Key Arguments

• Husserl notes that among the bodies remaining in this Nature included in my ownness, he ‘find[s] my animate organism as uniquely singled out — namely as the only one of them that is not just a body but precisely an animate organism’, singled out further as the only object to which I ascribe fields of sensation of various kinds.
• He emphasizes that this organism is uniquely under my immediate governance: it is ‘the sole Object within my abstract world-stratum to which, in accordance with experience, I ascribe fields of sensation … the only Object “in” which I “rule and govern” immediately, governing particularly in each of its “organs”.’
• He describes how kinestheses of the organs flow in the mode ‘I am doing’ and are subject to my ‘I can’, allowing me to ‘push, thrust, and so forth, and can thereby “act” somatically — immediately, and then mediately.’
• He explains reflexive perception and practice: my animate organism can become both functioning organ and object, as when ‘I “can” perceive one hand “by means of” the other, an eye by means of a hand, and so forth — a procedure in which the functioning organ must become an Object and the Object a functioning organ.’
• He then adds that bringing to light this reduced animate organism is part of bringing to light the ownness-essence of ‘I, as this man’, and distinguishes the reduction of other men (yielding only bodies) from the reduction of myself as man, which yields ‘“my animate organism” and “my psyche”, or myself as a psychophysical unity’, in which the personal Ego operates through the organism and is affected by the world.
• Thus, within the reduced world, the psychophysical Ego with ‘body and soul’ and personal Ego is constituted as an utterly unique member, grounding the special role of my Leib in subsequent analyses of intersubjectivity.

Source Quotes

Thus there is included in my ownness, as purified from every sense pertaining to other subjectivity, a sense, “mere Nature”, that has lost precisely that “by everyone” and therefore must not by any means be taken for an abstract stratum of the world or of the world’s sense. Among the bodies belonging to this “Nature” and included in my peculiar ownness, I then find my animate organism as uniquely singled out — namely as the only one of them that is not just a body but precisely an animate organism: the sole Object within my abstract world-stratum to which, in accordance with experience, I ascribe fields of sensation (belonging to it, however, in different manners — a field of tactual sensations, a field of warmth and coldness, and so forth), the only Object “in” which I “rule and govern” immediately, governing particularly in each of its “organs”. Touching kinesthetically, I perceive “with” my hands; seeing kinesthetically, I perceive also “with” my eyes; and so forth; moreover I can perceive thus at any time.

Touching kinesthetically, I perceive “with” my hands; seeing kinesthetically, I perceive also “with” my eyes; and so forth; moreover I can perceive thus at any time. Meanwhile the kinesthesias pertaining to the organs flow in the mode “I am doing”, and are subject to my “I can”; furthermore, by calling these kinesthesias into play, I can push, thrust, and so forth, and can thereby “act” somatically — immediately, and then mediately. As perceptively active, I experience (or can experience) all of Nature, including my own animate organism, which therefore in the process is reflexively related to itself.

As perceptively active, I experience (or can experience) all of Nature, including my own animate organism, which therefore in the process is reflexively related to itself. That becomes possible because I “can” perceive one hand “by means of” the other, an eye by means of a hand, and so forth — a procedure in which the functioning organ must become an Object and the Object a functioning organ. And it is the same in the case of my generally possible original dealing with Nature and with my animate organism itself, by means of this organism — which therefore is reflexively related to itself also in practice.

And it is the same in the case of my generally possible original dealing with Nature and with my animate organism itself, by means of this organism — which therefore is reflexively related to itself also in practice. Bringing to light my animate organism, reduced to what is included in my ownness, is itself part of bringing to light the ownness-essence of the Objective phenomenon: “I, as this man”. If I reduce other men to what is included in my ownness, I get bodies included therein; if I reduce myself as a man, I get “my animate organism” and “my psyche”, or myself as a psychophysical unity — in the latter, my personal Ego, who operates in this animate organism and, “by means of” it, in the “external world”, who is affected by this world, and who thus in all respects, by virtue of the continual experience of such unique modes of Ego- and life-relatedness, is constituted as psychophysically united with the animate corporeal organism.

Bringing to light my animate organism, reduced to what is included in my ownness, is itself part of bringing to light the ownness-essence of the Objective phenomenon: “I, as this man”. If I reduce other men to what is included in my ownness, I get bodies included therein; if I reduce myself as a man, I get “my animate organism” and “my psyche”, or myself as a psychophysical unity — in the latter, my personal Ego, who operates in this animate organism and, “by means of” it, in the “external world”, who is affected by this world, and who thus in all respects, by virtue of the continual experience of such unique modes of Ego- and life-relatedness, is constituted as psychophysically united with the animate corporeal organism. If ownness-purification of the external world, the animate organism, / and the psychophysical whole, has been effected, I have lost my natural sense as Ego, since every sense-relation to a possible Us or We remains excluded, and have lost likewise all my worldliness, in the natural sense.

But, in my spiritual ownness, I am nevertheless the identical Ego-pole of my manifold “pure” subjective processes, those of my passive and active intentionality, and the pole of all the habitualities instituted or to be instituted by those processes. Accordingly this peculiar abstractive sense-exclusion of what is alien leaves us a kind of “world” still, a Nature reduced to what is included in our ownness and, as having its place in this Nature thanks to the bodily organism, the psychophysical Ego, with “body and soul” and personal Ego — utterly unique members of this reduced “world”. Manifestly predicates that get significance from this Ego also occur in the reduced world — for example: “value” predicates and predicates of “works” as such.

Key Concepts

• Among the bodies belonging to this “Nature” and included in my peculiar ownness, I then find my animate organism as uniquely singled out — namely as the only one of them that is not just a body but precisely an animate organism:
• the sole Object within my abstract world-stratum to which, in accordance with experience, I ascribe fields of sensation (belonging to it, however, in different manners — a field of tactual sensations, a field of warmth and coldness, and so forth), the only Object “in” which I “rule and govern” immediately, governing particularly in each of its “organs”.
• Meanwhile the kinesthesias pertaining to the organs flow in the mode “I am doing”, and are subject to my “I can”; furthermore, by calling these kinesthesias into play, I can push, thrust, and so forth, and can thereby “act” somatically — immediately, and then mediately.
• That becomes possible because I “can” perceive one hand “by means of” the other, an eye by means of a hand, and so forth — a procedure in which the functioning organ must become an Object and the Object a functioning organ.
• Bringing to light my animate organism, reduced to what is included in my ownness, is itself part of bringing to light the ownness-essence of the Objective phenomenon: “I, as this man”.
• If I reduce other men to what is included in my ownness, I get bodies included therein; if I reduce myself as a man, I get “my animate organism” and “my psyche”, or myself as a psychophysical unity — in the latter, my personal Ego, who operates in this animate organism and, “by means of” it, in the “external world”, who is affected by this world, and who thus in all respects, by virtue of the continual experience of such unique modes of Ego- and life-relatedness, is constituted as psychophysically united with the animate corporeal organism.
• Accordingly this peculiar abstractive sense-exclusion of what is alien leaves us a kind of “world” still, a Nature reduced to what is included in our ownness and, as having its place in this Nature thanks to the bodily organism, the psychophysical Ego, with “body and soul” and personal Ego — utterly unique members of this reduced “world”.

Context

Middle-to-late part of §44, where Husserl identifies within the reduced ‘mere Nature’ the special status of my animate organism and uses this to characterize the psychophysical Ego as a unique, reflexively related member of the reduced world of ownness.