Introduction

pp. 1-37

in: Jay Lampert, Synthesis and backward reference in Husserl's Logical investigations, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

What does it mean to say that one experience is combined with others? What is the cause of the synthesis of one content of consciousness with another, what are experiences before they are combined, how does the combination take place, and what sort of experience results from this combination? When we see an object from one side, what is it about that seeing that makes us connect it with the last side and anticipate the next? When we interpret an object in a particular way, what is it that leads us towards a more complete interpretation or leads us to uncover the parts and presuppositions implicit in that interpretation? Or in general, what structures or processes allow acts of interpretative consciousness to anticipate and fulfil one another, to demand their own explications and supplementations, to refer forward and backward to successors and predecessors, and to ideal completion-points and ideal points of origin? In short, how does each content of experience carry the demands for its combination with others in an ongoing synthetic unity of consciousness?