Beata Stawarska

Memory is a privileged context for inquiry into subjective life; no wonder that the way philosophers theorize memory is indicative of their conception of subjectivity as a whole. In this essay, I turn to Sartre and Husserl with the aim of unveiling how their accounts of recollection resolve the question of identity and difference within the temporality of one's life. Tracing Sartre's arguments against Husserl's, as well as Husserl's and Sartre's own presentations of recollection, I inquire into the reasons that incited them to bring either the aspect of sameness or otherness at the heart of subjective life into view.

Classical phenomenology -- The transcendental tradition -- The logical investigations of the I -- From the I to the ego -- The grammar of the transcendental ego -- Strawson on the primacy of personhood -- Wittgenstein on the lure of words -- The grammar of the transcendental ego -- Zahavi on transcendental subjectivity as intersubjectivity -- Contemporary arguments for the transcendental ego : Marbach, Soffer -- Schutz, Theunissen on social phenomenology -- Husserl's later thought -- The multidiscipline of dialogical phenomenology -- Sociolinguistics -- Personal pronouns : reconsidering the traditional view -- Egocentrism and polycentrism -- Person deixis and polycentrism -- Anscombe -- Wittgenstein -- Personal pronouns : reconsidering the traditional view -- I and we : a relational community -- Benveniste and I : you connectedness -- Objectification in the third person -- Castaneda's phenomeno-logic of the I -- Developmental perspectives -- Piaget's legacy -- Recent research on the sociality of children -- Proto-conversations in infancy -- The dialogic model of Jaffe and Feldstein -- From proto-conversation to conversation -- Perspectives from blindness and autism -- Polycentrism and personal pronoun acquisition: loveland and others -- An egocentric model of personal pronoun acquisition : Charney and others -- Philosophical implications and directions for future research -- Philosophy of dialogue -- Rosenstock-Huessy's grammatical method of social research -- Rosenzweig's speech-thinking -- Buber's I and you -- The primordial duality in Buber, Humboldt, Plato -- Buber and his critics -- Rosenstock-Huessy -- Levinas -- Dialogical phenomenology -- The dialogic dimension of meaning and experience -- The practice of phenomenology -- Implications for politics and feminism.

In questo saggio sottolineo l’importanza di recuperare il fenomeno del linguaggio corrente e di tematizzare la dimensione comunicativa dell’esperienza nella ricerca fenomenologica. Più nello specifico, intendo affrontare criticamente l’attenzione che Derrida rivolge al problema del fonocentrismo in fenomenologia, che sembra aver semplicemente screditato ogni tentativo di affrontare il fenomeno della voce per paura di privilegiare la presenza e la soggettività atomistica. Mentre potrebbe essere vero che la fenomenologia classica della coscienza privilegia la posizione della prima persona ed è colpevole di un pregiudizio soggettivistico, vi sono ricche risorse nella tradizione dialogica, in particolare in Buber, così come nei lavori di Humboldt e di Platone, utilia sottolineare la fondamentale dualità del sé e dell’altro che si dispiega tra l’“Io” e il “tu” nel linguaggio vivente e a correggere i presupposti individualistici della fenomenologia classica.

The essay traces the double, phenomenological and psychological, background of Sartre’s theory of the imagination. Insofar as these two phenomenological and psychological currents are equally influential for Sartre’s theory of the imagination, his intellectual project is situated in an inter-disciplinary research area which combines the descriptive analyses of Edmund Husserl with the clinical reports and psychological theories of Pierre Janet. While Husserl provides the foundation for the prevailing theory of imagination as pictorial representation, Janet’s findings on obsessive behavior enrich an alternative current in Sartre’s thinking about imagination as spontaneous and self-determined creativity.