Protention as link to intersubjective temporality

pp. 161-175

in: Lanei Rodemeyer, Intersubjective temporality, Berlin, Springer, 2006

Abstract

"Far protention," to my knowledge, is not a notion that Husserl ever considered.240 Since the notion of "far retention" was not taken up systematically for itself, even in Husserl's extensive analyses of passive syntheses where it was mentioned, perhaps it is not surprising that "far protention" never surfaced. However, given the activity of passive syntheses, association, and appresentation in my relation to other subjects, and the fact that each of these activities relies at least partially upon the protentional aspect of the structure of temporalizing consciousness, we could at least hypothesize as to the possibility of far protention in this area. Working parallel to the structure we established for retention, we could suggest that there might be both near protention and far protention, where near protention would act as the "immediate" protending activity based on the current constitution of the living present. Far protention, correlatively, would be a more extended anticipation in the living present and would be based not only upon current constitution but also on typifications that are sedimented through passive synthesis. Far protention would thus be only partially based on current, originary experience, and it would be involved in current constitution through its protention of general types and habits (in conjunction with far retention). Given far protention's probable relation with both the current presentation and the sedimentations in far retention, it would be the activity more fittingly applied to my appresentation of another subject's consciousness (as described by Husserl in his Cartesian Meditations), rather than near protention. The consciousness of the other is a very different aspect of her being that I seemingly can only protend on the basis of my experiences of myself. For this reason, I must rely upon a more extended aspect of protention than traditionally understood, one that reaches back into far retention as well as takes me beyond the physical being before me.