1 Introduction: the unconscious and its relation to consciousness

Classical Phenomenology dedicates itself to the study of consciousness, to its eidetic a priori structures, the essential lawfulness of its activities and its intentional relationships to noematic contents, etc. Nonetheless, these do not exhaust the whole life of consciousness. The latter encompasses a darkened, concealed dimension that underlies, surrounds and constantly haunts the patent (in contrast to latent) conscious sphere. This latent and often overlooked aspect of consciousness could be referred to as the unconscious (das Unbewusste), which is usually associated with such other disciplines as Freudian psychoanalysis.

In this article, however, the unconscious is not understood in the classical Freudian sense. Instead, it will be explored within the Husserlian phenomenological framework, where it is not, as opposed to Freud, conceived of as substantially differentiated from and independent of consciousness, but rather as a mode or dimension of the latter. For Husserl, the unconscious dimension of consciousness is made up predominantly by sedimentation (die Sedimentierung) of experiences. Sedimentation is neither a region completely cut off from consciousness, nor one which simply remains in the conscious or co-conscious field. It is rather something “in-between”; namely, between the unconscious and consciousness. Such “betweenness” should be understood metaphorically without being identified with the Freudian preconsciousness (das Vorbewusste). Being descriptively unconscious, preconscious contents (such as certain knowledge) are nonetheless practically always accessible to consciousness and ready to be recalled as long as the conscious ego-subject voluntarily directs its attention towards them. Sedimentation, despite also being something faded away from consciousness and sunken into the field of the unconscious; however, its constant and constitutive reappearance in the conscious field is in principle not brought about by any voluntary act or active shift of attention of the ego. Put differently, it moves incessantly “between” the two fields with the least active intervention of the conscious ego. The core questions of this article run, accordingly: what is sedimentation? How does sedimentation, as unconscious, simultaneously interact with and affect the conscious life? Put otherwise, in what manners does sedimentation manifest in the ongoing intentional activities of consciousness?

There is, admittedly, already literatures dedicated to the study of genetic phenomenology and “passivity”Footnote 1. However, to the best of my knowledge, the notion of sedimentation and its relation to the problem of the unconscious is addressed in that literatures merely in passing rather than the object of thematic analysis and exploration. Differing from the studies by Lohmar, Brudzinska, Geniusas, Moran, among others, this article aims to demonstrate that (i) there are hints and passing discussions scattered among Husserl’s different important writings (APS, GZ, EU, Studien, etc.), which offer the possibility of a theoretical reconstruction leading to a rich and coherent account of the unconscious conceived distinctively in terms of the phenomenological concept of sedimentation, and that (ii) this unified account of the unconscious is closely related to the “classical” phenomenological studies of consciousness such that the former can be explicated systematically in terms of its manifestations in the conscious sphere, namely, as the three essential structural moments of consciousness, which are usually the focus of phenomenological studies.

The Husserlian conceptualization of the unconscious as sedimentation and the exact meaning of the latter term are not self-illuminating. Therefore, in the first main section, Husserl’s phenomenological account of the unconscious will be brought into light with the support of scattered textual evidence that indicates the conceptual identification of the unconscious with sedimentation. Having laid bare the phenomenological framework within which this study is conducted, I will then suggest, in the third section, a schematic understanding of the manifestations of sedimentation in consciousness, divided conceptually into the sphere of understanding (Verstandessphäre), the sphere of affect (Gemütssphäre) and the sphere of volition (Willenssphäre). In light of this tripartite division, an attempt to demonstrate the threefold manifestation of sedimentations as Typus, Stimmung and Habitus is carried out. The division is, however, merely conceptual. Following the schematization of the unconscious-consciousness relation, the essential intertwinement of the three structural moments, together with their horizonality, will be foregrounded in the fourth section. The genetic sense of horizon-consciousness (Horizontbewusstsein) and the notion of association (Assoziation) play a central role in this regard.

2 The Husserlian conceptualization of the unconscious as sedimentation

Dedicated to the study of the life of consciousness, Husserl does not leave us a thematic account of the unconscious. It does not, however, follow that this notion completely escapes his attention. “The unconscious” is instead mentioned on various occasions, discussed in scattered texts and lecture notes where it is often employed in quotation marks with obvious caution. On most of these occasions, it is explicitly identified with the concept of sedimentation conceived in specific sense. In what follows, three texts will be focused upon, namely: Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (henceforth APS), Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie (henceforth GZ) and Erfahrung und Urteil (henceforth EU)Footnote 2. In all these texts, sedimentation is understood mainly in the genetic senseFootnote 3. More specifically, it is both a process – an eidetic process – which all experiential contents are subject to, and a field or region (Gebiet) in which the past, sedimented contents are “stored”. To avoid confusion in English, I employ the singular form of sedimentation to refer to the general notion of die Sedimentierung, which refers to both a process and a region of consciousness, and the plural form of sedimentations to the sedimented contents, or die Sedimentierten, which have undergone the process, deprived of direct affective force (affektive Kraft) and have been sunken and preserved in the particular region. Both the region of sedimentation and the sedimented content are described by Husserl as unconscious. For him, the unconscious is made up predominantly by sedimentation(s) and should be phenomenologically conceptualized as such.

Before a schematic exploration of the very manifestations or “effects (Auswirkungen)” of sedimentations upon consciousness, conceptual clarification of the meaning of sedimentation and textual justification for such unusual identification of the unconscious with this notion are required.

Sedimentation is, first of all, an eidetic process to which all once consciously constituted experiential contents are necessarily subject. In APS, Husserl suggests that all kinds of objects of consciousness have a “degree of liveliness (Gradualität der Lebendigkeit)”. Things given to and experienced in the conscious sphere here and now have the highest degree of liveliness, whereas the other pole of this scale, “the zero of this consciousness-liveliness (das Null dieser Bewusstseinslebendigkeit)”, is designated as “the unconscious” (Husserl, 1966, 167). All present concrete contents of the living sphere are destined to sink into the phenomenal past, undergoing the process of sedimentation described in different metaphorical expressions such as sinking (versinken), obfuscation (Verneblung), obscuration (Verdunklung), exhaustion (Entkräftung), and so on (Husserl, 1966, 156–167; Husserl, 2013, 36). They all refer to the process of the gradual diminution of the affective liveliness and the “becoming-zero of intuitiveness (Null-werden der Anschaulichkeit)” (Husserl, 1966, 169) of experiences. Having undergone this modification, all experiential contents are eventually sedimented and preserved in the “zero-region” (Nullgebiet) – the second meaning of sedimentation, as we shall see later.

This process of sedimentation is, moreover, an eidetic process in the sense that it is a necessary, a priori feature of the temporal structure of experiences. Its “eideticity” is to be understood in relation to yet another eidetic structure of temporal consciousness, namely, retention. Retention, understood as “still-retaining-in-consciousness (Noch-im-Bewusstsein-Behalten)”, is a necessary intentional modification that all experiential contents undergo in which they are temporarily retained in consciousness with diminished affective force and intuitiveness. Correspondingly, sedimentation as a process designates nothing but the destined “continuation” of this intentional modification until the experiential contents end up in the “retentional zero (retentionales Null)” (Husserl, 2013, 62). This characterization of sedimentation is made most explicitly in GZ, when Husserl rhetorically asks, “and what can ‘sedimentation of constitution’ mean except continuation (Fortgehen) of the ‘passive’ retention in the darkness?“ (Husserl, 2013, 64, my translation) In this sense, sedimentation, just as retention, constitutes the eidetic structure or “destiny of consciousness (das Schicksal des Bewusstseins)” (Husserl, 1966, 38), where all that consciousness has once experienced cannot help but is preserved as its own histories.

This leads us to the second meaning of sedimentation, namely, as the field or region (Gebiet) that belongs to consciousness yet in the mode of unconscious. This region, described in such various ways as the “affective zero-region (das affektive Nullgebiet)” (Husserl, 1966, 167), the “abiding reservoir (beständige Reservoir)” (Husserl, 1966, 177), or simply the “zero-horizon (Nullhorizont)” and the “zero-sphere (Nullsphäre)” (Husserl, 2013, 62 − 3), is a region in which sedimented contents (sedimentations, die Sedimentierten) are “stored”. Sedimentations are characterized by the “zero” of consciousness-liveliness (Bewusstseinslebendigkeit) and that of intuitive givenness; in other words, by complete “indistinctiveness out of total affective powerlessness (Unterschiedslosigkeit aus völliger affektiver Kraftlosigkeit)” (Husserl, 1966, 170). Nonetheless, this “Null” is never a nothing (Nichts). Instead, sedimentations preserve their dynamic forces and indirect yet continuous effects upon consciousness. They are “locked up (verschlossen)” for the ego, yet are always ready to be reawakened (Husserl, 1966, 177).

That the unconscious is conceptualized predominantly as sedimentation is supported by various pieces of textual evidence scattered throughout different works. Such a conceptualization makes its appearance mostly in passing when Husserl writes, for instance, „the supplement concerns the secret of the unconscious or rather of sedimentation, to which all activity and awake affectivity acquiesce” (Husserl, 2013, 36, my translation and emphasis). For him, “unconscious” means nothing but the loss of the direct affective force of certain experiential contents, such that they are sunken into the “night” of consciousness and are no longer something the subject is consciously or co-consciously aware ofFootnote 4. It designates the end pole of the “degree of liveliness”. In EU, the unconscious is defined as a “limiting mode (Grenzmodi) of consciousness” (Husserl, 1971, 279) in which predicative judgments, after being temporarily retained, eventually land. There, the continuous effects of the unconscious upon futural conscious activities are even positively affirmed, as Husserl further writes, “…[the unconscious] can affect us anew like another passivity in the form of whims, free-floating ideas, and so on” (ibid.).

The scattered textual evidence above offers us a brief, yet decisive and distinctive account of the Husserlian-phenomenological conception of the unconscious, which is essentially distinguished from the Freudian-psychoanalytic one in at least two respects. The first regards its ontological status. Freud’s topological conception of the Es underscores the ontological independence of the unconscious. It is conceived of as a substantial psychic region reigning over the conscious Ich, as Freud’s analogy to the relationship between horseman and horse demonstrates. While the horseman pretends and attempts to have the upper hand over the horse, he is in fact merely led by the horse itself, following the latter’s fierce and reckless dynamics of movement. Analogically, the Ich is there merely to serve to transcribe the will of the Es into practice (Handlung), yet as if it was its very own will (“als ob es der eigene wäre”) (Freud, 2018, 23). By contrast, for Husserl, it would be a phenomenological error to conceive of the unconscious as a region beyond and isolated from consciousness. As sedimentation, the unconscious is nothing other than a dimension and modification of consciousness, or else an “inconspicuous substratum” (Husserl, 1929, 279) and a “Grenzmodi” (Husserl, 1971, 279) of the latter. It does not have a separate existence beyond consciousness but rather its constitutive part, so to speak (See Bernet, 2002). The second essential difference concerns that between repression (Verdrängung) and sedimentation. Despite both being the process through which particular contents are displaced into the sphere of the unconscious, their nature and mechanism differentiate strictly from each other in terms of their passivity/activity and a priori/empirical nature. Sedimentation belongs essentially to the passivity of consciousness in the sense that the process of sedimentation does not involve any “active” (in the strict sense of the word) or voluntary performance of the ego subject, such as its conscious turning-toward (Zuwendung) and attention (Aufmerksamkeit). The once experienced contents simply sediment as time progresses, regardless of the ego’s thematic awareness. In contrast, both repression and (especially) suppression in Freud’s account are not entirely or necessarily passive. Repression could sometimes be completely passive or “unconscious”, yet it is for most of the time more or less deliberately exercised by the conscious subject in light of the empirical situation perceived by the ego. Furthermore, sedimentation designates an eidetic law that reigns over all experiential contents, regardless of their normative, existential and affective significance. It is morally irrelevant and does not imply any existential normativity. By contrast, repression pertains only to particular drive-representations (Triebvorstellungen) that fail to pass through the censorship of the Ich and Über-ich. It takes place only when certain drives or wishes encounter resistance from external, empirical reality or meet conflicts with specific moral norms.

It is worth remarking in passing that it does in no way follow that there is no form of repression whatsoever in the formation of the unconscious in Husserl’s phenomenology. However, his notion of repression must be cautiously differentiated from sedimentation, which after all plays the most essential role in the problem of the unconscious. Several descriptions of Husserl’s conception of repression are discernible in GZ. In general, it is conceptualized as an analogy of his phenomenological epoche in his transcendental philosophy. In Beilage XIV, the problem of “clamped affects (eingeklemmte Affekte)” is discussed. An affect is eingeklemmt through a refraining epoche, a kind of negation or cancellation (Durchstreichung), a kind of actively performed position-taking (Stellungnahme). Through such an act, an affect is then “repressed”, “covered up (verdeckt)” or “suppressed (heruntergedrückt)” (Husserl, 2013, 112-3). In another section, repression is described with other such similar notions as Hemmung, Enthaltung/sich-enthalten, Zurückdrängen, and Verdrängung – even with direct reference to Freudian psychoanalysis (See Husserl, 2013, 125–131). Repression or inhibition and fulfilment (Erledigung, Erfüllung) are identified as the two fundamental modes of drives and desires, each of which has a nuanced relation to sedimentation and to the unconscious in the broad sense. Firstly, inhibition or repression is an “active abstaining from (aktives Sich-Enthalten)” the fulfilment of a wish or drive. It is executed actively by the ego either because there is a primary goal whose importance overrides the present affect, or due to the normative constraints of the reality. By contrast, as expounded above, sedimentation is a process of passivity. Secondly, while Husserl’s notion of repression is not to be identified with sedimentation, it does take part in the formation of the unconscious. He explicitly identifies “the drive in the mode of inhibition (der Trieb im Modus der Hemmung)” with “the drive in the mode of the unconscious (im Modus des ichlichen Hintergrundes, im Unbewussten)” (See Husserl, 2013, 126-8). Just as the sedimented contents, the inhibited drives in the mode of the unconscious still retain their affective forceFootnote 5. Thirdly, while repression is essentially differentiated from sedimentation and the repressed contents are not sedimented in the strict sense, the drives in the mode of the fulfilment, viz. the actively manifested drive-complex, do sediment and make up part of the sedimentations. Once the drives are fulfilled through active realization in the practical world, the experience of the fulfilment itself together with the satisfaction and well-being (Wohlgefühl) it brings about, is retained, sedimented and preserved, just as with all other ordinarily constituted experiences.Footnote 6 The fulfilled drives make up part of the sedimentations and hence that of the unconscious. A certain form of repression does play a role in the formation of the unconscious. Nonetheless, repression as merely a mode of drives is differentiated from sedimentation as an eidetic feature of all temporal experiences. Within his phenomenological framework dedicated to the exposition of the eidetic structure of conscious life, it is sedimentation that constitutes the core of the unconscious. Among other senses in which Husserl speaks of the unconscious, the current study focuses exclusively on the unconscious understood as sedimentation in the genetic sense, viz. sedimented past experiences of an individual subject.

It is worth mention that as an eidetic structure of consciousness, sedimentation is rarely described by Husserl as a “layered” concept that accounts for the different depth and intensity of sedimented contents. For him, the concept bespeaks first and foremost the indifferent sinking-down and preservation of all conscious contents. Given that the latter is admitted layered by retentional and protentional contents, sedimentations should also be attributed with different levels and depths. Unfortunately, this is left unaddressed by Husserl and calls for further exploration beyond him. Generally speaking, a memory is composed of both representation-content (Vorstellungsinhalt) of what factually happened, the affect-amount (Affektbetrag) (See Freud, 2005), which is responsible for the affective intensity and obtrusiveness of either the repressed or sedimented contents. The more a content is affectively loaded, the more obtrusive it is and more susceptible to contingent provocative. It means that sedimented contents are not preserved “one-dimensionally” but rather in different depths of the conscious life.

3 Schematizing the threefold manifestations of the unconscious in consciousness

The crucial question that follows runs: how exactly do unconscious, viz. sedimented, experiences shape and colour the present conscious life? Put phenomenologically, in what manners and as what does the former function constitutively in the ongoing intentional accomplishments of the subjectivity? This section attempts to offer a schematic answer to this question. This should be considered a necessary task since the manifestation of sedimentation is in no way to be identified with the retrieval or recollection of memory (Wiedererinnerung) as it was originally lived through. In modern neuroscience, sedimentation is regarded as a notion scarcely distinguished from memory, which is reduced to nothing more than some “traces” “stored” in the brain. These brain traces, given by a pattern of synaptic connections, are thought to “represent” the original experiences and are purely physiological in nature. Recollection of memory, it follows, is nothing but recreation of the firing pattern of the set of neurons similar to that caused by the original experience, such that the “traces” are reactivated, and faint copies of the original impressions are produced (See Milner et al., 1998; Glynn, 1999; Bennett & Hacker, 2003, 154–171). The following exposition shows, in contrast, that sedimentation is not reducible to neural stimulus and its reappearance or recollection is rarely any reproduction of the original experiences. Rather, when sedimentations manifest, “reappear” or else “revive” in consciousness, they have necessarily had undergone certain modifications and must manifest as something else other than how they were originally constituted in the past. Such manifesting-as of sedimentations lies right between the consciousness and unconscious. This might revise or enrich the neuroscientific conception of memory.

Some preparatory words are required for a clearer delineation of our conceptual framework. Sedimentation is understood here as a genetic conception differentiated from the static and generative one. The following study is restricted, accordingly, to genetic phenomenology, to which the notion of sedimentation has the most to contribute (see the last section). Briefly speaking, static phenomenology dedicates itself to the exploration of the atemporal eidetic structures and lawfulness of intentional experiences. Here, the ego is conceived of as an “empty”, ahistorical and absolute “pole” of all conscious activities. In genetic phenomenology, by contrast, the ego is understood as a “personal ego (personales Ich)”, a “substrate of habitualities” with its own unique style, personal characters and histories (Husserl, 1987, 66 − 7). In Ideen II, this personal ego is also characterized as the “spiritual ego” that includes an individual nexus of motivations (Motivationszusammenhang) and “a stratum of hidden reason” consisting of drives, feelings, latent dispositions and so on (Husserl, 1989, 289). In a word, it is a personal, historical and concrete subject that encompasses the physical, psychical and spiritual dimensions of conscious life and that lives pre-reflectively in the life-world (Lebenswelt).

A personal subject relates itself in various ways to the world and worldly objects. In this regard, three fundamental types of intentional relation to the world and its objects could be discerned. They are namely the representing-thinking (vorstellend-denkende), the feeling-valuing (fühlend-wertende) and the willing-handling (wollend-handelnde) intentionality, each of which belongs respectively to the intellectual sphere, affective sphere and volitional sphere of consciousness (See Breyer, 2017). It should be noted that this tripartite division of spheres remains merely conceptual abstraction, as these are all spheres, or dimensions, of one and the same single consciousness. This conceptual abstraction offers, however, a crucial foundation for the exploration of the relationship of sedimentation to consciousness. Based on this schematization of the consciousness and conscious activities, the manifestation of sedimentations will be schematically understood in terms of three constitutive structural moments. Briefly put, having undergone certain modifications, sedimentations manifest in the intellectual sphere as Typus, the affective sphere Stimmung and the volitional sphere Habitus.

3.1 Typus in the Verstandessphäre

The intellectual acts belonging to this sphere are directed towards the being (Sein) and knowledge (Erkenntnis) of objects. These acts include above all representation (Vorstellung), pre-predicative (perceptual) experience and apperception (Auffassung), predicative judgments, positing (Setzung) and so forth. In what follows, the most fundamental stratum among them will be in focus, namely, pre-predicative experience together with the “passive” apperceptive accomplishment of the subject. In this passive sphere, sedimentations manifest as the type (Typus), or rather the typifying horizon of apperception, without which the constitution of (perceptual) object is transcendentally impossible.

To begin with, in external perception, things present themselves to the perceiving subject with necessity in adumbrations (Abschattungen). Such perspectivally and incompletely given sensuous data do not yet reveal or constitute themselves immediately as a synthetic meaningful object of which we speak ordinarily. For the subject to apprehend (auffassen) those senseless and incomplete sensuous givenness as a truly meaningful object, something “going beyond” the intuitive givenness must be intended by the subject itself. This unintuitive “going beyond” („unanschauliches Hinausweisen“) (Husserl, 1966, 6–7) is an empty intentional horizon that lacks intuitive fulfilment in the present. Yet, it anticipates such fulfilment in the upcoming experience. This horizon is a specific anticipatory-typifying horizon projected in accordance with the particular givenness in the impressional present and its resemblances to past experiences, offering a “realm of possibilities (Spielraum der Möglichkeiten)” (Husserl, 1971, 36) for the subsequent act of apprehension. This realm of possibilities is a realm surrounding a vaguely determinable core, viz. a specific type of objects of experience, by virtue of which the present senseless givenness is apprehended as a meaningful object. In other words, the type as typifying horizon offers a “determinable indeterminacy (bestimmbare Unbestimmtheit)” (Husserl, 1966, 6) that contributes to the schematic grasp of the manifoldness of experiential givenness. Apperception, therefore, is essentially typifying apperception (Lohmar, 2016).

As far as the problem regarding the genetic origin of the type is concerned, the notion of sedimentation comes into light. Despite serving a function resembling the Kantian categories, which according to Kant are transcendentally indispensable for the meaningful schematization of the manifold sensuous givenness, the types do not share the same “origin” as the categories. The latter is distinctively a priori, universal and unchangeable. It exists “before” and independently of any empirical input. By contrast, the types are neither such a priori categories nor pure concepts reflectively abstracted from empirical variables. They are instead empirical “products” of the historical sedimentations of the individual subject whose personal experiences of the world are lived through and retained. As Husserl himself affirms, “the fact that all objects of experience are from the first experienced as known according to their type has its basis in the sedimentation of all apperceptions” (Husserl, 1971, 321). The sedimented experiences, having landed and been preserved in the affectless region, incessantly undergo the dynamics of condensation (Verdichtung) and expansion (Ausbreitung), associations and dissociations between one another (Brudzinska, 2015, 109) 2014. This is the process of the typification of experiences in the unconscious, through which numerous pieces of sedimented experiences associate and interact with each other. Those which share similarities are, eventually, “grouped” together under a “type”. The type is therefore nothing more than “a combination of pluralities of objects which resemble each other” (Lohmar, 2016), and it is by nature always subject to expansion, enrichment and correction as the experiences of the subject accumulate. In a word, the type is a historical product of sedimented experiences and, conversely, sedimentation manifests as type essentially constitutive of the objectifying acts of consciousness. It also follows that, types, unlike pure concepts and the Kantian categories, are characterized by plasticity, experientiality and individuality.

3.2 Stimmung in the Gemütssphäre

To the sphere of affect belongs the affective intentionality which constitutes the values and emotional “properties” of objects. The intentional act involved here is termed value-ception or Wertnehmung/Wertapperzeption, which is fundamentally distinguished from such acts in the intellectual sphere as simple perception (schlichte Wahrnehmung). Whereas the latter is directed towards the being (Sein) of objects, the former constitutes the value-being (Wertsein) of them in relation to such feelings as favour and disfavour (Gefallen und Missfallen) (Husserl, 2020). Founded on the simple perception of something as a meaningful object x, value-ception reveals the affective moments or colour (Gefühlsmomente/Gemütsfärbungen) of the object x “as pleasant or unpleasant”, and as valuable or not valuable (Husserl, 2020, 8–9).

In this regard, feelings (Gefühle) and mood (Stimmung) should be distinguished in advance. Feelings, including above all favour and disfavour, joyfulness or sadness, etc., must be feelings “about something”. They are fundamentally intentionally directed towards specific single objects whose affective moments and value properties are subsequently apprehended through the intentional act of value-ception. Mood, by contrast, is an affective state lacking intentional relatedness to single entity. It is a non-intentional “confusing feeling-background (verworrener Gefühlshintergrund)” (Husserl, 2020, 111) of the intentional subject, who is tempered (gestimmt) in one way or the other, a background against which objects are experienced and conscious activities are performed. As tempered, the subject always perceives and experiences worldly objects under a specific light which lends them a unique affective “colour”.

In Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins (II. Band), the concept of the Stimmung is discussed the most extensively. A closer examination of the text reveals to us two different senses of the notion, which Husserl himself did not explicitly distinguish. Among the two, only the second one truly relates to the problem of sedimentation. The first meaning of the mood refers to the “lingering of a feeling (Nachklingen eines Gefühls)”, that is, the “remaining (Verbleiben)” of a specific feeling that was directed towards a specific intentional object. This is illustrated by Husserl’s ordinary example. When “I” speak with a lovely person who is the thematic object of my attention in the impressional present, “I” apprehend her loveliness and simultaneously live through the joyful feeling directly related to this person and this state of affairs. The ego, in this current situation, turns itself toward (sich zuwenden) the person and the whole situation together with the apprehended feeling-properties. As the conversation ends and as “I” turn away (sich abwenden) from the conversation, the joyful feeling does not disappear altogether and immediately, but it is rather retained in grasp in the form of a non-intentional mood. The previous feeling of “joyfulness as such” lingers and is gradually transformed into an “exalted mood” (Husserl, 2020, 102).

Such lingering of a feeling in the form of a corresponding mood is analogous to retention. The inner time-consciousness, consisting of retention, impression and protention, determines that, for instance, a melody just heard and no longer appearing within the thematic field of attention is retained by consciousness temporarily and as such it shapes, with necessity, the subject’s experience of the following melodies (Husserl, 1971). Analogously, in the affective sphere, the feeling just apprehended and lived through remains for a while and as such it shapes the temporary affective state of the intentional subject and its subsequent experiences within a certain time interval.

However, the retention of the feeling just past, even in the form of mood, should not be conceived as the manifestation of sedimentations. Here, the feeling is temporarily retained, undergoing the retentional process where its vividness and intensity gradually diminish – yet precisely as it is not yet sunken into the dark region of the unconscious and has never been there in the form of a sedimented feeling. The mood in this sense cannot, for this reason, be designated as the manifestation of sedimentation, as it is merely the lingering of a piece of not-yet-sedimented affective experience.

The mood in the second sense is less a retentional residue of a specific feeling than something constituted by a bunch of barely explicable historical sedimentations of the individual subject. It is no longer the remaining of a single feeling that fades, but rather an unthematic totality of feelings that encompass the manifold life-feelings (mannigfaltige Lebensgefühle) that are of an unconscious nature and that accompany the rhythm of lifeFootnote 7. The numerous pieces of experience one has lived through in its whole past sediment, losing their distinctness, becoming “unconscious” and hardly recognizable. Husserl describes this whole field of sedimentations as “the bare passivity, the chaos (die bloße Passivität, das Chaos)” constituted by “plenitude of lived-experiences of representations (eine Fülle von Vorstellungserlebnisse)” that almost rejects rational comprehension (Husserl, 2020, 164). Determined by its chaotic and unintelligible nature, the sedimentations shape the vaguest, most general and all-encompassing affective background of consciousness, against which the intentional subject experiences, apprehends and interprets the ongoing life-events under a specific affective light without even the awareness of this very background itself. To this feature of mood some scholars even attribute a “transcendental function” of opening various forms of horizons (Lee, 1998, 115). One may, for instance, be haunted by a depressive mood without any intelligible reason and views everything in the present under a dismal light. As Husserl asks, rhetorically: „Cannot everything sadden me without reason and standing there in the colour of dark?” (Husserl, 2020, 104). “I” might be occasionally so depressively tempered that “I” succumb involuntarily and unreasonably to the tendency of attending exclusively to the unbeautiful, negative objects in the current surroundings, while leaving the rest of them out of my field of attention. Consequently, the whole surroundings, while perhaps being neutral or even joyful for the others, are apprehended by “me” as overwhelmingly and unbearably depressive. Such mood has its motive in the abiding experience of “misfortune (Unglück)”Footnote 8 in the past, one may presume, yet it is already sedimented from time immemorable and no longer subject to any (simple) retrospective explication. In a word, in the sphere of affect, sedimentations manifest as the unthematic all-encompassing affective background, the inexplicable Stimmung in this second sense, which allows everything in the present to appear through a unique, affective light (Husserl, 2020, 103).

3.3 Habitus in the Willenssphäre

The sphere of volition designates the practical acts of the subject in its coping with empirical reality. For any execution of practical act, three forms of will are involved, namely, the decisional will (Entschulsswillen), impulse of will (Willensimplus) and realizing will (realisierender Wille) (Breyer, 2017). Whereas imagined ideas remain the inactual intentional correlate of the phantasy-consciousness, only ideas that can become objects of will can be realized in practical reality. The condition of possibility for the latter consists above all of the Habitus or habitual knowledge the subject has of itself, which is again the product of sedimented past experiences.

In EU, it is clearly stated that every piece of pre-reflective experience as well as reflective judgment and knowledge (Kenntnis) is preserved as “possession (Habe) in the form of a habitus” (Husserl, 1971, 122). Habitus can be divided into the theoretical and the practical. Theoretical habits include not only one’s beliefs, convictions and position-taking, but are also above all closely related and contributive to the formation of types discussed in the former section. It is impossible for us to know something completely unknown, as Plato’s Meno’s paradox suggests, as the possibility of knowing something “new” necessarily presupposes a certain kind of pre-knowledge (Vorkenntnisse) of it or familiarity with it. Thanks to the “precipitate (Niederschlag) of cognitions in habitus”, each and every object encountered in our pre-reflective experience is “already vaguely familiar” as it is given to us in “its horizon of typical familiarity and precognizance (Vorbekanntheit)” and anticipation (ibid.). As theoretical habits, they enable the intentional subject to “go beyond” the perspectivally limited givenness of object and to anticipate the familiar non-present sides and attributes belonging to the object in question. This very familiarity is based on the habitual knowledge of the similar objects learned before, which are then associatively awakened as a result of their resemblance to the present givenness. The associative awakening (assoziative Weckung) is itself also something dependent on the individual (theoretical) habits of the intentional subject.

Practical habits, on the other hand, reside in the sphere of volition and do not (merely) contribute to the objectivating acts of perception, but rather to the actions and decisions realized in the practical life-world. More precisely, they enable the subject’s smooth, unhindered, and unreflective interactions with the world by “informing” the subject about its own “practical possibilities”, as Husserl terms it. Practical possibility differs fundamentally from logical possibility. The latter refers to “mere possibility on the basis of intuitive representation” (Husserl, 1989, 273) such as phantasy. Phantasized possibilities are represented intuitively, yet they are only “free fictions” in the sense of certain “floating” possibilities detached from the practical “I can (Ich kann)”, the “to-be-able-to” (ibid.) that characterizes practical possibilities. Instead of being freely intuited “in the air”, practical possibilities are those corresponding to and within “the scope of my power” (Husserl, 1989, 270) and those truly motivated by “my” own interests and tendencies in particular situations. Only practical possibilities can be the “theme of my will”, for, as Husserl writes, “I cannot will anything that I do not have consciously in view, that does not lie in my power, in my competence” (ibid.). Our own habits and habitual practical knowledge “teach” me my own capacities, interests, needs and so on, and it is only by virtue of which the unhindered and unreflective anticipation of “my” practical possibilities appropriate for different situations becomes possible.

On certain occasions in GZ and Ideen II, the relationship between sedimentations and practical habits is discussed thematically. In the former, the notion of habitus is expounded in relation to the passivity of will (Willenspassivität). Passivity of will designates not the privation of will in the realization of action, but rather that of the active and wilful deliberation in the face of various possibilities of actions. This absence of active deliberation is nothing other than the result of habits acquired and developed in the course of experiences. A daily example on choosing the route for a walk is offered by Husserl. At the very beginning, he writes, in order to make a decision between this or that route, “I” am required to reflectively consider (“ursprünglich mit Überlegung”) the different factors that might affect the experience of the walk. After a few times, as relevant experiences accumulate, “I” am then able to pick one route or the other “unintendedly (unwillentlich)” in the sense of “without deliberation consideration (ohne Überlegung)” (Husserl, 2013, 96). Such passivity of will, or simply habits, is what enables a “normal”, unhindered coping with the daily practical world. The lack of which, also sometimes described as the loss of “common sense” (Verlust der Selbstverständlichkeit), might result in such pathological moments as hyperreflexivity (Blankenburg, 2019) in cases of schizophrenia, where each and every single movement and trivial, ordinary act are subject to constant reflection and questioning. In those cases, everyday life is to a large extent hampered and the living subject almost paralyzed. The preservation of past experiences as sedimentations is therefore essential to our practical coping with (Handlung) the world in that it renders the habitual ways of reacting to similar situations possible: “In analogy with the previous modes of comportment and the previous position-taking…I anticipate subsequent modes of comportment” (Husserl, 1989, 278). Just as, in the sphere of understanding where sedimentations manifest as the typifying-anticipatory horizon of different possibilities of apperception, in the sphere of volition they enable the projection of the habitual-anticipatory horizon of the possible acts congenial to different situations.

4 A genetic account of horizon-consciousness (Horizontbewusstsein) and the intertwinement of the three structural moments under the principle of association

4.1 Horizon-consciousness as sedimented

Importantly, the three spheres elucidated above do not designate three separate consciousnesses, but rather three dimensions of one and the same life of consciousness as it interacts with different kinds of intentional objects in different modes. The various acts of consciousness in each of these spheres, furthermore, must take place within a certain horizon that inevitably “goes beyond” the intuitive givenness in the impressional present. Already in Ideen I, the notion of horizonal intentionality is brought into light, leading to the determination of consciousness essentially as horizon-consciousness (Horizontbewusstsein). During the development of Husserl’s thoughts, the notion is explored both statically and genetically. The static notion of horizon-consciousness is explained in terms of the unchanging noetic-noematic structure between intentionality and its intentional object, which is characterized by three layers of senses (Geniusas, 2012, 98). Beginning with the pre-given objectivities given within their background appearances, viz. noematic horizon of sense, the study proceeds and discovers the more rudimentary noetic horizon upon which the noematic one is built. The noetic horizon, eventually, is found to be nothing more than a moment of the whole stream of consciousness itself, which is nonetheless conceived of merely as a constant presence unified by the ego untouched by any historicity and individuality. Static phenomenology is concerned exclusively with the stable, already “finished” intentional object, its mode of givenness and the corresponding eidetic structure of consciousness conceived as horizon-consciousness. The study of how the horizon-consciousness historically originates and how it is shaped in the course of concrete experiences of the subject is left to be the task of genetic phenomenology.

Genetic phenomenology investigates “the origins of such constitutive frameworks, which bind experiences to objectivities” (Geniusas, 2012, 93). The investigation of the genetic origin of horizon-consciousness, followed by a genetic conceptualization of the notion, should take place among others in light of the problem of sedimentations, I argue. Consciousness is not only horizonal but also sedimented, for it is sedimentations that constitute the different empirical layers of consciousness and its horizonality. Consciousness is no longer reduced to a constant, atemporal presence unified by the ego whose empirical, “contingent” contents are stripped away, but is instead unfolded in its very concreteness and “mineness” and as the consciousness of “my” sedimentations (Geniusas, 2012, 105). Taken in all its concreteness, individuality and historicity, horizon-consciousness is to be understood from the genetic point of view as horizon of subjectivity. Correspondingly, the three structural moments elucidated above constitute in its own manner the horizon of different intentional acts. Together they shape the horizon of subjectivity as a whole.

The numerous types, each of which being an “empirical umbrella-concept” that represents a particular group of objects resembling each other, serve fundamentally as the core of a typifying-anticipatory horizon (typisierend-antizipierender Horizont) awakened in a relevant situation. Previous knowledge and experience that are preserved as sedimentations is in this sense the very origin of the apprehensive horizon (noetic horizon) within which objectivities are given as “already vaguely familiar” (Husserl, 1971, 122). The horizonality of the intentional act of apperception together with its different modes that constitute sensuous givenness as meaningful objects, as highlighted in the static account of object-constitution, is therefore to be understood fully only by virtue of its sedimented nature.

The Stimmung in the sphere of affect is, as mentioned above, itself not characterized by any intentional directedness. However, it serves likewise as the all-encompassing affective horizon or ,,affective terrain (affektives Relief)” of the subject. Each and every intentional act is executed within this horizon (or: against this affective background), such that the object so apprehended always shows itself under a specific emotive light. Objects in the life-world are not apprehended as a sheer thing with its objective attributes, but rather as a cultural object that is “subjectively” pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or aversive, and so on. “A good mood makes everything appear in beautiful light” (Husserl, 2020, 103), as Husserl writes, and vice-versa. This “letting-appearing-as” within a specific emotive horizon is the constitutive function of affective sedimentations.

Analogously, in the sphere of volition, habitus, as the crystallization of previous knowledge of the world and in particular of oneself, allows the projection of a horizon of practical possibilities of “I can”. The concrete situation to be dealt with, including its possible causes, developments, consequences and so on, is immediately understood within such a horizon corresponding to “my own” competence, interests and at the same time within certain “experiential systems of ‘possible’ expectations” (Husserl, 1989, 278). This horizon then enables an instantaneous comprehension and evaluation of the situation, in view of which appropriate acts are to be carried out without additional active and effortful deliberation.

The three structural moments of sedimentations, serving respectively as the typifying-anticipatory horizon, affective horizon and the horizon of practical possibilities, are interwoven and they together constitute the horizon of subjectivity in its full concreteness. In order to underscore the fundamental intertwinement between these three moments - or horizons -, the notion of association will be brought into light.

4.2 “Mechanisms” of the manifestations of sedimentation and the essential intertwinement

Husserl’s explicit claim in the Cartesianische Meditationen that association is the universal principle of passive synthesis of constitutive consciousness is well known (Husserl, 1987, 80). As far as the problem of association is concerned, we are required, firstly, to identify its different forms and, secondly, their relation to the different mechanisms of the manifestations of sedimentations. Having these conceptual remarks in affect, we are then prepared for a closer examination of the associative awakening of types, which is to be demonstrated as an act necessarily interwoven with and conditioned by mood as well as habits.

Association in perceptual experience has at least three different forms. The most elementary form is known as primal association (Urassoziation). It designates not the associative connection between the already-constituted unities of objects in the past or future, but rather the “melting” (Verschmelzung) of the non- or pre-constituted sensory elements that resemble each other in the impressional present. The primal association is responsible for the “structuration of the present (Struktuierung der Gegenwart)” (Holenstein, 1972, 36), viz. of such sensory data as colours, shapes, tones and sizes, etc. pre-given to the subject. These are formed as an “organized”, structured background field based on their resemblances. It is only against this background that certain prominence (Abgehobenheit) could stand out and become the object of attention for the intentional subject. Another form of association, reproductive association, by contrast, is directed to the once constituted objects of experience, which are now preserved as sedimented contents of consciousness. This associative form underlies the recollection of memories. It begins with the empty intention (Leervorstellung) directed towards the specific, yet scattered, sense-moments, followed by the act of reproduction that is meant to make the sedimented contents “effect again (wieder wirksam)” within the retentional horizon. A successful reproductive association is then the “coming-back to the familiar”, the “repeated-presentification-by-itself (Wieder-sich-Vergegenwärtigen)” (Holenstein, 1972, 33) that contributes to the fulfilment of the initial horizon. The third form of association, anticipative association, is directed not towards the past but rather the future. It takes place when something given (“p’”) in the present associatively awakens another thing similar in the past (“p”) together with what is in close connection with it (“q”). The thus awakened intention of “q’” (in virtue of the presently given “p’” and the relation between “p” and “q” learnt in the past) is not intuitively fulfilled in the present but is protentionally anticipated and awaits its fulfilment in the future. This inductive and anticipative associative awakening is what underlies the typifying horizon to which we will come back later in relation to mood and habits.

Before that, a final remark should be made regarding the several “mechanisms” of the manifestation of sedimentations, viz. the various manners in which sedimentations reappear in or are “brought (back)” to the sphere of consciousness from the unconscious. In such works as der Ursprung der Geometrie and APS, where the notion of sedimentation is expounded thematically, Husserl seems to be of the conviction that (one of the forms of) association is the sole mechanism that enables the reappearance of sedimentations in consciousness (See Welsh, 2002). What remains unclear are nonetheless such questions as whether or not association is necessary for the effect of sedimentations upon consciousness and which form of association is responsible for which manner of manifestation. Due to the limits of length of the article, I would only offer a sketch for a schematic understanding of the three possible mechanisms addressed by Husserl either implicitly or explicitly.

In der Urprung der Geometrie, the notion of sedimentation is discussed, among other texts, most extensively. The core problematic of this text concerns the “idealizing original institution of the sense-making of ‘geometry’” (Husserl, 1987, 232, My translation), that of the very truthfulness (Wahrheitssinn) and primordial evidence (Urevidenz) of ideal objectivities in the a priori sciences. Due to the ontological rootedness of the latter in pre-reflective lived-experiences (Erlebnisse), Husserl contends that the evident-making (Evidentmachen) of the original sense that grounds the ideal objectivities is possible only through the reactivation (Reaktivierung) of sedimentations, viz. of the sedimented experiences in the life-world. Here, the first and most ordinary form of association is brought into light, namely, the reproductive association mentioned above, which could also be described as the active reactivation of past original experiences through recollection. It is characteristically an active performance of the ego that attentively directs its gaze towards specific experiences in the past and strives to obtain intuitive fulfilment for the retentional horizon through presentification (Vergegenwärtigung).

Active recollection (or: reproductive association) is unquestionably one of the ways in which sedimented experiences are bought back to the conscious sphere. Nonetheless, it has almost nothing to do with the three structural moments at issue, which are mainly constitutive of the pre-predicative experiences in the sphere of passivity. The form of association responsible for the manifestations of sedimentation as types and habits is rather the passive associative awakeningFootnote 9 that takes place without the active and reflective performance of the ego. It is defined as an induction of “something reminds (someone) of something (etwas erinnert an etwas)” (Quote from Husserl in Holenstein, 1972, 35) in the passive sphere, based mainly on the similarities between the two termini. The subject is in this case passively reminded of something by something else in the present. In external perception, the incomplete appearance (Erscheinung) of an object is identified as that which “calls us for (ruft uns zu)” a corresponding typifying-anticipatory horizon which is essentially “more than” this incomplete pre-givenness (Husserl, 1966, 5). Sedimentations are in this sense “called forth” passively as types, the core of this horizon. Likewise, in the sphere of volition, a particular, habitual “set” of practical possibilities is brought into view in light of the particular situation the subject encounters in the present. In this sense, habits are “reawakened” by something other than the voluntary act of the egological (ichlich) subject itselfFootnote 10.

There is yet another form of association that is often overlooked in classical studies, namely, that which might be termed the “passive-tendential bringing-forth (passiv Tendenziöses Hervortreten)” (Quote from Husserl in Smith, 2010, 239). The mood/Stimmung – as well as repressed drive-representations and certain sedimented contents - invades the subject in this distinctive manner. This form of association resembles what Freud terms the “fate of drive (Triebschicksal)”, according to which the repressed contents, without much external stimuli as a source of provocation, do not stop intruding upon (sich aufdrängen) the conscious sphere as a result of their overwhelming affective energy and emotional intensity. Similarly, as described above, the mood is a pervasive, all-encompassing affective background that is not directly evoked by specific objects encountered. The background, consisting of the whole of the individual’s histories, is simply there, haunting the subject constantly and steadily like a spectralityFootnote 11 without the ego’s “turning-towards”. Its being-there has almost nothing to do with the present givenness from without as it is not something “awakened” by certain occasional encountering in the present. Neither, of course, is it “reactivated” by any voluntary act of the ego. In contrast to the associative form of active reactivation and passive awakening, both of which take its point of departure from the present and reaching for the remote past, the passive-tendential bringing-forth of the mood is rather a constant “intruding” of the past upon the impressional present. In some cases, the mood even reveals itself as something affectively contradictory to the present situation or atmosphere and it sheds a completely different light on the latter. For instance, when “I” am in a depressive mood, “I” might still be able to apprehend the positive properties in the surroundings. However, “I am just unable to devote myself to the joyfulness (ich kann mich einfach nicht der Freude hingeben)” (Husserl, 2020, 104), in the sense that “I” am unable to really live through this feeling which is incongruent with my original mood. Hence, the way in which sedimentations manifest as mood and as types/habits is fundamentally different.

4.3 The intertwinement of type, mood and habit

Having made these remarks, we are now finally prepared for a closer examination of the second form of association, the passive associative awakening, as it functions in the awakening of types and typifying horizon. This exploration is meant to illustrate the essential intertwinement of the three structural moments.

According to Husserl’s classical definition of this associative form, the awakening is always “awakening of similarity (Ähnlichkeitsweckung)” or “relation of similarity (Ähnlichkeitsbeziehung)” (Husserl, 1966, 122-3). It means that, for him, the very ground or “bridge” between the awakening (das Weckende) and the awakened (das Geweckte) is mainly to be found in the objective similarity (gegenständliche Ähnlichkeit) between the two termini, such that the association is nothing other than “a special synthesis through similarity”Footnote 12. The awakening of types is no exception. In this case, a particular type is awakened in virtue of its objective similarity to the appearances of the object in the present.

A closer examination reveals the inadequacy of this account, however. Objective similarity does not exhaust the criteria that determine the associative relation. What is overlooked in this understanding are namely the “subjective” elements equally essential to the relation. In our case, mood and habits could be singled out among the others that belong to this “subjective” sphereFootnote 13. Association is not merely association of similarity but also mood-conditioned and habitual association, or gestimmte und habituelle Assoziation. The present mood serves to “orient” the direction of the chain of association, delineating the space of the possible objects to be awakened. This function of the mood is addressed by Heidegger, when he attributes to the mood or Befindlickheit the ontological significance regarding the “disclosure (Erschließen)” of the world and to the “prescription” of what matters to us (vorgezeichnete Angänglickkeit) (Heidegger, 2006, 137). What is to be added is that the mood does not only disclose the present situation and its possibilities for the subject, but it also illuminates the particular contents of the past that do matter to “me” and might possibly be awakened under specific circumstances. When one is in a negative mood, one is reminded for the most part of negative memories, thoughts and feelings, no matter what one encounters in the present, and vice-versa. When one is in the mood of desperately missing someone, everything that s/he encounters is associatively connected with and reminds him/her of the person missed, for instance. Experiments in psychology offer empirical evidence for this psychological operation of human beings and call it the “mood-state-dependent-memory”Footnote 14.

The “orientation” of the associative awakening is conditioned, furthermore, not only by mood or the affective state of the subject, but also by its (theoretical) habits. The latter prescribes what are “usually” connected together, whether with or without objective justification, and influences consequently the formation of the chain of association in the concrete subject. This habitual association finds its empirical proof again in such psychological experiments as that of classical conditioning. Husserl himself does address the significance of habits for the associative awakening of types (and of memories in generalFootnote 15). In EU, for instance, it is clearly stated that “the fact that all objects of experience are from the first experienced as known according to their type has its basis” not only “in the sedimentation of all apperceptions” but also “in their habitual continued action on the basis of associative awakening” (Husserl, 1971, 321, emphasis added). Each and every act of associative awakening sediments and shapes the habits of an individual subject, which in turn condition the further associative chains. In APS, he also mentions in passing the correlation between habits and the “force” of apperceptive expectationFootnote 16. Such remarks indicate Husserl’s awareness of the relation between habits and association, yet an elaborate account is missing.

5 Concluding words

This article explored the notion of the unconscious understood distinctively as sedimentation within the Husserlian phenomenological framework. With the help of brain imaging techniques such as fMRI and EEG, modern neuroscience generally describes the unconscious as nothing but the sensory stimuli (visual, auditory, etc.) in the brain of which the individual is not consciously aware of, but which nonetheless do exhibit brain activities in sensory and cognitive processing areas (See Del Cul et al., 2007; Dehaene et al., 2011). However, such reductionist and disembodied conception of the unconscious does not exhaust the nature of the latter, as some philosophers already criticized (See Fuchs, 2010). In this regard, the phenomenological account of sedimentation shedding light on the concreteness and individuality of the unconscious might reveal a new dimension of the subject matter. This study demonstrated that experiences that have sunken into the remote past and no longer possess direct affective force upon the subject are not nothing. Instead, on the one hand, they are something preserved in the inconspicuous stratum of consciousness, the sphere of the unconscious; on the other hand, they ceaselessly reappear in the sphere of consciousness and contribute constitutively to the upcoming experiences of the subject. In this sense, the sedimentation is essentially something “in-between”: between the unconscious and consciousness. Furthermore, the constitutive reappearance or manifestation of sedimentation is nothing purely contingent or mysteriously inexplicable. Instead, a schematic understanding based on the tripartite division of the conscious sphere is possible. Sedimentations manifest in the present experiences as type, mood and habits, which are in practice inevitably intertwined. Each of them manifests as a specific form of horizon and together they shape the Welthorizont (See Binswanger, 1992) of the individual subject, an idiosyncratic horizon in which intentional acts take place. Sedimentation makes up the core of the genetic conception of horizon-consciousness of the concrete subjectivity.

To a large extent, the conceptualization of the unconscious in terms of sedimentation undoes the mystical nature and the phenomenological implausibility of the unconscious as it is conceptualized in, for instance, Freudian psychoanalysis. Formally speaking, sedimentation is a transcendental structure that characterizes all temporal experiences and essentially constitutive for intentional activities. Spoken in terms of its contents, however, sedimentation would remain an empty structure unless the empirical-psychological lived-experiences of an individual subject are taken into account. Understood as a bunch of past experiences that preserves their dynamic forces between the unconscious and consciousness, the notion of sedimentation opens a large room for further reflections on the relation between these two dimensions of the psychical life, not only within the scope of “normal” experiences but also that of pathological ones.