Abstract: The aim of the present article is to determine the meaning of the concept of the individual within the framework of Husserl’s philosophy and to investigate the structure of the experience of individuals. Husserl’s formal-ontological, epistemological, and transcendental analyses concerning the individual and individuation is discussed, and light is shed on the relationship among them. It is shown how an encompassing theory of individuation embraces these three domains and grounded upon a relational and process oriented account of experience. The transcendental analyses of individuation uncover the ultimate source of individuation in the temporal stream of consciousness. The stream of consciousness is interpreted as a unitary, self-individuating, and irreversible process. Irreversibility, thus, emerges as the key concept for understanding the phenomenology of individuation.
Keywords: Husserl, individuation, space, time, process, relation
Since phenomenology is phenomenology of relation, it is also phenomenology of time. Yet being phenomenology of time and relation, it must also be phenomenology of individuation.2
Husserl’s phenomenology is a transcendental, eidetic, and descriptive science of the structures of experience.3 It is within this framework that the questions concerning the ontological status of the individual and the phenomenology of individuation are phrased. Which is the ontological place of the individual within such an eidetic science? Assuming that eidetic sciences are interested in general laws and structures, is the knowledge of individuals possible within this framework? Further: How are individuals transcendentally constituted? Which are the conditions that make the experience of individuals possible? And finally: How shall we phenomenologically conceive not only of the individuation of intentional correlates, but also of the individuation of subjectivity? These are the central questions that the phenomenology of individuation is supposed to answer. As we can clearly see from the just listed questions, the general title “individuation” entails a number of quite different philosophical problems. First, it refers to the formal ontological questions concerning status of the individual and its relationship to essences. Second, it refers to the epistemological problem as to the possible knowledge of individuals. Third, it refers to the phenomenological and transcendental questions concerning both the givenness of individuals for the experiencing subject, and the constitution of the subject itself as an individual. Gathered under the heading of the “phenomenology of individuation,” all these questions pervade Husserl’s philosophical project, from formal ontology to the theory of meaning and from the phenomenology of time to the self-constitution of subjectivity.
In the literature, Husserl’s scholars have generally concentrated their studies on one of the previously mentioned aspects. For instance, Carlos Lobo’s studies are eminently devoted to the problems concerning the formal ontology of the individual;4 Lina Rizzoli closely discusses the question as to the possible knowledge of individuals within the framework of Husserl’s philosophy;5 Rudolf Bernet concentrates on Husserl’s noematic account of temporal individuation;6 Andrea Altobrando7 and James Hart,8 finally, focus on the individuation of subjectivity.9 Yet, assuming that Husserl’s account of individuation touches all these different philosophical domains (ontological, epistemological, and phenomenological), the question arises as to how these domains, and the respective understanding of the individual and individuation, are reciprocally related. In other words, once such a distinction has been made, we shall ask whether the different sets of questions concerning the individual and individuation can be considered as facets of a theory that would embrace and integrate all of them. The aim of this article is to show that the above mentioned questions are interrelated and that a phenomenological theory of individuation embracing all these aspects needs to be grounded on a relational and processual account of experience.
To this aim, I adopt here some central aspects in Enzo Paci’s philosophy as guiding threads. In his 1950s and 1960s writings, indeed, Paci puts forward an original reading of Husserl’s thought, which is eminently characterized by his attempt to conjugate phenomenology and relationism, the latter being the philosophical approach he was developing in those years, notably in dialogue with Whitehead’s process philosophy.10 Grounded on the concept of irreversibility, Paci’s relationist phenomenology is particularly focused on the processual and temporal dynamics of consciousness, and attempts to think temporality not only in connection with the genesis of subjectivity, but also as essentially interwoven with the experience of the life-world. Considering the different facets of Husserl’s theory of individuation in light of Paci’s relational and processual philosophy will help us to understand in what sense a comprehensive phenomenological theory of individuation cannot be grounded upon a static metaphysic of substance, but shall rather situate individuating processes within a more dynamic relational ontology.
The argument is structured as follows. In the first section, I will focus on the formal-ontological questions concerning the status of the individual in relation to essences and on the related epistemological questions concerning the possible knowledge of individuals. Thereby, it will be shown that the ontological definition of the individual needs to be phenomenologically grounded. This can only be done by means of a transcendental inquiry into the individuation processes that make the constitution of individuals possible. Such an inquiry concerns, on the one hand, the individuation of the the noematic correlates of experience and, on the other hand, the individuation of subjectivity. Both converge in the ultimate source of individuation: the temporal stream of consciousness, which, as Husserl repeatedly points out, defines the most fundamental domain of the transcendental “absolute,” as Urquelle for all further layers of experience.11 The second and the third section of this article, thus, will be respectively devoted to a transcendental-constitutive account of the processes of individuation of the intentional correlates of experience and to the individuation of subjectivity.
The question concerning the ontological and epistemological status of the individual in Husserl’s phenomenology is not an easy one. Indeed, if phenomenology is ex definitionem an eidetic science of the structures of experiences, then one may be first puzzled as to the locus of the individual in the architectonic of phenomenological reason and as to the very possibility of a proper knowledge of individuals. These problems still remain unsolved in the Logical Investigations. In this work, indeed, the notions belonging to the semantic area of individuality (e.g., individuelles Sein, Individuum, etc.) always appear within the context marked by the opposition of the empirical or factual order, which is spatio-temporally determined, and the ideal order, which is supra-temporal and not spatially localized. Assuming this opposition between reality and ideality, the individual, which is determined by its “here and now,” cannot but belong to the domain of empirical reality.12 Yet, as I will argue, things seem to be different in the texts written in the years following the publication of the Logical Investigations. Here, the loosening of this strict opposition and the inquiry into the relationship between the ideal and the factual domains make possible a more refined approach to the individual.
As one can easily detect, the question as to the role and the locus of the individual in Husserl’s phenomenology entails both an ontological and an epistemological aspect. On the one hand, one can ask where the individual belongs within the formal ontological classification of being in general. On the other hand, one can ask what role the individual plays in scientific knowledge, and whether the knowledge of the individual is possible at all.13 Even if the ontological and the epistemological questions proceed on parallel paths, they are also related to one another, as I hope will emerge from the joint discussion of the two fields I propose here.
Before addressing these questions in detail, I wish to stress the reciprocal implication between formal ontology and the full-fledged material theory of experience. A theory concerning the experiential givenness and constitution of individuals, indeed, will be plausible if and only if it is consistent with formal logic and formal ontology. Conversely, we can legitimately speak of a priori (i.e., necessarily and universally valid) logical laws and formal-ontological categories if and only if no real or imaginable counter-example can be found in principle. This complementarity is the key to understanding the role of the individual in the phenomenological theory of knowledge and architectonic of experience.14
The partial revisions of the formal-ontological account of the individual proposed in the Logical Investigations leads to the definition of the Individuum proposed in Ideas I and eventually elaborated in Formal and Transcendental Logic. Particularly, these developments concern the distinction, already formulated in the Third Logical Investigation, between Konkretum and Abstraktum. The latter notion defines an object insofar as it is a non-independent part (or a moment) of another object as a whole; the former, instead, defines an independent object (Hua XIX/1, 272–4).15 In spite of being undoubtedly inspired by the mereology of the Third Investigation, the context in which this distinction is reformulated in Ideas I has a more explicit formal ontological character. Indeed, the distinction between Konkretum and Abstraktum now finds its place within what we can call the Husserlian version of the Porphyrian tree, presented in the first chapter of Ideas I. It is worth stressing right now that the distinction between genus and species proposed here is entirely accomplished within the eidetic domain. Accordingly, this distinction extends between the upper limit of the highest genus [oberste Gattung] and the lowest limit of the eidetic singularity [eidetische Singularität] (Hua III/1, 30). The relations between the different levels of specification are understood in terms of containment [Enthaltensein]: the more general essence is either immediately or mediately (i.e., through other intermediate essences) contained in the more particular essence, so that eidetic singularities can be said to ‘contain’ all the essences in the upper levels of the tree (Hua III/1, 31).
In order to understand the difference between the just described specification of an essence and individuation, we must keep in mind the distinction between generalization and formalization. Whereas generalization designates the relationship between the different levels of specifications in the tree, formalization designates the (typically algebraic) operation of “emptying” [Entfüllung] what is given in concrete experience. Accordingly, formal ontological essences are not contained in their individual Vereinzelungen in the same way as the upper general species are contained in the lower eidetic singularities. The relationship between the individual and its essence cannot be conceived as the specification of an essence. Whereas the latter is the reciprocal of generalization, the former shall be considered as Ausfüllung or Entformalisierung, that is, as the reciprocal of formalization (Hua III/1, 31–3). Consistently, Husserl further distinguishes between empty substrates, that is, the modification of the empty “something,” and materially filled substrates, as the core of all syntactical formations. The latter entail both materially filled ultimate essences [letzte sachhaltige Wesen] and the tode ti, the pure and formless [formlos] single particular. The tode ti is not yet the Individuum in the strict sense, since it is not indivisible (Hua III/1, 33). Rather, as Husserl will make explicit in one of the Bernau Manuscripts that addresses the conceptualization developed in Ideas I, the tode ti is that which individuates a Konkretum or eidetic singularity. As such, it is the principium individuationis of the Konkretum.16 The difference between the Konkretum or the ultimate filled essence and the tode ti is central to the different facets of Husserl’s theory of individuation. Hart incisively formulated this difference as follows: “It is the ultimate substrate of the “this-there” which renders the eidetic singularity an existing individual essence; it is this which most basically individuates because it “individuates itself” and even though it is without any material content it is the ultimate principle of individuation.”17
Returning to Ideas I, the definition of the Individuum in the strict sense can be found in paragraph 15, in relation to the distinction between Konkretum and Abstraktum. Eidetic singularities can be either concrete or abstract, depending on their being, respectively, independent or not-independent essences. And accordingly, one will have to distinguish between a tode ti, the essence of which is an Abstraktum, and a tode ti, the essence of which is a Konkretum (Hua III/1, 34–5; Hua XXXIII, 304). Only in the latter case can one can properly talk about individuals as indivisible, singular objects. Thus, strictly considered, the Individuum is a tode ti, the material essence of which is a Konkretum (Hua III/1, 35). As such, the individual is the primal object required by pure logic and the source for all logical variants (ibid.).
In Formal and Transcendental Logic, the formal ontology of the individual fits into Husserl’s project of a new transcendental logic. The latter is considered to be world-logic [Welt-Logik]: a stratified logic of experience, at the basis of which lies a new transcendental aesthetic, which is concerned with the eidetic problem of determining the laws of appearance of any possible world in pure sensible experience.18 Within this framework, the category of the individual is considered to be located on the threshold between the logic of consequence and the logic of truth (Hua XVII, 209ff.; 396; 423).19 In the purely analytical terms of the logic of consequence, indeed, there is no possibility to say anything concerning the essential structure of the individual, not even that it has a temporal form (Hua XVII, 211, 427). To this aim, the shift toward the logic of truth, that is, the logic of the “something in general,” is required. In the Beilage VII to Formal and Transcendental Logic, Husserl further stresses the modal character of the category of the individual in formal ontology: the latter is no more presented as the science of the somethingin general but rather as the science of the possible something (Hua XVII, 427–8).20
What I believe is most important to retain from these developments in Husserl’s formal ontology is the co-implication between individuals and essences. The formal ontological laws presented in paragraph 15 of Ideas I, for example, the law according to which two eidetic singularities contained in the same tode ti necessarily belong to different genera should then be read in the light shed by this co-implication. Indeed, these formal laws structure the concrete material ontology of nature, whereby the spatio-temporal form of the tode ti is individuation through the “here and now” (Hua XXXIII, 300ff.). Addressing the world as the field of possible application of formal logic, the considerations regarding the modal character of the individual in Formal and Transcendental Logic and its Beilagen further allow us to underscore the nexus between logic and the constitution of the world, or between formal and material ontology. The individual, as I mentioned, is on the threshold, since even if it can be defined in pure formal ontological terms, it is nevertheless a full and concrete entity. Thus the claim that eidetic formal laws precede and univocally found spatio-temporal individuation needs to be discussed. Those laws are certainly not reducible to factual relations; however, they are not to be found in a totally detached ontological realm either. Rather, they make up the intrinsic structure of the world of experience. And since they can be obtained only by means of formalization or Entfüllung, their own givenness presupposes the full concreteness of experience in its spatio-temporal unfolding, which is not simply coincident with the objective spatio-temporal order. Hence, rather than labeling the theory of spatio-temporal individuation as naive,21 I believe it is necessary to consider the process of individuation in relation to the spatio-temporality of lived-experience. Husserl refers to these structures, to their peculiar ideality intertwined wiThexperience, when commenting upon the nexus between individual and essential relations:
Die Individualrelationen stehen unter Wesensgesetze. Wir müssen auch sagen: wesengesetzlich bilden alle tode ti- Bestimmungen eine Einheitsform, eine an sich bestimmte und geschlossene Totalität, die ihre relationellen Wesensgesetze hat und durch sie als solche Totalität bestimmt ist. Die Axiome von Raum und Zeit sind diese Wesensgesetze, und nach ihnen sind Raum und Zeit Totalitäten. (Hua XXXIII, 301)22
In other words, the formal-ontological definition of the individual opens up the field for the transcendental question of the conditions of possibility of individual givenness and constitution. To introduce the answer to this question, I wish first to consider here a few issues central to the role of the individual within Husserl’s phenomenological theory of knowledge.
Husserl’s approach to the question of the knowledge of the individual, with particular regard to his theory of meaning, has been extensively discussed in the literature.23 What is most relevant for my argument is to understand in what sense the knowledge of the individual is related to the spatio-temporal determination of the latter and thus in what sense it implies the spatio-temporal unfolding of experience itself.
The approach of the Logical Investigations, based upon the opposition ‘real versus ideal,’ has clear implications for the theory of knowledge proposed in that work. Indeed, from the opposition between the real and the ideal, it follows that proper knowledge can only be concerned with general essences and not with individual beings. This clearly emerges from the theory of ideation in the Second Investigation, where the individual, differently from what we have seen to be the case in Ideas I, still seems to be conceived as the Vereinzelung of a species. If two individuals share some identical aspects, this must be traced back to the ideality of the species to which both of them belong as Vereinzelungen. With this claim Husserl clearly aims at preventing one from considering idealization as the result of a mere inductive generalization of empirical data. Ideation is instead the result of the one intuitive act, which has its point of departure in sensible intuition. The intention of this act, thus, is twofold, as the manifestation of the same Konkretum can both serve as the basis for an intention directed to the individual [Vorstellungsgrundlage für einen Akt individuellen Meinens] and as the basis for an intention directed to the species [Vorstellungsgrundlage für einen Akt spezialisierenden Meinens] (Hua XIX/1, 114). In this latter case, we do not intend the thing or one of its particular features as being here and now, but rather its ideal “content.”24 Thus what Husserl calls ideierende Abstraktion precisely consists in grasping the ideal in the individual givenness.25 Yet, what about the individual? If the intention toward an object is actually directed toward its ideal content, whereas the individual determinations are mere accidents, then the latter are deprived of every epistemological relevance.26 On the basis of this theory, thus, there seems to be no space left for an account of the consciousness of the individual as such. These problems also reverberate on the theory of meaning proposed in the Investigations, and notably on the theory of meaning of proper names and occasional expressions.27 In both cases, indeed, the question arises as to the meaning of expressions, the reference of which changes according to spatio-temporal circumstances. After having shown that proper names directly refer to their object without any conceptual mediation, Husserl needs to clarify why they still have to be considered as Ausdrücke and not as Anzeigen,28 that is, he needs to show in what their ideal meaning consists in the absence of the concept (Hua XIX/2, 659). Excluding that the meaning of such expressions may coincide with the reference, as this would contrast to Husserl’s theory of meaning as a whole (Hua XIX/1, 52), the only solution is to consider the ideality of meaning as not dependent on the singular intuition (here and now), but rather on the infinite possible intuitions of the same object (Hua XIX/2, 563). But if this is the case, can we really talk about the consciousness of an individual meaning? The problem I mentioned before can be thus expressed: it is not possible to talk about the consciousness of the individual here, because the meaning of the proper name precisely excludes the individual determinations, for instance of this person. This meaning, instead, refers to an identity that precedes and goes through the individual determinations:29
Nennt der individuelle Eigenname implizite auch die individualisierenden Bestimmungen, also etwa die Zeitlichkeit und die Örtlichkeit? Hier steht Freund Hans, und ich nenne ihn Hans. Zweifellos ist er individuell bestimmt, ihm kommt jeweils ein bestimmter Ort, eine bestimmte Zeitstelle zu. Wären diese Bestimmtheiten aber mitgemeint, so änderte der Name seine Bedeutung mit jedem Schritte, den Freund Hans eben macht, und mit jedem einzelnen Falle, wo ich ihn namentlich nenne. (Hua XIX/1, 162)
This discussion points out a problem that, as I shall argue later, concerns the entire phenomenological approach to the individual and individuation, namely the problem of reconciling the identity of the Was with change and becoming, which are related to the spatio-temporal and sensible determinations of the individual. And it is precisely this problem that, in my view, requires a transcendental inquiry into the structural conditions and the constitutive dynamics that make possible the experience of the individual.
Yet, remaining within the theory of meaning, we notice once more that the previous considerations leave no space for an account of the meaning of individual expressions. However, the previous discussion regarding the formal ontology of the individual has already suggested that things are more complicated than that. Particularly, the passages from the Bernau Manuscripts and Formal and Transcendental Logic cited above explicitly reject the idea that the spatio-temporal determinations of the individual are mere accidents. On the contrary, they are considered to be its essential determinations, that is, its structural a priori. Indeed, the Logical Investigations are not the last word on the subject of the knowledge of the individual and neither on the subject of the meaning of proper names. In the texts written around 1908, the year of the lecture course on Bedeutungslehre, Husserl proposes a new characterization of the meaning of proper names. Against the claim made in the Logical Investigations, Husserl suggests now that the individuating moments (spatio-temporal determinations and sensible Fülle) must also participate in the meaningfulness of proper names. Hence the meaning of proper names is essentially characterized by the interweaving of sensible and ideal content.30 Proper names are semi-conceptual, meaningful, complex or mixed, unities, whereby the nucleus of the ideal component is constantly enriched by the experiential determinations of this individual.
Even if I do not believe that Husserl gives up the distinction between the factual determinations of the individual and its eidetic Bestand,31 this seems to be at variance with the just mentioned developments regarding the meaning of the proper name. If the new theory holds, then the spatio-temporal determinations cannot be reduced to mere factual indexes. On the contrary, they are the conditions for both the consciousness of the individual as it is designated by the proper name and for the constitution of the individual as identical, throughout different times and places. Thanks to the spatio-temporal unfolding of experience, as I shall show later in more detail, the different phases of perception, and correlatively the different appearances of the perceived object, can be said to form a unity (Hua XXVI, 181). And the identity of the individual can only be constituted as such a unity of different, individual phases, be that continuously, as in a single perception, or discontinuously, as in recollection (Hua XXVI, 181). This means, first, that the identity of an individual cannot be exclusively based on the matter of the act (Hua XIX/2, 679), but must also entail its Fülle that changes in the single phases. And secondly, this means that identification cannot be considered as a total coincidence based upon an already given ideal unity, but rather it must be thought as an essentially open process (Hua XXVI, 179–80). This openness, I submit, presupposes the spatio-temporal unfolding of experience, and particularly its Verweisungsstruktur.
Keeping together the openness and the becoming of the process of constitution and the stability of the identity that is constituted is the challenge par excellence for the phenomenology of individuation. What the previous considerations on formal ontology and the theory of meaning reveal for us is that the identity that goes through the different individual manifestations cannot be considered as already given, and therefore it is rather itself being constituted within an open process of becoming. This dynamics of constitution, which is by no means intended to deny identity but rather aims at its experiential legitimation, shall be conceived as a spatio-temporal interweaving. I turn now to the direct examination of this hypothesis.
In order to introduce the question, I would like to linger on the formal ontology of the individual for one more moment. As we have seen, according to the arguments made in the first chapter of Ideas I, the relationship between the individual and its essence cannot be equalized with a genus-species differentiation. This is even more explicitly stated in the later manuscript D 8 (1918), where Husserl further explains the ontological locus of the individual in relation to its own individual essence, or to its Konkretum as eidetic singularity. In this text, he stresses that what makes the Individuum an Individuum is its individuating position [Lage], which, again, is not itself an essence.
Die individuelle Differenzierung eines sich individualisierenden Wesens (also ihr Auseinandergehen in eine Mannigfaltigkeit individueller Differenzen) differenziert „mit“(bedingt ein Auseinandergehen in Besonderungen) auch für die mitverflochtenen Wesen; und sind diese schon in niederster Weise differenziert, so gewinnen wir eine Vielheit von Individuen, und speziell: eine Vielheit von qualitätsidentischen (das ist, qualitativ von einer und derselben niedersten Differenz seienden) Individuen, die sich nur durch Lage unterscheiden. Jedes Individuum hat sein individuelles Wesen, und zu diesem gehört die individualisierende Lage. Verstehen wir unter „Wesen“das eidetisch Gemeinsame, so dürfen wir unter Wesen eines Individuums (und in diesem Sinne individuelles Wesen) nur verstehen eben das „Allgemeine“, Generische und Spezifische, nach allen seinen ebensolchen Komponenten. Dann ist die Lage (die individuelle Differenz der Extension) kein Wesensmoment. (D 8/28 b–29 a)
This passage introduces an important distinction, namely the distinction between the Individuum in the strict sense and the “individual essence” [individuelles Wesen]. The individual essence designates what remains identical over different times and places (i.e., the identical Was). Consistent with Kant’s First Analogy, the individual essence can be designated as substance, which is precisely das Beharrliche. As such, it is not determined as here and now, but rather extends over time and space (D 8/61 a). However, and here I come to the individual in the strict sense, what we encounter in lived experience is not only specifically determined as to its Was. It is rather primarily given as individually determined by its hic et nunc, or by its individual position, which defines the “individual differentiation of extension” [individuelle Ausdehnungsbesonderung] (D18/28 b).32
Husserl further distinguishes in a consistent manner two ways through which the concrete essences differentiate themselves: (1) with respect to the “quale” and (2) with respect to the spatio-temporal “extension,” in which the quality spreads out. The former differentiation is fully accomplished within the eidetic realm and coincides with the specification of qualities, the final level being eidetic singularities (differentiation of species). The latter differentiation, instead, is not a specification. It is rather a differentiation of the individuals with respect to their position (differentiation of individuals).
Unsere Untersuchung hat nun aber hier Klarheit geschaffen. Sie hat gezeigt, dass das Individuierende nicht etwas ist, das in uniformer Weise das konkrete Wesen angeht, sondern dass es eine eigentümliche Struktur der Individuen anzeigt, wonach das konkrete Wesen zerfällt in zwei Seiten: in ein Quale, das sich spezifisch und nur spezifisch differenziert, und eine Extension, über die sich das Quale ausdehnt und die sich nicht nur spezifisch, sondern individuell differenziert. (D 8/29 b)
The just mentioned distinction, together with the one between the individual and its individuelles Wesen, brings back the question raised in the previous paragraph on the distinction between individuality and identity. In fact, it is not difficult to see that this question underlies those distinctions. Yet, once assumed the differentiation, the problem as to the relation between the two terms still remains. To disentangle this problem, an inquiry into the mode of givenness of the individual is first required. It is only from this starting point, I submit, that the analysis of the constitution of identity will be phenomenologically legitimated within experience, that is, without the recourse to an already given identity structure.
What the just quoted passages add to the previous formal ontological discussion of the individual is the emphasis on the individuating position. By virtue of its spatio-temporal position, an intentional correlate is not only given “as something,” that is, it is not only given according to its qualitative meaning or as representative of a certain ontological region, but rather presents itself as the individual I concretely encounter hic et nunc. However, what no formal ontological consideration can tell us is how individuality as such is subjectively experienced, and how it is constituted for consciousness. Assuming that an entity is perceived as something, that is, as meaningful and as displaying itself within a meaningful horizon, how is it still possible to experience it as this entity, or as a unique individual? And can the meaningful apprehension of “something as something” really be considered as more original than its givenness as individual, apart from its meaningful Was? Without the transcendental question of the conditions of their givenness and of their mode of appearance, individuals would be simply assumed as already given. In that case, the spatio-temporal position would be a principle of individuation in a way external to and presupposed by the process of individual constitution. But can phenomenology consider itself satisfied with this result? Can we phenomenologically presuppose that individuals are given and that essences are given without asking how? Certainly not. A genuine phenomenological inquiry rather needs to describe the specific mode of individual givenness and to investigate the dynamics of constitution of the individual. In doing so, it must first abstractively consider the individual givenness apart from its Was, or from its being given as meaningful within a given order, and then ask how individuality and eidetic meaningfulness relate to each other.
So, the first question to be asked in a proper transcendental inquiry concerns the processes of individuation that make an intentional object this unique individual. In this respect, Husserl’s definition of the individuating position as the ultimate differentiation of the category “extension” must be further qualified. More exactly, it must be highlighted that ‘extension’ in this definition refers to the intertwining of the spatial and the temporal dimensions of lived experience, and certainly not to the objective and empirical space-time of nature. And indeed, in manuscript D 8, Husserl emphasizes the complementarity of space, as the form of individuation in simultaneity, and time, as the form of individuation in becoming, for the full individuation of the sensible thing as spatio-temporal unity.33
Against this emphasis on the complementarity of time and space, one could object by appealing to what I said in the introduction concerning the original stream of time consciousness. Pursuing an inquiry into the processes of individuation von unten her, it must be the temporal structure of consciousness, independently of spatiality, that makes the process of individuation possible. Besides, however, considering that the restriction to temporality abstractedly limits the account of individuation, which does not comprehend, for instance, the full individuation of a concrete perceptual thing, there are further reasons to consider individuation as based upon the interweaving of lived space and time. Indeed, individuation is made possible by the peculiar spatialization of temporality and temporalization of spatiality, which I shall now make more explicit by resorting to what Paci calls the principle of irreversibility.
Besides being one of the keystones in Paci’s relational philosophy, irreversibility also defines the bridge between relationism and phenomenology, notably the phenomenology of space, time, and the life-world. Borrowed from thermodynamics, and yet profoundly altered in its meaning,34 the concept of irreversibility refers to the oriented or directional character of each and every process and to the a priori impossibility of its reversal, which prevents us from establishing a full identity between all that which happens in time and space.35 Irreversibility is conceived as the ontological structure of reality in as far as the latter is conceived in relational terms. Relation, in this sense, is not something that is superimposed to two or more already given (individual) entities; it is rather that which allows their very emergence and constitution.
As Paci affirms, the principle of irreversibility, which is the “logical consequence” of the spatio-temporally oriented or directional character of each relation,36 is nothing else than a phenomenologically critical reading of Heraclitus’ “everything flows,” if the latter is not intended in too generic terms, but rather as the immanent logic of time which ultimately coincides with the logic of the (spatio-temporal) world:
all that which has happened cannot happen anew; it cannot repeat itself or present itself again in a situation that is fully identical with the previous one. … this is a logical law, a dynamic one and not a static one. And, precisely, this is the logical structure of temporality, which is eventually nothing else than the logical structure of the world. (Paci, Tempo e relazione, 7; my translation)
Nothing can happen twice in the very same spatio-temporal situation. This apparently very simple formulation of the principle of irreversibility is, however, thick with phenomenological and ontological implications, such as the critique of pure simultaneity and coexistence, and consequently the interviewing of space and time I mentioned above. There is no space considered as static form of coexistence; spatiality is rather taken into the process of becoming and thus it is temporally determined. Conversely, the possibility of simultaneous events in time and the very introduction of the notion Zeitlage, which Husserl adopts to describe temporal individuation, indicate a peculiar ‘spatialization’ of temporality. The temporal positions, however, are not simply following one another as independent parts (pieces), but rather overlap and are reciprocally intertwined as moments of a whole.37 This peculiar kind of spatialization, thus, shall not be conceived in light of mere extension, partes extra partes, because this, of course, would be subjected to the critique Henri Bergson raised against all approaches to duration that borrow from the description of spatial relations.38 Yet the possibility of figuring out the overlapping of temporal phases and the order of succession of temporal phases and events, which can be phenomenologically described, indicate that there are other ways of considering the spatialization of temporality. Both terms, the spatialization of temporality and the temporalization of spatiality, shall be taken together and considered in relational terms, as intertwining. As Paci puts it:
Non-simultaneity and irreversibility make a rhythm possible, following which everything that happens always has the same form. An event happens here-now when the other, in the here-now, comes to an end. The form of irreversibility requires the spatialization of times and the temporalization of places. (Paci, Fondamenti, 17; my translation)
According to Paci, the irreversible dynamics of non-coincidence resulting from this spatio-temporal interweaving defines the relational field that makes the emergence and the experiential givenness of new individuals possible, that is, both the constitution of individual objects and the self-constitution of subjectivity.39 Precisely this principle of irreversibility, I shall now argue, is implied in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of individuation.
In his earlier analyses of time consciousness, and notably the 1905 Seefeld manuscripts on individuation, Husserl is not very clear about the difference between the individual in its ‘here and now’ and its identity over time and space. Indeed, he still oscillates between an understanding of individuation in terms of the Kantian substance, that is, conceiving of the individual in terms of what he later calls individual essence,40 and the characterization of the individual in terms of its Einmaligkeit, which basically refers to the singularity and the uniqueness of the individual in its actual moment of presentation (Hua X, 65ff.). In this second sense, which defines the individual in the strict sense, the proper individualizing moment is the ursprüngliche Zeitstellenimpression in which temporal objects originally manifest themselves.41 In the Bernau Manuscripts (1917/18), Husserl further pursues this line of thought by developing an inquiry into the individuation of the singular Zeitstelle in more dynamical terms. And precisely this dynamic account of the process of individuation entails some considerations that more clearly meet Paci’s account of the irreversibility principle. Notably, this is true of Husserl’s description of the individuation through the singular Zeitstelle in which something new emerges. The individual difference of the now-point in which something new appears in the original temporal process is the correlate of what Husserl calls Urstiftung, through which the individual is “posited” as such. And only once the individuation process has thus started can the object be constituted as an identical correlate through the syntheses of identification:
Jede neue Setzung (Jetztsetzung) setzt ihren Inhalt in Form eines neuen Zeitpunktes. Das sagt, die individuelle Differenz des Zeitpunktes ist Korrelat einer gewissen Urstiftung durch einen Gegebenheitsmodus, der in der kontinuierlichen Wandlung der zu dem neuen Jetzt gehörigen Retentionen durch allen Wandel ein identisches Korrelat erhält; dem Wandel selbst entspricht die stetige Änderung der Orientierung, als Wandel der Gegebenheitsweise des Identischen. (Hua XXXIII, 291)
According to this perspective, what constitutes a temporal object as individual or as einmalig is the consciousness of the Jetzt or the Augenblick in which this object primitively presents itself in the original stream of consciousness (Hua XXXIII, 292, 331). The noematic individuation of the temporal object, thus, is correlative to the individuation of the here-now experience of its manifestation. Yet, insisting on the now-position, Husserl does not question his own characterizations of the temporal stream as constant retentional-protentional modification. Quite to the contrary: the original now as Quellpunkt of individual emergence is itself a moment of the “infinite continuum” of the original stream (Hua XXXIII, 293). This retentional-protentional streaming continuum is irreversible in the above-defined sense.42 In this irreversible stream, each new emerging now is einmalig and as such it is individuated.
The individuating Zeitstelle, however, should not be defined too neutrally. Rather, it should be properly considered as the Urstiftung that initiates the process of individuation or the constitution of the individual in its haecceitas. The new emerging temporal event, precisely because of its emerging, produces an irreversible change in the concrete dynamics of the stream; this emergence may become the reference point for talking about something that happens before and after it in the stream. This Urstiftung of the Zeitstelle marks the difference between before and after, and as such it has an individuating power. This, however, may still appear as a formal description, according to which all temporal positions in the stream are ultimately considered as equivalent, precisely because all of them can in principle have an individuating power. But this formal consideration is only an abstraction, because there is no point in the oriented immanent stream of time that is without a “primary objective content,” namely without hyletic Urimpression (Hua XXXIII, 282). This means that, concretely speaking as to their ‘content,’ the different temporal positions in the stream are not interchangeable in any exclusively formal sense. The different nows, concretely considered as hyletic impressions, are not reciprocally equivalent, even if each new now is formally einmalig in the temporal stream. The now that defines the beginning of an individuation process rather has a differentiating power that others lack. As Urstiftung, we can also say, it must have more affective force, as it attracts the ego to the new individual emergence and thus generates an irreversible change in the dynamics of the stream. Precisely the Einmaligkeit of the now as origin or as Urstiftung of something new within the irreversible stream of consciousness is the source of the individuation the intentional correlates of experience. The uniqueness of the Urgegenwartspunkt, thus, is marked by the unrepeatability of the singular experiences in which new temporal events emerge.
This, of course, does not exclude but rather implies the possibility to turn retrospectively to the moment of Urstiftung through an act of recollection and, for instance, to re-identify a given temporal correlate that endures beyond its original presentation or to presentify a past temporal event. It is precisely this process of identification that may extend through the unity of an experience or rather be accomplished though recollection in two distinct experiences, which makes the constitution of identity possible. Moreover, as Dieter Lohmar has shown, the possibility of re-identification and presentification through recollection is the basis for the constitution of succession and therefore of objective time.43 Yet, the constitution of the individual as identical substratum, that is, its constitution in relation to its Was, which is based on the synthesis of identification through time, presupposes its original givenness as a self-differentiating event that emerges in an unrepeatable now. This now concretely becomes then the unique and unrepeatable position of this individual: “Die Lage ist das absolute Nicht-Wiederholbare und durch sie das so Gelegene als solches” (Hua XXXIII, 331).
Hence, rather than being secondarily derived from genus-species differentiation and rather than being assumed as statically given, the individual emerges out of the original process and defines the most basic form of givenness of an intentional correlate of consciousness. This givenness should also be considered in processual and relational terms. The presentation and the constitution of the individual in the Einmaligkeit of its original Zeitstelle, indeed, is only possible in relation to other individuals and other here-nows in the complex irreversible dynamics of experience. The individuation of the full now, in other words, is only possible within a relational process of differentiation. Here, as Husserl points out, we find the origin of individuality as factual, existing being. Accordingly, considered with respect to the processual and irreversible unfolding of consciousness, the temporal Urstiftung of the individual has an event-like structure, which implies the consciousness of novelty related to the “factual” difference, or to the existence of the object.44
In chapter VI of his Tempo e verità, Paci addresses the issue of individuation in the context of an inquiry into Husserl’s project of a science of the life-world. In doing so, he is not primarily concerned with the individuation of the the noematic correlates of experience, but rather with the process of individuation of consciousness itself, considered in relation with the life-world. Even if for Husserl, as I have argued, individuation is first conceived as an epistemological and logical problem, which is phenomenologically grounded in experience, his writings are also concerned with the problem Paci has in mind in Tempo e verità, namely with the individuation of subjectivity. And I shall argue that these questions are strictly interconnected. Thus, having shown how the individuation of the intentional correlates of experience implies processual and relational dynamics, we shall now ask whether this dynamics also characterizes the individuation of consciousness, and how both processes of individuation are related to each other.
In manuscript D 7, we can find some clues for the answer to this question. Here, Husserl seems to adopt what I previously called, following Paci, the principle of irreversibility to shed light on the relationship between the individuation of experiences with their correlates and the individuation of consciousness:
Ein sinnliches urgegenwärtigendes Bewusstsein des Inhalts A kann im Bewusstseinsfluss nur einmal auftreten – in seiner vollen Individualität – deren Korrelat das Individuum des Inhalts A ist. Es können um Bewusstseinsfluss viele sinnliche urgegenwärtigende Bewusstseine auftreten, die, außer dass sie urgegenwärtigend sind, auch den gleichen Inhalt A haben. Aber in jedem Moment des Flusses ist nur eines möglich. Zum Wesen des Urbewusstseinsflusses gehört diese Gesetzmäßigkeit, deren Korrelat das Gesetz ist, dass im Konstituierten ein Urgegenwartspunkt der phänomenologischen Zeit nicht doppelt mit völlig gleichem immanentem Gegenständlichen besetzt sein kann. Wir können auch sagen: Das Ich hat seinen Fluss. Dieser Fluss des Ich als sein Lebensstrom kann nicht verdoppelt gedacht werden, und man kann wohl überhaupt sagen, es kann nicht zwei völlig gleiche Lebensströme geben, nicht zwei Ich mit völlig gleichem Leben. Sie wären beide dann ein Ich. […] Der Lebensstrom des Ich hat seine absolute Individualität, die die Quelle aller konstituierten Individualitäten ist. (D 7/16 a–b)
In a manner reminiscent of Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles, Husserl suggests here that there cannot be two completely identical “streams of life” [Lebensstrom], or two egos with one and the same stream of life. Thus, the condition for the individuation of experiences with their correlates, due to the Einmaligkeit of their urstiftende Zeitstelle, is the uniqueness or the individuality of the irreversible stream of consciousness, with the ego as its unique pole. As is well known, in the 1920s Husserl adopts another Leibnizian term, monad, to address subjectivity as a whole, or as the total stream of experiences with the ego as its pole. And reinvesting the formal ontological distinction between independent and non-independent objectivities, Husserl reformulates the principle according to which the individuation of subjectivity (of the monad) is the source of all constituted individuality by saying that only the former is “independently individual,” whereas the latter is only “non-independently” individual, since they necessarily presuppose the unity of the individual monadic consciousness.45 Yet, how should we more exactly conceive of the individuation of monadic subjectivity with the I as the pole of active and passive experiences? And how does it relate to the individuation of the intentional correlates?
From the passage just quoted, we can first draw the conclusion that individuation presupposes both the irreversibility and the unity of the stream. As Bernet shows,46 this more clearly emerges if we consider the individuation of real objects and events in conjunction with the individuation of fantasy objects (Hua XXXIII, 327ff.). Despite the structural analogy, according to which in both cases individuation is related to a given spatio-temporal order (respectively, the real or the possible world with their real or possible temporal narratives), there are obvious differences between real and imaginary individuation. Besides the positing character of real perception versus the als ob character of fantasy, the crucial difference concerns the unitary order presupposed by individuation. The unity of the real world, indeed, is constituted throughout the whole intentional process and correlated to the one and identical real ego, whereas the unity of one fantasy world is correlated to one particular fantasy ego. As such, each fantasy world is necessarily given for a limited duration. This also implies that the real world and the fantasy worlds are reciprocally exclusive, and the same is true for two or more different fantasy worlds (Hua XXXIII, 336, 351). However, both perception and fantasy remain effective accomplishments of the one and unique stream of consciousness, which defines the ultimate ground for both real and fantasy individuation. Consequently, the unitary stream is the source for the experiential difference between the real world and the fantasy worlds, with their respective individuals, and for the experiential difference between the real and the fantasy ego.
Yet, does the self-differentiating unity of the stream say something about its own individuality? Yes and no. On the one hand, the fact that the fantasy ego and the real ego are both constituted within the one original temporal process implies that the Urprozess itself is an in-dividual, that is, not divided and not divisible, totality. But, on the other hand, the criteria and the conditions that individualize the process not only as indivisible, but also as einmalig, are not yet clear. As Paci points out, the original stream as operative intentionality may well be a form of pre-individual life. Subjective individuation, which for Paci (and I think for Husserl too) always implies facticity,47 certainly presupposes the original stream of consciousness, yet it cannot be reduced to that.48 Were it not for its uniqueness and unrepeatability, the stream of consciousness might indeed still be considered as a formal unitary structure, which in principle could be replicated.
So, how does the subjective stream of consciousness individuate itself, that is, how does it constitute itself as einmalig? Certainly not by its Zeitstelle, since in this case we would have to refer to another stream consciousness, for which the unique Zeitstelle constitutes itself, and fall into an infinite regress. Thus the individuation of subjectivity must have a different principle, a different Urstiftung, as the individuation of the spatio-temporal correlates of experience, which are individuated for consciousness.
To answer the question as to subjective individuation, let me first consider the position defended by Hart in the first volume of his remarkable work on subjectivity, entitled Who one Is. Hart approaches the principle of subjective individuation by resorting to the differentiation between individuation per se and per accidens. Whereas objects are individuated per accidens, namely according to a principle that comes from outside and can be considered as an accident in comparison to the essential properties of the object, subjects instead have a necessary principle of individuation in themselves, and this is why per se individuation pertains to subjectivity.49 The individuation of subjectivity is made possible, as it were, by an immanent surplus, a sense of mineness that cannot be exhausted by any set of properties, no matter how rich it is. What Hart wishes to show through this distinction is that the experience of “being oneself” can only be understood on the basis of the non-sortal and property-less ego as the empty pole of experience. In agreement with Husserl’s formal-ontological distinctions, Hart further argues that the ego cannot be properly considered as an Individuum, but shall rather be addressed as a Konkretum. Within the formal ontology of the thing, indeed, the existence of two individuals with the same properties informed by the same individual essence or Konkretum (which Hart plausibly equates with what is currently called a definite description) is thinkable in principle, even if given their different spatio-temporal position they would of course remain two different individuals.50 But this is not the case for the ego. As Husserl writes:
Das ego kann nicht wiederholt werden als eine Kette von rein möglichen koexistenten und absolut gleichen egos, und wie sehr einzelne seiner Momente wiederholbar sind, aber dann verteilt auf individuell verschiedene egos, so ist der totale Komplex der entsprechenden Wesensmomente, die ein ego bietet, nicht wiederholbar. Darin liegt: das ego hat die merkwürdige Eigenheit, dass für es absolutes Konkretum und Individuum zusammenfallen, dass die niederste konkrete Allgemeinheit sich selbst individuiert. (Hua XXXV, 262; see also Hua XIV, 22–3)
Accordingly, the difference between the individuation of things and the individuation of the ego lies in the possibility of replication of the totality of the same individual properties (entailed by the Konkretum as individual essence) in different individuals. Whereas for things this replication is in principle possible, this is not the case for the ego. This is why, in the case of the ego, Individuum and Konkretum coincide: “Here the unity of concretum and individual is of a different order because the eidetic singularity of the referent of ‘I’ cannot be separated from the individual or substrate of the ‘this-there.’”51 Because of this coincidence, the Konkretum “I” is neither the lowest specification of a more general essence (what Husserl calls qualitative differentiation) nor is it indexed by the “this-there” (what Husserl calls individual differentiation). Rather, the transcendental ego designates a “self-contained, non-teleological individual hyper-essence”:52 it is neither an individual fact nor a species. This, Hart submits, is exclusively true for the ego as an empty-pole, that is, in abstraction from what makes up the personal subject.
In manuscript D 8, Husserl presents the same idea, yet this time not only in relation to the ego, but also to the world:
Ein absolutes Konkretum, das eine Totalität ist: das Weltall. Hier fallen Individuum und Konkretum zusammen, …. Eine Welt kann nur einmal sein; es kann nicht zwei koexistierende Welten geben. Ebenso die Totalität des Ego …; in ihm individualisiert sich das konkrete Wesen, derart, dass sein konkretes Wesen zugleich Individuum ist. (D 8/2a)
The coincidence between Konkretum and Individuum, thus, holds for the two correlative “totalities”: the world and the ego. For both, it would make no sense to think about two individuals, which have exactly the same properties, and still remain different. Yet, saying that the ego is not individuated as objects are, which is certainly true, and establishing the equivalence between Konkretum and Individuum in the case of the eidos ego (and the world) still does not tell the whole story about subjective individuation. The problem as to the relation between the eidos ego (as empty pole) and the individuation of the whole stream of consciousness still remains open, and the relation between the ego and experiences in the stream still needs further investigation. A discussion of these points is urgent since the presented account of the per se character of subjective individuation, which I consider to be valid for the unitary stream of consciousness, and particularly the characterization of the individual ego as a Konkretum or hyper-essence, might be misleading. Following this account, for instance, one could argue that the individuality of subjectivity is something always already given, determined by the eidos ego. Or again, one could wonder whether the individual subject is ultimately self-enclosed, as the notion of “self-contained hyper-essence” might seem to imply. Drawing these conclusions from the points I have just discussed, of course, would challenge my own suggestion regarding the processual and relational character of individuation. Nevertheless, I believe there are good reasons not to draw such an inference. Let me discuss them.
The first aspect to be kept in mind is that the ego as a self-contained hyper-essence is a necessary abstraction. The ego is certainly the pole of all active and passive experiences, and as such it is the apodictic reference-point of all possible experiences. But it is, exactly, an empty pole. Thus, having defined the eidos ego on the basis of the coincidence between Konkretum and Individuum, and even before posing the problem of the transcendental person (that Hart has likely in mind), we shall keep in mind that the subjective stream of consciousness considered in its fullness must be considered as individual or, better, as individuating itself (see the above quote from Ms. D 7).
In the 1920s, the problem of the individuation of subjectivity is addressed under the heading of “the individuation of the monad.” Thereby, the Leibnizian concept of the monad is adopted by Husserl to indicate subjectivity in its full concreteness, namely as entailing the totality (or the whole) of passive and active experiences.53 The notion is suitable because it indicates that consciousness is not individuated as things in the world are.54 Thus, there is another way of reading Husserl’s claim according to which Konkretum and Individuum fall together in the ego, namely that the Konkretum in this case necessarily needs to be individuated, that is, that the essence cannot be considered apart from facticity.55 Even if it is not bound to empirical space and time (I can still imagine myself as being in other places or times, and still remain myself), subjective individuation certainly implies temporalization, in and through experiences, as well as spatialization, through the lived body. Indeed, not only my temporal stream of consciousness is necessarily individuated, but also my lived body. And this is the meaning of the “absolute here” or the Nullpunkt: there is no other body but mine that can function for me as this unique and einmalig source of spatialization. Moreover, the lived body as the center of all subjective sensible experience is the organ of perception. Thereby, ‘organ’ not only refers to the instrumentality of the body in perceptual experience, but also to the integrated unity of the ‘organism,’ the individuation of which cannot be reduced to mere physical laws (Hua XIV, 67ff.).
Accordingly, the ego pole may well be considered as a hyper-essence, or as an individual “substance,” since it is the principle of identity of the monad.56 Nevertheless, this principle of identity still doesn’t say enough about the individuation of the stream of experiences, with the ego as its pole. As Altobrando points out: “The ego, considered independently of her/his experiences, has no face, no quality or character. The ego receives all her/his determinations, and therefore her/ his individuation, from experiences; without experiences the ego would remain indeterminate and not-determinable.”57
In some texts, Husserl specifies the claim that subjective individuation is accomplished through the relation between the ego and her/his experiences by insisting on the capacity of ‘decision’ or ‘taking a stance,’ that is, on the ‘active behavior’ of the ego (Hua XIV, 11–42).58 In doing so, Husserl explicitly neglects the view that the subject can be individuated exclusively by her/his drives, sensations, and passive experiences (Hua XIV, 20, 31).59 The passive modifications of the stream alone, as Husserl points out in these texts, are not sufficient to account for the process of subjective individuation.60 These passive processes, in a way, could still be considered from a third-person perspective as something that can be experienced by more than one subject. What makes them part of an individual stream is the unique subjective response to them. Yet, again, I think one must be careful in reading such Husserlian claims. The temptation to read these statements as a way of overemphasizing the role subjective position-taking, as a spontaneous act which, as it were, comes from nowhere, might be strong. This is not, I submit, what Husserl has in mind. Rather, and again very much in accordance with Paci’s relational philosophy, these claims of Husserl’s should be read within the context of the a priori of correlation. Indeed, even staying within the abstractive reduction to pure consciousness and to the living present, the ego is always given within the relational whole of the stream of consciousness. This whole is essentially articulated by two polarities: Ich and hyletic Ichfremdes.61 And as we can read in one text devoted to the individuation of the monad: “Zu jeder Monade gehört Einheit eines Ich, über die ganze Zeitdauer erstreckte Identität des Ich mit allem Ichlichen, ferner Ichfremdes und doch ‘Subjektives’, ein notwendiger ichfremder Bereich der Monade” (Hua XIV, 14).
Subjective individuation, thus, must also be related to the dynamic process of differentiation from what is alien to the ego (hyletic Ichfremdes). More exactly, individuation must be related to its unique mode of responding to the affections originating from the original hyletic Ichfremdes that announces itself within the original process. And this unique mode of responding to affections is the basis for what Husserl means by ‘decision’ or ‘position-taking.’
Thus the fact that the individuation of the monad is per se, that is, that it does not require any further consciousness or external principle, but is rather immanently and pre-reflectively accomplished, does not mean that subjective individuation coincides with the absolute self-positing of a self-enclosed consciousness. Rather, subjectivity individuates itself in and through the constant and irreversible process of becoming, as the most fundamental openness to the world. The individuality of monadic consciousness, thus, properly defines a genetically constituted, dynamic and relational unity of becoming: “die Monade ist, indem sie wird” (Hua XIV, 38).
Conceiving of the process of subjective individuation in relational terms, namely showing that this process is based on the unique way of responding distinctive to an ego, prevents us from conceiving the future becoming of the subject as always already pre-determined by an individual essence.62 Monadic being is essentially Sein im Werden, and this Werden necessarily implies openness, indetermination, and the possibility of being surprised by something new and unexpected. The faculty of responding to the unexpected in a unique and not univocally predeterminate way is the source of subjective individuation.
Subjective individuation, therefore, defines an irreversible process of self-temporalization and self-differentiation. As such it is a relational (i.e., open to otherness) and event-like (not already given, but rather happening, actualizing itself here and now) process. And it is precisely this monadic Sein im Werden, i.e., the process of individuation of the monad in and through the self-differentiating and irreversible lived history of her passive and active experiences, that Paci describes within his relationist reading of phenomenology.
In his Fondamenti per una sintesi filosofica, Paci shows the nexus between the theory of individuation based on the principle of irreversibility and his relationist philosophy by means of a new assessment of Kant’s categories of relation. Criticizing the equivalence of reciprocity (third category) with simultaneity and not considering the cause-effect relation (second category) as necessary, but rather as possible, Paci finally proposes to consider substance (first category) not in light of the principle of identity over time and space, but rather as temporalization/spatialization or as individuation. In doing so, he plays the dynamics of the individuation processes against what he considers to be a static “logic of identity.” He therefore consistently develops a relational ontology of events as spatio-temporally individuated within the irreversible process of becoming.63
In this article, I have shown in what sense Paci’s relationist philosophy might shed new light on some central aspects of Husserl’s theory of individuation. Through the different facets of this theory we have seen that the individual should not be assumed as already given and univocally determined according to a pre-defined principle. Neither should it be considered as the final moment in the genus-species classification. Rather, individuals are constituted within a spatio-temporal process of differentiation, which is essentially characterized by a relational dynamics.
Considering Husserl’s formal ontology and the developments in his phenomenological theory of knowledge, I have highlighted the increasing centrality of the individual in both domains. In both domains, however, the category of the individual requires an experiential foundation. Such foundation has revealed to be twofold, concerning both the individuation of the noematic correlates and the process of subjective individuation.
With respect to the individuation of the intentional correlates of experience, we have seen that the reference to the temporal position does not define a principle that precedes the very process of individuation. The individuating position and the now as Urquelle are rather immanent to that process and occur as dynamical self-differentiation. Retrospectively, it is certainly possible to re-identify that unique position as the source of the individual and to establish a temporal order that will lead to the constitution of objective time. Yet, before all synthesis of identity and identification, the individual correlates are properly to be considered as events that emerge within the unitary and irreversible stream of consciousness.
Regarding subjectivity, I have first discussed in what sense subjective individuation is grounded on the unity of the stream of consciousness. Subsequently, I have discussed how the abstract characterization of the ego as a Konkretum or as an individual substance accounts for the identity of the subject, according to the understanding of substance as das Beharrliche, or to what Paci calls logic of identity. Even if I would not go as far as Paci in neglecting the “logic of identity” as being ultimately a mere illusion, I agree with him that this characterization of the ego as the identical pole of experiences cannot elucidate how concrete monadic subjectivity is constituted as individual. Moreover, monadic individuation is presupposed by a full-fledged phenomenological theory of personal identity, which cannot be only based upon the ego as the empty pole of experiences, but necessarily needs to take the full and concrete dynamics of the history of monadic life into account. To develop this theory, it is fruitful to follow Paci’s insight and to reconsider individuation as irreversible self-temporalization and self-differentiation in and through the singular experiences, that is, in and through the unique way to respond to and interact with the world and with other subjects.
Adopting this relational and processual account does not necessarily mean neglecting eo ipso the notions of identity and substance. Rather, it implies a relational reassessment of the very notion of substance, which emphasizes not only the moment of persistence over time and space, but also its constitution in and through time and space, as Sein im Werden. Yet, this relational approach certainly represents a challenge to the static understanding of substance as self-enclosed unity, quod nulla re indiget ad existendum, and invites us rather to consider radically the irreducible spatio-temporal co-belonging of subjectivity and the world. This dynamical co-belonging defines the most original relational field of experience, which, as Paci suggests “renders absurd the idea of being ‘before’ the relation, and the idea of an initial relatum subsequently entering into relation, of a birth that precedes the relation (time).”64
The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy XII (2012): 109–35
© Acumen Publishing Ltd. 2013 ISSN: 1533-7472 (print); 2157-0752 (online)
1. Michela Summa is a post-doc researcher at the University Clinic for General Psychiatry (Phenomenology Department) in Heidelberg. In 2010 she obtained her Ph.D. in Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven and the University of Payia with a dissertation entitled “Spatio-temporality in Edmund Husserl’s Transcendental Aesthetic.” Her research interests include: the phenomenology of sensible experience, the relationship between spatiality and temporality, the phenomenology of selfhood and intersubjectivity, the phenomenology of memory and imagination, phenomenological psychopathology.
2. Enzo Paci, Tempo e verità nella fenomenologia di Husserl (Bari: Laterza, 1961), 176; henceforth cited as Tempo e verità. My translation.
3. I am grateful to the director of the Husserl Archives in Leuven, Prof. Ullrich Melle, for his kind permission to quote from Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts. I presented an earlier version of this paper at the 42nd Meeting of the Husserl Circle in Florence, 2011. I am very grateful to all participants for the fruitful discussion and particularly to Prof. Carlos Lobo for his thorough commentary on my paper and for his suggestions about the formal ontology of the individual. I also wish to thank Dr. Andrea Altobrando for his critical comments on an earlier version of this paper and Dr. Tessa Marzotto for her linguistic corrections.
4. Carlos Lobo, “Phénoménologie de l’individuation et critique de la raison logique,” in Annales de phénoménologie 7 (2008), 109–42; henceforth cited as “Individuation et critique de la raison logique.”
5. Lina Rizzoli, Erkenntnis und Reduktion. Die operative Entfaltung der phänomenologischen Reduktion im Denken Edmund Husserls (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008); henceforth cited as Erkenntnis und Reduktion.
6. Rudolf Bernet, “Husserl’s New Phenomenology of Time Consciousness in the Bernau Manuscripts,” in On Time: New Contributons to the Husserlian Phenomenology of Time, ed. Dieter Lohmar and Ichiro Yamaguchi (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 1–20; henceforth cited as “Husserl’s New Phenomenology of Time Consciousness in the Bernau Manuscripts.” Rudolf Bernet, “Wirkliche Zeit und Phantasiezeit. Zu Husserls Begriff der Individuation,” Phänomenologische Forschungen (2004), 37–56; henceforth cited as “Wirkliche Zeit und Phantasiezeit.” Rudolf Bernet, Conscience et existence (Paris: PUF, 2004), 119–42; henceforth cited as Conscience et existence.
7. Andrea Altobrando, Husserl e il problema della monade (Turin: Trauben, 2010), 221ff.; henceforth cited as Husserl e il problema della monade. Andrea Altobrando, “Monadische Subjektivität bei Husserl,” in Investigating Subjectivity. Classical and New Perspectives, ed. Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Karel Novotný, Inga Römer, Laszlo Tengelyi (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 145–64; henceforth cited as “Monadische Subjektivität bei Husserl.”
8. James Hart, Who One Is. Book I: Meontology of the “I”: A Transcendental Phenomenology. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2009), 281; henceforth cited as Who One Is (1).
9. I shall discuss the central theses of some of these studies later on.
10. Concerning Whitehead’s legacy in Paci’s philosophy, see Luca Vanzago, “Paci e Whitehead: La processualità relazionale della natura e il problema della soggettività emergente,” in Omaggio a Enzo Paci (two volumes), ed. Emilio Renzi & Gabriele Scaramuzza (Milan: CUEM, 2006), second volume, 277–89.
11. Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann. Husserliana III/1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), 182; henceforth cited as Hua III/1.
12. “Wir leugnen es nicht und legen vielmehr Gewicht darauf, dass innerhalb der begrifflichen Einheit des Seienden (oder was dasselbe: des Gegenstandes überhaupt) ein fundamentaler kate-gorialer Unterschied bestehe, dem wir eben Rechnung tragen durch den Unterschied zwischen idealem Sein und realem Sein, Sein als Spezies und Sein als Individuelles.” Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer; Husserliana XIX/1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), 130; see also ibid. 104–8; 218ff. Henceforth cited as Hua XIX/1.
13. As it is well known, both questions were originally posed by Aristotle and further developed in the Middle Ages. Since knowledge is granted by definition (i.e., by the genus plus the specific difference), then the individual, which is not specifically determined and therefore cannot be defined in the previous terms, cannot be the object of knowledge either. For an inquiry into Aristotle’s theory of individuation and its developments in the Middle Ages, see Olivier Boulnois, “Genèse de la théorie scotiste de l’individuation,” in Le problème de l’individuation, ed. Pierre-Noël Mayaud (Paris: Vrin, 1991), 51–72 and Bruno Pinchard, “Le principe d’individuation dans la tradition aristotélicienne,” in Le problème de l’individuation, ed. Pierre-Noël Mayaud (Paris: Vrin, 1991), 27–50.
14. With regard to this point, see Lobo, “Individuation et critique de la raison logique.” In his thorough inquiry into the developments of the formal ontological account of the individual, Lobo overlooks what I consider to be the most fundamental aspect of the phenomenology of individuation, namely the question concerning the conditions for the experiential givenness of the individual as such. Considering the theory of spatio-temporal individuation as naive, Lobo seems either to consider spatio-temporality in merely objective terms (but then the question as to the phenomenological space and time remains open), or to neglect what I aim to show in this article, namely the transcendental relevance of the aesthetic constitution of the individual, which is based on the phenomenology of spatial and temporal experience.
15. More precisely, Husserl distinguishes the relative Konkretum (i.e., the object with respect to its abstract moments) from the absolute Konkretum (an object that is not abstract in any sense). However, since each and every independent content has some abstract parts, the two concepts eventually have the same extension (Hua XIX/1, 274).
16. “Das tode ti ist das, was das Spezifische, und zwar die niederste, nicht mehr spezifisch differenzierbare Spezies, individuell vereinzelt, das principium individuationis. Es hat selbst seine Allgemeinheiten, eine allgemeine Form, die sich besondert. Aber diese Besonderung ist individuelle Vereinzelung und nicht spezifische Besonderung.” Edmund Husserl, Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein (1917/1918), ed. Rudolf Bernet & Dieter Lohmar; Husserliana XXXIII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001), 300; henceforth cited as Hua XXXIII.
17. Hart, Who One Is (1), 281.
18. Edmund Husserl, Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft, ed. Paul Janssen, Husserliana XVII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 296–7; henceforth cited as Hua XVII.
19. As is well known, one of the central points in the 1929 book is the distinction between three layers of formal logic in a foundational relation: (i) the pure theory of forms [reine Formenlehre] that coincides with the pure logical grammar in the Investigations; (ii) the logic of consequence; and (iii) the logic of truth. Only the last one can be properly considered as formal ontology, since it establishes a reference to the object conceived as etwas überhaupt. It is precisely the possibility to trace all objectivity back to the “something in general” that makes up the nexus between formal ontology and the theory of pure multiplicities. Hua XVII, 209ff.
20. This, according to Lobo, implies the modalization of the very notion of “form.” See Lobo, “Individuation et critique de la raison logique.”
21. See, Lobo, “Individuation et critique de la raison logique.”
22. As clearly emerges from the following quote, here Husserl does not have geometric space in his mind: “die Geometrie [spricht] von keinen individuell bestimmten Raum- und Zeitpunkten …, sondern nur in allgemeinen Reden von möglichen und ‘gewissen’ bestimmten Raum- und Zeitpunkten überhaupt.” Hua XXXIII, 300.
23. Notably, Jocelyn Benoist, Intentionalité et langage dans les Recherches Logiques de Husserl (Paris: PUF, 1997) and Entre act et sens. La théorie phénoménologique de la signification (Paris: Vrin, 2002); Rizzoli, Erkenntnis und Reduktion.
24. “Während das Ding, oder vielmehr das Merkmal am Dinge erscheint, meinen wir nicht dieses gegenständliche Merkmal, dieses Hier und Jetzt, sondern wir meinen seinen Inhalt, seine “Idee”; wir meinen nicht dieses Rotmoment am Hause, sondern das Rot.” Hua XIX/1, 114. An analogous position is still defended at paragraph 2 of Ideas I, where Husserl distinguishes the Tatsächlichkeit of the individual from its Bestand an wesentlichen Predikabilien (Hua III/1, 12–13).
25. As Rizzoli points out, this theory is not without problems of consistency concerning its differentiation from empirical generalization. Rizzoli, Erkenntnis und Reduktion, 58ff.
26. Analogous difficulties concern the notion of the act-matter in the Fifth Investigation. The matter alone, which makes up the “als was” of the intentional object, cannot explain how it is possible that we experience this individual object in its Einmaligkeit. See Rizzoli, Erkenntnis und Reduktion, 97ff. I shall come back to this point in the second part of the article.
27. Indeed, the proper name is the grammatical pendant of the individual. As the latter is defined in formal ontological terms as formlose Substratum, so the former is grammatically defined as formlos. See, Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Elemente einer phänomenologischen Aufklärung der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XIX/2 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), 658. Henceforth cited as Hua XIX/2.
28. The argument that prevents the consideration of proper names as Anzeige concerns the different grammatical functions they can assume in a sentence. Hua XIX/1 64.
29. See, Rizzoli, Erkenntnis und Reduktion, 67, 189ff.
30. Edmund Husserl, Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre. Sommersemester 1908, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XXVI (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 202ff; henceforth cited as Hua XXVI. See also Rizzoli, Erkenntnis und Reduktion, 223ff.
31. In Ideas I the relationship between individual givenness in its factual determinations and the intuition of the eidetic moments does not seem to be conceived differently from the Logical Investigations. See, notably Hua III/1, 12–13.
32. This reading can be again translated in formal ontological terms, yet introducing a genetic consideration of formal ontology. This, I believe, is what Husserl does in a passage from his 1922/23 lecture course, Einleitung in die Philosophie, where he claims that the apprehension of the individual as individual is more original than the apprehension of the Konkretum. The apprehension of the Konkretum, of the “what,” is the result of a constitutive synthesis that implies previous experiences, whereas this is not the case for the Individuum: “Dem Konkretum stellen wir gegenüber das konkrete Individuum, d. i. das selbstständig erfahrbare Individuelle, genauer: dasjenige, was so zu ursprünglicher Erfahrung kommt, dass seine erfahrende Erfassung nicht der vorgängigen Erfassung eines anderen bedarf.” Edmund Husserl, Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1922–23, ed. Berndt Goossen, Husserliana XXXV (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002), 216; henceforth cited as Hua XXXV.
33. “Tode ti der Sukzession, tode ti der Koexistenz. 1) notwendige Bedingung der Möglichkeit eines tode ti für ein Konkretum (die Möglichkeit seiner Individuation): Zeitlage. In der Koexistenz vervielfältigt sich die Zeitlage nicht; jede ist in der Koexistenz nur einmal da. Kein Wesen. 2) Notwendige Bedingung der Möglichkeit für die Individuation der Koexistenz: Raumlage. Jede Lage, jede absolut lagenmäßig bestimmte Figur ist nur einmal da; sie vervielfältigt sich nicht in der Sukzession, sie ergibt also kein Lagenwesen, das in der Sukzession das Bleibende wäre. Sie ist individuell bleibend. Bedingung der Möglichkeit der Individuation eines Konkretum wird zur Bedingung der Möglichkeit individueller Zeiterfüllung = 1) + 2).” D 8/50 a.
34. The notion of irreversibility, indeed, is not assumed to describe physical phenomena in objective terms, as it is the case for physics. It is rather an ontological category that applies to reality as such and derives from a critique (in the Kantian sense) of the category of relation. Enzo Paci, Fondamenti di una sintesi filosofica (Milan: AUT AUT, 1951), 11; henceforth cited as Fondamenti. See also Enzo Paci, Tempo e relazione (Turin: Taylor, 1954), 3ff.; henceforth cited as Tempo e relazione.
35. See, notably Paci, Fondamenti and Tempo e relazione. One might be tempted here to oppose Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of ‘reversibility’ to Paci’s ‘principle of irreversibility.’ This opposition, I submit, is unfruitful as it risks neglecting, on a pure terminological basis, what is ultimately at stake for both philosophers, namely a phenomenological ontology of the world in its relational dynamics of becoming. In this sense, Merleau-Ponty’s reversibility might be well understood in Paci’s relational terms. And that this reading, which of course entails the irreversibility principle, is not contradictory with Merleau-Ponty’s own position is testified by, for instance, the claim that reversibility, in principle, can never be complete, i.e., that there is no full coincidence between two phenomena or processes. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 191.
36. Paci, Tempo e relazione, 234.
37. Paci, Fondamenti, 11–17.
38. Henri Bergson, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Paris, PUF, 2001), 56ff.
39. Paci, Tempo e relazione and Paci, Tempo e verità.
40. “Das Individuum ist ja das Identische in der Zeit, also die Einheit, die die Zeitfülle unabhängig von der Zeiterstreckung begründet. Das Konstitutive des Individuums liegt also im Identischen der Zeitfülle, und danach ergibt sich der Begriff der Spezies konstitutiver Gestimmtheiten, die verschiedene Individuen in derselben oder in verschiedenen Zeitstrecken gemein haben können.” Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1893–1917), ed. Rudolf Boehm, Husserliana X (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff), 250; henceforth cited as Hua X.
41. “Was hier ‘individuell’ heißt, das ist die ursprüngliche Temporalform der Empfindung, oder, wie ich auch sagen kann, die Temporalform der ursprünglichen Empfindung, hier der Empfindung des jeweiligen Jetztpunktes und nur dieses. Hua X, 67. “Was Urimpression von Urimpression scheidet, das ist das individualisierende Moment der ursprünglichen Zeitstellenimpression, die etwas grundwesentlich Verschiedenes ist gegenüber der Qualität und sonstigen materiellen Momenten des Empfindungsinhaltes.” Hua X, 67–8.
42. According to Marc Richir, Husserl has not been consistent enough in conceiving of the irreversibility of time. To reach such consistency, he would have had to go beyond the assumption of irreversibility as a Faktum and more radically think the co-belonging of present and death, or the “cadaverous” moment of the present. Marc Richir, Fragments phénoménologiques sur le temps et l’espace (Paris: Millon, 2006), 134ff. One can, of course, pursue this line of though, and then one shall ask if death and this “cadaverous” moment of present that is implied by irreversibility are something we can appropriate or if they are rather inappropriable or alien moments of experience. A thorough discussion of this point certainly goes beyond the scope of this article. Yet this nexus between irreversibility and the alienness of death deserves at least to be mentioned. As we will see in the third section of the article, the (affective) relation to alienness is a central moment of the process of individuation of subjectivity.
43. Dieter Lohmar, “On the Constitution of the Time of the World: The Emergence of Objective Time on the Ground of Subjective Time,” in On Time: New Contributions to the Husserlian Phenomenology of Time, ed. Dieter Lohmar and Ichiro Yamaguchi (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 115–36.
44. “Es ist hier der Ursprungspunkt der Individualität, Tatsächlichkeit, des Unterschiedes im Dasein. Das ursprünglichste Haben bzw. Erfassen eines Inhalts als Tatsache und eines unterschiedenen Inhalts als unterschiedene Tatsache … vollzieht sich in der Aktualität der ursprünglichen Präsentation und vollzieht [sich] im Bewusstsein der originären Gegenwart des Inhalts.” Hua XXXIII, 292.
45. Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Zweiter Teil: 1921–1928, ed. Iso Kern, Husserliana XIV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 37; henceforth cited as Hua XIV.
46. Bernet, “Husserl’s New Phenomenology of Time Consciousness in the Bernau Manuscripts,” “Wirkliche Zeit und Phantasiezeit. Zu Husserls Begriff der Individuation,” and Conscience et existence, 119–42.
47. At the most basic layer of time consciousness this is due to the material contents or the original hyle.
48. Paci, Tempo e verità, 166ff.
49. Hart, Who One Is (1), IX, 270ff.
50. “Das Konkretum ist das Allgemeine, das durch bloße ‘Wiederholung’ von selbstständig erfahrbarem Individuellem entspringt. Jeder individuelle Gegenstand lässt sich wiederholt denken, ein zweiter völlig gleicher ist ihm gegenüber denkbar. Jedes Individuum ist individuell Einzelnes seines Konkretums, es ist ist konkretes Individuum.” Hua XXXV, 216.
51. Hart, Who One Is (1), 283.
52. Ibid., 293.
53. See, Altobrando, Husserl e il problema della monade and “Monadische Subjektivität bei Husserl.”
54. On Leibniz’s theory of individuation and of the individual substance, see Jan Cover & John O’Leary Hawthorne, Substance and Individuation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Stefano di Bella, The Science of the Individual: Leibniz’s Ontology of the Individual Substance (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005). A shorter, yet thorough discussion of the topic is provided by Annie Bibitol-Hespériès, “Leibniz et la question de l’individuation,” in Le problème de l’individuation, ed. Pierre-Noël Mayaud (Paris: Vrin, 1991), 79–104.
55. Hart suggests that this idea comes close to the Anselmian ontological argument: in the very essence, existence is implied. Hart, Who One Is (1), 411ff.
56. “Die Monade ist ein ‘einfaches’ unzerstückbares Wesen, das ist, was es ist, als kontinuierlich werdend in der Zeit, und alles, was ihr zugehört ist an irgendeiner Stelle dieses kontinuier-lichen Werdens und hat sein Sein als Zeitfülle in dieser immanenten erfüllten Zeit und ist nichts für sich, da diese Erfüllung kontinuierlich ist und bezogen ist auf einen und denselben identischen Ichpol.” Hua XIV, 35–6; see also ibid. 14.
57. Altobrando, Husserl e il problema della monade, 266; my translation.
58. As Hanne Jacobs shows, here is also the core of Husserl theory of personhood and personal identity. The latter is a dynamic process, accomplished through the subject constant ‘appropriation’ of her position-takings. See Hanne Jacobs, “Towards a Phenomenological Theory of Personal Identity,” in Philosophy, Phenomenology, Sciences, ed. Carlo Jerna, Hanne Jacobs & Filip Mattens (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 333–61.
59. “Die Individualität bekundet sich nicht in der passiven Doxa, in der ein sinnliches Datum z. B in Perzeption oder Reproduktion als in Gegenwart oder Gewesenheit seiend dasteht, nicht in dem passiven Spiel von Anmutlichkeiten und Vermutichkeiten, sondern in den tätigen doxischen Erwägung und Entscheidung, im aktiven Denken und allen intellektiven Tätigkeiten mit ihren aktiven Stellungnahmen des Ich, das sich nach ‘Gründen’ entscheidet.” Hua XIV, 20.
60. “Das Individuelle des aktiven Verhaltens eines Ich liegt in der Eindeutigkeit dieses Verhaltens für ein Ich, die für jedes Ich besteht und doch nicht ihren Grund hat, dass jedes Ich andere passive Untergrunde hat. Hua XIV, 34.
61. Edmund Husserl, Späte Texte über Zeitkonstitution 1929–1934. Die C-Manuskripte, ed. Dieter Lohmar. Husserliana Materialien VIII (Dordrecht: Springer), 90ff., 102, 189, 203ff., 352.
62. “Nun, soweit das ‘Innere’ oder ‘Eigenwesen’ eines Individuums, all das, was von ihm anschaulich gegeben sein und spezifiziert werden, eidetisch gefasst werden kann, so müssen wir sagen, für kein Individuum schreibt sein Wesen rational, in eidetischer Notwendigkeit sein künftiges Werden, die künftigen Wesensbestände in voller Bestimmtheit, eindeutig vor, und es ist die Frage, ob es überhaupt in dieser Hinsicht, für eine Zukunft etwas vorschreibt.” Hua XIV, 14.
63. Paci, Fondamenti, 18–22.
64. Paci, Fondamenti, 22; my translation.