‘LYING ABOUT OWN PROPER NAME’. A THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF I

‘LYING ABOUT OWN PROPER NAME’. A THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF I What does it mean ‘lying about own proper name’? How can I describe it? What is it, who can do it and what happens when someone lies on own proper name? Does anything change in expression of ‘I’, when someone lies on own proper name and, if yes, what? And if I lie on my proper name, I would really risk to lose any confidence in «what is meant by ‘true’ and ‘false’», as Wittgenstein wrote? And if someone else does it? Examining the case of ‘lying about own proper name’ means to submit to a real crash-test the phenomenological concept of I, as it is defined in V LU, moving from its possible expression, from meaning and function of personal pronoun ‘I’, and from meaning and function of proper personal name, with which each one can introduce itself. In order to carry out such an examination, it is first of all necessary to highlight a premise and an objective: Premise: Although ‘lying about own proper name’ is not a lie like the others, it is still necessary to remember that Husserl does not consider the lie a true-functional assertion, because he considers it alien to the record of what can be said true or false. Not only because lies are essentially communicative. In fact, the lie does not respect the condition for verifying or falsifying any statement, i. e., that it is characterized by a simple positionality. Lying is, however, ‘qualitatively’ defined by a double positionality. In the lie there is not simply a statement about a state of things, but a statement about another statement. Lying is done as follows: Statement 1 [Statement 2 (state-of-things)]. The condition for a lie consist in two statements – referred to each other – each one has its positionality, and these positionalities are not necessarily different. Objective: In the ‘qualitative’ framework of lies and from the determination of the only one who is ‘authorized’ to lie on his own proper name, the case study of ‘lying about own proper name’ makes possible to try the phenomenological definition of “I” and its expressions, as a reduction of the empirical ego to the feeling of its phenomenological ‘consistency’. The case analysis of the lie about own proper name will be conducted on the ‘phenomenological matrix’ of I. This ‘matrix’ consists of three columns: 1) The first one is the expression of ‘I’ and includes: 1.1) Definition of the peculiar occasionality of personal pronoun, its significative function and its indicative function (I LU, § 26); 1.2) Definition of the syntactic form of the ‘subject’ in which the expression of the ego lies (Umarbeitung 1913); 1.3) Definition of the significative function of its own proper name (VI LU, §§ 5-7); 2) The second one is that of the phenomenological concept of ‘I’ and includes: 2.1) the attribution of unity to consciousness-I in front of the multiplicity of experiences (V LU, § 6); 2.2) one-many, whole-party relationships, and the possibility of identification; 2.3) the ways in which it is possible to capture - or object - the identity of the ego; 3) The third one is the temporality of the ego and includes: 3.1) the definition of ‘I’ as the chronicity of living experiences (V LU, § 5); 3.2) the definition of the actuality of the ego - of the possibility of adequately perceiving the ego - as what is not properly and completely present; 3.3) the definition of the ‘actual’ part of I as the given limit of a non-given multiplicity (Hua X, Tx., No. 39, 1907-1909). Each of the columns of the ‘phenomenological matrix’ of I identifies one of the ways Husserl followed in the review of LU and in the development that led him to Ideen I and beyond. This does not means at all to see in the development of Husserlian thinking the ‘force of a destiny’ that necessarily determined subsequent phases and any turning points or transformations. It means rather isolating the core of a position extending from the first edition of the LU to the initial research on temporality (1904-05) and the first revisions of the LU, to the lessons on Logics and Theory of knowledge of 1906-07 and 1910-11, because, in this way, we can put in a consistent way some of the main questions that Husserl has tried to give different answers. This theoretical core is made up of the following elements – well highlighted by examining the proposed case of lies about own proper name – : a) the re-elaboration of the doctrine of occasional expressions, of own proper name and of its immediate relationship with the reference; b) the widening of the use of categorical forms even to proper meanings; c) the definition of the principle of ‘presentability’ or ‘provability’ and the function which it carries out the contingency of the post occupied by I; d) in connection with c), the role that the fictional transformation (Umfiktion) on own I has in the distinction between ideal and real possibilities, or between free and bound fantasies; e) the analysis of internal temporality and the difficult understanding of the link between impression and retention, which ultimately breaks the compactness of the present moment. The definition of this theoretical core satisfies our objective. However, it remains to close the accounts with the lie about own proper name. The hypothesis is that in this case the following occurs: 1) the one who speaks by saying ‘I’, appealing to his interlocutor because he intends with ‘I’ himself and therefore not only what is present but also the whole multiplicity of which he is part and which, however, is not actually present, 2) when he lies on own proper name, formulating a proper expression (a name) with a double positionality, 3) he pretends that his interlocutor calls him with a proper name different from his own, 4) i. e., he pretends that his interlocutor identifies him immediately not only in the reference to a group of real possibilities, different from those that bear its own name 5) but with the formal unity of this group of real possibilities, which also includes unreal possibilities, such as future possibilities; 6) the formal unity of this group of real possibilities must be consistent (compossible) in itself; 7) must be consistent (compossible) with the subject-I, who appropriates it, mendaciously; 8) must be no-consistent (no-compossible) with the formal unity of this group of real possibilities, that belongs to truthful proper name. 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