Forms of social unity: Partnership, membership, and citizenship

Husserl Studies

Volumn 18, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 141-156

  Drummond, John J ^a  

^a FORDHAM UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33748862544     PISSN: 01679848     EISSN: 15728501     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1015531121939     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. This paper is the text, only slightly revised, of the Aron Gurwitsch Memorial Lecture delivered at the meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University, October 6, 2000.
2. Cf. Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortrage, ed. S. Strasser, Husserliana I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963), 50-52
3. (English translation: Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, Irans. Dorion Cairns [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970]).
4. Aron Gurwitsch, Die mitmenschlichen Begegnungen in der Milieuwelt, ed. A. Metraux (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977)
5. (English translation: Human Encounters in the Social World, ed. Alexandre Metraux, Irans. Fred Kersten [Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1979]). Further references to this work will be incorporated into the text with the German pagination followed by a slash and the English pagination.
6. For Husserl's discussion of the interpenetration of wills in the formation of a communal will, see Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologische Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phanomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, ed. M. Biemel, Husserliana IV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952)
7. (English translation: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution, Irans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer [Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989]), 192-94/202-204;
8. Zur Phanomenologie der Intersubjektivitat. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Zweiter Teil: 1921-1928, ed. I. Kern, Husserliana XIV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), pp. 169-70, 200-201;
9. and Aufsatze und Vortrage (1922-1937), ed. T. Nenon and H. R. Sepp, Husserliana XXVII (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), pp. 22, 48-49.
10. For discussions of Husserl's notion of community, cf. Karl Schuhmann, Husserls Staatsphilosophie (Munich: Verlag Karl Alber Freiburg, 1988);
11. James G. Hart, The Person and the Common Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), chap. 5;
12. R. Philip Buckley, "Husserl's Notion of Authentic Community," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1992): 213-227, and Husserl, Heidegger and the Crisis of Philosophical Responsibility (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), chap. 5;
13. Natalie Depraz, "Phenomenological Reduction and the Political," Husserl Studies 12 (1995): 1-17;
14. Anthony Steinbock, Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1995);
15. John J. Drummond, "The 'SpirituaP World: the Personal, the Social, and the Communal," Issues in Ideas II, ed. T. Nenon and L. Embree (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), pp. 237-254;
16. Drummond, "Political Community," Phenomenology of the Political, ed. K. Thompson and L. Embree (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 29-53;
17. and Drummond, ""Time, History, and Tradition," The Many Faces of Time, ed. J. Brough and L. Embree (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 127-147.
18. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: Viking Penguin, 1964).
19. Professor Thomas Flynn of Emory University raised the question of whether there is a parallel description of communal membership and citizenship that might be given in terms of the category of responsibility and whether that fact raises questions about the possibility and meaning of collective responsibility. I think these are important questions, and would agree social formations having a unity and a willing life of their own do, in fact, have a communal responsibility and that the individual members of the community, therefore, share a collective responsibility. This is, of course, a thorny issue, and I cannot adequately treat it here. It is obvious that assuming a role in a partnership wherein different individuals order their activities to a shared end makes both the partnership and the individuals it comprises responsible for the activities and functioning of the partnership as a whole. It should also be noted, however, that this cannot apply to partnerships wherein the partners have different ends. The more difficult question, of course, concerns our non-voluntary membership in communities. Suffice it to say, for starters, that the fact that the community does have its own "life" means that the community is responsible for its historical life and that being born into a community does, in fact, make me individually responsible in some sense for the activities ofthat community, including its historical performances. These issues arise in concrete contexts in discussions about the responsibility of younger German generations for the Holocaust and in questions about the responsibility of younger American generations for racism. The notion of responsibility, however, must be nuanced, for there are different meaning contexts in which we might use the term "responsible." We might for example say that "A (an agent) is a responsible person." Here our focus is on the agent's capacities to respond (well) to moral situations. Any parallel claim that "C (the community) is responsible" can mean only that the members of the community are responsible (self-critical and willing to undertake the modification of the community's practices) in a way and to a degree that has a real effect on the willing, active life of the community as a whole. Such capacities for responding are, in other words, developed within one's communities and the moral education they provide, and these same capacities are realized within the very same community. We can say that "C is responsible" only to the extent that there is a sufficient number of persons within the community of whom it can be said that "A is responsible," responsible both for moral criticism and education and for action. We also say, however, that "A is responsible to X for Y." Here the focus is on the determining ground of the obligation entailed by saying that A is responsible for Y and on the dative of responsibility indicated by saying that A is responsible to X. To the extent that we are born into communities having a history, we become responsible for the historical Y, although the responsibility here does not carry connotations of guilt. Cmust respond to Y- that is its responsibility; C must take responsibility for Y and act in relation to it. But C takes responsibility and acts only insofar as a sufficient number of individuals take responsibility and act. The communal responsibility is a collective responsibility, although this is not the same as a collective guilt. German youth must take responsibility for the Holocaust (not accept guilt), and the same is true for we Americans in relation, say, to racism. There is, of course, much more to be said, especially in regard to the Xto whom we are responsible and exactly how that responsibility is to be exercised, but this would take us too far afield.
20. Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phanomenologie. Erganzungsband: Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934-1937, ed. Reinhold Smid, Husserliana XXIX (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993), pp. 6, 9-13, 37-39.
21. Ibid.
22. For a brief discussion of hospitality as a political category, cf. Drummond, "Political Community," especially §IV. Hospitality in this context, it should be noted, appears both as a virtue and an obligation. As a citizen engaged in the partnership that is part of citizenship, I am required to be hospitable and there are excellences appropriate to the practice of hospitality.
23. I am grateful to Professor Cyril Dwiggins of Dickinson College for pointing out that the activities undertaken within the context of certain non-political communities might nevertheless serve political ends. For example, membership in an academic community and the partnership activities appropriate to it (teaching, most obviously) contribute to the achievement of political ends insofar as they contribute to the theoretical, moral, and civic education of citizens. Membership in subsidiary communities within the political community, in other words, can assume certain dimensions that are related to the allencompassing, even if not perfecting, character of the political community.