Experience of the Alien in Husserl's Phenomenology

Author(s): BERNHARD WALDENFELS and Anthony J. Steinbock

Source: Research in Phenomenology , 1990, Vol. 20 (1990), pp. 19-33
Published by: Brill

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24654451

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Experience of the Alien
in Husserl's Phenomenology
BERNHARD WALDENFELS

Ruhr-Universtàt Bochum

The alien (das Fremde) is a perplexing phenomenon that tracked do

Husserl more than he tracked it. This curiosity will be the theme o
reflections as we inquire with Husserl into the thing itself.
The alien is related to the uncanny. In part enticing, in part threatenin
belongs to the constant challenges of a human experience that is n
entirely at home in its world. One can react to the alien in a variety of
one can flee or pursue, fend it off or hold it in regard. A vast spectr
possibilities unfolds between xenophobia and xenophilia. The alien be
virulent in those life and historical phases in which orders fluctuat
supports of order totter. Shifts of order pull shifts of alienness in its w
with all the signs of ambivalence. The semantic field of the alien,
reaches far beyond the confines of philosophy, speaks a clear langua
extends from clinical or social alienation (Entfremdung) to the artistic c
alienation ( Verfremdung) to the infant's shying away from strangers (Fre
to the strange bewilderments (Befremdlichkeiten) of everyday life.
Had Husserl let himself get carried away with pros and cons, he would
have been the sober thinker that he was. The gesture of the distan
abstention peculiar to his phenomenology strives for an attitude in whic
alien as alien comes into relief. The logos of the phenomena must als
good as the logos of the alien. The inquiry into an alien-experience, as wi
experience, therefore is a matter of questioning and bringing "to expres
its proper sense."

19

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20 BERNHARD WALDENFELS

All this sounds more obvious tha

philosophy a secret horror alieni th
everything enigmatic and strange. T
a variety of forms. One can underp
as if they were mere variants o
overcome the opposition in an all-
thing its proper place. One can raise
development that strives, through
ciliation. Finally, and more modes
recourse to universal norms which
with each other. The experience of
in different forms of appropriation
poles in our modern tradition: the o
into the own and the incorporation
instances, the ego and the logos,
fecund expression of the alliance
Enlightenment, where the mere sap
practical self-appropriation: "Hav
ing!"—which, we might add, does n
and in a certain respect, necessary
examining the peculiar sense of
granted, and likewise the alienne
Whether Husserl himself successful
and logocentrism with his theory o
any case his inquiry into an experie
radicalness of this attempt and it
surrounding subjectivity and ratio
ation we also find, by the way, whe
Levinas and Derrida.
What does Husserl understand by alienness (Fremdheit)? In a posthum
ously published text from 1933, in which he contrasted the familiar, com
mon, accessible home-world with the alien-world, Husserl characterized
alienness as "accessibility in genuine inaccessibility, in the mode of incom
prehensibility" (XV 631).3 Here he had in mind "heterogeneous {fremdartige)
people and cultures," which in their heterogeneity belong to the opening
horizon of our familiar surroundings that is "indirect," i.e., nonintuitable.
This is already a special case of relative alienness. Indeed, the paradoxical
formulation with which Husserl characterizes alienness shows quite pre
cisely what is at issue. Something is accessible—not in spite of—but rather in
its inaccessibility. Alienness is precisely that. And as something that cannot be
comprehended, alienness does not mean that the door to reality is bolted shut,
but rather that its sense is not fully disclosed. Our eyes see and yet do not see;

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 EXPERIENCE OF THE ALIEN 21

our ears hear and yet do not h

persons in the world, but an as
up with us in any number of
phenomenon understandable w
and opacity. We need to quest
respect to this possibility. I wi
the bias to arrive more easily
will preliminarily take up th
Husserl the constitution of t
serl's theory of the alien withs

A categorial analysis can have

because the alien understood r
to an eidetic component of cer
formal fundamental framew
directly deals with entities as e
inquiring into the occurrence
rial analysis already hints at th
tional analysis is slated to ha
by Husserl is only attained by
language (VI 214/Crisis 210).4 W
aspects called for by our theme

1. In everyday German the

pression "being strange") can m
we find the alien with the sens
claims Husserl makes on the ali
restricts the alien to labile po
alien-experience is not a subspe
poses that the other is there,
only come into play if it wer
Baudelaire. Orr the high end
άλλο, έτερον). This sense, on t
as a fundamental trait peculi
and apophantic. Moreover, ali
here, although alienness constan
alter ego.
Between these two extremes we find two kernels of meaning which recur
under a corresponding transformation in Husserl's transcendental theory. I

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 22 BERNHARD WALL) EN F ELS

have in mind the alien as "outsi

ξενικόν), and alien as what be
former sense stems from a m
spheres into what is accessible a
from a movement of appropriat
are separated from one another
in what Husserl described as t
by systematically screening out
Finally, there is still anothe
background, namely, as heteroge
the point of impertience, unsui
homogeneous or peculiar (Eigenar
to the traditional, instrinsic e
crucial with respect to the afor
like to leave them aside at this
Let us hold firmly to the cent
inaccessible and what does not belo

2. If we move from this seman

alien according to common usag
the formula nev "xRy," "x" is
"y." The word "alien" can onl
This formal determination lea
select the most important.
A first series of questions conc
alienness a symmetrical relation
am always alien to someone if h
permit such an inversion, as o
inversion mean anyway if the
experience? We can ask moreove
the alien of an alien is also itself alien to me. Here we are concerned with
what Husserl calls iterative alienness. We can also pose the question whether
we are dealing with a reflexive relation in the case of alienness. Can someone
or even something be alien to itself? Alternately, what do self-accessibility
and belonging-to-oneself mean, if they do not include a moment where
alienness is overcome? Does it make sense to assert that "I have not taken leave
of my senses" if I completely belong to myself anyway? Finally, we pose the
question whether we are dealing with an internal relation where alienness is
concerned, such that both relata or at least a relatum would not be what it is
without the relation.
A second series of questions refer to the relationship of alienness pertaining
to persons and to things. If we possess the variable places of the field of relation

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EXPERIENCE OF THE ALIEN 23

either with thing-names or w

come to the fore: something is
and to speak in terms of pos
something, someone is alien t
appears on the one hand as th
hand as the masculine or fem
both cases mean the same t
pertaining to persons or the on
In what contexts can we consid
Does it require, as Derrida thin
makes specific forms of alie
things and persons, or to the m
A third complex of question
non-alien, above all, its distinc
and belonging. The character
belonging suggests that the ali
own and in this sense a mod
primal-mode. But can the own
Indeed, rather than it being a m
concern an actual "primal div
relation between the I and ot
Questions upon questions. It
proach to a categorial analysis
For it is here that the questio

II

The experience of the alien assu

becoming-alien of experience. J
subjectivity—since the other
world" (XV 551) are occupied
similar way we can speak of a m
that is, insofar as it shows itsel
alienness can no longer be some
belongs, not to what shows itse
something shows itself. This
lived temporality, phenomena
What Husserl is doing here is n
social philosophy; rather, he
Theunissen puts it, the "theme
ontological-logical considerat
transcendental consideration

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24 BERNHARD WALDENFELS

such) leads to the fact that

sense." It ascends from a m
transcendental alienness whic
and weaknesses of the Huss
thought. Let us present it in
Initially, the alien in its r
which is alien-to-me as oppo
If we regard alienness furt
the relation is not just anyo
tive of a logic or an ontology
be normalized by substituti
Husserl would object, howev
allow alienness as genuine alie
with spatial and temporal rela
something else or that one
distance, this assignment o
presupposes a "zero point";
orders of space and time un
space and in time. And so
inner-worldly relations of e
observed and regarded from w
sphere of ownness of the o
moments of a whole, unless th
relation to which he observin
outside and removed and lea
simply be a local alienness. T
the possessive dative to the
insuperable. In the final ana
own and alien (which we wil
a process of self-differentiati
plays a part in this process, b
Now, if we continue by askin
for Husserl, the answer runs
character of the alien bears o
ble originally" (I 144/CM 1
"original consciousness." The o
unlike the things we touch
own essence comes to origi
paradoxically, we are faced
original because the other sho
ity, just as what is past does
in the irreplaceable mode of

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 EXPERIENCE OF THE ALIEN 25

different forms of temporal

experience as co-presenting, as
consciousness a there-with, which
become itself-there" (I 139/CM
repeatedly speaks in his late
urprasentierbarenof an "original
little step further when he ex
presence as of the other."8 This l
nothing, and it certainly becom
the phenomena must still reveal
not to turn into some form of m
us to a threshold with this "acces
which many, all too many, carele
are always already others, sinc
belong to a community. But thes
Husserl left to the natural attitude.

The question concerning the form in which the alien appears for the first
time, i.e., whether it appears as the neutral or the masculine/feminine alien,
is a question we have already implicitly answered. Husserl's response is
clear: the intrinsically first I-alien is the non-I in the form of an other I; it is the
gendered other, the gendered alien (I 137/CM 107; XVII 248). The reason for this
is obvious. The neutral alien, which attaches to things from their side, is not
alien in the radical sense, that is, in the sense of "originally inaccessible." For
there are no things and no aspects of things to which I would be denied
access. They all lie within the scope of my experience, if not in fact then
certainly in principle, and thus belong to what Husserl described as the
"sphere of owness." For example, in order to perceive the backside of the
thing which is always co-present and given only as such, I need simply alter
my position. The impossible gaze behind the mirror begins there, where the
distance is insurmountable, there with the other who does not belong to my
field of possibilities. Thus, if the world of things assumes traits of alienness, it
does so only insofar as they refer to alien experiences, which in spite of all
communalization, never fully coincide with those of mine. This secondary,
borrowed alienness consists in the fact that the accessibility to the world of the
other is "not unconditional" (I 160/CM 132). In light of alien experience,
this secondary alienness encroaches even on me insofar as I take on charac
teristics which do not stem from me.
This distinction of primary alienness of the other and secondary alienness
of the world and myself—albeit a distinction which is in no way self
evident—leads us to the fundamental presuppositions of the Husserlian theory
of constitution. Why constitution of the other? We cannot and need not go into
all the nuances and transformations of the concept.9 But this much is clear:

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 26 BERNHARD WALDENFELS

like everything else we encount

ready-made. Instead he achieve
of a "structuring" which is co
and temporal horizons, bodily
ances, and many more. The ot
variety of experiences coalesce
simply stands there. The "struct
is, as are all metaphors, both su
us however leave the restrictiv
conceives the structuring of
elements" which go "to struct
Husserl's answer is once again
within and by means of that wh
otherwise, Husserl would ask. If
by means of' that which is alien
alien. Something that was entire
only be an absurdity, it would vi
would be nothing from which
would lose its offensiveness, its
rule. To say that the structuring
that alienness arises from a proc
the way in which the past come
(Ent-Gegenwartigung) (VI 189/
indirectly even on me; I "am for
And that is decisive: I am and re
am that one who alienates himsel
We are familiar with this instr
transformation from the broader context of noetic-noematic structures as
Husserl analyzes them in Ideas I. Different belief-modalities like affirmation
and denial or modes of objectivation like presentifying and making present,
do not have equal status. Rather, in every series of modification there is an
unmodified or unmodalized "primal-form" (III 257/Ideas 1251) to which all
modified forms refer back according to their proper essence.10 This primal
form is the present in the case of de-presentation and the own or self-present
in the case of self-alienation. In order to characterize this refering-back of
alien-experience to self-experience, Husserl persistently speaks of analogizing,
of repetition or of mirroring. At this point it becomes clear how the egocentric
and logocentric overlap in the form of a monadology. The primal-mode of the
self is simultaneously the same that modifies itself. Only the eidos, ego, found
through the self-variation of the factical ego, guarantees that the ego that
repeats itself in the other is not only mine.

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 EXPERIENCE OF THE ALIEN 27

Indeed, constitution would

other, and alien-constitution w
gizing or mirroring were to
mirror-image would not be a n
ego may be mine, but the fa
guarantees that this ego is a
realized but at the same time a
the constitution of the other as self-alienation and self-modification means
likewise a self-crossing-over, a self-transgression. While "the actuality of
what is alien for me" becomes constituted, there becomes constituted "the
new being-sense that transgresses my monadic ego in its self-ownness" (I
125/CM 94). This crossing-over is characterized by Husserl with concepts
such as "intentional reaching-over," "carrying-over" or "transfer of sense,"
"shifting-over of sense" (I 142/CM 112-3). Or he speaks of "excess," that
is, of what is "left-over" with respect to what is not-perceived and thus
merely-there-with what is perceived (I 151/CM 122). The fruits of the
Husserlian theory of constitution depend upon how the over of this crossing
over is to be understood. Does the structuring of the other "by means of the
own" really reach a transcendence which is not only immanent, but which
definitively goes over or beyond my own possibilities?

Ill

Finally, let us thus pose the question whether Husserl was actually successful
in showing that alienness is that which is "originally inaccessible," without it
changing behind our backs again into what is accessible or belonging. The
question is neither easy to answer nor does it entail a simplistic response. On
first glance it seems Husserl crossed the threshold to the alien accompanied
by two escorts. The own I and everything belonging to it serves as model, as
original for the alien. Own and alien meet one another for their part on the
ground of a general reason presumed by every experience. Basically it is the
same that becomes modified and unfolds in and through the medium of my
Self. The shock of the alien and of the heterogeneous is cushioned by starting
with the own and moving over on to what is common. Own experience and general
reason still guarantee an accessibility even of what is inaccessible. Michael
Theunissen explains empathy by means of self-alienation as virtually a
double process by which I simultaneously alienate myself and remove the
alienness of the other.11 What seems to me decisive is precisely the radicality
of the perspective which keeps our reflections in suspense, namely, the insistence
on the alien as alien as its "being-sense" (I 135/CM 105). The self-crossing
over, considered as "intentional reaching-over" or as "intentional modifica

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 28 BERNHARD WALDENFELS

tion," already rides upon the

modifications and obscurities,
avoid such an intrusion in this
It is not the case that the self
operation. Experience is an ev
enced, the alter ego becomes con
and is not left to my discretion
(I 168/CM 141). Husserl is co
demiurges. Nevertheless, if the
the own, it presupposes likewis
what is my own in advance. I
Own" ("Einziger und sein Eigen
and duplication; the "I am"
(XVII 234) which as such owe
Indeed, this move back to an
ownness presupposes that the
through itself, free from all
faced with are illustrated by o
In the well-known Cartesian M
ownness by first screening o
which is my own is initially an
(I 131/CM 100). Were one t
phenomenon of contrast a
phenomenon" would be the
difference like figure and grou
Husserl does not remain here
tion of this own" (XI 138). H
experiencing. If we wish to avo
my experiencing is what I can
its type of accessibility. Inde
what is originally accessible: "w
able is what I am; that is, it be
114).
We are treading on dangerous ground here. The comparison between
temporal de-presentation and intersubjective self-alienation can be read in
the opposite direction, with regard to an intrasubjective self-alienation. What
is the case with the ownness of self-experience? Initially, original self
presence is reduced to a mere core of living self-presence (I 62, 150/CM 22-3,
121). The remainder is obscurity which is partially illuminated through acts
of presentifying. Only in repeated recollection does the I first show itself as
the same—and simultaneously as not the same. For the presentified I, as
Husserl himself admits, is "in a certain sense an other I" than the I actually

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 EXPERIENCE OF THE ALIEN 29

present (VI Mb/Crisis 178). I

modified Ι" (XV 345). The orig
original" of my own present
presentified presents and final
641f). Now the potentializing
the potentializing of the I in
an embarrassing difficulty th
evoke the original, but to dete
pure Now. But in what other m
actually present be character
"right now." The Now, which
original accessibility, is "only
49). The Now is itself "relativ
which appears at the same ti
Thus, if the purported origina
distance and in difference, th
liar to the own. Analogously, ju
becoming temporal of percep
imply a becoming alien of the
the other shows itself in this s
more than I do with others.
imputing to experience read
then the "division" into I and
drawn from our experience. A
the sole possibility remains of st
of characterizing the various
according to the model of pr
that, for example, Merleau-Pon
deviation by beginning from t
field. At the same time it is doubtful whether the alien in the neutral can

simply be subordinated to the personal alien. If the "primal-impression"

only signifies a borderline case, then it is never given as something "abso
lutely unmodified" (X 67). Moreover, the "I-alien" that appears in sensing
can no longer be so easily assimilated into the experience peculiar to the own
as "something belonging to full concreteness," as Husserl suggests (XV
128); the "disappropriation" already begins in the area of sensing and
perception.13 Indeed, it occurs even in the process of counting, which seems
to be so sure of itself: "properly speaking, one can barely count past three."14
But even if ownness and alienness cannot be divided into I and other like
primal-mode and modification, it does not follow that the I and the other can
be incorporated into a whole or made to conform normatively to one another.
The experience of the alien as alien resists every form of totalizing and

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30 BERNHARD WALDENFELS

universalizing. This is clos

relation to others which Le
in Husserl, even if only in
primal-I is not an I amon
equivocation because it preced
184—5). As already indicate
ered apart from the question
I. No one is simply one amon
relation would have preceden
standing in the relation of
members of the relation.15 I
like wanting to equate the pr
with the I reflected upon. I c
I remove myself from the re
remove myself wholly from
omniscience, like a timeless
rality. Every attempt to m
Let us turn finally to our la
for Husserl since he themat
out primarily from alien-per
negatively as what is origin
what is not itself there and
desires, and interests, if / we
this crossing-over to the oth
and what is desired "withi
desiring would be the mon
which would trap itself in se
not be shattered by the "m
a sheltering which allows all
with selections and exclusion
as this neutral other, as of the
already presupposes others as
specific grids of socio-cultura
for example, a relative, fr
patient, customer, or stu
experience are formed (s
needing to be dealt with, lik
of, insanity, childhood, or an
The methodological panacea
of pure exteriority out of th
To be sure, this panacea is b

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 EXPERIENCE OF THE ALIEN 31

systems of claims which are i

universe of monads. This ha
But how could we envision a lure of the alien, one which does not
wondrously slip from without through a "hole" (XVII 239) into the space of
my consciousness, but which also does not arise merely by its own means? A
crossing-over that would not be accomplished only by me would have to be
attributed to the alien so that it would be not merely non-1 or other I and thus
not merely a real negatum or duplicate. Where others are concerned, Husserl
himself speaks with passionate undertones of "appeal" (Anruf) (XV 462) or of a
type of "concemful request" (Angang) more basic than the "intercourse"
(Umgang) with the other (XV 342). Indeed, this appealing (An-rufen) and
concern (An-gehen) as "going into others" (XV 446) is once again channeled
back to the self-modification peculiar to the own. What could be salvaged
from this channeling would perhaps be a more, an excess that would thus not
be exhausted in nonbeing or being other. If we are to conceive of the claim of
the alien, we should do so as eliciting my response, and not as the alien
present referring back to my own present. The inaccessibility that Husserl
attributes to the alien present and that leads to a "primordially unfulfillable
experience" (I 144/CM 114-15) should be surmounted by the inability to
fulfill an alien claim, making all responses inadequate and all demands
insatiable. The rift between claim and response would be incapable of being
healed through a modification; for there is no self that could be modified and
transferred into property and contracts. Alienness does not proceed from a
division, but consists in a division.
Thus, if the "strange enigmas" of which Husserl speaks (I 120/CM 87)
belong to the thing itself, it would be a matter of maintaining and intensify
ing them, and not of removing them. Alien-experience would not be a
variation of experience; rather, experience would be alien-experience
through and through to the point of experience itself becoming alien.

Translated by Anthony J. Steinbock

State University of New York—Stony Brook

NOTES

1. For the larger context of these reflections, see my Ordmng im Zwielicht (Frankfurt: Suh
kamp, 1987), esp. 122-25.
2. Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vemunft (Hamburg: Meiner, 1956), Β 864; trans. Norma
Kemp Smith, Critique of Pure Reason (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965).

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 32 BERNHARD WALDENFELS

3. [Husserl will be cited by volum

tions of Husserl are mine. For th
will include references to the corr
to thank Professor Waldenfels f
translation.—Trans.]
4. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of Eur
Carr (Evanston: Northwestern Un
5. Concerning the problematic of
L'écriture et la différence (Paris:
Difference (Chicago: University o
alien-experience achieves in this
rare.

6. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinu
1977). Henceforth CM.
7. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l'invisible (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 308;
phonso Lingis, The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston: Northwestern University Pr
254. Henceforth Le Visible and The Visible.
8. Emmanuel Levinas, Le temps et l'autre (Montpellier, 1979), 196; trans. Richard
Time and the Other (Duquesne, 1987). The nodal-point of this essay—appearing for
time in 1947—is the relation of temporal otherness and otherness of the other.
9. Cf. the well-known study from R. Sokolowski, The Formation of Husserl's Concept of C
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoif, 1964); and more recently to this point, cf. Ε. S
"Intention und Konstitution," in Phdnomenologische Studien (Frankfurt, 1987).
10. Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological
First Book, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoif, 1983).
11. Michael Theunissen, Der Andere (Berlin: Gruyter, 1977), 141; trans. Christoph
The Other (Cambridge: MIT, 1984), 150. In another place (85, 90), he speak
"alienness that comes over me in alien-ation"—and which is naturally not "sus
Does not that have to mean: which I let come over me?
12. Cf. the excellent study on Derrida, text, and related themes in R. Bernet's "Die unge
genwârtige Gegenwart. Anwesenheit und Abwesenheit in Husserls Analyse des Zeitbe
wuBtseins," in Zeit und Zeitlichkeit bei Husserl und Heidegger, ed. E. W. Orth,
Phànomenologische Forschungen 14 (Freiburg/Miinchen, 1983). Concerning the general
problematic of the Husserlian theory of sensation which seeks a middle course between
fundamentalism and constitutionalism, cf. M. Sommer, Husserl und der Friihe Positivismus
(Frankfurt, 1985). This, incidentally, is a real find for the research of scientifically induced
metaphor of concepts with which Husserl's texts abound.
13. Cf. Merleau-Ponty's richly scored essay on Husserl, "Le philosophe et son ombre," in Signes
(Paris: Gallimard, 1960), 215: "L'ouverture perceptive au monde, dépossession plutôt que
possession, ne prétend pas au monopole de l'être"; trans. Richard C. McCleary, "The
Philosopher and His Shadow," in Signs (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964),
170. Concerning sensation as an "I-alien," cf. Husserliana IV: 334f. Merleau-Ponty refers
especially to this work in his essay on Husserl.
14. This is Thesis V from the list of theses of disputation which Husserl advances in his
dissertation (Halle, 1887). See Edmund Husserl und die phdnomenologische Bewegung. Zeugnisse in
Text und Bild, ed. R. Sepp (Freiburg/Miinchen, 1988), 169.
15. The insight into the "essential asymmetery" that I sought to develop from the interplay of
question and answer earlier in Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1971), e.g., 150f, 306f, I would today advance more strongly against the demand for
symmetry which is also tied to a communicative reason.

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EXPERIENCE OF THE ALIEN 33

A narcissism that grasps a self in sen

open "intercorporeity" to which oth
Merleau-Ponty, Le Visible, 185; The V
hovers between connaissance and mécon
one becomes aware of the paradox o
well-known study of the so-called "m
Regarding the critique of the one-s
Visible, 113 fn.; The Visible, 81 fn.
The problematic of normalizing omit
It occurs in the context of the attem
experiencesand forms of life withou
and the constitutive difference of
problematic which was radicalized
which also plays a decisive roll in p
relevant articles in Sozialitàt und Inters
senschaften im Umkreis von Aron Gurwi
(Miinchen, 1983).

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