Abstract
Husserl was well aware of the tendency to found the infant’s ability to begin pairing on an instinct—an instinct, in some sense, “for the Other.” As early as 1909, Theodor Lipps had claimed that the only possible foundation for social ontology was instinct. He was led to this conclusion through a line of reasoning which should be very familiar.
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Notes
The examples are numerous, though one might confer Meltzoff (1985): “human beings have innate capacities allowing them…to recognize certain isomorphisms between themselves and other humans” (p. 3).
Hart(1992), 184–86.
Hart(1992), 187.
In fact, there are probably even deeper problems, especially if Yamaguchi’s claim that the infant lives in a world of inner perception for some time after birth is true. Yamaguchi argues: durch die Beobachtung mehrerer Psychologen ist bekannt, dass das Neugeborene in der der inneren Wahrnehmung entsprechenden Umgebung lebt, und dass die Fernwahrnehmung (Sehen und Hören) erst nach dem ersten Monat, verbunden mit der inneren Wahrnehmung und der Kinästhese allmählich zu funktionieren anfängt. (Yamaguchi (1982), 115).
Surely, attentive individualization takes place in the first weeks after birth.
Yamaguchi (1982), 116.
Hart(1992), 192.
Denzin (1992), 111 and Rosenblith & Sims-Knight (1985), 513.
Melkman (1988), 30–32.
Melkman(1988), 24 & 27.
Melkman(1988),70.
Hart(1992), 198–99.
Hart(1992), 198.
Husserliana X, 107. Cf., also, Ideas §118.
Cf., e.g., Hart (1992), 196.
The account of Victor and Itard in this paragraph comes from Candland (1993), 18–28.
And not just more stories of feral children. To name just two other possible sources of evidence, consider (1) the power to raise dog-consciousness to a nearly human level which will be dealt with—if only briefly—in Chapter 6; and (2) the lack of full subjectivity in those who are not attended to by humans as possessing full subjectivity. The latter is a theme in my “The Possibility of a Feminist Phenomenology” (1993). Here I consider the question: what if the significant Other cannot (or, perhaps, even will not) attend to the infant with this gracious act? What if the female child tries desperately to pair with those of her surrounding world, but they are male and the pairing never quite takes place? Even the women she pairs with can never offer her a full and complete subjectivity-as-Other since they themselves went through the same process and are living out their existence as “less-than-complete” subjectivities in a male Ego world. The result probably would be very much like what we have today. Women would be treated as objects—a certain type of object which proves, to men, quite useful, often “trouble-making,” and more or less pleasureful, but an object nevertheless. Female objectification might become institutionalized, for the female Ego would not be able to resist the move to be objectified by half of the “fully subjective” population. Other modes of defining women—modes that are not based on subjectivity—would abound. The fashion-beauty complex, for instance, of which Sandra Lee Bartky writes, would help provide women with a sense of themselves. The female body, unlike a male body which houses subjectivity, might be seen as an end in itself. Women could be instructed to make their bodies over in different ways in order to achieve meaning: to “oil it, pumice it, powder it, shave it, pluck it, depilate it, deodorize it, ooze it into just the right foundation, reduce it overall through spartan dieting or else plump it up with silicon.” (Bartky. 1990. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. NY: Routledge, p. 40). Females, as less-than-persons, would experience oppression. Of course this analysis fails to explain how male subjectivity first became the paradigm, but this is beyond our present topic.
Hart(1993), 16–17.
Hart(1993), 15–16.
Hart(1993), 24 n24.
Hart(1993), 17.
Hart(1993), 15.
“The object’s identity comes to be presented only within the differences of presence and absence. It is founded on these differences and is a third dimension to them. Only when we are able to experience the object in its presence and in its absence do we encounter its identity. Identity is not a simple datum; it presents itself as a constant within the alternatives and the mixture of presence and absence. And, noetically, recognition of identity is founded on the blend of empty and filled intentions. Consciousness is the process of experiencing such identities; it takes place in different ways for different kinds of objects.” Sokolowski (1974), 22.
Sokolowski (1974), 29–30.
Sokolowski (1974), 30. Italics added.
Sokolowski (1978), 25–26. Italics added.
Levinas(1989), 45.
Levinas(1969), 19.
Sokolowski(1974), 106.
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Steeves, H.P. (1998). Instinct and the Presence of the Other. In: Founding Community. Phaenomenologica, vol 143. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5182-5_3
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