel, a moral failing—an appeal to chance, rather than agency. We might forgive her for opting for abortion—but we certainly would not praise that choice. Instead we praise the choice that most clearly involves taking responsibility for something which was not up to her— the unlucky fact of her pregnancy—call that choice free and thus transmute it into a moral and personal triumph. There are at least two major flaws in the above approach. First, when we thematize rape-pregnancy with an emphasis on personal responsibility and the ‘best choice possible,’ we legitimatize victims’ feelings of guilt and shame following a choice to abort/adopt as not only natural but also morally appropriate. Such feelings are understandable, but they are not morally requisite; an emphasis on the tragic nature of rape-conception would emphasize that any choice would in this situation yield unfortunate consequences, including feelings of personal loss and remorse. Second, when we praise a rape victim for choosing to take up a pregnancy, we implicitly locate the moment of agency—the morally significant moment—in the moment of decision: in making a choice, she exercised agency, and is thus responsible, and is thus morally culpable, and so properly subject to praise or blame. In so doing we gloss over a fundamental truth: the having to choose was not up to her. Here the term

416

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

“pro-choice” sounds ironic, if not cruel. In the case of a pregnant rape victim, choice is perverted into an expression of continued oppression, since the work of choosing itself is potentially damaging to the agent and serves to compound her suffering. Ordinary ways of thinking about choice and responsibility simply will not suffice here; nor will the sort of ethical thematization that emphasizes choice, autonomy and praise. We must acknowledge what was not up to the victim—we must acknowledge luck. Exploring Alternative Thematizations There are a number of ways to ethically characterize the phenomenon of rape-pregnancy, but as we have seen standard Prolife approaches tend to rest on dubious ethical assumptions, ignore the phenomenological uniqueness of rape-resultant pregnancies, and seek to morally legitimize the feelings of guilt and shame associated with post-rape abortion/adoption. Pro-life rhetoric effectively locates the morally significant moment of agency in the moment of ‘choice,’ thus justifying the praise heaped upon rape-victims who carry their resulting pregnancies to term, and even more so those who also opt to raise the resultant children. But in so doing, it disregards the morally significant fact that the having to choose was not itself chosen; in a characteristically American ethical fashion, Pro-life rhetoric denies the role of luck, thus sublimating an inherently tragic phenomenon into an opportunity for moral and personal triumph. Such rhetoric fashions rape-pregnancy into a measure of victims’ moral worth, and without an alternative way to interpret their lived experience, victims are hard-pressed to ignore that ethical call. Anticipating the overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame that would (and on the Pro-life view, should) follow an abortion, victims may express as preference for continued gestation and/or mothering without ever realizing how and to what extent that preference was shaped by external forces.

Recover the Tragic

417

When we locate the morally significant moment of a rapepregnancy in the moment of choice, we thrust a grave responsibility on rape victims, and one that will inevitably impact their feelings of moral and personal worth. What if we were to change the ethical focus altogether—to locate the morally significant moment not in the moment of choice but rather in that previous moment which caused the having to choose— in that moment of radically disrupted agency—namely, in the moment of sexual violence? Would we still feel compelled to morally assess pregnant rape victims?21 I can imagine several ways to ethically thematize rape-pregnancy which would properly invoke women’s lived experience, including negative feelings following a choice to abort/adopt, while wholly acknowledging that the victim was not responsible for her pregnancy. I would like to offer three, each of which I hope to flesh out in future work. First, invoking Susan Brison’s characterization of rape as a violent disruption of the agent’s very personhood, we might paint the rape-conception and ensuing moment of choice as a continuation of this upheaval.22 We might emphasize, with Brison, a tragic passivity such that the choice and the ensuing consequences are understood as events undergone, things suffered. Here the goal for both victim and her support system would be the victim’s recovery of selfhood, and that recovery would involve witnessing an event undergone, not judging an act chosen. This reading would allow for a richer attentiveness to women’s lived experience, and would legitimize rape victims’ feelings of personal loss without morally legitimizing feelings of personal responsibility for the rape-conception. The difficulty with this reading, to my mind, is that it may be of limited use to the pregnant rape victim who is in the process of choosing. Perhaps a characterization drawn from Brison’s work might be supplemented with other work which can explicitly address the fact that a choice must be made, and made quickly, in cases of rape-conception.

418

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

Second, we might think, with Beauvoir, about rape-conception as an interplay of freedom and radical facticity in which the possibility of ethical transcendence is threatened, but not entirely cut off. I cannot a imagine a more ambiguous mixture of freedom and oppression then the one presented by rape-conception, and since Beauvoir’s ethical philosophy offers a way to maintain human freedom and thus ethics in the face of a world that is not chosen, it seems especially fitting to consider rape-conception in the light of her work.23 On a Beauvoirian reading, perhaps we could characterize consciously chosen abortion and adoption, not just mothering, as morally legitimate projects. But a Beauvoirian thematization might also yield insurmountable difficulties. On my reading, for Beauvoir there a fine line between a ‘Serious Man’ and one who is simply oppressed.24 My fear is that a Beauvoirian thematization of rape-pregnancy might paint those pregnant rape victims who opt for gestation or mothering as inauthentic—as agents who slip uncritically into a world of ready-made values. Although I have tried to illustrate how Pro-life rhetoric appropriates and transmutes pregnant rape-victims’ desires, to my mind this manipulation is more an oppression of the individual than an individual moral failing. Moreover, we cannot forget that the majority of rape-conceptions occur among adolescents, and many occur as the result of incest. I cringe at the possibility of characterizing these especially vulnerable victims as morally inauthentic. Last, we might call upon Aristotle’s descriptions of forgiveness (sun-gnome) and pity. On Aristotle’s account, an act that is wrong under ordinary circumstances should be forgiven when the choice that led to it was radically constrained by circumstance— as with the sea captain who throws his cargo overboard in a storm.25 The strength of this reading is twofold, and in both sense likely to appeal to Pro-lifers: first, it acknowledges the element of choice or willingness, and second, it justifies a suspension of judgment in the case of rape-pregnancy, even where abortion is deemed wrong under ordinary circumstances. Its weakness, obviously, is that it

Recover the Tragic

419

entails a judgment that abortion (and or adoption) is generally wrong. When we bear witness to tragedy, Aristotle claims, we ought not to judge—but rather to feel—namely, we ought to feel pity. If we suspend the contemporary negative connotations of the term, there is much to admire in this claim. For Aristotle, pity involves a sad feeling, but it also involves two key beliefs: first: a belief that the agent was in no way responsible for their situation, and second, a belief that we are ourselves vulnerable in similar ways.26 As witnesses to rape pregnancy, we should believe that (first) the victim was not responsible for the situation— the rape itself and its aftermath, and (second) we ought to recognize that we too might be forced into situations in which, through no fault of our own, we have to make difficult choices. I find this latter characterization especially promising. To my mind, the phenomenon of rape-pregnancy merits an emotional response (and the one Aristotle terms pity is quite appropriate), and not an ethical judgment with its accompanying praise and blame. But even this characterization may be problematic. Regarding the first requisite belief: in public discourse on rape, there endures to this day an insidious tendency to blame the victim, and this tendency betrays a pervasive and deep-seated conviction that victims are (at least partially) responsibility for their own rapes.27 Regarding the second required belief: although we witnesses may ourselves face constrained choices, and empathize with the victim in that sense, the special vulnerability in cases of rape-conception—that one may become pregnant against one’s will—is a vulnerability that is unique to women. Men, who often dominate public discourse on reproduction, simply do not share the vulnerability in question.28 Thus even given an inclination to suspend judgment, I wonder how many of us can feel the sort of morally significant pity that Aristotle describes. The above alternatives are highly tentative, and each merits a great deal more explication than I can offer here. In fleshing out each of these visions, one key point must be kept in mind: in

420

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

order to avoid the destructive shortcomings of extant Pro-life ethical thematizations, alternatives must be properly grounded phenomenologically—that is, they must pay careful attention to the personal accounts of pregnant and post-pregnant rape victims, never assuming that the rape-pregnancy experience is reducible to the experience of “chosen” pregnancy.29 The voices of rape victims have tended to be absent in the uproarious debate over reproductive rights; at best certain of their claims have been misappropriated by Pro-Life advocates in order to perpetuate such themes as ‘pregnancy-as-healing’ and ‘abortion-as-harm.’ Improved ethical thematizations will heed women’s lived experience while remaining attentive to the ways in which discourse might be conditioning that experience. The goal should be to legitimize victims’ lived experience while acknowledging the senses in which their feelings of guilt, sadness and moral responsibility might be conditioned by Pro-life rhetoric and ordinary ethical assumptions. Ultimately, alternative ethical thematizations should serve to liberate pregnant and post-pregnant victims by offering them new and empowering ways to understand their lived experience, including their feelings of loss and even regret. I sincerely hope such thematizations will at help us to envision a future in which feelings of shame and regret following a rape-conception need never arise in the hearts of rape victims to being with, a future in which shame and regret in the face of one’s reproductive choices is no longer considered a natural facet of women’s reproductive lives. Moral Luck and Tragic Ambivalence: Women’s Reproductived Lives The tragic element of reproductive choice is especially prominent in rape-related pregnancy, and it is thus especially appropriate to think of this phenomenon in terms of the tragic. There may be something inherently tragic about women’s reproductive

421

Recover the Tragic

lives more generally; pregnancy loss, explicitly or implicitly unwanted pregnancies, difficulties conceiving—all of these involve circumstances which are tragically beyond the agent’s control, and all tend to involve feelings of loss, regret and personal responsibility. Moreover, public discourse on reproductive choice betrays the same ambivalence at work in rape-pregnancy; we seem to feel conflicted when it comes to morally assessing women’s reproductive lives: on the one hand, we want to hold women responsible for their pregnancies, and on the other, we acknowledge an element of luck; thus discourse on unwanted pregnancy often reveals a pathological ambivalence. That women’s bodies involve a special vulnerability—that they may become (or not become) pregnant regardless of the agent’s desires is inherently tragic, but also yields special responsibilities. Only by acknowledging both luck and personal responsibility can we do justice to the ethical complexity of unwanted pregnancy. Thus rethinking the rape-pregnancy phenomenon via its tragic ethical nature may pave the way for a more robust ethical account of women’s reproductive experiences more generally, while acknowledging the special type of case that rape-conception represents. *** The phenomenon of rape-pregnancy certainly merits further attention. But in our attentiveness, we ought not to gloss over the larger social problems of which this phenomenon is merely a symptom. Rather than getting caught up in conservative antiabortion rhetoric, we might seek to redirect it; we might say to those who would presume to praise and blame the pregnant victims of sexual violence: the conservative obsession with maximizing the quantity, verses the quality of life, is sadly misguided, and a pale simulacrum of the morally profound worldview which so many conservatives claim as their moral ground. Instead of obsessing over the social policies or moral assumptions that might make abortions more or less accessible, obsess over

422

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

the social policies and moral assumptions that allow rampant abuse of girls and women; obsess over the widespread and underreported sexual violence—against girls and women; but most of all, if you must in one breath tout the intrinsic value of the fetus, then in the next breath rally around the child that that fetus will become, and the parent or parents—genetic or adoptive—that must see to its care. Learn to want the child—not just the fetus; the citizen and not just the purported soul, then and only then should you even begin to voice opinions on women’s profoundly difficult, often tragic, reproductive choices. Works Cited Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Joe Sachs. Newbury, MA.: Focus Publishing, 2002. Beauvoir, Simone de. The Ethics of Ambiguity, trans. by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Philosophical Library, 1948. Boyle, Mary. Re-Thinking Abortion: Psychology, Gender, Power and the Law. London: Routledge, 1997. Brison, Susan. Aftermath. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Carli, Linda L. “Cognitive Reconstruction, Hindsight and reactions to Victims and Perpetrators.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, no. 8 (1999): 966-979. Friedman, Emily. (2008, May 19). “Rape Victims Turn to Internet for Counseling: More and More Teens Log on to Get Help, Experts Say.” ABC News on the Web. Retrieved March 15, 2009, from h t t p : / / a . a b c n e w s . c o m / Te c h n o l o g y / M i n d Mo o d Ne w s / Story?id=4873144&page=2 Homes, Melissa M., et al. “Rape-related Pregnancy: Estimates and Descriptive Characteristics from a National Sample of Women.” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 145 no. 2 (August 1996) 320-325. Institute of Medicine. “Legalized Abortion and the Public Health.” National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., May 1975, p. 88. Lundquist, Caroline. “Being Torn: Toward a Phenomenology of Unwanted Pregnancy.” Hypatia 23, no. 3 (July-September 2008), pp. 136-155.

Recover the Tragic

423

Nagel, Thomas. Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Nussbaum, Martha. The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pettifer, Ann. “Absolutism is a losing strategy: Pro-life orthodoxy bears most of blame for impasse in abortion war,” National Catholic Reporter, December 14, 2001. Reardon, David. Aborted Women: Silent no More (AW). Chicago: Layola University Press, 1987. —. “Rape, Incest and Abortion: Searching Beyond the Myths.” The PostAbortion Review 2 (1) Winter 1994. Copyright 1994 Elliot Institute. Styron, William. Sophie’s Choice. New York: Random House, 1979. Williams, Bernard. Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Endnotes 1. A staple in popular culture as well as ethics courses, the dilemma known as “Sophie’s Choice” is drawn from William Styron’s 1979 novel of the same name. When forced into a concentration camp as a young woman, Sophie is told that she may keep only one of her two children, and that the other will be immediately killed. If she refuses to choose, we are to presume, both children will die. Sophie chooses to save her son, who is forced to live in a concentration camp, while her daughter Eva is killed. Sophie never recovers from her tragic choice, and spends the next several years in an alcoholic downward spiral. She ultimately takes her own life. 2. “It might be argued,” writes Mary Boyle, “that those who declared themselves to be pro-life, yet supported abortion in cases or rape, were merely doing so to gain support for restrictive legislation out of political necessity” (49). 3. See, for example, Susan Brison’s Aftermath. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. 4. See Homes, Melissa M., et al. “Rape-related Pregnancy: Estimates and Descriptive Characteristics from a National Sample of Women.” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 145 no. 2 (August 1996) 320-325.

424

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

5. Though I feel it does deserve such attention. I concur with Holmes and her colleagues that rape-related pregnancy “holds important public health policy implications.” For example, since “rape-pregnancy has not been identified as a contributing factor in unintended pregnancy rates,” it has not been taken into account in national campaigns to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. The link between family violence (including incest) and rape-related pregnancy also needs to be explored in greater depth, and medical and legal professionals need to become more attentive to the signs of such violence. 6. The “Human Life Alliance,” is one of the most notorious purveyors of rape/incest related anti-abortion propaganda. See their website at: http://www.humanlife.org 7. Friedman, Emily. (2008, May 19). Rape Victims Turn to Internet for Counseling: More and More Teens Log on to Get Help, Experts Say. ABC News on the Web. Retreived March 15, 2009, from http://a.abcnews.com/Technology/MindMoodNews/Story?id=4873144&page=2 8. One of the most insidious culprits, to my mind, is the Elliot Institute, which maintains a website entitled “After Abortion” (see http:// www.afterabortion.org/). The Elliot Institute publishes logically preposterous, rhetoric-laden anti-abortion propaganda which its contributors then cite as scholarly “evidence” on its website. This is one of many sites which might appear legitimate even to a somewhat discerning reader, but are in fact bent on manipulating vulnerable women into opting against abortion. This site is especially reprehensible since it pretends to offer comfort and support for women who are considering having or have had an abortion. It is also offensive from a scholarly perspective, as it creates an echo-chamber of quasi-academic research in order to “prove” its own premises. The Elliot Institute is a perversion of and insult to genuine scholarship. 9. http://www.carm.org/secular-movements/abortion/should-babyresulting-rape-be-aborted. A page from the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. I chose this webpage in part because it was routinely one of the top “hits” when I searched terms like “rape pregnancy” using various search engines. This is not an explicitly/exclusively Pro-life site, but it does contain numerous pages which raise arguments against abortion, generally from a biblical perspective (see Secular Movements: Abortion). 10. See “Being Torn: Toward a Phenomenology of Unwanted Pregnancy.” Hypatia 23, no. 3 (July-September 2008), pp. 136-155.

Recover the Tragic

425

11. In the latter example, the author has presented altruism as more or less compulsory, (qua mother, you must sacrifice yourself and give life) and so in an odd way undermines the moral opportunity. Thus the above type of statement might be persuasive to Christians and non-Christians for different reasons: for the former, because a moral demand is clarified, for the latter, because a moral opportunity is presented. 12. Here I am in agreement with freelance author Ann Pettifer. See her excellent opinion piece on rape-pregnancy and Pro-life extremism: “Absolutism is a losing strategy: Pro-life orthodoxy bears most of blame for impasse in abortion war,” National Catholic Reporter, December 14, 2001. 13. There is a multitude of published material which takes up this thematization. See, for example, David Reardon’s Aborted Women: Silent no More. Chicago: Layola University Press, 1987. 14. Reardon’s article can be found at: http://www.afterabortion.org/ rape.html. Originally published in The Post-Abortion Review 2 (1) Winter 1994. Copyright 1994 Elliot Institute. 15. Reardon offers no source for this citation. I will confess to a considerable skepticism in published and online ‘personal accounts’ of postabortion regret, and post-rape-pregnancy maternal bliss. There are entire Pro-life websites which contain nothing more than purported firsthand accounts which a critical reader might suspect to be spurious. A more legitimate approach might be to draw from public records, such as those contained in court proceedings; readers might then more easily verify the accuracy of victims’ statements. Alternatively, accounts might be taken from legitimate academic publications, instead of the radically biased Pro-life publications of quasi-academic organizations such as the Eilliot Institue, which originally published Reardon’s article, or by Layola Press, the conservative Jesuit publisher who published his book (see endnote 8, above). 16. Which includes, of course, the possibilities of raising or not raising the resultant child. 17. From “Legalized Abortion and the Public Health.” Report of a Study by Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., May 1975, p. 88. 18. Or their own personal/life decisions more broadly. Obviously, there are drawbacks to thinking of reproductive decisions as simply or merely “medical” decisions.

426

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

19. Although President Obama is wise to point to the common ground upon which Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choice advocates stand—we all want to minimize the number of abortions—we must acknowledge a substantially different approach: in addition to promoting abstinence, Pro-Lifers work to minimize the desire for abortions, whereas Pro-Choice advocates work to minimize the need, and the methods of the one camp are frequently distasteful to the other. 20. Although the notion of moral luck has been taken up by a handful of ethicists, it is generally attributed to two articles, one by Williams (see Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) and the other by Nagel (see Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 21. More importantly, would they still feel compelled to morally assess their tragically constrained decision? Or rather, might they be less inclined to blame themselves for opting for abortion or adoption? 22. Brison, Susan. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of the Self. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 23. You may note subtle challenges to Beauvoir’s position throughout the present work. I do not want to dismiss the possibility that a rapeconception can be taken up in a morally significant way, but I am reticent to encourage the sort of inauthentic quasi-“transcendence” that I have described above (pregnancy as rape-healing, for example). I doubt that Beauvoir would want to paint rape-conception as a golden opportunity for ethical transcendence, and yet, I suspect that she would want to leave open the possibility that abortion, adoption and mothering might each be taken up as legitimate projects, if the agent were fully aware of all moral exigencies associated with that project. Of course, there is ample evidence in Beauvoir’s work to challenge this possibility; a Beauvoirian reading of rape-conception clearly merits further consideration. 24. “Serious man” is Beauvoir’s term for the type of agent who steps into a set of ready-made values, thus subordinating her freedom to an external, “objective” standard. But sometimes agents may be forced into world of values without realizing that there might be alternatives; Beauvoir acknowledges that one of the mechanisms of oppression is naturalization: by equating a social or political situation with nature, the oppressor effectively cuts off the possibility of revolt, for “one cannot revolt against nature” (Beauvoir 83). For young women who become pregnant via rape, the political/ethical world they encounter on the Internet and/ or in Pro-life rhetoric may be taken to express moral “facts,” not deeply

Recover the Tragic

427

entrenched value judgments. I feel it would be both cruel and inappropriate to accuse such women of inauthenticity. 25. Aristotle writes, “[T]hings of this sort are willing acts, though in an unqualified sense they would perhaps be unwilling acts, since no one would choose any such thing for itself […] while no praise is forthcoming, there is forgiveness, when one does what one ought not to do on account of motives of this sort, when they strain human nature too far, and no one could endure them” (NE 1110a). 26. The beliefs are explored repeatedly in the Poetics. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle offers a more basic description of pity, in which he notes that pity entails a belief that the person witnessed is in fact suffering substantially. Martha Nussbaum offers a wonderful discussion of the tragic emotions of pity and fear in The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). See especially pp. 383-385. Nussbaum highlights the moral significance of pity: “Through attending to our responses of pity, we can hope to learn more about our own implicit view of what matters in human life, about the vulnerability of our own deepest commitments” (385). 27. The characteristically American denial of luck (which we might equate with a “just world hypothesis,” or the view that people in some way “deserve” the things that happen to them) coincides well with the classic “she was asking for it” reading of rape. Examples of the latter abound; in a well-publicized recent incident, conservative talk show/radio host Bill O are illy portrayed 18-year-old Jennifer Moore, a rapemurder victim, as partially responsible for the crime of which she was the victim. O are illy cited her provocative clothing, arguing, “Every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at 2 in the morning” (see the August 2nd, 2008 edition of Westwood One’s The Radio Factor with Bill O are illy). One well-known study disturbingly illustrates how observers’ opinions of a woman change for the worse if they believe she is a rape victim (see Carli, Linda L. “Cognitive Reconstruction, Hindsight and reactions to Victims and Perpetrators,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, no. 8 (1999): 966-979). 28. In her wonderful book, Re-thinking Abortion (London: Routledge, 1997), Mary Boyle reads the struggle for reproductive rights in terms of gendered imbalances of power. She argues persuasively that the history of the reproductive rights movement is also a history of masculine attempts to dominate women’s reproductive lives.

428

Caroline Rebecca Lundquist

29. Or even of unwanted pregnancy that results from consensual sex. However, Boyle is wise to raise a caution on this point: “we cannot assume a priori that the suffering of a woman seeking abortion as a result of rape is always greater than that of a woman unwillingly pregnant after consensual intercourse” (Boyle 50). Theorization of pregnant experience is incredibly difficult due to the fact that such assumptions cannot always be maintained in the face of women’s actual lived experience. In Being Torn I argue for the use of tentative categories of pregnant experience, including “rejected” and “denied” pregnancy, while acknowledging a vast range of pregnant experience which tends to defy categorization. We might tentatively adopt a new category, “rape-resultant pregnancy,” for the purposes of phenomenological exploration.

19 Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model for the Co-Constitution of Self and World Peter Westmoreland

University of California, Irvine California Phenomenology Circle [email protected] ABSTRACT: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Vicar in Emile provides a phenomenological model for the co-constitution of self and world out of experiences as they emerge in the first person perspective. Self and world or non-self are intertwined in experience. Self is a spontaneous activity that differentiates and selects items given in experience as belonging to it based on how those items are given: by feelings or sentiments originating in the self or by sensations originating in the external world. Making this differentiation is not easy due to the interpenetration of self and world. Self constitutes itself according to ontological categories of mind and body that sort the sentiments. Self is constituted as a union of mental and bodily sentiments. Self constitutes the world according to how sentiments orient it toward the world and how sensations give the world to the self.

Introduction Rousseau felt that Emile was his best and most important work.1 Its crux is the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar.”2 In this lengthy discourse Rousseau provides his most substantial and comprehensive philosophical endeavor in epistemology and metaphysics. His purpose in presenting the Profession was to ground his theories of morality and natural religion. The foundation he chose for his philosophy was the self conceived as an agent in the world. PHENOMENOLOGY 2010, vol. 5: Selected Essays from North America. Part 1: Phenomenology within Philosophy. Edited by Michael BARBER, Lester EMBREE, and Thomas J. NENON (Bucharest: Zeta Books / Paris: Arghos-Diffusion, 2010).

430

Peter Westmoreland

My goal here is to present and develop Rousseau’s account of the differentiation and constitution of self and world as described by the Vicar. In the next section I focus in on the Vicar’s first crucial steps as he delimits self and world and constitutes the self as a union of mind and body. On the basis of this reading I then attempt to state what differentiation and constitution come to for Rousseau. I go on to depict these activities as part of a Rousseauian phenomenology. Rousseau’s Vicar provides a phenomenological model of the co-constitution of self and world out of experiences as they emerge in the first person perspective. Genesis of Difference The Vicar sets himself on a quest for truth, which he believes must begin with knowledge of his own being from the first person perspective (E 267-8). Needing to know what he is in order to pursue his quest, the Vicar undertakes the task of distinguishing self from non-self or world, two broad ontological categories. Making a preliminary distinction between these two categories allows the Vicar to develop his concepts of both self and world. His task is not an easy one because self and world are intertwined in experience, and it is from experience that the Vicar draws the elements that constitute his two categories. I see three concepts at work in the differentiation of self and world that I label self, interior, and exterior. “Self ” is the agency that makes the difference between self and world by distinguishing, out of what are originally encountered as unified experiences, items of experience that the self ascribes to self or to non-self. Items ascribed to the self are also integrated into the self. “Self” is also the term the Vicar uses for the combination of agential action and items of experience that have been selected as belonging to that agent and have been reified as components of the self. The self constitutes itself by use of these items of experience, using them as structures that help to determine the nature of that particular self.

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

431

“Interior” refers strictly to that which the self selects as belonging to it. For example, a self encounters a feeling of pride as belonging to it and thereby becomes a proud self. Pride is now an interior element that constitutes the self by taking part in guiding the self’s existence in combination with other elements. “Exterior” refers to that which the self does not select as belonging to it: the exterior makes up the realm of the world rather than that of the self, and items that are classified as belonging to the world are non-self items.3 The distinction between interior and exterior is rough. It is grounded by the way in which an item of experience is given in that experience. The Vicar tells us that two kinds of “sensings,” similar when experienced but nevertheless distinguishable, allow the self to delimit an item of experience from other items in that experience and assign that selected item to the appropriate ontological category. Interior elements are given by sentiments, feelings that originate in the self and are felt by the self as issuing from itself. They are self-feelings or self-sentiments. Exterior elements are given by sensations whose cause is in the world, understood as non-self. For example, the smell of roasting meat is felt as a sensation issuing from the external world and on that basis is differentiated from the hunger it produces within the self; the smell is assigned to the exterior and the hunger to the interior. Experience, of course, is usually a mixture of elements from multiple sources. It is up to the self alone, acting as a differentiating entity that is not bound by powers other than its own to make differentiations and thereby is free in its ability to differentiate, to recognize how a particular element is given by grasping the mode of givenness.4 It is then up to the process of constitution to place the element in the overall structure of self or world (self is responsible for constituting both self and world from its first person perspective).5 The line of demarcation between self and world created by acting on the feeling of belongingness is not easily recognized or mastered. One difficulty is that the mode of givenness is not necessarily transparent to the self: she can easily mistake sentiment

432

Peter Westmoreland

for sensation and vice-versa. Another impediment to accurate recognition is that one item of experience is often given through more than one mode of givenness. The lived body is a common source of confusion. According to the Vicar, the body is felt by sentiment as belonging to the self (I demonstrate this point in the next section), yet it is also felt by sensations derived from the exterior when it touches an object, which may lead the self to believe that the body belongs to the world rather than to the self. For example, in a kiss one gains a feeling of one’s own lips by pressing them against the lips of another: both sets of lips are felt simultaneously. The feeling of desire generated by the kiss indicates that the lips belong to the self, but the pressure of lips to lips is an exterior sensation originating in the world. The pleasure and the pressure are complexly related. Put simply, because of the interconnectedness of self and world, the self can be misled regarding what truly belongs to it due to an origin in sentiment and what does not truly belong to it due to an origin in sensation. In the kiss example the answer to the question of origin is not at first glance clear: the desire is in some way derived from the pressure and it takes some reflection to see that that desire is a sentiment rather than a sensation.6 Ultimately, what the self counts as interior can be based only on the self ’s own determination, however accurate or inaccurate that determination may be.7 If the self accepts the organic natural world as belonging to it, for example, then the natural world counts as belonging to the self until that feeling passes or is revised.8 Regardless, that feeling is true to the phenomenon as the self experiences it. Differentiation of Self and World The self for the Vicar is not neatly isolatable from the world and vice-versa. In this section I develop the Vicar’s account of the differentiation of self and world, focusing on how the self makes the differentiation in its experiences.9 I argue also that the

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

433

self is significantly penetrated and pervaded by the external world. Its borders are not firm but rather are permeable; moreover they can both expand and deflate.10 I begin this argument by examining the Vicar’s own opening concern. He speaks: I exist, and I have senses by which I am affected. This is the first truth that strikes me and to which I am forced to acquiesce. Do I have a particular sentiment of my existence (un sentiment propre de mon existence), or do I sense it only through my sensations (mes sensations)? This is my first doubt, which it is for the present impossible for me to resolve; for as I am continually affected by my sensations, whether immediately or by memory, how can I know whether the sentiment of the I (le sentiment du moi) is something outside these same sensations and whether it can be independent of them (E 270)?

Several important claims are made in and presupposed by this passage. It is helpful to formulate what is at issue and the problems that surround it as it gives some organization to the Vicar’s next few moves of differentiation. What is in question is whether the Vicar needs sensations from the external world in order to know himself or if there is an alternative way of knowing the self that is given directly by the self to the self in the form of self-sentiments or sentiments of his own existence. These sentiments would be feelings that something is his own and does not belong to the world. Self-sentiment as a mode of givenness of an item of experience provides the criterion for selecting an item as belonging to the self. The Vicar’s problem in regard to this issue is that at this point he lacks an unambiguous distinction between sentiments arising from the self and sensations contributed to the self from outside of the self: self-contributed items of experience are not obviously given as separate from non-self contributed ones. He determines that, although sensation may awaken self-sentiment, the two ways of sensing are distinguishable (at least) by their differing places of origin: sensation has its origin in the world

434

Peter Westmoreland

while sentiment begins in the self (E 270-1, 286).11 That is to say, a sensation from the world may lead the self to respond with a sentiment, but they ultimately derive from different sources. Imagine, for example, that the Vicar confronts barrels of apples and oranges at the market. He says to himself, “The apples are rotten and the oranges are not.” Reflecting on that experience, the Vicar realizes that an ability to compare was called on. Was that ability in the apples or oranges? No, apples and oranges do not have the ability to make comparisons; they are not the kind of thing that forms relations. The Vicar can now say, “I must be the thing that did the comparing.” He examines comparison and feels certain that it issues out of himself. Comparison, he determines, belongs to him: it is an interior element of the self that he derived from his experience at the market by differentiating his own contribution from that of the world. In other words, from an experience that did not present itself in terms of a difference between self and world the Vicar actively differentiated the contribution that was given by the self and made it part of the self.12 The passage above also suggests that the self is fundamentally in the world. In fact, from the Vicar’s claim that the self is “continually” affected by the world we may infer that the self is always in the world; that is, the world is constantly present to the self via sensations. While interior is experienced as self, the self as an experiencing thing is never fully isolatable from the world, but rather is always experiencing itself as acting in the world and being acted on by the world. This presence of world to self via sensations felt on the interior of the self means that the world penetrates the self. 13 Due to this penetration, the world pervades the self. As a result the self cannot in an a priori fashion distinguish its own sentiments from the sensations that it receives from the world, especially because experiences are usually given to the experiencing subject in multiple modalities: interior and exterior are intertwined. Physical pain presents a typical and difficult case; I

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

435

take stubbing one’s toe on a rock as an example to illustrate the complications brought on by the Vicar’s reliance on a feeling’s origin as the factor that is relevant when differentiating self and world. We normally think of pain as a sensation that, while caused by the outside world, is felt interior to the self: the feeling of pain belongs to the self. Pain then is caused by the world but belongs to the self. Is pain a sensation or a sentiment? The Vicar provides no definitive answer. Note, though, that both sensation and sentiment come in the form of the first person: the rock is hard to me, the pain is pain to me, etc. The Vicar never moves beyond this perspective.14 I now summarize some of the findings thus far about the nature of differentiation and of the self. The self feels, in sentiments and sensations, a difference. This difference is one of origins, and on that basis the self differentiates, out of experience, items that belong to it due to an origin within it from items that do not belong to it due to an exterior origin. The self makes the differentiation of self and world on its own and according to the project it takes up. The self can be pervaded by the world by way of sensations. Indeed, it is the permeability of the self that makes appropriate the question of whether the self can be distinguished from the world, and it necessitates that self and world, being distinguished at the same moment, are co-constituted. By permeability, I mean that the self lacks borders that firmly limit what may pass into and out of it; rather, the self allows exterior elements into it, and it can thereafter choose whether it wishes to maintain these elements as components of itself.15 By the same token, self-sentiments may be extended to the exterior. For instance, Rousseau thinks that some forms of self-love can be transferred to objects in the world (especially the other) that the self identifies with itself. It is up to the self to make the distinction between self and world if it is possible and if the self chooses to do so. The self is activity, and this activity has the power to claim items of experience as its own or to pronounce items as not its own due to that item’s origin.16

436

Peter Westmoreland

Constitution of Self as Composed of Mind and Body Thus far I have depicted the Vicar’s phenomenological coconstitution of self and world as identifying a distinction between self-sentiments and external sensations. In making this identification the self differentiates experience into the two categories of self and world. That discussion was complicated by the self ’s interrelatedness to the world. I now take up the subject matter of how the union of mind and body is composed as an example of one way in which the self constitutes itself, which will serve in turn as an introduction to active constitution generally for Rousseau.17 Mind and body are traditional ontological categories that the Vicar takes hold of in order to (1) maintain certain theological premises about the afterlife and (2) inform his conceptualization of the structure of the self. 18 It is this latter point that concerns us and, indeed, mind and body are both organizational subcategories that do such work. On my account, mind, while ostensibly a substance, plays a significant role as an organizational subcategory of self for non-physical capacities that the self as an agent exercises, including active judgment/comparison (E 2701) and the moral will (E 280). Mind is not synonymous with the self but rather self is the union of mind and body. This position requires some argument. Rousseau is a substance dualist. He believes that mind and body are conceivably distinct substances with mutually exclusive properties: mind is immaterial and can think, whereas body is material and cannot think. For many substance dualists, the mind can be considered as an entity apart from the union it shares with the body. A commonplace interpretation of Descartes’ metaphysics provides a useful example of this variety of dualistic thought. On this reading, which overlooks the importance of the union of mind and body in other works such as On the Passions of the Soul, Cartesian metaphysics leads to the view that selfhood is located in the thinking mind and that the body

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

437

is distinguishable from and inessential to the self proper. I need evidence that self is not identified merely with mind in order for my view to gain footing. I begin defense of my position by returning to the arguments I have already made, and then I marshal more evidence from Rousseau’s text. From what I have presented so far it should be apparent that the Vicar would not be friendly to the conclusion that self is only mind and not body as well. In fact, the self-world differentiation described in the previous section is useful evidence for my view that the body is an inseparable part of the self. That differentiation was necessary in part because the self is not merely subject to self-generated sentiments but also is immersed in the world as an agent and subject of sensation. Moreover, the self sees itself in this way from its perspective. Agential action requires embodiment and the Vicarian self is defined as an activity; thus the Vicarian self is fundamentally embodied. Were this self understood merely as a thinking thing, other differentiations of self and world radically unlike this one would be possible— the Cartesian discovery of the mind via world-deprivation in the Meditations presents a tenable option.19 Moving back to the text, it is apparent that the Vicar is a weak advocate of the thesis that mind and body are two distinct substances, allowing us to neglect the idea that the mind is the seat of the self. His commitment to the idea that self must include both mind and body as ontological subcategories is much stronger. Consider the tone of this passage. If the soul is immaterial, it can survive the body; and if it survives the body, Providence is justified. When I have no other proof of the immateriality of the soul than the triumph of the wicked and the oppression of the just in this world, this [reason] alone prevents me from doubting it… But this question is no longer a difficulty for me as soon as I have acknowledged two substances… When the union of body and soul is broken, I conceive that the former can be dissolved while the latter can be preserved (E 283, translation adjusted, my italics).

438

Peter Westmoreland

I add that the Vicar does not proclaim that the soul is immortal, but only that this presumption offers consolation (E 283). The hesitancy and hypothetical language in the passage is enough to give one pause about the significance of substance dualism beyond theological concerns. The Vicar indicates that dualism is a helpful thing to acknowledge theologically based on ancillary rather than verifiable empirical evidence. In short, substance dualism is not a provable fact but a requirement of rational faith. Indeed, it seems, knowledge of multiple substances is beyond the self ’s evidence-acquiring capacities.20 In fact, in this case of the immaterial soul,21 the Vicar says, “I sense my soul. I know it by sentiment and by thought. Without knowing what its essence is, I know that it exists” (E 283). Notice that he does not sense the real distinction of mind and body, or that he is essentially mind, or that his self is mind alone. In fact, in denying that he has access to the essence of the soul the Vicar seems to say that he cannot know the soul as a substance. Selfsentiment, we may infer, provides no word on these matters. What we can say for certain is that mind operates as a subcategory of the self and is felt to belong to the self. Mind is interior to and takes part in the self as an organizational unit for traditionally mental faculties (E 255, 271-2). As an organizational unit, it lends structure and thus does the work of self-constitution. It does this work by providing a way of thinking about how the self’s faculties are interrelated: the self relies on the proper working together of mental faculties and bodily faculties in order to know about and get around in the surrounding environment of which it is a part. For instance, active judgment, a mental capacity, relies on passive perception, a bodily capacity, in order to determine how it may encounter the world (E 270-1). The union of body and mind is constituted by the self as a complex set of interactions between physical and non-physical lived activities and capacities that the self uses to engage with itself and with the world in the first person.

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

439

Other textual evidence does not clarify how the relationship between self and mind should be understood.22 We can say with certainty though that the Vicar’s substance dualism provides two subcategories of the self with indefinite edges and interrelations. For example, on a specific occasion of perception and judgment it is not obvious where the work of the bodily faculty ends and that of the mental faculty begins. As Rousseau gives them, neither body nor mind can be taken alone to stand for the self, but rather they must be taken together as interrelated interior elements of the self that in their union make an individual self that particular self that it is. After all, it is concern over the nature of the self, le soi, that ultimately directs the Vicar’s thinking (being a moral self in God’s order is what is most important on the Vicar’s view, however the details turn out, E 291-2). Self is constituted as an interrelation of body and mind elements. My view has the virtue of being consistent with the traditional understandings of mental substance and substance dualism. All I have done is avoid a unified account of the mental or of the self in terms of attributes (or something else). Its orthodoxy shows through in the details. For example, the Vicar’s affirmation of mental substance is conventional in that he takes thought to be the primary attribute of mind (E 279). If my focus on the self either denies that thought is the attribute of mind, affirms that the mind is composed of something other than thought, or suggests that body may have thought as an attribute, then I have lost support for my interpretation and move against the text. I have argued nothing of the sort however; these necessary appearances of traditional substance dualism are still in order. The Vicar does delineate some interior features as mental, but he makes little effort to assimilate them into a unity and does nothing to fill out a general theory of attribution. This lack is not a lacuna, but rather it indicates the Vicar’s putting the mind (and body) to another purpose. My view, that the mind is an organizational device for some of the plurality of interrelated interior features selected by the self, merely follows up on the Vicar’s cues and illuminates

440

Peter Westmoreland

the constituted structure of the self. It helps us think through how the self is structured without importing unnecessary metaphysical baggage, such as the assignment of selfhood to the mind alone when being a self is clearly an activity in the world on the Vicar’s model. To sum up, I have argued that the Vicarian self is best understood as activity in the world and is fundamentally embodied. This self is significantly permeable and pervaded by the world. It has the capacity to differentiate items of experience that it encounters as belonging to it (interior) or not (exterior). In this differentiation the self co-constitutes itself and the world. The self has a sentiment of itself as this self. It constitutes itself by means of traditional ontological categories and subcategories that serve the Vicar’s theological leanings. These subcategories of the self give form to thinking about the interior of the self, particularly how various interior features of the self interrelate. An Account of Rousseau’s Theories of Differentiation and Constitution With this much of the Vicar’s account of the self in play we can step back and think through differentiation and constitution. Specifically, I want to say what I think differentiation and constitution are for Rousseau, what they do, and what their significance is. Differentiation and constitution are fundamentally activities for Rousseau. They are the means by which the self fashions itself as well as the world. They are things the self does; the self is a differentiating and constituting entity. Most importantly, they are the activities of the self that make the self what it is: they describe the self ’s activity. They also form the self as something beyond activity. Self recognizes, in experience, items that belong to it, thus differentiating some aspects of an experience from others. Differentia-

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

441

tion takes these items out of unified experience and assigns them to the interior. In this way the self grows beyond mere activity, gaining new parts. These parts interact with each other and guide further differentiation and appropriation. The self experiences its interiority and orders it according to its purposes, constituting itself as the individual self that it is. The self is both a differentiating entity and an entity that emerges out of the differentiating and constituting. Differentiation is a manifestation of the will. It is active selection; it is thereby a kind of choice. Differentiation is free and requires a decision procedure to ground it. Feeling is the decision procedure the Vicar chooses. If something feels as though it originates in the self, that thing is differentiated from the world, and if something feels that it originates from the world, it is differentiated from the self. Thus, by differentiation, the self determines the elements of both self and world. For example, I feel pity for a suffering creature. It is an overwhelming experience and it is unclear whether I perceive it from the world as a wound that the other inflicts on me or if it is an outcry of commiseration from me, another being that has also suffered. On inspection, Rousseau claims, pity shows itself to emanate from myself. A differentiation results from this inspection and pity is recognized by the self as interior to it (E 251). By reflecting on the experience, the self recognizes itself as an entity that self-generates pity. It can now structure its interior to deal with this passion. Because it is a feeling, Rousseau places pity among the affective elements of the self, a part of the mind (or “heart” as he likes to say) rather than of the body. Because pity emanates from within the self but permeates the self by relating to a suffering creature on the exterior, the self finds directedness toward the other on its interior. The self is constituted as composed in part by an other-directed feeling. The world is constituted as including the other as a point of possible concern. Self and world are co-constituted by the self and from the perspective of the self. 23

442

Peter Westmoreland

We can see now how differentiation and constitution act together for Rousseau. Differentiation grasps items of experience as belonging either to the self or to the world, and constitution establishes the interrelations of elements on the interior, on the exterior, and between the interior and the exterior. These relations are manifestations of how particular elements are significant to the self. They indicate how the self takes up its items of experience, as part of mind or body for example, as well as how it takes up elements in the world, as pitiable for example. Rousseau’s Phenomenology Rousseau pursues philosophy by a careful study of the nature of experience from the first person perspective. It is the way that an item is given in experience to the self as agency in the first person perspective that guides differentiation and constitution. The Vicar’s bedrock is a conception of the self as an agent. The self ’s activity operates under traditional assumptions that guide deliberation such as considerations of reason and feeling, with feeling being most prominent in differentiation. This activity is free in its ability to select and place items that it experiences in ontological categories, but it requires criteria for making its selections. The Vicarian self makes its selection according to the sensed origin of the particular item of experience which is taken out of an originally unified experience. If the item has its origin in the self, then it is relegated to the self. If the origin is in the world, then that item is relegated to the world. In this way the self differentiates itself from the world and vice-versa under the two broad categories of self and non-self. In this differentiating activity the self constitutes its interiority. The Vicar has preselected self and world as his subcategories of the self, based on his plan to ground morality and religion in feelings issuing from the self, a topic unexplored here.24 Categories are fluid and the placement of an item varies according to how it is given. The

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

443

same item may have multiple modes of givenness. The distinction between self and world is dynamic and dependent on the mode of givenness of an experience as the self encounters it.25 Bibliography Primary Sources. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Confessions. Trans. J. M. Cohen. New York: Penguin Books, 1953. ________. Émile, ou de l’éducation. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 1999. ________. Emile, or On Education. Trans. Allan Bloom. U. S. A.: Basic Books, 1979. ________. Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Trans. Peter France. New York: Penguin Books, 1979. ________. Rousseau: The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings. Trans. and ed. Victor Gourevitch. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ________. Rousseau: The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings. Trans. and ed. Victor Gourevitch. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Secondary Sources. Cassirer, Ernst. Rousseau, Kant, and Goethe. Trans. James Gutmann, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945. Delaney, James. Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue. New York: Continuum, 2006. Dent, Nicholas. Rousseau. New York: Routledge, 2005. ________. Rousseau: An Introduction to His Psychological, Social, and Political Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (2 vols). Trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Gauthier, David. Rousseau: Sentiments of Existence. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Gouhier, Henri. Les méditations métaphysiques de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Paris: Vrin, 1984. Lloyd, Genevieve. “Rousseau on Reason, Nature, and Women.” Metaphilosophy 14, no. 3-4 (1983): 308-26.

444

Peter Westmoreland

Neuhouser, Frederick. “Freedom, Dependence, and the General Will.” In The Philosophical Review, vol. 102, no. 3 (July, 1993), pp. 363-395. ________. Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Random House, 1967.

Endnotes 1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions, trans. J. M. Cohen, New York: Penguin Books, 1953, p. 529-30. 2. Quotations of Emile are from the Allan Bloom translation (hereafter abbreviated E) and are retranslated where indicated. 3. Rousseau writes of things being inside or outside of the self. The terms “interior” and “exterior” are my own. 4. The self may be unsuccessful or inaccurate in differentiating items. A hallucination, for example, may cause difficulty. The most troubling errors, for Rousseau, are those that are caused by our own pride or amour-propre. See works cited by Dent and Neuhouser. 5. The Vicar goes so far as to claim, “To exist, for us, is to sense” (E 290). 6. It could be debated whether desire is sentiment or sensation on this schema, but for Rousseau desire is certainly a sentiment. See E 235. 7. Rousseau insists on the spontaneity of the will. See E 280-1. 8. See for instance Rousseau’s famous encounter with the Great Dane during his second walk in Reveries of the Solitary Walker. His sense of his own existence after this event includes the natural world writ large. 9. Emile is an educational text. Each of its books is designed to guide the education of a male child at a particular stage in his development. The Vicar’s passages are focused on a mature, adult, male self that has passed successfully through earlier stages of development that Rousseau also depicts. I broaden the scope of his analysis to appeal to humans generally. In order to do so I table problems of Rousseau’s blatant and likely indefensible sexism. On this topic see Lloyd for a presentation of some issues concerning Rousseau’s depiction of women and the ideal education of women. 10. My theses in this section will be controversial, especially to lines of interpretation that emphasize the independence of the individual by

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

445

relying on the positive characterization of the ‘savage’ in the Second Discourse. The savage seems to be impregnable in the face of the world. Rousseau is clear, though, even in that text, that once we enter society the savage is an outdated model of the human being. This kind of self can tell us who we once were and offer suggestive material for how we can live, but it cannot portend to us our proper socialized condition. See Dent, Neuhouser, and Gauthier. I find this idea of Rousseau’s similar to Nietzsche’s idea that we cannot pour slave morality back into the bottle and cork it to return to noble morality. Noble morality does give us ideas about how to live other than as slaves, just as the noble savage gives civilized man glimpses of alternative ways of living, but in neither case is a return advocated. See Nietzsche’s Genealogy, “Second Essay,” section 19. 11. The passage indicates that “sensings” come in two sorts: sentiments and sensations. For clarity, I reserve “sensation” for sensings originating in the non-self world and “sentiment” for sensings originating within the self, although the Vicar often mixes his language, utilizing “sentir” and “sensation” to refer to them both (E 270-1). Both ways of sensing are immediate and infallible as experienced (“it is never false that I sense what I sense”); hence one source of the Vicar’s confusion (E 271). Now is perhaps a good time to quote Rousseau’s opinion on inconsistent language. “I have a hundred times in writing made the reflection that it is impossible in a long work always to give the same meanings to the same words… I do not believe that with that I contradict myself in my ideas; but I cannot gainsay that I often contradict myself in my expressions” (E 108). Finally, I note that the immediacy and infallibility of sensing hearkens to Cartesian philosophy of the self. The Vicar is in constant dialog with Cartesian ideas throughout his Profession, twisting Cartesian methodological devices such as the natural light into forms that meet the sentimentalist moral theory that the Vicar pursues. For more see Gouhier. 12. This example has one misleading element. Differentiation need not be conscious or reflective. As self is reified, differentiation and constitution progress and both are often on autopilot, so to speak. Rousseau appears in many passages to be committed to some kind of virtue theory in order to accommodate this position. See Delaney. 13. The Vicar considers another way of describing the belongingness of humans to the world. According his theological vision, the world is a place for man, ordered so that it serves his purposes, yet also man is for

446

Peter Westmoreland

the world, designed to take part in both the biological and moral orders that inhere in it (E 277-8, 285, 292). Immersed in the world, humans have a sentiment of common existence (le sentiment de l’existence commune), a strong sense of belonging to the world and with other living beings (E 277). This sentiment, although it has one’s surroundings in its content, has its source interior to the self. In other words, a feeling of being penetrated and pervaded by the exterior wells up in us from within. 14. Is the Vicar a solipsist? I say no, because he conceives himself to be a part of the world (E 277). In fact, there is strong evidence that the Vicar is a direct realist (E 270, 272). 15. Two further points on this matter. First, a less than vigilant self may end up with many elements of exterior origin on its interior. Second, to maintain its integrity, the self must maintain its vigilance. Rousseau does seem to think that a self may become so corrupted by the exterior that it loses the capability to regulate its interior and the interior thereby becomes opaque to the self, a lesson developed in the Second Discourse. 16. Is the origin of interior elements really in the self if the self is agency? I believe it is. The feeling of belonging that the self has of an item of experience arises from the self’s activity and as a component of that activity. Generated by the self, the self feels by self-sentiment that the item belongs to it. 17. Throughout I use “body” to refer to the human body of lived experience or phenomenal body, not corporeal bodies generally. 18. The Vicar has two concerns in his defense of his theological position. First, he needs immaterial mind to justify his optimism in natural religion: an immaterial soul could survive death and preserve Providence by allowing the possibility that the wicked ones prospering in corporeal life will be punished in the afterlife while the suffering good of the earth reap their just rewards in heaven (E 283). Second, the Vicar wishes to deny John Locke’s thinking matter hypothesis because he believes that matter alone cannot sustain free will (E 279-80). 19. The Vicar indeed takes his cue from the Meditations (“I was in that frame of mind of doubt and uncertainty that Descartes demands for the quest for truth,” E 267), but his problem is of a practical nature, and he cannot admit things that are not “useful for practice” (E 270). An incorporeal mind is incapable of practical action in the world, so conceptions of interiority that focus on mind alone are useless. From an agential point of view, the self’s interiority must include the body. I take it from

Rousseau’s Phenomenological Model

447

this kind of evidence that when it comes to mind and body Rousseau may have as much in common with phenomenologists such as Merleau-Ponty as he does with his prominent contemporaries in the early modern era. 20. Rousseau and the Vicar comment repeatedly on the limits of human knowing. See E 268, 276. 21. Rousseau uses “soul” sometimes synonymously with “mind” and sometimes synonymously with “heart.” Heart and mind are often contrasted, but sometimes are aligned. How these categories are related seems to depend on the context in which they are deployed. 22. For instance, “Consider that since we are limited by our faculties to things which can be sensed, we provide almost no hold for abstract notions of philosophy and purely intellectual ideas. To arrive at them we must… separate ourselves from the body—to which we are strongly attached” (E 255). “[I] find [moral rules] written by nature with ineffaceable characters in the depth of my heart.” “Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of the body” (E 286). “Why is my soul subjected to my senses and chained to this body…?” “He is united to a mortal body by a bond no less powerful than incomprehensible” (E 292). 23. Rousseau ultimately develops his sentimentalist phenomenology into a full-blown theory of intentionality governed by self-directed and other-directed relations, a “double relation.” I hope to pursue this fascinating, complex, and overlooked aspect of Rousseau’s philosophy in future work. See E 286-90 for the key elements of the double relation. 24. Dent provides a nice summary of how the argument proceeds in his Rousseau, not, of course, in the terms I use in this paper. 25. I thank Christopher Lay, Jeffrey Ogle, Martin Schwab, and Jeff Yoshimi for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

¤

51 B-dul Coposu ap. 48, Bucharest RO-030604, Romania Tel. (004) 0733046689 Fax. (004) 0318166779 www.zetabooks.com [email protected]