Abstract
Within the egological sphere what motivates constituting an intersubjective world? Initially, the other is perceived in the natural attitude as in the world, both our bodies but only my mind are presented, the other mind being like me but at best appresented, as I am at best for him. Both of us are ultimately transcendental. The sense “organism” is transferred to all things, but only responds immediately to my will and has my sensation fields in or on it. There is behavior of other organisms like my own that supports apperception. Both self and other exemplify eidetic structures. With others constituted, there is intersubjectivity and social actions.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. Chap. 12, pp. 109–118.
- 2.
Loc. cit.
- 3.
Chapter 11, 101–108.
- 4.
- 5.
Cf. Chap. 21, pp. 239ff.
- 6.
Chapter 25, pp. 281–284.
- 7.
Cf. Chap. 12, pp. 109–118.
- 8.
- 9.
Cf. Chap. 12, p. 116.
- 10.
Cf. Chap. 17, pp. 187ff.
- 11.
It is evident, though Husserl does not say so, that the primordial world is transcended, whether or not I am originally aware of other minds as validly positable. The transcending of the primordial world consists essentially in the associative transfer of the sense “organism” from my primordial organism to other primordial things, whether or not the horizons which the so constituted emptily given sense of other things is ever positively fulfilled. If a child had always lived apart from all “really” animate objects except himself that child would be aware of an intersubjective world, not a primordial one, since the sense organism would have been passively transferred to the inorganic things about him—only to be always cancelled by their inorganic behavior. It would be for him a world where he had never in fact met anybody, but it would still be a world wherein he might conceivably meet somebody.
That Husserl’s analysis of valid awareness of other minds contains implicitly amplification of “primitive” animism and provides a basis for a rigorous critique of theoretical panpsychism, is also evident, but not mentioned by Husserl.
- 12.
Cf. Chap. 12, pp. 109–118.
- 13.
A comparison of Husserl’s monadology with that of Leibniz falls beyond the scope of the present essay. There are, however, further differences between the two theories which may here be mentioned. In the first place, there is in Husserl’s doctrine no theory that the natural world is made of monads. The world is included in every monad, but no monad is included in the world. The monads have ontic status different from that of things in the world. The plurality of monads is a transcendental plurality, the plurality of things is a phenomenal plurality. The philosophy of Leibniz, however, lacks even the dimension in which such distinctions can be made. In the second place, Husserl’s doctrine does not involve the positing of an existent arch-monad.
- 14.
Such questions as whether the red which I see is similar to or different from the red which another mind sees are unanswerable, not because of our unavoidable ignorance but because it is “meaningless,” i.e., no answer to such a question can possibly be either true or false. To be similar or different the two quales would have to be constituted in a single awareness. (Author’s note.)
- 15.
There is a marginal note here stating: “Ch. XXVI? Entered.”—L.E.
- 16.
Cf. Chap. 1, appendix, pp. 16–20.
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Cairns, D., Embree, L. (2013). The Other Mind and the Intersubjective World. In: Embree, L. (eds) The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl. Phaenomenologica, vol 207. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5043-2_26
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