origin of the spatiality of nature

7/28/2019 Origin of the Spatiality of Nature

1/12

HUSSERL, EDMUND. SHORTER WORKS. Notre Dame, IN:Univ of Notre Dame Press, 1981.

12Foundational Investigations of thePhenomenological Origin of the Spatialityof Nature*l

TRANSLATED BY FRED KERSTEN

Regardless of their many repetitions andcorrections, the following pages are, in anycase, foundational for a phenomenologicaltheory 0/ the origin 0/spatiality, corporeal-ity, Nature in the sense 0/ the naturalences, and therefore for a transcendentaltheory o/naturalscientificcognition. Doubtless it remains open whether it might still benecessary to supplement them.Distinction: the world in the openness ofthe surrounding world' - posited as infinite

in acts of thinking. The sense of this infinity- "world existing in the ideality of infinity."What is the sense of this existence, of the ex-isting infinite world? The openness is notgiven as perfectly conceived, as made objective, bu t as a horizon already implicitlyformed. Territorial openness - knowing thatI have finally arrived at the borders of Germany, then arriving at the French, Danish,etc. territories. I have not paced off and become acquainted with what lies in the horizon, but I know that others have become ac-quainted with a piece further on, then againothers yet another piece-objectivation3 of asynthesis of actual experiential fields whichmediately produces the idea4 of Germany,Germany within the boundaries of Europe,

'Translated and printed with permission of thepublisher from M. Farber. ed Philosophical Essays inMemory of Edmund Husserl (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press. 1940). pp. 305-25.

and gives rise to an idea of Europe itself,etc. - ultimately of the earth. The idea ofthe earth comes about as a synthetic unity ina manner analogous to the way in which theexperiential fields of a single person are unified in continuous and combined experience.Except that, analogously, I appropriate tomyself the reports ofothers. their descriptionsand ascertainments. and frame all-inclusiveideas. Explicitly the following distinctionsmust be drawn:1. Making intuited the horizons of theready-made "idea of the world," just as it isframed in apperceptive transfers, conceptual anticipations and projects;2. the way the idea of the world is further constituted on the basis of an alreadymade idea of the world, e.g., the surrounding world of the Negroes, or the Greeks, incontrast to the modern Copernican world ofthe natural sciences.We Copernicans, we moderns say:The earth is not the "whole ofNature"; itis one of the stars in the infinite worldspace. The earth is a globe-shaped body,certainly not perceivable in its wholeness allat once and by one person; rather it is perceived in a primordial synthesis as a unity ofmutually connected single experiences. Yet,it is a body! Although for us it is the experiential basis for all bodies in the experientialgenesis ofour idea of the world. This "basis"is not experienced at first as body but be-


2/12

ORIGIN OF THE SPATIAUTY OF NATURE 223comes a basis-body at higher levels ofconstitution of the world by virtue of experience,and that nullifies its original basis-form. Itbecomes the total-body: the vehicle of allbodies that, until now, could be fully (normally) experienced with empirical sufficiency on all sides as they are experiencedprovided that the stars are not to be regarded as bodies. But now the earth is ahuge block on which smaller bodies existand on the basis of which they also alwayshave become, and could have become, forus by division into pieces or by separatingthem off from the whole.If the earth gains constitutive acceptance'as body-and, on the other hand, the starsare apprehended as appearing in distanceappearances, only not as perfectly accessiblebodies-then that includes the objectivations6 of rest and motion which must be attributed to them. Motion occurs on or in theearth, away from it or off it. In conformitywith its original idea, the earth does notmove and does not rest; only in relation to itare motion and rest given as having theirsense ofmotion and rest. But, subsequently,the earth "moves" or is at rest-and quitelike the stars "move" or are at rest, and theearth as one star among the others. How domotion and rest acquire their rightful senseof being in the extended or refashioned"world view"? How do they acquire theirevidence, the intuition that verifies theirgivenness as in motion or at rest?7 It is certainly not apperceptive transfer but, as always, the rightful sense of motion and restmust be capable of being shown.s

IUniversally, the working out of the worldview, the intuition of single bodies, the in'tuition of space, the intuition of time, theintuition of the causality of Nature: all these

belong together.Bodies moving in the original intuitionalfunction of the earth as "basis," or bodiesunderstood in originality,9 actual or possiblemobility and changeability. Bodies throwninto the air, or somehow or other in the process of moving, I know not to where - in relation to the earth as earth-basis. Bodiesmoveable in earth-space have a horizon ofpossible motion and if motion ends, experience nevertheless indicates in advance thepossibility of further motion, perhaps si-

multaneously with the possibility of newcauses of motion by a possible push, etc.Bodies exist actually in open possibilitieswhich are realized in their actuality, in theirmotion, change (nonchange as a possibleform of change). Bodies are in actual andpossible motion and < there is> the possibility of always open possibility in actuality,in continuation, in change ofdirection, etc.Bodies are also "among" actual and possiblebodies, and correlatively are actually orpossibly experienced in their actual motions, changes, e t c ~ , in their actual "circumstances." Possibilities which, in advance, area priori open; and, as existing possibilities,they can be intuitively presented, they havetheir intuitional demonstration. They havethese as modes which belong to the being ofbodies and the plurality of bodies.The unity ofa "world view" must confirmthe world-possibility in all further fashioning of world-apperception - as the possibility and the universum of open possibilitieswhich make up a fundamental compositionof the world's actuality. The core of actualexperience is ontically what is experienced ofthe world from this or that side; and it possibly already obtains as known actuality onthe basisof the experiential synthesis in harmony. The core becomes as an experientialcore of the world, a core ofwhat is predesignated by the world and as an open range ofpossibilities: and this signifies a range ofharmonious possibilities to be iterativelylOcontinued. The world is constituted progressively and is finally-with respect to Natureas its abstractable component-constitutedaccording to horizons in which somethingexistent is constituted as actual in beingpossibilities predesignated at any time; theworld is predesignated and is subsequentlyconceptualized and expressed in judgmentsby ontology; the world-form is "taken intoconsideration" along with its being-possibilities. And all relatively determined, inductivepredesignation moves within the world-form- induction which, in every case, is determined through expectation and in the courseof actual experience, my own and communicative experience, as a consequence of actuality is shown to be confirmed or disconfirmed.Inductively predesignated actual experience in the frame of actual possibilities


3/12

224 HUSSERL ON SPACE AND TIMEharmoniously-synthetically penetrates thehorizon and seizes upon a piece of the actually intuitive and, as confirmed being,world-field being offered; bodies at rest orin motion, in nonchangeableness or changeableness are furnished for me and perhapsfor us in an actual communalization. Butwhat results there is an aspect in which ev-erything is still not decided, what, in view ofthe still horizoned possibilities, still determines sense for the fully constituted world.Obtaining here; rest is given as somethingdecisive and absolute, and likewise motion:that is to say, they are so given at the firstlevel in itself of constitution of the earth asbasis.But rest and motion cease to be absoluteas soon as the earth becomes a world-body inthe open plurality of surrounding bodies.Motion and rest necessarily become relative.And if this claim can be disputed, this dispure can only happen because the modern\ apperception of the world as world of infinite Copernican horizons has not becomefor us a world-apperception confirmed byvirtue of a world view actually accomplished. ("Apperception" of the world, anyapperception whatever, is acceptive consciousness with the sense of being, World,inclusive of levels of constitution.) Apperceptive transfer has taken place such that itremains bur a reference for a confirmativeintuition rather than actually being constructed at the end as demonstration.How is a body properly determined in itself, and therefore to be thought as determinable; and how are its place, its temporallocus, its duration and figure as thus qualified identifiable and recognizable in it? Alldemonstration and all confirmation of theworld-apperception progressively becomesfashioned and is progressively fashioned - asadvancing apperceptive transfers in which"the" self-same world is furnished with senseat higher levels on the basis of already constituted Objectivity" and world; and thefully constituted world in its own peculiarfirm style is further constituted-; alldemonstration, I say, has its subjectivedeparture-point and ultimate anchorage inthe Ego who does the demonstrating. l2 Theconfirmation of the new "ideaof the world,"in the derivative sense of "world," has its

first support and core in my perceptual fieldand the oriented exhibiting of the segmentof the world about my animate organism asthe central body among the others - all ofwhich are given with their own essentialcontents at rest or in motion, in change ornonchange. Already a certain relativity ofrest and motion is fashioned here. Of necessiry a motion is relative when experiencedwith respect to a "basis-body" experienced asat rest and in unity with my corporeal animate organism. The latter itself can be inmotion moving itself, but can come to restat any time and then be experienced as atrest. However the relative basis-body is, naturally, relatively at rest and relatively in motion with reference to the earth-basis whichis not experienced as body - not actually,originally experienced. Consider the relative"basis-body"; I can be in a moving vehiclewhich is then my basis-body; I can also beborne by a railway car, in which case mybasis-body is first of all the body carrying mewhile moving, and for this, again, the basisbody is the railway car, etc. The vehicle is ex-perienced as at rest. Bur when I look out thewindow I say that the railway car moves eventhough I se.e that the countryside is in motion. I know that I have climbed into the ve-hicle; I have seen such vehicles in motionwith people in it. I know that they, like me,when I climb in, see the countryside in motion. I know the reversal of the ways of experiencing the rest and motion of the toywagon from which I have so often jumpedon and off. But all this is nonetheless directly related to the basis of all relative basisbodies, to the earth-basis; in apperception Ihave implied all mediacies '3 and can returnto them in harmonious confirmation.Now, when I "conceive" the earth as amoved body I use a basis to which all experience of bodies, and hence all experience ofcontinuing to be at rest and in motion, is related. I do so in order to be able to conceive,indeed, to conceive the earth at all, as abody in the original sense, i.e., to acquire apossible intuition of the earth in which itspossibility as being a body can be directlyevident. What is to be emphasized here isthat I can always go farther on my earthbasis and, in a certain way, always experience its "corporeal" being more fully. Its ho-


4/12

ORIGIN OF THE SPATIAUTY OF NATURE 225rizon consists of the fact that I go about onthe earth-basis, and going from it and to ev-erything on it I can always experience more.Similarly with other people who bodily goabout on it and, in common with me, experience it with everything on and above it,and can come to an agreement about it.Piece by piece I become acquainted with theearth and also experience the division intopieces which are true bodies having, aspieces so divided, their being in rest andmotion - relative to the earth now functioning again as a resting earth-basis. I say possibly, the "resting earth" - but the "earth" asthe unitary earth-basis cannot be at rest andtherefore cannot be experienced as a body.It cannot be experienced as "a" body whichnot only has its extension and its qualitiedness but also its "place" in space, and whichcan possibly exchange its place and be at restor in motion. As long as I do not have a presentation of a new basis, as a basis, fromwhich the earth can have sense in interconnected and returning locomotion as a selfcontained body in motion and at rest, and aslong as an exchange of bases is not presentedsuch that both bases become bodies, to thatextent just the earth itself is the basis andnot a body. The earth does not moveperhaps I may even say that it is at rest. Butthat can only mean that each earth-piece,which I or someone else separates off or isbroken off by itself and which is at rest or inmotion, is a body. The earth as a wholewhose pans - if conceived by themselves asthey can be as separated off, as separableare bodies; but as a "whole" the earth is not abody. Here a whole "consisting" of corporealparts is stilI not for that reason a body.Now, what about the possibility of newbasis "bodies"? What about new "earths" asrelational foundations for the experience ofbodies with the expected possibility that, asa consequence, the earth could become anormal body just like any other basis-body?It could have been said immediately that itis senseless to speak beforehand of an emptyworld-space in the sense we speak of anempty, infinite "astronomical" world, as aspace in which the earth is in the same waythat bodies are in the space which surroundsthe earth. We have a surrounding space as asystem of places-i.e., as a system of possi-

ble terminations of motions of bodies. Inthat system all earthly bodies certainly havetheir particular "loci," but not the earth itself. The situation becomes different whenthe exchange of bases is "conceivable."Objection: Is not the difficulty of theconstitution of the earth as a body hopelessly exaggerated? The earth is after all awhole of implied parts, each ofwhich is implied in the possibility of division into realparts,14 and a body: each has its place-andthus the earth has an inner space as a systemof places or (even when not conceived mathematically) a continuum of places whenreferred back to a complete divisibility.Thus for the same reason every formerly divisible body has its place with respect to itspans. However the inner and outer space ofthe earth form a single space. Or is theresomething left over? Any part of the earthcould move. The earth has its inner motions. Similarly, any ordinary body is notonly divisible but also has its deformationsand its continual inner motions, while as awhole it can in its own way preserve orchange its locus in space. Thus the earth hasdeformation and continual inner motion,etc. But how can it move as a "whole," howis that conceivable? It is not as though itwere firmly forged-the "basis" is lackingfor that. Is motion, hence corporeality,meaningful for it? Is its place in the totalityof space actually a "place" for it? On theother hand, is the totality of space not precisely the system of places of all bodieswhich, accordingly, are divided into impliedparts of the earth (as separated and moveable) and free outer bodies? What are theseas curiosities of "intuition of space," or ofspace at this level?But now we still have to consider outerbodies-the free bodies which are not implied pieces of the earth-and animate organisms, "my animate organism" and "otheranimate organisms."'5 These are perceivedas bodies in space, always in their place, andunperceived yet perceivable (or experienceable in a modified way) as what is continually enduring, in a motion-rest that is spreadout over this duration (also inner motionsand inner rest).Consider my animate organism. In primordial experience it has no motion away


5/12

226 HUSSERL ON SPACE AND TIMEand no rest, only inner motion and innerrest unlike the outer bodies. In "I go," in any"I move myself" kinaesthetically whatever,not all bodies "move themselves" and thewhole earth-basis under me does not move.For it pertains to a bodily rest that the as-pects of the body flow "movingly" or do notflow kinaesthetically according to whetheror not I hold still, etc. I have no motionaway; I stand still or go, thus I have my animate organism as a center and resting andmoved bodies around me and a basis withOUt mobility. My animate organism has ex-tension, etc., but no change and nonchangeof place in the sense of the way whereby anouter body is presented as in motion receding or approaching, or not in motion asnear, far away. But the basis on which myanimate organism goes or does not go is alsonot experienced as a body, as wholly to bemoving away or not moving away. Animateorganisms of others are bodies at rest and inmotion (always: in the sense of approachingor receding from me). But they are animateorganisms in the form of "I move," wherebythe ego is an "alter ego" for which my animate organism is a body, and for which allouter bodies which are not animate organisms for it, are the same outer bodies that Ihave. But every animate organism as well,which for me is the animate organism ofsomeone else, is for all other egos (with theexception of their own animate organism)identically the same body and the same animate organism of the same ego. Likewise forevery ego my animate organism is the samebody and at the same time the same animateorganism for the same ego (which for themis an alter ego) that I myself am for myself.For all the earth is the same earth-on it,in it, over it, the same bodies hold sway."On it," etc., the same organismal subjects,16subjects of animate organisms, which, in analtered sense, are the bodies for all. For all ofus, however, the earth is the basis and not abody in the complete sense, Let us now as-sume that I am a bird and can fly-or as-sume that I watch the birds which also belong to the earth. To understand them is toPUt oneself in their place as flying. The birdsits on the branch or on the ground, thenleaps into the air and flies upwards: the birdis like me in experiencing and doing when it

is on the earth, and experiences just as I dothe basis, experiences different bodies, alsoother birds, animate organisms of others,and organismal egos, etc. But the bird fliesupward-that is like locomotion under kinaesthesia whereby all courses of appearance,otherwise perceived as rest and motion ofbodies, undergo variation and in ways similar to locomotion. Different only in so far as,for the bird, holding its flight still and being"borne by the wind" (which, however, doesnot have to signify an apprehension ofsomething bodily) is a experienced combination with the "I am moving"and which results in "apparent motion."The same result is obtained, but in a different way, in a "change of location in flight"and holding still once more. The latter terminates as "falling."17 As a result, the birdno longer flies but sits on the tree or on theearth and then possibly leaps up, etc. Thebird leaves the earth on which it has nonflight experiences like us, flies upward andagain returns. Returning, the bird again hasmanners of appearance of rest and motionlike me as one who is earth-bound. Flyingand returning the bird has other manners ofappearance motivated by other kinaesthesias (by its particular kinaesthesias of flying),but analogously modified. Yet these havethe meaning of rest and motion in the modification because the kinaesthesias of flyingand locomotion form a single kinaestheticsystem for the bird. We who understand thebird understand precisely this extension ofits kinaesthesias, etc. What rests has itsappearance-system always to be producedagain as nonlocomotion, nonflying, etc.Let us consider leaping upon and awayfrom a moving body. The reversal of coursesof appearance yields rest and motion in theold way not only for me but for everyone.Thus I necessarily understand everyone. Indeed, I understand their leaping away asleaping away. I understand bodies enteringmy visual field, entering, e.g., "from emptyspace" as falling into view, precisely as entering. "How" do I do that? Moving on theearth they are moving for me such that I varyand can possibly accompany kinaesthesiasand in such a way that changes in appearance of rest are preserved - the same restwhich would signify rest for me were I kin-


6/12

ORIGIN OF THE SPATIALITY OF NATURE 227aesthetically still. I can do that in the case ofbodies which do not move in extraterrestrialspace; I could do it ifI were to fly. But I canthrow stones into the air and see them comeback down as the same. The throwing can bemore or less weak; obviously, the appearances are therefore analogous to motionsbased on the earth so that they become ex-perienced as motions. Just as bodies becomemoved as rolling balls upon impact, sobodies thrown, etc. I would also mentionthe experience of the motion of falling, inthe case of falling from a body above theearth, from the roofof the house or a tower.My organismal flight-vessel is based upona moved body (the vehicle). "I can fly sohigh that the earth seems like a globe." Theearth can also be so small that I could traverse it from all sides and indirectly arrive atthe idea of a globe. I therefore discover thatit is a large globe-body. But the question iswhether and how I would arrive at corporeality in the sense that the earth is "astronomically" just one body among others amongwhich are the celestial bodies. No more thanone can say how, when I imagine at will thebird on high and now mean that it can, ac-cordingly, experience the earth as a bodylike any other. Why not? The bird, or theflying-machine, moves for us humans onearth, for the bird itself and the people onthe flying-machine in so far as the bird experiences the earth as root-"body," as basis"body." But cannot the flying-machinefunction as "basis"? Can I conceive basis andbody moved in contrast to the basis as beingexchanged or exchanged for the primitiveplace of my motion? What would that be interms of a change in apperception and whatwould its demonstration be? Must I not conceptually transfer to the flying-machine whatthe earth as my basis, as the basis ofmy animate organism, universally presents in constitutive acceptance (with respect to form)?Is that like the way in which I still presuppose my primordial animate organism andeverything belonging to it in understandingsomeone else's animate organism? But here,in a comprehensible way, I necessarily takeothers as existing. The difficulty is repeatedin the case of the stars. In order to be able to"experience" them as bodies in indirect apprehending, I must already be a human be-

ing for myself on the earth as my root-basis.Perhaps one might say that the difficultieswould not arise if I and if we were able to flyand have two earths as basis-bodies, beingable to arrive at the one from the other byflight. Precisely in this way the one bodywould be the basis for the other. But whatdo two earths mean? Two pieces of one earthwith a humanity. Together, they would become one basis and, at the same time, eachwould be a body for the other. Surroundingthem would be a common space in whicheach, as body, possibly would have a moveable place, butmotion would always be relative to the other body and nonrelative tothe synthetic basis of their being together.The places of all bodies would have this relativity. However, one would always still haveto ask, motion and rest with respect to whichof the two basis-bodies?'8Only "the" earth-basis can be constitutedoriginaliter with the surrounding space ofbodies. This constitution already presupposes that my animate organism and knownothers are constituted along with open horizons of others. These horizons are dividedinto spaces within spaces which surroundthe earth as an open near-far field oflrodies.As a result bodies are given as having thesense of being earthly bodies and space isgiven as having the sense of being earthspace. The totality of the We, ofhuman beings or "animate beings," is in this senseearthly - and immediately has no contraryin the nonearthly. This sense is rooted andhas its orientation-center in me and in a narrower We living with one another. But it isalso possible for the earth-basis to be ex-tended, possibly such that I learn to understand that in space my first earth-bases arelarge vessels of flight traveling in it for along time: I am born on one of them and myfamily lives on one of them. It was mybeing-basis until I learned that we are ves-sels on the larger earth, etc. Thus a pluralityof basis-places, of home-places, is unifiedinto a basis-place. However, more about thislater in necessary supplementations. '9But if the earth is constituted with animate organisms and corporeality, then the"sky" is also necessarily constituted as thefield of what is outermost, yet which can bespatially experienced for me and all of us-


7/12

228 HUSSERL ON SPACE AND TIMEwith respect to the earth-basis. Or an openhorizon of reachable distance is constituted;extending from any spatial point reachablefor me, there is an outermost horizon orlimit (global horizon) in which what can stillbe experienced as a distant physical thingfinally disappears by moving away from me.Conversely, I can naturally phantasy to my-self that "points" becoming visible are distant bodies coming closer and now approachuntil they reach the earth-basis, etc. Butnow I can also phantasy to myself that theyare home-places.But consider this. Each of us always hashis "historicity"20 with respect to his egomade at home in it. IfI am born on a vessel,then I have a piece of my development onthe vessel and that, however, would not becharacterized as a ship for me in relation tothe earth-as long as no unity with the ves-sel would be produced. It would itself be my"earth," my primitive home. But my parentsare not then primitively21 made at home onthe vessel; they still have the old home, another primitive home. In the interchange ofhome-places (if home-place has the ordinarysense of territory peculiar to individual orfamily in each case) there remains, universally stated, the fact that each ego has aprimitive home-and every primitive peoplewith their primitive territory has a primitivehome. But every people and their historicityand every cosmopolitan people (cosmopolis)are themselves ultimately made at home,naturally, on the"earth." All developments,all relative histories have to that extent asingle primitive history of which they areepisodes. In that connection it is indeedpossible that this primitive history would bea togetherness of people living and evolvingcompletely separated, except that they allexist for one another in open, undeterminedhorizons of earth-space.We may now consider the stars after having made clear the possibility of flying arks(which can also be a name for primitivehome-places). These are exhibited in "experience" (that is, in historicity in whichworld, and in the world corporeal Nature,space belonging to Nature and space-time,humanity and the animate universe, areconstituted) as mere "air ships," "space ships"of the earth. They depart from it and then

return inhabited and guided by human beings who have made their home on theearth-basis as their ark in accord with theirlast generational and, for "they themselves,"historical origin. We therefore now consider"stars" -first of all, as points of light, specksof light. In the course of experience in theprocess of being fashioned, they are apperceived as distant bodies, bu t without thepossibility of normal experiential confirmation; they enter into that confirmation inthe first sense, in the narrower sense of a direct demonstrative showing?' We deal with"celestial bodies" just as we deal with bodiesthat are for each of us (but possibly forothers) accidentally, factually inaccessiblefor a while in the present. With respect tothem, we draw experiential inferences,make our empirical observations of place,observations of their inductively inferredmotions, etc., as though they were bodieslike any others. All of that is relative to theearth-basis ark and "earthly globe" and tous, earthly human beings, and Objectivity isrelated to the All of humanity. What aboutthe earth-ark itself? It is not itself already abody, not a star among other stars. Onlywhen we think ofour stars as secondary arkswith their possible humanities, etc., phantasy ourselves as transplanted there amongthese humanities, possibly flying there, is itotherwise. Then it is like children born onships, but yet modified. The stars are indeed hypothetical bodies in a specific senseof As-if, and so too the hypothesis that theyare home-places in an attainable sense of aparticular kind.Making celestial distance homogeneouseven by iteration generates phenomenological questions}3 What is the eidetic possibility there, and the pregiven possibility withthe earthly world, as coconstitutive of its being, by its essential kind of being? With thehypothetical interpretation of visible stars asdistant bodies, and by the eidetic form ofthe limit ofwhat can be experienced of distance there is already given the open infinityof the earthly world as endowed with an infinity of possibly existing distant bodies. Weunderstand the homogeneity without further ado such that the earth itself is a bodyon which by chancewe wander around. Withthe problems now being considered we con-


8/12

ORIGIN OF THE SPATIALITY OF NATURE 229front properly the great problem of thecorrect sense of a universal, purely physicalscience of "Nature" - of an astronomicalphysical science operating in "astronomical"infinity in the sense of our modern physics(in the broadest sense, astrophysics), andthe problem of an inner infinity, the infinity of the continuum and the way to atomizeor quantify-atomic physics-in the openendlessness or infinity. In these sciences ofthe infinity of the totality of Nature, themode of observation is usually the one inwhich animate organisms are only accidentally particularized bodies which can therefore also conceivably be completely ignoredso that a Nature without organisms, withoutbrutes and humans is possible. One almostmeans, and occasionally even also seriouslymeans that it is mere facticity, a factualitydetermined by the laws of Nature that holdin the world, ifanimate organisms with psychicallives are (causally) combined with certain bodies or body-types of physical structure; accordingly, it would be conceivablethat the animate organisms, that preciselybodies of such a character, are just merebodies. As one also believes can be provedwith respect to the earth, there was once no"life" on it, long space-times were neededuntil highly complicated substances werefashioned and subsequently animate lifeemerged on the earth. And that also takesfor granted that the earth is only one of theaccidental world-bodies, one among others,and that it would be well-nigh amusing towant to believe after Copernicus that theearth is the midpoint of the world "merelybecause by accident we live on it," favoredeven by its "rest" in relation to which everything moveable moves. It would seem thatin our natural scientific naIvety (not in so faras natural science is treated theoretically,but in so far as it naively believes it has ac-quired absolute truth about the world in itstheories, even at levels of relative completeness), we have already broken through whathas been previously taken for granted. Perhaps phenomenology has supported Copernican astrophysics- but also anti-Copernicanism according to which God had fixedthe earth at a place in space. Perhaps at thelevel of phenomenology, notwithstandingthe calculations and mathematical theories

of Copernicus, subsequent astrophysics andthus the totality of physics preserve a legitimacy within its boundaries. Quite differentis the question if a pure physical biology(which, however, accordingly should be biology) can retain its sense and legitimacy.Therefore let us reflect: How should weacquire the right to accept the earth as abody, as a star among stars? At first theearth is given only as possibly another star.But let us start with another possibility. Thescientific investigaror will agree that it is amere fact that ~ s e e the stars at all. He willsay: Could it not just as well be that thestars, even the sun, are so far away that theywould not be there for us? Indeed, in fogthey are invisible. Thus it could have beenin all historical times- we lived therefore ina generational historicity and could havehad our earthly world, our earth and earthspaces, flying and floating bodies there,etc., everything as before, only without visi-ble stars that could be experienced by us.Perhaps we would have had an atomic physics or a microphysics, but not an astrophysicsor a macrophysics. But we would have toconsider to what extent the former wouldhave been changed. We would have had ourtelescopes, our microscopes, our ever moreprecise instruments of measurement. Wewould have had our Newton and law ofgravitation. We would have been able todiscover that bodies exert gravitation on oneanother, that accordingly bodies could havebeen regarded at the same time as divisible,as wholes of component bodies which therefore exert their gravitation as self-sufficientbodies and operate according to the laws ofmechanics, yield results, etc. We wouldhave discovered that the earth is a "globe"divisible into bodies, that as total unity ofcorporeal parts it exertS, as totality, a gravitation in relation to all bodies detachedfrom it, bodies that are visible and invisiblein earth-space. We would know that theseare bodies in earth-space which we can perceive only by telescopes and always bettertelescopes as always again lying beyond whatis usually visible for us. We can then tellourselves that, finally, naturally, bodies ofany size whatever still could not and couldnever be inaccessibly far from our senses.Without seeing them or having direct cogni-


9/12

230 HUSSERL ON SPACE AND TIMEzance of them, even if distant-bodies are tobe equated by hypothesis with the ordinarybodies, we can make inductions and, on thebasis ofgravitational effects, etc., reckon theexistence of such "stars." The earth, finally,would be a body conceived in physics likeany other and would even have stars aroundit. As a matter of fact we already have starsin view and scientifically find them in relations to the earth calculable by physics andfind the earth as equivalent to what in physics is a body among bodies. Thus we do noteven touch upon physics.But everything comes to this: we mustnot forget the pregivenness and constitutionbelonging to the apodictic Ego or to me, tous, as the source of all actual and possiblesense of being, of all possible broadeningwhich can be further constructed in the already constituted world developing historically. ,One need not perpetrate the absurdity, absurdity in fact, ofpresupposing tacitlybeforehand the naturalistic or prevailingconception of the world. We must not perpetrate the absurdity of then seeing humanhistory, the history of the species anthropologically and psychologically within the evolution of the individual and people, the cultivation of science and the interpretation ofthe world as an obviously accidental eventon the earth which might just as well haveoccurred on Venus or Mars. This holds toofor the earth and we humans, I with my animate organism and I in my generation, mypeople, etc. This whole historicality belongsinseparably to the Ego, and is in essence notrepeatable, but everything relates back to thishistoricity of transcendental constitution asappertinent core and as an ever-wideningcore-everything newly discovered as worldpossibility is connected with the sense of being already established. Following implicitlyfrom this, one might therefore think thatthe earth can no more lose its sense as "primitive home-place," as ark of the world, thanmy animate organism can lose its whollyunique sense of being as originary animateorganism from which every animate organism derives a part of its sense of being andas we human beings in our sense of beingprecede the brutes, etc. As a consequence,however, nothing of that constitutive dignity or order ofvalues can be changed if ani-

mate organism and body are conceived asnecessarily equivalent (made homogeneous),or if corporeal animate organism is conceived as a body like any other, if humanityis conceived ilS a brute-species among brutespecies, and .therefore finally if the earth isconceived as 'a world-body among worldbodies.24 I could just as well think ofmyselfas transplanted to the moon. Why should Inot think of the moon as something like anearth, as therefore something like a dwellingplace of living beings? Indeed, I can verywell think ofmyself as a bird flying off fromthe earth to a body that lies far away, or as apilot of an airplane that flies off and landsthere. Certainly, I can conceive of humanbeings and brutes already being there. But Iask, perhaps, "how have they come there?"- just as similarly in the case ofa new islandwhere cuniform writing is found, I ask: Howdid the people in question come there? Allbrutes, all living beings, all beings whatever, only have being -sense by virtue of myconstitutive genesis and this has "earthly"precedence. Indeed, a fragment of the earth(like an ice floe) may have become detached,and that was made possible by a particularhistoricality. But that does not mean thatthe moon or Venus could not just as well beconceived as primitive places in an originalseparation and that it is only a fact that theearth is just for me and our earthly humanity.There is only one humanity and one earthall fragments belong to it which are or havebeen detached from it. But if this is the case,need we say with Galileo: par si muove?And not on the contrary: it does not move?It is certainly not so that it moves in space,although it could move, but rather as wetried to show above: the earth is the arkwhich makes possible in the first place thesense of all motion and all rest as mode ofmotion. But its rest is not a mode ofmotion.But now one may find that it is wrong torather extravagantly contradict all naturalscientific knowledge of actuality and realpossibility. It is possible that entropy willput an end to all life on earth, or that celestial bodies will crash into the earth, etc. Buteven if one found in our attempts the mostunbelievable philosophical hybris-: wewould not back down from the consequencesfor the clarification of necessities pertaining


10/12

ORIGIN OF THE SPATIALITY OF NATURE 231to all bestowal of sense for what exists andfor the world. We do not back down evenwhen confronting the problems of death inthe new way phenomenology conceivesthem. In the present, I as something presentam progressively dying, others die for mewhen I do not find a present connectionwith them. But unity by recollection permeates my life- I stiII live, although in beingother, and continue to live the life that liesbehind me and where its sense of being behind me lies in reiteration and the ability toreiterate. Thus the We lives in the reiterableness and itself continually lives in theform of reiterableness of history while theindividual" dies." That is, the individual canno longer be "remembered" empathically byothers, but "lives" only in historical memorywhereby the memory-subject can be substituted for the individual who "dies."zs

What belongs to constitution is, and isalone, absolute and final necessity. Only onthat basis is everything conceivable concerning the constituted world to be determined.What sense could the collapsing masses havein space, in one space constructed a priori as

absolutely homogeneous, if the constitutinglife were eliminated? Indeed, does thatelimination itself not have sense, if any atall, as elimination of and in the constitutingsubjectivity? The ego lives and precedes allactual and possible beings, and anything ex-istent whether in a real or irreal sense. Constituted world-time, more particularly, conceals in itself psychological time, and thepsychological refers back to the transcendental. But it does not do so in such a way thatone can simply convert the objectively psy-chical into the trahscendental and above allsuch that one converts each manner inwhich, under any abstractly and relativelyjustified point of view, one harmoniouslypresupposes the. homogeneous world and,more precisely, Nature and the psychicalpsychophysically attached to it. In practiceone can operate very well with that presupposition (e.g., by fashioning and utilizingscience for human praxis). But not even thatallows for conversion into the transcendentalor for making valid over against phenomenology the paradoxes which arise?6

NOTESI. Unsigned "Note ofEditor" in Farber volume:.This manuscript was written between May 7 and May 9,1934. Its very informality and incompleteness give avivid impression of Husserl at work. The following descriptive comment was written on the envelope: "Over-throw of he Copernican theory in the usual interpretation of a world view. The original ark, earth, does notmove. Foundational investigations of the phenomenological origin of corporeality of he spatiality pertainingto Nature in the first sense of the natural sciences. Ofnecessity all are initial investigations." The publication

of the manuscript has been duly authorized. (All othernotes are those of translator.)2. Umwelt3. Vorstellung4. Vorstellung5. That is to say, if the earth is posited as body innaturalscientific thinking.6. In other words, to objectivate something physical posited as body is of necessity to objectivate it as inmotion or as at rest. Hussed has in mind the notion pe-culiar to science in the "Copernican style" that themathematization of Nature comptises all change andvariation which, by hypothesis, are refetred to spatiotemporal events. In turn, all spatiotemporal events areunderstood in terms of motion (and rest as a mode ofmotion).7. As Husser! will try to show in what follows,

there is no l'motivation" in prescientific thinking andexperiencing for the naturalscientific conception ofNature and earth as body. In the next paragraphs, aswell as at the end of this manuscript, Husserl suggests aview that he will work out again in the Crisis ofEuro-perm Sciences, Section 9: the vieW''' namely, that the"Copernican u world view is a progressive historicalprocess made up of a sequence of verifications andconfirmations of a hypothetical interpretation ofNature. By this means what is available in the courseof actual experience, fragmentary and finite even inits "communalization," inductively predesignates theconstruction of the surrounding world "posited as infinite in scientific thinking." According to this view,then, perceiving of the world presented in prescientific thinking and experiencing is eo ipso apperceivingof the self same world presented in scientific thinking; this "transfer" by way of apperception is so interpreted that it is regarded as referring to a step in thesequence of inductive verifications that progressivelyfasbion the "Copernican" world view. Thus the prescientific world in which we live and pursue our goals,and which remains a prescientific world no matter howinterpreted scientifically, is taken to be a product of ametbod of verification of a specific hypothesis. Is thereany confirmation, any "motive." in the prescientificworld for this "new 'idea of the world'''! See b ~ l o w ,note 12.


11/12

232 HUSSERL ON SPACE AND TIME8. Even if the "apperceptive transfer" is not "motivated" by the regularities and uniformities of prescientific thinking and experiencing, the problem still re-mains for phenomenology to show the "rightful" sense

of motion and rest as constructed by scientific thinking,i.e., to show the validation of scientific thinking in thedomain of the prescientific.9. That is to say, the, most original or "evident"way in which bodies are presented as "they, themselves"in scientific thinking; see note 6, above.10. iterativ: as used here, the term refers to formallogic as a function of the theory of science, to the "possible detetmination by any arbitrarily selectable objectswhatever" (namely, bodies defined as "matter in motion") which aids scientific cognition having a materialcontent (namely, physics or astrophysics); see Formaland Transcendental Logic, section 83.11. Objektivitiit: This term, and the term 'Objekt',are often used to designate the noematic correlates ofacts and processes of consciousness at different levels ofconstitution: see, for instance, Cartesian Meditations,section 20, pp. 47f.; FormalandTranscendentalLogic,section 96, a, pp. 239f. The distinction between "Ge-genstiindlichketi" and "Objektivitiit," "Gegenstand"and "Objekt: is an important one in both early andlate writings of Husser!' For the importance of the distinction see Aron Gurwitsch, ''The Kantian and Husserlian Conceptions of Consciousness," in Studies inPhenomenology and Psychology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 149ff.12. The ultimate demonstrative showing or exhibiting of the validity of scientific thinking is rooted inthe prescientific domain of experience. This is an important idea for Husserl and is tied up with the "attempt to start a consistent transcendental philosophy"in such a way that the illusion of a "transcendental so-lipsism" will be overcome in working OUt the "wholemany-leveled problem of the constitution of the Objective world" (Formal and Transcendental Logic, sec-tion 96, b, p. 241). The solution to the enigma ofsolipsism lies, Husserl says, "firstly, in the systematicunravelling of the constitutional problems implicit inthe fact of consciousness which is the wor!d always existing for me, always having and confirming its sense bymy experience; and, secondly, in progressively advancing exhibitions that follow the hierarchical sequence ofproblems. The purpose of these exhibitions [namely,demonstrative showings], however, is none other, andcan be none other, than actually to disclose, as mattersincluded in that very fact of consciousness, the actualities and potentialities (or habitualities) oflife , in whichthe sense, world, has been, and is continually being,built up immanently" (ibid., pp. 241f.).13. That is to say, all founding levels of constitution are "implied" in the apperceiving of something asat rest or in m o t i o n ~ for instance. the visual parallax is"corrected" on the basis of more primitive visual experi.ences (the "mediades").14. reel en Abteilung. For Husser!'s theory of"wholes" and "parts" sec Logical Investigations, trans-lated by). N. Findlay (London: Routledge & KeganPaul, 1970), 2:436f., 484ff. Here Husserl considerswhat he calls "nonself-sufficient 'moments'" in theLogical Investigations.

15. For the notion of "animate organism" see especially Formal and Transcendental Logic. section 96a,pp. 240f.: "In the nexus of this first Nature, as holdingsway in that body (within this Nature) which is calledmy bodily organism, as exercising psychophysical functions in that body in a unique manner, my psychic Egomakes his appearance, 'animating' it as the unique ani.mated body, according to original experience." This"first Nature or world, this first, not yet intersubjective,Objectivity, is constituted in my ego as ... my own,"and yet must "contain the motivational foundation forthe constitution of those transcendencies that are genu-ine, that go beyond it, and originate first of all as 'others'(other psychophysical beings and other transcendentalegos), the transcendencies that ... make possible theconstit,ution of an Objective world in the everydaysense....

16. leiblichen Subjekte17. The German text reads: "Nur insorern anders.als das Stillhalten und vom 'Winde getragen sein' (wasaber keine korperliche Auffassung zu bedeuten hat)eine Erfahrungskombination mit dem 'ich bewege' istund immer noch die 'Scheinbewegung' ergibt, beieiner 'Anderung der Flligellage' und beim Stillhaltendabei abermals, aber in anderer Weise. Letztere endetals 'Fallen', damit dass der Vogel nicht mehr liegt,sondern auf clem Baum oder der Erde sitzt und dabeiev. springt, etc."18. The German text reads: "Die Orte aller Korperhatten diese Relativit.t, welche flir Bewegung undRuhe die Fraglichkeit ergeben wlirde: in bezug aufweichen der beiden Bodenkorper?"19. It is not clear what supplementations Husser!has in mind here; in the continuation of this manuscript in Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchHussed does not return to this theme.20. "Hlstorizitiit": Husser! also uses the terms "reIa-tiven Historien," "Urhistorie," and "Geschichtlichkeit.""Historizitat" ("historicity") as he uses the term here refers to the "genetic" process of transcendental constitu-tion (see below, p. 230); "relativen Historien" ("relativehistories") refers to the history of a people (e.g., thehistory of the Athenian people',,he American people),each of which is an "episode" in "world history." Thesetefms seem to be more or less synonymous with theterms (p. 230) "Menschengeschichte" and "Speziesge-schichte" ("human history" and "history of thespecies")- that is to say, "history" in the ordinary senseof "history." At the core, Husser! says, of "historicity" ortranscendental constitution is "Geschichtlichkeit" ("historicality") which may be interpreted as the transcendentally reduced phenomenon of human history in theordinary sense. This interpretation is consistent withthe main thrust of Husserl's thought in the manuscript,but he offers little basis for irs clarification. For a goodreview of Hussert's ideas in this connection, see ReneToulemonr, L'Essence de la Sociiftif selon Husser!(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962), pp.133ff.; cf. also F. Kersten, "Phenomenology, Historyand Myth," in Phenomenology and Social Reahiy. es-says in Memory ofAlfred Schutz, ed. Maurice Natanson (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 235-41.21. "Primitive " that is to say, in both a generational and a constitutional sense.


12/12

ORIGIN OF THE SPATIALITY OF NATURE 23322. See above, note 12; and also Forma!and Tran-scendenta! Logic, section 94, pp. 233f.23. Homogenisierung: That is to say, the idea in"Copernican" n a t u r a l ~ s c i e n t i f i c thinking that all eventsin Nature are enacted in one s p a c e ~ t i m e - an idea thatraises questions of legitimacy whether arrived at by ab

straction and formalization of "apperceptive transfers"(see above, notes 6 and 7)-which therefore allows ofinfinite iteration of distances as the. $ame no matterwhat objects arc involved-or by regarding motion as astate" of a body, in which case motion is not so muchrepetition of change but rather retention of a given"state"; hence motion requires no "cause." Whatquires a "cause" is change from motion to rest or rest tomotion, or a change in motion itself. But change inmotion, for instance. can only be accounted for interms of an unaltered or unchanged "state" of motion.And since, on the "Copernican" view, motion isfined in terms of velocity and direction, unaltered ve-locity is equivalent to equal distances covered in equaltimes (and unaltered direction then proves to be progression on a straight line). But equal distances coveredin equal times presupposes homogeneity of one spacetime, and more particularly of one space-time positedas infinite. Questions about the implications and rightful sense of this presupposition are raised in the nextlines of the text.24. Husserl indicates the view here that he will criticize in some detail in the Crisis ofEuropean Sciences,section 62: the "naturalistic method" ofmodern scienceis based on the dualism of "matter" and "mind" and sointerpreted that the latter is conceived on the model ofthe former; the utter heterogeneity of "matter" and"mind" is thereby overcome and "mind" is understoodby means of causal laws analogous to those that obtainin Nature-the "equalization of bodies and souls" ac-cording to which body and soul are "two real strata inthis experiential world which are integrally and reallyconnected similarly to, and in the same sense as, twopieces of a body. Thus, concretely, one is external tothe other, is distinct from it, and is merely related to itin a regulated way"; "Cartesian dualism requires theparallelization of mens and corpus; together with thenaturalization of psychic being implied in this parallelization, and hence also requires the parallelization ofthe required methods" by virtue of having "its roots inthe consistent abstraction through which it [namely,modern natural science] wants to see, in the life-world,only corporeity." (The Cns;s ofEuropean Sciences andTranscendenta! Phenomenology, trans. David Carr

[Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970], pp.215, 221, 227.)25. The German text reads: "Aber da geht durchmein Leben die Einheit durch Wiedererinnerung- ichlebe noch, obschon im Anderssein, und Iebe forr dasLeben, das hinter mir liegt, und dessen Sinn desHinter-mir in der Wiederholung und Wiederholbarkeit liegt. So lebt das Wir in der Wiederholbarkeit undlebt selbst fort in Form der Wiederholbarkeit der Geschichte, wah rend der Einzelne 'stirbt,' d .i. nicht mehrvon den Anderen einflihlungsmiissig 'erinnerr' werdenkann, sondern nur in historischer Erinnerung, in derdie Erinnerungssubjekte sich vertreten konnen." For apossible interpretation of this intriguing passage see. Kersten, " P h e n o m e n o l o ~ y , History and Myth," pp.240f. Leaving aside all transcendental phenomenological trappings, Husserl's view bears a remarkable resemblance to the ''I'unanimisme'' of ules Romains, such asexpressed in his novel The Death ofa Nobody; see theedition. translated by Desmond MacCarthy and SidneyWaterlow, with an aftetword by Maurice Natanson(New York: New American Library, 1961), and Natanson's aftetword, pp. 122f.26. The German text reads: "Die konstituierreWeltzeit birgt zwar in sich psychologische Zeit und dasPsychologische weist zurlick auf Transzendentalesaber doch nicht so, dass man nun das objektiv Psy-chische einfach ins T ranszendentale umkehren und vorallem, dass man jede Weise wie man einstimmig unterirgendeinem abstrakten und telativ berechtigten Gesichtspunkt homogene Welt und naher Natur uoddarin psychophysisch gebundenes Psychisches voraussetzt und damit praktisch ganz gUt operiert (fUrmenschlich natlirliche Praxis Wissenschaft ausbildendund vetwerrend), dass man das in Transzendentalesumstlilpt und nun die Paradoxien, die entspringen,gegen die Phanomenologie geltend macht."This sentence ends the parr of the manuscript published as supplement to Essays in Memory ofEdmundHusser!; for the continuation of the manuscript seeabove, Introduction, pp. 213f. The themes developedat the end of this manuscript are not resumed in thecontinuation, the section headings ofwhich are the following: "The different senses of space"; "Intentionalreference of all experienced motions back to my kinaesthetic activity or holding still. - I have already formedmy kinaesthetic system;" "Rest of a body-motion ofthe body"; "Constitution of motion belonging to whatis at first at rest"; "The meaning of the reduction topure primordial space /I

origin of the spatiality of nature

Documents