CFS Lecture by Smail Rapic: "Husserl's account of the temporal self-constitution of subjectivity on the background of German Idealism."

Lecture by Smail Rapic, Philosophisches Seminar, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany

Abstract 

Ludwig Landgrebe pointed out that Husserl waves in his analysis of the temporal self-constitution of subjectivity between two almost contradictory positions. On the one hand, he equates the self-constitution of subjectivity with its self-objectivation; this view comes close to the Kantian thesis that time presupposes a transcendental ego. On the other hand, he takes into account the opposite contention that the ego has been generated by the self-constitution of time. This anti-Kantian stance is inspired by Hume; it overcomes, however, Hume´s mechanistic account of associations by identifying the self-constitution of time with the self-constitution of intentionality. On the background of Husserl´s critique of the Kantian dichotomy of reason and the senses his anti-Kantian account of the ego touches on Hegel´s theory of time in the Encyclopedia. A dialectical reinterpretation of Husserl´s theory of time may help to excape its aporetic traits.