Читать книгу Phenomenology of Productive Imagination: Embodiment, Language, Subjectivity - Saulius Geniusas - Страница 15

One might object that the proposed view is not only paradoxical, but also suspicious. How can phantasy, conceived as a capacity of consciousness to neutralize reality, perform a role (and not just any role, but a fundamental and irreducible role!) in the constitution of actual reality? Related to this, what exactly is actual reality, when conceptualized in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology? Husserlian phenomenology reduces all philosophical questions to questions of meaning and further clarifies these questions in terms of intentional accomplishments of consciousness(es). This means, among other things, that phenomenology conceptualizes actual reality as a particular configuration of meaning, and more precisely, as a configuration that derives from and finds its support in a peculiar unanimity of experience.21 All claims to actual existence are grounded in evidence, and this evidence has as its basis transcendental subjectivity: “every imaginable adequation originates as our verification, is our synthesis, has in us its ultimate transcendental basis” (Husserl 1960, 60).

This passage brings to conclusion Husserl’s all-too-brief analysis of actuality in the Third Cartesian Meditation. Here, actuality is conceived as the correlate of evident verification. One should not, however, overlook the fact that Husserl qualifies this verification as ours and not just as my own. As his further analysis in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation of the constitution of monadological intersubjectivity makes clear, the constitution of actuality cannot be carried through successfully within the boundaries of what Husserl identifies as the sphere of ownness (Einheitssphäre). In §48 of the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl recognizes that actual being is originally constituted in the unanimity of experience. To this he adds that the unanimity in question embraces not only my own experience, but also the experience of other subjectivities. For Husserl, objectivities that come only from my own experience are not yet truly objective. They are objectivities that belong to what he identifies as “immanent transcendence” and “the primordial world.” Only insofar as one’s experience is presumed to be corroborated by the possible experience of other subjectivities can it be qualified as intending actual objectivities. This means that in order to constitute the objective world, consciousness must constitute not only an alter ego, but also itself as a member of a community of subjectivities. To put the matter in more familiar language, consciousness must apperceive itself as a member of a particular community. My hypothesis is that in order to enter a particular cultural world—be it that of my own or that of another—I must appropriate the way a particular community sees the world, and this act of appropriation calls for imagination.22

To corroborate such a working hypothesis, it is crucial to recognize the fundamental function of embodiment in the overall framework of Husserl’s account of the constitution of the alter ego. As Husserl makes clear in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, the constitution of the alter ego has its basis in the givenness of the Other’s body—a body which is like my own, but not my own. The Other’s body emerges in the field of my own primordial experience as an object, which is simultaneously more than a mere object. I apperceive the Other’s body through analogizing apperception (analogische Apperzeption): like my own body, so also the body of the Other is given both as Körper and Leib—both as a material object and as an organ of the will and free movement. Yet, the will in question is not my own will, just as the power of movement is not my own power. The Other is thus given as a subject of experiences, which, for principal reasons, cannot be transmuted into my own original experiences. To attempt to transform the Other’s experiences into one’s own is not only a futile task, but also proves to be the most narcissistic act imaginable, likenable to an act of “transcendental enslavement.” It would equal the reduction of the Other’s life to a moment of one’s own existence. The Other’s experiences cannot be lived through, but can only be appresented. These experiences are given in a manner that transcends the field of one’s own givenness. The Other is thus accessible as originally inaccessible: the Other’s physical givenness appresents a psychic life, which transcends the boundaries of my original experience. The Other is constituted not as a duplication, but as a modification of my own sphere of ownness: The Other is constituted precisely as Other.23

Insofar as any object is constituted in the unanimity of my own original experience, it cannot yet be qualified as an actual object existing in the actual world, since such a qualification would presuppose that the object’s givenness appears not just for me, but also for other subjectivities. Every object, insofar as it actually exists, must transcend my sphere of ownness. The reason why this is the case is because every object must entail a dimension of sense, derived from an appresentative level of constitution—in other words, that level which lies in the synthetic unity of synthesis between what is given to me in original primordiality and what is given to other subjectivities. Thus, to claim that an actual object exists in the actual world is to maintain that the object in question can be given intentionally, not just to me, but also to other subjectivities. At the same time, let us not forget that the Other’s experiences are given as originally inaccessible. Despite its fundamental original inaccessibility, I must nonetheless presuppose some kind of access to these experiences of the Other if I am to qualify an object as an actually existing object in the actual world. What, then, is this non-original access that is presupposed in the process of world-constitution?

With regard to the constitution of a common nature (Gemeinsamkeit der Natur), which Husserl conceives as the first form of objectivity, one is right to maintain that mere communication suffices as a non-original point of access to the Other’s experiences.24 Here, mere communication refers to the function of corroboration. If this were absent, the constitution of a common nature would not be possible. The natural objects actually experienced by the Other are the same natural objects that are actually or potentially experienced by me: what is actually given to the Other is potentially given to me “as if I were standing over there, where the Other’s body is” (Husserl 1960, 123). Moreover, as far as the constitution of mere nature is concerned, “the world belonging to their appearance-systems [i.e., the world of Others], must be experienced forthwith as the same as the world belonging to my appearance-systems; and this involves an identity of our appearance-systems” (Husserl 1960, 125). Thus, the constitution of a common nature is to be understood as the establishment of a sense of identity between my own primordial nature and that which is constituted in the Other’s experience. Even though I cannot originally access the Other’s experience, I can nonetheless establish a synthesis of identification on the basis of communication. In virtue of such a synthesis of identification, every natural object, which is either actually or potentially experienceable by me in the lower stratum as “immanent transcendence,” now receives an appresentational stratum, which is united in an identifying synthesis with the lower stratum. In short, the sense that belongs to common nature is derived from harmonious intersubjective experience, and is furthermore established through communication. While corrections might be required to preserve the harmony in question, these corrections only reinforce the congruence that guides the intersubjective experience of nature. Thus, as seen from a Husserlian standpoint, insofar as communication performs primarily a corroborative function, the constitution of common nature can be accomplished without any support of phantasy. Within such a constitutive framework, the role of phantasy appears to be superfluous: there is no specific function for it to perform.25

Yet the situation proves significantly different when we turn from the constitution of mere nature to the constitution of cultural worlds (see Husserl 1960, §55-§58). Although at this new constitutive level, communication continues to be the non-original point of access to the Other’s experiences, its significance cannot be reduced to a corroborative function. I cannot enter into any cultural world if the Other only corroborates what I have already experienced, or what I know I would experience “if I were there,” where the Other is. As mentioned above, the constitution of common nature presupposes that the Other’s appearance-systems are the same as my own. By contrast, no matter how developed my own appearance-systems might be, I can only constitute myself as a member of a community if the appearance-systems of a particular community diverge from my own, and only if, despite this divergence, I find a way to appropriate these extraneous appearance-systems. To enter into a cultural world, I not only need to be exposed to large depository of meaning, which is fundamentally not of my own making, but I also need to find a way to appropriate this meaning and to render it my own. In other words, only by learning to see and understand the world the way “they” see and understand it, can I transform the “they” into a “we.”

We are not exposed to this depository of meaning when we turn away from objects given to us in our everyday experience. Instead, it is these very objects that are filled with dimensions of sense that transcend the boundaries of my own sphere of ownness. The objects I am exposed to in my daily experience are filled with axiological and practical characteristics: things are given as enjoyable, admirable, likeable, beautiful, venerable, etc. I can recognize these and other axiological and practical characteristics if and only if I appropriate the axiological and practical systems of appearance that are not of my own making. A phenomenological clarification of this kind of transcendental socialization, conceived as a type of cultural appropriation, is undoubtedly complex and no simplistic account can possibly do justice to it. That being said, it is not my goal in this present context to give a full-fledged account of this complexity. I only wish to suggest that, without productive phantasy, the process of transcendental socialization could not be carried out in full.

In phenomenology, it is not uncommon to observe that to be spellbound by the beauty of the sunset is not just a matter of seeing the sunset but rather a wholly new attitude of being captivated by the enjoyment of the scene. So also, to be burning with desire for x, or to have a strong aversion to y, or a strong admiration for z is not just a matter of intending x, y, or z. Building on Brentano’s legacy, already in the Logical Investigations Husserl conceptualizes the structure of experiences that are concerned with a relation between founding and founded intentional acts. Our exposure to value characteristics, such as the beautiful, the desirable, the aversive or the admirable, is built upon two fundamentally different acts: the founding act, which is where the “natural” object is given to us, and the founded act, which is where the object obtains its value characteristics. Such a model of constitution invites one to maintain that we enter into cultural worlds when we apprehend the objects given in the founding acts as soaked in configurations of meaning, which are fundamentally not of our own making. We constitute ourselves as members of cultural communities when our founded acts project dimensions of sense, which are appropriated from other subjectivities. We all know that the axiological and practical values of the object differ significantly within diverse cultural worlds. This suggests that my elementary capacity to see objects as filled with axiological and practical qualities already presupposes my appropriation of particular systems of value, which guide my subsequent experience. Yet how exactly can these systems of value be appropriated?

Such an act of appropriation cannot be clarified on the basis of mere communication, although admittedly, communication can provide a foundation for it. While communication transcends the boundaries of intuition, the act of appropriation entails intuitive components, since it must culminate in one’s capacity to see the world the way a particular community sees it. Communication must therefore be supplemented with a further point of access to the Other’s experience, and this needs to be intuitive, even though it cannot be originary. What could such a non-original yet intuitive access be? There are only four possibilities to consider: such supplementary access can be provided either by perception, memory, anticipation or phantasy. As for the first of these, it is clear that perception cannot provide access to the Other’s experience since it is an original form of consciousness. So also, then, neither memory nor anticipation can provide this access. Memory cannot fulfill such a function since it is bound to my own former experience; anticipation cannot fulfill such a function either, since, while the act of appropriation relates to the past and the present, the act of anticipation is linked only to the future. We have thus eliminated the others and are left with only one possibility: imagination, that is, phantasy. Phantasy is the only possibility that is able to offer this supplementary point of access to the Other’s experience. Without this point of access, transcendental subjectivity would not be able to appropriate particular systems of value and thereby would not be able to constitute itself as a member of a particular community.

While communication exposes me to how Others see the world, when communication is supplemented with imagination, I am capable of intuitively reproducing their way of seeing it. Fundamentally, this capacity to reproduce the world of Others, even if it is done without much accuracy, already entails the capacity to apperceive intuitively given phenomena within a specific configuration of sense—that is, to apperceive phenomena so that it becomes suitable for this or that use or so that it is viewed to be beautiful, enjoyable, admirable, etc. So as to constitute higher levels of our intermonadic community, subjectivity must be able to recognize itself as a member of an intersubjective community, and this recognition must be understood as already resting upon one’s capacity to transfer the reproduced configuration of sense from the field of phantasy to the field of one’s actual experience. In other words, I am not only capable of understanding and of intuitively reproducing how Others see the world; I am also capable of appropriating this manner of seeing, that is, of transferring the apperceptive layers of sense from the field of Others (as it is given through my own imagination) to the field of my own experience.26

One possible objection to this is that, although this proposed conception of transcendental socialization clarifies how subjectivity appropriates the established systems of appearance, this analysis appears, on the face of it, to say nothing about the possibilities of modifying or transforming those sedimentations of meaning that make these systems into what they are. Yet, the very fact that the appropriation of these systems relies upon imagination provides support for the view that the appropriation in question should be conceived in a loose sense, and that this admits not only of variations, but also of modifications. With these variations and modifications in mind, one can say that cultural worlds must be historical through and through: the systems of appearance through which they are constituted admit of almost endless rectifications, transformations and variations.27