Key Arguments

• Husserl introduces community as arising ‘forthwith’ from the experience of someone else: it is first between ‘me, the primordial psychophysical Ego’ and the appresentatively experienced Other, and more radically between ‘my monadic ego and his’.
• He specifies that ‘the first thing constituted in the form of community’ is not some abstract structure but ‘the commonness of Nature, along with that of the Other’s organism and his psychophysical Ego, as paired with my own psychophysical Ego’, thus making common Nature the basis of all other intersubjective structures.
• He notes an apparent ‘mystery’ or ‘enigma’: other subjectivity arises ‘within the exclusive own-essentialness of my subjectivity’ as essentially other, which seems to make any community — even a common world — impossible at first glance.
• To dissolve this enigma, Husserl insists that we must not appeal to a temporal genesis from a prior solipsistic stage, but instead must carry out a ‘precise explication of the intentionality actually observable in our experience of someone else and discovery of the motivations essentially implicit in that intentionality’; that is, the solution is to be found in the structure of present experience itself.
• He later concludes that, in light of this analysis, it is ‘no longer an enigma’ how I can ‘constitute in my monad another monad, and can experience what is constituted in me as nevertheless other than me’, nor how I can identify ‘a Nature constituted in me with a Nature constituted by someone else’—showing that the community of monads and common Nature are normal outcomes of transcendental constitution.

Source Quotes

Establishment of the community of monads. The first form of Objectivity: intersubjective Nature But it is more important to clarify the community, developing at various levels, which is produced forthwith by virtue of experiencing someone else: the community between me, the primordial psychophysical Ego governing in and by means of my primordial organism, and the appresentatively experienced Other; then, considered more concretely and radically, between my monadic ego and his. The first thing constituted in the form of community, and the foundation for all other intersubjectively common things, is the commonness of Nature, along with that of the Other’s organism and his psychophysical Ego, as paired with my own psychophysical Ego.

The first form of Objectivity: intersubjective Nature But it is more important to clarify the community, developing at various levels, which is produced forthwith by virtue of experiencing someone else: the community between me, the primordial psychophysical Ego governing in and by means of my primordial organism, and the appresentatively experienced Other; then, considered more concretely and radically, between my monadic ego and his. The first thing constituted in the form of community, and the foundation for all other intersubjectively common things, is the commonness of Nature, along with that of the Other’s organism and his psychophysical Ego, as paired with my own psychophysical Ego. Since other subjectivity, by appresentation within the exclusive own-essentialness of my subjectivity, arises with the sense and status of a subjectivity that is other in its own essence1, it might at first seem to be a mystery how community — even the first community, in the form of a common world — becomes established.

The first thing constituted in the form of community, and the foundation for all other intersubjectively common things, is the commonness of Nature, along with that of the Other’s organism and his psychophysical Ego, as paired with my own psychophysical Ego. Since other subjectivity, by appresentation within the exclusive own-essentialness of my subjectivity, arises with the sense and status of a subjectivity that is other in its own essence1, it might at first seem to be a mystery how community — even the first community, in the form of a common world — becomes established. The other organism, as appearing in my primordial sphere, is first of all a body in my / primordial Nature, which is a synthetic unity belonging to me and therefore, as a determining part included in my own essence, inseparable from me myself.

But the enigma appears only if the two original spheres have already been distinguished — a distinction that already presupposes that experience of someone else has done its work. Since we are not dealing here with a temporal genesis of such experience, on the basis of a temporally antecedent self-experience, manifestly only a precise explication of the intentionality actually observable in our experience of someone else and discovery of the motivations essentially implicit in that intentionality can unlock the enigma. As we said once before, appresentation as such presupposes a core of presentation.

This general account, however, is enough for our present purposes. After these clarifications it is no longer an enigma how I can constitute in myself another Ego or, more radically, how I can constitute in my monad another monad, and can experience what is constituted in me as nevertheless other than me. At the same time, this being indeed inseparable from such constitution, it is no longer an enigma how I / can identify a Nature constituted in me with a Nature constituted by someone else (or, stated with the necessary precision, how I can identify a Nature constituted in me with one constituted in me as a Nature constituted by someone else).

Key Concepts

• the community, developing at various levels, which is produced forthwith by virtue of experiencing someone else: the community between me, the primordial psychophysical Ego governing in and by means of my primordial organism, and the appresentatively experienced Other; then, considered more concretely and radically, between my monadic ego and his.
• The first thing constituted in the form of community, and the foundation for all other intersubjectively common things, is the commonness of Nature, along with that of the Other’s organism and his psychophysical Ego, as paired with my own psychophysical Ego.
• Since other subjectivity, by appresentation within the exclusive own-essentialness of my subjectivity, arises with the sense and status of a subjectivity that is other in its own essence1, it might at first seem to be a mystery how community — even the first community, in the form of a common world — becomes established.
• manifestly only a precise explication of the intentionality actually observable in our experience of someone else and discovery of the motivations essentially implicit in that intentionality can unlock the enigma.
• After these clarifications it is no longer an enigma how I can constitute in myself another Ego or, more radically, how I can constitute in my monad another monad, and can experience what is constituted in me as nevertheless other than me.

Context

Opening and closing movements of §55, where Husserl introduces the problem of how an essentially ‘other’ subjectivity can be in community with me and argues that the first and basic form of this community is a shared Nature and paired psychophysical egos, a result secured by explicating the intentional structure of the experience of someone else.