Now, we finished the last post off with the geometrical object acquiring a “living linguistic body”, and with this being the manner in which it became there for everybody. Now we need to have a closer look at this process.
Husserl not only lists the objects of science as ideal bodies, but, interestingly, the “constructions of fine literature”, (what should we make of that?! This is a point that astonishes Derrida, too). These objects aren’t simply repeatable in so many examples. They are actually the same object, repeated over. Regardless of translation. The same object is accessible and graspable by all. How so?
The first geometer?
Husserl sidesteps the problem of the origin of language here, and begins with remarks on the relationship between language as a function of human civilisation, and the world as the horizon of existence.
We are, by virtue of being “awake” in the world, conscious of it as the horizon of our experience. Even when we are not fully aware of it, it is just there. Standing out against this horizon are our fellow men and women. They are the “others” whom I recognise as “my” others. They are my neighbours. I relate to them, I empathise, I can understand them and communicate with them. Thus common language belongs to this horizon. “One is conscious of civilisation from the start as an immediate and mediate linguistic community.” And through this, the horizon is an “open” and “endless” one. Within consciousness “mature normal civilisation” is privileged, and it is here objectivity functions. The objective world is what is there for everybody. It can be pointed to, and talked about. Objectivity therefore presupposes humans and common language.
All of this being presupposed, the Geometer can therefore express his internal structure. But again, how does it become more than psychic. I can express my psychic states and have them understood by others without them becoming “ideal”. How does the geomtric structure “arrive at an intersubjective being of its own” which is anything but a real psychic object?
The answer is repetition. Intrapersonally, psychically, the original self-evidence of the geometric object had no persisting existence. It was there, for a while was retained, and then faded. But it did not become nothing! It could be reawakened. Recollection can live-through the past experience once more, with greater and greater clarity. If it can relive the original self-evidence, then there is (get this for an oxymoron) an original coincidence. A concurrent actual production, that produces the self evidence of identity. Which is to say that the geometer remembers something he did not know, and in the process comes to know that he does know it, but that the acquisition of this knowledge occured in the past, before he came to know it. Mind boggling.
This internal repetition establishes the capacity for repetition at will, along with the self evidence of identity. Thanks to expression, empathy, and language, this can then be understood by the geometers fellow men and women. The one structure has become common to many.
But persisting existence is still lacking. What is needed is the continuing-to-be of the geometric object, even if nobody in particular happens to have realised it in self-evidence lately. It needs to be self sufficient, it can’t be relying on the fickle minds of humans now, can it?
Enter writing. Writing effects a transformation in the ideal object. It lifts “human communalisation” to a new level. In the ability to reawaken significations, the written sign gives a passive signification. This is like the process of association in memory – association can prompt recollections of otherwise forgotten activities that are given passively. Ie. They are not sought activiely in memory and recalled at will. It arises as a clear and passive memory. This power belongs to every human being, and so to, does the ability to therefore reawaken and experience passively – or actively – the geometric object. The object has become sedimented in writing.
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Now, I remember halfway through last year Rough Theory and Praxis were giving Specters of Marx a thorough wringing, and one of the points that came up was Derrida’s way of reading repetition. I can’t find the links after a little searching, but in any case, I think here in Husserl we’re starting to see the roots of it. Perhaps, though, they won’t thank me for bringing it up again!
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