Studies in Phenomenology



Article/Publication Details
Views: 1151


CRISIS OF SCIENCES AND PHENOMENOLOGY: OVERCOMING OR RADICALIZATION?

Title in the language of publication: КРИЗИС НАУК И ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЯ: ПРЕОДОЛЕНИЕ ИЛИ РАДИКАЛИЗАЦИЯ?
Author: MIKHAIL BELOUSOV
Issue: HORIZON. Studies in Phenomenology.
Vol. 11, №1 (2021), 40-72
Language: Russian
Document type: Research Article
DOI : 10.21638/2226-5260-2022-11-1-40-72 PDF (Downloads: 1474)

Abstract
In his late works Husserl interprets the crisis of European sciences as the loss of their meaning for life. The diagnosis seems to suggest therapeutic strategy: to overcome the crisis, phenomenology must return to the evidences of the life-world. The article argues that the husserlian strategy of overcoming the crisis consists not in the elimination of the break with the prescientific evidences of the natural attitude, but, on the contrary, in the radicalization of the breach. Thus, I want to show that Husserl seeks to overcome the crisis of sciences by means of more radical crisis of phenomenology. In Husserl’s view, phenomenology must become the only science, which does not presuppose the life-world, since it problematizes it. I am going to argue also, that the counterintuitive strategy is not just of the historico-philosophical interest, but is meaningful for the actual philosophical understanding of the life-world. To justify those claims, I will proceed in three stages. In the first section of the article, I analyze the difference between the objective world and the life-world, which is the point of departure of husserlian interpretation of the crisis of sciences in Crisis. Bringing into correlation the difference between the objective world and the life-world in Crisis with the distinction of the ideal world and the real one in Ideas I, I disclose the ambiguity of husserlian interpretation of the crisis of European sciences. According to Husserl, the crisis arises, when science transcends the life-world through the idealizations, and, at the same time, presupposes the immediate prescientific evidences as something that is taken for granted. In the second section, I argue that the strategy of overcoming the crisis in Crisis is based on the phenomenological epoche, which allows for the porblematization of the life-world without presupposing it, Within this context I demonstrate the motivational unity of two reductions, performed by Husserl in Crisis—the reduction to the life-world, stripping the reality of the garb of ideas mistakingly taken to be the reality itself, and the reduction of the life-world, turning it into horizon and depriving phenomenologist of a right of relying on the life-worldly evidences, which is taken for granted in the natural science and renders it possible. The unity of the reductions indicates that phenomenological descent back down to the life-world is treated by Husserl as the radical break with the evidences of the natural life. The third section discusses the question, whether the problematical character of the life-world can be revealed only from the point of view of disinterested spectator, or it can be discovered, in a way, from within, in pretheoretical experience, which capacitates the life to problematizing itself and motivates phenomenological epoche. I argue that, although the question is not answered in a suitable way within husserlian analyses of the motivation for the epoche, the key to the solution of the problem is provided by the genetic phenomenology, since it thematizes the historicity of the life-world. I interpret the historicity as the ambivalent pretheoretical experience, constituting both the self-evidence and the problematical character of the life-world.

Keywords
crisis of European sciences, epoche, life-world, objective world, Husserl, idealization, historicity.

References

  • Aguirre, A. (1970). Genetische Phänomenologie und Reduktion. Zur Letztbegründung der Wissenschaft aus der radikalen Skepsis im Denken Husserls. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
  • Bernet, R., Kern, I., & Marbach, E. (1996). Edmund Husserl. Darstellung seines Denkens. Hamburg: Meiner.
  • Carr, D. (1970). Translator’s Introduction. In E. Husserl (Ed.), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (xv-xliii). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
  • Chernavin, G. (2013). Erscheinung in der Schwebe zwischen Sein und Schein: von Herbart zu Husserl. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 2 (2), 7-16.
  • Dodd, J. (2007). Crisis and Reflection: an Essay on Husserl’s “Crisis of the European Sciences” . Dordrecht: Springer.
  • Geniusas, S. (2012). The Origins of the Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Dordrecht: Springer.
  • Held, K. (2008). Heidegger and the Principle of Phenomenology. In Ezhegodnik po fenomenologicheskoi filosofii. Vypusk I (190-220). Rus. Ed. Moscow: RGGU Publ. (In Russian)
  • Held, K. (2010). God in Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology. In Ezhegodnik po fenomenologicheskoi filosofii. Vypusk II (15-30). Rus. Ed. Moscow: RGGU Publ. (In Russian)
  • Husserl, E. (1969). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch. Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
  • Husserl, E. (1973). Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen. Den Haag: Martinu Nijhoff.
  • Husserl, E. (1976a). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
  • Husserl, E. (1976b). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführungin die reine Phänomenologie 1. Halbband: Text der 1.-3. Auflage — Nachdruck. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
  • Husserl, E. (1984). Logische Untersuchungen. Bd. II. Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
  • Husserl, E. (2002). Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1926-1935) . Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  • Husserl, E. (2004). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. The General Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Rus. Ed. Moscow: Vladimir Dal’ Publ. (In Russian)
  • Husserl, E. (2008). Die Lebenswelt. Auslegungen der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitution. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1916-1937). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  • Husserl, E. (2009). Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy I. Rus. Ed. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt Publ. (In Russian)
  • Husserl, E. (2018). The Idea of Phenomenoogy. Five Lectures. Rus. Ed. St Petersburg: Gumanitarnaja Akademija Publ. (In Russian)
  • Janssen, P. (1970). Geschichte und Lebenswelt. Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion von Husserls Spätwerk. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
  • Mensch, J. (2017). Life and the Reduction to the Life-world. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 6 (2), 13-29.
  • Mensch, J. (2021). Temporality as Spatial Field of Presence. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 10 (1), 163-185.
  • Ricoeur, P. (1967). Husserl and the question of history. In Husserl: an Analysis of his Phenomenology (143-174). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
  • Richir, M. (2015). Commentary on “Phenomenology of Esthetic Consciousness”. In Ezhegodnik po fenomenologicheskoi filosofii. Vypusk IV (265-272). Rus. Ed. Moscow: RGGU Publ. (In Russian)
  • Sowa, R. (2008). Einleitung des Herausgebers. In E. Husserl, Die Lebenswelt. Auslegungen der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitution. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1916-1937) (XXV-LXXXI). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  • Tengelyi, L. (2007). Erfahrung und Ausdruck. Phänomenologie im Umbruch bei Husserl und seinen Nachfolgern. Dordrecht: Springer.
  • Tengelyi, L. (2013). Necessity of a Fact in Aristotle and Husserl: Two Foundations of Metaphysics. In Ezhegodnik po fenomenologicheskoi filosofii. Vypusk III (190-208). Rus. Ed. Moscow: RGGU Publ. (In Russian)
  • Wittgenstein, L. (1994). Philosophical Investigations. In Filosofkie raboty. Chast’ I (165-409). Rus. Ed. Moscow: Gnozis Publ. (In Russian)