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Objects with a past: Husserl on “ad-memorizing apperceptions”

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Abstract

In a late notation from 1932, Husserl emphasizes the fact that a broad concept of “apperception” should also include, alongside his usual examples, the apprehension of objects as bearers of an individual or inter-subjective past, specifically “indicated” with them; thus, he distinguishes between apperceptions “appresenting” a simultaneous content (co-presentations), anticipatory apperceptions pointing to future incidents, and retrospective apperceptions referring to “ad-memorized” (hinzuerinnert, ad-memoriert) features and events. The latter sort of apperceptions are involved not only in our apprehension of historical traces and relics, but also in that of causal relations, familiar objects, and cultural objects in general. Following several later notations of Husserl concerning the topic of “apperceptions,” this paper outlines the specific intentional structure of retrospective or evocative apperceptions, analyzing their various possible forms.

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Notes

  1. A detailed phenomenological account of this process is given in several of Heidegger’s early lectures, most notably perhaps in his WS 1919/1920 lecture, Heidegger (2010, pp. 46–50).

  2. Husserl (2008, p. 410, n. 1).

  3. For a more detailled account of Husserl’s use of the terms “apperception” and “appresentation,” cf. Holenstein (1972, pp. 132–166), as well as Dwyer (2007).

  4. Husserl (2008, pp. 410–411).

  5. Husserl (2008, p. 411).

  6. Intuitions of this sort are not genuine fulfillments of the intention, as in the case of actual recollections, but instead mere “picturings” or “illustrations,” cf. for this distinction Husserl (1999, p. 106f. and p. 144; English translation: p. 97f. and p. 127f.), or similarly Husserl (1966, pp. 78–83; English translation: 121–126).

  7. Husserl (2008, p. 414); an approximate translation: “Therefore, we are dealing here with a perception having a core of original presentation, a unitary perception and presentation in the broad sense, in which, to a first presenting self-given, a founded apprehension is added, an apperception that does not appresent something co-present—something that pertains to the unity of a possible mobile perception, a simultaneous present that could be originally realized in it—but instead it ad-memorizes, so to say, it performs a recollection by means of which, what is present to us gains the sense of something previously sprung into being (and yet still persistent).”

  8. Similar examples can be found in some of Heidegger’s early lectures, cf. for instance Heidegger (1999, pp. 90–91; English translation: pp. 69–70).

  9. Husserl (1973, p. 86).

  10. In our normal life-worldly experience, an ad-memorization does not necessarily refer to a singular, particular incident of the past, but instead it often brings into play a horizon of multiple experiences, eventually structured in a multi-layered fashion. Thus, when visiting my home town—Husserl’s example—motivations continuously point me to a broad specter of past experiences, none of which needs to become explicitly intuitive in my ongoing experience. For me, my hometown is constantly endowed with multiple strata of ad-memorized content, belonging, say, to the different ages of my living there, with their each time particular style of experiencing the very same roads and houses and so on. Also, on the level of a merely typical, analogizing ad-memorization, we are confronted with an analogous phenomenon when sightseeing in a richly determined historical place (for instance in Rome), apprehending—be it explicitly or only implicitly—the city in its structured levels of ad-memorized content, in its already articulated apperceptive historical and cultural sense. For an excellent illustration of this, concerning the multiple historical strata one comes to “see” in Rome, cf. Goethe (2009), especially the notations from 7.11.1786 or 29.12.1786.

  11. Cf. with respect to this distinction, Husserl (1999, § 8, pp. 26–36; English translation: pp. 31–39). See also, with regard to the concept of horizon in Husserl, Walton (2003) and Fraisopi (2009).

  12. Cf. Husserl (2008, p. 428).

  13. Cf. Husserl (2008, p. 412).

  14. Cf. for instance Husserl (1999, p. 56; English translation: p. 56).

  15. Cf. Husserl (1976, p. 269; English translation: p. 315).

  16. Examples of this sort are also discussed in Heidegger’s Being and Time, cf. Heidegger (2006, § 17, pp. 76–83; English translation: pp. 71–77).

  17. Cf. Eisler (1904, vol. II, pp. 742–745).

  18. Husserl (1984, p. 79; English translation: p. 213). A similar dismissal of Höffding’s term is expressed in a notation from 1934, cf. Husserl (2006, p. 249).

  19. Husserl (2001, p. 78).

  20. Husserl (1968, p. 405).

  21. Cf. Husserl (2006, pp. 249–254).

  22. Husserl (2006, pp. 250–251).

  23. Cf. Husserl (1968, pp. 401–410).

  24. We do not turn away from an object conceived “as it is in itself” towards the object conceived “as it is for us,” but instead from a given object of direct experience—be it a sheer object of perception or a meaningful, situational life-circumstance—towards its “apperceptive” past horizon, remaining on the same level of (perceptive or life-worldly, meaningful) “objectivity” as before.

  25. Cf. Husserl (1999, pp. 143–146; English translation: pp. 127–129).

  26. Cf. for instance Husserl (1980, pp. 49–50 and pp. 66–69; English translation: p. 53 and pp. 72–75).

  27. In a footnote to his afore cited notation from 1904, Husserl wonders if by “imagining something on the paper in front of me” I would not actually have a phantasy at work in the field of perception, Husserl (1980, p. 67, n. 1; English translation: p. 73, n. 3). While he finally comes to admit the possibility of a “perceptive phantasy,” a phantasy enacted in sheer perception (cf. to this extent Ferencz-Flatz (2009)), we now see—when considering ad-memorizing apperceptions—that we could perhaps similarly speak of a “perceptive recollection”.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by CNCS-UEFISCDI, project number PN II-RU TE-155/2010.

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Ferencz-Flatz, C. Objects with a past: Husserl on “ad-memorizing apperceptions”. Cont Philos Rev 45, 171–188 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-012-9218-9

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