Self-variation and self-modification or the different ways of being other

Carlos Lobo

pp. 263-283

in: Dermot Moran (ed), The phenomenology of embodied subjectivity, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

My point in this article is mostly historical. I want to insist on the key role played in Husserl's phenomenology by the eidetic egology in the re-elaboration of the concept of empathy inherited from Vischer, through Lipps. Such as it is exposed in the Fourth Cartesian Meditation and recently published manuscripts, this eidetic egology is obtained through self-variation (Selbstvariation), which must be distinguished from any self-modification (Selbstmodifikation). By the word "empathy" Husserl means a specific mode of intentionality issued from a modification of more primitive and lower forms of "lived experiences" (Erlebnisse). But he seems to have restricted its scope from the start and considered it as misleading from a constitutional point of view. In order to give a satisfactory account of the logical and ontological possibility of objective knowledge of objective reality (as a transcendental problem) a deeper mode of analysis and other resources are explicitly required.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund