Key Arguments

• Husserl explicitly introduces the notion of compossibility limits within a single ego: "But in a unitarily possible ego2 not all singly possible types are compossible, and not all compossible ones are compossible in just any order, at no matter what loci in that ego’s own temporality."
• He offers an example from scientific activity: "If I form some scientific theory or other, my complex rational activity, with its rationally constituted existent, belongs to an essential type that is possible, not in every possible ego,3 but only in one that is 'rational' in a particular sense, the same that, with the mundanization of the ego, presents itself in the essential form: man4 ('rational' animal)." This shows that some types (scientific theorizing) are only possible in egos of a determinate essential type.
• He notes that in reducing his de facto theorizing to its eidetic type, he has eo ipso varied himself within the bounds of an essential type of ego: "When I reduce my de facto theorizing to its eidetic type, I have varied myself too (regardless of whether I am aware of it) — not however in a wholly optional manner, but within the frame of the corresponding essential type, 'rational' being."
• Temporal constraints within a single life are also essential: "Manifestly I cannot imagine the theorizing I do or can do now as shifted arbitrarily within the unity of my life; and this too carries over into the eidetic." This indicates that even in pure possibility, such acts cannot be placed anywhere at will in one’s life-history.
• He specifies that eidetic analysis of his childhood yields a type of life in which scientific theorizing cannot yet occur, though it can in its further development: "Eidetic apprehension of my (transcendentally reduced) childhood life and its possibilities of constitution produces a type, such that in its further development, but not in its own nexus, the type 'scientific theorizing' can occur."
• Husserl then generalizes from this example, grounding such restrictions in a priori structures and eidetic laws governing coexistence and succession: "Restriction of this kind has its grounds in an apriori universal structure, in a conformity to universal eidetic laws of coexistence and succession in egological time."
• He closes by indicating that everything that occurs in an ego, and eidetically in an ego as such, participates in a systematic temporal form: "For indeed whatever occurs in my ego,5 and eidetically in an ego as such — in the way of intentional processes, constituted unities, Ego habitualities — has its temporality and, in this respect, participates in the system of forms that belongs to the all-inclusive temporality with which every".

Source Quotes

The universal Apriori pertaining to a transcendental ego as such is an eidetic form, which contains an infinity of forms, an infinity of apriori types of actualities and potentialities of life, along with the objects constitutable in a life as objects actually existing. But in a unitarily possible ego2 not all singly possible types are compossible, and not all compossible ones are compossible in just any order, at no matter what loci in that ego’s own temporality. If I form some scientific theory or other, my complex rational activity, with its rationally constituted existent, belongs to an essential type that is possible, not in every possible ego,3 but only in one that is “rational” in a particular sense, the same that, with the mundanization of the ego, presents itself in the essential form: man4 (“rational” animal).

But in a unitarily possible ego2 not all singly possible types are compossible, and not all compossible ones are compossible in just any order, at no matter what loci in that ego’s own temporality. If I form some scientific theory or other, my complex rational activity, with its rationally constituted existent, belongs to an essential type that is possible, not in every possible ego,3 but only in one that is “rational” in a particular sense, the same that, with the mundanization of the ego, presents itself in the essential form: man4 (“rational” animal). When I reduce my de facto theorizing to its eidetic type, I have varied myself too (regardless of whether I am aware of it) — not however in a wholly optional manner, but within the frame of the corresponding essential type, “rational” being.

If I form some scientific theory or other, my complex rational activity, with its rationally constituted existent, belongs to an essential type that is possible, not in every possible ego,3 but only in one that is “rational” in a particular sense, the same that, with the mundanization of the ego, presents itself in the essential form: man4 (“rational” animal). When I reduce my de facto theorizing to its eidetic type, I have varied myself too (regardless of whether I am aware of it) — not however in a wholly optional manner, but within the frame of the corresponding essential type, “rational” being. Manifestly I cannot imagine the theorizing I do or can do now as shifted arbitrarily within the unity of my life; and this too carries over into the eidetic.

When I reduce my de facto theorizing to its eidetic type, I have varied myself too (regardless of whether I am aware of it) — not however in a wholly optional manner, but within the frame of the corresponding essential type, “rational” being. Manifestly I cannot imagine the theorizing I do or can do now as shifted arbitrarily within the unity of my life; and this too carries over into the eidetic. Eidetic apprehension of my (transcendentally reduced) childhood life and its possibilities of constitution produces a type, such that in its further development, but not in its own nexus, the type “scientific theorizing” can occur.

Manifestly I cannot imagine the theorizing I do or can do now as shifted arbitrarily within the unity of my life; and this too carries over into the eidetic. Eidetic apprehension of my (transcendentally reduced) childhood life and its possibilities of constitution produces a type, such that in its further development, but not in its own nexus, the type “scientific theorizing” can occur. Restriction of this kind has its grounds in an apriori universal structure, in a conformity to universal eidetic laws of coexistence and succession in egological time. For indeed whatever occurs in my ego,5 and eidetically in an ego as such — in the way of intentional processes, constituted unities, Ego habitualities — has its temporality and, in this respect, participates in the system of forms that belongs to the all-inclusive temporality with which every

Key Concepts

• But in a unitarily possible ego2 not all singly possible types are compossible, and not all compossible ones are compossible in just any order, at no matter what loci in that ego’s own temporality.
• If I form some scientific theory or other, my complex rational activity, with its rationally constituted existent, belongs to an essential type that is possible, not in every possible ego,3 but only in one that is “rational” in a particular sense, the same that, with the mundanization of the ego, presents itself in the essential form: man4 (“rational” animal).
• When I reduce my de facto theorizing to its eidetic type, I have varied myself too (regardless of whether I am aware of it) — not however in a wholly optional manner, but within the frame of the corresponding essential type, “rational” being.
• Manifestly I cannot imagine the theorizing I do or can do now as shifted arbitrarily within the unity of my life; and this too carries over into the eidetic.
• Eidetic apprehension of my (transcendentally reduced) childhood life and its possibilities of constitution produces a type, such that in its further development, but not in its own nexus, the type “scientific theorizing” can occur. Restriction of this kind has its grounds in an apriori universal structure, in a conformity to universal eidetic laws of coexistence and succession in egological time. For indeed whatever occurs in my ego,5 and eidetically in an ego as such — in the way of intentional processes, constituted unities, Ego habitualities — has its temporality and, in this respect, participates in the system of forms that belongs to the all-inclusive temporality with which every

Context

Central and closing part of the excerpt from §36, where Husserl uses the example of scientific theorizing and childhood life to show that possible types of subjective processes are constrained by essential laws of compossibility and temporal ordering within a single transcendental ego.