Concept of Passivity in Husserl's Phenomenology

Victor Biceaga is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Nipissing University, North Bay, Canada

• Introduction. 1. The traditionally subordinate role of passivity. 2. The problematic character of the notion of passive synthesis. 3. Static and genetic phenomenology. 4. Preliminary account of the composition of the passive sphere. 5. Synopsis.- I. Passivity and Self-temporalization. 1. Time-consciousness and association. 2. The three levels of temporality. 3. Double intentionality. 4. Time-consciousness and alterity. 5. Rhythm.- II. Originary Passivity. 1. Association as a topic of phenomenological inquiry. 2. Primordial associations. 3. Similarity and contrast as conditions of possibility for hyletic unities. 4. The lawfulness of associations. 5. Passivity and affection.- III. Secondary Passivity. 1. Memory as image consciousness. 2. Memory as reproductive presentification. 3. Memory and objectivity. 4. Forgetting.- IV. Passivity and Crisis. 1. The concept of habitus. 2. Passivity and language: the problem of translation. 3. Reason versus passivity.- V. Passivity and Alterity. 1. The problem of embodiment: passivity and self-alterity. 2. Passivity and intersubjectivity. 3. Passivity and alien cultures.