My own body and the body of others. Husserl and the constitution of identity

Abstract

This paper aims to highlight some problematic elements of the Husserlian phenomenological system. Starting from the analysis of Dingvorlesung (1907) and Ideen II, I will outline the role that the concepts of "Body" (Leib) and "kinaesthetic consciousness" play in the definition of the notion of pure self or transcendental consciousness. This notion, which must be understood as a minimal notion of consciousness, is characterized by "œabsolute hypseity" and can be interpreted as the reduction to ownness of every act of consciousness. Husserl uses it as the original and founding notion of identity that can be defined as mineness (Meinheit). This paper shows in what sense the minimal identity that emerges thanks to corporeity and is structurally intertwined with it, is “on the contrary “ already a result, i.e. the result of a progressive "negation" of the community dimension, understood as a fusional and "unipathic" dimension in relation to the other.