Abstract

This paper argues that the gesture of being silent —or “subjective silence”— can be described as a specific modulation of attention, in which consciousness gains awareness of a specific realm of experience where the body appears as a transcendental dimension of the self. Taking Dauenhauer’s typology as a point of departure, I will describe what I understand with the expressions “subjective silence” –and “the gesture of being silent”– and try to show its specific relation to “attention,” according to Husserl’s description of it. Second, that the noematic field of this “subjective silence” is the realm of the pre-predicative, since it allows consciousness to maintain a certain intentional tension that does not focus on any categorial object. Finally, I will try to show that in this realm of the pre-predicative, the body appears as an immanent dimension of consciousness and, therefore, not as a mere object but as a transcendental instance of the self.