majolino, multiplicity, manifolds and varieties of constitution

Multiplicity, Manifolds and Varieties of Constitution: A Manifesto

Claudio Majolino1

University of Lille/UMR STL 8163)[email protected]

Abstract: Th is paper is the attempt to provide a novel and original reconstruc-tion of Husserl’s phenomenology, its meaning and scope, on the basis of the two “operative” concepts of Mannigfaltigkeit and Konstitution. It critically engages some current mainstream interpretations of phenomenology and suggests a diff er-ent take on the idea of transcendental phenomenology.

Keywords: Operative concepts, multitude, one and many, manifold, constitution, Edmund Husserl

Th ose are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others. (Groucho Marx)

I

0. In what follows I would like to consider the somewhat awkward idea of a mani-festo as it relates to Husserl’s phenomenology. I will try not to discuss this or that point of Husserl’s phenomenology or submit an alternative reading of this or that text, but rather take the risk of addressing some questions about the peculiarity of phenomenology as such. More precisely, I would like to suggest a diff erent way of responding to that question that we have all heard so many times—sometimes friendly, sometimes quite aggressively—from students, friends, colleagues and critics. Th e question, dreadful and not-so-inevitable, is the following: “What is phe-nomenology actually all about?”

1. Claudio Majolino is Associate Professor (maître de conference) at the University of Lille and member of the research team CNRS/UMR 8163 “Savoirs, Textes, Langage.” He has published extensively and translated works on Husserl and post-Husserlian phenomenology, philosophy of language, and the history of ontology. His most recent book is De l’expression. Essai sur la 1ère Recherche logique.

Th e New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy XII (2012): 155–82© Acumen Publishing Ltd. 2013 ISSN: 1533-7472 (print); 2157-0752 (online)

156 CLAUDIO MAJOLINO

1. One objection may arise quite immediately, namely “What is actually the point of asking such a question?” Especially in a time when our departments are fi lled with “phenomenologists,” “post-phenomenologists,” or “anti-phenomenologists.” One could also object that, more or less, we all know something about phenom-enology. And when it comes to the explicit question “What is phenomenology?” we all seem to have an answer up our sleeves. Besides, it goes without saying that nothing original is likely to be said on the topic—at least, nothing that we did not know already: nothing that Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty did not already thematize and fully explore; nothing that Schlick, Wittgenstein or Ryle have not already weighed, measured and found wanting; nothing that Gadamer, Lévinas or Derrida have not already nailed to its hidden metaphysical presupposi-tions and overcome. In sum, one might—quite rightfully—object: why on earth should we infl ict upon ourselves another rhetorical question about the signifi cance of phenomenology? Can we actually do anything else than smuggle some old wine into (not so) new casks and sneak in the umpteenth historical review of some suit-able concepts of phenomenology available in the marketplace—while pretending that we are even off ering a manifesto?

If this were the case, we should simply dismiss the question and remind our-selves that, if any, the actual challenge of our time is “doing phenomenology” not talking about it, let alone providing petty defi nitions. As a matter of fact, in the past fi fty years, phenomenology has mostly preoccupied itself with a twofold task: overcoming Husserl’s metaphysically fl awed transcendental phenomenology; and/or making the painstakingly detailed descriptions packed into the 55,000 pages of his Nachlaß useful and—whenever possible—consistent with the mainstream of the post-Heideggerian or post-Wittgensteinian theories of being, mind, and language. Th e shared presupposition of both tendencies is the assumption that the defi ning principles of the dominant paradigms—both analytical (analytical ontology and philosophy of language) and continental (hermeneutics, deconstruc-tion)—have to set the agenda of phenomenology and indicate its future directions.

Th e most recent interest of phenomenology in cognitive science confi rms rather than disproves such a tendency. Scholars are constantly asked to prove that Husserl’s phenomenology and phenomenology in general are able to deal with the most up-to-date issues of our time, thus establishing its right to survive in the intellectual arena of the twenty-fi rst century, seducing, with its secret charm, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, gender studies, or, as just mentioned, cognitive science. As for the rest—pre-, proto- or crypto-Heideggerian, quasi-Wittgensteini-nan or ultra-Brentanian, hyper- or anti-rationalist, last representative of the meta-physics of absolute subjectivity or fi rst unconscious coryphaeus of a decentered account of subjectivity—what is interesting in Husserl’s thought amounts to the fact of having somehow foreshadowed (with great sagacity indeed, considering the putative historical, ideological or metaphysical limits of his thought) what others will later see in a more precise and consistent way.

Even if this picture of phenomenology is not too far off the mark, I must admit I fi nd it quite unappealing. For I have always liked to think that if Husserl has really

MULTIPLICITY, MANIFOLDS AND VARIETIES OF CONSITUTION 157

something to tell us now it has to be something, if anything, we do not already know, rather than something everybody is talking about. It should make us see—or at least point to—something that actually neither Heidegger’s nor Wittgenstein’s heirs have been able to fi gure out. In other words, it would not be that bad if one could discover, behind the conventional picture of the momentous forefather of the groundbreaking (and quite outdated) phenomenological movement that we all know, another Husserl, less conventional and more discrete: an “anachronist” and “untimely” thinker—“unzeitgemäss” in a quite Nietzschean sense.

However, in order to fi nd out whether this is the case, we should run something like an obstacle course, as it were, eschewing historical monuments and dodging contemporary commonplaces, with the secret hope of, sooner or later, running into some neglected hints that could always lead, in the end, to the preliminary draft of a manifesto. It is precisely for this reason that, in trying to answer the predictable question of what phenomenology actually is, this time I would defi ni-tively go for the obstacle course, and introduce some restrictions from the outset. Indeed, one restriction would be enough: on our way to the putative “meaning” of phenomenology we shall dump everything that may sound familiar, already said and thought, already used to defi ne or characterize the phenomenological project as a whole. If, in the end, we were to realize that we have dumped everything we have found, then the outcome would be sad but clear: there is nothing more to say about phenomenology as a whole; and, as a consequence, although unappealing, the picture of phenomenology sketched above is the only one available. In that case, we could safely turn back to our old habits, pinpoint this or that Husserlian topic and/or keep on applying the phenomenological reduction to rocket science or body painting … or, writing creepy technical papers on eidetic variation, the vicissitudes of the improper, or a Cartesian quote stranded in the pages of Ideas I.

2. So, what is phenomenology actually all about? If addressed at point blank range this question allows for two possible moves. We can either provide a standard defi nition or begin with identifying a key notion and use it as a guiding thread. As for the fi rst move, the choice is wide: phenomenology is the eidetic science of transcendentally reduced pure consciousness (Husserl); it is apophainestai tai phanomena—a way to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself (Heidegger); it is the discovery of being as the trans-phenomenal relative-absolute (Sartre); it is the study of essences that puts essences back to existence and facticity and allows for an explicit account of the natürlicher Weltbegriff (Merleau-Ponty); it is the comprehension eff ected in the bringing to light (Levinas); and so on. Th e list might be longer, but since we agreed to proceed under restrictions and drop every ready-made answer, we have to cut it short and take our chances with the second move: individuating the key concept, the guiding thread.

If we are to accept the classical distinction—suggested by Eugen Fink—between thematic and operative concepts, the next step is to decide whether our key notion has to be chosen from among the former or the latter. If we want pick it up


from the list of the thematic concepts, we have a wide choice: phenomenology has to do with intentionality, consciousness, the inescapable correlation between consciousness and world, with living experiences, givenness, intuition, and so on. But if we really want to fi nd something new in Husserl’s phenomenology accord-ing to the restrictive rule “thou shalt not use any of the standard approaches to phenomenology,” we clearly have to prefer the operative concepts. Moreover, if we want to multiply our chances to fi nd something new under the phenomeno-logical sun, we should try to fi nd not just one operative concept, hastily considered as the fundamental concept of phenomenology (such as Sartre’s “intentionality,” Marion’s “givenness,” Michel Henry’s “life,” etc.) but rather identify a network—even small—of mutually related operative concepts whose relations are usually left unnoticed.

3. Th e small network I wish to bring to light is composed of two operative con-cepts—actually, at close sight, it is more complex than that, but for my purposes I will limit myself to the two innermost threads—both constantly used by Husserl from his early essays on the philosophy of arithmetic until his death; both une-qually emphasized by the commentators, but never really brought together, so that the understanding of the one may modify the standard comprehension of the other.

Th e fi rst concept I have in mind is widely considered as one of the most impor-tant in Husserl’s phenomenology. It is so important that Heidegger’s defi nition of it (“letting the entity be seen in its objectivity”)2 is nothing but the general defi ni-tion of phenomenology (“letting that which shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself ”) applied to Husserlian phenomenol-ogy, where “that which shows itself ” becomes the “entity”—instead of Being—and “the way in which it shows itself from itself ” becomes “objectivity”—instead of Abwesenheit. I am talking about the concept of Konstitution, whose current transla-tion is simply “constitution.”

Th e second may seem less central for the phenomenological project as a whole, and although constantly employed in Husserl’s work it has been mostly overlooked. It is the concept of Mannigfaltigkeit, that, for reasons that will become apparent later, I will translate sometimes with “multiplicity,” sometimes with “manifold”—but whose equivocity should be constantly kept in mind.

Th e trick now is to show how in uncovering the deep relation between these two key-concepts, one is able to reconstruct in a non-standard way the structure and the signifi cance of phenomenology as a whole.3 An operation that, as it should be readily apparent, has nothing of the character of an interpretation and every-thing of an experimentation.

2. M. Heidegger, Prolegomena zur Geschichtre des Zeitbegriff s, GA 20 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994), §6, 71, 97.

3. I seize this opportunity to express my diffi dence in relation to the so-called “phenomenological hermeneutic” and the legions of “phenomenological interpretations” of this and that, fi lling the bookshelves of the libraries (and the chapters of many Ph.D. dissertations).


II

4. Let us fi rst begin with the concept of constitution. Robert Sokolowski once said, “Th ere is no other concept that refl ects in itself the totality of his [Husserl’s] thought so completely and so well” as the concept of constitution.4 From the Philosophy of Arithmetic to the Crisis, the notion of constitution is declined in a great variety of forms and modalities, from the psychological constitution of the early years, to the later transcendental constitution (both static and genetic).

But what does “constitution” mean? One could preliminarily say that constitu-tion is the name given by Husserl both to the performance and the outcome of a host of synthesis and achievements of consciousness in virtue of which some-thing—be it an immanent lived experience (such as a sensation or an intentional act), a transcendent thing (such as a table or a house), a person (such as me or my friend Daniele), an imaginary transcendence (such as Emma Bovary or a centaur playing the fl ute), or an ideality (such as a function of a complex variable or any theorem)—appears and, more precisely, appears as having a certain meaning (Sinn), or, more precisely, as having a determinate form of meaningful identity. Such a meaning is both a Sosein-sinn, and a Sein-sinn, for what is constituted appears not only as “being so-and-so,” but also as existing or non-existing, or, more generally, as having a certain Seinsweise. Lived experiences, things, persons, fi c-tions, idealities, and so on are meaningful insofar as they are (or are not) and they are (or are not) in a certain way (or another), they can be identifi ed, sometimes re-identifi ed, related to each other, and so on.

Th e most general and naive name for all the meaningful outcomes of a constitu-tion—as long as the performance of constitution itself is not taken into account—is nothing but “object.” After having submitted the naive givenness of the appearing “object” fi rst to the positional neutralization of the epochē, then to the thematic conversion of the phenomenological reduction, the point of view changes drasti-cally. While the former device (the epochē) opens up the way backward from the objective appearance to the subjective appearing, the second (the reduction) follows it through: it diverts the view from the simple experience of something meaningful, to the descriptive analysis of the structural features of such experience, namely the intentional achievements that are responsible for the meaningfulness of such an appearing object; achievements without which such experience would be relatively or totally meaningless. We now shift from the outcome of a constitu-tion to the performance of constitution itself and its structural features.

In sum, if any “object” whatsoever (lived experience, thing, person, fi ction, ideality, etc.) appears as meaningful (as having a being and being-so) to a

4. Robert Sokolowski, Th e Formation of Husserl’s Concept of Constitution (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1964), 223: “Th ere is no other concept that refl ects in itself the totality of his thought so completely and so well. Th e philosophical value of his theory of constitution is the philo-sophical value of phenomenology as a whole, and the weakness and diffi culty attached to this concept are the weakness and diffi culty inherent in phenomenology as a philosophical method.”


consciousness iff the latter accomplishes certain synthesis (be it passive or active), then that “object” is said to be constituted. In a narrow sense, it is constituted by the syntheses themselves, and, in a broader sense, by the consciousness accom-plishing the synthesis. Constitutive analysis is, therefore, the description of the structural features of the synthesis that must be accomplished by any consciousness whatever (human, sub-human, angelic, divine, etc.) in order to experience certain appearances as meaningful. Th at brings us a fi rst element: meaningfulness and con-stitution are intimately related concepts.

5. So far, so good. One may simply recall that the concept of constitution sketched above should not be confl ated with that of creation, or with that of construction. While creation gives rise to the Sein and the Sosein of entities (ex nihilo), consti-tution refers simply to their Sein- and Soseinsinn (ex alio), that is, to the mean-ingfulness of that of which is experienced as the appearance. On the other hand, constituted “objects” are not subjective constructions built up—somewhat arbi-trarily—from otherwise “formless” sensuous materials. Th ey are, rather, phenom-ena whose transcendence is meaningful only for a variety of consciousnesses whose experiences are structured in a determinate way.5 But in order to complete this sketchy presentation of constitution, we still need to fl esh out one last element, related this time less to the general features of constitution than to its philosophical motivation. In Husserl’s view, the search for constitution—as it will become clear in his lectures on First Philosophy—often appears to be related with the “Platonic” theme of the rizomata pantos: the roots of all things. Husserl is in fact persuaded that constitutive phenomenology brings with itself, literally, an act of radicaliza-tion: it goes emphatically for the “roots” of appearance, that is, that out of which everything sprouts and grows.6

But the idea of connecting the transcendental relationship between meaningful-ness of experience and synthesis of consciousness, on the one hand, and the quest for the “roots” or the “true beginnings,” on the other, is an extremely treacherous one. And it often leads Husserl to the rash gesture of overlapping the transcendental distinction between what is constituted and the constituting synthesis to the onto-logical distinction between relative being (pros allo) and absolute being (kath’auto).

5. Let us recall that Husserl further distinguishes between static and genetic constitution, and that “genetic constitution” should not to be confl ated with the “passive genesis” of founded higher order objects (see Husserliana I, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ed. S. Strasser [Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1973], §38), which deals again with the fi rst type of objects (types, pure and impure essences, generalities, etc.) from the point of view of their sedimented meaning, introducing the idea of layers of sedimentation. So we have at least four levels of constitution: static constitution of ideal objects (noetic-noematic correlations) and of individuals as instantiated idealities; genetic constitution of individualities (passive synthesis); genetic constitution of higher-order objects (active synthesis) and passive genesis of higher-order objects (sedimented synthesis).

6. See also E. Husserl, Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft, in Husserliana XXV, Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911–1921), ed. T. Nenon and H. R. Sepp (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff , 1987), 61.


Such a gesture is unquestionably diffi cult to countenance, and is widely considered as one of the most problematic tenets of Husserl’s entire phenomenology—for it seems to lead, quite inevitably, from the idea of constitution to the pitfall of tran-scendental idealism. Th is pitfall condensed in the somewhat infamous §49 of Ideas I, where the reader, fairly surprised, learns that consciousness is that being that “by essential necessity nulla ‘re’ indiget ad existendum”—does not need any “thing” in order to exist. Such an awkward and metaphysically heavy-handed claim can be understood in many diff erent ways7—as many as the arguments mobilized over the years by Husserl in his repeated attempts to justify, in one way or another, its problematic legitimacy.

Be that as it may, as far as we are concerned here, this second moment of Husserl’s treatment of constitution, related to its philosophical motivation, is nevertheless extremely valuable for at least two reasons. First, it indicates explicitly that the notion of constitution is not only related with that of meaningfulness (see above §4), but is also connected with the radicalization of phenomenology identifi ed by Husserl with the so-called quest for the “roots of appearance.” Rejecting the overly idealistic conclusions fostered by the overlapping of the relations between “con-stitution/constituted” and “absolute-being/relative-being” should not, however, make us forget the existence of a bond between the theme of constitution and that of the rizomata pantos—nor the philosophical ambition related to it. Hence the following question arises: is there a way to bring together the concept of constitu-tion and that of “rizomata pantos” without identifying idealistically consciousness and absolute being (and, correlatively, world and relative being)?

But there is also a second reason to insist on the complicity between constitutive analysis and the radicalization of phenomenology—in spite of the cumbersome idealism that Husserl believes he has to defend. We have already mentioned that in the course of his philosophical itinerary Husserl does not simply attempt to justify in diff erent ways the idea of an absolute being of consciousness. He also tries to account for the irreducible diff erence between consciousness and world through the concept of constitution. Now, interestingly enough, one of these attempts rests on a very peculiar argument, an argument that, even though Husserl will later fi rmly reject it, is, as far as we are concerned, extremely revealing. Th is is because the argument in question bridges explicitly for the fi rst time the two concepts we are interested in: constitution and Mannigfaltigkeit.

6. Th e argument appears in several texts, although its canonical formulation can be found in Ideas I. Husserl asks himself: what is the reason why the being of the real world should be considered as relative, as opposed to the absolute being of con-sciousness? Since he is not allowed to make use of any metaphysical or ontological

7. I have tried to give my understanding of the matter in a long essay called “La partition du réel: Remarques sur l’eidos, la phantasia, l’eff ondrement du monde et l’être absolu de la con-science”, in Philosophy, Phenomenology, Sciences. Essays in Commemoration of Edmund Husserl, ed. C. Ierna, H. Jacobs, F. Mattens (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 573–660.


assumptions, Husserl is forced to ground his answer not on a purported diff erence between modes of being but on the phenomenological diff erence between modes of appearing. Th e phenomenological description should thus detect a structural heterogeneity in the modes of constitution proper to the experience of the real world on the one hand, and of consciousness on the other—a heterogeneity on which rests the sole basis for justifying phenomenologically the ontological asym-metry between world and consciousness. In other words, to make his idealistic point, Husserl has to be able to claim that consciousness and world are respec-tively absolute and relative, because they appear, again respectively, in an absolute and relative way. Now, it is precisely within the context of a phenomenological description of the modes of constitution responsible for the appearing of the worldly reality whose being Husserl wants desperately to be “relative,” that the two notions of Konstitution and Mannigfaltigkeit appear as intimately related for the fi rst time. Th e argument is the following. Concrete individual transcendences of lower order—a wordy expression to indicate the “things” of which the real world is ultimately made—are necessarily given in sense perception, and the eidetic struc-ture of sense perception requires that such things have to appear through adum-brations, so that each and every adumbration anticipates and points to the next in an infi nite yet intentionally unifi ed chain of reference (Hinweis).

From this eidetic state of aff airs Husserl draws the conclusion that the phe-nomenological structure of any being whose mode of appearing is constituted through adumbrations is that of the “unity of a multiplicity” (Einheit einer Mannigfaltigkeit). Or, put diff erently, that objects belonging to the ontological region “thing” are constituted as unities of “continuous multiplicities of appear-ances and adumbrations”:

Of essential necessity there belongs to any “all-sided,” continuously, unitar-ily, and self-confi rming experiencing consciousness of the same thing, a mul-tiple system of continuous multiplicities of appearances and adumbrations in which all objective moments falling within perception with the charac-teristic of being themselves given ‘in person’ are adumbrated by determined continuities.8

Th e essence of sense perception thus prescribes that perceptive things structur-ally appear through series of multiple adumbrations, although what is intention-ally given is one and the same thing. Th at implies a discrepancy, a structural gap within the mode of givenness of perceptual things between the multiplicity of

8. Husserliana III/1, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführungin die reine Phänomenologie 1. Halbband: Text der 1.-3. Aufl age – Nachdruck, ed. K. Schuhmann (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1977), §41, 74–5: “In Wesensnotwendigkeit gehört zu einem ‘allseitigen’, kontinuierlich einheitlich sich in sich selbst bestatigenden Erfahrungsbewußtsein vom selben Ding ein vielfaltiges System von kontinuier-lichen Erscheinungs- und Abschattungs-mannigfaltigkeiten, in denen alle in die Wahrnehmung mit dem Charakter der leibhaften Selbstgegebenheit fallenden gegenstandlichen Momente sich in bestimmten Kontinuitaten abschatten.”


adumbrations and the unity of what is only adumbrated through diff erences or—more precisely—between the multiplicity of presentations (Darstellungen) and the unity of the thing meant (Meinen). Th e perceptual thing is therefore constituted as the unity of a multiplicity or, to put it more handily, as a phenomenon having an “EM-structure,” that is, the structure of the “Einheit einer Mannigfaltigkeit.”

Now, from this descriptive premise Husserl ends up drawing the conclusion that the internal discrepancy unity/multiplicity proper to the EM-structure is responsible both for the non-adequate and non-apodictic mode of appearing of perceptual “things” and for their non-absolute and therefore relative mode of being. In fact, Husserl argues that because the open-ended series of appearances synthesized in the chain of adumbrations is not suffi cient to bestow either the Sein- or the Soseinsinn of the thing, the emergence of such a twofold meaning has to be traced back to some other source. While the multiplicity of appearances is actually presented, the unity of the thing is only meant. As a result, if the thing itself is given (Gegeben) only insofar as it is presented (Dargestellt) through a multiplic-ity of appearances related in a nexus of reference (Hinweiszusammenhang), and if the unity of these appearances is only intended (Gemeinte), then the thing is given precisely insofar as it is intentionally constituted as the intended unity of a multi-plicity of adumbrations. Hence its mode of being is relative.

Th e argument is clearly unsound. And, as we have already pointed out, Husserl will eventually reject the confusing claim that the relative being of the world follows from the phenomenological discovery of the EM-structure proper to the mode of appearing of perceptual things. However, the discovery itself, the eidetic state of aff airs according to which the perceptual thing is constituted as the unity of a Mannigfaltigkeit, will still be maintained.

7. But what does “Mannigfaltigkeit” mean? Th e time has come to introduce our second key concept. Since we are dealing with an operative concept, it would be useless to look for explicit defi nitions or detailed explications in Husserl’s texts. It would also be misleading to assume that the same concept is always presup-posed—even if unexpressed—behind each and every occurrence of the same term. So, to begin with, let us recall the three main contexts in which Husserl employs the term, and see how they are mutually related.

In some very broad contexts, Mannigfaltigkeit is often used by Husserl simply in the non-technical sense of multiplicity (Vielheit), so as to refer to several (“many”) items of sorts simply put together. However, already in the Philosophy of the Arithmetic, when Husserl provides a loose list of terms considered as syno-nyms (gleichbedeutend) of multiplicity (Vielheit), he mentions “plurality, totality, aggregate, collection, group, etc.” (Mehrheit, Inbegriff , Aggregat, Sammlung, Menge usw.) but not Mannigfaltigkeit.9 In fact, in other more technical contexts, Husserl uses the term in a more precise sense, the best account of which can be found in

9. Cf. Husserliana XII, Philosophie der Arithmetik (1890–1901), ed. L. Eley (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1970), 14.


a defi nition provided by Cantor and quoted by Husserl himself in one of his early manuscripts. According to Cantor, a manifold (Mannigfaltigkeit):

is a multiplicity (Viele) which can be thought of as one (welches sich als Einen denken läßt), i.e. a group of determined elements that can be united into a whole by some law (Inbegriff bestimmter Elemente, welcher durch ein Gesetzt zu einen Ganzen verbunden werden kann).10

According to this second sense, to the notion of a manifold belongs not only the idea of a multiplicity, but also that of a “unity according to a law.” And the fact that the unity is provided “by a law” and not otherwise should not be underestimated, for the simple idea of a somewhat unifi ed multiplicity is clearly not enough to explain what a manifold is. In this sense, not even the unity of the species, which according to the Second Logical Investigation is that of “the one in the many” (Eine im Mannigfaltigen),11 is in this sense the unity of a manifold, since what “brings together” or “unifi es” a multiplicity of, say, similarly red items is not a law, but the constant presence of the same ideal-specifi c “redness.” By contrast, a “law” unifi es a multiplicity structurally, not materially (be it factually or essentially).

Interestingly enough, when Husserl quotes this passage from Cantor’s Grundlagen, he omits to mention its fascinating coda. For the passage continues as follows:

I believe [Cantor writes] that I am defi ning something akin to the Platonic eidos or idea as well as to that which Plato calls mikton in his dialogue Philebus or the Supreme Good. He contrasts this to the apeiron (i.e. the unbounded, undetermined, which I call the improper infi nite) as well as to the peras, i.e. the boundary; and he explains it as an ordered “mixture” of both.12

Maybe a few years later, more sensitive to the Platonic call of the rizomata pantos, Husserl could have found this remark more appealing. But more about this later. For the moment, let us simply stress that the interesting suggestion made

10. Quoted by Husserl in Huaserliana XXI, Studien zur Arithetik und Geometrie. Texte aus dem Nachlaß (1886–1901), ed. I. Strohmeyer (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1983), 95. Th is is clearly not the mature defi nition of a Cantorian set that can be found in the Beiträge (1895), but only an early one. It is, nevertheless, the one explicitly taken into account by Husserl—and that is what matters here.

11. See §5 of the Second Logical Investigation, in Husserliana XIX/1, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Th eorie der Erkenntnis, ed. U. Panzer (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1984), 121.

12. G. Cantor, Grundlagen einer Allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre. Ein mathematisch-philosophischer Versuch in der Lehre der Unendlichen (Leipzig: Teubner, 1883), 43: “Mannigfaltigkeitslehre. Mit diesem Worte bezeichne ich einen sehr viel umfassended Lehrebgriff , den ich bisher nur in der speziellen Gestaltung einer arithmetischen oder geometrischen Mengenlehre auszubilden versucht habe. Unter einer ‘Mannigfaltigkeit’ oder ‘Menge’ verstehe ich nämlich allgemein jedes Viele, welches sich als Einen denken läßt, d.h. jeden Inbegriff bestimmter Elemente, welcher durch ein Gesetz zu einem Ganzen verbunden warden kann, und ich glaube hiermit etwas zu defi nieren, was verwandt ist mit dem platonischen eidos oder idea, wie auch dem, was Platon in seinem Dialogue ‘Philebos oder das höchste Gut’ mikton nennt.”


here is that a “manifold” is, precisely, “the unity of a multiplicity,” but not in the sense of the commonality of the same property or ideal species that is somewhat equally present in a multiplicity of similar particular cases. In more Platonic terms, a manifold should rather be compared with what the Philebus calls the “mixture” of “bounded” and “boundary,” “limit” and “unlimited.”

For the same reason, if a “manifold” is not a simple “unity of a multiplicity,” it is not a sheer “multiplicity” either (what Cantor calls the “improper infi nite”)—or at least not insofar as its elements are structurally united according to a law. But this is not the end of the story. For in the same manuscripts Husserl ends up explicitly praising on more than one occasion Riemann’s theory of manifolds over Cantor’s. And this introduces a third sense:

By manifold, Cantor means a simple collection of elements that are in some way united. … However, this conception does not coincide with that of Riemann and as used elsewhere in the theory of geometry, according to which a manifold is a collection not of merely united, but also ordered elements, and on the other hand not merely united, but continuously connected elements.13

What Husserl retains from Riemann is that a manifold is not only a set of many “elements,” gathered together and “thought as one by a law,” but also, and more importantly, a multiplicity of ordered and continuously connected elements. Th is later indication is crucial, since, as we have already pointed out in our survey of Husserl’s idealistic argument, the “thing” is constituted, precisely, as the intentional unity of a “multiple system of continuous multiplicities of appearances and adum-brations” (vielfaltiges System von kontinuierlichen Erscheinungs- und Abschattungs-mannigfaltigkeiten) (see above §6).

Th e EM-structure implicated in the constitution of the perceptual thing is, therefore, neither that of a simple multitude (Vielheit), nor that of a set (Inbegriff , Menge) or of a mereological whole (Ganze)—although these could all be con-sidered, from diff erent points of view, as “unities of multiplicities.” It is clear, in fact, that within the non-ontological context of the constitution of the Sein- and Sosein-sinn of a perceptual thing, it would not make any sense to affi rm, even in a modifi ed sense, that the thing is constituted as a simple multiplicity of adumbra-tions (for adumbrations are not simply put together); or as a whole whose parts are adumbrations (for adumbrations are not parts of the perceptually appearing thing, but parts of the whole of a lived experience); or as a set of adumbrations (for adumbrations are not discrete and randomly ordered elements of a set). But if we take into account the idea that order and continuous connection could also be considered as structural features of a manifold, according to the third sense isolated above, Husserl’s claims that a perceptual thing is “fully constituted as a manifold

13. Husserliana XXI, 96–7: “Cantor versteht unter Mannigfaltigkeit schelchthin einen Inbegriff irgend geeinigter Elemente …. Aber dieser Begriff stimmt nicht mit dem von Riemann und sonst der Th eorie der Geometrie verrwandten <überein>, wonach eine Mannigfaltigkeit ein Inbegriff nicht bloß geeinigter, sondern auch irgend geordneter Elemente ist, und andererseits nicht bloß geeinigter sondern kontinuerlich zusammenhängender Elemente.”


of adumbrations” (völlig konstituiert als einer Mannigfaltigkeit von Abschattungen) (Ms. D 13I [1921], 2) makes perfect sense again.

I will not expand for the moment on this crucial idea of “continuous con-nection,” whose relevance should be apparent later. Before we move forward I would simply recall one last point. Th e short description of the three senses of Mannigfaltigkeit indicated above is clearly not enough to do full justice to Husserl’s rather complex appropriation of the mathematical notion of manifold. In order to make our account more encompassing, we should have talked of Husserl’s general appreciation of Riemann’s n-dimensional manifolds in geometrical contexts. We should also have mentioned Husserl’s account of the Mannigfaltigkeitslehre within his project of pure logic as a “theory of the forms of theory.” One could, therefore, object that what is missing in this sketchy report is the “formal ontological” frame-work within which Husserl’s notion of manifold is mostly and explicitly conjured.

Th e premise of the objection has to be granted. For it is true that Husserl’s explicit use of the notion of manifold belongs to the technical context of his formal ontological researches. “Manifold” is in fact indicated by Husserl as a formal onto-logical category, along with “object,” “relation,” “state of aff airs,” and so on. It is also accurate to maintain that it mostly appears within the boundaries of ontol-ogy, theory of science and formal logic, and that the basic concepts of these disci-plines have to be suspended by the reduction as soon as the constitutive analysis replaces the naive attitude. But this fact still does not prove that we are on the wrong track. For it simply confi rms that in Husserl’s explicit account, the notion of Mannigfaltigkeit lives most of its own philosophical life, as it were, independ-ently from that of constitution. Th us considered thematically, manifold is simply a formal ontological notion in Husserl’s work.

But considered operatively, once it factually meets the idea of constitution—a forbidden encounter, so to speak, since it should not have passed the fi lter of the reduction—the idea of manifold turns into something diff erent. It modifi es itself, while modifying in turn the idea of constitution. And it is precisely this twofold modifi cation, intervening when the talk of Mannigfaltigkeit steps over the bound-aries of logic and formal ontology and intervenes in transcendental contexts as related with that of Konstitution, that we should try to identify—with the help of the aforementioned equivocal distinction between Mannigfaltigkeit as sheer multi-plicity and Mannigfaltigkeit as manifold.

8. Now, if within the idealistic argument sketched in Ideas I (which partially devel-ops certain indications already present in Th ing and Space) only the perceptive thing is said to be constituted as a manifold—that is, as the (intended) unity of a mul-tiplicity (of adumbrations), viewed more closely, the presence of a EM-structure can also be found in the constitution of objects belonging to other eidetic regions.

And here is the fi rst novelty. As soon as we have learned to identify the connec-tion between Konstitution and Mannigfaltigkeit, a more general pattern comes to the fore, spreading itself in each and every constitutive analysis: a general principle according to which what is constituted as such is constituted as a manifold—not only


what is constituted as a “thing.” From now on, varieties of EM-structure can be found not only on the level of the constitution of concrete perceptual individuals (like “things”) but also, mutatis mutandis, on the level of abstract perceptual indi-viduals like “this shade of red,” as it is clearly shown, for instance, in the Seefeld Manuscripts.14

But more important, an EM-structure can also be found on the founded level of the constitution of general and higher order objects, like meanings and essences (be it pure or impure). Let us recall, for instance, how in §32 of the First Logical Investigation the ideality of meanings, although sharply contrasted with the “reality of the individual,” is defi ned again as Einheit in der Mannigfaltigkeit;15 in §19 of the Second Logical Investigation, each species (Spezies)—and at the time Husserl considered the ideality of meaning simply as a particular case of the ideality of species in general—is characterized again as a Einheit der Mannigfaltigkeit. Th e same holds in §§29 and 39 of the Prolegomena, where colors in general, meanings, concepts, and even truth itself are described as ideal identities (ein ideal Identisches ist gegenüber der Mannigfaltigkeit möglicher Einzelfälle) that can be intuited over against a dispersed multitude of concrete individual cases (ihrer identischen Einheit gegenüber einer verstreuten Mannigfaltigkeit von konkreten Einzelfällen).16

All these examples can be understood as belonging to a more ontological context. But as soon as we turn away from the early Logical Investigations and move to the mature Experience and Judgment, although many things have changed in the meantime, the idea of defi ning the constitution of idealities and general objects as such in terms of EM-structures not only remains unchanged, but is also stated explicitly. And it is precisely in §81b of Experience and Judgment that Husserl openly relates the constitution of generalities to the structure of what he now calls—referring to the Aristotelian formula used to summarize the status of the Platonic ideas—hen epi pollon: the unity of an a priori generality, an object of a new kind, a one that does not repeat itself in the like, but is given only once in many.17

14. See the Seefelder Manuskripte über Individuation (1907), in Husserliana X, Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins (1893–1917), ed. R. Boehm (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1966), 237–65.

15. Husserliana XIX/1, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Th eorie der Erkenntnis, ed. U. Panzer (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1984), 102.

16. Husserliana XVIII, Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, ed. E. Holenstein (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1975), §§29, 39. While the whole thing appears in each adumbration (although always from a diff erent angle), red as such appears in each instance (although always diff erently exemplifi ed). Th ere cannot be a thing given without adumbration just as there cannot be a species given without instances. However, as already noticed, the rela-tion of instantiation/exemplifi cation is specifi c to idealities, while the relation of adumbration/presentation is specifi c to things.

17. E. Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, ed. L. Landgrebe (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1999), 392: “Die Eine wiederholt sich also nicht im Gleichen, es ist nur einmal, aber im Vielen gegeben.”


Of course the variety of constituted manifolds and the manners in which the multiplicities are unifi ed by the structural laws of the passive and active synthesis are diff erent for ideal generalities and perceptive individuals. And even the rela-tionship between unity and multiplicity takes diff erent forms, since we are now dealing with diff erent kinds of objects. In the case of the EM-structure proper to the givenness of the thing the one is presented (dargestellt) in the many and the many adumbrate (abschatten) the one; in that of general objects, the one is rather exemplifi ed (exemplifi ziert) in the many and the many instantiate (instanziert) the one.18 However, in both cases, the formal pattern followed by Husserl in describ-ing their constitution remains the same.

9. While initially discovered during the analysis of the constitution of perceptual things, the connection between constitution and manifold ultimately appears to be at work also in the constitution of abstract individuals, idealities, and general objects. And the list is far from being exhaustive.

Another variety of EM-structure appears in the realm of the so-called immanent objects as well. In his lectures on time consciousness, immanent “objects” belong-ing to the inner fl ow of time are in fact described precisely as “unities of an abso-lute and not grasped multiplicity.”19 And Husserl, again, relates this new variety of EM-structure to a specifi c form of constitution, for “it belongs to the essence of this unity as a temporal unity to be ‘constituted’ in the absolute consciousness.”20 Moreover, Husserl adds, in order to understand properly the problems related to the relationship between immanent objects and giving consciousness, “we have to study thoroughly the multiplicities of consciousness and their unity in which the object is ‘constituted.’”21 Consciousness is in fact always and necessarily a nexus: “We have the original nexus of the primal consciousness of time, and within the latter we have the multiplicity of impressional contents.”22

18. Th at will bring Husserl, especially in the Bernauer materials, to the distinction between the temporal constitution (Zeitlich) of individual things and the omnitemporal (Allzeitlich) consti-tution of idealities. cf. Husserliana XXXIII, Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewußtsein (1917–18), ed. R. Bernet, D. Lohmar (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001), 91.

19. Hua X, 284: “Einheiten einer absoluten nicht erfaßten Mannigfaltigkeit.” 20. Hua X, 284: “Zum Wesen dieser Einheit als zeitlicher Einheit gehört es, daß sie sich im abso-

luten Bewußtsein ‘konstituiert.’” 21. Hua X, 284-5: “Die wesentliche Beziehung des immanenten Objekts auf ein gebendes

Bewußtsein fordert hier die Lösung des Problems dieser Gegebenheit, d.h. es müssen genau die Bewußtseinsmannigfaltigkeiten und ihre Einheiten studiert warden in denen sich die Objekt ‘konstituiert.’”

22. Husserliana XXIII, Phäntasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwartigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898–1925), ed. E. Marbach (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1980), text no. 12 (1910), 291: “Bewußtsein ist immer Zusammenhang und notwendig Zusammenhang. Wir haben den originären Zusammenhang, den des ursprünglichen Zeitbewußtseins, und in diesem haben wir die Mannigfaltigkeit der impressionalen Inhalte.”


Of course, in the case of immanent objects, the relevant variety of EM-structure at work should be neither understood in terms of adumbration/presentation (as for the constitution of the thing) nor in terms of exemplifi cation/instantiation (as for the constitution of general objects). And Husserl, in fact, is at pains in the attempt to discover the constitutive specifi city of this new manifold.

So let us simply stress, for the moment, that not only the appearance of con-crete and abstract individuals given in sense perception or general objects given in ideation, but also that of lived experiences and immanent objects is over and over again described by Husserl as constituted as a manifold—where manifold has to be taken at least in the general sense of multiplicity given as one according to a law, if not, more particularly, in the narrower sense of continuous connection of a multiplicity of ordered elements.

And, before we move forward, we should also add to the list that—again, mutatis mutandis; fi ctional quasi-individual objects, intuited in image consciousness or pure fantasy, appear as constituted according to another variety of EM-structure. And this time we certainly will not be surprised to fi nd Husserl making clear that in the specifi c case of the constitution of quasi-things “the manifold is diff erent from what it is in the case of the thing pure as simple” (die Mannigfaltigkeit ist eine andere als für das Ding schlechthin).23

Th e same holds for the constitutive features of the experience of the other, the Fremderfahrung. Th e “appresentatitional” structure of such experience is described by Husserl in the Cartesian Meditations as the analogical transfer of unity and multiplicity (überschobene Einheit und Mannigfaltigkeit) from the living body of the ego to that of alter.24

In sum, in all these cases, very diff erent indeed, we discover Husserl progressing in the following way:

1. He begins with diff erent appearing objects, belonging to diff erent intentional experiences, naively grasped in intentio recta:

1.1 Perceptual transcendent individuals, i.e., things (Dinge); 1.2 Perceptual immanent individuals, i.e., lived experiences (Erlebnisse); 1.3 Imaginary quasi-individuals, i.e., fi ctions; 1.4 Ideal general objects, i.e. meanings, species, essences, categories; 1.5 Perceptual transcendent individuals provided of lived experiences, i.e.,

other persons; 1.6 etc.; 2. he diff racts their “naive being,” so to speak, as through a prism (the reduc-

tion), and discovers as many diff erent multiplicities, constituted according to various EM-structures;

3. he fi nally relates the uncovered varieties of EM-structures with the require-ment of what we may call—according to the terminological stipulation

23. Hua XXIII, text no. 20 (1921–4), 587. 24. Hua I, 182.


suggested above—a diff erentiated constitutive phenomenology of manifolds whose ambition is to replace what the naive, traditional, and non-reduced view has always called “ontology.”

10. Now, if the above is true, Heidegger’s notorious claim that in Husserl’s phe-nomenology “to be” means “to be an object,” and “to be an object” means “to be constituted by a transcendental subjectivity” appears to be not only misleading, but also—to use a term some Heidegger’s scholars are particularly fond of—con-cealing. It conceals the fact that, from a phenomenological perspective, in order to be questioned in its meaning (Sinn), “being” has to be diff racted into a multiplicity and constituted as a manifold.

Th at suggests two additional remarks. To begin with, if—in a sense—one can safely claim that for Husserl “to be” means “to be constituted,” this fact does not entail that “to be constituted” should be equated, as the standard view suggests, with “to be constituted by a transcendental subjectivity” or “to be in front of a subject.” For the notion of constitution is manifestly broader than that of tran-scendental subjectivity.25

Transcendental subjectivity is in fact constituted as well, and in many ways. Not only in the “internal time-consciousness” by the living present, but also—as I failed to mention earlier—in what we may call the “internal space-consciousness”: the living body. For according to Ideas II, the living body as well turns out to be constituted by a multiplicity, that is, by a multiplicity of kinesthesis.26 And the kinesthesis, as Husserl states in §73 of Th ing and Space27—but that is an old idea, fi rst discussed in a manuscript of 189228—are Mannigfaltigkeiten, both in the non-technical sense of multiplicities of sensory impressions, and in the technical math-ematical sense of topological n-dimensional spaces, for on this occasion Husserl explicitly describes the two levels of the constitution of the spatial thing precisely as “the linear manifold of approaching and receding” and “the two-fold cyclic manifold of turning” (Die lineare Annäherungs- und Entfernungsmannigfaltigkeit; die zwiefach zyklische Wendungs-mannigfaltigkeit).29

25. Of course recognizing that transcendental subjectivity is itself constituted is not suffi cient enough of an argument to conclude that constitution—in the sense of constitution of mani-folds—is not constituted by a transcendental subject. In fact, transcendental subjectivity is for Husserl both itself constituted and itself constituting. Th is dual fact brings to a series of problems that I will not be able to address here.

26. Husserliana IV, Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, ed. M. Biemel (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1952), §10.

27. Husserliana XVI, Ding und Raum. Vorlesungen 1907, ed. U. Claesges (Th e Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1973), 255.

28. See Hua XXI, 237. 29. It has to be stressed that although Husserl is certainly aware of the diff erence between the

non-technical meaning of Mannigfaltigkeit as “multitude of …” and the technical meaning of “manifold,” he often takes advantage of the equivocity of the term to bridge the technical and


To put it diff erently, things, abstract particulars, lived experiences and living bodies, personal egos (mine and that of other persons), quasi-individual fi ctions, species and genera, as well as cultural and ideal higher-order objects, are all consti-tuted—but qua manifolds and not qua objects-in-front-of-a-subject: constituted as Einheiten von Mannigfaltigkeiten. Accordingly, their “meaning” (Sinn) is not much in the fact that they are what they are insofar as they are in front of a subject, but in the possibility that a consciousness might fi nd them meaningful only if it could be able to provide certain synthesis and make a manifold emerge from a multiplicity (namely, only if such consciousness is, in turn, constituted in a certain way).

Fink, in fact, was not far from the mark—or at least closer to the mark than Heidegger—when he characterizes constitution in terms of Zusammenstellung. But Fink mistakenly understands Zusammenstellung more as a “construction” or even as a “creation” than as a “nexus” or as a “many-as-one” (see above §4). Fink was probably too fascinated by the possibility of equating being with being-given and therefore accomplishing phenomenology’s idealism to insist on the fact that “to be,” in phenomenology, means “to be a variety of many-as-one,” and that it is precisely to that extent that things, lived experiences, fi ctions, and so on, give rise to the problem of their constitution.

11. Th e second remark is related to Heidegger’s famous understanding of constitu-tion. To some extent, Heidegger was right: constitution is the core concept of the phenomenological project. But he was right for the wrong reason: constitution is not the core concept of phenomenology because phenomenology, in trying to “let what shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself,” fi nally turns the phenomenon into an object; constitution is at the heart of phenomenology because—according to Heidegger himself—logos within the word phenomeno-logy has to be understood as synthesis, where syn- means, according to Being and Time §7b, “letting something be seen in its togetherness (Beisammen).”30 So phenomenology brings to language the togetherness that makes phenomena meaningful.31 Th e point is not that phenomena exist, but that they hold together. So if we were to rewrite the famous passage of Being and Time, we should say that the task of phenomenology is to bring to language the togetherness that “lets what shows itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it is meaningful.”

Th e problem, however, is that Heidegger seems to understand the “Beisammen” in terms of predication and, as a result, the only multiplicity he can deal with is that of the multiple properties, qualities and aspects of entities. On the contrary, there is one thing that Husserl never defi nes in terms of EM, and that is the unity of the thing as contrasted to the multiplicity of its properties, which is precisely the

the non-technical meaning. Th is happens especially in Th ing and Space. Again, I will come back to the correlation between the technical and the non-technical sense later.

30. M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, GA 2 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2001), 33. 31. It is precisely for that reason that eidetic variation, in undoing such “togetherness” while reveal-

ing the meaningfulness of a concept, is so crucial for phenomenology as such.


most traditional way to deal with multiplicities, within the restricted framework of logic and ontology.

Th e outcome of these remarks so far is the following. Not only is the scope of constitution broader than that of transcendental subjectivity,32 but we now have to add that, correlatively, the idea of manifold should be considered as phenomeno-logically prior to that of being.33 In fact, as soon as we understand that “being” is the name that the ontological tradition has given to a certain constituted multiplic-ity, crystallized and turned into a paradigm, not only physical objects or persons but also nations, cities, groups, and couples can no longer be considered as col-lections or assemblies of beings, strange entities with an odd ontological status, but as beings in a relevant sense—constituted multiplicities, not as diff erent from any other. Moreover, from Plato to Kant, the history of philosophy is replete with embarrassing philosophical statements to stigmatize the vast family of concepts related to the idea of multiplicity. Concepts that, often “asepticized,” as it were, in metaphysics (the manifold meanings of being) and epistemology (the many prop-erties of an entity), have always been of paramount importance at the periphery of the empire: in philosophy of mathematics and in political philosophy.34

III

12. But two questions still remain unanswered: both concerning not the connec-tion between constitution and meaningfulness, but that between constitution and the theme of the rizomata panton. Th e fi rst is related to the idealist argument of Ideas I from which we have started, and runs as follows: granted that the perceptual thing (and correlatively the real world) has a relative being because it appears as the unity-of-a-multiplicity, should we not draw from that premise the conclusion that according to Husserl consciousness has an absolute being precisely because it does not appear in that way? Or, put diff erently and in more general terms (also inde-pendently from Husserl’s idealistic conclusion about the putative absolute being

32. Of course, since the expansion of constitution via the thread of multiplicity is not antithetical to the thought that constitution is constitution by a transcendental (inter)subjectivity, and since with the inter-subjective dimension, we get at the veritable sense in which transcendental subjectivity is both itself constituted and itself constituting, we could even say that transcen-dental inter-subjectivity is as broad as constitution. On the other hand, what is phenomeno-logically relevant in transcendental inter-subjectivity is precisely the fact that we are dealing with a new form of togetherness, irreducible and yet related with others forms of togetherness.

33. More details on this topic can be found in “Les essences des ‘Recherches Logiques,’” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 49/1 (2006), 89–112 and “Husserl and the Vicissitudes of the Improper,” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy VIII (2008), 17–54.

34. At this point, it is not diffi cult to imagine the political and cultural implications of the shift from being to manifold, and from each manifold to its own diff erent variety of constitution. Such a shift is related to the abandonment of the so-called “problem of being” for an investiga-tion focused on the emergence of manifolds out of multiplicities and the possible points of reference for meaningful experiences.


of consciousness): is it possible for something to appear not as a manifold? Is a fundamentally unconstituted phenomenon, devoid of any variety of EM-structure whatsoever, phenomenologically conceivable?

Th ere is no point denying that such a possibility has been explored by Husserl himself, and not only in some passages of Ideas I, but also in a number of texts now published in Husserliana XXXVI (Transzendentaler Idealismus), texts where it is openly stated that absolute consciousness is precisely the only unconstituted being and therefore the—transcendental—root (rizoma) of any further being, pre-cisely because its mode of appearing is not that of a Einheit einer Mannigfaltigkeit. Accordingly, as already mentioned, only relative being is constituted, while abso-lute being is not. If this happens to be the case, the possibility of characterizing phenomenology as a whole, in a rather unusual way, as “bringing the constitution of manifolds to language and therefore making sense of beings” would be severely compromised.

Th e second question is related to the purported novelty of such an attempt to take the EM-structure as a guiding thread to understand constitution. In fact, someone (say, a follower of Derrida) may suggest that our supposedly unconven-tional Husserl is simply playing with quite traditional conceptual oppositions, such as the one and the many, identity and diff erence, and so on: oppositions belong-ing to the innermost core of the infamous western metaphysics of presence. At the end of the day, there is nothing more traditional than the Platonic dialectical opposition between the one and the many, or the mantic obsession for roots and beginnings of all sorts. So would it not be the case that our allegedly new Husserl might look like a quite old Neoplatonist, and that his transcendental-constitutive “beyond being” narrative may end up being nothing but a renewed version of the famous platonic “epekeina tês ousias,” praising the virtues of the One as the Idea of Good? In sum, is the idea of phenomenology we are up to, truly unzeitgemäß—or simply altmodish?

13. As for the fi rst question, it is true that in many texts Husserl seem to claim that the fl ow of consciousness is at the same time constitutive of objectivities—be it transcendent or immanent—and devoid of any EM-structure. And it important to recall that it is precisely within the idealistic argument supposed to justify the dis-tinction between relative being of the real world and absolute being of conscious-ness that we have learned of the intimate connection between constitution and manifold. One may therefore suspect that absolute consciousness, whose mode of appearing has no EM-structure, is ultimately unconstituted.

Th is idea is clearly formulated in the following text, taken from a 1908 manuscript:

Consciousness, being in radical sense, is radical in the proper sense of the word. It is the root and—according to another image—the source of every-thing else that otherwise is called or can be called “being”. It is the root: it bears every other individual being, be it immanent or transcendent. If being is individual being, lasting, modifying and not-modifying itself while it lasts,


temporal being, then consciousness is not being. It is the bearer of time, but it is not itself and in itself a temporal being—yet this does not prevent it from receiving through “subjectifi cation” (a specifi c form of objectifi cation) a posi-tion within time and therefore being “shaped” as a lasting, temporal object. However, in itself, it is not temporal, it is not a unity of a multiplicity, it does not refer back to anything else from which it could or should be obtained as a unity. But every other being is precisely unitary and refers back, immediately or mediately, to the absolute fl ow of consciousness.35

In this extraordinary passage Husserl faces a dilemma. Either “being” is univocal and, in that case, if “being” means “being constituted,” consciousness is not being, since it has no EM-structure; or “being” is equivocal—that is, leghetai pollakhos—and absolute consciousness is being (and even being in the most original and primi-tive sense), but in that case “being” cannot be equated with “being constituted” since constitution turns out to characterize only the derivative sense of being, that is, that relative being harboring an EM-structure. However, if this is also the dilemma that Husserl will face all through his life, swinging from one solution to the other, it is worth noticing that a third possibility is left open. Whether Husserl explicitly takes this third way is matter of dispute. But the fact remains that a phe-nomenological way out exists: “being” can be univocal and can be safely equated with “be constituted,” provided that we succeed in undergoing the so called abso-lute being of consciousness to the prism of the reduction, and discover its own peculiar EM-structure, namely the Einheit einer Mannigfaltigkeit proper to the Absolute Bewußtsein.

How is that possible? Th e outcome is suggested in this very same passage. If the secret model of the EM-structure is that of the transcendent perceptual individual, that is, the “thing” (where the multiplicity is made of adumbrations and the unity is that of an intention) then, no doubt, absolute consciousness has no EM-structure. But since we have learned how not to confl ate the formal structure of the one-as-many (proper to every appearance) with the material structure of any of its varieties, be it the one-through-many-adumbrations (proper to the appearance of a thing), the one-lasting-through-many-temporal-phases (proper to the appearance of a lived experience), the one-being-instantiated-over-against-many-individual-cases

35. Husserliana XXXVI, Transzendentaler Idealismus. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908–1921), ed. R. Rollinger, R. Sowa (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003), 70: “Das Bewusstsein, das Sein im radikalen Sinn, ist im radikalen, im echten Sinn des Wortes. Es ist die Wurzel und – in einem anderen Bild – die Quelle alles dessen, was sonst noch „Sein“ heißt und heißen kann. Es ist die Wurzel: Es trägt jedes andere, sei es immanente, sei es transzendente individuelle Sein. Ist Sein indivi-duelles Sein, dauernd und in seiner Dauer sich verändernd und nicht verändernd, zeitliches Sein, so ist Bewusstsein kein Sein. Es ist Träger der Zeit, aber nicht selbst und in sich selbst zeitlich seiend, was nicht hindert, dass es durch „Subjektivierung“ (eine bestimmte Sorte von Objektivierung) Einordnung in die Zeit erhält und dann zum Dauernden, zum Zeitobjekt „gestaltet“ wird. In sich selbst ist es aber unzeitlich, ist es keine Einheit der Mannigfaltigkeit, es weist auf nichts weiter zurück, aus dem es als Einheit entnommen werden könnte und müsste. Alles andere Sein aber ist eben einheitliches und weist mittelbar oder unmittelbar auf den absoluten Bewusstseinsfl uss zurück.”


(proper to the appearance of ideal objects), it is easy to avoid such an error. In other words, it is only if we consider “Sein als individueller Sein” (where multi-plicities are adumbrations of a thing or phases of a lived experience) and take the EM-structure of individuality as a standard, that one might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that “Bewußtsein ist kein Sein” and therefore not constituted.

But absolute consciousness has neither the EM-structure of an individual nor that of a quasi-individual, and it certainly does not take the form of the hen epi pollon, EM-structure specifi c to ideal objects founded on individuals. However this does not necessarily mean that absolute consciousness has no EM-structure at all, but rather that it has its own, peculiar and irreducible EM-structure, which is nothing but the structure of the fl owing living present: one present “constituted” by the intensive multiplicity of impressions, re-tensions and pro-tensions, responsible for the non-objective appearing of consciousness. As Husserl says in another text of 1907, what is required here is the readjustment of our understanding of the rela-tionship between one and many, as already happened when we shifted from the constitution of the thing to the constitution of the living experience: “the opposi-tion between unity and multiplicity receives a new sense, that will guide us back to a deeper layer of constitutive conscious events.”36

It is only after having developed a more fi ne-grained conception of inner time-consciousness—which he did not fully have in his possession in 1907–8—that Husserl will be able to grasp such “neuen Sinn” in which absolute consciousness can be defi ned by its own unique form of unity in multiplicity. And this will happen, for instance, in the Bernau materials. Th e answer to the fi rst question is therefore negative: in phenomenology nothing is unconstituted, not even the so-called absolute consciousness. Nothing appears otherwise as a manifold, whatever its Sein or Sosein-sinn might be.

14. At this point someone might become increasingly worried and ask: if in phe-nomenology nothing is unconstituted, what about the irreducible fact of the World? What about the irreducible fact of the Other (with a rigorously capital ‘O’)? But in my view, these questions probably rest on a misunderstanding that tends to confl ate the phenomenological question of the unconstituted with the issue of the absolutely transcendent (the Outside, the World, the Transcendence, the Other, etc.), which as such would be something that subjectivity cannot make sense of (the Diff erence, the Meaningless, the Primordial Ooze, etc.). Such a con-fl ation is quite certainly due to the hegemonic role played by what we may call the “Kantian” model of constitution, according to which the a priori forms of sensibility (space and time) and intellect (categories) act upon a multitude of raw materials and bring it to the phenomenal unity of an object. As a consequence the “real transcendent” is nothing but the “unconstituted,” the passively received;

36. Hua X, text no. 39, 271: “der Gegensatz von Einheit und Mannigfaltigkeit einen neuen Sinn bekommt, der uns auf eine tiefer liegende Schicht von konstituierenden Bewußt seinsvor-kommnissen zurückführen wird.”


something toward which subjectivity is hopelessly powerless, marking its fi nitude even before the meaningful experience of objects.

But if our hypothesis is correct, this is clearly not the path followed by Husserl. Th e unconstituted is not the absolutely not-subjective that subjectivity receives “from outside,” as it were, something out of control limiting the subject in its factual passivity. As we have seen, the phenomenological unconstituted is rather something whose appearing is supposedly devoid of any EM-structure. So in strictly phenomenological terms, “unconstituted” means “absolutely simple,” not “absolutely transcendent.” Accordingly, a putative “unconstituted” would be something “appearing as structurally simple,” something closer to the Aristotelian aploun (Met.Δ 1015b 12) than to the diff erent forms of Transzendenz advocated by neo-Kantians and Heideggerians of all sorts.

Th erefore, while the non-phenomenological search for the unconstituted is identical with the search of the absolutely transcendent (and non-subjective), the search for the phenomenological unconstituted would be nothing but the search of the simple¸ absolute appearing unity. Now, at the beginning, having hastily iden-tifi ed the EM-structure with the phenomenal structure of the transcendent thing and generalized the mode of constitution “content/form of apprehension” to indi-viduality as such, Husserl thought that absolute consciousness, insofar as it resists the form/content scheme, should be considered as appearing in a simple way, giving credit to the idea of the unconstituted (identifi ed, within the idealistic argu-ment, with the absolute being). However, as soon as he realizes that even absolute consciousness has its own EM-structure, Husserl has all the means to jettison at the same time the limitation of constitution to worldly objects (=generalization of constitution: everything is constituted), the form/content paradigm (=proliferation of constitutions: there are many varieties of constitution), as well as any search for the aploun, since, nothing, not even the absolute consciousness can be described as “simple for it cannot be more than one,” excluding multiplicity (pleonachōs).

15. However, in some sense, there is a legitimate way of talking of the non- constituted in constitutive phenomenology, even if it has obviously nothing to do with the absolutely transcendent. In fact, even if we were to accept that there is nothing absolutely unconstituted, one can refer to the multiplicities constitut-ing a manifold as relatively unconstituted. “Th ings,” that is, transcendent percep-tual individuals, for instance, are given as manifolds constituted by a multiplicity of adumbrations. But things can also appear as examples of general objects like essences or species, and in that case essences and species appear as constituted by a multiplicity of similar things. And within the higher-order constitution of an instantiated essence, the lower-order constitution through adumbrations of the perceptive thing becomes irrelevant, non-meaningful. “Constituted” out of multi-plicities of adumbrations, “things” appear as “unconstituted” when they take part in the constitution of essences or species as the multiple supports for the appearing of an ideal object. In such cases, one could say that they are relatively unconsti-tuted, to the extent that they are given not as manifolds themselves, but as elements,


or more precisely, as dimensions of higher-order manifolds; however, as manifolds themselves, they are still constituted insofar as they appear through adumbrations.

Adumbrations, in turn, appear as “unconstituted” within the manifold “thing,” but as manifolds themselves they are constituted in the fl ow of the living present; in turn the living present is “unconstituted” within the manifold living experience, but as a manifold itself it is self-constituted as impression/pro-tension/re-tension, and so on.

In sum, the error consists in the temptation to hypostasize this relative or hori-zontal non-constitution, that one should rather call it “sedimented constitution” and confl ate it with the purported search for the absolute un-constituted as the absolutely transcendent.37

16. As for the second question (see §12), related to the Platonic fl avor of the con-nection between constitution and manifold, it may be useful to add to what is mentioned in the previous section (§15) a couple of grammatical remarks.

As already mentioned, the German term Mannigfaltigkeit is somewhat equivo-cal, for it can be indiff erently used to talk multiplicities (the adumbrations of a thing, the phases of a lived experience, the similar instances of an essence, etc.) and the latter’s appearing as manifolds (the adumbrations of a thing, the phases of a lived experience, the similar instances of an essence, etc.). We have also pointed out that Husserl often oscillates between a technical and a non-technical use of term.

But the grammar of Mannigfaltigkeit seems also to suggest another rather inter-esting distinction; a distinction that could be useful to shed some light on the relations between these equivocal senses. As the English word “manifold,” the german Mannigfaltigkeit can ordinarily be employed to form sentences where it occurs as a barely nominalized adjective, sentences having the form: “Es gibt eine Mannigfaltigkeit von …”: “Th ere is a multitude of x,” “Th ere are many y,” “Th ere are plenty of z,” and so on. Such sentences imply structurally the correlation/opposition between many and one. One multitude is a multitude-of. It is such a grammatical form that accommodates the quite old philosophical debate that nourishes Platonisms of all ages where the many are thought in relation to the one. But this is not the main point.

Husserl—following Cantor, but especially Riemann—also constructed sentences where Mannigfaltigkeit occurs as a full-fl edged name: quite unusual sentences like “x is a Mannigfaltigkeit” or “a Mannigfaltigkteit like y.” We have already recalled how Husserl has explicitly stated that space is constituted as a cyclic manifold (zyklische Mannigfaltigkeit), time as a two-dimensional infi nitely extended orthoïd (i.e. linear) manifold (orthöide Mannigfaltigkeit), and so on. In this second case, one does not

37. I fi nally might confess that I have absolutely no fascination for the phenomenology of the Absolutely Transcendent, since I do not think that a table, a tree, a movie or a biquadratic rest are less transcendent than my dog or any other denizen of the Big Outside, although their expe-riences are constituted as referring to diff erent varieties of transcendence. In phenomenology, transcendence does not know degrees—only variations.


oppose the one and the many but a manifold to other manifolds; in our jargon, an EM-structure to other varieties of EM-structures. Th e main point here is not to question the way in which the many are one, but the way in which many-as-one appear as diff erentiated, disjointed, related, articulated, interconnected, continu-ously transformable or not transformable the one into another.

Th e task of constitution is therefore twofold: discovering and diff erentiating manifolds, accounting for the givenness of the one-as-many and, at the same time, for the many ways in which the diff erent many-as-one behave, as it were, and can be therefore variously related in their heterogeneity. What lies beyond being, once ontology is reduced and naive objects are described in their constitution, is not the One of the Platonic or Neoplatonic epeikena tês ousias, but multiple manifolds. In fact, to take advantage once again of the equivocity of the term Mannigfaltigkeit, the double task of phenomenology becomes, on the one hand, to show how a multiplicity is constituted as a manifold, and, on the other, how to recognize mul-tiplicities of manifolds. It is precisely to this extent that the Platonic opposition of the one and the many, and its transcendent fascination for the One is, so to speak, phenomenologically rendered null. For it leaves place to the twofold—completely diff erent—issue of the becoming manifold of a multiplicity and of the diff erent ways of becoming manifolds. And since we have seen (see §15) that each manifold is only relatively unconstituted, more than in presence of an ontology—or post- ontology—of the one above the many, we are rather in front of the vanishing lines of manifolds/multiplicities.

We can now try to address the second question. In bridging the two mean-ings of Mannigfaltigkeit—the non-technical (multiplicity-of ) and the technical (manifold)—Husserl’s constitutive analysis, bringing together two quite diff erent issues, drastically contaminates the traditional problem of the one-and-the-many: the issue of the togetherness proper to the appearance and that of the varieties of togetherness out of which the fi eld of appearance is constituted. As far as I can tell, this move cannot be traced back so easily to Plato, nor be equated with any known form of “Platonism”—not if the friends of Plato remain committed to the idea of a transcendent, simple and unstructured One, eventually equated with the idea of Good.38 At best, it allows us to rethink, retrospectively and in a diff erent way, a sort of counter-history to Platonism where it would not be relevant any more to oppose

38. I have received the interesting suggestion to consider this Husserlian account in consulta-tion with Proclus, especially in relation with §138 of the Elements of Th eology. In that section Proclus restates what Plato had already introduced in the Philebus and Cantor will later recog-nize as the ancestor of his idea of Mannigfaltigkeit (see above §9): being is a unifi ed multiplicity insofar as it is made of limit and infi nity. Th e conclusion of the passage is, roughly, that to be is to be many-as-one. But as the equivocity of Husserl’s Mannigfaltigkeit points out, this cannot be the main point. Th e main point is rather that manifolds are constituted as diff erentiated the one from the other. Th is is what I have stressed in contrasting the traditional opposition between One/Many to the twofold relation multiplicity/manifold on the one hand and mani-fold/other manifold on the other. I am still not sure, however, whether something in Proclus approximates this point.


the one to the many, but only a Mannigfaltigkeit to another, that is, a multiplicity to a manifold and a manifold to various other manifolds.

17. If we turn back to the fi rst question, concerning the issue of the unconsti-tuted, it should not be hard to see now how beyond “manifolds of adumbra-tion” (=things), “manifolds of foundation” (=ideal objects), and so on, one can recognize the living present of inner time and the living body of inner space as peculiar forms of what we may call “manifolds of modifi cation.” Th e varieties of these EM-structures are, again, quite diff erent from each other, although mutually related. In that sense, nothing that is given is unconstituted, and inner time con-sciousness insofar as it is given in its own way makes no exception since, according to the lesson of retentionality, absolute consciousness is self-constituting, in a way that it is both itself constituted and constituting.

But what happens, then, to the diff erence between consciousness and worldly reality that Husserl was intensely searching for? If it is clear that the proliferation of the connection between constitution and manifold fosters the idea that nothing is unconstituted, it is also clear that the eidetic distinction between consciousness and worldly reality cannot be justifi ed on the basis of the opposition between a constituted relative being and an unconstituted absolute being, that is, between something appearing as Einheit einer Mannigfaltigkeit and something appearing as Einheit ohne Mannigfaltigkeit. However, granted that the metaphysical and ide-alistic understanding of such distinction should be abandoned, one can also ask whether redefi ning phenomenology in terms of a universal constitution/variation excludes a renewed perspective on the question. In fact, the ontological distinction between consciousness and world now appears as nothing but the ontologized version, so to speak, of the eidetic diff erence between hetero- constituted manifolds (of adumbration or foundation) and self-constituted manifolds (of modifi cation: the living present of the pre-given time and the living body of the pre-given space). Th e articulation of these manifolds therefore assumes the status of the problem that is constitutive of transcendental phenomenology itself.

Now, if we were to capture the deep diff erence between the hetero-constituted and self-constituted manifolds, we should probably recall that such a diff erence is not factual but of eidetic nature. And, from a methodological viewpoint, the way Husserl proceeds when it comes to bringing eidetic diff erences to the fore, that is, the way through variation, proves crucial.

In fact, every manifold, every “one” made out of “many” according to a law, can be in principle unmade in free fantasy, by deliberately transgressing these laws, as the analysis of the famous example of the annihilation of the world presented in Ideas I, §49 clearly shows. Th e outcome of such an attempt, however, is not always the same. Accordingly, if we had to recast the results of our previous discussion of the heterogeneous responses to variation within the present framework of a con-stitutive phenomenology of manifolds, we should draw the following conclusion. Th e diff erentiated work of variation shows that we have to distinguish between manifolds whose “Vernichtung” is imaginable—in diff erent ways, according to


their diff erent structural EM-features—and those of which such a destruction can only be said but not imagined. We may call the former “fragile manifolds” and the latter “sturdy manifolds.”

Hetero-constituted manifolds are structurally fragile: once undone they can always give rise to manifolds of another kind. Let us take the example of a per-ceived object, and let us break the rules of its EM-structure: imagine it now devoid of any external horizon, closed, that is, not open to any further profi les and yet intuitively given. If we are able to do so, our initial example of perceptive object has changed into an example of a purely imaginative object: it has disappeared as an object of perception (manifold of adumbrations) and become an object of pure fantasy (manifold of discrete “shots,” multiplicity of views unifi ed in a rather diff erent way). In other words, examples of fragile manifolds, once submitted to free variation, disappear as manifolds of a certain variety (things) and are trans-formed in or replaced by examples of manifolds of a diff erent variety (imaginary quasi-individuals). Th e same holds for founded general objects like, say, meanings. An uttered linguistic expression whose meaning, though variation, is imagined as neither public nor repeatable would become a manifold of a diff erent kind: a sound made of pitch, loudness, and quality. Th e same holds for immanent lived experiences. A lived experience devoid of certain synthesis or structural characters is simply another lived experience. Fragile manifolds have boundaries, boundaries that can be crossed by continuous variations.

By contrast, “sturdy manifolds,” once unmade, disappear: they are unimaginable otherwise as self-constituted. Th e multiplicities out of which they appear as one are virtual and intensive, so intertwined that they cannot even be imaginatively conceived the one without the other. Th is is precisely the case of inner-time (pre-tension/re-tension/primal impression as constituting the living fl ow) and inner-space (the kinesthesis as constituting the living body). Can one make sense of the experience of a living body that is not constituted by its own kinesthesis as another variety of manifold? Or imagine a living present not constituted by impressions, pro-tensions and re-tensions? While we can make sense of an ego whose life is not temporal (gods, angels, mythical creatures or fi ctional entities born out of some Lovecraft novels could do the trick), nothing could make sense of a reten-tion stripped away from its chain of modifi cations. A re-tension without primal impression would not appear as another kind of manifold, it would simply be inconceivable and unimaginable at all: nothing that could possibly appear or be meaningful.

18. At this point, if we wanted to say that with the “sturdy manifolds” we have reached something like the rizomata pantos of which Husserl was so fond, we would probably be wrong—but not entirely. Sturdy manifolds are radical only in a very precise sense: understanding their self-constitution, it is as if we were going all the way down to the roots of that meaningfulness from which we have started (see §4). Th e Sinn that the concept of constitution was meant to account for, survives the destruction of a fragile manifold, as free fantasy transfers us from one manifold to


another manifold, although a manifold of diff erent varieties. It can also get tempo-rarily lost, when, breaking the laws of their unity, continuous imaginary variations dissolve the manifold into its constitutive multiplicities, and bring to appearance what Husserl in Th ing and Space called a “Gewühl” of sensations, which is less than a world but more than nothing.39 But Sinn cannot survive the attempt—which necessarily must fail—of the de-constitution of a sturdy manifold. Time consciousness without the living present or the living present without impression/pro-tension/re-tension, is not just unimaginable or unexperiencable—it is plain and simply meaningless. More precisely, “retention without primal impression” is something that can only be said—a catchy expression for philosophers in search of inspiration: and, as such, if ever meaningful, it is meaningful only as expression, as something sayable.

Obviously, the distinction between hetero-constituted and self-constituted manifolds does not overlap with that between consciousness and real world sug-gested by Husserl. But that is a minor loss. It nevertheless allows for a radically diff erent way of understanding that distinction’s meaning and scope. Husserl’s notion of constitution should in fact be understood as gesturing toward a very peculiar formulation of the theory of forms according to which what is constituted are not just objects but varieties of manifolds.40 Among these we can distinguish hetero-constituted “fragile” manifolds, namely contingent unities-of- multiplicities of which one can imagine the annihilation and the consequent relative loss of meaning through variation. And from a more general point of view, I would suggest that the importance of constitution should be linked to the idea of the structural contingency of every kind of unity whose essence is revealed by means of the peculiar ways in which its loss can be imagined. Physical objects, institu-tions, political groups but also minds, living persons, and theories are therefore less constructions than constituted manifolds in this very precise sense. As for the self-constituted “sturdy” manifolds, they are contingent as well, but their contingency lies at the borders of meaningfulness itself. Both cases however show how varia-tion, far from being the name of a simple methodological technicality, completes constitution. Or, in other words, that truly understood constitution should be understood in terms of manifolds and their variations.

As for the rest, it is not diffi cult to see how equating sturdy manifolds and the roots of appearing is a rather fascinating and, at the same time, odd claim. What is especially odd is in particular the idea that self-constituted manifolds, which one might be tempted to take as substitutes for the ill-famed fundamentum inconcus-sum, are far from being “unshaken,” whether fi rm or solid. Nothing is solid enough to be immune to the confl icts imagined by the variation. Not even the rizomata pantos. Th e only diff erence is between that which ends its meaningful appearance

39. Hua XVI, 288. 40. And I have to confess, that I am not sure whether the question of who or what brings about the

constitution still has any meaning as a problem for phenomenology.


in turning into something else, and that which simply disappears; between the passage from one Sinn to another, and pure and simple Sinnlosigkeit.

12. Let us attempt to formulate a conclusion. Has our obstacle course actually led to a suffi ciently unzeitgemäß picture of phenomenology? It is hard to tell. Obviously each reader must judge for his or her self. Let me simply restate, by way of a conclusion, that as far as I am concerned, I do not think I have “interpreted” Husserl but rather have taken him quite seriously. Concepts, as Husserl put it, are involved in linguistically expressed judgements, namely statement; statements that, in turn, provide anticipations for possible intuitions. Once intuitively ful-fi lled, statements make us see what they are about precisely as it is conceivable according to the relevant concepts involved. To see what concepts only promise to make you see, that is the telos of fulfi llment. But while such a Husserlian idea is usually brought within the heuristic framework of a theory of knowledge, I take it as an indication of the, as it were, in-actual “calling” of philosophy as such.

Phenomenology tells us that inventing philosophical concepts is never a mere “theoretical” exercise. Each new concept brings not only a new conception but also the chance of seeing things otherwise. In fact, the task of phenomenology, as constantly practiced by Husserl, was not to provide a better and more insight-ful understanding of the world, of subjectivity, of time, perception, and the like, but to fabricate new concepts—counter-natural and para-doxical, in the sense of something that goes beyond common and philosophical opinion, or even against what is usually believed or held—concepts that in their categorically expressed forms make us see the world, subjectivity, time, perception, and the like, otherwise. Within the phenomenological framework, new concepts are not just new con-cepts, they are also, so to speak, promises of new, diff erent intuitions.

And it is precisely this conceptual inventiveness fostered by Husserl, the sensi-bility to variations, joined with what we may call the potential of the concept of “constituted manifold” to modify our ordinary accounts of phenomenology, that, in my view, might justify the somewhat awkward idea behind this manifesto.

majolino, multiplicity, manifolds and varieties of constitution

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