Key Arguments

• Husserl states that ‘The experiential phenomenon, Objective Nature, has, besides the primordially constituted stratum, a superimposed second, merely appresented stratum originating from my experiencing of someone else’, indicating a two‑layered constitution of objectivity.
• He notes that this first concerns ‘the Other’s animate bodily organism, which is, so to speak, the intrinsically first Object, just as the other man is constitutionally the intrinsically first ‹Objective› man’, making the constitution of the other’s body the primal phenomenon of Objectivity.
• He explains that if he ‘screens off’ his experience of someone else, he has ‘the lowest constitution, the one-layered presentive constitution of the other body within my primordial sphere’; upon ‘add[ing] that experience’, he then has appresentationally, coinciding synthetically with this presentive stratum, ‘the same animate organism as it is given to the other Ego himself, and … the further possible modes of givenness available to him’.
• From this, ‘every natural Object experienced or experienceable by me in the lower stratum receives an appresentational stratum (though by no means one that becomes explicitly intuited), a stratum united in an identifying synthesis with the stratum given to me in the mode of primordial originality: the same natural Object in its possible modes of givenness to the other Ego’.
• He adds that ‘This is repeated, mutatis mutandis, in the case of subsequently constituted mundanities of the concrete Objective world as it always exists for us: namely as a world of men and culture’, extending the two‑strata model from Nature to cultural objects.
• He underscores that, despite this all occurring ‘exclusively within the sphere of my ownness’, the intentionality of this sphere ‘transcends my ownness’ insofar as my ego constitutes ‘another ego — and constitutes this ego, moreover, as existent’, and thereby constitutes an Objective world shared with others.

Source Quotes

On the other hand, it is implicit in the intentional essence of this perception of the Other — the Other who exists henceforth, as I do myself, within what is henceforth the Objective world — that I as perceiver can find the aforesaid distinction between my primordial sphere and the merely presentiated primordial sphere of the Other, and consequently can trace the peculiarities of the division into two noetic strata and explicate the complexes of associative intentionality. The experiential phenomenon, Objective Nature, has, besides the primordially constituted stratum, a superimposed second, merely appresented stratum originating from my experiencing of someone else; and this fact concerns, first of all, the Other’s animate bodily organism, which is, so to speak, the intrinsically first Object, just as the other man is constitutionally the intrinsically first ‹Objective› man. In the case of this primal phenomenon of Objectivity, the situation is already clear to us: If I screen off my experience of someone else, I have the lowest constitution, the one-layered presentive constitution of the other body within my primordial sphere; if I add that experience, I have appresentationally, and as coinciding synthetically with the presentational stratum, the same animate organism as it is given to the other Ego himself, and I have the further possible modes of givenness available to him.

The experiential phenomenon, Objective Nature, has, besides the primordially constituted stratum, a superimposed second, merely appresented stratum originating from my experiencing of someone else; and this fact concerns, first of all, the Other’s animate bodily organism, which is, so to speak, the intrinsically first Object, just as the other man is constitutionally the intrinsically first ‹Objective› man. In the case of this primal phenomenon of Objectivity, the situation is already clear to us: If I screen off my experience of someone else, I have the lowest constitution, the one-layered presentive constitution of the other body within my primordial sphere; if I add that experience, I have appresentationally, and as coinciding synthetically with the presentational stratum, the same animate organism as it is given to the other Ego himself, and I have the further possible modes of givenness available to him. From that, as is easily understandable, every natural Object experienced or experienceable by me in the lower stratum receives an appresentational stratum (though by no means one that becomes explicitly intuited), a stratum united in an identifying synthesis with the stratum given to me in the mode of primordial originality: the same natural Object in its possible modes of givenness to the other Ego.

In the case of this primal phenomenon of Objectivity, the situation is already clear to us: If I screen off my experience of someone else, I have the lowest constitution, the one-layered presentive constitution of the other body within my primordial sphere; if I add that experience, I have appresentationally, and as coinciding synthetically with the presentational stratum, the same animate organism as it is given to the other Ego himself, and I have the further possible modes of givenness available to him. From that, as is easily understandable, every natural Object experienced or experienceable by me in the lower stratum receives an appresentational stratum (though by no means one that becomes explicitly intuited), a stratum united in an identifying synthesis with the stratum given to me in the mode of primordial originality: the same natural Object in its possible modes of givenness to the other Ego. This is repeated, mutatis mutandis, in the case of subsequently constituted mundanities of the concrete Objective world as it always exists for us: namely as a world of men and culture. / The following should be noted in this connexion.

From that, as is easily understandable, every natural Object experienced or experienceable by me in the lower stratum receives an appresentational stratum (though by no means one that becomes explicitly intuited), a stratum united in an identifying synthesis with the stratum given to me in the mode of primordial originality: the same natural Object in its possible modes of givenness to the other Ego. This is repeated, mutatis mutandis, in the case of subsequently constituted mundanities of the concrete Objective world as it always exists for us: namely as a world of men and culture. / The following should be noted in this connexion. It is implicit in the sense of my successful apperception of others that their world, the world belonging to their appearance-systems, must be experienced forthwith as the same as the world belonging to my appearance-systems; and this involves an identity of our appearance-systems.

On the contrary, the identity-sense of “my” primordial Nature and the presentiated other primordial Nature is necessarily produced by the appresentation and the unity that it, as appresentation, necessarily has with the presentation co-functioning for it — this appresentation by virtue of which an Other and, consequently, his concrete ego are there for me in the first place. Quite rightly, therefore, we speak of perceiving someone else and then of perceiving the Objective world, perceiving that the other Ego and I are looking at the same world, and so forth — though this perceiving goes on exclusively within the sphere of my ownness. That does not at all contravene the fact that the intentionality of this sphere transcends my ownness, or the fact that accordingly my ego / constitutes in himself another ego — and constitutes this ego, moreover, as existent.

Key Concepts

• The experiential phenomenon, Objective Nature, has, besides the primordially constituted stratum, a superimposed second, merely appresented stratum originating from my experiencing of someone else; and this fact concerns, first of all, the Other’s animate bodily organism, which is, so to speak, the intrinsically first Object, just as the other man is constitutionally the intrinsically first ‹Objective› man.
• If I screen off my experience of someone else, I have the lowest constitution, the one-layered presentive constitution of the other body within my primordial sphere; if I add that experience, I have appresentationally, and as coinciding synthetically with the presentational stratum, the same animate organism as it is given to the other Ego himself, and I have the further possible modes of givenness available to him.
• From that, as is easily understandable, every natural Object experienced or experienceable by me in the lower stratum receives an appresentational stratum (though by no means one that becomes explicitly intuited), a stratum united in an identifying synthesis with the stratum given to me in the mode of primordial originality: the same natural Object in its possible modes of givenness to the other Ego.
• This is repeated, mutatis mutandis, in the case of subsequently constituted mundanities of the concrete Objective world as it always exists for us: namely as a world of men and culture.
• Quite rightly, therefore, we speak of perceiving someone else and then of perceiving the Objective world, perceiving that the other Ego and I are looking at the same world, and so forth — though this perceiving goes on exclusively within the sphere of my ownness.

Context

Middle‑to‑late portion of §55, where Husserl explicates how the experience of someone else superimposes an appresentational layer onto the primordially constituted world, first in relation to the other’s body and then for all natural and cultural objects, thereby yielding Objective Nature and the Objective world as intersubjectively valid.