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THE LIFE-WORLD AS PRACTICAL HORIZON

Abstract
The paper presents an assessment of the Husserlian concept of Lebenswelt (life-world) on the basis of the late manuscripts on genetic analysis. The reflection on the concept of the life-world intends to evaluate the contribution of phenomenology to the philosophical debate beyond the contention between realism, naturalism, and subjectivism. The paper starts by evaluating the idea of the “universal correlation”, thereby stressing the egological figure of the “Ich-kann” (I-can) as the proper candidate to achieve the constitution of the life-world. The author claims that the constitutive activity of the I-can is based not only on intellectual and perceiving acts, but rather on a comprehensive praxis, which also bears ethical meaning. The sense-borrowing activity of the I-can is namely responsible for the inner articulation of the plural particular worlds (Sonderwelten) within the encompassing life-world. Such a relation between interest-centered worlds and the encompassing life-world is not merely empirical and cannot be explained in causal and factual terms. It rather points out a peculiar subjective responsibility intended as a specific access to the world that bears a significant moral meaning. Here appears a pre-predicative and pre-normative form of responsibility rooted in the temporal and intentional structure of experience, connected with the first forms of socialization and with the essential structure of the life-world as a world “for everybody”.

Key words
Husserl, I-can, constitution, correlation, life-world, phenomenological ethics, particular world, tradition, responsibility.

References

• Brudzińska, J. (2018). Statische und Genetische Analyse. In E. Alloa, T. Breyer & E. Caminada (Eds.), Handbuch Phänomenologie. Stuttgart: Mohr Siebeck. (Im Erscheinen).
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• Husserl, E. (1950). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhof.
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  Retrieved from http://www.metodo-rivista.eu/index.php/metodo/article/view/110
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THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORLD

Abstract
The paper examines the possibility, the meaning, and the legitimacy of understanding Husserl’s concept of the life-world as an anthropological world. This understanding lies upon the fact that the life-world is always given to us as a human world, and invites to inquire into the way I always necessarily experience myself as a human person. Nevertheless, even though it is by becoming human that the I enters the world, the self-experience of the human person coincides neither with its self-experience as a transcendental ego, nor with its experience of the life-world. Thus, the question of the anthropological world deeply concerns the relationship between phenomenology as a transcendental philosophy and anthropology. This means that a positive comprehension of the life-world as an anthropological world will only emerge when anthropology will no longer be considered as the mortal enemy of transcendental phenomenology, and consequently the idea of a transcendental anthropology will no longer seem inconsistent or absurd. This demonstration is led by exploring some of Husserl’s late texts, such as the famous 1931 conference on “Phenomenology and Anthropology” and several manuscripts from the 30s published mainly in the XVth and XXIXth volumes of the Husserliana. The interest of speaking of an anthropological world thus appears to lie in the emphasis on the historicity and on the cultural impregnation of the life-world. Ultimately, the anthropological world is the life-world considered in its irreducible facticity; and this allows us to view the ontology of the life-world also as an ontology of facticity. Nevertheless, the specific requirements of transcendental phenomenology will always preserve an irreducible tension between transcendental (rather than human) life and its worldly dimension and horizon.

Key words
Husserl, phenomenology, anthropology, transcendental philosophy, subjectivity, humanity, life-world, history, culture.

References

• Blumenberg, H. (2006). Beschreibung des Menschen. Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp. Husserl, E. (1950). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Blumenberg, H. (2006). Beschreibung des Menschen. Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp.
• Husserl, E. (1950). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1954). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie (Hua VI). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1973a). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil: 1905-1920 (Hua XIII). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1973b). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929-1935 (Hua XV). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1989). Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922-1937) (Hua XXVII). Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Husserl, E. (1993). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband: Texte aus dem Nachlass (1934-1937) (Hua XXIX). Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Husserl, E. (2003). Transzendentaler Idealismus. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908-1921) (Hua XXXVI). Dordrecht: Springer.
• Husserl, E. (2006). Späte Texte über Zeitkonstitution (1929-1934). Die C-Manuskripte (Hua VIII). Dordrecht: Springer.

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LIFE AND THE REDUCTION TO THE LIFE-WORLD

Abstract
Husserl’s Crisis contains his final attempt to understand the world in terms of an ultimately constituting consciousness. The path he chooses is that of a reduction to the “life-world,” the world that appears when we bracket the results of the objective sciences. His claim is that “the ‘objective’ a priori [of the natural sciences] is grounded in the ‘subjective-relative’ a priori of the lifeworld”. It is from the latter that he attempts to achieve his vision of “a universal, ultimately functioning subjectivity”. In this article, I question whether this is possible. If the world were the product of this functioning subjectivity, the latter could not be part of the world. But, the inherent sense of the reduction to the life-world leaves us with the sensuous embodied subject, who is a part of the world. How can we think of the a priori in terms of this subject? I conclude by considering both Merleau-Ponty’s and Patočka’s attempts to conceive of such an a priori.

Key words
Life-world, subjectivity, a priori, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Patočka, Hans Jonas.

References

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• Barbaras, R. (2013). L’Autonomie de l’apparaître. Chiasmi International, 15, 27-36.
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• Patočka, J. (1988). Le monde naturel et le mouvement de l’existence humaine. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988.
• Patočka, J. (1990). Nachwort des Autors zur tschechischen Neuausgabe. In K. Nellen & J. Němec (Eds.), Die natürliche Welt als philosophisches Problem (181-267). Vienna: Klett-Cotta.
• Patočka, J. (1991). Der Subjektivismus der Husserlschen und die Möglichkeit einer ‘asubjektiven’ Phänomenologie. In K. Nellen, J. Nemic & I. Srubar (Eds.), Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz (267-285). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
• Patočka, J. (1995a). Corps, possibilités, monde, champ d’apparation. In Papiers Phénomenologiques (117-130). Grenoble: Jérôme Millon.
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