Abstract
The following paper aims to offer a phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon of oblivion. For Husserl oblivion is a true limit-case emerging on the edge of time-consciousness. The paper elaborates two distinct views of Husserl on the topic of oblivion in conjunction with some broader considerations on the topic and its relationship to intentional consciousness. In his early view, the retentional modification of a past experience continues ad infinitum even when a totally forgotten experience bears no relationship to the current moment. In his later manuscripts Husserl rejects his early view and claims that the retentional modification itself ceases. It reaches its nil-value within the remote past. All past experiences remain preserved and sedimented within an ossified horizon. In the last part of the paper I draw the conclusion that Husserl’s conception of a universal consciousness of the past bears no phenomenological evidence.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. Husserl 2001a, §18. and §27.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
Cf. Husserl 1991, 33f.
- 5.
Of course the matter is not as simple as described, but for the present purpose this description should suffice. For the topic of retentionality as intentionality cf. Husserl 1991, 33f., 55f and 122ff.
- 6.
Husserl will later find a new terminology for this temporal field of original givenness – the living-present. Cf. footnote 2.
- 7.
- 8.
Cf. Held 1981, 205f. Klaus Held criticizes Husserl for attributing the foundational mode to memory. Held argues that the foundational mode is oblivion and not memory, because the original field of time is not just factually but principally limited. Due to the finiteness of the field of presence we can memorize a certain content again. Hence oblivion, and not memory, is founding the possibility of reproduction in his view. Generally speaking, Held is trying to give an (rather Heideggerian) account on time-consciousness in his paper. He is doing this by replacing the center-mode of primordial-impression. What I find difficult in Held’s approach is that it sometimes lacks concrete phenomenological description. Rudolf Bernet also criticizes Husserl for his metaphysics of presentism. Cf. Bernet 1983, 45ff.
- 9.
Cf. for example Husserl 1991, 37f.
- 10.
Cf. Kortoom 2002, 243 f.
- 11.
These changes and the new framework will only enter the forthcoming discussion if they are relevant to the current topic.
- 12.
Husserl distinguishes between the temporal form of a given tone in perception and how the given tone is given through the temporal modes of retentional, primordial and protentional consciousness. In short: the tone might be given now, an hour ago or yesterday, meaning, that the tone is embedded in a temporal system which has a fixed and non-streaming form. But the givenness of the tone within the original field of time or within the living-present, as Husserl calls it, is temporally modified through the triadic structure of constituting time-consciousness from the L-manuscripts on. A perceived tone is protended, primordially given in the present now-point and retentionally modified in the past tone-points. The modalities of time in contrast to temporal forms or tenses are stream-forms. Cf. Husserl 2001b, “Text No. 7”, §3.
- 13.
“Der ursprüngliche präsentierende Prozess und sein Korrelat, die ursprüngliche Präsenz. Woher wissen wir, dass die Wandlung von Vergangenheit ins Unendliche reicht? Die ursprüngliche Präsenz ist doch begrenzt, obschon “fließend” den Grenzen nach. Wie kommen wir dazu, den Fluss der Zeit, den Fluss der Zeitmodalitäten und die Zeit selbst unendlich zu setzen?”
- 14.
Of course, that does not mean that Husserl is not gaining some new and very important insights with regard to the interweaving of retentional and protentional consciousness for example, but his phenomenological style is mainly within the style of the Lectures. Hence genetic topics (like association, affections and actions etc.) are just peripherally discussed.
- 15.
Cf. footnote 7.
- 16.
- 17.
On my view, we should better speak of “optimal” than “full”, because a certain apprehension of an object is led by the interest of the ego. As long as the ego is interested in grasping the object in different aspects, the object-apprehension has not come to the optimal givenness of the object. Our consciousness is satisfied by the actual givenness of the object, when the object is given optimally.
- 18.
Cf. Brand 1969, 96.
- 19.
„Im Behaltenen liegt das behaltene Gerichtetsein, und jede Noch-Geltung enthält den modifizierten Aufmerksamkeitsmodus als Richtung des Ich in der Weise des Noch-Gerichtetseins in sich. Aber es ist nicht bloß Gerichtetsein, als ob das etwas für sich wäre, so wenig das in passiver Retentionalität noch als inhaltlich Bewusste Erfassung für sich ist, sondern im Strömen des lebendigen Jetzt-Vollziehens des Aktes liegt ein stetes Jetzt-Sich-Richten und verströmend ein stetiges Vollzogen-Haben und Noch-in-Geltung-Haben, Gerichtet-gewesen-Sein und Noch-Gerichtetsein. Der konkret lebendige Akt ist als konkreter, gerichteter Vollzug. Aktuell ist das Ich bei dem Geltenden […]“.
- 20.
Of course, a certain passive background is required in this process, but this is not relevant for the present purpose.
- 21.
In my view this is the point of optimal givenness. The object is fully given and nothing is demanded from the object anymore.
- 22.
“Das Urteil kann […] in seinem retentionalen Abklingen aus dem Griff gelassen werden. Es sinkt dann immer weiter zurück in den Hintergrund und wird in eins damit immer verschwommener […] bis es schließlich ganz dem Bereich des aktuellen Bewußtseins entschwindet, “vergessen” wird. Es ist nun dem passiven Hintergrund, dem “Unbewußten” einverleibt, das kein totes Nichts, sondern ein Grenzmodus des Bewußtseins ist, und kann von daher wie eine andere Passivität wieder affizieren in Form von Einfällen, vorschwebenden Gedanken usw.” Cf. also Husserl 2002, 472f.
- 23.
“Das, was geworden <ist>, sinkt kontinuierlich in den Nullhorizont ein, jede Phase der endlichen Lebendigkeit, die zur Nullphase geworden ist,” sedimentiert“<sich>, eingehend in das Reservoir des Sedimentierten, das völlig wandellos verharrt in seinen schon sedimentierten Beständen.” Cf. also Husserl 2001a, §37.
- 24.
It might be worth pointing out that Husserl’s conception of sedimentation seems to be compatible with the notion of imprinting used in psychology (behavioural science) and genetics. Especially if one is thinking of the sedimentation of experiences, which form habitualities. Cf. Husserl 1939, §24 and §25.
- 25.
“Das Unbewusste wandelt sich nicht durch Aufnahme von Fortgeltungen, da keine aktiven Geltungen vom Ich, von seiner Aktualität ausgehen, sich als Unbewusstheitsmodi fortsetzend. Innerhalb der Wachperiode haben wir also, in einem Wortspiel gesprochen, fortströmend “Erinnerung”, den Prozess des in die “Innerlichkeit” des Unbewussten Hineinströmens aus der aktiven “Äußerlichkeit” (aus der Patenz in die Latenz).“Unfortunately it is hard to find an appropriate translation for „Erinnerung“(memory/recollection), which would fit in the German wordplay. Maybe something like “interiorimemorization” (interiorization by memorization). Cf. also Husserl 1973: 608f.
- 26.
Cf. Husserl 1973: 608f.
- 27.
Cf. Husserl 2013, XXIII.
- 28.
On the one hand it is true for oblivion that it is on the edge of accessibility, as Steinbock calls it, but on the other hand, oblivion in Husserl’s terms seems to be more a limit-case (German Grenzfall) than a limit-phenomenon (German Grenzphänomen). In my view Husserl does not think of a phenomenon or a givenness, when he is speaking of oblivion. He hardly ever speaks of limit-phenomena (German Grenzphänomene) but usually uses the term limit-cases (German Grenzfälle). A detailed analysis of this topic would go beyond the scope of the present paper.
- 29.
“Verwirrung, Unklarheit. Man sagt, die retentionalen Abwandlungen können nicht ins Unendliche gehen, sie kommen an ein Null, und so ist die jeweilige momentane Stromlebendigkeit […] endlich abgeschlossen: Sie endet retentional im Null, das eingeht in das Reservoir aller Null, in den Nullhorizont, den des Sedimentierten.”
- 30.
“Hat es überhaupt einen Sinn, ist es denkmöglich, dass die intentionale Modifikation verschwindet?”
- 31.
Cf. Galán 2014, 260.
- 32.
Cf. Husserl 2001a, 57: “An object that is, but is not and in principle could not be an object of a consciousness, is pure non-sense.” I conclude from statements like this, which can be found in Husserl from time to time, that a true limit-case is not possible and hence non-sense. It would be non-sense, to hold, that a former given experience can become a totally forgotten and hence inaccessible experience.
- 33.
That means, that the problem of oblivion cannot appear in a transcendental sense. Of course the problem can be formulated in transcendental terms. Cf. Eugen Fink 1966, 11f, where he is talking about the reduction being a suspension of the natural attitude. The reduction is a reversion of the oblivion of the natural attitude and by this opening the field of transcendental subjectivity.
- 34.
Mead is mainly arguing against Bergson’s conception of the imagination as a vast and enormous storage of past “images”. Of course Husserl is clearly distinguishing image-consciousness from memory and other forms of consciousness, but I think that Mead’s argumentation also holds for Husserl’s conception of retentional consciousness. Cf. Mead 1929, 238.
- 35.
This might imply, that phenomenological construction and its abstract (or “substruct”) character, may easily seduce the phenomenologist into speculative explanations remote from the phenomenal field. On the other hand, arguing for the conception of past-lines, which seems to me closer to the phenomenon of the past, it seems difficult to explain coincidence within the reproductive mode. How can we be sure that the memory of a friend’s face from yesterday’s meeting is actually a memory of yesterday’s experiencing and not a mere product of imagination? Husserl’s abstract option of the one retentional past seems tempting for this case, because it retains not just the content of the experience but also its time position. Via time positions, our consciousness would then be able to re-identify the past position of a certain experience. Cf. Husserl 1991, §30.
- 36.
For this argument cf. Husserl 2001b, 45f.
- 37.
Held also criticizes Husserl with regard to this point. Cf. Held 1981, 205f.
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Draxlbauer, B. (2020). Time and Oblivion: A Phenomenological Study on Oblivion. In: Apostolescu, I. (eds) The Subject(s) of Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 108. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29357-4_12
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