Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
me'!” etched on a CD, is a challenge none of us can ignore. Does it not
pose very much the same question of scandal that Rheinberger dares us
to face?
To help make my way through these complex matters, I think it is
helpful to dwell for a bit on several peculiar passages in the work of
Alfred Schutz. One appears in his critical review of Edmund Husserl's
understanding of intersubjectivity; the other in his intriguing article on
Max Scheler.
After insisting that intersubjectivity is a “given” and not a “problem”
to be solved, Schutz maintained that “as long as man is born of woman,
intersubjectivity and the we-relationship will be the foundation for all
other categories of human existence.” Accordingly, he continued, every-
thing in human life is “founded on the primal experience of the we-
relationship,” which, though he didn't explicitly say so, must surely be
the experience of being “born of woman.” Since
all
“other categories of
human existence” are founded on this primal experience, our being with
and among other people was for Schutz “the fundamental ontological
category of human existence in the world and therefore of all philo-
sophical anthropology.”
44
In the Scheler essay, Schutz's words are equally fascinating. He first
pointed out that there is one taken-for-granted assumption that no one
for a moment doubts, not even the most ornery skeptic: “We are simply
born into a world of Others.” Then he said: “As long as human beings
are not concocted like homunculi in retorts but are born and brought up
by mothers, the sphere of the 'We' will be naively presupposed.”
45
Here,
too, it is reasonable to surmise that what is “naively presupposed” is
precisely that “primal experience” of being borne by a woman (I need
to add) and born of woman, and (he added here) being raised by mothers
as opposed to being “concocted . . . in retorts.”
What I want to pick up on is the idea that being born of woman con-
stitutes “the” (not merely “a”) “fundamental” ontological and anthro-
pological category of human life. It is curious to note first that few
philosophers have thought it necessary or, I suppose, fruitful to focus on
this phenomenon of having been born of woman. Reflections on death
and dying are plentiful; those on birth, being borne and then born, or
“worlded,” are oddly lacking. Still, if we consider this—even if, as Schutz
