Temporality, Stream of Consciousness and the I in the Bernau Manuscripts

LUIS NIEL

Phaenomenologica

Springer (Phaenomenologica)

Lugar: Dordrecht; Año: 2010 vol. 197 p. 213 - 230

0079-1350

In the Bernau Manuscripts (1917-1918) Husserl analyses the deepest level of time-constitution in the stream of consciousness. Although the I does not seem to play any important role in these phenomenological descriptions, texts No. 14 and 15 are an exception. In this paper I analyse the way Husserl presents the problem of the I here in its relationship to temporality and to the stream of consciousness. I begin by giving a brief account of the meaning of the methodical suspension of the I?a procedure which is typically misunderstood?in order to disclose it as the necessary center and pole of the stream of conscious­ness. As a center and pole of consciousness, the I should not be identified either with a moment of the stream or with the stream itself. Thus, we can reveal its special temporal character as ?supra-temporal? (the I ?flows above? the stream of consciousness). After determining that the I is not an experience, we reach to the methodological prob­lem of the givenness of this I. Out of this analysis, the I appears as an ?object-I?, objectified through reflection. However, with these reflec­tions we also recognize that this ?object-I? is not the original I pole of my life consciousness, namely the ?primal-I?. This ?primal-I? (Ur-Ich) ? which as an ?operating I? should not be confused with other egologi­cal levels ? appears as the necessary original ?mine-ness? of all my experiences. Finally, I show that the primal I is always given together with the stream of consciousness as the innermost original primal-correlation.