Fiction and the Transposition of Presence

Abstract

It is characteristic of Husserlian phenomenology¹ that it methodically retracts from the direct description of the given object back to the reflective description of the acts of consciousness that give constitution to the object. In a sense, what is hidden in the immediate intuition of the object is brought to light by the intentio obliqua of reflective intuition or of the transcendental reduction. There is a basic duality here, the duality of transcendence and immanence, of world and subject, a duality replicated within transcendental consciousness by the distinction of noema and noesis. Leaving aside very significant philosophical differences, I dare say that, topologically speaking (that is, considering only the position of the concepts in the overall system of the theory), this duality corresponds to the traditional opposition of the represented and the representation, the object and its image.² What is hidden in the object and is brought to light by the examination of the image as such is the structure of the image and the formal constitution of the object — insofar as the object is given to the subject, that is, as phenomenon. By structure, in a wide Structuralist sense, I mean the system of rules that determine the formation of the image and the set of components articulated by these rules.