remembers itself. In memory the articulation of life and its relations to me myself raise themselves, and thereby the character of experiencing becomes visible. In the memory of what has been experienced, what lets itself be pursued, much more immediately than in what was then experienced itself, is that which is resolved [beschlossen] in the manner of having-experienced, [in other words] how that which is remembered has its wholly specific character, in which it is familiar to me.-
The psychologist will say that those are all vague concepts, that there is nothing so precise as "memory residues, aims of impression, and aims of reproduction" etc. But we will not let ourselves talk about that. We have different standards for strictness than that. But one may also not make the task of phenomenological research into life easier by saying: Every experience is an experience of an I. Thus eo ipso I am there with every experience. Because we still have no concept of an "experience:' This is precisely what we want to first radically determine.
Here is the place for the motive on account of which all phenomenological understanding must allow its material to be pre-given out of full historical life. Real life and history are the guide [Leitfaden] or, better, the guiding experience [Leiterfahrung] for phenomenological research. History is not understood here as historical science, but rather as vital co-experiencing, as life's being-familiar with itself and its fullness.-We find here the roots of deep problems in the science of history and the philosophy of history. (A far-reaching critique of Spengler's Decline of the West [253] would also start from here. It does not suffice to challenge him on a case by case basis, proving individual mistakes, etc. It also does not suffice to prove that his "skepticism" is nonsensical from a philosophical perspective. Rather, what needs to be shown is that: Spengler, just like Bergson, Dilthey, Simmel, is bogged down in half-measures. He has not apprehended life back up to its ultimacy.)—It appears here as well that our problems are fundamental and not mere specialities.—
190 BASIC PROBLEMS OF PHENOMENOLOGY