Some comments on a classic of phenomenology, Held’s dissertation “Lebendige Gegenwart”. Held is asking about the “way of being” of the transcendental subject, which, how I see it, is the question that is at the core of the dispute between Husserl and Heidegger.
Now, you could argue that this question is only the modernized version of the original question about “time”, which, through manifold variations, ended up being raised as the question about the “being” of the transcendental subject, or, in other words, how the constituting I is itself constituted. Is it self-constituting? Is it constituted only insofar as it reflects itself? Uncountable problems arise if “being” and “being-constituted” are used in the same manner. There is a constitutive aspect of reflection, making something visible that was implicitly already operative. But this constituting-visualizing of phenomena (for example, self-reflection), is not responsible for the operativeness or the being of the underlying phenomena. Reflection, so understood, is presupposing the operability of what it wants to explain.
Husserl, and Held following him (and Landgrebe), aim to make the intrinsic relation of “self”, “time”, and “being” explicit. Held therefore leads us (in Lebendige Gegenwart) into the center of Husserl’s different approaches of conceptualizing “inner time-consciousness” and the “self-constitutedness” of the transcendental ego. In the 3rd chapter of Held’s dissertation, Held quotes Husserl’s own formulation of the issue at hand:
Klaus Held, Lebendige Gegenwart, 103.
In der “Vor-Zeitigung”, im urpassiven Strömen-Lassen “zeitigt sich ein absolut anonymer (wesenhaft unbekannt bleibender) Seinssinn, der nicht schon ‘geprägter’ (=gezeitigter) ist, vielmehr erst durch meine Prägung als phänomenologisch Forschender die Gestalt eines eigentlichen Seinssinnes hat, während er doch, in apodiktischer Rückfrage ,hinterher’ aufgewiesen, die apodiktische Seinsgeltung hat von einem, was schon war und konstituierend fungierte und doch nicht ,vorgegeben’ (als Gegenständlichkeit), nicht geprägt, nicht explikabel war. – Das sind allerdings keine leicht zu klärenden Sachlagen”.
If you’re more familiar with Kant’s terminology, this is at core the problem of the transcendental apperception — a question about the “way of being” of transcendental consciousness, its function as a condition of possibility vs. its function of “actual” consciousness.
As I see it and already mentioned it, I also understand this is the reconceptualized, modernized question about “time”: as that which stands still, is the whole, the background, the possibility condition; and as that which continuously flows, allowing changes to occur, allowing for the differentiation between past, present, and future.
Now, in modern philosophy, the question is reraised in the following way: the transcendental subject must function as the “ground” of the appearing reality. Not in terms of “constructing” reality (naive idealism) but as the one constituting it (transcendental phenomenology). There is an irreducible relation between the unity of consciousness (in all experiences) and the unity of things that appear within our experiences. We cannot make sense of anything “outside” of time, and neither can we make sense of things without the unity of our consciousness (even the reflection of the independence of things (their “an-sich-sein”) presupposes that unity). In short, self-consciousness is a condition of possibility for thinking and for the experience of things. The question, however, is: In which way is it the condition of possibility? What do we mean by that? Is the facticity of consciousness in the same way conditioning intentionality as is its transcendentality? Does consciousness have to be temporal in order to constitute appearing things? In which way? And lastly, how can we reflect the temporality of consciousness if this temporality is what underlies and makes possible reflection?
Again, Husserl (1934):
In: Klaus Held, Lebendige Gegenwart, 103.
Das urtümliche Strömen” … ist als ,Vor’-Sein unerfahrbar und unsagbar, soweit aber das Unsagbare bzw. Unerfahrbare aufgewiesen, also doch erfahren und zum Thema einer
Aussage wird, ist es eben ontifiziert”. [Held continues:] Und was ist das urpassive Strömen vor seiner Ontifikation? Diese Frage kann und darf nicht gestellt werden, weil sie schon wieder impliziert, daß das Strömen als ein Seiendes angesprochen wird; damit aber ist es bereits als Zeitlichkeit verstanden. Die Frage nach dem Strömen in seiner Urpassivität, die zugleich die Frage nach dem Ich in seinem vor-zeitigenden strömenden Entspringenlassen des Lebensstromes ist, bleibt rätselhaft und dies so sehr, daß auf dem Boden der phänomenologischen Reflexion nicht einmal angegeben werden kann, wie die Frage angemessen gestellt werden soll; …
There seems to be the possibility of an “ontification” of what is “in-experiencable”. The primordial flow of time as the primary possibility condition remains a mystery and can only be made explicit within the phenomenological reflection (or ontification).
Husserl’s underlying assumption seems to be that we can only make propositions about (constituted) beings, and that reflection means ontification. But that which is responsible for this constitution and ontification (the ultimate ground of every constitution) is itself not a constituted being. It is “given” only within the self-reflection.
The problem, with other words, for Husserl is that we must acknowledge that every constitution is possible only on the grounds of a primordial, ultimate ground (the continuous flow of time) but that this ground of constitution cannot be reflected within that constitution.
A question that Held has for Husserl (and that also resembles Heidegger’s criticism of Husserl) is (104):
Doesn’t this question remind us of Heidegger’s polite questions about the “being” of the transcendental ego? What is the being of the constituting I? We must also notice that there is a certain predicament that seems to be inescapable for Husserl: namely that reflection, constitution, and in consequence: propositions and judments, truth, and rationality are somehow interconnected: “truth” as judgments about the reflected constitution of Xyz.
Critical questions for Husserl must also entail: What is the meaning of “being-constituted”? What sense of “reality” is posited within the constitution? Are there different ways of “constitution”, different ways of reflection?
And how I see it, all of these questions lead beyond Husserl and towards Heidegger (without being solved, of course). And as Kantians might see it: these questions lead back to Kant’s reflection on the transcendental apperception.
3. Die praereflexive Synthesis (104ff.)