(…) O tema da fenomenologia não é simplesmente a vida fáctica — este é o domínio abrangente dividido por todas as outras ciências — mas a vida como surgindo da origem, no seu “salto primordial” para o fáctico. A vida fáctica é assim perseguida numa direção inteiramente nova. A fenomenologia quer encontrar a origem da vida fáctica. Pelo caminho, terá também de encontrar os motivos que nos levam da vida fáctica para o domínio da origem. Em outras palavras, o que motiva a própria ideia de uma ciência da origem? E o que significa a origem neste contexto? Os vários problemas da fenomenologia proliferam assim em torno deste problema central, o da sua própria ideia de “ciência” do domínio da origem. O curso (WS 1919-20) percorre várias opções disponíveis e propostas pelas ciências e pela filosofia em busca do método e da matéria da ciência primordial, geralmente por contraste. Isto é feito em conjunto com uma descrição contínua dos caracteres básicos da vida fáctica, dos quais o domínio de origem receberá a sua motivação. Neste breve resumo do curso, concentrar-nos-emos neste último tema.
Temos de entrar nas “auto-evidências” da vida: a minha vida, a tua vida, a vida dela. A vida fáctica tem uma direção definida, uma tendência, que nem sempre é consciente. A vida é uma sequência de tendências: reclama-nos, “dirige-se” a nós ou passa ao lado de nós. Latentes ou patentes, essas tendências tendem a estabilizar-se ou a “cristalizar-se” à nossa volta. Vivo sempre numa espécie de meio ou ambiente, um círculo de tarefas e condições de vida, ao qual outros também pertencem, onde estou com outros. A este mundo-ambiente e a este mundo-com também se pode acrescentar um mundo-próprio (Selbstwelt), que me é dado da mesma forma que o mundo-ambiente. O mundo próprio é o que me ocupa. Uma pessoa interessa-se por arte, ciência, etc., sem pensar muito nisso. Outro estabiliza a sua orientação escolhendo uma profissão, que pode mesmo tornar-se uma tendência totalmente dominadora e ditatorial: uma vida puramente científica ou religiosa. Mas, qualquer que seja a escolha ou a não-escolha, a vida vive sempre num mundo, tem sempre uma tendência para um determinado conteúdo, não corre no vazio. O “mundo” não acrescenta nada de novo à vida. Vida fáctica e a vida num mundo andam naturalmente juntas. Uma é para a outra.
The most basic problem of phenomenology is itself, understood as a science of the origin. What does such an idea of philosophy involve? In this continuation of the problematic begun in KNS, Heidegger will push more deeply into the domain of this primal science, thus into the domain of the origin or the originating domain (Ursprungsgebiet), than he did in the preceding two semesters. It likewise brings the clarification that the theme of phenomenology is not simply factic life — this is the comprehensive domain divided by all the other sciences — but life as arising from the origin, in its “primal leap” into the factic. Factic life is thus pursued in an entirely new direction. Phenomenology wants to find the origin of factic life. Along the way, it will also have to find the motives which lead us from factic life to the domain of origin. In other words, what motivates the very idea of a science of the origin? And what does origin mean in this context? The various problems of phenomenology thus proliferate around this central problem, that of its very idea as a “science” of the domain of origin. The course meanders its way through various available and proposed options from the sciences and philosophy in search of the method and matter of the primal science, usually by way of contrast. This is done in conjunction with a running description of the basic characters of factic life, from which the domain of origin will receive its motivation. We shall concentrate on the latter theme in this brief overview of the course.
We must enter into the “self-evidences” of life: my life, your life, her life. Factic life has a definite direction, a tendency, which is not always conscious. Life is a sequence of tendencies: it makes a claim on us, “addresses” us, or passes us by. Whether latent or patent, such tendencies tend to stabilize or “crystallize” around us. I always live in some kind of surroundings or environment, a circle of tasks and life conditions, to which others also belong, where I am with others. To this environing world and with-world can also be added a self-world (Selbstwelt), given to me in the same way as the environing world. The self-world is what occupies me. One has an interest in art, science, and the like, without giving it too much thought. Another stabilizes his direction by choosing a profession, which can even become a totally dominating and dictatorial tendency: a purely scientific or religious life. But whatever the choice or nonchoice, life always lives in a world, it always has a tendency toward a certain content, it does not run its course in the void. “World” does not add anything new to life. Factic life and life in a world go together as a matter of course. One is for the other.
Surrounding world, with-world, self-world: these three relief characters permeate each other in the flux of life so as to give it its unique and “labile circumstantiality,” the very rhythm of my life. This of course is only my surface existence, I am not fully there, expressly and consciously, but it is from here that my personal existence is to be grasped. As a flux of relief characters, it is a kind of “unaccentuated accentuation” defining what we call “everydayness.” Beyond everydayness, there are the more consciously accentuated tendencies, like that of a profession. All tendencies strive for fulfillment, which in life tends to be provisional and never final. Life is charged with questionability, and the way this interrogative domain is time and again overcome characterizes the “self-sufficiency” of life. Factic life contains the resources to overcome its own questions. Life as such brings its factic tendencies out of itself and then to fulfillment through itself. All fulfillments happen through life itself. Despite its inadequacies, factic life gives answer to its questions in its own language. If this is so, then it should provide the answer even to the problem of its origin. It is not to be sought “somewhere else,” beyond life itself.
Another important character: life gives itself in various contexts of manifestation or expression. It can be seen in different aspects. Everything in life is somehow or other, and only in a “somehow.” Everything that we encounter in life expresses itself, puts itself forward, appears, in short, is a phenomenon. A person in different moods and situations, my high school years then and now-everything appears in a manifold of manifestations. And when they become objects of science, they enter into new modes of expression, for example, the past worlds of historical research. History will turn out to be the most important discipline for phenomenology, even more important than psychology, with which it was first confused. But as important as the scientific mode of expression is for the ideal of phenomenology, it is only one of many expressive contexts; art and religion have other modes of manifestation. All three worlds can be brought into the expressive context of science. Even the self-world can be made the topic of biographical research of various kinds, assisted by sciences like history and psychology.
It turns out that the center of gravity of factic life can come to rest in the self-world, such that the with-world and the around-world become functionally dependent on the self-world. This does not happen intentionally and consciously, but rather occurs implicitly in the factic course of life itself. Factic life is pointed toward self-life. This focusing of factic life in the self-world is already there unaccentuated in the environing world, so that we do not notice that the entire world is pointed through the situation of the one who is living it. Every world occurrence is determined by the situation of the implicit self. The expressive context in which the world gives itself is a function of the particular situational context of the self-world. Lived life is an echo of the rhythm of a living self. The many-splendored and sometimes chaotic mixtures of life experiences find their unity in the situational flow of the life of the self, its rhythm and style. In short, there is always a connection between the manifestation character of the self-world and that of the lived world. And the very possibility of phenomenology as a primal science depends upon this possibility.
Can this self-world as such, which we each experience first in an unaccentuated way, be made the object of a science? Can we perhaps trace the first stirrings of the self-world out of the environing world? A final trait of factic life experience makes this possible. Everything that I experience has for me the character of being real. This really amounts to its being significant, meaningful, even if it be in the most trivial and worthless of ways. Significance is always and alone the character of factically experienced reality. I live in this reality, I am absorbed in it. Every factic life experience has a particular horizon of significances which characterizes and influences its inner context. This meaningful context is centered in situations which are “open,” that is, accessible for motivations from the past and future. Existence without significance simply does not have the possibility of motivation. Significance is defined by the context of expectation in which every vital situation stands.
The character of significance indicates that life is not like a stream which flows on dully and mutely (Bergson), but is understandable. It and the other two characters of factic life, self-sufficiency and expression, make a science of the domain of origin possible. They do not provide a conceptual net for generalization, but rather the basis for understanding life in its own expressive formation. We see this especially in the very first moment of taking cognizance (Kenntnisnahme) of that factic life in which we first find ourselves absorbed, the very first step toward articulating our factic experience. It is a remarkable act, a phenomenon on the edge: it remains in the style of factic life and stands entirely within its context of significance, does not break its character or unravel what has been experienced. And yet this very first moment of life becoming conscious of itself does retard the experience, slow down the course of life. The experience is slackened, relaxed of the tautness of the life stream while remaining in it. To what extent is the act of taking cognizance a modification of factic life which violates it, infringes upon it? Is what is being noticed the same as what has been factically experienced? In factic experience, I live from one momentary phase to the other, skimming over these in unrestrained fashion, storming ahead without looking back. And yet this sliding from one phase to another, each open only to the present, shapes an experiential context, which is guided by a certain direction of expectation. The act of cognizance is thus directed to the whole, open not just to the present moments but to the overview of the context. It is an all-sided openness to the past and future through the tendency that threads through all the phases. It is the overview that factic life, which normally does not look back and simply focuses on the present, does not achieve. What exactly then is the modification of taking notice? It overtly takes the tendencies of experience as tendencies of sense, which become binding for what is being experienced, so that its elements merge, consolidate, crystallize into contexts, and emerge as constellations of meaning. All this is guided by the tendency of significance intrinsic to factic life.
Of course, taking cognizance can be taken to the other extreme of its tendency to modify factic life to the point of extinguishing the original situation. This is the “unliving” of reification that especially the natural sciences promote in their quest for total objectification. Clearly, the science of the origin wishes to stay close to the original situation of life. In fact, it seeks the givenness of concrete basic situations in which the totality of life is expressed, in which a “total givenness” emerges. This is the givenness of life as it is “pregiven” to us, which can never and in no way be objectified. Life experiences are not things, but expressive formations of the tendencies of concrete life-situations. The science of experience is the originarily giving intuition of experiential contexts, of situations out of which experiences spring. It is the merit of phenomenology to have stressed the fundamental meaning of intuition as an originary return to the phenomena themselves. But there is the danger, in exemplifying intuition through sense perception (Husserl), of equating it with object-intuition. The very first step of phenomenological intuition is in the sheer understanding of the contexts of sense which are developed by life-situations. For the self-world in factic life is not a thing nor even an I in the epistemological sense, but rather a significance to be understood. Its concepts are expressions of sense and not of an order of objects to which they must be brought into coincidence. Expressive concepts are not order-concepts, operating according to subsumptive generalizations. Understanding gives the phenomenological concept of essence another sense than that of a generic universal.