The static and genetic determinations of the horizon

pp. 89-111

in: Saulius Geniusas, The origins of the horizon in Husserl's phenomenology, Berlin, Springer, 2012

Abstract

This chapter argues that the horizon is a specifically genetic theme, which in its early emergence is still dressed in static garb. So as to establish this thesis, the chapter provides a preliminary account of the difference between static and genetic phenomenological methods and further inquires into the difference between the static and genetic notions of horizon-consciousness. Such a twofold determination of consciousness is further supplemented with a static and a genetic determination of the ego. I further show how the genetic notion of the ego procures a phenomenological notion of transcendental subjectivity. I argue that transcendental subjectivity is one of the greatest discoveries of genetic phenomenology (the other being that of the world-horizon) and that the task of the genetic analysis of the horizons is first and foremost that of uncovering the horizons of transcendental subjectivity.