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156 9 Paradox of Subjectivity Revisited My rather extensive elaboration on animals has brought to light the manner in which the constitution of the intersubjective nature is related to primordial constitution. In the following, I will clarify the simultaneous presence of primordial and intersubjective normative structures in the constitution of the world, thus explicating what I call the “normative tension.” I will do this by focusing on the constitution of spatiality, and by arguing that space is ultimately oriented in relation to both our livedbody and an intercorporeally shared ground. The duality of the oriented space will exemplify and illustrate the normative tension between primordiality and intersubjectivity in concrete world-constitution. I will eventually argue that the “paradox of subjectivity” (i.e., the paradox that subjectivity is, at the same time, both transcendental and empirical) can be understood in terms of this normative tension between transcendental primordiality and transcendental intersubjectivity. Let me start with the constitution of spatiality. The Two Origins of Space In and through an encounter with others, our experience of nature is transformed. Others are experienced as being related to the environment from their standpoint, and thus, by perceiving other perceiving beings, we experience other zero-points of orientation.1 Through our experience of others, the spatial orientation of the environment is therefore transformed: space is no longer merely a horizon projected by our own abilities (the “I can,” the primordial norm), but a horizon projected by intersubjective abilities (the “we can”). In such intersubjective space, our own body, the primordial center of spatial orientation, is constituted as being “over there” from the point of view of the other—and so, through others, we constitute ourselves as intersubjective objects in the world. It should be emphasized once again that our primordial system of orientation is not replaced by that of the other.2 Rather, it is constituted as something subjective, as one standpoint among others. Again, this does 157 P A R A D O X O F S U B J E C T I V I T Y R E V I S I T E D not imply that the other’s system of orientation is constituted as the absolute point of reference, to which our system is relative: we still perceive this alien standpoint from our point of view, and only in relation to it does the alien standpoint have a sense to us as such. The lived-body of the other is perceived in the same environment in which our perceiving body is localized, and we therefore constitute the other as being perceptually related to the same space as we are. This intersubjective space is not oriented according to any particular body in it. However, if movement is to have an absolute sense (instead of only being movement from a point of view), there must be a shared point of reference in regard to which our subjective experiences of space, as well as our subjective systems of orientation, are relative. Husserl names this absolute point of reference the earth-ground (Erdboden).3 The givenness of the earth-ground radically differs from all kind of horizontal givenness—namely from the type of givenness in which our lived-body serves as the norm. The ground is somehow already present in the constitution of space, and hence it cannot originally be present as a thing in space.4 As such, the ground does not originally appear as being “left” or “right,” nor “down,” “below,” or “beneath.”5 This would be to define the ground in relation to our body, which would thus be taken as the ultimate norm.6 The ground does not originally appear as a huge thing beneath our feet, as something oriented according to our body. Rather, the vertical axis (up/down) is originally constituted in relation to the ground: the ground is a dimension that is tacitly present in our experiences of “down” and “up,” and gives meaning to these words in the first place. But just as our own lived-body as the primordial center of orientation cannot be constituted as a horizontal object on the left or on the right, the ground, as the ground, cannot be originally present as a thematic or marginal object on the vertical axis. It is not originally given as a correlate of our intentional bodily experiences; it is not something that we can perceive better or worse: the ground as such is not included among the possible objects of our spatial experiences that...

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