Spectral history: Narrative, nostalgia, and the time of the I

Research in Phenomenology

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 83-104

  Crowell, Steven Galt ^a  

^a RICE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 63849202625     PISSN: 00855553     EISSN: 15691640     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156916499x00064     Document Type: Review

References (63)

1. Maurice Natanson, Anonymity: A Study in the Philosophy of Alfred Schutz this paper was delivered at a session devoted to Maurice Natanson's work at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy Natanson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 144. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a session devoted to Maurice Natanson's work at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, October 1998. The present version is dedicated to the memory of Maurice Natanson
2. Maurice Natanson, The Journeying Self: A Study in Philosophy and Social Role (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1970), 94
3. See Louis O. Mink, "Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument," University Press in Historical Understanding, ed. Brian Fay, Eugene O. Golob, and Richard T. Vann (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 182-203
4. Hayden White, Melahistory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1973)
5. and The Content of the Form (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1987)
6. The Writing of History, ed. Robert H. Canary and Henry Kozicki (Madison Press University of Wisconsin Press, 1978)
7. Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., Beyond the Great Story (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995)
8. See David Carr, Time, Narrative, and History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986)
9. HansGeorg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1991)
10. Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Chicago Press Pellauer, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984-88)
11. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981)
12. The question of whether one generation can be said to be more nostalgic than another is treated in Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia (New York: Free Press, 1979, 111ff. Davis also illuminates the role of nostalgia in the very constitution of a generation as distinct from an age cohort. His prediction, that given nostalgia's power as an emotion and the deep resonances it can activate among people, the temptation to 'use' this now more calculable affective quality by publicistolitician, and promoter is bound to be intensified p. 123, seems to have been borne out than another is treated in Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia (New York: Free Press, 1979), 111ff. Davis also illuminates the role of nostalgia in the very constitution of a "generation" as distinct from an age cohort. His prediction - that given "nostalgia's power as an emotion and the deep resonances it can activate among people, the temptation to 'use' this now more calculable affective quality by publicistolitician, and promoter is bound to be intensified" (p. 123) - seems to have been borne out
13. Frank Ankersmit, "History and Postmodernism: A Phenomenology of Historical Experience," in History and Tropology (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994), 194
14. In "Historiography and Postmodernism," in History and Ankersmit argues that the history of mentalties - e.g., works by E. Le Roy Ladurie, C. Ginsburg, and N. Z. Davis - is no longer oriented by the narrativist desire for integration, synthesis, and totality and hence no longer seeks meaning in history. Tropology, 162-81, Ankersmit argues that the "history of mentalties" - e.g., works by E. Le Roy Ladurie, C. Ginsburg, and N. Z. Davis - is no longer oriented by the narrativist desire for "integration, synthesis, and totality" and hence no longer seeks meaning in history
15. For a dissenting view see John H. Zammito, "Ankersmit's Postmodernist Historiography: The Hyperbole of 'Opacity'," History and Theory 37, no. 3 (1998): 330-46
16. Edward S. Casey, "The World of Nostalgia," Man and World 20 significance in our lives e.g, because it is a place-of-provenance, a point of origin for my development as a philosopher (1987): 363, argues that something becomes a focus of nostalgia because it "has been of significance in our lives" (e.g., because it is "a place-of-provenance, a point of origin for my development as a philosopher")
17. However, I believe it can be shown phenomenologically that this ties significance too tightly to the archetelos narrative model and so conceals what reflection on nostalgia itself shows about the structure of the self. Similarly, James Hart, Toward a Phenomenology of Nostalgia, Man and World 6, no. 4 1973, 405, argues that nostalgia is a kind of gathering in which the dispersed projects of life find their unity in a life-project that is not confined to the lost past but is the secret of the present pretention of the future. However, Hart's dependence on the idea of a life-project also over-narrativizes the self so that the true source of nostalgia's sting is obscured. These essays remain indispensable for students of the phenomenology of nostalgia, and I shall return to both below significance too tightly to the archetelos narrative model and so conceals what reflection on nostalgia itself shows about the structure of the self. Similarly, James Hart, "Toward a Phenomenology of Nostalgia," Man and World 6, no. 4 (1973): 405, argues that nostalgia is a kind of "gathering" in which "the dispersed projects of life find their unity" in a life-project that "is not confined to the lost past but is the secret of the present pretention of the future." However, Hart's dependence on the idea of a life-project also over-narrativizes the self so that the true source of nostalgia's sting is obscured. These essays remain indispensable for students of the phenomenology of nostalgia, and I shall return to both below
18. With regard to Sartre's Marxism Natanson, an avid student of Being and Nothingness, would claim that it was sometimes necessary to defend an author against himself Nothingness, would claim that it was "sometimes necessary to defend an author against himself."
19. The concept of Fundierung, for example, negotiates the impasse between positivistic covering law-approaches and Collingwoodian reenactment approaches (i.e., the Verstehen/Erklären dispute), allowing various forms of historical investigation to be integrated in terms of intentional strata. positivistic covering law-approaches and Collingwoodian reenactment approaches (i.e., the Verstehen/Erklären dispute), allowing various forms of historical investigation to be integrated in terms of intentional strata
20. Karl Löwith, Meaning in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), v
21. Quoted in Löwith, Meaning in History, v. The controversy that had Stalinism was very much a subtext of the seminar erupted in French existentialism over Stalinism was very much a subtext of the seminar
22. Natanson, The Journeying Self, 89-90
23. However, it is perhaps unwise to speak too confidently here. In an interview he gave toward the end of his life, Natanson pronounced on the old question of whether the transcendental ego is one or many: I myself believe, with Fritz Kaufmann, that there can be only one transcendental ego, If there is a foundation, not only of experience but of possible experience-then it must come forth in terms of a formative character, and I don't how that formative character can coincide and be identified between different egos unless it has the shaping power of one ego, one authority. Why, then, could there be no speculative philosophy of history, no biography of this transcendental ego? Would this simply be due to epistemological limits, to our finite ability to grasp such a thingerhaps leaving it a matter for eschatological faith? Natanson's remark is from A Conversation With Maurice Natanson, in The Prism of the Self: Philosophical Essays in Honor interview he gave toward the end of his life, Natanson pronounced on the old question of whether the transcendental ego is one or many: "I myself believe, with Fritz Kaufmann, that there can be only one transcendental ego. . . . If there is a foundation - not only of experience but of possible experience-then it must come forth in terms of a formative character, and I don't see how that formative character can coincide and be identified between different egos unless it has the shaping power of one ego, one authority." Why, then, could there be no speculative philosophy of history, no biography of this transcendental ego? Would this simply be due to epistemological limits, to our finite ability to grasp such a thing - perhaps leaving it a matter for eschatological faith? Natanson's remark is from "A Conversation With Maurice Natanson," in The Prism of the Self: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Maurice Natanson, ed. S. G. Crowell (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1995), 314
24. Natanson, Anonymity, 142-43
25. Hence he would agree with Carr (Time, Narrative, and History, 61) against theorists like White and Mink, that we do indeed live stories and do not just tell them. I would only add that to say that we live stories is not to say that we are (or that selfhood is fully structured like) stories. The narrativist picture of the self is too simple; it leaves out the sublime or uncanny aspect that nostalgia forces us to recognize. against theorists like White and Mink, that we do indeed "live" stories and do not just "tell" them. I would only add that to say that we "live" stories is not to say that we "are" (or that selfhood is fully structured like) stories. The narrativist picture of the self is too simple; it leaves out the sublime or uncanny aspect that nostalgia forces us to recognize
26. See, for example, Carr, Time, Narrative, and History, chaps. 1 and 2
27. Cf. also Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending (London: Oxford University Press, 1966). Press, 1966)
28. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 109-42. One needs to think here too of the authors who lie behind Levinas's phenomenology: the Husserl of Ideen II and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 109-42. One needs to think here too of the authors who lie behind Levinas's phenomenology: the Husserl of Ideen II and Maurice Merleau-Ponty
29. For a comprehensive account of the memorial noema see Edward S. Casey Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), esp. 65-85. Our concern is primarily with what he calls the specific content and with the elements of its memory-frame so far as these are differently constituted in nostalgia and historical memory. Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), esp. 65-85. Our concern is primarily with what he calls the "specific content" and with the elements of its "memory- frame" so far as these are differently constituted in nostalgia and historical memory
30. In "The World of Nostalgia," 367, Casey notes that early nostalgia such as Johannes Hofer (1688) went so far as to claim that nostalgia is 'symptomatic of an afflicted imagination,' not of a disturbed memory. writers on nostalgia such as Johannes Hofer (1688) went "so far as to claim that nostalgia is 'symptomatic of an afflicted imagination,' not of a disturbed memory."
31. In Remembering, 201, he extends this point to claim that "the of nostalgia bears mainly on place - exploiting its kinship with homesickness (from the Greek: νοστεω = return home, and αλγος = pain, distress). Yet as we shall a reflection on place, though indispensable, can only tell part of the story. phenomenon of nostalgia bears mainly on place" - exploiting its kinship with "homesickness" (from the Greek: νοστε ω = return home, and αλγος = pain, distress). Yet as we shall see, a reflection on place, though indispensable, can only tell part of the story
32. Davis, Yearning for Yesterday, 80
33. Casey, Remembering, 73
34. Hart, "Toward a Phenomenology of Nostalgia," 406
35. On doxic positing and neutrality modification, see Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Book One, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), §§103-113. Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Book One, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), §§103-113
36. Hart, "Toward a Phenomenology of Nostalgia," 402
37. Casey, "The World of Nostalgia," 368
38. See John Brough, "Some Husserlian Comments on Depiction in An," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterty, 66, no. 2 (1992): 241-53
39. "Picturing Revisited: Picturing the Spiritual," in The Truthful and the Good, ed. John Drummond and James Hart (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996), 47-62
40. and Robert Sokolowski, "Picturing," Review of Metaphysics 31 (1971)
41. My dictionary lists as "rare" a use of "icon" in hardly distinguish-able from the object symbolized. This usage finds support in Hans-Georg Gadamer's analysis of the pictorial work of art in Truth and Method, 134-44. which it means "a symbol hardly distinguish-able from the object symbolized." This usage finds support in Hans-Georg Gadamer's analysis of the pictorial work of art in Truth and Method, 134-44
42. See, in addition to the extended discussion in the Introduction to Metahistory, 1-42, Metahistory, 1-42
43. Hayden White, "The Historical Text as Literary Artifact," in Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 81-100
44. and Ankersmit's discussion of these issues in "Transcendentalism and Rise and Fall of Metaphor, in History and Tropologyp. 1-32. the Rise and Fall of Metaphor," in History and Tropologyp. 1-32
45. Casey, "The World of Nostalgia," 399
46. Hart, "Toward a Phenomenology of Nostalgia," 404
47. See, for example, the discussion of Wertnehmen in Ideas Pertaining to a Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), 9-11. Such ideas were, of course, more fully developed in the work of Max Scheler. Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), 9-11. Such ideas were, of course, more fully developed in the work of Max Scheler
48. David Lowenthal, "Nostalgia Tells it Like it Wasn't," in The Press Imagined Past, ed. Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 29
49. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 172-79
50. Compare Ankersmit, "History and Postmodernism," 202-3 privileges background, stability, and the structures of stability at the expense of change and of what permits narrativization. It is the emancipation of the background at the expense of the foreground. "The nostalgic past privileges background, stability, and the structures of stability at the expense of change and of what permits narrativization." It is the "emancipation of the background at the expense of the foreground."
51. Casey, "The World of Nostalgia," 365
52. Hart, "Toward a Phenomenology of Nostalgia," 410
53. Compare Casey's suggestion, "The World of Nostalgia," 376, that reminiscing may act as a . . . substitute for processes of mourning, which such reminiscing impedes by reviving and maintaining lost presences rather than giving these presences up and gaining independence of them [my emphasis]. "nostalgic reminiscing may act as a . . . substitute for processes of mourning, which such reminiscing impedes by reviving and maintaining lost presences rather than giving these presences up and gaining independence of them" [my emphasis]
54. Cited in Ankersmit, "History and Postmodernism," 207
55. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), 66
56. Here one would have to take into account the large phenomenological literature on the ego. Suffice it to say that if our account of nostalgia is accurate, then neither Sartre's conception of the ego as a constituted unity nor Heidegger's displacement of the whole ego-consciousness structure by a fully historicized self can be right. Our conception has something in common with Michel Henry's notion of radical immanence - the ego as a way of being a phenomenon which does not shine at all in the universal light, but the ego is not, as Henry supposes, the essence or ground of manifestation. The Essence of Manifestation, trans. Girard Etzkorn (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), 40-41. literature on the ego. Suffice it to say that if our account of nostalgia is accurate, then neither Sartre's conception of the ego as a constituted unity nor Heidegger's displacement of the whole ego-consciousness structure by a fully historicized self can be right. Our conception has something in common with Michel Henry's notion of "radical immanence" - the ego as "a way of being a phenomenon which does not shine at all in the universal light," but the ego is not, as Henry supposes, the essence or ground of manifestation. Cf. The Essence of Manifestation, trans. Girard Etzkorn (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), 40-41
57. It is closer to Hector-Neri Castaneda's concept of the "I transcendental prefix, radically distinct from all contents, ephemeral yet indubitable. As James Hart notes in his Introduction to Hector-Neri Castaneda, Essays on Self-Consciousness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming, 29: Castaneda challenges phenomenologists [this would include narrative theorists like Carr and Ricoeur] to show that the basic identity syntheses which found the claims for the I's identity through reflection, memoryassive synthesis, etc, enjoy the necessity of strict identity and are not mere contingent sameness relations. The phenomenon of nostalgia strongly supports Castaneda's own insistence on the non-identity and mere sameness of the 'I'-guise [i.e, any content attributed to the self] and this something else, this unremittant, unbegun and unceasing, ipseity think" as the "transcendental prefix" - radically distinct from all "contents," ephemeral yet indubitable. As James Hart notes in his Introduction to Hector-Neri Castaneda, Essays on Self-Consciousness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming), 29: "Castaneda challenges phenomenologists [this would include narrative theorists like Carr and Ricoeur] to show that the basic identity syntheses which found the claims for the I's identity (through reflection, memoryassive synthesis, etc.) enjoy the necessity of strict identity and are not mere contingent sameness relations." The phenomenon of nostalgia strongly supports Castaneda's own insistence on "the non-identity and mere sameness of the 'I'-guise [i.e., any content attributed to the self] and this something else, this unremittant, unbegun and unceasing, 'ipseity'."
58. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 75
59. Writing of Hans Castorp's return to the flatland, Natanson comments that the price of such early longing is that Hans's meditations on time, his philosophical insights, his apercus, are all lost in quick order. Nothing sticks (Maurice Natanson, The Erotic Bird [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997], 102). "the price of such early longing is that Hans's meditations on time, his philosophical insights, his apercus, are all lost in quick order. Nothing sticks" (Maurice Natanson, The Erotic Bird [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997], 102)
60. Hart, "Toward a Phenomenology of Nostalgia," 408
61. Franz Kafka, "Paradise," in The Basic Kafka, ed. Erich Heller (New York: Washington Square, 1979), 168-69
62. Erwin Panofsky, "Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition," in Meaning in the Visual Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), 309
63. cf. 312. The original appeared, with the subtitle "On the Conception Transience in Poussin and Watteau, in Philosophy and History: The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, ed. Raymond Klibansky and H. J. Paton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936). Though the essay was revised on the occasion of its republication, these changes do not affect the part of the essay I am interested in here, and I quote from the revised version. of Transience in Poussin and Watteau," in Philosophy and History: The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift, ed. Raymond Klibansky and H. J. Paton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936). Though the essay was revised on the occasion of its republication, these changes do not affect the part of the essay I am interested in here, and I quote from the revised version