Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics - Eubios Ethics ...

36 Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 22 (January 2012)
of repeated actions or habits through time. Such eidos
are being retained and are continually being used in
future constitutions as long as the same form remains the
same in the time of such constitution.
Lifeworld, Horizon and Time
The world always exists in time and space. It is existing
for man. All things around man form this world. There are
many things but there is only one world, a world that is
pre-given to man. “The world is the universe of things,
which are distributed within the world-form of space-time
and are “positional” in two senses (according to spatial
position and temporal position) – The spatiotemporal
onta.” 35 Man’s life in this world is always in reference to
time and space. Man experiences the world in a
particular space, is conscious of things in the world at a
particular given time and space and gives meaning
based on his experiences of the world in the past, the
present and the possible experience in the future. From
this life-world, man derives knowledge and the ideals.
Man’s life therefore is inseparable with this pre-given
world. The world and its meaning are always in relation to
man. The existence of the world and its importance is
always in relation to man.
When the transcendental ego experiences the world, it
is an experience not just of things themselves but also of
horizon. External horizon is the physical background
wherein a consciousness can experience if it shifts focus.
Although we do not focus on the background, it is there
in the world together with the thing wherein we focus our
consciousness. A thing cannot be floating in void, so as
an ego. A part of this world serves as the physical
background wherein we experience a thing or another
ego. Second are the different angles of the thing one is
conscious of. An ego that is looking at itself is incapable
of seeing the total external horizon of oneself. Even in
front of a mirror, a particular angle is the only visible to
the one experiencing it. An ego is incapable of seeing the
different angles of an object at the same time. The
experiences of an ego are limited in a momentary basis.
A consciousness can only focus on a specific angle of a
thing in a given time but such experience of a thing by a
consciousness is more than the angle that has been
experienced. When an ego looks at things, it only sees
an angle of it. That ego does not see the entire thing so
there is a movement of the ego in the horizon to see the
different angles and possibilities of the whole object. It is
also a possibility that one becomes aware of other angles
of a thing through the experiences of others. Unification
of different aspects from different points of view
constitutes the entire thing that is experienced by
consciousness in the lifeworld. “In the continuous
alteration of seeing, the side just seen ceases being
actually still seen, but is retained and taken together with
those retained from before; and thus I get to know the
thing.” 36 The thing itself is more than what consciousness
is seeing because it always considers the different angles
of things from other perspectives.
Internal horizon is the time or the temporality in which
we become conscious of things. Consciousness
35 Husserl, The Crisis, 142.
36 Ibid., 158.
experiences a thing not the way sciences do, that is
momentary or static, but in a horizon of time or
generative. “Perception is related only to the present. But
this present is always meant as having an endless past
behind it and an open future before it.” 37 When an ego
looks at an object, it retains a little of its past (retention),
the present and a little of the future (protention). The
present object has been there because it has a past that
contributes to its present and also has a future wherein it
is looking forward to. Just like what has been discussed
about the relationship between noema and noetic.
Different experiences of the same thing by different
consciousnesses can produce different meanings based
on how they experienced that same object in the past,
how they are experiencing it now and how they will
perceive their possible experiences of that thing in the
future. As a consciousness shifts its focus on angle to
another angle of a thing it perceives, time changes so in
constituting things, time and horizon are being combined
to give meaning to a thing.
Influence of Tradition, Historicity and Normality to
Intersubjectivity
Constitution is the task of the transcendental
intersubjectivity. Through transcendental intersubjectivity,
egos arrived at the constitution of the objective common
world. Before it is just the task of the transcendental ego,
now it is the task of the community of egos to constitute
the world. This is the second and final attempt of Husserl
in developing phenomenology as a new philosophy that
is apodictic. Intersubjectivity is the communalization of an
ego’s experience. It is also a search for the validity of an
ego’s experience of the lifeworld. “Thus in general the
world exists not only for isolated men but for the
community of men; and this is due to the fact that even
what is straightforwardly perceptual is communalized.” 38
Through this, the important role of language has been
acknowledged. Man came to know people of the past
through written language. With the same, the future
generation will be able to know history. Both in one’s
sense of self and of the world, man can attain objectivity
through others’ validity. “All this takes place in such a
way that in the consciousness of each individual, and in
the overarching community consciousness has grown up
through {social} contract, one and the same world
achieves and continuously maintains constant validity as
the world which is in part already experienced and in part
the open horizon of possible experiences for all; it is the
world as the universal horizon, common to all men, of
actually existing things.” 39 Self, others, the common world
and intersubjectivity are intertwined in searching for
meaning and in giving meaning to things and to
experiences of consciousnesses.
Intersubjectivity is the interaction of the different egos
in constituting meaning in the lifeworld. It is the
community of egos. This does not necessarily mean that
the transcendental ego is being swallowed by a
communal consciousness. But rather, the transcendental
ego is just connecting with the other ego, and another
and another, until such time that there is a community of
egos communicating to one another in constituting the
37 Ibid., 160.
38 Ibid., 163.
39 Ibid., 164.