Subjectivity

Abstract

The task of this section will be to approach the extremely multifarious problem of memory or recollection in Husserl’s work by thematizing our relationship with our own subjective life history, and more specifically, by addressing the availability and unavailability of this life history to the subject concerned. The main reason for extending our analysis beyond the affective level of subjectivity is simply the problem of repetition tself and the constitution of what we call a “subject.” Subjects are only subjects when they can be understood as self-related entities, the level of which is not fully reached when only investigated from an affective point of view. As Husserl early on identified, affections and affectivity have their place within a broader horizon, as a temporal horizon. But instead of following the problem of affection and temporality, in the upcoming section I will outline how the problem of self-relation can be understood through remembering.

All presentification is itself something like “repetition”

— Husserl

But where would life be without repetition?

— Kierkegaard