Crisis and Lifeworld: New Phenomenological Perspectives 3495994866, 9783495994863

Table of contents :
Cover
Introduction
Abbreviations
Part A Perspectives on the Crisis
Phenomenology: Metaphysics or Method?
1. Husserl and the phenomenological method
2. Kant and the project of transcendental critique.
3. From the natural attitude to the lifeworld
4. Metaphysical misreadings of phenomenology
5. Conclusion
Transcendental Phenomenology and the Lifeworld
1. The transcendental »making-intelligible«
2. Questioning the intuitive evidence as the »principle of All principles«
3. The fundamental role of non-presenting manners of consciousness
4. The inadequacy of the phenomenological description
5. The paradox of the annihilation of consciousness
Philosophical Generativity
Turn to Antiquity, Institution of Meaning, and Denkergemeinschaft in the Crisis
1. Tradition and institution of meaning
2. The Greek case
3. Denkergemeinschaft and Philosophy
Crisis as the Lack of Response to an Interpellation
1. Levels of history in transcendental phenomenology
2. Levels of history in Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Patočka
3. Hermeneutic phenomenology
4. Phenomenology of life
5. Phenomenology of responsive action
6. Phenomenology of the political world
7. Interpellation
8. Teleology
Part B Echoes of the Crisis
Echoes of the Crisis in Contemporary French Phenomenology
1. Crisis and fact sciences in Husserl
2. Crisis and barbarism in M. Henry
3. The crisis of the notion of crisis in J.-L. Marion
4. The crisis of meaning in Marc Richir
5. Corollaries
Is life sensible?
Husserl and Henry: Two Paradoxes about the Lifeworld
1. Husserl: From Sensible Life to Transcendental Life
1.1. Sensible Life
1.2. Transcendental Life
2. Henry: From Sensible Life to Absolute Life and Return
2.1. From Sensible to Absolute Life
2.2. From Absolute Life to Sensible Life: the Lifeworld as a ›Corps-propriation‹
3. Conclusion
Topics in Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of the Crisis
1. Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl
2. Merleau-Ponty and the Crisis
3. The Problems of Reduction and Transcendental Intersubjectivity
4. Philosophy and Psychology
Part C The Lifeworld reconsidered
Phenomenology of the Crisis and Digitalisation
Lifeworld Forgetfulness in the Digital Age
Reflexions Following Husserl’s Crisis
I
II
III
Crisis and the Unconscious: Another Look at the Lifeworld
1. Husserl and the Crisis of European Humanity
2. The Unconscious and Affection
3. Description of Dreamless Sleep and Dream
5. Dream and Living Body
6. A Final Remark on the Unconscious and the Crisis
Intersubjective Subjectivity: Language, Diversity of Language
1. We-Mode
2. We and I
3. Our husband
4. Extended Self
5. Self, One, They, You, and We
6. Intersubjective Subjectivity
7. Topological Analysis: Self-Consciousness and Belongingness
8. Conclusion
Subjectivity and World: The Roots of the Crisis in Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology
1. Introduction
2. The Paradoxical Interrelationships between the World of Science and the Lifeworld
3. The Paradox of Subjectivity and why it needs to be resolved to overcome the Crisis
4. Beyond the Concept of Crisis
List of contributors

Citation preview

Phänomenologie

Inverso | Schnell [Eds.]

Crisis and Lifeworld New Phenomenological Perspectives

| 35

Phänomenologie Edited by Jakub Čapek Sophie Loidolt Alessandro Salice Alexander Schnell Claudia Serban Advisory Board Ehrenmitglieder des Advisory Boards: Jean-Luc Marion | Hans Rainer Sepp Thomas Bedorf | Jagna Brudzinska | Steven Crowell | Natalie Depraz | Sara Heinämaa | Julia Jansen | Olivier Massin | Kevin Mulligan | Karel Novotný | Dominique Pradelle | Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl | Inga Römer | Tony Steinbock | Dan Zahavi Editorial Board Thomas Arnold | Martin Cajthaml | Cristian Ciocan | Julien Farges | Christian Ferencz-Flatz | Philip Flock | Selin Gerlek | Sylvaine Gourdain | Till Grohmann | Steffen Herrmann | Tobias Keiling | Hilge Landweer | Sandra Lehmann | Tereza Matějčková | Søren Overgaard | Witold Płotka | Ignacio Quepons | Matthias Schloßberger | Sergej Seitz | Jan Slaby | Andrea Staiti | Michael Staudigl | Michela Summa | Hamid Taieb | Ádám Takács | Ruth Rebecca Tietjen | Gerhard Thonhauser | Genki Uemura | Francesca De Vecchi | Jaroslava Vydrová | Íngrid Vendrell Ferran | Maren Wehrle | Harald Wiltsche

35 All volumes in this series go through a peer review process before acceptance.

Hernán Gabriel Inverso | Alexander Schnell [Eds.]

Crisis and Lifeworld New Phenomenological Perspectives

This book is a dissemination output of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 801505.

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de ISBN

978-3-495-99486-3 (Print) 978-3-495-99487-0 (ePDF)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN

978-3-495-99486-3 (Print) 978-3-495-99487-0 (ePDF)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Inverso, Hernán Gabriel | Schnell, Alexander Crisis and Lifeworld New Phenomenological Perspectives Hernán Gabriel Inverso | Alexander Schnell (Eds.) 230 pp. Includes bibliographic references. ISBN

978-3-495-99486-3 (Print) 978-3-495-99487-0 (ePDF)

Online Version Nomos eLibrary

1st Edition 2023 © Verlag Karl Alber within Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden, Germany 2023. Overall responsibility for manufacturing (printing and production) lies with Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. This work is subject to copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Under § 54 of the German Copyright Law where copies are made for other than private use a fee is payable to “Verwertungs­gesellschaft Wort”, Munich. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Nomos or the editors.

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

Part A Perspectives on the Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

David Carr Phenomenology: Metaphysics or Method? . . . . . . . . .

21

Alexander Schnell Transcendental Phenomenology and the Lifeworld . . . . .

39

Claudia Marsico Philosophical Generativity Turn to Antiquity, Institution of Meaning, and Denkergemeinschaft in the Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59

Roberto J. Walton Crisis as the Lack of Response to an Interpellation . . . . .

73

Part B Echoes of the Crisis

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

Hernán Inverso Echoes of the Crisis in Contemporary French Phenomenology

97

Paula Lorelle Is life sensible?

Husserl and Henry: Two Paradoxes about the Lifeworld . . . . . . .

115

5

Table of Contents

Esteban A. García Topics in Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of the Crisis . . . . . . .

129

Part C The Lifeworld reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . .

143

Klaus Held Phenomenology of the Crisis and Digitalisation . . . . . . .

145

Ismail El Mossadeq Lifeworld Forgetfulness in the Digital Age Reflexions Following Husserl’s Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

161

Luis Román Rabanaque Crisis and the Unconscious: Another Look at the Lifeworld

171

Hye Young Kim Intersubjective Subjectivity: Language, Diversity of Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

187

Christoph Durt Subjectivity and World: The Roots of the Crisis in Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

211

List of contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

227

6

Introduction

The notion of crisis plays a fundamental role in contemporary philos­ ophy. A sense of anxiety, instability, and rupture dominates the scene during turbulent times, but it is also present in the even calmest periods. A world of increasing communication and interconnected­ ness is sensitive to global processes that have rendered traditional parameters obsolete, exposing a wavering horizon populated by fickle phenomena. When the meeting that gave rise to this book occurred, neither the pandemic nor the current war situations had yet occurred. However, the essential diagnosis linked to the crisis has remained the same. These events entered the collective experience highlighting the relevance of some fundamental questions. It is clear that the improvement of material resources compared with previous centuries has nothing to do with this sensation, but rather, as Husserl rightly saw, the crisis involves a cultural and spiritual condition that requires more profound intellectual efforts. The polysemy of this notion is well known. The Greek origin of the term ›crisis‹ points to various elements derived from krinein. In its most basic sense, it means ›to sift‹, to separate with the sieve the flour from the bran, or any other element, so that the densest remain on the filter and the subtler fall into the storage place. This act implies disorder and shaking, the loss of the initial composition, but also a breakthrough in the distinction of what was mixed, a clarity that was not there before, and a new reconfiguration of the parts. By this double-sidedness, krisis was also the climax of an illness that allows us to infer the outcome of the disease, the agitation and confrontation that arises in the face of a disruptive event, but also the choice made in distinguishing the elements of a situation and the resulting judgment. Indeed, phenomenology is the offspring of this kind of scene. It appeared at the beginning of the 20th century on a convulsed horizon. Metaphysical models seemed ruined. Psychologism and historicism were exhausted, and everything called for a complete redefinition. At the same time, the social and political crisis was taking on its worst face in the form of war. Husserl was personally struck by this political

7

Introduction

instability, which underlines a vital dimension reflected in the view of the crisis and the lifeworld as connected elements. This theme is central to his thought. The lifeworld underlies the »natural attitude« and puts in the forefront significant phenomena related to communal features and »homeworld«. Far from being a late inclusion, or even a reaction to the philosophy of Heidegger, the notion of Lebenswelt has deep roots in Husserl’s thought. Although the word is not usual in his first works, the idea of a »natural concept of the world« (natürliche Welt­ begriff), taken from Richard Avenarius and also present in Dilthey, is already in Thing and Space (1907) and the Fundamental Problems of Phenomenology (1910/11). He states that the description of that level would require quite complex reflections, as it occurs with other relevant matters whose treatment is deferred. The first appearance of the word Lebenswelt in a manuscript goes back to 1917, and it keeps growing during the decade of 1920 up to the Crisis. The notion of Lebenswelt also includes some aspects of the concept of Umwelt, the »surrounding world« related to the environment and everyday life. Through the reduction, it is possible to reveal its constitution. From this perspective, the substantial contribution of the Crisis is based on its statements about teleology and the requirement of a Rückfrage. This retrospective question tries to bridge the gap concerning the origin. Indeed, it is a vacuum, so it is necessary to think about it in the teleological framework of a symbolical horizon of meaning. This horizon gives way to a history of histories and points to the Urstiftung associated with the symbolic institution of meaning. This search leads to the transcendental conscience, its link with time and language, and the features of the symbolic institutions and their givenness in the horizon of historicity. Hence, the Lebenswelt implies the primary level of the phenomena in their radical indeterminacy and phenomezalisation. The lifeworld concerns the horizon of all praxis, and the crisis involves a modality that breaks it, giving rise to the cancellation of what is customary, i.e., to instability. Still, it also produces »stupendous happenings«, as Husserl points out in the opening of his inaugural lecture at Freiburg. Because of this complex condition, despite the evolution of the later phenomenological variants, the importance of this theme remained unchanged and constitutes today one of the most important contributions to philosophical thought in general. Within this frame­ work, these issues were the central topics addressed at the conference

8

Introduction

held in September 2018 at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, which brought together experts on the subject to discuss different perspectives linked to Husserl’s contributions, their reception, and the new strategies for addressing contemporary phenomena. The presentations and discussions were lively and enriching, which led to sharing the results with the broader community by pub­ lishing a selection of papers. The result is this book. The first part, ori­ ented towards methodological questions of phenomenology, begins with David Carr’s contribution, »Phenomenology: Metaphysics or Method?«. It offers a set of arguments to support the second option, pointing out that phenomenology is a critical metaphysically neutral method, which is a proper condition to understand the nature of experience. Taking a different perspective, Alexander Schnell presents in »Transcendental Phenomenology and the Lifeworld« a study of transcendental idealism in Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences aimed to reject the opposition between idealism and materialism and propose a new beginning. The projection beyond Hume’s empiricism also suggests how this path can be continued. The historical dimension of phenomenology and its trans-histor­ ical aspects are addressed in Claudia Marsico’s paper, »Philosophical generativity. Turn to Antiquity, Institution of Meaning and Denkerge­ meinschaft in the Crisis«. She explores the notions of tradition and institution of meaning in the Crisis, the logic of Husserl’s reception of ancient thought, and his conception of philosophy as Denkerge­ meinschaft, connected with the philosopher’s task as Funktionäre der Menschheit in line with the nature of philosophical communities. This section closes with Roberto Walton’s paper, »Crisis as the lack of response to an interpellation«, which focuses on the notion of crisis as a disruptive event at the level of actual history. The study of the layers of history in transcendental phenomenology leads to Husserl’s identification of three moments of every crisis. This analysis is complemented by other phenomenological views on this issue, opening up new perspectives on interpellation and teleology. The second part explores the reception of Husserl’s Crisis in the subsequent evolution of phenomenology. Indeed, phenomenology has grown in very different soils adopting various features. Trying to provide a comprehensive view of these developments is beyond the scope of this book and should be addressed in the framework of a broader project. On the contrary, this section focuses on a group of approaches that have been highly prolific in their readings of the Crisis

9

Introduction

in the environment of the French tradition. Indeed, my work, »Echoes of the Krisis in Contemporary French Phenomenology«, explores this relationship taking as starting point Husserl’s warning about the link between the crisis and the sciences. On this basis, this work studies central issues in the philosophies of Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, and Marc Richir, stressing the innovative aspects of these approaches, their diverse diagnoses about the current challenges, and the role of intellectual circles. Within the same horizon, in »Is life sensible? Husserl and Henry: Two Paradoxes about the Lifeworld«, Paula Lorelle studies the topic of return to life as a phenomenological answer to the crisis of sciences and culture as a return to sensibility. This turn involves contrasting features related to auto-affection, insensibility, and self-sufficiency, which must be unraveled to comprehend life’s original sensibility as the genuine phenomenological approach to life and its fragility. In »Topics in Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of the Krisis«, Esteban García explores the reception of this work in Merleau-Ponty’s philos­ ophy, trying to go beyond the labels of continuity or break. Relevant issues such as reduction, transcendental intersubjectivity, and the link between philosophy and psychology are seen from the fruitful intra-phenomenological dialogue in which Merleau-Ponty develops views that were in nuce in Husserl’s work. Through the study of these echoes, this section highlights the relevance of the notion of crisis in some s phenomenological developments of the second half of the 20th century as a sign of its beneficial influence. By moving one step further, the third part is organized around some explorations of the notion of lifeworld to understand contem­ porary processes. Klaus Held’s paper, »Phenomenology of the Crisis and Digitalization«, starts from Husserl and Heidegger’s diagnosis of the danger of European culture to shed light on current challenges related to virtual life. From studying the lifeworld and virtual life, new insights on forgetfulness, responsibility, and mindful reflection come to light. In the same line, Ismail El Mossadeq’s paper, »Lifeworld For­ getfulness in the Digital Age. Reflexions Following Husserl’s Krisis«, connects the contrast between analog and digital with the distinction between the lifeworld and the objective world to comprehend their similarities and differences. On this basis, he carries out a thoughtful analysis of lifeworld forgetfulness in the digital age. For his part, Luis Román Rabanaque, in his »Crisis and the Unconscious: Another Look at the Lifeworld«, analyzes subjective life

10

Introduction

and the broad range of issues related to the transcendental problem of constitution focusing on the unconscious and affection, the cases of dream and dreamless sleep as an extreme that cannot be recovered through recollection, and their link with the living body, as neglected aspects of subjectivity that illustrate a relevant element of the crisis described by Husserl. The heart of Hye Young Kim’s work, »Intersub­ jective Subjectivity: Language, Diversity of Language«, also addresses generative issues. It explores the notion of »we« beyond the mere collection of individuals and describes that phenomenon as »minds in the we-mode«. Considering that it can be recognized in language, especially in their trans-linguistic instances, the phenomenological description of some Korean and Malagasy examples sheds light on the extended self and intersubjective subjectivity. The volume closes with Christoph Durt’s contribution, »Subjec­ tivity and World: The Roots of the Crisis in Husserl's The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology«. It addresses the various senses of crisis related to the sciences and the loss of meaningfulness for human life as indicators of the deeper problem of the bond between subjectivity and the objective world. Phenomenology appears as the way to understand these issues, thus contributing to facing contemporary challenges. Finally, we offer our gratitude to all those who made it possible for us to accomplish this task. This book would not be possible without the support of the National Agency for Promotion of Science and Technology (ANPCyT, Argentina), the University of Buenos Aires, the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Most of all, we thank the colleagues who contributed with their valuable texts about relevant phenomenological issues as a key to comprehending our contemporary world. Brussels, February 2022

Hernán G. Inverso

11

Abbreviations

Immanuel Kant’s work is quoted following the volume and page of the German Academy edition: Kants Gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, later the Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (De Gruyter, and predecessors, 1902-), apart from the Critique of Pure Reason. In that case, the Academy edition is taken into account, but it is cited according to the pagination of the first (A: 1781) and second (B: 1787) editions. When needed, the page number of the English translation is also mentioned in square brackets. The following volumes are referred to in the book: KrV.

Kritik der reinen Vernunft; Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge, Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1998.

Prol.

Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können; Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Tr. P. Carus rev. J. Ellington. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishers, 1977.

Edmund Husserl’s works are quoted following the volumes of Husser­ liana. Gesammelte Werke. Dordrecht, Springer, 1950–2019 (formerly Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer Academic Publishers), vols I-XLII. This series is quoted as ›Hua‹ followed by volume and page number. When available and relevant, the page number of the English translation (and if needed the year of publication) is also indicated in square brackets, except in the case of translations by the authors. The following volumes and translation are referred to in the book: Hua I.

Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ed. S. Strasser, 1950; Cartesian Meditations, transl. Dorion Cairns. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960.

13

Abbreviations

Hua III/1.

Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomeno­ logischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einfüh­ rung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann, 1976; Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Intro­ duction to a Pure Phenomenology, transl. Fred Kersten, The Hague/Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983, and Ideas for a pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book, transl. D. Dahlstrom. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishers, 2014.

Hua IV.

Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenolo­ gischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, ed Marly Biemel, 1952; Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phe­ nomenological Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution, transl. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1989.

Hua V.

Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenolo­ gischen Philosophie. Drittes Buch: Die Phänomenologie und die Fundamente der Wissenschaften, ed. Marly Bie­ mel, 1971.

Hua VI.

Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die trans­ zendentale Phänomenologie, ed. Walter Biemel, 1976; The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phe­ nomenology, transl. David Carr, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970.

Hua VIII.

Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. Rudolf Boehm, 1959.

Hua IX.

Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommer­ semester 1925, ed. W. Biemel, 1968; Phenomenological Psychology. Lectures, Summer Semester, 1925, transl. John Scanlon, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.

Hua XI.

Analysen zur passiven Synthesis, ed. Margot Fleischer, 1966; Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthe­ sis. Lectures on Transcendental Logic, transl. A. J. Stein­ bock, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Pub­ lishers, 2001.

14

Abbreviations

Hua XIII.

Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Erster Teil. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1905–1920, ed. Iso Kern, 1973; Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Tr. I. Farin and J. Hart, Dordrecht, Springer, 2006.

Hua XIV.

Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Zweiter Teil. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1905–1920, ed. Iso Kern, 1973.

Hua XV.

Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929–1935, ed. Iso Kern, 1973.

Hua XXIII.

Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänome­ nologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898–1925), ed. Eduard Marbach, 1980; Phantasy, Image Consciousness, and Memory (1898–1925). Transl. J. Barnett Brough. Dordrecht, Sprin­ ger, 2005.

Hua XXV.

Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911–1921). Mit ergänzenden Texten, ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp (Husser­ liana XXV), 1987.

Hua XXVII.

Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937). Mit ergänzenden Texten, ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp (Husser­ liana XXVII), 1989.

Hua XXIX.

Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die trans­ zendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934–1937, ed. Reinhold N. Smid, 1993.

Hua XXXIV.

Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion. Husserliana 34. Ed. Sebastian Luft, 2002.

Hua Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester XXXVII. 1920/1924, ed. Henning Peucker, 2004. Hua XXXIX.

Die Lebenswelt. Auslegungen der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitution. Texte aus dem Nachlass, 1916–1937, ed Rochus Sowa, 2008.

Hua XLII.

Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie. Analysen des Unbe­ wusstseins und der Instinkte. Metaphysik. Späte Ethik. Texte aus dem Nachlass, 1908–1937, ed Rochus Sowa and Thomas Vongehr, 2013.

15

Abbreviations

Husserliana Materialen Hua Mat IV. Natur und Geist. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1919. Ed. by M. Weiler. Dordrecht, Kluwer, 2002. Hua Mat 8. Späte Texte über Zeitkonstitution (1929–1934). Die C-Manuskripte, ed. Dieter Lohmar. Dordrecht, Kluwer, 2006.

Husserliana Dokumente Edmund Husserl, Dokumente 1–4, Dordrecht, Springer, 1981–1999 (previously: Den Haag, Martinus Nijhoff; Dordrecht/ Boston/London, Kluwer Acade­ mic Publishers). Hua Dok III. Briefwechsel, part III: Die Göttinger Schule, eds. Karl Schuhmann and Elisabeth Schuhmann, 1994.

Additionally, the following works by Edmund Husserl not included in the Husserliana edition are referred: Erfahrung und Urteil, Hamburg, Claassen Verlag, 1964; Experience and Judg­ ment, transl. James Churchill and Karl Ameriks, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. Quoted as EU. Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature: The Originary Ak, the Earth, Does Not Move. In Leonard Lawler with Bettina Bergo (eds. and transl.). Husserl at the Limits of Phenomenol­ ogy. Including Texts by Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2002. Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen Ursprung der Räum­ lichkeit der Natur. In: Marvin, Farver, (ed). Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl. Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University Press, 1940 (re-impression: New York, Greenwood Press, 1968).

16

Abbreviations

Martin Heidegger’s works are quoted following the volumes in Gesaumtausgabe. Frankfurt am Main, Klostermann, 1975-. The fol­ lowing volumes and translations are referred: GA 2.

Sein und Zeit, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm von Herrmann, 1977; Being and Time. Transl. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford, Blackwell, 2001.

GA 65.

Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936–1938), ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Gesamtausgabe 65). Frankfurt am Main, Vittorio Klostermann; Transl. Parvin Emad and Kenneth Maly, Contributions to Phenomenol­ ogy (From Owning). Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1999.

GA 71.

Das Ereignis, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm von Herrmann, 2009.

17

Part A Perspectives on the Crisis

David Carr

Phenomenology: Metaphysics or Method?

I borrow my title from a book by Gerhard Funke, originally published in 1966 (see references), and I want to consider the same question he raises. Like Funke, I consider phenomenology to be essentially a method. It has its origin in the context of modern philosophy and thus bears a certain relation to other philosophical disciplines, notably metaphysics and epistemology. But I think it is distinct from both of these, and its place in philosophy is best understood apart from them. While metaphysics asks what exists, how it exists, and sometimes whether it exists, and while epistemology asks how we can know what exists, phenomenology asks, of anything that exists or may exist: how is it given, how is it experienced, and what is the nature of our experience of it? Not everyone has agreed with this distinction between phenomenology and metaphysics; and in any case, even if they are distinct, what is the relation between them? These are the issues I raise in this paper. The primary source for my conception of phenomenology is Husserl, and the tradition he inspired. But my purpose is not to produce an exegesis of Husserl, though I will be citing his writings; and I’m not claiming he would have agreed with everything I say. But I do think I’m being true to the spirit if not the letter of his work. I also develop a notion of the phenomenological method as a critical method, and the idea of phenomenology as a critique of experience reveals the Kantian as well as Husserlian inspiration of my approach.

1. Husserl and the phenomenological method We begin with some familiar passages from Husserl. He introduces the phenomenological method in the second section of Ideas I with a chapter called »the thesis of the natural attitude and its suspension«. It is this »suspension« that will be reformulated as the »epoche«, which

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David Carr

in turn becomes the »phenomenological reduction«. But before he gets to this point, Husserl must explain some of the terminology he has introduced. In order to explain what he means by the »natural atti­ tude«, and its »thesis«, he begins with a section called »the world of the natural attitude: I and my environment« (GA III/1, 56 [2014, 48]). There are two things about this first section that deserve to be noted: the first is that Husserl describes what he is doing as »simple meditations that are best conducted in the first person (in der Ichrede) «. And indeed he uses the Ichrede in what follows: »I am conscious of a world (…) I immediately find it intuitively, I experience it«, and so on (GA III/1, 56 [2014, 48]). This form of discourse, described significantly here as »meditations«, alerts us to the fact that Husserl is following the lead of Descartes, and this thinker is mentioned by name later in this chapter. Of course, this association exposes Husserl to certain misinterpretations, and he frequently has to back away from it later. Furthermore, Husserl is somewhat offhand in introducing this first-person discourse – he says it is »best«, he doesn’t say it’s obligatory – and he is not always consistent in using it in what follows. Nevertheless, this introduces something that is, at least tacitly, hereafter associated with the phenomenological approach: It is an inquiry conducted in the first person, and to some extent we could also say that it is about the first person. It is centered on the first-person point of view. The second thing that is introduced here, no less important, is the concept of »world«. This concept, so familiar to us in its distinctively phenomenological sense, occupies an increasingly important position in Husserl’s work and in the whole phenomenological tradition he founded; yet surprisingly, it had hardly been present at all prior to Ideas I of 1913. Even the term was rarely used in the Logische Untersuchungen (1901) and in the lectures of the ensuing decade. The important exception is the lecture course »Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie« (Hua XIII) from the winter semester of 1910–11. Here a new element entered the picture, which would become promi­ nent in Ideen I, namely that of the »natural attitude« and of the »world of the natural attitude«. While there are hints of this in the lectures of 1907, Die Idee der Phänomenologie and Ding und Raum, they are not developed as they are in 1910. The general idea here is that the life of consciousness, as described in the Logical Investigations and in the various lecture courses that followed, with its acts and their meaningful or intentional objects, also involves certain attitudes

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(Einstellungen) which are not themselves acts but somehow underlie those acts. The most basic of these attitudes is called the natural attitude, and is directly linked to the life of experience (Erfahrung) in general and perception (Wahrnehmung) in particular. The correlate of the natural attitude is the world. The idea of intentionality is that we cannot think of experience without intentional objects. Now we learn that, thanks to the natural attitude, experience is related essentially not just to objects but also to the world to which they belong. The world is not itself just another intentional object, nor is it the sum total of all such objects; rather, it constitutes the horizon or background of all objects. If the introduction of first-person discourse points us to the influence of Descartes, the appearance of the concept of world, in his introduction of the phenomenological method, points us to two other influences on Husserl, those of Avenarius and of Dilthey. In the 1910 lecture course the natural attitude is linked from the outset with what Husserl calls the »natural concept of the world« – der natürliche Weltbegriff. This is an expression borrowed from the first section of Richard Avenarius’ 1891 book Der menschliche Weltbegriff (4ff.). In the lectures Husserl introduces the expression in quotation marks, and he explicitly links it to Avenarius’ name; moreover, he discusses Avenarius briefly and critically in a couple of places (Avenarius also uses the Ichrede in his book). The influence of Dilthey is not explicit, but can be traced to the concept of Weltanschauung. Dilthey did not invent this term, but his thought was associated with it, especially in Husserl’s mind, since the latter derives his critical account of Weltanschauungsphilosophie, in »Philosophy as Rigorous Science«, from citations from Dilthey. Since Husserl was so critical of Dilthey in that text, it may seem wrongheaded to attribute to Dilthey a positive influence here. But Husserl was obviously studying Dilthey at this time, and the idea of Weltanschauung uses the term »world« in a way that is related to the Husserlian usage here. The point is that there is a view, not just of this or that, but of the whole world. And most important, the »world« is not somehow a freestanding notion but relates in principle back to something subjective, a »view«. While a world-view is usually thought of as shared by a cultural or historical community, in the context of Husserl’s Ideas I, when combined with the »Carte­ sian« first-person (singular) point of view, the world of the natural attitude is related to the individual subject. It is my world.

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We should note the progression of expressions: Welt-Begriff in Avenarius; Welt-Anschauung in Dilthey; Welt der natürlichen Einstel­ lung in Husserl. From these influences comes the distinctive cluster of concepts that combine in Husserl’s Ideas I: first-person point of view, world, natural attitude, world of the natural attitude: these elements constitute the framework in which the phenomenological method is formulated. Husserl does not devote a lot of exposition to them, because he has more important things to do, namely to introduce the epoche and reduction. Furthermore, I think he feels that these preliminary ideas are somehow obvious and uncontroversial, whereas the epoche and reduction are difficult and hard to explain. His use of the term »natural« tips us off to the fact that that Husserl, like Avenar­ ius before him, is appealing to a very common philosophical trope here, that of common sense, or what the Germans call the »healthy human understanding« (gesunder Menschenverstand). (The favored expression in English used to be: man in the street.) The philosopher who appeals to this is usually bound for trouble; she thinks everyone agrees on this, though they rarely do. As for Husserl, I think he has packed a lot into this description that derives from his previous phenomenological investigations; with the result that in a certain sense phenomenology is being presupposed in order to introduce the phenomenological method. Is this subterfuge, or simply naiveté, on Husserl’s part? For our purposes, I don’t think it matters. The point to stress is that Husserl begins with something, consciousness in its »natu­ ral« state, consisting of experiences, acts, and an underlying attitude which relates to a world. This is the naïve, taken-for-granted world. There is a further step, again seemingly obvious to Husserl but actu­ ally momentous: This attitude is found to be expressed in a »general thesis« –“›the‹ world is always there«, as he puts it in #30 (52) – and it is this thesis that is then »suspended«, »bracketed«, put out of play. This practice of suspension is called the phenomenological epoche. This practice, further described as the phenomenological reduction, constitutes the method of phenomenology. Method for what? Husserl devotes so much attention to his procedure for departing from the natural attitude that he obscures the fact that the primary purpose of phenomenology is to reflect upon and understand the natural attitude itself: its structures, its activities, in other words, its essence, including that of all the sciences that are built upon it or within it. Another way of stating this is to say that

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phenomenology seeks the conditions of the possibility of the natural attitude itself. And the idea of the epoche and reduction is that we can’t understand this attitude, and its world, while remaining within it; we need to step outside it in order to grasp it as a whole. Another way of putting this is to say that phenomenology’s approach to the natural attitude is a critical one. Husserl uses this term in both the Grundprobleme and in the 1907 lectures, Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Phenomenology is described as a critique of knowledge, or a critique of experience. The best way to understand this critical approach to the natu­ ral attitude is to contrast it with other approaches that might be taken towards it. Hume, for example, has his version of the natural attitude: »[M]en are carried, by a natural instinct or prepossession, to repose faith in their senses (…) we always suppose an external universe, which depends not on our perception, but would exist, though we or every sensible creature were absent or annihilated«. Further, Hume goes on, we think we are directly aware of the objects of our senses. »But this universal and primary opinion of all men«, Hume goes on, »is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy« (Hume 1977, 104). This describes the agenda for modern philosophy: restore and reaffirm this opinion (Descartes); doubt it (Hume); or deny it (Berkeley). These are metaphysical options: real­ ism, skepticism, idealism. They have epistemological components: the realist must explain how we know this external world, the skeptic and the idealist must explain how or whether knowledge is possible in its absence. Husserl’s critical approach to the natural attitude is neither metaphysical nor epistemological. He seeks neither to affirm or reaffirm, nor to deny, nor even to doubt, the thesis of the natural attitude. Suspension is different from each of these things. This is why Husserl says, already in Logical Investigations, that phenomenology is metaphysically neutral. He does say, it is true, that phenomenology is epistemological, but the problem of knowledge is not framed in the context of these metaphysical options, and thus is treated differently from the modern tradition. In phenomenology, we could say, knowledge is described, rather than justified or legitimized (or de-legitimized).

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2. Kant and the project of transcendental critique. The idea of phenomenology as a critique of experience reminds us that Kant, along with Descartes, Avenarius and Dilthey, is a major influence on Husserl’s early formulation of the phenomenological method. Let us briefly compare Husserl’s approach to Kant’s idea of critique. This sort of comparison certainly has its limits, but it can be useful within those limits. Husserl gestures toward Kant in several ways: he uses the concept of critique, as we have seen; he refers to the phenomenological reduction in several places as a »Copernican turn«; and he uses the term »transcendental« in a way that obviously derives from Kant. But I think the best way to understand the connection between Kant’s and Husserl’s methods is to begin with a key passage in the introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason: »We are in possession of certain a priori cognitions, and even the common understanding is never without them« (B3). What Kant has in mind here primarily is the concept of causality, which is the basic principle of natural science, and he wants to affirm that this knowledge is not limited to natural science but is also part of the »common understanding«, i.e. ordinary experience. We know that every experienced event has a cause, and that’s why we are able to accumulate empirical knowledge of causes, and why we go looking for them when they are not immediately evident. This is what scientific inquiry does. What Kant is expressing here is that he accepts natural science, and the common understanding that goes with it, as genuine knowl­ edge, and that the question for him is not whether such knowledge is possible (since it is actual), but how it is possible. He is seeking, in other words, the conditions of its possibility. Kant’s firm belief that the Newtonian natural science of his day is already launched on the secure pathway of science constitutes a basic presupposition of his method. As we have seen, he also believes that such knowledge extends to the »common understanding«. We could say that this »common understanding« is Kant’s version of the natural attitude, and nature is for him the world of the natural attitude. His approach to this knowledge is certainly not to doubt or deny it; but it is also not to affirm or reaffirm its validity. It does not stand in need of such affirmation, from philosophy or elsewhere. But that does not mean that we fully understand it; it is understanding, not affirmation or denial, that philosophy can provide. Kant calls

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such understanding »transcendental«, which for him means that it is »occupied not so much with objects but rather with our mode of cognition of objects insofar as this is to be possible a priori« (A11, B25). In other words, Kant’s transcendental critique is not knowledge, at least not of the sort that constitutes science or the »common understanding«, but rather reflection on such knowledge, with a view to grasping the conditions of its possibility. It should be noted that there are two other kinds of knowl­ edge that are subjected to Kant’s critique: mathematics and (most important) metaphysics. Kant believes that mathematics, like natural science, is unassailable as knowledge, and philosophy’s task is to understand how it is possible. It needs no legitimation. Metaphysics, in this respect, is altogether different. A field of unending dispute for centuries, it shows no signs of embarking on the »secure pathway of science«. And when Kant subjects metaphysics to his transcendental critique, he ends being anything but neutral on the subject of its status. The »metaphysics of the schools«, he says, (Kant 1977, 105) is no better than alchemy and astrology; it is a »pseudoscience«. It seems impossible to claim, then, of Kant’s critique of experi­ ence, as we have for Husserl’s phenomenology, that it is metaphysi­ cally neutral. We could say, however, that like phenomenology it has no metaphysical presuppositions, and also that it has no metaphysical implications. That is, in the terms we have been using for metaphysics, it does not presuppose realism, idealism or skepticism in its investiga­ tions; and equally, its investigations provide no support for realism, idealism or skepticism.

3. From the natural attitude to the lifeworld In presenting our version of the phenomenological method, we have so far focused our attention on certain aspects of Husserl’s presenta­ tion of it in Ideas I: The natural attitude, the world of the natural attitude, the thesis of the natural attitude. We pointed out that, while Husserl seems to hasten past the natural attitude in order to get on to the business of suspending it and establishing his method, in reality the natural attitude remains in center stage, since it is precisely this attitude, its world, and all the sciences of the natural attitude, that phenomenology reflects upon critically and describes transcendentally. It is possible to argue (as I have done elsewhere) that

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Husserl’s concept of world is gradually transformed and enlarged, over the course of his career, and that this transformation culminates in the concept of the lifeworld that becomes so important in his last work. While the world of the natural attitude seems, in Ideas I, seems to be very close to the idea of the »natural« world, or the world of perception, as we have seen, already in Ideas II this begins to change. There Husserl distinguishes, within the natural attitude, the »natural­ istic« and the »personalistic« attitudes, and goes on to say that the latter, encompassing persons and the social world, has a better claim to being »natural« than the former. The naïve, taken-for-granted world, the default setting, as it were, from which we unquestioningly begin, is the world of persons and cultural and social relations, and not just of things and events in space and time. We narrow our focus to the latter when we engage in the science of nature. But science itself is an activity within the cultural world of persons. As early as 1917, the term Lebenswelt is frequently used by Husserl to indicate this broader, taken-for-granted or »pregiven« world. In the Krisis, Husserl’s last work (Hua VI), the lifeworld occupies a central position, and it has two interrelated functions. First, he launches a critical examination of modern natural science, demon­ strating that its concept of reality is actually the product of a method of mathematization. Modern scientists since Galileo, and especially the philosophers reflecting on their work, have forgotten that this method has its origin in the pregiven lifeworld. Here Husserl puts a great deal of emphasis on the perceptual aspects of the lifeworld, in order to distinguish the lived and bodily aspects of the perceived world from idealized world of mathematical space and time. But he also places this scientific activity in the context of the social and cultural world to which it belongs. The »crisis of European sciences« (the title of this work) is that these sciences have forgotten their own origins in the lifeworld and thus have lost their meaning for life. The second function of Husserl’s reflections on the lifeworld is as a pathway to phenomenology. They appear in a section of the book which bears the lengthy title »the way into phenomenological transcendental philosophy by inquiring back from the pre-given lifeworld« (Hua VI, 105 [103]). It is paired with another section that bears the parallel title »the way into phenomenological transcenden­ tal philosophy from psychology« (Hua VI, 194 [191]). One thing that is often overlooked about this book is that the lengthy discussions of the lifeworld, its relation to science, and its perceptual, bodily, cultural

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and social aspects, are meant by Husserl as providing motivation for performing the phenomenological reduction. The epoche and reduction are not introduced until midway through this section. But are these descriptions not already phenomenological? Once again, we find the apparent circularity that we noted in connection with Ideas I, that we have to engage in phenomenology in order to introduce the phenomenological method. For our purposes what is important here is that, for all its differ­ ences from the earlier »natural attitude«, the lifeworld serves the same function in respect to Husserl’s method. He begins with the lifeworld, then reflects on it in order to seek out the conditions of its possibility. In Ideas I, the natural attitude and the world of the natural attitude go together. The natural attitude is the deep-lying belief-structure whose correlate is the world. In Krisis, the lifeworld is the focus, but it too corresponds to deep-lying belief-structure, which Husserl characterizes variously as Welt-bewusstsein, natürliches Welt-leben, which is the subjective side of the correlation between consciousness and world. The adjectives most associated with the lifeworld in this section are pre-given (vorgegeben) and taken-for-granted (selbstver­ ständlich). As with the natural attitude of Ideas I, this level of our consciousness and of our relation to the world is so deep-lying and »anonymous« that we do not notice it, as the term »taken-forgranted« suggests; it has to be called to our attention. In order to bring it into view we need to step back from it, stop taking it for granted; and this is what is accomplished by the epoche and reduction. Husserl calls this »making the lifeworld thematic«, »the discovery and investigation of the transcendental correlation between world and world-consciousness« (Hua VI, 151 [154]). It should be clear that the method Husserl introduces in the Krisis has basically the same structure as the method first introduced in Ideas I. As is well-known, Husserl criticizes the latter, calling it the »Carte­ sian way«, for being too abrupt and for leading to misunderstandings. But he has not really altered it. As before, he begins with certain deep-lying and anonymous currents of belief in the world, applies the epoche in order to achieve distance from them, but only in order to examine and understand those very currents of belief. As before, his purpose is not to affirm or re-affirms those beliefs, to provide them with a philosophical buttress that they cannot provide for themselves. Nor is his purpose to deny or cast doubt on those beliefs. Instead, like Kant, he wants to subject them to a critique.

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4. Metaphysical misreadings of phenomenology Kant devoted a lot of attention to the pretentions of metaphysics to be a science. But he also described metaphysics as a »natural disposition of reason«. He thought it a very powerful disposition indeed. »That the human spirit will ever give up metaphysical researches is as little to be expected as that we should prefer to give up breathing altogether in order to prevent inhaling impure air«, he wrote in the Prolegomena (Prol. 4.368 [107]). Kant was surely right about this, and nowhere is this disposition to metaphysics more evident than in the ways phenomenology has been read and misread. As we have noted, Husserl stipulated at the beginning of his career that he considered phenomenology »metaphysically neutral«. Yet Husserl’s foes, and not a few of his friends, have insisted on giving metaphysical interpretations to his phenomenology. At this point I need to say something about the term »meta­ physics« and how I am using it. Not only does the term have many and diverse meanings; Husserl, and Kant as well, both use the term in different ways, negative and positive. Kant sharply criticizes metaphysics, and calls it a pseudo-science, as we’ve seen. But he also uses the term in a positive sense (metaphysical foundations of natural science, metaphysics of morals) in his own work. It is the »common metaphysics of the schools« that he contemptuously compares to alchemy and astrology, and by that he means the natural theology of Leibniz and Wolff, which make grandiose claims about God, freedom and immortality. It is this sense of metaphysics that I, like Kant, want to sharply distinguish from his transcendental critique. As for Husserl, here too we find several uses. As Zahavi (2017) points out, in some of his late works Husserl sometimes uses the term metaphysics to refer to »questions pertaining to the ethical-religious domain«; and »questions concerning birth, death, fate, immortality, etc.«. Husserl clearly thinks his phenomenology has something to say on these matters. Zahavi thinks these questions can be distinguished sharply from those »pertaining to the realism-idealism issue, i.e. to whether reality is mind-independent or not«. He uses metaphysics exclusively in this latter sense, and I follow him in this (2017, 65). To realism and idealism, I would add: skepticism. Again, it is metaphysics in precisely this sense that needs to be kept separate from phenomenology. And yet it is precisely this sense of metaphysics that has repeatedly been mixed into phenomenology by its interpreters.

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Too much space would be required to fully document the sources and types of these interpretations. Instead, I hope to examine briefly the major issues and patterns of such interpretations, mentioning only a few names along the way. Husserl’s Logical Investigations (1900–01) were first praised by the opponents of the dominant Neo-Kantian­ ism as heralding a return to realism, of both the Platonic and the perceptual varieties. These interpreters, who made up the earliest enthusiasts of the phenomenological »movement«, were then greatly puzzled and irritated when Husserl introduced the phenomenological reduction in Ideas I, declaring his method a form of transcendental idealism. To them he had gone over to the enemy, and some of these early followers, like Roman Ingarden, never reconciled themselves to this »transcendental turn«. Obviously, they thought, Husserl was doing metaphysics, and you can’t be both a realist and an idealist. It didn’t occur to them that he was trying to launch a method that was neither, not because it was some third, hybrid metaphysical theory, but because it was not metaphysics at all. From then on Husserl was branded a metaphysical idealist, by friend and foe, and it must be said that his choice of terminology often facilitated this misinterpretation. The world was »reduced« to a »phe­ nomenon« posited by a »transcendental ego«. The former was »rela­ tive«, the latter »absolute«, which leads to the problem of »solipsism«: am I, this absolute ego, alone in the universe, or can I prove the existence of »other minds?«. Discerning and quite illustrious readers realized that Husserl was up to something quite different from a rehash of old metaphysical disputes. Here one can name Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre. But even they ended up wanting to place Husserl in the catalogue of metaphysical positions, partly because they themselves could not resist the pull of metaphysics in their own work. Most interesting was the reaction to Husserl’s last work, with its emphasis on the lifeworld. Interpreted as a metaphysical epis­ temologist, Husserl was portrayed in his middle period as trying to »ground« the objective world in the transcendental ego. Now he is seen as »grounding« the objective world in the lifeworld, and this was seen as a kind of late-life transformation, if not a deathbed conversion, from idealism back to realism again. Husserl’s talk of the »pre-given«, »taken-for-granted« status of the lifeworld was somehow taken literally, as if he was simply endorsing this status, such that the unquestioned, independent reality of the objective,

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scientific world is replaced by the unquestioned, independent reality of the lifeworld. Once again, the common presuppositions are that: 1) Husserl is obviously doing metaphysics; 2) In metaphysics, you must be either an idealist or a realist; 3) What philosophy does is to endorse one of these positions – not both. The epistemological side of this is »grounding« or foundationalism: objectivity must be grounded either in the subject or in the world. Two later, and very influential, examples of this metaphysical reading of Husserl came from the late Heidegger and the early Derrida. Both thinkers do not limit themselves to Husserl’s late work, but extend their interpretation to his work as a whole. Heidegger reads Husserl as the last gasp of what he calls the metaphysics of subjectivity, a direct descendent of Descartes and Hegel. Derrida reads Husserl as promoting the »metaphysics of presence«, perhaps unwittingly. Derrida’s real target here may be Sartre’s notion of the self-transparency of consciousness. Neither of these critics is willing to entertain the possibility that Husserl might not be doing metaphysics at all. One way of accounting for these »metaphysical misreadings« of phenomenology is to appeal to Kant’s notion of metaphysics as a »natural disposition«. It is such a normal feature of our thinking that most people, and especially philosophers trained in it, simply can’t resist. It was precisely to counter this »natural« tendency that Husserl introduced his method of epoche and reduction. He was well aware that the phenomenological attitude, which replaced the natural attitude, went against the grain of our view of the world; he went so far as to call it »unnatural«, even »artificial«. We are constantly in danger of falling back into the natural attitude, which exerts almost a gravitational pull on our thinking. This may account for the fate of the reduction in the phenomeno­ logical tradition. Many of Husserl’s early followers did not see its importance, focusing instead on the altogether different »eidetic reduction« as the heart of phenomenology. (The eidetic focus is of course nothing peculiar to phenomenology, but is a feature of many other, especially mathematical, disciplines.) Heidegger surprised the readers of Sein und Zeit (no doubt including Husserl, to whom the book was dedicated) by describing the »phenomenological method of [his] investigation« without making any reference to the reduction. Merleau-Ponty accepted it reluctantly, with reservations, probably because he, like others, thought it reinforced Husserl’s »idealist« ten­

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dencies. Yet the reduction is, I would argue, the heart and soul of phenomenology, which Husserl never gives up, and continues to reflect on throughout his career. There’s a lot to it, but at a minimum it enjoins us to refrain or abstain from the metaphysical »pull« of the natural attitude: metaphysically reaffirming the naive realism of the natural attitude, or denying it and falling into the grip of metaphysical idealism. This abstention is not the end of phenomenology but the beginning; it opens up an understanding of subjectivity that would not be possible from within the natural attitude. The irony is that even Husserl was not immune to the temptation to »fall back« into the natural attitude, or so it can be argued. (I think this happened to Kant as well, but I won’t go into that here.) At the end of the long section of the Crisis devoted to the »way into transcenden­ tal phenomenology from the pre-given lifeworld«, Husserl presents the »paradox of human subjectivity: being a subject for the world and at the same time being an object in the world« (Hua VI, 185 [182]). The late Thomas Seebohm has an interesting interpretation of this passage. He points out that Husserl’s way of articulating this paradox emphasizes the ontological: being a subject (Subjektsein) versus being an object (Objektsein) (2015, 39). Given the radical ontological disparity between these two descriptions (being a subject and being an object) how can one entity be both? Hence the paradox. This makes it sound as if the human subject is being located within two ontological regions, which might be thought to correspond to the two attitudes we have discussed, the naturalistic and the personalistic. Both, it should be noted, are within the natural attitude. And since Husserl articulates this as an ontological paradox, it must have an ontological solution. This is what we find at the end of Ideas II: remember the chapter-title from that text: »The Ontological Priority of the Spiritual World over the Naturalistic« (Hua V). Section 64, the very last in this text, is entitled »relativity of nature, absoluteness of spirit«. So we arrive at the Absolute Spirit, a familiar figure in the history of German metaphysics. As Seebohm points out, the »solution« to the paradox in the Crisis is indeed ontological: the »Ur-ich« or primal I, the absolute sub­ ject which encompasses all worldly subjects. Thus Husserl succumbs to the temptation which seems to lie in the German philosophical DNA, the desire for »Letztbegründung« or ultimate ontological – or metaphysical – foundation. Here Husserl was influenced in his last

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years by Fink, who in turn, and ironically, was influenced by Heideg­ ger. Seebohm calls this »Husserl’s and Fink’s turn to a speculative metaphysical interpretation of the transcendental Ego« (Seebohm, 388) and »Fink’s quasi-Fichtean solution« (387) Some passages from Husserl’s »solution« in the Crisis reinforce Seebohm’s criticism: »All of mankind (…) has become a phenomenon within my epoche«. »The world has meaning for me purely as world; it is I who, taken in full concreteness, encompass all that« (Hua VI, 187 [184]). »Each human being ›bears within himself a transcenden­ tal ›I‹›« (Hua VI, 190 [186]) (my emphasis). Seebohm proposes, however, that we look at the difference between the two descriptions of human subjectivity not as an ontolog­ ical difference but as an epistemic or epistemological difference. This difference indeed corresponds to two different attitudes, but not to the difference between the naturalistic and the personalistic attitudes, but to the difference between the natural (mundane) attitude and the phenomenological attitude. I would prefer to say that this difference can be interpreted as a methodological rather than an ontological or metaphysical difference. Phenomenology proposes that we consider the human being as subject for the world, while the natural attitude places the human being, like everything else, within the world. This then gives us not two different things or entities, but two different ways of looking at the same thing. In certain passages outside the Crisis, Husserl has a very different take on the »paradox«. It is »a false illusion, as if the transcendental I were an innermost kernel in the human being (…). For anyone who understands the phenomenological reduction, and practices it in its methodological sense, this is nonsense (ein Widersinn). Neither is the transcendental I in the human being (i.e. in the world), nor are human being and world in the transcendental I or the transcendental intersub­ jectivity« (Hua XXXIV, 290). »The transcendental ego is neither in the world nor outside it, and world, in turn, is neither in it nor outside of it« (A vi 21, 25a, quoted in Zahavi 2017, 119). On his interpretation, Seebohm tells us several times, there is no paradox (2015, 39 and 40). And hence no need for a solution. I don’t think we can say that there is no paradox, as Seebohm does. I think we cannot avoid the opposed descriptions of the human subject, so we cannot make the paradox disappear. But we can’t solve it either, so we just have to live with it. But this requires that we treat phenomenology strictly as a method which is metaphysically neutral.

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As Seebohm points out, this interpretation was shared by those who rejected the Finkian metaphysicization, including the phenomenologists at the New School: Schutz, Cairns, Kaufmann and Gurwitsch, together with Seebohm’s own teacher Gerhard Funke. I consider myself a late-generation member of this school, and I have advanced a similar interpretation of the paradox of subjectivity.

5. Conclusion Why is it important to separate phenomenology and metaphysics as I have done? My contention is that metaphysics, with its focus on what really exists, gets in the way of phenomenology, interferes with the description and understanding of our experience. This was Husserl’s great insight when he described phenomenology as metaphysically neutral. He wanted an unprejudiced understanding of experience uncontaminated by prior metaphysical commitments and uninter­ ested in metaphysical outcomes or implications. When he introduced Brentano’s notion of intentionality, suitably revised, into his work, he was hardly dealing with something new. That »all consciousness is consciousness of something« had always been assumed. That was the whole point of consciousness, to connect us up with the world. The question for modern philosophers was how to explain or account for this, usually by trying to derive it from something else, something thought to be more basic. This turned out to be a dubious concoction of resemblance and causality. The notorious theory of sense-data serves as a useful caricature of what happened. Assuming a material world of billiard-ball-like entities in causal interaction, the external world, through the senses, engenders in the mind certain other entities, called sense-data, that somehow resemble the things that cause them. Thus they are con­ sidered ideas or images of things, but they still interact in billiardball-like ways. So what is our experience? It’s a buzz of interacting sense-data. If you protest: but my experience isn’t like that, the answer will be: But it must be like that, otherwise how to explain the interaction of mind and world? Thus the contamination of our understanding of experience by a metaphysical assumption of what really exists and an agenda of explaining it. Of course, this is a caricature whose faults are obvious, but the approach of most philosophers, including Kant, was not to throw it

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out but to maintain it and then try to compensate for its inadequa­ cies. Even Husserl was still in its thrall, in my view, with his early notion of hyletic data. Kant and Husserl found it hard to liberate themselves from the task of the causal explanation, as opposed to the description, of experience. Merleau-Ponty saw this most clearly, recognizing that sense-data were theoretical constructs invented to fit the requirements of a prior conception of reality. This may sound like ancient history, but the problem persists. For a long time, those committed to a materialist ontology, recognizing correctly that intentionality would not fit in, sought to eliminate it altogether. It doesn’t fit the theory, so it doesn’t exist. Others were not convinced, eventually asserting that squaring a descriptive account of experience with the material world was not only a genuine problem, but indeed a very hard problem. Nowadays, of course, it’s not old-fashioned sensations and a billiard-ball world that need to be accommodated, but a sophisticated account of neurological events in the brain. Thus we are tempted to think that our experience must be something like firing neurons and neural networks. Merleau-Ponty wrote that »our perception ends in objects (aboutit à des objets), and the object once constituted, appears as the reason for all the experiences of it which we have had or could have« (2012, 69). In other words, our experience is just another object in the world to be explained by the objects we experience. We are immersed in objects and in the world, and this leads us to forget, overlook and misunderstand experience itself. But experience is not an item in the world, it is that through which objects and world, including brains and neural networks, become accessible to us. It has its own structure, which we can recognize and understand, if only we can bracket the prior agenda or parti pris of metaphysics. What I’m proposing is a mutual hands-off agreement: phenomenology should not be contaminated by prior metaphysical commitments; metaphysics should not look to phenomenology for support for its views. Thus I am not trying to de-legitimize metaphysics, must less empirical science. I am just trying to affirm the distinctness of their tasks from that of phenomenology. And what is that task? As we said, while metaphysics asks what exists, how it exists, and sometimes whether it exists, and while epistemology asks how we can know what exists, phenomenology asks, of anything that exists or may exist: how is it given, how is it experienced, and what is the nature of our experience of it. In the Crisis

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Husserl calls this the »universal a priori of correlation«. Phenomenol­ ogy considers »things and objects in the lifeworld, not in order to know them as what they [really] are but rather in order to inquire into the modes of their subjective manners of givenness« (1970, 159).

References Avenarius, Richard, 1891: Der menschliche Weltbegriff. Leipzig, R.O. Reisland. Funke, Gerhard, 1979: Phänomenologie: Metaphysik oder Methode? Bonn, Bouvier Verlag. Hume, David, 1977: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. E. Steinberg. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishers. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 2012: Phenomenology of Perception. Transl. D. Lan­ des. London, Routledge. Seebohm, Thomas, 2015: History as a Science and the System of the Sciences. London, Springer. Zahavi, Dan, 2017: Husserl’s Legacy. London, Oxford University Press.

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Transcendental Phenomenology and the Lifeworld

This article aims to show what face »transcendental idealism« takes on in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936). Husserl unveils a fundamental motif of modern philosophy that concerns the classical dispute between idealism and materialism. He refutes this fundamental motive through his interpretation of Hume – which we will merely trace in the form of a sketch –, which allows him to realize – after the »descriptive psychology« of the Logical Investigations and the phenomenology of the Ideen I and the Cartesian Meditations centred on the »transcendental I« – a new possi­ ble beginning of transcendental phenomenology. He anchors this new beginning in a set of questionings that we will present in detail. It will not be a question here of deepening the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology and empiricism but simply of showing what decisive impulse Husserl’s (late) transcendental phenomenology has received from the latter. At the end of this contribution, we will briefly sketch how Husserl’s critical outline can be extended and deepened. * What is, according to Husserl, the »fundamental motive« of modern philosophy and science (since Descartes, Galilei, and Newton)? It corresponds to the fundamental tendency of what he calls »objec­ tivism«. What characterizes the latter is »that it moves upon the ground of the world, which is pregiven, taken for granted through experience, seeks the ›objective truth‹ of this world, seeks what, in this world, is unconditionally valid for every rational being, what it is in itself« (Hua VI, 70 [68]). Husserl affirms that he permanently accomplishes a surreptitious substitution: modern science provides the natural world of life with a mathematical substratum that delivers alone the measure for the being and the validity of what is to be known.

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Or, to put it in another way, it dresses the natural world in an adequate »garb of ideas (Ideenkleid)«, which allows expressing adequately the deep co-appearance of a supposedly legitimate mathematization and universal rationality. Husserl criticizes this »objectivism« concerning its illegitimate assumption of a merely constructed epistemic sub­ stratum as much as, ontologically, concerning the position of an objective »being-in-itself«. However, in Husserl’s opinion, there is in Hume a hidden motive that allows avoiding surreptitious objectivism without abandoning the ideal of scientificity. This motive fundamentally »undermines« this objectivism. It consists of the hidden idea that consciousness enters the world in a constitutive way. But this constitution realized by the consciousness is not seized in its positive function, i.e., as »effecting the sense of being« of the appearing. The life of the consciousness is only sketched negatively: »In Hume, the entire soul, with its ›impressions‹ and ›ideas‹ (…) engendered the whole world, the world itself, not merely something like a picture [Husserl alludes here to the Cartesian idea of an engendering of ›pictures of the world‹] – though, to be sure, this product was merely a fiction« (Hua VI, 92 [89–90]). The thesis that Husserl formulates against this position affirms on the contrary that the engendering of »pictures of the world« (Descartes), of »fictional products« (Hume), must be thought together with the phenomenological requirement of the legitimation of objectivity and knowledge. The undermining of objectivism lies then in the fact of taking into consideration, in the constitution of the consciousness of the world and objectivity, some sort of imaginative effectuations, that is to say, not fictive, but »fictional«, pertaining to phantasia.1 This feature has important consequences for the method of phenomenology, which we will specify here. So, that the life of the consciousness always carries out constitutive »operations« essentially means that it is necessary to recognize three fundamental aspects in their co-appearance, namely: 1) the imaginal character of the phenomenal being; 2) the real objectivity; and 3) the legitimation of the knowledge. This indicates the fundamental direction of what will later be called »transcendental phenomenology«. How does it present itself more precisely? 1 This thesis, which seems to oppose the orthodoxy of Husserlian phenomenology, can be corroborated – beyond the analyses developed here – by relying on important passages of Hua 23 (volume 11 of the Husserliana. Collected Works: Phantasy, Image Consciousness, Memory).

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First of all, it is worth drawing attention to the remarkable interpretation Husserl gives to the »Humian problem«. The Kantian interpretation of the latter concerned the »problem of induction«, i.e., whether it is permissible (or not) to induce a universal law from a number of particular cases. Now, for Husserl, this is not the proper »Humian« problem, but rather this one: »How is the naïve obviousness of the certainty of the world (naive Selbstverständlichkeit der Weltgewissheit), the certainty in which we live – and, what is more, the certainty of the everyday world as well as that of the sophisticated theoretical constructions built upon this everyday world – to be made comprehensible?« (Hua VI, 99 [96]). It is a question of making comprehensible something that is supposedly obvious but which, in fact, proves for the philosopher not to be obvious – namely, the certainty of the world. For Husserl, the indisputable merit of the author of the Treatise of Human Nature is that he was the first to recognize that the objective truths of the scientist and the objective world itself are »his own life-construct (Lebensgebilde) developed within himself (i.e., in the scientist himself)« (Hua VI, 99 [96]) – »construct (Gebilde)« that must be related to and thought of together with the »pictoral (bildhaftig)« character of phenomenal being. When Husserl insists on the idea that the »world-enigma in the deepest and most ultimate sense, the enigma of a world whose being is being through subjective accomplishment (subjektive Leistung) and this, with the self-evidence that another world cannot be at all conceivable« corresponds very exactly to »Hume’s problem« (Hua VI, 100 [97]), he argues that the question of the »world-enigma« can only be answered with the help of »meaning-constructs (Sinngebilde)« and their subjectively effected »pictoral« character. This fundamental meaning of the relation between the »mea­ ning-constructs« and the »pictorality« of the positively conceived phenomenal being appears even more strongly when we take into consideration the Husserlian determination of the »transcendental«. This is delivered in § 26 of the Krisis. To grasp its full significance, it must be read in the context of the preceding paragraph (§ 25) – and also in parallel with § 11 of Experience and Judgment, where Husserl deals with exactly the same problem. The concept of the »transcen­ dental« has the fundamental meaning of constituting the status of the »conceiled subjectivity (verhüllte Subjektivität)« (Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, § 11, 47.), insofar as it is precisely the original source of the solution of the »world-enigma« (thus of the certainty of the world). The

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Husserlian definition of this concept is the following: The »word ›transcendental‹” is used for a »motif« that is »the motif of inquiring back into the ultimate source of all the formations of knowledge (Erkenntnisbildungen), the motif of the knower’s reflecting upon him­ self and his knowing life in which all the scientific structures (Gebilde) that are valid for him occur purposefully, are stored up as acquisitions, and have become and continue to become freely available« (Hua VI, 200 f. [97–98]). The »transcendental« thus refers to a motivation that makes comprehensible what can be described phenomenologically (with respect to what is given »immanently«), and also scientifically as »constructs (Gebilde)« that refer to an ultimate source, namely the »functioning accomplishments (fungierende Leistungen)« of transcen­ dental subjectivity, which are in turn phenomenologically attestable and analyzable (in another sense, of course, than the purely immanent description) as »acquired« and »freely available« achievements. »Transcendental« does not mean referring to mere conditions of pos­ sibility of knowledge, but opening up a phenomenological field which, as »knowing life« contributes in an active as well as concealed way to the »meaning-formation (Sinn-Bildung)« (in the sense of »sense- and validity-formations« (Sinngebilde and Geltungsgebilde) in general. Now, to propose a solution to the world-enigma, to be able to answer the question of the certainty of the world, Husserl introduces in the Krisis, the well-known concept of the Lebenswelt. What does it mean, and how does one access it? Husserl understands by »lifeworld«, to say it first of all in a global way, the ground of our relation to the world which is supposedly self-evident and of which we do not make an explicit theme of reflection – this applies as much to our daily thoughts and acts as to the scientific or philosophical treatment of things. The fact of ignoring this ground belonging to the lifeworld and belonging to any epistemological theorization is the reason for the crisis of modern objectivist science. How can this ground be acquired, and what characterizes it in its own right? And what form of scientificity is incumbent upon the thematization of the world of life? The answer to this question is given by an already well-known methodical principle which Husserl calls, in his last published work, the »epoche of the lifeworld«, which obviously includes »epoche« and »reduction«. It allows us to see that the lifeworld, whatever the perspective we consider, has a »universal structure«. But the »a priori« that is manifested here is not the objective a priori of the sciences. The

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a priori of the lifeworld is not the objective and logical a priori. This one »refers« to that one. »This reference-back is one of a founding of validity (Geltungsfundierung)« and this, in virtue of a »certain idealizing accomplishment«. The fundamental task of a »science of the lifeworld« is to show how the objective a priori is founded in the subjective and relative a priori of the lifeworld and possesses in the evidence of the life world »its source of meaning and right«. It is then necessary to distinguish these two fundamental types of a priori, and the subreption of an objective a priori under the a priori of the lifeworld must be brought to light in all its clarity (in order to be able to avoid it). It is exactly this distinction that the epoche of the lifeworld is supposed to make (as well as bringing to light the founding relation indicated just now). Husserl insists: »Only through recourse to this a priori, to be unfolded in an a priori science of its own, can our a priori sciences, the objective-logical ones, achieve a truly radical, a seriously scientific, grounding (…)« (Hua VI, 144 [141]). This original a priori opens a whole new field of research. What characterizes it is that the »gaze« must »free itself« from the »stron­ gest link« to the fixed relations of the objectivist perspective. To free itself in favor of what? In favor of the a priori of the lifeworld, precisely. The »total change of perspective« that a radical change of attitude means substitutes one type of relationship for another. The »most hidden, internal bond« is supposed to give way to the »absolutely self-enclosed and absolutely self-sufficient correlation« (Hua VI, 154 [151]). The glance frees itself from the bond to the predonation of the world in favor of the universal correlation of the world and the conscience of the world. Now, when one penetrates the implications of meaning and validity of this new a priori of correlation, it turns out that an infinitude of »ever new phenomena belonging to a new dimension« comes to light that Husserl characterizes as »purely subjective phenomena«, as »mental« »processes«, which have the function of »constituting forms of meaning (Sinngestalten) [as ›Gestaltbildungen‹, according to the expression that Husserl uses in this context]« (Hua VI, 114 [112]). This is indeed a new dimension, a specific »realm«, the »realm of something subjective«. Husserl characterizes it in the following way: »It is a realm empire of something subjective which is completely closed off within itself, existing in its own way, functioning in all experiencing, all thinking, all life, thus everywhere inseparably involved; yet is has never been held in view, never been grasped and understood« (Hua

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VI, 114 [112]). That this »subjective realm« is grasped and understood defines a fundamental task of phenomenology. The »material« on which it must rely for this purpose is not a set of signs, nor anything that would be fixed or immobile. It is rather a »mental ›material‹ which [itself] proves in turn, with essential necessity, to be mental form, i.e., to be constituted [this is an infinite interweaving of constitutions, in which these ›mental forms‹ are in a permanent becoming and change]; just as any newly developed form [of meaning] is destined to become a material, namely, to function in the constitution of [some new] view form [für Gestaltbildung zu fungieren berufen]« (Hua VI, 114 [112]). Husserl underlines in this context the way in which the phenomenological perspective differs from the Kantian approach. In Kant’s case, the recourse to transcendental (»subjective«) conditions is only supposed to provide answers to »ad hoc problems« (e.g., to the question of what the a priori condition of affection is), whereas transcendental subjectivity itself was never understood by him as a »realm« or as a »field of investigation« that makes a specific experience necessary and that can be traversed and explored. Things are quite different in phenomenology. If Husserl speaks of a »mental material«, this means that there are no merely logical (and therefore »dead«, so to speak) conditions, but that the Sinnbildung has its own »life«, »animated« by transcendental subjectivity. The world – understood as the lifeworld, as »the world which constantly exists for us through the flowing alteration of manners of givenness« – is the unity (= the »unity of the complex of meaning and validity«) of a »mental configuration« as »meaning-construct (Sinnge­ bilde)« – as the »construct of a universal, ultimately functioning sub­ jectivity (Gebilde einer universalen letztfungierenden Subjektivität)« (Hua VI, 115 [113]). This unity corresponds to what Husserl calls elsewhere the »anonymous subjectivity«. Two aspects are here put in relation to each other. On the one hand, a sense of unity that »running through all attempted systems in the whole history of philosophy« (Hua VI, 115 [113]) and in so doing also determines the idea of science as a »universal philosophy«; on the other hand, a sense of unity that, in every concrete phenomenological analysis, confers meaning and validity on precisely what is to be analyzed phenomenologically. Any sense of a phenomenon refers here to the anonymous transcendental subjectivity, which is ultimately functioning (letztfungierend). What is important here is that a world-constituting accomplishment (weltkon­ stituierende Leistung) takes place – which means that without this

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reference to the lifeworld, this sense of unity cannot be instituted – and that the anonymous subjectivity »objectifies itself as human subjectivity«, as the »Bestand« (i.e., as the content) of the world (cf. below). The constitution of the world and the self-objectification of subjectivity – such are thus the two fundamental parameters assuring the unity of the sense of being and validity that the phenomenologist of the lifeworld fundamentally aims at. Before being able to clarify in a definitive way how access to the lifeworld is possible, it is necessary to make another important remark. Husserl aims, on the one hand, at the elucidation of the foundations of validity of objective science (and specifically the epis­ temological question of the conditions of possibility of the validity of knowledge and knowledge in general) and, on the other hand, at the elucidation of the sense of being of the lifeworld. How are these two problems linked? Husserl says it without ambiguity: »an explicit elucidation of the objective validity and of the whole task of science requires that we first inquire back into the pregiven world« (Hua VI, 123 [121–122]). What does he mean by »pregiven world«? It is the »intuitive surrounding lifeworld, pregiven as existing for all in common« (Hua VI, 123 [121]). In other (simpler) words, and this is central (and perhaps strange at first sight): validity, which is the explicit »requirement«, must be brought back to being. Here, we must stop for a brief moment. It is a classical question that, from Leibniz, Hume, and Kant to neo-Kantianism (e.g., Rickert), is at the center of any theory of knowledge. It concerns the question of the »genesis« and the »validity« or the »origin« and the »legitimation« of knowledge. Traditionally, 2 a distinction is made between two per­ spectives separated by an abyss: it is one thing to tell the psychological story of the genesis of knowledge (Kant spoke of a »physiological deduction« in this respect), and it is another to legitimize its validity. In the history of philosophy, this abyss has been crossed twice – by Fichte and precisely by Husserl. Concerning Fichte: what legitimates validity does not float without any being in the logical space, but it must be able to be »intellectually intuited« in its content of specifically »proto-ontolo­ gical« being (so to speak). We must distinguish here between the »dead«, deposited being, which is, in the split of consciousness, the correlate of thinking and consciousness, and the »living being« of the 2

See, for example, I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 86–87.

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supreme source of knowledge itself. The »living being« is that of the transcendental itself. Husserl’s approach is different. He does not ask himself what »being« (as opposed, of course, to Kant’s point of view) must be attri­ buted to the transcendental in order for the deduction of knowledge to lead successfully to an ultimate legitimation – for in this sense, being does indeed enter, for him, into the transcendental – but he immediately attaches the transcendental legitimation of knowledge to a predestined being that lies at its foundation. However, we should not be mistaken about the nature of this »attachment«. We do not have here first a being and then a legitimating function of the knowledge that is attributed to it. Still, the two are co-original: they are united in the lifeworld that is then logically apprehended as the »ground«, the »source«, and the »origin« of knowledge.3 Let us summarize Husserl’s idea: the »genesis« in phenomeno­ logy does not refer to a factual (psychological) production, but Husserl proposes to integrate the debate of validity into the problem of being. Husserl thus reconnects both with his own conception of truth in the sixth Logical Investigation and with Heidegger’s thesis that truth is an existential of Dasein that opens the world. In the Krisis, a funda­ mental motif of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology reaches its completion, so to speak. That this is problematic, that there is here a challenge to logic and to the theory of argumentation, is undeniable, but this is precisely what makes the Husserlian project original. The lifeworld can be thematized in a double way – not in the restricted framework of an ontology, but in a wider framework that finally aims to highlight the universal a priori of the correlation. Two »modes of accomplishment of life« are possible which characterize our »awakening« for the world or the things in the world: either the mode of accomplishment oriented towards given objects, or the one which turns towards the »how of the modes of givenness«. The latter constitutes a »change of the thematic consciousness of the world«. In the first case, the world and the objects are »pregiven«; they are »directly« conscious; in the second, on the other hand, they are conscious in subjective modes of appearance and givenness. The question of whether, given their different starting points, these two approaches are indeed different, or whether, because of their similar results, we are not in the presence (thinking them radically to the end) of the same type of transcendental idealism, must remain unanswered here. 3

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What is decisive is that in this change of orientation, the gaze is directed towards syntheses that together constitute a synthetic totality. In it, we »appropriate« the »universal functioning life (leistend)«, in which »the permanently pregiven world« is established. And in it is originally discovered the fact »that and how the world, as a correlate of a discoverable universe of synthetically connected accomplishments (Leistungen), acquires its ontic meaning and its ontic validity in the totality of its ontic structures« (Hua VI, 148 [145]). Validity is obtained in the ontic structures – this, of course, refers to what has just been taken into view: namely, to the plunge into the originally constitutive level where »validity« and »being« were not (yet) separated. It is now necessary to clarify the meaning of this »pregivenness« of the world. This has no particular significance in the natural attitude. It is never a theme for it. The »permanent reality« of the world is self-evident. There is no need to direct attention to it. This is not so in the transcendental attitude, which is characterized by a »change of interest«. It is, in fact, in the properly phenomenological attitude that the problem of the »pregivenness of the world« comes to light. This reminds us of Descartes’ epistemological gesture: it is only because of the effectuation of a backwards relation to the self-certain I (thus constituting a change of orientation again) that the problem of the »reality of the external world« in its »precariousness« was posed for him. With the difference, however, that in Husserl’s case, there is no problem for which it would be a question of seeking a solution by means of artefacts such as the »veracity of God«; rather, the need to grasp the meaning of this pregivenness derives from this change of interest itself. The opposition is then as follows: in Descartes, the world becomes problematic in spite of or because of the demonstration of an Archimedean point of any foundation of knowledge in the self-certain I cogito; in Husserl, on the other hand, the question of the pre-givenness of the world must arise in order to answer the question of knowledge. And this answer shows that the being is not founded, as in Descartes, on the cogitans, but that the consciousness of the being of the world is established in the synthetic link of the modes of validity. The being is not in front of the validity but is reduced to it, absorbed in it or even proceeds from it immediately. The idea of a »science of the lifeworld« is thus gradually concre­ tized. As a completely »new« »science of the last reasons (Gründe)«, aiming at the »ultimate givenness of sense«, it will have to deal with the »universal ›how‹ of the pregivenness of the world«. This consti­

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tutes, in Husserl’s view, a self-contained universe of a specific and consistently maintained theoretical research which has as its theme the »uniqueness of the ultimately functioning and accomplishing subjectivity (Alleinheit der letztlich fungierend-leistenden Subjektivi­ tät)« (supposed to account for the being of the world). After having determined in more detail the distinctive features of the transcendental formation of meaning for the refutation of the fundamental ground of objectivism characterizing modern science and philosophy – namely correlationism, the a priori of the lifeworld and the validity of being – it will now be a question of exposing five interrogations or difficulties of phenomenology, developed in the Krisis, which open new perspectives for the latter. We will then criticize: 1) the fundamental horizon of the legitimation of knowledge, 2) intuition as the principle of all principles, 3) the primordial role of the present perception, 4) description as the fundamental method of phenomenology, and 5) the domination of the constitutive I.

1. The transcendental »making-intelligible« In § 49 of the Krisis, Husserl sets out to elucidate the concept of the »original formation of meaning (ursprüngliche Sinnbildung)«. This leads to results that are of great systematic interest. Firstly, it is remar­ kable that Husserl gives phenomenology a new fundamental task. Whereas in the texts of the 1920s, he aimed at a »radical legitimation of knowledge« (at the center of phenomenology understood as »rigo­ rous science«), he now introduces a new concept – that of »makingintelligible (Verständlichmachung)«. Phenomenology does not find knowledge, but it produces intelligibility, comprehensibility. It is here that the concept of »Sinnbildung« intervenes, now at the heart of intentionality: if intentionality – which expresses the fundamental property of consciousness to relate to an object – is the name of the problem encompassed by the whole of phenomenology, as Husserl asserted in § 146 of the Ideen I (Hua III/I, 337 [349]), he indeed spe­ cifies in the Krisis that it is henceforth »the title which stands for the only actual and genuine way of explaining«, that is to say, for the »making-intelligible (Verständlichmachen)« (Hua VI, 171 [145]). And this always means »to make comprehensible in a transcendental way« (we will come back to this), which means »to go back to the intentional

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origins and unities of the formation of meaning (Sinnbildung)« (Hua VI, 171 [145]). The phenomenological concept of the »origin« refers in the Krisis to the idea, we insist, that the »formation of meaning (Sinnbildung)« is indeed at the center of the idea of a transcendental making-intelligible.4 Husserl puts forward, in this context, a dimension of intersubjec­ tivity »in community (Vergemeinschaftung)« which implies a possible explanation. It seems problematic, at first sight, that it is about an »intentional accomplishment, having many levels, of the subjectivity in question« while affirming that this one is not »isolated«, but that it belongs to the »entire intersubjectivity which is brought together (vergemeinschaftet) in the accomplishment« (Hua VI, 170 [167]): how to understand, indeed, the subjectivity »in question« as a »non-isola­ ted« subjectivity? This is to say that »subjectivity« means ipso facto »intersubjectivity«. But why then is there still talk of »subjectivity«? Let us try to answer this question. In the problem of »making-intelligible«, which thus essentially characterizes the Sinnbildung, the idea comes into play that »we [!] are led back to an obscure horizon« (Hua VI, 170 [167]). This requires a twofold explanation – with regard to the »us« and the »obscurity« of the horizon. The elucidation of the Sinnbildung leads to a reconduction. Husserl expressly underlines that it is »us« who are re-conducted. Who is this »us«? Is it simply the phenomenological »spectator« who, in carrying out the epoche, plunges ever more deeply into the problem of the constitution by being drawn into it? It seems clear that if Husserl defended such a point of view (which is not completely excluded), it would lead to a dead end. For, what is accomplished here is not simply a thorough description by a »disinterested« spectator who would precisely engage in descriptions. Rather, what takes place here must be understood, as Husserl himself says, as one »nothing but one meaning-formation operating together (Zusammenfungieren) with another« (Hua VI, 171 [168]). And this is accomplished precisely (this is the second point) in an »obscure horizon«, thus precisely not in the clarity of observation, but in This does not contradict the idea, which Husserl had already formulated in a lecture in 1919, that »making intelligible (Verständlichmachung)« always also means »making visible (Sichtlichmachung)«, Natur und Geist, Hua Mat IV, 68. And, conversely, this expresses the fact that the »transcendental making-intelligible« is not a late idea of Husserl’s, but that it runs through his entire work. We thank Marco Cavallaro for drawing our attention to this passage. 4

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the self-reflexive dimension of Sinnbildung and as such! We are indeed dealing here with a re-conduction, but precisely not with a transcendental subjectivity in the sense of an isolated subject; it is rather – and this is how this »intersubjectivity« should be understood – a horizontality (in the sense of a dimension) of Sinnbildung which is not accessible to the description and which is accomplished beneath the phenomenologically observing subject. It would be necessary here to introduce a terminological distinction to avoid any ambiguity. Phenomenological reduction means re-conduction to transcendental subjectivity. We are dealing here, in a thorough way, with a recon­ duction to processes (to »functionings (Fungierungen)«) inherent to Sinnbildung, which can be considered as »intersubjective« (and which Husserl designates as such), knowing that the »inter« constitutes an »in-between« which presents itself as a »beneath« or an »in« in the sense of an »underneath«. »Intersubjectivity« does not designate a more or less trans-subjective dimension, which would bring a subject »in community« with another, but a »sub-subjective« dimension, so to speak (in Latin, »inter« does not mean only »between«, but also »beneath«) that »leads« us to the specific dimension (into the »obscure horizon«) of Sinnbildung – where »we« somehow »dissolve« because the accomplishments of Sinnbildung take place »anonymously«. This is what there is to say about this new fundamental task of phenomenology as Sinnbildung, which presents itself as a »trans­ cendental making-intelligible« and which approaches the concept of »subjectivity« in a new way by revealing its »anonymous« and »pre-subjective« character at the basis of the classical understanding of transcendental subjectivity. This opposition between a beginning of elucidation and a deeper analysis reappears when Husserl returns to the concept of the world and its explanation. He points out in this respect that the world of perception turns out to be only a »layer« characterized in particular by the temporal mode of the »present«. A »deeper analysis« shows then that the now has a retentional and protentional horizon. And in direct connection with the »obscure horizon« just mentioned, Husserl writes: »These first prefigurations (Vorgestalten) of temporalization and time [he could speak here, as he will on the next page, of Gebilde der Sinnbildung], however, remain in the background« (Hua VI, 171 [168–169]). It is quite remarkable that he alludes to the fact (without clarifying it explicitly) that there is an architectonic difference between the »purely subjective in its own self-enclosed

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pure context as intentionality«, on the one hand, and the specific anonymous »functioning (Fungierung)« or »function of forming ontic meaning« on the other (Hua VI, 172 [169]). The telos of all that is the »unity of one meaning« that aims at »the endless whole, in its infinity of flowing movement«, which poses the problem – and it is in that that the teleological dimension expresses itself at Husserl – »of the totality as that of a universal reason«. But all this is understandable only on the horizon of this »universal form of meaning-formation« (Hua VI, 172 [170]).

2. Questioning the intuitive evidence as the »principle of All principles« A second criticism concerns the »principle of All principles« of § 24 of Ideas I, which affirms that »every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition« and that »everything originarily […] offered to us in ›intuition‹ is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is pre­ sented here« (Hua III/I, 51 [44]). Husserl highlights here the diffe­ rence between the sphere of intuitiveness (in which only this »prin­ ciple of All principles« can be valid) and the sphere of »non-intuitive manners of being conscious and their relatedness back to potentialities (Vermöglichkeiten) of intuition« (Hua VI, 173 [170]). This last sphere must have as a presupposition another type of portray than the intui­ tive and descriptive sphere – which is, of course, not descriptive but perhaps »constructive« which, however, Husserl does not explicitly mention here. In any case, it is quite remarkable that, in this context, he extends this »principle of All principles« to modes of givenness that obviously no longer have as their unconditional presupposition the intuitive evidence. Moreover, Husserl gives further valuable indications on how the triplicity I-cogitatio-cogitatum is to be understood. They have to be understood as three intentional modes, i.e. as a direction to some­ thing, as the appearance of something, and as something (as a unity in that what appears objectively), which is aimed at – through the appearances – by the intention of the I pole. The Cartesian path starts from the I and goes toward the cogitatum. On the other hand, the path through the lifeworld takes the opposite direction and is characterized by three different forms of relationship. One starts (in an »absorption«

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devoid of any reflection) from the »straightforwardly given lifeworld«, »unbroken, existing in pure ontic certainty (undoubted)«. At the first level of reflection, this world of life becomes the »index or guideline for inquiring back into the multiplicities of manners of appearing and their intentional structures« (Hua VI, 175 [175]). At the second level of reflection, the glance is directed towards the I pole and towards what constitutes its identity. This implies another characterization of phenomenology, in the Krisis, compared to previous outlines (for example, in the Cartesian Meditations), insofar as the decisive aspect of the »inquiring back« is put in the foreground. But a remark about intersubjectivity that immediately follows makes it clear that what is aimed at here is (as opposed to what has been analyzed before) »sociality in the community« – even if the specific spatiality (manifested in the expression “›space‹ of all Ego subjects«) is, in turn, an indication of the fact that the dimension of intersubjectivity (in the sense of »sub-subjectivity«) discussed above, which is characterized precisely by non-intuitive manners of givenness, resonates here.

3. The fundamental role of non-presenting manners of consciousness This critique of intuitive evidence also shines on the (allegedly dominant) role of presentational perception within the »meaning-for­ mation (Sinnbildung)«. Husserl explicitly states that every experien­ ceable givenness, contrary to what earlier texts had asserted, is not exclusively based on positional perception but is driven just as much by »implications of nonactive (nichtaktuelle) and yet co-functioning manners of appearance« (Hua VI, 162 [159]). This concerns not only the horizontal potentialities of perception but also, and especially, a form of »presentation« that has a deeper meaning. Husserl underlines that the consciousness of something that is present is indeed provided with experiences conveying »presen­ tations of...«. The »of« here designates the universal a priori of correlation. Correlation concerns the inseparability of »being« and »presentation«, »without which no things, no world of experience, would be given to us« (Hua VI, 162 [159]). Husserl draws our attention here to an important point. On the one hand, the starting point of the phenomenological description is the thing (at rest, »remaining qualitatively unchanged«), the body, the corresponding perception,

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in the present. But, on the other hand, all the »different modes of presentification, in general, enter into the universal investigation we are undertaking here, namely, that of inquiring consistently and exclusively after the how of the world’s manner of givenness, its open or implicit »intentionalities«. In displaying these, we must say to ourselves again and again that without them the objects and the world would not be there for us and that the former exists for us only with the meaning and the mode of being that they receive in constantly arising or having arisen out of those subjective accomplishments« (Hua VI, 163 [160]). The objective existence rests thus on the various manners of the presentification! Even if Husserl puts the mode of »recollection« in the foreground, it is quite obvious that the modes of »imagination« and »phantasia« must be included in it – which means that already in Husserl, there is at least the outline of a questioning of the priority of the doxic and objectifying thematization. This relation between the foundation of the universal correlational a priori and the »how of the manners of givenness«, thus the role of the manners of presentification, must absolutely be retained and kept in mind.5

4. The inadequacy of the phenomenological description Now, how can we manage, for purposes of securing the phenomenolo­ gical method, the problem of correlation? This problem is linked to the reflection »concerning the ground of ultimate presuppositions« (Hua VI, 178 [175]) that the Krisis puts forward. Husserl points out that it is necessary to distinguish in reality between two »grounds«: that of objective knowledge and that of transcendental knowledge. This raises the following methodological problem. Cf. Husserl’s famous self-testimony, which describes the discovery and the meaning of the correlational a priori in these terms: »The first breakthrough of this universal a priori of correlation between experienced object and manners of givenness (which occurred during work on my Logical Investigations around 1898) affected me so deeply that my whole subsequent lifework has been dominated by the task of systematically elaborating on this a priori of correlation. The further course of the reflections in this text will show how, when human subjectivity was brought into the problems of cor­ relation, a radical transformation of the meaning of these problems became necessary which finally led to the phenomenological reduction to absolute, transcendental sub­ jectivity« (Hua VI, 169 ff. [166]). 5

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Husserl sees in this problem that of a »double truth«: that of the objective science and that (which rests at its foundation) of the perspective pertaining to the transcendental philosophy. In spite of its »curious« character, Husserl is attached to this idea of a differentiated truth: »Philosophy as universal objective science (…) is not universal science at all« (Hua VI, 179 [176]). To believe that objectivity would be at the foundation of the universal character of knowledge is a fundamental error. This one can be universal only if it gets rid of the »blindness« for »the full concrete being and life«, for the being and life »that constitute them transcen­ dentally« (Hua VI, 179 [176]). From this point on, not only is intuition questioned as a fundamental principle, but it also becomes clear that when one turns to the original and archaic sphere of meaning-forma­ tion (Sinnbildung), the same applies to the descriptive method. In this respect, the following sentence from probably Husserl’s most important programmatic work cannot be overestimated: »There can be (…) no ›descriptive‹ science of transcendental being and life« (Hua VI, 181 [178]). Husserl obviously contests to phenomenology the faculty of proceeding in a descriptive way at the deepest constitutive level – which explains why it is necessary to assert here another concept of truth than that of objective science. And one understands why Husserl speaks in this context of a specific form of »investigation (Erforschen)« (Hua VI, 182 [178]) – but he does not go any further than to put it in connection with the »eidetic method«.

5. The paradox of the annihilation of consciousness Husserl finally touches upon another difficulty that he himself con­ siders perhaps the most serious one. It concerns the status of the constitutive subjectivity of the world and can be developed as follows. Subjectivity, originally constitutive of the world, is part of the world. But if this constitution of the world is radical, doesn’t this subjective nature swallow up the world in a way and thus the subject itself? We are faced with the following dilemma: either we maintain the idea that the subject participates in the world, and then the constitution is not radical, or this constitution is effectively grasped in all its radicality, but then we come to an annihilation of the subjectivity belonging to the world in a supposedly inevitable and irreducible way. There would be an interesting solution here – that of

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a self-annihilation of the I, which would then lead to the anonymous Sinnbildung. But this is not what Husserl has in mind. Rather, he emphasizes the tension (which should be deepened in view of its positive dimensions) between »the power of what is taken for granted in the natural objective attitude« and the »opposed attitude of the ›disinterested spectator‹”. How can this tension between the doxic attitude and the transcendental attitude that dissolves the doxa be used constructively? How is it possible that the subject is at the same time subject in the world and subject for the world? How can light enter the darkness of »what is not obvious in what is obvious?« (Hua VI, 184 [180]). For Husserl, the naivety of logic, of any a priori and of any philosophical proof, does not help us much here. Husserl sees the solution to be adopted in the idea that transcen­ dental phenomenology, which is initially deprived of any ground, must obtain this ground from its own forces (Hua VI, 184 [180]). It is necessary to take all the measures of the fact that phenomeno­ logy is based on a subjectivity which, with regard to the world, is »nothingness«. It is what seems to confirm the Husserlian proposal of a solution to the paradox. We have to distinguish two levels to which correspond respec­ tively a reduction to the subjective manners of givenness and a reduction to the transcendental I (Hua VI, 190 [184]): two »levels of reflection« where is at work, each time, a specific type of correlation. At the first level of reflection, there is the correlation between the »object pole« and its »manners of givenness«; at the second level of reflection, there is the correlation between the functioning I and what is constituted in its accomplishments of meaning and validity. The operating I is not a natural and worldly I, but a premundane and intersubjective I (it can only be called »I« »by an equivocation«) (Hua VI, 188 [185]). Since Husserl expressly speaks here of »sociality in the community«, it cannot be the idea of an »intersubjectivity« as a »subsubjectivity« beneath the subject, which has been discussed above. Husserl elaborates then the solution by starting – at the deepest level of the two (which corresponds to the deepest level of the con­ stitutive point of view) – from an I deliberately deprived of world, that is to say from an I that gives itself each time in its generative function and that is characterized by a »unique sort of philosophical solitude« (Hua VI, 187 f. [184]), that he considers as a »fundamental methodo­ logical requirement for a truly radical philosophy« and that determi­ nes the I precisely in its »uniqueness and personal indeclinability«

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(Hua VI, 188 [185]) that it could not lose. It is what constitutes the »internal method (innere Methode)« (Hua VI, 193 [189]) of pheno­ menology. From there, Husserl can trace the path that he had already exposed in detail in the fifth of the Cartesian Meditations (Hua VI, 189, l. 2–190, l. 7 [185, l. 11–186, l. 13]): 1) the constitution of the primordial sphere from which is excluded all that relates to other sel­ ves (thanks to a corresponding epoche, oriented towards the primor­ dial sphere (Eigenheitssphäre) (Hua VI, § 44); 2) the perception of others by alienation (Ent-fremdung) (in analogy with »self-tempora­ lization by de-presentation«); 3) the self-objectivation of the trans­ cendental Self in man. The tension between the doxic and the nondoxic (transcendental) attitude, between the I that belongs to the world and the I that does not belong to it (the transcendentally con­ stitutive I), is obviously shifted to the one between the absolutely unique original I (Ur-Ich) and the intersubjectivity that is in its turn constitutive of worldliness and objectivity. Husserl gives the impres­ sion that he is literally on safer ground here than he was in the dispute between anonymous Sinnbildung and worldly subjectivity. Let us retain then that the fundamental problem of all this analysis – that of showing how it is possible to be assured originally of the ground of the world pertaining to the Lebenswelt in order to grasp thereby radically the empiricist »shaking« of objectivism – is solved at the same time as that of knowing how the I can belong to the world and be constitutive of the world. This solution highlights the constitutive function of the double relation of the primordially reduced I to the other and of the transcendental I to the worldly objectified I. The experience of the transcendentally constituted other and the self-objectivation of the transcendental I are the two moments of the »solution of the paradox« that we had to provide. Let us come to the last point of this study. We have just recalled that (at least for Husserl) to practice phenomenology means: making it comprehensible in a transcendental way insofar as it is a question of questioning the sense and the validity of phenomena backwards. This also appears clearly in the perhaps most famous quotation of the Krisis: »The point is not to secure objectivity but to understand it« (Hua VI, 193 [189]). Husserl expresses by this that the task of phenomenology does not lie in explaining what determines the world from the point of view of content. Thus phenomenology does not compete with the sciences when it is a question, for example, of under­ standing how the material elements of the world are constituted or

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how any determinations for knowledge can be obtained. »To deduce is not to explain« (Hua VI, 193 [189]) means that by their own approach, the sciences cannot (nor do they want to) practice any clarification of the sense in the measure, precisely, where they are interested in the determination of the point of view of the content of the being and of its fundamental structures. Conversely, we should add, that explaining does not amount either to deducing; that is to say: it is precisely because the sciences aim at the determination and the extension of our knowledge that they are not able to realize what phenomenology proposes to do, namely to deliver the sense and the validity of what is to be known. And this, in and through the I: »At the onset of the epoche, the ego is given apodictically, but as a »mute concreteness«. It must be brought to exposition, to expression, through systematic intentional »analysis«, which inquires back from the world-phenome­ non« (Hua VI, 191 [187]). Epistemological consequences also follow. The transcendental doctrine of knowledge does not aim at objective knowledge but at the knowledge of knowledge. That is to say, it tries to make understandable the knowledge in general. In this respect, Husserl keeps the Kantian heritage very faithfully. But this recourse to the I also raises questions and problems at the end of the path towards phenomenological transcendental philosophy, starting from the lifeworld. Because of this renewed refocusing on the I and its elucidation through the highlighting of an intersubjective mediation, the opening of the problematic of Sinnbildung is immediately lost. What Husserl had reproached to Descartes – that Descartes was on the threshold of transcendental philosophy but that he renounced to take the last decisive step – is also what we could address to Husserl himself – if we consider this from the point of view of the evolution of post-Husserlian phenomenology and if we insist more on the signification of Sinnbildung than Husserl had done on his side. * Let us then summarize what methodological and systematic gains result for phenomenology from the radicalized understanding of how, according to Husserl, the empiricism of the 18th century undermined the fundamental motive of modern science and the philosophy of modern knowledge – namely »objectivism«.

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This shaking opened up (especially in Hume) a tension between, on the one hand, the configuration of »fictional products« supposed to account for the being of the appearing and, on the other hand, the necessity to correspond to the certainty of the world. As a result, the constitution of meaning-formations (Sinngebilde) had to be related to the necessary assumption of the lifeworld. Several critical sketches – concerning the role of legitimation of knowledge, intuitiveness, presentation, description, the paradox of the annihil­ ation of consciousness – then gave rise (according to Husserl) to a deeper tension – that between the doxic and the transcendental attitude. But instead of pursuing and deepening the new perspective opened by Hume – that of the transcendental Sinnbildung, which consists in a non-descriptive, transcendental »making-intelligible«, in which it is a question of putting forward the non-intuitive and non-presenting effectuations of consciousness – which would make it possible to focus on the anonymous processes of Sinnbildung beneath any egoic pole, Husserl preferred to concentrate on the constitutive role of what he called »intersubjectivity in community«. This missed opportunity must be held responsible for the reproach of subjectivism and solipsism that he has always been accused of and that – unjustly – continues to be made to him.

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Philosophical Generativity Turn to Antiquity, Institution of Meaning, and Denkergemeinschaft in the Crisis

Husserl has often been accused of neglecting history. However, in his »Philosophy as a rigorous science«, in 1911, beyond the obvious criticisms of historicism, he recognized its contributions to phenomenology, noting that, to some extent, it implies adopting a philosophy of history as an essential feature within the approach.1 Moreover, the explanation of core concepts appeals to the figures of Plato, Descartes, Hume, or Kant as prominent references in such a way that history and the history of philosophy are always at stake. The texts contained in the Crisis explicitly develop these issues, many of which have given rise to passionate controversies. In what follows, I will characterize the notions of tradition and institution of meaning and their role in the development of philoso­ phy through the notions of Urstifstung, Nachstiftung, and Ends­ tiftung alluded to in § 15 of the Crisis, considering the case of Antiquity and Plato’s figure to analyze Husserl’s inversion of Platonism. On this basis, I will review the notion of Denkergemeinschaft in Supplements XIII, XXIV, and XXVIII to the Crisis. This study on how Philosophy deals with its past reveals the oscillation between the weakening and recovery of »philosophical generativity« as a key concept to understand the philosopher’s task as Funktionäre der Menschheit and the nature of philosophical com­ munities. In this way, it will be possible to connect the notion of crisis and the function that, in this context, belongs to Philosophy as an institution of meaning and interpreter of the historicity of the present.

It is especially clear in the dialogue with Dilthey after the publication of Husserl’s text. On this point, see Makkreel 1992 and Inverso 2018, 61–65.

1

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1. Tradition and institution of meaning The texts of the Crisis deal with humanity in general, as it emerges from the title of the Vienna lectures of 1935. It is reinterpreted as a category of historical development and seen from the European perspective conceived as a universal dimension. In this sense, it is helpful to think of the crisis of the globalized world after nearly a century-long since this analysis. It is also appropriate to think about the future, reduced in the current scientific vision to a blind leap forward that provokes rejection or, on the other extreme, unfeasible idealizations of the past. In this sense, this exercise of projection into the future stresses the need to assume a position about our peculiar perspective – what do we think about what happened and what we desire to happen – putting historicity at the forefront. Husserl’s phenomenology emphasizes this aspect by providing a conceptual horizon that shows the plausibility and legitimacy of the attempt. Indeed, the text seeks to unravel the opposition between physi­ calist objectivism and transcendental subjectivism with particular attention to Descartes. In this context, in § 15, Husserl emphasizes the importance of looking at history from the inside, which implies adopt­ ing our spiritual inheritance as a task (Aufgabe). In connection with this point, in Supplement XXIV, which expands the conclusion of the Crisis, he explores the relationship between task and responsibility to reveal the peculiarity of Philosophy: Philosophy is a task, a personal occupation (persönlichen Beruf), which requires a »historical sense« (geschichtlichen Besinnung). »Every human being as a person – he says – is in his generative context, which, understood spiritually and personally, rests on the unity of historicity (Jeder Mensch als Per­ son steht in seinen generativen Zusammenhängen, welche, persönlich geistig verstanden, in der Einheit einer Geschichtlichkeit stehen)« (Hua VI, 488). Thus, Husserl emphasizes that »the vaguely general knowledge of each man is connected with his being and his generativity (Damit hängt das vage allgemeine Wissen jedes Menschen von seinem Sinn und Seiner Generativität zusammen)« (Hua VI, 488), which is presented in the posthumous texts as »the unity of the historical development in its broadest sense« (Hua XXIX, 63). It involves all forms of the constitu­ tion of meaning that occur in the intersubjective and intergenerational processes of coexistence that feed a tradition. Generativity accounts

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for these phenomena within the tension between subjective activity and facticity at the community level. This dimension constitutes a Bildung linked to the systems of meaning institution. The peculiarity of the philosophers is based on their responsibility as a community conscience or subjectivities of a higher order about their relationship with the past and the future. This implies both the response to a vocational call and the conscious adoption of a task to which life is dedicated (Hua XXIX, 364). Historical reflection is put in the foreground but under conditions that rule out the task of mere recording. Philosophy implies a duty not limited to criticizing isolated systems or specific worldviews separated from tradition. By contrast, it is »a critical understanding of the joint unit of history« (einem kritischen Verständnis der Gesamteinheit der Geschichte) (Hua VI,72). This perspective draws a sharp division between mere historiography and the conscious philosophical history of philosophy. The false and aseptic visions are renewed variants of historicism or, worse, scientistic perspectives aspiring to illegitimate autonomy. When calling into question the purely historiographic or ethnographic work concentrated in study cases, a comprehensive understanding of history as the history of the tradition, that is to say, of the elements leading to the current state of affairs in society by the deployment of their origin, is required as a philosophical condition. Let’s analyze the mechanisms underlying this task. According to § 15 of the Crisis, it is based on a particular type of question, a Rückfrage. This term deals with interrogation and regression as methodological keys. Indeed, the way to reduction from the world of life is a Rückfrage about the community’s horizon (Hua VI, 364).2 This type of retrospective question looks for the »original institution« (the Urstiftung) of this community because there lies its authenticity and legitimacy as well as the purpose that guided its deployment (Hua XXXIX, 527). That Urstiftung is »at the same time a further institution (Nach­ stiftung)«, that is to say, a »transformation of the original institu­ tion« linked to the Greek past (Hua VI, 72). Therefore, the identity sign is reactivated each time, maintaining the tradition’s sameness through all these changes. At the same time, »to every original 2 Hua XXIX, 399 and 424–426 seem to imply the priority of this way, although we must understand that this is the more adequate to account for the kind of intersubjec­ tive and historical phenomena. See a broader view in Inverso and Marsico 2023.

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institution (Urstiftung) corresponds a final institution (Endstiftung) « understood as a kind of desideratum in which »philosophy as an infinite task« comprehend its apodictic beginning and accomplishes it. The original institution is given and received as such in the act of Nachstiftung. Hence, the original institution is not self-sustaining nor has any warrant except through the task of reinstitution. These notions are not clearly defined in this outline. Stiftung implies aspects linked to legality, foundation, donation, and perman­ ence, which are present in the task of understanding historicity (See Niel 2017, 141–2). Despite some early uses, the notion of Urstiftung grew with the development of the genetic approach associated with the Rückfrage. It is oriented to the primary institution of meaning and alludes to the description of dynamic materials. The explanations about this basic concept are not univocal but involve a network of explorations oriented to these different institu­ tions. The general scheme is best captured in texts about the lifeworld. Indeed, Husserl refers to the diversity of original institutions, i.e., Urstiftungen, which are the basis for later reactivations in the life of consciousness (Hua XXXIX, 1–2). This mechanism peculiar to personal life is similar to that in cultural traditions regarding the past. It is varied and allows different exercises of updating, modification, correction, and abandonment of the Urstiftungen that guided the personal or communal realm at a particular moment (Hua XXXIX, 46–49). An original institution needs to be reactivated. If not, it weakens until it disappears. However, it can also return from pure passivity through a Neustiftung that is strictly a Nachstiftung, a vivifying restoration of what was lost (Hua XXXIX, 48). In this sense, situations such as those described in the Crisis warn against the weakening of the Urstiftungen, which implies trust in the restoration effect of the warning itself at that time or in the future. Since the loss is never total and irremissible, the restoration may even cause an increase in familiarity (Hua XXXIX, 463). These variations take away from the scheme all rigidity and ensure the fertility of the look to the past as an always open philo­ sophical field that changes by new institutions. At the same time, the Endstiftung points not so much to an end but a final point in the manner of a teleological process with a single hermeneutical key. In fact, Husserl does not think of a universal Hegelian-type story reflecting all the movements of the concept but is interested

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in the drifts that produced the present state of affairs. They can be more or less broad depending on each community and its historical embodiment. This comprehensive understanding is possible – and not forced – by a spiritual unity whose disclosure is the task entrusted (aufgegebene) to the philosophers (Hua VI, 72). To be a philosopher is to provide the key to understanding the present historicity, which is accessible to all but not unraveled by all. The triad Urstiftung, Nachstiftung, Endstiftung does not have a main temporal or sequential function. It aims to describe initial elements that can be partially recovered in the later institution or with broader pretensions in the final institution. Hence, it is not last in a temporal sense, nor does it lead to the end of history, but to a point where it is possible to glimpse a complete sense, to grasp the fulfillment of a large-scale movement. This new element guides the contemporaries and remains available to promote dialogues with future philosophers. The retrospective question activates three movements: the iden­ tification of a point in the past that is significant, a new institution of meaning in consonance with that appropriation of that past, and, if that institution is sufficiently encompassing, it can be understood as Endstiftung, insofar as it stands as a key to understanding the presentday historicity. In that look back, the whole history of thought is at hand and is reactivable, but Husserl points out two special moments: the original Greek institution and its Cartesian recovery. In fact, Plato is usually accompanied by the figure of Descartes, who carried out a Nachstiftung of the Platonic institution, but with sufficient weight to be also considered, in a certain sense, an Urstiftung. Let’s concentrate on the first case.

2. The Greek case As we have said, phenomenological exploration shows that the Euro­ pean tradition is defined by its Greek origin and universal project, which is compatible with understanding philosophy as a peculiar generative phenomenon committed to that goal (Hua XXVII, 186). Strictly speaking, the term »Greek« is too broad to be explanatory. Very different approaches coexist in the ancient realm, and many positions are quite far from the Husserlian foundations. Indeed, that period has inspired foundationalist philosophies but also skeptical,

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nihilistic, postmodern lines with a broad range of options that vivify the dialogue with the past. When contemplating the scheme more closely, we frequently identify that origin with the cosmological institution of the Presocratic thought that seeks a general order for the whole reality. Still, much more often, the pair Socrates-Plato stands out, apprehending the first figure in the light of the second. In this peculiar framework, »the Greek realm« seems to share relevant features with Phenomenology and its ideal of rationality and universality. Still, the environment is complex enough to offer scenes of tension with rival perspectives, which are in some sense »prequels« of the crisis of European human­ ity in its very Urstiftung. The original Greek institution does not exist without conflict, making the crisis a fundamental fact of our tradition. Let’s consider the case of Plato, whose central role in tradition places him as the origin of many reinstitutions, but not always with the same spirit, which illustrates a relevant point of the Nachstiftung. The character of ancient Platonism allowed to incorporate Skeptical, Stoic, and Neoplatonic traits that coincided with different aspects of the general program. There were also many medieval reinstitutions, such as the Augustinian appropriation and his Ideas in the mind of God, powerful Neoplatonic developments, and also interpretations of Platonism’s importance within the great modern philosophies. At the same time, modernity developed the field of philosophical historiography, which constitutes, from the Husserlian perspective, a kind of reinforcement of the philosopher’s task regarding the recre­ ation of the past. The progressive constitution of the theoretical field of history contributed to expanding the area of historiography and hermeneutics, which converted these studies into a central part of the academic task related to »philosophical normality«.3 By conferring value to the classical material as something significant for the present, philosophical historiography became a space for an exercise of restora­ tion that avoids the risk of losing the original institution by reinforcing the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission. From this perspective, the conservation of living memory allows the maintenance and progressive expansion of available tools to do philosophy in its dimension of dialogue with the past. This task, understood as a phenomenological Aufgabe, is in the hands of philoso­ phers who work in the historiographical field, expanding the ways of 3

On this Romero’s notion, see Inverso 2022.

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contact with the past, moving away from oblivion, and increasing the power of the new reinstitutions. Indeed, the Greek past to which Husserl refers had grown in modernity with the work of authors such as Stephanus and Serranus, editor and translator, respectively, of the version of Plato’s works in the sixteenth century. Serranus introduced hermeneutical innovations that created the conditions for the reading of Tennemann and his Kantian perspective in the seventeenth century. This presentation paved the way for Schleiermacher’s view, which mainly outlines the interpretative patterns of the nineteenth century, departing from Kan­ tianism and paying attention to the method by deploying hermeneu­ tics, the traits of internal coherence, and the relationship between form and content. Husserl’s Plato results from these reinstitutions that supports his hermeneutical operation. In many passages, including those that led to the Cartesian Meditations and the German version, Plato is an antecedent of Phenomenology and embodies the most complete attempt to search for truth. The scheme is richer in First Philosophy, a text of 1924 where it presents the evaluation of the pre-Socratics as strictly pre-philosophical thinkers. In this view, they were affected by natural attitude, while the Sophists introduced a turn with their discovery of subjectivity even though frivolous subjectivism vitiated their transcendental impulse. Hence, Plato and Socrates avoid the relapse into naive objectivism. In the Platonic case, Husserl sees the Ideas as the root of the eidetic reduction associated with the method of variations. He recognizes the relevance of the relationship between subjectivity and Ideas, considering a finding that to access the eidetic realm, it is necessary to turn to subjectivity in the form of an intellectual idein (Hua VII, 322). However, Plato’s research was incomplete because he was dazzled by the Ideas. He did not ask about the enabling conditions for subjectivity, which require a transcendental reduction. Therefore, even the highest point in Greek philosophy is not yet authentic philosophy but an exploration of its field. In any case, it is an institution to which we must return, overcoming its limitations, an Urstiftung that requires an improvement that may lead not only to its Nachstiftung, but also to its Endstiftung. Let us add another consideration about the Husserlian Nachs­ tiftung of the Platonic Urstiftung. Along with the elements involved in an analysis of human interiority looking for access to an apodictic

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dimension, Phenomenology implies a reinstitution of some issues related to Platonic practical philosophy in two significant levels: on the one hand, both philosophers establish a structural parallelism between individual and community that allows translating concepts from one field to another, opening the understanding of culture in the form of »superior personalities« (Miettinen 2013), and on the other, both consider that Philosophy has a central role in the destiny of our communities. In the first case, both philosophies suppose an anthropological dimension whose keys explain the intersubjective field. In the Platonic view, the parts of the soul correlate in society. In the same way, Husserl’s perspective connects the traits of consciousness proper to geneticity with their form at the generative level (Miettinen 2013). In the second case, the philosophical task differs from other social functions by its architectonic character, the mission of questioning the natural attitude, and the interpretation of personal and community destinies. The notions of ethical conscience and responsibility are crucial in both systems. They underline the hermeneutic dimension of this recognition of a community’s identity and the consequent design of political ideas looking to the future. Without going into details about this main reinstitution that con­ nects both philosophies, let’s note that they share a general conception of Philosophy and its relationship with the community dimension and history. Both views emphasize the importance of the philosopher in his/her personal and vocational aspects but also his/her work with others in the desirable construction of a scientific-theoretical commu­ nity. Let us now dwell on this conception regarding the community.

3. Denkergemeinschaft and Philosophy Plato claims in Republic V that beyond isolated philosophers, the best political organization produces a philosophical community with a solid group of figures who assume guidance. In a similar way, although without claiming the role of a ruling group, in Husserl’s view, the philosophical task implies an institution of meaning that illuminates the community goals, and therefore the philosophers are, as it is said in the Crisis, »functionaries of modern philosoph­ ical mankind« (Funktionäre der neuzeitlichen philosophischen Men­

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schheit), in a line that goes back to the Greek origins understood as a »teleological beginning« (teleologische Angang) (Hua VI, 72). Mankind needs functionaries who activate this consciousness because the elements available at the level of the original institu­ tion are not always at hand. They result from a task of disclosure that demands dialogue with the past. The oblivion of the primary institutions and their replacement by inauthentic variants, that is to say, the product of constructions that are not rooted in the »settled habits« that make up the identity of the community, provokes the situation of crisis in which the bases of the tradition become clouded so that the present becomes distressing and there are no basic agree­ ments on what is expected in the future. Now, the peculiarity of Philosophy is accompanied by a pecu­ liarity in the structure of the community because besides the con­ temporaries are those already dead whose presence is recreated and intertwined with the present. In History, the community with the dead is fundamental. Husserl assert that »the philosophical past is for the philosopher an actually motivating present (Die philosophis­ che Vergangenheit ist für den Philosophen der Gegenwart aktuell motivierend)« (Hua VI, Supp. XXIV, 488) and shortly after adds that »Each philosopher has his historical horizon, and he deals with all the philosophers who have built their thinking on philosophical coexistence and also with new philosophers, such as those recently arrived at this coexistence (Jeder Philosoph hat seinen geschichtlichen Horizont, alle Philosophen befassend, die in philosophischer Koexistenz ihre Gedanken gebildet und auf neue Philosophen, als in diese Koexis­ tenz neu eintretende, gewirkt haben)« (Hua VI, Supp. XXIV, 488). Hence, history is not a field susceptible to definitive conclusions, which would make the exercise of a retrospective question useless. Philosophical coexistence mixes »living and dead in an endless con­ currency (Lebende und Verstorbene in einer nie endgültig abbrechen­ den Koexistenz)«, vivifying Philosophy as a continuous task (Hua VI, Supp. XXIV, 488). As we have seen, this coexistence can be broken temporarily. Indeed, »the specific philosophical generativity temporarily loses the power of living propagation (sie kann zeitweise abbrechen, die spezifisch philosophische Generativität verliert zeitweise die Kraft lebendiger Fortpflanzung)« (Hua VI, Supp. XXIV, 488), but this weakening can be reversed and give way to a revival. In fact, this oscillation occurs all the time since the thought of the philosophers of the past survives in the form of documents that

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require an act of reinstitution to revitalize their content. This move­ ment involves constant preservation through the material renewal of the textual supports and the scholarly work of transmission that makes possible the intellectual understanding of that legacy. When all this task is completed »a new spiritual and philosophical generativity begins, overcoming the gap of the non-philosophical time (eine neue geistige, philosophische Generativität setzt hiermit ein, zugleich die Lücke der unphilosophischen Zeit überbrückend)« (Hua VI, Supp. XXIV, 488). So, the philosopher is part of the contemporary community, but »as a thinker, the philosophical present is for him the total essence of a philosophical coexistence, the totality of philosophical history, an integral understanding of the history of philosophy as Philosophy and of the philosophers (als Denker ist für ihn philosophische Gegenwart der totale Inbegriff der philosophischen Koexistenz, die gesamte Philoso­ phiegeschichte, wohlverstanden als die Geschichte der Philosophie als Philosophie und der Philosophen)« (Hua VI, Supp. XXIV, 489). The philosophical community, therefore, is not restricted to the current thinkers, each one in its national and social context, but it also includes all the philosophers of the past, both the consecrated figures and the marginal voices that could be recovered and then find a new role by a movement of meaning institution emerged from this dialogue with the past. In the Supplement XXVIII of the Crisis, this coexistence is correlated to the influence of the past poets on the new creators (Hua VI, Supp. XXVIII, 512), and Supplement XIII appeals to the notion of Denkergemeinschaft, »community of thinkers«, to account for this trans-historical coexistence. This peculiar dialogue keeps the past open and encourages dialogue within the trans-temporal community. For this reason, Husserl says that »This mundanity which goes back to the original creation of Philosophy and philosophical generativity is his living present. In this realm he has his colleagues, his companions, he deals with Aristotle, with Plato, with Descartes, with Kant, etc. (Diese Umwelt, die bis zur Urstiftung der Philosophie und philosophischen Generativität zurückreicht, ist seine lebendige Gegenwart In diesem Umkreis hat er seine Mitarbeiter, seine Partner, er verhandelt mit Aristoteles, mit Plato, mit Descartes, mit Kant usw.)« (Hua VI, Supp. XIII, 444). In this framework, there is an asymmetry between the transfor­ mation of the diverse dialogue members. Husserl says that the dead

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cannot transform themselves and their philosophical existence in contact with their heirs, as their descendants do in connection with the dead. However, we must understand this statement considering that thinkers do not revive in their personal dimension but in their concepts. In the same way, the philosophers of the past become transformed in their concepts when they »dialogue« with those who receive their legacy. In his posthumous texts on intersubjectivity, Husserl stated that the communication relations with constitutive aspects can be of single or double direction, and all historical-spiritual unity belongs to the first type. It does not imply a demerit but only indicates the continuity by which »my life and that of Plato are the same«, as I continue his work and there exists between us a society of goals and efforts (Hua XIV, 198). The asymmetry in the personal realm coexists with a conceptual symmetry that keeps the dialogue open to the future. In this prefigu­ ration and construction of the future, living beings are protagonists. They are personally interested in these issues, but the whole commu­ nity participates; that is to say, also the dead participate because they are reborn to embody the representation of the Urstiftung that guides the new times. Their spirit is reborn in »the ulterior understanding of the work through its original sense (im Nachverstehen der Werke aus ihren ursprünglichen Sinn)« in such a way that it (re)builds its mean­ ing. Therefore, the philosophical community is a trans-historical community where all those who recreate the topics related to this universality participate. This way of conceiving an inter-epochal Denkergemeinschaft is relevant to considering one of the most com­ mon objections that have been made to the Husserlian perspective. Indeed, the textual and conceptual format of the Crisis has aroused suspicions in times when universalism sounds like Eurocentrism. The association with transcendental philosophy, the appeal to the conscience, and the goals of apodicticity form an array of ideas that provokes hasty resistance. Moreover, to account for the internal movement of history, Husserl appeals to the notion of teleology, which places him in an uncomfortable position concerning the current climate in the philosophy of history, which goes against this idea (Hua VI, 71–74). In response to many of these points, some careful works have been carried out to elucidate the problematic issues. They show that the appeal to tradition does not imply a univocal origin that

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shuts down possibilities but as a universal feature of reason that can foster cultural and democratic pluralism (See especially Held 1989 and 2002). In the same way, the developments regarding the relationship between narrativity and Phenomenology and the suggestions concerning bracketing the absolutizing narratives, with post-theological but not post-modern traits, put in the forefront the philosopher’s present that reflects and institutes senses for his/her generation, as is clear in Carr 2014 and Miettinen 2013. Let us add here an argument derived from the constitution of the philosophical community conceived as a trans-historical dimension oriented to universal goals. As we have seen, the retrospective question (Rückfrage) illumi­ nates the original institution of ends (die Urstiftung der Ziele). It should be noted, then, that the freedom of the retrospective question allows reactivating all the sedimented forms so that the past is not one but an infinite repository of new reconstructions. The philo­ sophical task is fulfilled in this exercise of permanently unsatisfied retrospective question that iterates the look towards the past, always discovering new pieces of the route that led to the present in function of its opening to some kind of future. Husserl points out the double nature of the Urstiftung in such a way that it designates an action and also the possibility of achieving a result, that is to say, of constructing a certain future (Hua Mat VIII, 222). Therefore, there is not a unique privileged tradition, but the indication that the philosophical task is primarily focused on the vivification of one’s own culture. For this reason, the philosopher is a functionary, an agent necessary for the welfare and conservation of the community. Nor is there a univocal past that must be seen in the same way, but a mark of origin that must be unraveled and updated in new contexts to return its significance repeatedly throughout the generations. This variable perspective is recreated each time in the continuity of the tradition and is different in each case. Husserl’s proposal attempts to explain how some points of universality are grasped from different temporal and cultural coordinates. It offers the elements to think the philosophical generativity with Europe as a showcase of reflection on the past. Still, that exercise could be iterated in other contexts. Men of different cultures can find in their traditions points of universality. In the globalized world, multiple factors may

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combine synergistically to enable dialogue, while others are oriented towards dispersion. This Husserlian exploration stresses that within the European tradition these traits are foundational and never marginal. Therefore, it underlines the European view without implying the impossibility of similar exercises being done in other cultures, given the coincidence in universality. Moreover, it should be noted that Husserl asserts that this European sediment is in a crisis and could, therefore, disappear, so this oscillation of power and weakening may well occur in other traditions, which may be in a period of strengthening of universality. Let us finally consider a point regarding the notion of crisis and the function of the history of philosophy. Supplement XXIV ends with describing the philosopher’s attitude and historical reflection in times of crisis which threatens Philosophy understood in this way. Philosophy as a whole is threatened when the historical dimension of its task is weakened. Whenever the academic modalities pretend to imitate science or proclaim a practice of systematic philosophy lighthearted about the historical dimension depreciating it as a mat­ ter of antiquarian, the trans-historical dialogue gets weak, and the philosophical community decays. There is a crisis in Philosophy when, within the same discipline, studies on the history and historiography of philosophy are put on a second level since they constitute the material condition for new institutions. This point becomes relevant to understanding Husserl’s affirma­ tion concerning this task as the radical responsibility »of the whole present philosophical community«, which appeals not only to living philosophers but to that extended community in which the past has something defining to say. For this reason, it is said that the key lies in the retrospective question. It rests »in the sense of the philosopher’s existence as an existence of philosophical generativity (Im Sinn des Philosophen-Daseins als eines Daseins aus philosophischer Generativität)« that goes beyond his/her vocation to officiate as a functionary of humanity. This cannot be achieved by means of a purely historiographical work of recreating the past until it becomes a »living present«, but it is necessary to achieve a »total unit« (Gesamteinheit) object of a »responsible criticism« (verantwortliche Kritik) (Hua VI, 73). This responsibility is exercised under phenomenological reduction and, therefore, free from prejudice and with full awareness of the task to be carried out. This historical retrospective awareness is the most

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in-depth awareness that can be obtained. So, the history of philosophy is an inherent part of philosophy. In fact, it can be mere doxography when it pays attention only to surface elements as a mere registration. Still, it can also fully understand its function as an institution of meaning and recreation of the original institution through its dialogue with the past. This is an idea of unusual power to design and justify access to the history and the historiography of philosophy that explores the synchronic and trans-historical dialogical dimension that nourishes the philosophical task considering that it does not respond to a single deployment but is recreated each time when the philosopher looks at the past and opens new possibilities for interaction.

References Carr, David, 2014: Experience and History. Phenomenological Perspectives on the Historical World. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Held, Klaus, 1989: Husserls These von der Europäisierung der Menschheit. In: C. Jamme and O. Pöggeler (eds). Phänomenologie im Widerstreit. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, pp. 13–39. Held, Klaus, 2002: The Origin of Europe with the Greek Discovery of the World. In: Epoché. A Journal for the History of Philosophy, 7.1, pp. 81–105. Inverso, Hernán, 2018: Fenomenología de lo inaparente. Buenos Aires, Prome­ teo. Inverso, Hernán, 2022: ›Contra las voces agoreras que predican la disolución del hombre‹. Literatura, filosofía y ›normalidad filosófica‹ en Francisco Romero. In: M. Chihaia et al., Caminos Cruzados. Filosofía y literatura del exilio español en América Latina. Frankfurt-Madrid, Vervuert-Iberoamericana. Inverso, Hernán, and Marsico, Claudia, 2023: »My life and that of Plato are the same« (Hua XIV, 198). Husserl, the origin, and the philosophical question. Bulletin d’Analyse Phénoménologique. Forthcoming. Makkreel, Rudolf, 1992: Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies. New Jersey, Princeton University Press. Miettinen, Timo, 2013: The Idea of Europe in Husserl’s Phenomenology. A Study in Generativity and Historicity. Helsinki, University of Helsinki. Moran, Dermot, 2013: Die verbogene Einheit intentionaler Innerlichkeit. Husserl on History, Life and Tradition. Alter 21, pp. 117–134. Niel, Luis, 2017: Husserl’s Concept of Urstiftung: From Passivity to History. In: Roberto Walton et al. Perception, Affectivity and Volition in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Cham, Switzerland, Springer.

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Crisis as the Lack of Response to an Interpellation

A scheme of three levels for the analysis of history provides Edmund Husserl with a clue for the interpretation of a crisis. This disruptive event occurs at the level of actual history within the broader horizon of a movement that unfolds from primal generativity to rational gen­ erativity. It entails a lack of response to an interpellation that emerges from the former and demands the realization of what is implicit in it, i.e., the teleology of a rational community. After a reference to the three moments in Husserl, I will examine how they can be found with variations in subsequent phenomenology. It is possible to show in each case the three moments of a fundamental reality, its falling into a crisis, and the process by which it is restored. Finally, the analysis comes back to Husserl and the solutions he outlines. Having as a background the contributions of the phenomenological movement, some conclusions dealing with the role of interpellation and finite or infinite goals are advanced.

1. Levels of history in transcendental phenomenology In Husserl’s view, teleology develops according to the character of the goals that can be instinctive and limited in their scope (primal history), endowed with a wide range but finite (actual history), and directed to infinite poles that concern all mankind and cannot be reached (rational history). 1.1. The earth and primal generativity as a chain of generations that exists in a homeworld, along with the basic modes of sedimenta­ tion, determine the conditions of possibility of history, i.e., a primal history (Urhistorie, Urgeschichte) as the basis for actual history. The earth is the ground of all human activity, i.e., a common space of

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convergent possibilities for all who inhabit it. Husserl characterizes it with the Biblical image of the arch in the sense of a primal home for mankind and a universal territory for all cultural spaces that as different territories are built up on it.1 Every human being is characterized by »belongingness to his or her home« (Zugehörigkeit zu seinem Heim)« (Hua XXXIX, 155). Chil­ dren grow within a homeworld and adopt by imitation and instruction the typical structures of mature persons, who become a vehicle for the transmission of a larger social historicity. Husserl states that, as he grows within a family, »the child, surrounded by fellow men that act according to ends, comes to understand their purposive activity as such, and to understand purposive objects not only as useful objects but also as objects that have come to exist teleologically (primal history)« (Hua XV, 420). In primal history, teleological processes are connected first with instinctive strivings and tendencies that set up a development toward the acquisitions of actual history. An instinctive intentionality composes a previous possession of the world, which is presupposed by subsequent acquisitions, guides the development of subjectivity from its first moments, and establishes intersubjective relations by means of passive impulses. In this level, Husserl speaks of a hidden reason: »›Reason‹ in instinct. The dark instinct« (Hua XLII, 86. See also Hua VI, 53). Earth, primal generativity, and homeworlds make up an »abstract historicity« (Hua XV, 138) that functions as the ground for higher-order generativities with cultural traditions and culti­ vated territories. Communities establish manifold reciprocal relations between their members and project lasting and wide-ranging goals. The change of subjects, insofar as new individuals incorporate them­ selves and others are left out, is tied not so much to birth and death as to the alteration of bearers of meaning and validity. Regarding this cultural or spiritual generativity, Husserl distinguishes two levels of historicity. Primarily, the movement of establishment, sedimentation, and re-establishment of meaning and validity, already present in a homeworld, is developed in a major scale. This process, directed first to finite goals, can undergo a transformation and increase but can also be forgotten and concealed. The formation and sedimentation See Husserl 1940, 308. See Hua XXIX, 381; XXXIX, 54. Quotations from Husserl’s works are indicated by abbreviations and mentioned in the bibliography. All transla­ tions, unless otherwise noted there, are by the author.

1

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of meaning outline the realm of »reason in the first sense«, i.e., »the natural concept of reason« or »the simple and honest reason of the natural and sound human understanding« (die biedere, ehrliche Ver­ nunft des natürlichen, gesunden Menschenverstandes) (Hua XXIX, 40, 386). With philosophical reason, a »second historicity« begins and produces »a new cultural formation« or »a new type of traditional­ ity« (Hua XXIX, 40 f.) that in principle is accessible to all rational subjects. The process of establishment and re-establishment now has infinite tasks and must lead to both a community of truth and an eth­ ical community. Husserl makes an appeal for rationalization of irra­ tionality: »A human being is suspended between rationality and irra­ tionality. Everything rational has its horizons of irrationality. But irrationality is itself a structure of the rationality apprehended with a wider scope (eine Gestalt der weiter gefassten Rationalität)« (Hua XLII, 489). To sum up, primal history implies an originary order that con­ cerns all human beings in an equal manner, i.e., a matrix into which all histories are woven. And secondary or rational historicity takes on the interpellations that arise from primal history and develops them toward infinite ideas. 1.2. A crisis consists, in Husserl’s view, in moving away from, and forgetting, a primal establishment of goals, so that the ensuing teleological process falls into an inauthentic re-establishment. To understand crisis as separation from an origin, a backward reflection is needed to illuminate the beginning and the distance taken from it. The motivation inherent to a tradition not only renders possible the realization of the teleology implied in the primal establishment but also leads to the recuperation of the initial goals that have been lost due to the alienation or emptying up of the original meaning. Husserl writes: »What is needed is the uncovering of the primal tradition, the clearing up of its style of a past establishment that continues through our life« (Hua XIV, 231). Crisis can be seen as the lack of response to the twofold interpellation that stems from both margins of actual history. As we shall see, this concerns the need to preserve the components of primal history and satisfy the theoretical and practical demands of rational historicity. 1.3. Overcoming a crisis requires going back to rational teleology as a structure that should hold sway over history from an origin in the instinctive rationality of primal history, through the modes

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of rational understanding in actual history, to the infinite goals of rational generativity. Rational action is guided by ideas of infinitude pertaining to rational generativity insofar as they are ideas that entail, along with an open future horizon, the possibility of repeating iden­ tical ideal formations, of generating higher-level idealities, and of advancing toward truth in itself and a maximum of value conceived as infinitely distant poles. Husserl advocates a teleological order that commits mankind to an axiological increase. This includes the values of knowledge and gives rise to an ethical community. A movement from latent to patent reason is activated, and the final outcome is characterized as a moment of absolute rationality contrasting with the relative or insufficient rationality of the previous stages. Thus, we have a structure composed of three parts: i) a funda­ mental reality (the rational teleology); ii) crisis as a fracture in this basic core of history; and iii) the restoration of the fundamental reality by overcoming the crisis. I will come back to these problems after a reference to post-Husserlian phenomenology.

2. Levels of history in Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Patočka The scheme of three moments referred to the origin, actual devel­ opment, and goal of history is repeated in a formal manner, with variations of content, in subsequent phenomenology. 2.1. Heidegger examines the history of Being in the light of an articulative whole of winding moments (Windungen). These moments depend on the workings of Ereignis – the event – conceived as the middle point in which Being and Dasein are reciprocally appropriated. The articulation and totality of the winding moments receives the name of Gewind. This notion provides the means for an analysis of the forgottenness of Being understood as the withdrawal of Being and the identification of Being with beings. Forgottenness of Being is the outcome of a deviation or un-wind­ ing (Entwindung). Regarding this turning aside of Being, Heidegger refers to »the crisis between the first and the other ›beginning‹« (GA 65, 295 [208]), to »the intermediate time between the deviation toward entity and the reposition of Being« (GA 71, 104), and, speak­ ing of ἀλήθεια, to »the crisis of its history in Plato and Aristotle« (GA

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65, 334 [234]). The extreme consequence of deviation, and the dis­ tinctive feature of our times, is machination, which is characterized by calculation, acceleration, and the outbreak of massiveness. These are the modes in which beings are disclosed in the abandonment of them by Being, an abandonment which in turn remains concealed. They lead to »the darkening of the world and the destruction of the earth« (GA 65, 120 [83]).2 The progress of technology has brought forth »exploitation and usage of the earth as well as rearing and train­ ing of humans into conditions that are still inconceivable today […] « (GA 65, 156 f. [108]). Machination is tied to the gigantic (das Riesenhafte), i.e., the project of an anticipating representation that draws up plans for the organization of everything and does not allow limits: »There is in principle nothing ›impossible‹; one ›hates‹ this word; everything is humanly possible if only everything is taken into account in advance, in every aspect, and if the conditions are fur­ nished« (GA 65, 136 [95]). In the epoch of the most extreme aban­ donment of beings by Being, »the unfettered hold of the frenzy of the gigantic« has overwhelmed human beings »under the guise of ›mag­ nitude‹« (GA 65, 8 [6]). Un-winding demands a countermarch with an incorporation or winding-into (Einwindung) the relationship between Being and Dasein and a reposition or re-winding (Verwindung) of Being (GA 71, 138–142). Heidegger contends that »to overcome the crisis of the question of Being […] a frequent leap into the essential sway of Being (Seyn) itself had to be ventured, which at the same time required a more originary enjoining (Einfügung) into history« (GA 65, 451 [317]). 2.2. Jan Patočka distinguishes three movements of human life. The first movement is the anchoring or rooting in which we are accepted in a home and are bound and determined by the Earth. Safety and vital warmth are provided by a human micro-community. In a second movement of sustenance, faced with the need to preserve our existence, we move away from sheltering and protec­ tion. The Earth is obliged to provide the necessary nourishment, and being-with-one-another is downgraded to an external relation. Things are humanized, but we also receive their action and so are assimilated into them. Our relations with other fellow men are not 2 The world is an open realm of relations, whereas the earth closes on itself and shelters the open world.

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only of coordination but also of subordination, i.e., force relations in which the Other is considered as an aid if he can collaborate with his assistance, or as an obstacle if he can do harm with his competition. Thus, we are exposed to self-alienation in a movement of intervention and insertion in a context of objective relations in which we play a role as a conditioning and conditioned force. Patočka makes clear that this external misery cannot be restrained by setting aside the means that industrial civilization has put at our disposal. For it has made possible what no previous society has been able to achieve. Nevertheless, the fight against it cannot be taken on with the means it provides because the whole reality has been mobilized by them in the direction of unleashing forces that produce conflicts in planetary dimensions: »A human being is destroyed externally and reduced to an internal misery, deprived of ›uniqueness‹, of an unreplaceable ego, identified with the role played« (1981, 126). The third movement brings this human disintegration to an end because a »solidarity of the shaken« (1981, 144 f.) gives rise to a »sac­ rificed service that surmounts individuals« (1981, 123). Whereas anchoring implies a free life in regard to oneself but finite due to the things and tasks in which we are engaged, and sustenance entails a finite and chained life, the discovery of oneself through devotion to the Other in the third movement renders possible a free life in the infinitude of solidarity: »I manifest my being as in-finite renouncing wholly to my finite being, yielding it completely to the Other, who gives back his or her being in which mine is contained« (1991, 138 ff., 218 ff.). Thus, crisis consists in the loss of freedom, and overcoming it requires the intertwinement of infinitude and freedom. 2.3. A threefold structure can also be found in Merleau-Ponty in terms of primal history, bad ambiguity, and good ambiguity. Follow­ ing Husserl, primal history is the matrix of all human activity. On the basis it provides, history unfolds in such a way that it acts upon us, but we go beyond it: »These two relations are totally united in each life« (1956, 67 f.). Subjectivity is incorporated into history, but history does not produce subjectivity. The meaning of history can only be understood as a meaning that can be reinterpreted and is always in danger. It entails assembling historical facts in a totality that is expressed by them. Historical situations are ambiguous because our consciousness of them is also a factor in them and because sedimen­ tation transforms them.

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With this background, Merleau-Ponty contends that there is »a bad ambiguity« when changes are not adequately faced and a ratio­ nal order is not established in the contingent facts. But there is also »a ›good ambiguity‹, i.e., a spontaneity that achieves what seemed impossible considering the separate elements and joins in a unique texture the plurality of monads, the past and the present, nature and culture« (1981, 126).

3. Hermeneutic phenomenology Paul Ricoeur examines history from the viewpoint of i) a formal structure, (ii) the cleavage between the two moments of this structure, and (iii) the ethical command to overcome the schism. 3.1. In his analysis of the past and the future, which is tied to the fact of undergoing and making history, Ricoeur takes up two cat­ egories introduced by Reinhard Koselleck: the space of experience and the horizon of expectation. Whereas the former consists of the expe­ rience transmitted by previous generations or present institutions in an accumulation and stratification of the past, the latter comprises all our modes of expectation. Both categories point to irreducible and complementary dimensions: there is no memory without projects and no projects without memory. The relationship is dialectical in the sense of a contrast and a tension to which no solution can be found: expectation does not simply derive from the past, and there are no absolute surprises with regard to which experience is irrelevant. Ricoeur contends that both categories point out conditions of possibility and therefore are »authentic transcendental notions at the service of thinking about history« (1985, 310). They have ethical and political implications because their description cannot be separated from a commandment in the sense that, if history is to go on, the tension between them must be preserved. This means avoiding the turn of the tension into distension or schism. Historical presents are situated in the articulation point between the space of experience and the horizon of expectation, and so can set up a transition between both moments insofar as they effect the transaction between the future and the past. 3.2. The separation between the space of experience and the hori­ zon of expectations leads to a crisis: »In the crisis there is expressed the distention which is proper to historical consciousness, […] The

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present is in a complete crisis when expectation takes refuge in utopia and when tradition turns into an extinct storeroom« (1985, 339. See also Ricoeur 1985, 308). A crisis obstructs the positive process by which the retroactive effect of accomplished expectations makes possible the discovery in the space of experience of new courses of action that can be followed. Ricoeur applies a similar scheme of tension and cleavage to his characterization of the political sphere as »an orthogonal structure with a horizontal plane and a vertical plane« (1995, 152). Whereas the horizontal bond is made up of the willing to live together according to the rationality manifested by the constitutional regulation of a state, the vertical connection differentiates in a hierarchical manner between a governing level that decides the rules of willingness to live together and the governed level that undergoes the rules. Even if they elect the rulers, those who do not hold the government are devoid of the opportunity to decide. The enigmatic character of politics that Ricoeur calls »the political paradox« (1964, 260–283) lies in the lack of balance in the orthogonal structure. On the one hand, it is wished that power should come from the will to live together through reabsorption of the vertical relation by the horizontal relation. On the other hand, the vertical connection cannot be wholly dissolved because it is necessary for making decisions and attaining the benefits that emerge from bringing together traditions and projects. A compro­ mise is necessary if the decisions of the rulers are not to be perceived as alien to the constitutive will of the horizontal plane. A loss of confidence in authority would produce the vanishing of a feeling of belongingness and the subsequent disintegration into a plurality of heterogeneous wills and claims. Therefore, citizens are placed »under the obligation to control the irruption of the violence that remains engraved in the very structure of the political sphere« (1995, 152). 3.3. The command to maintain the relation and tension between the space of experience and the horizon of expectation is the clue for solving a crisis. It shows two sides related to the operations of providing the future with a definite articulation and removing this definiteness from the past. Expectations should not be utopian but rather clearly stated, modest and finite proposals, and ought to be connected to the present by a bridge of intermediate steps. In parallel with this, the space of experience should not be considered as a finished and unmodifiable past, but rather as a reactivable treasure in which nonactualized possibilities can be discovered. An enlargement

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of the space of experience is connected with the way in which we project the horizon of expectation. Referring to the free variations of our actual world, Ricoeur writes: »[…] we continue to be affected by the effects of history insofar as we are capable of an enlargement of our ability to be affected in this way. Imagination is the secret of this competence« (1986, 228).

4. Phenomenology of life Michel Henry offers an analysis that can be applied to the notion of crisis according to the three stages of i) the relation between Life and living beings, ii) forgetfulness as the condition of a living being, and iii) the new birth of a living being in Life. 4.1. According to Henry, the ultimate problem for philosophy is not the givenness of the world in intentionality but the givenness of givenness, i.e., the givenness of intentionality as self-givenness. Appearing in the external world and appearing in the emotional or pathic inwardness of life show the dualism of appearing: »There are two specific and fundamental modes according to which the manifestation of what manifests itself« (1963, 860). Henry develops phenomenology beyond the knowledge of science that deals with idealizations and the knowledge of consciousness that concerns per­ ception and its derivative modes of intentionality. He focuses on the self-givenness or self-awareness of an ego insofar as it experiences and coincides with itself in the self-affection which issues from life and has life as its content. Life is not a phenomenon that appears in the world, but an originary mode of phenomenalization independent from the external world. Furthermore, life is a productive force that creates what would not exist without it. This means that it lies at the basis of history and cultural formations. We have a primal awareness in the immanence of radical inward­ ness of the bodily powers with which we intervene in the world. In order to set them in motion we must be in possession of them, and we have this self-experience of possession in the practice of a primal »I can« as a power with which we converge and which is given to us immediately in self-affection. As actions are subjective and living, individual life has a power of creation that constitutes the ultimate ground of all productions. Culture is nothing other than an actualization and increase of the subjective potentialities

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that pertain to the »I can«. Thus, our »I can«, which is rooted in the superabundance of life, is the ultimate condition of possibility for all our movements, actions, experiences or thoughts. 4.2. In a further step beyond Husserl, Henry holds that science abstracts from life itself on the assumption that truth is detached from the sphere of subjectivity. Science ignores subjectivity not only as the transcendental condition of its own development but also as the radical inwardness of our condition of living individuals. Thus science can be depicted in the following way: »A mode of life that turns against life, i.e., against itself, is a contradiction. Modern science, Galilean science, is this contradiction« (1987, 115). Science leads to a self-denial of life in which scientific culture is considered as the only form of culture and traditional manifestations are discredited. With the disappearance of the esthetical, ethical, and religious dimensions of culture, mankind falls in barbarianism understood as »the regression in the modes of realization of life« (1987, 39). Knowledge is reduced to the knowledge of science, culture is identified with scientific culture, and the »ideologies of barbarianism« emerge following a viewpoint that »abstracts from life which, nevertheless, constitutes as absolute subjectivity the only real and true being of the transcendental individ­ ual which we are« (1987, 131). In his article »The crisis of the West« (2004, 179–195), Henry contends that crisis is a twofold phenomenon because it concerns both culture and economics in such a way that the crisis of the latter is a part of the crisis of the former. When the subjective body is no longer experienced as such, the possibility is open for an objectivation and quantification of the products of work by measuring the time employed and the movements of the body conceived as physical processes. According to Henry, the same danger explains the wreckage of Marxist regimes and capitalism. It is the substitution of the real life of individuals by lifeless abstractions. On the one hand, the abstractions of the Marxist theory make up an ideology that denies the specific nature of a human being and reduce his subjective life to objectivities and ideological abstractions in contrast to Marx’s statement: »The first presupposition of any human history is naturally the existence of living human beings (die Existenz lebendiger menschlichen Individuen)« (1953, 347). To consider the individual as a mere effect of economic and social laws is to overlook the fact that action is always subjective and living: »Marxism, and any doctrine that proceeds to a debasement of individuals, especially any form of

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fascism, find themselves placed before the contradiction of denying life and, precisely because life defines reality, not being able to do so« (1990, 206). On the other hand, Henry considers that technology turns against capitalism and undermines it from within because it progressively eliminates living work in the process of production, replacing bodily force by the objective devices of machines. The oper­ ations pertaining to machines tend to autonomy by which they come to be capable of regulating themselves. When human action is reduced to the movements required or permitted by mechanical contrivances, the only real action that can be felt in self-affection is that of turning the device that controls the operations. This produces »the atrophy of almost the totality of the subjective potentialities of the living individual« (1987, 92). 4.3. Human beings misguided in this manner must become aware of their true condition, namely that of living beings that do not receive from themselves this condition. They must withdraw themselves from a theft of power, because the potentialities exercised are a gift of Absolute Life that acts in them. Thus human beings can relate to themselves in two heterogeneous ways that exclude each other. With an egocentric, selfish behavior that forgets its origin, a path is made toward crisis. In contrast, if a bond that is made possible by Life itself is acknowledged, human beings cease to be submerged in a self-care directed to life in the world. Setting aside the tendency to be self-centered in a dependency on the world renders possible the realization of the predestination pertaining to the true condition of mankind. This amounts to a second birth in Absolute Life.

5. Phenomenology of responsive action Bernhard Waldenfels develops a »logic of response« as the articula­ tion of a mode of thought in which primacy is given to the interpella­ tion of the alien over subjective intentions. This view is also associated with a threefold structure made up of i) an interpellation, ii) a response within a given order, and iii) a response that creates a new order. 5.1. We live within orders that emerge from an election among personal and communitarian possibilities of experience, and this choice consists in actualizing some possibilities and setting aside others. Hence, a radical mode of contingency affects every order because a different selection would have produced another order.

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We must, therefore, distinguish between what is not ordered but conforms to the rules of a given order and is guided by its binary qualifications of true or false, good or bad, etc., and what is alien to an order because it remains beyond its margins in a darkness that cannot be clarified with the means provided by the order. Ordering by selection and exclusion entails at the same time a transgression of the order into an extra-ordinary dimension (das Außer-ordentliche) that is revealed by means of what is possible in another order. Beyond variation and excess within one’s own possibilities, there is an excess in interpellations that expose us to a challenge of different orders. Therefore, we live in a superabundance of possibilities. 5.2. In his article »Logic of responses instead of logic of devel­ opment. On the issue of the crisis and the dynamics of culture«, Waldenfels contrasts first-order conflicts that remain within an order, and second-order conflicts that break it down (1998, 69–84). If it remains within a given order, the turning point is a mere vicissitude in which the criteria of an order are not in question, and what is at stake is their reestablishment. Confrontation can be overcome by appealing to tradition, functional reasons, and moral or legal arguments. On the contrary, if they do not subordinate themselves to the previous scheme of binary ordering, conflicts lead to the production of a new order. The logic of response articulates a mode of thought in which pri­ macy is given to the interpellation of the alien over subjective inten­ tions in order »to show what follows for the phenomenon of cri­ sis« (Waldenfelds 1998, 81). Instead of the »whereto« (Woraufhin) of intentionality, or the »according to« (Wonach) a rule in a communi­ cation community, the »what« or »whom« we respond »to« (Worauf) is highlighted. Ordinary interpellations that develop within a given order are contrasted with extraordinary interpellations that exceed this framework. Responses to ordinary interpellations are based on existing schemes, whereas responses to extraordinary interpellations must be invented and furnish more than can be found in the possi­ bilities of who responds. What is alien to our order and poses a demand is something that cannot be said or done within our order and brings forth a parallel contrast between ordinary possibilities that belong to an order and extraordinary possibilities that emerge with extraordinary interpellations (Waldenfelds 1994, 242 f., 331 f.). In summary, to a narrow sense of crisis conceived as a conflict within an existing order there is superimposed a strong sense that can lead to the establishment of a new order.

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5.3. On this view, a crisis produced by a second-order conflict can only be dealt with satisfactorily with a creative response understood as an invention that gets started in another order and hence is not limited to a modification and accomplishment of the possibil­ ities pertaining to one’s own order. In this respect, we primarily give ourselves up to something alien that radically undermines the possibility of self-development and self-preservation because it tran­ scends the fulfillment of subjective goals. As we cannot withdraw from an extraordinary interpellation, a response is unavoidable and must follow the appeal in a »pre-established disharmony«. Even if the response requires creation, there is always a »responsive differ­ ence« because we invent the »what« (Was) of our response but not the »what« or »whom« we respond »to«. Responses to extraordinary interpellations are always a subsequent moment because something alien is inserted in our life before the beginning of a process of appropriation that is never complete. This means that a third sense of crisis could be identified with the impossibility of articulating an acceptable response to extraordinary interpellations. A teleological process, therefore, cannot incorporate its consti­ tutive origins because it cannot surmount the blind point of its beginning. Instead of Husserl’s primal establishment or starting point disclosed by a backward questioning we must consider »repeated new beginnings that continue the ›same‹ always as something other«, and this »means that alterity, strangeness, and pluriformity shine forth in reason itself« (Waldenfelds 1995, 16). In contrast to the teleological Husserlian order, Waldenfels stresses a »responsiveness that does not primarily move toward something, but rather starts from something other« (1998, 81). On the evanescent condition of an interpellation that we cannot appropriate for ourselves, Waldenfels writes: »[…] we ourselves begin there where we have never been and toward where we will never be« (1998, 84).

6. Phenomenology of the political world A threefold structure can be worked out in Klaus Held’s analysis of ethos. The three moments are i) a ground provided by ethos for political discussion, ii) a downfall in the functioning of ethos, and iii) an adequate foundation for the ethos of democracy.

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6.1. Ethos provides patterns for being associated in view of com­ mon action. It is the foundation for the commonality of coexistence and reciprocal understanding, without which democratic disputation would not be possible: »Ethos builds the common ground for action in a community of human beings« (Held 2010, 105). The decision about how to act in the presence of new situations is guided by certain norms that establish how we must proceed and provide a basis for agreement. Ethos is not limited to the existence of shared standards that appear as commands, laws, or values that can be objectively represented, but also includes standards that have a pre-objective binding force because they are lived codes. This condition amounts to a primal custom that keeps away from the reach of memory and hence of the possibility of being an object of attention. In this case there is no deliberation about the establishment of an ethos by »first decisions« because its validity is always discovered and so exhibits the finitude of our being. This means that any attempt to provide a foundation for norms comes too late. In a democratic controversy, setting aside violence entails being in the mood of awe that the Greeks called aidos (Scheu in German). In this mood and corresponding to the limitation brought forth by our finitude, we feel a restriction that opens our horizons in order to offer a space for the views of others. It is primarily a passive feeling, but it does not maintain this character because efforts to act in this manner can turn it into a habituality that preserves the plurality of opinions and the subsequent tension between conflicting views. This renders possible respect for the particular world horizons of all. When ethos becomes a second nature, awe can motivate an abiding interest in keeping open a space for freedom of speech: »Awe lets human beings have the space for their appearances in the political world, and this is the fundamental political experience of human dignity« (Held 2010, 124 f.). 6.2. Held deals with »the crisis of ethos and freedom of speech« (2010, 104). The lack of a common ground afforded by the ethos hinders the coordination of different standpoints in view of the future consequences of an action. A loss of the binding force of ethos along with the notion of subjects able to move out of its control char­ acterize the modern age: »It is the case that modern subjectivism leads to a progressive loss of ethos and as a result undermines democracy from within« (2010, 113 f.). This situation has created the unfavorable impression that westernization is tied to »the progressive overcoming

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of all norms habitually lived in the ethos of a culture« (2010, 114). Furthermore, in other regions of the world, it has led to the emergence of totalitarianism and fundamentalism in an attempt to restore the lost foundations. Violence is the endeavor to impose a particular per­ spective instead of opening up to the perspectives of others with the purpose of reaching an agreed assent to political power. The space in which others can manifest themselves is seized and turned into their own by totalitarian standpoints in an attempt to force on others courses of action without recognizing and respecting their horizons. Whereas democratic political power presupposes that particular worlds are overcome and the assent of others is granted, violence entails a closure to alien horizons that obstructs the expansion of other ways of thinking. 6.3. Ethos is the condition of possibility for freedom of speech and the conflict of different points of view. Therefore, there must be a grounding of democracy that does not rest on the process of emancipation that began with modern subjectivism. Held attempts a legitimation that does not resort to the principle of subjectivity advanced since the modern age by the West. He shows that the ground for the public world of democratic living together lies in the closed world of a family, which was called oikos by the Greeks and shows a distinctive feature shared by all cultures. This distinctive feature lies in the possibility of granting space to different generative horizons and so allowing their coexistence. A conflict would annihilate the family world if it were not avoided by aidos through a feeling of reverence that makes possible an attitude of care and reciprocal solicitude between the members of generations. This means that democracy cannot be set aside as a particular phenomenon within a specific culture because it rests on the develop­ ment of the ethos of aidos which is present in all cultures as a basic experience of respect toward human dignity. The world is opened once more by means of public controversy in the democratic polis. Its openness does not remain concealed and private as is the case in a family world but has a public character because it is an open space in which citizens can obtain recognition of their particular horizons in a universal horizon that encompasses them.

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7. Interpellation Post-Husserlian phenomenology stresses interpellation. According to Heidegger, the interpellation of Being is the force that moves his­ tory. Patočka speaks of a »being interpellated« (Angesprochen-Sein) (1991, 93), the originary mode of which is given by our fixation on a place in the world by what we encounter in it. Merleau-Ponty refers to the twofold nature of the world as well established and susceptible to infinite solicitations forwarded to us (1945, 517). In Ricoeur’s view, the space of experience includes being-affected-by-the-past to which more wealth and effectiveness must be given by means of realizable expectations. Henry deals with a call to a second birth that rests on the gift of life. Waldenfels advances his logic of response, which shows a preference for creative answers. And Held highlights a reply to the incitement of awe in order to ground ethos. 7.1. This topic has been also significant for Husserl. Affection motivates the awakening of the ego and becomes the goal to which intentions are directed. It is, therefore, »the presupposition (as an appeal (Anruf), an interpellation (Anspruch)) for the ego’s act as a ›response‹ (consciousness in the strict sense)« (HuaM VIII, 191). Husserl describes a turning of the ego toward what affects it as the operation of »creating on the basis of contents that are always previ­ ous« (HuaM VIII, 350). The most important interpellation comes from the teleological nature of the community of monads. It is »the appeal of the Absolute« (der Anruf des Absoluten) (Hua XLII, 409) and concerns an origin in primal history and a goal in rational historicity. Husserl’s point is that the diversity of interpellations demands evaluation and selection in the sense of discerning their value. This means that a mediating sphere is necessary between that to which one responds and what is responded, so that the interpellation may remain as a motivation and not turn into a sort of causal influence. Therefore, the notion of responsiveness, which has been forwarded as a »transformation of the phenomenological concept of intentional­ ity« (Waldenfelds 1994, 332), has to presuppose intentionality insofar as the latter enables us to face what we might call a polymorphism of interpellations recalling the polymorphism of Being stressed by Merleau-Ponty and Waldenfels. What is needed as the first response is a guiding clue to organize further responses. 7.2. A crisis unfolds when the margins that condition actual his­ tory are overlooked. Primal history entails an interpellation directed

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to the preservation of the earth following Husserl’s statement: »In the interest of the present we cannot sacrifice eternity; to satisfy in a certain measure our needs, we cannot hand out to future generations our difficulties, intensified and ineradicable« (Hua XXV, 57). In a similar vision, Patočka has stressed that we must cease to believe that we are entitled to exploit the world without concern for its future inhabitants. We must raise the question of whether »we have the right to dispose of and exploit what during thousands of millions of years has been accumulated by the unconscious and diligent work of the suns and the stars« (1990, 324). This means that an epoch of austerity and saving must be foreseen. Present times are characterized by collective action in which a team is the owner of work and knowledge, and this state of affairs could very well call forth a sense of responsibility for coming generations if it imagined not in the horizon of simultaneity but rather in the horizon of succession. A new approach is needed with the »understanding that freedom is something negative, that the human condition does not consist only in demanding and wanting more and more, but, on the contrary in saying no, in overcoming ourselves« (Patočka 1990, 323). For primal generativity, a crisis occurs when the preservation of its uniqueness and ramification is endangered. There are shared instincts and what emerges with active reason is already contained in a previous basis that must remain untouched in order to render possible unity beyond diversity: »Passive motivation is the mother-ground (Mutterboden) of reason. […] Precisely because of this it is a potential reason, for what the intellectus agens produces is already situated in the nutritious soil« (Hua XXXVII, 332). Furthermore, primal generativity shows a ramification in the sense that there are different frameworks for its development. This articulation motivates the formation of spiritual generativities with their diverse social habitualities and cultural objectivities. The twofold character of primal generativity is the foundation for the necessity of maintaining its integrity, i.e., of excluding artificial alterations, and its diversity, i.e., of including the different trends in the styles of spiritual life. An important aspect of primal generativity is that the chain of generations develops within a homeworld. A family instinct or impulse feels pleasure in harmony and family love as the »primal form of the love of neighbor« (Urform der Nächstenliebe) (Hua XLII, 512). Following this line, as we have seen, Patočka speaks of an anchoring of existence made possible by the mediation of the Others. Thus, we are thrown in the world only

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insofar as we are accepted by Others (1991, 138ff., 218ff.). Held has also stressed the significance of family life in a homeworld. Crisis amounts to carelessness in the homeworld. At the other margin of actual history, crises originate with the endangerment of true rational historicity. Inauthentic rationalism is led astray and generates a crisis when, regarding theory, the constructions of science lose their reference to intuition and the community of scientists, and, concerning practice, normativity gets out of touch with ethical consciousness and the community of love. Husserl’s analyses in terms of idealizations and substructions in the domain of knowledge can be seen as part of a wider view in which, even if they are not explicitly mentioned with the word »crisis«, crucial events and circumstances are considered in terms of contingency and concealment of the lifeworld. 7.3. Husserl advances the idea of a teleological orientation by which mankind should develop in an axiological increase that includes the values of knowledge and brings forth an ethical community. Preservation of Earth and homeworld is paralleled by the demand not to conceal the world of immediate experience and action under a »garb of ideas«. And the acceptance in a homeworld is raised to the level of acceptance in the rational community: »It is inherent, then, to my authentic human life that I must desire not only myself as good, but also that I must desire all the community as a community of good people, and, insofar as I can, receive it in my practical circle of will and goals« (Hua XXVII, 46). Thus, all mankind should attain progressive happiness in which every human being participates by contributing to the increasing value and harmony of the whole. The categorical imperative that commands doing the best in the sphere of one’s own rational influence is extended to intersubjectivity. Husserl holds that »I can only be absolutely happy if humanity as a whole can be happy, […]«, and adds that this demands »the open horizon of a social link of love and community of work, in which all of us, on the average, advance and can help ourselves in the elevation of existence« (Hua XLII, 332).

8. Teleology Waldenfels considers that, even if it offers manifold possibilities for criticism, Husserl’s Crisis »contains a considerable force of resistance,

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which has already motivated respect in its time and its potentiality for thought is still felt to-day« (1998, 72). This potentiality must be stressed. Even if the rational teleological orientation is missing, postHusserlian phenomenology includes a certain goal-directedness that is positively considered. The descriptions of a third moment as the way of overcoming a crisis show convergences with Husserl’ views in a family resemblance that turns around attainable goals. Heidegger’s views on machination and the other beginning overlap with the crit­ icism of objectivism, Patocka’s third movement of life with the ethical community, Merleau-Ponty’s good ambiguity with the demand to enclose irrationality within a wider rationality, and Ricoeur’s initiative with a reestablishment of meanings that introduces something new. Further not too distant similarities can be pointed out. Henry connects his drive-based community in an emotional realm to Husserl’s instinc­ tive intersubjectivity (See Henry 2007, 65; Hua XV, 595 f.; XLII, 97, 133; Hua Mat VIII, 170, 259). Both standpoints outline a task intended to surmount present crises: the former points to a dimension that has to be recovered and the latter includes a goal that has to be unfolded and achieved. Waldenfels’s creative response bears resemblance with the introduction of novelty in the reestablishment of meanings, and his characterization of our position in teleology can be applied to our situation in the rational teleology of the community of monads, i.e., no participation in the beginning passively pre-given in instinct and no possibility of reaching its goal in an infinite pole. Held’s positive appraisal of the precedence of ethos over explicit norms can be con­ strued as a hint of the function of the ontological form, to which we now turn. Husserl states that »the whole historical process has a remarkable structure (Gestalt), one that becomes visible only through an inter­ pretation of its concealed, innermost motivation« (Hua VI, 9; tr. 11). He examines the »meaning of historicity of transcendental intersub­ jectivity as such« in the light of the »universal being of transcendental intersubjectivity as an ontological form«, which outlines »the horizon of authentic mankind« because it »can become guiding for the will« (Hua XV, 378 f.). The form is »pre-ontologically formed« (vorontologisch geformte) because it is latent in a previous teleological process that is driven in the final analysis by instinctive reason, and this means that »a formed horizon emerges out of the open and empty unformed horizon« (XV, 378 f.). Reflection on the meaning of the development of this inborn entelechy makes possible

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the disclosure of a scientific form in which the essential features of subjectivity and intersubjectivity are made evident. Since the Prolegomena Husserl speaks of the normative use of theoretical truths. And in a manuscript written in the thirties, he states that mankind should not consider science as an arbitrary cultural realm, but rather »as its organ for a universal practical reflection, and draw from it norms that, in the life of chance and hindrances, can nevertheless guide upwards« (Hua XLII, 489. See Hua XXVII, 9 ff.). The subsequent normative use of theoretical truths provides will with »its explicit goal, i.e., the explicit goal-directed form (Zielform), end-directed form (Zweckform) of the totality of all individual and superindividual ends (intersubjective, for the total humanity)« (Hua XV, 379). As an eidetic form is shown for mankind, it is also shown that »the world is not only actually so, but must be essentially so, […], and this means that »conditions of possibility of a harmonious valuebeing as a field of human rational praxis« must be fulfilled (Hua XLII, 333). Historical processes cannot be calculated because they are open to unexpected events that compose »the infinite realm of chance« (Hua XLII, 300). Husserl writes: »I have the evidence of power, of freedom, at once with the evidence, which does not abandon it, of the possible perturbation of my freedom, etc.« (Hua XLII, 306). Irrational contin­ gency or destiny has to do with selfishness, evil, irruption of the force of nature, and our bodily condition with its incapacities, illness, and death. With rational teleology Husserl expresses a philosophical demand. Teleology depends on the stance taken by individuals and hence on the practical comportment of the monadic community.3 Therefore, Husserl poses this question: »How can human beings live without solving the antinomy between the requirement to shape the world and the impossibility of giving an account of destiny?« (Hua XLII, 422). His view is that »heroism in persisting in spite of accu­ mulated misfortunes« (Hua XLII, 325) must be opposed to destiny, and that the adoption of a positive stance on an ever-inclusive ratio­ nality becomes a valuable example for oneself and others whenever unfortunate circumstances occur (See Hua XLII, 322 f). Furthermore, mankind should not be overwhelmed by unfavorable events because Landgrebe (1997, 99) has expressed this situation very clearly: »The question of whether ›there is‹ meaning in history cannot be, therefore, answered through a consideration of it, but only through our practical comportment«.

3

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support can be found in the chain of generativity. Husserl holds that the thought of death loses the negative connotation of a lack of value if we consider ourselves participants »in a progressively and endlessly self-preserving mankind that socializes itself freely and raises itself to an ethical socialization« (Hua XLII, 317). Regarding insertion in a generative link, Husserl stresses the attainment of a positive outcome in the course of extended periods: »Despite contingencies, practical possibilities to operate fruitfully are in general there and are probable horizons of distant effect« (Hua XLII, 325). Contingencies play the positive role of providing an adequate reason for our life if we enclose them within a realm of rationality. Husserl believes that we can deal positively with the contrast between freedom and destiny if irrationality is interpreted as a moti­ vation for a more encompassing reason: »Consequently, the active life of a community, of the whole mankind, can adopt – even if this has not happened in any previous historical reality – the unitary figure of practical reason, that of an ›ethical‹ life« (Hua XXVII, 22). Husserl has stressed emphatically this possibility. It can be remembered that the Latin-American phenomenologist Francisco Romero believed that our epoch was characterized by a »twofold crisis« in the sense that, in contrast to other moments of history, there is a real crisis and also a conscious duplicate of it that introduces a new ingredient similar to what fright or calm can provoke in a shipwreck. This splitting of a crisis in fact and problem complicates the matter. Nevertheless, a critical analysis of the origins and the internal dynamics of the crisis, which is made possible by the duplication, enables us to control the direction of the process: »This is no more than a possibility, but it is full of promises; to deny it beforehand would imply a lack of faith in human beings which would seem unjustified to me and even contradictory with the very idea of man« (Romero 1950, 78).

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References Held, Klaus, 2010: Phänomenologie der politischen Welt. Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang. Henry, Michel, 1963: L’essence de la manifestation. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. Henry, Michel, 1987: La barbarie. Paris, Grasset. Henry, Michel, 1990: Du communisme au capitalisme. Théorie d’une catas­ trophe. Paris, Odile Jacob. Henry, Michel, 2004: La crise de l’Occident. In: Michel Henry: Auto-donation. Entretiens et conférences. Paris, Beauchesne. Henry, Michel, 2007: Entretiens. Cabris, Sulliver. Landgrebe, Ludwig, 1977: Das Problem der Teleologie und der Leiblichkeit in der Phänomenologie und der Marxismus. In: Bernhard Waldenfels, Jan M. Broekman, and Ante Pazanin (eds), Phänomenologie und Marxismus. 1. Konzepte und Methoden, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp. Marx, Karl, 1953: Die Frühschriften. Stuttgart, Alfred Kröner. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1945: Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris, Galli­ mard. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1956: Les aventures de la dialectique. Paris, Gallimard. Merleau-Ponty, Mauricem 2000: Parcours deux. 1951–1960. Lonrai, Verdier. Patočka, Jan, 1981: Essais hérétiques sur la philosophie de l’histoire. Lagrasse, Verdier. Patočka, Jan, 1990: Liberté et sacrifice. Écrits politiques. Grenoble, Jérôme Mil­ lion. Patočka, Jan, 1991: Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz. Phänomenologi­ sche Schriften II. Stuttgart, Klett-Kotta. Ricoeur, Paul, 1964: Histoire et vérité. Paris, Éditions du Seuil. Ricoeur, Paul, 1985: Temps et récit. III. Le temps raconté. Paris, Éditions du Seuil. Ricoeur, Paul, 1986: Du texte à l’action. Essais d’herméneutique, II. Paris, Éditions du Seuil. Ricoeur, Paul, 1995: La critique et la conviction (Entretien avec François Azouvi et Marc de Launay). Paris, Calmann-Lévy. Romero, Francisco, 1950: El hombre y la cultura. Buenos Aires, Espasa-Calpe. Waldenfels, Bernhard, 1994: Antwortregister. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp. Waldenfels, Bernhard, 1995: Einführung. In: Edmund Husserl: Die Krisis des europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie. Weinheim, Beltz Athe­ näum. Waldenfels, Bernhard, 1998: Antwortlogik statt Entwicklungslogik. Zur Frage nach Krise und Dynamik der Kultur. In: Bernhard Waldenfels. Grenzen der Normalisierung. Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden 2. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp.

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Part B Echoes of the Crisis

Hernán Inverso

Echoes of the Crisis in Contemporary French Phenomenology

The philosophy of all times contains dark and pessimistic views about the human condition. Even the most optimistic perspectives start by diagnosing obstacles that must be overcome to improve our primal situation. Modernity multiplied these outlines, as in Spengler, Simone Weil, or the critical theory and its ideas about the return to barbarism. In this context, Husserl’s phenomenology began as a program to reach a radical foundation, conceiving philosophy as the science of all sciences. Then, it paid growing attention to elements related to the crisis of humanity, conceived as European by its location but universal by its vocation. The First World War and the fall into a second conflict traverse Husserl's texts which are increasingly concerned with the historical dimension. These issues were present in many later phenomenological strands, which were not merely connected by familiarity in their origin. In this work, I will characterize Husserl’s notion of crisis and the features that persist in the philosophies of M. Henry, J.-L. Marion and M. Richir. In this framework, I will stress the redefinitions of the notion of crisis and the views about its impact on the university as an institution primarily related to knowledge and comprehension of the world.

1. Crisis and fact sciences in Husserl Let us begin by briefly approaching some points of Husserl’s reflection on the crisis. The diagnosis of misconception based on the expansion of historicism and naturalism in Philosophy as a strict science was later complemented by an explanation of the relationship between crisis and oblivion of the lifeworld in favor of the exclusive attention to the

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facts. This attitude implies neglecting the world’s human dimension and the sciences’ role in this context. The idea of universal reason becomes confined in an isolated field of autonomous sciences, exiled from the rest of the world, which is left abandoned. In a letter from 1920, Husserl says that the war exposed the »indescribable misery, not only moral and religious but philo­ sophical of Humanity«, and in the Crisis, he talks about »our unfor­ tunate times« against which science has nothing to say (Hua XXVII, 12). Hence the crisis implies an absence of response in the face of a distressing situation. »Mere fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people (Blosse Tatsachenwissenschaften machen blosse Tatsachenmenschen)« unable to orient themselves in the complex scene of the lifeworld (Hua VI, 4). In this Husserlian notion of crisis survives the original Greek idea of the verb krino, associated with »sift«, »separate«, and from there with »judge« and »decide«. A decision becomes blocked by confusion caused by the lack of evidence. If reason is reduced to its positivist version based on mere facts, the movement of life is left behind. Thus the crisis is not an objective state of affairs, in the manner of a catastrophe, but a human impossibility produced by a paralyzing limitation of capabilities. Husserl tries to explain the origin of this situation as a prelude to thinking about a recovery of the link between reason and life. The generative dimension is a protagonist in this turn since the crisis comes from an equivocal comprehension of our historical position. History involves the relationship between the levels of proto-history, effective history, and rational history, so anchored in effective history, we should focus on the movements that connect these levels to comprehend our place and role. To do so, it would be necessary to understand the Greek origin and its survival, which implies the commitment to a broad and multidimensional meaning of truth irreducible to the mere facts. If this dimension is lost, the tradition is left defenseless and unable to face the challenges of personal devel­ opment and community life. Instead of disseminating universality, it disseminates blind calculation and confusion. Phenomenology aims to warn about the wrong paths and to recover the human dimension. In the Kaizo articles, Husserl affirms that »a rational science of man and the human community, one which might provide a rational foundation for social and political activity and even for a technically rational politics, this is entirely missing« (Hua XXVII, 6). Which should be the basis for such a task? Throughout

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his work, Husserl seeks to legitimate the philosopher's role, which, far from being useless, turns out to be essential. The philosopher is a functionary of humanity with a singular capacity for exploring historicity. Thus he can understand the primary institutions and identify the deviations that lead to inauthentic variants. The recovery of authenticity is in this field the counterpart of the commitment to a radical investigation. It brings to light the hearth of tradition and illuminates the place of each element within the Lebenswelt. The holistic view of phenomenology as the general foundation of any knowledge eludes its institutional dimension because its general aims transcend this issue. However, some scholars see Husserl’s claims in the program of philosophy as rigorous science as the origin of Heidegger’s academic project for higher education reform. This program could be the response to Husserl’s incitement to assume an active role that, as we know, in the end, turned against Husserl him­ self.1 Indeed, in his usual firm tone, as early as 1911, Husserl declared unbearable the spiritual lack of the present and claimed that even the theoretical natures would commit themselves to actions related to the future philosophical system. They should engage themselves in a philosophical activity oriented to reorganizing the relationship between philosophy, science, university, and the community. On this basis, we will review three more recent phenomenolog­ ical approaches to find in them the continuation and transformation of these ideas.

2. Crisis and barbarism in M. Henry The philosophy of Michel Henry attempted to expand the limits of phenomenology, starting from a warning diagnosis of what our time fails to detect. In his view, we are already in a situation of barbarism (1987, 1). The current angst is not the result of crisis but of barbarism and its rigid, techno-scientific order. This mechanical horizon subdues all and is almost immune to crises by emptying the meaning of this concept. If anything is a crisis, nothing truly is, and all that remains are simulacra of crisis that feed the mechanized order. This thick layer covers life and keeps it away from us. The only way to recover it is to break the layer of the mathematical model precisely through a 1

On the relationship between Husserl and Heidegger, see Inverso 2018, 111–129.

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crisis. Therefore, this crisis will not be the name for a setback of the mechanized world, but the crack that breaks it and lets life emerge. Since the crisis is something desirable, we should start by disput­ ing the usual senses. When Henry says that it is not a question of crisis but of the destruction of culture (1987, 2), he underlines the dangerous misdiagnosis philosophy has so far accepted. Philosophy has been not only functional but an active agent of alienation. Strictly speaking, recognizing of philosophy's role as the mouthpiece of a certain worldview is not novel, and there is nothing wrong with it. Henry himself points out that movements of construction and collapse are inherent to every culture. History is a tale of the rise and fall of many civilizations. However, in his perspective, the fall is different this time and threatens to sweep everything away. What is the difference? If culture is conceived as a self-transformation of life, all these rise and fall movements are within it, except for the present one. This time the downward movement is fueled by something external to life that threatens to destroy it and supplant it with a mechanical universality (1987, 6). Hence, subject, alterity, and culture must be put in crisis to save them. But how can philosophy produce a crisis? Against the philosophies of consciousness, Henry postulates a phenomenology of life in which the original relationship with the Self does not depend on the ek-static distance but is immediate and self-affective (2010, 68). Affectivity allows life -and living beings- to feel and experience themselves without the intermediation of sense or the establishment of any distance. The knowledge of life is praxis without distance and consists of the self-development of its potentialities, leaving nothing out of it (1987, 95). On the contrary, the sciences focus on objects that never capture life and its founding immanence. However, modernity has placed them as a model, and this decision has led to the inversion of culture caused by the confusion of phenomenological life with biological life (1987, 6 and 20). In the meantime, this model has grown and today it has turned humanity into a cog in its wheel. The technical developments of the last few years have given rise to a dubious feeling in many people, where the undeniable usefulness is at odds with other aspects. Many scientific developments are in fact the result of the com­ plexification of processes, so that in a sense the advance solves problems that it itself has produced. Above all, we are witnessing

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the autonomization of processes that do not have the human as the main variable, for example, in the case of artificial intelligence learning trials, where the processes are not always clear to the humans observing them, or the designs put in the hands of these devices that produce substantial improvements in times that are impossible for humans to achieve, but also in ways in which human criteria are not in the foreground. In the face of all these challenging novelties already foreshad­ owed in developments of previous decades, Henry chooses to adopt a cautionary attitude, noting that in this framework, human beings’ role is just the monitoring of scientific processes (1987, 44–46), which annihilates life. He sees this kind of self-denial of life as a symptom of insanity. Henry appeals to the Marxian critique of ideology to explain the success of this operation. In Phenomenology of Life, he outlines the alienated understanding (2010, 69), in which a set of ideal representations replaces the connections between living beings and puts everything under the sign of falsification (2010, 72). Henry reconsiders subjectivity through his denunciation of the ek-static realm and his rejection of ideologies as alienating representations. Hence, it is necessary to encourage and promote the subject’s crisis and to review the whole intersubjective sphere. Concerning the realm of intersubjectivity, in Material Phe­ nomenology Henry says that three assumptions guide Husserl's analysis in Cartesian Meditations V. First, the other is given to my experience; second, the other appears to me as a noematic appearance, i.e., as an intentional correlate. The third assumption is a conjunction of the previous points: the other is given to me as something tran­ scendent (1990, 141). Thus, alterity, as we experience it, with all the emotional elements associated with the notion of »pathos-with«, is out of consideration since a non-affective condition could not account for the affectional aspect of inter-pathetic life (1990, 41). So, this view must be put into crisis. Hence, the strategy to explain this condition is ideology. This explanation has curious aspects since ideology and its falsifying elements were present in conditions of cultural transformation prior to barbarism and thus explained other, less pronounced changes, i.e., changes within a culture that are not comparable to the cornering of the whole culture by techno-scientific barbarism. In this sense, the accumulation of intra-cultural processes brought about a situation of »leaping« out of it, in the way that Plato foresees in the allegory of

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the line in Rep. VI that the exercise of hypothesis in the noesis results at some point in the grasping of the non-hypothetical principle. Simi­ larly, in this case, the model of alienation is the basis for thinking of a further metaphysical transformation that brings about the enthrone­ ment of the »other« of culture and its »hyper-alienated« subjectivity, we might say. Subjectivity, trapped in the monitoring function, cannot step out of itself into alterity. Here again, philosophy is complicit in the problem in a way that directly affects phenomenology. Indeed, Husserl's explanation of alterity in Cartesian Meditations V is seen by Henry as a consequence of mistaken presuppositions. In Material Phenomenology, he synthesizes this approach by stressing that the other appears in my experience as an intentional correlate, in the same way as objects and, therefore, in a transcendent way (1990, 141). Hence, the affective and emotional elements of inter-pathetic life are left aside and totally ignored, considered at most as superficial ornaments and never primary aspects. Husserl's explanation in this respect lacks radicality because it repeats the scheme of objects. It does not escape the general modern worldview that universalizes the reifying parameters. The result is what Henry calls »the noematic presentation of alterity«, which is what must be put in crisis. The tool at hand lies in an immanent alternative that does not dwell on isolated subjectivities in the manner of single things but concentrates on the community as the original soil prior to individuation. Instead of transcendent individuals, Henry begins with a transcendental community beyond all objectual and perceptual features (1990, 154). He does not conceive communities as manifestations within culture, as the result of an exchange between subjects, but directly in life, in pure affectivity. They are rooted in the pathos-with, forming a single primordial community with all that exists (1990, 171–179). Henry offers as an example of this dimension the community of admirers of an artist, who have never seen each other and probably will never see each other but throb affectively in the same way as they feel what is for them the truest thing (1990, 154). He also mentions the community with the dead, who are part of our memory and affect our lives sometimes more than the living beings. At this point, Henry takes up Husserl's notion of Urstiftung, »original institution«. In this context, Husserl considers the philosophical tradition and its dialogue with the work of authors who have sometimes been dead for many

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centuries. It is indeed a community with the dead that forms the core of philosophical practice. In some cases, the bond is so strong that Husserl understands himself as part of the same vital impulse. He claims, for example, that in some sense his life and Plato's are one and the same (Hua XIV, 198; see algo Marsico and Inverso 2023). Thereby he emphasizes the link between the two, appealing to the notion of life. Beyond the differences between these perspectives, Henry follows in Husserl's footsteps, even if he quickly condemns some views connected with staticity or geneticity. Closer attention to generative studies, for which we are better prepared today by the availability of Husserl’s manuscripts, underlines the continuity between the two approaches. It should be stressed that such continuity is not restricted to details but is rooted in the general conception of philosophy, community, and subjectivity. Henry's call for crisis production is in some sense a wake-up call for the importance of Husserl's later explorations. The change of categories from »crisis« to »barbarism« to empha­ size the gravity of the problem and the attempts to radicalize some approaches do not affect the coincidences, even if Henry's view is somewhat darker. Indeed, Henry’s criticism against technoscience and its impact on life takes up Husserl’s work in the Crisis, but also draws on other contributions, including references to Freud's »uneasiness in culture« (1987, 93), the Frankfurt School's reflections on the culture industry and, of course, Heidegger's reflections on technology. All these contributions are seen in the light of the excessive growth of barbarism, understood as the separation of culture and life, which has put the human sphere at risk of disappearing. The only way out of this threat is precisely to produce a crisis, break the order that has trapped life, and put culture back into the movement of life. The mere accumulation of resources associated with productivism and life turned into work, the acceleration of processes, and the alienated exchange of messages in search of phantasmatic recognition in social networks produce nothing but anguish and subjects destroyed by the lack of meaning. To produce a crisis is to take distance from the axiology that sustains these barbaric practices that feed the self-denial of life, which only creates unemployed energy that turns on the subject in the form of anguish. Culture and its practices are the opposite of the barbaric practices that only produce »mental assistance« (1987, 142) to escape without success from boredom.

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The culture industry is not just ideology nor the dark face of Illus­ tration, in the line of the Frankfurt school, but the result of ontological monism, i.e., the consequence of a metaphysical approach. Who could produce the crisis of these views? Tradition associates this function with the university, understood as an institution primarily related to life and culture. Insofar as the university cultivates disciplines related to science but also to the humanities, it has a special sensitivity for the historical dimension that we have seen associated with the understanding of the historical meaning that frames life in the present. In this sense, its very structure nourishes techno-science but also the spaces for weighing up and valuing its role in culture. It should therefore be the space that keeps cultural practices active and safe from the alienation of life. The university should harbor cultural life created and transmitted through the chain of teachers and students over time. In certain contexts, it can be a center for the propagation of ideas that promote the vital dimension, but in Henry's perspective, this possibility is increasingly remote. The balance within the structure of universities has long been disappearing. The imaginary has been giving way to visions of the university as an organ of techno-science. The spaces for reflection linked to the humanities were at first merely decorative, having lost their capacity for effective dialogue outside their sphere, and were then progressively colonized by technical practices. Henry's criticisms should not be understood here as a superfi­ cial complaint against accreditation procedures, journal indexing, or university evaluation. None of these practices is in itself a problem and could, on the contrary, prove to be useful elements in achieving the ends of philosophy. There is nothing wrong with promoting networking, dialogue between researchers from different regions, and disseminating new ideas. His complaint points to a more basic level associated with the value that the community attaches to these developments. If the university ceases to be the heart of culture and becomes one of the many producers for the market, there is no place left for new ideas and the valuing of scientific developments. In Henry's terms, the university expels culture. It adopts an a-cultural and microcosmic perspective, which has little or nothing to offer beyond the standardized repetition of processes that are of no interest to anyone outside the specialists. The scene of intellectuals abandoning the critical function, des­ perate for their ephemeral fame in the media as spokespersons for

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some fanaticism of the moment, illustrates this situation. Indeed, techno-science has produced alternative places of apparent cultural creation that do nothing more than »create content« to maintain the current state of affairs. Even debates about science are usually a struggle of slogans associated with struggles and fanaticisms, with superficial crises that ensure the good health of the status quo. In that sense, barbarism is not a risk. It already reigns, and the clearest sign of its victory is its conversion of the university into an organ of techno-science that drags philosophy along as an ornamental and ineffective burden. This is where Henry sees the need for the philosopher to speak out. It is only when barbarism rules and techno-science appears as the only alternative that the philosopher must intervene (1987, 23). Henry's cry is precisely Barbarism, with which he tries to produce the crisis. To this end, he insists that the notions of subject, otherness, culture, community, and science must be thrown overboard, and we must start again from a safe point, not at risk of being consumed by the barbarian model: that of affection and its intimate link with life. This cry does not deny the previous work of phenomenology but seeks to be a strategy to raise the warning level. If Husserl pointed to the crisis of culture, Henry seeks to raise awareness that the problem is more serious, so much so that the crisis is desirable. Moreover, it is the last hope of life.

3. The crisis of the notion of crisis in J.-L. Marion Let us now consider the philosophy of Jean-Luc Marion, who shares the phenomenological inspiration and the ideal of radicality. His pro­ posal of a fourth reduction to the donation suggests the overcoming of the exchange model. This turn allows thematizing the event and the saturated phenomena as a parameter of phenomenality, which implies a redefinition of the notions of method, phenomenon, and subject, characterized in this context by affectivity. This proposal includes a study of the notion of crisis in Prolegom­ ena to charity: a crisis is what we do not know how to solve and what we cannot define. There are many crises: of values, economic, social, energetical, ecological, etc., which could lead us to think of a world in crisis. Against this idea, as in the case of Henry, Marion calls into question the very notion of crisis. He asserts that this multiplicity

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ruins the concept, and for this reason, we can say that the concept of »crisis« is in crisis. To study this point, he recovers Husserl’s link between crisis and judgment that we have already mentioned. Indeed, a crisis is a judgment about an imbalance, so it is not a sensation or a situation but a rational statement about a conflict. Hence, the crisis involves a decision, which includes the possibility of a solution. This leads to its characterization as a »conflictual situation analyzed as necessary, such that it is at least possible that a free decision could resolve it« (1986, 105). If this is the case, most of the time we are not in a crisis, but in a state of confusion that is not a crisis but a preliminary dark situation. The concept of crisis, then, is in crisis because we abuse it when we apply it to cases that do not involve a decision. In a global panorama of diminished choice, the crisis does not appear. Then, when is there a crisis? In the general program of a return to first philosophy, Marion appeals to this notion to explain the nature of philosophy. In The Rigor of Things, the dialogue with Dan Arbib, Marion claims that three areas, i.e., theology, painting, and language, to which his work often goes, are substantially linked to philosophy. In the case of theology, an ambiguous alliance causes polemic. It makes the relationship a crisis all the time, as is witnessed in the discussions about the so-called theological turn. In the case of painting, there is a crisis in the arts that is, in fact, a crisis of visibility. It implies a weakening of the tension between visible and invisible and a consequent compromise with poor phenomena, pauperized even more by losing the eventual dimension surrounding it. The crisis emerges »from the pressure exerted upon the unforeseen appearance of the visible according to the logic of anticipation« (1996, 34), i.e., the technique traps the forms in a kind of reiteration that blocks the unanticipated. This position includes a critique of the conceptual art that enslaves the invisible. The ready-made should reveal the unseen in ordinary objects. The tension between the autonomy of the painting and the academicism that grips it forms an antithetical pair at the root of the crisis. On the other hand, Marion sees a crisis in language, which has been dissected and separated into different functions that hinder a general understanding and cause a metaphysical disappearance of the word. We cannot find anymore the idea of logos as a way to say something about something. The precise diagnosis of the root of

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the problem reveals the crisis of these relationships that shows the permanent, decisional crisis of philosophy. However, apart from this essential plexus, other references include the crisis of vocations, which affects all social institutions, including education, law, science, arts, and the army, as well as the economic, ecological, demographic, and ethical crises that are symptoms of the same situation. What are these so-called crises, and how are they related to the characterization of the crisis in Prolegomena to charity? There is an element that complements the analysis of the crisis as a decision against antagonistic possibilities, which appeals to the Nietzschean category of nihilism understood as the devaluation of values and their substitution by others by the will to power. The value becomes a slave of the evaluator so that nihilism defines the totality of the phenomena making the world a measurable and calculable space in terms of value and profit. Here we find the link between nihilism and crisis. If the crisis indicates a decision in the face of antagonistic possibilities, nihilism and its rationality of permanent evaluation may seem at first sight an adequate attitude to face the situation of imbalance. However, Marion emphasizes that from nihilism and its evaluation of effectiveness, the future is always seen from the present and therefore causes the reiteration of that present in a sort of eternal return of the same thing. So, this is not a real decision, and it perpetuates the imbalance never responding to the challenge to unveil the terms of the crisis. Thus, »the future is emptied of anything possible because it is exhausted in its foreseeability« (2012, 166). In this framework, the event always appears as a contradiction to all rationality insofar as it deals with the impossible and unthinkable before its appearance. Thus, the nihilist view experiences every event as a crisis of the foundations and feels anguish. From this perspective, the growing sense of crisis of our time is a product of a kind of rationality that makes calculations about facts and objects and is always surprised by events that it cannot explain. Indeed, the event threatens the very possibility of prediction, and therefore the philosophies that rely on calculation and deliberation are caught in the trap of the predictable. On this point, phenomenology proves to be different. Of course, it does not foresee the event, which is impossible, but it is open to its appearance so that the event does not terrify it or paralyze it in a false notion of crisis.

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Marion's view is at first glance less dramatic than the proposals outlined by Husserl and Henry, but it shares with them the recogni­ tion of the notion of crisis as an element that allows accounting for our place in history and for the essential capability of phenomenology to understand the crisis. It incorporates Husserl’s warning against the omnipotent domain of the facts and Henry’s conception of the crisis as a philosophical task in the face of techno-scientific barbarism, but in a more relaxed way in which there are no fractures and generalized decadence but a mode of rationality unable to encounter the event. This relaxed tone does not imply complacency with the state of affairs but includes a claim about philosophy as an element that avoids the fragmentation of phenomenality peculiar to nihilism. For this reason, the approach includes a warning aligned with Henry’s ideas regarding university. This view entails a clear example of Marion's analysis of the crisis as an exercise open to the event. Indeed, he agrees about the university’s abandonment of universal ideals, but he does not see that as a signal of barbarism, but as a product of nihilism and its reign of calculation so that professional higher education competes with the traditional idea of university and imposes its mercantile logic. Faced with this scene, the phenomenologist is open to the event, and so he can explore the downfall of the universalist model in favor of professionalism, which dates back to the French Revolution, and also glimpse the ruin of the model of specialization. This new breakage has »eventual« traits that can provoke horror and fear because of the possibility that the labor market will change in a decade leaving many jobs obsolete. The jobs are no longer durable, teachable, and feasible, striking a fatal blow to the idea of a profession. Nihilism experiences this as a systemic crisis. In Marion's perspective, on the contrary, this is an event that can positively become a crisis if the philosopher overcomes the paralysis, lets the event appear, and formulates options for the future within the framework of a kind of rationality that exceeds the mere repetitive calculation. This attitude allows us to see that in the fading of the specialized education model, a new type of universal knowledge model is possible. As an alternative to the teaching of things, which »serves only to mask the impossibility of guiding (in other words educating) an individual to himself« (2013, 69), there is a crack in nihilism that shows the validity of the warnings of Husserl’s phenomenology against the formation of the »men of facts«. Unexpected and eventually, we find a return to the Cartesian roots and its commitment to a mathesis

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universalis based on the human sapientia as outlined in the Rules for the direction of the spirit. In this view, university contemplates ignorance and its primacy over knowledge and teaching. It assumes itself as a space of experience of the truth that measures what is known and what is not with an ethics of knowledge. Also, it grows in a balanced way avoiding disciplinary usurpations that constitute a form of imperialism in the sphere of knowledge. The unifying function is exercised by the type of knowledge that can overcome fragmentation and establishes a principle of unity that makes possible the epistemic community. With this turn, we go back to the task of a phenomenological foundation for the building of the sciences in Husserl’s program. It is a striking move­ ment where Husserl's diagnosis of the crisis of European humanity at the beginning of the twentieth century ends up producing a century later powerful instruments to think about the place of philosophy in a new context.

4. The crisis of meaning in Marc Richir Let us study briefly another phenomenological characterization of the crisis. Marc Richir’s philosophy, which is usually linked with this general movement because of his program of radicality, pays attention to Husserl’s Crisis but notes that those processes at the beginning of the twentieth century produced much more profound effects than those envisioned by Husserl. He detects a broad »crisis of meaning«. This aspect is crucial since Richir’s philosophy adopts as starting point not the subjectivity but the a-subjective operations of the making of sense in a framework of appropriation and affectivity in tension with an absolute transcendence. This crisis of meaning implies a »dispersion of meaning in different senses« that gives way to an encyclopedism tinged with eclecticism. Science has built autonomous strands that ignore the philosophical gaze. The result of this is what Richir calls »non-places of philosophy«, trying to reflect the absence of a valid field, the ineffectiveness of philosophy that turns to inventory tasks that elude the founding questions to imitate the cumulative procedure of the sciences. This impropriety coexists with a kind of reproduction of the weak philosophical discourse that grows in the gloomy margins of the scientific system. In an attitude of self-criticism, Richir justifies

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the distrust of science regarding philosophy because the latter has often fallen into a false discourse that hides the absence of real philosophical research. Husserl’s description of the philosopher as a functionary of humankind has in this context a peculiar tone. Richir adopts Heideg­ ger’s characterization of melancholy in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics to outline the nature of the philosophical enterprise. This analysis allows him to distinguish it from pathological melan­ choly in order to link it with boredom as an existential trait of Dasein. Melancholy is decayed fervor before the inaccessibility of the philosophical »paradise«, »that strange savage state of thought, of sensitivity and of being from which we have always returned without ever (except on very infrequent occasions) being able to trace it again« (1990, 488). The melancholic disenchantment affects even serenity (Gelassenheit). Richir’s intuition reflects the force of the notion of melancholy, as can also be seen in G. Agamben, who refers to this issue in the first part of Stanzas. The medieval thought offers him the case of accedia and its link with the recessus, the retraction, the abandonment of personal potentialities for the sake of an unattainable object that provokes a desperate paralysis of the spirit. It implies corporal and mental discomforts but at the same time artistic and creative dimensions because of the fertility of the orientation to the inaccessible for the contemplative tasks. Retraction and ungraspable objects are the essential features of the Freudian description of melancholy. Indeed, it is a combination of mourning and narcissistic regression. In the first, because of the loss of someone loved, the libido is tested by a reality that shows the actual disappearance and produces a phase of retraction and fixation on memories and objects until it is transferred to a new object. In the case of melancholy, this transference does not arrive, and the retraction in the self as the lost object of narcissism predominates. Melancholy differs from mourning, then, by its outcome, but they vary even more by its origin since while mourning follows a loss of a real object, melancholy has no such a thing, it is a loss without a lost object, in the sense of making an ungraspable object appear as lost. This means that in this configuration, the object is neither graspable nor lost, but something and everything at the same time. Let us also mentions in passing that this situation of »neither graspable nor lost« recalls the Derridean notion of »phantom« as

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being »in-between«, neither alive nor dead. The other is the paradig­ matic object of melancholy, and there is no possible mourning. The other maintains its unpresentable otherness. From Derrida’s view, melancholy is the general structure of the human being as a ghost inhabited by ghosts, which is not far from Richir’s perspective. The presence of this topic in all these philosophies stresses the shared problem, even if the solutions are diverse. In the case of Richir, the »non-places« of philosophy that reveal the crisis of meaning have as an authentic form the philosophical experience of the abyss. Philosophy nourishes itself with this abysmal dimension in its task to liberate the sense and take it beyond itself. The Husserlian functionary shows in Richir’s work his dark and melancholic side, his experience of the inadequacy between language and what remains to be said. As far as it is faced with the crisis of meaning, philosophy should underline its own wild place instead of misplaying the game of the sciences. Thus, philosophy is, as in the other phenomenological variants, a space of warning that denounces the falsification of many social mechanisms and offers an alternative realm different from the every­ day experience. This experience does not escape the fragility of existence and the intuition of the infinite. It reveals the insignificance of everyday life and awakens tedium and melancholy but makes them a signal of the emptiness of worldly devices.

5. Corollaries Let’s outline some conclusions. Oscillating between the denounce­ ment of misery and some traits of optimism, Husserl underlines that against all evils, there is only one cure. It consists of radical science founded on firm grounds and guided by a rigorous method. So he says: »Worldviews can fight each other, only science can solve this, and this solution bears the stamp of eternity« (Hua XXV, 337). It should be noted that Husserl’s philosophy enters this battle trying to ensure both free philosophical practice and the cooperative program of philosophy as a rigorous science. We know that all his efforts did not achieve to build the joint work of phenomenologists he expected. Despite his complaints, they devoted themselves to exploring the limits and margins. This explains

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the observation of P. Ricoeur, who saw the history of phenomenology as the history of Husserlian heresies. At a distance, however, it can be seen that many phenomenological proposals explore new fields keeping fundamental points among which the notion of crisis and its relationship with the function of philosophy have a central role. In this sense, the project of phenomenology as a rigorous science is alive. The new trends, far from being heresies, are new explorations of the approach’s identity.2 This is not the place to present our own views on this issue but to stress that phenomenology offers a wide range of views that can be compatible, and the case of the notion of crisis is not an exception. Without a holistic perspective and a commitment to a radical search proper to philosophy, knowledge becomes abandoned, and there is no way to let the phenomenon show itself to decide about the future. This horizon implies a real challenge for the university. In Husserl, it is the Ministry of Humanity; in Henry, the last redoubt at risk; in Marion, it is the guarantee of universality; and in Richir, the paradoxical entity that reproduces the mechanisms of technoscience but keeps the door open to the non-daily experience. The new phe­ nomenological perspectives on the crisis have in these developments, if they are comprehended integrally, relevant materials for diagnosing the discomforts of our times, unveiling mechanisms of distortion, and defining new horizons that allow us to understand the world of life.

References Agamben, Giorgio, 1977. Stanze: La Parola e il fantasma nella cultura occidentale. Torino, Giulio Einaudi (Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture, tr. Ronald L. Martinez, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1993). Henry, Michel, 1963: L’Essence de la manifestation. Paris, PUF (La esencia de la manifestación. Madrid, Sígueme, 2015) Henry, Michel, 1987: La Barbarie. Paris, Grasset (Collection Biblio Essais, 1988, PUF, collection Quadridge, 2001). Henry, Michel, 1990. Phénoménologie matérielle. Paris, PUF (Fenomenología material. Madrid, Encuentro, 2009). Henry, Michel, 2000: Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair. Paris, Seuil (Encarnación: una filosofía de la carne. Madrid, Sígueme, 2001). On the compatibility of the phenomenological lines of thought related to the so-called theological turn and the generative approaches with the Husserlian soil, see Inverso 2018. 2

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Henry, Michel, 2010. Fenomenología de la vida. Buenos Aires, Prometeo. Marion, Jean-Luc, 1986: Prolégomènes á la charité. Paris, E.L.A. La Différence (Prolegomena to Charity, Fordham University Press, 2002). Marion, Jean-Luc, 1996: La Croisée du visible. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France (The Crossing of the Visible. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2004). Marion, Jean-Luc, 2012: Le rigueur des choses. Entretiens avec Dan Arbib. Paris, Flammarion (The Rigor of Things. Conversation with Dan Arbib, Fordham University Press, 2013). Marion, Jean-Luc, 2013: The Universality of University. Communio 40.1, pp. 77–99. Marsico, Claudia and Inverso, Hernán, 2023: ›My life and that of Plato are the same‹ (Hua XIV, 198). Husserl, the origin, and the philosophical question«. In: Fausto Fraisopi and Paul Slama (eds). Phénoménologie de la question. Questions de phénomenologie. Bulletin d’Analyse Phénoménologique. Forth­ coming. Schindler, D.C., 2013: On the universality of the University: a Response to Jean-Luc Marion. Communio 40.1, pp. 77–99. Richir, Marc, 1988: Lieux et non-lieux de la philosophie. Autrement 102 (Lugar y no lugares de la filosofía. Eikasía 47, 2013). Richir, Marc, 1990: La mélancholie des philosophes. In: G. Hottos (ed). L’affect philosophe. Paris, Vrin (La melancolía de los filósofos. Eikasía 47, 2013). Ricoeur, Paul. 1958: Sur la phénomenologie. Esprit, 21, pp. 821–829. Thomson, Iain, 2003: Heidegger and the Politics of the University. Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4, pp. 515–542.

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Is life sensible? Husserl and Henry: Two Paradoxes about the Lifeworld

This article focuses on the notion of »lifeworld« from the question of its sensibility. If the lifeworld is, for sure, a sensible world, is life itself sensible? Is the return to life, as a phenomenological answer to the crisis of sciences and culture, a return to sensibility? One intends to answer this question by pointing out a paradox between two opposite tendencies of phenomenology in Husserl and Henry. If, on the one hand, they both return from the objective world of sciences to the sensible lifeworld, they also return, on the other hand, from the sensible lifeworld to life as its insensible principle. A principle from which the world is idealized again. At the core of this paradox, lies the phenomenological notion of ›life‹ – whether life is the instrument of the world’s sensibilization, or the instrument of its renewed idealization. Husserl’s project in the Crisis consists in a re-sensibilization of the world against its scientific idealization. And life first appears as the pre-scientific, natural and sensible world-life. But, on the way to this sensibilization, life insidiously comes to answer to another motive of the crisis – not the loss of interest for human experience, but the loss of an absolute ground upon which sciences could rest. Accordingly, life loses its sensible determination to become the transcendental life of consciousness that constitutes the world without being part of it. Hence the lifeworld’s renewed idealization. This paradoxical function of life is radicalized by Michel Henry in La Barbarie. Henry also intends to resensibilize the world against its scientific idealization. But, in order to do so, he does not only return to the sensible life of the world. He rather returns, from this sensibility, to its insensible principle, pushing life’s insensibility even further than Husserl, to the non-intentional point of a radical and unaltered auto-affection. The lifeworld has, as its core, life’s absolute insensibility. Hence the lifeworld’s renewed idealization.

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The second paradox implied by the phenomenological notion of ›lifeworld‹ will eventually appear as the exact reversal of this first paradoxical movement. This movement, which can be found in La barbarie, paradoxically uncloses, from life’s most insensible manifes­ tation – life’s absolute self-sufficiency – its essential and originary sensibility. This return to life’s original sensibility might well be the genuine phenomenological solution to the crisis of modernity.

1. Husserl: From Sensible Life to Transcendental Life 1.1. Sensible Life In the second part of the Crisis, Husserl explains the development of modern science as the idealization of the world. Modern science results from a twofold process of idealization. The first step of this process consists in a direct, quantitative and formal idealization of the world’s shapes. Geometry abstracts the shapes of the world from our actual experience of bodies, and constructs new ones, attaining an objective knowledge of these shapes thanks to the art of measurement. But, at this point, science reaches an objective knowledge of the world’s shapes only. Yet the shapes are given in empirical sense-intuitions: Concretely, however, the actual and empirical shapes are given, at first in empirical sense-intuition, merely as ›forms‹ of a ›matter‹, of a sensible plenum; thus they are given together with what shows itself, with its own gradations, in the so-called ›specific‹ sense-qualities: color, sound, smell and the like. (Konkret aber sind uns, zunächst in der empirischen sinnlichen Anschau­ ung, die wirklichen und möglichen empirischen Gestalten bloß als ›For­ men‹ einer ›Materie‹, einer sinnlichen Fülle gegeben; also mit dem, was sich in den sogenannten ›spezifischen‹ Sinnesqualitäten, Farbe, Ton, Geruch und dergleichen, und in eigenen Gradualitäten darstellt.) (Hua VI, 27 [30])

The scientific idealization of the world does not stop with the world’s shapes but seeks to idealize its very sensual and changeable content. Galilean science does not simply exclude the sensible qualities of the world, but objectifies them as well. The second step of this process consists therefore in an indirect, qualitative, and material idealization. If the qualitative dimension of

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sensibility does not allow its reduction to quantitative or mathemati­ cal shapes, it can be thought in a systematic relation with these shapes: »factual shapes require factual plena and vice versa« (›faktische‹ Gestalten faktische Füllen und umgekehrt fordern): What we experienced, in prescientific life, as colors, tones, warmth, and weight belonging to the things themselves and experienced causally as a body’s radiation of warmth which makes adjacent bodies warm, and the like, indicates in terms of physics, of course, tone-vibrations, warmth-vibrations, i.e., pure events in the world of shapes. (Was wir im vorwissenschaftlichen Leben als Farben, Töne, Wärme, als Schwere an den Dingen selbst erfahren, kausal als Wärmestrahlung eines Körpers, der die umgebenden Körper warm macht und dergleichen, das zeigt natürlich ‘›physikalisch‹’ an: Tonschwingungen, Wärmeschwingun­ gen, also reine Vorkommnisse der Gestaltenwelt.) (Hua VI, 34 [35])

The sense-contents or sense-qualities of the world are objectively determined by a relation of causality with pure shapes. And this causality, once entirely formalized, becomes the universal causality – »The law of causality, the ›a priori form‹ of the ›true‹ (idealized and mathematized) world, the ›law of exact lawfulness‹ according to which every occurrence in ›nature‹ – idealized nature – must come under exact laws« (Das Kausalgesetz heißt, die ‘›apriorische Form« der ‘›wahren« (idealisierten und mathematisierten) Welt, das ‘›Gesetz der exakten Gesetzlichkeit«, wonach jedes Geschehen der ‘›Natur« – der idealisierten – unter exakten Gesetzen stehen muß) (Hua VI, 53 [53]). The sensitiveness of the world’s experience is considered in abstraction from its lived quality, as being objectively determined by this universal law of causality. And the sensible world itself is emptied from its lived dimension. Husserl eventually speaks of a »surreptitious substitution of the mathematically substructed world of idealities, for the only real world, the one that is actually given through perception, that is ever experienced and experienceable – our everyday lifeworld« (vollziehende Unterschiebung der mathematisch substruierten Welt der Idealitäten für die einzig wirkliche, die wirklich wahrnehmungsmäßig gegebene, die je erfahrene und erfahrbare Welt – unsere alltägliche Lebenswelt) (Hua VI, 49 [48–49]). The lifeworld isn’t therefore the only scene upon which our everyday lives unfold. Of course, life means our own personal way of unfolding within the world – the practical, corporeal and everyday human existence. In this first sense, the lifeworld is the soil upon

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which one lives, and to which one belongs. But the lifeworld also means a world that is intuitively given. The world in which one lives is precisely the world that one senses – the world of actually experiencing intuition (der Welt der wirklich erfahrenden Anschauung) (Hua VI, 50 [50]).1 Life not only unfurls at the surface of the world, but constitutes its very thickness. It is a living intuition that confers its life to the world, the fullness of its living dimension. Life in this sense is the Plenum (Fülle) of the world. And the lifeworld is a lived-world.2 Yet, intuition cannot be understood as pure sense-data – it is not the subjective effect of an external causality. It supposes some kind of homogeneity between life and the world, their shared corporeity. The world that is lived through has an essential dimension of corporeity, as well as our essential way of living through it. »For everything that exhibits itself in the lifeworld as a concrete thing obviously has a bodily character« (Denn alles sich lebensweltlich als konkretes Ding Darstellende hat selbstverständlich eine Körperlichkeit) (Hua VI, 108 [106]). Our Leib, writes Husserl in section 28, is always present in the world, it partakes to its corporeity. Hence the essential homogeneity between the bodily world that is lived-through, and our bodily way of living-through it. Life and the world are made of the same flesh. Hence the possibility of a chiasma: the Lebenswelt is given in a Weltleben – the lifeworld in a world-life.3 This return to the sensible living of the world is the first solution that Husserl proposes to the crisis of sciences: It will gradually become clearer, and finally be completely clear, that the proper return to the naivete of life – but in a reflection which rises above this naivete – is the only possible way to overcome 1 The lifeworld means both that which is lived-in and that which is lived-through. Cf. Julien Farges’s article on that topic (2006/2, 19): »The conceptual transition from a Welt des Lebendigen to a Lebenswelt means the transition from a life that is located in the world to a life which lives the world itself, and which shapes the world as much as it is shaped by the world« (my translation). Life must be considered as the reciprocal action to shape the world and to be shaped by it, namely in its transitivity: to live is to live the world. But such a transitivity becomes ambiguous as soon as the living of the world is not worldly – or is not off the world anymore – but becomes the worldless life of consciousness that constitutes it. 2 See Hua VI, 141 [138]: »It is the spatiotemporal world of things as we experience them in our pre- and extra-scientific life« (Sie ist die raumzeitliche Welt der Dinge, so wie wir sie in unserem vor- und außerwissenschaftlichen Leben erfahren). 3 Hua VI, 51 [51]: »The world constantly given to us as actual in our concrete worldlife« (der in unserem konkreten Weltleben uns ständig als wirklich gegebenen Welt).

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the philosophical naivete which lies in the [supposedly] ›scientific‹ character of traditional objectivistic philosophy. This will open the gates to the new dimension we have repeatedly referred to in advance. (Daß der rechte Rückgang zur Naivität des Lebens, aber in einer über sie sich erhebenden Reflexion, der einzig mögliche Weg ist, um die in der ›Wissenschaftlichkeit‹ der traditionellen objektivistischen Philosophie liegende philosophische Naivität zu überwinden, wird sich allmählich und schließlich vollkommen erhellen und wird der schon wiederholt vor­ gedeuteten neuen Dimension die Tore eröffnen. (Hua VI, 59 [59])

The solution to the crisis of sciences is the return, through a first epoche, to the naivete of life, that appeared so far as sensibility – as the sensible living-through the world. But, as Husserl says already, this return to a naive life does not remain inherent to this life itself – it does not stick to the sensible thickness of the world, neither does it stick to its internal and eidetical structure. This return to the naivete of life must occur rather »in a reflection which rises above this naivete« (Hua VI, 59 [59]). Hence Husserl’s shift from sensible to transcendental life.

1.2. Transcendental Life The seeming Merleay-Pontyan tone of the second part of the Crisis is not, for sure, the predominant one. The homogeneity of life and the world in a encompassing sensibility, is immediately overcame, as occurs, at the beginning of the third part, a progressive detachment of life from the world. First, sensible life understood as Leib [living body], is defined as egological, and us as such distinguished from the other bodies as Körper [physical body] – namely, from the rest of the corporeal world.4 Sensible life then appears as an egological power and activity and, more precisely, as a kinesthetic activity. Eventually, the kinesthetic and corporeal dimension of life’s activity, appears not to be the only one.5 Life’s egological power and activity is only partly corporeal, and sensibility is only one dimension of consciousness’ activity. The world-life (Weltleben) becomes the life of consciousness (Bewusstseinsleben). 4 Hua VI, 122–123 [107]: »Thus, purely in terms of perception, physical body and living body (Körper und Leib) are essentially different«. 5 Hua VI, 110 [108]: »But being an ego through the living body (die leibliche Ichlichkeit) is of course not the only way of being an ego«.

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This distinction between a sensible and a spiritual life can be first understood as a distinction between two different dimensions of our everyday lives. Life that unfurls on the world-field is not only sensible but embraces as well our cultural, scientific and philosophical activities. But this distinction also prepares what Husserl thinks as a »great antagonism« (Hua VI, 122 [120]) between two concepts of life – the distinction between the sensible »life of the plane« (Flächenleben) that takes place at the surface of the world, and the transcendental »life of depth« (Tiefenleben) that secretly constitutes it. The very thickness of the sensible lifeworld is reduced to a surface that hides its »infinitely rich depth« – a latent and insensible life of depth, that is transcendental life. Life here is not only conscious but also operative – it is »the universal accomplishing life in which the world comes to be as existing for us constantly« (das universale leistende Leben) (Hua VI, 148 [145]). This life is reached out through a reflexive modification which »breaks through the normality of straightforward living« (Hua VI, 147 [144]) – that is, which breaks through sensibility. Once life became transcendental, thus disengaged from the world, it does not regain its sensible character. As Husserl clearly writes: »The life which effects world-validity in natural world-life does not permit of being studied from within the attitude of natural-world life« (Das die Weltgeltung des natürlichen Weltlebens leistende Leben läßt sich nicht in der Einstellung des natürlichen Weltlebens studieren) (Hua VI, 151 [148]). Transcendental life does not partake to the sensible world that it constitutes. It »stands above« it (Hua VI, 155 [152]). Life is independent from any mundane implications – hence life’s ideality. As such, it constitutes the sensible world’s own ideal validity – hence the world’s idealization. One could object that life’s transcendental synthesis is also thought by Husserl as kinesthetic. Kinesthetic processes are thought as subjective phenomena that participate to the constitution of the perceptive world. But here appears precisely the idealization of sen­ sibility. Kinesthetic movement of the bodies are thought as modes of accomplishing the objective validity of the perceptive world – the validity of a perceptive cohesion that can actually suffer a modification of validity. Here appears the substruction of the world that transcen­ dental phenomenology ends up repeating. Kinesthetic sensations are not thought as modes of our living-through the world, but in their transcendental function of validation. And the world itself is not

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lived-through: it is the correlate of an operation, the infinite totality of meaning validations.6 It is »the objective universe« (gegenständliche Universum) (Hua VI, 170 [168]). An entirely »unknown world« (unbekannten Welt) writes Husserl (Hua VI, 173 [169]), noticing the tremendous difficulty of transcendental phenomenology. Unknown, this world is not such because one does not know it – it has become on the contrary the object of a universal and apodictic knowledge. If the world is unknown, it is because one does not live in and through it. The plena of the world’s living intuition have been replaced by the objective validity that results from synthetics acts of constitution. A substitution that recalls then – although in a renewed way – the sci­ entific substitution of the lifeworld by the objective world of ideali­ ties.7 The lifeworld became – in an expression that presages Michel Henry’s future developments – life’s »self-objectification« (Selbstob­ jektivation) (Hua VI, 155–156 [153]).

2. Henry: From Sensible Life to Absolute Life and Return 2.1. From Sensible to Absolute Life In La barbarie, Michel Henry takes over Husserl’s diagnosis of a crisis of modernity, due to the Galilean idealization of the world. This idealization also consists, according to Henry, in an abstraction from the world’s sensible dimension. Not that science ignores sensations – it can measure the surface of a color and evaluates its intensity – but that it empties it from its proper reality – from its own way of livingthrough itself in a self-sensation. Considered in abstraction from life, sensation is not sensed anymore, it does not sense itself (Henry 1987, 72). The scientific emptying of sensation is the emptying of its lively dimension, of its own life, namely, of its auto-affection. From this Of course, the constitution is somehow intuitive. However, the intuition which supports the activity of constitution is not a sensible intuition. It is an eidetic one, the intuition of material essences that have been themselves constituted. 7 Of course, the world has not vanished. The world does not vanish through the universal epoche: it simply became the ›correlate of the subjectivity‹ which gives its ontic meaning and validity. It is still here, but as the pure correlate of life’s operations. It is not our world anymore, the real world that Husserl presented in the second section as the sensible world, for which the disengaged, operative and acosmic life of consciousness can ever account for. 6

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idealization, the sensible world has not vanished, but has been wrested from its sensible life, compelled to answer to insensitive laws. Which, according to Henry, is the very definition of barbarism. »A world that is aesthetic by essence, will cease to obey to aesthetic laws, such is the barbarism of science« (Un monde par essence esthétique va cesser d’obéir à des prescriptions esthétiques, telle est la barbarie de la science) (1987, 49).8 Henry therefore agrees with Husserl to retrieve the world’s sensibility. And this sensible dimension is explained from its lively principle – from the subjective and acosmic life that informs it. As Henry writes: »The lifeworld is a sensible world and […] the being-sensible ultimately rests outside of the world, in life itself« (Le monde-de-la-vie est un monde sensible et [...] l’être-sensible réside ultimement hors du monde, dans la vie elle-même) (1987, 74). Like in Husserl, life is prior to any kind of objectivity. But, against Husserl, life is also prior to any activity of objectification. Whereas transcendental life in Husserl is still engaged in its intentional operations and cannot be thought independently from the objective world that it constitutes, life in Henry is an auto-affection prior to the lifeworld’s constitution.9 If, on the one hand, life is thoroughly affective – this is Henry’s second shift from Husserl’s transcendental life – affectivity as such is insensible, understood as life’s indestructible living-through itself in an absolute auto-affection. Hence, the ambiguity of the sensible world’s affective constitu­ tion. On the one hand, the world gains its own affective dimension from life’s affectivity and is, strictly speaking, a lifeworld. »The world is a sensible world because, as a lifeworld and not as the world of a pure consciousness, it is affective in its bottom, according to the most interior possibility of its ecstatic development« (Le monde est un monde sensible parce que, comme monde-de-la-vie et non d’une conscience pure, il est affectif en son fond, selon la possibilité la plus intérieure de son développement extatique) (Henry 1987, 47).10 Henry All translations from Henry’s texts are my own. Life’s essential exteriorization through the idea of an intentional consciousness is, according to Henry, the main insufficiency of the classical approach of phenomeno­ logy. 10 Cf. Henry 1987, 34: »And this is why this world is not a pure spectacle offered to an impersonal and empty gaze, but a sensible world, not a world of consciousness but a lifeworld. That is, a world that is given to life only, which exists for life, in life, and by life« (Et c’est pourquoi ce monde n’est pas un pur spectacle offert à un regard 8

9

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intends therein to fill the world again, with its lively and affective dimension. The real being of sensation is not determined by the objective knowledge of its material movements, but by its own living-through itself (1987, 72–73). A living-through itself that, as such, supposes life’s auto-affection. In this sense, the lifeworld does not become, like in Husserl’s Crisis, an ideal pole of validities. The world’s constitution here is not a »meaning-donation (Sinngebung) and the lifeworld is affectively lived-through. However, life’s absolute self-sufficiency is not itself worldly and must get out of itself to give rise to a world. Hence the Henryan ambiguity between life’s affective impregnation of the world, and its ecstatic objectification. An objectification that still consists in a synthesis – in the affective synthesis of a manifold from the absolute identity of life’s auto-affection (1987, 51–52). A sensible content is the objectifying representation of a self-impression: »The sensitive quality is nothing but the objectification and, thus, the re-presentation of an impression whose impressional-being is the auto-impression, namely, the absolute subjectivity as life« (La qualité sensible n’est jamais que l’objectivation et ainsi la re-présentation d’une impression dont l’être-impressionnel est l’auto-impression, à savoir la subjectivité absolue en tant que la vie) (1987, 74). The world thus becomes »the identical and ideal pole« (le pole identique ideal) of perception (Henry 1987, 20)11 and loses its very vitality to fix itself in this inert and unaffected objectivity. What Henry says about the objective world applies to the sensible lifeworld: there remains »only ›things‹, only death« (seulement des ›choses‹, seulement de la mort) (1987, 49). Henry’s phenomenology repeats the scientific barbarism that he has condemned: »A world that is aesthetic by essence, will cease to obey to aesthetic laws, such is the barbarism of science« (Un monde par essence esthétique va cesser d’obéir à des prescriptions esthétiques, telle est la barbarie de la science) (1987, 49). The first paradox that one has tried to outline in Husserl and Henry is then the following: the phenomenological attempt to sensi­ impersonnel et vide, mais un monde sensible, non pas un monde de la conscience, mais un monde-de-la-vie. A savoir : un monde qui n’est donné qu’à la vie, qui existe pour elle, en elle et par elle). 11 Whether vision is sensible or intellectual does not matter, it is ecstatic and objectifying and supposes, as such, a prior relation of vision with itself – life’s auto-affection. Scientific idealities and sensible realities are lumped together in this same objectivity: as the result of life’s auto-objectification.

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bilize the world through life, against its scientific idealization, ends up idealizing the world again, from the bottom of its insensible life. If the return to an absolute life leads to the lifeworld’s objectification, the only way out of this paradox and the true phenomenological solution to the crisis appears as the recognition of life’s essential sensibility, of its indefectible intertwining with the world. And this solution can also be found in La Barbarie.

2.2. From Absolute Life to Sensible Life: the Lifeworld as a ›Corpspropriation‹ Life’s paradoxical function, in the notion of ›lifeworld‹, also goes in the opposite sense in Henry: from its idealization to its re-sensibilization. Hence a reversed paradoxical determination of life, that one will sketch as salutary. First, Henry’s thesis of life’s self-sufficiency is shattered by the thesis of its sensible desire to increase itself and feel itself always more intensely. rooted in life, in life’s incessant movement of coming-to-itself, feeling itself and thus increasing itself, culture is nothing but the totality of the pathetic answers that life strives to give to the tremendous desire which goes through it. And this answer, life can only find it in itself, in a sensibility that wants to feel more, to feel itself more intensely. (enracinée dans la vie, dans son mouvement incessant de venir en soi, de s’éprouver soi-même et ainsi de s’accroître de soi, la culture n’est que l’ensemble des réponses pathétiques que la vie s’efforce d’apporter à l’immense Désir qui la traverse. Et cette réponse, elle ne peut la trouver qu’en elle-même, dans une sensibilité qui veut sentir davantage, se sentir plus intensément. (1987, 3)

If life really meant this acosmic auto-affection, how could one explain this desire and the necessity of its cultural development? Life cannot be both self-sufficient and essentially cultural – crossed by a sensible desire to feel itself more intensely. And this desire to live-through itself is not only the mark – as Henry says – of its infinite selfaugmentation, but also the mark of its sensibility – that is, of its essential insufficiency. Secondly, Henry’s thesis of life’s acosmicity is shattered by the thesis of its practical and corporeal auto-affection. Life’s practical auto-affection reveals itself to be essentially corporeal and appears,

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against its supposed acosmicity, in its essential sensibility. »This praxis, singular and individual, is our Body« (Cette praxis déterminée, singulière et individuelle, c’est notre Corps) (1987, 80). Moreover, life’s corporeity is not egological – objecting itself a pure world of perception – but implies an external resistance. Auto-affection develops itself as the effort of overcoming the twofold resistance of the organic body and of earth itself. To such an extent that earth is livedthrough from within life – »from within the subjective and corporeal movement« (à l’intérieur du mouvement corporel subjectif) (1987, 80). If life, understood as praxis, and as being opposed to any theoretical knowledge has no relation with the world (1987, 37) understood as an objective world – the world reappears underneath objectivity as »earth« (la terre) which is interior to life’s practical development. Henry does not develop this point from the theoretical standpoint of sensation: it would shatter his very definition of life to say that auto-affection lives-through and encompasses the external content of a sensation. But he does develop it from the practical standpoint of the world’s transformation. Life lives-through the earth’s resistance and encompasses it by extending itself to it, via the instrument. The body extends to earth as well as earth extends to the body in an absolutely original »co-propriation« or »corps-propriation«: »Body and Earth are linked by a co-propriation so original that nothing ever happen in the in–front-of of a pure-outside, as an ob-ject for a theoria, as something that would be here without us« (Corps et Terre sont liés par une Corpropriation si originelle que rien n’advient jamais dans l’en-face d’un pur Dehors, à titre d’ob-jet, pour une theoria, comme quelque chose qui serait là sans nous) (1987, 82–83). This original »co-propriation« between life and the world also shatters the thesis of the world’s objectivity. Life’s self-unfolding implies the earth, and earth is always already lively. This is the genuine meaning of the »lifeworld«: »How the world is always first a lifeworld, this is what one understands a little better« (Comment le monde est toujours d’abord le monde-de-la-vie, c’est ce que nous comprenons un peu mieux) (1987, 82–83). The lifeworld is not the objectified representation of a prior and acosmic self-impression, but the original »co-propriation« between a worldly life and a lively world. It is this third dimension in which one lives, the actual thickness of our sensible existence, between depth and surface, between life’s apodicticity and the world’s objectivity.

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3. Conclusion In Husserl, as in Henry, the first phenomenological solution to the crisis of sciences and culture, is a return to the sensible lifeworld. However, from this first movement, Husserl and Henry accomplish a paradoxical movement of return, from the sensible lifeworld to its insensible life. In this process, life then undergoes paradoxical deter­ minations: sensible on the one hand, transcendental and absolute on the other hand. But this first paradoxical movement is reversed by Henry in La barbarie. In order to give rise to the sensible and practical lifeworld of culture, life needs to be recognized in its essential sensi­ bility. Eventually, one could outline another reason for Henry to reco­ gnize life’s essential sensibility. There is, indeed, another determina­ tion of life in La barbarie which contradicts its absolute self-sufficiency and invulnerability: life’s »sickness« or its essential tendency to self-negation. According to Henry, the scientific idealization of the world that explains the crisis of modernity, is a sickness of life itself, the result of its own self-destruction. For sure, life cannot be said to be both absolute and self-negating. Once again, to claim life’s essential tendency to self-destruction is to admit its sensibility. Life could be said sensible in these two senses then in La barbarie: as living-through the world originally, and as intrinsically vulnerable. Life’s ›sensibility‹, in this latter sense, would also explain the very tendency that this article intended to expose: the tendency to wrest life from the world and from its sensibility. If life frees itself from its sensibility through science – via the construction of an objective world – life also frees itself from its sensibility through phenomenology – via its pretension to absoluteness. From this perspective, the lifeworld is not only a lived world, but also a fragile world that needs to be preserved in its sensibility. The phenomenological solution to the crisis of modernity would not be, therefore, to return to the absolute and indestructible life of the world, but to return to life as the world’s essential and intrinsic fragility. A fragility that would need to be preserved, at all costs, by phenomenology.

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References Farges, Julien, 2006: Monde de la vie et philosophie de la vie. Etudes Germani­ ques 242, pp. 191–217. Henry, Michel, 1987: La barbarie. Paris, PUF.

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Topics in Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of the Crisis

1. Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl Husserl’s phenomenology had a profound influence on MerleauPonty’s thought since he attended Husserl’s Paris Lectures in 1929. During the next decade, he continued his formation with Aron Gur­ witsch, and visited the Husserl-Archives (Lefort 2010, 37 ff.). As H. L. Van Breda narrates it, Merleau-Ponty stayed in Louvain for one week in April 1939 and he was the first foreign researcher who visited them, discussing his readings with Eugen Fink who was then working on their transcription (Van Breda 1962). His reading focused on the second volume of Ideen (which would be published more than a decade later), Erfahrung und Urteil (which was published the same year by L. Landgrebe) and the third part of the Krisis (§§ 28–73), which would not be published until Biemel’s 1954 Husserliana edition. It is well known that his reading of Ideen II (specially Part 3 of Sec­ tion II) marked his entire thought, triggering -in his own words- »an almost voluptuous experience« (une expérience presque voluptueuse) (Rojcewicz-Schuwer 1993, xvi). Husserl’s analyses on Leib as center of perspective, on double sensations and kinesthesis would shape to a large extent the notion -central in his philosophy- of corps vécu (lived body), and -via his reading of the Cartesian Meditations- the notion of intercorporeality.1 Several pages of his last courses deal with the analysis of Urpsrung des Geometrie (Origin of Geometry) and Die Erde als Ur-Arche bewegt sich nicht (The Earth doesn’t Move). The concepts Husserl presented in those two texts -which Merleau-Ponty already knew and quoted in his 1945 Phénoménologie- shaped other key 1 Merleau-Ponty revisits those key paragraphs of Ideas II at length on several occasions: the second chapter of the first part of his Phénoménologie de la Perception, the article »Le philosophe et son ombre« (1960), or his courses on the concept of nature (1957).

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notions of his philosophy, such as the ones of »institution« (Stiftung) and the natural world as a horizon (Horizont) and ground (Grund) or soil (Boden). Other Husserl’s texts such as the lessons on time-con­ sciousness, Erfahrung und Urteil and Formale und transzendentale Logik are invoked several times in his work to refer to the concepts of »operative intentionality« (fungierende Intentionalität) and »pas­ sive synthesis« (see, e.g., 1945, 478–479), which he interprets in a personal and original way by linking them directly to his notion of »lived body«. Each one of these notions, their Husserlian sources and Merleau-Pontian torsions, would deserve extensive analyses such as those which have in fact already been carried out by many scholars. In this line we can mention the volume Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl, edited by Ted Toadvine and Lester Embree in 2002. The particular Merleau-Pontyan reception and appropriation of several Husserlian concepts frequently opens a controversy over MerleauPonty’s faithfulness or heresy respecting Husserl’s philosophy, as well as his continuity or critical break concerning certain key phenome­ nological tenets, even leading some scholars to wonder about his inclusion in what Herbert Spiegelberg called »the phenomenological movement« (1960). In terms of the distinction between »phenome­ nology in the broad sense« (to allude to those who don’t name themselves phenomenologists) and »phenomenology in the broadest sense« (for those who, like J. Derrida, refer to phenomenology but don’t recognize themselves as phenomenologists), Thomas Seebohm considers that even if Merleau-Ponty belongs to the first group, nevertheless he »implicitly and explicitly rejects the very principles of Husserlian phenomenology«, specially by his »rejection« of the method of reduction (Toadvine-Embree 2002, 67). Along the same lines, E. Behnke stated that »Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Husserl is simultaneously a ›writing‹ of Husserl -a writing that appropriates and develops, but also deforms and occludes« (Toadvine-Embree 2002, 32). Merleau-Ponty would not have adopted the phenomenological method and, thus, phenomenology would not be for him a research project that he continues, but only a body of texts that he interprets in a capricious way (48–49). On the opposite side of this discussion, Dan Zahavi or Sarah Heinämaa present Merleau-Ponty as a faithful follower of Husserl’s authentic thought. Thus, e.g., Zahavi states that »Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Husserl was ahead of his time [due to his early knowledge of then unpublished writings] and (…) anticipated

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results that have only much more recently been confirmed by Husserl scholarship« (Toadvine-Embree 2002, 28). In this paper I do not intend to take sides in this debate, but only to refer more narrowly to the Merleau-Pontytan reading of the Krisis to show the central importance it had in shaping certain key notions of his phenomenology, such as his proposal of an »incomplete reduction«, his conception of intersubjectivity, and his discussion of the relations between philosophy and sciences. Even if these considerations may provide some elements for the above-mentioned discussion, I find it difficult to take sides in terms of the continuity or break, fidelity or »distorsion« of Merleau-Ponty’s reading of Husserl, at least for two reasons. Firstly, to consider his reading in terms of con­ tinuity or break, faithfulness or deformation, depends in every case on the particular interpretation that each scholar advocates of Husserlian thought as a whole, and of the way its diverse dimensions and stages relate to each other. In other words, to evaluate the Merleau-Pontyan reading as authentic or inauthentic relies on a previous specification of »the only and authentic Husserl«, perhaps an impossible task to fulfil. Merleau-Ponty himself considered that task unattainable, since »philosophy is not for Husserl a system« (MPS, 402), the philosopher is a »perpetual beginner« (un commençant perpétuel) (PP, ix) and philosophy is »essentially progressive«, »an infinite meditation« (he quotes the Krisis), »an idea« in the Kantian sense: »a limit-idea which we cannot totalize but we only glimpse on the horizon of our thought« (MPS, 402; he cites the Nachwort added to Ideen I). Secondly, neither did Merleau-Ponty define himself as a faithful reader of Husserl. In the »Avant-Propos« to his Phénoménologie, his references to Husserl are mediated by the clarification that »there is a misunderstanding of Husserl with himself« (PP, viii), making it necessary to understand Husserl better than Husserl understood himself (a resonance of Kant KrV B 370 concerning Plato): »We shall find the unity of phenomenology and its true sense within ourselves. There’s no question of counting the quotations (…)« (1945, p. ii). In his Sorbonne courses, before he discussed the different stages of Husserl’s thought, he specified: We shall not present the ideas of phenomenologists according to the texts only, but also according to the intention. Here, it’s not a question of the empirical history which is limited to gathering the facts, the texts, and putting them together, but of that »intentional

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history« (as Husserl himself said) which (…) intends to discern the meaning (1988, 399). To Behnke’s remark that the Merleau-Pontyan reading of Husserl is in fact a writing, Merleau-Ponty would answer in advance that every reading of another philosopher is in itself a writing, insofar as doing history of philosophy is impossible without philosophizing (1988, 399). This fact -he continues- does not erase the difference between »a reflection on the texts« and »the arbitrary«, if he who proposes an interpretation of another philosopher strives to distinguish his own place in the dialogue, as Merleau-Ponty himself does when he acknowledges, regarding some particular subject, that he »pushes Husserl beyond the point where Husserl wanted to go« (1988, 412).2

2. Merleau-Ponty and the Crisis First of all, it is useful to precise Merleau-Ponty’s conception of the evolution of Husserlian thought, and the particular place and import­ ance he grants to the Krisis in that development. As Dermot Moran wrote: »The Crisis had a profound influence on Merleau-Ponty’s inter­ pretation of Husserl’s phenomenology (…). Merleau-Ponty tended to portray the Crisis, as if it were -in David Carr’s words- a deathbed conversion away from ›intellectualism‹ (as Merleau-Ponty called it) towards existentialism« (2012, 278). Indeed, from his early works to his last courses and writings, Merleau-Ponty observes a contrast between the first Husserl- or as he calls him, »the logicist Husserl«- and »the last Husserl«, to which he refers in terms of »existentialist«,3 but more frequently and more precisely as the Husserl of »genetic and constructive« or »generative«

2 Some of these quotations which I refer to Merleau-Ponty à la Sorbonne do not appear in this new edition of the course but in a previous one, »Les sciences de l’homme et la phénoménologie«, published in »Les Cours de Sorbonne« and edited by the Centre de Documentation Universitaire, Paris, 1952. This version was translated into Spanish as »La fenomenología y las ciencias del hombre«, trad. R. Piérola, Buenos Aires, Nova, 1977. The same considerations apply to the rest of the references to this work. 3 Phénoménologie de la Perception (317) mentions »the second period of Husserlian phenomenology, a transition between the eidetic method or logicism of the beginning, and the existentialism of the last period«.

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phenomenology, and also as »the unpublished Husserl«.4 The second period -the one of Ideen I- is thus mentioned as that of a »transition Husserl«, when the problems of the mature Husserl -particularly reduction- are formulated and anticipated, but some remnants of the »logicist« Husserl still persist. Merleau-Ponty expresses his affinity with the »last Husserl« and his critiques to the »first« one throughout his entire work. For example, in PP he states that »as long as phenome­ nology doesn’t become genetic phenomenology the offensive returns of causal thought and naturalism will be justified« (1945, 147). In a note from 1960 (Le visible et l’invisible) he refers to the contrast between Logische Untersuchungen and »the unpublished texts, where for instance the sexual instinct is considered from the transcendental viewpoint«, something that indicates a »reform of consciousness« (Merleau-Ponty 1964, 291–292). It is with this three-stage model in mind that he structures his last presentation of Husserl’s phenome­ nology in his courses at the Collège de France (1958–1960), where he intends, in his words, to »chart the path that Husserl took from ›philosophy as a strict science‹ to philosophy as ›pure interrogation‹” (Merleau-Ponty 1968, 148). Within this framework, the Krisis beco­ mes crucially important for his conception of phenomenology. This is, firstly, because the problem of crisis is not for Merleau-Ponty only the subject of the work with that title, but a problem that runs through the entire development of Husserl’s phenomenology since 1900, and maybe also »the problem of the century«: »Husserl’s philosophical effort seeks to address simultaneously a crisis of philosophy, a crisis of the human sciences, and a crisis of sciences simply, a crisis which we have not yet overcome«, he writes in 1949 (1988, 397–398). Secondly, because in the Krisis Husserl shows awareness of the problems, shifts and contradictions that run through his own phenomenology, and he tries to face them. This is particularly evident with regard to the methodological problem of reduction: »in the last book of Husserl (…) the aporias of phenomenological reduction are denounced to the point of suggesting a new mutation of the doctrine« (Merleau-Ponty 1968, 151).

4 In Phénoménologie de la Perception (i) he draws these terms from Cartesian Medita­ tions, where genetic phenomenology is developed, and generative phenomenology is only announced.

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3. The Problems of Reduction and Transcendental Intersubjectivity »Le plus grand enseignement de la réduction est l’impossibilité d’une réduction complète« (1945, viii). This is probably one of the most quoted statements from the »Avant-Propos« of Phénoménologie de la Perception, a prologue in which the echoes of Merleau-Ponty’s reading of the Krisis constantly resound. In fact, the third part of the Krisis includes a strikingly similar assertion. When referring to the paradox that men are conscious »subjects of the world« and at the same time »objects in the world« (die Menschen Subjekte für die Welt sind (…) und zugleich Objekte in dieser Welt) (Hua VI, 184), Husserl writes: »The impossibility of solving the above-mentioned paradox would indicate that a really universal and radical epoche would be unattainable« (Die Unauflösbarkeit der vorhin entfalteten Paradoxie würde besagen, daß eine wirklich universale und radikale Epoché überhaupt nicht durchführbar ist) (Hua. VI, 184). Nevertheless, this statement adopted by Merleau-Ponty as definitive, represents in the Krisis only a provisional and conditional step within a larger argu­ ment, whose general structure we need to reconstruct step by step. In the third part of the Krisis Husserl proposes »a new way to reduction«, different from »the shorter way for transcendental epo­ che« which he associates with his Ideen and calls »Cartesian« (§ 43). This latter suspended the »thesis of the natural attitude«, which takes for granted a world that is »out there« and of which the ego is a part and led »in a single leap« (in einem Sprung) to the transcendental ego which constitutes the world (Hua VI, 158). This short way had the disadvantage that the resulting ego looked »devoid of content«, and it remained unclear how could a »fundamental science« be built on that result: a transcendental philosophy which refers to the world, though differently from the way in which objective sciences do. The new way does not move forward »in a single leap«, but it adds an intermediate step. The first step of this epoché consists of discovering the »simple ›being‹ of the world« (das einheitliche Bewußtsein des schlichten ›Seins‹ der Welt) (Hua VI, 149). The various objective sciences and the diverse goals and interests that rule them, the various human-anthropological worlds, and the validity changes which affect us in everyday experience -realities and appearances-, all of this »con­ cerns something in the horizon of the world« (Welthorizont) (Hua VI, 148). The Lebenswelt is always preexisting (vorgegebene) or previous

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to all that diversity, it lies continuously beneath as a »soil« (Boden), and it always extends beyond as a »horizon«, for it is given to us in its »flowing presence« (in strömender Jeweiligkeit) (Hua VI, 148). By means of this first reduction to Lebenswelt it becomes possible to develop an unprecedented kind of knowledge which would serve as »a foundation for science, for episteme« (Hua VI, 158), a doxa that belongs to a world with its own style (Hua VI, 159), his »firm typical«, »his pure a priori«, »his nomological-essential typical«, or his own »ontology« (§ 51). Husserl sketches out some early results of his research of this novel field, a research which is ruled by a »universal a priori of correlation«, since »every entity of any sense and region« is »an index of a subjective system of correlation« (§ 48). These initial results concern perceptual experience or sensitive intuition. In it, every object appears from a perspective and refers to an internal and an external horizon, and what appears changes in correlation with subjective »kinesthetic courses« (§ 47) which are »different from somatic movements and yet strangely identical to them« (Hua VI, 164), in such a way that the perceiving ego appears strangely intert­ wined with a soma. In addition, there’s an even stranger intertwining. By the mere fact that the perception of every object involves the apperception of horizons, the perceiving ego does not exist in isola­ tion, but only »in connection« with his own past and with the other egos: »the world does not exist for isolated men, but for the commu­ nity of men«; »my experiences and acquisitions get connected to the other’s in an similar connection to particular series of experience within my experiential life«; there is an »intersubjective consonance of validity« (Hua VI, 166). Here is where Merleau-Ponty’s favourite lines appear. Husserl writes: »Subjectivity is what it is, namely an ego functioning constitutively, only within intersubjectivity« (daß Sub­ jektivität nur in der Intersubjektivität ist, was sie ist: konstitutiv fungie­ rendes Ich) (Hua VI, 175). Merleau-Ponty quotes this sentence twice in Phénoménologie de la Perception, not very accurately, stating plainly that transcendental subjectivity is intersubjectivity (1945, vii; 415). At this point of Husserl’s analysis, the paradox of »being a subject for the world and at the same time an object in the world« enters the picture. Husserl also frames it in intersubjective terms as the paradox of »humanity as constituting the world« while being simultaneously a »component of the world« (§ 54). That paradox leads to a seeming impossibility of completing the epoche, but Husserl immediately offers »the solution to the paradox«. Such is the title of § 54 (»Die

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Auflösung der Paradoxie«) which culminates with the claim that »under all circumstances … the conditions of the absolute oneness (der absoluten Einzigkeit) of the ego and its central position for every constitution (seiner zentralen Stellung für alle Konstitution) must be met« (Hua VI, 190). The ego who carries out and reaches the epoche, the »proto-Ego«, is one and irrevocable; he »encompasses« (umfasse) the world as »transcendental phenomenon« (Hua VI, 195), and »con­ stitutes from himself and within himself transcendental intersubjec­ tivity« (Hua VI, 188). Only by means of a »peculiar constitutive ope­ ration that he carries out by himself« (durch eine besondere ihm eigene konstitutive Leistung) he »declines« his unique and central place to consider himself a member of a transcendental intersubjectivity and as an ego in the world, but he never loses sight of his constituting priority (Idem). That is why in the next paragraph (§ 55) Husserl sta­ tes that »After the first epoche we need a second one; the epoche must be thus consciously transformed in a reduction to the absolute ego (…) as a functional center of every constitution« (Hua VI, 190). Mer­ leau-Ponty does not follow Husserl in his way to this second epoche, but chooses instead to remain within the paradoxes of the first one: Husserl in his last period concedes that all reflection should in the first place return to the description of the world of living experience (Lebenswelt). But he adds that, by means of a second »reduction«, the structures of the lifeworld must be reinstated in the transcendental flow of a universal constitution in which all the world’s obscurities are elucidated. It is clear, however, that we are faced with a dilemma: »one of two things« (c’est de deux choses l’une): either the constitution makes the world transparent, in which case it is not obvious why reflection needs to pass through the lifeworld, or else it retains something of that world, and never rids it of its opacity. (PP, 419)

According to Phénoménologie de la Perception, reduction does not unveil »transcendental immanence, the inherence of all phenomena to a constituting consciousness«, but it reveals instead »the simulta­ neous contact with my own being and with the world’s being« (1945, 432). And this »inhering of my consciousness in its body and its world« (1945, 403) is at the same time its inherence to intersubjec­ tivity. These formulas that characterize Merleau-Ponty’s entire philo­ sophy are in fact, as we already saw, the paradoxical results of the first reduction, but for Merleau-Ponty they cannot be overcome by means of a second reduction to a pure consciousness as the one Husserl

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subsequently proposes. In Merleau-Ponty’s view, philosophy itself consists of remaining within this Ineinander or Verflechtung relations: entrelacs and chiasme (»intertwining« and »chiasm«) are precisely the terms which provide the backbone of his last courses on Husserl and of his own outline of a »philosophy of flesh« (chair): »Ineinander des Ego« (1996, 84); »reconnaissance de participation latérale de vie et psychisme à moi (…) dans l’intentionales Ineinander du tout. C’est cette philosophie de l’interconnexion du tout que nous essayons de faire« (1996, 85).5 Ultimately, the point at issue is the meaning of the suspension or bracketing (einklammern) that is at stake in the epoche, and Mer­ leau-Ponty’s interpretation just emphasizes the fact that, for Husserl himself, this »turn« or »redirection« (re-ducere / zurückleiten) of vision (Hua I, 61), does not imply any loss, but on the contrary, an expansion of the field of research (Hua VI, 154), as well as a transition from a two-dimensional to a three dimensional life (Hua VI, 120; cf. Zahavi 2003, 46). Four years later, in his Sorbonne courses, he reiterates in the same vein that »if the philosopher must suspend the set of assertions which are implied in the effective data of his life (…), suspending them does not mean denying them, let alone denying the bond that binds us to the physical, social and cultural world« (1988, 404). This true meaning of suspension, bracketing, or contemplation »without engagement« (ohne mitzumachen), is for Merleau-Ponty the one that Husserl emphasizes in his Krisis, in which »the result of reflection is to bring us face to face to the world as we live it before reduction (Lebenswelt)« (Idem), without following Husserl to the next step in which this experience is further redirected to a constituting transcendental consciousness.6 5 Also in »Le Philosophe et son ombre« (1960) he writes: »Dans un texte prophétique de 1912, Husserl n’hésitait pas à parler d’une relation réciproque entre la Nature, le corps et l’âme, et, comme on l’a bien dit, de leur ›simultanéité‹” (Merleau-Ponty 1950, 223). The quoted text belongs to Ideas III. In Merleau-Ponty’s translation: »La Nature et le corps, et encore, entrelacée avec lui, l’âme, se constituent dans un rapport réciproque l’un avec l’autre, d’un seul coup« (Hua V, 124). [Original: »Ist ein wichtiges Ergebnis unserer Betrachtung, dasz die ›Natur‹ un der Leib, in ihrer Verflechtung mit dieser wieder die Seele, sich in Wechselbezogenheit aufeinander, in eins miteinander, konstituieren«; in Moran’s translation (2012, 278): »An important result of our treatment is that ›nature‹ and lived body (Leib), in their intertwining (Verflechtung) with each other and also with the soul, are constituted altogether in a reciprocal relationship with one another«. 6 The same can be read in La Nature: »L’attitude naturelle comme résultat constitutif va être moins à critiquer qu’à éclairer. Le rôle de la phénoménologie n’est pas tant de rompre

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Thus, whereas Husserl presents the two reductions as two com­ patible steps of the same operation, Merleau-Ponty, for his part, only sees an exclusive disjunction between them -»one of two things«, as he said-, and the same applies to his evaluation of Husserlian analyses on the experience of others. In 1949 Merleau-Ponty points out that »there are two trends in his [Husserl’s] work: 1) An attempt to gain access to the other from the starting point of the ›cogito‹; 2) A rejection of that problem and an orientation towards ›intersubjectivity‹, that is, the possibility of starting without positing the primordial ›cogito‹, from a consciousness which is neither me nor the other«, the possi­ bility of an »inter-constitution« me-other. »Later -he goes on to sayHusserl was more aware of the problem and he ended up affirming both requirements, as, for instance, when he says in his unpublished writings that transcendental subjectivity is intersubjectivity (…) but he fails to reconcile them« (1988, p. 41). Hence his frequent references to Husserl’s »oscillations«, »strabismus« or »diplopia« (cf., e.g., Mer­ leau-Ponty 1995, 103).

4. Philosophy and Psychology Merleau-Ponty indicates that another one of these »ambivalences« -that ultimately derive from the way reduction is interpreted- is the twofold Husserlian analysis on the relation between philosophy and sciences, particularly psychology. In the Third Part of the Krisis Hus­ serl notes that the failure of contemporary psychology as a science (Hua VI, 207) stems from its dualist and physicalist presuppositions: its object or theme has been mistakenly isolated as a remnant of the physical world and investigated in terms of causal laws in parallel with the model of the natural sciences. He then proposes a reform of psy­ chology based on the observation that there is »identity and difference between the psychological and the transcendental ego« (Hua VI, 209), a situation which establishes a »twinning of transcendental philoso­ phy and psychology« (Idem) as well as an »inextricable internal link between them« (Hua VI, 210).7 Thus, via a »phenomenological-psy­ le lien qui nous unit au monde que de nous le révéler et de l’expliciter« (Merleau-Ponty 1995, 102–103). 7 On this point, Merleau-Ponty underlines, Husserl went further than Heidegger, who remained within the simple opposition between philosophy and the human

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chological reduction« (§ 69) the themes of a »pure psychology« would be obtained, themes that »repeat« the fundamental features that we had previously found in the transcendental epoche and reduction, for­ mulated in pursuit of a transcendental philosophy (Hua VI, 259). The psychologist discovers that personal psychological experience is intertwined with a Leib and with a »single community of souls« (einen einzigen seelischen Zusammenhang; das intentionale Ineinander der Vergemeinschaftung ihres Lebens) (Hua VI, 258): »The universal epo­ che which really understands itself reveals that for souls in their own essenciality there is no separation« (Hua VI, 259). Yet, paralleling the second step of phenomenological reduction, the psychologist »will find later the unique absolute ego of the pure psychologist, the apo­ dictic ego« (Hua VI, 270). This »transcendental psychology« is, in Husserl’s words, »identical (identisch) to transcendental philosophy« (Hua VI, 261): »Pure psychology can only attain its own fulfilment as phenomenological transcendental philosophy« (Hua VI, 263). And this transcendental psychology sive transcendental philosophy plays the role of an »aprioristic science whose structural aprioristic concepts must be used for the wordly experience« of an empirical authentic psychology (Hua VI, 263). In his course »Les sciences de l’homme et la phénoménologie« (1952) Merleau-Ponty discussed at length the various ways in which Husserl defined the relation between phenomenology and psychology at different stages of his thought, granting particular attention to these last reflections from the Krisis. In his vision, this work leaves open a set of questions that he attempts to elucidate, among which I shall only mention two. Firstly, do any of the results of previous psycho­ logies -the ones that did not undergo the reform Husserl proposespreserve any value? Husserl seems to deny such a possibility when he states that from his new proposal every previous psychologist turns into a »debutante« (Hua VI, 249; § 71: »jeder Instituts-Psychologe ist.. nach hier Anfänger«). Nevertheless, Merleau-Ponty notes -quoting Krisis I- that Husserl in his last period »recovers the notion of Gestalt«, even if he had previously declared that school to be as natu­ ralist as the atomism against which it was formulated (Nachwort zu meinen Ideen, § 6; PP, 62–62). (In the same line we could mention the sciences, the ontological and the ontic: »Husserl, who defined philosophy as the suspension of the affirmation of the world, acknowledged the inherence of the philosopher in the world much more openly than Heidegger, who wants to study the Being in the world« (Merleau-Ponty 1996, 107).

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Krisis’ references to psychoanalysis as Tiefenpsychologie in §§ 55 and 69). In this case, Merleau-Ponty does not note a contradiction, but he thinks that the results of previous psychologies may be useful if pur­ ged of their ontological assumptions and redirected toward their true meaning. That was precisely the method he adopted in his first two works (La structure du Comportement and Phénoménologie de la Per­ ception), in which he undertook a phenomenological reinterpretation and reformulation of various empirical-psychological results. A second, deeper problem is that of the relation between pure, eidetic or transcendental psychology -whose task is considered by Husserl to be at least partially identical to phenomenology’s- and empirical psychology. If Husserl ultimately insists on distinguishing one from the other and on underlying the precedence of the former, wouldn’t he leave to empirical psychology the only function of filling in the content, the details and curiosities of a pre-established struc­ ture? (1988, 409). In Merleau-Ponty’s view, the dividing of the ter­ ritory into eidetic and empirical psychology becomes blurred from the moment a genetic phenomenology exists (Idem), but the difficulty can be traced back to previous stages of phenomenology. On the one hand, Husserl had previously observed that phenomenological essen­ ces are not exact but inexact or »morphological«; they are »fluid« concepts (Ideen I, § 74). For Merleau-Ponty, that means these essences remain »closer to the facts« than those of other sciences (1988, 410). On the other hand, Merleau-Ponty states that empirical psychology, even if it claims to be inductive, hides behind the alleged induction an imaginary variation and a Wessenschau (intuition of essence), which, in addition, Husserl himself stated that everyone exercises daily (1988, 411–412).8 Thus, philosophy and psychology are for MerleauPonty »intertwined« in a relation of »reciprocal inclusion« (»envelop­ pement réciproque«; 1988, 413), a relation in which both of them could illuminate one another by engaging in a non-hierarchical but hori­ zontal dialogue. But on this matter, as we already saw, Merleau-Ponty admits that he pushes Husserl beyond the point where Husserl wan­ ted to go.9 8 He probably refers to an assertion contained in Die philosophie als strenge Wissen­ schaft: »The intuition of essences does not hide more difficulties or mystical secrets than perception«. 9 Merleau-Ponty thinks that, on the basis of the Krisis’s analyses, similar conside­ rations would apply to biology: »la biologie reconduit toujours à des questions trans­

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References Lefort, Claude, 2010: Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In: Œuvres. Paris, Gallimard, pp. 29–98. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1945: Phénoménologie de la Perception (PP). Paris, Gallimard. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1960: Le philosophe et son ombre. In: Signes. Galli­ mard, Paris. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1995: Les idées de Husserl. In: La Nature. Notes de cours du Collège de France. Seuil, Paris. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1996: Notes des Cours au Collège de France (1958– 1959 et 1960–1961). Paris, Gallimard. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1964: Le Visible et l’Invisible. Suivi de notes de travail. París, Gallimard. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1988: Merleau-Ponty à la Sorbonne. Résumé de cours 1949–1952 (MPS), Paris, Cynara. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1968: Résumés de Cours. Collège de France 1952– 1960. Paris, Gallimard. Moran, Dermot, 2012: The Crisis in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In: Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, pp. 278–281. Rojcewicz, Richard and André Schuwer (1989). »Translator’s Introduction«. In: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Dordrecht, Kluwer. Spiegelberg, Herbert, 1960: The Phenomenological Movement, vol. 1. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff. Toadvine, Ted-Embree, Lester (eds), 2002: Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl. Dordrecht, Springer. Van Breda, Herman Leo, 1962: Maurice Merleau-Ponty et les Archives-Husserl à Louvain. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 4, pp. 410–430. Zahavi, Dan, 2003: Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford, Stanford Univer­ sity Press.

cendentales (…). La biologie consciente tend vers la philosophie« (1996, 90- 91). For his last course on Husserl he translates long passages of KrisisXXIII Beilage (supplement), where Husserl states that biology is closer to philosophy than physics and mathematics, given that it does not resort to abstractions, formalisms, symbolique techniques and logical structuring as the latter do: »la philosophie enveloppe … la physique elle-même, et quand on prend en considération les corrélats (subjectivs) elle devient philosophie absolument universelle (Krisis, p. 482–484)« (Merleau-Ponty 1996, 383–387).

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Part C The Lifeworld reconsidered

Klaus Held

Phenomenology of the Crisis and Digitalisation

Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, refers in the title of his last work, the Krisis-treatise of 1936, to a crisis of the sciences, but he actually addresses a crisis of our entire culture, the term »cri­ sis« being understood in the medical sense: In medicine the term describes a phase in the progression of a patient’s disease in which the danger of a considerable exacerbation of his state reaches its zenith. With the usage of the term crisis, Husserl assumes something of the bearing of a philosophical physician of our society, who would con­ tribute to its treatment. At the same time, in the mid-nineteen-thirties of the last century, Martin Heidegger, the second founding father of phenomenology, also saw our entire culture in great danger, although he and his mentor Husserl had already gone completely separate ways in these years. In difference to Husserl, Heidegger denies that philosophy has the task of contributing to the healing of our culture from her grave illness with a sort of diagnosis (GA 9, 389). But, because he agrees with Husserl on the basic issue of a great danger, I shall base my reflections equally on his and Husserl’s assessment of the current situation. One might object that for us the present to which these two thinkers referred roughly 80 years ago now belongs to the past. Therefore, the question asserts itself whether these two philosophers’ shared fear of a peculiar danger can still have meaning for the assessment of our age. I will demonstrate i. a. that this question can be answered in the affirmative; the danger that both thinkers saw yet per­ sists. Husserl locates it in the sciences, by which he means the modern natural sciences. These, for their part, form the basis of technology, which determines the character of our contemporary life to a great extent. Hence, the concrete answer to the aforementioned question depends upon the current state of technological development. Technology has changed fundamentally in the last few decades, because it now draws on digital electronic data processing. Digitaliza­

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tion, in this sense of the word, brings with it a truly revolutionary breakthrough in all our living conditions. Hence, I must formulate my question more concretely: Does Husserl’s and Heidegger’s appraisal of the present as an age of the most imminent danger still acquit itself well when we take this all-dominant digitalization into account? I shall arrive at an affirmative answer to this question. In connection with this, I will examine in the conclusive part of my deliberations whether Heidegger can be justified in his rejection of Husserl’s diagnosis or whether Husserl’s assuredness can be maintained, that, in the crisis, philosophy can play a salutary role, and make a therapeu­ tic contribution. Today we encounter digitalization in a great multiplicity of experiences. For an initial orientation in this variety it seems the most obvious first approach to start with that experience of digitalization which has already become an unquestioned part of normal, everyday life for the great majority of the population: the use of a smartphone. As this is a very sophisticated, intricate technical device – it is really a little computer –, it is actually quite astounding that its use could become such an unquestioned matter of course within a short time. Thus, the question asserts itself how this »wonder« became possible. I think the device was able to come into use so quickly and smoothly almost everywhere only because the population was not really surprised by it. With the smartphone, used as a mobile tele­ phone, we have the means at our disposal to take up contact with most any desired partner in conversation, wherever the one or the other may be. This control over the availability of contact came as no surprise, because in their basic attitude people were already prepared for the eventuality that everything that seemed hardly or not at all possible before might become immediately accessible today. In this vein a culture-historically new form of dating has become an unquestioned fact of everyday life for us: We take advantage of the services of professional dating-agencies on the internet, which save us the effort of more conventional practices. Via digital information channels possibilities for medical video-telediagnosis, and to a certain extent, even tele-therapy are already being realized, by which means we have access to medical help without visiting a physician personally. And sperm banks make it possible for fertile women to have children unmediatedly, namely without the inconveniences of a relationship with a masculine partner.

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Most likely, some resourceful start-up founders will add to this list of examples, for they can count on our willingness to take advantage of every technical opportunity through which something desired is placed at our immediate disposal. Thus, in time, all that with which we are concerned in the world in which we live, in the language of Husserl’s Krisis: our lifeworld, is transformed, be it the things that we need, be it our accustomed behavior patterns; it becomes a gigantic reserve of what is at our beck and call, so to speak, like unto the continually replenished stock and store of mer­ chandise in a wholesaler’s warehouse. In this sense, today everything becomes »standing-reserve« (»Bestand«, as Heidegger aptly puts it) (GA 7, 17). This observation places us before a new question, though: What drives us to make everything with which we are concerned into something immediately available, to transform it into a piece of stock in the standing-reserve? If we would have something immediately at our command, we must not leave it to itself. Even in former times, before technology, humans availed themselves, and took control of all manner of things; they kept cattle in stables, transformed the earth into arable fields, used felled trees as fuel, dammed streams to operate machines by waterpower, and so forth. With all this, though, something decisive remained outside the possibilities of possible human control, the growth of flora and fauna, the power-giving motion of water and wind, and so on. The standing-reserve arises by the complete placement of all things and behavior patterns in the lifeworld under our control. Agriculture becomes nutrition industry, the utilization of water and air becomes the thoroughly planned generation of energy, and so forth. The word »standing-reserve« might awaken the impression of a stationary stock, a reserve that is dormant, or inert. In truth, however, the standing-reserve is in constant motion, for the striving after immediate availability leads us to reach out for ever new possibilities. No longer is any space left for what is established, time-hallowed or has been passed down through generations to rest in itself anywhere. The German language has a suitable verb to describe such behaviour: namely, »stellen«. Although in the English translations of Heidegger’s texts the expression »setting upon« has established itself to some extent, we shall use the term »entrapment«. Among the many usages of the word »stellen« in German language is one to which Heidegger makes explicit reference here, namely to tree or corner an animal in

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a hunt, for example with hounds, or to corner or surround a refugee, leaving him no possible escape route. I.e. Heidegger understands the German word »stellen« as it is used in the context of a hunt: The police hunt for a criminal, to surround and entrap him, i.e. to hinder his flight. In driven hunting or shooting hunters also endeavour to control the game’s movement, ideally to keep the game from running away in all different directions by surrounding or cornering it. In this sense and usage, the verb »stellen« describes best and most accurately the relation into which we humans enter in order to absorb something into the standing-reserve. »Entrapment« (»Stellen«) occurs in many different ways. To name the aggregate of different things that belong together, the German language can coin words with the prefix »Ge«. A »Gebirge«, for instance, is a mountain range, i.e. a group of »Berge« (mountains). In this way Heidegger employs the word »Gestell« (which, in normal usage, usually means something like »framework« or »enframing«) in a way that diverges from the accustomed usage; Heidegger uses it as a collective term for the many ways of entrapment (Stellen), by which everything becomes standing-reserve. The »enframing« (»Ge-stell«) helps to explain wherein Heideg­ ger sees the great danger for our present world. The threat is not that we take things of our lifeworld, trees, streams, animals and the myriad other things, into our service; nor that we use modes of behavior for certain purposes, e. g. the writing and sending of letters for the purpose of bridging the spatial distance between the message’s author and addressee. The danger of the entrapment lies not in such functionalization of things and accustomed modes of behavior, but rather in that, through the technological achievement of placing everything at our uninterrupted disposal, an atmosphere is created in which we lose every restraint in the treatment of things and in our accustomed modes of conduct. In such an atmosphere, for example, we no longer understand why someone should hesitate to »discard« an old rustic country cup­ board with the bulky refuse, to treat it as a disposable utility item that has outlived its usefulness once it is no more than poorly suited to store household objects. It is similar with our attitude toward letters delivered by the post. Because in the age of digital, electronic data transfer we no longer need to write such letters, we renounce any such correspondence without any feeling of loss. As the entrapment no longer leaves room anywhere for the unmistakable character

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of individual things, that is, what is unmistakably their own, and accustomed ways, or customs and accustomed modes of behavior, all respect for them is lost. With the respect for the dignity of such things as the old cupboard or the joy over a letter from a beloved person we reply to this that they are »more« than what merely has a function in the world of the imme­ diately available. That at which the little word »more« aims, cannot be precisely described, but only roughly characterized as something that seems, as it were, to withdraw back into itself, away from the access of our commanding control, and to rest within itself. Thus, it possesses vis-à-vis all pieces of standing-reserve an independence by which it withdraws from the controlling power of entrapment. This withdrawal of things and accustomed modes of behavior from out of the sphere of our availing influence is not a somehow palpable or perceptible property of things, such as colour, age, size or the like, nor of modes of behavior, like fair, just, tricky, insidious or the like, but rather something that we admittedly notice, but only in such a way that it remains entirely unobtrusive, or inconspicuous. Therefore, no more can be said of this than that it escapes all commanding access. For this reason, it is advisable to restrict ourselves here to the simple usage of the noun »withdrawal« (»Entzug«). Such restraint is appropriate to the circumstance that this withdrawal itself allows no more to be said of it; it eludes even the very attempt to make statements about it. In this sense the withdrawal is also always a withdrawal which withdraws itself? It is for this reason that anyone who speaks of it is subject to the suspicion of imagining things, or »seeing ghosts«. The great danger that Heidegger sees in enframing consists in that, through the self-withdrawal of the withdrawal, we may lose any and every intimation that it is really »there«, as mysterious as this may seem. But why does the entrapment have such power that it can erase even the final remains of an intimation of withdrawal? Force of power need not necessarily consist in the corporal maltreatment of humans. Rather, it begins in those who are exposed to it being subjected to com­ mands, instructions for behavior that must be obeyed, commands that tolerate no objection. That today, in the age of digitalized technology, entrapment has the character of force in this sense becomes evident when we redirect our attention to the use of smartphones. As a small computer, this device provides me, i. a., with the opportunity to see my dialogue partner in a telephone call »virtu­

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ally« on the screen. The label »virtual« makes this occurrence appear as a normal matter of course. But it is not that at all: The image of my dialogue partner is summoned out of a distance that removes him from my view into my immediate vicinity, namely, to show itself on the present screen, and it obeys the command to appear presently and as present. This »presenting«, or visual realization, in the literal sense of the word, is an astounding occurrence; it is only made possible by a command that forces the distant to present itself in close proximity. That this order is irresistible is due to a special use of force, or power, and it is to this that the word »virtual« refers, which comes from the word virtú, a late Mediaeval Italian name for »power« or »efficacity« that in turn comes from the Latin virtus. Because the entrapment, which gives rise to the standingreserve, manifests itself concretely as a commanding, virtuality plays a crucial role in many experiences of digitalization. The virtual visual realization attains decisive significance for the entrapment through its own particular possibility for increase: That which is virtually experienced need not necessarily be anything real, i.e. anything corporeal, perceptible by the senses. It can just as well be a figment of our imagination, a product of phantasy. With this possibility the entrapment obtains a complete liberation from the withdrawal; because the phantastic image is nothing but my product, we may expect nothing to belong to it that eludes my command. Between the extremes of the visual presencing of distant realities, as in a video-telephone call, on the one hand, and the encounter with purely phantastic forms or objects on the other, there is a scale of mixed forms. For instance, I can transport myself, by putting on a pair of spectacles for the perception of virtual reality, to the location of the real occurrence of an event, for instance, a football match in a stadium, and virtually take a seat among the spectators, as if I were really present. Or – again with the appropriate visual aid – within a real, corporeally perceived occurrence, I can perceive additional, virtual elements that appear to be inserted into this reality. This entire region of such experiences that are only digitally made possible is often termed »augmented-” or »enlarged reality«. In the conclusive part of my deliberations, I shall return to this tell-tale appellation. At this point I can take up the initial question again: Can Husserl’s and Heidegger’s appraisal of the present situation as one of the utmost danger also be maintained when in our deliberations we take the state of technological development, far advanced as it has been

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through digital technology, into consideration? For the digitalized experience of augmented reality we can now answer this question in the affirmative. This great danger consists, according to Heidegger’s description, in that the respect for things and accustomed modes of behavior, through which we retain an intimation of the withdrawal, vanishes without leaving a trace. The virtual cannot be an object of awe or respect, because it is nothing other than a product of our power of command. Now, virtuality names only one of many possible variations of the experience of digitalization. The power of command that is effective in enframing and that generates standing-reserve can show itself in yet other ways than in the production of the virtual. Up until this point I have presupposed that the power of command lies in the hands of the individual human being who has the experience of digitalization, without problematizing this. But it is also possible that we relieve ourselves of this power of command by surrendering it up to some authority, body, or entity, and this can occur in two ways, for two kinds of entities can relieve us as individuals of this power. The one is a group or community of human beings who exercise this power of command together, jointly. The other conceivable entity is a technical device, however designed, that we equip with anthropoid capabilities. The former applies foremostly to the areas of mobility in street traffic and on journeys, and beyond these, to the area of the political economy. They provide us with examples of how forms of private organization can be replaced by a communal organization that uses the computing services of an alien network of computers – a »cloud«. The controversial enterprise »Uber«, prohibited in many countries, has no taxis, but acts as a go-between, or agent, by way of a digital platform to give motor vehicle owners the opportunity to work as quasi-taxi drivers. And in a similar way »Airbnb« provides real estate owners with a digital platform to offer their property for rent. And just as car owners »share« the use of their vehicles with others via »Uber«, the owners of houses or apartments are now practicing a »sharing« via »Airbnb«, by renting this property for a time to others on a world-wide market. In the future vision of the enthusiastic champions of digitaliza­ tion, the sharing incipient in the present platform economy is super­ seded by the even more radical sharing-economy, or share-economy: a forerunner of this was, for example, the agricultural cooperative. Many farms joined together and used technical equipment together

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that they had acquired jointly. According to this pattern, a future soci­ ety is conceivable in which the individuals hardly purchase anything any more for their own exclusive, private use, but each uses what he currently needs in his own individual life situation – as administrated digitally through some such thing as applications or websites. One day – according to this vision – everything that is still private property today will be available to everyone as a great pool of useful objects, to each according to his own need. In the case of street traffic, this can only function perfectly smoothly when cars drive themselves. The second possibility for us to relieve ourselves of the very activity of commanding consists in equipping technical devices with the capability to give commands digitally. For this, they must be constructed in such a way that they can receive commands with which they are so programmed that they themselves can in turn give commands. As the circumstances of receiving commands can change, a technical device that becomes a command receiver must be able to adapt the concrete execution of an order to the circumstances; thus, it must be capable of recognizing difficulties that arise through the change of circumstances, and of giving its own orders to overcome these difficulties. The term »learning ability« has established itself as a name for this. Only technical devices with the »ability to learn« can understand and process commands in the manner described. For this kind of equipping of technical devices, the term »artificial intelli­ gence« (»AI«) has now established itself. With every increase in artificial intelligence the technical devices equipped with it in the last decades have grown more similar to us humans with respect to their possible behaviors. The familiar examples of this development are computers that are capable of communication, with which the user can »speak« with questions and answers, the intelligent drone, which can follow firing orders in war and, when the situation changes, can adapt, but which is also able, for example, to deliver mail, and to make detours when necessary. One milestone of this development will be the self-driving automobile, whose mass production seems imminent. And we shall have arrived at the first peak of development when the anthropoid robot has reached this stage of production. One must be caught up in accustomed, old-fashioned ways of thinking if one cannot recognize that the restructuring of all living

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conditions via the three varieties of digitalization1 distinguished in this article: virtually augmented reality, sharing-activity and artificial intelligence – should they really come – will bless us with an incredi­ ble gain in comfort and a wealth of experience. Nevertheless, although they do not deny this progress, many respectable and legitimate authors have stated their concerns, especially pertaining to artificial intelligence, with sometimes alarming, cataclysmic depictions. It appears threatening especially when we, with our human intelligence, can no longer monitor through which algorithmic operations the computer arrives at its decisions. For example, a robot programmed strictly to further peace might decide to use violent force against us humans because we are notoriously unpeaceful. Another great danger might consist in the anthropoid robots taking over all menial labor, resulting in a permanent unemployment of the human masses who lack the skills necessary to perform more sophisticated work. The assessment of what is a really possible threat in such future prospects is not a matter for philosophy, but for empirical research in such sciences as sociology or psychology. Genuinely philosophical concerns must focus mainly on the danger that, by the power of command of the entrapment, we lose all sense of the importance of respect as an attitude toward withdrawal for our human existence. The opening question of these deliberations, whether Husserl’s and Heidegger’s assertion of gravest imminent danger can be maintained in the age of digitalization, already received an affirmative answer for the virtually »augmented-” or »enlarged reality«. We can now give the same answer for the digitalization experiences of sharing activity and artificial intelligence: The respect and awe in the face of things is endangered above all by artificial intelligence. Technical devices that rely on this, such as computers »capable of communication«, »intelligent« drones, really self-driving automobiles or anthropoid robots fascinate users so greatly that their extraordinary performance capacity is set as a standard against which normal, conventional things are measured, and this eventually dispels any last remnants of restraint before the After due consideration of the still rapid progress of ever new possibilities in digitalization, it seems that the differentiation of three variants that I have undertaken in these reflections can only be a preliminary suggestion, open for later revision. Perhaps it would be appropriate, for example, to classify the processing of data on a massive scale that cannot be recorded by conventional methods, known as »big data«, as a fourth variant. 1

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mystery of withdrawal that inspires awe in us. In difference to this, in all activities in sharing-mobility and sharing-economy, the human beings involved, with their modes of behavior, run an especially high risk of being perceived and treated as mere functional units in the sharing-network. A similar threat to the individual person is posed by the processing of data that would not be ascertainable by way of conventional methods (»big data«), when it serves to influence persons in democratic elections or online purchases. By belonging to or participating in a sharing network or another social network, such as Facebook, by participating in elections, by making modern mail order purchases – by partaking in any of these in the age of »big data«, any member of an advanced industrial state inevitably discloses so many private data to such a great extent that he is in danger of becoming a »glass person«. The data protectionists are principally right to fear this; for the last remnants of respect and for the uniqueness and irreplaceability of each individual person, the basis of that human dignity declared in the German constitution (Grundgesetz) are thus permanently lost. But this very development toward the »glass person« is so far advanced in the start-up enterprises that have arisen in the U.S.A. that the question asserts itself whether our efforts at the preservation of some core of personal data from exposure is not already too late. Are we perhaps – at least with this kind of experience of digitalization – long since so unreservedly surrendered and yielded over to the mandates of the enframing that it seems from the very beginning hopeless to believe that any response on our part could have any kind of influence or effect? Who arrives at the pessimistic conclusion that the triumph of the enframing is unstoppable and inevitable can philo­ sophically invoke Heidegger, from whose depiction of the present age I have taken over the terms »standing-reserve« and »enframing« in the deliberations above. Heidegger’s appraisal of the present situation is based on the insight that the withdrawal, displaced by the mandate-giving entrap­ ment, withdraws itself. Due to this self-withdrawal of the withdrawal, the gradual displacement of respect and awe is no occurrence that we humans could precipitate nor end through any resolution of our own. With this displacement we only conform to said self-withdrawal, whether we wish it or not. If, along with Heidegger, we make such a diagnosis, digitalization takes on something of a fateful character.

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Husserl and Heidegger both speak of the rapid change of living conditions in our time necessitating a mindful reflection (Besinnung), i.e. a halting for careful consideration, or bethinking, lest we be carried away with this flux. As Heidegger understands this »bethinking«, it must lead to the tragic insight that we cannot escape or resist enframing’s commands. And then it is but an illusion when such a philosopher as Husserl believes himself able to play the role of a physician of culture and to show the infirm society, in its crisis, the way of therapy. Therefore, Heidegger is only being consistent when, as I mentioned at the start, he rejects the diagnosis and the metaphor of the medical »crisis« that belongs to it. One observation often cited in the present discussions might also speak for an interpretation of digitalization rooted in Heidegger’s assessment: Digitalization has crept into our current life, so to speak, gradually and furtively; there was never a general political decision for the further development and application of digital technology. Thus, digitalization is in general a development that cannot be ascribed to anyone. Those critics of the times who point out that no respon­ sible party can be named, often demand vehemently that political authorities finally assume responsibility in order that digitalization might be brought under control. If we follow Heidegger, this demand amounts to nothing, for it is rooted in a failure to recognize that the non-attributability of digitalization belongs to the self-withdrawal of the withdrawal. Those who urge human beings to take responsibility for the development of digitalization are not abandoned by phenomenologi­ cal philosophy as a whole. In Edmund Husserl’s thought the notion of responsibility plays a central role. In closing, we must now turn our attention to Husserl, for I have not yet subjected the first of the varieties of advanced digitalization that I have distinguished, augmented reality, virtually »augmented-” or »enlarged reality«, to sufficient philosophical commentary. In the digitalization areas of sharing activities and the products of artificial intelligence, we are concerned with the really existing conditions, corporally perceptible things and real human beings with their actions and properties. Here we are irrevocably bound in our behaviour to the restrictions laid down for us through our real bodily existence. To put it succinctly, our behaviour is determined here by our boundedness to finitude. With the various possibilities of virtual experience we break with this boundedness to finitude in a peculiar

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way, which means that we enter into the realm of infinity. Husserl had demonstrated in the Krisis-treatise and the manuscripts that surround it that we can step out beyond the finitude of our life in the lifeworld toward infinity with a mental operation that he called idealization, an operation familiar to us from modern mathematics. Here I can only call this to mind with a brief sketch.2 We have the possibility, for instance, with a numerical series in which the value of the numbers is diminished according to a rule – for example, 1, ½, ¼, and so forth – of cognitively »running ahead« to the limit at infinity and making it an object. Such limit finding is possible in many fields, and according to Husserl, carries modern science. Although the objects thus rendered lack clear intuitability, because they are only the objectification of a limit that lies in an infinity no longer intuitable, we can nevertheless operate with them – that is, the idealizations – as if they were visible, bodily objects. When this operation becomes a routine, we forget the origin of such objects in that idealization with which we transcend the field of bodily, perceptible accessibility to experience, and thus also forget the original basis of this operation, the lifeworld. This forgetfulness leads to ever more products of idealization replacing the perceptibly experienceable, and the lifeworld, as Husserl puts it, being covered over by an ever an ever denser »cloak of ideas« (Ideenkleid), without our noticing it. The best evidence of this is the fact that we have come unquestioningly to call everything we experience in the bodily lifeworld »analogue«, that is, something that has the character of a mere »correspondence« to true reality, a reality which we in turn equate with the products of idealization. It is telling that hardly anyone finds this strange. It is an indication of the danger that the striving reach of idealization into infinity leads to a forgetfulness of the lifeworld. By indicating this danger Husserl provided us with a paradig­ matic image to illustrate that danger which arises through the virtual sort of digitalisation. We can treat virtual data as though they were something bodily and real, and thus forget their origin in our creative transcending of finitude. In a mediated way, our lifeworld, the original area of our creative operations, thus falls into oblivion. On the far-reaching significance of idealization see Held 2013 and 2018, especially 2018, the chapter »Idealisierung als Schicksal Europas« and § 6 »Lebensweltliche und idealisierte Gotteserfahrung«.

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One striking indication of this forgetfulness is the description of the virtual as augmented reality. I have already called this a »telltale« appellation, because the genuine, perceivable reality is in truth neither »augmented« nor »enlarged« by the virtual. With its produc­ tion, we rather leave finite, bodily reality, just as we did already with the products of idealization. In order to see through the self-deception that prevails here, according to Husserl, we need the aforementioned mindful reflection (Besinnung). One decisive difference between his understanding of this term and Heidegger’s, however, is that we are not hopelessly destined to lifeworld forgetfulness. This is apparent when we pose the question why modern man strives to liberate himself from his bondage to finitude. The fundamental characteristic of all our activities – actions, feelings, judgments or whatever – is, according to Husserl, their intentional constitution, i.e. their directedness toward a goal at which we wish to »arrive« with the individual action in question. The lover hopes that the beloved other may requite his love; the football player would contribute to a successful goal for his own team; the attorney is concerned in his negotiations with a satisfactory conclusion, the merchant strives for profit, and so forth. In these and innumerable other situations our behavior is guided by an intention, and once we have arrived at the goal of the intention in question, we can say that the intention has fulfilled itself. In the term »fulfillment« the word »full« can be discerned. This is what we call the opposite of empty; fulfillment is the overcoming or the avoidance of the state of emptiness. We as Westerners of today tend to identify our happiness with this sort of fulfillment, as complete and prompt as possible a fulfillment of our intentions. It can be seen that this is not a necessary matter of course, when one considers that there have been cultures at other times, and indeed are still cultures today, in which, quite contrarily, emptiness has been regarded as true happiness. One real example of this is Buddhism. Because the life of the modern Westerner is oriented toward as great a degree of fulfillment as possible, to the end of such fulfillment, he can arrive at the notion of liberating himself from his bondage to finitude, which places limitations on his striving toward fulfillment. The expansion of our intentional striving toward an infinity of fulfillment does not befall us as a destiny or fate, but as the result of an attitude that the modern Westerner assumes due to his striving toward fulfillment, heightened unto the extreme. In a mindful

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reflection we can become conscious of this attitude, and with the same reflection we can overcome the forgetfulness of the lifeworld as the background of the production of the virtual. Understood in this way, bethinking, mindful reflection can also lead us to an understanding that the fascination of the virtual can plunge us into a virtuality »frenzy« that spreads through all variations of digitalization; for it seduces us to treat each variation’s products as if they were natural givens from the normal, predigital furnishings of the lifeworld. A quite common, harmless example of this is the relation of many persons to the online weather forecasts for their hometowns: Instead of simply stepping outside and feeling and perceiving the local weather bodily, one prefers the information that can be read from the smartphone. A less harmless example is a way of treating anthropoid robots that can already be observed: If the robots have one day reached a maximum of perfection, for example, they will be able to provide their users with services of a sexual nature, the availment of which can hardly be considered appropriate to the dignity of humanity. The exhilarating frenzy of virtuality need not become an addic­ tion. Just as Husserl showed in the texts of the Krisis with the reminder of the operation of idealization that the forgetfulness of the lifeworld can be overridden, so, too, can we, through the reminder of the finally life-worldly origin of everything virtual, accept our share of the responsibility for an acceptable development of digitalization. This does not necessarily imply that the philosopher who comes to such a mindful reflection is in a position to provide concrete instructions for overcoming the lifeworld forgetfulness that comes with digitalization. The main hindrance to be feared here, as already mentioned, is the opacity of the algorithmic operations through which devices with artificial intelligence arrive at their decisions. But, in difference to Heidegger, at least in principle the possibility of exercising an influence stands open here. And thus, in the context of a Husserlian understanding of bethinking, or mindful reflection, the appeal to man’s responsibility does not come to nothing.

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References Held, Klaus, 2013: Europa und die Welt. Studien zur welt-bürgerlichen Phäno­ menologie. St. Augustin, Academia Verlag. Held, Klaus, 2018: Der biblische Glaube. Phänomenologie seiner Herkunft und Zukunft. Frankfurt a.M., Klostermann.

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Lifeworld Forgetfulness in the Digital Age Reflexions Following Husserl’s Crisis

Incidentally, it is also interesting to note: the fact that we have now in general usage begun to call the eidetically experienced world, which is thus that world which is encountered in the lifeworld as reality, ›analogue‹, taking the products of digital idealisation for reality, is an indication of the enduring validity of Husserl’s diagnosis. (Am Rande sei angemerkt: Dass man inzwischen im allgemeinen Sprach­ gebrauch die anschaulich erfahrene und deshalb lebensweltlich als Rea­ lität begegnende Welt als ›analog‹ bezeichnet, weil man die Erzeugnisse digitaler Idealisierung für die Realität hält, belegt die bleibende Aktualität von Husserls Diagnose.)1

It is well known that in his later work, the Krisis, Husserl diagnosed a crisis of meaning and orientation, a crisis that penetrates and permeates the entire modern world. Husserl finds this crisis rooted in a forgetfulness on the part of modern science, including philoso­ phy, a forgetfulness of the lifeworld as the foundation of meaning. Science and technology have since undergone a great transformation. Nonetheless, I am of the opinion that Husserl’s analyses are still applicable in our age, which is characterized by the overwhelming influence of digital media on our way of life. The growing, apparently unstoppable prevalence of digital technology in our present-day lifestyle confirms Husserl’s diagnosis strikingly. And, according to my conviction, it is not going too far, following Husserl, to assert a lifeworld forgetfulness of the digital age as well. To support this thesis, I should like to focus on the familiar con­ trast between »analogue« and »digital«, and thus Husserl’s insights into the relation between the lifeworld and the mathematical-physical Held 2018, 123 n. 64. The deeply incisive insight hinted at in these words is the impetus for the reflections laid out in this article, which are an attempt to expound and support it.

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world as a guiding thread. I suggest that we attempt in a first step to understand that the contrast analogue–digital is an aspect of the con­ trast between lifeworld and objective world that Husserl elaborated. Then, in a second step, we shall attempt to demonstrate that the fact of a contrast between these two areas does not imply that no significant parallels exist between them. For, on the one hand, digital information and models base themselves on analogue conditions, and on the other, digital models must be translated back into analogue conditions, in order that we may be able to cope with them. Obviously, we are here faced with the same connection that Husserl brought to light between lifeworldly evidences and objective scientific knowledge. Finally, in a third step, we shall broach the question of the sense in which one can speak of lifeworld forgetfulness in the digital age.

I First, then, we shall concentrate on the analogue-digital contrast and attempt to retrace it to the contrast of the lifeworld and the objective world. The analogue given or information is founded in a correspondence, a symmetry or a similarity to that to which it refers, or in other words: in »similarity relations« (Ähnlichkeitsbeziehungen) to the referent (Loleit 2004, 204). This similarity is based – in the words of the relevant literature – »on a causal relation between refer­ ent and representation« (auf einer Kausalbeziehung von Referent und Repräsentation) (Schröter 2004, 25). The information on the analogue given is, as a rule, registered on a continuous (i.e. »stepless«) scale, on which it can principally assume infinitely many values, because between any two values a mean value can always be found. This property is sometimes expressed with the term »density« (Dichte). Regarding this, let us examine a quote from the discussion concerning this topic: »density names the impossibility of analysis in discrete units. One cannot be certain that between two points in a painting that are assumed to be significant there are not also further points that might possibly prove to be significant« (Dichte bezeichnet die Unmöglichkeit der Analyse in diskrete Einheiten. Man kann nicht ausschließen, dass es zwischen zwei als signifikant angenommenen Punkten auf einem Gemälde noch weitere Punkte gibt, die möglicher­ weise signifikant sein können)« (Böhnke 2004, 173).

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In contrast, digital information is registered on a scale, i.e. scala, which contains a finite sum of discrete and separate values. For this reason, it is possible to determine digital information with com­ plete exactitude, while the determination of analogue information always floats »in approximation«. We can certainly determine any analogue information with increasing precision, but we can never attain complete exactitude; its determination remains necessarily vague and patchy. As digital technologies work with »a presegmented, fixed and necessarily finite amount of symbolic units« (einer vorseg­ mentierten, fixierten und notwendig endlichen Menge symbolischer Einheiten) (Winkler 2004, 120), they can determine their givens monosemously and with absolute precision, which makes possible their transfer, storage and copying without any blurring or distortion. In the analogue area this is impossible. We continue this overview with a particularly telling aspect of our contrast. Subjectivity and relativity are characteristic of ana­ logue givens, because they are always embedded in our perspectives, whereas digital units are independent of our perspectives, and there­ fore characterized by absoluteness and objectivity. Looking back at the points we have just covered, we can imme­ diately recognize the contrast that Husserl revealed between the givenness of the lifeworld and that of objective science: on the one side continuity and the »Heraclitus’ river«, as Husserl puts it (357), vague (22), subjective and relative (20) givenness; on the other side non-continuous, monosemous, objective, or absolute givenness. This said, it is no wonder that one speaks of clouds and waves as characteristic examples of the amorphous, continuous environment, and counterposes it to the world of computers (Winkler 2004, 119), which work with constituted, predetermined units. Again, I quote from the current discussion: »While the world is continuous, com­ plex and confusing, overwhelmingly multifarious and in perpetual flux, computers are purported to be an island of order in all of this« (Während die Welt kontinuierlich ist, komplex und verwirrend, überwältigend vielfältig und in immerwährendem Fluss, behaupten die Rechner, in all dem eine Insel der Ordnung zu sein) (Winkler 2004, 117). A hierarchy goes hand in hand with the contrast between the physical realm of the analogue and the ideal realm of the digital (Ernst 2004, 57), as also between the lifeworld and the objective world, a hierarchy that esteems the latter realm to the detriment of the former,

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that of the analogue. Images, for example, remain necessarily blurry in analogue media; but, when they go through digital technologies, they are filtered, and thus gain sharpness, distinctness, and brilliance. This does not mean, though, that digital images are merely improved analogue images. This can be exemplified in the quote: »The structure of digital images, as logical as it is technical (which might be well summarized in the compound word ›techno-logical‹), appears as a total structural mutation when compared to the structure of analogue images« (Chirollet 2015, 8). But in what does the structural distinc­ tion of digital images consist? The same author answers: »The digital images are an expression of a completely calculated, ›abstract‹ real thing, gained through multiple techno-logical procedures and numer­ ous algorithms of analysis (scanning), of quantification and of matrixbased encoding of light information« (Chirollet 2015, 17). Because digital technology frees analogue information to a great degree from all blurring and distortion, it can claim a depiction of things as they are in reality. Accordingly, digital information contains the original truth of things; analogue information, on the other hand, only an approximative character, just as the lifeworldly givens. Between the analogue and the digital there exist a contrast and a hierarchy parallel to the relations between the lifeworld and objective science. Still, all these elaborations do not yet justify any talk of lifeworld forgetfulness in the digital age. For this we shall first have to demonstrate that a significant parallel exists between the digital and the analogue, i.e. between the digital and the lifeworldly, that falls into oblivion in the digital age. This brings us to the second step in our reflections.

II We follow Husserl’s procedure. Having elucidated the contrast between the lifeworld and science in all purity in § 34, he must now do justice to their essential connectedness, and in his wake we must ask whether there is a significant parallel between the analogue and the digital. We know that it is possible to convert analogue information into digital information. This occurs by scanning and quantization: »The digitalisation of information leads to its discretization and its depiction in rows of bits, 0 or 1« (Berry, 2008, 22). In order to elucidate this

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procedure, the example of the digitalization of pictures suggests itself readily, on which the author just cited says the following: »For a picture that is a priori continuous, one must restrict oneself to a table of discrete points, every point being a finite light intensity (…). The transformation continuous-discrete is executed by means of an ana­ logue-digital converter, here the light sensor of a camera. A converter of the same type converts sounds into rows of numbers« (Berry, 2008, 22–23). The analogue information is divided up into discrete ele­ ments: »The elements can only take on certain, stair-formed, measur­ able values« (Ernst 2004, 54). But the segmenting of the information into discrete elements is, of course, »fictive« (fiktiv) (Ferjou 2016, 9), as analogue information is characterized by its continuity, such that between two points there is always an intermediary point. Only in an unending process could one run through all the points of an analogue information process. Yet digitalization restricts itself to the segmentation of continuous information in a number of discrete and finite values. And thus does it become possible to manage the infinities that lie latently in analogue information. Now, if one examines this procedure closely, one notices imme­ diately that it is nothing other than that which, according to Husserl, the objective sciences employ in order to construct their ideal objects, determinable with complete exactitude (22 ff., 359 ff.). Husserl called this procedure ›idealization‹. Klaus Held called this central notion of Husserl’s Krisis in his work in this volume. The initial point of ideal­ ization lies, as Husserl demonstrated, in the vague and subjective givens of the lifeworld. Now, the lifeworldly objects can never be determined with complete exactitude and absolute identity. Each object and each of its properties keeps itself in the horizon of a possible further precision, which can be repeated ad infinitum. The complete determination of a life-worldly thing along with its properties neces­ sitates an unending process that we can never complete as long as our experience occurs within the horizon of the lifeworld. But, with the method of idealization, one accomplishes what cannot be accom­ plished in the lifeworld. In idealization, thought transcends the eide­ tically imaginable series of increased stages of more precise determi­ nations and reaches out to an ideal boundary of complete determination that lies in the infinite and can only be thought. Thus, the unending chain of increasingly specific determination, as Husserl puts it, is »thought as having been run through« (als durchlaufen

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gedacht) (359). In this way, exacting science can construct its realm of ideal objects in which its theoretical practice keeps itself. Here it becomes apparent that the elaboration of digital infor­ mation avails itself of the same procedure, wherefore one can rightly speak of a ›digital idealization‹. The continuous analogue information, laden, as is, with infinities, is segmented by means of the binary cal­ culus. It receives, to expand on Husserl’s manner of expression, a dig­ ital cloak (51 f.). For the continuation of our reflections, then, it is necessary to note that the relation between the analogue and the digital, just as generally between the lifeworldly and the objectively scientific side, does not only occur in one direction, namely from the former to the latter, but also the other way around. For, in order that digital information may be perceived and used by human beings, it must be converted again into analogue information. This task is accomplished by the aforementioned digital-analogue converter. Thus are the digital number series of the binary calculus translated into eidetically perceptible forms, sounds and colors. This procedure is necessary, for, as Hartmut Schanze put it, »man is so equipped that he can perceive and manage ›analogue‹ signals. After digital recording, processing and distribution, a transformation of digital signals to analogue signals must take place, if necessary, by a deception of the weary eyes and ears, in order that a discontinuity may appear to them as a continuity. Downstream of every digital medium, in functional unity, is a subsequent analogue medium« ([der] Mensch ist so ausgestattet, das er ›analoge‹ Signale wahrnehmen und verarbeiten kann. Nach digitaler Aufnahme, Speicherung, Verarbeitung und Ver­ breitung ist eine Wandlung digitaler Signale zu analogen notwendig, gegebenenfalls durch Täuschung der trägen Augen und Ohren über eine Diskontinuität, die als Kontinuität erscheint. Jedem Digitalme­ dium ist stets ein Analogmedium in Funktionseinheit nachgeschaltet) (Schanze 2004, 67–68). Here, too, do we recognize a phenomenon that Husserl pointed out, referring to it as ›influx‹ (Einströmen) (115, 141 footnote, 466). The results of exact and objective science are to be taken up into the lifeworld as the total horizon and the basis of all theoretical and practical achievements.

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III After these elucidations, we can take up our initial question again: Is it legitimate to assert a forgetfulness of the lifeworld in the digital age? And, if so, in what sense is this assertion to be understood? To guard against the most natural misunderstandings, we shall remind ourselves of what Husserl means by lifeworld forgetfulness. His thesis is by no means that objective science has lost any and all relation to the world and to reality. And many researchers have indeed attempted to demonstrate that digital products always retain their referential relation to the world and to reality, even if this relation is subject to a transformation (Schröter 2004, 335–354). Husserl himself never asserted that objective science had no relation to reality. On the contrary, as has just been said, Husserl always emphasized that the final goal of objective science lies in the lifeworld as the universal horizon into which all products of human practice must flow. The decisive point in Husserl’s analysis is not that science has lost its relation to the lifeworld completely, but that science (along with philosophy) does not address this relation. This means science neglects to put the question of the ontic meaning of lifeworldly evidence and validities, as well as of their role as source and preserver of all truth, including objective, logical knowledge. (131) This forgetfulness leads to the objectivistic belief that the exact world, the world constructed by means of idealizing science were the only true and real one, although it is only a substruction of the method of idealization. Thus, as Husserl says, nature itself is believed to be mathematical prior to any methodical interpretation (53). As Husserl puts it, what is only a method is taken for true Being (52). Accordingly, who is objectivistically oriented regards the everyday lifeworld as mere appearance, in which the mathematical-physical world is only vaguely intimated (54). Such convictions are to be encountered with regard to the digital as well. Even here one is tempted to believe that the world is in itself digital and that the procedures of informatics only have the purpose of revealing this ›in-itself‹ without the support of prior evidences and validities. And it seems to me that Gérard Berry means precisely this when he declares in his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France: »Informatics constructs everything from (almost) nothing with a capability of imagination and realization. In this sense it differs fundamentally from such classical sciences and technologies

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as physics and biology, which depend first upon the observation of pre-existing and difficultly penetrable nature« (Berry, 2008, pp. 19–20). Originally digital technologies and products are based upon analogue, and hence, upon lifeworldly givens. Yet their referential relation to these falls into oblivion as soon as they have formed their digital models. And the conviction is rooted herein that the digital world has a Being ›in-itself‹, totally independent of the everyday world. In contrast to this, one regards eidetically given, analogue information as a merely subjective copy, conditioned by our mode of perception. This can be clearly gleaned from Berry’s following words: »The genesis of a continuous ›image‹-entirety out of individ­ ual image-points stands in an analogous relation to this phenomenon from the material world. Material consists of discrete atoms; yet we experience them as a quite analogue location. From our macroscopic perspective nothing develops digitally; everything only develops continuously« (Ernst 2004, 62). Just as the world, from the view of the physicist, is in its true Being mathematical, while the lifeworld is a merely subjective appearance of the same, so is the world digital in itself in the eyes of the informatician, even if we perceive and interpret it analogically.s The last remarks confirm that one can speak of lifeworld forgetfulness in the digital age, following Husserl’s diagnosis. What distinguishes Husserl’s view, however, to my mind, is that his critique for him never has the motive of assuming an anti-scientific attitude which would amount to a rejection of the achievements of modern science. Nor does he intend here a quixotic opposition to digital technolo­ gies. The forgetfulness of the lifeworld as the meaningful foundation of digital technologies and the belief of a digital world extant in itself must not be taken as a motive for the rejection of the achievements of digital technologies. Yet it is nonetheless of the utmost necessity to accompany them with a critical reflection that keeps their original motivations alive and their meaningful relation to the lifeworld visible. It would be the task of such a critical reflection to relate the digital realm back to the horizons of the lifeworld, lest the digital realm become an autonomous fiefdom, subject only to its own rules and dynamics, exacerbating the crisis of sense and orientation in present-day life.

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References Berry, Gérard, 2008: Porquoi et comment le monde devient numérique. Paris, Collège de France. Böhnke, Alexander, 2004: Digital/Analog -typologisch. In: Alexander Böhnke and Jens Schröter (eds). Analog/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterscheidung. Bielefeld, Transcript, pp. 169–190. Chirollet, Jean-Claude, 2015: Penser la photographie numérique. Paris, L'Har­ mattan. Ernst, Wolfgang, 2004: Den A/D-Umbruch aktiv denken. In: Alexander Böhnke and Jens Schröter (eds). Analog/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterscheidung. Bielefeld, Transcript, 49–65. Ferjou, Céline, 2016: La télévision numérique. Paris, L'Harmattan. Held, Klaus, 2018: Der biblische Glaube. Phänomenologie seiner Herkunft und Zukunft. Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann. Loleit, Simone, 2004: The Mere Digital Process of Turning over Leaves. Zur Wort- und Begriffsgeschichte von »digital«. In: Alexander Böhnke und Jens Schröter (eds). Analog/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterscheidung. Bielefeld, Transcript, pp. 193–214. Schanze, Helmut, 2004. Gibt es ein digitales Apriori? In: Alexander Böhnke und Jens Schröter (eds). Analog/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterscheidung. Bielefeld, Transcript, pp. 67–79. Schröter, Jens, 2004: Analog/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? In: Alexander Böhnke und Jens Schröter (eds): Analog/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterscheidung. Bielefeld, Transcript, pp. 7–30. Schröter, Jens, 2004: Das Ende der Welt. Analoge vs. digitale Bilder – mehr oder weniger Realität. In: Alexander Böhnke und Jens Schröter (Hg.): Ana­ log/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterscheidung. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 335–354. Winkler, Hartmut, 2004: Medienmentalitäten. Analog und digital unter Gen­ der-Aspekt. In: Alexander Böhnke and Jens Schröter (eds): Analog/Digital – Opposition oder Kontinuum? Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Unterschei­ dung. Bielefeld, Transcript, pp. 117–134.

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Crisis and the Unconscious: Another Look at the Lifeworld

1. Husserl and the Crisis of European Humanity In his last published work, the Crisis of the European Sciences, Husserl introduces the question of the »lifeworld« (Lebenswelt) in connection with his diagnosis of a crisis in the modern sciences and in opposition to the self-understanding these sciences have of the ›world‹ and also of consciousness. What does it mean that the sciences are »in a crisis«? Husserl discusses two senses of this expression.1 In a first sense, internal to science itself, there can be a crisis if »its genuine scientific character, the whole manner in which it has set its task and developed a methodology for it, has become questionable« (Hua VI, 1 [3]). To this possibility, the objection can be advanced that such a questioning is groundless, not only with regard to the exact natural but also to the human sciences. But in a second sense, which is not internal to the practice of science, it is still possible to say that there is a crisis because science no more deals with the most essential questions of human existence, those questions that are »decisive for a genuine humanity« (Hua VI, 3–4 [6]). Despite the theoretical achievements and the material ›prosperity‹ modern sciences have brought about, Husserl claims that they have been progressively losing sense for human life. This is so because the very demand for objectivity that characterizes them has eventually led them to abandon any reference to the specific problems and concerns of humankind. Moreover, not only natural sciences examine things as mere things, but also human sciences consider human beings and their affairs ultimately in terms of mere factuality. Husserl summarizes this situation with I will not engage now in recent debate on precisely this topic; instead, I will just confine myself to outlining what Husserl himself states in the Crisis.

1

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the well-known words: »Merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people« (Hua VI, 4 [6]). Now once this preliminary diagnosis on the crisis is established, Husserl proceeds to examine its origins. He first observes that modern science has not always been »positivistic«, that is, it has not always been the case that the most fundamental problems of humankind were banned from its agenda. He then traces the modern project of knowledge back to its historical sources in the Renaissance, and more precisely to Galileo for science and to Descartes for philosophy. That project was governed by the idea of an all-encompassing science, a mathesis universalis intended to bear the unity of a theoretical system, under which »all meaningful questions in a rigorous scientific manner, with an apodictically intelligible methodology, in an unend­ ing but rationally ordered progress of inquiry« could be posed. This founding project should ultimately mean for man to »freely giving oneself, one’s whole life, its rule through pure reason or through philosophy«. As such, it would embrace not only a theoretical side, in the way of an autonomous vision of the world, one »unfettered by myth and the whole tradition«, but also – and more decisively – a practical aspect, a reshaping not only of the individual in ethical terms, but also of the political and social existence of humankind, and more precisely »through the insights of a universal philosophy«. This project would therefore involve a complete reformulation of the very notion of reason in all its dimensions, theoretical and practical, in reference to both pure knowledge and ethical action, a renovation, as Husserl claims in other texts. Seen from this point of view, the positivistic concept of science which has been dominating our time is a »residual concept«, for it has dropped all the questions concerning metaphysics, namely the questions that have the notion of reason as their theme. That is why Husserl declares that Positivism »decap­ itates philosophy« (Hua VI, 6–7 [8–9]). And this »decapitation« has eventually led to questioning philosophy itself. The result of this long-held process is skepticism, the collapse of any belief in reason in an absolute sense, whereby subjectivity itself becomes enigmatic for itself, the »enigma of all enigmas« (Hua VI, 12 [13]). It is for solving this enigma that Husserl advocates a new, phe­ nomenological »critique of reason«. It seems to me that this critique is committed to overcoming the crisis in a twofold sense. On the one hand, in a »horizontal« direction it should be able to show that reason is not confined to theoretical thinking but it also includes a practical

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as well as an axiological side. More exactly, it should counteract the one-sided conception of reason predominant in modern science and philosophy by laying bare the many-sidedness of reason. On the other hand, in a ›vertical‹ or in-depth direction it should disclose the realm of the lifeworld as the original mode of access to the world prior to and more fundamental than any theoretical activity. This is what Husserl, in the title of § 28 of the Crisis, calls the »unexpressed ›pre­ supposition‹” in Kant’s philosophy. The combination of these two dimensions of phenomenological analysis should provide for a reha­ bilitation of the problems inherent to subjective »life«. What are these problems »of reason«? What embraces the many-sidedness of reason, besides knowledge? Husserl mentions valuation, ethical action, his­ tory and God, but in § 55 he adds the insane, children, animals, gen­ erativity, historicity (Geschichtlichkeit), social life, and personalities of a higher order, and also birth and death, gender, and even the »unconscious« (Unbewusste), which comprises »dreamless sleep, loss of consciousness, and whatever else of the same or similar nature may be included under this title«. All these issues are said to take part in the transcendental problem of constitution (Hua VI, 191–192 [187– 188]).

2. The Unconscious and Affection Now whereas Husserl presents and analyzes the problems related to valuation and ethical action in his lectures on ethics in Göttingen and in Freiburg, and social and historical matters are discussed for the most part in the working manuscripts written in connection with the Crisis text, the issue of the unconscious, together with that of birth and death seems to have received less attention. Husserl discusses the unconscious dimension of intentionality within the framework of genetic analysis. More precisely, he does it in the context of the reduction to the primordial sphere, where intersubjectivity is put into brackets in order to disclose the structures of the pure living present (lebendige Gegenwart). But first of all, one should advance that the very term »unconscious« is used by Husserl in various ways, largely with reference to two different but connected dimensions. On the one hand, passivity as the background of the I’s awake activity is unconscious. On the other hand, the dominion of sleep and dream, which is located beyond the limits of the wakeful I, is also unconscious.

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But both are closely linked to one another because of the phenomenon of affection. Affection is an intentional structure common to various consti­ tutive strata. In perception, any turning of the I towards individual objects is always a spontaneous operation, which at the lowest level makes up what Husserl calls grasping (Erfassung). Grasping can be either a reactivation of a former act or an originary act by which an object is constituted in consciousness for the first time (Hua IV, 24 [26]). In the latter case the I behave »receptively«, that is, its interest is awaken by virtue of its being affected by something that stands out in the field of actual presence. Here we may recall the fact that this field of actual presence offers a hyletic core in which a foreground (Vordergrund) or saliency (Relief) and a background (Hintergrund) can be distinguished (Hua XI, 167 [215]). Both moments of the field are given unity by virtue of associative syntheses of various kinds. The foreground is composed of data which stand out from the background and ›attract‹ the I so that the I may turn toward them in order to objectify them. Affection designates precisely this standing out from a passively organized field that motivates the I’s answer to or turning toward the salient data (EU, 74–75 [72–73]). More exactly, it is »the peculiar pull (Zug) that an object given to consciousness exercises on the ego; it is a pull that is relaxed when the ego turns toward it attentively, and progresses from here, …, thus, striving toward an acquisition of knowledge« (Hua XI, 148–149 [196]). From a genetic, dynamic point of view, hyletic data are no more a formless stuff, as in Ideas I, but a field endowed with a pre-objective intentional organization (cf. Hua IX, 162–163 [124–125]). Hence Husserl can write: »affection is noetically a mode of constitutive intentionality, and noematically a mode of intentional or objective unity which, given the case, is conscious as existent in a mode of being« (Hua Mat 8, 193). A first form of synthetical unity in this intentional organization of the hyletic fields is temporality, whereby the general forms of coexistence or simultaneity and succession is constituted. Upon this first stratum material syntheses are built, which are directly responsible of the fore- and background structure (EU, 76 [73], Hua XI, 160 [208]). These syntheses are in turn of associative nature, and in their most basic way they are syntheses of homogeneity or similarity and heterogeneity or dissimilarity. A hyletic field in the living present is a unity because it is homogeneous in contrast to other fields that are heterogeneous. A visual field e.g. is a unity of

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visual data which are similar to each other while they differ from data in other fields, e.g. from tactile data. Now within a single field a singular datum stands out also in virtue of a contrast, e.g. a group of red spots standing out from a white background. The salient datum has an effect on the I in the sense that it affects it, exerts a stimulus on it, while the background does not possess such affective force (Hua XI, 168 [217]). And since the affective force of the salient data may vary in intensity, so may correlatively the affection. The most salient data make up the core of the attraction on the I, while the surrounding data have a decreasing affective force. Now with regard to the temporal constitution of the field referred to above, the work of associative synthesis has two dimensions: on the side of simultaneity, it refers to the just mentioned composition of the field in fore- and background. But on the side of succession, it also means that both background and foreground data lose vivacity when they abandon the field of the present. From this point of view, the entire field exits the present and enters into the unconscious. The unconscious can be defined as the zero-point or lowest level of affection, the complete lack of affective saliency and of answer on the part of the I: it »designates the nil of this vivacity of consciousness (…)« but it »(…) is in no way a nothing« (Hua XI, 167 [216]). Data are not annihilated because they are retentionally preserved in a process that Husserl describes as ›sedimentation‹. Sedimentation is also defined as a latency horizon (Hua Mat 8, 35 footnote 1), and the sedimented is what is constituted in a flowing way below the zero-point (Hua Mat 8, 376). But inversely, the sedimented can be evocated through an association that de-sediments it (Ent-Sedimentierung), thus bringing the latent content back to patency again (Hua XLII, 37). In turn, the dominion of sleep and dreaming as unconscious differs from the dominion of the sedimentation of hyletic fields as far as the latter occurs within wakeful consciousness, while the former goes on beyond or below wakefulness. This situation poses a method­ ological problem: How can we seize such phenomena that reach beyond conscious activity and thus the possibility of direct reflection? I think one should combine two strategies. Firstly, reflection must begin by focusing on what falls within the reach of evidence, on what is apparent, and from thence it should start digging into the inapparent. This is to say that it should examine the conscious thresholds of sleeping, that is, falling asleep and awakening, as the submerging-in and emerging-from the unconscious. And secondly, it must proceed

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to examine the recollection of dreams. As to the latter, we have to turn to both a) direct experience of one’s own dreams, which is not confined solely to veridic reports but may include the imaginary variations of actual reports on our dreams, and b) indirect experience, first of all linguistic, which reflects on the reports others make of their experiences of sleeping and dreaming. Indirect experience includes what other people, including Husserl and other phenomenologists have said, but also further sources like personal diaries, the so-called dream-books, oneiric stories conveyed by literature and by myths, as well as dramatizations drawn from plays and movies. In this paper, with the help of Husserl’s and Fink’s texts, we will center our attention on both procedures. To begin with, if we inspect the continuous streaming of the living present, we can observe that it proceeds as a succession of periods of wakefulness and sleeping (Hua XXXIX, 587). In Ms. D 14, Husserl writes: »This is a necessary addition and in a certain way a justification of the analyses of the living present, as far as the distinction between the hyletic core structure and the egoicalness (Ichlichkeit), continued on the level of immanent temporalization, has to lead to an express distinction between wakefulness and sleep, respectively of the building of wakeful and sleep periods« (Ms. D 14, 3). Sleep thus proves to be not an accidental episode but rather a mode of human life (Hua XXIX, 335). Wakeful periods connect with one another through sleep periods, whereby in every wakeful period the I is aware of its having-slept as well as of the preceding wakeful periods. In this way, a particular associative synthesis takes place among wakeful periods (Ms. D 14, 3). Thus, Husserl may conclude: »The sleeping I in its peculiarity is, of course, revealed only from the perspective of the awake I by a reflection of a peculiar sort which reaches back and seizes it. More closely considered, sleep has sense only in relation to waking and implies a potentiality for awakening«. Now, how can we describe the transition between wakefulness and sleep? Every sleeping period is marked out through an initial mode of falling asleep and a final mode of awakening (Hua Mat VIII, 419). The peculiarity of the former is »the universality of the I’s becoming passive as the I of interests«, while correlatively the affec­ tive force of hyletic data tends to sink down and thus the perceptual world progressively fades out (Hua XXXIX, 591; 589). On the other hand, when we wake up, a (re-) actualizing of those interests takes

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place, hyletic data begin to affect the I again and we then recover our perception-field as our world-field (Hua Mat VIII, 418–419).

3. Description of Dreamless Sleep and Dream This leads us to dreamless sleep, which Husserl describes as an extreme limit (äusserster Limes) between falling asleep and waking up. It is extreme because it cannot be recovered through recollection. He characterizes it as a state of »being absorbed« or »being sunken« (Ver­ sunkensein) in which the I is totally disconnected from its worldly interests. In this condition of having-slipped-down (Entsunkensein) into the unconscious, I »am not a man in the world anymore, I am not for myself the one I always am, [that is, someone] who has experience of something, who lives, who acts« (Hua Mat VIII, 499). Again, like in the case of hyletic data when abandoning the living present, this being-sunken is not a falling into nothingness, but rather »a mode of life itself, a flowing life closed to stimuli and yet flowing« (Hua XXIX, 337). Additionally, during the transitions from wakefulness to sleep and vice versa, we can also marginally experience the phenomenon of dreaming. When we are falling asleep, we sometimes experi­ ence »images« and »events« that do not fall under our conscious con­ trol as in daytime imagination. The dream activity begins before the I is completely sunken into unconsciousness. On the other side, when we are coming back to our senses, the dream may continue for a while, merging with the progressive awareness of the surrounding world. But the phenomenon of dreaming faces a particular methodolog­ ical difficulty because we normally gain access to it through a kind of recollection, which is not a presentification of something we have lived through in wakeful consciousness. Now Husserl himself, along with Eugen Fink and Theodor Conrad, thinks that phenomenological analysis of sleep and dream is possible, but others, like Jean-Luc Nancy and Dieter Lohmar, have argued against that possibility. Lohmar stresses the irrational character of dreams, because in them: » (…) causality is often suppressed, identity is not guaranteed, temporal order is occasionally not preserved. (…) [I]t can hardly turn into a useful field of description for phenomenology«. Regarding Freud he adds: »The analysis of the meaning of dreams seems thus to be excessively multivocal and very little controllable as to offer a good

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field for description«. And immediately after that: »The main reason, though, to exclude it is for me that while we dream our consciousness is not awake, and that, from a phenomenological point of view, makes a methodically controlled observation almost impossible«. This notwithstanding, he grants the dreams some kind of rationality, for they offer a minimum of sense insofar as they are able to show unitary objects, actions, motives and contexts. This is possible because in dreaming the constitution of objects and actions is ultimately ruled by the same types (Typen) that govern our daytime perceptual life. Furthermore, »(…) the fact that we can remember the dreams shows that in dreaming not all functions of the I are suppressed« (Lohmar 2008, 160–161). In this rather subtle way, namely by asserting a certain conti­ nuity between unconscious dreaming and conscious wakeful life, Lohmar admits that dreams are somehow given. Irrational as they may appear, they are nonetheless there in some way, which is of course indirectly witnessed by the effects some dreams (e.g., nightmares) have on our day life. Interestingly, seventy-five years before Fink had written: »Precisely this argumentation, the one that intends to show the impossibility of an analysis, makes use of an understanding – however elemental it may be – of sleeping. Whence do we know that we do not know anything about sleeping?« (Fink 1966, 63). The fact that dream recollection is not completely under our control does not imply that it is beyond any control whatsoever. Moreover, provided that any actual case of a dream (a phantasized dream would also work well in this respect) is only the point of departure for an eidetic analysis, relying on veridical recollection does not ultimately mean the impossibility of reflection but it only implies the necessity of taking greater pains when reflecting on it. The following comment by Husserl is also to be read in this sense: »The sleeping I in its peculiarity is, of course, revealed only from the perspective of the awake I by a reflection of a peculiar sort which reaches back and seizes it. More closely considered, sleep has sense only in relation to waking up and implies a potentiality for awaking« (Hua IX, 209 [160]). But dreams are not only given. Upon phenomenological reflec­ tion, they also display certain eidetic structures. If we now proceed to disclose and analyze the essential features of dreams, the first thing that strikes our attention is the preservation, even if in a modified way, of the intentional correlation. Indeed, a dream can be, as Lohmar points out, incoherent or even meaningless but only with regard to its

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concrete contents. Night-time dreaming shows in fact the same inten­ tional structures as day-time life. The dream does not resemble a set of images passing by like a movie in a theatre. There is not only something that is dreamt about but always somebody who dreams, a dreamer, or more precisely, along with the subject matter of my dreams there is always me as the subject who dreams. The correlation means, on the one hand, that when I am dreaming I have certain Erlebnisse, I perform certain acts: I perceive, but I am also capable – within the dream – of remembering, of expecting events, I can be surprised or disappointed by something, etc. While dreaming I can also have sensations, I can sense the hot and the cold, the dry and the wet, I can feel good or bad, pleased or displeased. Moreover, I can perform acts of love and hate, I can act bravely or cowardly, I can be generous or mean. I can think and judge, and of course, I can speak (even to myself, as Husserl describes in § 8 of the first Logical Inves­ tigation!) and be spoken to. Indeed, I can even do phenomenology, as Jean Hering ostensibly does in a dream he describes in a letter addressed to Husserl (Hua Dok III, III, 118). On the other hand, when I am dreaming, what I have in front of me is not a bunch of unrelated things but a correlative world of things. This world contains objects, but also equipment, situations, and events just like the ones I may find in the real, daytime world. And not only mere natural things but also animates are present in the dream-world: plants, persons, ani­ mals, as well as, of course, anomalous creatures like the monsters of nightmares. Interestingly, such things (at large) in the dreamt world are given in adumbrations, they are located in both the dream-space and time, and they interact with one another and with the dreaming I. At the same time, it is apparent that the correlation ego-cogitocogitatum in the dreams differs in important respects from normal, daytime experience. As Husserl remarks, the I is here a »quasi«-I, an I-as-if, whereas the dreamt world is a »quasi«-world, a world-as-if. In a way much similar to daytime presentification, a certain »neutral­ ization« of both I and world occurs here, a bracketing that »discon­ nects« the dreaming-I from the actual hyletic flowing of reality.2 This also entails, as Julia Iribarne has pointed out, a disconnection from the body as the sensing and moving organ of the I (Iribarne 2002, 4). By means of this extricating itself from the bodily hyletic-kinesthetic 2 Precisely this is Fink’s point when he claims that dreams are presentifications. Cf. Fink 1966, 63.

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conditions proper to daytime experience, the dreaming I is granted a certain »freedom« that makes for it possible to live in a world of its own, in a »quasi«-world. Thus, the dreaming I is able to do things like flying without using wings or sitting on an aircraft, but it is also able, e.g., to fall into deep pits without being injured. Moreover, events can also happen that could never take place in the real world: the defor­ mation and transformation of things, persons, or circumstances, or the showing up of absurd or impossible things, creatures, and events. There is also a certain paradoxical situation here, since this I’s freedom is properly speaking not something voluntary, for the I is caught up in its dreams. Jean Héring, for example, denies for the dream any true spontaneity in the sense of a voluntary behavior. In critical connection with Sartre’s claims, he observes that in dreams »there is at first glance nothing, which points to the spontaneous activity of the dream-con­ sciousness (…). The dreamer … can act in dreams, can pick his way through the phenomena, but he is just as much at their mercy as in his waking life« (Héring 1947, 197). All this urges us to ask what kind of intentional accomplishment the dream ultimately performs. Husserl seems to waver between considering it a perception or a presentification. So, in a (never delivered) reply to the above-mentioned letter of Hering, he declares that »The dream-world’s I does not dream, it perceives« (Hua Dok III, III, 119). But later in the same text, he declares that the dreamt-world is a »pseudo«-world, whereby »Pseudo – here has the sense of a presentification« (Fink 1966, 120). Eugen Fink, in turn, is clear in assuming the dream to be a presentification. He describes it as a sunken phantasy (versunkene Phantasie) that takes place under the condition of the most extreme sunkenness of the dreaming I; that is, with regard to wakeful life, the I is submerged in the most extreme passivity (Fink 1966, 63). We may note that recently Rudolf Bernet agrees and adds two important remarks. First, over against memory, dream as a phantasy is a presentification not of a past perception but of a possible one, a »non-present perception«, thus being able to be productive. Second, over against wakeful phantasy, it does not bear a conflict with (wakeful) impressional consciousness but appears as a »distanced and symbolic self-consciousness« (2002, 339–340).

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5. Dream and Living Body Now we may focus on the question of the body. We have mentioned the fact that when one falls asleep the actual own body is disconnected, is put into brackets in the sense that it is no more receptive to the real-world hyletic stimuli. Nevertheless, the quasi-experience of the dreaming I necessarily implies some quasi-hyletic background out of which a relatively coherent world of dream objectivities may appear, and this situation appeals in turn to the presence of a quasi-own-body. On the one hand, as seen from the point of view of the reflecting phe­ nomenologist, the dreaming I experiences a kind of de-presentation of its own body, which concerns not only its natural side but also its sentient and moving functions. But on the other hand, the dreamt-I that emerges in dreamful sleeping is also endowed with a body, that is, it is also a bodily I. Since, as we said, the dream is not just a motion picture being displayed on a screen for no-body, there is indeed some-body who plays the main role, and it is precisely through its body that the I interacts with the dream-world’s events and creatures. Again, there can be a manifold of divergences in the behavior of this quasi-body with respect to normal daytime intentionality, but such disagreements only make sense against the backdrop of that normal body.3 This means that the main features that define the connection between subjectivity and the world by virtue of the body are preserved. Put in a very concise way: 1) The dreamer’s body as a quasi-natural thing in the dreamt world preserves its essential condition of being the center of the dreaming I’s experience, and this in its two more important aspects: a) in reference to a soil (Boden) below the feet, which in the dream amounts to a quasi-soil, and b) with regard to the orientation system from the body as the zero-point of any orientation: in front, behind, at the left, at the right, above, below; even if proportions can be distorted and their meanings can be transformed when compared with wakeful life; 2) As a living body, the dreamer’s body also preserves its being affectable or sentient. Hyletic data (or better quasi-hyletic data) that 3 In a manuscript from the C-group Husserl inquiries into the conditions that make possible the identification of my present body with the body I had in previous wakeful periods. He answers: ›I understand it at once as the living body (Leib), the body that is at my disposal… From thence springs the waking up of memories‹ (Hua Mat VIII, 418).

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come from the dreamt world can affect the sleeping I’s own body. The dreaming I can feel happy, it can suffer, be excited, and so on. In extreme cases, the quasi-affective-force can even interfere with dream experience, as it is the case in those nightmares from which we wake up in distress, or unquiet, trembling, scared, etc. Furthermore, stimuli coming from the wakeful world, and even from the sleeping I’s body, can affect the dreaming I’s quasi-body. A loud noise coming from the street can e.g. be incorporated into the dream (or disturb it). 3) Again, as a living body, the dreamer’s body also preserves its capacity to act upon the world. The movements of the dreaming quasi-body come along with an awareness of its motions, that is, they are accompanied by a system of quasi-kinaestheses. This situation becomes clear in extreme cases like the dreams of fall: I fall into a deep pit and I feel vertigo, something comparable to the feeling I would have if I were falling into a real pit. In a situation like that, I can even wake up in distress, palpitating, etc. Something similar happens when I dream that I am flying. I have the experience of moving in the air just like a bird, I can even land and take off again. Moreover, during the »flight« I can see things, the landscape, etc., much in the same way I would see them if I were really flying, e.g. from above, growing smaller or larger, distorted in their perspective while I am moving, etc. Incidentally, we might recall here the experience of flying like a bird discussed by Husserl in his D 17 manuscript (Husserl 2002, 125–126). This also stresses the fact that what I live through in the dream is a variation of my experience in daytime world conditions, as the possibility of empathizing with the bird’s flight movements clearly shows.

6. A Final Remark on the Unconscious and the Crisis In this final section, I would like to briefly turn back to the issue of the crisis. We have said at the beginning that the later Husserl counts the unconscious in the sense of sleep and dreaming as one of the topics that the naturalistic interpretation of science and the world has neglected. But in what sense the question of the unconscious may contribute to the overcoming of the crisis? I would like just to briefly comment on this.

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The unconscious in the sense Husserl understands it, namely, as horizon of latency, has two sides, one related to wakefulness in connection with affection, and one related to sunkenness beyond what is or can be conscious. Both sides are to be considered as transcendental and not merely as anthropological or psychological. We have already mentioned at the beginning of this paper that in his late writings, Husserl takes other dimensions of subjectivity into account than merely those related to reason in a theoretical sense. Thus, he refers to the modifications of normal and mature subjectivity, such as the insane (Wahnsinnige), children and animals as analogues of ourselves, who also have their manner of transcendentality. He sees transcendental problems as encompassing all living beings and even expanding to social »life« as spiritual communal life. In various levels, the questions of generativity, historicity and personalities of higher order, but also of gender, the unconscious, life and death and their sense as events in the world can be mentioned. All of them have their transcendental side. Husserl then adds that »(…) it is clear that there is no conceivable meaningful problem in previous philosophy, and no conceivable problem of being at all, that could not be arrived at by transcendental phenomenology at some point along its way« (Hua VI, 192 [188]).4 Accordingly, the sense of the crisis Husserl is dealing with also includes these forgotten or neglected aspects of subjectivity. More­ over, the unconscious side of consciousness discloses zones in subjec­ tivity that are in no way transparent in the sense required by Descartes’ cogito and his clarae et distinctae perceptiones. On the contrary, we face an opaque dimension of ourselves which, in connection with the absolute »awakening« of birth and the absolute »sleep« of death, is indicative of our essential finitude (cf. Hua XXXIX, 500), as Saulius Geniusas has lucidly shown. Geniusas argues that: »the full consti­ tution of human finitude rests upon a threefold disclosure of birth, death, and sleep as limit-phenomena, intersubjective phenomena, and paradoxical phenomena« (cf. Geniusas 2010, 72). This finitude cannot be deduced from other phenomena, but it is an intentional accomplishment of ourselves by means of which we recognize that we are finite. Following Husserl, Geniusas underlines the fact that already within the domain of the primordial reduction we are aware of our own finitude (Hua Mat 8, 154, quoted by Geniusas 2010, 74). And 4

Husserl also refers to the problem of language, truth, and reason.

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then he adds that »without sleep, subjectivity would not be aware of the past and the future as autonomous domains of givenness« (ibid., 76). This stands at the core of what Husserl describes as the questions that are decisive for a genuine humanity. This sense of finitude is also reminiscent of Paul Ricoeur’s notion of a cogito brisé, that is, of a shattered cogito, but it might also be related to Sigmund Freud’s conception of the unconscious. Now unlike Freud, Husserl does not think the unconscious to be das ganz andere of consciousness. Although as far as I know he does not clarify the relationship between the unconscious as the horizon of sedimentation in wakeful life and the unconscious as the horizon of sunkenness in sleep and dream, I think we are entitled to admit a certain continuity between them. Indeed, the possibility of communication between them is granted if we consider not only the formal condition of temporality, which bridges the gaps between wakeful and sleeping periods, but also the material of dreams and its sources. For the most part, if not all, the sources of whatever depictions and events may appear within a dream are to be found in wakeful life, and more precisely in the preserved, latent noemata that lie in the horizon of sedimentation. Sedimentation is mainly responsible for the formation of a dream-world and its object-population. In this sense, it might provide a foundation for some theses of psychoanalysis related to repression, as Husserl himself once advanced (cf. Hua XLII, 126). We had already introduced types in our brief discussion with Lohmar (see above Section 3). The unconscious as the site of sedimentation is what ultimately guides or even governs the most part of our conscious life, since not only our perceptual, but specially our practical world is typified, that is, it is ruled beforehand by our already constituted and sedimented types of objects and patterns of action. Finally, in a further line of thought, Rudolf Bernet connects the dream-work with drives, compares Husserl’s with Freud’s notion of the unconscious, and refers to the symbolic capacity of dreaming. Although we will not engage in this topic now, it is worth mentioning that with regard to the symbolic potentiality of dreaming two ques­ tions concerning their interpretation are at issue: 1) On the one hand, the distorting effect that our recollection of dreams may produce. As Husserl himself admits in his letter to Hering, dreaming is a phenomenon difficult to access to, not only because it is given through a particular recollection which can be feeble or unfaithful, but also because its expression in language can alter its contents (Hua Dok

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III, III, 119). The problem does not only lie in the incompleteness of the expression with regard to the synthetical forms and materials of the substratum, as Husserl explains in the Ideas I (cf. Hua III/1, 290–291 [299]), but also in the distortions of the substrate’s syntax that language may produce due to its tendency to arrange the parts into a logically coherent whole; 2) On the other hand, the problem of the meaning of what is expressed by the dream, that is, the topic which is usually referred to when one talks of the interpretation of dreams. This issue bears of course a close relationship to Freud’s conception of the unconscious and the dream-work, but in a more comprehensive way it is also widely related to some crucial phenomena of the spiritual world, like animist beliefs, religious symbols, mythical stories, and many others. I do not believe a Freudian interpretation of them to be mandatory. But these are problems for another exposition…

References Bernet, Rudolf, 2002: Unconscious Consciousness in Husserl and Freud. Pheno­ menology and the Cognitive Sciences 1, pp. 327–351. Fink, Eugen, 1966: Vergegenwärtigung und Bild. Beiträge zur Phänomenologie der Unwirklichkeit (1930), In: Eugen Fink. Studien zur Phänomenologie 1930–1939. Den Haag, Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 1–78. Geniusas, Saulius, 2010: On Birth, Death, and Sleep in Husserl’s Late Manuscripts on Time. In: Dieter Lohmar and Ichiro Yamaguchi (eds). On Time. New Contributions to the Husserlian Phenomenology of Time. Dor­ drecht, Springer, pp. 71–89. Hering, Jean, 1947: Concerning Image, Idea, Dream. Philosophy and Phe­ nomenological Research 8.2, pp. 188–205. Iribarne, Julia, 2002: Contributions to the Phenomenology of Dreams. In: Chang-Fai Cheung, Ivan Chvatík, Ion Copoeru, Lester Embree, Julia Iribarne, and Hans Rainer Sepp (eds). Essays in Celebration of the Foundation of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations. , accessed 25 June 2019. Lohmar, Dieter, 2008: Phänomenologie der schwachen Phantasie. Dor­ drecht, Springer.

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Intersubjective Subjectivity: Language, Diversity of Language1

»The head of the school and his team promote the we-feeling«2 was the title of an article in Berliner Morgenpost on December 7, 2015, that introduced a story of how a primary school in Berlin, where nobody had wanted to send their kids anymore, was able to revive. The key was the we-feeling that saved the school. In recent years, we-ness and empathy have often been highlighted as a remedy for multiple issues of our current society, and sometimes tangible results were witnessed. But why is it that now we have to work to rediscover it? What do we understand by it and what does it do when we belong to ›we‹? This is the starting point of this paper. What I would like to prove through this research is simple, but it requires and will result in a paradigm change in our way of thinking. The paradigm change is two-fold: Firstly, the change that will be drawn from this research is the aim of this project: namely, to pose a different perspective to understand selfhood. I argue that subjective self-consciousness or individual cognition is always necessarily inter­ subjective, and that ›we‹ might be pre-subjective. Secondly, for this paradigm change, another paradigm change is required to widen the horizon of our understanding of the world and ourselves: the diversity of language.

Another version of this text has been included in my book: We as Self: Ouri, Intersubjectivity, and Presubjectivity. Lanham, MA: Lexington, 2021. 2 Der Schulleiter und sein Team fördern das Wir-Gefühl. Berliner Morgenpost. Monday, 7.12.2015, p.11.

1

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1. We-Mode Why does language matter? There are many different ways of com­ munication, and it is not only through language that we think and communicate, but language represents and constructs our way of interpreting the world and expressing our interpretation. Images and sounds also express our interpretation, thought, and enable communication, but through language we can construct the way we perceive the world and ourselves and make a system to transfer the information to others or into other forms, to pass on that knowledge or to influence the way the world is performed and acknowledged. It is possible because language cuts out the viewpoints, structures, and framework of the objects of our perception. This is not, however, a linguistic research, nor does it point at the linguistic turn. Rather, it is to study the human mind, how we cognize the self and others, through which I want to show that collective intentionality or social cognition as ›we‹ is more than a collection of individuals. In other words, to show that the group of ›we‹ is »minds in the we-mode« rather than »groups with minds« (Gallotti and Frith 2013, 2). The debates on shared intentionality in cognitive science and psychology have enlightened the ›interactive turn‹ in social cog­ nition, in which its proponents explain that the shared, collective, or ›we-intention‹ is an irreducible collective mode that remains latent until individuals become engaged in particular interactive contexts (Gallotti and Frith 2013, 5). The following sentence illustrates two possible ways of reading, one in the irreducible we-mode and the other not: ›Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers designed the Pompidou Centre‹ expresses the idea that each architect made his own contribution to the final creation. Or, it also allows a collective reading: they did it jointly. The first reading means that ›Piano, like Rogers, designed parts of the Pompidou Centre‹ which suggests that action predicates are distributed over the individuals. The collective reading is to say that when more than two agents come together and act as a group in achieving a collective goal intentionally, the statement of their doing something together suggests that no member of the group does it ›on her own‹ (Gallotti and Frith 2013, 2). Through language we can conceive the question of »how to con­ ceptualize the specific attitude that underpins collective intentional behavior« (Gallotti and Frith 2013, 2). The collective reading of what

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is expressed in the above sentence »characterizes the irreducibility of group behavior as a feature of the bearer holding the relevant atti­ tude, namely the group. It is to ascribe ›we-as-a-group‹ attitude that implies that there is a minded group as a plural subject, rather than the individuals forming the relevant group« (Gallotti and Frith 2013, 2). Our perception of others (even in the mere presence of others) in the we-frame is not a matter of rational choice, but the we-mode might work as an »implicit and automatic mechanism of mentalizing« (Gal­ lotti and Frith 2013, 5). Other studies also show that our social perception of others even shapes one’s own multisensory peripersonal space (Pellencin et al. 2017). What language expresses could manifest the intuition of collective intentionality, which suggests that the mind is not only a product of a social environment, but rather it is social all the way through; human cognition is enriched with recourses for cognizing in an irreducibly collective mode (Gallotti and Frith 2013, 5). Cognitive scientists have revealed this irreducible we-mode as a part of their theory of interaction in the we-mode (Gallotti and Frith 2013). The core of this research is to study how the we-mode and collective intentionality is expressed, read, interpreted, and suggested in our practices of language. Language might or might not form the way we think, but it does guide the direction of point of view and suggests the structure of the framework. Considering this, however, the humanities have developed their scope of research solely based on the tradition of European languages. Here we have one of the main questions of the research: what about in other languages? Especially, the way in which ›we‹ is used and expressed in different languages with different social and cultural contexts should be re-examined. In fact, there is already a wide gamut of literature on this issue, in terms of language and social relations (Agha 2006), or signs in society (Parmentier 1994), and in linguistic or semiotic anthropology, not to mention the studies on imposters and pronouns in different languages in linguistics (Zanuttini et al. 2012; Kim 2015; Choi 2016). However, these studies do not make their approach from a philosophical viewpoint. I should explain what I mean precisely by ›philosophical viewpoint.‹

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2. We and I These are the questions with which I begin a philosophical analysis: (1) What do we understand by ›I‹ and ›We‹? (2) Does the (different) way of saying ›I‹ and ›we‹ affect our self-con­ ception? (3) (How) can we understand ›(inter)subjectivity‹ from a differ­ ent perspective? First of all, what are ›I‹ and ›We‹? Are they words? If they are words, this means that we can define them as such and such. ›I‹ is a pronoun that refers to the first-person singular, and ›we‹ is the first-person plural. One uses ›I‹ to refer to him/herself and ›we‹ to refer to a group of people including myself. Or are they concepts (Begriff), the core set of common features of certain objects after abstracting, i.e. removing unnecessary and irrelevant elements? (Mach 1886, 149; See Mattens 2008, 283). Or do they express a concept? When ›I‹ is used to refer to oneself, what does this oneself refer to? This oneself refers to a person who is an autonomous individual with subjective experiences of which he/she is aware of. From this, we could probably say that ›I‹ expresses the I-ness, the subject, the ego. Then what about ›we‹? Is ›we‹ a col­ lection of more than two ›I’s? Or could ›we‹ express more than that? ›We‹ and ›I‹ are English words. How about when I say it in Korean? Or Malagasy? They are used differently in these languages which represent different cultural and social contexts in their peculiar way of using the term. Does this matter to our philosophical investiga­ tion of subjective and intersubjective consciousness? Let me give you an example: in Korean, one says 우리 남편 (Uri namp'yŏn)3 which is literally translated as ›our husband.‹ This is a common expression to refer to one’s husband. How can we understand/interpret this? What is the philosophical significance of this expression? This is the phenomenon of how the we-ness or the our-ness is expressed in Korean. My assumption is that the we-ness expressed in Korean could complement our contemporary understanding of the we-ness, and therefore, the I-ness as well, in the sense that the ›our‹ in ›our hus­ band‹ indicates the pre-subjective we-ness, which is not the we-ness Converted to McCune-Reischauer Romanization by »Korean Romanization Con­ verter« by AI LAB in Pusan National Univ. and NARA INFO TECH Co. Ltd: http:// roman.cs.pusan.ac.kr.

3

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built out of multiple individuals, but which represents the irreducible we-mode mundanely expressed in daily language. How do we describe this phenomenologically? Isn’t the strength, the core of phenomenology advocated by Husserl to describe the things themselves? I am fully agreed and sympathetic with the assertion of phenomenology that »phenomenology’s distinctiveness lies in its sensitivity to the question of how the investigator gains access to what is to be investigated« (Bernasconi 2009, 204; see also Kim 2017, 627). According to Husserl, »Natural life can be characterized as a life naively, straightforwardly directed at the world, the world being always in a certain sense consciously present as a universal horizon« (Husserl 1970, 281). This world is the lifeworld which is already there and pre-given, described as a cultural world that is »richly organized for practical ends and laden with linguistic tradition« (Carr, xl). Therefore the »origin of philosophy« points at a change in man’s recognition of his relationship to his world, which amounts to a change of attitude (Carr, xxxix), and thereby this man becomes a philosopher, a surveyor of the world (Husserl 1970, 285). But, can or should a phenomenologist cite the following without a second-thought in the present? »All das sind, um es nochmals zu betonen, logisch-bedeutungsmäßige Strukturen, die wir freilich, wie selbstverständlich, an Hand der Gliederung des Ausdrucks in unserer deutschen Sprache verfolgen, die aber beim Ausdruck in anderen Sprachen ihre – wenn auch dem grammatischen Bau nach oft gänzlich abweichenden – Entsprechungen finden müssen« (Husserl 1971, 266). Here, I pose another question: »How can an investigator gain and maintain this sensitivity? Especially if a phenomenological investigator is required to switch off her mother-tongue in order to adjust her way of thinking so as to have access to a phenomenological research method in order to investigate in Germanic languages« (Kim 2017, 627). Traditional philosophy has neglected the ›other side‹ of the world from their universal research. Here lies the core of the crisis of today’s phenomenology.

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3. Our husband Concerning ›our husband‹, I would like to examine the following examples in detail: ›I‹ can say in Korean to ›my‹ father: (1) »Our husband (our Stephen) brought home these flowers«.4 ›I‹ can also say to a stranger (S): (2) »I told our father that our Stephen brought home these flowers.«5 The person (S) who heard this can reply: (3) »Our Stephen is thoughtful«.6 (Kim 2017, 620) In (1), my father (the addressee; you in I-Thou) and ›I‹ (addresser; I in I-Thou) and Stephen (the third person) belong together to the we. In (2), our father and the addressee (S) are not related, but the addressee (S) still belongs together in ›our‹ in ›our father.‹ In (3) also, the addresser (S), the addressee (I, or/and the father), and Stephen belong to the we. These three people form the we as their extended self. The we-ness here is not what these three people build together but the irreducible we-mode is there through their being there together. And anyone who is either related, or not related but present can enter this group. If ›my‹ father says, »we all like flowers,” this means that we all three like flowers. But this we does not have to be divided into three different individuals to reveal the fact that there is more than one person. Nor does there have to be first an ›I,’ ›you,’ or ›he‹ to create the we, but the we is there before this individuation (Kim, 2017). It is true that ›our‹ in English does not necessarily indicate ownership either, as in ›our planet‹ or ›our solar system.‹ In Korean as well, ›our‹ in ›our country‹ or ›our planet‹ does not necessarily indicate ownership. When I say ›our husband‹ in Korean, I get the feeling that this ›our‹ doesn’t necessarily indicate my ownership of my husband either. It feels rather that I am in a big picture of a community or group of the we – like a piece of art, which is more than just a compound of dots, pixels, strokes etc., as it is a whole in and of itself. 우리 남편(우리 스티븐)이 이 꽃들을 집에 가져왔어요: uri namp'yŏn(uri sŭt'ibŭn)i i kkottŭrŭl chibe kajyŏwassŏyo. 5 (제가) 우리 아빠에게 스티븐이 이 꽃들을 가져왔다고 말씀드렸어요: (chega) uri appaege sŭt'ibŭni i kkottŭrŭl kajyŏwattago malssŭmdŭryŏssŏyo. 6 우리 스티븐은 사려깊군요: uri sŭt'ibŭnŭn saryŏgipkunyo. 4

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In German, philosophically, they importantly differentiate these two terminologies, Ganzheit (adj. ganz) and Allheit (adj. all). They both mean ›all, whole, complete, etc.‹. However, while Ganzheit is the antonym of Teil which means ›part‹, Allheit is not: Ganzheit (all) ↔ Teil (part) Allheit (whole) Something that is ganz has its parts that are combined to make that thing ganz, and this ganz thing, therefore, can be disassembled into parts as well. But Allheit doesn’t have its parts, constituting separate components. I assume, that the feeling of saying ›my husband‹ or ›my something‹, at least in Korean, implicates being (in) the whole picture of Allheit. This might also be deeply related to the fact that there is moreover no article for nouns in Korean. One says ›apple be‹ (there is an apple/ or there are apples), which is also significantly different than the structure of ›there is‹ or ›es gibt‹, in German or ›il y a‹ in French for example, which requires an extra ›subject‹ (third-person singular) of a sentence to express the existence of a thing. But there is another point we need to ponder upon: consider that you say (4) and Stephen is your husband. (1) (2) (3) (4)

»Our husband (our Stephen) brought home these flowers.« »I told our father that our Stephen brought home these flowers.« »Our Stephen is thoughtful.« »Our husband is Stephen.«7

Let’s say that (4) is true and thus, the phrase ›our husband‹ refers to Stephen. The question is what this ›our‹ refers to here. One could say that it depends on the context of the exchange. Suppose that a group of people, including the speaker, Stephen, etc. are doing research on husbands. We ask men who are married to put a piece of paper with their names in a bowl from which one person will be selected. The speaker draws a paper on which is written the name ›Stephen.‹ The speaker utters (4) which is perfectly intelligible in the context. This indicates that the rule for the use of ›our‹ in English is that it refers to one or more individuals relevant in the context. These can be people, but they need not be. In the example above, there is no reason to 7

우리 남편은 스티븐이다: uri namp'yŏnŭn sŭt'ibŭnida.

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treat the group of researchers as an extended self. Moreover, Stephen himself might well be in the group of researchers.8 In this example, however, the husband in ›our husband is Stephen‹ is different than ›our husband‹ uttered by the person, whose husband is actually Stephen. In the first case, where researchers who work on husbands say ›our husband,’ this ›husband‹ refers to the subject of their research, which does not express nor indicate the relationship of the speaker to the person named Stephen. ›Our‹ here indicates the group who research on husbands together – a specific group who are gathered to form a particular group. And one can trans­ form ›our husband is Stephen‹ to ›the topic (husband) of our research is Stephen‹. Meanwhile, when the person whose husband is actually Stephen says, ›our husband is Stephen‹, ›husband‹ here indicates my relationship to Stephen. So, this person cannot say ›our husband is Stephen‹ formulated in a different way than that above. And in this case, ›our‹ doesn’t necessarily indicate any relevant group(s) of the we, where I (whose husband is Stephen), Stephen, and the person(s) who I am talking to belong together with a certain membership or relationship.

4. Extended Self When one says ›our‹ in Korean, the impression that one gets is that it is more than to indicate this, that, or my someone or something. For example, one can simply say ›husband‹ to refer to her/his husband without ›our‹, which is also grammatically correct and common in Korean. If you say ›husband wants to go for a walk‹, everyone knows that you are talking about your husband.9 Based on comments from Steven Davis (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University and Carleton University). 9 »Possessive expressions such as ›u-ri/chŏ-hi home‹, or ›u-ri/chŏ-hi husband‹, or ›u-ri/chŏ-hi kids‹, etc. do not presuppose or require the complete separation of ›I‹ from the »other« who belongs to this group of ›we‹, if there are others in this ›we‹. When ›u-ri‹/ ›chŏ-hi‹ as the exclusive ›we‹ is used as a subject noun, however, for example ›we [u-ri/chŏ-hi] eat sugary breakfast‹, this ›u-ri‹/ ›chŏhi‹ includes the third party who eats the sugary breakfast together with the addresser. The addresser would not necessarily use ›u-ri‹/’chŏ-hi‹ instead of ›I‹, if she always eats alone. But at the same time, the addresser would say ›I eat sugary breakfast‹, only when she wants to emphasize the ›I‹ in this sentence, in other words, to distin­ 8

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But then why do they say ›our husband‹ in Korean? Even when one thinks to myself, as a native Korean speaker (not talking to anyone else), one can still refer to my husband as ›our husband‹ in Korean. In this sense, this ›our‹ is not to indicate a particular husband, either ›my‹, ›our‹, or ›not my husband‹, but ›our husband‹ is the same as ›husband‹ that comes with the feeling of being connected. What is the immediate impression or mental image that a person could have when saying ›our husband‹? For example, one could reflect upon the image that comes up when saying ›pencil‹. One pictures a pencil that he/she can hold and use to write. When one says ›our husband‹ in Korean, for instance, the very first thing that comes to one’s mind could be a door to a house which is his/her home. This would not be the door of the actual house where the person has grown up or now lives, but it is a symbolic door of home, home not as a specific place, but home where the person belongs. The expression ›our someone‹ of one’s family that comes with the projec­ tion of a door to home can be represented in the Chinese characters that mean ›home‹ or ›house‹, which are 宇 [우: U] and 宙 [주: Chu]. These two characters are combined together to form one word that means ›the cosmos‹, ›the universe‹, ›space‹. This door seems to be this space of ›our‹ that opens up whenever someone needs to enter to be home ›with me‹. But this ›with me‹ also doesn’t feel like ›I‹ am already there waiting for others to enter, but the space behind this door seems like where we all are, who ›I‹ refer to as ›our‹, including myself. In this context, I argue that the we-ness expressed in ›our husband‹ indicates the pre-subjective we-ness, which means that: 1) 2)

the we-ness, our intersubjective consciousness might precede our subjective consciousness, our subjective consciousness is always necessarily intersubjec­ tive.

What do I mean by precede? First of all, one might come to have an awareness of self, which is expressed as ›I‹ in English, once he/she guish ›my‹ different taste or habit of breakfast from the addressee or the other. Beyond that, one would say that she eats sugary breakfast without a personal pronoun at all, for example: ›[…] eat sugary breakfast‹, without a subject noun, ›I‹ in this case« (Kim 2017, 622). In Korean, the grammatical subject can be dropped, since it is understood from the context. This means that Korean is a pro-drop language, but this does not mean that a speaker is not required. However, whether a pronoun is dropped or not in the sentence does not affect the way ›we‹ is used in Korean, when it is said.

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can speak. Here I am talking about the primary moment of the awareness of the self, i.e. how infants develop their sense of self. And this moment of the awareness of self might come after separating oneself from other beings, usually from the mother. »The infant’s awareness of others as attentive and intentional beings cannot be considered apart from her awareness of herself as the object of this attentional and intentional directedness. To experience your looking at me, for example, is also to be aware that there is a me to be looked at […]. This ›me‹ that the infant is aware of in these simple engagements exists and develops within this relation to other people« (Reddy 2010, 126). But even after the primary development of self-awareness, I argue that our self-consciousness is not separable from our consciousness of other entities and things. Or, put another way, our self-consciousness might be based on our consciousness of the world, in which not only other entities and things, but also I myself exist, as a whole, and I consciously separate myself from this whole. Is the self (not) based on my recognition of the other and the other’s recognition of me? If so, can one say the nature of self is based on the recognition of others? I use the words ›I‹ and ›we‹ for this investigation, because they are the words that could express these ideas. A child might learn how to use ›I‹ before ›we,’ but I didn’t intend to discuss which word is learned to be used first. Even if one learns to use ›we‹ later than ›I,’ one’s primary understanding of the we-ness might not be ›myself plus non-myself‹. Let’s take a look at the following examples: (a) »I see a hand«. (b) »I see my hand«. In (b), the object of my perception is part of me, but in (a), it is not. I reformulate these in the following way: (i) I see Δ (object). Again, I can be aware of the perception of myself (self-perception): (ii) I see myself (i) seeing Δ. If Δ is a part of myself, we can probably reformulate this sentence as: (iii) I see (a part of) myself. (iv) I see myself (ii) seeing (a part of) myself. (v) I see myself seeing myself. Back to (iii), there is a language (eg. Malagasy) in which the object of a perception is considered to become a part of oneself (the perceiver), even if the object is not an actual part of myself, such as my hand or my hair, etc. In Malagasy, even (i) can be transformed to (v). In such languages, subject and object structure is not the standard way of understanding the process of our perception. This linguistic practice cannot be simply translated into subject-object oriented languages, for example, into the passive form. This implies there might be a

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different way of taking an object of our perception, through which the perception of self is also transformed. Another problem occurs when the object of my perception is another person: (c) »I see her«. Does it work the same way as when I see a chair? If she sees me too, does it work differently from when she doesn’t see me? One should also regard the psychological aspects of the self with an example of a feeling: »Someone smiles at you and you feel pleased. The feeling which infuses you is not separable from (and cannot be understood separately form) the smile of the other person; your feeling includes the other person’s« (Reddy 2010, 121). (vi) »I see the other who sees me«. This feeling of pleasure is my feeling but what about pain in my body? How about the following sentence? (d) »I feel pain in my stomach«. The feeling of pain usually causes one to be very aware of the self, in the sense that when we have pain in some part of our body, we are hyper-aware of that particular part of our body. Is being aware of a particular part of my body a result of self-objectification? Or when one is embarrassed, one becomes very aware of the self. The difference lies in that in the case of feeling pain, the subject and the object of my perception is only me myself and no others need to be involved, while embarrassment presupposes the eye of the others who also see me.

D ego as an individuated self

D ego as(in) the extended self

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I do not doubt that a person is an autonomous individual, but I question subjective experiences, not compared to objective experi­ ences, but in comparison to intersubjective experiences, i.e. whether subjective experiences are solely based on ›my‹ experiences which are independent from my experiences of others, and my experiences of the experiences of the others. The same applies for the self, or self-con­ sciousness: can one be conscious of oneself completely independently from his/her consciousness of his/her relation to the world, in which one exists? We can know the other minds only through interaction, which can be expressed in language, and through such interaction we cognize our own mind and how it works. Subjective consciousness is always intersubjective. In other words, intersubjective (interactive) perception primes perception and self-perception. However, this necessary connection of ›I‹ with the other can be also questioned: suppose I rub my eyes and then have an experience of something bright in my field of vision. There is no other person, someone else that is associatively constitutive of my experience.10 Here I wonder if the experience of something bright in my vision should/could be considered as the same as my awareness of this vision. This experience is individual and solitary, but this experience is not mutually exclusive with my experience of the others. Rather, my experience of perceiving something and perceiving others consti­ tute together my perception in general, because perceiving myself perceiving an external object is self-perception, and for one to have self-perception, one should be able to distinguish oneself from the other who is external to myself. But here arises another problem of ›I‹ and the other: when ›I‹ with the other is the plural of ›I‹, is this plural of ›I‹, ›he‹, ›she‹ etc. the same as the plural of objects such as apples/ chairs…etc.? How is (a) ›we‹ as plural of ›I‹ differentiated from (b) ›2 persons (plural)‹ opposed to ›1 person‹? In this regard, we need to decipher the structure of the we, i.e. how the notion of the we is structured. There is a perspective to interpret the structure of the we in English (and German) as the combination of ›you (other self) and I (the self)‹: Ich-Du (Kim 2017, 618). If the we is ›I and (not present) he‹ or ›I and (not present) she‹, excluding the person who is present (that the speaker talks to), the he or the she here means the other self who belongs to the we, therefore he or she is not the third other, 10

Based on a comment from Steven Davis.

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but

the you in the structure of ›you and I, therefore, we‹. But there

is another ›you‹ as well that does not belong to this ›you and I, we‹.

Here ›you‹ in Ich-Du does not necessarily

D indicate grammatically the

second-person singular or plural pronoun, but both the distanced you

and

the included you are there. Look the following examples: ego as(in) the extended self A:

(holding a dog in his arms) (a)We are going to see (b)his mother. Do (c)you* want to come with (d)us? B:

Sure, (e)I will go with (f)you*.

88

his mom

8087 00 dog A

8

of B

we = I (the self) + he (the other self, i.e. you of the »you and I, we«) his (the other self that belongs to the we of this sentence) you* (one person: the third other excluded from the we) us = I (the self) + he (the other self, i.e. you of the »you and I, we«) I against (e) you (as the we, which I don’t belong to) you* = (more than one person) as a group of you (the speaker) and he 1) You* with distance (not I, or not we) (c), (f) 2) You in the we (b) 3) You* as the we (f)

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

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88

888A 88

exclusive we #2 exclusive we #1

inclusive we #1

inclusive we #2 not present present

The distinction between inclusive and exclusive we is clear, and it exists in multiple languages. B with distance (not I (A), nor we) is referred to as ›you‹ by A. However, at the same time, B is the third person to the we (A+dog/A+dog+his mom), and the you in this (exclusive we) is either the dog or his mom – not B. The question is whether there’s another possibility to understand the we other than in this structure (you and I). .

5. Self, One, They, You, and We Another interesting linguistic practice in Korean that I would like to have a look at is that the word 자기 [chaki], which means ›self‹, is used in Korean to address the second-person singular ›you‹ or the third-person singular ›he/she‹, or ›one‹ as everyone. For example: (a) »Self busy today?«11 (b) »Self didn’t want to go there.«12

11 12

자기 오늘 바빠?: chagi onŭl pappa? 자기는 가기 싫대: chaginŭn kagi shilt'ae.

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(c) »Our Self, did you have dinner yet?«13 (d) »Self should take care of self’s own belongings.«14 In (a), ›self‹ refers to the second-person singular ›you‹, in (b) the third-person singular she/he, in (c) ›self‹ is used as a term of endearment, and in (d) ›self‹ functions as ›one‹ in English referring to ›everyone‹. They can be translated as below: (a) (b) (c) (d)

Are you busy today? He/she didn’t want to go there My sweetheart, did you have dinner yet? One should take care of one’s own belongings.

Some linguists argue that this self in Korean is a long-distance anaphor,15 but their semantic bindings are not always reflexive, unlike in Chinese and Japanese (in which this word is always reflexive), although they use the same matching word 自己 [chaki] (Han and Storoshenko 2012). Related to the fourth use of ›self‹ as ›one‹, there are interesting features of ›one‹ in other languages as well in terms of the implication and the scope of the use of the word ›one‹. In French, the third-person singular on is used frequently in the place of nous which means ›we‹. In other words, the anonymous third-per­ son is used to refer to ›we‹. It is comparable to the German word man. Usually man is equivalent to the English word one which is used similarly to the ›we‹ in pluralis modestiae, which is used to refer to one person who also represents the ›other‹ (Kim 2017, 616– 617). This can be replaced by ›you‹ as well in scientific writing or journalism. For example, in the sentence »When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativ­ ity«, ›you‹ can be replaced by ›one‹ without a change of meaning. Here, ›one‹ means ›anyone‹ or ›everyone.‹ In a previous paper, I have interpreted that pluralis modestiae indicates everyone, including the author and the reader (Kim 2017, 616), however it seems to be more fair to say that it is rather ›everyone‹ that doesn’t necessarily indicate 자기야, 저녁 먹었어?: chagiya, chŏnyŏk mŏgŏssŏ? 자기 물건은 자기가 챙겨야지: chagi mulgŏnŭn chagiga ch'aenggyŏyaji. 15 Anaphor means a word or phrase that refers back to an earlier word or phrase. For example, in the sentence »my cousin said she was coming«, the anaphor is ›she‹, used to refer to ›my cousin‹ (Oxford Dictionaries: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/anaphor). 13

14

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the author nor the reader.16 It is the anonymous third, who is unknown but everyone at the same time. In Being and Time, where Heidegger delineates das Man,17 this anonymous third is well described.18 We are, as human Dasein, absorbed in the world where we are proximately ›they‹ for the most part and remain so (Heidegger 2001, 168) in our everyday­ ness. »Everyone is the other, and no one is himself. The ›they‹, which supplies the answer to the question of the ›who‹ of everyday Dasein, is the ›nobody‹ to whom every Dasein has already surrendered itself in Being-among-one-another« (Heidegger 2001, 165–166). According to Heidegger, while we are »lost in the they« (Heidegger 2001, 175) in our everyday life, the ›they‹ distracts us from standing by ›myself‹ and we fail to hear our own voice. Being the ›they‹ among and with the Other, we lose our self. The ›they‹ is, therefore, every­ one including ›myself‹, but not necessarily ›myself.‹ Paradoxically, because Heidegger’s analysis of the Other and being with the Other in Being and Time does not give a full clear account to understand what exactly the Other is to Dasein and how Dasein relates with the Other, this vagueness of the Other, who is not ›myself‹ as the unknown they, but also with whom Dasein is together in its every­ dayness, gives us a clue to understand what we would mean by saying ›one‹, ›they‹, ›man‹, or ›we‹. In this state of being in the ›they‹, in other words, in the we-ness, ›I‹ is lost. In the context of Being and Time, it is named as an inauthentic way of being, but the inauthentic way of being does not indicate a negative, nor secondary, nor immoral way of being, rather it is as crucial as the authentic way of being. Both ways of being, when the self is lost in the ›they‹ (›we‹) and when the self is found, are fundamental to our ›self-understanding‹.

Based on comments from Steven Davis. »In German one may write ›man glaubt‹ where in French one would write ›on croit‹, or in English ›they believe‹, »one believes‹, or ›it is believed‹. But the Ger­ man ›man‹ and the French ›on‹ are specialized for such constructions in a way in which the pronouns ›they‹, ›one‹, and ›it‹ are not. There is accordingly no single idiomatic translation for the German ›man‹ which will not sometimes lend itself to ambiguity, and in general we have chosen whichever construction seems the most appropriate in its context. (…) Heidegger introduces this word with a definite article and writes ›das Man‹« (Macquarrie and Robinson 2001, 149). 18 Based on comments from David Carr (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Emory University). 16 17

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6. Intersubjective Subjectivity The moment that ›my‹ father, ›my‹ husband, and a stranger can be ›we‹ along with ›me‹ simply by ›being there‹ seems to project this notion of ›everybody but nobody, nobody but anybody‹ where I don’t and do belong. This might give a clue to understand the not uncom­ mon convention of cross-using ›we‹, ›you‹, ›they‹, and ›one‹ in mul­ tiple languages. The we-ness represented here does not require any social engagement, but social interaction doesn’t necessarily mean always social engagement. As experiments in cognitive sciences show, our perception is always social, and the scope of interaction goes beyond actual exchanging of contacts or language (Gallotti and Frith 2013). For example, another person’s presence, who is not proactively interacting with me, even changes my own perception and alters my peripersonal space and the direction and the sphere of my activity (Gallotti and Frith 2013, 4). The we-ness expressed in Korean used between socially unrelated people highlight this side of the we-mode, namely that the we-mode is not what we gain as a result of the conscious pursuing of a cooperation or what individuals gather and build for a certain, common purpose, but it is what we are already thrown in, or what is installed in the system of our cognition that is not in any way reducible or subordinate to the ›I‹-ness. This does not mean, however, that all the cases of using ›we‹ always represent this mode of we-ness. There are cases where the we is used as a group that is formed by individuals through their proactive and engaged actions. Therefore, we-ness is not always pre-subjective. However, sub­ jective self-perception is always grounded in one’s interactive per­ ception of the world, in which one is placed, and also with one’s own-othered self, through which one can come to have an awareness of the self. This is because one should be able to be aware that one is there, and this awareness is based on ›observing‹ one’s being there. In this sense, subjective perception is always intersubjective. But again, any intersubjective perception is necessarily accompanied with self-perception. This shows the inevitable connection between subjective and intersubjective perception. In fact, it is not a brand-new argument that self-conscious­ ness and the consciousness of others are inseparable in philosophy (Husserl 1954, 256). The analogy of the bagpipe sound by Brentano, for example, that is intentionally directed both to the bagpipe and

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itself, articulates that our awareness of others (objects) is always com­ bined with our awareness of the self (Kriegel 2009, 14). Husserl held the view that the personal ›I‹ has its origin in social life: »Personality is constituted only as the subject enters into social relations with others« (Husserl 1973, 175). In this context, ›I‹ is understood in a relative relation to the other, namely, the ›thou‹ and the we, in which the ego as a person »requires relation to a world which engages it. Therefore, ›I‹, we and the world belong together« (Husserl 1952, 319). This ascribes a relative mode of being to the personal ›I‹ (Husserl 1952, 288).

0

80

intersubjective subject (irreducible we-mode)

o

0

80

intersubjective subject (irreducible we-mode)

we (formed we-mode)

The we that individuals build through social engagement is, however, a different dimension, in the sense that there are two different we-modes: one is the we-mode that is not reducible and postulated in our cognition, and the other is the we-mode that individuals form together.

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7. Topological Analysis: Self-Consciousness and Belongingness Another ›language‹ that I would like to utilize to sharpen the logic of my thesis is the language of knot set theory. One can structure the logical relationship of intersubjective subjectivity with knot-logic and visualize it in three-dimensional space by using the logic of member­ ship and belongingness. Let’s say there are undefined objects ›a‹, ›b‹, and ›c‹, and a notion of membership is denoted as ›a Є b‹, which means ›a belongs to b‹. It will be possible for ›a‹ to belong to itself or to say ›a belongs to b‹ while ›b belongs to a‹ (Kauffman 1995, 32–33). Objects will be indicated by non-self-intersecting arcs in the plane, and a given object may correspond to a multiplicity of arcs, each of which will be labelled with a label corresponding to the object.

Membership is indicated by the diagram as below:

F we see that ›a belongs to b‹. The arc ›b‹ is unbroken, while ›a‹ labels two arcs that meet on opposite sides of ›b‹, which

represents that ›a passes under b‹ according to the convention of

illustrating one arc passing behind another by putting a break in the

arc that passes behind. This pictorial convention is important for the

logic and the relationship with three-dimensional space (Kauffman

1995, 32). I apply two models of knots: a trefoil knot and Borromean rings.

A trefoil knot consists of one seamless ring with three crossings that

represent self-mutuality (self-membership), while the three rings b

of Borromean rings mutually belong together, and the crossings Ga

between the rings show their belongingness to each other. At a

crossing, the membership is conceived through the membership logic

indicated above. I marked the three crossings on the outer edge as a,

b, c, and the other three inside as α, β, and γ. At the crossing ›a‹, where

the ring C is placed under the ring A, C belongs to A. At each crossing,

there is a membership relationship.

Here

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[Borromean rings]

[trefoil knot]

What is interesting about the two-dimensionalized model of the Borromean rings is that inside the Borromean rings, a trefoil knot is nestled, i.e. in the inner structure of the mutual relationships of the rings is a trefoil knot with the outer edges open. In a trefoil knot, there are three crossings as in the inner structure of the Borromean rings: α, β, γ (Kim 2022). crossing Belongingness Α

A Є A / A Є B A = {A} = {B, C}

Β

A Є A / B Є C A = {A} = {C, A}

γ

A Є A / C Є A A = {A} = {A, B}

[trefoil structure in the Borromean rings]

A trefoil knot represents a stable self-mutuality in three loops about itself: a = {a}. A trefoil knot in the Borromean rings has individual sides formed from two different rings that surround it. Therefore, in the self-mutual structure of the identical A, we can find the

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F Intersubjective Subjectivity: Language, Diversity of Language

mutual relationships between three individual rings of the Borromean structure (Kauffman 1995). [mutuality]

[self-mutuality]

b Ga

»Knots and links form a calculus that is inherently self-referential and mutual« (Kauffman 1995, 112). The logic of mutuality and self-mutu­ ality in the Borromean rings and the trefoil knot models visualizes the fundamental inter-relation of the subjective (self) and intersubjective consciousness and their structure, through which we understand how we are aware of myself and others at the same time. Our consciousness happens through the interaction of the perception of self and the perception of not-self (including other objects and observed self). This double perception occurs simultaneously. Therefore, consciousness is self-consciousness and self-consciousness is always intersubjective (Kim 2022).

8. Conclusion In the philosophical system which has been evolving around the core subjective concept of ›I‹, the concept of intersubjectivity has been built out of the supremacy of the I. The plural of ›I‹ is the ›we‹ under the formulation of ›I and You‹, in which there is no room for the third other outside ›I‹ and ›You.‹ This you is not-I, which is basically another ›I.‹ What this ›not‹ implies is crucial for understanding the other. We consciously and unconsciously decide how far this ›not‹ can and should be embraced. We have observed how the we could be also misused to oppress and nullify the other, the other who is nei­ ther ›I‹ nor ›you.‹ The other who is not ›I‹ nor ›you‹ has had different faces; they sometimes have the face of the Jew, colored, disabled, woman, Muslim, LGBT, and so on. There has long been an acknowl­

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edgement of this problem, and strong reactions have been aroused as well. Already in philosophy such a question has been raised: »whether there is not an institutional racism within contemporary philosophy that emerges in our tendency to ignore or otherwise play down their [the eminent figures of the history of Western philosophy] racism while we celebrate their principles«, (Bernasconi 2013, 13) pointing out that »for largely historical reasons, the study of the history of philosophy in the English-speaking world has much more to do with maintaining its philosophical legitimacy in the face of the very narrow conception of philosophy that came to prominence in the period immediately after the Second World War than with meeting the standards that would establish its credentials as history« (Bernasconi 2013, 15). At the heart of this problem lies the problematic of subjec­ tivity and intersubjectivity. The frame of this problematic influences not only the question of »who belongs to us and who belongs to the other« but also the question of »who is the subject«. Philosophy has not yet had enough space for a philosophy of the other. The question of »who ›I‹ am and who ›we‹ are« in philosophy has not yet offered a place for the other, who is not ›I‹ nor ›you‹, but ›they‹. All this goes back to the problem of the subject under the condition that there must be the subject and its objects, with no room for coexisting subjects. Who then gets to be the subject? This is the background of the framework in which the discourses of the ›we‹ are situated. Philosophy can make a contribution in framing a positive and balanced worldview for the present world, where the borders between different groups do not remain fixed as before. This is possible through including ›the other‹ in philosophy in conversation. But a mere comparison wouldn’t do much to contribute to this conversation. But would I refer to this research as ›phenomenology of lan­ guage‹? Or ›linguistic phenomenology‹? This research is not about studying the linguistic patterns of the Korean language, but intends to investigate the psychological, social, and cultural dimensions that the language indicates so that we can inquire more about our under­ standing of the self, the other, consciousness, subjectivity, and inter­ subjectivity – through the method of transcendental phenomenology. A linguistic analysis is not the goal of this research, but I take the way of saying ›I‹ and ›we‹ as the phenomena, the appearance of how subjective/intersubjective consciousness is represented to us. We might be able to understand »was das Wort von ihm will« (Mach

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1900, 404; see also Mattens 2008, 323) by investigating them as they are perceived as such.

References Agha, Asif, 2006: Language and Social Relations. Cambridge, Cambridge Uni­ versity Press. Bernasconi, Robert, 2003: Will the Real Kant Please Stand Up. The Challenge of Enlightenment Racism to the Study of the History of Philosophy. Radical Philosophy 117, pp. 13–22. Choi, Jaehoon, 2016: Jussive Subjects as Imposters. Linguistics 74, pp. 3–24. Gallotti, Mattia and Frith, Chris, 2013: Social Cognition in the We-Mode. Trends Cognitive Science 17.4, pp. 160–165. Han Chung-hye, Storoshenko, Dennis, 2012: Semantic Binding of Long-distance Anaphor Caki in Korean. Language 88.4, pp. 764–790. Kauffman, Louis, 1995: Knot Logic. In: Louis Kauffman (ed). Knots and Applica­ tions. Series on Knots and Everything, Vol. 6. Singapore, World Scientific. Kim, Hye Young, 2017: A Phenomenological Approach to the Korean ›We‹: A Study in Social Intentionality. Frontiers of Philosophy in China 12.2, pp. 612–632. Kim, Hye Young, 2022: A topological Analysis of Space-Time-Consciousness: Self, Self-Self, Self-Other. In: Hye Young Kim (ed). When Form Becomes Substance. Power of Gestures, Diagrammatical Intuition and Phenomenology of Space. Cham, Birkhauser, pp. 427–450. Kim, Lan, 2015. A Note on Imposter Expressions in Korean. Linguistics 71, pp. 139–160. Mach, Ernst, 1886: Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen. Jena, Gus­ tav Fischer. Mach, Ernst, 1900: Die Prinzipien der Wärmelehre. Leipzig, Johann Ambro­ sius Barth. Mattens, Filip, 2008: Introducing Terms. Philosophical Vocabulary, Neologism and the Temporal Aspect of Meaning. Meaning and Language: Phenomeno­ logical Perspectives. Dordrecht, Springer. Parmentier, Richard, 1994: Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Pellencin, Elisa; Paladino, Maria Paola; Herbelin Bruno; Serino, Andrea, 2017: Social Perception of Others Shapes One’s Own Multisensory Peripersonal Space. Cortex 104, pp. 163–179. Reddy, Vasudevi, 2010. How Infants Know Minds. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. UNHCR, 2018. http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html Zanuttini, Raffaella, Pak, Miok, Portner, Paul, 2012: A Syntactic Analysis of Interpretive Restrictions on Imperative, Promissive, and Exhortative Subjects. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 30.4, pp. 1231–1274.

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Subjectivity and World: The Roots of the Crisis in Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology

1. Introduction Husserl’s concept of crisis has evoked much discussion even though he uses it only at the beginning of the Vienna and Prague lectures and in two more instances in the posthumously published The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Crisis).1 The concept appears in a number of combinations, such as the crisis of European culture and humanity, meaning, philosophy, society, and science. While most interpreters agree that the concept of the crisis of the European2 sciences is pivotal, they disagree about its exact nature and its relations to the other uses of »crisis« in Husserl. According to the »traditional interpretation«,3 which Trizio ascribes to Gurwitsch, Paci, Carr, Boehm, Ströker, Bernet, Kern, and Marbach, as well as Dodd, the crisis of the European sciences consists in a loss of meaning of science. Husserl expressively uses the descrip­ tion »[t]he ›crisis‹ of science as the loss of its meaning for life«.4 Trizio »Crisis« in this paper refers to the English translation by David Carr (1970). The German original includes a few more texts and was first published in 1954 (Hua VI). 2 Husserl’s use of the adjective »European« highlights several ideas. Husserl suggests that an »absolute idea« and »meaning« (Crisis, 16), which he desires for all of human­ ity, developed in a particular manner in European culture. Another motivation to speak of »European sciences« was Husserl’s opposition against the radical nationalism and racism of his time, which had already stripped him of his speaking rights in Germany. Since Husserl includes also north America in the development of the »Euro­ pean« sciences, one may as well speak of »Western Sciences«, as Trizio (2016) does. The concepts of »European« and »Western sciences«, however, both convey an ethnocentric and imperialistic undertone, which makes both concepts problematic. 3 Trizio (2020, 159, fn. 5). 4 Hua VI, 3. 1

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himself challenges the traditional interpretation and instead proposes that the crisis »can only be a crisis of scientificity«.5 »Scientificity« is Trizio’s preferred translation for Wissenschaftlichkeit, which Husserl explicates as the task (Aufgabe) and method (Methodik) of science.6 Trizio furthermore holds that the loss of significance for life is a »fur­ ther, inevitable consequence of the uprooting of the sciences from the soil of a universal philosophy culminating in metaphysics«.7 Against Trizio, Heffernan argues for an »inclusive approach«, according to which the crisis of the European sciences is »both a crisis of their scientificity and a crisis of their meaningfulness for life«.8 In fact, he distinguishes seven different but »inextricably linked« crises in Husserl’s book, and holds that the six other crises are caused by the crisis of the European sciences: (1) There is a Krisis of the European sciences in so far as the natural and mathematical sciences have become purely positivistic. (2) There is a Krisis of the European sciences in so far as the human sciences have lost their way by modeling themselves on the natural and mathematical sciences. (3) There is Krisis of European psychology, the supposed science of the human spirit, in so far as it cannot clarify its own subject matter. (4) There is a Krisis of European culture in so far as it has lost its faith in rationality. (5) There is a Krisis of European humanity in so far as it has become questionable whether it any longer possesses the capacity to achieve the entelechy with which all humanity was conceived. (6) There is a Krisis of European exitence in so far as human beings have lost their sense of a meaningful life. (7) There is a Krisis of European philosophy in so far as it no longer addresses the metaphysical questions, the meaning questions. Etiologically speaking, Krisen (1)-(6) are traceable to Krisis (7).9

Heffernan’s list neatly shows that Husserl uses the concept of crisis in multiple intertwined ways. Since the different uses of crisis are connected, I suggest understanding them as ramifications of a com­ mon issue. Seen in this way, it does not really matter whether the loss of the meaningfulness of modern science to life is a consequence, or a part of, the crisis of the European sciences. Either way, the

5 6 7 8 9

See Trizio (2016, 192). Crisis, 5. Trizio (2016, 191). Heffernan (2017, 229). Heffernan (2017, 253–254).

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crucial point for understanding Husserl’s concept of crisis is, and here Trizio and Heffernan agree, that the crisis of the European sciences is due to a crisis of philosophy. In Trizio’s term, the crisis of science is a »repercussion«10 of the crisis of philosophy. Husserl writes that the »crisis of philosophy« implies (bedeuted) the crisis of the European sciences in modernity,11 i.e., »in the first centuries of the modern period«,12 from about Galileo Galilei onward. This chapter does not go up to the ramifications of the crisis, it does not discuss further the wider implications and impact of the cri­ sis. Instead, it takes the opposite direction and goes down to the roots of the crisis of the European sciences. This approach shows that the different senses of crisis do not only share their origin in a philosoph­ ical problem, but also that this problem consists of misunderstandings of the relation between the world of subjective experience and the objective world. In addition, this approach connects the crisis talk in the Crisis to Husserl’s earlier works. Whereas »crisis« is a new concept for Husserl, the problem it expresses is at the core of Husserl’s philosophical life. Furthermore, this approach connects the beginning of the Crisis to its later parts, which elaborate the roots rather than the ramifica­ tions of the crisis. After admitting that he had »advanced too quickly, in order to make felt the incomparable significance attaching to the clarification of the deepest motives of this crisis«,13 Husserl does not further elaborate the concept of crisis. In the first of the two instances in the continuous text of the Crisis where he uses the word crisis, he says that there are »always new crises« of natural sciences, and in the other that there is a »crisis of psychology«.14 Otherwise, the elaboration of the concept of crisis is restricted to the Vienna and Prague lectures and the very beginning of the Crisis. The concept of crisis serves as an introduction to the underlying problem that Husserl unfolds after the introduction, namely the development that led to the state of science and philosophy of his – and by extension our – time. This underlying problem needs to be understood to fathom the full depth of what Husserl means by the crisis of the European sciences. 10 11 12 13 14

Trizio (2016, 191). Crisis, 12. Crisis, 7. Crisis, 16. Crisis, 216, cf. Crisis, 212.

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As one may expect, Husserl follows the roots far into their depth. He extensively analyses the development of the European sciences, mathematics, and philosophy, and here, in contrast to the rather loose use of »crisis«, he very much attempts to make careful distinctions. He spends much effort fathoming the genesis of European science, in particular from Galileo onwards, and the changes to the understand­ ing of subjectivity. Husserl thoroughly investigates, on the one hand, the relation between the subjectively experienced lifeworld and the world of modern science. On the other hand, he carefully reconsiders the possibilities and difficulties of the phenomenological method. The next section will look at the genesis of the European sci­ ences and the »mathematisation of nature« rather briefly, which I have investigated in detail in my dissertation.15 For Husserl, the development involves crucial philosophical misunderstandings, and overcoming them is an important step to tackling the problem of the relation of subjectivity and the world. I contend, however, that this does not eliminate the wider problem. In other words, uncovering the lifeworld beneath the sedimentations of science enables a better view of subjectivity, but it does not solve the underlying issue of the inter­ relationships between subjectivity and the objective world. Section 3 then investigates the fundamental problems of subjectivity and, in particular, the famous (and infamous) »paradox of subjectivity«.16 It concludes that the crisis would only be completely resolved once those interrelationships are completely understood, or it is at least clear that phenomenology can lead to such an understanding. The difficulties delineating the exact borders of Husserl’s different uses of »crisis«, as well as the rather particular meaning of the concept, motivate another question at the end (section 4), namely whether the concept of crisis is really appropriate for the problems investigated by Husserl.

2. The Paradoxical Interrelationships between the World of Science and the Lifeworld Although Husserl speaks of a crisis of the sciences, he clearly is not attempting to tell the sciences how to conduct their investigations and, 15 16

Durt 2012. Crisis, 178.

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on the contrary, recognises their enormous successes.17 The successes do only pertain to a limited concept of science, however, a »residual concept« (Restbegriff).18 On the way to success, the wider idea of science got lost, that of »one all-encompassing science, the science of the totality of what is«. The wider problems of reason and the meaning of science for life were dismissed from scientific investigation and became a matter of ideology. They are the bone of contention of divergent schools and indeed, in the case of »ideological positivism«,19 are not only dismissed from science but also from philosophy. This may suggest that the simple solution to the loss is that science needs to regain the wider sense it had in antiquity. But the loss of that wider sense was not a simple forgetfulness but the result of the very concept that founds the success of modern science, namely the modern concept of the world. More precisely, Husserl holds that the connection between the modern concept of the world and the world of subjective experience, the lifeworld, has become enigmatic. The paradox of subjectivity on the level of basic subjectivity is important, but it is only part of the story, and I will come back to it in section 3. Husserl also speaks of a paradox on the higher level of the interrelationships between the world of modern science and the lifeworld: »The paradoxical interrelationships of the ›objectively true world‹ and the ›lifeworld‹ make enigmatic the manner of being of both«.20 The interrelationships seem paradoxical because, on the one side, the world of modern science is framed in ideal and formal numerical terms. Numbers cannot directly be experienced but only their manifestations such as a printed »1«, or the intuitive distinction between one and two objects. The lifeworld, in contrast, is the world as experienced. The direct comparison of the mathematised world and the lifeworld leads to the paradox that empirical reality is described as non-experiential, yet it is the very world that we experience. Husserl also gives reasons why there is usually some sense of a paradox on this level and why already on this level, the true nature of the paradox does not become clear. Husserl’s account of the »mathematisation of nature« (Crisis, 23) shows that this paradox is due to the overlooking of an intri­ cate method applied to experience that starts with measurements 17 18 19 20

Crisis, 3-4. Crisis, 8. Hua VI, 5: weltanschaulicher Positivismus. Crisis, 131.

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and ends in a formal concept of reality. The mathematisation of nature consists of several consecutive yet interwoven steps that start with measurements through which ideal numbers are assigned to empirical objects, which are transformed into ideal and formal objects, which then can be operated on with the formal methods of mathematical-natural science. The »›objectively true‹ world« (Crisis, 131) is induced from the lifeworld. The resulting description is of purely formal objects and, in principle, not experienceable, and reality appears to be disconnected from the original experience. Yet, the paradoxical interrelationships usually remain unclear because the mathematised physical description is fitted onto the lifeworld like a tailor-made »garb of ideas« (Crisis, 51). The precise fit of the ideal objectivities of science makes it seem as if nature conceived in ideal mathematical terms would be just a more precise description of the same world. The radical difference between the two descriptions is covered up by seemingly frictionless methods of measurements, and the possibility of calculation of new data that can be used to predict future measurements. If the mathematised world of nature is taken to be reality in itself, the way objects and their properties and relations in the lifeworld are given to experience seems dismissible. Nevertheless, the math­ ematisation of nature does not directly affect ordinary experience and the »general thesis of the natural attitude«.21 The general thesis takes for granted that the world exists and the objects in it and their properties and relations exist in the way they appear in ordinary experience. Such assumptions do not have to be made an explicit topic of thought or predication; they can also be a non-reflective part of experience.22 The mathematisation of nature radicalises the general thesis by giving a radically objective description that is further removed from subjective experience. Scientists ostensibly replace the general thesis of the constitution of the world under the natural atti­ tude, the lifeworld, with a more objective description. Yet, in doing so, they presuppose that very lifeworld. For the scientist, the lifeworld is not functioning as »something irrelevant that must be passed through but as that which ultimately grounds the theoretical-logical ontic

21 22

Hua III/1, 60. Hua III/I, 62.

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validity for all objective verification, i.e., as the source of self-evidence, the source of verification«.23 For instance, modern physical science does not need a concept of colour to explain the changes of light rays due to surface reflectance properties. Since ordinary colour concepts often do not correspond straightforwardly to simple light wave or surface reflectance proper­ ties, there is a temptation to disregard ordinary concepts as confused, erroneous, and eliminable. This may cause a sense of incompatibility between the physical description of the world with the ordinary description of colours. But, even for the eliminativist, the physical description must be compatible with the ordinary view of colours in that it must be able to explain the changes in the physical world that are ordinarily perceived as changes in colours. Of course, this is exactly what physics does: it provides a scientific explanation of the physical processes that cause ordinary phenomena such as colours. Despite the high level of theoretical reflection, empirical science cannot completely leave behind ordinary experience in the lifeworld. Science exhibits »an elasticity that, however radical the reflection, leaves untouched an immediate acceptance of the pre-given ›world of things‹, one that underscores the validity of a theoretical engage­ ment«.24 The experience of objects in the lifeworld is not suspended but presupposed in the »substruction«25 of ordinary experience with mathematical-physical objects. By itself, the scientific description does not necessarily contradict the lifeworld. A true contradiction arises only when the ideal world of mathematical-natural science is supposed to replace the lifeworld, as is implied by the naturalistic reduction. The mathematisation of nature is, first of all, a core part of the scientific method. It may seem like a metaphysical endeavour since it is concerned with existence, and it operates with the very objects that metaphysical naturalism recognises as real. Yet, this does not need to involve the claim that the description of nature in mathematical-physical science is the only true description of the whole world. Making such a claim requires an additional, metaphysical, step. That step is taken by the naturalistic reduction, which reduces the apparent plurality of things and properties in the lifeworld to the allegedly only true austere reality 23 24 25

Crisis, 126. Dodd (2004, 480). Crisis, 127.

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of mathematical-natural science. Here, the paradoxical interrelation­ ships between the mathematised world and subjectivity appears. The naturalistic reduction must show that everything in the lifeworld can be completely reduced to the naturalistic description, including subjective experience. But since subjective experience was excluded from the reductive description in the first place, it seems impossible to reduce conscious experience to the reductive description. The paradox here consists of the juxtaposition of that apparent impossibility and the assertion that nevertheless the reduction must be done. These considerations can contribute to making sense of Husserl’s seemingly strange claim that, when we think that mathematical-nat­ ural science can explain reality in itself, »we take for true being what is actually a method«.26 »True being« is Husserl’s expression for real and possible cognition of the world.27 The experienced world is, of course, the lifeworld, rather than some alleged reality behind experience, or some pure mental substance.28 Husserl is not an »idealist« in the latter sense, he does not believe that reality is purely mental. Neither is he a naturalist who postulates some reality behind experience, which may then be confused with the lifeworld. The confusion is not a simple mistake that could easily be undone, but it results from applying a sophisticated method to the lifeworld, which becomes represented in a mathematical-physical description. The method replaces experiential reality in several steps, each of which can be related back to the previous step, so that the qualitative difference does not become obvious.29 Measurement techniques allow for abstract representations of extended qualities with always more precision. It seems obvious that these correctly represent reality, and they are hence regarded as the only real (»primary«) qualities of the world. Other, »secondary«, qualities cannot directly be measured and are disregarded as vague appearances that somehow must be produced by the subject out of constellations of primary qualities. The precise fit to the lifeworld makes it seem as if the representations represent the world in itself, while in fact they are put over the lifeworld like a »garb of ideas«.30 26 27 28 29 30

Crisis, 51. Hua IX, 329; Sheehan and Palmer (1997, 236). Hua IX, 330; Sheehan and Palmer (1997, 237). Durt (2012). Crisis, 51.

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Since the world of mathematical-natural science cannot be expe­ rienced in its ideal form, its relation to experience, in particular experiences of secondary qualities, seems enigmatic. By elaborating how the world of modern science is derived from the experiential lifeworld by the application of the method of the mathematisation of nature, Husserl’s account of the mathematisation explains that the apparent paradox of their interrelationships can be understood as the consequence of an overzealous naturalism rather than the actual work of natural science itself. But this does not get to the bottom of the crisis. Beneath the layer of naturalistic misinterpretations, further sedimentations inhibit the view on the subjectivity that, according to Husserl, underlies objective science. Overcoming naturalistic misun­ derstandings is only a first step toward a resolution of the crisis.

3. The Paradox of Subjectivity and why it needs to be resolved to overcome the Crisis When the naturalistic misunderstandings are left behind, the problem of the relation of objective science to subjective experience of the lifeworld presents itself on a very different level. The problem is no longer the irreconcilability of the lifeworld as the world of experience and the mathematised world as a non-experiential world. Instead, the phenomenological method of approaching the lifeworld, the epochē and phenomenological reduction, leads to a very different kind of irreconcilability. Whereas the purpose of the mathematisation of nature is to come to an objective description of reality, a description of the world before subjective experience, the purpose of the epochē is to prepare the investigation of experience in the way it is given to the subject of experience, without presupposing whether and how the experienced things exist in any sense that goes beyond experience. The epochē thus »brackets« or »suspends« the general thesis. Husserl gives the example of seeing a house, which in the natural attitude involves believing that there is a house.31 When the belief in the existence of everything is bracketed, the belief is still there, but it is not affirmed. Of course, the belief may be veritable or not, it is compatible with both the existence and the non-existence of the house. 31

Hua VIII, 92.

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Clearly, the epochē is not a form of scepticism. If the epochē were a sceptical move that would doubt the existence of what is posited by the general thesis, it would contradict the general thesis. Suspending is not questioning, however, but rendering inoperative. When the epochē suspends the ordinary belief in the existence of objects, it leaves intact everything as it is given to ordinary experience, just without the positing element of doxa or belief in the existence of things. The general thesis is neither affirmed nor contradicted. In contrast, the naturalistic interpretation of the mathematisa­ tion of nature, replaces one kind of existence – the experiential life­ world – with another kind of existence – the objective mathematised world. The concern with objective existence in the natural attitude and in the mathematisation of nature overlooks the constitutive accom­ plishments of subjectivity. Bracketing the general thesis, in contrast, allows focusing on the constitutive accomplishments of subjectivity. While both the mathematisation and the epochē are preliminary steps that prepare the further step of reduction, the naturalistic and the phenomenological reduction are opposed methods. The naturalistic reduction reduces experiential reality to the austere world of natural science. In contrast, the phenomenological reduction, in addition to the epochē, and as suggested by its Latin roots (re- + ducere), leads back the experience from the natural attitude to its subjective constituents. Unlike the naturalistic reduction, the phenomenological reduction does not render a description that would be detached from subjective experience and contradict the general thesis. By bringing the constitutive achievements of subjectivity into the focus, however, the phenomenological reduction brings to the fore other enigmatic problems regarding objectivity and subjectivity. Crucially, subjectivity concerns all experiences of the world of a subject, yet it also pertains to humans, which are obviously a part of the world. This dual characteristic leads to an apparent contradiction, the »paradox of subjectivity«:32 Universal intersubjectivity, into which all objectivity, everything that exists at all, is resolved, can obviously be nothing other than mankind; and the latter is undeniably a component part of the world. How can a component part of the world, its human subjectivity, constitute the whole world […]? (Husserl 1970, 179) 32

Crisis, 178.

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Husserl devotes much attention to the paradox of subjectivity, and whereas he quickly suggests a »resolution of the paradox« (Crisis, 182), he admits that the first attempt of that resolution is not sufficient (Crisis, 184) and leaves a second attempt of a resolution unfinished (Crisis, 186). In fact, it seems that now, after having brought subjectiv­ ity into the focus by avoiding naturalistic reductions, the really hard problems of subjectivity come into view. The nature of the paradox of subjectivity and the possibility of its resolution is controversial among Husserl scholars. Some have claimed that there is a solution if the paradox of subjectivity is interpreted epistemically33 or if it is understood that it is due to two different viewpoints.34 David Carr, in his book The Paradox of Subjectivity, in contrast, contends that »[t]hese two descriptions of the subject – subject for the world and object in the world – are equally necessary and essentially incompatible«.35 He concludes that »Husserl held onto this distinction, and believed that it could not be bridged, no matter how closely the two sides approached each other. I agree with him, and I think that the distinction can be shown to be both unbridgeable and paradoxical«.36 Others have claimed that the paradox does not express an incompatibility,37 or that phenomenological reflection does not »eliminate the difference between the transcendental and the empirical perspective, but per­ haps it makes their coexistence less paradoxical«.38 Another view is that »[t]he paradox cannot be resolved but only (›subjectively‹) be re-enacted«.39 Here, there is not enough space to investigate Husserl’s different formulations of the paradox and those of others, or to assess the possibility of a resolution of the paradox of subjectivity. I have spent a whole paper on this topic, which may interest those who want to think about it more.40 But already from the different formulations it is clear that, while Husserl was convinced that phenomenology is the right method to tackle the problems of subjectivity, he neither ignored the 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Seebohm (2015, 39). Luft (2012, 249). Carr (1999, 135). Carr (2002, 123). Carr (2002, 123). Zahavi (2002, 109). Rinofner-Kreidl (2003, 131; my translation). Durt (2020b, 69–85).

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problems on the way to a solution, nor did he think that he had reached a completely satisfying resolution. His work can show the problems underlying the crisis and while it avoids some of them, it does not complete the way to a resolution. As stated in section 2, it may seem that the crisis of the European sciences, whether defined as a lack of scientificity or as a disconnection from meaningfulness for life, could be overcome just by understand­ ing how the misinterpretation of the mathematisation of nature by naturalistic reductionism diverted science away from its course toward truly objective knowledge. But this section argued that such an understanding would not be complete if the relation of subjectivity to the lifeworld remains enigmatic. The paradox of subjectivity is in the way of such an understanding. Husserl clearly recognises this and even writes that »[i]f the paradox just developed were insoluble, it would mean that an actually universal and radical epochē could not be carried out at all«.41 It would remain fundamentally unclear how philosophy could arrive at »its horizon of apodictic forward movement«.42 Philosophy itself would remain in a state of crisis, and with it, a deeper understanding of science and its meaning for life. Since »the crisis of philosophy implies the crisis of all modern sciences as members of the philosophical universe«,43 the crisis of the modern sciences would not be overcome. Understanding the misinterpretations of the objective world thus does not overcome the crisis of the European sciences as long as the paradox of subjectivity is not resolved. Resolving the layers of naturalistic misunderstanding is an important first step, but it also brings to the fore the deeper problems of subjectivity. Even if the paradox of subjectivity can be solved in principle, it is clear that Husserl himself did not reach an ultimate solution, despite his repeated and serious attempts. Although he provides important tools and insights, he did not eradicate the deeper roots of the crisis.

41 42 43

Crisis, 180. Crisis, 72. Crisis, 12.

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4. Beyond the Concept of Crisis After Husserl, there has been a massive inflation of »crisis« talk,44 and the depth of Husserl’s concept of crisis is easily overlooked. On the one hand, the concept of crisis is applied to so many relatively minor problems that it becomes overused and blunt. On the other hand, there are so many huge, and indeed global, problems for which the concept of crisis is repetitively used that we have become numb to the existential implications of the concept. Husserl’s thought can contribute to better understanding the philosophical roots of the development of reason, science, and technology, to disentangle the conditions of apparent enigmas arising from that development, and to conceive of alternatives to its only apparently necessary course. To reflect on the concept of crisis, it is useful to go beyond what Husserl wrote about the crisis of the European sciences and to think about what he would have said on later »crisis«. What would he have said about the development, deployment, massive accumu­ lation, and proliferation of the atomic bomb, which makes human self-destruction an immediate possibility (nuclear crisis)? Or on the environmental crisis, which gives rise to the suspicion that human self-destruction is not only a possibility but a necessary consequence of the unchecked use of the very technology that was enabled by the progress of modern science? What would Husserl have said on the increasing guiding, nudging, and manipulating of human thought by means of automated algorithms, uses that are so powerful that they contribute to other »crisis«, such as that of democracy? Or what would he have said to the possibilities of almost total algorithmic control of human experience and behaviour in Augmented and Virtual Realities? These questions name problems that cannot be reduced to mere theoretical problems, but Husserl would surely hold that they are deeply intertwined with philosophical issues such as the meaning of science for human life, the rationality of science, and the connection between the objectivity of science and subjectivity. The last two and other questions on digital technology concern not only Husserl’s thought on the mathematisation of nature but also, inversely, how 44 See the graphs in the Google corpus of books: https://books.google.com/ngram s/graph?content=krisis&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=on. Also cf. Durt (2012, 194).

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experience itself can be produced by means of digital technology.45 Obviously, the problems arising from the use of these technologies are not caused by a lack of progress of science in a narrow sense. Husserl would surely point out where technical thinking has lost its connection with ordinary meaning, and where mere technological progress has replaced real scientific progress. Moreover, his analysis of the relation of calculation to experience and the lifeworld concerns not only the mathematisation of nature in modern science but also the foundations of the digitalisation. Regarding these issues, Husserl’s considerations in the Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcenden­ tal Philosophy are very topical. I would like to raise the question, however, of whether the concept of crisis is appropriate for the problems Husserl was alerting to by using this concept. In its original medical context, the concept suggests that there is a critical point, which is all-decisive, and after which there are only two options: the death or recovery of the patient. It suggests that, to use another concept that is worn-out today, it is »five to twelve«, that there is a certain number of minutes, days, or years to avert catastrophe and save everything. The claim that right here and now is the all-decisive moment is itself a ubiquitous rhetorical cliché. The »crisis« of the modern sciences as well as the other »crises« mentioned in the questions have proven to be perpet­ ual, and they do not have simple either-or outcomes. A perpetual crisis, however, is not a crisis but a round square. It is a contradictio in adjecto because the adjective ›perpetual‹ contradicts the concept of crisis. The idea of crisis as a critical state that results either in recoalescence or death is furthermore inapt to account for more-or-less outcomes. While, in the concrete context of Husserl’s talks, the concept of »crisis« was »in the air« and useful to introduce his profound genealogical analysis of the unresolved philosophical issues at its root, the concept of crisis needs to be reconsidered in the wider context referred to by Husserl. He may have wished to find a solution that would solve the »crisis« in a final one-time effort. But the above investigation has shown that the problems at the root of the »crisis« require perpetual attention. The concept of crisis is not apt to capture the complexity of the discussed issues and may lead to misunderstandings of their nature and possible solutions. Rather than becoming too entangled in »crisis« talk, philosophers need to come up 45

Durt (2020a, 25–39).

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with new metaphors that take heed of the complexity of the problems and possible solutions.

Acknowledgement Many thanks to George Heffernan and Emiliano Trizio for their comments on a draft of this paper. Work on this paper was supported by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agree­ ment No 754340.

References Carr, David, 1999: The Paradox of Subjectivity: The Self in the Transcendental Tradition. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Carr, David, 2002: Response to Drummond and Zahavi. Human Studies 25, pp. 117–123. Dodd, James, 2004: Inner Life and Transcendental Philosophy. Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 66.4, pp. 473–497. Durt, Christoph, 2012: The Paradox of the Primary-Secondary Quality Distinc­ tion and Husserl’s Genealogy of the Mathematization of Nature. Dissertation. (eScholarship University of California, 2012) http://www.durt.de/publicatio ns/dissertation/. Durt, Christoph, 2020a: The Computation of Bodily, Embodied, and Virtual Reality: Winner of the Essay Prize »What Can Corporality as a Constitutive Condition of Experience (Still) Mean in the Digital Age?«, Phänomenologis­ che Forschungen 2, 25–39. Durt, Christoph, 2020b: The Embodied Self and the Paradox of Subjectivity. Husserl Studies 36.1, 69–85 [accessed 27 March 2020]. Heffernan, George, 2017: The Concept of Krisis in Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Husserl Studies 33.3, pp. 229–57. Luft, Sebastian, 2012: Husserl’s Method of Reduction. In: Soren Overgaard and Sebastian Luft (eds). The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology. Routledge Philosophy Companions. London, Routledge, pp. 243–253. Rinofner-Kreidl, Sonja, 2003: Transzendentale oder hermeneutische Phäno­ menologie der Lebenswelt? Über Chancen und Gefahren einer reflexiven Analyse. In: Helmuth Vetter (ed). Lebenswelten: Ludwig Landgrebe-Eugen Fink-Jan Patocka. Wiener Tagungen zur Phänomenologie 2002. Frankfurt, Peter Lang.

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Seebohm, Thomas, 2015: History as a Science and the System of the Sciences. Contributions To Phenomenology 77. Cham, Springer International Publish­ ing. Sheehan, Thomas and Palmer, Richard (eds.), 1997: Psychological and Transcen­ dental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931). Dordrecht, Springer International Publishing. [accessed 28 January 2022]. Trizio, Emiliano, 2016: What Is the Crisis of Western Sciences? Husserl Studies 32.3, pp. 191–211. Trizio, Emiliano, 2020: Crisis. In: The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, Daniele De Santis, Burt Hopkins, and Claudio Majolino (eds.). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781 003084013. Zahavi, Dan, 2002: Transcendental Subjectivity and Metaphysics A Discussion of David Carr’s Paradox of Subjectivity. Human Studies 25.1, pp. 103–116.

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List of contributors

David Carr is Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus at Emory University and Visiting Lecturer at the New School for Social Research. His areas of research are 20th century phenomenol­ ogy, especially Husserl; theory of historical narrative; and philos­ ophy of history. He is the author of Phenomenology and the Problem of History (1974, reissued in 2009); Time, Narrative and History (1986); Interpreting Husserl (1987); The Paradox of Subjectiv­ ity (1999); and Experience and History (2014), and Historical Experi­ ence (2021). Ismail El Mossadeq is Professor Emeritus at the University Ibn Tofail in Kénitra, Morocco, and former chair of its philosophy pro­ gram (2005–2016). He received his Master’s degree in philosophy from the University Mohammed V in Rabat, and his doctorate from the Bergische Universität Wuppertal under Professor Klaus Held’s supervision. Selected publications and translations include Kri­ tik der neuzeitlichen Naturwissenschaft. Phänomenologie in der Alter­ native zwischen Husserl und Heidegger (Rodopi Verlag, Reihe Ele­ menta, Amsterdam/Atlanta 1995); Edmund Husserl: Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie (Beirut 2008); Martin Heidegger: Die Frage nach dem Ding. Zu Kants Lehre von den transzendentalen Grundsätzen (Beirut 2012); Martin Heidegger: Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte »Pro­ bleme« der »Logik« (Beirut 2018). Esteban A. García is Professor of Gnoseology at the Univer­ sity of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina, and Researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET, Argentina). He pursued postgraduate studies at University College London (2002) and completed his Ph.D. on Merleau-Ponty's phe­ nomenology of the body in 2005 (UBA). He is the author of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Filosofía, corporalidad y percepción (Rhesis, 2012), Una historia del cuerpo y del sentior. Merleau-Ponty y la tradición

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filosófica (SB, 2022), and has published articles on a variety of issues related to Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology, gender and sexuality studies, and modern and contemporary philosophies of the body. He is Main Researcher of the Project »Contemporary Projections of Phenomenology of Intercorporality: Child Development, Sexuality and Power« (ANPCyT, National Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology, Argentina/UBA) . Klaus Held received his Dr. Phil. from the University of Cologne and was named Full Professor of Philosophy at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, where he is currently Professor Emeritus. He has been a visiting professor at many foreign universities, and in 2002, he was awarded the »Bundesverdienstkreuz« (order of the Federal Republic of Germany). He authored many volumes and articles on a wide range of topics, including Husserl, Heidegger, Marx, Hegel, political philos­ ophy, ancient Greek thought, and intercultural understanding. He was elected President of the German Society for Phenomenological Research and is co-editor of Neue Studien zur Phänomenologie (New Studies in Phenomenology). Hernán Inverso is currently Researcher at the National Scientific and Technological Research Council (Argentina) and Marie Curie Fellow at Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). He has been a fellow of the Fulbright Commission and the German Academic Exchange Service. He has published many articles, chapters, and books, among them El mundo entre paréntesis. Una arqueología de las nociones de reducción y corporalidad [The World between Brackets. An Archae­ ology of the Notions of reduction and corporeality] (Buenos Aires, 2015) and Fenomenología de lo inaparente [Phenomenology of the Inapparent] (Buenos Aires, 2018), winner of the Mercier Prize 2020 (KU Leuven-UCLouvain). Hye Young Kim is an associate researcher at the Husserl Archive at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, France. She received her PhD in philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, Germany and is the author of We as Self: Ouri, Intersubjectivity, and Presubjectivity (2021, Lexington Books: Lanham) and Sorge und Geschichte: Phänomenolo­ gische Untersuchung im Anschluss an Heidegger (2015, Duncker und Humblot: Berlin).

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List of contributors

Paula Lorelle works in the area of German and French Phenomenol­ ogy, especially on the Sensible and the Body. After a PhD Thesis at the Sorbonne, she has taught and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the »Fonds Michel Henry« of the Université Catholique de Louvain. She is the author of many articles and two monogra­ phies : Le sensible ou l’épreuve de la raison (Mimésis, 2019), and La sensibilisation du sens. De Husserl à la phénoménologie française (Hermann, 2021). Claudia Marsico leads the Chair of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires. She is also Head of the Section of Studies in Ancient Philosophy at the National Academy of Science of Buenos Aires, Senior Researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research, Founding President of the International Society for Socratic Studies and Vice-President of the International Plato Society. She is the author of many works in the field of ancient thought and its reception, including the extant testimonies of the Socratic circle (Madrid, 2013 and 2014), Socrates and the Socratic Philosophies (Sankt Augustin, 2022), and Xenophon, the Philosopher (Berlin, 2023). Luis Román Rabanaque is Ph.D. at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina (1995) on Husserl’s Concept of the noema. He is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy and Director of the Doctoral Program at the Catholic University of Argentina, and member of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), Argentina. He awarded research grants from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Heinrich-Hertz-Stiftung. His main research areas are contemporary philosophy and phenomenology, especially the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl on issues related to the noema, the body, the lifeworld, and language. He authored many publications in the field and is a member of the team that translated Husserliana XXXVII into Spanish (2020). He is the Director of the academic journal Escritos de Filosofía and Coordinator for Argentina of CLAFEN (Latin American Circle of Phenomenology). Alexander Schnell is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy and Phe­ nomenology at the University of Wuppertal. He heads the Institute for Transcendental Philosophy and Phenomenology (ITP) and its

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affiliated centres on Fichte, Fink, Marc Richir, Post-Neokantism, Phenomenological Research, and Research on the Principles. His main interests at the systematic level are transcendental philosophy, ontology and metaphysics; the historical focus is on classical German philosophy and 20th and 21st century philosophy (especially German and French phenomenology). Since 2016, he has been President of the Association Internationale de Phénoménologie. He has published many books in the field, among them Husserl et la phénoménologie constructive (Grenoble, 2007), La déhiscence du sens (Paris, 2015), Was ist Phänomenologie? (Frankfurt, 2019), Le clignotement de l’être (Paris, 2021) and La déduction transcendentale des categories de Kant. Interprétation phénoménologique (Paris, 2022). Roberto Walton is Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature of the University of Buenos Aires, Senior researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CON­ ICET), Argentina, Director of the Centre of Philosophical Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Buenos Aires. He is Co-Director of the journal Escritos de Filosofía and a renowned specialist in Husserl and phenomenology. He has published numerous works in prestigious international journals and these are some of his books: El fenómeno y sus configuraciones (Buenos Aires, 1993); Husserl: mundo, conciencia y temporalidad (Buenos Aires, 1993); Intencionalidad y Horizonticidad (Bogotá, 2015); Horizonticidad e Historicidad (Bogotá, 2019); and Horizonticidad y Metahistoria (Bogotá, 2020).

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