Abstract

In this paper I argue that conscience is a phenomenon that takes place on two different architectonic levels: the sedimented level of intentional consciousness and the pre-intentional level of sense-formation and intersubjective perceptive phantasiai. On this pre-intentional level, one does not clearly distinguish between what is alien and what is one’s own: the lived experiences are not yet ascribed to an already constituted self but can be qualified as “nomadic.” This architectonic level is the locus of one’s openness to the Other and their embodied life, be it ethical or aesthetic openness. This is why pre-intentional conscience is lived through as a silent call. This call, on the one hand, affects and destabilizes the recipient and compels them to a certain understanding, and, on the other hand, it is marked by an essential ambiguity regarding the identity of the caller and/or the transferred message. This call becomes manifest in the response, when it gradually acquires a well-defined shape and is subsequently identified as the voice of my authentic self, or the voice or the gaze of the Other in need, or the voice of a universal law, or the voice of God. The recipient of the call of conscience becomes a kind of “translator” or “spokesperson” who lends their own flesh with its bodily and mental habits to the caller, translating the silent call into a practical judgement of conscience.