A Grasp From Afar: Überschau and the Givenness of Life in Husserlian Phenomenology

In this paper I explore the issue of how our personal life is given to us in experience as a whole to be actively shaped and determined. I examine in detail Husserl’s analysis of the kind of experience responsible for this achievement, which he terms U¨berschau and which thus far has never been addressed by scholars of phenomenology. First, I locate U¨berschau in the context of self-determination and highlight the difference between the unthematic pre-givenness of life in the phenomenon of self-awareness and the actual, i.e. thematic givenness of life in acts of U¨berschau. Second, I contextualize Husserl’s discovery of U¨berschau in his analyses of ethical life and the possibility of a universal epoche´. I argue that for Husserl the very possibility of ethical life and of phenomenology itself rest on the totalizing apprehension of one’s life rendered possible by U¨berschau. In the third section I spell out the essential characteristics of U¨berschau by contrasting this peculiar kind of consciousness with reproductive forms of consciousness such as recollection and expectation, which otherwise might be easily conflated with U¨berschau. In section four I reply to a possible objection to the very possibility of U¨berschau based on the consideration of the infinitely open stream of time-consciousness. I argue that the possibility of U¨berschau is tightly connected with the egological nature of consciousness as understood by Husserl. The ego does not coincide with its own conscious acts and thus enjoys a special vantage point on the totality of its own life. To conclude, I advance a speculative suggestion about the phenomenological origin of U¨berschau in the structure of self-awareness. This opens up a variety of possible lines of research that would connect Husserl with philosophers such as Augustine or Heidegger who are more immediately associated with the issue of personal life and its unity or lack thereof.