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5. Reciprocity and Sociality
- Northwestern University Press
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87 5 Reciprocity and Sociality The transcendence of others is originally implied in the transcendence of the perceived environment, but this does not mean that empathy only reveals what was implicitly there already. To be sure, insofar as the other is taken to perceive the same environment, she is experienced as an exemplar of “anybody.” Yet, on the other hand, the other is a unique particular who does not experience everything exactly in the manner that we do. Husserl emphasizes that the actually encountered other designates “a completely new kind of transcendence”—more precisely, “the first true transcendence” or transcendence “in a proper sense.”1 Namely, our concrete experiences of others have peculiar constitutive consequences. For one, empathy enables what Husserl calls social intersubjectivity:2 reciprocal relations with singular others, relations where others are confronted face to face.3 However, empathy is not, in itself, a reciprocal relation with others. To merely observe other sensing beings, for instance, to perceive them from a “third-person perspective,” is a one-sided relation to others.4 However, insofar as we understand that others can perceive us, we can establish a reciprocal relation with them. I will here employ the term “sociality ” in the Husserlian sense, and thus take social relations to mean reciprocal intersubjective relations between I and You.5 And, like Husserl, I am here interested in the constitutive dimension of social relations— or, as Husserl also puts it, in “transcendental sociality” (transzendentalen Sozialität).6 I will set off by clarifying the sense in which embodiment serves as a condition of possibility for reciprocal relations, and argue that all communication—non-linguistic as well as linguistic communication —is based on bodily reciprocity. Embodiment and Expressivity Like other things, our own body, too, appears to us as something that can be seen, touched, and so on: our body, too, is constituted as being perceivable to anybody. Insofar as we perceive our body, the latter is constituted as also being present for possible co-perceivers. Moreover, as already argued, the perceived movement of one’s own hand, for instance, 88 R E C I P R O C I T Y A N D S O C I A L I T Y appears as an externalization (veräusserlichung) of the immediately effected kinesthetic self-movement, as an “exteriority of interiority.”7 In other words, our perceived body appears as an expression (Ausdruck, Kundgabe) of our subjectivity: the lived-body amounts to the primordial field of expression (erstes ursprüngliches Ausdrucksfeld).8 And, accordingly, to realize that others can perceive our body is to realize that others can perceive us. Moreover, our own perceived bodily movements originally appear to us as intentional and meaningful, and likewise it is not difficult for us to perceive the movement of other bodies as intentional. For instance, in order to grasp something, we reach for it with our hands, and therefore , when seeing someone else’s hands moving toward something, we perceive her as reaching for something. It is not the case that perceived body movements originally appear as meaningless physical distortions, and that they somehow indicate a subjectivity beyond them,9 but it is rather the case that body movements originally appear as actions, gestures, postures , and facial expressions.10 Of course, this does not mean that subjectivity can be simply identified with the perceived body. As already argued, we must distinguish between having a body and being a body: our perceived, external body is the body that we have, and it is an expression of our bodily holding-sway (most fundamentally: of our factical hyletic-kinesthetic self-affectivity). Moreover, what is expressed in bodily movements, postures, and gestures—as well as in uttered and written words—is not only a fleeting act, but also the motivational context of the act. The motivational context may be unclear, but still it is necessarily given with the meaning of the expression. For instance, the movement of grasping a cup of coffee in order to drink is remarkably different from grasping a cup in order to prevent a child from getting burned. Accordingly, what is perceived is not only the bodily movement, but also its motivating context. If this context is completely obscure, the meaning of the perceived event remains unclear . For instance, we are most likely puzzled or perhaps even terrified if someone suddenly seems to laugh without any reason. Laughter is normally experienced as a reaction to a certain occurrence or event— for example, to something...