On birth, death, and sleep in Husserl's late manuscripts on time

Saulius Geniusas

pp. 71-89

in: Dieter Lohmar, Ichiro Yamaguchi (eds), On time, Berlin, Springer, 2010

Abstract

A threefold concern guides the following analysis. First, I aim to provide a systematic account of the problematic of birth, death, and sleep in Husserl's late manuscripts on time. I argue that for Husserl, the full constitution of human finitude rests upon a threefold disclosure of birth, death, and sleep as limit-phenomena, intersubjective phenomena, and paradoxical phenomena. Secondly, I engage in the question (central to Husserl himself) of the transcendental necessity of phenomena in question. This engagement culminates in the realization, that in the absence of birth, death, and sleep, subjectivity could not be conceived as a world-constituting subjectivity. Thirdly, so as to accentuate the distinguishing features of Husserl's analyses, I bring them into a polemic with Heidegger's notion of authentic temporality.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Heidegger Martin