Phenomenology of Affective Subjectivity

230 Pages·2017·1.65 MB·English

by  Anastasia Kozyreva

Anastasia Kozyreva
PHENOMENOLOGY

OF AFFECTIVE SUBJECTIVITY

Analyses on the Pre-reflective
Unity of Subjective Experience
UNIVERSITÄTS-
BIBLIOTHEK
HEIDELBERG
PHENOMENOLOGY OF AFFECTIVE SUBJECTIVITY
Analyses on the Pre-Reflective Unity of Subjective Experience

Anastasia Kozyreva

PHENOMENOLOGY
OF AFFECTIVE SUBJECTIVITY

Analyses on the Pre-Reflective Unity of Subjective Experience
About the Author

Anastasia Kozyreva completed her PhD in philosophy at the University of Hei-
delberg in 2016, where she was a member of Prof. Thomas Fuchs’ research
group “Phenomenological Psychopathology and Psychotherapy.” Before that,
she studied philosophy in Russia, France, Germany, and Belgium. Her main
areas of research include phenomenological philosophy, philosophy of cognitive
science, as well as philosophical and psychological approaches to uncertainty.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
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at http://dnb.dnb.de.

This work is published under the Creative Commons License
4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The online version of this publication is freely available on the ebook-platform
of the Heidelberg University Library heiBOOKS
http://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/heibooks (open access).
urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heibooks-book-196-9
doi: 10.11588/heibooks.196.263

Text © 2017, Anastasia Kozyreva

Cover image: © pogonici — fotolia.com

ISBN 978-3-946531-42-5 (Softcover)
ISBN 978-3-946531-43-2 (PDF)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is a result of the doctoral research conducted at the University
of Heidelberg during the period from January 2013 till April 2016. I am
very grateful to the University, the Graduate Academy, and the
Landesgraduiertenförderung (LGF) of Baden-Württemberg, whose fund-
ing permitted me to study in Germany and to write this book. During
these three years, I was welcomed by the department of philosophy of
Heidelberg University and by the section for Phenomenological Psycho-
pathology and Psychotherapy at the University Clinic that provided an
outstanding interdisciplinary environment.
One could not overestimate the importance of someone’s place of
work and of the people one works with. Most of all, I would like to
thank my scientific supervisor, Professor Thomas Fuchs, who from the
very start of this project has shown his support, provided valuable ad-
vice, and many precious comments. I have always felt inspired by his
thinking and research. Moreover, his work on body memory acted as an
important influence and inspiration for some of the ideas developed in
this text.
Many thanks go to my second advisor, Professor Lanei Rodemeyer. I
am very grateful for her precise and helpful comments on my text, for
her kind attention and valuable advice. I consider myself fortunate to
have attended her seminar on Husserl’s Analyses concerning Passive
Synthesis at Heidelberg University, which was very motivating for my
work on this topic.
I am also very grateful to my current place of work, Center for Adaptive
Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin,
all my colleagues there, and especially the director Professor Ralph Hertwig
for supporting my interest in interdisciplinary research and development of
my new projects.
Beyond words is my gratitude to my parents and family who have
been as encouraging and kind as one could only hope. I would also like
to thank my friends and colleagues from so many different countries
whose friendship, ideas, and conversations contributed to both my work
and life during the time of my doctoral studies: Daniel Pucciarelli, Zaida
Olvera, Zeno Van Duppen, Michela Summa, Sonja Frohoff, Mike Finn,
Joshua Connor, João Machado Vaz, Philipp Schmidt, Thiemo Breyer,
Samuel Thoma, Laura Galbusera, Remy Rizzo, Allan Køster, Stefan Kris-
tensen, Kriszta Sajber, Till Grohman, Leonor Irarrázaval, Monika
5
Dullstein, Rixta Fambach, Evelien Holvoet, André Mata, Danil Razeev,
Maria Sekatskaya, Ksenia Kapelchuk, Daria Chirva, Sergei Levin, Natalia
Artemenko, Vlad Orsher, Andrei Patkul, Georgy Chernavin, Kristin
Gissberg, Nicolás Garrera, Inês Hipólito, Vera Pereira, Sofia Miguens,
Rob Clowes, Dina Mendonça, Jorge Gonçalves, Alexander Gerner, Caio
Novaes, and Vasco Correia.
With special affection and gratitude, I want to remember two people
who are no longer with us but whose influence withstands the passage of
time: Julia Orlova from Saint Petersburg University, who introduced me to
phenomenological philosophy and who was one of the most inspiring,
strong, and original personalities I happened to get to know; and Professor
László Tengelyi, under whose supervision I was happy to study at the
University of Wuppertal during my master’s program. This book could
not have happened without their influence and encouragement to pursue
my studies and research in phenomenology.
Finally, I would like to thank the editors and collaborators at the Heidel-
berg University Publishing for their work that made possible this publica-
tion and Tessa Marzotto for her tremendous help with the proofreading of
this manuscript.

6
Table of contents
Introduction: Towards an understanding of pre-reflective
subjectivity.................................................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER I. SUBJECTIVITY AND THE UNITY OF
CONSCIOUSNESS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH ..................... 21
1. The phenomenological notion of subjectivity: Unity and
heterogeneity ............................................................................................................. 21
2. Connectivity of subjective experience and unity of consciousness:
Exposition of the problem in Hume, Kant, and Husserl ................................. 26
2.1. Hume: The labyrinth of the self ............................................................................ 28
2.2. Kant: Synthetic unity of consciousness .............................................................. 34
2.3. Edmund Husserl: Formal unity of time-consciousness .................................. 45
3. Synthesis-based model of consciousness vs. Qualia-based model of
consciousness ............................................................................................................. 58
3.1. Is the problem of consciousness identical with the problem of
qualia? .......................................................................................................................... 59
3.2. What is it like to have a unified consciousness? .............................................. 63
3.3. The synthesis-based model of consciousness .................................................... 65
CHAPTER II. ASSOCIATIVE SYNTHESES, AFFECTIVITY, AND
PRE-REFLECTIVE CONNECTIONS IN SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE ........ 69
4. General introduction to Husserl’s account of associative
connectivity ................................................................................................................ 69
5. Principles of association and inquiry into “the inherent lawfulness
of mental life” ............................................................................................................ 73
6. Phenomenology vs. scientific psychology: Intuitive, statistical,
and eidetic regularities ............................................................................................ 76
7. Associative connectivity and principles of content-binding ......................... 87
7.1. The “productive paradox” of associations: Gestalt vs. Atomistic
psychology and phenomenology’s distance from both .................................. 88
7.2. Husserl’s transcendental doctrine of association: Association as
a synthesis of consciousness .................................................................................. 94
7.3. Types of associative syntheses .............................................................................. 99
7.4. Principles of primordial association and unity-formation ........................... 102
7.5. Reproductive association: Associative awakening of the past ................... 108
7
8. Affectivity and “timeless structuration” of subjective experience ............. 114
8.1. Definitions and conditions of affection ............................................................ 114
8.2. Association as affective awakening ................................................................... 119
8.3. Affective awakening of the self .......................................................................... 122
8.4. Clarification of temporal relations in affective terms: Retention as
affective modification ............................................................................................ 129
8.5. The idea of affective consciousness and “timeless structuration” of
subjective experience ............................................................................................. 132
CHAPTER III: AFFECTIVE MEMORY AND THE UNCONSCIOUS .......... 135
9. Explicit and implicit dimensions of past-experience ..................................... 135
10. Phenomenological accounts of the unconscious ............................................ 139
10.1. Brentano-Freud-Husserl: the riddle of the unconscious as the riddle
of consciousness ...................................................................................................... 139
10.2. Bernet’s intentional theory of the unconscious: the unconscious
way of appearing in phantasy ............................................................................. 144
10.3. Non-representationalist accounts of the unconscious: Merleau-
Ponty and Fuchs on the unconscious and body memory............................. 149
11. The affective unconscious in Husserl’s Analyses concerning
Passive Synthesis and later manuscripts .......................................................... 158
11.1. Zero-point of affective vitality and the unconscious as
Grenzphänomen ...................................................................................................... 158
11.2. Affective past-horizon and the unconscious as “sedimented” .................... 161
11.3. Affective conflict and the unconscious as repressed ..................................... 167
12. Affective memory: A phenomenological account of implicit
memory ...................................................................................................................... 172
12.1. Implicit memory in psychological research ..................................................... 174
12.2. Definitions: outlines of the phenomenological approach ............................ 178
12.3. Phenomenology of affective memory ............................................................... 183
Conclusion: Summary and perspectives ........................................................... 199
References ................................................................................................................. 217

8
Introduction: Towards an
understanding of pre-reflective
subjectivity
It is so hard to describe what I feel when I feel I really
exist and my soul is a real entity that I don’t know
what human words could define it (Pessoa 1991).

If we succeed in understanding the subject, this
will not be in its pure form, but rather by looking
for the subject at the intersection of its various di-
mensions (Merleau-Ponty 2012, 433).

Alongside an increasing interest of contemporary philosophy, psychol-
ogy, and neuroscience in the problems of consciousness and the nature
of self-awareness, we are now witnessing a remarkable shift in our
views on the very foundations of mind and subjectivity. From both the
everyday and scientific points of view, it has become clear that subjec-
tivity no longer stands for a uniform kind of being, defined as cognitive,
conscious, or mental, and that it cannot be understood as detached from
its embodied and affective dimensions, its interaction with the world
and other living beings.
Subjectivity is clearly such a multifaceted phenomenon, so richly
charged with various meanings and connotations, that we can hardly
speak about it without first defining the general theoretical framework
within which it is to be considered. Even though the themes of self-
hood, phenomenal consciousness, and first-person perspective have
firmly established their philosophical and scientific importance in the
contemporary research, subjectivity remains fundamentally ambiguous,
with some thinkers still reluctant to acknowledge it as being more than
just an illusionary construction.1 Such ambiguity can be regarded not as
a lack of common theoretical ground, but rather as the mark left by the
radical changes in our views concerning the very foundations of subjec-

1 See as examples the well-known positions of Thomas Metzinger in his book
Being no One (Metzinger 2003) or of Daniel Dennett in Consciousness explained
(Dennett 1991).
9