AN DEN GRENZEN DER SELBSTERSCHEINUNG. SELBSTAFFEKTION UND REFLEXION IN DER WIEDERERINNERUNG BEI KANT UND HUSSERL
ON THE BORDER OF SELF-APPEARANCE. SELF-AFFECTION AND REFLECTION IN THE REMEMBERING IN KANT AND HUSSERL

Summary/Abstract: In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant points out that the inclusion of the inner representations ofa subject in the form of time does not link them so as to produce the self-consciousness. To thisend, a synthesis of the understanding — by means of the transcendental imagination — that affectsthe inner sense is necessary. Therefore the temporal succession of my inner states will appearto me until I draw implicitly an infinite line which is an image of time representing its successionon the space, thus inasmuch as I am conscious, at least implicitly, of my activity of the drawing.Using the example of the peculiar reflection of remembering, I will hypothesize the idea thata phenomenology of self-consciousness could readopt and renew Kant’s theory of self-affection;however the limits of a phenomenological analysis of the reflection on my past and my past Selfshall be set. Because of these limits, the reflection on my past I is always tainted with «substitutes»of my life-history, namely fluctuating representations of my experience in the past. Also, in thisrespect I am a passive subject facing the spontaneity of my phantasy while I remember myself.From a phenomenological point of view we can rearrange Kant’s theory in this way: by reflectionon my past, the I splits into a remembering-I and a phantasy-I that fills out the horizon of memoryto some extent with substitutes. In this respect my life-history is never given to me without a mediationof phantasy and imagination.

• Details
• Contents