Towards a Theory of Eccentricity — Page 4:
16 Plessner develops his theory in his seminal work Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (1928). He tries to provide an estimation of the relative modes of being of the various spheres of the organic world: plants, animals, and human beings. To distinguish these three spheres, Plessner introduces the concept of positionality. The sphere of plants he calls an open, that of animals a closed and that of humans an eccentric positionality.
17 Plessner explains his concept of eccentric positionality by opposing humans to animals. Animals, according to Plessner, have a centre of their existence but do not know about it. This is why he calls their distinctive mode of existence closed positionality: they are centered and conscious, but their position is closed in a way they are unable to transcend. Humans, by contrast, have a centre and know about having this centre; they are not only conscious, but self-conscious: “Der Mensch als das lebendige Ding, das in die Mitte seiner Existenz gestellt ist, weiß diese Mitte, erlebt sie und ist darum über sie hinaus” (Plessner 364). Thus, it is the ability of self-awareness, of self-knowledge, which causes the distinctive human mode of existence, which is defined by an inherent possibility of transgression: the moment human beings know about and experience their centre, they already are transgressing it by the very act of self-awareness. To use a metaphor common to anthropology, humans are able to “take a step back” and look at themselves from a distance. Whereas an animal just experiences, a human being is, by means of taking a step back, able to experience its experiencing: “er erlebt sein Erleben” (364).
18 This distinctly human mode of existence Plessner calls eccentric positionality. It should by now be clear in what sense he understands “eccentric.” Plessner uses it in a very literal sense, meaning “out of the centre.” The centre, in Plessner’s theory, is a conscious creature’s position, its place in nature and in itself. Take, for example, the sentence “Oh, so now this is what vanilla ice-cream tastes like.” An animal could not make sense of it, for it would simply experience the taste and afterwards know: this object tastes good/not good. A human being, on the other hand, is able to experience the very act of experiencing the taste of vanilla ice-cream by means of taking a step back and observing the act itself. Through this act of stepping back, human beings step out of their centre and are ex-centric: “Ist das Leben des Tieres zentrisch, so ist das Leben des Menschen, ohne die Zentrierung durchbrechen zu können, zugleich aus ihr heraus, exzentrisch” (364).
19 The distinctly human position, according to Plessner, is threefold: it is the body, in the body (the inner life, the soul) and at the same time out of the body, as a viewpoint from which it is both (365). Human beings have a body, experience things through the body and are able to take a step back and observe themselves as having a body and experiencing through it. For Plessner, this situation leads to the creation of three worlds, i.e. three distinct modes of human existence: Außenwelt, Innenwelt and Mitwelt, each of which is characterized by an irresolvable double aspect, analogous to the double aspect of human existence as such, the eccentric positionality.
20 What Plessner calls Außenwelt, the outside world, is the world of material things surrounding us (366). Here, the double aspect is the tension between the human being as Leib (body) and as Körperding (a material thing among others). A human being is experiencing her own body as belonging to herself (Leib) and at the same time recognizes that it is, from an objective perspective, just one of the objects of the Außenwelt, a Körperding.