Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity: Husserl, Levinas, and East-West Dialogue 9783787342068, 9783787342051

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PHÄNOMENOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNGEN Beiheft 6

Nam-In Lee

Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity Husserl, Levinas, and East-West Dialogue

Nam-In Lee Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity

PHÄNOMENOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNGEN

Phenomenological Studies Recherches Phénoménologiques

Im Auftrag der Deutschen Gesellschaft für phänomenologische Forschung herausgegeben von THIEMO BREYER, JULIA JANSEN

und INGA RÖMER

Beiheft 6

FELIX MEINER VERLAG HAMBURG

NAM-IN LEE

Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity Husserl, Levinas, and East-West Dialogue

FELIX MEINER VERLAG HAMBURG

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://portal.dnb.de abrufbar. ISBN 978-3-7873-4205-1 ISBN eBook 978-3-7873-4206-8

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CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

PART I Problems of Intersubjectivity in Husserl 1.  Static Phenomenology and Genetic Phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.  Static-Phenomenological and Genetic-Phenomenological Concepts of Primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation . . . . . . . . . . . 48 3.  Various Fields of the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and the  Relationship between Husserl and Buber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 4.  Genetic Phenomenology and Problems of Intersubjectivity . . . . . . . . . 108

PART II Husserl and Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Levinas 5.  Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Levinas . . . . . . . . . 179 6.  Phenomenology of Sensible Life in Husserl and Levinas . . . . . . . . . . . 199 7.  Experience and Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 8.  Phenomenology of Exteriority beyond Linguistic Idealism . . . . . . . . . . 240

PART III Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and East-West Dialogue   9.  Ethics of Renewal in Husserl and Confucius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 10.  Feeling as the Origin of Value in Scheler and Mencius . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 11.  Moral Instinct in Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Works Cited and Consulted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Introduction 1.  Husserl’s Phenomenology as the Starting Point for the Exploration of Intersubjectivity This book is the fruit of twenty years of research into intersubjectivity. It consists of eleven chapters. There is a unity among them, even though they were not originally conceived as book chapters. What they address are the following four themes that are closely related to one another: 1) the discovery of some new aspects of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity; 2) a defense of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity against the criticisms of scholars who hold illegitimate views of it; 3) the promotion of a dialogue between phenomenologists/philosophers on the topic of intersubjectivity; and 4) the exploration of some new horizons of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Let me briefly clarify each of these four themes. First, Husserl stands at the center of my research on intersubjectivity. Unfortunately, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity has often been misinterpreted. There are even scholars who consider Husserl’s phenomenology to be a kind of egology or Cartesianism that cannot adequately address intersubjectivity as a topic for phenomenology. However, this interpretation takes only a small part of Husserl’s phenomenology into account since, as I will show, Husserl developed various kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity that go far beyond the scope of egology or Cartesianism. I clarify Husserl’s distinctions among the various kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity such as the empirical, ontological, transcendental, and metaphysical phenomenology of intersubjectivity, each of which has its own sub-disciplines. I clarify this point in chapter 2 on “Static-Phenomenological and Genetic-Phenomenological Concepts of Primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation”, chapter 3 on “Various Fields of the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and the Relationship between Husserl and Buber”, chapter 4 on “Genetic Phenomenology and Problems of Intersubjectivity”, and in chapter 5 on “Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Levinas”. Second, by clarifying the various fields of Husserl’s phenomenology, we can see that most of the criticisms of his phenomenology of intersubjectivity are invalid. It is true that among the various fields of his phenomenology of intersubjectivity, the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity seems closest to the kind of Cartesianism that Husserl’s critics have in mind. In particular, critics often point to the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation as proof that Husserl’s phenomenology is intrinsically Cartesian. However, such criticisms overlook two crucial points. In the first place, despite all appearances, the basic idea behind the static phenomenolo-

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gy of intersubjectivity is not as Cartesian as critics suspect. And in the second place, critics do not take into account the other fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity that Husserl developed, fields that radically depart from Cartesianism. Third, my primary aim in assessing the criticisms made of Husserl’s phenomenology is not simply to vindicate Husserl against all other philosophers or to assert his superiority dogmatically, but rather to promote a phenomenological dialogue from which both sides can profit. We find that contrary to critics’ opinions, these very critics have more in common with Husserl than they may suspect. Besides, even those who wish to disagree with Husserl must have a solid grasp of what exactly they are disagreeing with in the first place. Only through such constructive criticism can there be a fruitful dialogue that is free from artificial disagreements or misunderstandings. To this end, I attempt to promote a phenomenological dialogue between Husserl and other philosophers. In particular, Part II focuses on evaluating Levinas’s criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity; there are also discussions of other philosophers such as Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Schutz, Martin Buber, and Jürgen Habermas in Part I. In addition, in Part III I attempt to promote a phenomenological dialogue between Western philosophers such as Husserl, Max Scheler, and Francis Hutcheson and Eastern philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, and Chong Yak-Yong. Fourth, I attempt to explore some new horizons for the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. For example, in chapter 8 on “Phenomenology of Exteriority beyond Linguistic Idealism”, I show that Levinas’s philosophy contains remnants of linguistic idealism and I attempt to develop a genetic phenomenology of exteriority that is free from any linguistic idealism. Finally, in the three chapters of Part III, I attempt to develop the moral phenomenology of intersubjectivity by considering such themes as the phenomenology of ethical renewal, the phenomenology of moral feeling, and the phenomenology of moral instinct in such a way as to open up a new dialogue between Western and Eastern philosophy. On the whole, then, this book discusses various kinds of the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity developed by many philosophers, including Husserl and other post-Husserlian phenomenologists such as Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, and Alfred Schutz; some contemporary philosophers such as Martin Buber and Jürgen Habermas; a traditional Western philosopher, Francis Hutcheson; and some East Asian philosophers, including Confucius, Mencius, and Chong Yak-Yong. Due to the constraints of space, not all of their accounts of the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity are discussed at length, nor are they necessarily addressed in a systematic way. Nevertheless, I hope the book provides a broad overview of various approaches to the phenomenology of intersubjectiv-

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ity, thereby giving readers an opportunity not only to experience their diversity, but to grasp their points of unity. 2.  Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl There are scholars who claim that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is either insufficient or even an outright failure. Such criticisms are often based on works that Husserl published during his lifetime, such as Cartesian Meditations or Formal and Transcendental Logic.1 However, if we take a closer look at the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in these works, we can see that the usual criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is illegitimate. Moreover, it is astonishing to see how Husserl attempts to carry out many different kinds of phenomenological analyses of intersubjectivity in other works and manuscripts in a way that goes far beyond the scope of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in the Cartesian Meditations or Formal and Transcendental Logic. Husserl not only discusses many more topics of intersubjectivity, but in some cases does so in a much more detailed manner than any other phenomenologist or philosopher,2 a fact that is often overlooked by scholars who claim that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a failure or is simply insufficient. However, there are also some important studies that do reveal the sheer diversity of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity3 and show how criticisms of Husserl are often based on only   Hua XVII; Edmund Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic. Translated from German by Dorion Cairns. The Hague 1969. 2   In this respect, I entirely agree with Dan Zahavi, who writes as follows: “From the winter 1910/11 and until his death, he worked thoroughly with different aspects of the problem of intersubjectivity, and left behind an almost inestimable amount of analyses, that from a purely quantitative point of view by far exceeds the treatment given this topic by any of the later phenomenologists” (Dan Zahavi: “Husserl’s intersubjective transformation of transcendental philosophy”. In: Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 27(3), 1996, 228–245, here: 228). 3   For example, Klaus Held: “Das Problem der Intersubjektivität und die Idee einer phänomenologischen Transzendentalphilosophie”. In: Ulrich Claesges, Klaus Held (Eds.), Perspektiven transzendental-phänomenologischer Forschung. Für Ludwig Landgrebe zum 70. Geburtstag. Den Haag 1972, 3–60; Ichiro Yamaguchi: Passive Synthesis und Intersubjektivität bei Edmund Husserl. Den Haag 1982; James Mensch: Intersubjectivity and Transcendental Idealism. Albany, NY 1988; Georg Römpp: Husserls Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität und ihre Bedeutung für eine Theorie intersubjektiver Objektivität und die Konzeption einer phänomenologischen Philosophie. Dordrecht 1992; James G. Hart: The Person and the Common Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics. Dordrecht 1992; Kathleen M. Haney: Intersubjectivity Revisited: Phenomenology and the Other. Athens, OH 1994; Julia V. Iribarne: Husserls Theorie der Intersubjektivität. München 1994; Anthony J. Steinbock: Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl. Evanston, IL 1995; Natalie Depraz: Transcendance et incarnation: Le statut de l’intersubjectivité comme alterité à soi chez Husserl. Paris 1995; Dan Zahavi: Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität. Eine Antwort auf die sprachpragmatische Kritik. Dordrecht 1996; Janet Donohoe: Husserl on Ethics and Intersubjectivity: From Static to Genetic Phenomenology. Amherst, NY 2004; Lanei M. Rode1

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a few of his works. I myself have also published studies in a similar vein, but by adopting my own strategy of distinguishing between various fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in order to display the diversity of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. My studies have been guided, first of all, by the more specific distinction between the static and genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as two kinds of the constitutive phenomenology of intersubjectivity. It has also been guided by the more general distinction between 1) the empirical phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 2) the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity as an eidetic or essential science serving as the foundation of the empirical phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 3) the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, which is the foundation of both the empirical and the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and 4) the metaphysical phenomenology of intersubjectivity. I have collected some of these studies in Part I. In chapter 1, I clarify the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology to lay the foundations for discussing Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. The distinction between them is an important yet controversial issue in Husserl’s phenomenology and plays a central role in this book. Husserl seems to have been aware of this distinction before 1910; however, it was only after 1920 that he attempted to clarify the distinction systematically. There are many manuscripts that deal with this distinction, and given such an abundance of sources, one might have the impression that the distinction is already clear enough. Unfortunately, this distinction is not as obvious as it seems, even to Husserl himself, who wrestled with the question in the early 1920s. Since he was not clear about the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology, he repeatedly attempted to clarify it, but if we take a close look at the various writings where he discusses the distinction, we realize that the way he discusses it is not at all consistent. Moreover, there are many different views of Husserl’s distinction between static and genetic phenomenology. If we take a look at the manuscripts and works dealing with the distinction, we find that Husserl makes this distinction in two different ways. On the one hand, in some manuscripts from the beginning of the 1920s, Husserl argues that static phenomenology serves as a pre-stage of genetic phenomenology, and meyer: Intersubjective Temporality: It’s About Time. Dordrecht 2006; Søren Overgaard: Wittgenstein and Other Minds: Rethinking Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity with Wittgenstein, Levinas, and Husserl. New York 2007; Michael D. Barber: The Intentional Spectrum and Intersubjectivity: Phenomenology and the Pittsburgh Neo-Hegelians. Athens, OH 2011; Christel Fricke, Dagfinn Føllesdal (Eds.): Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl. Berlin 2013; Peter R. Costello: Layers in Husserl’s Phenomenology: On Meaning and Intersubjectivity. Toronto 2012; Eric Chelstrom: Social Phenomenology: Husserl, Intersubjectivity, and Collective Intentionality. Lanham, MD 2013; Frode Kjosavik, Christian Beyer, Christel Fricke (Eds.): Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity: Historical Interpretations and Contemporary Applications. New York 2019.

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he calls it a “phenomenology of leading clues”4 that “makes it possible”5 to carry out genetic analysis. According to him, static phenomenology analyzes “finished” (fertig)6 constitution or apperception, whereas the genesis or the history of the finished constitution is the topic of genetic phenomenology. If we make the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology in this way, the former can be absorbed into the latter and lose its identity as an independent constitutive phenomenology as will be clarified in a detailed manner in chapter 1. On the other hand, in some other manuscripts after 1929 Husserl attempts to clarify the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology differently. According to this new distinction, the aim of static phenomenology is to clarify the transtemporal or atemporal “validity-foundation” (Geltungsfundierung)7 of constitution, whereas the aim of genetic phenomenology is to clarify the temporal genetic foundation (Genesisfundierung) of constitution. The transtemporal validity-foundation and the temporal genetic foundation are basically different, and thus static and genetic phenomenology turn out to be two different kinds of constitutive phenomenology—Husserl even speaks of the “double face of phenomenology”8 in this regard. I claim that the second distinction is legitimate, and I attempt to show why. In my view, the distinction between static phenomenology as a phenomenology of transtemporal validity-foundation and genetic phenomenology as a phenomenology of temporal genetic foundation will not only help us to better understand Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but also to clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and those of subsequent phenomenologists/philosophers. In chapter 2 on “Static-Phenomenological and Genetic-Phenomenological Concepts of Primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation”, on the basis of the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology discussed in chapter 1 I clarify the ambiguity of the concept of primordiality in Husserl’s phenomenology. According to Husserl, the primordial sphere is the foundation or the motivational ground for the experience of the other, and as such it is introduced in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation as a fundamental concept without which it is not possible to develop the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Although the concept of primordiality obviously plays a central role in the development of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, it has undergone many interpretations and critical assessments and there are many different views of it. Among the interpreters who are very critical of it, some hold the extreme view that it   Hua XIV, 41; Edmund Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis: Lectures on Transcendental Logic. Translated from German by Anthony J. Steinbock. Dordrecht 2001, 644. 5   Hua XXXV, 408. 6   Hua XI, 345; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 634. 7   Hua XV, 613 ff. 8   Hua XV, 617. 4

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is impossible to conceive such a primordial sphere, since it cannot be observed phenomenologically. On the contrary, some interpreters hold the view that it is indeed a legitimate concept that is indispensable for developing a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Unfortunately, these interpreters do not agree as to the context in which the concept of primordiality is introduced in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. Many of Husserl’s interpreters implicitly assume that there is only a single concept of primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation, namely the concept presented in §44 and subsequent sections. Contrary to what they believe, in chapter 2 I show that there are two concepts of primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation, namely the static-phenomenological concept and the genetic-phenomenological concept of primordiality, and I clarify this point through three steps. First, clarifying the concept of primordiality discussed in §44 and subsequent sections in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, I show that it is possible to carry out the primordial reduction as a kind of thematic epochē and to reach the primordial sphere. Since Husserl writes that the primordial reduction is carried out “inside the universal transcendental sphere”,9 in order to understand the possibility of carrying it out, we need to grasp the structure of the “universal transcendental sphere”. This is the sphere that is opened through the transcendental reduction as “the universal transcendental reduction”,10 which is possible through the transcendental epochē of the general thesis of the natural attitude. The universal transcendental sphere consists of the sphere of my own transcendental subjectivity and the sphere of the other transcendental subjectivities. Given that from the methodological perspective, the universal transcendental sphere is divided into the sphere of my own transcendental subjectivity that I can experience through “transcendental reflection”,11 and that of the other transcendental subjectivities that I can get acccess through transcendental empathy, which Husserl calls “phenomenological empathy”,12 it is possible to abstract from either one of these two spheres depending on one’s research interest. The primordial reduction discussed in §44 and subsequent sections in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is nothing other than the procedure of abstracting from the sphere of the other transcendental subjectivities and focusing on the sphere of my own transcendental subjectivity.

  Hua I, 124; Edmund Husserl: Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. Translated from German by Dorion Cairns. The Hague 1960, 93. 10   Hua XV, 536. 11   Hua I, 72; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 33. 12   Hua XIII, 172; Edmund Husserl: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology: From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910–1911. Translated from German by Ingo Farin, James G. Hart. Dordrecht 2006, 67.  9

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After showing how it is possible to carry out the primordial reduction as a kind of thematic epochē and to reach the primordial sphere, I show that this concept of primordiality is the static phenomenological one and clarify its structure. I show that the static primordial sphere has the following traits: 1) From the perspective of myself as the one empathizing, the static primordial sphere consists of my intentionalities and the world and worldly objects experienced by them; 2) The static primordial sphere is a realm for which I as an autonomous and responsible person can take responsibility; 3) For this reason, in order to reach the static primordial sphere, I need what Husserl calls “a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy”13 and, in this sense and only in this sense, the static primordial sphere can be called a realm that is free of others; 4) From the perspective of the static primordial sphere I have an absolute priority over others since I can always experience my own transcendental subjectivity with a higher degree of validity than others; 5) The static primordial sphere does not contain non-objectifying acts that are not founded on objectifying acts, but only objectifying acts and non-objectifying acts that are founded on objectifying acts since only these acts are bearers of validity which falls under the province of static phenomenology. Afterwards, by consulting some other passages in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation and other works by Husserl, I clarify the genetic phenomenological concept of primordiality and show that we can make a distinction between the four kinds of the genetic primordial spheres such as 1) the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, 2) the natural ideal primordial sphere, 3) the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, and 4) the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere which have four corresponding kinds of geneses of empathy such as 1) the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy, 2) the natural ideal genesis of empathy, 3) the transcendental pre-ideal genesis of empathy, and 4) the transcendental ideal genesis of empathy. Moreover, I show that the genetic primordial sphere has a different structure than the static one and possesses the following traits: 1) The genetic primordial sphere is a realm in which I and others dwell together; 2) In the genetic primordial sphere, I do not have a priority over others, since I am dependent on them; 3) The genetic primordial sphere is a unity of development and has various levels; 4) The genetic primordial sphere contains not only objectifying acts and non-objectifying acts that are founded on objectifying acts, but also non-objectifying acts that are not founded on objectifying acts since these too are incessantly operating in the field of consciousness as the genetic foundation of empathy.   Hua VI, 187–188; Edmund Husserl: The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Translated from German by David Carr. Evanston, IL 1970, 184. 13

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In chapter 3 on “Various Fields of the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and the Relationship between Husserl and Buber” I make a distinction between the various fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue by assessing Michael Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity from the standpoint of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. According to Theunissen, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity cannot avoid solipsism, since it is confined to analyzing the transcendental subjectivity which he considers a solitary ego devoid of sociality. Thus, Theunissen implicitly assumes that Husserl developed only one kind of phenomenology of intersubjectivity that is solipsistic. Moreover, he claims that Husserl’s phenomenology cannot deal with the issue of the different kinds of Thou that he considers are unique to Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. In order to assess Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, I clarify the distinction amongst the different fields of phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed by Husserl such as 1) the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 2) the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and 3) the metaphysical phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Moreover, in relation to the distinction between the static-phenomenological concept and the genetic-phenomenological concept of primordiality discussed in chapter 2, I attempt to clarify in a detailed manner the distinction between the two kinds of the constitutive phenomenology of intersubjectivity, namely the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a phenomenology of the validity-foundation concerning intersubjectivity and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a phenomenology of the genetic foundation concerning intersubjectivity. The distinction between them is crucial to understanding Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as well as the relationship between it and other types of phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity developed by other subsequent philosophers. After clarifying the distinction between the different kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl, I assess Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. My main argument is twofold: First, Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology as solipsism overlooks the distinction between the static and genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. It is true that, as Husserl himself admits, the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a phenomenology of the validity-foundation has “the illusion of solipsism”,14 but it has nothing to do with solipsism. Moreover, in the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity it is impossible to even have the impression of solipsism, since the genetic primordial sphere is always already intersub  Hua I, 176; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 150, translation altered.

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jectively structured and the genesis of empathy cannot be performed without intersubjective connections with others. Second, if we take a close look at the various fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed by Husserl, we observe that the different kinds of the Thou that Theunissen considers to be unique to Buber’s philosophy of dialogue are also discussed by Husserl and that, contrary to what Theunissen claims, Husserl’s phenomenology is not diametrically opposed to Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. In chapter 4 on “Genetic Phenomenology and Problems of Intersubjectivity” I explore the different fields of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that go beyond the scope of the issues discussed in chapters 2 and 3. If we take a look at Husserl’s works on intersubjectivity, we realize that he discusses various issues pertaining to genetic phenomenology. However, Husserl’s reflections on the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity are scattered throughout his works and manuscripts, and he did not integrate them all into a single, comprehensive exposition. I will accordingly address some of the important passages dealing with the issue of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity in order to sketch out the various fields of a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed by Husserl. The genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity encompasses a wide array of problems, and it is impossible to cover all of them extensively within the limits of chapter 4. There are various ways to address them corresponding to the interests of researchers and I examine those issues that are most relevant to our purposes: 1) some further issues concerning the experience of the other that are not discussed in detail or not discussed at all in chapter 3, for example the issue of non-objectifying intentionality as the genetic foundation of the experience of the other, that of the social experience of the other or that of the historical experience of the other, 2) the genesis of the habitual system of the experience of the other, and 3) the constitution of society. After I attempt to give a unified account of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, I clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the various kinds of phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity developed by Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Schutz, and Jürgen Habermas. In my discussion of this relationship, I focus first of all on Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but also take into account the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity discussed in chapters 2 and 3. The correct understanding of the relationship between them is an aim that should be pursued for its own sake, but it has the additional merit of making it possible to better understand both Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the subsequent work on this theme by others. Clarifying the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the various kinds of the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity developed by philosophers after him, I refute some of the criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity that are related to the genetic

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phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As mentioned above, after the publication of the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity was criticized by many scholars. The critics of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity are, first of all, phenomenologists after Husserl such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Alfred Schutz, etc., but there are also some critics who are not classified as phenomenologists—for example Michael Theunissen, as discussed above, or Jürgen Habermas. Of course, with some other phenomenologists such as Max Scheler or Maurice Merleau-Ponty it is not entirely clear if they are criticizing Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but there are certainly some scholars who claim that this is the case. Based on the account of the various fields of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, I show how these criticisms are ultimately invalid. For many of the critics of Husserl’s phenomenology, their criticism of his phenomenology of intersubjectivity functions as a springboard from which they can develop their own philosophical positions. This is the reason why many of them would consider their philosophical positions to be superior to Husserl’s account, and indeed, to go far beyond the scope of Husserl’s phenomenology. But if their criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity are problematic, we have to ask whether they have really developed philosophical positions that go beyond Husserl’s phenomenology. In this respect, I show that Husserl has actually paved the way to the various philosophical positions they have developed and that there are similarities between Husserl’s positions and their own positions. For this reason, we need to promote a dialogue between Husserl and his critics, a dialogue from which both Husserl and his critics can profit. 3.  Husserl and the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Levinas The phenomenology of intersubjectivity is an important topic not only for Husserl, but also—as we have already seen above—for phenomenologists who followed after him. As discussed above, it is important for the future development of phenomenology to properly clarify the relationship between Husserl and subsequent phenomenologists in regard to the issue of intersubjectivity. Among the various kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Levinas’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity has interested me the most. Part II contains studies that I have published or presented with the aim of clarifying the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Levinas. In developing his phenomenology of the face in his major work Totality and Infinity,15 Levinas offers various kinds of criticisms of Husserl’s phe  Emmanuel Levinas: Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated from French by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh 1969. 15

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nomenology. The most important aims of Part II are to clarify that Levinas’s criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology are not legitimate and to demonstrate the possibility of promoting a dialogue between Husserl and Levinas. There are in fact many important studies that not only attempt to clarify the relationship between Husserl and Levinas, but agree with my view. For example, with respect to the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Levinas, Søren Overgaard claims that “As far as intersubjectivity is concerned, Husserl and Levinas are mainly phenomenological allies, not opponents.”16 Chapter 5 on the “Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Levinas” seeks to clarify the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Levinas by assessing Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As implied by the title of Totality and Infinity, Levinas’s phenomenology of the other states that the various kinds of relations between the ego and the other can be observed from the planes of totality and of infinity. The plane of totality consists of relations between the ego and the other in a relative sense since the other is totalized by the ego, and as such cannot be called the other in an absolute sense. In contrast, the plane of infinity consists of relations between the ego and the other in an absolute sense since the other resists all attempts by the ego to totalize and reabsorb the other into itself. The planes of totality and infinity can themselves be further divided into various smaller planes that must be distinguished from one another. For example, the plane of totality can be divided into the plane of representation, the plane of Zeug, the plane of enjoyment, etc. Likewise, the plane of infinity can also be divided into various sub-planes such as the plane of the face, the plane of eros, the plane of fecundity, etc. Levinas criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology by claiming that as a phenomenology of representation, it is the most radical form of the philosophy of totality and is therefore blind to the plane of infinity. In contrast, Levinas believes his own phenomenology opens up the possibility of developing a phenomenology of intersubjectivity on the plane of infinity. Since Levinas believes that the rela  Søren Overgaard: “On Levinas’ critique of Husserl”. In: Dan Zahavi et al. (Eds.), Metaphysics, Facticity, Interpretation: Phenomenology in the Nordic Countries. Dordrecht 2003, 115–138, here: 116. Other studies that are in agreement with my view include the following: Depraz: Transcendance et incarnation; Jeffrey Powell: “Levinas representing Husserl on representation”. In: Philosophy Today 39(2), 1995, 185–197; John E. Drabinski: “The hither-side of the living-present in Levinas and Husserl”. In: Philosophy Today 40(1), 1996, 142–150; Yasuhiro Murakami: Lévinas phénoménologue. Grenoble 2002; Curtis Hutt: “Identity, alterity, and ethics in the work of Husserl and his religious students: Stein and Levinas”. In: Philosophy Today 53(1), 2009, 12–33; Thomas Finegan: “Levinas’s faithfulness to Husserl, phenomenology, and God”. In: Religious Studies 48(3), 2012, 281–303; Stacy Bautista: “The development of Levinas’s philosophy of sensibility”. In: Philosophy Today 57(3), 2013, 251–265; Hagi Kenaan: “Husserl and Levinas: The ethical structure of a philosophical debt”. In: The European Legacy 21(5–6), 2016, 481–492. 16

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tions between the ego and the other on the plane of totality are fundamentally different from those on the plane of infinity, he argues that his own phenomenology of intersubjectivity cannot be reconciled with Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. However, Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity relies on the implicit premise that Husserl developed only one kind of phenomenology of intersubjectivity, when in fact Husserl developed several kinds. Thus, I reevaluate Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity by referring to the various fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity that I clarified in chapter 3 on “Various Fields of the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and the Relationship between Husserl and Buber”. More specifically, I use the distinction between the ontological and the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity to show how Levinas’s criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity fall short. First, by comparing Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Levinas’s phenomenology of the other I show that Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not simply a phenomenology of representation as Levinas had supposed but includes the phenomenology of infinity in the Levinasian sense as one of its fields. Second, by comparing Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Levinas’s phenomenology of the other I show how Husserl’s phenomenology does not totalize and absorb the other into the same ego, since the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is completely neutral regarding the question of whether the intersubjective relation is a representational one. Chapter 5 is not simply about vindicating Husserl against Levinas or correcting Levinas’s views, but rather is meant to show that the gap between the two thinkers is not as wide as Levinas had supposed. Thus chapter 5 opens up a new dialogue between the two philosophical positions on intersubjectivity, a dialogue from which both can profit. The other chapters in part II are, in one way or another, supplements to chapter 5, providing a more detailed understanding of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl as well as in Levinas. Chapter 6, on “Phenomenology of Sensible Life in Husserl and Levinas”, attempts to clarify the relationship between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face by clarifying the relationship between the phenomenology of sensible life in Husserl and in Levinas. Some commentators on Levinas’s phenomenology hold the view that the phenomenological movement from Husserl to Heidegger, then from Heidegger to Levinas, can be described as a process of unidirectional development. According to this widespread view, the limitations of Husserl’s phenomenology were overcome by Heidegger’s phenomenology which in turn was surpassed by Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. This view originally does not stem from commentators, but from Levinas himself, as is evident in some of his major works such as Totality

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and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence.17 In chapter 6 I attempt to show that Husserl’s phenomenology is not merely a preliminary stage or constituent moment of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face and that Husserl’s phenomenology cannot be integrated into that of Levinas. I demonstrate this through an analysis of the intentionality of sensible life, a theme that plays an important role both in Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and in Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. First, I delineate some aspects of the phenomenology of sensible life that Levinas develops as a part of the phenomenology of the face as well as some aspects of the phenomenology of sensible life that Husserl develops as a part of genetic phenomenology, and I demonstrate that Husserl’s phenomenology cannot be defined as a phenomenology of representation as Levinas had thought. Thereafter I compare Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, showing that they represent two basically different kinds of phenomenology that cannot be integrated at all. Chapter 7 on “Experience and Evidence” assesses Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concepts of evidence, a criticism that can be found in his major work, Totality and Infinity. (As is well known, experience and evidence are two enormous topics in phenomenology. In this chapter, I limit my discussion of these topics to the aspects most relevant for the task of assessing Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence.) After I summarize Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence, I outline Husserl’s concept of experience and attempt to define Husserl’s concept of evidence with respect to his concept of experience. Next, I assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence and show that this criticism misses the mark since it is based on a complete misunderstanding of Husserl’s concept of evidence. Finally, I show that it is only on the basis of the evidence of absolute experience that Levinas can clarify the structure of absolute experience as the experience of the other in an absolute sense and can develop a phenomenology of the face on this basis. Even though Levinas does not discuss the issue of the evidence of absolute experience in detail, it is nevertheless the case that from a methodological point of view, he must appeal to it in developing a phenomenology of the face. Chapter 8, on “Phenomenology of Exteriority beyond Linguistic Idealism”, aims to develop a genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority by evaluating and refining Levinas’s concept of exteriority. First, I clarify what linguistic idealism is and show how Levinas’s concept of exteriority displays traces of it. Linguistic idealism is the philosophical position that considers language to be a necessary condition for the constitution of the world and of worldly objects. But such a position cannot address either the pre-linguistic or the trans-linguistic level of entities, and since Levinas’s philosophy contains remnants of lin  Emmanuel Levinas: Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. Translated from French by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague 1981. 17

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guistic idealism, it, too, suffers from these flaws. Then I discuss three possible relationships between the world and worldly objects in genetic-phenomenological constitution and thereby clarify the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority, namely something that can cause a radical change from one form of the world into another. Next, I analyze the genetic-phenomenological event— the radical change from one form of the world into another— and clarify the structure of this event by comparing it to the event in Heidegger’s later philosophy and in Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. Finally, I examine some views that are critical of linguistic idealism, such as Meister Eckhart’s view that God is ineffable; the Buddhist view that ultimate reality is ineffable; and the Taoist view that “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao”. This opens the possibility of carrying out a phenomenological dialogue between East and West by moving beyond linguistic idealism which is precisely what the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority allows us to do. 4.  Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and the Dialogue between East and West Phenomenology of intersubjectivity is an important topic not only in Western philosophy but in Eastern philosophy as well. For example, intersubjectivity plays a crucial role in the moral philosophy of Confucianism. The four cardinal virtues of Confucianism—benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom—are virtues that acquire their meaning through intersubjective relations between persons. We can accordingly employ the phenomenological reduction in order to analyze the four cardinal virtues of Confucianism under the lens of the moral phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In part III I compare Husserl, Scheler, and Hutcheson to Eastern philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, and Chong Yak-Yong. Through this comparison, we can realize that there is a great deal of affinity between the Western and Eastern traditions, thereby opening up the possibility of a new dialogue between the two. In so doing, we can discover new horizons in the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Chapter 9, on “Ethics of Renewal in Husserl and Confucius”, opens a dialogue between Husserl and Confucius on the topic of ethical renewal. In the 1920s, Husserl developed an ethics of renewal and wrote five articles on the topic. A closer examination of these articles from the 1920s reveals that the ethics of renewal was an important topic for his later phenomenology. It is exciting to note that 2400 years before Husserl developed his ethics of renewal, Confucius (孔子, 551–479 BC), the founder of Confucianism, had already discussed important issues regarding the ethics of renewal in his Analects and The Great Learning. In chapter 9, I tried to reconstruct and evaluate the ethics of renewal in both Husserl and Confucius before clarifying the intersubjective aspect of

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ethical renewal. Finally, I sketch out the future tasks of an ethics of renewal. Chapter 9 is the first study to date that explores the relationship between Husserl and Confucius, demonstrating the possibility of interpreting Confucius as a phenomenologist in his own right. By setting up a new and fruitful dialogue between these two otherwise seemingly disparate thinkers, chapter 9 also promises to open up a new dialogue between Eastern and Western philosophy. In chapter 10 on “Feeling as the Origin of Value in Scheler and Mencius”, I compare the views of Max Scheler (1874–1928) and Mencius (孟子, 372–289 BC) on the relationship between feeling and value. There have been many attempts to develop the theory of value in the history of philosophy, as well as in contemporary philosophy. Broadly speaking, there seem to be three major positions, namely axiological rationalism, axiological sentimentalism, and axiological conativism. These positions consider reason, feeling, and desire (conatus) respectively to be the origin of value. Max Scheler, one of the most important phenomenologists of the 20th century, and Mencius, one of the founding fathers of Confucianism, both take feeling to be the origin of value and can therefore be considered the proponents of axiological sentimentalism. In fact, despite the great spatial and temporal distance between them, there are striking similarities between the theories of value they developed. It should be noted, however, that there are also some differences between them that largely stem from some of the difficulties that arise within their theories of value. These difficulties should be removed so that a better theory of value can be developed. In chapter 10 I have tried to promote a phenomenological dialogue between Scheler and Mencius that could lead to such a better theory. I first summarize their theories of value and feeling and show that both theories have certain limitations that could be overcome by combining elements of the two theories together. Furthermore, by analyzing the four moral feelings discussed by Mencius— “the heart of compassion”, “the heart of shame”, “the heart of courtesy and modesty”, and “the heart of right and wrong”—I underline the intersubjective aspect of moral feeling so that we can understand the structure of moral feeling more concretely. Finally, in chapter 11, on “Moral Instinct in Hutcheson and Chong YakYong”, I attempt to develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. There are several philosophers who have developed a theory of moral instinct, and in chapter 11 I will be concerned with two of them, Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) and Chong Yak-Yong (1762–1836), examining their possible contributions toward a phenomenology of moral instinct. Francis Hutcheson is a Scottish philosopher who is well known for his moral philosophy as a theory of moral sense, and he developed a theory of moral instinct as a part of this theory. Chong Yak-Yong, better known by his pen name Dasan, is the most important representative of silhak, a practical stream of Confucianism in the 18th and 19th centuries of the Choson Dynasty in Korea; he developed a theory of moral instinct within the general framework of his theory of human nature. It is highly interesting to

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observe that the theories of moral instinct developed by Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong display various kinds of similarity, and by partly adopting and partly criticizing their theories, we can develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. First, however, I must clarify the concept of instinct since it plays an important role in chapter 11 but is widely misunderstood. Then I introduce the theory of moral instinct that each thinker developed since both philosophers have contributed immensely to the clarification of moral instinct. Yet this does not mean that they have provided perfect theories in no need of revision. In fact, each theory has some limitations that must be overcome in order to develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. I will address one of the topics they discuss—namely, the relationship between moral instinct and moral feeling—and show how we can develop a phenomenology of moral instinct by partly adopting and partly criticizing their views on this topic. Moreover, there are many important topics in the phenomenology of moral instinct that they have not clarified systematically. Among these topics, I focus on that of the intersubjective aspects of moral instinct and attempt to clarify some of these aspects as a way of developing a phenomenology of moral instinct.

PART I Problems of Intersubjectivity in Husserl

Chapter 1 Static Phenomenology and Genetic Phenomenology 1.  Various Views on the Distinction Between Static and Genetic Phenomenology The distinction between static and genetic phenomenology plays a central role in this book. It is an important yet controversial issue in Husserl’s phenomenology. Husserl seems to have been aware of this distinction before 1910, as shown by the fact that he speaks of “a fundamental part of a priori phenomenological genesis”1 in a text about inner time-consciousness written before the fall of 1908. However, it was only after 1920 that he attempted to clarify the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology systematically. And there are many manuscripts that deal with this distinction, including the following. 1) The 1921 text that was published as a treatise in Husserliana XI under the title: “Static and Genetic Phenomenological Method”.2 The text develops a theory of genesis and is full of genetic-phenomenological analyses but does not discuss the issue of static phenomenology at length. 2) The text written in June 1921 and published as Appendix I of Husserliana XIV under the title: “The Phenomenology of Monadic Individuality and the Phenomenology of the General Possibilities and Compossibilities of Lived-Experiences: Static and Genetic Phenomenology”.3 This text is concerned with the problem of monadic individuality and contains many genetic-phenomenological analyses but only a few static-phenomenological analyses. 3) The text written in 1922/1923 and published as Appendix XIV of Husserliana XXXV under the title: “Intersubjectivity and the Constitution of the World in Static and Genetic Analysis”.4 As the title indicates, it is primarily   Hua X, 54; Edmund Husserl: On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917). Translated from German by John Barnett Brough. Dordrecht 1991, 56. 2   Hua XI, 336–345; Edmund Husserl: “Static and genetic phenomenological method”. Translated from German by Anthony J. Steinbock. In: Continental Philosophy Review 31(2), 1998, 135–142. This text was republished in Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 624–634. 3   Hua XIV, 34–42; Edmund Husserl: “The phenomenology of monadic individuality and the phenomenology of the general possibilities and compossibilities of lived-experiences: Static and genetic phenomenology”. Translated from German by Anthony J. Steinbock. In: Continental Philosophy Review 31(2), 1998, 143–152. This text was republished in Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 635–645. 4   Hua XXXV, 407–410. 1

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concerned with intersubjectivity. In contrast to the two manuscripts discussed above, this text attempts to clarify the task of static phenomenology as well as that of genetic phenomenology by placing equal emphasis on both. 4) The text written in 1923 and published as Text No. 14 of Husserliana XIV under the title: “The Intersubjective Validity of Phenomenological Truth”.5 This text also deals with intersubjectivity. It addresses the issue of static phenomenology as well as that of genetic phenomenology but does not contain a detailed analysis of either of them. 5) The text that was written in 1929 and was published as Appendix II of Formal and Transcendental Logic under the title: “The Phenomenological Constitution of the Judgment: Originally Active Judging and Its Secondary Modifications”.6 This text contains some important analyses concerning the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology and provides important textual evidence for my thesis regarding this distinction. 6) The text that was written in 1933 and was published as Text No. 35 of Husserliana XV under the title: “Static and Genetic Phenomenology: ”.7 This text concerns the phenomenology of intersubjectivity and provides important textual evidence for my thesis regarding the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology. Moreover, it contains some important analyses concerning the distinction between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity which plays a central role in the present book. 7) The text written in 1916/1917 but later revised, published as Appendix XLV of Husserliana XIII under the title: “On Phenomenological Problems of Origin […]”.8 I introduce this manuscript last because it is not clear when it was revised. While revising the text, Husserl changes the subtitle of b) “The connection between the psychological origin (Ursprung) and the phenomenological origin” into “The connection between the genetic origin (Ursprung) and the phenomenological-static origin”.9 The revised subtitle is of crucial importance for understanding the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology.

  Hua XIV, 305–308. Edmund Husserl: “The intersubjective validity of phenomenological truth”. Translated from German by Anthony J. Steinbock. In: Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 646–648. 6   Hua XVII, 314–326; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 312–329. 7   Hua XV, 613–627. 8   Hua XIII, 346–357. 9   Hua XIII, 352–353. 5

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This revised version also contains important textual evidence for the view that I hold concerning this distinction. There are other texts dealing with the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology, such as the Cartesian Meditations, the main text of Formal and Transcendental Logic, Phenomenological Psychology, and the C-manuscripts on time-constitution collected in Husserliana Materialien VIII,10 etc., but the analyses contained in these works are not as extensive as those in the seven manuscripts introduced above. Husserliana XXXIX, a volume devoted to the life-world, contains two manuscripts (Text No. 4 and Appendix XLI) that refer to the concepts of “static” and “genetic” in their titles:11 in one of them, Text No. 4 from 1928, Husserl attempts to clarify general aspects of the static and genetic constitution of the pregiven world, but one cannot find detailed analyses of the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology either in this text or in Appendix XLI. Since there is such an abundance of manuscripts and works discussing the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology one might have the impression that the distinction between them should be clear enough. Furthermore, in ordinary language, the distinction between the concepts of “static” and “genetic” already seems to be clear as well. It should be noted, however, that the distinction between them is not as obvious as it seems, even to Husserl himself, who wrestled with the question in the early 1920s. In the text written in June 1921, Husserl first writes: “These are fundamental questions concerning the distinction, but also the ordering of necessary phenomenological investigations. Where they are concerned, I will always speak of static and genetic phenomenology.” Then he immediately poses the question: “What was actually the leading perspective here?”12 Since Husserl was not clear about the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology, he repeatedly attempted to clarify it, but if we take a close look at the various writings where he discusses this distinction we realize that the distinction between them is not at all consistent. Moreover, corresponding to the fact that Husserl’s distinction between static and genetic phenomenology is not consistent we find many different views on this distinction, as Saulius Geniusas correctly points out: “Husserl’s own clarification of static and genetic methods notwithstanding, the difference between   Hua I, 110, 136, 162–163 (Husserl: Cartesian Mediations, 76 ff., 106, 135–136); Hua XVII, 257 (Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 250); Hua IX, 216, 286 ff.; Hua Mat VIII, 54, 174, 259, 420. 11   See Text No. 4: “Die vorgegebene Welt. Allgemeine Aspekte ihres statischen und genetischen Aufbaus” (Hua XXXIX, 26–34) and Appendix XLI: “Exposition der allgemeinen Problematik der statischen und genetischen Auslegung der Weltapperzeption. Mit einer kritischen Note zu Heideggers ‘Seinsverständnis’” (Hua XXXIX, 487–494). 12   Hua XIV, 40; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 643. 10

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these phenomenological methods is notoriously vague and the plurality of interpretations that address them did not generate any kind of consensus.”13 We can already observe the plurality of interpretations in studies on the topic published in the 1970s. For example, referring to what is “only a preliminary, that is static layer of investigation”14and claiming that “static phenomenology must become genetic if it wants to uncover the ultimate meaning of Being and being”,15 Antonio Aguirre holds the view that static phenomenology is merely a prelude to genetic phenomenology. Mary Jeanne Larrabee holds the same view as Aguirre and writes that “genetic analysis begins from the point at which static analysis ends, i. e., its beginning point is the analyzed object and consciousness given at the conclusion of static analysis”.16 In contrast, Elmar Holenstein considers static and genetic phenomenology to be “two abstractive or reductive modes” to gain access “to the same genetically arising phenomenon of the multifarious consciousness”.17 The situation did not change after 2000. For example, claiming that “the kind of inquiry that has so far been primarily indicated in these pages, and with which it is natural for the ‘beginning philosopher’ to start, is termed ‘static phenomenology’”,18 Arthur David Smith holds the view that static phenomenology is only a prelude to genetic phenomenology. Tanja Staehler, however, maintains “that Husserl did not consider the static phenomenology to be redundant after developing the genetic method […]”.19 Under these circumstances, it may seem natural to conclude that Husserl was not successful in making a clear distinction between static and genetic phenomenology. And in fact, there are scholars who do hold this view. For example, Elmar Holenstein claims that “Husserl was not successful in separating static   Saulius Geniusas: The Origins of the Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Dordrecht 2012, 90. There are many studies on the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology, such as Antonio Aguirre: Genetische Phänomenologie und Reduktion. Den Haag 1970; Elmar Holenstein: Phänomenologie der Assoziation. Den Haag 1972; Mary Jeanne Larrabee: “Husserl’s static and genetic phenomenology”. In: Man and World 9(2), 1976, 163–174; Donn Welton: “Structure and genesis in Husserl’s phenomenology”. In: Frederick A. Elliston, Peter McCormick (Eds.), Husserl: Expositions and Appraisals. Notre Dame, IN 1977, 54–69; Donn Welton: The Origins of Meaning: A Critical Study of the Threshold of Husserlian Phenomenology. The Hague 1983; NamIn Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte. Dordrecht 1993, 17–30; Rudolf Bernet, Iso Kern, Eduard Marbach: An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology. Evanston, IL 1995, 195–204; Steinbock: Home and Beyond; Anthony J. Steinbock: “Husserl’s static and genetic phenomenology: Translator’s introduction to two essays”. In: Continental Philosophy Review 31(2), 1998, 127–134. 14  Aguirre: Genetische Phänomenologie und Reduktion, xx. 15   Ibid., xxi. 16   Larrabee: “Husserl’s static and genetic phenomenology”, 164. 17  Holenstein: Phänomenologie der Assoziation, 29. 18   Arthur David Smith: Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Husserl and the Cartesian Meditations. London 2003, 115. 19   Tanja Staehler: “What is the question to which Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation is the answer?”. In: Husserl Studies 24(2), 2008, 99–117, here: 104–105. 13

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and genetic phenomenology from one another without overlapping.”20 Such interpretations would be valid if we limited ourselves to the four manuscripts written at the beginning of the 1920s. In my view, however, Husserl does in fact make a clear distinction between static and genetic phenomenology in the manuscripts from 1929 and 1933 mentioned above. I have tried to clarify what I consider to be Husserl’s final position on this issue in a detailed manner in Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte,21 and here I will follow the same line of argument. Husserl’s final position on the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology will hopefully help us not only to understand Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity better, but also to clarify the relationship between the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity he developed and that of subsequent phenomenologists/philosophers. Before we begin, however, I wish to proceed by arguing against what I consider to be an illegitimate view, namely the view that static phenomenology is merely a pre-stage of genetic phenomenology. 2. Assessment of the View of Static Phenomenology as a Pre-Stage of Genetic Phenomenology Static phenomenology and genetic phenomenology are two distinct kinds of constitutive phenomenology; thus, to arrive at a full appreciation of the difference between them we must first understand what constitution itself means. The constitution of an object carried out through intentionality displays the following property: “as a consciousness,” it “is indeed (in the broadest sense) a meaning of its meant [Meinung seines Gemeinten],” but “at any moment, this something meant [dieses Vermeinte] is more—something meant with something more—than what is meant at that moment ‘explicitly’”.22 Let us take an example from external perception: an intention directed toward a house in front of me. Although in each phase of the perception only one side of the house is actually given, what I experience is nevertheless not only the currently given side, but the house as a whole. This is possible because the perceptual intention reaches beyond the currently given side to the identical object. This reaching beyond the current side to the identical object, “house”—or more universally, any case of reaching beyond lower unities toward a still higher unity of objectivity—is called constitution. Static and genetic phenomenology attempt to clarify the structure of constitution in two different ways. However, if we take a close look at the works in  Holenstein: Phänomenologie der Assoziation, 28.   Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 17–30. 22   Hua I, 84; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 46. 20 21

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which Husserl deals with the distinction between them, we can find two different views, namely 1) the view that static phenomenology is a pre-stage of genetic phenomenology and 2) the view that static phenomenology and genetic phenomenology are two different ideas of constitutive phenomenology. Husserl holds the first view in the four manuscripts written during the beginning of the 1920s, whereas he holds the second view in the other three manuscripts discussed above. I argue that the first view is mistaken. In the four manuscripts from the beginning of the 1920s,23 Husserl argues that static phenomenology serves as a pre-stage of genetic phenomenology since it is a “phenomenology of leading clues” (Phänomenologie der Leitfäden)24 that makes it possible to carry out “genetic analysis” as “the clarification of exactly the genesis of the static structures in question”.25 Static phenomenology analyzes the “finished” (fertig)26 constitution or apperception, whereas “the constitution of constitution” or the genesis or the history of the finished constitution is the topic of genetic phenomenology, as the following two passages show: But in a “static” regard, we have “finished” apperceptions [constitutions]. Here apperceptions emerge and are awakened as finished, and have a “history” reaching way back. A constitutive phenomenology can regard the nexuses of apperceptions in which the same object is constituted eidetically, in which it shows itself in its constituted ipseity in the way it is expected and can be expected. Another “constitutive” phenomenology, the phenomenology of genesis, follows the history, the necessary history of this objectivation and thereby the history of the object itself as the object of a possible knowledge.27 In this context, “static” here describes what has, as always, become, in the “history” of the I, a firmly established habituality and a type of perception that belongs to it, a type of apperception. Genetic analysis understands and elucidates genetic constitution, i. e., the constitution of this constitution, the genesis of the corresponding habituality and habitual type of apperception.28

After claiming that the goal of static phenomenology is to study the finished constitution while the goal of genetic phenomenology is to study the constitution of constitution, Husserl goes on to clarify the distinction between static analysis and genetic analysis even further. From the methodological point of view, the static analysis of the finished constitution is carried out through the method of “description” (Beschreiben), whereas the genetic analysis of the genesis   It should be noted that Husserl also holds this view in the Cartesian Meditations, as the following passage shows: “The phenomenology developed at first is merely ‘static’; its descriptions are analogous to those of natural history […]” (Ibid., 110; 76). 24   Hua XIV, 41; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 644. 25   Hua XXXV, 408. 26   Hua XI, 345; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 634. 27   Ibid., italics added. 28   Hua XXXV, 407. 23

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of the finished constitution is carried out through the method of “explanation” (Erklären). Correspondingly, Husserl designates static phenomenology as a descriptive phenomenology and genetic phenomenology as an explanatory phenomenology.29 Thus, the distinction between description and explanation plays a decisive role for the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology. Yet if we take a look at the four manuscripts from the beginning of the 1920s, we realize that there is an asymmetry in the way Husserl discusses the issue of static and genetic phenomenology. He addresses the issue of genetic phenomenology in a more systematic and detailed manner than the issue of static phenomenology which he touches on only sporadically. In fact, there are some pages where he discusses the issues of genetic phenomenology, so it is not difficult for readers to understand what each issue means concretely. A typical example is a passage from a manuscript from 1921 published as a treatise in Husserliana XI entitled: “Static and Genetic Phenomenological Method”,30 where Husserl discusses seven topics of genetic phenomenology, from passive genesis as the most primitive topic to the genetic constitution of the objective world as the highest topic, as the list below shows: 1) “Genesis of passivity, that is, a general lawful regularity of genetic becoming in passivity that is always there and, without a doubt, has origins that lie further back, just as apperception itself does”;31 2) “The participation of the ego and relationships between activity and passivity”;32 3) “Interrelations, formations of pure activity; genesis as an active accomplishment of ideal objects and as an accomplishment of real generation. Secondary sensibility: general laws of the consciousness of habituality. Everything habitual belongs to passivity. Even the activity that has become habitual”;33 4) “Once we have gained all the kinds of genesis and their laws, we will then ask to what extent one can assert something about the individuality of a monad, about the unity of its ‘development’, about the regulative system that essentially unites all the particular geneses in the form of one monad, and about which types of individual monads are a priori possible and construable”;34   Hua XI, 340; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 629.   Ibid., 342–344; 631–633. 31   Ibid., 342; 631. 32  Ibid. 33  Ibid. 34  Ibid. 29 30

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5) “In what sense can the genesis of a monad be implicated in the genesis of another and in what sense can a unity of genesis, according to laws [of genesis], combine a multiplicity of monads [?]”;35 6) “the genetic explanation of a monad within which a unitary nature and a world in general is constituted genetically, and how a unitary nature and a world in general remain constituted from this point onward throughout its entire life”;36 and 7) “My passivity stands in connection with the passivity of all others: One and the same thing-world is constituted for us, one and the same time [is constituted] as objective time such that through this, my Now and the Now of every other—and thus his life-present (with all immanences) and my life-present— are objectively ‘simultaneous’.”37 We can summarize the topics found in the manuscripts from the beginning of the 1920s as follows: 1) passive genesis, 2) active genesis, 3) the relationship between them, 4) the development of the monad, 5) the implication of the genesis of a monad in the genesis of another monad, 6) the genetic constitution of a unitary nature and a world in general in a monad, 7) the genetic constitution of the objective world, etc. It should be noted, however, that Husserl does not devote as many passages to static phenomenology which is only mentioned sporadically throughout the passages. Here is a list of the topics of static phenomenology that I gathered from the four manuscripts from the beginning of the 1920s: 1) “the correlations between constituting consciousness and the constituted objectlike formation”;38 2) “the ‘constitution’ of the perceptual object”, “the structure of the perceptual manifold, which reveals it as something perceivable (or as the subject of possible perceptions)”39 or “types of constituting objects” along with “constituting consciousness, and finally, the constitution of this type, world”;40

    37   38   39   40   35 36

Ibid., 342–343; 631. Ibid., 343; 632. Ibid., 343; 632. Hua XIV, 38; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 640. Hua XXXV, 407. Hua XI, 344–345; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 633–634.

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3) “the nexuses of apperceptions in which the same object is constituted eidetically, in which it shows itself in its constituted ipseity in the way it is expected and can be expected”;41 4) “the constitutive possibilities in relation to an object as a leading clue”, “the typicality of the nexuses in consciousness of any kind of developmental level”, and “the structures of pure consciousness as structures of possibly appearing phenomena in the unity of an immanent phenomenal nexus”;42 5) “possible, essential shapes […] in pure consciousness and their teleological ordering in the realm of possible reason under the headings, ‘object’ and ‘sense’”;43 6) “the constitution of truly existing objectivities as ideas of the real and ideal worlds”;44 and 7) “subjects of pure reason and their shapes of rational activities in which they live toward and attain true being and truths, as well as true values and goods”.45 So far, I have summarized Husserl’s distinction between static and genetic phenomenology as found in the four manuscripts from the beginning of 1920, all of which lead to the view that static phenomenology is merely a pre-stage of genetic phenomenology. In my view, however, such a standpoint is untenable because it leads to some severe difficulties. Let me clarify this point through four arguments. First, the distinction between static phenomenology as descriptive phenomenology and genetic phenomenology as explanatory phenomenology is problematic since description is the general method that any kind of phenomenology must employ if it is to be considered as phenomenology in the genuine sense of the word. Genetic phenomenology cannot be an exception. In fact, Husserl himself admits that genetic phenomenology requires the method of description as well, writing as follows: “One can even say that I can also describe individuated geneses and the laws of genesis without systematically tackling the problem of the universal genesis of a monad and the nature of its individuality.”46 If this is the case, it is clear that the use of description cannot distinguish static phenomenology from genetic phenomenology.

    43   44   45   46   41 42

Ibid., 345; 634. Hua XIV, 41; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 644–645. Hua XI, 340; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 629. Hua XXXV, 409. Hua XI, 341; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 630. Hua XIV, 37–38; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 639.

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Second, though Husserl attempts to clarify the idea of genetic phenomenology in a systematic manner in the four manuscripts from the early 1920s there are some serious difficulties. From the perspective of genetic phenomenology, the distinction between the “finished” constitution as the topic of static phenomenology and “the constitution of this constitution” as the topic of genetic phenomenology is highly problematic for the following two reasons: 1) Needless to say, the constitution of a given finished constitution is an important topic of genetic phenomenology, but it cannot be considered the exclusive topic of genetic phenomenology. In this respect, it should be noted that most of the seven issues of genetic phenomenology discussed above cannot be called the constitution of a given finished constitution as the process of the genesis of the habitual system. For example, passive or active genesis cannot be equated with the process of the genesis of habitual system itself, although it can contribute to this process. The same applies to most of the other topics, such as the relationships between activity and passivity, the implication of the genesis of a monad in the genesis of another monad, the genetic constitution of a unitary nature and a world in general in a monad, and the genetic constitution of the objective world. Even though they may be related to the constitution of a given finished constitution, they themselves cannot be equated with the constitution of a given finished constution as the process of the genesis of the habitual system itself. 2) In Husserl’s view, the finished constitution as a habitual system is a static phenomenon that may have nothing to do with genesis, but, in my view, it can still be considered a genetic phenomenon since it can operate in the stream of inner time-consciousness. Husserl also considers it an open question as to whether the finished constitution truly does not have anything to do with genesis, writing as follows: “If we compare static and genetic nexuses, then we will have to ask whether one can achieve a systematic phenomenology of static nexuses (like that of noesis and noema), that is, whether the genetic dimension can be completely suspended here.”47 I believe that here Husserl is admitting that the “genetic dimension” cannot be completely suspended in “a systematic phenomenology of static nexuses”, since the constitution of an object that is carried out at present is normally a process of the operation of the finished constitution as a habitual system that was built in the past—a process that has to follow the “laws of genesis in the sense of one demonstrating laws for the sequences of particular events in the stream of lived experience”.48 Thus, not only the constitution of a given finished constitution in the past but also the finished consti  Ibid., 344; 633.   Ibid., 337; 624.

47 48

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tution itself can also be considered a topic of genetic phenomenology, insofar as the latter can operate in the present in the stream of inner time-consciousness. Third, Husserl’s claim that the goal of static phenomenology is to study the finished constitution is problematic since such a definition would make static phenomenology lose its status as an independent field from genetic phenomenology. In order to grasp this point, we need to pay attention to the fact that the finished constitution can be designated as a genetic phenomenon in two senses. In the first place, it can be designated as a genetic phenomenon in the sense that it can operate in the present in the stream of inner time-consciousness, as already indicated above. And in the second place, the finished constitution as a genetic phenomenon in this sense can serve as the genetic foundation of other constitutions. If we consider a finished constitution with respect to further constitutions for which it can play the role of a genetic foundation, it can be called a genetic phenomenon in another sense since it is grasped as a phenomenon within the connection of the genetic foundation. But if a finished constitution can be designated as a genetic phenomenon in these two senses, then static phenomenology as a phenomenology of leading clues will lose its identity as a form of constitutive phenomenology that is independent from genetic phenomenology and will be absorbed into the latter. In my view, it is not Husserl’s original intention to let static phenomenology lose its status as an independent phenomenology. It is in this context that Husserl refers in a later manuscript to the “double face of phenomenology”,49 which implies that he considers static phenomenology and genetic phenomenology to be two different ideas of constitutive phenomenology, each of which cannot be reduced to the other. In this respect, I agree with Tetsuya Sakabibara, who holds the view that in Husserl’s later phenomenology, he had to revise his position that the static phenomenon can be regarded as a kind of genetic phenomenon.50 Fourth, Husserl’s discussion of the topics of static phenomenology listed above is also problematic. Let me give you two examples. 1) His designation of 1) “the correlations between constituting consciousness and the constituted objectlike formation” as the topic of static phenomenology is problematic, since it is not only the task of static phenomenology, but also that of genetic phenomenology to clarify such correlations. In this context, looking back at the phenomenological analyses that he had carried out up until the time he was working on The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology in the 1930s, Husserl writes as follows:

  Hua XV, 617.   See Tetsuya Sakakibara: “Struktur und Genesis der Fremderfahrung bei Edmund Husserl”. In: Husserl Studies 24(1), 2008, 1–14, here: 2, 12. 49 50

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The first breakthrough of this universal a priori of correlation between experienced object and manners of givenness […] affected me so deeply that my whole subsequent life-work has been dominated by the task of systematically elaborating on this a priori of correlation.51

Thus, he confesses that not only static phenomenology but his “whole subsequent life-work” has been shaped by this task. 2) The designation of 2) “the ‘constitution’ of the perceptual object”, “the structure of the perceptual manifold […]”, etc. as the topic of static phenomenology is also problematic. It is not clear what it concretely means to clarify “the ‘constitution’ of the perceptual object”, “the structure of the perceptual manifold […]”, etc., since one can clarify the latter in different ways. For example, one can clarify constitution from the perspective of transtemporal validity-foundation or from that of temporal genesis. This is also the case with some other topics such as 3) “the nexuses of apperceptions in which the same object is constituted eidetically, in which it shows itself in its constituted ipseity in the way it is expected and can be expected” and 4) “the constitutive possibilities in relation to an object as a leading clue”, “the typicality of the nexuses in consciousness of any kind of developmental level”, and “the structures of pure consciousness as structures of possibly appearing phenomena in the unity of an immanent phenomenal nexus”,52 since they too can be clarified in different ways. In my view, there is a similar problem in a passage in the Cartesian Meditations where Husserl claims that the descriptions of constitution in static phenomenology “concern particular types and, at best, arrange them in their systematic order”53 since he does not mention the concrete way “particular types” are arranged “in their systematic order” in static phenomenology. In fact, there are different kinds of “systematic order” between the different types of intentionality, such as the order of temporal genetic foundation or the order of transtemporal validity-foundation. What is most problematic with the list of the topics of static phenomenology is the fact that Husserl’s discussion of them is rather unsystematic, in part because he does not specify the essential component that unites the various topics of static phenomenology given in the list. In the case of genetic phenomenology, it is the concept of genesis that ties together the various topics of genetic phenomenology, and we do not have any difficulty understanding the concept of genesis which is the process of the coming into being of a consciousness (or an object) that is derivative from another consciousness (or another object) that is more original in the temporal order. Of course, Husserl considers the “finished” constitution to be the essential component that unites the various topics   Hua VI, 169; Husserl: Crisis, 166, italics added.   Hua XIV, 41; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis, 644–645. 53   Hua I, 110; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 76. 51 52

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of static phenomenology but, as discussed above, this idea has serious difficulties. One may try to counter my criticism by pointing out that “transtemporality” can be considered the unifying theme of static phenomenology. But if this were the case, the study of mathematical objects or logical objects would belong to static phenomenology since they are key examples of transtemporal objects. However, logic and mathematics themselves are not a kind of constitutive phenomenology and should be distinguished strictly from static phenomenology as a kind of constitutive phenomenology per se. There is still one possible component that could unify three of the topics given in the list of topics in static phenomenology, namely 5) “possible, essential shapes […] in pure consciousness and their teleological ordering in the realm of possible reason under the headings, ‘object’ and ‘sense’”; 6) “the constitution of truly existing objectivities as ideas of the real and ideal worlds”; and 7) “subjects of pure reason and their shapes of rational activities in which they live toward and attain true being and truths, as well as true values and goods”. The common thread among these topics is the idea that the validity (Geltung) or truth (Wahrheit) of our beliefs can be attained only through reason. It should be noted that the three topics contain such elements as “reason”, “truly existing objectivities”, and “pure reason” along with “rational activities”, “true being and truths”, and “true values and goods”. In my view, it is precisely the moment of the validity or the truth of our beliefs that can also unify the rest of the topics of static phenomenology. In other words, the other four topics on the list can properly be called topics of static phenomenology only if they are approached from the perspective of the validity or the truth of our beliefs. In fact, in the two manuscripts from 1929 and 1933, as will be discussed in the next section in a detailed manner, Husserl considers the transtemporal validity-foundation of constitution as the essential component common to the various topics of static phenomenology and the task of static phenomenology must accordingly be to clarify this transtemporal validity-foundation. We have so far revealed the weaknesses in Husserl’s early distinction between static and genetic phenomenology from the beginning of the 1920s. Husserl had a relatively clear idea of genetic phenomenology but not of static phenomenology —which is somewhat paradoxical because he considers the phenomenological analyses in his major works published before 1920, such as the Logical Investigations54 or Ideas I55, to be mainly works in static phenomenology. In my view, he did not have a clear view of static phenomenology because, in a strange twist of irony, he simply took it for granted that static phenomenology was   Hua XIX/1; Hua XIX/2; Edmund Husserl: The Shorter Logical Investigations. Translated from German by John N. Findlay and edited by Dermot Moran. London 2001. 55   Hua III/1; Edmund Husserl: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Translated from German by Fred Kersten. The Hague 1982. 54

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self-evident which, as we have shown above, is actually not the case. As a result, Husserl did not believe he had to clarify it systematically. On the other hand, he went to great lengths to clarify genetic phenomenology since it was a relatively unfamiliar type of phenomenology up until the beginning of the 1920s. Thus, Husserl’s distinction from the beginning of the 1920s between static phenomenology as a phenomenology of leading clues and genetic phenomenology as a deepened form of phenomenology turns out to be problematic in many respects. In fact, in the two manuscripts from 1929 and 1933 Husserl no longer considers static phenomenology as a mere pre-stage to genetic phenomenology. Rather, he claims that in order to be developed systematically static phenomenology itself needs a leading clue, and he considers ontology to be the leading clue for static phenomenology. According to him, ontology as the leading clue for static phenomenology refers to the discipline that aims to clarify the “ontological structure” as the “structure of the meaning of being of the world in its foundation of meaning”56. Needless to say that not only the ontology of the world but also the various kinds of ontology of the objects and the regions of objects can play the role of leading clues for static phenomenology. With respect to ontology as a leading clue for static phenomenology, with the example of the ontology of the world, Husserl writes as follows: This is static phenomenology. I analyze ontologically the meaning of being of the world and correlatively question the certainties of being, specifically the ways of givenness. The ontological analysis is the leading clue for the analysis of the correlative validity of being.57

It should be noted that, in his later phenomenology, while having claimed that ontology is the leading clue for static phenomenology, Husserl now no longer considers static phenomenology as the leading clue for genetic phenomenology. In this respect, in the passage that follows immediately, he asks about the relationship between static and genetic phenomenology in the following manner: “How does it [static phenomenology] lead to the phenomenology of genesis, if just in the static phenomenology using the ontological foundations as a leading clue one only shows validity-foundations?”58 Even though Husserl asks such as a question, he no longer claims that static phenomenology is the leading clue for genetic phenomenology. Then what is it that plays the role of the leading clue for genetic phenomenology? It is none other than ontology: In his later phenomenology, he claims that ontology plays the role of the leading clue not only for static phenomenology but also for genetic phenomenology. In order to grasp this point, we need to pay attention to the fact that, in his later

  Hua XV, 617.   Hua XV, 616. 58   Hua XV, 616. 56 57

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phenomenology, he often designates ontology as the leading clue for transcendental phenomenology, as can be seen in the following passage: The beginning of a methodical dismantling of the primordial phenomenal present at the same time as a method of dismantling the pregiven world as such and of inquiring back into the subjective modes of appearance, in place of the method of an ontology of the world of experience, [of using] this ontology as a transcendental clue.59

As this passage shows, Husserl regards ontology as the leading clue for transcendental phenomenology. This implies that he considers ontology the leading clue for static phenomenology as well as for genetic phenomenology since transcendental phenomenology has static and genetic phenomenology as its two sub-fields. Thus, in order to develop static and genetic phenomenology systematically, it is our first task to develop the various kinds of ontology by clarifying the ontological structure of the world as well as of the different kinds of objects and the regions of objects. Thereafter, clarifying the correlation between the various kinds of noemas and the corresponding noeses, we can develop various kinds of static and genetic phenomenology as two kinds of constitutive phenomenology. It is my contention that Husserl came up with a legitimate distinction between static and genetic phenomenology in the two manuscripts from 1929 and 1933 which we will now discuss. 3. Static Phenomenology as the Phenomenology of Validity-Foundation and Genetic Phenomenology as the Phenomenology of Genetic Foundation In Appendix II of Formal and Transcendental Logic and the manuscript from 1933 mentioned above, Husserl attempts to clarify the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology differently. According to this new distinction, the aim of static phenomenology is to clarify the transtemporal or atemporal “validity-foundation” (Geltungsfundierung)60 of constitution, whereas it is the aim of genetic phenomenology to clarify the temporal “genetic foundation” (Genesisfundierung) of constitution. Note how the definition of genetic phenomenology stays relatively similar to the one presented in section 2 above, whereas the definition for static phenomenology has changed remarkably. In   Hua XV, 681. See also Hua XV, 267, 681, 702, 737. The German original runs as follows: “Erster Anfang eines methodischen Abbaus der urphänomenalen Gegenwart zugleich als Methode des Abbaus der vorgegebenen Welt als solcher und der Rückfrage auf die subjektiven Erscheinungsweisen an Stelle der Methode einer Ontologie der Erfahrungswelt und dieser als transzendentaler Leitfaden.” 60   Hus XV, 613 ff. 59

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order to understand the distinction between them more concretely, let us turn to a passage in Appendix II of Formal and Transcendental Logic where, in relation to the distinction between static and genetic analysis, Husserl discusses two forms of intentional reference (Verweisung): “Static” analysis is guided by the unity of the meant object. It starts from the unclear manners of givenness and, following the reference made by them as intentional modifications, it strives toward what is clear. Genetic intentional analysis, on the other hand, is directed to the whole concrete nexus in which each particular consciousness stands, along with its intentional object as intentional. Immediately the problem becomes extended to include the other intentional references, those belonging to the situation in which, for example, the subject exercising the judicative activity is standing, and to include, therefore, the immanent unity of the temporality of this subject’s life […].61

As can be seen from this passage, the nexus of intentional references plays a decisive role in the distinction between static and genetic analysis.62 Accordingly, it is the task of static phenomenology to clarify the nexus of the intentional references of unclear and modified modes of givenness to clear and more original modes, whereas it is the task of genetic phenomenology to clarify the nexus of the “other intentional references” that are characterized later on in the text as “genetic references”.63 Thus, the distinction now lies in how we approach the aspect of constitution as a reaching beyond and “meaning more”. Let us now first attempt to determine the intentional reference of the unclear and modified mode of givenness to the clear and more original mode, the disclosure of which determines the sphere of static phenomenology. As can be gathered from the contrast between “clarity” and “unclarity”, the static-phenomenological nexus of reference is a nexus of validity (Geltungszusammenhang). Thus, the distinction between unclear givenness and clear givenness refers to a mode of givenness whose validity is derivative in contrast to one whose validity is more original, with the latter serving as the validity-foundation of the former. It thereby turns out that the task of static phenomenology is to disclose the structure of “validity-foundation”. And in a manuscript from 1933 Husserl does explicitly characterize the task of static phenomenology as one of disclosing the structure of validity-foundation, as the following passage shows: Constructing the validity-foundation, at first the foundation of ontic certainty. To note: foundation of the ontic certainties regarding the world; correlatively, the world existing for me, as an ontic sense that has its sense-foundation. In the ready-made world, that which is founding has to be experienced for that which is founded to be experienced. […] The problem of the complete intuition of the world, of completely making the world   Hua XVII, 316; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 316, translation altered, emphasis altered. 62   I have borrowed the following six paragraphs in a modified form from Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 20–22. 63   Hua XVII, 318; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 318, translation altered. 61

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clear to oneself as a world of possible experience, is thus equivalent to the problem of the universality of validity-foundation. Hence this is static phenomenology.64

In contrast, as already mentioned, genetic phenomenology is concerned with the genetic reference of one given back to another in such a way that the latter serves as the genetic foundation of the former. It is the genetic nexus, and the temporal relation linked with it, that plays a central role in the genetic foundation obtaining between the givens, so that the temporally earlier layer founds the temporally later layer, whereas in static phenomenology, whose task is to disclose the validity-foundation, the genetic nexus of foundations is completely extra-thematic. Let us return to the example of how we perceive a house. Suppose that I have a belief concerning the color of the front side of the house. There are many ways in which I could come to such a belief. For example, a friend of mine who knows the house could have told me what color it is, or I can visit the house and perceive it myself. In this case, it is the task of genetic phenomenology to clarify the genetic foundation of the belief by clarifying how the latter came into being, whether by either hearing about it secondhand or by visiting the house and perceiving it firsthand. In each of these two cases, the task of genetic phenomenology is to clarify the “genetic references” belonging, as the citation above indicates, “to the situation in which […] the subject exercising the judicative activity is standing, and to include, therefore, the immanent unity of the temporality of this subject’s life”. In short, genetic phenomenology traces back the steps by which a belief was formed, uncovering the genetic foundation for the belief that came later. Now let us take the same example but from the point of view of static phenomenology. In contrast to genetic phenomenology, static phenomenology seeks to clarify the transtemporal validity-foundation of the belief that I have concerning the front side of the house. For example, if I got that belief by hearing from my friend, the belief that I have about the house cannot be as clear and evident as when I directly perceive the house myself. For this reason, the direct perception of something is the validity-foundation of the belief in the same thing that I might gain by hearing about it from someone else. Or in a case in which I recall a house that I perceived in the past, the memory of the house cannot be as clear and evident as my direct perception of it. Thus, once again, the perception of the house is the validity-foundation of my memory of it, and the memory of something is the intentional modification of the perception of it. It should be noted that it is completely irrelevant in static phenomenology as to whether a given validity comes before or after another validity in the temporal order. That is, the direct perception of the house will always serve as the   Hua XV, 616.

64

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validity-foundation in static phenomenology, even if I had first heard about the house before I actually perceived it. What matters in static phenomenology is the relation of the transtemporal validity-foundation, not the genetic foundation, between them. We can clarify the distinction between static phenomenology and genetic phenomenology further by looking at the color of the whole house. Suppose that I acquire a belief about the color of the whole house by visiting it and walking around it. I could go around the house from the front side to the right side and then further to the back side, or I could do so in the reverse order. From the perspective of genetic phenomenology, the two cases are totally different since in one case the experience of the color of the right side comes before the experience of the color of the left side in the temporal order, whereas in the other case the experience of the color of the left side comes before the experience of the color of the right side in the temporal order. These two cases count as two different cases in genetic phenomenology. From the perspective of static phenomenology, however, the temporal order of the way I experience an object does not matter at all. All that matters in static phenomenology is how the validity of each of the perceptions that I can have of the color of the house from various perspectives serves as the validity-foundation of the belief that I have concerning the color of the house as a whole since it is clearer and more evident than the latter. 4. Static Phenomenology as a Phenomenology of Justification and Genetic Phenomenology as a Concrete Phenomenology Another important distinction between static phenomenology and genetic phenomenology is the fact that the former can be called a phenomenology of justification that addresses the issue of “justification” (Rechtfertigung), whereas the latter can be called a concrete phenomenology. Let me first clarify in what sense genetic phenomenology can be called a concrete phenomenology. For Husserl, the task of genetic phenomenology is, as we have seen, to clarify “the whole concrete nexus in which each particular consciousness stands, along with its intentional object as intentional”. In order to show just what this entails, let us return to the example of the perception of the house. The perception of the house as a whole could not be carried out without the various kinds of intentionalities that are more original in the temporal order than the direct perception that actually allows me to perceive the house. These kinds of intentionalities comprise not only the various kinds of intentionalities pertaining to the perception of the various sides of the house, but also the intentionality of the will to perceive the house; the intentionalities of the previous perceptions of houses similar to the house I am seeing now; horizonal intentionality as the

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intentionality directed toward the horizon in which the house is embedded; world-consciousness as the intentionality directed toward the world, etc. Moreover, in order to clarify the structure of the perception of the house from the perspective of genetic phenomenology, we need to clarify passive genesis; the process of building a habitual system of house-perceptions; the development of the ego; the genetic constitution of the world; the genetic constitution of the society; the genetic constitution of history, etc. since they all serve as the genetic foundation of the perception of the house and build “the whole concrete nexus” in which this perception stands. This is the reason why genetic phenomenology can be called a concrete phenomenology. Let me now clarify in what sense static phenomenology can be called a phenomenology of justification. Static phenomenology, as Husserl claims in a passage already discussed above from Formal and Transcendental Logic, “is guided by the unity of the meant object” and “starts from the unclear manners of givenness and, following the reference made by them as intentional modifications, it strives toward what is clear”.65 In this respect, it should be noted that the reason that static phenomenology takes the references of the unclear to the clear as its staring point is because “the unity of the meant object” is experienced by me unclearly, that is, its validity is something “incomprehensible”66 and needs justification. To justify the validity of “the unity of the meant object” as something incomprehensible, I have to strive “toward what is clear” and appeal to it as the foundation to justify the validity in question. Let us return to the example of the house yet again. In this case, even though I perceive the house from a certain perspective at every moment, I have a perception of the house as a whole. Suppose that I believe that the color of the house as a whole is such and such and I claim that this is true, but my friend does not accept it. In this situation, I would justify my claim, and in order to do so, I have to appeal to the validity of the perceptions that I could have of the color of all possible sides of the house. From the perspective of validity-foundation, the latter validity is more original than the former one, and it is the foundation of justification for the former. It should be noted that in this case, what matters is exclusively the transtemporal foundational order between the validity of the perceptions that I could have of the color of all possible sides of the house and the validity of the perception that I have of the color of the house as a whole. As a phenomenology of justification, then, static phenomenology can be called a normative phenomenology since as the foundation needed to justify the validity of “something unclear”, “what is clear” plays the role of the norm to which I have to appeal in order to justify the validity of “something unclear”. At   Hua XVII, 316; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 316, translation altered, italics added. 66   Cf. Hua VI, 184 (Husserl: Crisis, 180); Hua XXXIV, 481. 65

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the same time, static phenomenology can be called a methodological phenomenology since it provides us with the method to justify the validity of “something unclear” and thereby to obtain a more perfect experience of it. In this respect, taking the example of the constitution of the world as a whole Husserl describes the character of static phenomenology as a methodological phenomenology as follows: Static phenomenology—the systematic method of producing a perfect intuition of the world in one with the apodictic knowledge of the conditions of enabling such an intuition—the search for that essential structure of world-experiencing subjectivity which is the condition of possibility for a construction of a perfect intuition of the world as its possible intuition as such—according to their essential ontological form: all of this belongs together and is inseparable.67

As the phenomenology of justification, as normative phenomenology, and as methodological phenomenology, static phenomenology is a “critique of knowledge” (Erkenntniskritik)68 as “a normative theory of knowledge [eine normative Erkenntnislehre] which works out the general rules of reflection for a scientific procedure and for every special region a special methodology of cognition”.69 Research in static phenomenology as the critique of knowledge or the normative theory of knowledge is guided by “the principle of all principles” that Husserl discusses in §24 of Ideas I. More specifically, Husserl conceives static phenomenology as a way of developing the various fields of phenomenology as fields that are justified corresponding to “the principle of all principles” which becomes clear if we consider what the principle of all principles concretely means. In §24 of Ideas I, Husserl characterizes the principle of all principles as follows: that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimating source of cognition, 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 presented there.70

Thus, if original intuition is a “legitimating source of cognition”, this implies that it is the foundation of validity as the foundation of the justification of what is not given in the mode of original intuition. It therefore turns out that from the methodological perspective, static phenomenology plays a central role in developing phenomenology as a whole. Static phenomenology is the methodological foundation for the development of the various fields of phenomenology as rigorous sciences, including static phenomenology itself as well as the various fields of genetic phenomenology.   Hua XV, 617.   Hua I, 179; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 153, translation altered. 69   Hua VIII, 503; Edmund Husserl: First Philosophy: Lectures 1923/24 and Related Texts from the Manuscripts (1920–1925). Translated from German by Sebastian Luft, Thane M. Naberhaus. Dordrecht 2019, 629, translation altered. 70   Hua III/1, 51; Husserl: Ideas I, 44. 67 68

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It should be noted that genetic phenomenology requires static phenomenology as its methodological foundation so that it can be founded as a rigorous discipline, and in this sense, static phenomenology can be called the condition of the possibility of genetic phenomenology. Thus, static phenomenology turns out to be an independent phenomenology that cannot be reduced to genetic phenomenology. Rather, genetic phenomenology is dependent on static phenomenology from the methodological point of view. This is not to say that genetic phenomenology can be reduced to static phenomenology, for they represent two different ideas of constitutive phenomenology, and neither can be reduced to the other. And it is for this reason that Husserl speaks of the “double face of phenomenology” in this regard.71 The distinction between static and genetic phenomenology can be seen even more clearly if we take into account some basic differences we have not yet considered, three of which I will briefly discuss. 1) In static phenomenology, the I has an absolute priority over others since from the perspective of validity-foundation it can gain access to the sphere of its own experiences more clearly than to the sphere of the experiences of others. In genetic phenomenology, however, the I does not have an absolute priority over others since the genetic constitution that the I carries out is dependent on others in many respects. 2) Since static phenomenology only deals with validity-foundation—and since in this context only objectifying acts or non-objectifying acts that are founded on objectifying acts can be the bearers of validity and play the role of the validity-foundation of a constitution—static phenomenology primarily focuses on objectifying acts or on non-objectifying acts that are founded on them. In contrast to static phenomenology, however, genetic phenomenology has as its topics not only objectifying acts or non-objectifying acts that are founded on such acts but also non-objectifying acts that are not founded on objectifying acts, such as sensual feelings, the lower forms of instincts and drives,72 etc. since   Hua XV, 617. Matt Bower agrees with me in making a distinction between static phenomenology as a phenomenology of the transtemporal validity-foundation of the constitution and genetic phenomenology as a phenomenology of the genetic foundation of the constitution. See Matt Bower: “Developing open intersubjectivity: On the interpersonal shaping of experience”. In: Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences 14(3), 2015, 455–474, here 463. Staehler might have this distinction in mind when she claims “that Husserl did not consider the static phenomenology to be redundant after developing the genetic method […]” (Staehler: “What is the question?”, 104–105). 72   In the Logical Investigations, certains kinds of consciousness such as sensual feelings or lower forms of instincts and drive cannot be considered  acts or intentional experiences, but rather non-intentional experiences. Here Husserl holds the view that every intentional act is either an objectifying act or is founded upon such an act. But he later changes this view. Sensual feelings as well as the lower forms of instincts and drives are also called intentional experiences in his later phenomenology, and this is the reason why we can talk about non-objectifying acts that are not 71

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every kind of intentionality can serve as a genetic foundation for further constitution. 3) The foundation of the constitution is called the “origin” (Ursprung), or the primal. However, the concrete meaning of the primal is different in static and genetic phenomenology. The concept of the “origin” is understood in static phenomenology from the standpoint of validity-foundation, whereas it is understood in genetic phenomenology from the standpoint of genetic foundation. For this reason, the foundational relationship between two kinds of intentionality—for example, the foundational relationship between the perception of an object and a vague feeling about the same object—is different in static and genetic phenomenology. In static phenomenology, the perception of an object is the foundation for a vague feeling about the same object, since from the standpoint of validity-foundation, the former is more original than the latter. However, the latter can be the foundation for the former in genetic phenomenology since from the standpoint of genetic foundation, the vague feeling of an object can be more original than the perception of the same object if the former comes first and the latter comes later in the temporal order. 5. Two Dimensions of Static and Genetic Phenomenology I close my discussion of the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology with the following two remarks. First, up until now, we have discussed the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology as two kinds of transcendental constitutive phenomenology which Husserl usually calls transcendental phenomenology. It should be noted that we can make a distinction between static and genetic phenomenology as two kinds of natural constitutive phenomenology as well. These distinctions originate from the fact that there are two kinds of constitutive phenomenology itself, namely the “constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude”,73 or natural constitutive phenomenology, and the constitutive phenomenology of the transcendental attitude, or transcendental constitutive phenomenology. The distinction between them lies in the fact that the “constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude” is carried out on the basis of the general thesis founded on objectifying acts. I have dealt with this problem in Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 31 ff. 73   Hua V, 158. Alfred Schutz considers the phenomenology developed in his 1932 Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt as “constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude”. See Alfred Schutz: Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Frankfurt am Main 1974, 56; Alfred Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World. Translated from German by George Walsh, Frederick Lehnert. Evanston, IL 1967, 44, translation altered.

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of the natural attitude, whereas transcendental constitutive phenomenology is carried out in the transcendental attitude after performing the transcendental reduction. It should be noted, however, that there is a parallelism between them, since by shifting from the natural attitude to the transcendental attitude, the “constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude” can be transformed into transcendental constitutive phenomenology and vice versa. Thus, we can make a distinction between two dimensions of static phenomenology as well as of genetic phenomenology, namely the static phenomenology of the natural attitude and of the transcendental attitude as well as the genetic phenomenology of the natural attitude and of the transcendental attitude. The static and genetic phenomenology of the natural attitude can be called, respectively, natural static phenomenology and natural genetic phenomenology, whereas the static and genetic phenomenology of the transcendental attitude can be called, respectively, transcendental static phenomenology and transcendental genetic phenomenology. Second, as discussed above, ontology is the leading clue not only for static phenomenology but also for genetic phenomenology. It should be noted that, corresponding to the distinction between natural and transcendental constitutive phenomenology, we can make a distinction between two kinds of ontology, namely natural ontology developed in the natural attitude and transcendental ontology developed in the transcendental attitude. Natural ontology plays the role of the leading clue for natural constitutive phenomenology and can be called the natural leading clue, whereas transcendental ontology plays the role of the leading clue for transcendental constitutive phenomenology and can be called the “transcendental clue”.74 If we carry out the transcendental reduction, natural constitutive phenomenology is changed into transcendental constitutive phenomenology and, at the same time, natural ontology as the leading clue for natural constitutive phenomenology is changed into transcendental ontology as the leading clue for transcendental constitutive phenomenology. For this reason, natural ontology as the leading clue for natural constitutive phenomenology can play the role of the leading clue for transcendental constitutive phenomenology as well.

  Hua I, 122; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 90; Hua XV, 4, 681.

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Chapter 2 Static-Phenomenological and Genetic-Phenomenological Concepts of Primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation Before I begin to discuss various issues of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in subsequent chapters, I will first clarify the concept of primordiality in Husserl’s phenomenology. According to Husserl, the primordial sphere is the foundation or the motivational ground for “empathy” (Einfühlung) or the experience of the other, and as such it is introduced in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation as a fundamental concept without which it is impossible to develop a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. This is the reason why he calls the definition and articulation of the primordial sphere “the transcendentally very significant preliminary stage”1 for the development of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. One can recognize the significance of the primordial sphere for the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the fact that from its first introduction in §44, it continually reappears until the end of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, guiding the phenomenological analysis of intersubjectivity as a whole. In the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl is mainly interested in the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity that aims to clarify the transcendental conditions of the possibility for empathy. Launching into the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, he introduces the necessity of carrying out the primordial reduction which consists in disregarding “all constitutional effects of intentionality relating immediately or mediately to other subjectivity” and delimiting “the entire nexus of that actual and potential intentionality in which the ego constitutes within himself a peculiar ownness”.2 Although the concept of primordiality plays a central role in the development of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, it has undergone many interpretations and critical assessments, and there are many different views about it. Among the interpreters who are very critical of it, some hold the extreme view that it is impossible to conceive such a primordial sphere since it cannot be observed phenomenologically.3 On the contrary, some interpreters hold the view that it is indeed a   Hua I, 138; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 108, translation altered.   Ibid., 124; 93, translation altered. 3   See, for example, Alfred Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl”. In: Alfred Schutz: Collected Papers III. Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy. The Hague 1975, 51–91, here: 57 ff.; Hermann Zeltner: “Das Ich und die Anderen. Husserls Beitrag zur Grundlegung der Sozialphilosophie”. In: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 13(2), 1959, 288–315; Edward G. Ballard: “Husserl’s philosophy of intersubjectivity in relation to his rational ideal”. In: 1 2

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legitimate concept that is indispensable for developing a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Unfortunately, these interpreters do not agree as to the context in which the concept of primordiality is introduced in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. Some hold the view that it is introduced as a basic concept of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity,4 whereas others hold the view that it is a basic concept essential for the logical clarification of intersubjectivity.5 In my opinion, the various views have been a consequence of the way the concept of primordiality itself was introduced and elaborated in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. Although Husserl treats it as if it were a concept that would be self-evident to all those who think phenomenologically, it is, as I will demonstrate in detail below, a very unclear concept that is ambiguous in many respects. Below, I will take some of its ambiguities into account so that the field of tension between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity can come to the fore. In section 1, analyzing some passages of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, I try to show that the concept of primordiality there is actually ambiguous in many respects. Then in section 2, in order to lay the foundation for the clarification of the ambiguities, I sketch the main feature of the primordial sphere and the primordial reduction as they are introduced in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. In sections 3 and 4, I discuss the static-phenomenological and the genetic-phenomenological concept of primordiality respectively. Thereafter, in section 5, I deal with the relationship among the ambiguities discussed in sections 1–4. Finally, in section 6, I briefly assess the various views on the concept of primordiality discussed in sections 2–5 and offer some remarks on the basic character of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. 1. Ambiguities of the Concept of Primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation In order to understand the basic character of the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation one should note that it came into being after Husserl engaged in lengthy reflections about the problems of intersubjectivity. As Iso Kern correctly informs us, “the concept of primordiality, as found Tulane Studies in Philosophy 11, 1962, 3–38; John Sallis: “On the limitation of transcendental reflection or is intersubjectivity transcendental?”. In: Monist 55(2), 1971, 312–333; Bernhard Waldenfels: Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs: Sozialphilosophische Untersuchungen in Anschluß an Edmund Husserl. Den Haag 1971, 33. 4   See, for example, Haney: Intersubjectivity Revisited, 30 ff. 5   See, for example, Paul Ricoeur: Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology. Evanston, IL 1967, 120.

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as a basic concept in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation (Husserliana I), first appears about 1925”.6 However, one can already find a preliminary form of it in works written before 1925. In this context, Husserl writes in a manuscript from 1921 as follows: “No matter how much the attitudes directed to objectivity are already in play, we can abstract from them at any time. […] Through this ‘abstraction’ we gain access to what I called the ‘solipsistic world’ and the solipsistic worldview (Weltbetrachtung).”7 In this passage, Husserl tells us that prior to writing this manuscript, he had called the worldview gained through the abstraction the “solipsistic” worldview. This implies that he had dealt with the problem of the solipsistic worldview in works written before 1921. In fact, we can find Husserl’s attempts to deal with this problem in the years following 1910. For example, in a manuscript from 1918 that has been published as Text No. 15 of Husserliana XIII, “Toward a Theory of Empathy”, he contrasts the “solipsistic worldview” and the “intersubjective worldview”, considering the former as something that can be gained by “abstraction (solipsistic abstraction): exclusion of all mental entities from nature, exclusion of every individual being given through empathy”.8 The context reveals that the solipsistic abstraction in this passage, which is the same as the abstraction in the passage cited above from the manuscript from 1921, has a function similar to the primordial reduction in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation; thus it can be regarded as a preliminary form of this reduction. We can find the solipsistic abstraction as the preliminary form of primordial reduction as early as the period when Husserl was working on Ideas II: Each person has, ideally speaking, within his communicative surrounding world his egoistic one insofar as he can “abstract” from all relations of mutual understanding and from the apperception founded therein, or rather, insofar as he can think them as separated.9

Although the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation came into being as a result of years of reflection, it is ambiguous in many respects. First, as mentioned above, the primordial sphere can be disclosed only by abstracting from all the constitutive achievements of the intentionality that is related to other subjects. That is to say, the primordial sphere is a sphere without empathy and this is why Husserl calls it “the sphere of my ownness”. Contrary to this position, however, he also maintains “that each consciousness of the other, each mode of appearance of him, still belongs together to the first sphere”,10   Hua XIV, 389–390, n. 1.   Hua XIV, 109.  8   Hua XIII, 410.  9   Hua IV, 193; Edmund Husserl: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Translated from German by Richard Rojcewicz, André Schuwer. Dordrecht 1989, 203. 10   Hua I, 131; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 100, translation altered.  6  7

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that is, to the primordial sphere. With this statement, he is contradicting himself by claiming that the primordial sphere both includes and excludes the experience of empathy at the same time.11 Second, as a sphere of my ownness that is valid only for me as the one who is empathizing, the primordial sphere is by definition my primordial sphere. Yet Husserl also refers to “a primordial sphere in which we have already found a world, a primordial one”.12 It is clear that in this case the primordial sphere does not mean a sphere of being that should exclusively be valid for me as the one who is empathizing, but rather a sphere that I share with other subjects. If one defines the primordial sphere as the sphere of my ownness, how could one meaningfully talk about our primordial sphere? How could it be justified methodologically to extend my primordiality to our primordiality? Third, since the primordial sphere is disclosed through the primordial reduction—which according to the explanation in §44 of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation can be carried out within the already disclosed universal transcendental realm of being—it originally means a transcendental primordial sphere. This fact is also expressed in the phrase “my ego […] in its transcendental sphere of ownness”.13 However, near the end of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in §61, Husserl maintains that the primordial sphere is conceivable not only in the transcendental attitude, but also in the natural attitude: As in the case of transcendental phenomenology, so also in the parallel case of intentional psychology (as a “positive” science), our exposition has manifestly predelineated a fundamental structure, a division of the corresponding investigations of eidetic psychology into those that explicate intentionally what belongs to the concrete ownness of any psyche whatever and those that explicate the intentionality of the other constituted therein.14

In this context, we can ask at least two questions: can the primordiality in the natural attitude be called primordiality in a genuine sense? How do the primordiality in the transcendental and that in the natural attitude fit together? Fourth, as already mentioned, Husserl defines the primordial sphere as the foundation for empathy. This definition is, however, only a formal and empty one since in what sense the primordial sphere can play such a role is not specified. The foundation for empathy can have two different meanings, namely the validity-foundation for empathy and the genetic foundation for empathy. Recall that when we investigate empathy from the perspective of constitutive phenomenology, it is the task of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity   Iso Kern discusses this kind of ambiguity in the concept of primordiality in the editor’s introduction to Husserliana XV, xviii–xxi. It is also addressed in Bernet, Kern, Marbach: Introduction, 156 ff.; Smith: Guidebook, 218 ff.; and Staehler: “What is the Question?”, 109 ff. 12   Hua I, 169; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 142, translation altered, italics added. 13   Ibid., 125; 93, translation altered, italics added. 14   Ibid., 171; 144, translation altered. 11

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to clarify the validity-foundation of empathy and it is the task of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the genetic foundation of empathy. As we have seen in chapter 1, static phenomenology is a phenomenology of the justification of constitution, and correspondingly, the static-phenomenological question about the validity-foundation of empathy can be formulated as follows: what are the validities on the ground of which the validity of empathy can be justified? In contrast to the static-phenomenological question about the validity-foundation of empathy, the genetic-phenomenological question about the genetic foundation of empathy can be formulated as follows: what are the subjective acts on the ground of which the act of empathy has been generated in the field of consciousness of a person? Since the validity-foundation and the genetic foundation are two different basic categories of constitutive phenomenology, the concept of primordiality as the foundation for empathy must have two different meanings. Right after the publication of the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl became aware that the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is not a perfect and final one but rather a very unclear one. This is the reason why after the publication of the Cartesian Meditations and until the end of his life, he was intensively occupied with the problem of primordiality and left behind, as Husserliana XV shows, many manuscripts on this topic. His efforts to clarify the concept of primordiality during this time can be regarded as partly successful. In the 1930s (as distinguished from the time during which he was working on the Cartesian Meditations), he was fully conscious of the following two ambiguities in the concept of primordiality.15 The first is the ambiguity that is related to the question of whether empathy belongs to the primordial sphere. In this context, in a manuscript from 1934, he explicitly speaks of the “ambiguity of ‘primordiality’”.16 The second is the ambiguity that can be observed in the field of tension between the transcendental and the natural attitude. In a manuscript from 1933, he discusses this ambiguity intensively and refers to the “reduction to primordiality in the natural and the transcendental attitude”.17 2. The Primordial Reduction and the Primordial Sphere In order to lay the foundation for the clarification of the ambiguities of the concept of primordiality in Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, I will sketch the main feature of the primordial reduction and the primordial sphere as they are introduced in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. In the transcenden  Below in section 5, we will deal with these ambiguities in more detail.   Hua XV, 635. 17   Hua XV, 530. 15 16

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tal theory of empathy, the fact that the other is experienced by me as another transcendental subjectivity is not taken for granted but must be clarified. In particular, we must explain how empathy is possible in the first place. To this end, after we carry out the transcendental reduction, we must exclude the experience of empathy from the thematic field and go back to the sphere that remains untouched by this exclusion in order to see how the latter sphere founds empathy as the experience of the other as a transcendental subjectivity. Within this context, Husserl introduces a “first methodical requirement—namely, that we carry out, inside the universal transcendental sphere, a peculiar kind of epochē with respect to our theme”.18 What matters is the “primordial reduction”19 or “the ownness-reduction”20 that consists in excluding “from the thematic field everything now in question”, disregarding “all constitutional effects of intentionality relating immediately or mediately to other subjectivity” and delimiting “first of all the total nexus of that actual and potential intentionality in which the ego constitutes within himself a peculiar ownness”.21 The primordial reduction enables me to secure the transcendental sphere of my transcendental subjectivity, which Husserl calls the “sphere of ownness”22 or the “primordial sphere”23. The primordial sphere has two sides: 1) the noetic side which is none other than my own transcendental subjectivity and bears all of my intentionalities that are, in principle, accessible to me through transcendental reflection and 2) the noematic side which is my world constituted by my intentionalities. When we thus carry out the primordial reduction and abstract from the other transcendental subjectivity, we retain, on the noematic side of the primordial sphere, “a unitarily coherent stratum of the phenomenon world, a stratum of the phenomenon that is the correlate of continuously harmonious, continuing world-experience”,24 that is “a substratum”25 of the objective world that Husserl calls “primordial nature”26 or the “‘nature’ included in my ownness”.27 (Of course this sphere must be distinguished from “the nature that becomes the theme of the natural scientist”).28 The primordial reduction and the primordial sphere are highly controversial issues in Husserl scholarship. As mentioned above, among its detractors, some hold the extreme view that it is impossible to conceive such a primordial sphere   Hua I, 124; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 93, translation altered.   Ibid., 169; 142. 20   Ibid., 136; 106. 21   Ibid., 124; 93, translation altered. 22   Ibid., 124; 92. 23   Ibid., 138; 108. 24   Ibid., 127; 96. 25  Ibid. 26   Ibid., 139; 109. 27   Ibid., 127; 96. 28  Ibid. 18 19

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since it cannot be observed phenomenologically. For example, claiming that the primordial reduction in the transcendental attitude cannot be carried out, Alfred Schutz holds the view “that Husserl’s attempt to account for the constitution of transcendental intersubjectivity in terms of operations of the consciousness of the transcendental ego has not succeeded” and “that intersubjectivity is not a problem of constitution which can be solved within the transcendental sphere, but is rather a datum (Gegebenheit) of the life-world”.29 However, in my view, contrary to what Schutz claims, the primordial reduction is indeed possible even though Husserl’s description of it in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is sometimes unclear. Since Husserl writes that the primordial reduction is carried out “inside the universal transcendental sphere”,30 then in order to understand the possibility of carrying out it, we need to grasp the structure of the “universal transcendental sphere”. This is the sphere that is opened through the transcendental reduction as “the universal transcendental reduction”31 which is possible through the transcendental epochē of the general thesis of the natural attitude. The universal transcendental sphere has two sides, namely the noetic side and the noematic side. The noetic side includes all possible transcendental subjectivities, that is, my transcendental subjectivity and “the others as anonymous subjects who co-constitute the world with me”.32 It should be noted that “the others as anonymous subjects who co-constitute the world with me” include other transcendental subjectivities in the present horizon as well as in the past and in the future. With Husserl, we can call this “the transcendental ‘we’”33 or “the transcendental totality of monads”.34 Correspondingly, the noematic side of the universal transcendental sphere includes all the different kinds and layers of the world and worldly objects constituted by each member of the “transcendental we” in cooperation with one another. From my perspective as the one who empathizes, the universal transcendental sphere consists of the sphere of my own transcendental subjectivity on the one hand and the sphere of the other transcendental subjectivities on the other. It is in “transcendental experience” (transzendentale Erfahrung)35 that the noetic side of these two spheres of the transcendental universal sphere can be given to   Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl”, 82.   Hua I, 124; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 93. 31   Hua XV, 536. 32   Timo Miettinen: “The body politic: Husserl and the embodied community”. In: Rasmus Thybo Jensen, Dermot Moran (Eds.), The Phenomenology of Embodied Subjectivity. Dordrecht 2013, 329–346, here: 333. 33   Hua I, 137; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 107. 34   Hua XV, 75, 193, 609. 35   Hua XXXIV, 164; Hua VI, 156 (Husserl: Crisis, 153), and see also Hua VIII, 69 ff.; 75 ff., 146 ff., 169 ff., 360 (Husserl: First Philosophy, 274 ff., 279 ff., 347 ff., 370 ff.). For “transzendentale Empirie”, see Hua XXXV, 112 ff. 29 30

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us. It should be noted that there are two kinds of transcendental experiences, namely, “transcendental reflection”36 and transcendental empathy, which Husserl calls “phenomenological empathy”.37 Transcendental reflection is a kind of transcendental experience that allows me to gain access to the sphere of my own transcendental subjectivity, whereas transcendental empathy is a kind of transcendental experience that allows me to gain access to the sphere of the other transcendental subjectivities. Given that from the methodological perspective, the universal transcendental sphere is divided into the sphere of my own transcendental subjectivity that I can experience through transcendental reflection and that of the other transcendental subjectivities that I can experience through transcendental empathy, it is possible to abstract from either one of these two spheres corresponding to one’s research interest. The primordial reduction is nothing other than the procedure of abstracting from the sphere of the other transcendental subjectivities and focusing on the sphere of one’s own transcendental subjectivity.38 I would like to emphasize the fact that the primordial reduction has abstraction as one of its essential components. In fact, discussing the issue of the primordial reduction Husserl himself stresses this component, both in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation and in First Philosophy: In this connection we note something important. When we thus abstract, we retain a unitarily coherent stratum of the phenomenon world, a stratum of the phenomenon that is the correlate of continuously harmonious, continuing world-experience. Despite our abstraction, we can go on continuously in our experiencing intuition, while remaining exclusively in the aforesaid stratum.39 In any case, it is possible to perform a phenomenological abstraction, or to delimit phenomenological experience—and the research based on it—in such a way that one moves only within the concrete unitary nexus of one’s own transcendental subjectivity, and—refraining from any empathy—exclude foreign subjectivity.40

Contrary to what some critics claim, these passages clearly show that it is possible for us to carry out the primordial reduction as a thematic epochē. Here one might claim that the primordial reduction is impossible because my transcendental subjectivity and the other transcendental subjectivities are interconnected and cannot be separated from each other. It should be noted, however, that even though my transcendental subjectivity may not be separable from   Hua I, 72; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 33.   Hua XIII, 172; Husserl: Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 67. 38   I have discussed this issue, in Nam-In Lee: “Egological Reduction and Intersubjective Reduction”. In: Elisa Magrì, Anna Bortolan (Eds.), Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and the Social World: The Continued Relevance of  Phenomenology. Essays in Honour of Dermot Moran. Berlin 2022, 109–136. 39   Hua I, 127; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 96. 40   Hua VIII, 176; Husserl: First Philosophy, 376 –377, translation altered. 36 37

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other transcendental subjectivities, the primordial reduction can still be carried out as a thematic epochē. In order to grasp this point, we need to understand the essence of a thematic epochē as an abstraction. Abstraction is the mental process of viewing a component of the whole in separation from other components. Such a process allows us to focus on one component at a time, and as such it can be called a thematic epochē. I can carry out abstraction as a thematic epochē at any time corresponding to my research interest. It should be noted that abstraction as a thematic epochē is the very condition of the possibility of all of the different kinds of science. Even though different kinds of things—for example, the political, the economic, the cultural, etc.—are interconnected and cannot be separated from one another, we can and should carry out an abstraction as a thematic epochē in order to investigate each of them individually in a systematic manner. The same applies to the theory of empathy. Even though my transcendental subjectivity and other transcendental subjectivities are inextricably interwoven, it is still possible to carry out a thematic epochē as an abstraction from the other transcendental subjectivities and focus only on my own transcendental subjectivity through transcendental reflection. Schutz criticizes Husserl’s attempt to determine the primordial sphere in a purely negative manner without offering a positive definition of it, speaking of “the negative determination of the sphere that is ‘properly’ of the ego in terms of what is not ‘properly’ of the ego”.41 It is true that Husserl defines the primordial sphere largely by what it is not, such as when he defines it in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation as “that which is not foreign”.42 However, if we understand the primordial reduction as a kind of thematic epochē, there is actually no problem with determining the primordial sphere negatively. Moreover, it should be noted that the primordial sphere can also be determined in a positive manner, namely as the sphere that I can experience in principle through transcendental reflection, in contradistinction to the sphere of other subjectivities that I can experience only through transcendental empathy. We have thus established that the primordial reduction is possible, and we can experience the primordial sphere. As will be discussed later in chapter 3, we can distinguish two types of phenomenology of intersubjectivity, namely the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Correspondingly, we can make a distinction between the primordial reduction and the primordial sphere in the static-phenomenological sense and in the genetic-phenomenological sense. In the next two sections, I will clarify what the primordial reduction and the primordial sphere in the static-phenomenological sense and in the genetic-phenomenological sense mean.

  Alfred Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity”, 58.   Hua I, 126; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 95, translation altered.

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3.  The Static-Phenomenological Concept of Primordiality Husserl does attempt to develop a static phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation; he explicitly states: “Here it is not a matter of uncovering a genesis going on in time, but a matter of ‘static analysis’”43 In my view, however, the concept of static phenomenology he has in mind in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is ambiguous. On the one hand, he still clings to the concept of static phenomenology as a phenomenology of a “finished” constitution. In this context, after the claim just cited, he immediately adds the following passage: “The Objective world is constantly there before me as already finished […].”44 On the other hand, he considers it to be the task of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the transtemporal validity-foundation of empathy. With respect to the task of the static theory of empathy, he refers in the further passage that immediately follows the two sentences just cited to empathy becoming “verified as evidence” and to being able to “acquire sense and verification only in my essence”.45 Thus, Husserl considers the verification of empathy—or to speak more concretely, the verification of the truth concerning empathy—to be an important topic of the static theory of empathy. It should be noted that the truth of empathy cannot be verified without clarifying the transtemporal validity-foundation of empathy, and it turns out that in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation Husserl certainly considers it to be the task of the theory of empathy to undertake this clarification. It is my contention that Husserl’s intention in §§44–48 and some other sections in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is to carry out the static analysis of empathy as an analysis of its transtemporal validity-foundation, even though he does not carry out this analysis clearly and systematically. Therefore, it is not by chance that in these sections one can find such expressions as “unities of validity”,46 “a series of evidence”,47 and “validity of being”,48 all of which indicate the task of the static theory of empathy as the clarification of the transtemporal validity-foundation of empathy. In my view, it is precisely the idea of static phenomenology as a phenomenology of transtemporal validity-foundation, rather than as a phenomenology of the finished constitution, that guides Husserl in carrying out the static analysis of empathy. Correspondingly, the concept of primordiality that is developed as part of the static phenomenology of empathy in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is that of static phenomenology as the phenomenology of the transtemporal validity-foundation of constitution. The concept of primordiality that is formally   Ibid., 136; 106.  Ibid. 45  Ibid. 46   Ibid., 126; 94, translation altered. 47   Ibid., 129; 98, translation altered. 48   Ibid., 126; 95, translation altered. 43 44

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defined as the foundation for empathy thereby receives a clear meaning. What the primordial sphere in the static theory of empathy, that is, the static primordial sphere, concretely means, then, is the sphere that can play the role of the transtemporal validity-foundation for empathy, the sphere to which every ego should go back in order to clarify the validity-foundation of empathy. It should be noted that there are two kinds of static primordial spheres, namely the transcendental static primordial sphere that is experienced in the transcendental attitude and the natural static primordial sphere that is experienced in the natural attitude. Correspondingly there are two kinds of static primordial reductions, namely the transcendental static primordial reduction and the natural static primordial reduction. I will now discuss the transcendental static primordial sphere and the transcendental static primordial reduction as topics of the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As will be discussed later in chapter 3 in detail, the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity attempts to justify the transtemporal validity of transcendental empathy as an experience of the other as a transcendental subjectivity that is distinct from natural empathy as an experience of the other as a mundane subject. Thus, in the context of transcendental static phenomenology, the transcendental static primordial sphere serves as the foundation for the justification of transcendental empathy. In order to serve as a foundation, the transcendental static primordial sphere must be justified by me in advance which is only possible after I rigorously attempt to reach as complete an intuition as possible without appealing to any authority or any other external influences. In short, I must ultimately live up to the ideal of self-responsibility which means accepting nothing as knowledge that I as an autonomous and responsible subject have not validated myself. Thus, in order to reach the transcendental static primordial sphere, we need what Husserl calls “a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy”.49 Only by excluding whatever external influence may have brought me to a belief can I truly say that I have validated the idea myself instead of merely accepting it on the authority of others. The call to radical self-responsibility does not entail that I cannot communicate with others and thereby influence them or be influenced by them. Needless to say, it is not only inevitable that I communicate and get advice from others, but also desirable, since I would not know much if I relied on myself alone. However, the main point is that I, as an autonomous and responsible subject, should make the final decision myself and take responsibility for it. In this respect, Husserl’s marginal note at the beginning of the Cartesian Meditations is of great importance for understanding the transcendental static primordial sphere and the transcendental static primordial redction:   Hua VI, 187–188; Husserl: Crisis, 184.

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If someone were to object that, on the contrary, science, philosophy, takes its rise in the cooperative labor of the scientific community of philosophers and, at each level, acquires its perfection only therein, Descartes’ answer might well be: I, the solitary individual philosophizer, owe much to others; but what they accept as true, what they offer me as allegedly established by their insight, is for me at first only something they claim. If I am to accept it, I must justify it by a perfect insight on my own part. Therein consists my autonomy—mine and that of every genuine scientist.50

Thus, in order to reach the transcendental static primordial sphere, I need “a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy” mentioned above. In this sense and only in this sense, the transcendental static primordial sphere can be called a realm that is free of other transcendental subjectivities. As such, the transcendental static primordial reduction can be defined as a methodical procedure by which one reaches “a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy”. This corresponds to the primordial reduction that was discussed in section 2 and introduced in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation as the method for disregarding “all constitutional effects of intentionality relating immediately or mediately to other subjectivity” and delimiting “first of all the total nexus of that actual and potential intentionality in which the ego constitutes within himself a peculiar ownness”, even though Husserl did not designate it explicitly as the transcendental static primordial reduction. In my view, Søren Overgaard has the transcendental static primordial reduction in mind when he attempts to clarify the meaning of the primordial reduction in Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity with the claim that “This cleaning of the noematic realm of all meaning referring to others is exactly what the solipsistic epochē [the primordial reduction] is supposed to deliver […].”51 Now we can understand what the transcendental static primordial reduction concretely means. As a method that enables us to be in the state of “a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy”, it is a method of justifying the validity of transcendental empathy. As such, it grants me “the transcendental right” to “posit the other as transcendentally constituting and, thus, finally as existing with me”.52 The discovery of the transcendental static primordial sphere through the transcendental static primordial reduction makes possible “the philosophically significant fact” that “through an actual interpretation of the intentionality of empathy, ‘the other’, at the beginning, the other in phenomenon ‘that has   Hua I, 44; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 2.   Søren Overgaard: “Epoché and solipsistic reduction”. In: Husserl Studies 18(3), 2002, 209– 222, here: 218. 52   Eugen Fink: VI. Cartesianische Meditation. Teil 2: Ergänzungsband. Dordrecht 1988, 251. 50 51

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been put in brackets’, has been brought to transcendental recognition”.53 Thus, without the transcendental static primordial reduction, it is impossible for us to recognize the other as a transcendental subjectivity in a genuine sense. Moreover, since transcendental empathy lays the foundation for the constitution of the objective world, the transcendental static primordial reduction as a method of gaining access to the transcendental static primordial sphere that functions as the foundation for justifying the validity of transcendental empathy can be considered a “systematic method to bring about a perfect worldview together with the apodictic knowledge of its condition of possibility”.54 With respect to the transcendental static primordial reduction and the transcendental static primordial sphere, I would like to make the following remarks. First, since the transcendental static primordial sphere that is valid only for me as a transcendental subjectivity provides the validity-foundation for transcendental empathy, then from the standpoint of transtemporal validity-foundation, I have an absolute priority over other transcendental subjectivities. However, this absolute priority of myself as a transcendental subjectivity over other transcendental subjectivities should not be understood as a priority of genesis in the horizon of transcendental temporality “since I cannot”, as Husserl also puts it, “maintain in advance that the genesis of the apperception of the other presupposes the prior genesis of a surrounding world without other subjectivity”.55 As the validity-foundation for transcendental empathy, the transcendental static primordial sphere is not a sphere of being that might actually exist in advance as a concrete entity in the sequence of transcendental genesis and make the genesis of empathy possible. Second, from the perspective of the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, the true meaning of the transcendental static primordial reduction is not that, with the help of this reduction, every ego actually goes back to the transcendental static primordial sphere in order to carry out the genetic act of transcendental empathy on the basis of this sphere, but rather that every ego should perform the transcendental static primordial reduction and go back to the transcendental static primordial sphere in order to justify the validity of transcendental empathy. In this sense (and we will return to this in chapter 3), the transcendental static primordial sphere can be called a normative sphere56 to which I myself as a transcendental subjectivity should appeal in order to justify the validity of transcendental empathy, and it is exactly for this reason that the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity can be regarded as a normative phenomenology. In fact, with respect to the normative character   Ibid., 260.   Hua XV, 617.

53 54

55

  Hua XIV, 477.

  Hua I, 154; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 126.

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of the transcendental static primordial sphere, in a passage in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl writes as follows: “Relative to the animal, the human being is, constitutionally speaking, the normal case—just as I myself am the primal norm constitutionally for all other men.”57 Third, though we have so far focused on the transcendental static primordial sphere, it is possible to carry out the primordial reduction within the natural attitude and reach the natural static primordial sphere through the natural static primordial reduction, as discussed above. However, to the best of my knowledge Husserl does not deal with the natural static primordial reduction and the natural static primordial sphere systematically. The natural static primordial reduction is similar to the transcendental static primordial reduction in that it too can be defined as the method that consists of excluding “from the thematic field everything now in question”, disregarding “all constitutional effects of intentionality relating immediately or mediately to other subjectivity” and delimiting “the total nexus of that actual and potential intentionality in which the ego constitutes within himself a peculiar ownness”.58 The only difference between this method and the transcendental static primordial reduction is that it is carried out in the natural attitude rather than in the transcendental attitude. The natural static primordial sphere gained through the natural static primordial reduction can be designated as the part of the world of the natural attitude as “the totality of entities”59—including myself as a mundane subject—which requires “a unique sort of philosophical solitude” to be reached and for which I can take responsibility. It is the validity-foundation of natural empathy that has as its object the other not as another transcendental subjectivity but as a mundane subjectivity with its various forms, such as an animate entity, a psychophysical entity, or a person. 4. The Genetic-Phenomenological Concept of Primordiality Adhering to his explanation that what matters in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is a static analysis, what Husserl carries out in §§44–48 (and elsewhere as well) is almost exclusively a static-phenomenological analysis of intersubjectivity. In these sections it is difficult to find any hints of genetic problems, or even the expression “genesis”. In contrast, in the following sections, the phenomenological analysis of intersubjectivity is no longer exclusively carried out in static-phenomenological terms but also moves in the direction of genetic phenomenology. For example, in §49, where the problem of harmony among   Ibid., translation altered.   Ibid., 124; 93, translation altered. 59   Hua VI, 145; Husserl: Crisis, 142, translation altered. 57 58

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monads as the presupposition for the constitution of objective nature is discussed, Husserl speaks of “the genesis that occurs harmoniously in individual monads”.60 If we examine the following sections carefully, it is not difficult to find that to our surprise, the phenomenological analysis of empathy or of the higher and lower levels of socialization is predominantly guided by the idea of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In these sections, we often find fundamental concepts of genetic phenomenology such as “original establishment” or “institution” (Urstiftung) in §§50 and 55; “associative pairing” as a constitutive component of empathy in §51; or “temporal genesis”, “innateness”, and “generativity” in §§58 and 61. In developing the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl attempted to deal with the issue of genetic primordiality in the Cartesian Meditations and other works written before or after the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. For example, in §50 of the Cartesian Meditations he addressed the issue of primordiality in relation to his explanation of the principle of the genetic establishment of empathy. According to the principle of original establishment, every apperception can be traced back “intentionally to ‘original establishment’ through which an object with similar meaning was constituted for the first time”.61 In order to clarify the possibility of genetic original establishment in a child, Husserl addresses the genetic primordial sphere and writes as follows: “Finally we always come back to the radical differentiation of apperceptions into those that, according to their genesis, belong purely to the primordial sphere and those that come into being with the sense ‘alter ego’ […].”62 Long before he worked on the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl had attempted to clarify the concept of the genetic primordial sphere. An example can be found in a passage in Ideas II, where a phenomenological analysis of the union of persons is carried out. There Husserl discusses “the ‘concept’ […] of pre-social subjectivity, the subjectivity that does not presuppose any empathy”63 and distinguishes it from “social subjectivity”,64 which does have the experience of others (as well as of their inner life). “The ‘concept’ […] of pre-social subjectivity, the subjectivity that does not presuppose any empathy” can be called the primordial subjectivity and correspondingly the world that is experienced by it can be called the primordial world. With respect to this distinction between pre-social subjectivity and social subjectivity, Husserl maintains that it is “obviously significant from the point of view of constitutive genesis”.65 Thus,

  Hua I, 138; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 108, translation altered.   Ibid., 141; 111, translation altered. 62  Ibid. 63   Hua IV, 198–199; Husserl: Ideas II, 209. 64   Ibid., 199; 209. 65   Ibid., 198; 208–209. 60 61

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the primordial sphere that is discussed in this passage can be interpreted as the genetic primordial sphere. Even after the publication of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl discusses the genetic primordial sphere. For example, in a manuscript from 1931/32 he considers the possibility of “the primordial development of my singular being”66 from which “primordial quasi-nature, etc.” could originate. In a manuscript from 1933 that discusses the issue of “the universal drive that embraces all the subjects” as “a universal teleology”67 Husserl designates primordiality, that is, the genetic primordial sphere, as “a system of drives”68. Two years later in a manuscript from 1935, Husserl attempts to clarify the development of first empathy in a child and addresses the “primordiality in the most primitive level”69, that is, the most original genetic primordiality, as the genetic foundation of first empathy. Even though Husserl discussed the issue of the genetic primordial sphere various times, he could not develop a systematic theory of the genetic primordiality. On the basis of the passages that deal with the genetic primordiality, I will try to outline a general theory of the genetic primordiality. In the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, the primordial sphere can formally be defined as the genetic foundation of empathy. The primordial sphere in genetic phenomenology is the realm to which we must go back in order to clarify the possibility of the genesis of empathy. In my view, if we look at some of the passages where Husserl discusses the issue of the genetic primordiality along with the genetic theory of empathy, we can make a distinction between four kinds of genetic primordial spheres, even though Husserl never explicitly did so as far as I know. In order to grasp this point, we must first be aware of the fact that there are four kinds of geneses of empathy. The genesis of empathy can be performed with or without the methodical procedure of thematic epochē as a component of the static primordial reduction discussed above, and correspondingly there are two kinds of geneses of empathy. Among them, the genesis of empathy that is performed with the methodical procedure of thematic epochē can be designated as the “ideal genesis”70, whereas the genesis of empathy that is performed without such a procedure can be designated as the pre-ideal genesis of empathy. The difference between ideal genesis and pre-ideal genesis of empathy can be found in the genetic transition from the lower to higher levels of empathy. In the process of development, although each ego can sometimes be mistaken in its act of empathy, it strives to achieve the truth of empathy. In most cases, it strives to do     68   69   70   66 67

Hua XV, 439. Hua XV, 593. Hua XV, 594. Hua XV, 605. See Hua XIII, 354, and Hua VII, 296.

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so quasi-unconsciously or without any kind of methodological consciousness. At a certain moment, however, it is possible for the ego to decide to carry out the act of empathy consciously and methodologically. In the case of an autonomous and responsible ego there is only one way to attain the truth of empathy. As we learned from the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, it should attempt to carry out the act of empathy exclusively on the ground of what is given to it evidently. To achieve this goal while being faithful to the principle of self-responsibility, it should take up the methodical procedure of thematic epochē which abstracts from all the validities that have their origin in other subjectivities and carries out the act of empathy on the ground of the sphere of being that it experiences evidently. Since this kind of the genesis of empathy has as its goal the genesis of truth that is prescribed by “the idea of philosophy”, it can be called the “ideal genesis”71 of empathy. By contrast, the genesis of empathy that is performed without taking up the methodical procedure of thematic epochē can be called the pre-ideal genesis of empathy. Moreover, there are two kinds of pre-ideal geneses of empathy as well as two kinds of ideal geneses of empathy, namely the natural genesis performed within the natural attitude and the transcendental genesis of empathy performed within the transcendental attitude. In order to grasp the difference between these two kinds of the geneses of empathy, we need to pay attention to the fact that there are two kinds of empathies, namely the natural empathy that is performed in the natural attitude and has as its object the other as a mundane subject and the transcendental empathy that is performed in the transcendental attitude and has as its object the other as a transcendental subjectivity. In this respect, in a later manuscript from 1930s, Husserl makes a distinction between “psychological empathy and transcendental empathy”72, the former of which I designate as natural empathy. Correspondingly, there are two kinds of geneses of empathy, namely the natural genesis and the transcendental genesis of empathy. In total, then, there are four different kinds of geneses of empathy such as 1) the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy, 2) the natural ideal genesis of empathy, 3) the transcendental pre-ideal genesis of empathy, and 4) the transcendental ideal genesis of empathy. Since there are four kinds of geneses of empathy, there are correspondingly four kinds of genetic primordial spheres. I would like to call each of them respectively as 1) the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, 2) the natural ideal primordial sphere, 3) the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, and 4) the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere. Among them, the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere is the most primitive form of the genetic primordial sphere and the transcendental ideal genetic primordial   Hua VII, 296. Husserl makes a distinction between the “historical genesis” and the “ideal genesis” (ibid.) as the genesis “that is prescribed by the idea of philosophy, i. e., the necessary idea of the most genuine and most rigorous science” (Hua VII, 70; Husserl: First Philosophy, 73). 72   Hua XV, 116. 71

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sphere is the most developed form of the genetic primordial sphere. Between these two primordial spheres are the natural ideal primordial sphere as the less developed form of the primordial sphere, and the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere as the more developed form of the primordial sphere. Let me clarify the structure of each of them. I will first deal with the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere as the most developed form of the primordial sphere since it is the counterpart of the transcendental static primordial sphere whose structure we have already discussed at length above. 1) Since the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere is the counterpart of the transcendental static primordial sphere, the ideal genesis of the transcendental empathy performed on the basis of it can be regarded as the application of the insight gained through the transcendental static phenomenology of empathy to the transcendental genetic phenomenology of empathy. For this reason, one might get the impression that the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere would be exactly the same as the transcendental static-phenomenological one. They are both similar in the sense that I can experience the noetic side of each of them through transcendental reflection, but not through transcendental empathy. However, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere is still fundamentally different from the transcendental static-phenomenological primordial sphere. First, like the transcendental static primordial sphere, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere too can be defined as the sum of 1) my own transcendental subjectivity as the bearer of all my intentionalities and 2) my world constituted by my intentionalities for which I can take responsibility and requires “a unique sort of philosophical solitude” to be reached. However, once we observe the genetic temporal structure of the transcendental genetic primordial sphere, we realize that, unlike the transcendental static primordial sphere, it cannot ever be devoid of intersubjective connections with other transcendental subjectivities since it cannot come into being without the influence of other transcendental subjectivities. The genesis of the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere in the field of consciousness of an ego is not a solipsistic achievement of the ego but is an intersubjective achievement from the very beginning. In this sense, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere can be designated as a sphere in which I as a transcendental subjectivity and other transcendental subjectivities that have influenced me up until now dwell together. Second, contrary to the transcendental static primordial sphere, there are various levels to the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere. A transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere can serve as the genetic foundation for a certain act of empathy at a moment. After its genesis, this empathy does not

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disappear from the field of consciousness but becomes a sediment of that primordial sphere and can thereby motivate this sphere to be transformed into a new level of the primordial sphere. This process can be continued all the way to the various levels of the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere that can emerge in the field of consciousness of a transcendental subjectivity. Third, contrary to the transcendental static primordial sphere, within the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere the I as a transcendental subjectivity does not have an absolute priority over other transcendental subjectivities since the genesis at any level of the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere cannot be performed without the influence of other transcendental subjectivities. Fourth, if we focus on the subjective side of the static-phenomenological primordial sphere, the latter consists of objectifying acts or non-objectifying acts founded on objectifying acts since only these acts can be bearers of validity. Contrary to the static-phenomenological primordial sphere, however, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere contains not only these acts but also non-objectifying acts that are not founded on objectifying acts. These include, for instance, social or intersubjective instincts73 and drives since they are incessantly operating as the genetic foundation of empathy, even though they are not bearers of validity. Since the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere contains social instincts and drives that are incessantly operating in the field of consciousness, it can be called a system of instincts and drives. Fifth, in order to access the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere, we need a primordial reduction that can be designated as the transcendental ideal genetic primordial reduction. Like the transcendental static primordial reduction discussed above, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial reduction is carried out inside the universal transcendental sphere as a kind of thematic epochē. It should be noted that there is a significant difference between them. Whereas the transcendental static primordial reduction leads from the universal transcendental sphere to the transcendental static primordial sphere that is devoid of intersubjective connections, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial reduction leads from the universal transcendental sphere to the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere that reveals itself to us not as a unity of transtemporal validity but as a unity of the transcendental genesis in which I as a transcendental subjectivity and the other transcendental subjectivities that have influenced me up until now dwell together. 2) Let us clarify now the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere. In order to grasp the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere concrete  See, for example, Edmund Husserl: Manuscript A V 5, 134; Edmund Husserl: Manuscript E III 9, 18; Hua IX, 486. 73

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ly, we need to consider the structure of empathy that can be performed after I carry out the transcendental reduction without carrying out the transcendental ideal genetic primordial reduction as a thematic epochē. In this case, when I meet another transcendental subjectivity, I can perform the act of empathy of it at each moment on the basis of the universal transcendental sphere as it is experienced by me at each moment. Thus, the transcendental universal sphere as it is experienced by me at each moment when I perform an act of empathy turns out to be the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere. In order to grasp the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere more concretely, we must also consider the structure of the universal transcendental sphere. As discussed above, if I carry out the transcendental reduction, the universal transcendental sphere is disclosed to me. The universal transcendental sphere consists of the noetic side as the totality of transcendental subjectivities and the noematic side as the world, or the “universal horizon”74 or “total horizon”75 of the objects, constituted by the totality of transcendental subjectivities. I as a transcendental subjectivity can experience only a part of the noetic side as well as of the noematic side of the universal transcendental sphere. The transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere is the part of the universal sphere that I have experienced up until now since it is on the basis of the latter that I can carry out the transcendental pre-ideal genesis of empathy. As such, it can be designated as the sum of 1) the part of the noetic side of the universal transcendental sphere as the totality of myself as a transcendental subjectivity and the other transcendental subjectivities that I have experienced up until now and 2) the part of the noematic side of the universal transcendental sphere which I have experienced up until now, that is, the part of the world as the universal horizon of constituted objects which I have experienced up until now. Thus, the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere is not the same as the transcendental universal sphere but is a part of the transcendental universal sphere. Needless to say, the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere as a part of the transcendental universal sphere has the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere as a part of it. As discussed above, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere is an intersubjective sphere in which I as a transcendental subjectivity and other transcendental subjectivites that have influenced me up until now dwell together. Needless to say, the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere too is an intersubjective sphere in which I and other transcendental subjectivities dwell together. It can be called an intersubjective sphere in two different senses. First, it is an intersubjective sphere from the very beginning since it is a sphere that consists not only of 1) my own transcendental subjectivity as the bearer of all   Cf. Hua VI, 141n.; Husserl: Crisis, 138n.   Hua XXXIX, 118.

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my intentionalities and the world constituted by them but also of 2) the other transcendental subjectivities that I have experienced up until now and the different kinds of the world that have been constituted by them and that I have experienced up until now. Second, it is an intersubjective sphere in the sense that all the intentionalities of the transcendental subjectivities which I have experienced up until now as its components cannot have come into being without the help of other transcendental subjectivities that have influenced them up until now. Thus, there is a big difference in the sense in which the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere and the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere can be called an intersubjective sphere in which I and the other transcendental subjectivities dwell together. It is precisely the various kinds of social intentions that make the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere the sphere in which I as a transcendental subjectivity and the other transcendental subjectivites dwell together. It should be noted that the most original form of the social intentions are the various kinds of social drives and instincts that are incessantly at work as the genetic foundation of empathy. Thus, they turn out to be essential components of the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere. As such, this sphere can be considered a system of drives and instincts which Husserl himself pointed out in a manuscript from 1933: “Primordiality is a system of drives. If we understand it as a primal standing streaming, there is also a drive that is striving to go into other streams, potentially with other I-subjects.”76 In order to access the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, we do not need the thematic epochē. As discussed above, if I carry out the transcendental reduction, the universal transcendental sphere is experienced by me as the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, on the basis of which I can carry out the transcendental pre-ideal genesis of empathy. Thus, I do not need to carry out the additional step of the thematic epochē except the transcendental reduction to reach the transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere. 3) Let me clarify the structure of the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere. It is obvious that I can perform the act of empathy in the natural attitude after I carry out the thematic epochē. The natural ideal genetic primordial sphere is the counterpart of the natural static primordial sphere briefly mentioned at the end of section 3. There are some similarities between the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere and the natural static primordial sphere. For instance, the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere is the part of the world of the natural attitude as the totality of entities that I can experience with “a unique sort of philosophical solitude” and for which I can take responsibility. Moreover,   Hua XV, 594.

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I can experience myself as a mundane subject and my intentionalities as components of the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere through the method of reflection but not through empathy, as is the case with the natural static primordial sphere. However, there is still a fundamental difference between the two, and the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere shares more in common with the transcendental genetic primordial sphere than its static counterpart. First, like the two kinds of the transcendental genetic primordial sphere, the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere has various levels. Second, like the two kinds of the transcendental genetic primordial sphere, it contains not only me as a subject but also the other subjects who have influenced me up until now. Third, I do not have an absolute priority over other subjects since I am dependent on others in many respects. Fourth, the noetic side of it consists not only of objectifying acts or non-objectifying acts founded on objectifying acts but also of non-objectifying acts that are not founded on objectifying acts, as it is the case with the two kinds of transcendental genetic primordial spheres. In order to access the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere, we need a primordial reduction that can be designated as the natural ideal genetic primordial reduction. It is nothing other than the thematic epochē that I can carry out in the natural attitude. It leads each of us from the world of the natural attitude as the totality of all the entities to the natural ideal genetic primordial sphere as the part of the world that I can experience with “a unique sort of philosophical solitude” and for which I can take responsibility. 4) Let me clarify the structure of the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere. The natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere is the sphere disclosed to me in the natural attitude, on the basis of which I carry out the act of the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy. For us to grasp the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, we need to identify the realm on the basis of which the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy is carried out. It is just on the basis of the part of the world as the totality of entities that I have experienced up until now that I carry out the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy. Thus, the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere turns out to be the part of the world as the totality of entities that I have experienced up until now. The natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere as the part of the world as the totality of entities that I have experienced up until now is a unity of development and displays various levels. Thus, it is possible to dismantle the natural pre-ideal primordial sphere from the standpoint of its genetic foundation, and this process of dismantling can theoretically be continued until we get to the primordial sphere that is operating as the genetic foundation of the ego’s very first act of empathy. In a manuscript from 1935, Husserl calls this primordial-

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ity the “primordiality in the most primitive level”77 and attempts to clarify its genetic structure. It is therefore an enormous task for a natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the conditions of the possibility for the genetic transition from the natural pre-ideal primordial sphere at the most primitive level to the natural pre-ideal primordial spheres of higher levels in the natural attitude. It should be noted that social instincts and drives are incessantly operating in the constitution of the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere both at the most primitive level and in the genetic transition from this level to the primordial spheres of higher levels. Since the genesis of various levels of the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere in the field of consciousness would be impossible without the incessant operation of such social instincts and drives, like the other forms of the primordial sphere, the natural genetic primordial sphere of any level too can be considered a system of instincts and drives. The natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere as a sphere that is constituted through the various kinds of the social intentions is a sphere in which I and other subjects whom I have experienced up until now dwell together. In this sense, even the natural pre-ideal primordial sphere of a child is no exception. Through social intentions, the child’s primordial sphere too is intersubjectively organized from the very beginning. The social intentions that can be found in the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere of a child are mainly the various intentions of the social instincts and drives that are indispensable to its self-preservation with regards to other subjects. For this reason, in the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, from the standpoint of genetic foundation, the I does not have an absolute priority over other subjects. There is a relation of co-foundation between me and other contemporary subjects; I am even one-sidedly dependent on other subjects from prior generations. Needless to say, the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere has as its components not only the objectifying acts, but also non-objectifying acts, such as the social instincts and drives mentioned above. In order to access the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere, I do not need any special methodological procedure, such as the thematic epochē. As discussed above, the natural pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere is the part of the world as the totality of entities that I have experienced up until now when I carry out the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy and I do not need any thematic epochē to reach it. Let me conclude the discussion of the genetic primordial sphere with two remarks concerning its essential characteristics. First, as mentioned above repeatedly, the genetic primordial sphere is an intersubjective sphere in which I myself and other subjects dwell together. My claim that the genetic primordial sphere is an intersubjective sphere may seem   Hua XV, 605.

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strange, considering that Husserl seems to deny the intersubjective character of the primordial sphere in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. It should be noted, however, that the primordial sphere analyzed at the beginning of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is not the genetic primordial sphere but the static primordial sphere, as discussed above. With respect to the intersubjective character of the genetic primordial sphere, Tetsuya Sakakibara agrees with me and maintains that “in this sense, we can claim […] that the primordial sphere in the genetic phenomenology is at each moment already intersubjective.”78 Second, if we reflect on the analysis carried out above concerning the components of the genetic primordial sphere, it turns out that there is a close connection between this sphere and the world, be it the world as the universal horizon of the constituted objects disclosed in the transcendental attitude as the constitutive product of the transcendental subjectivities, be it the world as the totality of entities experienced in the natural attitude that includes not only various kinds of objects, but also myself as a mundane subject and others as mundane subjects. The close connection between them can be summarized as follows: 1) The transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere has two components, one of which is the part of the world as the universal horizon of the constituted objects that requires “a unique sort of philosophical solitude” to be reached and for which I as a transcendental subjectivity can take responsibility, and the other component which consists of myself as a transcendental subjectivity; 2) The transcendental pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere has two components, one of which is the part of the world as the universal horizon of the constituted objects that consists of my world and the worlds of the other transcendental subjectivities that I have experienced up until now, and the second component which is the sum of myself as a transcendental subjectivity and the other transcendental subjectivites that I have experienced up until now; 3) The natural ideal genetic primordial sphere is the same as the part of the world as the totality of entities including myself as a mundane subject and the other mundane subjects that requires “a unique sort of philosophical solitude” to be reached and for which I as a mundane subject can take responsibility; 4) The natual pre-ideal genetic primordial sphere is the same as the part of the world as the totality of entities that I have experienced up until now. 5. Relations Among the Ambiguities of Primordiality As we have seen, it turns out that the concept of primordiality within the field of tension between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity is ambiguous. Moreover, we have also identified additional ambiguities   Sakakibara: “Struktur und Genesis der Fremderfahrung bei Edmund Husserl”, 12.

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pertaining to primordiality. What is the essence of these ambiguities, and what is the relation between them and the ambiguity of the static-phenomenological and the genetic-phenomenological concepts of primordiality? As we have discussed in part in sections 3–4, the ambiguity of primordiality in the natural and the transcendental attitudes can be observed in both the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Let us clarify this point in a more detailed manner, beginning with the ambiguity of primordiality in the natural and the transcendental attitudes as an ambiguity in the context of static phenomenology. Recall that in the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, it is the primordial reduction that makes possible the recognition of another subjectivity not only as a transcendental subjectivity, but also as a mundane subject. This recognition of the other as a subject in a genuine sense, however, is possible not only in the transcendental attitude, but also in the natural attitude. The problem of the recognition of the other subject as a subject in a genuine sense can be a problem not only for each of us who live in the transcendental attitude and perform transcendental empathy but also for the person who knows nothing about the transcendental attitude or transcendental subjectivity. Let us imagine that in a very critical situation, I who know nothing about the transcendental find a body that is similar to my own body in some respects and dissimilar in other respects. I believe that it really is a human being. However, at the very next moment this is not so obvious to me. This critical situation requires me to draw a conclusion as to whether it is indeed a human being. In this case, there is only one way for me to solve the problem: through a kind of thematic epochē, I should abstract from all the validities that have their origin in other subjectivities, going back to the primordial sphere and examining whether there is something in this sphere that can serve as the validity-foundation for my belief. Since this kind of abstracting method can already do its work in the natural attitude, Husserl calls it the “reduction to primordiality in the natural attitude”,79 that is, the primordial reduction in the natural attitude. Correspondingly, the sphere of being that is disclosed through this method can be called the primordial sphere in the natural attitude. Since the primordial reduction in the natural attitude makes it possible to recognize the other as a mundane subject but not as a transcendental subjectivity, it can be considered as the preliminary form of the primordial reduction in the transcendental attitude. I will now clarify the ambiguity of primordiality in the natural and the transcendental attitudes as an ambiguity in the context of genetic phenomenology. Normally, we have an experience of the other in the natural attitude, and to be able to experience the other in the natural attitude, we need a genetic primordiality in the natural attitude as its genetic foundation. It should be noted,   Hua XV, 530.

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however, that we as normal mature persons do have the ability to carry out the transcendental reduction; moreover, we can experience the other after we do so. In this case, the other is experienced as another transcendental subjectivity, and this experience can be carried out on the basis of a genetic primordiality that is nothing other than primordiality in the transcendental attitude. Thus, for a subject who can carry out the transcendental reduction, there are two kinds of genetic primordiality, namely genetic primordiality in the natural attitude and in the transcendental attitude. Let us now examine the ambiguity of primordiality according to which it includes and excludes the experience of empathy at the same time. Husserl considers this ambiguity as an ambiguity that is “essentially founded on a matter”.80 However, he tells us nothing about the matter on which this ambiguity is essentially founded. Since this ambiguity affirms and denies a fact at the same time, one might be tempted to hold the view that the matter in question is nothing other than a dialectical matter that cannot be clarified phenomenologically, but only through a kind of dialectical logic of being and nothingness.81 I claim that this view is based on pure speculation that cannot be verified phenomenologically. Instead, the matter in question is precisely due to the fact that there is a clear distinction between static and genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. This means that this particular ambiguity is one aspect of the ambiguity of the static and genetic concepts of primordiality, which implies that the primordiality that excludes the experience of empathy is primordiality in static phenomenology, whereas the primordiality that includes the experience of empathy is primordiality in genetic phenomenology. The passage in question reveals that this is indeed the case. There Husserl first describes the static concept of primordiality as follows: “In the original methodological sense, it means the abstraction that, excluding abstractly all ‘empathies’, I as the ego of the reductive attitude carry out phenomenologically.”82 Directly thereafter he introduces a second concept of primordiality, the genetic concept of primordiality, as follows: “When I say ‘primordial ego’ afterward, it receives the meaning of the original monad to which the original empathy belongs.”83 As already discussed, except for the most primitive level, the other levels of the pre-ideal as well as of the ideal genetic primordial sphere contain empathy within themselves either as actual or as a sediment. It therefore turns out that the primordiality in question   Hua XV, 635.   Zeltner holds just this view: “Now it is clear that after Husserl, with a surprising energy, questioned back to the ultimate premise of the experience of the other, he unexpectedly meets with the matters that, from a purely phenomenological standpoint, contain in themselves a dialectic, and it seems impossible to eliminate this dialectic through further phenomenological analysis” (Zeltner: “Das Ich und die Anderen”, 313). 82   Hua XV, 635. 83   Hua XV, 635. 80 81

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is a kind of genetic-phenomenological primordiality. In this manuscript, using the second, genetic concept of primordiality, Husserl is indeed occupied with such issues of a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as “the immanent temporality”84 or “the monadization to immanent temporality of the monadic subjects”85. Thus, it is not a coincidence that this manuscript bears the title: “Monadic temporalization and worldly temporalization […]”.86 Finally, the ambiguity between “my” and “our” primordiality is yet another aspect of the ambiguity of the static and the genetic concepts of primordiality. As already indicated, primordiality in static phenomenology is essentially “my” primordiality. In contrast to this, primordiality in genetic phenomenology can include the experience of empathy, and on the basis of this experience each ego can constitute an intersubjective world that it shares with other subjectivities. Since this intersubjective world can serve as the genetic primordial sphere and as the genetic foundation for empathy, it is quite possible to speak of “our” primordiality in genetic phenomenology. 6. Ambiguities of Primordiality and the Basic Character of the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation The concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation needs correction and supplementation in many respects. We cannot exclude the possibility that through further close examination it might even turn out to be ambiguous in still other respects than those discussed above. However, the examination of the ambiguities of primordiality discussed thus far does enable us to make a general assessment87 of the views of various interpreters of the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. First, if one bases one’s interpretation on the static concept of primordiality that is developed in §§44–48 (and elsewhere), one can view the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation as a basic concept for the logical explanation of intersubjectivity. What the logical explanation of intersubjectivity concretely means in this context is the explanation of the logical structure of its validity-foundation. Second, if one bases one’s interpretation on the genetic concept of primordiality developed in the second half of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, one can indeed see the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation as a basic concept of genetic phenomenology. Finally, one can view primordiality as   Hua XV, 639.   Hua XV, 639. 86   Hua XV, 634. 87   It is my further task to assess in detail the various interpretations of the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation with respect to the way in which ambiguity of this concept is revealed in the field of tension between static and genetic phenomenology. 84 85

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something that cannot be justified phenomenologically if one confuses the static and genetic concepts of primordiality in such a way that one’s interpretation rests upon the static-phenomenological concept of primordiality but one unfortunately regards it as a genetic-phenomenological concept of primordiality. In this case, one is necessarily forced to draw the conclusion that primordiality is not something that can be observed phenomenologically, since it is impossible for anyone to observe such a phenomenon as a primordial sphere that would form a concrete sphere of being in the universal horizon of an ego but would not contain any kind of empathy. In other words, the primordial sphere in static phenomenology is only a product of thematic epochē that cannot itself be observed as a concrete moment in the actual process of transcendental genesis. Let me conclude with this note. Since the concept of primordiality in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is revealed to be ambiguous—and is so above all in the field of tension between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity—then the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed there is deeply influenced by this ambiguity: the account is actually a mixture of static and genetic analysis.88 In my opinion, in order to develop a phenomenology of intersubjectivity systematically we should make a clear distinction between the static and genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity.89 Although Husserl was fully conscious of the necessity of making a clear distinction between them, it was impossible for him to develop these two forms of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity systematically in the remaining few years of his life. It is the task of future generations of phenomenologists to develop the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity systematically. Since primordiality is the most important fundamental stage for the constitution of intersubjectivity, it is the first task of a phenomenology of intersubjectivity to develop the phenomenology of primordiality systematically, that is, in both its static and genetic form—a task I have attempted to begin above. It is only on the ground of a full-fledged static and genetic phenomenology of primordiality that it will be possible to develop, layer on layer, other theories of intersubjectivity such as the theory of empathy, the constitution of societies, the constitution of the intersubjective world and history, etc.

  In the editor’s introduction to Husserliana XV, Iso Kern also speaks of “a fundamental inner tension and ambiguity” (Hua XV, xviii) within the Fifth Meditation, as well as of “the ambiguity of the meaning of the Fifth Meditation” (Hua XV, xxi). 89   In this respect, Sara Heinämaa agrees with me in making this distinction, and regards my account of this distinction as “an illuminative account of the static and the genetic aspects of Husserl’s analyses of the constitution of other selves in empathy” (Sara Heinämaa: “Anonymity and personhood: Merleau-Ponty’s account of the subject of perception”. In: Continental Philosophy Review 48(2), 2015, 123–142, here: 137). 88

Chapter 3 Various Fields of the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and the Relationship Between Husserl and Buber After the publication of the Logical Investigations in 1900/1901, Husserl was engaged throughout the remainder of his life with the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. He was fully conscious of its significance for the entire system of transcendental phenomenology and left many works dealing with this problem. However, his phenomenology of intersubjectivity has been sharply criticized by many interpreters. Among these critics are not only phenomenologists after Husserl, but advocates of a philosophy of dialogue and of critical social theory. Since the phenomenology of intersubjectivity has significant meaning for the entire system of phenomenology, some would not hesitate to draw the conclusion that if his phenomenology of intersubjectivity has serious flaws, Husserl’s phenomenology fails as a whole. I believe that many of the arguments of Husserl’s critics are wide of the mark because in criticizing Husserl, they do not make a clear distinction between different problems of intersubjectivity. More than anything else, philosophy deals with the most abstract of problems, so the first step to be taken is to make a clear distinction among the various problems related to a given topic. This is particularly true for the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Thus, I agree with Max Scheler’s assessment of previous treatments of the subject: “(1) Failure to separate the problems clearly enough. (2) Misconception of the order in which to approach them. (3) Failure to relate the solutions in a systematic way.”1 Scheler then proposed a way of dividing up the problems of intersubjectivity into six distinct areas: 1) the ontological problem; 2) the problem of the critique of knowledge; 3) the problem of origin (Ursprung); 4) the empirical scientific problem of intersubjectivity; 5) the metaphysical problem of intersubjectivity; and 6) the problem of value (the axiological problem).2 Husserl seems partly conscious of this fact as well. For example, he refers to “the confusingly involved problems of intersubjectivity and worldly Objectivity”3 or to “the involved set of transcendental problems concerning intersubjectivity”4 and attempts to make a distinction among the ontological, the transcendental-phenomenological, and the metaphysical problems of intersubjectivity. However, within his phenomenology of intersubjectivity, one cannot   Max Scheler: Wesen und Formen der Sympathie. Bern 1973, 211; Max Scheler: The Nature of Sympathy. Translated from German by Peter Heath. London 2017, 216. 2   Ibid., 209 ff.; 213 ff. I will discuss this issue later in more detail in section 4 of chapter 4. 3   Hua XVII, 250; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 243. 4   Ibid., 245; 238. 1

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find as clear a distinction among the various problems as Max Scheler calls for. I believe that if Husserl had made clearer distinctions among the various problems of intersubjectivity, his phenomenology would not have been so sharply criticized. In other words, one can say that some of the criticisms are caused by this lack of distinctions, and in this chapter, I will attempt to address these types of criticisms. Although there are many such criticisms, my discussion in this chapter will be limited to Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity from the standpoint of Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue.5 I will first delineate the main points of the criticism leveled by the philosophy of dialogue against Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Thereafter, in order to be able to lay the basis for a critical assessment of its claims, I will attempt to make a clear distinction among the various problems of a phenomenology of intersubjectivity (although I will only deal with those problems relevant to assessing criticisms of Husserl from the perspective of the philosophy of dialogue). Finally, I will attempt to argue that these criticisms are misguided because they do not make any clear distinctions among the various problems of intersubjectivity. Overall, the chapter aims to clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. Before I start, I would like to emphasize that one of the main aims of chapter 3 is to make a clear distinction between the various fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed by Husserl which can help us assess many of the criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and thereby clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology and the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity developed by others in this chapter, as well as in some of the subsequent chapters. On the basis of this distinction, the chapter then seeks to clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Buber’s philosophy of dialogue by assessing Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity from the standpoint of Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. I use Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as an example to show how a clear distinction between the various fields of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity could help clear up some of the difficulties behind many of the criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. I would like to point out that this chapter deals with Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity not because it is more important than any other criticism. Indeed, it is hard to deny that Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is outdated. As Zahavi correctly points out, it is “to a large   Michael Theunissen: Der Andere. Studien zur Sozialontologie der Gegenwart. New York 1977; Michael Theunissen: The Other: Studies in the Social Ontology of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Buber. Translated from German by Christopher Macann. Cambridge, MA 1984. 5

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extent focused on Husserl’s fifth Cartesian Meditation and it does not consider any of the material on intersubjectivity that became available to the larger public in 1973 with the publication of Husserliana XIII–XV”.6 In fact, there are already many other published works which assess Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity while taking into account Husserl’s works dealing with the issue of intersubjectivity other than the Fifth Cartesian Meditation.7 However, to the best of my knowledge, there has not yet been any assessment of Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity based on a clear distinction between the different fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed by Husserl. I assess Theunissen’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity by showing how each of the various arguments that Theunissen raises against Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity can be linked to a corresponding field in the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Thus, I show that Theunissen’s arguments should not be seen in isolation from one another but as components that constitute a whole and stand in a close relationship to each other, allowing us to assess Theunissen in a more systematic and organic manner. 1. Criticisms of Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity by the Philosophy of Dialogue According to Theunissen, Husserl’s phenomenology stands in extreme opposition to the philosophy of dialogue, and above all, one can find this essential trait in his phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Since for Theunissen Husserl determines the absoluteness of transcendental subjectivity as an “absoluteness that means asociality”,8 his phenomenology of intersubjectivity cannot be successful. Emphasizing this point, Theunissen states: “Its absoluteness [the absoluteness of the original ego] consists in its ‘solitude’—admittedly a solitude that, because there is no I alongside of me, is also free of any longing for community.”9 Theunissen accordingly advocates the thesis that by determining the ego as a solitary being totally free from any kind of desire for society, Husserl’s phenomenology cannot avoid the fate of solipsism. Here Theunissen is echoing   Dan Zahavi: “Hans Bernhard Schmid, Subjekt, System, Diskurs. Edmund Husserl’s Begriff transzendentaler Subjektivität in sozialtheoretischen Bezügen”. In: Husserl Studies 18(2), 2002, 157–164, here: 162. 7   For example, Waldenfels: Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs, 46, 163, 231 ff.; Yamaguchi: Passive Synthesis und Intersubjektivität bei Edmund Husserl , 87, 95 ff., 133 ff.; Zahavi: “Hans Bernhard Schmid, Subjekt, System, Diskurs”; Shigeru Taguchi: Das Problem des ‘Ur-Ich’ bei Edmund Husserl: Die Frage nach der selbstverständlichen ‘Nähe’ des Selbst. Dordrecht 2006, 123 ff.; Staehler: “What is the Question?”, 102 ff. 8   Ibid., 23; 21, translation altered. 9  Ibid. 6

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the criticism of those who insist that since Husserl’s phenomenology is confined to the analysis of a solitary ego (and thus is unable to solve the problem of intersubjectivity), it is nothing other than a solipsism. Thereafter, on the basis of a “destruction of the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality”,10 Theunissen attempts to deepen and broaden his criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Needless to say, in this context the destruction always contains two components: the criticism of the problematic philosophical position on the one hand, and on the other hand, the attempt to ground a more original philosophical position than the one criticized. Thus, through a destructive criticism of Husserl, Theunissen attempts to construct a philosophical foundation for a dialogical philosophy in contradistinction to Husserl’s phenomenology. Buber’s distinction between the “I-Thou” relation and the “I-It” relation11 provides the starting point for Theunissen’s destruction of Husserl’s phenomenology. Since his aim is to undermine Husserl’s phenomenology, he attempts to clarify the distinction between the Thou and the It regarding Husserl’s concept of intentionality. In this context, he sometimes characterizes the sphere of the It as “the sphere of subjectivity” that embraces “the acting subject together with the world intentionally dominated by him”.12 At other times, with reference to Gabriel Marcel, he characterizes the sphere of the It as the “sphere of ‘having’”13—a sphere that according to him, means nothing other than “that of intentionality”14 and stands for its will to reign overall. According to Theunissen, then, as the expression “transcendental-philosophical model” implies, the intentionality that is the proper theme of transcendental phenomenology is understood as the moment that holds together the sphere of the It. In contrast, he characterizes the sphere of the Thou as the dialogical sphere. This sphere is distinguished by the “immediacy ‘between man and man’”,15 which includes “the mutuality of the inner behavior”16 as well as “the mutuality of acceptation, of affirmation and confirmation”.17 Theunissen points out that in order to be able to comprehend the sphere of the Thou properly, we must not let ourselves be guided by the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality. He adds, however, that it is not easy for us to be entirely free from this model. For Theunissen, even Buber himself was not totally free from this kind of danger, since he attempted to determine   Ibid., 278; 291.   Martin Buber: I and Thou. Translated from German by Ronald Gregor Smith. Edinburgh 1994. 12  Theunissen: Der Andere, 261; Theunissen: The Other, 272. 13   Ibid, 261; 273. 14  Ibid. 15   Ibid., 262; 274. 16   Ibid., 264; 276. 17  Ibid. 10 11

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“the Thou in the same way as the It: as what is intended, as the noematic object, now, admittedly, not of the I-It, but of the I-Thou”.18 In this context, he refers to the beginning part of Buber’s I and Thou: “To man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks.”19 As long as the Thou is comprehended as the noematic correlate of the twofold attitude, its essential feature is totally concealed. Theunissen calls the Thou that is the noematic correlate of the twofold attitude “the individual Thou in an improper sense”.20 The next step of the destruction of the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality therefore requires the destruction of this individual Thou, a destruction that should make it possible to bring to light the Thou that lies behind that Thou. What matters here is “the individual Thou in a proper sense that is utterly unstable”.21 The individual Thou in a proper sense is not something that appears to us as an object, but something that escapes objectification. Thus, it means something that does not appear, and in this sense, it can be called nothing. Buber puts it this way: “But when Thou is spoken, there is no thing. Thou has no bounds. When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing; he has indeed nothing.”22 Yet even with the discovery of the Thou in a proper sense, the destruction of the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality has not been completely carried out. With respect to the possibility of discovering the Thou that lies deeply concealed behind the Thou in a proper sense, it should be noted that I may meet the individual Thou in two senses, though neither I nor the Thou are able to cause this meeting. My meeting with the Thou is neither my achievement nor yours, but exclusively something that has been presented from somewhere else as a gift or a grace. At the same time, the experience of meeting Thou means the experience of him who presents us with this meeting, that is to say, the experience of “the Thou who, owing to his everlasting presence to me, must be constant, that is, eternal for me”.23 According to Theunissen, here the Eternal Thou means God who remains an Eternal Mystery to human understanding, since the human being cannot know, but can only “vaguely feel” or “glimpse” (ahnen)24 him. In this context, Buber writes: “Of course God is the ‘wholly Other’; but He is also the wholly Same, the wholly Present. Of course, He is the Mysterium Tremendum that appears and overthrows; but He is also   Ibid., 279; 292.  Buber: I and Thou, 15, and cf. Theunissen: Der Andere, 278 ff.; Theunissen: The Other, 291 ff. 20  Theunissen: Der Andere, 343, my translation. 21   Ibid., my translation. 22  Buber: I and Thou, 17. 23  Theunissen: Der Andere, 343, my translation. 24  Buber: I and Thou, 50, and Theunissen: Der Andere, 346, my translation. 18 19

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the mystery of the self-evident, nearer to me than my I.”25 Thus, with a complete destruction of the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality—a destruction that enables us to experience the Eternal Thou or God as a Mystery— the philosophy of dialogue culminates in a negative theology. In order to lay the ground for an assessment of the criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity by the philosophy of dialogue, I will now attempt to make a clear distinction between the various problems of intersubjectivity, focusing on the ontological, the transcendental-phenomenological, and the metaphysical problem of intersubjectivity. (Other problems of intersubjectivity that have no direct bearing on our discussion below, such as the empirical scientific problem or the problem of the value of intersubjectivity, will not be dealt with.) 2.  The Ontological Problem of Intersubjectivity In the natural attitude, I experience the other in various ways—for instance, I can experience the other as a family member, a colleague, a student, a teacher, a seller, a citizen of my country, or even as a world citizen. In these cases, I am experiencing the other as a person. However, I can experience the other in a totally different way; for example, in the scientific attitude, I can experience the other not as a person but as a mere scientific object, present among many other objects. Moreover, in the natural attitude, I can either describe the structure of the other as a fact, or I can attempt to explain causal relationships between facts. In this manner, we can ground various empirical sciences that concern the other, e. g., sociology, history, anthropology, or psychology. Furthermore, in the eidetic attitude, I can try to bring to light the essential structure of the facts concerning the other and thus ground an ontology of the other as a philosophical discipline. We can in fact find various attempts by Husserl to ground the ontology of social objects. A typical example is the text that has been published by Iso Kern as Appendix XVIII in Volume XIII of Husserliana under the title: “The Givenness of the Concrete Social Objects and Products, and the Clarification of the Concepts Related to It. Social Ontology and Descriptive Sociology”.26 In this text, Husserl attempts to project social ontology as a systematic ontology of social object. It is a well-known fact that the ontology of nature—for example, pure geometry, pure theory of time, or pure theory of motion—provides the a priori science for the empirical sciences of nature. In a similar way, according to  Buber: I and Thou, 104. Cf. Theunissen: Der Andere, 345, my translation.   Hua XIII, 98.

25 26

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Husserl, social ontology provides the a priori science for the empirical sciences of the other. Thus, the first requirement in founding an empirical science of social object is social ontology. One of the most important tasks of social ontology is to develop a “typology”27 of the other given in the experience of the other. In order to develop a “typology” of the other, we must first clarify the various kinds of the experience of the other, which Husserl calls “empathy” (Einfühlung), since there is a correlation between the type of the other and the type of the experience in which the other is given. Regarding the necessity of developing a “typology” of the other in relation to the different kinds of empathy, Husserl writes as follows: “Phenomenologically, the task is to describe the type in terms of the determinateness and indeterminacy, the immediacy and mediacy of empathic experience and the type of the corresponding objects unanimously experienced through empathy […].”28 In fact, Husserl makes a distinction between the “different concepts of empathy”,29 such as the distinction between “direct empathy”30 which is performed directly on the basis of the perception of the body of the other, and “indirect empathy”,31 which is performed without being based on the direct perception of the body of the other, such as through linguistic communication. In order to clarify the different types of empathy systematically, we must raise questions concerning the different types of empathy, such as: 1) Is there a single perceiver (SP) or multiple (MP)? 2) Is there a single perceived person (SPD) or multiple (MPD)? 3) Is there direct contact between the perceiver and the perceived (D) or not (ND)? and 4) Is linguistic communication between the perceiver and the perceiver possible (C) or not (NC)? Corresponding to these four questions, we can make a distinction between 16 (2 x 2 x 2 x 2) different kinds of the experience of the other: 1) SP experiences SPD with D and NC, 2) SP experiences SPD with D and C, 3) SP experiences SPD with ND and C, …, 16), MP experiences MPD with ND and NC. Among them, the simplest case is when 1) SP experiences SPD with D and NC, that is, when a single person experiences another single person through direct contact but without any linguistic communication. We can find numerous examples in daily life situations, such as when a mother tries to understand her baby’s mental state before they

  Cf. Hua XIV, 478.   Hua XIV, 478. “Phänomenologisch ist es die Aufgabe, die Typik in der Bestimmtheit und Unbestimmtheit, der Unmittelbarkeit und Mittelbarkeit der einfühlenden Erfahrung zu beschreiben, bzw, die Typik der entsprechenden durch Einfühlung einstimmig erfahrenen Gegenstände […].” 29   Hua XV, 172. 30   Hua XV, 471. 31   Hua XV, 239. 27 28

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have developed speech, or when we try to understand a local in a foreign country whose language we do not know. After distinguishing the various types of empathy corresponding to different types of the other, we can proceed to systematically develop a “typology” of the other as a discipline of social ontology. Needless to say, the simplest type of the other is the one that is given in the simplest type of empathy, namely, when a single person experiences another single person through direct contact but without any linguistic communication. Husserl uses this type of the other as the primary model for developing his theory of empathy in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. It is just in this context that Staehler maintains that “What is clarified in CM is not the Other in all dimensions, but the most basic and, in that sense, most abstract level of the Other. Further aspects of the Other that involve linguistic communication rather than empathy are investigated by Husserl in different texts and manuscripts (cf. esp. Hua XIII-XV and XXIX).”32 I will primarily focus on the simplest type of the other while discussing Husserl’s theory of empathy developed in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesain Meditation. Since the simplest type of the other represents the most basic type of the other, and the other types can be considered as modifications of this type, it is one of the most important tasks of social ontology to clarify the general structure of the simplest type of the other. In order to clarify the general structure of the simplest type of the other, we need to clarify the experience in which the simplest type of the other is given. In addressing this task, Husserl grapples with two philosophical positions concerning this problem: Benno Erdmann’s theory of inference by analogy,33and Theodor Lipp’s theory of empathy.34 Erdmann holds that we cannot ever experience directly the mental state of others, but only infer their mental state through their bodily expressions by analogy. Correspondingly, he characterizes the mental state of the other—a state that is only accessible by analogical inference—not as “an immediately given fact but a hypothesis, a more probable one, because it can be verified by us at every moment”.35 According to this theory, it is impossible in principle for us to experience directly the other’s mental state; the best we can do is to form a hypothesis about it. Contrary to this position, Lipps holds that there is no way at all of gaining access to the mental state of the other in a genuine sense, because the other that I am supposed to be experiencing is nothing other than

  Staehler: “What is the Question?”, 104.   Benno Erdmann: Wissenschaftliche Hypothesen über Leib und Seele. Köln 1907. Husserl deals with Erdmann’s theory of inference by analogy in Hua XIII, 36–38. 34   Theodor Lipps: Leitfaden der Psychologie. Leipzig 1909. Husserl deals with Lipps’s theory of empathy in Hua XIII, 70–76. 35  Erdmann: Wissenschaftliche Hypothesen, 45, cited in Hua XIII, 36. 32 33

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the product of a mental process called a “duplication of myself ”.36 For Lipps, this is triggered by certain sense-perceptions of the body of the other and is carried out “instinctively”.37 Thereby different sense-perceptions motivate different ways of duplicating myself. Lipps calls this process of duplicating myself “empathy” (Einfühlung). According to Husserl, neither Erdmann nor Lipps have grasped the essence of the other in its simplest type. The other in its simplest type that I meet in ordinary life is neither a mere hypothesis nor a mere duplication of myself, but the other as she/he is experienced by me. Thus, as far as Husserl is concerned, we do experience the other directly. For example, when I see a person weeping, I do not have to hypothesize the person’s existence or put myself in her/ his position in order to know that the person is sad. Rather, I can immediately perceive that the person is sad without going through any of the elaborate stages that Erdmann and Lipps posited. It should be noted, however, that there is a difference between experiencing the other and perceiving a thing since the experience of the other is founded on the experience of the body of the other, whereas the perception of a thing is not founded on another experience. Husserl calls the experience that is founded on another experience presentification (Vergegenwärtigung, also translated as “presentiation” and “re-presentation”),38 while he refers to experiences that are not founded on another experience as presenting (Gegenwärtigung). In addition to the experience of the other person, there are, of course, many other forms of presentification such as remembering, expecting, picturing, phantasizing, etc. As discussed above, Husserl uses the term “empathy” (Einfühlung) in order to distinguish the experience of the other as a form of presentification from its other forms. It is the further task of social ontology to bring to light the concrete essential structure of empathy in comparison with other forms of presentification. 3. The Transcendental Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Motivation From about 1905, after the transcendental turn in his phenomenology, Husserl saw the transcendental-phenomenological problem as his most important task. And the phenomenology of intersubjectivity is no exception, for here too, more than anywhere else, he was engaged with the transcendental-phenomenological problem, that is, the problem of the condition of the possibility for the

 Lipps: Leitfaden der Psychologie, 36, cited in Hua XIII, 73.  Ibid. 38   Hua XIII, 30. 36 37

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constitution of the other as a transcendental subjectivity. Husserl formulates this problem in a more concrete way as follows: How is it possible that in a pure consciousness, in a certain form of its experiences, an experience of foreign experiences and the subject of those experiences can emerge, and along with that an experiential knowledge of another stream of consciousness?39

Before I deal with the transcendental phenomenological problem of the other in more detail, however, I would like to clarify the relationship between the transcendental and ontological problems of the other. It should be noted that the transcendental-phenomenological investigation of the other cannot be launched systematically if I have not experienced the other and if I don’t know the ontological structure of the other. The latter offers the leading clue (Leitfaden) for a transcendental-phenomenological investigation of it; if the ontological structure of the other is not first known, transcendental research into it is not only impossible but also meaningless. Thus, the ontology of the other necessarily precedes the transcendental phenomenology of the other and plays the role of the leading clue for the latter.40 Corresponding to the right order of research, in §43 of the Cartesian Meditations, where the transcendental-phenomenological investigation of intersubjectivity begins, Husserl addresses “the noematic-ontic mode of givenness of the other as transcendental clue for the constitutional theory of the experience of someone else”.41 With respect to the significance of ontological research for transcendental-phenomenological research, he writes thereafter in §59 as follows: Starting from the experiential world given beforehand as existent and (with the shift to the eidetic attitude) from any experiential world whatever, conceived as given beforehand as existent, we exercised transcendental reduction—that is: we went back to the transcendental ego, who constitutes within himself givenness-beforehand and all modes of subsequent givenness […].42

As already mentioned, the other can be experienced or given in various ways. Since each of these various kinds of the other can provide a transcendental clue   Ibid., 29.   In this context, the ontology of the other as the leading clue for the transcendental phenomenology of the other is the transcendental ontology of the other, but the natural ontology of the other too can indirectly play the role of the leading clue for the transcendental phenomenology of the other since it can be transformed into the transcendental ontology of the other by carrying out the transcendental reduction. In this context, we have to recall that, as discussed above in chapter 1, there are two kinds of constitutive phenomenology, namely natural constitutive phenomenology and transcendental constitutive phenomenology. Correspondingly, there are two kinds of ontology as the leading clue for constitutive phenomenology, namely natural ontology as the leading clue for natural constitutive phenomenology and transcendental ontology as the leading clue for transcendental constitutive phenomenology. 41   Hua I, 122; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 90. 42   Ibid., 163–164; 136. 39 40

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for transcendental-phenomenological research, it is possible to develop as many types of transcendental phenomenology of the other as there are kinds of the other. In this context, Husserl tells us: First of all, my “transcendental clue” is the experienced Other, given to me in straightforward consciousness and as I immerse myself in examining the noematic-ontic content belonging to him. […] By its remarkableness and multiplicity, that content already indicates the manysidedness and difficulty of the phenomenological task.43

As discussed above, Husserl uses the simplest type of the other as the primary model for developing his theory of empathy in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation and the transcendental question concerning the constitution of this type of the other can be formulated as follows: what is the condition of possibility for the constitution of the simplest type of the other? In this context, the condition of possibility for constitution means the motivation for constitution. Accordingly, Husserl formulates the transcendental-phenomenological problem of the other as follows: “How can appresentation of another original sphere,44 and thereby the sense ‘someone else’, be motivated in my original sphere and, in fact, motivated as experience—as the word ‘appresentation’ (making intended as co-present) already indicates?”45 Thus, the problem of the transcendental phenomenology of the simplest type of the other can be formulated as: “How does the motivation [for the experience of the simplest type of the other as a transcendental subjectivity] run?”46 Before we proceed, we must keep in mind that there are two kinds of constitutive phenomenology of empathy. In this context, we should recall that, as discussed above in chapter 2, we can carry out two kinds of empathy, namely “psychological empathy and transcendental empathy”47. When we carry out transcendental empathy, we experience the other as a transcendental subjectivity and when we carry out psychological empathy, we experience the other as a mundane subject. Correspondingly, we can make a distinction between two kinds of the constitutive phenomenology of empathy, namely the transcendental constitutive phenomenology of empathy, or simply the transcendental phenomenology of empathy, which attempts to clarify the conditions of the possibility of transcendental empathy and the natural constitutive phenomenology of empathy, which attempts to clarify the conditions of the possibility of natural empathy. The distinction between them stems from the general distinction between the “constitutive phenomenology of the natural   Ibid., 122–123; 90–91.   “The appresentation of another original sphere” is the kind of presentification that is called empathy. 45   Hua I, 139; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 109. 46   Ibid., 140; 110. 47   Hua XV, 116. 43 44

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attitude”48, or natural constitutive phenomenology, and the constitutive phenomenology of the transcendental attitude, or transcendental constitutive phenomenology, which Husserl usually calls transcendental phenomenology. The distinction between them is important because in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl is mainly concerned with the transcendental constitutive phenomenology of empathy, even though there are some passages that address the natural constitutive phenomenology of empathy. For this reason, we will now focus on the transcendental constitutive phenomenology of empathy developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. 4.  The Structure of the Analogical Experience of the Other Husserl proceeds to clarify how it is possible for me to experience the simplest type of the other in the transcendental attitude. According to him, the transcendental primordial sphere discussed in §§44–48 (and elsewhere as well) in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation serves as the condition of possibility of the experience of the simplest type of the other within the transcendental attitude. Within my transcendental primordial sphere, I find many things that can be designated as natural things, since they are all members of “primordial nature”49 in the noematic side of the primordial sphere. Each of the natural things in the primordial sphere is experienced as a “mere body” (Körper),50 but there is one thing that stands out among them—namely, my own body. It is true that my body can indeed be experienced in primordial sphere as a mere body like other natural things, but it is also experienced at the same time as “a lived or living body” (Leib)51 equipped with various kinds of intentionality that manifest the modes of “the actualities and potentialities of the stream of subjective processes”52: Among the bodies belonging to this “Nature” and included in my peculiar ownness, I then find my living body as uniquely singled out, namely, as the only one of them that is not just a body, but precisely a living body: the sole Object within my abstract world-stratum to which, in accordance with experience, I ascribe fields of sensation […], the only Object “in” which I “rule and govern” immediately, governing particularly in each of its “organs”.53

The fact that I experience my living body as something equipped with these different kinds of intentionality means that I experience it as something in     50   51   52   53   48 49

Hua V, 158. Hua I, 139; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 109. Ibid., 140; 110, translation altered. Ibid., translation altered. Ibid., 131; 100. Ibid., 128; 97, translation altered.

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which my transcendental subjectivity is living since transcendental subjectivity is nothing other than the bearer of the different kinds of intentionality. Thus, my experience of my body as a living body is closely connected to my experience of my transcendental subjectivity. Let us suppose that the other appears in my primordial sphere. In this case, I could experience the body of the other as a mere body like other things in primordial nature. It should be noted, however, that I actually experience the body of the other not as a mere body but as a living body like my body. According to Husserl, it is precisely “an apperceptive transfer from my living body” that makes it possible for me to experience the body of the other as a living body like mine: Since in this Nature and this world, my living body is the only body that is or can be constituted originally as a living body (a functioning organ), the body over there, which is nevertheless apprehended as a living body, must have derived this sense by an apperceptive transfer from my living body.54

Why is the apperceptive transfer from my living body to the other body possible? It is possible because there is a similarity between the body of the other as a mere body and my body as a mere body, as Husserl tells us: It is clear from the very beginning that only a similarity connecting, within my primordial sphere, that body over there with my body can serve as the motivational basis for the “analogizing” apprehension of that body as another living body.55

It should be noted that my experience of the body of the other as a living body simultaneously motivates the experience of the other as a transcendental subjectivity like me, since my living body is the body in which my transcendental subjectivity is living and there is a similarity between my body and the body of the other. In this context, Husserl claims: “To every other (as long as she/he remains within the appresented horizon of concreteness that necessarily goes with it) there belongs an appresented Ego who is not I myself but my modification, another Ego.”56 This is the outline of the theory of empathy that Husserl calls the “analogical apperception”57 of the other. We can call it the theory of the “analogical” experience of the other58 because it considers the similarity between my body and the body of the other to be the motivation for the experience of the other as a   Ibid., 140; 110, translation altered.   Ibid., 140; 111, translation altered. 56   Ibid., 145; 115–116, translation altered. 57   Ibid., 138; 108. 58   It should be noted that Husserl’s theory of the “analogical” experience of the other is different from Erdmann’s theory of inference by analogy since, in Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other, we can directly experience the mental states of the simplest type of the other, whereas, in Erdmann’s theory of inference by analogy, we cannot ever experience them directly. 54 55

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transcendental subjectivity. I would like to summarize this as follows: 1) I experience my body as a mere body like other natural things, and at the same time, as a living body in which my transcendental subjectivity is living; 2) I experience the other body as a mere body like other natural things; 3) I experience a similarity of my body as a mere body with the body of the other as a mere body; and 4) on the basis of the similarity between them, I experience the body of the other as another living body in which the other transcendental subjectivity is living. Thus, there is a foundational relationship between 1), 2), 3), and 4) However, the theory of the analogical experience of the other is not yet fully developed, since the foundation between 1), 2), 3), and 4) can be interpreted either as a relationship of transtemporal validity-foundation or as that of temporal genetic foundation. Correspondingly, the theory can be further developed in two different directions, namely, in the directions of clarifying the validity-foundation and of clarifying the genetic foundation of the analogical experience of the other. If it is developed further in the first direction, it becomes a transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other, whereas if it is developed further in the second direction, it becomes a transcendental genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other. In the next section, I will discuss the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other. 5. The Static Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity It is Husserl’s intention in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation to develop the theory of the analogical experience of the other as a transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, as the following claim mentioned above in chapter 2 demonstrates: “Here it is not a matter of uncovering a genesis going on in time, but a matter of ‘static analysis.’”59 For this reason, one might expect that he would be intensively engaged with the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity there. Contrary to our expectation, however, he does not systematically develop the theory of the analogical experience of the other as a transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. Fortunately, there are other works of Husserl where we can indeed find material that enables us to develop a transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other systematically, and I will clarify the latter by analyzing some passages from these sources. In order to understand this theory, we need to note that transcendental static phenomenology in general aims to clarify the structure of the transtemporal validity-foundation of constitution, and as such, it is a phenomenology of justification as a normative phenomen  Ibid., 136; 106.

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ology and a methodological phenomenology, as discussed earlier in chapter 1. And the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other displays all the traits of transcendental static phenomenology in general. As we have seen, it is the task of transcendental static phenomenology to clarify the structure of the transtemporal validity-foundation of constitution. Correspondingly, it is the task of the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other to clarify the structure of the transtemporal validity-foundation of this experience, as can be seen in the following passage: If I reduce to my “primordial world”, or the world to what is originally presented of it [the world] in my primal life in perception and memory, then in the fully valid world (in the full sense of being) this is a layer of validity that is foundational for the validity of the being of others […].60

This passage comes from the 1933 manuscript already discussed in chapter 1, a manuscript bearing the title: “Static Phenomenology and Genetic Phenomenology […]”.61 More specifically, it comes from the section where Husserl attempts to clarify the task of the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other. What is important is that with respect to the analogical experience of the other, Husserl refers to the foundational relationship between the primordial sphere as “a layer of validity” and “the validity of the being of others”. Since the concept of “validity” plays an important role in the foundational relationship between the spheres in question, the relationship between them turns out to be that of a transtemporal validity-foundation. Thus, we can conclude that Husserl considers it the task of the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other to clarify the structure of the transtemporal validity-foundation of that experience. Let me clarify this point in more detail. As the scheme summarized at the end of section 4 above indicates, in my primordial sphere, 1) I experience my body as a mere body like other natural things, and at the same time, as a living body in which my transcendental subjectivity is living; 2) I experience the other body as a mere body like other natural things; 3) I experience a similarity of my body as a mere body with the body of the other as a mere body; and 4) on the basis of the similarity between them, I experience the body of the other as another living body in which the other transcendental subjectivity is living. Thus, as we have seen, there is a foundational relationship between 1), 2), 3), and 4). In the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other, the foundation between them is understood as a transtemporal validity-foundation. In order to understand the foundation between them in this way, we have to disregard their temporal aspect and clarify   Hua XV, 614–615.   Hua XV, 613.

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only the validity-foundation obtaining between them by focusing on the relationship of foundation between the more original, as what is experienced more clearly, and the less original, as what is experienced less clearly. I would like to point out that if we attempt to clarify the transtemporal validity-foundation between them, only the positing or doxic components of the intentionalities of experiences 1), 2), 3), and 4) become the topics of the analysis since they are the bearers of validity. In this respect, it should also be noted that the intentionalities of these four experiences do of course contain not only the positing component but also non-positing components such as feeling, willing, instincts, and drives. For example, the intentionality of my experience of the body of the other as a living body can have as one of its components the drive to know the other, or the social instinct to get acquainted with others. These non-positing components cannot be the topics of the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other since they are not the bearers of validity. (However, as we will see later, they can indeed be topics of the transcendental genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other.) What is of crucial importance is to note that the transtemporal validity-foundation between 1), 2), 3), and 4) is totally different from the temporal genetic foundation between them. Husserl is quite clear about this distinction: “When demonstrating the validity-foundation, it is not a question of the genesis of the higher sense of being, namely, as if the founded had been awakened from the founding in subjective-immanent temporality.”62 Here he emphasizes that the transtemporal validity-foundation should not be confused with the temporal process of the “awakening” or genesis of the founded from the founding in subjective-immanent temporality. He accordingly writes: “The meaning of others presupposes me, presupposes my body as a lived body, presupposes my physical holding sway, ‘having’ a lived body, lived-bodily perception, etc.,” and adds the following remark: “But ‘presuppose’ is not ‘come into being’!”63 Thus Husserl employs the concept of “presupposing” to designate the relationship at work in transtemporal validity-foundation and the concept of “coming into being” to designate the relationship at work in temporal genetic foundation. The transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other that attempts to clarify the transtemporal validity-foundation of this experience can be transformed into the phenomenology of the justification of the analogical experience of the other. Let us suppose that I have formed with my colleagues a belief that I have experienced a person as a transcendental subjectivity like me. In the next moment, however, I am not confident about my belief, and for this reason, I want to justify whether my belief is correct. In other words, the validity

  Hua XV, 615.   Hua XV, 616.

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of my experience of a person as a transcendental subjectivity is now something incomprehensible in need of justification. In this case, the first methodological step is to carry out the transcendental static primordial reduction, that is, to exclude the validity of the belief in question from the thematic area and to go back to the more original realm on the basis of which I can justify that validity. Since Husserl calls the primordial reduction the “second reduction”—namely, “that of dismantling the appresentations that cannot become my actual presentations”64—this methodical procedure can be called the static dismantling of the constitution of the other. The validity of the experience of the other is something that I share with my colleagues, so the exclusion of that validity means at the same time the exclusion of all the intentionalities through which I can be influenced by them. The main point of this exclusion is that, as an autonomous and responsible person, I should make the final decision concerning the validity of the positing of the existence of the other by myself, without uncritically accepting the opinion of other persons. Here the exclusion is necessary if I am truly to take responsibility for all the validity-claims that I make. Of course, I, as an autonomous and responsible person, might consult other persons concerning any validity-claim, but I should make the final decision by myself without relying on others or appealing to authority. Therefore, the exclusion in this context has nothing to do with solipsism. Not only I, but also all the other egos should do the same thing in order to become autonomous and responsible persons, and we all have the equal right and duty to make our own final decision. Through the methodical procedure of excluding the other, it is possible for me as a reflecting subject to secure the transcendental static primordial sphere as the foundation for the justification of the validity of the belief that the other is experienced by me as another transcendental subjectivity. After I go back to the transcendental static primordial sphere, clarifying the various kinds of intentionalities functioning within this sphere as the motivations for the justification of the initially incomprehensible validity of positing the existence of the other as a transcendental subjectivity, I can justify my belief through the four steps discussed above. More specifically, in my primordial nature, there is a thing that resembles my body as a mere body. In this case, due to the resemblance between the thing and my body as a mere body, I can justify taking it as a living body and as a transcendental subjectivity like me. Thus, the resemblance between my body and the body of the other turns out to be the validity-foundation on the ground of which I can justify that I am taking another body as a living body like mine, and further, that I am experiencing the other as a transcendental subjectivity like me.   Hua XV, 125.

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In a manuscript from the beginning of 1920s that was published as Appendix XXXI of the second volume of Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität,65 Husserl briefly addresses the issue of the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other as a phenomenology of justification, although without clarifying its structure in detail. Nevertheless, this manuscript is important since it shows that Husserl does indeed attempt to develop the theory of the analogical experience of the other as a transcendental static phenomenology of justification of this experience. As the phrase “the plurality of the subjects as the concretely absolute”66 indicates, he develops the theory of the analogical experience of the other as a transcendental theory. Moreover, as the phrase “or rather, we abstract from others”67 indicates, it is clear that he addresses the issue of the justification of the experience of the other in the general context of the issue of the primordial reduction. In my view, this shows that the primordial reduction that Husserl has in mind here is the transcendental static primordial reduction. As is well known, justification is the procedure to obtain “true knowledge”,68 and it is the same with the analogical experience of the other. Thus, Husserl writes: “If I have made myself fully aware of the possibility of such a justification, I can now also say in what sense the ‘true phenomenon’ of the other self has truth […].”69 In my view, then, when Husserl is dealing with the issue of the justification of the experience of the other as a transcendental subjectivity, what he implicitly has in mind is that the transcendental static primordial reduction is the very condition of the justification of the analogical experience of the other as a transcendental subjectivity, even though he does not clarify this point in a detailed manner. Since the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other is a phenomenology of the justification of the analogical experience of the other as a transcendental subjectivity, it can be called a normative phenomenology of the experience of the other as a transcendental subjectivity. It should be noted that the transcendental static primordial sphere plays the role of the norm with respect to which I can justify the validity of this experience. In this context, with respect to the experience of my own living body playing the role of the norm for the experience of the other body as a living body, Husserl makes the following claim: “My body in ‘inner experience’, in solipsistic [experience], is therefore the primal perception and gives the necessary norm. Everything else is a modification of this norm.”70

    67   68   69   70   65 66

Hua XIV, 272–278. Hua XIV, 272. Hua XIV, 273. Hua XIV, 273. Hua XIV, 274. Hua XIV, 126.

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Moreover, since the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other is a phenomenology of justification, it can be also called a methodological phenomenology that provides me with the method to discover all the many different kinds of truth related to the experience of others as transcendental subjectivities. And it is precisely the transcendental static primordial reduction that provides us with such a method. First of all, it provides me with the method to discover the other transcendental subjectivity as an individual subjectivity. But in addition, it provides me with the method to clarify the structure of transcendental intersubjectivity and of the intersubjective world as the latter’s noematic correlate. Husserl expresses this as follows: Only by starting from the [primordial] ego and the system of its transcendental functions and accomplishments can we methodically exhibit transcendental intersubjectivity and its transcendental communalization, through which, in the functioning system of egopoles, the “world for all”, and for each subject as world for all, is constituted.71

Finally, the transcendental static primordial reduction provides us with the method to realize the idea of phenomenology as a rigorous science, since phenomenological research is an intersubjective activity performed in a community of phenomenologists and each phenomenologist should be equipped with a radical methodological consciousness that can be gained through the transcendental static primordial reduction. As discussed above in chapter 2, Husserl summarizes the implications of such a radical methodological consciousness in this way: “The epochē creates a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy.”72 Let me conclude the discussion of the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity with the following four remarks. First, I have so far discussed the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other. This, however, is just one part of the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, which has various fields that go far beyond the scope of the theory I addressed. In his context, it should be noted that there are various ways by which we can experience the other besides the analogical experience of the other, and we can develop a transcendental static theory of the experience of the other that corresponds to each of these cases. Moreover, there are various topics of intersubjectivity that go beyond the scope of the experience of the other—for example, the topic of the constitution of the intersubjective world. Based on the exposition above, it should be clear that we can investigate such topics, including that of the constitution of the intersubjective world, by clarifying the structure of the transtemporal validity-foundation observable in each case.   Hua VI, 189; Husserl: Crisis, 185–186.   Ibid., 187–188; 184.

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Second, in addition to the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity that is developed in the transcendental attitude, there is another kind of static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, namely the natural static phenomenology of intersubjectivity that is developed in the natural attitude, and there is a parallelism between them: the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a deepened form of the natural static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and the latter, which is developed in the natural attitude, can be transformed into the former if we carry out the transcendental reduction. Since there is a parallelism between them, all the essential traits of the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity can be found in the natural static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but in a derivative form. For example, as shown above, the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other can be defined as a phenomenology of justification, a normative phenomenology, and a methodological phenomenology; the natural static theory of the analogical experience of the other can also be defined in this way, but in a derivative manner. In order to cope with the derivative character of this natural static theory, we need to carry out the transcendental reduction and develop the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other. Third, in the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, be it the transcendental or the natural static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, the I has an absolute priority over the other, since I experience myself more clearly than I experience the other. The absolute priority of the I over the other implies that the I that is experienced clearly plays the role of the absolute norm for the other that is not experienced as clearly as the former, as is well expressed in a passage we have already considered: “My body in ‘inner experience’, in solipsistic [experience], is therefore the primal perception and gives the necessary norm. Everything else is a modification of this norm.”73 As we will see later, in the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, the I cannot enjoy an absolute priority over the other, since there are many cases in which the I is dependent upon the other from the perspective of genetic foundation. Fourth, I would like to point out that not only the static phenomenology of the analogical experience of the other but also the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a whole is a phenomenology of justification, a normative phenomenology, and a methodological phenomenology, which is not something peculiar to Husserl’s phenomenology. Max Scheler also has a similar idea of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a static phenomenology, namely that of a “critique of knowledge” concerning the issue of intersubjectivity. As I have already mentioned earlier in this chapter and will discuss one more time in section 4 of chapter 4, Scheler makes a distinction between various problems concerning intersubjectivity, and one of them concerns the problem of “the cri  Hua XIV, 126.

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tique of knowledge”74 within the context of intersubjectivity, which Husserl in his own way would designate as the problem of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In my view, whether the critique of knowledge concerning the issue of intersubjectivity in Scheler is a transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity or a natural static phenomenology of intersubjectivity ought to be clarified. 6. The Genetic Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity I will now briefly clarify the basic idea of the theory of the analogical experience of the other as a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Corresponding to the distinction between the four different kinds of the genesis of empathy discussed above in section 4 of chapter 2, namely, 1) the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy, 2) the natural ideal genesis of empathy, 3) the transcendental pre-ideal genesis of empathy, and 4) the transcendental ideal genesis of empathy, the genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other as a kind of empathy can be developed in four different forms— namely, 1) the natural pre-ideal genetic theory, 2) the natural ideal genetic theory, 3) the transcendental pre-ideal genetic theory, and 4) the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other. In order to show the main characteristics of the genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other, I will discuss the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other as the counterpart of the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other discussed above. The task of the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other is to clarify the foundation—or the motivation—for the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other. The transcendental question about the motivation for the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other can be formulated as follows: what kinds of intentionalities motivate the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other? The transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other aims to explain the genetic motivations on the ground of which the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other is generated. In the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other, then, it is the transcendental ideal genesis, and not the validity, of the analogical experience of the other that is incomprehensible and in need of explanation. Due to this incomprehensibility, one should first exclude the experience in question from the thematic area and go back to the genetically more original  Scheler: Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, 212; Scheler: The Nature of Sympathy, 216.

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realm that makes possible the transcendental ideal genesis (not the validity) of the analogical experience of the other. In this case, the more original realm is called the primordial sphere, since the transcendendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other cannot take place without this sphere serving as its genetic foundation. It is nothing other than the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere discussed above in chaper 2. After we go back to the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere, we have to clarify all the different kinds of intentionalities that can play the role of a foundation of the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other. Let me clarify this point in more detail. First, let us review the experiences we have been working with. In the transcendental ideal primordial sphere, 1) I experience my body as a mere body like other natural things and at the same time, as a living body in which my transcendental subjectivity is living; 2) I experience the other body as a mere body like other natural things; 3) I experience a similarity of my body as a mere body with the body of the other as a mere body; and 4) on the basis of the similarity between them, I experience the body of the other as another living body in which the other transcendental subjectivity is living. In the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the experience of the other, the foundation between 1), 2), 3), and 4) is understood in terms of temporal genetic foundation. For this reason, in the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other, we take these experiences into account as they are displayed in the process of the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other, and we clarify the structure of the temporal genetic foundation obtaining between them. In this context, what temporal genetic foundation concretely means is the foundation of the genetically less original, as what is coming later, through the genetically more original as what comes earlier in the temporal order of inner time-consciousness. Thus, the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other is different from the transcendental static theory of the same experience. The distinction between them has its origin in the distinction between the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere and the transcendental static primordial sphere. As already indicated, the transcendental static primordial sphere is the sphere for which I have to take responsibility, and in this sense, it is a realm with “a unique sort of philosophical solitude” that is devoid of intersubjective connection. And the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere too can be designated as a realm with “a unique sort of philosophical solitude”, but, if we pay attention to the process of its genesis, we realize that it cannot be devoid of intersubjective connection with other transcendental subjectivities. As discussed above in chapter 2, contrary to the transcendental static primordial sphere, the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere is a sphere in which I as a transcendental subjectivity and the other transcendental subjec-

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tivities that have influenced me up until now dwell together and I cannot have a priority over them. This is the reason why, from the perspective of transcendental ideal genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, nobody can carry out the analogical experience of the other without the help of other transcendental subjectivities that have influenced me up until now. In this sense, subjectivity is always intersubjectivity75, as Husserl puts this quite strongly in a manuscript from 1931: Nothing absolute can be free from a universal coexistence, it is a non-sense that something is and at the same time does not stand in connection with any other thing, it is a non-sense that it is alone. Not only am I no solus ipse, nothing absolute that we could think about is solus ipse. It is absolutely a non-sense.76

Thus, he can also state the following: “I cannot be what I am without the others who are for me; these others cannot be without me. The intentional being of being implicated is the necessity of the transcendental coexistence.”77 It is the task of the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other to clarify all the factors found in the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere that play the role of a foundation for the transcendentl ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other. Many factors must be clarified, such as objectifying acts as well as non-objectifying acts such as feeling, willing, instincts, and drives. In this respect, it should be noted that, as we have seen, each of the four experiences related to the analogical experience of the other discussed above contains not only positing components but also non-positing components such as feeling, willing, instincts, and drives. Among these, only the positing components are analyzed in the transcendental static theory of the analogical experience of the other. In contrast, however, in the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other, not only the positing components but also all the non-positing components are analyzed since they are also involved in the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other. Moreover, there are many other factors that should be clarified in this respect. For example, one has to clarify the historical aspect of the transcendental ideal genetic primordial sphere since this sphere is itself a historical product. This implies that from the perspective of genetic phenomenology, the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other always takes place within a historical tradition. For this reason, the way the transcendental ideal genesis of the analogical experience of the other takes place in an individual varies according to historical tradition, a theme we will consider in chapter 4.   Cf. Zahavi, Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität, 53–70.   Hua XV, 371. 77   Hua XV, 370. 75 76

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So far, I have tried to sketch out the main characteristics of the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the analogical experience of the other. Up until now, we have discussed only the simplest type of experience of the other, that is, when a person experiences another person through direct contact without any linguistic communication. It should be noted, however, that there are abundant possibilities of developing a transcendental ideal genetic theory of the experience of the other in a way that goes far beyond the scope of what has been discussed so far, since there are various other types of the experience of the other than the type of experience of the other discussed so far. Moreover, there are abundant possibilities to develop the genetic theory of the experience of the other that goes far beyond the scope of the transcendental ideal genetic theory of the experience of the other. In this context, we need to recall that the transcendental ideal genesis of empathy is only one kind of genesis of empathy, and there are other kinds of geneses of empathy, such as the transcendental pre-ideal genesis of empathy, the natural ideal genesis of empathy, and the natural pre-ideal genesis of empathy. Correspondingly, we can develop different genetic theories of empathy that were not addressed in this section, such as the transcendental pre-ideal genetic theory, the natural ideal genetic theory, and the natural pre-ideal genetic theory of empathy. In fact, in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl addresses some issues within the genetic theory of empathy that go beyond the scope of the transcendental ideal genetic theory of empathy, such as the issues of the natural genetic theory of empathy. Let me give two examples. An example is a passage where, discussing “‘pairing’ as an associatively constitutive component of my experience of someone else”,78 Husserl mentions a way of experiencing the other in which my primordial ego, as the terminus a quo of the pairing, is not the primordial transcendendental subjectivity, but “the primordial psychophysical Ego”79. This type of experience is one of the topics of the natural genetic theory of empathy, since “the primordial psychophysical Ego” is an ego that is experienced in the natural attitude. Another example is a passage where Husserl addresses the issue of the genesis of the first experience of empathy in childhood performed within the natural attitude. In this context, he first writes about the genetic process of the constitution of the habitual apperception of a physical thing as follows: “The child who already sees physical things understands, let us say, for the first time the final sense of scissors; and from now on he sees scissors at the first glance as scissors […].”80 Thereafter he addresses the issue of the initial empathy that takes place at some point in childhood as follows:   Hua I, 141; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 112.   Ibid., 143; 113. 80   Ibid., 141; 111. 78 79

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Ultimately we always get back to the radical differentiation of apperceptions into those that, according to their genesis, belong purely to the primordial sphere and those that present themselves with the sense “alter ego” and, upon this sense, have built a new one thanks to a genesis at a higher level.81

What is at stake here is thus the issue that Husserl attempts to clarify in the manuscript that was published as Appendix XLV in volume III of Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität under the title: “The Child. The First Empathy”82. So far, we have observed how vast the field of the genetic theory of empathy is. It should be noted, however, that the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not confined to the genetic theory of empathy. In fact, there are various fields of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that go beyond the scope of the genetic theory of empathy. A typical example is the genetic phenomenology of the constitution of society. In the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl attempts to clarify the genetic constitution of “the community, developing at various levels, which is produced forthwith by virtue of experiencing someone else”.83 Among the various kinds of society, the most simple one is “the community between me, the primordial psychophysical Ego governing in and by means of my primordial organism, and the appresentatively experienced Other; then, considered more concretely and radically, between my monadic ego and his”.84 With respect to the genetic constitution of society, Husserl addresses the issue of the “social acts by means of which all human personal communication is established”.85 It should be noted, however, that the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation is only rudimentary; I will discuss the issues of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity more fully in chapter 4. 7. The Metaphysical Problem of Intersubjectivity In Ideas I, Husserl writes as follows with respect to the essential character of his phenomenology: “If ‘positivism’ is tantamount to an absolutely unprejudiced grounding of all sciences on the ‘positive’, that is to say, on what can be seized upon originaliter, then we are the genuine positivists.”86 Due to the “positivistic” character that Husserl attributes to his phenomenology, one might get the impression that his phenomenology is not simply anti-metaphysical,  Ibid.   Hua XV, 604–608. 83   Hua I, 149; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 120. 84  Ibid. 85   Ibid., 159; 132. 86   Hua III/1, 45; Husserl: Ideas I, 39. 81 82

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but has nothing to do with metaphysics. However, in this context it should be mentioned that phenomenology excludes only the groundless metaphysics of the past, and not metaphysics in general. Needless to say, it is one of the most important tasks of phenomenology to deal properly with such metaphysical problems as the problem of being-in-itself, the facticity of transcendental life, death, the fate, and the history or teleology of transcendental genesis. In his later phenomenology, Husserl grapples with metaphysical problems with increasing intensity and attempts to found a true metaphysics in which transcendental phenomenology would function as a so-called springboard to a true metaphysics that Husserl calls a “transcendental-phenomenologically founded metaphysics”87 or “a transcendental ‘metaphysics’”.88 It is an important task of Husserl’s phenomenology to rebuild a true metaphysics in place of the traditional metaphysics that has been decapitated by the physicalistic positivism of the 20th century. Phenomenological metaphysics can be called the high point of transcendental phenomenology. And according to “The Plan of ‘the System of Phenomenological Philosophy’ of Edmund Husserl”89 sketched by Eugen Fink in collaboration with Husserl in 1931, it is precisely for this reason that “The Outlines of a Phenomenological Metaphysics” should be the final step of a pure phenomenology. Below, confining my discussion to the problem of transcendental idealism, I would like to offer a brief sketch of some metaphysical problems of intersubjectivity. In Ideas I, formulating the basic thesis of transcendental-phenomenological idealism, Husserl tells us that the transcendental ego “nulla ‘re’ indiget ad existendum” (“that the transcendental ego, in order to exist, needs ‘nothing’”).90 According to this thesis, then, as the first being-in-itself, the transcendental ego is the ground of the being of the constituted world and needs “nothing” for its existence, that is, it needs neither the world nor the things in it. At the beginning stage of static phenomenological analysis, the transcendental ego is conceived as a quasi-solipsistic ego. A testimony to this fact is “the illusion of solipsism”91 which will be discussed in more detail below. However, through further phenomenological analyses, both static and genetic, it can be revealed that there is no solipsistic ego. Corresponding to this discovery, the basic thesis of transcendental-phenomenological idealism should be reformulated as follows: “The intrinsically first being, the being that precedes and bears every worldly Objectivity, is transcendental intersubjectivity: the universe of monads, which effects its communion in various forms.”92     89   90   91   92   87 88

See Edmund Husserl: Manuscript B II 2, 23. Hua I, 171; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 144. Hua XV, xxxvi. Hua III/1, 104; Husserl: Ideas I, 110. Hua I, 176; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 150, translation altered. Ibid., 182; 156.

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With the reformulation of the basic thesis of transcendental-phenomenological idealism in his later phenomenology, Husserl attempts to deepen and broaden the idea of the totality of monads. For example, the totality of transcendental monads is conceived as including not only the monads of human beings, but also those of animals,93 plants, and even inorganic nature.94 The deepening and broadening of the idea of the totality of monads has thus revealed various new aspects of transcendental-phenomenological idealism. But at the same time, various metaphysical problems concerning intersubjectivity have also emerged, such as the following: 1) What is the relationship among the totality of monads, the individual monads, and their constituted worlds? 2) Are the totality of monads and the individual monads mortal or immortal? 3) Is there a historicity or a teleology of the individual monads and of the totality of these monads? 4) Is there God as the creator and preserver of the totality of monads? 8. Buberian Criticism of Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity Reassessed In his criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Theunissen overlooks the fact that Husserl deals not with one but with several problems of intersubjectivity that should be clearly distinguished from one another. For example, Theunissen writes: “Husserl is interested in intersubjectivity simply in connection with the question concerning subjectivity and the world constitut  For discussions of the animal monad, see Natalie Depraz: “Y-a-t-il une animalité transcendantale?”. In: Alter 3, 1994, 81–115; Robert D. Sweeney: “Nature and life in the later Husserl: Instinct and passivity”. In: Analecta Husserliana 68, 2000, 287–297. 94   In a later manuscript, Husserl refers to “the endlessness of the layers of the animate monads, of the monad of the animal, of the pre-animal” (Hua XV, 595). With respect to the monad of inorganic nature, he writes as follows: “Nature prior to all organisms. ‘Nature before consciousness arises’ then means reality prior to any kind of ‘awakened’ consciousness, prior to any appearance of nature in actual monads. It means that all the monads were in the state of sleep, in the state of ‘involution’” (Husserl: Manuscript B II 2, 14). The German original runs as follows: “Natur vor allen Organismen. ‘Natur vor dem Auftreten des Bewußtseins’ besagt dann Wirklichkeit vor allem ‘wachen’ Bewußtsein, vor aller Natur-Erscheinung innerhalb der wirklichen Monaden. Es besagt, daß alle Monaden im Schlummerzustande, in dem der ‘Involution’ sich befanden.” I have dealt with the issue of the monad of inorganic nature in Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 225–230. 93

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ed in it.”95 From this statement, it is obvious that Theunissen has made certain assumptions about the essential character of Husserl’s phenomenology. For example, he assumes that for Husserl, who is interested only in the transcendental-phenomenological problem of intersubjectivity, it would be impossible in principle to deal with the problems of intersubjectivity brought to light by the dialogical-philosophical destruction of the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality. Furthermore, by ignoring the distinction between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, he assumes that there is only one form of transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. But due to these assumptions, which arise from the lack of a clear distinction among the various problems of intersubjectivity, his criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity are wide of the mark. This matter will be discussed in more detail below. Theunissen’s criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology as a solipsism overlook the distinction between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. This confusion does not allow him a full grasp of the true meaning of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As already mentioned, the task of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity consists in the clarification of the foundation for the justification of the validity of the positing that the other is experienced by me as the other person. In order to fulfill this task, I must go back to my primordial sphere, a sphere that can function as the foundation for the justification of that validity. Since this primordial sphere is a realm that is valid only for me, this methodical procedure might give the impression that Husserl’s phenomenology is indeed a solipsistic one that ignores the intersubjective dimension. Husserl even openly admits that his static phenomenology of intersubjectivity may cause “the illusion of solipsism”.96 However, this illusion is only the result of the fact that in order to be responsible for all my validity-claims, I should exclude the influence of other subjects and go back to the static primordial sphere that is valid only for me. It should be noted that this imperative of static phenomenology holds not only for me but also for everybody who has to justify any kind of validity-claim, and for this reason is able to build or take part in a research community. Not only I, but all other egos must undergo the same rigorous process of becoming an autonomous and responsible subject. They all have the equal right in making an autonomous decision, which Husserl poignantly described: On the contrary […], in the sense of a community of men and in that of man who, even as solitary, has the sense: member of a community there is implicit a mutual being for one another, which entails an Objectivating equalization of my existence with that of all others consequently: I or anyone else, as a man among other men. If, with my understanding  Theunissen: Der Andere, 257; Theunissen: The Other, 269.   Hua I, 176; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 150, translation altered.

95 96

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of someone else, I penetrate more deeply into him, into his horizon of ownness, I shall soon run into the fact that, just as his animate living body lies in my field of perception, so my living body lies in his field of perception and that, in general, he experiences me forthwith as an Other for him, just as I experience him as my Other.97

Solipsism claims that only one particular subjectivity—mine—is the ultimate ground of all justification. However, Husserl’s call to radical self-responsibility is not an invitation simply to treat myself as the exclusive ground of all validity, but rather to enter a community of other self-responsible individuals who are each granted the same right to claim validity.98 As such, the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity does not imply that Husserl’s transcendental ego must be a solipsistic one that has no desire for society and whose absoluteness is something asocial. Furthermore, it should be noted that in the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, it is impossible for us even to have the illusion of solipsism. In other words, the illusion of solipsism has no place at all in the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As we have seen, the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity reveals that the genetic primordial sphere is always already intersubjectively structured, as discussed above in chapter 2. For this reason, any transcendental ego is influenced by other transcendental egos and at the same time has an influence on others. Thus, from the standpoint of a genetic phenomenology, there cannot be a pure solipsistic ego: the existence of the social intentionalities that incessantly operate in the process of genetic constitution means that every transcendental subjectivity has various kinds of desire for other egos and for society. In this respect, in an unpublished manuscript, Husserl depicts the genetic constitution of the life-world as follows: However, as we already know, it is constituted as a world for the We of this ego, as a world that has human beings within it and at the same time is world for them. […] In his primitive instinct, every individual ego bears this entire development within himself not as his own solipsistic development, but as a development of humanity, as the development of the total transcendental community, that of transcendental subjects. Thus, the ego implicitly bears within himself all the others he can encounter along with all their achievements, the whole world as humanized, as a cultural world.99

Hence neither the static nor the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity can be determined as a solipsism, and it is not the aim of the Fifth Cartesian   Ibid., 157–158; 129–130.   I agree with Shigeru Taguchi, who claims that “The assumption that the doctrine of the primal ego [das Ur-Ich] is incompatible with the ‘equal origin’ of all transcendental egos is actually inappropriate. Husserl does not in the least doubt that we are all equally original I […].” (Taguchi: Das Problem des ‘Ur-Ich’ bei Edmund Husserl, 124.) 99   Edmund Husserl: Manuscript A VI 34, 37. The German original runs as follows: “Das geschieht aber, wie wir schon wissen, als Welt für das Wir dieses Ich, als Welt, die Menschen in sich hat und zugleich Welt für diese Menschen ist. […] In seinem Urinstinkt trägt jedes einzelne Sub97 98

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Meditation to solve the problem of solipsism. As David Carr correctly points out, “Husserl is not at all concerned with the problem of solipsism in any traditional sense”.100 The criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a solipsism has partly been caused by the fact that Husserl did not make a clear distinction between the static and genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Moreover, I believe that Husserl was fully conscious of this fact. In this context, he tells us that “if one has grasped the essential meaning of my description, one would have raised the objection of solipsism not as an objection against phenomenological idealism, but only as an objection against the imperfect character of my description”.101 Now I would like to focus on Theunissen’s destructive criticism of Husserl’s transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality. Theunissen’s criticism results from his lacking a clear distinction among the various problems of intersubjectivity. His criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity— namely, that it can deal only with the sphere of the It but is unable to touch upon the sphere of the Thou—results from confusing the ontological with the transcendental-phenomenological problem of intersubjectivity. The other as an It as well as a Thou is a fact that can be given to us in the natural attitude, and it is the task of the phenomenological ontology of intersubjectivity to clarify the essential structure of the other as an It as well as the other as a Thou. Without qualification, phenomenology admits that according to the way I interact with the other, I can indeed experience her/him either as an It or as a Thou. Phenomenology is not, as Theunissen insists, a philosophy that is governed by the will to rule and therefore admits the other only as an It. Like Buber, Husserl acknowledges that in the dialogical sphere that stands for the immediacy between persons, the other can appear to us as a Thou. In this sense, he writes: Thereby the other souls appear to me in a totally different way as things. Things appear to me as mere objects, the souls appear to me as persons who address me or whom I address, as those I love or those who love me. I don’t live isolated—I live, with them, a common and united life.102

In fact, in a later manuscript from the 1930s, Husserl does attempt to analyze the “I-Thou community”.103 And it is of course an important task of an ontological phenomenology of the other properly to determine the concept of the jekt diese ganze Entwicklung als nicht seine solipsistische, sondern als Menschheitsentwicklung— als Entwicklung der transzendentalen Allgemeinschaft, der der transzendentalen Subjekte—in sich, also, er trägt ‘implizite’ alle andere, die ihm entgegentreten können, und alle ihre Leistungen, die gesamte Welt als humanisierte, als Kulturwelt in sich.” 100   David Carr: “The ‘Fifth Meditation’ and Husserl’s Cartesianism”. In: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 34(1), 1973, 14–35, here: 15. 101   Hua V, 151, my translation. 102   Hua XIII, 92. 103   Hua XV, 476.

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“immediacy” that Theunissen speaks of in characterizing the experience of the other as a Thou. Since the other as an It or as a Thou has an ontological structure, it is definitely possible to carry out a transcendental-philosophical investigation concerning her/him. And this can be done not only in a static but in a genetic way. Here the other as an It or as a Thou can provide us the transcendental clue with respect to which we can inquire into the condition of the possibility for its constitution. Through this kind of investigation, it would be possible for us to reveal various kinds of intentionality that function as the motivations for the experience of the other as an It or as a Thou. Moreover, we can carry out a transcendental investigation not only of the Thou in an improper sense but also of the Thou in a proper sense, as well as of the Thou as a Mystery or God. Needless to say, in this context, intentionality as the motivation for the experience of the other in various forms should not be identified with the will to rule as Theunissen believes.104 Of course, the will to rule is a kind of intentionality, but there are many other forms of intentionality that cannot be categorized as a will to rule. An example is the vague feeling (Ahnung) with which I meet the Eternal Thou or God as a Mystery. This would be a kind of intentionality in the broader sense. In this context, it should be noted that in Husserl’s later phenomenology, the concept of intentionality he relied on in the Logical Investigations and Ideas I—namely, as the property of referring to something objective, a property that can be found in numerous experiences—has been modified in great measure.105 The revised concept of intentionality includes not only active intentionality, but also passive intentionality, horizonal intentionality, the intentionality of world-consciousness, the intentionality of mood, and the intentionality of instincts and drives. In the destruction of the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality that enabled Theunissen’s gradual discovery of three kinds of the Thou, he assumes both that phenomenological research is confined to the sphere of the It and that it is therefore unable in principle to clarify the structure of the Thou in the above three senses. Contrary to this assumption, however, it has been shown above that the Thou in these three senses can indeed be the theme of the phenomenological ontology of the other as well as of the transcendental phenomenology of the other. In this context, I would like to emphasize that the individual Thou in a proper sense and the Eternal Thou or God as a Mystery are important themes of the phenomenological metaphysics of the other. It should also be noted that as the ground that bears the constituted world, the totality   Although Theunissen identifies Husserlian intentionality with the will to rule others, Husserl himself does not at all identify intentionality with the will to rule others. For him, there are various other kinds of intentionality that do not fall under the category of the will to rule others. 105   I have dealt with this problem in Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 31–37. 104

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of constituting transcendental subjectivities functioning as a “transcendental over-world” (transzendentale Überwelt)106 can be characterized as a world that is not yet objectified, and for this reason, it can be defined as nothing. Husserl’s transcendental subjectivity accordingly turns out to be something that is similar to Theunissen’s individual Thou in a proper sense, although Husserl never uses the term “Thou” in this connection. Furthermore, in Husserl’s phenomenology, the idea of the totality of monads is closely related to the idea of God. For Husserl, God means the ultimate ground of the being of the totality of monads and corresponds to Buber’s Eternal Thou. Thus, the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity culminates in a theology, as does Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. In this sense, Husserl characterizes transcendental phenomenology as “a way to God without confession of faith”.107 The process of the gradual development first of the ontology of intersubjectivity, then of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and finally of its metaphysics formally corresponds to the process of Theunissen’s destruction of the transcendental-philosophical model of intentionality. Deepening the transcendental phenomenology of the other into its metaphysics, Husserl also attempts to carry out a destruction of the model of intentionality developed in the Logical Investigations and Ideas I, a destruction similar to what the philosophy of dialogue itself attempts.

  Hua XV, 591.   Edmund Husserl: Manuscript E III 10, 18.

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Chapter 4 Genetic Phenomenology and Problems of Intersubjectivity I have so far touched on some issues regarding the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, such as the genetic primordial sphere in chapters 2–3 and the genetic structure of the analogical experience of the other in chapter 3. In chapter 4, I will further continue to explore the different fields of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity with the following three aims. First, it aims to sketch out the various fields of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. If we take a look at Husserl’s works on intersubjectivity, we realize that he discusses various issues pertaining to genetic phenomenology. However, Husserl’s reflections on the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity are scattered throughout his works and manuscripts, and he did not integrate them all into a single, comprehensive exposition. I will accordingly address some of the important passages dealing with the issue of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity in order to sketch out the various fields of a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that Husserl developed. Second, chapter 4 aims to clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the different accounts of intersubjectivity developed by subsequent phenomenologists/philosophers such as Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Schutz, and Jürgen Habermas. In my discussion of this relationship, I focus first of all on Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but also take into account the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity discussed in chapters 2–3. The correct understanding of the relationship between them is an aim that should be pursued for its own sake, but it has the additional merit of making it possible better to understand both Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the subsequent work on this theme by others. Third, chapter 4 aims to refute some criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity that are related to the issue of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In this context it should be noted that after the publication of the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity was criticized by many scholars, as already indicated in chapters 2–3. The critics of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity are, first of all, phenomenologists after Husserl such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Alfred Schutz, etc., but there are also some critics who are not classified as phenomenologists—for example, Jürgen Habermas, who criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the context of developing his own theory of communicative action,1 and William M. O’Meara, who criticizes Hus  Jürgen Habermas: Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns.

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serl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity from the position of George Herbert Mead and Karl Marx2. Of course, with some other phenomenologists such as Max Scheler or Maurice Merleau-Ponty, it is not entirely clear if they are criticizing Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but there are certainly some scholars who claim that this is the case. In the end, however, it is one of the aims of chapter 4 to show how such criticisms are ultimately invalid by sketching out the various fields of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that Husserl developed in his various works and manuscripts. With respect to the third aim of chapter 4, I would like to add that for many of the critics of Husserl’s phenomenology, their criticism of his phenomenology of intersubjectivity functions as a springboard from which they can develop their own philosophical positions. This is the reason why many of them would consider their philosophical positions to be superior to Husserl’s account, and indeed, to go far beyond the scope of Husserl’s phenomenology. But if their criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity are problematic, we have to ask whether they have really developed philosophical positions that go beyond Husserl’s phenomenology. In this respect, I show that Husserl has actually paved the way to the various philosophical positions they have developed and that there are similarities between Husserl’s positions and their own positions. For this reason, we need to promote a dialogue between Husserl and his critics, a dialogue from which both Husserl and his critics can profit. Before beginning my discussion, however, I would like to make a remark. The genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity encompasses a wide array of problems, and it is impossible to cover all of them extensively within the limits of this chapter. It is not a coincidence that there is no study that investigates systematically all the different fields of the genetic phenomenology developed by Husserl, though there are many important studies on it3. Moreover, there Frankfurt am Main 1986, 11 ff.; Jürgen Habermas: On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction. Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action. Translated from German by Barbara Fultner. Cambridge, MA. 2001, 3 ff. 2   William M. O’Meara: “The social nature of self and morality for Husserl, Schutz, Marx, and Mead”. In: Philosophy Research Archives 12, 1986/1987, 329–355. 3   For example, Held: “Das Problem der Intersubjektivität und die Idee einer phänomenologischen Transzendentalphilosophie”; Yamaguchi: Passive Synthesis und Intersubjektivität bei Edmund Husserl; Gail Soffer: “The Other as Alter Ego: A Genetic Approach”. In: Husserl Studies 15(3), 1998, 151–166; Sakakibara: “Struktur und Genesis der Fremderfahrung bei Edmund Husserl”; Rosemary R. P. Lerner: “Thinking of Difference and Otherness from a Husserlian Perspective”. In: Thomas Nenon, Philip Blosser (Eds.), Advancing Phenomenology: Essays in Honor of Lester Embree. Dordrecht 2010, 157–172; Alexander Schnell: “Intersubjectivity in Husserl’s Work”. In: META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy 2(1), 2010, 9–32; Bower: “Developing open intersubjectivity”; Eduard Marbach: “On Husserl’s Genetic Method of Constitutive Deconstruction and It’s Application in Act of modified Empathy into Children”. In: Frode Kjosavik, Christian Beyer, Christel Fricke (Eds.): Husserl’s Phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 142–159.

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are various ways to address these problems corresponding to the interests of the researchers. In this respect, Rosemary R. P. Lerner writes as follows: Be it as it may, the Husserlian theory of intersubjectivity should be considered not only with the Fifth Meditation and posthumous texts in view, but also as a multi-stratified theory whereby the strata are only intelligible in relation to each other. To be sure, several interpretations of such a multi-stratified theory are possible, for Husserl was never able to systematize it.4

Thus, we will only be examining those issues that are most relevant to our present purposes. The discussion in this chapter will be carried out as follows. Sections 1-3 develop a unified account of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as found throughout his works and manuscripts, beginning with its most fundamental problems. Based on this account, sections 4–8 clarify the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the various kinds of phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity developed by Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Schutz, and Jürgen Habermas. Section 9 addresses the widespread criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as Cartesianism, and section 10 identifies some future tasks concerning phenomenological dialogue on intersubjectivity between Husserl and subsequent phenomenologists/philosophers. 1. Clarification of the Genetic Process of Operation of the Habitual System of the Experience of the Other The most basic issue that must be clarified in the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity is how the habitual system of the experience of the other that has been formed in the past operates in the present. We have discussed this issue in chapter 3 under the title of the genetic theory of the experience of the other. Our attempt to clarify the genesis of the experience of the other with respect to its condition of possibility can be seen as an attempt to clarify the process by which this habitual system operates. The genetic theory of the experience of the other developed in chapter 3 has several limitations. For example, even though there are various types of the experience of the other, we have discussed only the analogical experience of the other as the simplest type of experience of the other, that is, when a single person experiences another single person through direct contact but without any linguistic communication. We can find numerous examples in everyday life   Lerner: “Thinking of difference and otherness from a Husserlian perspective”, 161. For her own interpretation of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, see ibid., 161 ff. 4

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situations, such as when a mother tries to understand her baby’s mental state before it has developed speech, or when we try to understand a local in a foreign country whose language we do not know. Husserl uses these examples as the primary models for his theory of the experience of the other in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. It is just in this context that Staehler claims the following: What is clarified in CM is not the Other in all dimensions, but the most basic and, in that sense, most abstract level of the Other. Further aspects of the Other that involve linguistic communication rather than empathy are investigated by Husserl in different texts and manuscripts (cf. esp. Hua XIII–XV and XXIX).5

Thus, the genetic theory of the experience of the other discussed in chapter 3 only offers a rudimentary account of the genesis of the experience of the other. I will try to make the account more concrete by taking the following three steps. 1.1 Non-Objectifying Intentionalities as Genetic-Phenomenological Motivations of the Analogical Experience of the Other Let us review once again the model we have been using in order to clarify the genesis of the analogical experience of the other. In my primordial sphere, 1) I have an experience of my body as a mere body like other natural things, and at the same time, as a living body in which my transcendental subjectivity is living; 2) I have an experience of the other body as a mere body like the other natural things; 3) I have an experience of the similarity of my body as a mere body with the body of the other as a mere body; and 4) the similarity between them makes possible the genesis of my experience of the body of the other as another living body in which the other transcendental subjectivity is living. Thus, I have three experiences that serve as genetic motivations for the analogical experience of the other, and they are all considered to be objectifying acts. Yet if we look at the specific genetic context in which the analogical experience of the other arises, it turns out that this experience rarely depends on just these objectifying acts. In reality, it can be motivated not merely through objectifying acts but also through non-objectifying acts, including feeling, willing, interest, drives, and instincts. Thus, in order to found the genetic theory of the experience of the other, we have to clarify how these non-objectifying acts can motivate the genesis of the experience of the other. Let us take the example of the will and clarify how it can serve as a genetic motivation for the experience of the other. We cannot deny the fact that there are cases of experiencing the other that need the will as a motivation. In order to understand this fact, we must keep in mind that as the objects of the experience of the other, the mental states   Staehler: “What is the Question?”, 104.

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of the other can be of many different types, including sensation, perception, judgment, feeling, mood, volition, instinct, primal urges, and many others. Correspondingly, there are various kinds of experience of the other. However, it should be noted that there is a difference in the way in which the ego grasps each of these various mental states in others, some of which are relatively easy to grasp while others are not. For example, mental states such as sensation or sensational feelings that are closely connected to the body can be experienced relatively easily by the ego, whereas mental states such as judging, imagining, or inferring that are not as closely connected to the body cannot be experienced as easily. In the former types of cases, we can grasp them without any special conscious effort. For instance, when we see somebody else wounded, we can immediately grasp that the person is in pain and we do so in an automatic manner since there is an overt link between the wound and the other’s mental state of pain. However, when there is no such obvious link between the bodily and mental states, or when the mental states at hand are complex, we require the will as a conscious effort to grasp their true mental state. A cultural anthropologist in a foreign country, for example, may be trying to understand the motivations of a person whose actions are not immediately comprehensible, or a mother who does not know why her infant is crying may be trying to find out why. In such cases, if there is no will as a conscious effort to grasp the true mental state of the other, a genuine experience of the other cannot arise, and for this reason, the will can be called the motivation for the genesis of the experience of the other. Furthermore, the will that operates in this way has its own genetic-phenomenological foundation in certain kinds of “instinct-intention” (Instinktintention)6 or “drive-intentionality” (Triebintentionalität)7 or desire. For instance, in the case of the cultural anthropologist trying to understand a person from another culture, her/his will to understand the person has its genetic-phenomenological foundation in the instinct of curiosity, while for the mother, it is her maternal instinct that operates as the genetic-phenomenological foundation of her will to understand the mental state of her child. Thus, we can see that instinct and desire can indeed serve as the genetic foundation of our experience of the other, regardless of the particular form. In order to clarify the genetic foundation of the various kinds of experiences of the other, we accordingly need to make a systematic analysis of the structure of the various kinds of instinct and desire functioning as genetic foundations of various kinds of the will to have such an experience. And Husserl does in fact carry out an analysis of the various kinds of instinct functioning in this way. For example, in a later manuscript from the 1930s, analyzing the sexual drive as the genetic-phenomenological   Edmund Husserl: Manuscript B I 21, 1   Hua XV, 594.

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foundation of the will to have an experience of a person of the opposite sex, he writes as follows: The internal aspect of generation. Drive toward the opposite sex. The drive in one individual and the reciprocal drive in the other. The drive can be in the stage of indeterminate hunger, which does not yet carry its object within itself as that toward which it is directed. Hunger in the ordinary sense is more determinate when it instinctively goes toward food—determinately directed in the primal mode […]. In the case of sexual hunger in a certain direction toward its affecting, inciting goal, this goal is the other. This determinate sexual hunger has the form of fulfillment in the mode of copulation. The relationship to the other as another, and to its correlative drive, lies in the drive itself. One or the other drive can have the mode—a modified mode—of abstention, reluctance. In the primal mode it is precisely the “unrestrained”, unmodalized drive that reaches into the other […].8

Nevertheless, at its heart, the act of the will as the genetic foundation of the experience of the other is an act of “trying to accomplish something”. This act describes the initial stage in which the will strives toward some object but has not yet achieved its aim, so the subject undergoing such an act experiences a certain kind of discontent. To escape this unfulfilled state, the subject works hard to achieve the goal, becoming satisfied once the goal has been reached. However, what enables the subject to make the transition from dissatisfaction to satisfaction is a variety of practical actions, and these practical actions are carried out through the body. Without these practical actions, we cannot experience others. To return to our previous examples, the cultural anthropologist must undergo a great deal of practical activity to understand an aboriginal person, and the mother must put great effort into understanding her crying child, attempting to soothe it by intervening in this or that manner. In these examples we can clearly see the connection between our experience of the other and our practical actions. Thus, the will can only operate through practical actions, and such actions themselves depend on the agency of the body. We must note that the body of which we speak here is not simply one of the many other objects (whether purely physical or biological) constituted in the world for me, but rather the very means through which we can constitute the world. In German, this distinction is captured by the words “Körper” and “Leib”, with the former referring to the material body and the latter to the living body of the embodied person.9 With Merleau-Ponty, we can designate Leib as “one’s own body” (le corps propre).10 The main point, however, is that without the various functions of the body, no will can be in actual operation, and there can accordingly be no experience of the other—suggesting that the act of experiencing others is itself a bodily act.   Hua XV, 593–594.   Hua IV, 143 ff.; Husserl, Ideas II, 151 ff. 10   See, e. g., Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Phenomenology of Perception. Translated from French by Colin Smith. New York 2002, 112 ff.  8  9

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We have so far clarified that the analogical experience of the other has as its genetic motivations not only objectifying acts, but also non-objectifying acts such as will, along with instinct, desire, and practical action. There are many other non-objectifying acts aside from these (acts such as feeling or interest) that the genetic phenomenology of the analogical experience of the other presented in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation does not address as genetic foundations of the experience of the other. Thus, our ongoing task is to carry out a concrete analysis of such acts as a part of the theory of the analogical experience of the other. 1.2 The Experience of the World as the Genetic Foundation of the Experience of the Other The experience of the other occurs on the basis of the genetic primordial sphere. From the perspective of temporal genetic foundation, there is a close connection between the latter and the world, as discussed above in chapter 2. For this reason, the genesis of the experience of the other that is carried out on the basis of the genetic primordial sphere is inevitably determined by the characteristics of the world as given to the ego that performs the act of the experience of the other. Accordingly, to clarify the genetic foundation of the experience of the other, we must clarify the structure of the world. And this is why Husserl himself often sought to analyze the constitution of the world while attempting to analyze the problem of intersubjectivity, as seen in works such as the third volume of Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität (Hua XV) and other extant works regarding intersubjectivity. I will now proceed to enumerate and examine the fundamental role of the experience of the world for the experience of the other. First, while the world in one sense exists “for me”, in another sense, this world is not purely private or subjective. The world presents itself to me not only through my own intentionality, but through the intentionality of others as well, and thus even the bare experience of the world is intersubjective. Husserl describes the intersubjective nature of the world in the following way: What “the” world is for us and that it is, it is from (in and on the basis of ) our experience, and indeed, our all-connected, concordantly flowing experience. […] This, my surrounding world, is at the same time a world for co-present, co-past, and co-future others, each of whom has, had, and will have his own world experience. The others belong to my surrounding world as other people who are in it and at the same time in the world that is common to us […].11

  Hua XV, 218.

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From the perspective of genetic phenomenology, since the world is an intersubjective world that I have constituted with others, the process of the genesis of the experience of the other is deeply influenced by the intersubjective character of the world. This implies that the mental state of the other—a state that from the outer or physical perspective might be correlated with a given bodily expression, so that the mental state and the external expression would be considered the same—may actually have a completely different meaning depending on the world to which the ego or the other belongs. For example, a person’s smile or the act of shaking hands can have a different meaning in two different worlds. Second, the transcendental genesis of the transcendental subject is nothing less than the transcendental process of the historical development of this subject. Transcendental genesis cannot exist apart from historical development; Husserl therefore describes the relationship between transcendental genesis and transcendental history in the following way: Humanization is the constant process of human existence, self-humanization, being in constant genesis of self-formation, and humanization of the surrounding world. As already humanized, it constantly expresses its earlier genesis. Human existence, the being of the human world—of the world that exists for human beings—is being in a constantly living history and being in a sedimented history, which as that always has a new historical face […].12

For Husserl, transcendental subjectivity is a subject of transcendental history.13 Since transcendental subjectivity is essentially a historical being, the world as its noematic correlate has a historical dimension, as Husserl observes: “The surrounding world of normal human beings as belonging to a historical community is itself, we said, historical.”14 Since the world is historical, the experience of the other that occurs on the basis of the genetic-phenomenological primordial sphere that is closely related to the world has a historical character as well. Thus, the genetic process of the experience of the other turns out to be a historical process in the sense that it is a process in which the subject as a historical being perceives the other as another historical being in the historical situation concerned. But since the process of the genesis of the experience of the other is basically a historical process, then—like all other objects of history—the other cannot be perceived by the ego in the mode of apodictic evidence. The experience of the other is always imperfect, as Husserl writes in a manuscript entitled “Incompleteness of the knowledge of others in its historical context”15: “In   Hua XV, 391.   It is one of the aims of genetic phenomenology to clarify the historical dimension of transcendental genesis. See Christian Ferencz-Flatz: “Zur geschichtlichen Wende der genetischen Phänomenologie. Eine Interpretation der Beilage III der Krisis”. In: Husserl Studies 33(2), 2017, 99–126. 14   Hua XV, 139. 15   Hua XV, 631. 12 13

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principle, there is no perfect knowledge of another; the other comes into being from his individual ‘historicity’, his genetic self-constitution, which I cannot really fully reveal, even in parts.”16 Third, the intersubjective and historical nature of the world makes it a world of meaning, so it also has a linguistic structure. In other words, the world is fundamentally constituted through language. Contrary to the widespread view that Husserl’s phenomenology ignores the constitutive function of language, Husserl pays full attention to the latter, as can be seen in a manuscript from 1931: A communal human life becomes possible as the life of a linguistic community, which is of a completely different kind than communal animal life. The home-world of the human being, which is the basic element of the structure of the objective world for —or for him in higher development in ever meaningful forms—is essentially determined by language.17

As this passage shows, from the perspective of genetic phenomenology, the world is from the very beginning a world that is constituted through language. The world has a linguistic dimension as one of its essential components; thus, as Husserl indicates, the world of human beings is essentially determined through language. As such, the human world is totally different from the world of animals which does not have any linguistic structure.18 But since the human world has a linguistic dimension, the process of the genesis of the experience of the other that is carried out on the basis of the genetic-phenomenological primordial sphere as a part of the world does indeed have a linguistic character.19 This implies that as the object of the experience of the other, the mental state of the other is experienced as something that can be expressed in language. The difference between different languages can be reflected in the way the other is experienced by subjects who speak different languages. 1.3 Horizons of the Genetic Phenomenology of the Various Kinds of Experience of Others In chapter 3, we clarified the genetic foundation of the most basic form of the experience of the other, namely when there is just a single perceiver and per  Hua XV, 631.   Hua XV, 224–225. 18   For a discussion of the distinction between the human life-world and the animal life-world see Sara Heinämaa: “Transcendental intersubjectivity and normativity: Constitution by mortals”. In: Rasmus Thybo Jensen, Dermot Moran (Eds.), The Phenomenology of Embodied Subjectivity. Dordrecht 2013, 83–103. 19   This does not imply that Husserl fails to admit dimensions of the world that go beyond the reach of language. For example, he discusses the world of animals which is not structured linguistically. See Hua XV, 174. 16 17

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ceived person; there is direct contact between the two; and there is no linguistic communication between them. But we have not considered other possibilities, such as when there is both direct contact and linguistic communication between the perceiver and perceived; when there is no direct contact, but there is linguistic communication between the two; and when there is neither direct contact nor linguistic communication between the two. The most common type of case in daily life is the first case, as when we converse with family members, colleagues, and friends or ask a stranger for directions, and countless other examples. An example of the second case is when we maintain correspondence with another person or send a text message to a person in another country. As civilization and technology progress, this type of interaction becomes more and more common. Finally, an example of the third case is when we try to understand a historical figure. The list above is not exhaustive, since further reflection on the concrete situations in which we perceive others shows just how many other forms of experiencing others exist. First, all the cases mentioned so far involve only one perceiver and one perceived person, yet there can be multiple perceiving and perceived persons. Second, we have also been assuming throughout the present chapter that the relationship between the subject and the other is peaceful and free of disagreements, when in reality we can enter into conflict or competition with others. Thus, there is a wide variety of ways in which we can perceive the other. It is one of the tasks of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the structure of the genetic foundation of each of these various ways of perceiving the other. And in fact, Husserl does attempt to carry out parts of such an analysis. For example, he attempts to clarify the structure of the genetic foundation of the experience of the other in which the perceived is plural. What is at stake here is social experience as the experience of various kinds of society. Thus, he writes as follows in Ideas II: “Social objectivities are given to us in ‘social experience’. What is this social experience?”20 There are various kinds of society, and correspondingly, there are various kinds of social experience. Therefore, the structure of the genesis of social experience differs with the type of social experience. For example, the genesis of the experience of a school as a society has a different structure than that of the experience of a church. Moreover, we can experience the same society as an object of social experience in different ways. For example, we can hear about a church from somebody else who has visited it, or we can experience it directly by visiting it ourselves. We can carry out a genetic-phenomenological analysis of each of the various kinds of social experience by clarifying its genetic-phenomenological foundation. And Husserl considers “active participation” to be an essential component of the genesis of social experience, so that we cannot truly understand a society   Hua IV, 200; Husserl: Ideas II, 210.

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without actively participating in it. For instance, somebody who has never married can never truly understand marriage, a person who has never participated in politics cannot understand politics, and a person who has never gone to a church or a law court cannot fully understand what these institutions are. In order to demonstrate the significance of active participation for the genesis of social experience, he takes the example of the “borough” (Gemeinde) and writes as follows: Similarly for a borough. I gain the fullest understanding as an actively participating citizen, by living through all the civil activities which pertain to the life of the borough, by coming to know the constitution of the borough, and this not only in words, i. e., in that I have read the borough’s statutes and read about the customs and mores belonging to this area or have been instructed by other’s stories, but rather in that I make clear to myself the “sense” of all that and make intuitive to myself the laws in their application to praxis and according to their function for the regulation of that praxis and consequently bring their “essence” to full clarity.21

As this passage shows, for Husserl, if we do not take part in a society, we cannot understand it vividly. And as an experience that has active participation as an essential component, social experience is different from physical experience as the experience of a physical object, since in the latter case we need to take a distance from the object. Husserl’s view that active participation is the genetic foundation of social experience has an affinity with the basic position of the philosophy of life developed by Wilhelm Dilthey, who claimed that “here life captures life” (Leben erfasst hier Leben).22 In this respect, I agree with HansGeorg Gadamer: “In the living relationship of life to life, the givenness to the senses of a perceived thing is a quite secondary construct.”23 However, it should be remarked that what he claims with respect to Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not legitimate: “At any rate, under the pressure of scientific-theoretical motives, Husserl insisted that the Other can first be given only as a perceived thing, and not as living, as given ‘in the flesh.’”24 In my opinion, he has too narrow a view of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity when he claims that Husserl’s phenomenology only consists of the transcendental theory of the analogical experience of the other, as seen in the passage below: On this point, one finds an astounding dogmatism of phenomenology among the unendingly rich analyses of Husserl. In starting with transcendental subjectivity, Husserl insists that the Other must first of all be intended as something perceived, with all the specific formal qualities of perception Husserl has presented in his teaching on adumbrations.   Ibid., 200; 211.   Wilhelm Dilthey: Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften. Stuttgart 1968, 136; cf. Wilhelm Dilthey: Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften. Stuttgart 1966, 233. 23   Hans-Georg Gadamer: “Subjectivity and intersubjectivity, subject and person”. In: Continental Philosophy Review 33(3), 2000, 275–287, here: 283. 24  Ibid. 21 22

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Only then, in a second, “stepped up” act, is ensoulment bestowed upon the perceived thing. Husserl calls this “transcendental empathy”, obviously in a conscious reliance on and rejection of the psychological theory of empathy and sympathy.25

However, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not confined to the transcendental phenomenology of the analogical experience of the other. In fact, as our discussion of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity shows, it goes far beyond the scope of the phenomenology of the analogical experience of the other.26 In addition to the analysis of social experience, we can find other passages scattered throughout Husserl’s works where he attempts to clarify the genetic foundation of other kinds of experience of the other. For example, in a manuscript from 1931 entitled “The historical mode of being of transcendental intersubjectivity. Its veiled expression in human history and natural history”,27 he conducts a phenomenological investigation of the historical experience of the other in the past as an example of a case where there is neither direct contact nor linguistic communication between the perceiver and the perceived. In this research manuscript, addressing the issue of “the type of historical knowledge”28 of the other, he writes as follows: The person who is in history is at the same time engaged with “history” (Geschichte), (history [Historie]), i. e., he reveals the history in which he and his fellow humans stand, in which and under which he lives. This also implies that he reveals the endless generative past in which he—and the unitary presence of his fellow humans—has come to be. As we know, this means: guided by the indirect memories, monuments as references to memories, as well as documents, etc., that are present in the living communal present, he reconstructs earlier presents and finally continuous connections in various levels of evidence […].29

It is the task of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify in detail the structure of the genetic foundation of the various kinds of the experience of the other, including kinds of experience that are not addressed above. Here we must note that the account given above regarding the genetic foundation of the most common form of the experience of the other does not necessarily apply to all other cases, and we must accordingly adjust or supplement our account for these cases. The theory of the analogical experience of the other can offer a reasonably valid description of cases in which there is no direct contact and linguistic communication between the ego and the other, but since   Ibid., 282.   See Dan Zahavi: “Beyond empathy: Phenomenological approaches to intersubjectivity”. In: Journal of Consciousness Studies 8(5–7), 2001, 151–167. 27   Hua XV, 387. 28   Hua XV, 393. 29   Hua XV, 393. 25 26

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the theory was built on the basis of face-to-face encounters, it necessarily faces some limitations in explaining cases where there is no direct encounter between the perceiver and the perceived. 2. Clarification of the Genesis of the Habitual System of the Experience of the Other In the case of the mature subject, the experience of the other is at times carried out quasi-automatically. For instance, a married couple who have lived together for a long time can each understand what the other is thinking from a mere glance at the other’s expression. The same goes for longstanding friendships. In such cases the experience of the other occurs without deliberation. However, this is not to say that we can always automatically understand others. For instance, a cultural anthropologist who encounters people from a completely foreign land for the first time may find it difficult to understand what they mean through their body language. What is the fundamental difference between times when we can easily grasp another person’s thoughts through their bodily expressions and times when we cannot? As may be evident from the examples cited above, the difference lies in whether or not we have carried out the experience of the other repeatedly, leading to the formation of a habitual system. If an experience of the other is carried out by a subject quasi-automatically, it is because the latter has repeatedly carried out the same experience of the other and a habitual system has developed; if the experience of the other cannot be carried out by a subject quasi-automatically, it is because there have been too few repetitions and no habitual system has formed. Even in the case of the experience of a complete stranger, if we have more and more chances to carry out the same experience, this too can gradually be developed into a habitual system. It is one of the important tasks of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the process of the constitution of habitual systems of the experience of the other as types of “social habitualities” (soziale Habitualitäten).30 What we have clarified above with respect to the analogical experience of the other is none other than the process whereby the habitual system of the analogical experience of the other is activated, a system that has been constituted in the past horizon of the subject. Now let us clarify the process of the constitution of such habitual systems themselves. In order for the experience of the other to develop into a habitual system, two requirements must be fulfilled. First, the experience of the other must actually have been carried out in the subject’s field of consciousness at least once. Sec  Hua XV, 208. For Husserl’s analysis of the social habitualities, see Hua XV, 461 ff., 479 ff.

30

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ond, such an experience must occur repeatedly. Thus, any account of how the experience of the other develops into a habitual system must clarify how these requirements can be fulfilled. Let us take the example of one’s experience of a person of the opposite sex and clarify the process at stake here. The developmental process of a subject can roughly be divided into stages in which the subject can and cannot grasp the other as belonging to the other sex in a genuine sense. The so-called period of puberty can be considered the point at which one’s experience of the other as a member of the opposite sex can genuinely be carried out for the first time. In other words, we can say that the true sense of one’s experience of the other as being of another sex comes into being for the first time at this stage. What, then, is the genetic motivation that enables a genuine perception of the other as a member of the opposite sex? One needs a motivation that enables one to see the other with new eyes, and this motivation is nothing other than the activation of the sexual instinct. In this context, it should be noted that each of the different kinds of instincts have the power to disclose to its subject a peculiar kind of world and worldly objects, which implies that the first activation of instinct or the first “revelation of instinct” (Instinktenthüllung)31 of any kind makes it possible that the corresponding world and the worldly objects are disclosed to its subject for the first time. In this regard, the sexual instinct is no exception. As the sexual instinct that has been in a state of potentiality in one’s stream of consciousness is activated, one can experience the other in a totally different way than before—namely, as a person of another sex in the true sense. Thus, the activation of the sexual instinct turns out to be the genetic motivation for the genesis of one’s first genuine experience of the other as belonging to another sex. Yet even when the sexual instinct is activated for the first time and one has carried out this initial experience, it is still logically possible that one can forget that one had such an experience. If that were to be the case, the experience in question could not develop into a habitual system. However, it is a fact that one’s experience of the other as a member of another sex does indeed normally develop into a habitual system. What makes this possible? As Husserl himself mentions, “the repetition of memory, first self-temporalization in primordiality; empathy and repetition of primordiality”,32 it is “the repetition” of the same experience or similar experiences that makes it possible to develop into a habitual system. What is it then that makes possible the repetition of the same experience or similar experiences? The answer is once again nothing other than the sexual instinct. Like the majority of instincts, the sexual instinct does not merely appear once in the field of consciousness and then disappear completely but appears over and over. It is because the sexual instinct appears in the sub  Hua XLII, 98, 244.   Hua XV, 547.

31 32

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ject’s field of consciousness repeatedly that one’s experience of the other as another sex can develop into a habitual system. It should be noted that it is one of the main characteristics of instinct that, once it is activated for the first time in the field of consciousness, it appears repeatedly, which leads to the constitution of the corresponding habitual system,33 as Husserl describes with respect to the constitution of the habitual system of kinaesthesis: In the course [of kinaestheses] that factually ensues, repeated forms of movement become salient, and [there is an] instinctive tendency toward repeating the similar and then the same, toward reaching the earlier kinaesthesis again, yet also never sticking to it as a telos—rather, [there is] immediately ongoing and repeated movement, which is still articulated in repetitions, and thus [there is] eventually the tendency toward practice and mastery, which has constituted the system [of kinaestheses] at [my] disposal and is enjoyed in running through what has long been familiar—and [enjoyed] in the capability of repeatedly attaining it. Thus, we must certainly say [that] the instinct that is in operation in kinaesthesis ultimately leads to the constitution of the mastered system [of kinaestheses] as the unity of an accessibility I am capable of, of the [ability to] generate any position once again at will.34

Now we understand how one’s experience of the other as another sex can develop into a habitual system through repeated activation of the sexual instinct. If we analyze the genesis of other kinds of habitual systems of experiencing the other, we can confirm something similar to the account given above. Not only the genesis of each of the various kinds of experience of the other but also the corresponding constitution of the habitual system pertaining to it has its genetic origin in the corresponding type of instinct or desire. The various kinds of instinct and desire accordingly play a central role not only in the genesis of the various kinds of experience of the other but also in the constitution of the corresponding habitual systems. For example, both the genesis of the mother’s experience of a child’s mental states and the constitution of a habitual system on this basis have their genetic origin in the mother’s “maternal instinct”.35 The various kinds of habitual systems of experience of the other constituted in this way are stored in the stream of consciousness of the mature transcendental subjectivity, and one of them is selected and activated in response to each situation the subjectivity is faced with. First of all, the various kinds of social instincts such as the sexual instinct, the maternal instinct, the herd instinct,36 the instinct of love,37 etc. serve as the   I have discussed the issue of the constitution of the various kinds of the habitual system of apperception through the repeated activation of the corresponding instincts in Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 177 ff. 34   Hua Mat VIII, 328. 35   Hua Mat VIII, 170. 36   Hua XV, 597. 37   Hua XLII, 108. 33

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genetic origin of the various kinds of the first experience of the other, as well as of the constitution of the various kinds of habitual systems of experiencing the other. It should be noted that not only the social instincts, but also other kinds of non-social instincts such as “the instinct of ‘curiosity’”38 can also serve as the genetic origin of the various kinds of the first experience of the other as well as of the constitution of the various kinds of the habitual system of experiencing the other. For example, the aforementioned non-social instinct of curiosity can serve as the genetic origin of the first experience of the other, as when a cultural anthropologist encounters people from a completely foreign land for the first time. Needless to say, we can derive many examples of the first experience of the other as well as of the habitual system of experiencing the other that have their genetic origin in “the instinct of ‘curiosity’” in our daily lives as well. As we have already indicated, it is one of the important tasks of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the genetic process of the constitution of various kinds of habitual systems of the experience of the other. The last problem we must confront in this task is the question of the possibility of the genesis of the very first experience of the other, the one that precedes all the other different kinds of the experience of the other. In fact, we find that Husserl struggles with just this problem in a manuscript mentioned above from 1935 (three years before his death) that has the title “The child. The first empathy”.39 In this manuscript, he attempts to inquire back into the period prior to birth in order to clarify the genesis of one’s initial experience of the other and writes as follows: The child beginning [its life in the body of its mother]—how is it directed in a polarized manner as an I directed toward initial data, what is its “instinctive” habituality? The child in the womb already has kinaesthesis and, moving kinaesthetically, its “things”—already developing a primordiality at the primal level.40

Even though the preparatory work for a child’s first experience of the other is carried out in the womb prior to birth, we cannot claim that the initial experience of the other is carried out in this period. For this reason, Husserl attempts to analyze the mental state of the newborn child. In comparison to the baby in the womb, a newborn child is an “already experiencing ego of a higher level, it already has experiential acquisitions from its existence in the womb, it already has its perceptions with perceptual horizons.”41 From the moment a subject is born, it is continually engaged in the constitution of the world, so even the infant has its own primordial sphere in the genetic-phenomenological sense. Since the infant relies on its mother or primary caretaker to satisfy its various     40   41   38 39

Hua Mat VIII, 323. Hua XV, 604. Hua XV, 604–605. Hua XV, 605.

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bodily needs (as well as other fundamental needs), it forms an enduring bond with the mother or caretaker. Yet the mere existence of this bond does not mean that the infant can grasp the mother’s or caretaker’s mental state. As the infant grows it can start to interact with the mother through various expressions, and eventually it can begin to learn words. At this stage, the infant realizes what the mother means and has its very first experience of the other. The precise nature of this interaction is hard to discuss in detail. Husserl himself confesses how difficult the problem of the genesis of the initial experience of the other is, expressing the problem as follows: “The first empathy—difficulties in understanding it as it comes about, even after the body as an organ, as well as the function of the sense organs, has already been constituted for external things.”42 Thus, the task of clarifying in detail how our first experience of the other occurs and becomes a habitual system remains an important problem for the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. 3. Clarification of the Constitution of Society and the Process of Its Transformation The process of the activation of the habitual systems of the experience of the other, as well as that of the formation of these habitual systems in a transcendental subjectivity, is a part of the entire process of the transcendental history of that subjectivity, a process that does not exist apart from the transcendental history of other subjectivities. From the moment transcendental subjectivities are born, they become enmeshed in the transcendental history of other transcendental subjectivities. In short, from the very beginning of its life, transcendental subjectivity is linked with the process of socialization, and is therefore fundamentally an intersubjective being, as Husserl writes: Constitution of the lived body in a specific sense, constitution in primordiality, genetically from birth. Intersubjective genesis from me. But in it I enter the intersubjectivity that has always already existed through all births, the intersubjectivity that is acquired for me, through mediation, as manifesting itself in me. But likewise in everyone.43 A simultaneous and successive tradition. On the human level: “understanding” (nachverstehen) tradition as a foreign experience, “taking over validities” […]. The fact that “they are doing it this way”. In this way, tradition from generation to generation. The adults are already [acting according to] custom, the children “grow into it” through imitation and instruction.44

  Hua XV, 605.   Hua XV, 439. 44   Hua XV, 611. 42 43

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Due to the fundamentally social nature of transcendental subjectivity, the process of the constitution of the habitual systems of the experience of the other in the past, as well their operation in the present, occurs within various forms of society. Since the social structure has a decisive influence on the constitution of these habitual systems, as well as on their operation, the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity must investigate the various forms of society as well. This is not to say that the clarification of the formation of the various forms of society is only meaningful with regard to clarifying these specific processes of constitution and operation; it goes without saying that the study of how society is formed is inherently valuable, and it is an important task for genetic phenomenology to uncover the processes through which various kinds of society are formed. Here, however, we must begin with the simplest or most basic topic before moving on to more complex ones. In the case of society, the simplest kind of society is the family. Of course, apart from the family, Husserl attempts to analyze other kinds of society, such as a club, a borough, a church, and the state. However, our aim here is not to investigate the origin of each of these social institutions, but rather to offer a wide-ranging survey of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of society in order to address the criticisms raised against Husserl. Thus, for our purposes it is more than sufficient to analyze only the most basic unit of society, the family. In many cases Husserl attempts to clarify the genetic constitution of the various kinds of society by analyzing various kinds of social instincts mentioned above. He defines the social instinct—or intersubjective instinct, as it is sometimes called—as the kind of instinct that has the other as its intentional object. As such, it is distinguished from non-social instincts, such as the instinct of curiosity, the instinct for nourishment, the aesthetic instinct, etc. The most representative example of the social instinct is the sexual instinct, but there are other examples such as the herd instinct, the instinct of love, the maternal instinct, etc. discussed above. Husserl primarily relies on the sexual instinct to clarify the genetic process of the constitution of the family. For a family to form, two people of the opposite sex must have the will to meet each other continually and deliberately. Before they have such a will, however, there must be something that motivates them to meet for the first time. Apart from a few exceptions, what draws two people of the opposite sex toward each other is the sexual instinct. It should be noted that the mere exercise of the sexual instinct in two people of the opposite sex is enough to create a union between them that Husserl calls the “sexual union” (Geschlechtsgemeinschaft),45 as one passage shows:   Hua XV, 511.

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But prior to the will and its goals lie pre-forms of egoic striving, of being affectively attracted, of deciding, which we call instinctive. Thus, as already happens in animals, the original institution of the sexual union, in contrast to marriage as a voluntary foundation with a specific goal, and here with respect to the temporal horizon of one’s whole life.46

Yet as we can see from the case of animals going into heat, the immediate result of the sexual union is not the family. The sexual union that can be found in animals as well as humans occurs when two members of the opposite sex are passively bound to each other. For both animals and humans, the purpose of sexual union is sexual satisfaction and procreation. As such, the sexual union dissolves when one no longer feels sexual urges, sexual union no longer satisfies the sexual instinct, or the opportunity for sex is no longer available. For the family to emerge, the passive and negative interest that initially brought the couple together must change into an active and positive interest, that is, a conscious and voluntary interest. A relation that is based on instinctive urges and is not converted into a conscious and voluntary choice to remain together cannot develop into the higher form of familial union. Marriages, aside from those formed by contract, involve active or conscious interests that persist for the entire duration of the other’s lifespan. Such an interest only emerges when the couple do not merely treat each other as objects of lust, but rather try to take responsibility for each other’s life and become a single whole. This active interest in the other is intimately linked with true love, and such active and positive interest—which is inclined toward reason—cannot emerge unless the interest is mutual. For a family union to emerge, two conditions must be met. First, there must be some form of linguistic communication between the couple. According to Husserl, linguistic communication is necessary for all forms of union, and the family is no exception. Husserl illustrates the crucial role linguistic communication plays in forming a society as follows: How now, when thorough active and reciprocal empathy is established? A social unification, a communicative one, is not yet established […]. […] What is still missing is the intention and the will to announce—what is lacking is the specific act of communication (of communicating), which as something that builds a community is precisely called communicatio in Latin.47

The second condition to create a family is that the couple must decide on what norms to follow when maintaining their household, or else create these norms themselves. Husserl writes: “Being as a human being is being in a habituality of self-normative wills—of course, of diverse social ones, in particular legal norms, norms of propriety, ethical norms.”48 Norms are therefore necessary to form   Hua XV, 511.   Hua XV, 472–473. 48   Hua XV, 422–423. 46 47

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any union, including the family union. In short, norms are what allow a couple to move beyond the sexual union to the family as a kind of society in the genuine sense. These norms may be implicit or explicit, and explicit norms can be subdivided in turn into written or unwritten norms. So far, we have carried out a genetic-phenomenological analysis of the process of the constitution of the family, and from this analysis we have gained an understanding of what the family entails. However, we can conduct a similar analysis of various other forms of society and show how the various kinds of intentionalities that are needed for constituting them are all interconnected. By doing so we can unveil how individuals are united in order to satisfy the various kinds of social instincts and desires that cannot be satisfied on an individual basis, so that individuals are motivated to constitute various kinds of society. By surveying Husserl’s manuscripts, we can find that he attempts to analyze the structure of the constitution of various kinds not only of society, but also of types of solidarity among human beings that cannot be called society, especially exemplified by the following quotation: From the outset […] connecting, communicating, making appointments, and becoming a social person must also be discussed. This answers the question of how friendships, marriages, associations, communities; contracts, appointments, etc.; visits, societies, riots, demonstrations, etc., come into the world. Then community actions, works, etc.49

Carrying out these kinds of analyses of various kinds of society, we can clarify how the various kinds of society can influence one another in the process of the constitution of each of them. Let us elucidate this point with the family as the simplest form of society, one that is constituted through the satisfaction of the sexual instinct. A family constituted in the manner discussed above can be transformed in different ways insofar as it can be influenced by various kinds of higher forms of the society to which it belongs. The family that displays the same structure from the biological perspective can change its form, since it can be influenced by the social, economic, and political structures it finds itself in. In order to clarify how various kinds of society can influence one another, we have to carry out a genetic-phenomenological analysis of the historical dimension of their constitution. Up until now we have presented a simple overview of the constitution of human societies from a genetic-phenomenological viewpoint. Yet the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity can also be applied to the formation of animal societies, a problem that Husserl called “a marginal problem”50 that phenomenologists could solve in the future. In a later manuscript from the 1930s, refer-

  Hua XV, 394.   Hua XV, 618.

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ring to the necessity of analyzing the constitution of animal societies, Husserl writes: First understanding (Nachverstehen) of the higher animals in their animal community, in which alone they are comprehensible. Understanding of their generative relationships. Understanding of ontogenetic animal development and problem of their instincts, their birth, their psychic being in the womb.51

Despite the seemingly low status that Husserl seems to have accorded this problem, in truth it already shows how Husserl had moved beyond the bodiless, detached ego of Cartesianism and emphasized its corporeal and worldly aspect. Furthermore, it shows that he acknowledges the fundamental link between animals and humans without falling into a dogmatic naturalism. 4. Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Scheler In sections 1–3, we have offered a broad survey of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity by analyzing various spheres within it, yet even this broad survey is enough to show just how vast a field it is. Indeed, it is so vast that we cannot claim to have covered every aspect of it completely. Nevertheless, this survey is still sufficient to provide us with the possibility of comparing the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in subsequent phenomenologists/philosophers. In this section, I will deal with the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler. And there are scholars who claim that there is a sharp contrast between them—for example, the renowned Scheler scholar Manfred Frings.52 In my view, however, there is not a sharp contrast but a fundamental similarity between the basic ideas of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity they each developed. I will attempt to clarify the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler by assessing Frings’ view of this relationship. According to Frings, the basic difference between the phenomenology of Husserl and that of Scheler is that Husserl’s is a transcendental phenomenology as a kind of idealism, whereas Scheler’s is a realistic philosophy as a “‘voluntative realism’”.53 And on this basis he claims that there are many differences between them. For example, in Husserl’s idealistic phenomenology, the ego is seen from the perspective of adulthood and little consideration is ever given to the growth and development of the ego from birth to maturity, whereas childhood and   Hua XV, 611; see also Hua XV, 478, 594, 602.   Manfred Frings: “Husserl and Scheler: Two views on intersubjectivity”. In: Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 9(3), 1978, 143–149. 53   Ibid., 147. 51 52

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the growth and the development of the ego are important topics of Scheler’s voluntative realism.54 Corresponding to this basic difference, there is a sharp contrast between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler. Frings considers Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity to be the theory of the analogical experience of the other developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation and he maintains that Husserl’s account is an idealism that can be summarized as follows: “The transcendental ego is the zero–point, which, by virtue of its preeminent alter-intentionality, gives rise to the possibilization of empathetic intendings. Empathy, I maintain, is a mediator between two persons […].”55 Thus, for Frings, there are at least two sharp contrasts between Husserl’s idealistic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Scheler’s realistic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. First, as an idealist, Husserl holds the view that like all of the different kinds of entities, the other is also experienced in thetic or positional consciousness, and he “never entertained theories alternative to his idealistic explanation of reality”56—for example, the voluntaristic realism that Scheler shares with Duns Scotus, Maine de Biran, Arthur Schopenhauer, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Wilhelm Dilthey, etc. If reality is understood in terms of a voluntaristic realism, “the problem of the other must be conceived along fundamentally different lines than Husserl’s egological explanations”.57 In Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, it is not through thetic or positional consciousness but through an “urge” (Drang) or “vital urge” (Lebensdrang) that the reality of the other is experienced. It is just in this context that “in Part III of The Nature of Sympathy (1913/1923), an alternative to Husserl’s Fifth Meditation, Scheler cites the findings of child psychology and studies of primitive people in support of this conclusion”.58 Second, it is not empathy that is the ultimate foundation of the “communal form of togetherness” but the vital urge: “The bearer of any communal form of togetherness among men, or any ‘I-Thou’ relationship, should not be identified with the transcendental ego or perceivable lived body, but rather with life and its self-propelling urge.”59 According to Scheler, this urge is the origin not only of the various kinds of society but also of the various kinds of togetherness. Thus, Frings writes: One major deficiency of Husserl’s theory of the alter ego lies precisely in its total disregard for the sociological dimension of man and his various forms of togetherness, among   Ibid., 146.  Ibid. 56   Ibid., 147. 57  Ibid. 58   Ibid., 148. 59   Ibid., 147. 54 55

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which society is only one and, in the course of human development, a relatively late one at that.60

Let us now assess Frings’ view on the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler. His view is based on a misunderstanding not only of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity but also of Scheler’s. Once we see how he misunderstands both Husserl and Scheler in this regard, we will realize that there is a basic similarity between their accounts. Let me first clarify how Frings misunderstands Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. First of all, Frings does not understand the essence of Husserl’s phenomenology as transcendental idealism. He claims that there is a sharp contrast between Husserl’s phenomenology as idealism and Scheler’s phenomenology as voluntative realism, but his view is based on a limited understanding of Husserl’s phenomenology. It is true that after the transcendental turn in his phenomenology at around 1905, Husserl referred to his transcendental phenomenology as transcendental idealism. It should be noted, however, that the notion of transcendental phenomenology as transcendental idealism has many faces. For example, it has the two faces of static and genetic phenomenology discussed above. Each of these two types of phenomenology has various sub-fields, and genetic phenomenology has a sub-field that can indeed be classified as a voluntative realism. What is at stake here is the phenomenology of instincts,61 including the urge or vital urge that plays the role of the genetic foundation of various kinds of consciousness. Moreover, Dorion Cairns makes the following report concerning how Husserl himself saw his own later phenomenology: “[He] said he has been working on the carrying out of a universal voluntarism.”62 It is also highly interesting to note that in a letter of 26 May 1934 to Abbé Emile Baudin, Husserl writes as follows: “No ‘realist’ in the customary sense has been as realistic and as concrete as I, the phenomenological ‘idealist’ (a word that moreover I no longer use).”63 With respect to the issue of voluntaristic realism, then, contrary to what Frings claims, there is no difference between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Scheler’s phenomenology. If the latter can be designated as a voluntaristic realism because it deals with urge or vital urge, the former can also be called a voluntaristic realism without reservation, since it has the phenomenology of instincts as one of its sub-fields. It should be added that within the context of genetic phenomenology as a voluntaristic realism, it is totally mistaken to claim that the ego is seen in Husserl’s phenomenology solely from the perspective of adulthood while little consideration is ever given to     62   63   60 61

Ibid., 148. See Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte. Dorion Cairns: Conversations with Husserl and Fink. The Hague 1976, 61. Hua Dok III/7, 16.

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the growth and development of the ego from birth to maturity. The childhood, growth, and development of the ego are important topics of Husserl’s project of developing a complete account of the structure of transcendental genesis, as can even be seen in some passages of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation and above all in many of his manuscripts.64 In this respect, contrary to what Frings claims, there is no difference between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Scheler’s phenomenology. It is clear, then, that his basic misunderstanding of Husserl’s phenomenology is what motivates Frings to misunderstand the true nature of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. And contrary to what Frings believes, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity cannot be identified with the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. The latter is a small part of the former, and as we have seen, the various fields of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity go far beyond the scope of what is developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. Moreover, Frings does not understand the true nature of empathy discussed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. Recall his critical remark on Husserl’s analysis of empathy in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation: “The transcendental ego is the zero-point, which, by virtue of its preeminent alter-intentionality, gives rise to the possibilization of empathetic intendings. Empathy, I maintain, is a mediator between two persons […].”65 I believe that what Frings has in mind here with the “zero-point” is the “starting point” and I claim that Frings’ view is problematic since it is impossible to think about the possibility of any empathy whose “zero-point” is not the ego. Even Scheler, whom Frings considers Husserl’s adversary, admits that the ego is the zero-point of empathy. In this context, dealing with the issue of “Other Minds”, he asks whether the knowledge of the other I in general presupposes “a prior awareness of self derived from one’s own case” and replies: “We shall be answering in the affirmative.”66 What is highly problematic with Frings’ view of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is the fact that he does not realize that there are two kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl, namely the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. According to Frings, Husserl holds that the other is experienced in thetic or positional consciousness, and therefore he “never entertained theories alternative to his idealistic explanation of reality”.67 It is true that in the context of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl does claim that the other is experienced in thetic or positional con  See, for example, Hua I, 141, 168 (Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 111, 141); Hua XV, 140 ff., 172 ff., 178, 582 ff., 604 ff. 65   Frings: “Husserl and Scheler”, 146. 66  Scheler: Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, 213; Scheler: The Nature of Sympathy, 217, translation altered. 67   Frings: “Husserl and Scheler”, 147. 64

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sciousness—more precisely, in objectifying acts or non-objectifying acts that are founded on objectifying acts, as discussed above in chapter 3. But in this context Husserl’s claim is totally legitimate, since as bearers of validity only these acts count in the static theory that attempts to clarify the validity-foundation of empathy. However, in the context of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl no longer claims that the other is experienced only in these acts. If we note that he sees non-objectifying acts that are not founded on objectifying acts—for example, sensuous feelings, kinaestheses, instincts, and drives—as playing a decisive role in the experience of the other, we realize that Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity does indeed entertain voluntaristic realism, and there is accordingly no difference between his genetic account and Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Moreover, in developing his genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl also admits that it is not empathy that is the ultimate foundation of “the communal form of togetherness”, but the vital urge, and there is no difference between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity in this regard as well, for as we have seen, Husserl too attempts to clarify the genetic constitution of various kinds of society by analyzing the various kinds of social instinct or intersubjective instinct68 such as the sexual instinct, the herd instinct, the instinct of love, the maternal instinct, etc., as discussed above. Thus, Frings’ criticism that Husserl overlooked the social dimension that any serious phenomenology of intersubjectivity must deal with is totally wide of the mark since, like Scheler, Husserl too considers it to be one of the tasks of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify “the social dimension of man and his various forms of togetherness”.69 And this is precisely why Husserl attempts to clarify not only the genetic structure of the constitution of the various kinds of society such as the family, the school, the union, the borough, the church, the nation, etc., but also the structure of other modes of human togetherness of such as contracts, visits, appointments, demonstrations, etc.70 I will now show that Frings does not understand Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity correctly either by clarifying its various fields and comparing it with Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In my view, the picture of Scheler’s phenomenology that Frings portrays is a partial one. He does not consider the fact that Scheler attempts to develop various fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity by making a clear distinction between various problems of intersubjectivity such as 1) the ontological problem of intersubjectivity; 2) the problem of the critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity; 3) the   As we have already noted, see, for example, Husserl: Manuscript A V 5, 134; Husserl: Manuscript E III 9, 18; Hua IX, 486. 69   Frings: “Husserl and Scheler”, 148. 70   See Hua XV, 394. 68

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problem of the origin (Ursprung) of our social and other-consciousness; 4) the empirical scientific problem of intersubjectivity; 5) the metaphysical problem of intersubjectivity; and 6) the problem of value concerning intersubjectivity.71 As already indicated, Husserl does make a distinction between various problems of intersubjectivity and would accept Scheler’s distinctions, even though he does not discuss them systematically and uses different terminology. In his discussion of the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler, however, Frings does not make a distinction between the various problems of intersubjectivity and fails, for example, to discuss the ontological problem of intersubjectivity, the problem of the critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity, the metaphysical problem of intersubjectivity, and the problem of value concerning intersubjectivity. These omissions seriously limit his claim that there is a sharp contrast between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler. In my view, if we do take all the various problems of intersubjectivity they discuss into account, it is possible to show that there is a similarity rather than a difference between their accounts of intersubjectivity. For example, the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler are similar since the latter’s account recalls Husserl’s own attempts to clarify the essential structure of intersubjectivity; Scheler, for instance, formulates the ontological problem of intersubjectivity as follows: “What is the essential relationship between the self and the community in general—both in the ontological sense and in our knowledge of the essences involved?”72 However, in order to clarify the similarity between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler, it is important to reach a proper understanding of two particular problems of intersubjectivity in Scheler, namely the problem of the critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity and the problem of the origin (Ursprung) concerning intersubjectivity. As I will attempt to show, for Scheler, the problem of the critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity is the problem of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, whereas the problem of the origin concerning intersubjectivity is the problem of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Let me clarify this point in more detail. To show that Scheler’s problem of the critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity is the problem of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, we need to consider the following passage where Scheler attempts to clarify what the question of the critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity is: There is the question which strictly belongs to logic and the critique of knowledge: By what right is a particular individual—for simplicity let us say myself (the present writer),  Scheler: Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, 209 ff.; Scheler: The Nature of Sympathy, 213 ff.   Ibid., 212; 216.

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entitled to postulate the existence (a) of any given community, and (b) of some other given person?73

It should be noted that what is at stake here is precisely the question of the “right” that entitles a particular individual to postulate the existence of a community or person. But within the context of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, this is nothing other than the problem of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, for as we have seen in chapter 3, Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a phenomenology of justification, and more specifically, one that attempts to clarify the “right” that would justify the validity of empathy. Let us now turn to the connection between Scheler’s problem of the origin (Ursprung) of our social and other-consciousness, which he designates as the transcendental psychological problem of our knowledge of other selves, and Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In order to grasp this point, we need to consider the following passage where Scheler discusses this problem: There is the problem of the origin of our social and other-consciousness generally, i. e. the transcendental psychological problem of our knowledge of other selves; this has no more to do with the question of our right to postulate their existence than it has with the problem of the empirical genesis and development of other-consciousness in the course of individual life from infancy to maturity. Here, as in all true questions of origin, it is a question, rather, of that point in the order of dependence among cognitive intentions (or the corresponding spiritual acts of the person), at which social and other-consciousness commences, i. e. what kind of cognitive acts must already have been accomplished before awareness of others can appear.74

In this passage, what Scheler emphasizes is “the order of dependence among cognitive intentions […], at which social and other-consciousness commences”. In other words, it is no longer a question of “right” or validity; instead, as expressions such as “commences”, “accomplished”, or “can appear” show, what is at stake is a problem concerning the temporal order or the temporal foundation between consciousnesses concerning intersubjectivity, and this is nothing other than the problem of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. One may object to my interpretation of the problem of the origin by pointing out Scheler’s claim in the passage above that this has nothing to do with “empirical genesis and development of other-consciousness in the course of individual life from infancy to maturity”. In fact, Scheler makes a distinction between “the transcendental psychological problem of our knowledge of other selves” and the issue of empirical genesis and development—a problem that is related to  Ibid.   Ibid., 213; 217.

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the empirical psychology of the individual (including both normal and differential psychology or psychopathology), and the empirico-genetic psychology of human nature, with regard to the emergence and development of knowledge on the part of actual men concerning the minds of those about them.75

However, this distinction is not in opposition to, but is consistent with my interpretation of the problem of the origin concerning intersubjectivity as a problem of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity since Husserl too makes a distinction between the transcendental genetic phenomenology and the natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, with the former corresponding to Scheler’s transcendental psychology of intersubjectivity and the latter to Scheler’s phenomenology of empirical genesis and development.76 Since we now understand how Husserl’s static phenomenology is similar to Scheler’s critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity whereas Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity is similar to Scheler’s transcendental psychology of our knowledge of other selves, we can grasp how Frings’ view on the sharp contrast between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler is problematic. What he portrays as Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is the transcendental psychology of our knowledge of other selves that corresponds to Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology, and there is indeed a fundamental similarity between them. Furthermore, let us note with respect to this similarity that in clarifying the task of the transcendental psychology of intersubjectivity, Scheler addresses the issue of instincts and impulses,77 and this is why Frings considers Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity to be a voluntative realism. But the same holds true for Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As we have seen, in deepening the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl too addresses the issue of instincts and drives as the genetic foundation of the different kinds of intersubjective experience. Thus, Frings’ claim that Husserl and Scheler have two different views of intersubjectivity is not valid. Moreover, in considering Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity to be the same as the transcen  Ibid., 216; 221.   The natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity can be developed both 1) as “empirical phenomenology” (Hua IX, 298; Edmund Husserl: Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with Heidegger (1927–1931). Translated from German by Thomas Sheehan, Richard E. Palmer. Dordrecht 1997, 176) that aims to clarify the structure of intersubjectivity factually; and 2) as an eidetic phenomenology that aims to clarify the essential structure of intersubjectivity. In order to develop the former, we need “the phenomenological-psychological reduction” (ibid., 260; 112), whereas in order to develop the latter, we need not only “the phenomenological-psychological reduction” but also “the eidetic reduction” (ibid., 284; 165). The natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that corresponds to Scheler’s phenomenology of the empirical genesis and development of other-consciousness is natural genetic phenomenology as an empirical phenomenology. 77   For example, Scheler: Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, 231ff; Scheler: The Nature of Sympathy, 236 ff. 75 76

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dental psychology of intersubjectivity, Frings makes the following mistakes with respect to the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Scheler. 1) He is not aware of the existence of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and thus he cannot recognize a similarity between the latter and Scheler’s transcendental psychology of intersubjectivity. 2) He is not aware of the existence of a sub-field of Scheler’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity called the critique of knowledge concerning intersubjectivity, and thus he cannot recognize the similarity between the latter and Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. 3) He is not aware that Husserl and Scheler each develops other fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity than the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity (Husserl) or the critique of knowledge (Scheler) and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity (Husserl) or the transcendental psychology of intersubjectivity (Scheler). Thus, he cannot recognize that there is a similarity between the idea of the system of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a whole in Husserl and in Scheler. 5. Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Heidegger Intersubjectivity is a topic that is discussed not only in Being and Time but also in some of Heidegger’s other works, such as Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression, and The Phenomenology of Religious Life.78 There are many studies that deal with Heidegger’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity,79 and some of them do deal with the relationship   Martin Heidegger: Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Frankfurt am Main 2010 (Martin Heidegger: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated from German by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington, IN 1988); Martin Heidegger: Phänomenologie der Anschauung und des Ausdrucks. Theorie der philosophischen Begriffsbildung. Frankfurt am Main 2007 (Martin Heidegger: Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression. Translated from German by Tracy Colony. London 2010); Martin Heidegger: Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens. Frankfurt am Main 1995 (Martin Heidegger: The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Translated from German by Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Bloomington, IN 2010). For Heidegger’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity in these works, see Christian Ferencz-Flatz: “The element of intersubjectivity: Heidegger’s early conception of empathy”. In: Continental Philosophy Review 48(4), 2015, 479–496. 79   For example, Fred R. Dallmayr: “Heidegger on intersubjectivity”. In: Human Studies 3, 1980, 221–246; Zahavi: Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität, 102–111; Lou Agosta: Empathy in the Context of Philosophy. New York 2010; Mahon O’Brien: “Leaping ahead of Heidegger: Subjectivity and intersubjectivity in Being and Time”. In: International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22(4), 2014, 534–551; Ferencz-Flatz: “The Element of Intersubjectivity”; Meindert 78

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between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and Heidegger.80 These studies can be divided into two groups—namely, one claiming that there is a difference between them81 and the other claiming that there is a continuity or similarity between them.82 I hold the view that there is a similarity and at the same time a difference between them, namely a similarity between Heidegger’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity on the one hand, and on the other hand a difference between Heidegger’s account and Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. I will clarify this point by focusing only on §26 of Being and Time: “The Dasein-with of Others, and everyday Being-with”.83 In Being and Time, Heidegger addresses the issue of empathy in the context of fundamental ontology as the existential analytic of Dasein. According to him, the basic state of Dasein is “Being-in-the-world”, which consists of three components, namely, “the worldhood of the world”, “being-with and being one’s self ”, and “being-in as such”.84 It is one of the main tasks of fundamental ontology to clarify the structure of each of these components and it is precisely in the context of elucidating the structure of “being-with and being one’s self ” that Heidegger discusses the issue of empathy. Heidegger holds the view that from the very beginning, Dasein is “the Dasein-with of Others”,85 that is, Being-with Others. He attempts to justify this view with the “‘description’ of that surrounding world which is closest to us (die nächste Umwelt) —the work-world of the craftsman”.86 In the surrounding world that is closest to us, we encounter various things, but when we do so, we experience them as referring back to other Daseins. For example, “when material is put to use, we encounter its producer or ‘supplier’ as one who ‘serves’ well or badly”, or when we walk along the outside edge of a field, “the field shows itself as belonging to such-and-such a person, and decently kept up by him; the book we have used was bought at so-and-so’s shop and given by such-and-such a person, and so forth”.87 Thus, the description of the things in the surrounding E. Peters: “Heidegger’s embodied others: On critiques of the body and ‘intersubjectivity’ in Being and Time”. In: Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences 18, 2019, 441–458. 80   For example, Dallmayr: “Heidegger on intersubjectivity”, 237 ff., 241; Zahavi: Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität, 102–111; Agosta: Empathy in the Context of Philosophy, 18 ff.; Ferencz-Flatz: “The element of intersubjectivity”, 483 ff. 81   For example, Dallmayr: “Heidegger on intersubjectivity”, 237 ff., 241; Agosta: Empathy in the Context of Philosophy, 18 ff. 82  Zahavi: Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität, 102–111; Ferencz-Flatz: “The element of intersubjectivity”, 483 ff. 83   Martin Heidegger: Sein und Zeit. Tübingen 1972, 117; Martin Heidegger: Being and Time. Translated from German by John Macqarrie, Edward Robinson. New York 1962, 153. 84  Ibid., 52 ff.; 78 ff. 85   Ibid., 117; 153. 86   Ibid., translation altered. 87   Ibid., 117–118; 153–154.

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world that is closest to us reveals that “the world is always the one that I share with Others” and thus that “the world of Dasein is a with-world [Mitwelt]”, which enables Heidegger to draw the conclusion that “Being-in is Being-with Others”, so that “their Being-in-themselves within-the-world is Dasein-with [Mitdasein]”.88 The Being-with Others is the very origin that founds the various kinds of relationship of oneself to Others. As a derivative mode of the former, the latter grows out of the former as its origins. In this sense, empathy as “the explicit disclosure of the Other in solicitude”89 grows only out of one’s primary Being-with Others. Even though empathy is a mere derivative mode of Being-with Others, “such a disclosure of the Other (which is indeed thematic, but not in the manner of theoretical psychology) easily becomes the phenomenon which proximally comes to view when one considers the theoretical problematic of understanding the ‘psychical life of Others’”.90 What is more problematic is the fact that even though empathy is a mere derivative mode of Being-with Others, it is normally considered to be the original mode of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world that constitutes Being toward Others, as the following passage shows: In this phenomenally “proximal” manner it thus presents a way of Being with one another understandingly; but at the same time it gets taken as that which, primordially and “in the beginning”, constitutes Being towards Others and makes it possible at all.91

The main point of Heidegger’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of empathy is “that ‘empathy’ is not a primordial existential phenomenon any more than is knowing in general”92 and that “‘empathy’ does not first constitute Being-with; only on the basis of Being-with does ‘empathy’ become possible: It gets its motivation from the dominant modes of Being-with in its inescapability”.93 Now I will assess Heidegger’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of empathy and clarify the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Heidegger. Before I do so, however, it is important to consider whether the theory of empathy that Heidegger criticizes in developing his theory of Dasein as Being-with Others is really Husserl’s theory of empathy. In this respect, we need to consider the following two points. First, we must consider the context in which Heidegger makes the following remark on the concept of empathy: “The relationship-of-Being which one has towards Others would then become a Projection of one’s own Being-towards-oneself ‘into something else’. The Other would be a duplicate of the   Ibid., 118; 155.   Ibid., 124; 161. 90  Ibid. 91  Ibid. 92   Ibid., 125; 163. 93   Ibid., 125; 162, translation altered. 88 89

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Self ”.94 This passage might give us the impression that the concept of empathy that Heidegger is criticizing is not Husserl’s but that of Lipps, who—as we have seen above in chapter 3—considers empathy to be a process of projecting one’s own mental state into others in a mental process called “duplication of myself ”.95 It should be noted, however, that Heidegger’s criticism is directed not only to Lipps’s theory of empathy but also to all the different kinds of theories of empathy that consider empathy to be the origin of “Being-with Others” as one of the basic components of Dasein. Thus, Husserl’s theory of empathy is also a target of Heidegger’s criticism. In fact, if we recall that it is one of the aims of Being and Time to open a new horizon of phenomenology that goes beyond the dimension of Husserl’s phenomenology (which Heidegger considers to be a philosophy of fallenness), it is reasonable to conclude that it is indeed Husserl’s theory of empathy rather than Lipps’s that Heidegger has in mind when he criticizes the theory of empathy. Second, Heidegger published Being and Time in 1927, that is, two years before the publication of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, giving rise to the following question: how could Heidegger have become acquainted with Husserl’s theory of empathy? If we cannot answer this question, we should not claim that the theory of empathy that Heidegger is criticizing is really Husserl’s theory of empathy. It should be noted, however, that Husserl already discusses the issue of empathy in Ideas I: […] we “view the mental processes of others” on the basis of the perception of their outward manifestation in the organism. This empathic viewing is, more particularly, an intuiting, a presentive act, although no longer an act that is presentive of something originarily.96

Moreover, empathy is a topic that is discussed widely in Ideas II. In my view, even though while working on Being and Time Heidegger might not have had a chance to become acquainted with the theory of empathy developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, he certainly knew about the basic idea of Husserl’s theory of empathy by reading the unpublished manuscript of Ideas II. Here it should be noted that Heidegger confesses that he owes a lot to the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, “who, by providing his own incisive personal guidance and by freely turning over his unpublished investigations, familiarized the author with the most diverse areas of phenomenological research during his student years in Freiburg.”97 It is more than probable that Ideas II was one of the unpublished investigations Heidegger had access to.   Ibid., 124; 162.  Lipps: Leitfaden der Psychologie, 36, cited in Hua XIII, 73. 96   Hua III/1, 11; Husserl: Ideas I, 6. 97  Heidegger: Sein und Zeit, 38; Heidegger: Being and Time, 489. 94 95

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Let us now assess Heidegger’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of empathy and clarify the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Heidegger. It should be noted that Heidegger does not realize that Husserl developed two different kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity, namely the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Thus, he could not recognize that there is a similarity between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and his own phenomenology of Dasein as Being-with Others, whereas there is a basic difference between Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the phenomenology of Dasein as Being-with Others. In order to clarify this point in more detail, let me first address the relationship between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Heidegger’s phenomenology of Dasein as Being-with Others. In the context of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl too admits that the Being-with Others is the foundation of empathy. As we saw above in chapter 3, empathy comes into being on the basis of the genetic primordial sphere as its genetic foundation. In this context, it should be noted that as the genetic foundation of empathy, the genetic primordial sphere is a sphere in which I and others dwell together, which implies that I as Dasein am always already involved in Being-with Others. In the context of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, it is impossible to conceive of an ego that cannot be designated as Being-with Others. In other words, from the perspective of genetic phenomenology, the ego essentially has an intersubjective character and cannot escape the Being-with-Others from the very beginning. In a manuscript published in 1931 dealing with the problem of “the universe of transcendental egos being together”, Husserl emphasizes the intersubjective character of transcendental subjectivity and writes: “I cannot be who I am without the others who are so for me, nor can these be not without me. The intentional includedness (Beschlossenheit) is a necessity of transcendental coexistence.”98 This passage shows that Husserl holds a view on the intersubjective character of the ego that is similar to that of Heidegger. Moreover, we need to pay attention to the way both Husserl and Heidegger justify their views that transcendental subjectivity or Dasein is intersubjective. As I have indicated, Heidegger attempts to justify his view of Dasein as Being-with with the “‘description’ of that surrounding world which is closest to us […]”,99 where we experience whatever we encounter as referring back to other Daseins. It is highly interesting to observe that Husserl too attempts to found his view that the ego cannot be divorced from the intersubjective dimension with a description of the surrounding world, as the following passage from Ideas II shows:   Hua XV, 370.  Heidegger: Sein und Zeit, 117; Heidegger: Being and Time, 153, translation altered.

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In the comprehensive experience of the existence of the other, we thus understand him, without further ado, as a personal subject and thereby as related to Objectivities, ones to which we too are related: the earth and sky, the fields and the woods, the room in which “we” dwell communally, the picture we see, etc. We are in a relation to a common surrounding world—we are in a personal association: these belong together. We could not be persons for others if a common surrounding world did not stand there for us in a community, in an intentional linkage of our lives. Correlatively spoken, the one is constituted essentially with the other.100

As this passage shows, the examples that Husserl takes for the clarification of the intersubjective character of the person are similar to those that Heidegger takes to justify his view that Dasein is Being-with Others. In my view, there is no doubt that Heidegger was decisively influenced by Husserl’s unpublished manuscript of Ideas II. And since in dealing with the issue of empathy in Ideas II, Husserl speaks of “the point of view of constitutive genesis”,101 the phenomenology of empathy developed there is concretely a kind of genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. It thereby turns out that there is a fundamental similarity between Heidegger’s phenomenology of Dasein as Being-with Others and Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. There are nevertheless some differences between the two thinkers. For example, for Husserl, the intersubjective dimension of the surrounding world as the genetic foundation of empathy is not fixed but can be influenced and modified by empathy. The repeated acts of empathy can motivate a transformation of the surrounding world and its intersubjective dimension, as a passage from Ideas II indicates: “The common surrounding world acquires communal [intersubjective] characteristics of a new sense and at a higher level by means of acts of personal mutual determination which arise on the basis of mutual comprehension.”102 In this respect, I would like to add that, whereas the issue of changes in the intersubjective dimension of the surrounding world through repeated acts of empathy is discussed in Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, it is not discussed in Heidegger’s phenomenology of Dasein as Being-with Others. But in addition, there is an even more fundamental difference between Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Heidegger’s phenomenology of Dasein as Being-with Others. As chapter 3 has shown, the justification of empathy (which is one of the main tasks of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity) is carried out by appealing to the static primordial sphere. And the static primordial sphere can be gained only through “a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for   Hua IV, 191; Husserl: Ideas II, 201.   Ibid., 198; 208–209. 102   Ibid., 191; 201. 100 101

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a truly radical philosophy”.103 Thus, from the standpoint of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, the ego is essentially a solitary ego and cannot be designated as Being-with Others. Here it should be acknowledged once again that the idea of a static phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a totally legitimate one and an essential part of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a whole. Moreover—contrary to what Heidegger claims—within the context of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, empathy is more original than the experience of the intersubjective world in the genuine sense since it is the transtemporal validity-foundation of the latter. Thus, from the perspective of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Heidegger’s phenomenology of Dasein as Being-with Others can be considered to have a limitation, since it does not address the issue of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a component that no true philosophy can dispense with. 6. Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty Merleau-Ponty develops his phenomenology of intersubjectivity in a detailed manner in chapter 2 of Part Two of Phenomenology of Perception, “Other selves and the human world”. Like Husserl in Ideas II and Heidegger in Being and Time, he develops a phenomenology of intersubjectivity by describing the structure of the surrounding world: “Not only have I a physical world, not only do I live in the midst of earth, air and water, I have around me roads, plantations, villages, streets, churches, implements, a bell, a spoon, a pipe.”104 When I experience things in the surrounding world, “I feel the close presence of others beneath a veil of anonymity”—for example, “someone uses the pipe for smoking, the spoon for eating, the bell for summoning, and it is through the perception of a human act and another person that the perception of a cultural world could be verified.”105 With respect to the experience of the other, we can ask how it is possible that I experience the other as another I. The most frequent reply given to this question is that I interpret the behavior of the other “by analogy with my own”.106 But according to Merleau-Ponty, this reply presupposes that I experience myself and the other as an ego, while it is this very experience that needs to be clarified with respect to the condition of its possibility. For this reason, Merleau-Ponty formulates the fundamental question of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as follows:   Hua VI, 187–188; Husserl: Crisis, 184.   Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Phenomenology of Perception, 405. I discuss only the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in this work, as I hold the view that the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in his later works is a deepened form of the former. 105  Ibid. 106   Ibid., 406. 103 104

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But this is precisely the question: how can the word “I” be put into the plural, how can a general idea of the I be formed, how can I speak of an I other than my own, how can I know that there are other I’s, how can consciousness which, by its nature, and as self-knowledge, is in the mode of the I, be grasped in the mode of Thou, and through this, in the world of the “One”?107

According to Merleau-Ponty, we can find “the beginning of a solution to this problem”108 in the clarification of the way in which one’s own body incessantly plays its role in the perception of the world as the deepest layer of human experience. One’s own body is totally different from the objective body that objective thinking regards as “an object standing before the consciousness which thinks about or constitutes it”.109 In contrast to the objective body, my own body is a body that perceives the other body, but “discovers in that other body a miraculous prolongation of my own intentions, a familiar way of dealing with the world”; “Henceforth, as the parts of my body together compromise a system, so my body and the others are one whole, two sides of one and the same phenomenon, and the anonymous existence of which my body is the ever-renewed trace henceforth inhabits both bodies simultaneously.”110 Since it is an essential trait of the perceptual world that my body and the body of the others are inseparably intertwined, it can be called an intercorporeal world. A typical example of the perceptual world as an intercorporeal world is the world of the child. This is the reason why Merleau-Ponty appeals to the results of research in developmental psychology in order to clarify the structure of intersubjectivity in perceptual experience as the deepest layer of experience. In the perceptual world as a world in which “my body and the other’s are one whole, two sides of one and the same phenomenon”,111 the perception of the other is not performed by “reasoning by analogy”, as the example of the perception of the other performed by a child shows: “A baby of fifteen months opens its mouth if I playfully take one of its fingers between my teeth and pretend to bite it”, even though “it has scarcely looked at its face in a glass, and its teeth are not in any case like mine”.112 Merleau-Ponty concludes from this example that the perception of the other in the world of perception is not carried out through reasoning by analogy, but immediately through one’s own body, writing as follows: The fact is that its own mouth and teeth, as it feels them from the inside, are immediately, for it, an apparatus to bite with, and my jaw, as the baby sees it from the outside, is immediately, for it, capable of the same intentions. “Biting” has immediately, for it, an  Ibid.  Ibid. 109   Ibid., 407. 110   Ibid., 412. 111  Ibid. 112   Ibid., 410. 107 108

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intersubjective significance. It perceived its intentions in its body, and my body with its own, and thereby my intentions in its own body.113

The example of the perception of the other carried out by a child shows that the perceptual world is an intersubjective world that the child and others share without question, since the child’s own body and those of others form a single system. Merleau-Ponty accordingly claims that at this stage of the child’s psychological development, it lives in a world which he unhesitatingly believes accessible to all around him: He has no awareness of himself or of others as private subjectivities, nor does he suspect that all of us, himself included, are limited to one certain point of view of the world.114

At this stage the perceptual world is an intersubjective world, and it is impossible to make a distinction either between my world and the world of the other or between I and the other in the strict sense. And Merleau-Ponty terms the world in which this distinction is not yet in play the “basic doxa”.115 As an intersubjective world, the perceptual world or the “basic doxa” is the foundation of the world in which there is indeed a distinction between I and others. What is decisive for the coming into being of such a world is the coming into being of the “cogito”: At about twelve years old, says Piaget, the child achieves the cogito and reaches the truths of rationalism. At this stage, it is held, he discovers himself […] as a point of view on the world and also as called upon to transcend that point of view, and to construct an objectivity at the level of judgement.116

It is precisely the genesis of the cogito that makes it possible for the child to make a distinction between self-consciousness and the other’s consciousness along with all the different kinds of activity based on this distinction. In this context, “the struggle of the consciousnesses” discussed by Hegel is no exception: “With the cogito begins that struggle between consciousnesses, each one of which, as Hegel says, seeks the death of the other.”117 Even if the cogito (and with it, the distinction between self-consciousness and the other’s consciousness) does come into being, it is not the case that the perceptual world or the “basic doxa” as an intersubjective world is rationalized entirely and disappears. But, in reality, it must be the case that the child’s outlook is in some way vindicated against the adult’s […] and that the unsophisticated thinking of our earliest years remains  Ibid.   Ibid., 413. 115   Ibid., 414. 116  Ibid. 117  Ibid. 113 114

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as an indispensable acquisition underlying that of maturity, if there is to be for the adult one single intersubjective world.118

With the cogito coming into being, an ego can form its own perspective of the world, one that is different from any of the perspectives of the others, and this is what marks the beginning of what Merleau-Ponty calls the “solitude” or “solipsism” of the ego. It should be noted that the cogito is the origin not only of the solitude but also of the communication between an ego and others, a communication that cannot be conceived of without such solitude. “Solitude and communication cannot be the two horns of a dilemma, but two ‘moments’ of one phenomenon, since in fact other people do exist for me.”119 But this claim implies that “transcendental subjectivity is a revealed subjectivity, revealed to itself and to others, and is for that reason an intersubjectivity”.120 Thus, the process in which subjectivity reveals itself as transcendental intersubjectivity answers the questions raised at the beginning: how can the word “I” be put into the plural, how can a general idea of the I be formed, how can I speak of an I other than my own, how can I know that there are other I’s, how can consciousness which, by its nature, and as self-knowledge, is in the mode of the I, be grasped in the mode of Thou, and through this, in the mode of the “One”?

I will now clarify the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Merleau-Ponty. As we know, Husserl develops different fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity such as the ontological, transcendental, metaphysical, or moral phenomenology of intersubjectivity, etc. Contrary to Husserl, Merleau-Ponty does not develop such fields systematically. For example, in chapter 2 of Part Two of Phenomenology of Perception, he does not attempt to develop a metaphysical or a moral phenomenology of intersubjectivity at all. In my view, he mainly attempts to develop a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, as can be seen from the fact that he considers it to be one of the most important aims of his analysis to show that “transcendental subjectivity is a revealed subjectivity, revealed to itself and to others, and is for that reason an intersubjectivity”.121 In fact, all the different analyses of intersubjectivity carried out in the chapter in question are related to Merleau-Ponty’s attempt to show that “transcendental subjectivity” is “a revealed subjectivity” and “is for that reason an intersubjectivity”. Nevertheless, even though Merleau-Ponty does attempt to develop a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Phenomenology of Perception, it is not yet clear if the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity  Ibid.   Ibid., 418. 120   Ibid., 421. 121  Ibid. 118 119

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in Merleau-Ponty is the same as Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In order to clarify this point, we must once again return to Husserl’s distinction between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and compare each of them with the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in Phenomenology of Perception. I hold the view that there is a similarity between Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, whereas there is a difference between Husserl’s transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. I will now address this point in more detail. Let me first clarify the relationship between Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In my view, the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in Phenomenology of Perception is a species of transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, as the following two points demonstrate. First, we can support the claim that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity by taking a look at the topics he discusses in Phenomenology of Perception. A typical example is the perception of the other performed by a child at the age of fifteen months. This is a topic of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity since it is clarified with respect to its genetic foundation, not its validity-foundation. In this case, it should be noted that we cannot even raise the question of validity-foundation with respect to the perception of the other performed by a child of fifteen months. Moreover, it is obvious that the coming into being of the cogito, of self-consciousness, and of an awareness of the other’s consciousness—as well as the emergence of solitude and communication, along with the revelation of transcendental subjectivity as transcendental intersubjectivity— are all topics of the transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Second, Merleau-Ponty often appeals to the results of developmental psychology which aims to clarify the process of psychological development—surely one of the main topics of genetic phenomenology. In Husserl’s classification of the sciences, developmental psychology is one kind of phenomenological psychology as a discipline of the natural attitude.122 In this context, we need to be clear about the relationship between developmental psychology as an empirical discipline and the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in Phenomenology of Perception. As we have seen, there are two kinds of genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity—namely, the natural and the transcendental genetic   Recall that phenomenological psychology can be developed as an empirical phenomenology that aims to clarify various kinds of consciousness as facts and as an eidetic phenomenology that aims to clarify the essential structure of the various kinds of consciousness. The phenomenological psychology that has developmental psychology as one of its sub-fields is phenomenological psychology as an empirical phenomenology. 122

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phenomenology of intersubjectivity. The phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in Phenomenology of Perception is specifically a transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity which becomes clear from the fact that it is one of Merleau-Ponty’s aims to clarify the structure of transcendental intersubjectivity. Thus, in Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty develops a transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity by means of a transcendental-phenomenological interpretation of the results of research in developmental psychology. It should be noted that such an interpretation is possible precisely because there is a parallelism between transcendental phenomenology and phenomenological psychology, which has developmental psychology as one of its sub-fields. However, with respect to the similarity between Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, I do not claim that the former is similar to the latter in all respects. In fact, there are significant differences between them. For example, to the best of my knowledge, we cannot find any analysis in Husserl’s works of the perception of the other performed by a child of fifteen months. On the other hand, there are also topics that Husserl analyzes but Merleau-Ponty does not address; one example is the child’s initial act of empathy that is discussed in a later manuscript from 1935 on “The child. The first empathy […]”,123 a text we have already referred to. We can in fact enumerate many topics that are present in the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed by the one but absent in the other. Appealing to such themes, one might claim that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity cannot be reconciled, since there is a fundamental difference between them. But in my view, if we analyze the examples closely, we can show that the two accounts are reconcilable. Let me demonstrate this with the example of the perception of the other performed by a child at the age of fifteen months. It is true that when one reads Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the perception of the other performed by a child of that age, one might get the impression that there is no way to reconcile it with Husserl’s analysis of empathy, since it is totally different from the latter. In my view, however, there is no contradiction between them, for Merleau-Ponty does not deny Husserl’s theory of empathy. He only denies the view that empathy is a more original mode of experiencing the other than the “perception of the other” and instead claims that the latter is the foundation of the former, as the following passage shows: The other consciousness can be deduced only if the emotional expressions of others are compared and identified with mine, and precise correlations recognized between my physical behavior and my “psychic events”. Now the perception of others is anterior to,   Hua XV, 604.

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and the condition of, such observations, the observations do not constitute the perception.124

As the phrase “the other consciousness can be deduced” shows, Merleau-Ponty is working on the basis of the theory of the experience of the other as an inference by analogy proposed by Benno Erdmann125 and his own theory of the perception of the other. It is clear that for Merleau-Ponty there is a kind of the experience of the other carried out in the form of an inference by analogy. Moreover, he claims that the “perception of the other” that is carried out by one’s own body at the pre-reflective level “is anterior to, and the condition of ” the experience of the other as an inference by analogy. It should be noted that what Merleau-Ponty claims is valid not only for Erdmann’s theory of the experience of the other as an inference by analogy but also for Husserl’s theory of the experience of the other as an immediate experience. Needless to say, like Husserl, Merleau-Ponty would admit that there is a kind of the experience of the other as an immediate experience. Moreover, he would claim that the “perception of the other” that is carried out by one’s own body at the pre-reflective level “is anterior to, and the condition of ” the experience of the other as an immediate experience. Thus, Merleau-Ponty would not reject Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other outright. What he would deny is the fact that the analogical experience of the other is the genetic condition of the possibility of the perception of the other carried out by one’s own body at the pre-reflective level. How would Husserl respond to Merleau-Ponty’s position? In my view, Husserl would not deny Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the perception of the other carried out by one’s own body at the prereflecive level. Indeed, he would have welcomed Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the perception of the other performed by a child at the age of fifteen months if he had known about it and would have incorporated it into his theory of a child’s initial empathy that his later phenomenology attempted to work out. Thus, even though there are differences in the topics discussed by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, there is not a contradiction between Merleau-Ponty’s account and Husserl’s transcendental genetic-phenomenological account of the experience of the other. And there are indeed some topics common to their accounts. One example is corporeal intersubjectivity which is an important topic for Merleau-Ponty, who claims that “henceforth, as the parts of my body together compromise a system, so my body and the others’ are one whole, two sides of one and the same phenomenon […]”.126 In Husserl, there is a similar analysis of intercorporeal intersubjectivity. Here what is at stake is the analysis of drive-intentionality that one can discover in his later manuscripts. For example, in a  Merleau-Ponty: Phenomenology of Perception, 410.  Erdmann: Wissenschaftliche Hypothesen über Leib und Seele. 126  Merleau-Ponty: Phenomenology of Perception, 412. 124 125

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manuscript from the 1930s, Husserl writes: “However, the question is whether drive-intentionality, including that directed toward others (sexually-socially), necessarily has a preliminary stage that lies prior to a developed world-constitution […].”127 In this context he analyzes the structure of the sexual drive as follows: “The internal aspect of generation. Drive toward the opposite sex. The drive in one individual and the reciprocal drive in the other.”128 As this passage shows, the sexual drive functions reciprocally, that is, the sexual drive of one sex is directed toward another sex and vice versa. It should be noted that it is precisely the lived or living body (Leib) through which the sexual drive functions: Sexual rapprochement and fulfillment of instinct—the bodily union in general in primordiality. Taking a body in hand, handling it, already makes it part of my body. Sexual bodily union of two souls in one corporeality in which the individual bodies are nevertheless contained.129

We can accordingly claim that the intersubjective relation between the two different sexes in sexual behavior is fundamentally intercorporeal, and we can accordingly define intersubjectivity at the most original level as a corporeal intersubjectivity or “carnal intersubjectivity”.130 Thus, it turns out that there is a similarity between Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in Phenomenology of Perception. What, then, is the relationship between them concretely? Are they the same? To answer this question, we need to recall once again that Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology is very broad and includes different sub-fields. Husserl developed only some of these, sometimes only in a rudimentary way. And in my view, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is indeed one part of the transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. It mainly represents the most fundamental layer of the transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity whose task is precisely to clarify the deepest layer of the transcendental genesis of intersubjectivity as the condition of the possibility of the genetic constitution of the perceptual world. On the other hand, there is a basic difference between Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Husserl’s transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. It should be noted that in Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty is engaged with various issues pertaining to the tran  Ibid., 594.   Ibid., 593. 129   Ibid., 601–602. 130   Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Signs. Translated from French by Richard C. McCleary. Evanston, IL 1964, 173. For the origin of this notion in Husserl, see the reference to “a certain Bodily intersubjectivity” (eine gewisse Intersubjektivität des Leibes) in Hua IV, 297; Husserl: Ideas II, 311 (although it was Merleau-Ponty himself who coined the term “carnal intersubjectivity”). 127 128

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scendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity but makes no attempt to carry out a transcendental static analysis of intersubjectivity. In order to grasp this point, we need to pay attention to a footnote at the end of chapter 2 of Part Two, where he comments on the issue of the primordial reduction that plays a central role in Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. And this comment is particularly important because it gives us a hint about how he understands Husserl’s concept of the primordial reduction as well as Husserl’s idea of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Merleau-Ponty claims that when we carry out the primordial reduction, we are faced with a dilemma: either the constitution makes the world transparent, in which case it is not obvious why reflection needs to pass through the world of experience, or else it retains something of that world, and never rids it of its opacity.131

What is the dilemma Merleau-Ponty is talking about? One horn of the dilemma is that “constitution makes the world transparent” through the primordial reduction. It should be noted that the primordial reduction in question is the primordial reduction of static phenomenology since it is the aim of the latter to achieve “a perfect intuition of the world together with the apodictic knowledge of its condition of possibility”.132 It is just this concept of the primordial reduction that Merleau-Ponty considers to be the Husserlian concept, which is clear from the fact that Merleau-Ponty also writes: “But he adds that, by means of a second ‘reduction’, the structure of the world of experience must be reinstated in the transcendental flow of a universal constitution in which all the world’s obscurities are elucidated.”133 The other horn of the dilemma is that constitution “retains something of that world, and never rids it of its opacity” through the primordial reduction. But the primordial reduction through which constitution “retains something of that world, and never rids it of its opacity” is the primordial reduction of genetic phenomenology, since it is the aim of the latter to secure the primordial sphere in the genetic sense that is not free from opacity. With respect to the dilemma, Merleau-Ponty claims that “Husserl’s thought moves increasingly in this second direction, despite many throwbacks to the logicist period”,134 which shows that he believes that Husserl’s phenomenology increasingly moves in the direction of genetic phenomenology despite many throwbacks to static phenomenology. In my view, Merleau-Ponty grasps the distinction between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity quite correctly, but not perfectly since there is in fact no dilemma between them. Yet since Merleau-Ponty believes that there is a dilemma between them,  Merleau-Ponty: Phenomenology of Perception, 425.   Hua XV, 617. 133  Merleau-Ponty: Phenomenology of Perception, 425. 134  Ibid. 131 132

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he thinks that we have to choose one of them as the correct solution, and it is the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that he opts for. This is the reason why he did not develop a static phenomenology of intersubjectivity at all in Phenomenology of Perception, and at the same time it is also the reason why there is a radical difference between his phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. The views of scholars on the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Merleau-Ponty are divided. Some, such as Alfred Schutz, Manfred Frings, and Martin C. Dillon,135 hold the view that there is a basic difference between them; others, such as Dan Zahavi, Françoise Dastur, and Sara Heinämaa136, hold the view that there are similarities between them. Our discussion of the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Merleau-Ponty could make it possible for us to assess the views of those scholars at greater length. However, since it is the aim of this section to clarify the relationship between the basic ideas of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Merleau-Ponty, I cannot examine the views of these scholars in detail. Instead, I would like to make the following two general comments. First, the scholars who hold the view that there is a difference between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Merleau-Ponty are in part correct, in part incorrect. They are correct since there is a difference between Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. However, they are also incorrect since there is a similarity between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. The problem is that many critics believe Husserl and Merleau-Ponty are fundamentally different because they believe that Husserl developed only a static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, without realizing that Husserl also developed a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as well. As we have seen, the only reason why it is possible to claim that there is a difference between the accounts of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty is because the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in Phenomenology of Perception differs from Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity.

  Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity”, 63; Frings: “Husserl and Scheler”, 144; Martin C. Dillon: Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology. Bloomington, IN 1988, 87; Gary Brent Madison: The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty. Athens, OH 1981, 37 ff. 136   Dan Zahavi: “Merleau-Ponty on Husserl”. In: Ted Toadvine, Lester Embree (Eds.), Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl. Dordrecht 2002, 3–29, here: 23; Françoise Dastur, “Merleau-Ponty and the question of other”. In: Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 39(1), 2008, 27–42, here: 28; Heinämaa: “Anonymity and personhood: Merleau-Ponty’s account of the subject of perception”. 135

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Second, the scholars who hold the view that there is a similarity between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty are correct. They can hold this view because they know that Husserl developed a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Of course, they also know that there is not only a similarity, but also a difference between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Merleau-Ponty. For instance, Zahavi writes: “For the very same reason, I am obviously not arguing that there is no relevant or significant difference between Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.”137 In my view, the major difference between them is that in contrast to Husserl, Merleau-Ponty did not develop a transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. 7. Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Schutz It is the aim of this section to clarify the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Schutz by assessing Schutz’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As Richard M. Zaner reports, “Schutz was led at every point to the problem of intersubjectivity”,138 and developed his phenomenology of intersubjectivity in almost all his works. In this section, however, I will discuss only the account developed in The Phenomenology of the Social World, published in German in 1932,139 and his paper on “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl”, published in German in 1957140. The opinions of scholars on Schutz’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity are divided. Some, such as Jürgen Habermas and Elizabeth Düsing, hold the view that it is valid,141 whereas other scholars, such as Peter J. Carrington and Dan Zahavi, hold the view that it is not valid.142 I too hold the view that his criticism is not valid, but in distinction to Carrington and Zahavi, I will demonstrate this by appealing to distinctions between the different kinds of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity discussed above. In his 1957 paper, Schutz criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the general context of carrying out his project of phenomenological sociology as “interpretive sociology” (verstehende Soziologie). In order both to   Zahavi: “Merleau-Ponty on Husserl”, 29.   Richard M. Zaner: “Theory of intersubjectivity: Alfred Schutz”. In: Social Research, 28(1), 1961, 71–93, here: 71. 139  Schutz: Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt; Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World. 140   Alfred Schutz: “Das Problem der transzendentalen Intersubjektivität bei Husserl”. In: Philosophische Rundschau 5(2), 1957, 81–107. 141  Habermas: Vorstudien und Ergänzungen, 57 (Habermas: Pragmatics, 42); Elizabeth Düsing: Intersubjektivität und Selbstbewusstsein. Köln 1986, 110 ff. 142   Peter J. Carrington: “Schutz on transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl”. In: Human Studies 2, 1979, 95–110; Zahavi: Husserl und transzendentale Intersubjektivität, 16 ff. 137 138

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grasp his criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity concretely and to understand the relationship between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and in Schutz, we need to take a look at the project of phenomenological sociology that Schutz developed in The Phenomenology of the Social World. As interpretive sociology, Schutz’s phenomenological sociology has its origin in Max Weber’s interpretive sociology. “Starting from the concepts of social action and social relationship (soziale Beziehung)”, Weber “derives by means of ever new descriptions and typifications the two categories of ‘communal relationship’ (Vergemeinschaftung) and ‘associative relationship’ (Vergesellschaftung) and then, by introducing the concept of order, he deduces the particular types of corporate groups and compulsory associations”.143 According to Schutz, Weber’s project of interpretive sociology is revolutionary in the history of sociology, even though it is not successful. And it is precisely Schutz’s aim to transform Weber’s interpretive sociology into a well-grounded discipline by founding it with the help of both Bergson’s philosophy and—above all—Husserl’s phenomenology. The phenomenological sociology that Schutz developed in The Phenomenology of the Social World contains five parts. Part 1 introduces Max Weber’s basic methodological concepts and clarifies the project of phenomenological sociology as interpretive sociology; part 2 deals with “the constitution of meaningful lived experience in the constitutor’s own stream of consciousness”;144 and part 3 discusses “the basic traits of a theory of the understanding of the other”. As the title of §19, “The general thesis of the alter ego in the natural perception”, shows, part 3 analyzes the structure of the understanding of the other in the natural attitude without addressing the issue of the transcendental constitution of the other. Part 4 then clarifies “the structure of the social world (Sozialwelt)”. Once the existence of the other is assumed, “the world is now experienced by the individual as shared by his fellow creatures, in short, as a social world”, but it should be noted that the social world is “by no means homogeneous but exhibits a multiform structure”.145 More specifically, the social world consists of the surrounding world (Umwelt), the world of contemporaries (Mitwelt) and the world of predecessors (Vorwelt), and it is the task of part 4 to clarify the structure of each of these different spheres of the social world. Finally, part 5 addresses “some basic problems of interpretive sociology” such as “indirect social observations and the problem of knowledge in the social sciences”, “the function of the ideal type in Weber’s sociology”, “objective and subjective probability”, “objective and subjective meaning in the social sciences”, etc.146  Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World, 5–6, translation altered.   Ibid., 45. 145   Ibid., 139. 146   Ibid., 215 ff. 143 144

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The phenomenological sociology that Schutz develops as an interpretive phenomenology in The Phenomenology of the Social World has intersubjectivity as its main topic and can even be called a phenomenology of intersubjectivity—one that is decisively influenced by Husserl. First of all, its architectonics is similar to that of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Mediation. As we saw in chapter 3, the phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation consists of three parts, namely 1) the theory of the primordial reduction and the primordial sphere; 2) the theory of empathy and the constitution of the relationship between the ego and the other; and 3) the theory of the constitution of higher forms of society. One can find a similar architectonic in parts 2–4 of The Phenomenology of the Social World. First, as mentioned above, part 2 deals with “the constitution of meaningful lived experience in the constitutor’s own stream of consciousness”; in this context “the constitutor’s own stream of consciousness” corresponds to the primordial sphere in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, and it turns out that part 2 does develop a theory of the primordial sphere.147 Second, as the title of part 3—“Foundations of a theory of the understanding of the other”—shows, this theory corresponds to Husserl’s theory of empathy in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. Finally, as we can see from the title of part 4 (“The structure of the social world”), the theory of the social world developed there corresponds to Husserl’s theory of the constitution of higher forms of society in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. However, even though the architectonics is similar to that of Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation, one should not forget that there is an important difference between the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in these two works. As mentioned, in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl primarily develops the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a transcendental constitutive phenomenology or a constitutive phenomenology of the transcendental attitude as well as that of a natural constitutive phenomenology or a constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude. In contrast, in The Phenomenology of the Social World, Schutz develops his phenomenology of intersubjectivity only as a “constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude”148 or as “a psychology of pure intersubjectivity”.149   Even though the primordial sphere is the main topic of part 2 of The Phenomenology of the Social World, Schutz does not discuss the issue of the primordial reduction in any detailed way, although he should have done so in order to deal with the issue of the primordial sphere properly. It should be noted that the primordial reduction that is needed to develop phenomenological psychology as “a constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude” (Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World, 44) is not the transcendental primordial reduction that is performed within the transcendental reduction but the natural primordial reduction performed in the natural attitude. 148   Hua V, 158; Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World, 44. 149  Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World, 44. 147

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Furthermore, there is a big difference between Schutz’s attitude toward Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity at the beginning of 1930s when he was writing The Phenomenology of the Social World and in the 1950s when he was writing “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl”. In the earlier work, even though Schutz does not attempt to develop his phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a transcendental constitutive phenomenology, he does not deny this possibility as such. He is only “leaving aside all problems of transcendental subjectivity and transcendental intersubjectivity, which in fact emerge only after the transcendental reduction”,150 while admitting that it would indeed be possible to develop a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. However, in “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl”, he rejects this possibility and admits only the possibility of developing a natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude. It is in exactly this context that Schutz severely criticizes Husserl’s project of a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the 1957 paper. Examining all relevant works of Husserl available at the time (such as the Cartesian Meditations, Formal and Transcendental Logic, the Crisis, Ideas II, etc.), Schutz criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and first of all the account developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. In this regard he raises nineteen questions in four groups that, as he believes, lay bare the difficulties of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. The nineteen questions can be classified as follows: 1) five questions related to the primordial reduction (Part III); 2) four questions related to the constitution of the other (Part IV); 3) six questions related to the constitution of the first level of community between the ego and the alter ego (Parts V and VI); and finally, 4) four questions related to the constitution of higher forms of society (Part VII). As these questions show, Schutz is assessing Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity following the order of the development of the account in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. After examining the different kinds of difficulties of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, he concludes “that Husserl’s attempt to account for the constitution of transcendental intersubjectivity in terms of operations of the consciousness of the transcendental ego has not succeeded”151 and writes as follows: It is to be surmised that intersubjectivity is not a problem of constitution which can be solved within the transcendental sphere but is rather a datum (Gegebenheit) of the lifeworld. It is the fundamental ontological category of human existence in the world and therefore of all philosophical anthropology. As long as man is born of woman, intersubjectivity and the we-relationship will be the foundation for all other categories of hu Ibid.   Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity”, 82.

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man existence. The possibility of reflection on the self, discovery of the ego, capacity for performing any epochē, and the possibility of all communication and of establishing a communicative surrounding world as well, are founded on the primal experience of the we-relationship.152

As this passage shows, Schutz holds the view that intersubjectivity is a datum of the life-world that cannot be clarified by transcendental phenomenology. This is why he claims that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded. However, he is a little bit hesitant about this conclusion and seems to admit the possibility of developing a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity after all, as the following passage shows: To be sure, all this must remain preserved within the transcendental sphere and must be submitted to explication. This is the task that Husserl sets himself in his work; transcendental phenomenology must explicate the sense which this world has for us prior to all philosophy—a sense which philosophy can reveal, but cannot change […].153

Yet even though Schutz is a little bit hesitant about the possibility of developing a transcendental phenomenology, his final position is that transcendental phenomenology cannot properly clarify the structure of intersubjectivity: It can, however, be said with certainty that only such an ontology of the life-world, not a transcendental constitutional analysis, can clarify that essential relationship of intersubjectivity which is the basis of all sciences—even though, as a rule, it is there taken for granted and accepted without question as a simple datum.154

I will now assess Schutz’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. I will first assess his view that Husserl’s project of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded. Thereafter I will examine his own concept of phenomenological sociology as a natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Finally, I will turn to the difficulties of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity that he discusses in his 1957 paper to conclude that Husserl’s project of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded. Schutz’s view that the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded is highly problematic. Contrary to what he claims—and as we have already clarified in chapters 2–3 and in sections 1–3 of the present chapter—not only it is possible to develop a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but it includes both the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As we have seen, these attempt to elucidate the structure of  Ibid.  Ibid. 154  Ibid. 152 153

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intersubjectivity from two different perspectives, namely, from the perspective of transtemporal validity-foundation and that of temporal genetic foundation. In my view, the reason why Schutz holds that the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded is because he misunderstands Husserl’s concept of transcendental subjectivity or the transcendental ego. Referring to “the misleading talk of a plurality of transcendental egos”,155 he holds the view that in Husserl’s phenomenology, there is only one transcendental ego; thus, it is impossible to think about a plurality of transcendental egos. It is just in this context that he writes: But is it conceivable and meaningful to speak of plurality of transcendental egos? Is not the concept of the transcendental ego conceivable only in the singular? Can it also be “declined” in the plural, or is it, as the Latin grammarians call it, a singulare tantum?156

It is obvious that the concept of the transcendental ego that Schutz has in mind is not that of Husserl;157 instead, it is reminiscent of Kant’s concept of transcendental consciousness. Kant makes a distinction between transcendental and empirical consciousness and considers the former to be a single consciousness in which the plurality of the empirical consciousness takes part.158 Contrary to Kant, Husserl considers the transcendental ego or subjectivity to be plural. There are as many transcendental subjectivities as there are empirical subjectivities since the former can be experienced as the latter if we carry out the transcendental reduction. Schutz’s fundamental misunderstanding of Husserl’s concept of transcendental subjectivity therefore motivates him to claim that it is impossible to develop a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity: if there is only one transcendental subjectivity, it will be impossible to develop a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, since the latter presupposes a plurality of transcendental subjectivities. Thus, it is not by accident that we cannot find any transcendental theory of intersubjectivity in Kant, for even though he developed transcendental philosophy as an important part of his system of philosophy as a whole, he considers transcendental consciousness to be singular. Let us now assess Schutz’s project of a natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As we have seen, Schutz develops the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a “constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude” in The Phenomenology of the Social World. However, if we take a look at the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed there from the perspective of   Ibid., 77.  Ibid. 157   Zahavi too holds the view that Schutz’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not valid by pointing out that Husserl’s concept of the transcendental ego is pluralistic. See Zahavi: Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität, 17. 158   Immanuel Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg 1956, A 117 ff. 155 156

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Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, we find that Schutz’s account has some limitations from the systematic point of view. First, Schutz does not make it clear if the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity he develops is a static or a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In developing the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity, he cites a passage from Formal and Transcendental Logic where Husserl makes a distinction between static phenomenology and genetic phenomenology,159 but Schutz does not make such a distinction at all in actually developing his natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In my view, the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in The Phenomenology of the Social World is on the whole a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, since he refers to “genesis” so often in his account.160 Second, as discussed above in chapter 2, in order to develop a kind of natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, namely the natural ideal genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, we need to carry out the natural primordial reduction as a thematic epochē performed within the natural attitude. Even though Schutz is critical of the idea of carrying out the transcendental primordial reduction performed in the transcendental attitude, he does implicitly admit the possibility of carrying out the natural primordial reduction, as the following passage from the 1957 paper shows: “This second epochē could never yield the constitution of the Other as a full monad within my monad, but at most it yields appresentation of another psychophysical ego beginning from the substratum of my psychophysical ego.”161 In my view, he is implicitly carrying out the natural primordial reduction in part 2 of The Phenomenology of the Social World, which has the title “The constitution of meaningful lived experience in the constitutor’s own stream of consciousness”. As already indicated, “the constitutor’s own stream of consciousness” is nothing other than the primordial sphere that Schutz designates as “the sphere of the solitary Ego”, “the stream of consciousness of the solitary Ego”, “the consciousness of the solitary Ego”, “the world of the solitary Ego”, etc.162 However, Schutz should have explicitly ad Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World, 35. In chapter 1, we have discussed the passage that runs as follows: “‘Static’ analysis is guided by the unity of the meant object. It starts from the unclear manners of givenness and, following the reference made by them as intentional modifications, it strives toward what is clear. Genetic intentional analysis, on the other hand, is directed to the whole concrete nexus in which each particular consciousness stands, along with its intentional object as intentional. Immediately the problem becomes extended to include the other intentional references, those belonging to the situation in which, for example, the subject exercising the judicative activity is standing, and to include, therefore, the immanent unity of the temporality of this subject’s life […]” (Hua XVII, 316; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 316, translation altered, emphasis altered). 160   See, e. g., Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World, 35, 36, 43, 55, 86, 188. 161   Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity”, 67. 162   See, e. g., Schutz: The Phenomenology of the Social World, 38, 74, 86, 96, 98, 108, 122, 217. 159

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dressed the issue of the primordial reduction so that readers could grasp exactly how it is possible to develop such a natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Third, Schutz should have reconsidered the relationship between the natural and the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. There is a parallelism between transcendental phenomenology as a phenomenology of the transcendental attitude and phenomenological psychology as a phenomenology of the natural attitude, and the former is not only a deepened form of the latter but its foundation. In like manner, the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a deepened form and the foundation of the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In order to achieve a fundamental clarification of the issue of intersubjectivity—and thereby to develop the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a genuinely rigorous discipline—one has to carry out the transcendental reduction and develop the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. But even though Schutz does not in fact proceed in this way, he was well aware of the need to do so, as the following passage from The Phenomenology of the Social World shows: It is only after I, “by a painful effort,” as Bergson says, turn away from the world of objects (Gegenstände) and direct my gaze at my inner stream of consciousness, it is only after I “bracket” the natural world and attend only to my conscious experiences within the phenomenological reduction, it is only after I have done these things that I become aware of this process of constitution. To the solitary Ego occupying the natural attitude, the problem of objective and subjective meaning is quite unknown. It only comes to light after the carrying-out of the phenomenological reduction […].163

Let us now turn to the difficulties of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity that Schutz presents in his 1957 paper. As we have seen, it is precisely these difficulties that make it possible for him to conclude that Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded. However, I maintain that Schutz’s view is not legitimate and that the difficulties he identifies cannot serve as evidence for the claim that Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity fails. In this respect, I hold the view that 1) a number of them are not real difficulties, since they are based on a misunderstanding of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity on Schutz’s part; and 2) others are indeed real difficulties, but it is possible for us to discover solutions for them by discussing them in detail. A typical example of the difficulties of the first kind is when Schutz discusses the singularity of the transcendental ego.164 As discussed above, there is a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of Schutz, so his criticism of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity does not hold. In my view, there are some   Ibid., 36–37.   Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity”, 77.

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other difficulties that are based on Schutz’ misunderstanding,165 but, due to the constraint of space, I will not discuss them. I will now discuss two examples of the difficulties of the second kind. One example is the difficulty mentioned by Schutz in the following passage: Husserl explicitly states (Par. 44) that every reference of sense to a possible Us and We is excluded by the second epochē. But how is this compatible with the retention of all actual and possible experiences of Others (the Other’s ways of appearing to me) within the sphere of what is “properly” of the ego?166

Here the difficulty that Schutz has in mind is related to the concept of the primordiality that is secured through the primordial reduction as the second epochē. More specifically, what is at stake in this passage is the ambiguity of the concept of primordiality according to which the primordial sphere both excludes and at the same time includes the experience of the other, as Schutz’s phrase “the retention of all actual and possible experiences of Others […] within the sphere of what is ‘properly’ of the ego” shows. In chapter 2, we discussed this ambiguity as one of the four ambiguities of the concept of primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation. As we have seen, this kind of ambiguity in the concept of primordiality is a necessary one that is related to the tension between the static and the genetic concept of primordiality. Needless to say, the difficulty that Schutz identifies in this context cannot be suggested as evidence for the thesis that Husserl’s project of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded. Another example is the difficulty that Schutz addresses with respect to the foundational relationship between communication and the surrounding world, a relationship that Husserl discusses in §51 of Ideas II. In this respect, Schutz writes as follows: It is not difficult to show that reciprocal understanding and communication already presupposes community of knowledge, even a common surrounding world (and social relationship), and not the reverse. The common surrounding world and the social relation, therefore, cannot be derived from the idea of communication.167

In §51 of Ideas II, Husserl refers to the communicative acts as the origin of the constitution of society and the surrounding world in the following way: “In these relations of mutual understanding, there is produced a conscious mu  In section 8, I will deal with one of them, namely the difficulty that Schutz discusses regarding the constitution of the objective world. With respect to this difficulty, Schutz writes: “On the contrary, each transcendental ego has now constituted for himself, as to its being and sense, his world, and in it all other subjects, including myself; but he has constituted them just for himself and not for all other transcendental egos as well.” (Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity”, 76). 166   Ibid., 59. 167   Ibid., 72. 165

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tual relation of persons and at the same time a unitary relation of them to a common surrounding world.”168 And this is exactly what Schutz criticizes; he would say instead that society and the surrounding world provide the genetic foundation of communication since the latter can take place in the former. It should be noted that Husserl’s view is not illegitimate since there are cases in which two persons meet for the first time and build a society and a common surrounding world. Moreover, Husserl too admits the possibility that in normal cases, society and the surrounding world do provide the genetic foundation of communication between individuals: We are in a relation to a common surrounding world—we are in a personal association: these belong together. We could not be persons for others if a common surrounding world did not stand there for us in a community, in an intentional linkage of our lives.169

8. Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and Habermas’s Philosophy of Intersubjectivity In his major 1981 work, The Theory of Communicative Action,170 while developing his theory of communicative action as “a critical theory of society”,171 Habermas criticizes the “philosophy of consciousness” (Bewusstseinsphilosophie)172 since he believes that the latter cannot address the issue of “the structures of linguistically generated intersubjectivity”.173 What he criticizes under the title of the philosophy of consciousness is Schutz’s “interpretive sociology” as “a regional ontology of society”,174 but the target of Habermas’s criticism is also Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as the forerunner of Schutz’s interpretive sociology. In fact, Habermas criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology not only in The Theory of Communicative Action175 but also in other works, and his target is first of all Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity.176 It is the aim of this section to assess Habermas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and to clarify the relationship between the lat  Hua IV, 193; Husserl: Ideas II, 203.   Ibid., 191; 201. 170   Jürgen Habermas: Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. 2 vols. Frankfurt am Main 1981; Jürgen Habermas: The Theory of Communicative Action. 2 vols. Translated from German by Thomas McCarthy. Boston 1987. 171  Habermas: Kommunikativen Handelns 2, 548; Habermas: Communicative Action 2, 374. 172   Ibid., 199; 131. 173   Ibid., 198; 130. 174  Ibid. 175   Ibid., 171 ff.; 113 ff. 176   See, for example, Jürgen Habermas: Knowledge and Human Interests. Translated from German by Jeremy J. Shapiro. London 1972, 301 ff.; Jürgen Habermas: Texte und Kontexte. Frankfurt am Main 1991, 34–48; Habermas: Vorstudien und Ergänzungen, 35 ff. (Habermas: Pragmatics, 23 ff.). 168 169

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ter and Habermas’s own philosophy of intersubjectivity. There are already some studies on Habermas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity—for example, those of Dan Zahavi and of Matheson Russell.177 Zahavi and Russell provide comprehensive evaluations of Habermas’s criticism by examining the various works in which this critique is carried out, claiming that there are both misunderstandings of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity on the part of Habermas and similarities between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Habermas’s philosophy of intersubjectivity. I totally agree with them. However, here I will consider only On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction,178 focusing on the distinction I have already discussed between the different fields of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As documented in this work, Habermas’s engagement with Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity can be traced back to the beginning of the 1970s when he was preparing his theory of communicative action. In the Christian Gauss Lectures that he gave in 1971 in Princeton, he criticizes the phenomenology of intersubjectivity developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation and takes this criticism as a springboard from which to develop a “communication theory of society”179 that he later renamed a “theory of communicative action”. Habermas claims that in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, “Husserl constructs the transcendental history of intersubjectivity in two steps”.180 The first step consists in developing the theory of the analogical experience of the other discussed above. The second step consists in the transition from the theory of the analogical experience of the other to the theory of the constitution of the community of monads or the transcendental We. Thus, Habermas writes as follows: “In the second step of his argument, Husserl tries to make the case that the meaning of the appresentation of the other’s inner life unproblematically gives rise to the community [Vergemeinschaftung] of monads.”181 According to Habermas, the second step of Husserl’s argument is based on the interchangeability of perspectives which concretely means that I who am here can take the position of the other who is there: “The interchangeability or reciprocity of perspectives grounds the identity of my system of appearances with that of the bodily appresented other. At the same time, the transcendental We of communalized monads is constituted in this identity through interchangeability.”182 After Habermas introduces the theory of intersubjectivity Husserl develops in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, he discusses “the two most important objec Zahavi: Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität; Matheson Russell: “On Habermas’s critique of Husserl”. In: Husserl Studies 27(1), 2011, 41–62. 178  Habermas: Vorstudien und Ergänzungen; Habermas: Pragmatics. 179   Ibid., 11; 3. 180   Ibid., 52; 38. 181   Ibid., 53; 38–39. 182   Ibid, 54; 39. 177

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tions to it”,183 insisting that they both “indicate that Husserl begs the question of intersubjectivity, which he cannot derive on the assumptions of a philosophy of consciousness”.184 First, “Husserl justifies the possibility of the apperceptive transfer of my own bodily experience to the other’s body by appeal to a perceptible similarity between the two objects”.185 Thus, the similarity is supposed to found the apperceptive transfer. But the former cannot be the foundation of the latter, for the following reason: We could perceive a relation of similarity between my living body and another body only after having objectified my own body as an element of an objective nature. The merely subjectively experienced body is so dissimilar to the perceived body, that it provides no basis for an analogizing transfer.186

Thus, according to Habermas, the problem is the circularity of the argument since the objectification of my own body that should be the result of the analogical experience of the other is instead presupposed for the analogical experience of the other. For this reason, Habermas claims “that Husserl deluded himself about the viability of his first argument because, in the concept of appresentation, he tacitly assumed what he wanted to deduce with its aid”.187 Second, for Habermas, Husserl also commits the mistake of begging the question in his second argument. He is right in claiming “that an intersubjective world of communalized subjects comes into being through the mutual intertwining of perspectives”.188 More specifically, “in this reciprocity, all participants apprehend themselves, others, and nature simultaneously from their own standpoint and from the standpoint of every possible other subject” so that “the subjects constitute an objective world in common”.189 What is problematic, however, is the fact “that Husserl develops this construction only to the point where I, the meditating phenomenologist, put myself in the place of the appresented inner life of the other and identify its world with mine”,190 and the construction carried out so far can yield only my private world, not the common world I share with other subjects. Habermas attempts to clarify this point by citing the following passage from Schutz:

 Ibid.  Ibid. 185   Ibid., 54; 40. 186  Ibid. 187   Ibid., 55; 41. 188   Ibid., 56; 41. 189  Ibid. 190  Ibid. 183 184

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On the contrary, each transcendental ego has now constituted for himself, as to its being and sense, his world, and in it all other subjects, including myself; but he has constituted them just for himself and not for all other transcendental egos as well.191

Criticizing what he considers to be Husserl’s position, Habermas accordingly claims that “a common world is constituted only through a symmetrical relationship that allows the other equally to put itself in my place, that is, in place of the inner life that is appresented to it, and identify my world with its”.192 Why is it the case that Husserl cannot adequately account for “this complete symmetry” and the possibility of constituting a common world? It is because “the phenomenological approach begins with the meditating ego, whose subjectivity must always be the ultimate possible horizon of demonstration and verification, and leads inevitably to an asymmetry between myself and any other”.193 In this context, Habermas emphasizes the fact that “during self-observation, the phenomenologist’s ego always retains the function of an apriori originary ego [Ur-Ich]”.194 According to Habermas, it is just in this context that “in The Crisis of European Sciences Husserl speaks unequivocally of the ‘unique sort of philosophical solitude’ in which the phenomenologist immerses himself when he performs the epochē and abandons the natural attitude”.195 However, in order to be able to clarify the possibility of constituting a genuinely common world, we have to abandon the idea of “a private consciousness that only subsequently enters into contact with another conscious being” or that of “solitary reflection on the activities of the individual’s own subjectivity”,196 and develop instead the theory of communicative actions that have “the advantage of being able to take as their starting point the intersubjective relation that constitutive theories attempt in vain to derive from the activity of monadic consciousness”.197 Let us now assess Habermas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. I would like to assess Habermas’ view on the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and his own philosophy of intersubjectivity before I assess his two critical points. Let me first summarize his view on the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and his own philosophy of intersubjectivity. As can be seen from Habermas’s claim that in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, “Husserl constructs the transcendental history of intersubjectivity in two steps”,198 he considers Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity to be the   Ibid., 57; 42 (see Schutz: “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity”, 76).  Habermas: Vorstudien und Ergänzungen, 56; Habermas: Pragmatics, 41. 193   Ibid., translation altered. 194  Ibid. 195   Ibid., 57–58; 43. 196   Ibid., 58; 43. 197   Ibid., 58–59; 44. 198   Ibid., 52; 38. 191 192

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same as the transcendental genetic phenomenology that “constructs the transcendental history of intersubjectivity”. For Habermas, however, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity has not succeeded and should be replaced by his own theory of communicative action as a natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. His theory of communicative action—a theory that came into being through his criticism of Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity—can be considered as a kind of natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity since he develops his theory in the natural attitude without carrying out the transcendental reduction. Thus, he holds the view that his own theory of communicative action as a natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity represents a better position than Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Habermas’ view on the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and his own philosophy of intersubjectivity is highly problematic. Here I would like to point out that Habermas relies too heavily on Schutz’s criticism of Husserl’s transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the 1957 paper. As discussed above, like Habermas, Schutz also denies the possibility of developing the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity and attempts to develop his own phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a kind of natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Insofar as Habermas accepts Schutz’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, his own criticisms of Husserl share the same problems as those of Schutz. Even though Habermas does criticize the limitations of Schutz’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as interpretive sociology, there is a similarity between the accounts of intersubjectivity offered by Habermas and Schutz. Contrary to his claim that we can only develop natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, as discussed above, it is possible to develop a transcendental genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as well as two other kinds of static phenomenology of intersubjectivity that he is not aware of—namely, transcendental static phenomenology and natural static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Thus, his theory of communicative action as a natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity represents only one part of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a constitutive phenomenology. Moreover, it should be noted that the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a discipline that is more fundamental than the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity. I will now assess Habermas’s first criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity which states that “a perceptible similarity” between my own body and the other body cannot be the foundation of “the apperceptive transfer of my own bodily experience to the other’s body”, since “we could perceive a relation of similarity between my living body and another body only after

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having objectified my own body as an element of an objective nature”.199 In my view, Habermas’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other is not legitimate since it is based on a misunderstanding of some basic concepts that play an important role in that theory. In order to clarify this point, I would like to take a look at Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other by paying special attention to the concept of the body as Habermas understands it. According to Habermas, the body plays a central role in Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other. As can be seen from his claim that “the merely subjectively experienced body is so dissimilar to the perceived body”, he not only thinks Husserl is making a distinction between two kinds of bodies, namely the “merely subjectively experienced body” and the “perceived body”, but seems to hold the view that I experience my body as a merely subjectively experienced body within the primordial sphere and experience the perceived body of the other “as an element of an objective nature”. As the phrase “only after having objectified my own body as an element of an objective nature” shows, he does admit the possibility that my own body as a merely subjectively experienced body in the primordial sphere can be objectified and can be experienced as one perceived body among others in objective nature. Moreover, on his reading, Husserl claims that the similarity between my own merely subjectively experienced body and the perceived body of the other motivates the analogical experience of the other. For Habermas, however, Husserl’s position is illegitimate since “the merely subjectively experienced body is so dissimilar to the perceived body, that it provides no basis for an analogizing transfer”. In my view, the theory of the analogical experience of the other criticized by Habermas as Husserl’s is not at all the theory that Husserl himself developed. First of all, Husserl makes no distinction in this context between a merely subjectively experienced body in the primordial sphere and a perceived body in objective nature. To the best of my knowledge, Husserl does not use these concepts in developing his theory of the analogical experience of the other. For this reason, it is almost impossible for us to understand what Habermas means by the “merely subjectively experienced body” in the primordial sphere and the “perceived body” in objective nature. Now the body does in fact play a central role in Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other, but the distinction he makes is a distinction between a mere body (Körper) and a living or lived body (Leib),200 as discussed above in chapter 3. And either of these can be “my body” as the body of the subject of the analogical experience of the other or “the body of the other” as the object of the analogical experience of the other. As we saw in chapter 3, Husserl   Ibid., 54; 40.   Hua I, 140; Husserl: Cartesian Meditataions, 110, translation altered.

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considers the experience of the mere body of the other to be the foundation of the experience of the living body of the other. Thus, Husserl considers the mere body to be more original than the living body. However, in making a distinction between the “merely subjectively experienced body” and the “perceived body”, Habermas considers the former to be more original than the latter, since he considers the latter to be the product of the “objectification” of the former. Since a mere body is more original than a living body in Husserl, on the one hand, and on the other hand, according to Habermas’s understanding of Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other, the merely subjectively experienced body is more original than the perceived body, we might suppose that Habermas uses the term “the merely subjectively experienced body” to designate a mere body in Husserl and the “perceived body” to designate a living body in Husserl. I am not sure if this is the case since Habermas’s notions are not clear. However, on the premise that it is the case, I claim that Habermas does not understand Husserl’s distinction between a mere body and a living body correctly. In this respect, it should be noted that in Husserl, whether I experience my own body as a mere body or as a living body, these bodies belong to the primordial sphere. Contrary to Husserl’s position, however, according to Habermas, only my own “merely subjectively experienced body”, the counterpart of my body as a mere body in Husserl, belongs to the primordial sphere, while my own body as a “perceived body”, the counterpart of my own body as a living body in Husserl, belongs to the intersubjective sphere of objective nature, since it is the product of an objectification of the “merely subjectively experienced body”. Thus, it turns out that Habermas criticizes Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other without correctly grasping what a “mere body” and a “living body” as its basic components concretely mean. On my reading, then, it is this misunderstanding of the different concepts of the body that motivates Habermas’s failure to grasp what “a perceptible similarity” between my own body and the other body as the foundation of “the apperceptive transfer of my own bodily experience to the other’s body” really means. For Husserl, the two bodies—mine and the other’s—that stand in a relationship of similarity are my body as a mere body and the other’s body as a mere body. In Habermas’s terms, these would be my body as a “merely subjectively experienced body” and the other’s body as a “merely subjectively experienced body”. Contrary to this fact, however, Habermas considers them to be, respectively, my body as a “merely subjectively experienced body” and the other’s body as a “perceived body” since he claims that “the merely subjectively experienced body is so dissimilar to the perceived body, that it provides no basis for an analogizing transfer”. It turns out that what Habermas fails to understand is not only the different concepts of the body but also the relationship between them as well as their roles in Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other.

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In fact, Habermas’s first criticism fails because there is no circularity involved in Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other. Once we properly understand the different concepts of the body, the relationship between them and their roles in Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other correctly, we realize that there is no circularity. As already discussed in chapter 3, if I carry out the transcendental primordial reduction discussed in §44 and subsequent sections of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in my primordial sphere, 1) I experience my body as a mere body like other natural things, and at the same time, as a living body in which my transcendental subjectivity is living; 2) I experience the other body as a mere body like other natural things; 3) I experience a similarity of my body as a mere body with the body of the other as a mere body; and 4) on the basis of the similarity between them, I experience the body of the other as another living body in which the other transcendental subjectivity is living. Thus, we can carry out the analogical experience of the other without falling into the circularity discussed by Habermas. His claim that there is a circularity involved in Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other is based on his misunderstanding of the different concepts of the body, the relationship between them and their roles in that theory. If we return to Habermas’s second criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, we find that it is based on a complete misunderstanding of the fundamental idea of the transcendental static phenomenology of the other. As we saw in chapter 3, the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a phenomenology of justification in which the I has an absolute priority over others from the perspective of transtemporal validity-foundation. And it is exactly this absolute priority of the I over the others that motivates Habermas to claim that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity cannot clarify “the complete symmetry” between the ego and others. It should be noted, however, that the absolute priority of the I over the others is valid not only for me as an autonomous and responsible subjectivity, but also for each of the others as autonomous and responsible co-constituting subjectivities. Within the context of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl’s thesis of the absolute priority of the I over the others has nothing to do with an asymmetry between the ego and the others. Instead, it is a position that emphasizes the importance of the existence of a “complete symmetry” between the ego and others as a precondition for the possibility that as autonomous and responsible subjectivities, the ego and the others can reach the final truth step by step. As discussed above in chapter 3, Husserl commented with respect to “the complete symmetry” between me and others within the context of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity as follows: On the contrary […], in the sense of a community of men and in that of man who, even as solitary, has the sense: member of a community there is implicit a mutual being for one

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another, which entails an Objectivating equalization of my existence with that of all others consequently: I or anyone else, as a man among other men. If, with my understanding of someone else, I penetrate more deeply into him, into his horizon of ownness, I shall soon run into the fact that, just as his animate living body lies in my field of perception, so my living body lies in his field of perception and that, in general, he experiences me forthwith as an Other for him, just as I experience him as my Other.201

Furthermore, Habermas also fails to grasp the true meaning of the “unique sort of philosophical solitude” that Husserl refers to in a passage from The Crisis of European Sciences in the context of the transcendental static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As demonstrated in detail in chapter 2, contrary to what Habermas claims, the “unique sort of philosophical solitude” that Husserl mentions is an attitude that not only I but also all the other subjectivities need to take as autonomous and responsible subjectivities so that each of us can become a member of the community in which the state of “complete symmetry” between myself as a transcendental subjectivity and all the others is realized. Needless to say, this has nothing to do with a procedure for securing “a private consciousness that only subsequently enters into contact with another conscious being” or with the “solitary reflection on the activities of the individual’s own subjectivity”202 that Habermas considers to be an essential component of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. After criticizing Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Habermas claims that his own theory of communicative actions has “the advantage of being able to take as their starting point the intersubjective relation that constitutive theories attempt in vain to derive from the activity of monadic consciousness”.203 Thus, he holds the view that his theory of communicative action is superior to, and goes far beyond, the scope of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, which Habermas considers to be a philosophical position that cannot address the issue of “the structures of linguistically generated intersubjectivity”.204 However, I do not agree with Habermas for the following two reasons. First, Habermas does not realize that there are four different kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a constitutive phenomenology—namely, the transcendental static, the transcendental genetic, the natural static, and the natural genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As we have seen, his theory of communicative action can be classified as a kind of natural genetic phenomenology. Thus, as I have already mentioned, it turns out that Habermas’s theory of communicative action is only one part of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a constitutive phenomenology. And contrary to what Habermas   Hua I, 157–158; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 129–130.  Habermas: Vorstudien und Ergänzungen, 58; Habermas: Pragmatics, 43. 203   Ibid., 59; 44. 204  Habermas: Kommunikativen Handelns 2, 198; Habermas: Communicative Action 2, 130. 201

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claims, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity goes far beyond the scope of Habermas’s theory of communicative action. Moreover, we need to pay attention to the fact that, as we have seen, the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is more fundamental than the natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity. For this reason, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, which includes not only a natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity but also a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, goes far beyond the scope of Habermas’s own theory of communicative action. Second, as we have also already discussed above, contrary to what Habermas claims, Husserl does emphasize the crucial role of linguistic communication in the constitution of a society and does analyze the structure of communication as an important topic of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In a manuscript from 1932 that has the title “Phenomenology of communicative society […]”,205 he analyzes the role of linguistic communication for the constitution of various kinds of society in detail and regards “communicative society as the presupposition and form of social acts”.206 And this is not even the first work in which he discusses the role of linguistic communication for the constitution of various kinds of society, a topic he was already pursuing in the years following 1910. In §51 of Ideas II, “The person in personal associations”, Husserl attempts to clarify the role that linguistic communication plays in the constitution of various kinds of society as follows: In this way relations of mutual understanding are formed: speaking elicits response; the theoretical, valuing, or practical appeal, addressed by the one to the other, elicits, as it were, a response coming back, assent (agreement) or refusal (disagreement) and perhaps a counterproposal, etc. In these relations of mutual understanding, there is produced a conscious mutual relation of persons and at the same time a unitary relation of them to a common surrounding world.207

The “relations of mutual understanding” described in this passage are the foundation of the constitution of society, and they in turn have their origin in “communicative acts”. Thus, “communicative acts” turn out to be the origin of the constitution of society, as Husserl indicates: Sociality is constituted by specifically social, communicative acts, acts in which the Ego turns to others and in which the Ego is conscious of these others as ones toward which it is turning, and ones which, furthermore, understand this turning, perhaps adjust their behavior to it and reciprocate by turning toward that Ego in acts of agreement or disagreement, etc.208

    207   208   205 206

Hua XV, 461. Hua XV, 461. Hua IV, 192–193; Husserl: Ideas II, 202–203. Ibid., 194; 204.

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And here it should be noted that the communication between the ego and others carried out through specifically communicative acts is mutual which implies that there is indeed the “complete symmetry” between the ego and others that Habermas emphasizes in criticizing Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Thus, even though Husserl’s theory of communicative acts and the communicative world in §51 of Ideas II is not developed extensively, it is similar to Habermas’s own theory of communicative action, and I consider it to be the forerunner of the latter. Moreover, I hold the view that Habermas was already familiar with it while he was preparing his theory of communicative action in the 1970s—note that Ideas II was published in German in 1952. Of course, it is in fact possible that Habermas did not have a chance to become acquainted with this work at that time. Nevertheless, Habermas could have read Ideas II. As mentioned above, he was decisively influenced by Schutz’s 1957 paper, and it is precisely through reading this paper that he could have become aware of Ideas II. In this context, it should be noted that in section IV of the paper, Schutz discusses the phenomenology of intersubjectivity that Husserl develops in §§46–51 of Ideas II. It is not by chance that when we read Ideas II and some other texts where Husserl attempts to develop the phenomenology of communicative action, we have the feeling as if we were reading a part of Habermas’s The Theory of Communicative Action, not Husserl’s well-known texts such as Logical Investigations or Ideas I. 9. Criticism of Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity as Cartesianism Most of the criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity are aimed at vestiges of Cartesianism in Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. If we take a look at these criticisms, we discover that there is a general tendency common to them. First, they consider Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity to be the theory of analogical experience of the other developed in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, a theory that is interpreted as a static phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Second, they claim that the latter theory is driven by the Cartesian impulse to base philosophy on absolutely certain knowledge of one’s own consciousness, so it cannot avoid the tendency to prioritize the ego over other egos, which in turn prevents it from truly treating others in their own right. In this context, critics claim that since Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is rooted in the same traditional epistemological concerns as Descartes, it cannot properly discuss problems of intersubjectivity that go beyond the scope of epistemological problems of the other—above all, issues that in my view are nothing other than issues of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. If such a critique were true, this would be a severe limitation

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for any phenomenology of intersubjectivity that purports to study intersubjectivity concretely. However, these criticisms are not legitimate because the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity fully admits that the other and society do take precedence over the ego, meaning that Husserl’s phenomenology is not as Cartesian as critics have supposed. As we have already seen in Husserl’s description of the genesis of the ego, the ego does not first exist above and beyond society; rather, society exists prior to the ego. Husserl accordingly writes: “But in it I enter the intersubjectivity that has always already existed through all births.”209 Yet we must be careful not to misconstrue the statements above as mere agreement on Husserl’s part with the critics. In my view, when we look closely at the views of the critics, we see that they make several mistakes, big and small. Among these, the biggest mistake is the failure to make a proper distinction between static and genetic phenomenology. In what follows, we review the differences in how the relationship between the ego, the other, and society is revealed in the static and genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Before we do so, however, we must acknowledge that up until now we have been using the phrase “the ego, the other, and society”, tacitly tying the other and society together as a single theme. But it should be noted that the other and society are two different things and that the other is a component of society. Thus, we should not confound the issue of the other and that of society and must be careful to observe this distinction: we must treat the issue of the relation between the ego and the other separately from the issue of the relation between the ego and society. First, if we look at the relationship between the ego and society from the perspective of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, we can see that the critics’ views are not valid. Contrary to what they claim, society does not always precede the ego. It is true that from a genetic-phenomenological point of view, there are so many cases in which the existence of society does precede the existence of the ego that it is not worth repeating them here. Nobody can deny that a person is already immersed in a society from the moment of birth. And even if we do not refer to this particular example, there are other instances in which society precedes the ego. The moment we enter a school, office, group, etc., we realize that these various kinds of society existed prior to us. However, the fact that there are countless instances in which society precedes the ego does not rule out the possibility of the ego preceding society. For instance, when we try to set up a new organization along with others, it is clear from a genetic-phenomenological view that my ego exists before this organization as a kind of society. Second, if we take a look at the relationship between the ego and the other from the perspective of genetic phenomenology, we see that there are many   Hua XV, 439.

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cases clearly demonstrating that the existence of others precedes the existence of my ego, and that these others who precede me influence the trajectory of my own ego’s development. For instance, the actions of people from a previous generation will inevitably influence the way my ego develops. However, the influence that others may have over my ego is not necessarily one-sided. The ego and the other can coexist in a relationship where the ego can affect the other and vice versa. In this case, the ego and the other can be considered to be co-original; Eugen Fink accordingly speaks of “the reciprocal relationship of the ego to the Other as essentially involved in the experience of the alter ego, the relationship in which the Other is experienced by me as being himself oriented to me” and refers to “the fact that this reciprocal relation potentially admits of infinite reiterations”.210 However, there are also cases where the existence of the ego precedes the existence of others and influences them. One example is the relation between me and my descendants whom I may not have any chance to know directly. Thus, the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity does offer cases in which from the perspective of transcendental genesis, society and the other do precede the ego. The other and society can therefore be considered original concepts while the ego can be viewed as a derivative concept. However, the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity also shows that from the perspective of transcendental genesis, the ego can also sometimes precede the existence of society and others, thereby demonstrating that the ego can be considered an original concept while the other and society can be considered derivative concepts. Contrary to what critics claim, then, Husserl makes no dogmatic assertion of the precedence of the ego over the other and society—or vice versa—and instead claims that we must judge from case to case. If critics have illegitimately accused Husserl’s phenomenology of having a bias for the ego over others, then Husserl can in turn legitimately accuse the critics of having an undue bias in favor of the precedence of society and others. It should be noted, however, that Husserl’s static phenomenology of intersubjectivity is indeed markedly different from the views of his critics. In static phenomenology, the ego has absolute priority over the other and society, and as such the ego can be considered an original concept, whereas the other and the society can be considered to be derivative concepts. As we have indicated, a static phenomenology of intersubjectivity aims at clarifying the foundation of the validity of the experience of the other and of society, and in the end, the validity of the experience of the other and of society can only be justified by appealing to the validity of the experience of the static primordial sphere as the   Eugen Fink: “Comments by Eugen Fink on Alfred Schutz’s Essay, ‘The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl’ (Royaumont, April 28, 1957)”. In: Alfred Schutz: Collected Papers III: Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy. The Hague 1975, 84–91, here: 88. 210

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sphere of my ownness. I have absolute certainty regarding the existence of my ownness, whereas I cannot have such a certainty about the existence of the other ego and of society. Thus, from the perspective of the foundation of validity, the ego precedes the other and society. To this extent Husserl certainly does seem to be following in the footsteps of Descartes. But the important point that critics have missed is that Husserl does not assign absolute priority to the ego over the other and society in all contexts but primarily does so in the context of static phenomenology itself, and in the context of a genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, he does so only in a very limited manner. As discussed earlier, from the methodological point of view, the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity plays a central role for the development of all of the various kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity, including the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity itself. It is first of all Husserl’s achievement to have emphasized the important role of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity for the development of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a whole. Whether following him or independently from him, Scheler too emphasizes the importance of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity for the entire system of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity by recognizing the problem of intersubjectivity concerning the “critique of knowledge” as an important problem of intersubjectivity. Unfortunately, the significance of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity has been neglected by Heidegger and some of the phenomenologists/philosophers after him, as we have seen. It is true that it is their great achievement to have developed various fields of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a sub-discipline of genetic phenomenology in general, but it is at the same time a big loss for the phenomenological movement that some of them have neglected the importance of the static phenomenology of intersubjectivity and have not tried to develop it further. 10.  Concluding Remarks Our discussion of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity shows that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity actually has far more in common with the views of the critics than they would believe. If anything, in sketching out a broad view of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, we find that Husserl had already anticipated, sometimes in fledgling form, ideas that his critics would use in developing their own views on intersubjectivity. Indeed, among the various fields of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that Husserl laid out, each of the critics has developed only one part, corresponding to her/his research interests. I hope that this chapter will not only help to rectify certain misinterpretations of Husserl but will also provoke a more fruitful dialogue that can lead to more mature reflections on

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intersubjectivity. Let me conclude with some remarks concerning my future tasks. First, in this chapter, I could not discuss Husserl’s genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity in a comprehensive manner. I cannot exclude the possibility that there are some topics of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity that I have not addressed at all. Moreover, the topics that I have addressed in this chapter are not discussed in full detail. Thus, one of my future tasks is to clarify all the various topics of the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity in a more detailed manner. Second, I have discussed some kinds of the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity developed by other phenomenologists/philosophers after Husserl, but I could not discuss them in full detail either, since due to constraints of space, I have discussed only those parts of the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity they developed that directly bear on my research interest in this chapter. Thus, it is one of my future tasks to discuss these accounts more fully and to invite proponents of these positions to enter into a more extensive dialogue with Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Finally, in this chapter, I could not discuss all the subsequent phenomenologists/philosophers who developed various fields of the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity, including thinkers such as Edith Stein, Jean-Paul Sartre, Aron Gurwitsch, Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida, or George Herbert Mead, etc. They too need to be discussed in connection with Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. It is my future task to clarify all the various kinds of the phenomenology/philosophy of intersubjectivity they developed and to invite these voices to a dialogue with Husserl on the topic of intersubjectivity as well.

PART II Husserl and Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Levinas

Chapter 5 Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Levinas As the title of Levinas’s major work, Totality and Infinity, indicates, his phenomenology of the face deals with the various kinds of relations between the ego and the other that can be observed on the plane of totality and on that of infinity. Both the plane of totality and that of infinity consist of various kinds of relations between the ego and the other. However, the essential structure of the relation between the ego and the other on the plane of totality is totally different from that on the plane of infinity. The plane of totality consists of the relations between the ego and the other in a relative sense, that is, the other that is totalized by the ego. The other in a relative sense cannot be called the other in a genuine sense, since it is something that has been reabsorbed into an ego that attempts to maintain and identify itself. With this, however, the other in a relative sense becomes an object that has lost its absolute alterity. For this reason, the relation between the ego and the other in a relative sense cannot be called a relation between the ego and the other as an alterity in the genuine sense; instead, it is a relation that is produced within the same. In contrast to the plane of totality, the plane of infinity consists of the relations between the ego and the other in an absolute sense. The other in an absolute sense means the other that cannot be reabsorbed into and totalized by the ego. This absolute other lies beyond the power of the ego that attempts to totalize and reabsorb the other into itself. Such an other thereby resists and ruptures totality. For this reason, the other in an absolute sense can genuinely be termed transcendence, and the plane of infinity is a plane on which the ego can have a truly ethical relation with the other. According to Levinas, not only the plane of totality but also the plane of infinity can be divided into various smaller planes that should be distinguished from each other. For example, the plane of totality is divided into the plane of representation, the plane of Zeug, the plane of enjoyment, etc. The plane of representation, which consists of the relations between the ego and the object of representation, is the most radically totalizing plane among the sub-planes of the plane of totality. Likewise, the plane of infinity can also be divided into various sub-planes. In the third and fourth parts of Totality and Infinity, Levinas distinguishes various kinds of sub-planes within the plane of infinity, such as the plane of the face, the plane of eros, the plane of fecundity, etc. Levinas criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the general context of the phenomenology of the face. According to Levinas, Husserl’s phenomenology can be characterized as a phenomenology of representation1   We use “representation”, “representational intentionality”, and “objectifying intentionality”

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since it cannot go beyond the plane of representation. As such, it is the most radical form of the philosophy of totality and remains totally blind to the plane of infinity. Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity is a typical example of this limitation. According to Levinas, his own phenomenology of the face cannot be reconciled with Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as the most radical form of the philosophy of totality.2 Below, I will critically assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In section 1, I will delineate the criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity that Levinas advances in Totality and Infinity. As I have already indicated, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity does not consist only of one kind; rather, he pursues various kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and I will focus on the distinction between the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity and the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity since it will serve as a starting point for a critical assessment of Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In section 2, confining my discussion to the relationship between Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, I will show that Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity goes beyond the scope of the phenomenology of representation. In section 3, confining my discussion to the relationship between Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, I will show that the former has nothing to do with the kind of phenomenology of representation that Levinas accuses of totalizing and absorbing the other into the same, since the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is totally neutral with regard to the question of whether or not the intersubjective relation is a representational one. In section 4, I will demonstrate the possibility of a phenomenological dialogue between Husserl’s phenomenology and Levinas’s phenomenology concerning problems of intersubjectivity, a dialogue from which both philosophical positions can profit.

as interchangeable terms—all referring to Husserl’s notion of Vorstellung which has also been rendered in English as “presentation”, “objectivation”, and “objectivating intention”. 2   If we consider Levinas’s works as a whole, we observe that his attitude to Husserl is ambiguous, as Jeffrey Powell correctly describes: “Throughout the more philosophical itinerary of Emmanuel Levinas the thought of Edmund Husserl has often been either raised or employed. Levinas’ comments regarding Husserl are ambiguous, at best. At times, he offers nothing but praise for the man and projects that go by the name Husserl. At other times, he speaks of Husserl as if he were singlehandedly responsible for the entire history of the discourse of the Same. The latter perspective is particularily evident in Levinas’ monumental 1961 work, Totality and Infinity. In that great work, Levinas bases his critique of Husserl on the notion of representation” (Powell: “Levinas representing Husserl on representation”, 185).

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1. Levinas’s Criticism of Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other developed in his Fifth Cartesian Meditation is the target of Levinas’s criticism of the former’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Levinas maintains that the experience of the other in an absolute sense cannot be clarified with the theory of analogical experience, since it is a relation with “this ‘thing in itself ’”3—a pure and absolute experience of the other that is not mediated by anything. Husserl’s theory of analogical experience of the other turns the original relation of the ego to the other in an absolute sense into a relation of the ego to the other as an object of representation, as a passage of Totality and Infinity reads: The constitution of the Other’s body in what Husserl calls “the primordial sphere”, the transcendental “coupling” of the object thus constituted with my own body itself experienced from within as an “I can”, the comprehension of this body of the Other as an alter ego—this analysis dissimulates, in each of its stages which are taken as a description of constitution, mutations of object constitution into a relation with the Other—which is as primordial as the constitution from which it is to be derived.4

Thus, Levinas maintains that Husserl’s theory of analogical experience is in principle unable to deal with the relation of the ego to the other in an absolute sense, since it treats the other as a thing or as a mere object of representation. This is a necessary consequence of Husserl’s phenomenology as a phenomenology of representation. Levinas maintains that the other given in analogical experience is not the other in any genuine sense of the term but could only be “a second copy of the I”.5 For this reason, Levinas draws the conclusion that Husserl’s transcendental subjectivity is a solipsistic one and that his transcendental-phenomenological account of the structure of transcendental subjectivity turns out to be a solipsism. Correspondingly, Levinas maintains that the essential character of the phenomenological reduction as the method to disclose transcendental subjectivity is “a sort of closure at the heart of the opening onto the given”, a “rebelling against the anxiety of transcendence, a self-complacency”.6 According to Levinas, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a phenomenology of representation is overcome by Heidegger’s phenomenology of Mitsein. With respect to the superiority of the position of Heidegger’s phenomenology of Mitsein over the position of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Levinas makes the following remark: “In Heidegger coexistence is,  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 67.  Ibid. 5   Ibid., 121. 6   Emmanuel Levinas: Discovering Existence with Husserl. Translated from French by Richard A. Cohen, Michael B. Smith. Evanston, IL 1998, 178. 3 4

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to be sure, taken as a relationship with the Other irreducible to objective cognition […].”7 In contrast to Husserl’s analysis of the analogical experience of the other, what “a relationship with the Other irreducible to objective cognition” concretely means is a relationship that is intersubjective from the beginning. Heidegger’s theory of Mitsein expresses this as follows: “Being-in is Being-with Others. Their Being-in-themselves within--the-world is Dasein-with.”8 Here Levinas is in line with Heidegger who claims that his fundamental ontology is the product of a critical assessment of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. However, Heidegger’s phenomenology of Mitsein has some limitations9 since it conceives of the other as the other that is mediated by the horizon of being, and he correspondingly understands intersubjectivity as a neutral “we” that knows nothing about the other in an absolute sense. In contrast, Levinas writes: Absolute experience is not disclosure; to disclose, on the basis of a subjective horizon, is already to miss the noumenon. The interlocutor alone is the term of pure experience, where the Other enters into relation while remaining kathauto, where he expresses himself without our having to disclose him from a “point of view”, in a borrowed light.10

Thus, even if Heidegger’s phenomenology of Mitsein goes beyond the scope of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, it is nonetheless unable to go beyond the scope of the philosophy of totality. For Levinas, then, Heidegger’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity should be overcome by a new position. And the new position he considers in this regard is Buber’s dialogical philosophy. As discussed earlier in chapter 3, in his dialogical philosophy, Buber makes a distinction between the I-It relation and the I-Thou relation. The I-It relation can be characterized as a relation of the ego to the other person insofar as the other person is conceived as a mere thing. In contrast to the I-It relation, the I-Thou relation can be characterized as a relation between the I and the other person insofar as the other person is conceived as a Thou whom I love, hate, respect, long for, etc. The relation of the I with the Thou is called a dialogical relation, and it should be strictly distinguished from the

 Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 67.   Heidegger: Sein und Zeit, 118; Heidegger: Being and Time, 155.  9   With respect to the limitation of Heidegger’s phenomenology of Mitsein, Levinas adds to the passage cited just above the following remark: “But in the final analysis it also rests on the relationship with being in general, on comprehension, on ontology. Heidegger posits in advance this ground of being as the horizon on which every existent arises, as though the horizon, and the idea of limit it includes and which is proper to vision, were the ultimate structure of relationship. Moreover, for Heidegger intersubjectivity is a coexistence, a we prior to the I and the other, a neutral intersubjectivity” (Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 67–68). 10   Ibid., 67.  7  8

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neutral relation of the I to the other that is dealt with in Heidegger’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. However, Buber’s dialogical philosophy also has some limitations. In Totality and Infinity, Levinas mentions two kinds of limitation pertaining to Buber’s dialogical philosophy. The first one is that Buber conceives the I-Thou relation as a reciprocal one;11 you are the Thou to me and I am the Thou to you. There is a kind of symmetry between the I and the Thou. In contrast to Buber, Levinas emphasizes that the relation between an ego and the other in an absolute sense is not a symmetrical relation but a fundamentally asymmetrical relation, and there is thus no reciprocity between the ego and the other in an absolute sense. The second limitation of Buber’s dialogical philosophy can be found in its formal character. “On the other hand, the I-Thou relation in Buber retains a formal character: it can unite man to things as much as man to man.”12 The formal character of Buber’s dialogical philosophy implies that his philosophy cannot explore the concrete structure of the relation between the ego and the other in an absolute sense, since the I-Thou relation is a relation of the I with the familiar person that I meet at home, in my town or in my country.13 As such, it is a relation of the ego to the other that remains on the plane of totality. Buber’s dialogical philosophy cannot clarify the structure of the metaphysical relation that is the main topic of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, and it therefore has to be replaced by a phenomenology of the face: “This work does not have the ridiculous pretension of ‘correcting’ Buber on these points. It is placed in a different perspective, by starting with the idea of the Infinite.”14 According to Levinas, then, from the perspective of exteriority, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, which is confined to the plane of representation, is far behind not only the position of Heidegger’s phenomenology of Mitsein but also that of Buber’s dialogical philosophy. Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a phenomenology of representation is nothing other than the most radical form of the philosophy of totality. As such, it is opposed to Levinas’s phenomenology of the face as the most radical form of a philosophy of infinity.

 Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 68.  Ibid. 13   “The I-Thou formalism does not determine any concrete structure. The I-Thou is an event (Geschehen), a shock, a comprehension, but does not enable us to account for (except as an aberration, a fall, or a sickness) a life other than friendship: economy, the search for happiness, the representational relation with things. They remain, in a sort of disdainful spiritualism, unexplored and unexplained” (Ibid., 68–69). 14   Ibid., 69. 11 12

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2. Husserl’s Ontological Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and Levinas’s Phenomenology of the Face In order to be able to offer a critical assessment of Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of the face, it is necessary to get an overview of the system of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a whole. As I have discussed in chapter 3, Husserl developed not one kind but various kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity that should be strictly distinguished from each other. For example, he distinguishes ontological phenomenology, transcendental phenomenology, and metaphysical phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Most of the critics begin their criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity with the implicit assumption that Husserl developed only one kind of phenomenology of intersubjectivity. They overlook the important fact that Husserl does indeed make a distinction among these various kinds of phenomenology of intersubjectivity which causes their criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity to miss the mark. In this respect, Levinas is no exception. Hence, to be able to examine Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, I will focus on the ontological phenomenology and the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity discussed above in chapter 3 and compare each of them with Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. In this section, confining my discussion to the relationship between Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, I will assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As I have already indicated, Levinas characterizes Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a phenomenology of representation that reduces the intersubjective relation to a representational relation of the ego to the other. However, this kind of criticism is not valid, since it ignores that even in the context of his ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl explicitly mentions a kind of intersubjective relation that cannot be reduced to a representational relation of the ego to the other—namely, the intersubjective relation with other persons as co-subjects.15 Moreover, if one takes a close look at various passages in Husserl’s published and unpublished works dealing with the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity, one can find that Husserl is actually engaged with various kinds of intersubjective relations that go beyond the scope of representational intentionality. In fact, one can find that among the various kinds of intersubjective relations that Husserl attempts to analyze, there are indeed the kinds of intersubjective relations that are dealt with in Levinas’s phenomenology of the face.   Hua I, 123; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 91.

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Let us therefore consider the various kinds of intersubjective relations that are dealt with in Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Needless to say, Husserl does not exclude the possibility that the other person can be experienced as a mere object of representational intentionality. There are even cases in which a person can be experienced by another person as a mere thing and nothing more. As already mentioned, in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, examining the various ways the other is experienced, Husserl also considers the possibility that the other is experienced as an “It”: For example: In changeable harmonious multiplicities of experience, I experience others as actually existing and, on the one hand, as world Objects—not as mere physical things belonging to Nature, though indeed as such things in respect of one side of them.16

To be sure, the case in which the other is experienced as a mere thing is an extreme case. In addition to this case, there are various other cases in which the other is indeed experienced as an object of representational intentionality. For example, the other can be experienced as a psychophysical entity: “They are in fact experienced also as governing psychically in their respective natural organisms. Thus, peculiarly involved with animate organisms, as ‘psychophysical’ Objects, they are ‘in’ the world.”17 It is therefore an undeniable fact that the other can be experienced as a mere object of representational intentionality, even though one can also ask the question if, considered from an ethical point of view, such a way of experiencing the other is desirable. Of course, Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not confined to the plane of representation. Nor is it the case that the relation of the ego to the other observable on the plane of representation is the central topic of Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In his works, Husserl deals not only with the representational relation of the ego to the other but also with other kinds of relations of the ego to the other. For example, contrary to Levinas’s claim that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity cannot deal with the intersubjective relation that is dealt with in Heidegger’s theory of Mitsein, Husserl does deal with the intersubjective relation that is analyzed by Heidegger in Being and Time. In a passage in a later manuscript from 1931, dealing with the problem of “the universe of transcendental co-egos” (das Universum von transzendentalen Mit-Ich), Husserl emphasizes the intersubjective character of transcendental subjectivity: “No absolute [being] can evade universal coexistence; it is nonsense that something is and is not connected to any being, that it is alone. Not only am I not a solus ipse, no conceivable absolute is solus ipse, that is utter nonsense.”18 This passage shows that Husserl holds   Ibid., italics added.  Ibid. 18   Hua XV, 371. 16 17

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a view about the intersubjective character of the ego that is similar to that of Heidegger. As already mentioned, from the perspective of the phenomenology of the face, Buber’s dialogical philosophy represents a better position than Heidegger’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Therefore, it would be absolutely impossible for Levinas to suppose that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity could deal with the dialogical relation that is the main theme of Buber’s dialogical philosophy. However, as discussed above in chapter 3, contrary to what Levinas might believe, in some manuscripts Husserl does deal with the dialogical relation as a topic of an ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity. For example, addressing the problem of “phenomenology of the communicative society”,19 Husserl describes the dialogical relation in the following way: In addressing and receiving the address, I and the other I come to an initial agreement. I am not only for myself, and the other is not opposite me as another, but the other is my Thou, and speaking, listening, counter-speaking we already form a we that is united in a special way, communalized.20

Husserl also acknowledges that in many cases the other is experienced not as an “It”, an object of mere representation, but as a Thou. In another manuscript, Husserl makes a distinction that is similar to Buber’s between the “I-It relation” and the “I-Thou relation” which shows that it is also an important topic of Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the essential structure of the dialogical relation: Thereby the other souls appear to me in a totally different way than things. Things appear to me as mere objects, the souls appear to me as persons who address me or whom I address, as those whom I love or those who love me, and so on. I don’t live isolated, I live, with them, a common and united life […].21

Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity, then, does go beyond the plane of representation to deal with other kinds of relations between the ego and the other that can be observed on the plane of totality. Moreover, one should also realize that Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not confined to the plane of totality. In some manuscripts, Husserl does actually deal with various kinds of intersubjective relations that are similar to the relations of the ego to infinity analyzed by Levinas in Totality and Infinity. For example, addressing the problem of sympathy, he writes: “Extreme case: completely and voluntarily put oneself in the service of the other.”22 This extreme case is somewhat similar to what Levinas calls the pure and absolute     21   22   19 20

Hua XV, 461 ff. Hua XV, 476. Hua XIII, 92. Hua XV, 509.

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experience of the Other as a face. In other manuscripts, Husserl is engaged with the analysis of Christian love as different from erotic love. “We are of course thinking here of the infinite love of Christ for all people and of the general love for men which the Christian must awaken in himself and without which he cannot be a true Christian.”23 The Christian love that is mentioned in this passage is an infinite love, and as such, it has an affinity with the absolute responsibility to the face as the Other in an absolute sense, such as the orphan, the widow, and the stranger that Levinas emphasizes in his phenomenology of the face. As is well known, to clarify the structure of the relation of the ego with infinity, Levinas often mentions the idea of the Good as the main topic in Plato’s Republic. In the same way, dealing with the structure of Christian love that is essentially infinite, Husserl also mentions the idea of the Good: “In every human soul lies—that is the belief—a mission, a germ that is to develop by automatically acting for the good.”24 One cannot deny that Husserl’s analysis of infinite Christian love has some similarity with Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. Moreover, in some manuscripts, Husserl develops a phenomenology of love that has some similarity with Levinas’s “phenomenology of eros”. In Totality and Infinity, Levinas develops a phenomenology of eros as part of a phenomenology of infinity that goes “beyond the face”,25 to cite the title of Section IV of that work. And as the title of the first chapter of Section IV already indicates—“The Ambiguity of Love”—Levinas maintains that love has a certain ambiguity. On the one hand, two persons who love one another are united in the act of loving. In this sense, one can say that there is no clear distinction between the lover and the loved; the loved is immanent to the lover and the lover is immanent to the loved: “Love as a relation with the Other can be reduced to this fundamental immanence, be divested of all transcendence, seek but a connatural being, a sister soul, present itself as incest.”26 On the other hand, the lover and the loved are not entirely dissolved into one another in the act of loving; the lover should be transcendent to the loved and the loved should be transcendent to the lover: “Love remains a relation with the Other that turns into need, and this need still presupposes the total, transcendent exteriority of the other, of the beloved.”27 Thus, in the act of love, the lover and the loved are simultaneously immanent and transcendent to one another. Levinas regards love as something that, being “situated at the limit of immanence and transcendence”,28 is essentially ambiguous.29   Hua XIV, 174.   Hua XIV, 174. 25  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 249. 26   Ibid., 254. 27  Ibid. 28  Ibid. 29   “The possibility of the Other appearing as an object of a need while retaining his alterity, or 23 24

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Now if we turn to how Husserl develops a phenomenology of love, we find that he makes a distinction between the “hedonistic, ‘sensual’ values and the ‘spiritual’ values”,30 and considers the “values of love” to belong to the spiritual values. As something spiritual, love has a component of bliss and ecstasy; this undeniable fact might easily motivate one to suppose that love is only something sensual and has nothing to do with spirituality. However, Husserl emphasizes the fact that the essential component of love is spirituality, not sensuality: “In all love there is reverence, in all reverence there is bliss as an essential gift.”31 For this reason, one can say that for Husserl love is situated at the limit of the sensual and the spiritual, just as Levinas maintains that love is situated at the limit of need and desire, immanence and transcendence. Hence here too, love is ambiguous. And with respect to love as something ambiguous, Husserl maintains, on the one hand, that in the act of loving, the lover and the loved become one; they are united. In this context he defines the act of loving as “losing oneself in the other in the act of loving, living in the other, being united with the other”.32 Thus, in this sense, there is no distinction between the lover and the loved. On the other hand, the lover and the loved should be distinguished, and they are two different persons. In the act of loving, neither the lover nor the loved loses her/his identity. Husserl accordingly writes: “The lover does not lose herself/himself in love, but in a particular elevated way she/he lives as an I in the loved.”33 Such examples make it clear that Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity does indeed deal with various kinds of relations between the ego and the other. In contrast to what Levinas claims, it does not aim to clarify only the kind of relation of the ego with the other that can be observed on the plane of representation. Thus, Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology as a phenomenology of representation is not valid. In fact, as we have seen, in the context of an ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl attempts to clarify the structure of some of the very same kinds of relations of the ego to the other that Levinas is concerned with. In principle, the ontological

again, the possibility of enjoying the Other, of placing oneself at the same time beneath and beyond discourse—this position with regard to the interlocutor which at the same time reaches him and goes beyond him, this simultaneity of need and desire, of concupiscence and transcendence, tangency of the avowable and the unavowable, constitutes the originality of the erotic which, in this sense, is the equivocal par excellence” (ibid., 255). 30   Hua XV, 406. 31   Hua XV, 406. 32   Hua XV, 406. 33   Edmund Husserl: Manuscript F I 24, 29a. The German original runs as follows: “Der Liebende verliert sich nicht in der Liebe, sondern in besonderer erhöhter Weise lebt er als Ich in Geliebten.”

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phenomenology of intersubjectivity aims at clarifying the essential structure of all possible relations of the ego to the other. Needless to say, Husserl has not actually analyzed all possible relations of the ego to the other in a detailed manner. In many cases, his analysis of various kinds of relations of the ego to the other is only rudimentary which can partly be explained by the fact that he considers the essential structure of the experience of the other to be a leading clue for the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity—a discipline that Husserl considers to be more important than the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Moreover, one cannot find any attempt in Husserl to develop the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity systematically from a certain point of view. This is what distinguishes Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity from Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, which attempts to analyze the various kinds of intersubjective relations from the perspective of “exteriority”, as the subtitle of Totality and Infinity—“An Essay on Exteriority”—indicates. Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity does not consider whether the relation of the ego to the other is an ethical one in the Levinasian sense or not, while the proper concern of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face is precisely the ethical relation. If one sets aside the fact that Levinas’s phenomenology of the face is systematically developed from the standpoint of exteriority, it turns out that his phenomenology of the face has the same task as that of Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity which aims at clarifying the essential structure of the various kinds of intersubjective relation. In this respect, I totally agree with Søren Overgaard who, discussing “Levinas’ critique of the Husserlian account of intersubjectivity”, makes the following claim: “Levinas’ main charge is unjustified, and is based on a misjudgment of Husserl’s fundamental proximity to Levinas’ own position.”34 With respect to the relationship between Husserl’s ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, one should also note that Levinas does actually attempt to clarify the essential structure of various kinds of intersubjective relations, and among them, that of the experience of the other in an absolute sense. As mentioned above (and as will be discussed later in detail in chapter 7 on “Experience and Evidence”), the absolute experience of the other is also a kind of experience of the other, and as such, it has its own essential structure. One should not suppose that the face is something mystical that might go beyond the scope of experience. If the face were really to go beyond the scope of experience, it would be impossible for us to talk about it. The face is something that we can indeed experience, even though the experience of the face has its own essential structure—one that is   Overgaard: “Levinas’ critique of Husserl”, 115.

34

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totally different from the essential structure of the other kinds of intersubjective experience. In this respect, Levinas calls the experience of the face an “absolute experience”35 or a “pure experience”36 that is not mediated by anything else. Levinas attempts to clarify the essential structure of such an absolute experience by comparing this experience with the other kinds of experiences of the other that are observable on the plane of totality. In Totality and Infinity, one can find various kinds of statements about the essential structure of the absolute experience, such as the following: “The face is present in its refusal to be contained”;37 “The face is a living presence; it is expression”;38 “The absolute experience is not disclosure, but revelation: a coinciding of the expressed with him who expresses, which is the privileged manifestation of the Other, the manifestation of a face over and beyond form.”39 Levinas is also clearly conscious that his phenomenology of the face has an ontological aspect and considers the descriptive analysis of the essential structure of the absolute experience to be an important task of the phenomenology of the face, as can be found in the following citations: “The ‘intentionality’ of transcendence is unique in its kind; the difference between objectivity and transcendence will serve as a general guideline for all the analyses of this work”;40 “But the infinite distance of the Stranger despite the proximity achieved by the idea of infinity, the complex structure of the unparalleled relation designated by this idea, has to be described […].”41 Thus, in Totality and Infinity, Levinas does attempt a descriptive analysis of the essential structure of the experience of the other in an absolute sense, an experience that is “unique in its kind”. 3. Transcendental Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity and Phenomenology of the Face I will now critically assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity from the standpoint of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As discussed above in part I, Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other—which is the main target of Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity—is developed in the context of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Let us accordingly examine whether in developing his theory of the analogical experience of the  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 67.  Ibid. 37   Ibid., 194. 38   Ibid., 66. 39   Ibid., 65–66. 40   Ibid., 49, italics altered. 41   Ibid., 50, italics added. 35 36

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other, Husserl really considers the other to be a mere object of representation that can be totalized by me without remainder. In fact, the phenomenological position concerning intersubjectivity that Levinas regards as Husserl’s position and criticizes as a phenomenology of representation has nothing to do with Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. This can be easily ascertained if one takes into account the reason why Husserl has to develop his phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. If Husserl had indeed considered the other to be something that can be entirely totalized by the ego, as Levinas believes to be the case, he would have had to draw the conclusion that his phenomenology turns out to be a kind of solipsism. In this case, whether he was satisfied with this conclusion or full of despair over it, he would not have felt any need to develop his phenomenology into a phenomenology of intersubjectivity. However, he does attempt to do so, precisely because he believes that the other is not a mere object of representation that can be totalized by the ego without remainder, but is, to use Levinas’s terminology, “the sting of desire”42 that cannot be totalized by the ego. In fact, in §42 of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, where Husserl begins to develop the phenomenology of intersubjectivity, he asks: “But how about then other egos, who surely are not mere representations and the represented in me, merely synthetic unities of possible verification in me, but, according to their sense, precisely others?”43 It is obvious that in this passage, he emphasizes the fact that the other is not a mere object of representation that can be totalized by the ego. Thus, it is already clear that Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is highly problematic. In fact, Levinas does not understand the true meaning of Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other. With respect to this theory, one might assume that Husserl really considers the experience of the other to be a process of projecting my mental state into the other. If this were really the case, the analogical experience of the other would indeed be nothing other than the process of the ego totalizing the other. This kind of supposition might be strengthened by the fact that Husserl calls the experience of the other “empathy” (Einfühlung)—which in ordinary language means the process of projecting my mental state into the other. However, for Husserl, this is not what empathy means; instead, the term is used to denote various kinds of experience of the other or appresentation of the other. In fact, Husserl criticizes the theory of empathy that does consider the process of experiencing the other to be a mere process of projecting my mental state into the other.44 As discussed above in chapter 3, the theory of empathy that Husserl criticizes is the one advocated   Emmanuel Levinas: Existence and Existents. Translated from French by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague 1978, 37. 43   Hua I, 121; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 89. 44   Cf. Hua XIII, 70 ff. 42

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by Lipps. Lipps maintains that as a process of empathy, the experience of the other is nothing other than the process of projecting my mental state into the other—a process that is caused instinctively by the perception of the body of the other. For this reason, he characterizes the process of empathy as a process of “duplicating myself ”, or a process of “self-objectivation”.45 This kind of theory of empathy does not allow the existence of an other that is transcendent to me; I experience the other not as the other but as a mere duplication of myself, as something that I have indeed totalized. Husserl criticizes Lipps’s theory of empathy since, as already indicated, he believes that I experience the other not as a mere duplication of myself or as “my representation” but as the other who is transcendent to me, as the other in a real sense who can have an influence on me and can also be influenced by me. To show that the other I experience is not a mere duplication of myself but the other in a real sense, Husserl points out, in the course of developing his theory of the analogical experience of the other, that the experience of the other has a totally different structure than the experience of my own consciousness. My consciousness is given to me in the mode of presenting (Gegenwärtigung). In contrast, the consciousness of the other person is always given to me in the mode of what is variously translated as presentification, presentiation, or re-presentation (Vergegenwärtigung); it cannot in principle be given to me in the mode of presenting. It is impossible for me to experience the other in the same mode as I experience my own consciousness. I cannot gain direct access to the other in the mode of presenting, and for this reason, Husserl speaks of “the Other who is not accessible in the mode of originality”.46 Similarly, in a posthumously published manuscript from 1933, Husserl refers to the truly foreign or alien character of the experience of the other as an “accessibility in genuine inaccessibility, in the mode of incomprehensibility”.47 This means that the other   Lipps: Leitfaden der Psychologie, 35 ff., cited in Hua XIII, 72–73.   Hua I, 143; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 114, translation altered. It is on the basis of this passage that Jacques Derrida too contests Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity; compare my discussion below with his discussion in Jacques Derrida: “Violence and metaphysics: An essay on the thought of Emmanuel Levinas”. In: Jacques Derrida: Writing and Difference. Translated from French by Alan Bass. Chicago 1978, 79–153. There are, however, some points of difference between my position and that of Derrida. Above all, Derrida’s criticism of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face is different from mine in that he does not make any distinction between the ontological and the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, on the one hand, and on the other hand, between the static and the genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity as two different types of transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. 47   Hua XV, 631. This passage has been discussed in Bernhard Waldenfels: “Experience of the alien in Husserl’s phenomenology”. Translated from German by Anthony Steinbock. In: Research in Phenomenology 20, 1990, 19–33. Contrary to my interpretation, Waldenfels holds the view that even though Husserl admits the inaccessibility of the other, he still basically interprets the other as “the self-modification of the other peculiar to the own” (ibid., 31). According to him, this is due to the fact that Husserl “thematizes alienness in systematic analyses which start out 45 46

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is a sting that I cannot totalize. As Husserl points out, if I could indeed gain access to the other in the mode of presenting, this would not be the other at all: “If […] what belongs to the other’s own essence were directly accessible, it would be merely a moment of my own essence, and ultimately he himself and I myself would be the same.”48 This is the reason why Husserl asks: “What makes the body another’s body, not a second body of mine?”49 and attempts to find the answer to this question in the fact that the mental state of the other cannot be given to me in the mode of presenting, as is the case with my own mental state. If the mental state of the other were to be given to me in the mode of presenting, it could not be called the mental state of the other but would be a component of my own mental state or my duplication. My experience of the consciousness of the other has a totally different structure than my experience of my own consciousness as a self-consciousness. As something inaccessible to me in the mode of originality, the other is a transcendence to me that can have an influence on me and can also be influenced by me. Although I cannot gain access to the other in the same mode of originality in which I can experience my own consciousness, the other is still accessible to me in a certain sense, namely, on the basis of the experience of the other’s body (if we confine the analysis to the model of the experience of the other that is based on the experience of the other’s body). The experience of the other as something partly accessible to me has its own “style of verification” (Bewährungsstil).50 For in contrast to the experience of my own consciousness, the experience of the other that is carried out at moment t1 cannot claim to be a final one that cannot be modified in any way. Of course, the experience of the other at t1 can indeed be verified at the next moment t2 if this earlier experience coincides with the new experience of the other that is carried out at t2. Thus, Husserl writes as follows regarding the experience of the other: It is clear that its fulfillingly verifying continuation can ensue only by means of new appresentations that proceed in a synthetically harmonious fashion, and only by virtue of the manner in which these appresentations owe their existence-value to their motivational connexion with the changing presentations proper, within my ownness, that continually appertain to them.51

However, it is always possible that the same experience of the other carried out at t1 can be falsified at t2 if it does not agree with the new experience of the primarily from alien-perception” (ibid., 30). Maintaining that “my striving and desiring would be the monstrous product of a transcendental narcissism which would trap itself in self-mirroring” (ibid.), Waldenfels basically holds the same view as Levinas. 48   Hua I, 139; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 109. 49   Ibid., 143; 113, translation altered. 50  Ibid. 51   Ibid., 144; 114, italics altered.

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other. The process of verification and falsification of the experience of the other does not depend on me, but on the other, who is inaccessible to me in the mode of originality, and whom I cannot totalize without remainder. Thus, the other is a sting that can cause serious damage to the whole process of my experience of this other that has been carried out up until now or can even nullify that process entirely. The existence of the style of verification and falsification of the experience of the other implies that this experience cannot be considered to be a process of projecting my mental state into the other. If the experience of the other were such a mere process of projection, there could not be any process of verifying or falsifying this experience. Moreover, if the experience of the other were a mere process of self-objectivation as a process of projecting my mental state into the other, there could be only myself, not the others and intersubjectivity. Since Levinas supposes that Husserl considers the experience of the other to be a process of self-objectivation, he takes the phenomenological reduction—a method to disclose the sphere of transcendental subjectivity—to be a rebellion against the anxiety of transcendence, a self-complacency, and maintains that the transcendental subjectivity disclosed by the method of reduction is a solipsistic one. However, Husserl considers the transcendental subjectivity that is disclosed by the method of transcendental reduction to be a subjectivity that has intersubjective relations to other transcendental subjectivities. This is the reason why, in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, he introduces the primordial reduction, which should be carried out after the transcendental reduction. But the primordial reduction would not be needed if the transcendental subjectivity disclosed by the method of transcendental reduction were a solipsistic subjectivity that did not have any intersubjective relations to other subjectivities. Now as already indicated, Husserl considers transcendental subjectivity to be fundamentally open to other transcendental subjectivities, just as Heidegger considers Dasein to be a Mitsein. For this reason, transcendental subjectivity could be defined as a transcendental intersubjectivity, precisely because the transcendental reduction discloses transcendental subjectivity as a transcendental intersubjectivity. However, the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity does not end with the disclosure of transcendental subjectivity as a transcendental intersubjectivity. In fact, this disclosure is only the beginning of the transcendental-phenomenological investigation of intersubjectivity. It is the further task of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity to clarify the condition of the possibility for transcendental subjectivity as a transcendental intersubjectivity. Husserl’s theory of analogical experience of the other in his Fifth Cartesian Meditation is developed precisely in order to clarify the condition of possibility for transcendental subjectivity as a transcendental intersubjectivity.

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In order to understand the true meaning of the theory of the analogical experience of the other in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation, one should accordingly pay attention to the fact that what Husserl develops there is only a rudimentary form of a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, as we have already seen in chapter 3 above. Since the various kinds of intersubjective relations that should be systematically analyzed in the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity can each serve as the leading clue for the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, there could be various kinds of the latter. However, in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is not developed with respect to all possible kinds of intersubjective relations but only with respect to one kind of intersubjective relation—namely, the experience of the other that is carried out on the basis of the experience of the body of the other, and nothing more. In this case, it is assumed that components other than the experience of the other’s body—for example, components such as linguistic communication—do not contribute to the experience of the other. For this reason, as indicated in chapter 3, this type of experience of the other can be considered to be the simplest type of experience of the other. In the Fifth Cartesian Meditation Husserl employs this simplest type of experience of the other as a leading clue and attempts to develop the most rudimentary form of a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity on this basis. Such a procedure is in accordance with the general rule of the method of scientific research: the most rudimentary form of a transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity serves as the foundation for the development of more complex forms of transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Of course, in order to be able to clarify the condition of the possibility for the various kinds of experiences of the other that are mediated by other moments than the experience of the other’s body (for example, language, custom, moral codes, sociality, historicality, etc.), one has to modify the simplest form of transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As shown in chapter 3, then, Husserl’s theory of the analogical experience of the other is a good device for clarifying the condition of the possibility for the experience of the other that is carried out on the basis of the experience of the other’s body. In my view, the theory of the analogical experience of the other can also be applied to the clarification of the transcendental condition of the possibility for the experience of the other in an absolute sense, if this experience is carried out on the basis of the experience of the body of the other. This will become clear if one recognizes that it would be impossible for an entity like a robot that does not have a body and has not experienced the pain or the misery of a human being to have an experience of the other in an absolute sense. In fact, Levinas also admits that the theory of the analogical experience of the other can have some significance for the clarification of the

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condition of the possibility for the experience of the other in an absolute sense. In an interview held in 1986, the interviewers asked Levinas the following question: “But is there something distinctive about the human face which, for example, sets it apart from that of an animal?” Levinas replied in the following way: One cannot entirely refuse the face of an animal. It is via the face that one understands, for example, a dog. Yet the priority here is not found in the animal, but in the human face. We understand the animal, the face of an animal, in accordance with Dasein.52

In this case, what his claim that “we understand the animal, the face of an animal, in accordance with Dasein” concretely means is that the face of an animal can be grasped according to the paradigm of the face of the human being, that is, on the basis of the analogical experience that has its starting point in the experience of the face of the human being. If we attempt to understand the mental state of an animal with which one cannot communicate linguistically, there is no other way for us than to make an attempt to understand it on the basis of the analogical experience that has its starting point in the experience of the human being. It turns out, then, that Levinas does not catch the real meaning of Husserl’s theory of analogical experience. He maintains that within this theory, Husserl is dealing with the other as a mere object of representational intentionality. However, this kind of interpretation is caused by a radical misunderstanding of the entire system of Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and is due, first of all, to the failure to make a distinction between the ontological and the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity. As the discussion above has shown in detail, the task of clarifying the essential structure of the experience of the other, that is, whether this other is experienced as a mere object of representational intentionality or as something else, belongs not to the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but rather to the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity. In contrast to the ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity, the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity seeks to clarify the condition of the possibility for the experience of the other—again, whether this other is experienced as a mere object of representational intentionality or as something else. A transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is totally neutral with regard to the question of whether or   Tamra Wright, Peter Hughes, Alison Ainley: “The paradox of morality: An interview with Emmanuel Levinas”. In: Robert Bernasconi, David Wood (Eds.): The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other. London 1988, 168–180, here: 169. Husserl too admits that an animal has a face. For Husserl’s phenomenology of the animal and animality, see Cristian Ciocan: “Husserl’s phenomenology of animality and the paradoxes of normality”. In: Human Studies 40(2), 2017, 175–190; Mario Vergani: “Husserl’s hesitant attempts to extend personhood to animals”. In: Husserl Studies 37(1), 2021, 67–83. 52

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not the other is experienced by me as a representational object. Likewise, the theory of the analogical experience of the other developed in the context of the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity is also neutral regarding the question of whether the other is experienced by me as a mere representational object or as something else. And in developing the theory of analogical experience of the other, Husserl does not actually take any position on the question of whether the other is experienced by me as a representational object. If Levinas had been clear about the distinction between the ontological and the transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, he would not have criticized Husserl’s theory of analogical experience as a phenomenology of representation. 4. Toward a Phenomenological Dialogue Between Husserl and Levinas One of the aims of this chapter is to promote a phenomenological dialogue between Husserl and Levinas. In my view, Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face both have some limitations that can be overcome through a phenomenological dialogue between them. For example, even though Husserl does attempt to analyze some of the various kinds of relations between the ego and the other that can be observed on the plane of infinity, it is Levinas who offers a concrete analysis of such relations. Moreover, it is Levinas who awakens us to the absolute responsibility and sensibility for the other in an absolute sense. Such absolute responsibility and sensibility for the other in an absolute sense is a lesson that Husserl has to learn from Levinas, since the sensibility for the other in an absolute sense should indeed be one of the essential components of the idea of a transcendental phenomenology as a practical philosophy,53 an idea that Husserl pursues in his later phenomenology. Levinas’s phenomenology of the face has nevertheless often been criticized for the unclarity of its basic concepts.54 The unclarity of the basic concepts is even more conspicuous in works published after Totality and Infinity, such as Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. Such works are full of metaphors that are introduced for the purpose of awakening the absolute responsibility of the reader for the other in an absolute sense. However, if by appealing to so many metaphors whose meanings are sometimes very obscure the phenomenology of the face aims only at awakening an absolute responsibility for the other, it can give the reader the impression that it is no more than a third-class poem. For   See Nam-In Lee: “Practical intentionality and transcendental phenomenology as a practical philosophy”. In: Husserl Studies 17(1), 2000, 49–63. 54   For example, Dermot Moran points out the unclarity of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face; see Dermot Moran: Introduction to Phenomenology. London 2000, 320 ff. 53

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Levinas’s phenomenology of the face to be reborn as a true phenomenology of the face, the unclarity of its basic concepts should be removed. In this respect, his work could benefit from a phenomenological dialogue with a Husserlian phenomenology that emphasizes conceptual clarity and aims at founding philosophy as a rigorous science. In this way, Levinas’s phenomenology could be transformed into a genuine phenomenology of the face through a phenomenological dialogue with Husserl’s phenomenology.

Chapter 6 Phenomenology of Sensible Life in Husserl and Levinas Some commentators on Levinas’s phenomenology hold the view that the phenomenological movement from Husserl to Heidegger, and then from the latter to Levinas, can be described as a process of unidirectional development.1 According to this view—one that is widespread in the phenomenological world— Husserl’s phenomenology was overcome by Heidegger’s phenomenology which has again been overcome by Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. This view was not initiated by commentators but by Levinas himself in some of his major works, such as Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. As the title of Levinas’ major work Totality and Infinity indicates, his phenomenology of the face aims at clarifying the possibility of transcendence from the plane of totality to that of infinity. As discussed above in chapter 5 on “Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity in Husserl and Levinas”, both the plane of totality and that of infinity contain many smaller planes. For example, the plane of totality contains the plane of representation, the plane of Zeug, the plane of enjoyment, etc. A plane consists of various basically similar relations between the ego and the other. The plane of totality consists of relations between the ego and the other in which the other as a term of the relation is the other in a relative sense that can be totalized by the ego, whereas the plane of infinity consists of the relations between the ego and the other in which the other is the other in an absolute sense that cannot be totalized by the ego. It is the proper task of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face to clarify the structure of the plane of infinity. Levinas maintains that having been deployed on the plane of totality, the whole tradition of Western philosophy has not realized the existence of the plane of infinity, which infinitely transcends the plane of totality. He calls the entire tradition of Western philosophy ontology and contrasts it with his phenomenology of the face as an ethics that is able to deal with the plane of infinity. According to him, the plane of infinity as the proper theme of ethics represents a realm that is more original than the plane of totality. This is the reason why he claims that “ontology presupposes metaphysics”2 and that “preexisting the plane of ontology is the ethical plane”.3 Since ethics is presupposed by ontology, Levinas advances the thesis that ethics is first philosophy. Although it is Husserl and Heidegger with whom Levinas attempts to discover existents and thereby to found a phenomenology of the face, for Levinas both   For example, Adriaan Peperzak: “Phenomenology—ontology—metaphysics: Levinas’s perspective on Husserl and Heidegger”. In: Man and World 16(2), 1983, 113–127; Anthony F. Beavers: Levinas beyond the Horizons of Cartesianism. Frankfurt am Main 1995. 2  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 48. 3   Ibid., 201. 1

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Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian phenomenology belong to the category of ontology. Thus, in Totality and Infinity, he deals with both Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian phenomenology as two types of ontology, each concerned with a different smaller plane within the plane of totality— namely, the plane of representation and that of Zeug. Husserl’s phenomenology, which according to Levinas deals only with the plane of representation, is the most radical form of ontology since the plane of representation consists of the relations between ego and the other in which the other is totalized by the ego in the most radical way. The phenomenology of Zeug that Heidegger developed in Being and Time results from a criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology, and from the perspective of the phenomenology of the face it represents a more advanced position than the latter. However, this does not change the basic characteristic of Heidegger’s phenomenology of Zeug as a kind of ontology since it fundamentally conceives of the existent as something whose structure is determined in advance by the structure of Being. According to Levinas, both Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology represent preliminary stages on the way toward his phenomenology of the face as an ethics that deals with the most original realm of being. Thus, in Levinas’s criticism of Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, one can find the same general tendency that can already be observed in Heidegger’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology: just as Heidegger claims that Husserl’s phenomenology is a mere preliminary stage or constituent moment of his own phenomenology, and moreover, one that can be integrated into the latter without reservation, Levinas in turn conceives not only of Husserlian phenomenology but also of Heideggerian phenomenology as a mere preliminary stage of his own phenomenology of the face. In this chapter, I will attempt to show that the trajectory of the phenomenological movement from Husserl to Heidegger and from the latter to Levinas cannot be described as a process of unidirectional development. In the discussion below, concentrating only on the relationship between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, I will attempt to show that Husserl’s phenomenology is not a mere preliminary stage or constituent moment of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face and that it cannot be integrated into the latter.4 I will demonstrate this through an analysis of the intentionality of sensible life, a theme that plays an important role both in Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. In section 1, I will delineate some aspects of the phenomenology of sensible life developed by Levinas. In section 2, I will introduce the phenomenology of sensible life that Husserl developed as a part of genetic phenomenology and   A similar view has also been proposed by other scholars. See, for example, Murakami: Lévinas phénoménologue; Overgaard: “Levinas’ critique of Husserl”. 4

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show that Husserl’s phenomenology cannot be defined as a phenomenology of representation that does not go beyond the plane of representation. Finally, in section 3, I will compare Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face and show that they represent two basically different kinds of phenomenology that cannot be integrated into one another without reservation. 1. Phenomenology of Sensible Life in Levinas’s Phenomenology of the Face The phenomenology of sensible life plays a significant role in Levinas’s phenomenology of the face, where it is introduced in order to serve as a springboard from a phenomenology of totality as ontology to a phenomenology of infinity as ethics. Levinas maintains that sensible life is not dealt with in Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. A phenomenology of sensible life is therefore required in order to transcend the limitations of previous phenomenology. Due to the significance that such phenomena as sensible life and enjoyment have for a phenomenology of the face, Levinas already embarks upon analyses of these phenomena in earlier works such as Existence and Existents5 and Time and the Other.6 Then, in major works such as Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Levinas deals with sensible life and enjoyment in more detail than in the earlier works. Sensible life is a form of life that is sustained by various kinds of sensible needs. Sensible life is accordingly to be distinguished from other forms of life— for example, from an ethical life that is sustained by “metaphysical Desire”.7 According to Levinas, the metaphysical desire that makes possible the relation of the ego to infinity cannot be quenched, since it is intentive to infinity as transcendence. In contrast to metaphysical desire, however, sensible needs can be fulfilled by things in the world such as good soup, fresh air, cold water, warm sunlight, etc. In the fulfillment of sensible needs, the ego has the feeling of pleasure. Levinas calls the process of fulfilling sensible needs “enjoyment”. Sensible life that is sustained by sensible needs is so closely related to enjoyment that enjoyment can be called “the reality of life”.8 The various forms of sensible life such as “living from” (or on) good soup, fresh air, cold water, warm weather, etc., are forms of enjoyment. In this context, enjoyment as the reality of life includes not only the states of positively enjoying something—states that are accompanied by the feeling of satisfaction and pleasure—but also the negative  Levinas: Existence and Existents, 37, 57.   Emmanuel Levinas: Time and the Other. Translated from French by Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh 1994, 62 ff. 7  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 34. 8   Ibid., 112. 5 6

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states of pain and suffering that result from the state of not being able to fulfill sensible needs. As the examples of sensible life and enjoyment mentioned above show, sensible life is related to things in the world. For example, the enjoyment of “living from good soup” is related to the good soup, the enjoyment of “living from fresh air” is related to the fresh air, etc. Since sensible life is related to things in the world from the very beginning, it can be called a kind of intentionality. Even though Levinas criticizes Husserl’s concept of intentionality, he does not hesitate to talk about intentionality with respect to the structure of sensible life. As early as in Existence and Existents, for example, in the context of a discussion of the structure of the “joyous appetite for things which constitutes being in the world”, he writes: The concept of intention conveys this relationship quite exactly. But it must be taken not in the neutralized and disincarnate sense in which it figures in medieval philosophy and in Husserl, but in its ordinary meaning, with the sting of desire that animates it.9

In contrast with the intentionality of representation, Levinas characterizes the intentionality of life or “the intentionality of living from”10 as “a very different ‘intentionality’”,11 and since enjoyment is the reality of life, Levinas calls it concretely “the intentionality of enjoyment”.12 Levinas attempts to clarify the structure of the intentionality of sensible life by comparing it with the intentionality of representation or of the objectifying act which is one of the most important topics in Husserlian phenomenology. There are many examples of the intentionality of representation, such as the intentionality of perception, the intentionality of imagination, the intentionality of memory, the intentionality of expectation, the intentionality of scientific thinking, and the intentionality of Wesensanschauung, to name only a few. As these examples show, the intentionality of representation has its correlative intentional object in each case. And in normal cases, the object of the intentionality of representation is different from the intentional act itself. Due to the difference between the intentional object and the intentional act of the intentionality of representation, the former can be called the other of the latter. However, for Levinas, the object of the intentionality of representation is not the other in an absolute sense, but only in a relative sense, since it is “as it were a product of consciousness, being a ‘meaning’ endowed by consciousness, the result of Sinngebung”.13 “In a sense the object of representation is indeed interi Levinas: Existence and Existents, 37.  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 129. 11   Ibid., 126. 12   Ibid., 127. 13   Ibid., 123. 9

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or to thought: despite its independence it falls under the power of thought.”14 Levinas maintains that due to the Sinngebung, the object of the intentionality of representation is mastered by the act of the intentionality of representation. The mastery of the object by the act is so radical that the resistance of the object as an exterior being vanishes entirely. In a certain sense, there is no difference between the object and the act of the intentionality of representation since the former is totalized and absorbed into the latter without residue. Thus, the intentionality of representation is the most radical form of totalizing act. The totalizing character of the intentionality of representation can most readily be observed in the intentionality of the act of reflection which—since it has the basic structure of grasping the immanent by the immanent, that is, grasping the self by the self—knows nothing about the exterior thing from the start. The intentionality of sensible life, however, differs radically from that of representation. The difference between them becomes clear if one thinks about the fact that “to live from bread” cannot be the same as “to represent bread to oneself ”. Whereas the intentionality of representation freely masters its intentional objects through its power of constitution, the beginning state of the intentionality of sensible life is basically a privation or destitution that is connected with the feeling of dissatisfaction, pain, and hunger. In order to escape this state of privation and destitution, the intentionality of sensible life attempts to find the objects in the world that can satisfy it. If the intentionality of sensible life locates the object that can satisfy it, it consumes and enjoys the latter. Consuming and enjoying the intentional object, the intentionality of sensible life totalizes and absorbs that object. In this respect, one can say that the intentionality of sensible life has a structure that is similar to that of the intentionality of representation, and for this reason, the intentionality of sensible life forms a sub-plane of the plane of totality. Yet despite this kind of structural similarity between them, the intentionality of sensible life differs from the intentionality of representation. Due to the attempt to find the objects in the world that can satisfy it, the intentionality of sensible life displays the basic character of will, conatus, or appetite. The intentionality of sensible life as will, conatus, appetite is dependent on the objects in the world that can satisfy it. But sometimes the intentionality of sensible life cannot find the objects that would satisfy it. In this case, it can experience various kinds of resistance from the side of the objects, which would make it impossible to talk about any kind of complete mastery of the intentional objects by the act or the intentionality of life. The object of the intentionality of sensible life is not always interior to the act of that intentionality; it does not fall under the power of the latter entirely. The intentionality of sensible life consists in “holding on to the exteriority”15 that vanishes entirely  Ibid.   Ibid., 127.

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in the case of the intentionality of representation. For this reason, one can say that from the perspective of the phenomenology of the face, the intentionality of sensible life is more original than the intentionality of representation, and Levinas accordingly claims that the enjoyment of sensible life is “irreducible and anterior to”16 the knowledge provided by representation. The intentionality of sensible life as will, conatus, appetite should nevertheless not be confused with Heideggerian care. As is well known, Heidegger developed the concept of care as a central concept of his phenomenology of implements through a criticism of the concept of representational intentionality developed in Husserl’s Logical Investigations and Ideas I. According to Heidegger, care is basically a phenomenon of life from which representational intentionality is derived through a process of de-animation (Ent-lebung).17 Care has the structure of means and end since it is founded on “das Worumwillen des Daseins”,18 that is, on the finality for the sake of which Dasein is living its life. For this reason, every individual form of life dealt with in Heidegger’s phenomenology of Dasein has the structure of means and end. However, in its basic structure, the intentionality of sensible life in Levinas is entirely different from Heidegger’s notion of care. To live from things in the world is not the same as to use them for some other purpose. Each instant of life is the aim itself, and it exists isolated from others. Thus, the intentionality of sensible life in Levinas does not know any kind of finality from which it can be derived; it is pure enjoyment: “To enjoy without utility, in pure loss, gratuitously without referring to anything else, in pure expenditure, this is the human. There is a non-systematic accumulation of occupations and tastes […].”19 The intentionality of sensible life knows only the instant, the today, and knows nothing about tomorrow or yesterday. The only motto that the intentionality of sensible life knows is “carpe diem”. The intentionality of sensible life is thereby characterized by “the suspension or absence of the ultimate finality”,20 that is, by “the disinterested joy of play”.21 For this reason, Levinas identifies it with the origin of all “hedonist moralities”.22 The intentional object of the intentionality of sensible life is totally different both from the representational object and from equipment or implement. It does not know the distinction between substance and property—a distinction that is essential to the representational object—and it is not yet embedded in the referential nexus of the world-horizon that is characteristic of implements.   Ibid., 130.   Martin Heidegger: Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main 1987, 91. 18  Heidegger: Sein und Zeit, 86 ff.; Heidegger: Being and Time, 119 ff. 19  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 133. 20   Ibid., 134. 21  Ibid. 22  Ibid. 16 17

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The object of the intentionality of sensible life is devoid of the form either of the representational object or of equipment. Thus, as an entity that is devoid of such form, it cannot be called an object in a proper sense at all. Although the intentionality of sensible life is indeed directed to some entity, it does not reach it as an object or thing. What matters here is the entity anterior both to the representational object and to equipment. In fact, Levinas calls that to which the intentionality of sensible life is directed not an object or a thing, but an element as a pure quality that is anterior both to representational objects and to implements. When we live from good soup, air, light, etc., those entities that we live from are experienced by us primarily as pure qualities such as “tasting good”, “fresh”, “warm”, etc., not as representational objects with a distinction between substance and property or as implements that are embedded in the referential nexus of the world-horizon. The pure qualities in this case are entities that have been there long before they are experienced by us as representational objects or implements. Before these pure qualities are transformed into implements or representational objects, they are the elements to which the intentionality of sensible life is directed. In enjoyment or the intentionality of sensible life, then, things and implements “revert to their elemental qualities”.23 The intentionality of sensible life cannot reach these elemental qualities qua representational objects or implements. For this reason, with respect to the entities to which the intentionality of sensible life is directed, we cannot properly say that we know or use them, but instead, as Levinas puts it, we are “bathing”24 in them. The intentionality of sensible life has its own ego. But the ego of the intentionality of sensible life is different from a Kantian transcendental consciousness as the unity of transcendental apperception or from Heideggerian Dasein. It is anterior to them, older than they are, and has always been functioning at the base of the soul long before they do their job. The ego of the intentionality of sensible life is nothing other than “the body naked and indigent”, as Levinas puts it in a passage from Totality and Infinity: “The body naked and indigent is the very reverting, irreducible to a thought, of representation into life, of the subjectivity that represents into life […].”25 In this context the naked and indigent body should not be confused with the body that is experienced as one of the various constituted objects in the world. It is not the sensed, perceived, or known body. What matters here is rather the sensing body—the sentient body or the sensitive body: “Sensibility establishes a relation with a pure quality without support, with the element. Sensibility is enjoyment. The sensitive being, the body, concretizes this way of being […].”26 The ego of the intentionality of sensible life is therefore characterized by corporeality as sensibility.  Ibid.   Ibid., 132. 25   Ibid., 127. 26   Ibid., 136. 23 24

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And the intentionality of sensible life correspondingly turns out to be sensitive, corporeal intentionality. An ego can never have two corporeal intentionalities with the very same contents, since corporeal intentionality changes its contents incessantly and we cannot live from the same elemental quality twice, just as no one can dip into the same river twice. This is the basic distinction between the intentionality of sensible life and the representational intentionality that can have the same content infinitely many times without this content losing its identity. Due to the uniqueness of the intentionality of sensible life, one sensible ego as the bearer of various kinds of intentionality of sensible life cannot be replaced by another sensible ego: since every sensible ego is always situated at a particular place on earth, enjoying elemental qualities, it is always living from these in a unique way. Accordingly, every sensible ego is singular and does not have anything in common with other sensible egos. In a strict sense, then, there cannot be any kind of communication among different sensible egos: In enjoyment I am absolutely for myself. Egoist without reference to the Other, I am alone without solitude, innocently egoist and alone. Not against Others, not “as for me…”—but entirely deaf to the Other, outside of all communication and all refusal to communicate—without ears, like a hungry stomach.27

Thus, the ego of the intentionality of sensible life is characterized by an egoic “inner life” or psychism. The plane of enjoyment as a sub-plane of the plane of totality is a plane that is characterized by a plurality of sensible egos separated from each other, each isolated in its own world of elemental qualities. 2. Phenomenology of Sensible Life in Husserl’s Genetic Phenomenology In Totality and Infinity, Levinas maintains that Husserl’s phenomenology is a phenomenology of representation and that it cannot deal with other planes beyond the plane of representation. Levinas does not deny that Husserl’s phenomenology deals not only with representational intentionality but also with non-representational intentionality, such as feeling or willing. According to him, however, this undeniable fact does not guarantee that Husserl’s phenomenology can go beyond the plane of representation since Husserl basically interprets non-representational intentionality in terms of representational intentionality. This is due to Husserl’s underlying belief in the absolute primacy of representational intentionality over non-representational intentionality, according to which an intentional experience is either representational or is founded upon a representational experience. In this respect, sensible life is no exception:   Ibid., 134.

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The strictly intellectualist thesis subordinates life to representation. It maintains that in order to will it is first necessary to represent to oneself what one wills; in order to desire, represent one’s goal to oneself, in order to feel, represent to oneself the object of the sentiment: and in order to act, represent to oneself what one will do.28

The phenomenology of sensible life that was sketched above is developed by Levinas as a “converse thesis”29 to the strictly intellectualist thesis of Husserl. If one consults only those works of Levinas in which he draws a picture of Husserl as a strict intellectualist (e. g., Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence), one might easily get the impression that Husserl’s phenomenology is actually limited to the plane of representation. This picture of Husserl is not surprising at all if one recalls that Husserl’s phenomenology has been interpreted by many commentators in this way. Moreover, this view of Husserl is not a mere product of imagination on the part of the interpreters but is based on a reading of some important works that Husserl published during his lifetime, such as Logical Investigations, Ideas I, and Cartesian Meditations. And Husserl’s static phenomenology—which attempts to clarify the logical structure of validity-foundation in constitution and declares reflective consciousness to be the most original foundation of validity—is indeed a kind of intellectualism. However, Levinas’s portrait of Husserl’s phenomenology as a strictly intellectualistic philosophy does not represent the whole, but only one aspect of Husserl’s phenomenology. As discussed above in part I, besides static phenomenology, Husserl attempted to develop a genetic phenomenology whose aim is to clarify the structure of genetic foundation in constitution. In the order of transcendental genesis, representational intentionalities cannot come into being if the voluntaristic moments such as instincts, drives, and willings have not already been functioning as their genetic motivation. For this reason, in the order of transcendental genesis, the voluntaristic moment has an absolute primacy over representational intentionality, and genetic phenomenology turns out to be a kind of voluntarism. In fact, as discussed above in chapter 4, in a conversation with Dorion Cairns from 1931, Husserl actually affirms that he is working out a universal voluntarism.30 It is universal voluntarism as the basic character of Husserl’s phenomenology that motivates him to reinterpret the essence of intentionality and consciousness as life (Leben) and to talk about the life of consciousness (Bewusstseinsleben). Correspondingly, he defines the world as a life-world (Lebenswelt) since the world is ultimately and most fundamentally a constitutive product of life.31   Ibid., 168.  Ibid. 30  Cairns: Conversations with Husserl and Fink, 61. 31   Nam-In Lee: “The pluralistic concept of the life-world and the various fields of the phenomenology of the life-world in Husserl”. In: Husserl Studies 36(1), 2020, 47–68, here: 51 ff. 28 29

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With respect to universal voluntarism as the essence of genetic phenomenology, Husserl conceives of phenomenology not merely as a kind of philosophy of life but as a radically new type of philosophy of life—namely, as “a scientific philosophy of life”, as a passage from the lecture course on Natur und Geist from 1927 reads: Thus, the basic character of phenomenology is scientific philosophy of life, not a science assuming the foundation of already existing sciences, but a radical science that has concrete universal life and its life-world, the actual concrete environing world, as its original scientific theme […].32

Husserl accordingly attempts to develop genetic phenomenology as a scientific philosophy of life that would go beyond the plane of representation. Moreover, in many works and unpublished manuscripts, he was intensively engaged with genetic analysis and developed the phenomenology of sensible life as a part of a scientific philosophy of life. A phenomenology of sensible life thereby plays a significant role in the full system of genetic phenomenology as a scientific philosophy of life. In order to understand the position that the phenomenology of sensible life has in genetic phenomenology, one has to consider the theory of various layers of life that Husserl developed through a phenomenological interpretation of the Leibnizian theory of monads.33 According to this theory, the stream of consciousness consists of various layers of life, each of which again consists of various kinds of life. The unities of life on a lower layer of life serve as the foundation for the genesis of the unities of life on a higher layer. Sensible life is situated between the layer of representational intentionality and the layer of vegetative life, which in its turn lies above the layer of material nature as the lowest form of life, life in a state of sleep. For this reason, the analysis of the structure of sensible life is essential to the clarification of the structure of the various forms of life that are genetically founded upon it. Thus, the theory of various layers of life does not admit any talk either about the absolute primacy of representational intentionality over other forms of intentionality, or about any kind of subordination of sensible life to representational intentionality. Even in such works as Logical Investigations or Ideas I, where Husserl does claim an absolute primacy of representational intentionality over non-representational intentionality, he still does not subordinate sensible life to representational intentionality. As is well known, in those works he makes a distinction between intentional experience and non-intentional experience and generally calls the latter sensation (Empfindung). But sensation in this context is nothing other than sensible life. Husserl attempts to explain the difference between   Hua XXXII, 241.   In this respect, Husserl speaks of “the theory of layers of monads” (Hua XIV, 38).

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them with the example of perception as a kind of intentional experience: sensation, which is situated below the layer of perception, serves as the genetic foundation for the latter. Perception as an intentional experience cannot come into being without sensations as non-intentional experiences: “They [sensations] constitute the act, provide necessary points d’appui which render possible an intention […].”34 Husserl never subordinates sensible life to representational intentionality. Instead, representational intentionality is subordinated to sensible life as its genetic foundation. Sensible life has its own intentionality. In the Logical Investigations and Ideas I, the view that Husserl holds with respect to the distinction between intentional and non-intentional experience is that sensation as sensible life is a kind of non-intentional experience. However, he eventually changes his position on this issue and admits that sensible life contains its own kind of intentionality. Even in the Logical Investigations and Ideas I, we find—contrary to expectations—that his position on this issue is somewhat ambiguous. First of all, he is not confident about his definition of intentionality as “consciousness of ”. To our surprise, he regards intentionality as “something obviously understandable of itself and, at the same time, highly enigmatic”,35 and maintains that “it might yet be very difficult to identify […] what originally makes up the pure essence of intentionality […]”.36 In another passage in Ideas I, he admits that there might be some experiences that can indeed include intentionality even though they might lack an explicit directedness to something objective: “However, now, phenomenological reflection teaches us that this representing, thinking, evaluating directedness of the I […] cannot be found in every [kind of ] experience, even though this experience might conceal intentionality within itself.”37 With respect to the provisional character of the concept of intentionality established in the Logical Investigations and Ideas I, Husserl writes as follows: The concept of intentionality, apprehended in its undetermined range, as we have apprehended it, is a wholly indispensable fundamental concept which is the starting point at the beginning of phenomenology. The universality which it designates may be ever so vague prior to more precise investigation; it may enter into an ever so great plurality of essentially different formations; it may be ever so difficult to set forth in rigorous and clear analyses what truly makes up the pure essence of intentionality, which components of the concrete formations genuinely contain it in themselves and to which [components] it is intrinsically alien—in any case, mental processes are observed from a determinate and highly important point of view when we cognize them as intentional and say of them that they are consciousness of something.38     36   37   38   34 35

Hua XIX/1, 387; Husserl: Shorter Logical Investigations, 216. Hua III/1, 201; Husserl: Ideas I, 212. Ibid., 191; 202, translation altered. Ibid., 188; 200, translation altered. Ibid., 191; 202, translation altered.

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Although in the Logical Investigations Husserl observes that sensation is related to something outside—for example, the object that causes sensation—he is not ready to admit that sensation contains intentionality.39 However, in an appendix to Ideas II dealing with the structure of sensation, he confesses that the sphere of sensation is “a primal sphere of intentionality, an inauthentic one”.40 Husserl calls the intentionality of sensation an inauthentic or improper (uneigentlich) one “since there can be no question here of a genuine ‘intention toward’, for which [the participation of an active] Ego is required”.41 The improper intentionality of sensation in this context is the passive intentionality that is dealt with in detail in his Analysen zur passiven Synthesis42 in the 1920s and in many unpublished manuscripts after that time. As such examples as “burning oneself ”, “feeling pain”, “touching”, “seeing”, and “hearing” show, the intentionality of sensible life is closely related to the body. Here the body should not be understood as a physical thing that has only physical properties such as spatiality, objective temporality, mass, etc., but as a living body that can take a stance toward things in the world. In contrast with physical things, a body can be affected by and can react to things in the world. Moreover, a body can move itself, and this bodily movement can change the process of functioning pertaining to the intentionality of sensible life. Sensation is basically motivated and guided by bodily movement, and for this reason, the intentionality of sensible life can be called kinaesthetic intentionality. Like all the other kinds of intentionality as phenomena of life, the intentionality of sensible life is, in its beginning phase, in a state of dissatisfaction, and it strives to find a way to become satisfied. And the means for this is once again bodily movement. If the ego finds an appropriate way to satisfy the intentionality of sensible life, it will experience a positive feeling—namely, pleasure—and if this is not the case, it will experience a negative feeling, namely pain. Such feeling is another aspect of the intentionality of sensible life. With respect to feeling as an essential component of the intentionality of sensible life, Husserl speaks of an “enjoying behavior” in which we take pleasure in sensing.43 The feeling of sensible life is not founded on representational intentionality, and it differs from the feeling that is called intentional feeling in the Logical Investi  A passage in the Logical Investigations begins as follows: “Every sensory feeling, e. g. the pain of burning oneself or of being burnt, is no doubt after a fashion referred to an object […]” (Hua XIX/1, 406; Husserl: Shorter Logical Investigations, 226). But Husserl almost immediately adds: “And though this reference is realized in intentional experience, no one would think of calling the sensations themselves intentional” (ibid.). As the text shows, being guided by his thesis about a strict distinction between intentional and non-intentional experience, he is not ready to interpret this relation of the sensation to its object as a kind of intentionality. 40   Hua IV, 335; Husserl: Ideas II, 346–347. 41   Ibid., 335; 347. 42   Hua XI; Husserl: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. 43   Hua Mat VIII, 321. 39

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gations. In the language of the latter work, the feeling of sensible life would be termed a non-intentional experience. The intentionality of sensible life can carry out its own kind of constitution since transcendental constitution is the function of intentionality. The constitution carried out by the intentionality of sensible life is not an active constitution but a passive one since, as discussed above, the intentionality of sensible life is not active, but passive. Contrary to this clear fact, Levinas maintains that enjoyment has nothing to do with constitution.44 According to him, enjoyment as a relation of the ego to the element should not be regarded as any kind of constitution. However, Levinas’s view is based on too narrow a concept of constitution, one according to which constitution always means active constitution. He does not realize that besides active constitution, there is also a passive constitution carried out by passive intentionality. The element as the object of enjoyment in which the sensible ego is “bathing” is a product of passive constitution. Without the passive constitution carried out by the intentionality of sensible life, all active constitution would be impossible. The ego of the intentionality of sensible life is the center of passive constitution. In transcendental phenomenology, the bearer of any kind of constitution, be it active or passive, is called the transcendental ego; accordingly, the latter term can also be used for the ego of the intentionality of sensible life as the bearer of passive constitution. However, the transcendental ego as the bearer of the intentionality of sensible life should not be confused with the ego of representational intentionality as the transcendental ego of active constitution. Instead, it is a bodily ego, a corporeal ego that is devoid of representational intentionality and reflective consciousness and functions as the genetic foundation or the substratum of the transcendental ego of active constitution. The transcendental ego of active constitution cannot come into being if it is not founded on the transcendental ego of passive constitution. For this reason, Husserl calls the transcendental ego of the intentionality of sensible life the pre-I (Vor-Ich). With respect to the concept of the pre-I, a passage from a later manuscript runs as follows: The structural analysis of the primal present (the standing, living stream) leads us to the ego-structure and the permanent sub-stratum of the egoless stream that founds it, which leads back to the radically pre-egoic through a consistent questioning back […].45

Contrary to what Levinas maintains, then, Husserl’s phenomenology is not limited to the plane of representation, and it does not subordinate sensible life to representation. Although in major works such as Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence Levinas does portray Husserl’s phe  Cf. Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 122 ff.   Hua XV, 598.

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nomenology as a phenomenology of representation, it is Levinas himself who knows very clearly that Husserl’s phenomenology goes beyond the plane of representation and that the phenomenology of representation does not comprise the entire system of Husserl’s phenomenology. In fact, in an article on “Intentionality and Metaphysics”, published two years before Totality and Infinity, Levinas addresses Husserl’s discovery of “concrete life” and its significance for his own phenomenology of the face, writing as follows: Kantianism, in which truth does not open upon exteriority, even though it abides in the necessary, was interrupted before Heidegger substituted a metaphysical interpretation for it. Husserl was the first to free himself from Kantianism, by showing, behind objectifying intentionality, a concrete life that is also intentional.46

This passage clearly shows that it is Husserl who enabled Levinas to see the plane of sensible life that goes beyond the plane of representation.47 3. Comparison of the Phenomenology of Sensible Life in Husserl and Levinas Husserl develops the phenomenology of sensible life as a part of genetic phenomenology, while for Levinas it is a part of the phenomenology of the face. Does this imply that there is no difference between the phenomenology of sensible life in Husserl and in Levinas, on the one hand, and between Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and Levinas’s phenomenology of the face on the other? In this context, one should note that genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face are two different types of phenomenology that are developed from two different points of view. The standpoint from which genetic phenomenology is developed is the order of transcendental genesis, whereas the standpoint from which phenomenology of the face is developed is the order of exteriority. The difference between genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face is most easily observable in the movement from the phenomenology of representation to the phenomenology of sensible life in both Husserl and Levinas. In genetic phenomenology, this movement is guided by the order of transcendental genesis. From the standpoint of transcendental genesis, representational  Levinas: Discovering Existence with Husserl, 123.   For Husserl’s influence on Levinas in developing the phenomenology of sensible life as a part of the phenomenology of the face, see Bautista: “Levinas’s philosophy of sensibility”. In this context, Bautista writes as follows: “Yet this view does not take adequate enough account of how Levinas comes to situate subjectivity as a motivated bodily existent immersed in its world and provoked by alterity. Levinas’s phenomenology of sensibility develops out of his reading of Husserlian kinesthesis, but as early as 1940 I argue that Levinas returns to reappraise Husserl’s work and to determine anew its significance for his own project of escaping the climate of Heideggerian phenomenology” (ibid., 251). 46 47

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intentionality is a derivative form of intentionality, and its structure can only be explicated by turning to more original forms of intentionality. The intentionality of sensible life is more original than representational intentionality, and it lies beneath the layer of representational intentionality. For this reason, genetic phenomenology has to go beyond the layer of representational intentionality and arrive at the layer of sensible life. In contrast to genetic phenomenology, in the phenomenology of the face, the movement from the phenomenology of representation to the phenomenology of sensible life is guided by the order of exteriority. From the standpoint of exteriority, representational intentionality is the most derivative form of intentionality since it totalizes the other in the most radical way. It is the most remote from the plane of infinity. As already mentioned, in contrast to representational intentionality, sensible life consists in “holding on to the exteriority”48 that the representational intentionality suspends entirely. This implies that sensible life is more original than representational intentionality. And it is with the help of the correlative concepts “original-derivative” or “anterior-posterior” that Levinas does in fact develop his phenomenology of the face. With respect to the relationship between representational intentionality and sensible life, he maintains that representation is “detached from its source”, is “uprooted”,49 and enjoyment is “‘anterior’ to the crystallization of consciousness”,50 that is, of representational intentionality. According to him, psychism or inner life has “a still more profound structure”51 that sustains theoretical thought as a kind of representational intentionality. The operative concepts that play such a significant role in the phenomenology of the face (e. g., “original-derivative”, “anterior-posterior”) should thus be understood not from the perspective of transcendental genesis, but exclusively from the perspective of “exteriority”, as the subtitle “An Essay on Exteriority” of Totality and Infinity indicates. The basic difference between genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face comes to light even more clearly if we take into account the layers that are more original than that of sensible life in both types of phenomenology. If the two types of phenomenology are basically the same, then in both of them these more original layers will turn out to be the same. As mentioned above, in genetic phenomenology, the layer of transcendental genesis that lies beneath the layer of sensible life is the layer of vegetative life equipped with various kinds of vegetative ability such as the capability for reproduction, nourishment, or growth. The layer of vegetative life is more passive and more original than the layer of sensible life, and as such, it plays the role of a genetic foundation for the latter. From the standpoint of transcendental gene Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 127.   Ibid., 123. 50   Ibid., 188. 51   Ibid., 54. 48 49

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sis, the layer of sensible life that is founded on the layer of vegetative life cannot come into being without the latter. Of course, as also indicated above, the layer of vegetative life is not the most original layer of transcendental genesis, i. e., one that cannot be traced back to a more original layer of transcendental genesis. In this connection it should be noted that in one manuscript,52 Husserl grapples with the possibility of conceiving of the layer of material nature as the genetic foundation for vegetative life since vegetative life cannot come into being without being based on material nature. In contrast to genetic phenomenology, in the phenomenology of the face the layer that is more original than the layer of sensible life is not the layer of vegetative life but the layer of ethical life or the plane of infinity. The plane of sensible life is founded on the plane of infinity. The plane of infinity as the founding layer of sensible life consists of the relations of the ego to the other as an other in an absolute sense. An ethical conscience accompanied by clear consciousness is essential to the relation of the ego to the other on the plane of infinity. As the bearer of the relation of the ego to the other on the plane of infinity, subjectivity cannot be something vegetative that does not have consciousness and conscience; rather, it is a subjectivity that is filled with “responsibility”, “sensibility”, “vulnerability”, “proximity” for the other as the other in an absolute sense.53 Since ethical subjectivity is filled with “vulnerability” and “sensibility”, Levinas regards it as a passive subjectivity and maintains that its passivity is “a passivity more passive than all passivity”.54 This passage might motivate one to believe that Levinas is exploring the most passive layer of life founding all of the possible layers of transcendental genesis that Husserl analyzed, even the layer of material nature. Moreover, it might motivate one to believe that there cannot be any basic difference but instead a continuity between these two types of phenomenology, so that in the end, genetic phenomenology would be replaced by a phenomenology of the face that is able to deal with the most original layer of transcendental genesis. And in my view, Levinas does seem to claim both that his phenomenology is actually exploring the most passive and original layer of transcendental genesis and that it can therefore replace Husserl’s genetic phenomenology. However, one should not forget that the passivity that Levinas calls “a passivity more passive than all passivity” is not the same passivity that is at stake in genetic phenomenology.55 From the perspective of transcendental genesis, the   See Husserl: Manuscript B II 2, written 1907–1908. I have dealt with the problem of the material nature as the most original layer of transcendental genesis in Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 228 ff. 53  Levinas: Otherwise than Being, 9 ff., 61 ff. 54   Ibid., 15; cf. 54–55. 55   I have discussed this issue in Nam-In Lee: “Phenomenological reflections on the possibility 52

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ethical relation to the other as an other in an absolute sense should not be characterized as passive but rather as active, since it is equipped with conscience and moral consciousness. From the perspective of transcendental genesis, “vulnerability” as the basic character of the ethical consciousness that Levinas calls “an inversion of the conatus of esse”56 cannot be the most passive of all, since the very inversion of the conatus of esse is a genetic event that presupposes the genetic event of the conatus of esse as its genetic condition of possibility, and as an event that is more passive than the former. In fact, it should be characterized as one of the most active forms of life, since in many cases “an inversion of the conatus of esse” needs a very high degree of concentration and moral education. In his phenomenology of the face, Levinas is not exploring the most passive layer of transcendental genesis. Contrary to what Levinas himself seems to believe, genetic phenomenology cannot be replaced by a phenomenology of the face. Genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face represent two different types of phenomenology that cannot be reduced to one another. We are now in a position to evaluate Levinas’s claim that the phenomenology of the face as ethics is first philosophy. Is ethics in the Levinasian sense first philosophy in an absolute sense, that is, without reservation? Levinas maintains that ethics is first philosophy because it deals with the ethical relation, which in his view represents the most original realm of being. However, as pointed out just above, the ethical relation does not represent the most original realm of being in an absolute sense, but only in a relative sense, that is, from the standpoint of the order of exteriority. This implies that ethics in the Levinasian sense can be called first philosophy only in a relative sense, not in an absolute sense. Moreover, as long as genetic phenomenology attempts to explore the most original realm of being from a certain standpoint—namely, from the standpoint of the order of transcendental genesis—it too can be called first philosophy in a relative sense, even though Husserl himself does not call genetic phenomenology first philosophy.57 In this respect, one should pay close attention to the fact that “origin”—which is one of the most important philosophical terms—can be understood in many different senses, as Aristotle points out in the first chapof first philosophy”. In: Husserl Studies 26(2), 2010, 131–145, here: 137 ff. 56  Levinas: Otherwise than Being, 75. 57   For Husserl, first philosophy is not genetic phenomenology, but critique of knowledge (Erkenntniskritik), which is, in my view, an important part of static phenomenology (see Hua VIII; Husserl: First Philosophy, 207–390, 442–633). Needless to say, as long as the critique of knowledge has its own inalienable right, there is a good sense in which it can be called first philosophy. For this reason, Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as a phenomenology of representation should be critically assessed since from the standpoint of validity-foundation self-consciousness as a kind of representational intentionality has an absolute priority over the other kinds of intentionality and should not be considered a derivative form of intentionality, as Levinas supposes it to be. I have discussed the issue of first philosophy in Nam-In Lee: “Phenomenological reflections on the possibility of first philosophy”.

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ter of the Fifth Book of his Metaphysics.58 Since both genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face deal with the “origin” in a certain sense, they can claim to be first philosophy only in a relative sense, but not in an absolute sense.59 We finite human beings cannot conceive a first philosophy in an absolute sense. This might be the reason why in the long tradition of the history of philosophy, there have been various concepts of first philosophy that differ from each other. How many different ways we can talk about the concept of “origin”, how many different concepts of first philosophy are possible, and how they belong together—these are issues that go beyond the scope of this chapter. The basic difference between genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face is reflected in the phenomenology of sensible life as a part of the former and of the latter. Phenomenology of sensible life as a part of genetic phenomenology is not the same as phenomenology of sensible life as a part of the phenomenology of the face. Rather—and this has to be explicitly recognized—they deal with different aspects of sensible life. In genetic phenomenology, sensible life is analyzed with respect to its function of transcendental genesis, whereas in phenomenology of the face, it is analyzed with respect to the structure of exteriority contained in it. Phenomenology of sensible life as a part of genetic phenomenology and as a part of phenomenology of the face represent two basically different ways in which to investigate sensible life systematically.60 To sum up, genetic phenomenology is a kind of philosophy of life that has phenomenology of sensible life as one of its essential constituents. As seen above in chapter 3, in Husserl, genetic phenomenology as a philosophy of life culminates in a philosophy of nature and a phenomenological metaphysics. In a similar way, a phenomenology of the face that has the phenomenology of sensible life as one of its essential constituents can also be viewed as a kind of philosophy of life. Phenomenology of the face as a kind of phenomenology of life culminates in a phenomenology of infinity as a phenomenology of ethical life. It should therefore be recognized that as two basically different types of phenomenology of life, genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face do not contradict one another. Rather, they could cooperate to deal with some of the problems that we are now facing in the age of environmental crisis.  Aristotle: Metaphysics. Translated from Greek by David Ross. Oxford 1924, 1012b–1013a.   See Nam-In Lee: “Phenomenological reflections on the possibility of first philosophy”, 140 ff. 60   Needless to say, the difference between genetic phenomenology and phenomenology of the face can also be detected in how the phenomenology of representational intentionality is treated as a part of the former and of the latter. In genetic phenomenology, representational intentionality is analyzed with respect to the problem of transcendental genesis, whereas in phenomenology of the face, it is investigated with respect to the problem of exteriority. 58 59

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And above all, they help us to cope with the ethical situation of a world where science and technology have prevailed to such an extent that the very existence of life in general is extremely threatened.

Chapter 7 Experience and Evidence It is the aim of this chapter to assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence, a criticism that can be found in his major work, Totality and Infinity. In section 1, I will summarize Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence. In section 2, I will delineate Husserl’s concept of experience, and in section 3, I will try to define Husserl’s concept of evidence with respect to his concept of experience. In sections 4 through 6, I will assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence and show that this criticism misses the mark, since it is based on a complete misunderstanding of Husserl’s concept of evidence. Finally, in section 7, comparing Levinas’s understanding of Husserl’s concept of evidence in Totality and Infinity with his treatment of this theme in his earlier work, The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology,1 I will attempt to suggest one reason for his critical stance toward Husserl in Totality and Infinity. As is well known, experience and evidence are two enormous topics of phenomenology. Here, I will limit my discussion of these topics to the aspects that are most relevant for the task of assessing Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence. 1. Levinas’s Criticism of Husserl’s Concept of Evidence Levinas claims that Husserl’s phenomenology is a mere philosophy of representation since it deals only with “representational” or “objectifying” intentionality. He does admit that Husserl also analyzes other kinds of intentionality. However, for Levinas, Husserl’s phenomenology cannot go beyond the scope of representational intentionality, since he sticks to “the thesis that every intentionality is either a representation or founded on a representation”.2 According to this thesis, even the types of intentionality that cannot be classified as representational—for example, the intentionality of willing or the intentionality of feeling—have the basic characteristic of representational intentionality, since they are founded upon it. Levinas maintains that representational intentionality has the power to erase the exteriority of the things experienced by the ego. In other words, it has the power to convert the exterior thing from the “other” into the “same”, which lies totally within the control of the ego. The resulting entity is the representational   Emmanuel Levinas: The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Translated from French by André Orianne. Evanston, IL 1995. 2  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 122. 1

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object. But as the constitutive product of representational intentionality, the representational object is known to the ego in a totally different way from the other as an exteriority that does not fall under the control of representational intentionality. Whereas the other as an exteriority can resist the ego, and for this reason cannot be known to the ego in adequate evidence, the representational object that is under the total control of representational intentionality is always known to the ego in the mode of adequate evidence. Thus, for example, a passage from Totality and Infinity runs as follows: In a sense the object of representation is indeed interior to thought: despite its independence it falls under the power of thought. […] it is rather a question of what in Cartesian terminology becomes the clear and distinct idea. In clarity an object which is first exterior is given, that is, is delivered over to him who encounters it as though it had been entirely determined by him. In clarity the exterior being presents itself as the work of the thought that receives it. Intelligibility, characterized by clarity, is a total adequation of the thinker with what is thought, in the precise sense of a mastery exercised by the thinker upon what is thought in which the object’s resistance as an exterior being vanishes.3

Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence can be summarized in four points. 1) In Husserl’s phenomenology, there is only one kind of evidence—namely, adequate evidence. Adequate evidence in Husserl means that the object is experienced by the ego totally, in its fullness. If an object is known to the ego in adequate evidence, there is nothing in it that is not known to the ego; in other words, there is no secret on the side of the object. 2) Husserl has only one concept of intentionality, namely representational intentionality, and one of the essential characteristics of representational intentionality is that it is equipped with adequate evidence. 3) Husserl’s concept of evidence is the same as that of Descartes. Descartes’ concept of evidence is adequate or apodictic evidence as the noetic correlate of necessary truth.4 4) In contrast to Husserl’s phenomenology, Levinas’s phenomenology of the face is not developed on the basis of adequate evidence. To be more precise,   Ibid., 123–24.   This is the reason why in clarifying Husserl’s concept of evidence, Levinas attempts to relate Husserl to Descartes, who tries to find apodictic truth through methodological doubt. According to Levinas, Husserl follows Descartes in adhering to the concept of apodictic evidence; Levinas is thereby himself adhering to the tendency to caricature Husserl’s phenomenology as the most radical form of Cartesianism in the 20th century. As the passage cited above shows, Levinas considers a typical example of a representational object to be Descartes’ clear and distinct idea. In fact, in a 3 4

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it has nothing to do with the Husserlian concept of evidence. It is true that the phenomenology of the face deals with a certain kind of experience, namely, absolute experience as the experience of the face, but absolute experience has nothing to do with the Husserlian concept of evidence. It is an experience that cannot be properly grasped with the concept of evidence at all. In order to assess these four points, we must first consider how Husserl himself understands the notions of experience and of evidence. 2. Husserl’s Concept of Experience Experience is a basic concept of philosophy. But as is the case with most of the other basic concepts of philosophy, it is an ambiguous concept. It varies from philosopher to philosopher. What makes the situation even more complicated is the fact that sometimes a single philosopher uses the concept of experience in an ambiguous way. One typical example is the founder of phenomenology himself. In fact, Husserl’s concept of experience is ambiguous in many respects. Husserl uses two different German terms that could both be translated into English as “experience”, namely, Erlebnis and Erfahrung. For Husserl, there is a close relationship between Erlebnis and Erfahrung, but they are not the same. For this reason, one could say that Husserl’s concept of experience is already ambiguous in that it moves in the field of tension between Erlebnis and Erfahrung. Moreover, if we were to consider Husserl’s concepts of Erlebnis and Erfahrung in more detail, we could show that each of them is itself ambiguous in many respects. In the discussion below, we will discuss neither the ambiguity of the concept of experience emerging from the tension between Erlebnis and Erfahrung nor the ambiguity of the concept of Erlebnis. We will discuss only the ambiguity of the concept of Erfahrung. This in turn will allow us to clarify some aspects of experience that will help us assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence.

passage that follows the passage cited above, Levinas clarifies the relationship between the representational object and Descartes’ clear and distinct idea as follows: “Descartes’s clear and distinct idea manifests itself as true and as entirely immanent to thought: entirely present, without anything clandestine; its very novelty is without mystery. Intelligibility and representation are equivalent notions: an exteriority surrendering in clarity and without immodesty its whole being to thought, that is, totally present without in principle anything shocking thought, without thought ever feeling itself to be indiscreet. Clarity is the disappearance of what could shock” (ibid., 124).

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2.1 The Narrowest Concept of Experience as the Original Experience of an Empirical Individual According to the narrowest concept, experience means the original experience of an individual existing in the empirical world, such as the experience of a tree, a flower, a stone, and so on. In §1 of Ideas I, Husserl begins the phenomenological analysis by taking into account the relationship between natural cognition and experience, as is clear from the title of the section: “Natural Cognition and Experience”.5 Thus he writes: “Natural cognition begins with experience and remains within experience.”6 Here the various kinds of original experience include those acts that “posit something real individually”, positing it “as something factually existing spatiotemporally, as something that is at this temporal locus, that has duration of its own and a reality-content which, with respect to its essence, could just as well have been at any other temporal locus”.7 This concept of experience as an original act that empirically posits something individual is distinguished from two other kinds of acts. On the one hand, it is distinguished from predicative judgments, including both pre-scientific judgments and scientific ones. This is the concept of experience that Husserl uses in Erfahrung und Urteil.8 In this context, a passage from §6 of Erfahrung und Urteil reads as follows: “Experience in the first and most pregnant sense is accordingly defined as a direct relation to the individual.”9 On the other hand, it is distinguished from the intuition of an essence, since an essence is not a spatiotemporal individual. Experience in the narrowest sense therefore means the act that posits the matter of fact (Tatsache), not the essence. 2.2 A Broader Concept of Experience But Husserl also uses a broader concept of experience. According to this broader concept of experience, experience includes not only the original acts that posit individuals in the empirical world, but also the acts that posit scientific objects, mathematical objects, or even essences. In this respect, the following two points should be noted.

  Hua III/1, 10; Husserl: Ideas I, 5.  Ibid. 7   Ibid., 12; 7. 8   Husserl: Erfahrung und Urteil; Husserl: Experience and Judgment. 9   Ibid., 21; 27. The corresponding passage in Formal and Transcendental Logic runs as follows: “Individuals are given by experience, experience in the first and most pregnant sense, which is defined as a direct relation to something individual” (Hua XVII, 213; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 206). 5 6

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First, experience in the broader sense is the original act of the ego “in which the affairs and affair-complexes in question are present to me as ‘they themselves’”.10 In other words, experience in the broader sense means the act of originally positing “affairs and affair-complexes”. It should be noted that here “affairs and affair-complexes” include not only those pertaining to empirical individuals, but also those pertaining to mathematical objects, logical objects, or even essences. This means that experience in the broader sense includes not only the original act of experiencing the individual in the empirical world, but also the original act of eidetic intuition or mathematical intuition.11 One might accordingly say that we have an experience of an essence in eidetic intuition, or an experience of a mathematical object in mathematical intuition. There are as many different kinds of experience as there are kinds of objects, and the key is the “originality” of the positing, not the type of object posited. Second, experience in the broader sense includes not only acts of positing various kinds of objects, but also predicative acts. In this context, we should note that Husserl refers to “objective experience” as the experience of “the Objective world”, as in the following passage from Cartesian Meditations: “The Objective world is constantly there before me as already finished, a datum of my livingly continuous Objective experience and, even in respect of what is no longer experienced, something I go on accepting habitually.”12 In this case, the “Objective world” means the world that I share with other transcendental subjectivities. However, communication with these other transcendental subjectivities is a necessary condition for the constitution of the objective world, and such communication presupposes predicative judgments performed by the communicating individuals. It is therefore clear that predicative acts play an essential role in the constitution of the objective world. Thus, it turns out that “objective experience” necessarily contains predicative acts as a kind of experience in this broader sense. 2.3 Natural Experience and Transcendental Experience The various kinds of experience that have been discussed so far can be called natural experience, since they are carried out on the basis of the general thesis of the natural attitude.13 But Husserl also talks about another kind of experience   Hua I, 54; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 13.   As Husserl points out, “The identity and, therefore, the objectivity of something ideal can be directly ‘seen’ (and, if we wished to give the word a suitably amplified sense, directly experienced) with the same originality as the identity of an object of experience in the usual sense […]” (Hua XVII, 163; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 155). 12   Hua I, 136; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 106. 13  In Ideas I, Husserl uses the concept of “natural experience” (Hua III/1, 11; Husserl: Ideas I, 10 11

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that goes beyond the scope of natural experience, namely, “transcendental experience”14 or “transcendental self-experience”.15 In contrast to natural experience, Husserl calls transcendental experience “a new kind of experience”.16 Transcendental experience is the experience of the transcendental realm that is disclosed by the method of transcendental-phenomenological reduction. It is the act that opens up the world of transcendental (inter)subjectivity as a whole. There are various kinds of transcendental experience—for example, the pre-predicative experience of the individual transcendental, the predicative experience of the transcendental, and the intuition of the eidetic structure of the transcendental, etc.17 2.4 The Broadest Concept of Experience: Original and Non-Original Experience The broadest concept of experience includes not only all of the kinds of experience discussed so far but other kinds of experience as well. In this context, it should be noted that the various kinds of experience discussed so far have the common property of being acts that posit the matters themselves. As such, they are called “original experience”.18 A typical example of the original experience is perception, but memory is also a kind of original experience, because it is an act that posits the matter itself experienced in the past. Needless to say, a perception of a thing is more original than a memory of the same thing. Thus, there are different degrees of the original experience. But as the expression “original experience” implies, there are other kinds of experience that could be called “non-original experience”. Non-original experience does not posit the matters themselves. A typical example might be an expectation of something that I have never seen but could perceive in its living presence in the future. Needless to say, the distinction between original and non-original experience is possible not only with respect to natural experience, but also with respect to transcendental experience. The broadest concept of experience, which comprises both original 5) to denote the experience of the individual in the empirical world. In my view, not only this kind of experience, but also the other kinds of experience that have been discussed above can be called natural experience as well, since they too are carried out in the natural attitude. 14   Hua XXXIV, 164; Hua VI, 156 (Husserl: Crisis, 153), and see also Hua VIII, 69 ff.; 75 ff., 146 ff., 169 ff., 360 (Husserl: First Philosophy, 274 ff., 279 ff., 347 ff., 370 ff.). 15   Hua I, 62; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 22. 16   Ibid., 66; 27. 17   With respect to these various kinds of transcendental experience, Husserl writes as follows: “We have trusted transcendental experience because of its originarily lived-through evidence; and similarly, we have trusted the evidence of predicative description and all the other modes of evidence belonging to transcendental science” (ibid., 177; 151). Reading this passage, one has to take notice of the fact that as we will see below, “evidence” means original experience. 18   Hua III/1, 11; Husserl: Ideas I, 6, translation altered.

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experience and non-original experience, includes all different kinds of mental events that can be observed in the stream of consciousness. 3. Evidence as Original Experience In order to clarify Husserl’s concept of evidence,19 we will use the broadest concept of experience. This implies that in the discussion below, we will bring into play all of the various kinds of experience discussed above. We will be using the broadest concept of experience because this is the concept that will allow us to clarify the structure of evidence most effectively. Of course, for other purposes, one could use a different concept of experience. For example, if one wanted to clarify the condition for the possibility of the genetic constitution of the scientific world, it would be better to use the narrowest concept of experience, since it provides the motivational foundation for the genesis of various kinds of scientific activity. However, it is the distinction between original and non-original experience that is essential for the definition of the concept of evidence. Here the concept of “originality” should be understood not from the standpoint of genetic foundations, but from the standpoint of the foundation of validity. It should be noted that, as discussed above in part I, these two orders of foundation are completely different from one another. The difference between them can easily be demonstrated by considering the example of the foundational relationships between the perception of an object on the one hand and the expectation of the same object on the other. From the standpoint of the foundation of validity, perception has absolute priority over expectation, since in order to justify the validity-claim of the expectation of an object, we have to appeal to the perception of the same object. From the standpoint of the foundation of genesis, however, perception does not have any absolute priority over expectation, since in many cases, the perception of an object does not genetically precede the expectation of the same object. Now in order to understand Husserl’s concept of evidence, it is of great significance to note that from the standpoint of the foundation of validity, it is possible to make a general distinction between original and non-original experience. In Husserl’s phenomenology, evidence means original experience (Selbstgebung) as the experience of the matter itself or of the truth. Correspondingly, in Formal and Transcendental Logic, Husserl offers the following definition of evidence:   For a detailed analysis of Husserl’s concept of evidence, see George Heffernan: “An essay in epistemic kuklophobia: Husserl’s critique of Descartes’ conception of evidence”. In: Husserl Studies 13(2), 1997, 89–140; George Heffernan: “Miscellaneous lucubrations on Husserl’s answer to the question ‘was die Evidenz sei’: A contribution to the phenomenology of evidence on the occasion of the publication of Husserliana volume XXX”. In: Husserl Studies 15(1), 1998, 1–75. 19

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Evidence […] designates that performance on the part of intentionality which consists in the giving of something-itself. More precisely, it is the universal pre-eminent form of “intentionality”, of “consciousness of something”, in which there is consciousness of the intended-to objective affair in the mode of itself-seized-upon, itself-seen—correlatively, in the mode: being with it itself in the manner peculiar to consciousness. We can also say that it is the primal consciousness: I am seizing upon “it itself” originaliter, as contrasted with seizing upon it in an image or as some other, intuitional or empty, fore-meaning.20

Evidence as the original experience of an object is precisely the foundation of validity to which we have to appeal in order to justify the validity-claim of a non-original experience of the same object. Suppose, for example, that I have a non-original experience of something—namely, an empty expectation of something that I have never seen—but am nevertheless claiming that it is a thing that has such and such properties. In this case, in order to justify the validity-claim that I have concerning the thing in question, I have to appeal to the perception that I could have of the same thing if I were to approach it and see it with my own eyes. Here the perception of it is evidence, whereas the empty expectation of it is non-evidence. Thus, Husserl writes: “Evidence is, in an extremely broad sense, an [original] ‘experiencing’ of something that is, and is thus […].”21 4. Assessment of Levinas’s Criticism of Husserl’s Concept of Evidence (1): Initial Considerations Reconsidering the concepts of evidence and experience in Husserl, we will now try to bring to light some new aspects of evidence and to assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence. In this section, we will assess the first three of the four critical points of Levinas mentioned in section 1 above. 1) Contrary to what Levinas claims, Husserl does not hold the view that there is only one kind of evidence, namely, adequate evidence. One can, of course, find some passages in Husserl that might seem to support Levinas’s claim. For example, dealing with the relationship between truth and evidence in the Sixth Logical Investigation, Husserl writes as follows: But the epistemologically pregnant sense of evidence is exclusively concerned with this last unsurpassable goal, the act of this most perfect synthesis of fulfilment, which gives to an intention, e. g. the intention of judgement, the absolute fulness of content, the fulness of the object itself.22

  Hua XVII, 166; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 157–158.   Hua I, 52; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 12. 22   Hua XIX/2, 651; Husserl: Shorter Logical Investigations, 331. 20 21

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This passage might indeed convey the impression that Husserl does actually identify evidence with adequate evidence. But this is not the case. Even in the Sixth Logical Investigation, Husserl acknowledges the possibility that there are various kinds of evidence. For example, in the passage that immediately precedes the sentence just cited, he refers to various degrees of evidence: We speak somewhat loosely of evidence wherever a positing intention (a statement in particular) finds verification in a corresponding, fully accommodated percept, even if this be no more than a well-fitting synthesis of coherent single percepts. To speak of degrees and levels of evidence then has a good sense. Here are relevant all approximations of percepts to the objective completeness of their presentation of their object, all further steps towards the final ideal of perfection, the ideal of adequate perception, of the complete self-manifestation of the object, however it was referred to in the intention to be fulfilled.23

In fact, Husserl maintains that there are various kinds of evidence. In this context, it should be noted that there are various kinds of regions of objects, such as the region of physical objects, biological objects, psychological objects, cultural and historical objects, mathematical objects, eidē or essences, etc. It should also be noted that the different kinds of regions of objects are not experienced in the same way but in many different ways. This is why the essential structure of evidence varies from one region of objects to another. For example, the essential structure of the evidence pertaining to a physical object is totally different from that pertaining to an eidos: as a universal essence, an object-category can be experienced with adequate evidence, since it is possible in principle to grasp such a structure without residue,24 whereas the evidence pertaining to the experience of a physical object cannot be adequate, since it is impossible in principle to perceive the physical object totally and without residue. Thus, there is an essential relationship between the category of object and the mode of evidence in which we experience it, as the following passages from Ideas I and Formal and Transcendental Logic show: Whether or not this or that evidence is possible in a given sphere depends on its generic type. It is therefore a priori prefigured, and it is countersense to demand in one sphere the perfection belonging to the evidence of another sphere (e. g. that of eidetic relationships) which essentially excludes it.25 Category of objectivity and category of evidence are perfect correlates. To every fundamental species of objectivities—as intentional unities maintainable throughout an intentional synthesis and, ultimately, as unities belonging to a possible “experience”—a fundamental species of “experience”, of evidence, corresponds, and likewise a fundamental species of inten Ibid.   In this context, Husserl writes as follows: “Every category of object […] is a universal essence that is itself to be brought to adequate evidence in principle” (Hua III/1, 330; Husserl: Ideas I, 341, translation altered). 25   Ibid., 321; 333. 23 24

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tionally indicated evidential style in the possible enhancement of the perfection of the having of an objectivity itself.26

There are as many different kinds of evidence as there are kinds of regions of objects. It is accordingly one of the tasks of a descriptive phenomenology of evidence to make a distinction among different kinds of evidence. In fact, Husserl makes various kinds of distinctions among types of evidence—for example, the distinctions between adequate evidence and inadequate evidence, between assertoric evidence and apodictic evidence, between formal evidence and material evidence, etc.27 Even within a single region of objects, however, it is possible to observe various degrees of evidence. This is due to the fact that we can make a distinction among various modes of originality with regard to the experience of one and the same object. To be sure, the most original mode of experience is perception. But perception is not the only original mode of experience. Memory could also claim to be an original mode of experience, since under certain circumstances, it too can play the role of the foundation of validity for some other kinds of experience. But memory does not have the same degree of originality as perception; it is a less original mode of experience than perception. Thus, there are different degrees of originality of the experience,28 and corresponding to the various degrees of originality, we can make a distinction among various degrees of evidence.29 It is, in short, far from Husserl’s intention to claim that the only kind of evidence is adequate evidence. Adequate evidence is a rather rare case. Most natural experiences are not equipped with adequate evidence. 2) Contrary to what Levinas claims, adequate evidence is not an essential characteristic of representational or objectifying experience in general. Let us take the perception of a physical object as an example of representational experience. As mentioned above, we cannot have adequate givenness of a physical object   Hua XVII, 169; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 161.   Cf. Hua III/1, 317 ff.; Husserl: Ideas I, 329 ff. 28   In this context, it should also be mentioned that various kinds of memory can be distinguished from each other with respect to the degree of originality of the experience. 29   Thus, for Husserl, the notion of originality does not merely rest upon the distinction between the emptily meant and the itself-given, but also admits of various modes of itself-givenness: “Still we must immediately point out here that evidence has different modes of originality. The primitive mode of the giving of something-itself is perception. The being-with is for me, as percipient, consciously my now-being-with: I myself with the perceived itself. An intentionally modified and more complicated mode of the giving of something itself is the memory that does not emerge emptily but, on the contrary, actualizes ‘it itself ’ again: clear recollection. By its own phenomenological composition, clear recollection is intrinsically a ‘reproductive’ consciousness, a consciousness of the object itself as my past object […]” (Hua XVII, 166; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 158). 26 27

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at any time, since physical objects are embedded in various kinds of horizons whose meaning cannot be exhausted by finite human beings. The physical object always has a residue of “undeterminednesses which for the time being ‘remain open’ and, in this mode, are co-meant”,30 and as such, it contains something “clandestine”, something mysterious. The adequate givenness of a physical object can never become a reality; it is only an ideal limit toward which we try to move in incessant approximation. Precisely for this reason, adequate evidence pertaining to the physical thing can be called an idea in the Kantian sense. (Correspondingly, §143 of Ideas I bears the title: “Adequate Physical Thing-Givenness as Idea in the Kantian Sense”.31) It is the same with representational experiences that are directed to historical, social, and cultural objects, etc. Most of the representational experiences in the natural attitude cannot claim to have adequate evidence, since they are embedded in various kinds of horizons that could reveal infinitely many new meanings. It is very far indeed from Husserl’s original intention to say that adequate evidence is the essential characteristic of representation in general. Contrary to what Levinas claims, representation and adequate evidence as a complete intelligibility cannot be “equivalent notions”.32 It is true that some kinds of representational experience can be equipped with adequate evidence. A typical example might be reflective self-consciousness. In fact, self-consciousness as a reflective experience of a consciousness by the same consciousness could be called a representation in which, as Levinas correctly points out, the object of thought is “entirely immanent to thought: entirely present, without anything clandestine”.33 In this sense, self-consciousness can be characterized as a pure presence of the self to the self. But the presence of adequate evidence in some kinds of representational experience should not motivate one to draw the conclusion that adequate evidence is an essential characteristic of representation in general. Contrary to what Levinas claims, most representational experiences are not equipped with adequate evidence, as Søren Overgaard correctly describes: It is precisely the ‘inadequacy’ of the perception that accounts for the transcendence of the perceptual object […]. Thus, although there are no gaps in the noesis-noema correlation, that clearly does not mean that intentionality in general or perceptual intentionality in particular may be identified with an adequation of thought with its object, as Levinas claims. In fact, Husserl precisely argues that perceptual acts are acts that necessarily ‘think’ infinitely more than they think—i. e., they are necessarily inadequate.34

  Hua III/1, 303; Husserl: Ideas I, 314.   Ibid., 330; 342. 32  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 124. 33  Ibid. 34   Overgaard: “Levinas’ critique of Husserl”, 123. 30 31

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In this context, it should be noted that Levinas’s analysis of representational intentionality is not phenomenological enough. Its unphenomenological character has its roots in the fact that in contrast to Husserl, Levinas does not develop a descriptive phenomenology of representation that aims to clarify the essential structure of various kinds of representation. In fact, in Totality and Infinity, it is almost impossible to find a passage in which Levinas is engaged in a descriptive analysis of various kinds of representation. Instead, he dogmatically takes a single kind of representation as the model to be clarified and develops his philosophical position on the basis of that model. For example, he maintains that the basic property of constitutive representation is the pure presence of the self to the self. However, on closer examination, it turns out that the pure presence of the self to the self is not the basic characteristic of all kinds of representation, but only of a certain kind of representation, namely, of self-consciousness. If Levinas had attempted a descriptive phenomenological analysis of various kinds of representation and paid attention to the fact that there are various kinds of representation that differ from each other in their essential structure, he would not have proposed the radical thesis that the pure presence of the self to the self is one of the essential structures of every kind of representation. A detailed phenomenological analysis of representational intentionality could show that in addition to self-consciousness, there are various kinds of representation whose essential structures differ from each other—for example, perception, memory, expectation, imagination, picture-consciousness, sign-consciousness, dreaming, scientific judgment, mathematical intuition, intuition of essence, etc. 3) Levinas considers Husserl’s concept of evidence to be the same as that of Descartes. However, it is totally different from that of Descartes. For Descartes, there is only one kind of evidence, namely apodictic evidence. Apodictic evidence is the noetic correlate of necessary truth. Descartes’ clear and distinct idea is the bearer of apodictic evidence since it excludes any kind of possibility of doubt. The Cartesian system of philosophy does not allow any kind of evidence other than apodictic evidence. For example, the assertoric evidence that permits the possibility of the evidential experience becoming more complete is excluded from the beginning in the Cartesian system. Of course, it is not easy for us to resist the temptation to identify evidence with apodictic evidence, since in ordinary language, in many cases “evidence” does mean “apodictic evidence”, as Husserl points out in a passage from Ideas I: “What we usually call evidence and intellectual insight (or intellectual seeing) is a positional, doxic and adequately presentive consciousness which ‘excludes being otherwise’ […].”35 Descartes’ concept of evidence is in accordance with   Hua III/1, 317; Husserl: Ideas I, 329, translation altered.

35

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this ordinary concept of evidence, and Levinas supposes that Husserl follows Descartes in assuming the ordinary concept. However, contrary to the usage in ordinary language, Husserl does not identify evidence with apodictic evidence. For Husserl, evidence means the original way of experiencing an object, whatever category the object in question might belong to, and there are various kinds of evidence. According to Husserl, the Cartesian view that evidence must always mean absolute and apodictic evidence is based on a total misinterpretation of the phenomenon of evidence, as the following passage from Formal and Transcendental Logic shows: The continual obstacle that may have been sensed during this exposition is owing solely to the usual, fundamentally wrong, interpretation of evidence, an interpretation made possible by the utter lack of a serious phenomenological analysis of the effective performance common to all forms of evidence. Thus, it happens that evidence is usually conceived as an absolute apodicticity, an absolute security against deceptions—an apodicticity quite incomprehensibly ascribed to a single mental process torn from the concrete, essentially unitary, context of subjective mental living. The usual theorist sees in evidence an absolute criterion of truth; though, by such a criterion, not only external but also, in strictness, all internal evidence would necessarily be done away with.36

5. Assessment of Levinas’s Criticism of Husserl’s Concept of Evidence (2): Transcendental Experience and Evidence But why does Levinas claim that Husserl’s concept of evidence is adequate evidence? It could be the case that Levinas’s claim is related to the transcendental experience that is carried out after the transcendental-phenomenological reduction. What is at stake here is thus related to the so-called self-consciousness discussed above. In fact, in some of his important works, Husserl does claim that the entire transcendental field disclosed by the method of transcendental-phenomenological reduction is something that could be experienced in the mode of adequate evidence. In the lectures on The Idea of Phenomenology from 1907, making a distinction between the givenness of the pure cogitatio and that of a thing, Husserl writes as follows: “We have acknowledged the givenness of the pure cogitatio as absolute, but not the givenness of the external thing in outer perception, even if this givenness claims to present the being of the thing itself.”37 We can find Husserl taking the same position on this issue in Ideas I and in the Cartesian Meditations. Correspondingly, §44 of Ideas I has the title: “Merely Phenomenal

  Hua XVII, 165; Husserl: Formal and Transcendental Logic, 156–57.   Hua II, 49; The Idea of Phenomenology. Translated from German by Lee Hardy. Dordrecht 1999, 38. 36 37

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Being of Something Transcendent, Absolute Being of Something Immanent”,38 and §8 of the Cartesian Meditations considers transcendental subjectivity to be “the ultimate and apodictically certain basis for judgments, the basis on which any radical philosophy must be grounded”.39 To be sure, this tendency is deeply rooted in his phenomenology. Already in the Fifth Logical Investigation, dealing with the issue of “‘inner’ consciousness as inner perception”,40 Husserl writes as follows: The “evidence” usually attributed to inner perception shows it to be taken to be an adequate perception, one ascribing nothing to its objects that is not intuitively presented, and given as a real part (reell) of the perceptual experience, and one which, conversely, intuitively presents and posits its objects just as they are in fact experienced in and with their perception. Every perception is characterized by the intention of grasping its object as present, and in propria persona.41

But this is only a part of the whole story. Husserl is well aware that we cannot experience the entire transcendental field in the mode of adequate evidence, and he accordingly also presents a completely different view with respect to this issue. One can readily find such an alternative position in the Cartesian Meditations. But this position is not merely a product of Husserl’s later work; it is as deeply rooted in Husserl’s phenomenology as the opposite position discussed above. For example, it already appears in the Fifth Logical Investigation—more specifically, right in the section in which Husserl claims that inner consciousness has adequate evidence. What is important in this context is the fact that with respect to the evidence of the inner consciousness of the memory of a past experience, Husserl refers to the “evidence or evident probability of the I was”.42 This means that even in his earlier writings, he acknowledges that not every kind of transcendental experience is equipped with adequate evidence. And one can also find Husserl taking the same position in the lectures on “The Basic Problems of Phenomenology” from 1910/11,43 as well as in the Cartesian Meditations.44 Let us clarify this point in more detail, confining our discussion to the Cartesian Meditations. One passage that explicitly addresses the issue of adequate evidence with respect to the transcendental field runs as follows: We remember in this connexion an earlier remark: that adequacy and apodicticity of evidence need not go hand in hand. Perhaps this remark was made precisely with the case     40   41   42   43   44   38 39

Hua III/1, 91; Husserl: Ideas I, 94. Hua I, 58; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 18. Hua XIX/1, 365; Husserl: Shorter Logical Investigations, 205. Ibid., translation altered. Hua XIX/1, 368 n. 2, from the first ed.; not included in the English translation. Hua XIII, 159 ff.; Husserl: Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 53 ff. Hua I, 61 ff.; Husserl: Cartesian Meditations, 22 ff.

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of transcendental self-experience in mind. In such experience the ego is accessible to himself originaliter. But at any particular time this experience offers only a core that is experienced “with strict adequacy”, namely the ego’s living present (which the grammatical sense of the sentence, ego cogito, expresses); while, beyond that, only an indeterminately general presumptive horizon extends, comprising what is strictly non-experienced but necessarily also-meant. To it belongs not only the ego’s past, most of which is completely obscure, but also his transcendental abilities and his habitual peculiarities at the time.45

As this passage shows, only a tiny core of the transcendental field as a whole— namely, the living present—can be experienced by the reflecting ego in the mode of adequate evidence. On the other hand, there are infinitely many parts of the transcendental field that cannot be experienced by the reflecting ego in the mode of adequate evidence. These other parts can be called the horizons of the living present of the reflecting ego. Thus, it is precisely the structure of the horizon that makes it impossible for a reflecting ego to have adequate transcendental experience of the entire transcendental field. And in this regard, there is no essential difference between natural experience and transcendental experience, as Husserl notes in a passage that immediately follows the one cited above: External perception too (though not apodictic) is an experiencing of something itself, the physical thing itself: “it itself is there”. But, in being there itself, the physical thing has for the experiencer an open, infinite, indeterminately general horizon, comprising what is itself not strictly perceived—a horizon (this is implicit as a presumption) that can be opened up by possible experiences. Something similar is true about the apodictic certainty characterizing transcendental experience of my transcendental I-am, with the indeterminate generality of the latter as having an open horizon.46

Contrary to what Levinas might claim, then, the entire transcendental field cannot be experienced in the mode of adequate evidence. Only a tiny core of the whole of the field of transcendental subjectivity can be experienced in the mode of adequate evidence. There are various kinds of horizons that go beyond that tiny core and therefore cannot be experienced in the mode of adequate evidence. 6. Assessment of Levinas’s Criticism of Husserl’s Concept of Evidence (3): Absolute Experience and Evidence Let us now turn to the fourth critical point that Levinas makes concerning Husserl’s concept of evidence. Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence implies that his own phenomenology of the face has nothing to do with   Ibid., 62; 22–23.   Ibid., 62; 23.

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the problem of evidence in the Husserlian sense—in fact, he would claim that the phenomenology of the face is developed on a field that goes far beyond the realm of evidence in the Husserlian sense. It is true that the phenomenology of the face is not based on the Cartesian concept of evidence or on the concept of evidence that Levinas considers to be the Husserlian one. But is the genuinely Husserlian concept of evidence really unnecessary for the development of the phenomenology of the face? Contrary to what one might imagine, Husserl’s concept of evidence is a necessary condition for the possibility of the phenomenology of the face. In order to understand why this is the case, we should recognize that Levinas’s understanding of Husserl’s concept of intentionality is one-sided. As the discussion of experience in section 2 above shows, there are various kinds of experience, and each of them can be termed intentionality. It is true that in the Logical Investigations—a work whose aim is to clarify the intentionality directed to logical entities—Husserl focuses on representational intentionality and holds the view that every intentional act is either an objectifying act or is founded upon such an act.47 But this view changes in his later phenomenology. According to the position of his later work, there are various kinds of intentionality—for example, representational intentionality and non-representational intentionality, active intentionality and passive intentionality—and it is no longer valid to say that the intentional act is either an objectifying act or is founded upon one.48 This concept of intentionality implies that there are various kinds of experience that cannot be defined as objectifying experience—for example, the experience of feeling, valuing, willing, striving, drives, instincts, etc. Moreover, each of them has its own kind of evidence. Here evidence could also be defined as an original experience that can rationally motivate the positing of other, non-original experiences, or as the experience to which we have to appeal in order to justify the validity-claim of these other experiences. As such, the evidence of non-objectifying experience is the very basis on the ground of which one can develop various kinds of phenomenology of non-objectifying experience. Each

  For this reason, in the Logical Investigations, Husserl identifies evidence with representational intentionality as an objectifying act, as the following passage shows: “Evidence itself, we said, is the act of this most perfect synthesis of coincidence. Like every identification, it is an objectifying act, its objective correlate being called being in the sense of truth, or simply truth […]” (Hua XIX/2, 651; Husserl: Shorter Logical Investigations, 331, translation altered). Corresponding to this passage, Levinas claims that for Husserl, evidence is identical with theoretical intuitive life: “We must, therefore, observe first that, for Husserl, being is correlative to theoretical intuitive life, to the evidence of an objectifying act. This is why the Husserlian concept of intuition is tainted with intellectualism and is possibly too narrow” (Levinas: Theory of Intuition, 94). 48   I have dealt with this problem in Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte, 31 ff. 47

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of the various kinds of phenomenology of non-objectifying experience is impossible without such evidence. And this is precisely why some phenomenologists who attempt to develop a phenomenology of non-objectifying experience do in fact appeal to the evidence of the type of non-objectifying experience in question. For example, in developing an a priori material ethics as a phenomenology of the valuing experience, Scheler appeals to ethical insight as an evidence of valuing experience. Faithful to the phenomenological motto “to the matters themselves”, Scheler deals with the problem of ethical insight in detail in various parts of Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik.49 The discussion of ethical insight could therefore be called the methodological part of Scheler’s a priori material ethics. Without such a discussion, his a priori material ethics would be a building that is built on sand. And Heidegger is no exception in this regard. As Heidegger’s analysis of fundamental mood shows, the phenomenology of fundamental mood plays a significant role in his hermeneutic phenomenology of Dasein. In a certain sense, one could even say that Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology of Dasein can be called a phenomenology of fundamental mood. What is important here is the fact that in developing the hermeneutic phenomenology of Dasein, Heidegger refers to “what is ‘evident’ in states-ofmind”,50 thereby identifying a crucial methodological element of his hermeneutic phenomenology. As Klaus Held clarifies in a detailed manner,51 what grounds Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology is precisely the principle of all principles: that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimating source of cognition, 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 presented there.52

Let us now turn to the case of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. In developing the phenomenology of the face, Levinas refers to “absolute experience”.53 Absolute experience means the experience of the face as the absolutely other that cannot be mastered by the ego. As such, it is totally different from the representational experience that converts the absolutely other into the same. It is also different from enjoyment, which admits the alterity of the other but ultimately absorbs it and converts it into the same. Instead, absolute experience is   Max Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Bern 1980, 202 ff., 324 ff., 329 ff., 492; Max Scheler: Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Value. Translated from German by Manfred Frings, Roger Funk. Evanston, IL 1973, 194, 321 ff., 327, 501. 50   Heidegger: Sein und Zeit, 136; Heidegger: Being and Time, 175. 51  Klaus Held: “Heidegger und das Prinzip der Phänomenologie”. In: Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, Otto Pöggeler (Eds.), Heidegger und die praktische Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main 1988, 111–139. 52   Hua III/1, 51; Husserl: Ideas I, 44. 53  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 65, 67, 71. 49

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an experience of the other as “absolute being”.54 It is an experience that lets the other shine in its absolute being. The whole of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face could even be called an exposition of absolute experience, for in Totality and Infinity, both Section I, which deals with “The Same and The Other”, and Section III, which deals with “Exteriority and the Face”, are explicit attempts to clarify the structure of absolute experience. And even though Levinas does not thematically discuss the issue of the face and alterity in Section II, which deals with “Interiority and Economy”, this section also serves to clarify the structure of absolute experience. But how is it possible for Levinas to talk about absolute experience and analyze its structure? How is it possible for Levinas to develop his phenomenology of the face? According to the discussion of evidence so far, it is only on the basis of the evidence of absolute experience that Levinas can speak of absolute experience and develop a phenomenology of the face. Even though Levinas does not address the issue of the evidence of absolute experience in a detailed manner, it is nevertheless the case that from a methodological point of view, he has to appeal to it in developing the phenomenology of the face. In other words, as long as Levinas attempts to develop his philosophy of the face as a phenomenology of the face in a genuine sense, and as long as he wants to become a genuine phenomenologist, he has to be faithful to “the principle of all principles: that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimating source of cognition”.55 Even though Levinas does not discuss the issue of evidence in a detailed manner, he still claims that his phenomenology of the face is faithful to “the principle of all principles” that Husserl held up as the most basic principle of phenomenology as a rigorous science. In this respect, we must consider a sub-section of Section III of Totality and Infinity that discusses the relationship between “Reason and Face”.56 There Levinas claims that the experience of the face is not an experience that has nothing to do with reason and rationality whatsoever but rather is an experience that from the very outset cannot be conceived of without reason. In fact, there is a close relationship between reason and the face: “The other is not for reason a scandal which launches it into dialectical movement, but the first rational teaching, the condition for all teaching.”57 Levinas even claims that a totally new type of reason emerges from the experience of the face, so his phenomenology of the face is a “rational thought”58 and should not be misunderstood as a kind of irrationalism, as the following passage shows:

  Ibid., 71.   Hua III/1, 51: Ideas I, 44. 56  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 201 ff. 57   Ibid., 203. 58   Ibid., 204. 54 55

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The relation with the Other as a relation with his transcendence—the relation with the Other who puts into question the brutal spontaneity of one’s immanent destiny—introduces into me what was not in me. But this “action” upon my freedom precisely puts an end to violence and contingency, and, in this sense also, founds Reason. […] The idea of infinity in me, implying a content overflowing the container, breaks with the prejudice of maieutics without breaking with rationalism, since the idea of infinity, far from violating the mind, conditions nonviolence itself, that is, establishes ethics.59

In order to develop his phenomenology of the face as a “rational thought”, Levinas has to appeal to evidence, namely, the evidence of the experience of the face. In this respect, it should be noted that there is a close relationship between evidence and reason: evidence is the source of reason as the faculty to make a distinction between the true and the false since it is possible for us to make such a distinction only on the basis of evidence. In fact, in his closing discussion of the relationship between “Reason and the Face”, clarifying the basic character of his phenomenology of the face as a “rational thought”, he explicitly refers to “evidence”, as the following passage shows: To think is to have the idea of infinity, or to be taught. Rational thought refers to this teaching. Even if we confine ourselves to the formal structure of logical thought, which starts from a definition, infinity, relative to which concepts are delimited, cannot be defined in its turn. It accordingly refers to a “knowledge” of a new structure. We seek to fix it as a relation with the face and to show the ethical essence of this relation. The face is the evidence that makes evidence possible—like the divine veracity that sustains Cartesian rationalism.60

With respect to the evidence of the experience of the face, I would like to mention the following two points. First, Levinas considers the evidence of the experience of the face to be the foundation of all other kinds of evidence. According to him, there are different layers of evidence, the most basic layer of which is the evidence of the experience of the face. All other layers of evidence can be considered as evidence in the genuine sense of the word only if they are founded on the experience of the face. Second, according to Levinas, his phenomenology of the face is not only a form of rationalism but is in fact the only genuine rationalism. Since the experience of the face grounds all other kinds of evidence, and since evidence is the cornerstone of all rationality, it follows that only a rationalism that is founded on the experience of the face is a genuine rationalism. In claiming that his phenomenology is genuine rationalism, he implicitly makes a distinction between a genuine rationalism and a false rationalism. This distinction seems to have been inspired by Husserl himself, who in the first part of the Crisis makes a distinction between “the genuine sense of rationalism” and the “naïve   Ibid., 203–204.   Ibid., 204.

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and (if carefully thought through) even absurd rationalism”,61 which is similar to Levinas’s distinction between a genuine and a false rationalism. This is not to say that Levinas’s distinction is completely the same as Husserl’s, and future phenomenologists must clarify the exact relationship between the two. Even though Levinas implicitly believes that his phenomenology of the face is faithful to “the principle of all principles”, whether he truly was, is an entirely different issue. In my view, there are many unclear passages throughout his works, passages in which Levinas’s phenomenology of the face runs the risk of becoming unphenomenological. However, he could have avoided such risks if he had taken the issue of evidence seriously. If Levinas’s phenomenology of the face is to become a genuine phenomenology of the face, it must come to terms with its own methodological foundations, particularly regarding the issue of the evidence of the experience of the face. 7. Concluding Remarks We have assessed the criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence that Levinas offers in Totality and Infinity. However, we have not yet discussed The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology which touches upon the problem of evidence as well. There are both similarities and differences in Levinas’s view of Husserl’s concept of evidence in these two works. In order to bring to light the further significance of Levinas’s criticism of Husserl in this regard, we will briefly address these similarities and differences. With respect to the similarities, it should be noted that just as in Totality and Infinity, Levinas likewise holds the view in The Theory of Intuition that only objectifying intentionality can be the bearer of evidence. Moreover, here too he fails to realize that the entire transcendental field cannot be experienced in the mode of adequate evidence. Finally, even though the topic of intuition is closely related to the issue of evidence, in The Theory of Intuition Levinas does not deal with the problem of evidence in detail,62 let alone with the method  Hua VI, 14; Husserl: Crisis, 16.   With respect to the concept of evidence, Levinas writes as follows: “Consciousness of the realization or the disappointment of a signifying intention is evidence. Evidence, therefore, is not a purely subjective feeling accompanying certain psychic phenomena. Evidence is a form of intentionality in which an object is facing consciousness in person and in the same guise as it was meant. If we say that evidence is the criterion of truth, we do not mean that evidence is only a subjective index of truth; we do not mean that being could appear in such a way as to invalidate the most certain evidences. Evidence is defined precisely by the fact that it is the presence of consciousness in front of being. There is the very origin of being” (Levinas: Theory of Intuition, 75). This passage contains the most detailed treatment of the issue of evidence in this work. It should be also noted that in this work, Levinas does not deal with the fact that there are various kinds of evidence. 61 62

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ological significance of the concept of evidence for phenomenology in general. With respect to the differences, in the earlier work, Levinas does not present the view that adequate evidence is the essential characteristic of representational intentionality in general. In fact, here he admits that there is an essential difference in the mode of evidence between the perception of the external thing on the one hand and self-consciousness on the other, as the following passage from The Theory of Intuition shows: However, immanent intuition, reflection, has a privileged character with respect to the intuition directed at the external world. It is the character of adequation which, as we have tried to show, is based upon the existence of its object, consciousness, and has allowed us to posit consciousness as absolute.63

As this passage clearly indicates, here Levinas admits that self-consciousness as immanent consciousness can be equipped with adequate evidence, whereas this possibility is excluded in the case of the perception of external objects. In this context, it should also be mentioned that in The Theory of Intuition, Levinas is well aware that there are many different kinds of representational intentionality and even explicitly distinguishes various kinds—for example, signifying intentionality, perception, imagination, memory, intuition of essence, self-consciousness, etc.64 How can we explain the similarities and differences between Levinas’s view of Husserl’s concept of evidence in these two works? The similarities between them might be easily explained. One could say that the scope of Levinas’s reading of Husserl’s works during the time he was working on The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology is basically the same as at the time he was working on Totality and Infinity, or simply that his view of Husserl’s phenomenology remains the same. But then how could we explain the differences between them? In my view, one possible explanation is the following: in the earlier work, carrying out faithful scholarship on Husserl’s phenomenology, Levinas attempts to interpret Husserl’s phenomenology as correctly as possible. But in Totality and Infinity, developing his own phenomenology of the face, Levinas attempts to criticize Husserl and to distance himself from the latter.65 Therefore he some  Ibid., 136.   Cf. ibid., 65 ff. 65   This explanation could be pursued further by studying Levinas’s writings on Husserl after The Theory of Intuition and before Totality and Infinity, especially, e. g., Emmanuel Levinas: “L’oeuvre d’Edmond Husserl”. In: Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger 65, 1940, 33–85, rpt. in Emmanuel Levinas: En découvrant l’existence avec Husserl et Heidegger. Paris 1967, 7–52. Cohen’s introduction (xii) to Levinas: Discovering Existence with Husserl situates this essay in particular as a point of transition between an earlier, “expository” reading of Husserl and a later, “distinctly Levinasian” reading; see especially ibid., xv–xvi, on the question of evidence. (Note, however, that the translators of this collection render Levinas’s evidence—Husserl’s Evidenz—as 63 64

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times distorts Husserl’s phenomenology in general and, in our case, the latter’s theory of evidence in particular. The differences between Levinas’s view of Husserl’s concept of evidence in these two works are mainly the product of this distortion.

“self-evidence”, as if invoking the ambiguity inherent in the latter term as tacit support for the view that Husserlian “itself-givenness”—Selbstgegebenheit—is equivalent to the “pure presence of the self to the self ” in a Levinasian sense.)

Chapter 8 Phenomenology of Exteriority Beyond Linguistic Idealism It is the aim of this chapter to develop a genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority free from linguistic idealism by evaluating and refining Levinas’s concept of exteriority. In section 1, I try to clarify what linguistic idealism is and show how Levinas’s concept of exteriority displays traces of it. In short, linguistic idealism is the philosophical position that considers language to be a necessary condition for the constitution of the world and of worldly objects, a position that cannot address either the pre-linguistic or the trans-linguistic level of entities. Since Levinas’s philosophy has remnants of linguistic idealism within it, it too suffers from these same flaws. In sections 2–4, I discuss three possible relationships between the world and worldly objects in genetic-phenomenological constitution. In particular, I clarify the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority, which refers to something that can cause a radical change from one form of the world into another. In section 5, I show that the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority can overcome the limitations of linguistic idealism in which Levinas’s concept of exteriority is rooted because it can indeed grasp the pre-linguistic and trans-linguistic levels of entities that are ignored by linguistic idealism. In section 6, I analyze the genetic-phenomenological event of a radical change from one form of the world into another. I clarify the structure of the genetic-phenomenological event by comparing it to the event in Heidegger’s later philosophy and in Levinas’s phenomenology of the face. In section 7, I conclude that a phenomenological dialogue between East and West can be carried out by moving beyond linguistic idealism, which is precisely what the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority will allow us to do. 1. Levinas’s Phenomenology of the Face and Linguistic Idealism By linguistic idealism I understand the philosophical position that considers language to be a necessary condition for the constitution of the world and of worldly objects. After the linguistic turn in the philosophy of the last century, linguistic idealism has become firmly established as a philosophical position and has been adopted by many philosophers. Even philosophers who belong to different philosophical streams—for example, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein—share linguistic idealism. Heidegger states: “Language is the house of being,”1 and Wittgenstein claims: “The limits of language […] mean   Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zur Sprache. Frankfurt am Main 1985, 156; Martin Heideg-

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the limits of my world.”2 For this reason, one might get the impression that linguistic idealism represents a fundamental, undeniable philosophical truth from which all meaningful philosophical positions should proceed. Linguistic idealism declares that it is impossible for us to go beyond the limits of language as the necessary condition for the constitution of the world and of worldly objects. Originally it was devised as a means to overcome the limitations of the philosophy of consciousness. As such, it does indeed have the merit of mitigating some of the difficulties of the latter. For example, since its philosophical focus is not on consciousness, which seems to appear within the natural attitude to be a private entity but on language—which, having a graspable form and an overt structure, can be verified intersubjectively—it can avoid problems of philosophical solipsism. Linguistic idealism can also be called linguistic positivism; what it has in common with other forms of positivism is that it takes something positive as the starting point of philosophical investigation: namely, language, with its graspable form, overt structure, and intersubjective verifiability. However, as a kind of positivism, linguistic idealism has its own limitations, for it is reluctant to deal with philosophical problems that go beyond the limits of language. One of the starting points of Levinas’s phenomenology of the face is his criticism of Heidegger’s phenomenology as a kind of linguistic idealism. As the subtitle “An Essay on Exteriority” of his major work Totality and Infinity indicates, Levinas’s philosophical concern is to develop a phenomenology of exteriority that goes beyond the sphere of totality. As discussed above in chapter 5, according to Levinas, the sphere of totality consists in the relations between the ego and the other where the latter turns out to be a mere component of the former, which tries to maintain itself or to identify itself by appropriating the latter. The other is totalized by the ego, and within the sphere of totality, the other to which the ego is directed is therefore not the other in an absolute sense but only in a relative sense. However, it is possible to conceive a relation between the ego and the other that has a totally different structure than that obtaining in the sphere of totality. What is at stake is a relation between the ego and the other in which the other cannot be totalized by the ego, since this other infinitely “overflows” or “transcends” the ability of the totalizing ego. In this case, the other to which the ego is related is the other in an absolute sense, not in a relative sense. Here the ego and the other cannot form a totality. This other that resists all of the ego’s attempts to maintain itself by appropriating the other is what Levinas calls “exteriority”. The relation of the ego to exteriority is the revelation of the absolutely other to the ego and the rupture of the sphere of totality. Accordger: On the Way to Language. Translated from German by Peter D. Hertz. San Francisco 1971, 63. 2   Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated from German by David Francis Pears, Brian McGuinness. London 2002, 68.

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ing to Levinas, the relation of the ego to exteriority as the other in an absolute sense is an ethical relation. It can be called an “immediate”, “pure”, or “absolute” experience, since, as discussed in chapter 7, it is not mediated by anything, be it through presentation, the horizon of the world, or the needs of the ego. It is not even mediated by the Heideggerian Being that is shaped through language. Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority therefore goes beyond the linguistic idealism of Heidegger’s phenomenology. In my view, however, in developing his phenomenology of exteriority, Levinas was unfortunately not entirely free from linguistic idealism. He claims, for instance, that the ethical relation is nothing other than “conversation” or “language”, for “language accomplishes a relation such that the terms are not limitrophe within this relation, such that the other, despite the relationship with the same, remains transcendent to the same”.3 According to him, the ethical space that consists in the relation between me and exteriority is shaped through language. As long as Levinas considers language to be an essential component of the ethical space, he is not totally free from linguistic idealism. There is thus a remainder of linguistic idealism in Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority. These traces of linguistic idealism fundamentally limit Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority. For example, since language is something peculiar to human beings, his phenomenology of exteriority has an “anthropocentric partiality”4 and proceeds along too narrow a track. Thus, I believe that a true phenomenology of exteriority has to be liberated from the remainder of linguistic idealism, for linguistic idealism is not a necessary constitutive part of a phenomenology of exteriority. Moreover, in my view, the remainder of linguistic idealism in Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority is not based on a truly phenomenological analysis of the matters themselves. Rather, it is the result of a philosophical prejudice that he inherited from philosophers of a previous generation. And above all, it was a legacy he inherited from Heidegger, who claims that language is the house of Being. Below I will attempt to describe a concept of exteriority that is free from linguistic idealism. In contrast with Levinas’s ethical concept of exteriority, I will call this alternative concept the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority since it is a concept developed within genetic phenomenology. In my opinion, this concept can solve some of the difficulties of the ethical concept of exteriority. Before I start clarifying the structure of the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority, I would like to mention that Dieter Lohmar has carried out important and detailed studies on the possibility of “thinking without language”.5 In my view, his investigations of this possibility are carried out from  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 39.   Silvia Benso: The Face of Things: A Different Side of Ethics. Albany, NY 2000, 136. 5   See Dieter Lohmar: “Denken ohne Sprache?” In: Filip Mattens (Ed.), Meaning and Language: Phenomenological Perspectives. Dordrecht 2008, 169–194; Dieter Lohmar: Denken ohne 3 4

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the perspective of genetic phenomenology and stand in close relationship to the topic of the present chapter. I totally agree with his studies which are highly significant for the clarification of the various kinds of “thinking without language”. He is also critical of both the Wittgensteinian and the Heideggerian position on the status of language in thinking, as the following passage shows: For many analytic philosophers, everything not clothed in propositions seems to be a merely subjective game. Occasionally language even attains the status of something like the “house of Being” (Heidegger), i. e., it seems as if we can only conceive of everything that can be something for us when it is clothed in this form.6

It should be noted, however, that there are two differences between his studies of “thinking without language” and my discussion of the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority. First, whereas his studies are focused on the clarification of the structure of the different kinds of non-linguistic systems of representation, this chapter is focused on the clarification of the concept of exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense. Second, whereas his studies are mainly focused on the clarification of the pre-linguistic level of the non-linguistic system of representation, this chapter attempts to clarify both the pre-linguistic and the trans-linguistic level of exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense. 2. Three Possibilities of the Relationship Between World and Objects in Genetic Constitution In order to clarify the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority, I will provide a genetic-phenomenological account of three possible relationships between the world and worldly objects. Genetic phenomenology aims at clarifying the genetic conditions of possibility for the constitution of the world and worldly objects. Normally, individual objects appear to us on the horizon of the world. For this reason, the genetic-phenomenological analysis that aims to clarify the meaning of worldly objects has to clarify the structure of the world as their universal horizon. Moreover, the world as the universal horizon of worldly objects is not something that has been fixed from the beginning in the form in which it is given to us at the present moment. Rather, it is the product of a genetic constitution that can be traced back to the beginning of transcendental constitution. The world that we experience at the present moment has been constituted by passing through various forms of “prior worlds” as its genetic conditions of possibility. The constitution of the world that is Sprache: Phanomenologie des nicht-sprachlichen Denkens bei Mensch und Tier im Licht der Evolutionsforschung, Primatologie und Neurologie. Cham 2016. 6   Lohmar: “Denken ohne Sprache?”, 172.

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given to us at the present moment would not have been possible without these various forms of prior worlds. For this reason, in order to be complete, genetic phenomenology has to clarify not only the structure of the world given to us at the present moment but also the structure of all of the forms of prior worlds as genetic conditions of possibility for the constitution of the current world. Normally, individual entities appear to us mediated by the horizon of the world or of Being,7 and their meanings are determined in an essential way by the structure of the world or of Being. Here the world has an absolute priority over individual things in the order of the genetic constitution of meaning. It was after realizing this that Husserl became engaged, in his later phenomenology (after the 1920s), in analyzing the structure of the various forms of the world as the universal horizon of worldly objects. With respect to the absolute priority of the world over individual things, Husserl writes in the Crisis: The world is pre-given thereby, in every case, in such a way that individual things are given. But there exists a fundamental difference between the way we are conscious of the world and the way we are conscious of things or objects (taken in the broadest sense, but still purely in the sense of the life-world), though together the two make up an inseparable unity. Things, objects (always understood purely in the sense of the life-world), are “given” as being valid for us in each case (in some mode or other of ontic certainty) but in principle only in such a way that we are conscious of them as things or objects within the world-horizon. Each one is something, “something of ” the world of which we are constantly conscious as a horizon.8

Heidegger holds the same view with his well-known thesis of the ontological difference between individual beings and Being. The theory of understanding and interpretation he develops in §§31–33 of Being and Time reveals how the genetic constitution of meaning is carried out on the basis of the pre-understanding of Being as the universal horizon of the interpretation of individual things. Heidegger never seems to have cast into doubt the thesis of the absolute priority of Being over individual things in the order of the genetic constitution of meaning. This tendency is even more intensified in his later phenomenology, as a passage from Contributions to Philosophy shows:

  The world in this context means the “universal horizon” (Cf. Hua VI, 141n.; Husserl: Crisis, 138n.) or “total horizon” (Hua XXXIX, 118) of the objects. It is the universal Verweisungzusammenhang of all constituted objects and is one of the main topics of Husserl’s phenomenology. The world as the “universal horizon” plays the role of the a priori field for the constitution of individual objects, whereas for Heidegger, Being plays the role of the a priori field for the interpretation of individual objects. For this reason, I consider Heidegger’s Being to be something structurally similar to Husserl’s world as the universal horizon of all constituted objects. 8   Hua VI, 145–146; Husserl: Crisis, 143. 7

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No one understands what “I” think here: to let Da-sein emerge from within the truth of be-ing (and that means from within the essential swaying of truth), in order to ground beings in the whole and as such and to ground man in the midst of them.9

The intensified tendency to emphasize the absolute priority of Being over individual things goes hand in hand with his thesis of language as the house of Being. Language is the element that makes possible the opening of the horizon of the world or of Being; hence Heidegger writes: “No thing is where the word, that is, the name is lacking. The word alone gives being to the thing.”10 Heidegger is so fascinated by the thesis of the absolute priority of world and Being over individual entities that he does not consider other cases that are also logically possible. There are two other possibilities concerning the relationship between individual entities and the world or Being. The first possibility is that although individual entities are indeed determined by the world or Being, they are not determined one-sidedly by the latter, but have an influence on changes in the structure of the world or of Being. The second possibility is that individual entities have an absolute priority over the world or Being in the genetic constitution of meaning. In this case, individual entities are not determined by the world or Being but one-sidedly determine the meaning of world or of Being. In fact, genetic-phenomenological analysis shows that these two possibilities really exist. Let me consider the first possibility first. 3. A Dialogical Relationship Between World and Objects in Genetic Constitution There can be cases in which individual entities are indeed determined in their meaning by the structure of the world or of Being yet can also exert influence on changes in the structure of the world or of Being. As I have already indicated, one should not suppose that the world as the universal horizon of individual entities is something that has been fixed from the beginning in the form in which it is given to us at the present moment. Rather, the world is something that changes incessantly. The world can accordingly be compared to the Heraclitean stream in which no two phases can have the same contents; as Husserl writes: The surrounding world is the world of the Heraclitean flow. My life-present, the self-conscious present in this life, is in a continuous flow, and with it flows the world itself, which   Martin Heidegger: Beiträge zur Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main 2003, 8; Martin Heidegger: Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning). Translated from German by Parvis Emad, Kenneth Maly. Bloomington, IN 1999, 6. 10  Heidegger: Unterwegs zur Sprache, 154; Heidegger: On the Way to Language, 62.  9

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is the world of my life, the one that holds good for me, that constantly determines me in affection and action.11

Strictly speaking, no two worlds of an ego can have exactly the same contents. In this context, a question can be raised: what makes it possible for the world to change constantly? Should we say that the incessant change of the world is the work of the world itself ? In my view, this is the solution that Heidegger proposes not only in his fundamental ontology, but also in the so-called “thinking of Being” (Seinsdenken). The world worlds without any help from outside, without any mediation by individual entities. Without the worlding of the world, individual entities cannot appear to us, since the world that has worlded in advance is the universal horizon of individual entities—recall the passage from Contributions to Philosophy cited above: No one understands what “I” think here: to let Da-sein emerge from within the truth of be-ing (and that means from within the essential swaying of truth), in order to ground beings in the whole and as such and to ground man in the midst of them.

However, contrary to Heidegger’s description, the world does not always have an absolute priority over individual entities in the order of the transcendental genesis of meaning. If objects could never bring something new or change the world in some way, the world would have an absolute priority over the latter and all objects would be unidirectionally determined by the world. There are nevertheless cases where the individual entities that appear to us on the horizon of the world are not entirely powerless, passive, and mute. They can resist the world, they can assert themselves, they can claim their rights against the world in the process of a transcendental genesis of meaning. In this way they can bring about a change in the structure and contents of the world. First of all, this is true when we are in the process of becoming acquainted with totally new individual entities, entities that we have never seen before. In this case, completely new individual entities do appear on the horizon of the world but do not have an adequate place in it, and the absence of any adequate place for them in the world forces them to require the world to give them their own place. In order to be able to fulfill this demand from the side of an individual entity, the world has to make room for it, and hence has to be modified. Of course, the world that has been modified in this way on the basis of our acquaintance of the new thing can serve in its turn as the horizon within which other totally new individual entities that we have not yet experienced can then appear to us as well. But once again, since these new individual entities do not have an adequate place in the world, they require the latter to give them their own place; replying to this demand, the world has to be modified in a new way once more. And as long   Hua XXXIX, 690–691.

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as totally new individual entities appear on the horizon of the world, the same process of world-modification can continue. But it is not only the appearance of totally new entities that we have not yet experienced that can bring about a modification of the world. Even an entity that is already known to us can require the modification of the world as long as it reveals new meanings not previously known to us. Let us suppose that an entity that is already known to us reveals a new, hitherto unknown meaning. In this case, the new meaning does not have an adequate place in the world. Since it does not have an adequate place in the world, it can require the world to make an adequate place for it. In order to be able to fulfill the new meaning’s demand, the world has to be modified in some way. And after the world has indeed been modified through our becoming acquainted with a new meaning of an individual entity, this entity can reveal still another meaning that has not previously been known. The same process of demand and reply can then take place and the world can be modified in yet another direction. One should remember that not only this entity, but also various other entities can reveal new meanings that we have not previously been aware of. As long as various individual entities reveal various meanings that were not already known to us, the process of the modification of the structure of the world can continue. These examples show that the relation between the world and the individual entities should not always be conceived as a one-way relation from the world to the individual entities. The conception of such a one-way relation does not do justice to the right that the individual entities have against the world in the order of the genetic constitution of meaning. The world is not something that is already fixed, resisting any challenge from outside; rather, it is something that is open in its possibilities and does indeed allow constant modification. There is a sense in which the world is fragile. For this reason, the world is not something that can be compared to a commander who unidirectionally gives orders to soldiers. Rather, it has to be compared to a good mother who, ceaselessly taking care of her children, may not only ask them to do something, but is also ready to listen to their requests at any time. Or to put it another way, it is possible that with respect to the horizonal character of the world, we can talk about the “light” of the world. However, here one should not imagine that the light of the world would be something like the normal light we observe in the world which unidirectionally illuminates worldly objects and is not affected in any way by the objects that it illuminates. Instead, the light of the world is a curious one: illuminating the individual things, it can be affected by the things it illuminates and can incessantly change its color. The world as the horizon of the individual entities that we encounter at each present moment is something that has originated in a ceaseless process of dialogue between the various kinds of prior worlds that genetically precede it, on the one hand, and the individual entities we encounter on the other. The

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dismantling analysis of the genetic constitution of the world given to us at the present moment enables us to trace this world back to various kinds of prior worlds, and finally to the first prior world. It is this first prior world from which, through an incessant dialogue between the world and individual entities, the various kinds of prior worlds originated, and eventually the world that is given to us at the present moment. 4. The Conflict of the Individual Object with the World and the Genetic-Phenomenological Concept of Exteriority As long as the genetic constitution of the world is carried out in the manner described so far, the various kinds of prior and current worlds are in harmony and continuous. This is the case when the genetic constitution of the world and worldly objects is carried out normally, so that the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority never arises. Thus, to grasp exteriority, we need to turn our attention to cases in which the genetic constitution of the world is no longer harmonious and continuous. There can be a radical discontinuity between a world and the prior world that genetically precedes it such that the two worlds cannot be reconciled. The prior world has to yield to the current world; the former has to be discarded and replaced by the latter. Here the world is not the genetic product of a dialogue between the prior world and the individual entities that appeared on the horizon of that prior world. Instead, there is an unbridgeable abyss between the two worlds. Genetic phenomenology has to explain not only the condition of the possibility of the process of a harmonious, continuous genetic constitution of the world, but also that of a process that is carried out discontinuously. In my view, Heidegger too deals with the problem of a radical change of one form of world or Being into another. He regards the clarification of the radical change of Dasein as the most important aim of his phenomenology and tells us that such a change can take place when there is a radical change of one form of Being into another. In his view, however, this radical change cannot be traced back to anything more original. Thus, for Heidegger, individual entities cannot play any constitutive role in this radical change of one form of Being into another; rather, they all are absorbed in the movement of Being, in the play of Being. Yet Heidegger does not seem to give any concrete explanation of the condition of the possibility for the radical change of one form of Being into another. In my view, it is not Being or the world, but individual entities that can give rise to a radical change of one world into another. The radical change of one world into another does not happen automatically. Instead, it can only take place when something appears to me on the horizon of the world, but there is no possibility of a dialogue between it and the world. The absence of the possi-

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bility of a dialogue between them is due to the fact that the entity is so recalcitrant to being integrated into the current world that the ego of this world does not know what the real meaning of this entity is. But the individual entity that appears on the horizon of the world requires the world to give it its own place in the latter. Unfortunately, the world is unable to fulfill this demand on the part of the individual entity, and there is therefore no possibility of a dialogue between the world and the individual entity. The only option available to the world is to surrender to the individual entity—it has to be overturned by the latter, and thus has to be radically changed. Let me offer an example. There was a man who was totally irreligious. He was a Marxist and a materialist. But then he lost his son in a traffic accident. It was a real shock to him, and he did not know what to do. Finally, he got depressed, and his life became utterly meaningless. He was haunted by the sweet memories of being with his child. But the child was no longer there with him, and no amount of wishing would ever bring his son back to him—which made life all the more painful for him. He often thought about committing suicide, and in fact made several attempts, only to fail. He had to be hospitalized several times. However, during this process, he gradually felt the existence of some kind of supernatural power. He became religious, believed in the Absolute, and could finally find peace. After the long, dark tunnel, a light was shining, and a new world—one with totally different meanings, meanings that were not previously known to him—was waiting for him. This example is a typical theme of clinical psychology, but it has significance for genetic phenomenology as well. It can be a good example of a transcendental genesis that is carried out discontinuously. In this example, a new world has originated from the old one. However, what is at stake here is not a continuous and harmonious change, but a radical change of one world into another: the two worlds are qualitatively different and cannot be reconciled. They are radically sundered by an unbridgeable abyss. In this example, there is no possibility of a dialogue between the old world and the individual entity. In fact, the individual entity cannot even genuinely be said to appear on the horizon of the old world, since it is something that is not graspable within the latter’s horizon. The individual entity that goes beyond the horizon of the old world is exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense, and the experience of exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense can be called an absolute experience in the genetic-phenomenological sense, since it is carried out without the mediation of the horizon of the world. However, absolute experience in the genetic-phenomenological sense is completely different from absolute experience in the Levinasian sense discussed above in chapter 7. The existence of an absolute experience challenges the absolute priority of the world over the individual entities. As the object of an absolute experience, exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense is not founded on the world or on Being. Rather, it is something that overturns the old world and instead

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founds a new world that has never been experienced by the ego until now. It is the genetic-phenomenological condition of the possibility for the constitution of a radically new form of the world or of Being. As something ungraspable on the horizon of the old world, exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense does not reveal its real meaning on the horizon of the old world. For this reason, one can say that it is meaningless on the horizon of that world. Nevertheless, its meaninglessness does not mean that it does not have any meaning at all within the old world, for it does indeed have its own meaning there. In our example, it has the meaning “the son lost in a traffic accident”. However, this is only its superficial meaning, not its real meaning. As long as the man who lost the child clings to the horizon of the old world and regards the lost son as something similar to a lost car or a lost pen that can be found again someday, the true meaning of the lost child does not reveal itself; the event remains totally meaningless and ungraspable. Its genuine meaning is hidden behind the superficial meaning, and only reveals itself gradually during the process of founding and opening a new world. Its real meaning lies in the fact that it is something that challenges and overturns the old world and instead founds and opens a qualitatively new world. The true meaning of exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense is that it is the cornerstone of a totally new world. Thus, through its meaninglessness within the old world, exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense destroys that world and makes possible the birth of a radically new world, a world that has never before been experienced. And although it was entirely meaningless within the old world, it does have its own meaning within the new world. It is reconcilable with the new world since it is the foundation of that world. However, the reconciliation of the new meaning with the new world that it founds should not be confused with the kind of reconciliation that is based on a dialogue between an individual entity and the world. It has nothing to do with such a dialogue, since it destroys the foundation for any kind of dialogue between individual entities and the old world. Unlike the other individual entities, the ungraspable event cannot take part in a dialogue with the world, be it the old world or the new one: its task is not to take part in a dialogue with a world but to destroy the old world and to make the birth of a radically new world possible. Since exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense is that which makes the birth of a radically new world possible, it is in some sense beyond language. Contrary to the basic conviction of linguistic idealism, it is not shaped in advance by any kind of language, be it the language of the old world or that of the new world. It is hardly necessary to say that it is not shaped by the language of the old world. One cannot find a name, a word for it in the language of the old world. Of course, in struggling to express it, one has to use the language of the old world, the same language that one has used until now. However, the same

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language now takes on a totally different meaning than before; it has become a different language. From the standpoint of the old language, exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense is an entity that has no name, no word. Its being is without word, without language. It is expressible only in the language of the new world. But with respect to this undeniable fact, one should not suppose—misled by linguistic idealism—that exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense is pre-shaped and pre-determined by the language of the new world. Rather, after having destroyed the language of the old world, it inaugurates the language of the new world, a language that has never been heard or spoken in the old world. With respect to exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense, then, one should not say that “no thing is where the word, that is, the name is lacking”,12 or that “the being of anything that is resides in the word”.13 5. Exteriority in the Genetic-Phenomenological Sense and the Limitations of Levinas’s Phenomenology of Exteriority as Linguistic Idealism In clarifying the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority, we have already seen that Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority as linguistic idealism is problematic since exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense is not pre-figured and pre-shaped by language. Now, however, I will discuss the difficulties of Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority as linguistic idealism in a more detailed manner. In my view, Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority displays two kinds of difficulties in this regard. First, as mentioned above in section 1, it has an “anthropocentric partiality” that does not take due account of entities at the pre-linguistic level as exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense. Second, it ignores that there is a trans-linguistic level of entities as exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense. Let me further clarify these two points. First, as mentioned above in section 1, Levinas claims that the ethical relation is nothing other than “conversation” or “language”, for “language accomplishes a relation such that the terms are not limitrophe within this relation, such that the other, despite the relationship with the same, remains transcendent to the same”.14 According to him, the ethical space that consists in the relation between me and exteriority is shaped through language. In this way he holds the view that only human beings can be exteriority in the ethical sense, since only human beings have language, and he thereby excludes the possibility that  Heidegger: Unterwegs zur Sprache, 154; Heidegger: On the Way to Language, 62.   Ibid., 156; 63. 14  Levinas: Totality and Infinity, 39. 12 13

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animals, plants, or inorganic nature can also be treated as exteriority. Contrary to the Levinasian concept of exteriority, however, the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority shows that not only human beings, but also animals, plants, and inorganic nature can be treated as exteriority in a genuine sense. As the example discussed above shows, it is true that even in genetic phenomenology, in many cases exteriority as the condition of the possibility for the radical change of one world into another is indeed a person, a human being. It is the absolute experience that Buddha had of the poor and naked people outside the palace that moved him to give up everything available to him and to leave the palace. However, in genetic phenomenology, the exteriority that cannot be totalized by the ego does not have to be a human being such as the son lost in a traffic accident. It can also be an animal—for example, a dearly loved dog that has been killed in some way. Moreover, even the plants and material nature affected by an environmental crisis can be an exteriority that transcends totalization, since they can bring about a radical change in attitude on the part of an individual, a group of individuals, or even humankind as a whole. Of course, I do not deny that Levinas is aware that animals can be treated as exteriority, since he approves of the possibility that animals could have a face in the ethical sense. In an interview, being asked: “But is there something distinctive about the human face which, for example, sets it apart from that of an animal?” he replied: One cannot entirely deny the face of an animal. It is via the face that one understands, for example, a dog. Yet the priority here is not found in the animal, but in the human face. We understand the animal, the face of an animal, in accordance with Dasein. The phenomenon of the face is not in its purest form in the dog.15

As this interview shows, Levinas acknowledges the possibility that animals can be treated as exteriority, but with reservations. Exteriority or “the phenomenon of the face” cannot be attributed to animals “in its purest form”; it is something that “in its purest form” can only be attributed to human beings. In saying that “we understand the animal, the face of an animal, in accordance with Dasein”, he seems to hold the view that it is the similarity between human beings and animals that makes it possible to attribute exteriority to animals. What would Levinas’s attitude be toward the issue whether plants or inorganic nature can be treated as exteriority? In my view, Levinas would not admit that plants or inorganic nature can be treated as exteriority by displaying “the phenomenon of the face”, since there is no similarity between human beings and plants or inorganic nature. As we have already seen, however, in genetic phenomenology, it is totally possible to treat not only animals, but also plants and inorganic nature as exteriority.   Wright, Hughes, Ainley: “The paradox of morality”, 169.

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Second, let us consider the other difficulty, namely, that Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority as linguistic idealism ignores that there is a trans-linguistic level of entities. In this context, we have to examine whether human beings are always describable with language. It should be noted that a human being can be experienced in different ways. For example, she/he can be experienced as a daughter or a son, as a mother or a father, as a citizen of a city or of a nation, as a scholar or as a businessman, as a friend or as an enemy, etc. In these cases, she/he is describable with language. It should be noted, however, that there is a dimension where a human being is “ineffable”. In this context, Meister Eckhart claims that the soul of a human being is “ineffable” insofar as it is experienced as an entity that has its origin in God, who is the “ineffable” par excellence. To understand his position, we must first grasp the ineffability of God. In one of his sermons, he describes the ineffability of God as follows: Also, God is called by many names in scripture. I say, if one knows anything in God and affixes any name to it, that is not God. God is above names and above nature. We read of a good man who was praying to God and wanted to give Him names. Then a brother said, “Be silent, you dishonor God!” We can find no name that we could give to God, but we are permitted the names the saints called Him by, whose hearts were consecrated by God and flooded with His divine light. And here we should learn, firstly, how to pray to God. We should say: “Lord, in the same names which thou hast thus consecrated in the hearts of thy saints and flooded with thy light, we pray to thee and extol thee.” Secondly, we should learn not to give God any name with the idea that we had thereby sufficiently honored and magnified Him: for God is above names and ineffable.16

For Meister Eckhart, not only is God ineffable but the “soul” of the human being that one calls the “I” is ineffable as well. It should be noted, however, that the ineffable “soul” or “I” of the human being is not the soul or the I that we experience in the kinds of roles listed above. In such cases, a human being is experienced in her/his relation to the other human beings that she/he meets in daily life. So long as a human being is experienced in this way, she/he is describable with language. However, if a human being is experienced as a “soul” or as an “I” in her/his “own ground”, that is, in her/his relationship with God, she/he is ineffable. In this way the ineffability of God and that of the “soul” or the “I” of a human being are inseparable. In another sermon, Meister Eckhart attempts to clarify the structure of the ineffability of the “soul” or the “I” in relation to the ineffability of God as follows: Let us say a little more about the words “I send.” One text omits the word “I”, the other has the word “I”. The prophet says, “I send my angel”, but the evangelist omits the word “I” and says, “Behold, send my angel.” What is the point of this omission in one text of the word “I”? It denotes, firstly, God’s ineffability, for God is unnamable and transcends   Meister Eckhart: The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart. Translated from German by Maurice O’C. Walshe. New York 2009, 153. 16

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speech in the purity of His ground, where God can have no speech or utterance, being ineffable and wordless to all creatures. Secondly it means that the soul is ineffable and wordless: in her own ground she is wordless and nameless and without words, for there she is above all names and words. That is why the word “I” is suppressed, for there she has neither word nor speech.17

Thus, according to Meister Eckhart, the human being is ineffable insofar as she/he is experienced as being grounded in God, the ultimate reality that is ineffable in an eminent sense. It should be noted that it is possible to consider not only human beings, but also other kinds of entities such as animals, plants, and inorganic nature to be ineffable as long as the latter are experienced in their relation to God as ultimate reality. In fact, we can find a similar idea in the Buddhist tradition. As long as everything (dharma) in the world is experienced in its “true nature”, that is, in its relation to ultimate reality, it is ineffable, as the following two passages show:18 As a magically created man, or one who has made his body invisible, cannot be defined by words, just so the Bodhisattva who courses in the doors to freedom can also not be defined by words. Subhuti: It is wonderful to see the extent to which the Tathagata has demonstrated the true nature of all these dharmas and yet one cannot properly talk about the true nature of all these dharmas. As I understand the meaning of the Tathagata’s teaching, even all dharmas cannot be talked about, in any proper sense. Buddha: So it is, for one cannot properly express the emptiness of all dharmas in words.

As these passages show, just as “the magically created man” and “one who has made his body invisible” cannot be defined by words, so all dharmas cannot be described by words as long as they are experienced in their “true nature” in relation to ultimate reality, since the ultimate reality is empty and ineffable. Thus, where there is an idea that ultimate reality is ineffable, there is the possibility of conceiving all of the different kinds of entities as ineffable. Taoism also suggests that ultimate reality is ineffable, and indeed, is based on that very idea. Although there are many similarities between Heidegger’s phenomenology and Taoist philosophy, in contrast to Heidegger, who claims that language is the house of Being, Laozi would never claim that language is the house of Tao. The true, eternal Tao is a reality that cannot be grasped by language, as the very first paragraph of the Tao Te Ching tells us: The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;   Ibid., 262–263.   Cited in Bimal Krishna Matilal: “Mysticism and reality: Ineffability”. In: Journal of Indian Philosophy 3(3), 1975, 217–252, here: 233. 17 18

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The named is the root of all things. Therefore, the subtleties of Tao are always apprehended through their formlessness, The limits of things are always seen through their form. These two (the form and the formless) have the same source but different names. Both of them can be called deep and profound, The deepest and the most profound, the door of all mysteries.19

Thus, there are endlessly many examples of the trans-linguistic level of ineffable entities. It should be noted that each of them can be called an exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense since the experience of such an entity has the power to motivate a radical change of one world into another. If we take a look at the long history of religion, we find many stories of religious figures who experienced a radical change of one world into another through the experience of the trans-linguistic level of ineffable entities. As we can see, then, a genetic phenomenology of exteriority that goes beyond linguistic idealism has some advantages over Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority which has a remainder of linguistic idealism. If his phenomenology of exteriority is to be freed from linguistic idealism, it has to be founded on the genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority. But once Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority has been freed from linguistic idealism with the help of the genetic concept of exteriority, it will be able to deal with problems pertaining to the pre-linguistic as well as to the trans-linguistic level of entities. Moreover, Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority is too idealistic, and in my opinion, it cannot be applied to the real world without reservations. For example, we human beings are not so noble as to welcome the other, as to surrender ourselves unconditionally to the other. We are so egotistic that it is not so easy for us to change our attitude to the other so radically. There is a discontinuity or an abyss between our normal egotistic attitude and the ethical attitude toward the other. In my view, Levinas describes the essential structures of both the egotistic and the ethical attitude to the other. However, he does not give any concrete explanation of the possibility of a radical change from the one attitude into the other. And if there is no possibility of such a change, Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority will remain a mere castle in the air and cannot be applied to the real world. To address the issue of how Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority might lead to practical change, we must ask: how is the radical change of one attitude into another one possible? Since the radical change of the egotistic attitude into the ethical attitude is a genetic-phenomenological process, the question can be reformulated in the following way: what is the genetic-phenomenological condition of the possibility for the radical change from the egotistic attitude into the ethical attitude? In this context, a genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority can play a decisive role in the expla Laozi: A Taoist Classic: The Book of Laozi. Beijing 1993, 15.

19

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nation of the genetic-phenomenological condition of the possibility for such a change since, in many cases, this radical change can take place through the impact of genetic-phenomenological exteriority upon our world. Thus, we have to trace ethical exteriority back to its genetic-phenomenological foundation so that we can build a bridge from the brute reality of human existence to the ideal ethical world. In this context, we have to make a systematic analysis of the structure of the various kinds of exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense. 6. The Concept of Event in Genetic Phenomenology, Heidegger, and Levinas I would like to call the radical change of one form of world or Being into another the genetic-phenomenological event. Due to the parallelism between world and human existence, the genetic-phenomenological event implies a radical change of Dasein and has some similarity to the “event” (Ereignis) in Heidegger’s so-called “thinking of Being” after the reversal (Kehre) in his phenomenology. However, one should not confuse it with the Heideggerian event. In fact, it is totally different from the Heideggerian event, since the latter has the character of causa sui. “It—the event—events”;20 “that which events is the event itself—and nothing else.”21 Heidegger claims that “there is nothing else from which the event itself could be derived, even less in whose terms it could be explained.”22 The event is its own work and nothing else. In contrast with Heidegger’s event, however, the genetic-phenomenological event can be traced back to its origin—an origin that is nothing other than absolute experience as the experience of exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense. Moreover, the genetic-phenomenological event should not be confused with the event that is analyzed in some of Levinas’s works. I do not deny that it has some similarity to the Levinasian event since Levinas describes the possibility of this event as a possibility “where the subject is no longer master of the event”23 and contrasts it with “the possibility of an object, which the subject always masters”.24 According to Levinas, in the event, the existent is the master  Heidegger: Unterwegs zur Sprache, 247; Heidegger: On the Way to Language, 128.   Ibid., 247; 127. 22   Ibid. My translations here vary from those of Peter D. Hertz; cf. On the Way to Language, 127–28. The German originals run as follows: “Es—das Ereignis—eignet”; “Das Ereignende ist das Ereignis selbst—und nichts außerdem”; “Es gibt nichts anderes, worauf das Ereignis noch zurückführt, woraus es gar erklärt werden könnte.” In my opinion, Heidegger’s claim that there is nothing else to which the event can be traced back is not true. From the standpoint of genetic phenomenology, the Heideggerian event can indeed be traced back to absolute experience as the experience of exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense, an experience that does not know the so-called ontological difference between Being and beings. 23  Levinas: Time and the Other, 77. 24  Ibid. 20 21

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of the subject and of existence: “Whatever be the obstacles existence presents to an existent and however powerless it may be, an existent is master of its existence, as a subject is master of its attribute. In an instant an existent dominates existence.”25 Moreover, he characterizes the event as a “mystery”.26 The event can be called a “pure” and “absolute” experience since “an event happens to us without our having absolutely anything ‘apriori’, without our being able to have the least project”.27 According to Levinas, the object of an absolute experience is “something that is absolutely other, something bearing alterity not as a provisional determination we can assimilate through enjoyment, but as something whose very existence is made of alterity”.28 Although there are formal similarities between the genetic-phenomenological concept of the event and the Levinasian concept, there are also radical differences between them. Let me clarify two of them. First, Levinas conceives the event as a process that frees the individual from the state of “solitude”29 and enables her/him to have an intersubjective relation with the other person. The ego that knows nothing of the ethical concept of absolute experience is a solitary or solipsistic one. Sometimes Levinas calls the solitary or solipsistic ego an egotistic one, for it is not yet an ego in the ethical sense. Within genetic phenomenology, however, an ego that has not yet had an absolute experience is not a solitary or solipsistic ego, since as discussed above in chapter 4, the process of the transcendental genesis of an ego is not only influenced by that of the other egos but influences the transcendental genesis of the others as well. From the standpoint of genetic phenomenology, it is not an absolute experience that first enables an originally solipsistic ego to have an intersubjective relation with other egos; rather, all the experiences of an ego are intersubjectively shaped from the beginning. From the perspective of a genetic phenomenology, then, there is no solipsistic ego. Moreover, in genetic phenomenology, the ego that has not yet had an absolute experience does not have to be an egotistic one. And conversely, even an ego that is basically already altruistic can have an absolute experience in the genetic-phenomenological sense. Second, in the case of the ethical concept of an event, the relation between the ego and the object of the absolute experience is a relation of “reconciliation”.30 The ego can “enter into relation with the other without allowing its very self to be crushed by the other”;31 there is “the preservation of the ego in the

 Levinas: Existence and Existents, 98.  Levinas: Time and the Other, 77. 27   Ibid., 74. 28  Ibid. 29  Ibid. 30   Ibid., 78. 31   Ibid., 77. 25

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transcendence”32 and no “absorption of the ego”33 in the object of the absolute experience. In genetic phenomenology, just the contrary is the case. As the examples of depression, madness, and so on indicate, in many cases, the relation between the ego and the object of an absolute experience is not a peaceful one, not a reconciliation, but is something cruel. It is not a welcoming of the other by the ego, but in many cases a forced, violent mastery of the ego by an exteriority in the genetic-phenomenological sense, an exteriority that the ego cannot resist. In such an absolute experience, the ego is “crushed”, “absorbed”, “scattered” by the other with violence, force, cruelty, and ruthlessness. 7. Concluding Remarks Let me conclude with a note. A genetic-phenomenological concept of exteriority—one that is free from linguistic idealism—can serve as a bridge for a phenomenological dialogue between East and West concerning both the pre-linguistic and the trans-linguistic level of entities. In my view, linguistic idealism is a philosophical dogma that contemporary Western philosophy has invented. As pointed out in the first section of the present chapter, linguistic idealism does have, on the one hand, some advantages over a traditional philosophy of consciousness. On the other hand, however, as a kind of positivism, it has essential limitations in dealing with philosophical problems related both to the pre-linguistic and to the trans-linguistic level of entities. This is why I call linguistic idealism a dogma of contemporary Western philosophy. In order to be able to take part in a true phenomenological dialogue between East and West, contemporary Western philosophy should be liberated from this dogma, precisely because the long tradition of East Asian philosophy is not familiar either with linguistic idealism as a kind of positivism or with the kind of remainder of linguistic idealism that can be found in Levinas’s phenomenology of exteriority. Here the various kinds of phenomenological epochē and reduction that Husserl developed can give us good guidelines for “bracketing” the dogma of linguistic idealism. And this paves the way for a true phenomenological dialogue between East and West by way of a bridge that is beyond linguistic idealism. With this in mind, in Part III, I will attempt a phenomenological dialogue between East and West on some topics concerning the moral phenomenology of intersubjectivity.

 Ibid.  Ibid.

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Chapter 9 Ethics of Renewal in Husserl and Confucius In The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl offered a diagnosis of the crisis confronting contemporary society.1 The crisis of contemporary society has its roots in “positivism”2 as a false philosophy. As positivism pervades contemporary society, various kinds of crisis have been emerging in different fields of human life. One of these is the ethical crisis that threatens the existence of the human being as a moral agent. Amoralism and immoralism have grown all over the world as a result. In this situation, an ethics that deals with various issues of ethical renewal is important since it could provide a clue for coping with the ethical crisis and the overall crisis that humanity is confronted with in the modern age. In the 1920s, Husserl wrote five articles on the ethics of renewal.3 Three of them were first published in 1923 and 1924 in the Japanese journal Kaizo and then republished in 1989 in Husserliana XXVII. Two of them were published posthumously in 1989, also in Husserliana XXVII.4 A closer examination of the five articles from the 1920s reveals that his ethics of renewal was an important topic for his later phenomenology. It is exciting to note that in China 2400 years before Husserl developed his ethics of renewal, Confucius (551–479 BC) also discussed important issues regarding the ethics of renewal in such works as the Analects or the Great Learning.5   For a detailed treatment of the issue of the crisis in Husserl’s Crisis, see James Dodd: Crisis and Reflection: An Essay on Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences. Dordrecht 2004; Dermot Moran: Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction. Cambridge 2012.; George Heffernan: “The concept of Krisis in Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology”. In: Husserl Studies 33(3), 2017, 229–257. 2   Hua VI, 7; Husserl: Crisis, 9. 3  For Husserl’s ethics of renewal, see Anthony Steinbock: “The project of ethical renewal and critique: Edmund Husserl’s early phenomenology of culture”. In: The Southern Journal of Philosophy 32(4), 1994, 449–464; Sara Heinämaa: “Husserl’s ethics of renewal: A personalistic approach”. In: Mira Tuominen, Sara Heinämaa, Virpi Mäkinen (Eds.), New Perspectives on Aristotelianism and Its Critics. Leiden 2014, 196–212; Kah Kyung Cho: “Phänomenologie als praktische Philosophie. Motivation und Ziel der ‘Erneuerung’ bei Edmund Husserl”. In: Kah Kyung Cho: Phänomenologie im Lichte des Ostens. Würzburg 2017, 64–86. 4   All five articles have been published in Hua XXVII, 3–94. 5   Zhu Xi holds the view that Confucius wrote the text of the Great Learning and Tsãng wrote the commentary to it. However, whether Confucius is really the author of the Great Learning is highly controversial. Contrary to Zhu Xi, Yu-Lan Fung holds the view that the Great Learning is “a chapter of the Li Chi (Book of Rites), a collection of treatises witten by the Confucianists in the third and second centuries B.C.” (Yu-Lan Fung: A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. New York 1948, 43). I think that Yu-Lan Fung is right, and the correct title of this chapter might be “Ethics of Renewal in Husserl and Confucius/Early Confucianism”, not “Ethics of Renewal in Husserl 1

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The aim of this chapter is to open up a new dialogue between these two thinkers and to sketch out a future program for the ethics of renewal. To this end, in sections 1–2, I reconstruct the ethics of renewal in Husserl and Confucius. In section 3, I clarify the various dimensions involved in the ethics of renewal. In section 4, I show that the ethics of renewal in Husserl and Confucius are incomplete by themselves, but they can make up for their shortcomings through a fruitful dialogue with each other. Ethical renewal is not a solitary event, but a social one, and as such must arise in an intersubjective context. Thus, in section 5, in order to illuminate the structure of the ethical renewal more concretely, I will clarify its intersubjective aspects. In section 6, I conclude with a brief sketch of what remains for any future investigation into ethical renewal. 1. The Ethics of Renewal in Husserl In the first two Kaizo articles, Husserl tries to clarify the problem of the ethics of renewal and relies on the eidetic reduction as his primary method. In the third Kaizo article, in order to show the general structure of ethical renewal, he attempts to clarify the essential structure of “the genesis of the renewal”.6 According to him, the genesis of ethical renewal has the following components: 1) the review of one’s life; 2) the ethical evaluation of one’s life; 3) ethical striving; 4) ethical resolution; 5) the repetition of ethical renewal; 6) the highest good and the categorical imperative; 7) reason; 8) the life of satisfaction; and 9) the transition from individual to social ethical renewal.7 Let me clarify each of them. 1.1  The Overview of One’s Life Ethical renewal begins when the individual surveys her/his life as a whole.8 One can do so by examining various acts such as perceiving, judging, inferring, and Confucius”. However, I believe that the present title is also acceptable, since as the founder of Confucianism, Confucius must have decisively influenced “the Confucianists in the third and second centuries B.C.” who wrote the Great Learning. In this respect, I would like to point out that there is a similarity between the theory of ethical renewal in the Analects as a record of the teachings of Confucius and in the Great Learning, as will be discussed later. 6   Hua XXVII, 29. 7   Klaus Held interprets ethical renewal in terms of its practical fulfillment and discusses such components of ethical renewal as satisfaction, reason, and striving in Klaus Held: “Intentionalität und Existenzerfüllung”. In: Carl Friedrich Gethmann, Peter L. Oesterreich (Eds.), Person und Sinnerfahrung. Philosophische Grundlagen und interdisziplinäre Perspektiven. Darmstadt 1993, 101–116. 8   Hua XXVII, 23–24.

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emotion, willing, drives, and instincts, etc., as well as different modes of mental acts such as passivity and activity; habituality and character; and one’s role as a family member, one’s job, one’s relationship to other people, etc. The universal review of one’s life is not confined to the present but extends to one’s past and future as well. 1.2  Ethical Evaluation The next step is the universal ethical evaluation of one’s entire life, in which the individual evaluates her/his life from an ethical standpoint.9 Such a universal evaluation does not simply judge what is right or wrong in a series of particular and isolated acts or events, but rather judges all acts and events within the context of the individual’s life as a whole. Such an evaluation can lead either to total dissatisfaction or total satisfaction. If one is totally satisfied with one’s ethical life, there would be no motivation to renew oneself ethically. For example, a person who is ethically perfect like God would not need to renew herself/himself ethically. Thus, by implication, one must be dissatisfied to some degree with one’s ethical life even to consider undergoing ethical renewal. 1.3  Ethical Striving Unlike inanimate beings, animate beings incessantly strive toward a better life. Thus, striving is the very essence of the animate being. Among animate beings, the human being alone strives for an ethically better life. Thus, according to Husserl, striving toward an ethically better life belongs to “the essence of human life”.10 1.4  Ethical Resolution Striving toward an ethically better life could lead one to make a universal ethical resolution with respect to the whole of life. The universal ethical resolution is different from the various kinds of particular ethical resolutions. The latter are only related to the various kinds of particular ethical issues—for example, the relationship to one’s parents or friends. Contrary to particular ethical reso-

  Hua XXVII, 26.   Hua XXVII, 25.

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lutions, the universal ethical resolution is related to one’s ethical life as a whole. Through it, one becomes “a new and true man who reproaches the old man”.11 1.5  The Repetition of the Ethical Renewal Simply making the resolution to become more ethical is not sufficient. One must continue to hold on to such a resolution over and over, since we tend to revert back to the state of the “old man”. Repetition is accordingly essential for the ethical renewal of the human being. If one were God, the repetition of ethical renewal would be unnecessary. 1.6  The Highest Good and the Categorical Imperative Ethical renewal presupposes both the existence of the highest good and the categorical imperative. The highest good is the ideal toward which one strives, while the categorical imperative is the highest formal practical law that regulates the process of approaching the highest good. It runs as follows: “Do the best” among those things that you could do.12 In short, the categorical imperative is the highest formal practical law that regulates ethical renewal. 1.7 Reason13 The ethical renewal is not possible without reason. It should be noted, however, that not only one kind but various kinds of reason take part in the process of ethical renewal. For example, theoretical reason plays a role in the process of reviewing one’s life, while evaluative reason and practical reason are crucial to other processes such as ethical evaluation, ethical striving, ethical resolution, and the repetition of ethical renewal. Reason is the source of the freedom and autonomy of human action. Thus, as a process that is carried out through reason, ethical renewal is a free and auton  Hua XXVII, 43. A new man (person) is one of the key concepts of Christianity. It designates a person who is reborn spiritually through the Holy Spirit, whereas the old man is one who has not yet experienced the Holy Spirit. In this context, a passage from the New Testament runs as follows: “Let the Spirit change your way of thinking and make you into a new person” (Ephesians, 5: 23–24. In: American Bible Society: The Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York 1995). 12   Hua XXVIII, 137. 13   One can find a detailed analysis of the concept of reason in Husserl’s Kaizo articles in Thomas Nenon: “Husserl’s conception of reason as authenticity”. In: Philosophy Today 47, Supplement, 2003, 63–70. 11

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omous process. If ethical renewal were coerced, it could not be called an ethical renewal in any genuine sense. Reason is the source of the evidence of human knowledge and action. Thus, as a process that is carried out through reason, ethical renewal requires evidence and cannot be carried out blindly. 1.8  The Life of Satisfaction Ethical renewal leads to a perfect life that guarantees “a pure and enduring satisfaction”.14 It is the condition of the possibility of a blissful life. There are various forms of human life, but the ethical life is essentially different from other forms of life because it has an absolute priority over other forms of life. This is because the other forms of life cannot be called human in the genuine sense if they are not grounded in an ethical life. One could be totally satisfied and happy as a scientist, a politician, or an artist. This does not imply, however, that one is totally satisfied and happy as a human being. In order to be satisfied and happy as a human being, one should first be totally satisfied and happy in one’s ethical life. Total satisfaction and happiness are not possible without total satisfaction and happiness in the ethical life, which is possible only through ethical renewal. 1.9  From Individual to Social Ethical Renewal Ethics can be divided into individual ethics and social ethics. Corresponding to this distinction, the ethics of renewal can also be divided into individual and social ethics of renewal. In this respect, Husserl makes a distinction between “renewal as an individual ethical problem”15 and “renewal as a social ethical basic problem”.16 Individual ethical renewal should lead to social ethical renewal as the theme of a social ethics of renewal. The first step in developing a social ethics of renewal is making a review of various types of culture. In a manuscript from the 1920s, looking back into the history of Europe, Husserl makes a review of various types of culture (or society) and attempts to clarify “the formal types of culture in the development of humankind”.17 In this respect, he makes a distinction between “the stage of

    16   17   14 15

Hua XXVII, 32. Hua XXVII, 20. Hua XXVII, 22. Hua XXVII, 59.

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religious culture”18 and “the stage of scientific culture”19 as the stage of philosophical culture. Philosophical culture is better than religious culture since it originates “from purely autonomous reason”.20 And among the various types of philosophical culture, the modern philosophical culture is the best since it is based on the “idea of absolute justification” or the “critique of reason”.21 2. The Ethics of Renewal in Confucius Unlike Husserl, Confucius did not develop the ethics of renewal systematically. However, one can find various aspects of an ethics of renewal in writings such as the Analects and the Great Learning.22 I will first deal with the ethics of renewal in the Analects. 2.1  The Ethics of Renewal in the Analects There are many passages in the Analects addressing issues pertaining to an ethics of renewal. A typical example is chapter 1 of book 12, which runs as follows: Then Yuan asked about love (humanity) (仁).23 Confucius said, “To master oneself and return to propriety is love (humanity). If a man (the ruler) can for one day master himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will return to love (humanity). To practice love (humanity) depends on oneself. Does it depend on others?” (顔淵問仁. 子曰: 克己復禮 爲仁. 一日克己復禮, 天下歸仁焉. 爲仁由己, 而由人乎哉?).24

This chapter deals with the process of mastering oneself and returning to propriety. It is evident that the process of mastering oneself and returning to propriety is nothing other than the process of ethical renewal. Let me clarify this point in more detail. First, Confucius refers to the possibility that “a man (the ruler) can for one day master himself and return to propriety”. This possibility is none other than the possibility of an ethical resolution to change from the state of being ruled   Hua XXVII, 59.   Hua XXVII, 73. 20   Hua XXVII, 73. 21   Hua XXVII, 94. 22   Han-Woo Lee deals with the issue of ethical renewal in Confucius in Han-Woo Lee: Reading the Great Learning through the Analects [in Korean]. Seoul 2013. 23  “仁” can be rendered in different ways; for example, it can be rendered as “benevolence”, as is the case in chapter 10 below on “Feeling as the Origin of Value in Scheler and Mencius”. 24   Wing-Tsit Chan (Trans. and Comp.): A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ 1969, 38; cf. James Legge: The Chinese Classics, vol. I. Hong Kong 2010, 250. 18 19

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by the egotistic self to the state of mastering oneself and returning to propriety. It should be noted that the change takes place “for one day” as the day for the ethical resolution. Second, Confucius defines love (humanity) as the process of mastering oneself and returning to propriety and considers it to be the highest good. In this way, chapter 1 of book 12 deals with the highest good as a component of the genesis of ethical renewal. Third, Confucius makes the following claim: “If a man (the ruler) can for one day master himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will return to love (humanity).” This claim is related to the relationship between individual and social ethical renewal. Confucius considers individual ethical renewal to be the foundation of social ethical renewal. Moreover, the sentence “all under heaven will return to love (humanity)” expresses social ethical renewal as the aim of the social ethics of renewal. Fourth, the last two sentences—“To practice love (humanity) depends on oneself. Does it depend on others?”—highlight another aspect of ethical renewal. They emphasize the fact that the practice of love (humanity) does not depend on others, but on oneself. This means that the practice of love (humanity) is not heteronomous, but autonomous. As an autonomous act, it is an act of freedom, and as such, it has its origin in reason. Thus, it turns out that chapter 1 of book 12 implicitly deals with reason as one of the components of the genesis of ethical renewal. If we look into other passages of the Analects, we can find further components of the genesis of ethical renewal. In this respect, I would like to mention the following two points. First, in chapter 1 of book 12, one cannot find ethical striving as a component of the genesis of ethical renewal. However, the Analects are full of passages that do deal with the issue of ethical striving. A typical example is chapter 12 of book 6 which runs as follows: “Yen Ch’iu said, ‘It is not that I do not delight in your doctrines, but my strength is insufficient.’ The Master said, ‘Those whose strength is insufficient give over in the middle of the way, but now you limit yourself ’” (冉求曰: 非不說子之道, 力不足也. 子曰: 力不足者, 中道而廢. 今女畫).25 Here Confucius emphasizes the importance of the striving for the ethical renewal. Second, as already indicated, chapter 1 of book 12 deals with the issue of reason as a component of the genesis of ethical renewal. In fact, the Analects is full of passages that deal with the issue of reason as a component of the genesis of ethical renewal. A typical example is chapter 6 of Book 12, which emphasizes the importance of intelligence: “Tsze-chang asked what constituted intelligence. The Master said, ‘He with whom neither slander that gradually  Legge: Chinese Classics, 188–189.

25

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soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful, may be called intelligent indeed’” (子張問明. 子曰: 浸潤之譖, 膚受 之愬, 不行焉. 可謂明也已矣).26 2.2  The Ethics of Renewal in the Text of Confucius in the Great Learning The Great Learning consists of two parts, namely the text and the commentary, and as mentioned above, Zhu Xi claims that Confucius wrote the text, whereas the philosopher Tsãng wrote the Commentary. One can find the ethics of renewal both in the Confucius text and in the commentary by Tsãng. I will now discuss the ethics of renewal in the text of Confucius. The text gives “the Confucian educational, moral, and political programs in a nutshell, neatly summed up in the so-called ‘three items’ (三綱領) […] and in ‘the eight steps’” (八條目).27 The text first deals with “the three items” (三綱領). With respect to the three items, Confucius says the following: “What the Great Learning teaches consists in manifesting clear virtue, renewing the people and abiding in the highest good” (大學之道, 在明明德, 在新民, 在止於至善).28 In other words, manifesting clear virtue, renewing the people, and abiding in the highest good are the three items that are the goal of the Great Learning. According to the first item, it is one of the goals of the Great Learning to manifest clear virtue. Every superior man has to manifest clear virtue by himself. According to the second item, it is another goal of the Great Learning to renew the people. Those who have themselves manifested clear virtue should thus take the next step and renew the people. According to the third item, it is the final goal of the Great Learning to abide in the highest good. The process of manifesting clear virtue and renewing the people will enable not only the superior man, but also the people as a whole to abide in the highest good. The second part of the text deals with “the eight steps” (八條目) that make it possible to achieve the three items as the aim of the Great Learning. The eight steps are “the investigation of things, extension of knowledge, sincerity of the will, rectification of the mind, cultivation of personal life, regulation of the family, national order, and world peace” (格物, 致知, 誠意, 正心, 修身, 齊家, 治國, 平天下).29 With respect to the eight steps, Confucius says: When things are investigated, knowledge is extended; when knowledge is extended, the will becomes sincere; when the will is sincere, the mind is rectified; when the mind is rectified, personal life is cultivated; when personal life is cultivated, the family will be   Ibid., 253.  Chan: Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 84. 28  Ibid., 86, translation altered; Legge: Chinese Classics, 356, translation altered. Zhu Xi changed 在親民 into 在新民. 29  Chan: Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 84. 26 27

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regulated; when the family is regulated, the state will be in order; and when the state is in order, there will be peace throughout the world (物格而后知至, 知至而后意誠, 意誠而后心 正, 心正而后身修, 身修而后家齊, 家齊而后國治, 國治而后天下平).30

In this way the ethics of the Great Learning that consists of the three items and the eight steps is indeed an ethics of renewal. But let me clarify this point. The three items describe the process of ethical renewal as a whole including individual and social ethical renewal as well as the goal of ethical renewal in general. The first item—namely, manifesting clear virtue—is not possible without the process of individual ethical renewal. As such, it is related to the entire process of individual ethical renewal. The second item—namely, renewing the people—describes the process of social ethical renewal, since t­­­he latter is not possible if the people are not renewed. And the third item—namely, abiding in the highest good—has as its core the highest good, which is the goal of ethical renewal. The eight steps also describe the genesis of ethical renewal. The first five steps describe the genesis of individual ethical renewal, whereas the last three steps describe the genesis of social ethical renewal. Let me clarify this point in more detail as well. First, the two initial steps—namely, the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge—could include the following components of the genesis of the individual ethical renewal discussed above in section 1: 1) the review of one’s life, 2) the ethical evaluation of one’s life, and 3) reason. In this respect, it should be noted that the knowledge that should be broadened through the investigation of things includes every kind of knowledge, whether moral knowledge or non-moral knowledge, whether knowledge of individual things or knowledge of principles. As such, it includes the knowledge that makes the review and the ethical evaluation of one’s life possible. For this reason, the first two steps include both the review and the ethical evaluation of one’s life as components of the genesis of individual ethical renewal. Moreover, the extension of knowledge is not possible without rational activity, and for this reason, the first two steps include reason as another component of the genesis of ethical renewal. Second, the third step—namely, the sincerity of the will—includes ethical striving, the categorical imperative, and satisfaction as three of the components of the genesis of individual ethical renewal. The sincerity of the will means that one has to strive incessantly to do one’s best. For this reason, the sincerity of the will contains both the component of striving for the ethically best and that of the categorical imperative. Moreover, one who is sincere could be satisfied. For this reason, the sincerity of the will implies satisfaction. Third, the fourth step—namely, the rectification of the mind—includes reason as a component of the genesis of individual ethical renewal. Here it is the   Ibid., 86–87.

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aim of the rectification of the mind to achieve the correctness of the mind that is not disturbed by various kinds of affections such as wrath, fear, fondness, worries, and anxieties. If one is disturbed by affection, one cannot experience things as they really are, since one’s wits are scattered, and one is not fully present for what one is experiencing. “When the mind is not present, we look but do not see, listen but do not hear, and eat but do not know the taste of the food” (心不 在焉, 視而不見, 聽而不聞, 食而不知其味).31 The rectification of the mind is not possible without reason, and it turns out that it includes reason as one of the components of the genesis of ethical renewal. Fourth, the rectification of the mind leads to the cultivation of personal life as the completion of the individual ethical renewal that corresponds to the first item, namely, manifesting clear virtue. Thus, it turns out that the first five steps deal with the issue of individual ethical renewal. In my view, they are detailed descriptions of the first item, namely, manifesting clear virtue. Fifth, individual ethical renewal should lead to social ethical renewal. The last three steps—namely, regulation of the family, national order, and world peace—are related to the process of the social ethical renewal that corresponds to the second item, namely, renewing the people. Sixth, the social ethical renewal that is founded on individual ethical renewal leads to world peace as the final goal of ethical renewal. When world peace is achieved, not only the superior man but also the people are in a state of abiding in the highest good, which is the third item of the Great Learning. 2.3  The Ethics of Renewal in Chapter 2 of the Commentary by the Philosopher Tsãng I will now deal with the ethics of renewal in the commentary by the philosopher Tsãng. This consists of ten chapters, and chapter 2 is of great importance for the ethics of renewal in Confucius. In fact, each of the four Sections of chapter 2 deals with the issue of the ethics of renewal. Chapter 2 includes the following:32 Section 1: “The inscription on the bath-tub of King T’ang read: ‘If you can renew yourself one day, then you can do so every day, and keep doing so day after day’” (湯之盤銘曰, 苟日新, 日日新, 又日新). Section 2: “In the ‘Announcement of K’ang’, it is said: ‘Arouse people to become new’” (康誥曰, 作新民). Section 3: “The Book of Odes says, ‘Although Chou is an ancient state, the mandate it has received from Heaven is new’” (詩曰, 周雖舊邦, 其命維新).   Ibid., 90.   Ibid., 87.

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Section 4: “Therefore, the superior man tries at all times to do his utmost” (是故君子無所不用其極). The sections contain such words as “renew” or “new”, hinting at the fact that the topic here is ethical renewal. In fact, if we analyze these sections, it turns out that they deal with several aspects of the genesis of ethical renewal. Section 1 contains two components of ethical renewal, namely, ethical resolution and the repetition of ethical renewal. In this respect, it should be noted that this could be divided into two parts, namely “renewing oneself one day” and “doing so every day and keeping doing so day after day”. “Renewing oneself one day” corresponds to the component of ethical resolution and “doing so every day and keeping doing so day after day” corresponds to the component of the repetition of ethical renewal. The transition from section 1 to section 2 corresponds to the move from individual to social ethical renewal. Sections 2 and 3 contain some components of the social ethics of renewal. Section 2 implies that ethical renewal cannot be confined to an individual person but should be extended to all members of society. Section 3 refers to the repeated ethical renewal of a state called Chou. Finally, section 4 deals with the categorical imperative as a component of the genesis of ethical renewal, since it says that one should try “at all times to do one’s utmost”. The categorical imperative discussed in section 4 corresponds exactly to the Husserlian categorical imperative discussed above. 3. Various Dimensions of the Ethics of Renewal In order to grasp the general characteristics of the ethics of renewal in Husserl and Confucius, we must discuss distinctions among various dimensions of the ethics of renewal, and here Husserl’s own distinctions can serve as a clue. Husserl maintains that there is an analogy between the various dimensions of theoretical science and those of ethics. In order to understand the various dimensions of ethics, we must therefore clarify the various dimensions of theoretical science. There are four dimensions of theoretical science, namely, empirical science, material ontology, formal ontology, and transcendental phenomenology.33 Empirical science is a science that investigates empirical facts. Thus, it has its justifying ground in the experience of empirical facts, and it includes the various natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.   Husserl makes a distinction among the four dimensions of theoretical science in the lecture course entitled “Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie” (Hua XIII, 111 ff.; Husserl: Basic Problems of Phenomenology, 1 ff.). 33

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Material ontology is the science that investigates the material essence of the objects of the empirical sciences. A typical example is geometry, which deals with the material essence of natural scientific objects. We cannot carry out empirical scientific research without the knowledge of the material essences of the objects that it investigates, and for this reason, material ontology turns out to be the foundation of empirical science. Formal ontology is the science that deals with the formal essence of any object whatsoever of scientific research. A typical example is formal logic. We cannot carry out empirical scientific research and material ontological research without the knowledge of formal ontology, and for this reason, formal ontology turns out to be the foundation of both empirical science and material ontology. Finally, transcendental phenomenology is the science that deals with transcendental subjectivity and the world constituted thereby. In this respect, it should be noted that not only the world and the objects of empirical science, but also the objects of material ontology and formal ontology should be known by the subjectivity that experiences them. If there is no subjectivity that experiences the world and objects, these could not be given as something that has such and such a meaning. The subjectivity that allows the world and objects to be experienced as something having such and such a meaning is called transcendental subjectivity. And as the science that deals with transcendental subjectivity and the world constituted thereby, transcendental phenomenology is the foundation not only of empirical science, but also of material ontology and formal ontology. In like manner, it is possible to make a distinction between four different dimensions of ethics—namely, empirical ethics, material ethics, formal ethics, and transcendental ethics. Empirical ethics deals with empirical ethical norms that are valid for a concrete society in a concrete historical context. Empirical ethical norms as the objects of empirical ethics could vary from one society to another. In one of the Kaizo articles published in Japan in the 1920s, Husserl makes a distinction between “pure ethics” and “empirical human ethics”.34 Here “empirical human ethics” means empirical ethics. Material ethics deals with essential material ethical norms that are valid for each of the various fields of empirical ethics. For example, if there is a Confucian empirical ethics, the Confucian material ethics deals with the essential material ethical norms that are valid for every kind of Confucian empirical ethics. In this sense, in the entire system of ethics, material ethics plays a similar role to that which material ontology plays in the system of theoretical science.

  Hua XXVII, 20.

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Formal ethics deals with the formal essential ethical norms that are valid for every kind of ethics. In this sense, in the entire system of ethics, it plays a similar role to that which formal ontology plays in the system of theoretical science. Transcendental ethics deals with transcendental subjectivity together with the ethical world and the norms constituted thereby. Similarly, there are four dimensions of the ethics of renewal corresponding to the four dimensions of ethics discussed above—namely, the empirical, the material, the formal, and the transcendental ethics of renewal. The empirical ethics of renewal deals with the issue of the empirical aspect of ethical renewal related to the life-worldly context in question. As such, it could vary from one society to another. There can be many different kinds of empirical ethics of renewal, since there are many different kinds of society. The material ethics of renewal deals with the material essential aspect of ethical renewal. There can be various kinds of material ethics of renewal corresponding to the various ways in which the highest good is conceived. There are many candidates for the highest good such as love, justice, knowledge, sympathy, God, Tao, Nirvana, etc., and corresponding to them, there can be various kinds of material ethics of renewal. The formal ethics of renewal deals with the formal essential aspect of ethical renewal. However, there is only one formal ethics of renewal since it deals only with the formal aspect, not with the content, of ethical renewal. Finally, the transcendental ethics of renewal deals with the issue of ethical renewal from a transcendental-phenomenological perspective. For example, it deals with the difference between transcendental subjectivity and the world constituted thereby before and after ethical renewal. 4. Promoting a Dialogue Between the Ethics of Renewal in Husserl and Confucius On the basis of the discussion of the various dimensions of the ethics of renewal, I will now address the general characteristics of the ethics of renewal in Husserl and Confucius. In the Kaizo articles, among the various dimensions of the ethics of renewal, Husserl develops only the formal ethics of renewal. In this respect, he emphasizes the fact that the ethics he is developing is “as a theory of principles only formal”.35 He does not develop the other dimensions such as the empirical, the material, and the transcendental ethics of renewal. In distinction to Husserl, Confucius develops various dimensions of the ethics of renewal, including the formal, the material, and the empirical ethics of   Hua XXVII, 50.

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renewal, as will be discussed below in this section. The ethics of renewal in Confucius could be considered a mixture of these three dimensions of the ethics of renewal. Thus, his ethics of renewal is richer than that of Husserl. It should be mentioned, however, that unlike Husserl, Confucius does not try to develop the ethics of renewal systematically. Thus, he does not make a clear distinction between different dimensions of the ethics of renewal, and sometimes he deals with two dimensions of the ethics of renewal together without distinguishing between them. A typical example is the text of Confucius in the Great Learning, where, as we will see, he seems to develop both the formal and the material ethics of renewal at the same time. The ethics of renewal is incomplete both in Husserl and in Confucius. It is one of the future tasks of the ethics of renewal to transform them into more perfect forms through a dialogue between them. Let me clarify this point by beginning with how Husserl’s ethics of renewal could become more complete through a dialogue with the ethics of renewal in Confucius. As already indicated, among the various dimensions of the ethics of renewal, Husserl develops only the formal ethics of renewal, which is, of course, a great achievement. In my view, however, the formal ethics of renewal he develops presents some difficulties. First, some of the components of the genesis of the ethical renewal that Husserl considers to be formal do not seem to be formal. For example, dealing with the highest good, he sometimes discusses God as the source of the final good. However, God is not considered to be the highest good in the ethics of renewal in Confucius. For this reason, God should not automatically be considered a formal component of the genesis of ethical renewal. There is another example. Dealing with “the formal types of culture in the development of humankind”36 as an issue of the social ethics of renewal, Husserl considers “scientific culture”37 to be the highest stage of culture. There are various stages of scientific culture, and the highest form of these is “the form of the philosophical culture” of the modern age, which, guided by critical reason, pursues the ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science.38 Needless to say, the idea of philosophy as a rigorous science cannot be regarded as something purely formal, but is also material, since there is no reason to consider philosophy to be the highest form of culture without reservations. In this respect, it should be noted that wisdom as the goal of philosophy is not treated as the highest virtue in Confucianism. It is indeed treated as one of the cardinal virtues of Confucian ethics, but there is no difference between this virtue and the other cardinal virtues such as love, righteousness, propriety, etc.   Hua XXVII, 59.   Hua XXVII, 73 ff. 38   Cf. Hua XXVII, 89. 36 37

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These examples show that there are some material components in the formal ethics of renewal that Husserl develops. These material components should be deleted from the list of components of the formal ethics of renewal so that the latter could become a more perfect form of the formal ethics of renewal. Second, Husserl deals with the method of eidetic reduction as the method of the formal ethics of renewal. However, the method of eidetic reduction alone is not enough to develop the formal ethics of renewal successfully. In this respect, it should be noted that in developing his theory of the three items and the eight steps in the Great Learning, Confucius emphasizes the order in which knowledge is obtained—the order in which the things are constituted or in which the affairs take place—as follows: “Things have their roots and branches. Affairs have their beginnings and their ends. To know what is first and what is last will lead one near the Way” (物有本末, 事有終始, 知所先後, 則近道矣);39 “There is never a case when the root is in disorder and yet the branches are in order” ( 其本亂而末治者否矣).40 The consideration of the order in Confucius forms an important part of the method of the formal ethics of renewal since the genesis of ethical renewal should take place according to this order. It should be noted that the order Confucius mentions reminds us of the third rule of the method Descartes discusses in Discourse on Method, which reads as follows: The third, to conduct my thoughts in an orderly fashion, by commencing with those objects that are simplest and easiest to know, in order to ascend little by little, as by degrees, to the knowledge of the most composite things, and by supposing an order even among those things that do not naturally precede one another.41

In my view, the four rules of method that Descartes discusses should be regarded as a method of the formal ethics of renewal. The ethics of renewal in Confucius could also become a more perfect form of the ethics of renewal through a dialogue with Husserl’s ethics of renewal. As already mentioned, Husserl’s phenomenology shows that there are four different dimensions of the ethics of renewal. In this respect, the ethics of renewal in Confucius is no exception. In principle, it too could have four different dimensions. Among them, Confucius develops three dimensions—namely, the empirical, the material, and the formal ethics of renewal. Correspondingly, it is possible to classify the passages from the writings of Confucius that deal with ethical renewal into three groups, each dealing with one of these dimensions. Let me clarify this point with the help of the Husserlian distinctions among the various dimensions of the ethics of renewal discussed above.  Chan: Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 86.   Ibid., 87. 41   René Descartes: Discourse on Method. In: Roger Ariew (Ed.), Philosophical Essays and Correspondence/René Descartes. Indianapolis, IN 2000, 46–82, here: 54. 39 40

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First, in the text of the Great Learning, one can indeed find certain passages where the issue of the formal ethics of renewal is discussed: namely, those dealing with the order in which knowledge is obtained, the things are constituted, or the affairs take place. Moreover, the three items are closely related to the formal ethics of renewal. As we have seen above, with respect to the three items, Confucius says: “What the Great Learning teaches consists in manifesting clear virtue, renewing the people and abiding in the highest good.” The first and the third item are parts of the formal ethics of renewal, since neither the “clear virtue” in the first item nor the “highest good” in the third item has any concrete content. “Clear virtue” could be replaced by any virtue that could be called clear; similarly, “highest good” could be replaced by any good that could be called the highest. The second item is also a part of the formal ethics of renewal, since it does not mention anything concrete with respect to how to renew the people. Moreover, there are further passages where the issue of the formal ethics of renewal is discussed. Typical examples are the following passages from chapter 2 of the commentary by the philosopher Tsãng: “If you can renew yourself one day, then you can do so every day, and keep doing so day after day.” “Arouse people to become new.” “Therefore, the superior man tries at all times to do his utmost.” These passages do not say anything about the concrete content, but only the formal aspect of ethical renewal. In this respect, it should be noted that they are in total agreement with some key parts of Husserl’s formal ethics of renewal discussed above. Second, there are passages where the issue of the Confucian material ethics of renewal is discussed. The Confucian material ethics of renewal is an ethics that deals with the essential material components of the Confucian ethics of renewal. The following passage from book 12 of the Analects discussed above is a typical example: To master oneself and return to propriety is love (humanity). If a man (the ruler) can for one day master himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will return to love (humanity).

In this passage, love (humanity) as one of the essential material components of the Confucian ethics of renewal is discussed. For this reason, this passage could be considered to be a passage where the issue of the Confucian material ethics of renewal is discussed. The following passage from the text of Confucius in the Great Learning that deals with the eight items could also be considered to be a passage where the Confucian material ethics of renewal is discussed, since the eight items belong among the essential material components of the Confucian ethics of renewal as well:

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When things are investigated, knowledge is extended; when knowledge is extended, the will becomes sincere; when the will is sincere, the mind is rectified; when the mind is rectified, the personal life is cultivated; when the personal life is cultivated, the family will be regulated; when the family is regulated, the state will be in order; and when the state is in order, there will be peace throughout the world.

Third, there are passages where the issue of the Confucian empirical ethics of renewal is discussed. A typical example is the following passage from book 6 discussed above: Yen Ch’iu said, “It is not that I do not delight in your doctrines, but my strength is insufficient.” The Master said, “Those whose strength is insufficient give over in the middle of the way, but now you limit yourself.”

In this passage, Yen Ch’iu confesses that he likes the teaching of Confucius, but he cannot put it into practice because his strength is insufficient. Confucius reprimands Yen Ch’iu, saying that the latter limits himself and does not do his best, and thereby asking him to do his best. Insofar as Confucius asks a specific person, Yen Ch’iu, to fulfill one of the norms of the Confucian ethics of renewal, his teaching belongs to the dimension of the Confucian empirical ethics of renewal. The following passage from chapter 2 of the commentary by the philosopher Tsãng could also be considered to be a passage where the issue of the Confucian empirical ethics of renewal is discussed, since a specific state is mentioned: “Although Chou is an ancient state, the mandate it has received from Heaven is new.” The attempt to classify the passages from the writings of Confucius into three groups could be the starting point for the systematization of the ethics of renewal in Confucius. In this way, the ethics of renewal in Confucius could be transformed into a more complete form of the ethics of renewal. 5. The Intersubjective Aspect of Ethical Renewal Ethical renewal cannot be carried out in isolation, but only in connection with others. Thus, in order to illuminate the structure of ethical renewal more concretely, I would like to clarify its intersubjective aspect. I will use the examples discussed by Confucius not because I consider all his claims concerning ethical renewal to be true, but only because, unlike Husserl, he provides many concrete examples. As indicated above, there are two kinds of ethical renewal, namely individual and social ethical renewal. Let us start first with the intersubjective aspects of social ethical renewal, since it is obvious that social ethical renewal cannot take place without various kinds of intersubjective connections.

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First, social ethical renewal has as its objects the various kinds of society that are constituted through intersubjective actions between individuals. For example, one of the three “items” in the Great Learning is “renewing the people”, an item that by definition includes multiple individuals. In addition, when he deals with the eight steps in the Great Learning, Confucius mentions steps such as “regulation of the family, national order, and world peace”, all of which involve intersubjectivity. Second, social ethical renewal can only be carried out in a social context. For example, the social ethical renewal of the family can only be carried out within a family, and since the family can exist only within the context of a nation and world society, it follows that the nation and the society can have a decisive influence on both the family and the individual’s attempts at social ethical renewal. Furthermore, the ethical renewal of society cannot be carried out successfully within a thoroughly degenerate society that does not have any prospect of being renewed at all. On the contrary, if the societies to which the family belongs are ethically sound, the ethical renewal of the family can be carried out successfully. Third, social ethical renewal emerges through various kinds of intersubjective actions between individuals who belong to a society. It should be noted that the first five steps of the social ethical renewal discussed in the Great Learning— namely, “the investigation of things, extension of knowledge, sincerity of the will, rectification of the mind, cultivation of personal life”—are all products of intersubjective actions between individuals. The type of intersubjective actions between individuals varies from one context to the other. For example, the intersubjective action between individuals as family members is different from that between individuals as citizens in a nation. Fourth, social ethical renewal can be carried out effectively by consulting the examples of social ethical renewal in other societies. The societies that can be consulted for social ethical renewal are not confined to contemporary societies but include historical or even imaginary societies. Confucian philosophy of history generally regards the process of history as one of degeneration, so it often looks to societies of the remote past for inspiration, as some sections of chapter 2 of the commentary by the philosopher Tsãng discussed above show. In this respect, section 3 runs as follows: “The Book of Odes says, ‘Although Chou is an ancient state, the mandate it has received from Heaven is new,’” and section 2 appeals to the example of the social ethical renewal of the remote past: “In the ‘Announcement of K’ang’, it is said: ‘Arouse people to become new.’” Let us now clarify the intersubjective aspects of individual ethical renewal. It is true that there is a difference between the object of individual and of social ethical renewal, but this difference does not mean that there is no intersubjective aspect in individual ethical renewal. In fact, it has the following various kinds of intersubjective aspects.

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First, individual ethical renewal often involves virtues that are related to others. For example, the virtue of “love (humanity)” and of “propriety” that Confucius claims are important in the Analects are virtues that are instrinsically directed toward others. Love is love for others and propriety is propriety toward others. In this context, Confucius considers “intelligence” to be a virtue that can have meaning not only with respect to oneself, but primarily with respect to others, as this passage from Analects shows: “He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful, may be called intelligent indeed.” Second, individual ethical renewal can be carried out within the context of various kinds of society, such as family, school, civil society, nation, and finally, world society. These various kinds of society have a decisive influence on individual ethical renewal, since individual ethical renewal can be carried out far more effectively in a society that is ethically sound, in contrast to a society that is ethically degenerate. For this reason, social ethical renewal is in a sense presupposed in individual ethical renewal. Of course, there can be individuals who can carry out individual ethical renewal successfully despite living in a corrupt society, as was the case with Confucius himself, who lived during the Spring-Autumn period in ancient China. Nevertheless, for the most part it cannot be denied that our social setting plays a huge role in individual ethical renewal. Third, individual ethical renewal is normally carried out through intersubjective actions between oneself as a moral agent and other moral agents. It should be noted that some of the components of the individual ethical renewal that Husserl discusses are carried out through interaction between moral agents. For example, the ethical striving that Husserl clarifies as the third component of individual ethical renewal can be considered a private matter, but it can also sometimes be effectively carried out through the intervention of other moral agents such as friends, parents, teachers, etc., who strive to achieve the same ethical aim. The fifth component of individual ethical renewal—namely, the repetition of ethical renewal—can also be carried out effectively through the help of other moral agents such as friends, siblings, parents, or teachers, who can admonish us when we are slipping back to our old ways or encourage us in our path toward ethical renewal. Fourth, individuals can look to others who have successfully carried out ethical renewal as models for their own renewal. We can be inspired by the example not just of our contemporaries, but also of historical figures and even imaginary characters. In the Confucian tradition, the paradigmatic figures of ethical renewal are normally found in the remote past, as the example discussed in Section 1 of chapter 2 of the commentary by the philosopher Tsãng shows: “The inscription on the bath-tub of King T’ang read: ‘If you can renew yourself one day, then you can do so every day, and keep doing so day after day.’”

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6. Future Tasks of the Ethics of Renewal The ethics of renewal in Husserl and Confucius are of great significance with respect to the overall crisis of humankind in contemporary society. As demonstrated above, however, they are both incomplete; each explores only some parts of the ethics of renewal which has a much wider scope. Thus, there are many tasks for the ethics of renewal in the future. Let me close by pointing out some of these tasks. As already indicated, Husserl deals only with the formal ethics of renewal and leaves the other dimensions of the ethics of renewal untouched. For this reason, it is unclear what kind of ethics of renewal he had in mind when he developed an ethics of renewal in the Kaizo articles. He seems to have two kinds of ethics of renewal in mind, namely the Christian ethics of renewal that considers the “idea of God”42 to be the highest good and the philosophical ethics of renewal that considers critical reason as the source of the “critique of reason”43 to be the highest good. It is the future task of Husserl’s ethics of renewal to develop these two kinds of ethics of renewal systematically. As also discussed above, the ethics of renewal in Confucius is a mixture of the empirical, the material, and the formal ethics of renewal. Confucius did not make a clear distinction among them, and he did not explore the transcendental ethics of renewal. It is the future task of the ethics of renewal to make a clear distinction between the various dimensions of the Confucian ethics of renewal and to develop each of them systematically, a task we have attempted to begin above in section 4. Moreover, there are other kinds of ethics of renewal than those discussed above—for example, the Buddhist, the Taoist, or the Islamic ethics of renewal. It is also one of the future tasks of the ethics of renewal to develop each of them systematically. Finally, it is one of the most important future tasks of the ethics of renewal to promote dialogues among different kinds of ethics of renewal. It is an especially urgent task given that we live in an intercultural age. As the discussion above has shown, among the various dimensions of the ethics of renewal, the formal ethics of renewal is common to all kinds of ethics of renewal, whereas the other dimensions of the ethics of renewal could be different from one kind of ethics of renewal to another. One interesting question that should be explored through dialogues among the various kinds of ethics of renewal is whether a universal material ethics of renewal common to all the different kinds of the ethics of renewal could be conceived.

  Hua XXVII, 34.   Hua XXVII, 94.

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Chapter 10 Feeling as the Origin of Value in Scheler and Mencius There have been many attempts in the history of philosophy, as well as in contemporary philosophy, to develop the theory of value. Three positions are in competition with each other, namely axiological rationalism, axiological sentimentalism, and axiological conativism. These consider, respectively, reason, feeling, and desire (conatus) as the origin of value.1 As I will show below, Max Scheler (1874–1928), one of the most important phenomenologists of the 20th century, and Mencius (孟子, 372–289 BC), one of the founding fathers of Confucianism, both take feeling to be the origin of value and could therefore be considered proponents of axiological sentimentalism. In fact, despite the great spatial and temporal distance between them, there are striking similarities between the theories of value they developed. It should be noted, however, that there are also differences between them that are mainly derived from some difficulties with their theories of value. These difficulties should be removed so that a better theory of value could be developed. It is accordingly the aim of this chapter to promote a phenomenological dialogue between Scheler and Mencius that could lead to such a better theory. In sections 1–2, I will first delineate Scheler’s theory of value and feeling, then that of Mencius. In section 3, I will point out some difficulties with each of these theories and promote a dialogue between them that would improve each theory. In section 4, in order to understand the structure of moral feeling more concretely, I will confine my discussion to the four moral feelings discussed by Mencius, and in particular, I will concentrate on the intersubjective aspect of moral feeling. In section 5, I will conclude with some remarks concerning the future task of the phenomenological dialogue between Scheler and Mencius. 1. Scheler’s View on Feeling as the Origin of Value In Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, Scheler develops a material ethics of value that considers feeling to be the origin of value. He begins with a critique of Kant’s ethics. Kant attempts to found an ethics that   Here “the origin of value” means “the form of consciousness in which the experience of value or the disclosure of value takes place”. Axiological rationalism, axiological sentimentalism, and axiological conativism claim, respectively, that reason, feeling, or desire is the form of consciousness in which the experience of value takes place. In this respect, Scheler as a proponent of axiological sentimentalism claims that “values are given first of all in feeling” (Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik, 56; Scheler: Formalism in Ethics, 35). Here “given” means “experienced” or “disclosed”. 1

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has universal validity.2 According to him, in order to be able to found such an ethics, one has to exclude all material factors such as feeling or desire and admit only good will or pure practical reason as the foundation of ethics. In this way, his ethics takes the form of a formal a priori ethics that attempts to clarify the structure of the formal a priori of practical law and pure practical reason as its motivational foundation. Scheler considers the fact that Kant founded ethics as an a priori discipline that has objective validity to be a great achievement. At the same time, he sees this very achievement as having a major limitation: namely, that Kant founded ethics as a merely formal a priori discipline by excluding all of the factors with material contents as possible candidates for the foundation of ethics. Criticizing Kant’s formal a priori ethics, Scheler attempts to develop ethics as a material a priori ethics that has, like Kant’s ethics, objective validity. Scheler develops his material a priori ethics as a theory of moral value. In doing so, he shares a basic premise with Kant, even though he criticizes Kant’s position. What matters here is the premise that moral value has to be defined in relation to non-moral values. And in fact, both Kant and Scheler do attempt to define moral value in relation to non-moral values. As is well known, Kant attempts to define moral value in relation to the non-moral values that are not to be accepted as the foundation of moral value. By excluding non-moral values as the foundation of moral value, he concludes that only good will as pure practical reason can be the foundation of a formal a priori ethics. As will be shown in the following discussion, Scheler, like Kant, attempts to define moral value in relation to non-moral values, but unlike Kant, he considers non-moral values to be the foundation of moral values. He believes that it is impossible to clarify the structure of moral value without clarifying the structure of non-moral values. This is the reason why he develops a general theory of non-moral value in order to develop his material a priori ethics. As mentioned above, Scheler is a proponent of axiological sentimentalism. In fact, claiming that “values are given first of all in feeling”,3 he considers feeling to be the origin of value. He inherited this axiological sentimentalism from Husserl and Brentano, who were deeply influenced by Hume.4 Like Hume, who developed his axiological sentimentalism through a critique of the axiological rationalism of the 17th century rationalists,5 Scheler developed his axiological sentimentalism through a critique of another type of axiological ratio  Immanuel Kant: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Hamburg 1959.  Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik, 56; Scheler: Formalism in Ethics, 35. 4   See Franz Brentano: Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis. Leipzig 1934; Hua XXVIII; David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford 1978. 5   Hume writes as follows: “Morals excite passions and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason” (Hume: Treatise, 457). 2 3

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nalism, namely, that of Kant, who—as we have seen—considers reason (namely, pure practical reason) to be the origin of value. As a proponent of axiological sentimentalism, Scheler develops his theory of value (including non-moral as well as moral value) in connection with his theory of feeling (including both non-moral feeling and moral feeling). Let me first consider his theory of non-moral value and non-moral feeling. According to Scheler, there are four layers of non-moral value to which four layers of non-moral feeling correspond, and there is “an order of ranks”6 between the four different layers of non-moral value. The lowest layer of material value includes such values as the “agreeable” and the “disagreeable”.7 It appears in “beings endowed with sensibility in general”.8 One could therefore call this kind of value sensual value. There are many examples of sensual value. When one eats something and it tastes good, it has the sensual value of tasting good; when one breathes fresh air and it feels “agreeable”, this has the sensual value of being agreeable. It should be noted, however, that the “beings endowed with sensibility in general” to which the different kinds of sensual value are relative do not need to be factual beings such as human beings but could be any sentient beings, whether real or imaginary. The second layer of material value is vital value.9 It includes all of the different kinds of value “encompassed by the ‘noble’ and the ‘vulgar’ (and by the ‘good’ in the pregnant sense of ‘excellent’ as opposed to ‘bad’ rather than ‘evil’)”.10 It appears in “life” as “a genuine essence and not an ‘empirical concept’ that contains only ‘common properties’ of all living organisms”.11 There are many examples of vital values, such as the value of soaring life, of sinking life, of healthy life, of sick life, of becoming old, of getting closer to death, etc. The third layer of material value is spiritual value.12 This layer appears in spiritual nature, which is different from both sensual nature and vital nature. Spiritual values reveal themselves as constitutive members of a separate layer of value in “the clear evidence”13 that vital values ought to be sacrificed for them. Spiritual values can then be divided into sub-kinds: 1) “the values of ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’ together with the whole range of purely aesthetic values”;14 2) “the values of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’”;15 and 3) “the values of the ‘pure cognition of truth’”.16  Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik, 122; Scheler: Formalism in Ethics, 104.   Ibid., 122; 105.  8  Ibid.  9   Ibid., 124; 107. 10   Ibid., 123; 106. 11   Ibid., 124; 107. 12  Ibid. 13  Ibid. 14  Ibid. 15  Ibid. 16   Ibid., 125; 108.  6  7

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The highest layer of material value is the value of the holy and the unholy.17 These appear only in “objects that are given in intention as ‘absolute objects’”.18 It is “the self-value of the person himself that is the ‘foundation’ of bliss and despair”.19 Scheler calls this kind of value “the moral value of our personal being”.20 Typical examples for this kind of value are the values of “the saint, the genius, the hero, the leading spirit of civilization, and the bon vivant”.21 There are four different types of feeling that correspond to these four different types of value, and there is an order of rank between them as well. The lowest layer of feeling—namely, the layer of feeling that corresponds to the value of the “agreeable” and the “disagreeable”—is “sensual feeling”.22 Scheler calls this kind of feeling “feelings of sensation”.23 Sensual feeling has the following characteristics:24 in contrast to other types of feeling, it is experienced “as extended and localized in specific parts of the lived body”;25 it is devoid of “the most primitive form of intentionality”;26 it is “exclusively an actual fact”;27 and it is “punctual, without duration or continuity of sense”.28 The second layer of feeling—namely, the feeling that corresponds to vital value—is “vital feeling”.29 It includes such feelings as “a feeling of comfort and its opposite, e. g., health and illness, fatigue and vigor”.30 Vital feeling is essentially different from sensual feeling and cannot be reduced to the latter. For example, whereas sensual feeling is localized in a certain part of the body, this is not the case with vital feeling. It is true that vital feeling is localized in the body; however, it is not localized in a certain part or organ of the body, but in the body as a whole which makes it totally different from sensual feeling. Whereas sensual feeling is non-intentional, vital feeling is intentional, since we feel in it “our life itself […], its growth, its decline, its illness, its health, its ‘danger’ and its future”.31 The third layer of feeling—namely, the feeling that corresponds to spiritual value—is a purely psychic feeling.32 It includes such feelings as “spiritual joy  Ibid.  Ibid. 19   Ibid., 345; 344. 20   Ibid., 345; 343. 21   Ibid., 126; 109. 22   Ibid., 122; 105. 23   Ibid., 334; 332. 24   Scheler enumerates seven essential traits of sensual feeling in ibid., 335–339; 333–337. 25   Ibid., 335; 333. 26  Ibid. 27   Ibid., 336; 334. 28   Ibid., 337; 335. 29   Ibid., 340; 338. 30  Ibid. 31   Ibid., 342; 340. 32   Ibid., 344; 342. 17 18

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and sorrow”,33 “pleasing and displeasing, approving and disapproving, respect and disrespect, retributive conation […], spiritual sympathy”.34 These appear immediately, without being mediated by any bodily givenness. Even though they can be influenced by sensual feelings or vital feelings, they follow “their own laws of oscillation”.35 The highest layer of feeling—namely, the feeling that corresponds to the value of the holy and the unholy—is spiritual feeling.36 It includes “serenity (serenitas animi) and ‘peace’ of mind”37 as well as feelings of “bliss” and “despair”,38 which are entirely independent of the feelings of “happiness” and “unhappiness”. They can never be “states”,39 and in them “all ego states”40 seem to be extinguished. They seem to “stream forth, as it were, from the very source of spiritual acts”.41 They are experienced as “the absolute”,42 since they are related not to some region of the world, but to the whole person. It is one of their essential traits that “either they are not experienced at all, or they take possession of the whole of our being”.43 They are the only type of feelings “which cannot be conceived as feelings that could be produced, or even merited, by our comportment”.44 Scheler maintains that the act through which we originally apprehend the value of the holy is “an act of a specific kind of love”.45 The analysis of the structure of non-moral value and non-moral feeling carried out thus far provides the foundation to clarify the structure of moral value and moral feeling. Scheler begins his analysis of the structure of the moral value that is immediately experienced in moral feeling by ascertaining the fact that there is an “order of ranks”46 among the material values discussed above. As we have seen, there is an order of rank among the four different types of non-moral value: sensual value is the lowest, spiritual value is the highest, and there are two different layers of value between them. Moreover, there is an order of rank among the different sub-types of each of the four layers of non-moral value discussed above.

  Ibid., 125; 108.  Ibid. 35   Ibid., 344; 342. 36  Ibid. 37   Ibid., 344; 343. 38   Ibid., 126; 109. 39   Ibid., 344; 343. 40  Ibid. 41  Ibid. 42   Ibid., 345; 343. 43  Ibid. 44   Ibid., 345; 344. 45   Ibid., 126; 109. 46   Ibid., 47; 25. 33 34

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Like Brentano and Husserl, Scheler considers it to be an essential law that a higher (positive) non-moral value is to be “preferred to” a lower (negative) non-moral value and a lower (negative) non-moral value is to be “placed after” (nachgesetzt) a higher (positive) non-moral value.47 According to Scheler, it is this essential law that makes it possible to understand the appearance of moral value. He claims that moral value accompanies “an act of willing”48 to realize a non-moral value; the moral value of the good appears if a person attempts to realize a higher (positive) non-moral value rather than a lower (negative) non-moral value, whereas the moral value of the bad appears if a person realizes a lower non-moral value rather than a higher non-moral value. Thus, “the act of willing” to realize the higher (positive) non-moral value or the lower (negative) non-moral value turns out to be “the conditions of the appearance”49 of the moral value. It should be noted, however, that the moral value is not the “content”50 that is “intended”51 in the act of willing to realize the higher (positive) non-moral value or the lower (negative) one. The moral value itself does not appear in the act of willing to realize the higher or the lower non-moral value, but “on the back of this act”.52 The moral value that appears in this way is immediately experienced in moral feeling. In this context, Scheler holds the view that the moral values of the good and the bad are “clearly feelable non-formal values of their own kind”.53 This is the reason for the following claim: “All that can be requested is that one attends to seeing precisely what is immediately experienced in feeling good and evil.”54 As the mental state that immediately experiences the moral value of the good or the bad, “feeling good and evil” is thus the moral feeling itself. Like non-moral value, moral value too is a material value. As already indicated, there are material a priori laws that govern the sphere of moral value as material value, laws that can be grasped through an act of eidetic insight. It is precisely these material, a priori laws governing the sphere of moral value that make it possible to found a material a priori ethics of values that differs from Kant’s formal a priori ethics. Kant could only base his ethics as a formal a priori ethics, but not as a material a priori ethics, since he could not grasp the possibility of the existence of moral value as a material value.

    49   50   51   52   53   54   47 48

Ibid. Ibid., 48; 27. Ibid., 47; 25. Ibid., 48; 27. Ibid., 49; 27. Ibid., 48; 27. Ibid., 47; 25. Ibid.

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2. Mencius’s View on Feeling as the Origin of Value Mencius is considered to be a contemporary of Aristotle and is said to have learned from Tzu-ssu (子思, 481–402 BC), a pupil of Confucius’s grandson. Confucius laid the foundation of Confucianism, but he himself did not develop a systematic theory of Confucianism. It is the achievement of Mencius to have systematized Confucian theory in his own way. But he was not a mere systematizer of Confucianism. Within the central doctrine of human nature developed by the different schools of Confucianism, Mencius takes a big step forward with his theory that human nature is originally good. He builds his entire doctrine on this tenet.55 Like Scheler, Mencius holds the view that feeling is the origin of value. Mencius’s theory of feeling as the origin of value is also centered around his tenet that human nature is originally good. There are many passages in Mencius56 where Mencius develops his theory of feeling as the origin of value. Here I will concentrate on two important chapters, namely chapter 7 of book 1/part A and chapter 6 of book 2/part A. Chapter 7 of book 1/part A contains a dialogue between Mencius and King Hsüan of Ch’I about the virtue that one has to have to become a true king.57 King Hsüan asks Mencius a question: “How virtuous must a man be before he can become a true King?”58 and Mencius replies: “He becomes a true king by tending the people. This is something that no one can stop.”59 Then King Hsüan asks Mencius another question: “Can someone like myself tend the people?”60 Mencius replies with “Yes”, and gives the reason as follows: I heard the following from Hu He: The King was sitting in the hall. He saw someone passing below, leading an ox. The King noticed this and said, “Where is the ox going?” “The blood of the ox is to be used for consecrating a new bell.” “Spare it. I cannot bear to see it shrinking with fear, like an innocent man going to the place of execution.”61

The dialogue shows that Mencius considers feeling to be the origin of value. After telling the story to King Hsüan, Mencius asks the King if the story is true, and the King affirms it. Thereafter Mencius says: “The heart behind your action is sufficient to enable you to become a true king.”62 What is then the “heart” behind the King’s action? It is a feeling, namely, a feeling of pity, since   See Chan: Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 49–51.  Mencius: Mencius. Translated from Chinese by Dim Cheuk Lau. Hong Kong 2003. 57   Ibid., 15 ff. 58   Ibid., 15. 59   Ibid. 60   Ibid. 61   Ibid. 62   Ibid. 55 56

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the King claims that he “‘cannot bear to see [the ox] shrinking with fear, like an innocent man going to the place of execution.’” It should be noted that the pity for the animal discussed by Mencius is a moral feeling as the origin of a moral value. In other words, it is pity as a moral feeling that makes it possible to ascribe a moral value to the King who has such a feeling. What is then the moral value that is ascribed to the King who has the feeling of pity? In chapter 7 of book 1/part A, Mencius does not explicitly address the issue of the moral value that has its origin in the moral feeling of pity. It is clear, however, that it is the moral value of “benevolence” (仁). In this context, it should be noted that in chapter 7 of book 1/part A, Mencius speaks of “the way of a benevolent man” (仁術),63 which indicates that the moral value that Mencius has in mind in discussing the story of an ox is benevolence. Now let us turn to chapter 6 of book 2/part A. This chapter discusses the issue of moral feeling and moral value in a deeper as well as a more extensive manner than chapter 7 of book 1/part A. Let me clarify this point in more detail. First, in chapter 6 of book 2/part A, Mencius deals with the issue of moral feeling and moral value in a more extensive manner than in chapter 7 of book 1/part A. Mencius begins this chapter with a discussion of “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others” (不忍人之心),64 a heart that no person is devoid of. Mencius gives an example that clearly shows the existence of “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others”: My reason for saying that no man is devoid of a heart sensitive to the suffering of others is this. Suppose a man were, all of a sudden, to see a young child on the verge of falling into a well. He would certainly be moved to compassion, not because he wanted to get in the good graces of the parents, nor because he wished to win the praise of his fellow villagers or friends, nor yet because he disliked the cry of the child.65

As this example shows, anyone who saw a young child on the verge of falling into a well would certainly hurry to rescue the child. It should be noted that as the citation shows, one would do this not because of wanting to get in the parents’ good graces, win praise from villagers or friends, or stop the child from crying. Instead, it is only because of “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others” that one is moved to compassion. It is precisely “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others” that makes a person hurry to the child on the verge of falling into a well and therefore makes it possible to ascribe the moral value of benevolence to this person. Thus, as a moral feeling, “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others” turns out to be the origin of the moral value of benevolence. In chapter 6 of book 2/part A, Mencius calls “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others” the “heart of compassion” (惻隱之心).   Ibid., 17.   Ibid., 73. 65   Ibid. 63 64

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As long as chapter 6 of book 2/part A is simply seen as dealing with the issue of the moral value of benevolence and the moral feeling that is called the “heart of compassion”, the discussion there could merely be considered to be a continuation of the discussion in chapter 7 of book 1/part A on pity as the moral feeling of the “heart of compassion” and the moral value of benevolence. The only difference between these two chapters is that in chapter 6 of book 2/part A, the moral feeling of the “heart of compassion” as the origin of benevolence is concerned with a human being (the child), whereas in chapter 7 of book 1/part A, it is concerned with an animal (the ox). However, there is a big difference between the discussion of moral feeling and moral value in chapter 6 of book 2/part A and chapter 7 of book 1/part A; as already indicated, the discussion in chapter 6 of book 2/part A is more extensive than that of chapter 7 of book 1/part A. In chapter 6 of book 2/part A, Mencius deals not only with the moral value of benevolence and the moral feeling of the “heart of compassion” as the origin of benevolence, but also with other kinds of moral value such as “dutifulness” (義) or rightness, “observance of the rites” (禮), and “wisdom” (智), as well as with other kinds of moral feeling such as the “heart of shame” (羞惡之心) as the origin of “dutifulness”, the “heart of courtesy and modesty” (辭讓之心) as the origin of the “observance of the rites”, and the “heart of right and wrong” (是非之心) as the origin of “wisdom”. Thus, the famous passage that deals with the four cardinal Confucian moral virtues and the four cardinal moral feelings that correspond to them runs as follows: The heart of compassion is the germ of benevolence; the heart of shame, of dutifulness; the heart of courtesy and modesty, of observance of the rites; the heart of right and wrong, of wisdom66 (惻隱之心, 仁之端也; 羞惡之心, 義之端也; 辭讓之心, 禮之端也; 是非之心，智之端也).

It thus turns out that in chapter 6 of book 2/part A, Mencius discusses the issue of moral value and moral feeling in a more expansive manner than in chapter 7 of book 1/part A. It should be noted, however, that in this chapter, Mencius also deals with the same issue in a deeper manner than in chapter 7 of book 1/part A. Now he is no longer satisfied with the analysis of the four cardinal moral values and the corresponding four moral feelings. Based on his analysis, he tries to define the very nature of the human being. With respect to human nature, it is his observation that just as no person is devoid of “a heart sensitive to the suffering of others” as the heart of compassion, so also no person is devoid of the heart of shame, the heart of courtesy and modesty, and the heart of right and wrong. This is the reason why he claims that the four moral feelings discussed above are the essential components without which the human being

  Ibid.

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could not be called human in a genuine sense, as the following passage demonstrates: From this it can be seen that whoever is devoid of the heart of compassion is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of shame is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of courtesy and modesty is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of right and wrong is not human67 (由是觀之，無惻隱之心，非人也; 無羞惡之心, 非人也; 無辭讓之心，非人 也; 無是非之心，非人也).

The four kinds of feeling—the heart of compassion, the heart of shame, the heart of courtesy and modesty, and the heart of right and wrong—are called the “four sprouts” (四端), since they are the origins of the four cardinal moral values of benevolence, dutifulness, observance of the rites, and wisdom. The four sprouts are good in nature, and his analysis of them enables Mencius to claim that the nature of the human being is good; since the four moral feelings are themselves good in nature, so also is the nature of the human being who has them. This is the crux of his theory that the human nature is good, a theory that he tries to elaborate in a dispute with Kao Tzu (告子), who claims that human nature is neither good nor bad.68 Mencius’s theory of human nature as good is handed down to Wang Yang-Ming (王陽明, 1472–1528) and some other Confucian philosophers, and has an important position in the history of Confucianism. 3. Phenomenological Dialogue Between Scheler and Mencius Both Scheler’s theory of value and that of Mencius are classics of the theory of value. They are rich and full of insights and could make an immense contribution to the contemporary discussion of feeling in different streams and disciplines of philosophy. However, this does not mean that they are perfect theories of value that do not need any revision. Instead, they have some difficulties that should be removed so that they could become better theories of value. These difficulties can come to the fore more clearly, and the solution to these difficulties can more easily be found, if they are contrasted with each other as two partners in a phenomenological dialogue. I will first deal with some difficulties of Mencius’s theory of value that could be removed through a dialogue with Scheler.

 Ibid.   See ibid., 241 ff.

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3.1  Lessons from Scheler to Mencius Scheler’s material a priori theory of value is guided by the premise that there are different dimensions of the theory of value. In this context, he makes a distinction between a material a priori theory of value and a formal a priori theory of value. A typical example of the latter is Kant’s theory of value, and Scheler’s critique of it is the starting point from which he develops his own theory of value. These two dimensions of the theory of value could be called dimensions of an a priori theory of value that aims to clarify the a priori structure of value. In addition to these dimensions of an eidetic theory of value, however, there is also the dimension of an empirical theory of value that aims to clarify the empirical structure of value as it is experienced in a concrete sociohistorical context. In order to develop the theory of value systematically, then, one has to make a clear distinction between these different dimensions of the theory of value. In contrast to Scheler, who makes a clear distinction between these different dimensions, Mencius does not make such distinctions in developing his theory of value. It is clear that Mencius’s theory of value is not a formal a priori theory of value like Kant’s; it is a material theory of value. It should nevertheless be noted that there are two types of material theory of value, namely, an empirical theory and a material a priori theory of value. And it is not clear if Mencius is developing an empirical theory of value whose object is the empirical structure of value that was valid during the Warrior Period when he himself was alive, or a material a priori theory of value that has an objective validity not confined to this sociohistorical context. In my view, Mencius’s theory of value is a mixture of an empirical theory and a material a priori theory of value. On the one hand, in some places he seems to be developing an empirical theory of value, as when he appeals to many concrete examples related to his own sociohistorical context. On the other hand, there are also places where he seems to be developing a material a priori theory of value, as when he makes a general statement such as the following: “No man is devoid of a heart sensitive to the suffering of others”69 (人皆有不忍人之心) or “Whoever is devoid of the heart of compassion is not human […]”70 (無惻隱之心，非人也 […]). If Mencius had had a chance to talk with Scheler, he could have based his theory of value on a clear distinction between the different dimensions of the theory of value. Moreover, in order to develop his theory of moral value, Scheler develops a general theory of value that attempts to analyze different types of value. Even though, as we will see below, there are some difficulties with his theory of moral value within the framework of his general theory of value, his attempt to develop a general theory of value is of great significance for developing his theory of   Ibid., 73.  Ibid.

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moral value. In contrast, Mencius does not develop his theory of moral value on the basis of a general theory of value. In my view, he should have developed a general theory of value so that he could develop his theory of moral value systematically. It should be noted with respect to this issue that Mencius does indeed address the issue of non-moral value. A typical example appears in chapter 1 of book1/part 1 of Mencius. This chapter begins with a dialogue between Mencius and King Hui of Liang. King Hui of Liang opens the dialogue with the remark: “You, Sir, have come all this distance, thinking nothing of a thousand of li. You must surely have some way of profiting my state.”71 Mencius replies: “What is the point of mentioning the word ‘profit’ (利)? All that matters is that there should be benevolence (仁) and rightness (義).”72 Then Mencius clarifies why the most important thing in a country as well as in an individual person is not profit, but benevolence and rightness. Moreover, Mencius does partly deal with the relationship between moral feeling as the origin of moral value and non-moral feeling as the origin of non-moral value. For example, in chapter 2 of book1/part 1 of Mencius, standing over a pond and looking around at his wild geese and deer, King Hui of Liang asks Mencius if such things are enjoyed by a wise man of benevolence and rightness and Mencius replies: “Only if a man is good and wise, is he able to enjoy them. Otherwise he would not, even if he had them.”73 The profit that is discussed in chapter 1 of book1/part 1 of Mencius is a kind of non-moral value that Mencius contrasts with benevolence and rightness as moral values. However, Mencius does not clarify in detail what it is. Similarly, the value of the wild geese and deer that King Hui is proud of is also a non-moral value, yet Mencius does not discuss what kind of value it is concretely. It could be interpreted as an economic value if King Hui is proud that they are expensive, or it could be interpreted as an aesthetic value if he is proud that they are beautiful. Moreover, even though Mencius claims that only a man of benevolence and rightness could enjoy things with non-moral value, he does not clarify why this is the case. In order to clarify not only these points but the structure of moral value per se, Mencius should have first systematically developed a general theory of value whose aim is to clarify the structure of both moral value and of non-moral value (including profit as a kind of non-moral value). In this respect, Scheler’s attempt to develop a general theory of value could be a good guide for Mencius.

  Ibid., 3.  Ibid. 73   Ibid., 5. 71 72

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3.2  Lessons from Mencius to Scheler Scheler’s theory of value also has some weak points that could be overcome through a dialogue with Mencius. I will deal with only one of them, namely, his view that moral value is located “on the back” of an act of willing to realize a higher (positive) value rather than a lower (negative) one. It should be noted that there is no room for Mencius to hold such a view. According to him, the sphere of moral value as a material value is an isolated sphere of value that can exist without any relation to other spheres of material value. For example, the value of benevolence that is immediately experienced through the moral feeling of pity is ascribed to the person who experiences that moral feeling and acts upon that feeling, as the example of the person who hurries to rescue a child on the verge of falling into a well shows. The value of benevolence as a moral value has its existence in the person carrying out a benevolent behavior without any relation to an act of willing to realize a higher value rather than a lower one. From the perspective of Mencius, then, Scheler’s theory of moral value as a value that is located on the back of an act of willing to realize a higher (positive) value rather than a lower (negative) one has some serious problems. If Scheler could be brought into dialogue with Mencius, his material ethics of value would no longer have such problems and could be developed into a better form of the material ethics of value. Such problems show that there are lessons that Scheler could take from Mencius in developing his theory of the material ethics of value. Let me point out two of them. First, as discussed by Philip Blosser in a detailed manner,74 if the higher (positive) value and the lower (negative) one is not of the same kind, it is true that there are cases where a moral value could be located “on the back” of an act of willing to realize a higher (positive) value rather than a lower (negative) one. A typical example would be the case of parents who spend money for the education of their children rather than for their own sensual enjoyment. However, even if the higher (positive) value and the lower (negative) one is not of the same kind, there are other cases where no moral value can be located “on the back” of an act of willing to realize the higher (positive) value rather than the lower (negative) one. For example, if the higher (positive) value is a vital value such as the value of taking care of one’s health and the lower (negative) one is a sensual value such as the value of tasting something, no moral value could be located “on the back” of an act of willing to realize the higher (positive) value rather than the lower (negative) one. This becomes clear if we imagine the ac  Philip Blosser: “Moral and nonmoral values: A problem in Scheler’s ethics”. In: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 48(1), 1987, 139–143; Philip Blosser: Scheler’s Critique of Kant’s Ethics. Athens, OH 1995, 65 ff.; Philip Blosser: “Max Scheler: A sketch of his moral philosophy”. In: John Drummond, Lester Embree (Eds.), Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy: A Handbook. Dordrecht 2002, 391–413, here: 400–401. 74

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tion of a person who spends money to take care of his or her health rather than to enjoy a delicious meal. Normally the action of this person is not considered to be a moral action. Moreover, as Blosser clearly shows, if the higher (positive) value and the lower (negative) one are of the same kind, no moral value can be located “on the back” of an act of willing to realize the higher (positive) value rather than the lower (negative) one. For example, if both the higher (positive) value and the lower (negative) one are economic values or aesthetic values, what could be located “on the back” of the act of willing to realize the higher (positive) value rather than the lower (negative) one is not a moral value, but an economic value or an aesthetic value. Second, among the many kinds of value that Scheler considers to be non-moral material values, there seem to be some values that could be classified as moral values instead. For example, the value that has its origin in the feeling of “respect and disrespect”75 and the value of friendship that has its origin in the feeling of “sympathy”76 seem to be moral values. With respect to the value of friendship, it should be noted that it is considered to be a central moral value both in Aristotle77 and in Confucian philosophy. Moreover, those values that belong to the highest layer of value—namely, religious values of the sacred and the non-sacred—also seem to be able to be classified as moral values. As mentioned above, Scheler himself calls this kind of value “the moral value of our personal being”.78 It is sometimes difficult to make a clear distinction between moral value and religious value. This is the reason why some philosophers do not separate the two.79 In short, those values on the list of the four different layers of value that seem to be moral values do not appear “on the back” of an act of willing to realize a higher (positive) value rather than a lower (negative) one. Instead, as Scheler himself shows, they are experienced immediately in the different kinds of feeling. As such, they are a real threat to Scheler’s claim that moral value is a value that is located “on the back” of an act of willing to realize a higher (positive) value rather than a lower (negative) one. Scheler’s theory of moral value as a value that is located “on the back” of act of willing is therefore highly problematic. In developing his theory of moral value, Scheler is right to criticize Kant for failing to admit the existence of material moral value. It should be noted, however, that he is wrong in sharing with Kant the basic premise that moral value can be defined in relation to non-moral values. As already indicated, moral value does not need to be defined in relation  Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik, 125; Scheler: Formalism in Ethics, 108.   Ibid. 77   See Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Translated from Greek by David Ross. Oxford 1980, 1155a  ff. 78  Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik, 345; Scheler: Formalism in Ethics, 343. 79   A typical example is Henri Bergson: Les deux sources de la moral et de la religion. Paris 1961. 75 76

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to non-moral values. In order to develop a material a priori ethics in a genuine sense, one should be liberated from this Kantian premise. If Scheler were to discuss this issue with Mencius (and with some other philosophers,80 of course), he could be liberated from this premise, since it is absolutely impossible for Mencius to share this premise with Scheler: contrary to what Scheler claims, Mencius holds the view that moral value is an independent material value that is immediately experienced in moral feeling without any relation to non-moral material values. This is just one lesson that Scheler could learn from Mencius in developing a better form of his material ethics of value. 4. The Intersubjective Aspect of Moral Feeling A possible phenomenological dialogue between Scheler and Mencius can give us the opportunity to develop a moral phenomenology of intersubjectivity by clarifying the various aspects of moral feeling as the origin of moral value.81 Since moral feeling has various intersubjective aspects that are essential components of it, then in order to understand the structure of moral feelings more concretely, we need to clarify their intersubjective aspects. And although there are various kinds of moral feeling, for the sake of convenience I will confine my discussion to the four moral feelings discussed by Mencius. I will show that each of the four moral feelings can be considered in many respects to be an intersubjective feeling that cannot exist without intersubjective connections. First, each of the four moral feelings has an intersubjective aspect in the sense that they have others as their intentional objects. It is obvious that the “heart of compassion” that serves as the origin of benevolence points toward others as its intentional object. It should be noted, however, that the objects of moral feelings are not confined to human beings, but can include animals, as illustrated by the example of the ox whose blood is to be used for consecrating a new bell. In my view, in the age of environmental crisis, we must extend the objects of the “heart of compassion” to plants as well. It should be noted that the “heart of compassion” can have the self as its intentional object, as the term “self-pity” indicates. The “heart of shame”, which is the origin of “dutifulness”, also has the other as its intentional object. Contrary to the “heart of compassion”, it does   For example, we could consider Scheler in dialogue with Chong Yak-Yong or Johann Gottlieb Fichte. See Chong Yak-Yong: 國譯 與猶堂全書 5 [Complete Works of Chong Yak-Yong in Korean Translation 5]. Seoul 1995; Chong Yak-Yong: 國譯 與猶堂全書 1 [Complete Works of Chong Yak-Yong in Korean Translation 1]. Seoul 1999; Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (1798). Fichtes Werke, Band IV: Zur Rechts- und Sittenlehre II. Berlin 1971. 81   For a clarification of the moral feeling in Confucianism in comparison with Max Scheler’s concept of shame, see Yinghua Lu: “The phenomenology of shame: A clarification in light of Max Scheler and Confucianism”. In: Continental Philosophy Review 51(4), 2018, 507–525. 80

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not have animals or plants as its intentional objects, for we generally do not think that animals should be ashamed of themselves for any action they may take. Still, just like the “heart of compassion”, it can have the self as its intentional object, as we can become ashamed of ourselves. The “heart of courtesy and modesty”, which is the origin of the “observance of the rites”, is perhaps one of the most characteristic examples of a moral feeling with the other as its intentional object. It can have as its intentional object everything from humans to nature, as the activities of animal lovers and conservationists show. It can also have the self as its intentional object, as when we say: “Treat yourself not as a means, but as an end in itself !” Finally, the “heart of right and wrong”, the origin of “wisdom”, has not only the other but also the self as its intentional object. Second, each of the four moral feelings has an intersubjective aspect in the sense that it can work only in a society as the constitutive product of intersubjective actions between individuals. Society as a field in which moral feelings can operate includes not only human beings, but also animals, plants, and inorganic nature. With Husserl, we can call such a society the “community of monads” (Monadengemeinschaft).82 It should be noted that among the members of the community of monads, only the human being can play the role both of a moral agent and of a moral object, whereas animals, plants, and inorganic nature can only play the role of a moral object. Third, each of the four moral feelings has an intersubjective aspect in the sense that a moral action (M) carried out by a moral agent (A) can be judged by others. Of particular interest is the difference between two kinds of judgment, namely, the positive judgment that one is a human being and the negative judgment that one is not a human being. If A is judged by others to have carried out M properly corresponding to the moral feeling (F) that motivates M, A is considered a human being. If not, A is considered inhuman. To return to the example of a person hurrying to rescue a young child, the person who is moved by compassion and runs to rescue the child can be seen as human being. However, a person who hesitates or simply leaves the child to its fate is judged to be inhuman. The same applies to the other three moral feelings as well. With respect to the negative evaluation of a moral action motivated through these feelings, Mencius claims: “From this it can be seen that whoever is devoid of the heart of compassion is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of shame is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of courtesy and modesty is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of right and wrong is not human.”83 Fourth, each of the four moral feeling has an intersubjective aspect in the sense that it can have not only subjective validity, but intersubjective validity or even objective validity. It should be noted that, with respect to the validity of   Hua XV, 596.  Mencius: Mencius, 73.

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M, we can make a distinction between 1) subjective validity, 2) intersubjective validity, and 3) objective validity. There are three different kinds of M, namely, a moral action that is merely subjectively valid; a moral action that is intersubjectively valid; and a moral action that is objectively valid. Thus, if a moral action is valid only for A, it is only subjectively valid. If M is valid not only for A, but also for a group of moral agents to which A belongs yet not for all possible rational moral agents, it is intersubjectively valid. In other words, if any of the moral agents in a group of moral agents believed that if they were in the same position as A and found M to be valid, then M has intersubjective validity. Finally, if M is valid not only for A, but also for all possible moral agents, then it is objectively valid. Thus, if any possible rational moral agent would do the same M as A did, had they been in the same situation, M can be said to be objectively valid. It is clear that A can carry out moral actions that are not only subjectively valid, but also those that are intersubjectively or even objectively valid. 5. Concluding Remarks Even though the material ethics of value independently developed by Scheler and by Mencius are of great importance for ethical discourse, each theory has some difficulties that could be overcome through a phenomenological dialogue between the two thinkers, and if these difficulties are overcome, we could develop the material ethics of value in a more perfect form. It should be noted, however, that there are further difficulties that I could not discuss above. Let me briefly give two examples, one from Mencius and the other from Scheler. First, “moral insight”84 or moral evidence is an important topic of Scheler’s material ethics of value. In this context, with respect to the relationship between moral insight and duty, he writes as follows: Moral insight differs from mere consciousness of duty in all of these aspects. The content which imposes itself on us as a duty, which comes to us as a morally evidential and good content, and which is therefore a true and genuine duty, is also an object of moral insight, in contrast to merely imagined duty. Thus, an ethics of insight should not be, as it frequently is, confused with an ethics of duty. They are in opposition to each other.85

In contrast to Scheler, Mencius does not deal with the issue of moral insight or moral evidence at all, which is a difficulty of his theory of value.  Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik, 202 ff., 324 ff., 329 ff., 492; Scheler: Formalism in Ethics, 194, 321 ff., 327, 501. Starting from Husserl’s theory of evidence, Tammo Elija Mintken atttempts to develop a “prolegomena for a phenomenological theory of moral evidence and moral truth”. See Tammo Elija Mintken: “Husserls Evidenzbegriff in der intersubjektiven Bewährung moralischer Evidenzen”. In: Husserl Studies 33(3), 2017, 259–285. 85  Scheler: Der Formalismus in der Ethik, 202; Scheler: Formalism in Ethics, 194. 84

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Second, as will be discussed in chapter 11, Mencius’s theory of moral feeling is not confined to the framework of the theory discussed above. It gains additional depth with his theory of “good ability”86 (良能) as “what a man is able to do without having to learn it”87 (人之所不學而能者), a theory that could be interpreted, in my view, in terms of moral instinct88 as the genetic foundation of moral feeling. Contrary to Mencius, Scheler does not deal with the issue of moral instinct in Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, which is in my view another difficulty of his material ethics of value. Both theories of value, then—that of Scheler as well as that of Mencius—have a number of difficulties. It is our future task to continue a further phenomenological dialogue between Scheler and Mencius with respect to these difficulties.

  I have rendered 良能 as “good ability”.  Mencius: Mencius, 291. 88   As will be discussed in chapter 11, here instinct does not mean instinctive behavior (Instinkthandlung) but a kind of innate intentionality that is directed toward a certain group of objects. I have discussed the concept of instinct as a kind of innate intentionality in: Nam-In Lee: Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte; Nam-In Lee: “Criticism of Gehlen’s theory of instinct-reduction and phenomenological clarification of the concept of instinct as the genetic origin of embodied consciousness”. In: Yearbook for Eastern and Western Philosophy 2, 2017, 355–371. The issue of the moral instinct has been discussed in Steven Pinker: “The moral instinct”. In: The New York Times Magazine, January 13, 2008. See also Liangkang Ni: “Moral instinct and moral judgment”. In: Frontiers of Philosophy in China 4(1), 2009, 238–250 and Nam-In Lee: “Toward a phenomenology of moral drive: A dialogue with Dasan and Fichte”. In: Diogenes 62(2), 2018, 54–61. 86 87

Chapter 11 Moral Instinct in Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong At the end of chapter 10, closing my discussion of “Feeling as the Origin of Value in Scheler and Mencius”, I addressed the issue of a phenomenology of moral instinct that aims to clarify the structure of moral instinct as the genetic foundation of moral feeling. It is the aim of chapter 11 to explore this possibility in order to develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. There are several philosophers who have developed a theory of moral instinct. In this chapter, I will be concerned with two of them, Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) and Chong Yak-Yong (1762–1836),1 examining their possible contributions toward a phenomenology of moral instinct. Francis Hutcheson is a Scottish philosopher who is well known for his moral philosophy as a theory of moral sense. He developed a theory of moral instinct as a part of his theory of moral sense. Chong Yak-Yong, better known by his pen name Dasan, is the most important representative of silhak, a practical stream of Confucianism in the 18th and 19th centuries of the Choson Dynasty in Korea. He developed a theory of moral instinct within the general framework of his theory of human nature. It is highly interesting to observe that the theory of moral instinct developed by Hutcheson and that developed by Chong Yak-Yong show various kinds of similarity. By partly adopting and partly criticizing them, we can develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. In section 1, I will clarify the concept of instinct since it will play an important role in this chapter but is widely misunderstood. Then in sections 2–3, I will introduce respectively the theory of moral instinct developed by Francis Hutcheson and that developed by Chong Yak-Yong. Both philosophers have contributed immensely to the clarification of moral instinct. Yet this does not mean that they have provided perfect theories in no need of revision. In fact, each theory has some limitations that we have to overcome in order to develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. In section 4, I will deal with one of the topics they discuss—namely, the relationship between moral instinct and moral feeling—and show how we can develop a phenomenology of moral instinct by partly adopting and partly criticizing their views on this topic. It should also be noted, however, that there are many important topics in the phenomenology of moral instinct that they have not clarified systematically. It is thus the future task of the phenomenology of moral instinct to clarify all of these topics systematically. In section 5, I will address one such topic, identifying certain   In Korean, the family name comes before the given name. Chong is the family name and Yak-Yong is the given name. Thus, corresponding to the Korean way of naming, I write Chong Yak-Yong, not Yak-Yong Chong. 1

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intersubjective aspects of moral instinct and attempting to clarify some of these aspects as a way to develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. 1. The Concept of Instinct Before I begin my discussion, I would like to offer a brief clarification of the concept of instinct, since it is an ambiguous concept with many different meanings. If we take a look at the various concepts of instinct, we realize that among these concepts, the following two are the most important: namely, “instinctive behavior” (Instinkthandlung) and “innate drive” as a kind of intentionality that is specific to a species.2 First, instinct as instinctive behavior means the “distinct behavior pattern”3 of a species such as the nesting of birds or the copulation of animals. This concept of instinct can be called a natural-scientific one since it can be established through “observation from the outside” (Aussenbetrachtung)4 just like other objects of the various kinds of natural science. Second, instinct as the innate drive that is specific to a species is a kind of intentionality. Instinct in this sense has all of the properties of intentionality, such as the noesis-noema structure, the movement from an empty intention to its fulfillment, the function of constituting worlds and worldly objects, etc. The concept of instinct as the innate drive that is specific to a species can be called a phenomenological concept, since it can be established through “observation from within” (Innenbetrachtung).5 It is the latter concept of instinct that Husserl employs in developing the phenomenology of instinct in his manuscripts; this is also this concept of instinct that I will employ in discussing the structure of moral instinct in this chapter. On another occasion,6 I have clarified the essential components of instinct as a kind of intentionality, and some of them are as follows: 1) Instinct is an internal, vital power. As a vital power, it is generated internally in an organism and displayed through the organism’s behavior. 2) Instinct is a vital power universally belonging to the organisms of a given species. 3) Instinct as a vital power can display potentiality and actuality. Some instincts will at first exist as potentiality, and at some fixed point in time, they will transform into actuality when they officially begin to operate.   I have dealt with this issue in a more detailed manner in Nam-In Lee: “Criticism of Gehlen’s theory of instinct-reduction”,17. 3   Arnold Gehlen: Der Mensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt. Frankfurt am Main 1974, 25. 4   Hua XLII, 98. 5   Hua XLII, 98. 6   See Nam-In Lee: “Criticism of Gehlen’s theory of instinct-reduction”, 363 ff. 2

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4) Instinct is a vital power that propels an organism belonging to a species to head toward specific types of objects. Thus, instinct as a vital power possesses the structure of a noesis-noema correlation. 5) To say that instinct is a power that propels an organism toward specific types of objects is to claim that it is a kind of drive. It should be noted, however, that instinct is not the same as drive, since there are two kinds of drive, namely, innate drive and acquired drive, and it is the innate drive that is instinct. 2. The Theory of Moral Instinct in Hutcheson One of the aims of Hutcheson’s moral philosophy is to defend Shaftesbury’s position on moral philosophy against that of Bernard Mandeville.7 Developing his moral philosophy in the Platonic tradition, Shaftesbury holds the view that human beings are born not only with a selfish nature, but also with benevolent affections for others, whereas Mandeville claims that humans have only a selfish nature. As Wolfgang Leithold aptly puts it: “The first position argues that men have by nature moral principles, the second that these principles are but a political invention that is socially useful and based only on self-love or self-interest.”8 Contrary to Mandeville, “Shaftesbury taught that social affections were the foundation of morals and that a moral sense is the origin of our moral ideas.”9 Following Shaftesbury, Hutcheson develops his moral philosophy as a theory of moral sense that considers benevolent affections toward others to be the foundation of morality. Hutcheson develops his theory of moral sense by defining “moral good” and “moral evil” as two basic concepts of moral philosophy. According to him, The Word Moral Goodness […] denotes our Idea of some Quality apprehended in Actions, which procures Approbation, and Love toward the Actor, from those who receive no Advantage by the Action. Moral Evil, denotes our Idea of a contrary Quality, which excites Aversion, and Dislike toward the Actor, even from Persons unconcern’d in its natural Tendency.10

It should be noted that in defining moral good and evil, Hutcheson implicitly makes a distinction between “moral” good and evil and “natural” good and evil. What is important for the definition of moral good/evil, however, is the fact that the evaluation is carried out by “those who receive no Advantage by the   My description of the relationship between Hutcheson and Mandeville is based on Wolfgang Leithold: “Introduction”. In: Francis Hutcheson: An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue. Indianapolis, IN 2004, ix–xviii, here xiii.  8  Ibid.  9  Ibid. 10  Hutcheson: An Inquiry, 85.  7

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Action” in the case of moral good and by “Persons unconcern’d in its natural Tendency” in the case of moral evil. Thus, impartiality or disinterestedness is the presupposition for the evaluation of moral good/evil, whereas this is not the case with natural good/evil. The main point of Hutcheson’s theory of moral sense is that the moral quality of an action (whether the action is morally good or morally bad) is immediately perceived, just as a stone or a tree on the street is immediately perceived. When we see a person acting in a certain situation, we immediately know whether the action is morally good or not, just as we immediately know whether a tree is green or not when we see it. Hutcheson calls the “power” to perceive the moral quality of an action immediately the “moral sense”: We must then certainly have other Perceptions of moral Actions than those of Advantage: And that Power of receiving these Perceptions may be call’d a Moral Sense, since the Definition agrees to it, viz. a Determination of the Mind, to receive any Idea from the Presence of an Object which occurs to us, independent on our Will.11

Just as there are five outer senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.) that function as the “power” to perceive the sensual qualities of an object of external sensibility, so also is there a moral sense that immediately perceives the moral quality of an action. It should be noted, however, that moral sense is not a merely cognitive act. Insofar as we feel pleasure or pain while the moral sense is being activated, it also has a component of feeling. Moreover, insofar as we are urged to accommodate our action to the voice of the moral sense during every moment when the moral sense is activated in us, it has a volitive component as well. As David Fate Norton clearly shows,12 moral sense does not consist in a single component, whether this is a cognitive act or an emotive act or a volitive act but consists instead of many components. It is one of the most important tasks of Hutcheson’s theory of moral sense to clarify the motivation of moral action, and it is precisely in this context that he develops a theory of moral instinct. In order to clarify the motivation of moral action, Hutcheson examines the motivation of human action in general. In this respect, he holds the view that “affection” or feeling is the motivation of human action, and he correspondingly writes as follows: “The Motives of human Action or their immediate Causes, would be best understood after considering the Passions and Affections […].”13 And moral action is no exception: “Every Action, which we apprehend as either morally good or evil, is always suppos’d to flow from some Affection toward rational Agents; and whatever we call Virtue or Vice, is either some such Affections, or Some Action consequent upon   Ibid., 90.   David Fate Norton: “Hutcheson’s moral sense theory reconsidered”. In: Dialogue 13(1), 1974, 3–23. 13  Hutcheson: An Inquiry, 101. 11 12

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it.”14 According to Hutcheson, there is a similarity between moral action and religious action insofar as both of them arise from affection toward some entity, namely from affection toward God in the case of religious action and from affection toward fellow human beings in the case of moral action, as the following passage shows: All the Actions counted as religious in any Country, are suppos’d, by those who count them so, to flow from some Affections toward Deity; and whatever we call social Virtue, we still suppose to flow from Affections toward our Fellow-Creatures […].15

Thus, according to Hutcheson, in the case of religious action, it is “some Affections toward Deity” from which all of the various kinds of religious actions flow. These “Affections toward Deity” can include such feelings as love for God, respect for God, being in awe of God, peace, and infinite fulfillment, or else anxiety, solitude, and trembling corresponding to the concrete situation the individual is confronting. What, then, are the affections or feelings that can be called moral affections, or feelings from which the various kinds of moral action flow? Although there are different kinds of moral affections, “The Affections which are of most Importance in Moral, are Love and Hatred: All the rest seem but different Modifications of these two original Affections.”16 It should be noted that love as the motivation for moral action has nothing to do with “Love between the Sexes, which, when no other Affections accompany it, is only Desire of Pleasure, and is never counted as a Virtue”.17 As Hutcheson says, if love between the sexes is accompanied by some other affections, it can indeed motivate an action that can be called moral, but in normal cases, sexual love has nothing to do with love as the motivation of moral action. What is essential for love as the motivation of moral action is its being free from “Motives of Self-Interest”,18 that is, its impartiality. Hutcheson attempts to clarify what love as the motivation for moral action is by giving some examples, a clarification that goes hand in hand with the classification of love and hatred: “Love toward rational Agents, is subdivided into Love of Complacence or Esteem, and Love of Benevolence; And Hatred is subdivided into Hatred of Displicence or Contempt, and Hatred of Malice.”19 To the extent to which Hutcheson considers affection or feelings of love and hatred to be the motivation of moral action, his theory of moral sense might be classified as a form of sentimentalism. In fact, there are scholars who do consid-

 Ibid.  Ibid. 16   Ibid., 102. 17  Ibid. 18  Ibid. 19  Ibid. 14 15

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er his theory of moral sense to be sentimentalism.20 It should be noted, however, that sentimentalism is not the final position of his theory of moral sense. He believes that there is a motivation that lies behind the moral affection of love, and asks: Whence arises this Love of Esteem, or Benevolence, to good Men, or to Mankind in general, if not from some nice Views of Self-Interest? Or, how we can be mov’d to desire the Happiness of others, without any View to our own?21

As the phrase “how we can be mov’d to desire the Happiness of others” shows, Hutcheson implicitly holds the view that the affection of love is not a mere feeling, but a feeling connected with the power “to desire the Happiness of others”. The affection of love for others can be called a desiring feeling for others or a felt desire for others. It is obvious that he is now inquiring into the motivation from which the affection of love for others as a desiring feeling or a felt desire arises. Since the affection of love for others has desire as one of its components, the motivation that lies behind it should also have desire as one of its components. It is in this context that Hutcheson considers instinct, the most original form of desire, to be the motivation of the moral affection of love for others, as the following claim explicitly shows: That the same Cause which determines us to pursue Happiness for our selves, determines us both to Esteem and Benevolence on their proper Occasions; even the very Frame of our Nature, or a generous instinct, which shall be afterwards explain’d.22

Thus, an instinct that Hutcheson calls a “generous instinct” turns out to be the motivation for the affection of love toward others, and Hutcheson employs the concept of a “benevolent universal Instinct”23 to designate this generous instinct. Even though Hutcheson does not employ the concept of moral instinct to identify such a generous instinct as the motivation for the affection of love toward others, it is clear that this “generous instinct” can be termed moral instinct, since it is the instinct serving as the motivation for various kinds of moral action. With respect to moral instinct, the following two points should be mentioned. First, Hutcheson attempts to clarify the structure of moral instinct by comparing it with another instinct that has a totally different structure. He calls this other kind of instinct “the Instinct toward private Happiness”.24 This is a matter   See, for example, William Frankena: “Hutcheson’s moral sense theory”. In: Journal of the History of Ideas 16(3), 1955, 356–375; Alejandra Mancilla: “The bridge of benevolence: Hutcheson and Mencius”. In: Dao 12, 2013, 57–72. 21  Hutcheson: An Inquiry, 104. 22  Ibid. 23   Ibid., 133. 24  Ibid. 20

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of instinct as the original desire to pursue one’s own interest, the original desire to love oneself. It is the motivation to act for one’s own benefit, not for the good of others, and as such it cannot be impartial. Second, neither “the instinct toward private Happiness” nor the moral instinct as a “generous instinct” or a “benevolent universal instinct” is an instinctive behavior; instead, what is at stake is innate drive or desire as a kind of intentionality, and Hutcheson was clearly aware of this. For instance, replying to possible critics who are not aware of the concept of instinct as a kind of intentionality and cling to the concept of instinct as the instinctive behavior of brutes, he writes as follows: Some perhaps take the word [instinct] solely for such motions of will, or bodily powers, as determine us without knowledge or intention of any end. Such instincts cannot be the spring of virtue. […] If any quarrel the application of the word instinct to anything higher than what we find in brutes, let them use another word.25

As this passage shows, it is instinct as a kind of intentionality, not as instinctive behavior, that Hutcheson employs to develop his theory of moral instinct. For this reason, I claim that in clarifying the structure of the intentionality of moral instinct, Hutcheson develops his theory of moral instinct as a phenomenology of moral instinct, even though one cannot explicitly find such concepts as the intentionality of moral instinct—or the concept of phenomenology itself—in his works on moral instinct. Moreover, I claim the same for his theory of moral sense as a whole, a theory that has his theory of moral instinct as one of its parts. His theory of moral sense as a whole can thus be characterized as a kind of phenomenology of moral sense, as can be verified by a detailed phenomenological clarification of its constitutive parts. 3. The Theory of Moral Instinct in Chong Yak-Yong26 As mentioned above in chapter 10, in Confucian philosophy, the theory of human nature takes a central position. As a Confucian philosopher, Chong Yak-Yong deals with the issue of “kiho”(嗜好) within the general framework of his theory of human nature. He claims that human nature is kiho. The literal meaning of kiho is “liking”, and kiho as a noun that characterizes human nature is the feeling of liking or the feeling of pleasure. However, if we consider the various contexts in which the term is employed in his works, we discover that it   Francis Hutcheson: An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense. Carmel, IN 2003, 260. 26   This section is a revision of the section on “Dasan’s theory of moral drive” in Nam-In Lee: “Toward a phenomenology of moral drive: A dialogue with Dasan and Fichte”, 56–58. 25

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has not only the meaning of the feeling of pleasure, but first of all the meaning of instinct. In this section, I will show how Chong Yak-Yong develops a theory of moral instinct in the general context of his theory of human nature. Moreover, I would like to show that in developing his theory of moral instinct, he was decisively influenced by Mencius, who also develops a theory of moral instinct. Now let us take a look at Chong Yak-Yong’s theory of kiho, and more specifically, his theory of moral kiho. Chong Yak-Yong holds the view that there are two kinds of kiho, namely, “the kiho of spiritual knowledge” and “the kiho of the material body”,27 as we can read in the following passage: “Nature is kiho. There is a kiho of the material body, as well as of spiritual knowledge, and they are equally called ‘nature.’”28 In this passage, “the kiho of spiritual knowledge” and “the kiho of the material body” can be called, respectively, moral kiho and sensual kiho. Even though he maintains that the human being has two kinds of kiho, he considers the kiho of the material body or the sensual kiho to be less important than the kiho of spiritual knowledge or moral kiho. This is the reason why one cannot find a detailed analysis of the kiho of the material body in his works. However, there are many works where he analyzes moral kiho. In order to understand what moral kiho is, we must first clarify what the notion of kiho originally means in general, and there is indeed a passage that gives a clue in this regard. There Chong Yak-Yong discusses a new distinction between two kinds of kiho that is different from the distinction discussed above. With respect to this new distinction, he writes as follows: There are two kinds of kiho. One is the pleasure in front of our eyes (目下之耽樂), as when we say that the peasant likes the mountain, the deer likes the field, the orangutan likes wine. That is one meaning of kiho. The other meaning of kiho is being inevitable (畢 竟之生成), as when we say that rice likes water, millet likes dry earth […].29

As this passage shows, Chong Yak-Yong makes a new distinction between two kinds of kiho, namely, a distinction between kiho as “the pleasure in front of our eyes” and kiho as “being inevitable”. In order to understand this distinction, we need to pay attention to the fact that kiho as liking can have two different meanings corresponding to the difference between the subjects of kiho. The subject of kiho is normally considered to be a sentient being such as a human being or an animal, and we say that a sentient being likes something, as is the case with the first examples in the citation: the peasant likes the mountain or the   So-Yi Chung: “Chong Yagyong’s Theory of Human Nature”. Ph.D. Thesis, Seoul National University, 2010. 28   Chong Yak-Yong: Self-Inscribed Epitaph. Cited in Chung: “Chong Yagyong’s Theory of Human Nature”, 54. 29   Chong Yak-Yong: Complete Works 1, 158. 27

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deer likes the field or the orangutan likes wine. In these cases, “liking” means “enjoying” as “having a feeling of pleasure with regard to something”. For example, “the peasant likes the mountain” means “the peasant enjoys [his/her life in] the mountain” and “the deer likes the field” means “the deer enjoys [its life in] the field”. Thus, the first meaning of kiho turns out to be enjoying as the feeling of pleasure, and Chong Yak-Yong accordingly claims that one of the meanings of kiho is “the pleasure that appears evidently to our eyes”.30 With respect to the meaning of kiho as enjoying, it should be noted that in the Chinese of the time when Chong Yak-Yong lived, “kiho” (嗜好) did indeed have the meaning of “enjoying and liking something”. For this reason, there was no problem in employing it as a philosophical term as Chong Yak-Yong did when he used it as one of the central concepts of his moral philosophy. (Similarly, Levinas employs “enjoyment” as one of the key terms of his phenomenology of the face, as discussed above in chapter 6.) It should be noted, however, that in contemporary Chinese, the term “kiho” has a different meaning than it had in the Chinese of Chong’s time. In contemporary Chinese, it means first of all “hobby” and can imply a somewhat luxurious way of life. In this context, “items of kiho” (嗜好品) means “luxury goods” and “change of kiho” (嗜好變 動) means “change of the mind towards the luxurous”. It even has the meaning of “falling into sex, drinking, or gambling”. As these examples show, “kiho” in contemporary Chinese has a derogatory meaning. For this reason, it is difficult for a contemporary Chinese to accept “kiho” as a philosophical term, let alone as one of the basic terms of moral philosophy. When we read Chong’s texts on the issue of kiho, then, we should understand the term as he used it in his own time rather than associating it with any meaning that the contemporary Chinese term “kiho” has. Now let us turn to the second meaning of kiho. In order to understand it, one needs to pay attention to the fact that not only a sentient being, but also a non-sentient being such as a plant or a tree can have kiho. For example, we can say that rice has kiho for or likes water, or millet has kiho for or likes dry earth, as in the examples in the passage cited above. In this case, neither the rice nor the millet seems to have enjoyment as a state of having a feeling of pleasure. It is normally assumed that such non-sentient beings as rice or millet do not experience feelings, whether feelings of pleasure or displeasure. Thus, kiho as “liking” in the case of non-sentient beings cannot be a feeling of pleasure. In order to understand what kiho in the case of non-sentient beings concretely means, we need to note the fact that in the passage cited above, Chong YakYong speaks of “being inevitable” as another kind of kiho distinct from “the pleasure that appears evidently to our eyes”. And what kiho as “liking” in the case of non-sentient beings means is precisely “being inevitable”. For example,   Ibid., 159.

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“rice likes water” means “it is inevitable that rice likes water” or “millet likes dry earth” means “it is inevitable that millet likes dry earth”. What does it mean that it is inevitable that a non-sentient being such as rice or millet likes something? In my view, it means that it is driven by an inevitable force to pursue something. It is inevitable that rice likes water because it is driven by an inevitable force to pursue water, and it is likewise inevitable that millet likes dry earth because it is driven by an inevitable force to pursue earth. Or in other words, the inevitable force that drives an entity to pursue something is nothing other than instinct as a kind of intentionality that drives all of the individual entities belonging to a given species to pursue something. As a kind of intentionality, kiho as instinct should therefore not be misunderstood as an instinctive behavior. In this respect, I would like to point out that kiho as instinct should not be rendered as “drive”, since drive is not the same as instinct: as discussed above in section 1, there are two kinds of drive—namely, innate drive and acquired drive—and it is the innate drive that is instinct. In a similar manner, kiho as instinct should not be rendered as “inclination”. There are two kinds of inclination, namely, innate inclination and acquired inclination, and innate inclination can be considered to be equivalent to kiho as instinct. I would also like to point out that kiho as instinct is not something that only a non-sentient being possesses; needless to say, sentient beings too have kiho as instinct. However, unlike a non-sentient being, a sentient being has two kinds of kiho, namely, kiho as the feeling of pleasure and kiho as instinct, and kiho as instinct is more original than kiho as the feeling of pleasure. The former is the genetic foundation or the motivational ground of the latter since the latter comes from the former. In a sentient subject, kiho as instinct must first be functioning; then if it is fulfilled by the object toward which it is directed, the subject can experience the feeling of pleasure, or if this is not the case, the subject can feel pain or bitterness. For example, a peasant has kiho as an instinct that can be activated, and if kiho as an instinct in the state of being activated is fulfilled, then the peasant can experience kiho as a feeling of pleasure, or if it is not fulfilled, the peasant can experience pain. The discussion of kiho up until now shows that like the kiho of the material body, moral kiho too can be distinguished into two kinds, namely, moral kiho as moral instinct and moral kiho as a feeling of pleasure. Let me clarify each of them. Moral kiho as moral feeling is the pleasure that we, as moral agents, can experience with respect either to our own moral action or to that of others. It includes the different kinds of moral feeling analyzed by Mencius such as the heart of compassion, the heart of shame, the heart of courtesy and modesty, and the heart of right and wrong, as discussed above in chapter 10. It is clear that Chong Yak-Yong was deeply influenced by Mencius in developing his theory of

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moral kiho as moral feeling. Moreover, he gives numerous examples that might demonstrate the existence of moral kiho as moral feeling. For instance, a person who has not done anything morally good is flattered when complimented by others for having done something morally good, or a person who has not done anything morally bad gets angry when blamed by others for having done something morally bad.31 And here the moral feeling that is functioning in these examples is precisely the heart of shame as one of the four moral feelings that Mencius discusses. Chong Yak-Yong considers these examples as testimony to the fact that moral kiho as moral feeling really exists. Now let us turn to the issue that is the main topic of this section—namely, the issue of moral kiho as moral instinct. We know what moral instinct is from the discussion in section 2 above on moral instinct and moral feeling in Hutcheson. It is the same as the “generous instinct” or “benevolent universal Instinct” that he introduces and discusses as a central concept of his theory of moral sense. Chong Yak-Yong holds the view that Heaven imparts the moral instinct to each human being at the moment of birth and drives us “to refrain from doing the morally bad and to do the morally good”.32 Heaven is accordingly the foundation of moral kiho as moral instinct. Of course, Heaven is an important topic in Confucian philosophy, and thus it may be controversial to suggest that the Heaven that Chong Yak-Yong considers to be an entity that imparts the moral instinct to each human being can be regarded as the Christian God. In my view, however, such a possibility should not be excluded, since Chong Yak-Yong was not only a Confucian philosopher, but also a Catholic who became acquainted with Christianity when Catholicism was introduced to Korea. How do moral kiho as moral instinct and moral kiho as moral feeling belong together? Chong Yak-Yong’s claim that Heaven imparts the moral instinct to each human being at the moment of birth implies that moral instinct is the genetic foundation of moral feeling. Moral instinct is something with which one is equipped from the beginning of one’s life, and moral feeling flows from moral instinct. Moral kiho as moral instinct could be compared to a fountain from which moral kiho as moral feeling issues. Here it should be noted that Chong Yak-Yong was decisively influenced by Mencius in developing his theory of moral kiho as moral instinct. More specifically, in developing this theory, he was influenced by Mencius’s theory of “good ability” (良能) that was mentioned above at the end of chapter 10. As we indicated, Mencius defines “good ability” as “what a man is able to do without having to learn it”33 (人之所不學而能者). In my view, the “good ability” that Mencius discusses is really moral kiho as moral instinct. In fact, “good ability”   Ibid., 158.  Ibid. 33  Mencius: Mencius, 291. 31 32

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has all the constitutive components of moral instinct. Let me clarify some of them. First, it is a power that drives each of us to pursue something good, that is, to pursue the morally good, since it is “an ability” (能) that is “good” (良). Second, it is something that each of us is equipped with from the very beginning of our life without any learning being necessary—recall that Mencius defines “good ability” as “what a man is able to do without having to learn it”. Third, it is something that we are all universally endowed with. When Mencius defines “good ability” as “what a man is able to do without having to learn it”, the phrase “a man” refers to a universal concept that includes all human beings. In my view, moral kiho as moral instinct in Chong Yak-Yong and the “good ability” in Mencius are the same thing. With respect to the decisive influence of Mencius on Chong Yak-Yong in the development of the latter’s theory of moral kiho as moral instinct, then, I would like to point out that in order to clarify the concept of moral kiho as moral instinct, Chong Yak-Yong uses the same or similar examples that Mencius uses to clarify one of the concepts most closely related to the concept of the “good ability”, namely, the concept of human nature. It should be mentioned that “good ability” in Mencius is the essence of human nature that is essentially good. In this context, in order to show that human nature is really good, Mencius uses the example of water: “Human nature is good just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good; there is no water that does not flow downwards.”34 It should be noted that Chong Yak-Yong too compares moral kiho as moral instinct to “the nature of water that likes to flow down” or “the nature of fire that likes to move up to the sky”.35 4. The Relationship of Motivation Between Moral Instinct and Moral Feeling Reconsidered It is highly interesting to witness that both Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong developed a moral philosophy that has a theory of moral instinct as one of its constitutive parts. These theories have much to contribute to contemporary discussions in moral philosophy. It should be noted, however, that they are not perfect theories needing no revision. In fact, if we take a closer look at their views on the different topics related to moral instinct, we cannot exclude the possibility that some of these views may be problematic. If this is really the case, then by partly adopting and partly criticizing the problematic views, we can develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. In this section, I will consider their

  Ibid., 241.   Chong Yak-Yong: Complete Works 5, 77.

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views on the relationship between moral instinct and moral feeling and assess them as a way to develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. As the discussion so far has shown, Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong agree that moral feeling is the motivation of moral action. This is the reason why they are normally considered to be proponents of moral sentimentalism. However, as already mentioned in the context of Hutcheson’s theory of moral sense, they should not be classified as proponents of moral sentimentalism, since they do not consider moral feeling to be the ultimate motivation of moral action. They both claim that there is a deeper motivation of moral action beyond moral feeling, namely, moral instinct as a kind of “conatus” (desire), and for this reason, they should be classified as proponents of moral “conativism”. As already indicated, as proponents of moral conativism, they consider moral instinct to be the genetic foundation or motivation of moral feeling. In this respect, they claim that there are two different layers of moral consciousness: namely, moral feeling as the higher layer of moral consciousness, and moral instinct as the lower layer of moral consciousness serving as the genetic-phenomenological foundation of the layer of moral feeling. For me, however, the view that moral instinct and moral feeling are to be distinguished from each other as two different layers of moral consciousness is not so evident and needs clarification. In this context, it should be pointed out that even though both Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong (following Mencius) hold the view that moral instinct and moral feeling represent two different layers of moral consciousness, there are some passages that seem to show that they are not stable enough in their positions concerning this issue. For example, even though Hutcheson claims that moral instinct represents a different layer of moral consciousness than moral feeling, he sometimes seems to hold the view that they do not represent two different layers of moral consciousness after all. He seems to consider moral instinct to be the same as feeling when he writes, for instance, “Instinct, or Passions;”36 “No end can be proposed without some instinct or ‘affection’”;37 “But in the calmest temper there must remain affection or desire, some implanted instinct for which we can give no reason […].”38 These passages show that Hutcheson considers moral instinct to be the same as feeling. It is the same with Mencius as the forerunner of Chong Yak-Yong. Dealing with the “good ability” (良能) as “what a man is able to do without having to learn it” (人之所不學而能者), he gives some examples that might clarify what the “good ability” is. As discussed above, the “good ability” is moral instinct. For this reason, we expect that Mencius will offer some examples of moral instinct,  Hutcheson: An Inquiry, 133.  Hutcheson: An Essay, 260. 38   Ibid., 264. 36 37

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since it is his intention to appeal to examples to clarify what the “good ability” is. Contrary to our expectation, however, he does not give us any examples of moral instinct, as the following passage shows: “There are no young children who do not naturally love their parents, and when they grow up will not respect their elder brothers. Loving one’s parents is benevolence; respecting one’s elders is rightness.”39 Since Mencius presents moral feelings such as benevolence and rightness as examples of the “good ability”, the passage gives us the impression that Mencius considers moral instinct to be the same as feeling, as is the case with Hutcheson. Thus, the view of Hutcheson as well as that of Chong Yak-Yong and Mencius concerning the relationship between moral instinct and moral feeling is ambiguous. In order to clarify the relationship between them, we need to analyze the concrete moral actions in which moral instinct and moral feeling operate as the genetic motivations of such actions. Let us clarify the relationship between them by analyzing the following case. I was climbing a mountain on a beautiful autumn day. The mountain was beautiful, and I was totally immersed in its beauty. As I went up the mountain, I enjoyed the beautiful flowers, beautiful trees, beautiful rocks, and beautiful sky. Then I saw a man lying in the forest some distance away from the path. When I first saw him, I didn’t know what had happened to him. But as I approached him, I felt that something was wrong with him, and he needed my help. As I got closer to him, I noticed that he was moaning in pain. He told me that he had broken his right leg and could not walk. I was sorry he had such an accident. I gave up climbing the mountain, and instead I gave him first aid and took him to a hospital. This is a case that can well show the structure of the genesis of moral instinct and moral feeling. We can distinguish three phases: 1) the first phase while I was enjoying the beautiful mountain before I met the wounded man; 2) the second phase when I saw him and realized that there was something wrong with him; and 3) the final phase when I realized that he had broken his leg. Moral instinct and moral feeling operate differently in each of these three phases. In the first phase, when I was totally immersed in the beauty of the mountain, I was in an aesthetic attitude, so aesthetic instinct and aesthetic feeling were activated in me. There was no room for moral instinct and moral feeling to operate in me in this phase. However, this does not imply that moral instinct was totally absent in me; in this phase, moral instinct was in the mode of potentiality just like all the other instincts except the aesthetic instinct, the only instinct that was operating in me at the time. In the second phase, when the moral instinct began to be activated and to operate, it changed its mode of operation from potentiality to actuality. The  Mencius: Mencius, 291, 293.

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moral instinct activated in this way drove me to approach the man. It should be noted that moral instinct did not begin to work without any relation to moral feeling. At the moment when the moral instinct began to work, I had a vague moral feeling that there was something wrong with the man. Thereafter while I was approaching the man, I had the same vague moral feeling. This implies that the moral instinct that had just been activated, and the vague moral feeling went hand in hand. In the final phase, the moral instinct was still in operation, and drove me to give the wounded man first aid and take him to a hospital. But since the moral instinct was incessantly at work during the third phase, the moral feeling that was manifested as a vague feeling in the second phase changed its mode. In the third phase, it was no longer vague and took the form of a moral feeling of benevolence or the heart of compassion. It should be noted that the moral feeling already present as a vague feeling in the second phase could take different concrete forms—such as the heart of compassion, the heart of shame, the heart of courtesy and modesty, or the heart of right and wrong—as I came to know exactly what was wrong with the man. If there were something to blame in the man (if, for example, he had ignored a sign warning everyone to stay on the path in order to avoid dangerous terrain), the vague feeling could take the form of the heart of shame, not the heart of compassion. This example shows that the relationship between moral instinct and moral feeling is complicated. If we pay attention to the transition from the first phase to the second phase, we can claim that moral instinct is the motivation of moral feeling, since the latter cannot be in operation if the moral instinct is not activated. In this context, it should be noted that as the example of the wounded man shows, in the first phase, only moral instinct was at stake (although in the mode of potentiality rather than actuality), not moral feeling, whereas in the second phase, not only moral instinct, but also moral feeling was in operation. Thus, if we concentrate on the relationship between the moral instinct that is in the mode of potentiality (or the moral instinct that is in transition from the first phase to the second), on the one hand, and the moral feeling that is at work in the second phase, on the other hand, we can claim that moral instinct is the foundation of moral feeling. We must therefore examine in detail whether Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong/Mencius too have in mind this kind of relationship of motivation between moral instinct and moral feeling when they claim that moral instinct is the motivation of moral feeling. However, if we pay attention to the relationship between moral instinct and moral feeling that is in operation in the second and the third phase, we cannot claim that moral instinct is the motivation of moral feeling. As mentioned above, moral instinct and moral feeling as a vague feeling in the second phase go hand in hand. It is the same with moral instinct and moral feeling in the third phase. The moral instinct and the moral feeling at work in the second as

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well as in the third phase cannot be divorced. It should be noted that moral instinct is a moral instinct that has the quality of feeling, and moral feeling is a moral feeling that has the quality of instinct as “being driven”. To put it another way, the moral feeling in the second and third phase is always a “driven” moral feeling, and the moral instinct in the second and third phase is always a “felt” moral instinct. It is neither the case that moral instinct motivates the genesis of moral feeling nor the case that moral feeling motivates the genesis of moral instinct. We can say that they are co-original or co-foundational since neither moral instinct without moral feeling nor moral feeling without moral instinct is possible. In my view, it is precisely with respect to this co-original or co-foundational relationship between moral instinct and moral feeling in the second and third phase that Hutcheson and Mencius consider moral instinct to be the same as moral feeling. As already mentioned, identifying moral instinct and moral feeling, Hutcheson writes as follows: “Instinct, or Passions”;40 “No end can be proposed without some instinct or ‘affection’”;41 “But in the calmest temper there must remain affection or desire, some implanted instinct for which we can give no reason […].”42 5. The Intersubjective Aspect of the Moral Instinct There are diverse important topics of phenomenology such as ego, intentionality, the noesis-noema correlation, reflection, inner time-consciousness, kinaesthesis, life-world, history, society, and intersubjectivity. Since moral instinct can be clarified with respect to each of these topics, it turns out that there are various sub-fields of the phenomenology of moral instinct. It should be noted that neither Hutcheson nor Chong Yak-Yong explored any of them systematically, and it is the future task of the phenomenology of moral instinct to do so. In this section, I will address one such sub-field—namely, the topic of the intersubjective aspects of moral instinct—and attempt to clarify some of these aspects as a way to develop a phenomenology of moral instinct. Human beings have various kinds of instincts, such as the instinct for nourishment, the sexual instinct, the knowledge-instinct, the social instinct, the aesthetic instinct, etc. Each of these various instincts discloses a peculiar world that corresponds to it. For example, the instinct for nourishment discloses the world of nourishment, the sexual instinct discloses the sexual world, the knowledge-instinct discloses the world of knowledge, etc. Each of these worlds is not private, but rather opens out onto the intersubjective nexus. The moral instinct  Hutcheson: An Inquiry, 133.  Hutcheson: An Essay, 260. 42   Ibid., 264. 40 41

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we have been discussing up until now is no exception, and I would like to clarify the intersubjective aspect of the moral instinct. Here we must note that like some other kinds of instinct such as the sexual instinct, the knowledge-instinct, or the aesthetic instinct, the moral instinct is in a state of potentiality at the beginning of one’s life and later changes from potentiality to actuality at a certain stage in one’s life. The moment when the moral instinct is activated for the first time in one’s life is the moment when one is born as a moral agent who has various kinds of moral intentionalities such as moral perception, moral feeling, moral judgment, etc. If the moral instinct is not activated in one’s life, one is not yet a moral agent in the true sense. In this case, one is totally blind to morality, as we can see in the case of infants. If we consider morality to be an essential component of the human being as Mencius does, then it follows that one cannot be called a human being in the proper sense if one’s moral instinct is not activated. This is not to say that an infant is not human, since the infant has the possibility of having its moral instinct activated someday. However, a sociopath who does not have the moral instinct activated cannot be called a human being in any genuine sense. When the moral instinct is activated in one’s life, one is able to treat others as objects of moral intentionality; this includes not only other human beings, but also animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. Once the moral instinct is activated for the first time in one’s life, it does not ever disappear completely from one’s field of consciousness, but continually operates in the background and enables new types of moral intentionality to come into being. As more types of moral intentionality are added through the reappearance of the moral instinct operating in one’s field of consciousness, the range of objects and people encompassed by our moral instinct also grows larger. For instance, one might initially experience one’s family members as objects of moral intentionality, but later expand the list to include one’s friends, classmates, fellow citizens in a city or country, and foreigners. Furthermore, we can even add animals, plants, and inorganic nature as objects of moral intentionality. In addition to experiencing other human beings as objects of moral intentionality, we can also experience them as moral agents. Yet as long as the moral instinct is not activated, one cannot experience other human beings as moral agents. The experience of other human beings as objects of moral intentionality and as moral agents cannot be separated. They are two sides of the same coin and have their origin in the moral instinct. When experiencing the other as a moral agent, one can communicate with the other about the validity of the moral intentionality that one has. It should be noted that moral intentionality can display three different types of validity. As I have discussed above in chapter 10 using moral feeling as an example, there are three types of moral intentionality: the moral intentionality with subjective validity, with intersubjective validity, and with objective validity. When moral agents first activate

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their moral instinct, they experience moral intentionality with only subjective validity. However, through repeated activation of the moral instinct, it can be transformed into an intentionality equipped with intersubjective validity, and under certain circumstances, further transformed into an intentionality equipped with objective validity. The various kinds of moral intentionality that emerge from the continual activation of the moral instinct become differentiated over time. Let us take the example of moral feeling as a kind of moral intentionality. Like all the other kinds of moral intentionality, moral feeling too gets differentiated over time. The differentiation of moral feeling goes hand in hand with the differentiation of the contents that one experiences with regard to others. Here we have to consider two ways in which such contents become differentiated. First, as one grows older, one can experience others in a more differentiated way. A young child can experience the other whom it meets in society as a general other without knowing concretely who she/he is. But as it gets older, it can experience others more concretely and in a more articulated way; for example, it can experience the other as a teacher, as a classmate, as a doctor, as a nurse, as a merchant, as a beggar, etc. Second, it can experience even those with whom it is already acquainted in a more concrete and articulated way—for example, as it comes to know a friend in a more intimate fashion. When it becomes acquainted with the other for the first time, it may experience the person as a friend in general, but can now experience the friend as an extrovert or an introvert, as an optimistic person or a pessimistic person. As the contents of one’s experience of others become more differentiated, one’s moral feeling toward others becomes more concrete and more articulated as well. For instance, the moral feeling of benevolence that one has toward a beggar can be different from the same moral feeling that one has toward a classmate, or the moral feeling of shame that one has toward an extrovert can be different from the same moral feeling that one has toward an introvert. These and other examples of a progressive enrichment of experiential distinctions can readily be observed in the process of the development of moral instinct in a child. In addition, however, we need to clarify the intersubjective aspect of moral instinct with respect to the activation and development of the instinct that can be observed in the moral action of an adult. In this respect, we need to pay attention to the fact that the moral instinct of an adult also displays the modes of potentiality and actuality and changes its mode from potentiality into actuality, as we saw with the example of helping the wounded man. Thus, we can analyze the different intersubjective aspects of the moral instinct operating in the moral action of an adult. In my view, when we consider the case of the activation of the moral instinct in an adult person, we can observe all of the intersubjective aspects discussed above in the case of child. Let me clarify this point.

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First, as already indicated, the moment when the moral instinct is activated for the first time in one’s life is the moment when one is born as a moral agent. It is the same with the activation of the moral instinct in an adult. As the example of helping the wounded man shows, when I was immersed in the beauty of the mountain, I was an aesthetic subject, not a moral agent. Only when the potential moral instinct was activated in me could I be transformed from an aesthetic subject into an actual moral agent. Thus, the moment when the moral instinct was activated in me can be called the moment when I was reborn as a moral agent. Second, it is only when the moral instinct is activated in one’s life that one is able to treat others as objects of moral intentionality. As the example of helping the wounded man shows, while I was immersed in the beauty of the mountain, I could not treat others as objects of moral intentionality, since the moral instinct was in a state of potentiality in me. It was only when the moral instinct shifted its mode from potentiality to actuality that I could treat the man as an object of moral intentionality—as someone who had the meaning of “a wounded man” and needed my help. Third, as I have already pointed out, when the moral instinct is activated in one’s life, one is able to treat others as moral agents. As the example of helping the wounded man once again shows, while I was in the aesthetic attitude, immersed in the beauty of the mountain, there could only be aesthetic others for me, not moral agents. Only when the moral instinct was activated in me, and the aesthetic attitude changed into the moral attitude could I experience others as moral agents. Fourth, in the case of a child, the various kinds of moral intentionality that emerge from the continual activation of the moral instinct become differentiated over time. It is the same in the case of the activation of the moral instinct in an adult. I would like to clarify this point with the example of moral feeling as a kind of moral intentionality. As the analysis of the example of the wounded man indicates, when the moral instinct is activated, it generates moral feelings of which there are two layers: namely, the vague moral feeling on the one hand, and on the other hand, the various kinds of concrete moral feeling such as the heart of compassion, the heart of shame, the heart of courtesy and modesty, or the heart of right and wrong. Whereas the vague moral feeling is related to the wounded man in an unclear and general mode, the concrete moral feeling is related to him in a clear and concrete mode. It should be noted that each of the concrete moral feelings can also become further concretized in the course of experience. As I become acquainted with the wounded man more concretely, my heart of compassion for him can also become more concrete. For example, I can feel compassion for him with regard to his sick son, or with regard to his wife who passed away recently, or with regard to his life history, or with regard to other things that he told me about on our way to a hospital.

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For both the child and the adult, then, the activation of the moral instinct charts a lifetime course through which we can become increasingly finer moral agents: if Heaven does indeed endow us from birth with kiho as moral instinct, as Chong Yak-Yong suggests, this “generous instinct” (Hutcheson) cannot remain a mere empty potentiality, but must come into action in concrete situations so that its innate vital power can effectively constitute a world of mutual moral responsibility for all of us.

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Acknowledgments Five chapters of this book are hitherto unpublished in English, while the other six chapters have been published in various journals. Some of these journals are difficult to access, and as a result, it is not easy for readers to read all of these essays together and grasp their underlying unity. I have decided to collect and publish them in a single book in the hopes of contributing to further discussions of intersubjectivity in phenomenology and other streams of philosophy. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who has helped me in various ways with completing the book manuscript and the chapters in it. I express my special thanks to the editors of Phänomenologische Forschungen, Inga Römer, Julia Jansen, and Thiemo Breyer, for their support in publishing this book. I thank Julia Jansen, the Director of the Husserl Archives, for her kind permission to quote from unpublished manuscripts of Husserl. I thank Elizabeth A. Behnke for her editorial assistance and Seung Hoon Hahm for his proofreading of the book manuscript and the translation of part of chapter 4 on “Genetic Phenomenology and Problems of Intersubjectivity” into English. I express my gratitude to Tetsuya Sakakibara, who read chapter 1 thoroughly with the remark that he agreed with me, and to Dan Zahavi, who closely read an earlier version of chapter 3 and made important comments on it. I express my gratitude to Han Saem Kim, Jong Woo Lee, and Ah Hyun Moon for their help in preparing the book manuscript. I would like to express my gratitude to the following publishers and journals for permission to republish the articles below as chapters in this book: 1. Chapter 1 on “Static Phenomenology and Genetic Phenomenology”, hitherto unpublished. 2. An earlier version of Chapter 2 on “Static-phenomenological and genetic-phenomenological concepts of primordiality in Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation” was published in: Husserl Studies 18(3), 2002, 165–183. 3. An earlier version of Chapter 3 was published under the title “Problems of intersubjectivity in Husserl and Buber” in: Husserl Studies 22(2), 2006, 137– 160. 4. Chapter 4 on “Genetic phenomenology and problems of intersubjectivity”, hitherto unpublished in English. An earlier Korean version of this chapter was published in: Cheolhaksasang (The Journal of Philosophical Ideas) 16, 2003, 29–70. 5. An earlier version of Chapter 5 on “Phenomenology of intersubjectivity in Husserl and Levinas” was published in: Husserl Studies in Japan 1, 2003, 155– 191. An earlier Korean version of this chapter was published in: Phenomenology and Contemporary Philosophy 18, 2001, 13–63.

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6. Chapter 6 on “Phenomenology of sensible life in Husserl and Levinas” was published in: Cheolhaksasang (The Journal of Philosophical Ideas) 15, 2002, 85–115. 7. An earlier version of Chapter 7 on “Experience and evidence” was published in: Husserl Studies 23(3), 2007, 229–246. 8. Chapter 8 on “Phenomenology of exteriority beyond linguistic idealism”, hitherto unpublished. An earlier version was presented at the conference on Phenomenology as a Bridge between East and West, May 7–10, 2002 in Delray Beach, Florida, USA. 9. Chapter 9 on “Ethics of renewal in Husserl and Confucius”, hitherto unpublished in English. An earlier German version of this chapter was published under the title “Ethik der Erneuerung bei Husserl und Konfuzius”. In: Cathrin Nielsen, Karel Novotný, Thomas Nenon (Eds.), Kontexte des Leiblichen. Festschrift für Hans Rainer Sepp. Nordhausen 2016, 151–173. 10. An earlier version of Chapter 10 on “Feeling as the origin of value in Scheler and Mencius” was published in: Continental Philosophy Review 53(2), 2020, 141–155. 11. Chapter 11 on “Moral instinct in Hutcheson and Chong Yak-Yong”, hitherto unpublished.

Index absolute experience, 19, 181 f., 189 f., 220, 232, 234 f., 242, 249, 252, 256 ff. abstraction, 50, 55 f., 73 act, 13, 45 f., 52, 66 ff., 111, 114, 132, 233 active participation, 117 f. aesthetic feeling, 312 aesthetic instinct, 125, 312, 314 f. Agosta, Lou, 136 f. Aguirre, Antonio, 28 Ainley, Alison, 196, 252 analogical experience of the other, 87 ff., 108, 110 f., 114, 118 ff., 129, 148, 162 f., 166 ff., 181 f., 190 ff., 194 ff. animal, 102, 116, 126 ff., 196, 252, 288 f., 295 f., 315 apperception, 11, 30 f., 33, 36, 50, 62, 99 Aristotle, 215 f., 287, 294 autonomy/autonomous, 13, 58 f., 64, 92, 103, 168 f., 264, 266 f. Ballard, Edward G., 48 Barber, Michael D., 10 Baudin, Abbé Emile, 130 Bautista, Stacy, 17, 212 Beavers, Anthony F., 199 benevolence, 20, 266, 288 ff., 292 f., 295, 303 f., 312 f., 316 Benso, Silvia, 242 Bergson, Henri, 129, 159, 294 Bernet, Rudolf, 28, 51 Blosser, Philip, 109, 293 f. body, 72, 82, 84, 87 ff., 104, 111 ff., 124, 129, 143 f., 148 f., 163, 165 ff., 181, 192 f., 195, 205, 210, 284, 306 Bower, Matt, 45, 109 Brentano, Franz, 282, 286 Buber, Martin, 7 f., 14 f., 18, 76 f., 79 ff., 105, 107, 182 f., 186 Cairns, Dorion, 130, 207 care, 204

Carr, David, 105 Carrington, Peter J., 152 Cartesianism, 7 f., 110, 128, 171, 219 categorical imperative, 262, 264, 269, 271 Chelstrom, Eric, 10 child/childhood, 62 f., 70, 99 f., 122 ff., 128 f., 131, 143 f., 146 ff., 316 ff. Cho, Kah Kyung, 261 Chong, Yak-Yong, 8, 20 ff., 295, 305 ff., 318 Chung, So-Yi, 306 Ciocan, Cristian, 196 coexistence, 98, 140, 181 f., 185 cogito, 144 ff., 232 communication, 82 f., 99 f., 110 f., 117, 119, 126, 145 f., 156, 160 ff., 170 f., 195, 206, 222 communicative act/action, 108, 160 ff., 164 f., 169 ff. community of monads, 162, 296 comprehension, 141, 181 ff. conativism, 21, 281, 311 conatus of esse, 215 Confucianism, 20 f., 261 f., 274, 281, 287, 290, 295, 299 Confucius, 8, 20 f., 261 ff., 266 ff., 270 f., 273 ff., 287 constitution, 11, 15, 19 f., 25 ff., 29 ff., 43 ff., 54, 57, 75, 85 f., 100, 104, 116, 120, 122 ff., 149 f., 153 ff., 158 ff., 170, 181, 211, 240 f., 243 ff., 247f. constitutive phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 10, 14 constitutive phenomenology of the natural attitude, 46 f.,154 f., 157 corporeality, 149, 205 correlation, 32, 35 f., 39, 82, 147, 228, 301, 314 Costello, Peter R., 10 crisis, 261, 280, 295

336

Index

critique of knowledge, 44, 76, 95 f., 132 f., 135 f., 174, 215 culture, 265 f., 274 Dallmayr, Fred R., 136 f. Dasein, 137 ff., 194, 196, 204 f., 234, 256 Dastur, Françoise, 151 de Biran, Maine, 129 Depraz, Natalie, 9, 17, 102 Derrida, Jacque, 175, 192 Descartes, René, 59, 171, 219 f., 229 f., 275 description, 30 f., 33, 137, 140 descriptive phenomenology, 31, 33, 227, 229 desire, 21, 78, 104, 112, 114, 127, 188, 191, 201 f., 281 f., 303 ff., 311 destruction, 79 ff., 103, 106 f. development, 31 f., 43, 63, 104, 115 f., 128 ff., 134 f., 144, 146, 173 f. developmental psychology, 143, 146 f. dialogical philosophy, 79, 182 f., 186 dialogical relation, 182, 186 Dillon, Martin C., 151 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 118, 129 dismantling, 39, 69, 92, 248 Dodd, James, 261 Donohoe, Janet, 9 double face of phenomenology, 11, 35, 45 doxa, 144 Drabinski, John E., 17 drive, 45, 63, 68, 91, 112 f., 148 f., 300 f., 305, 308 Düsing, Elizabeth, 152 dutifulness, 289 f., 295 Eckhart, Meister, 20, 253 f. eidetic reduction, 135, 262, 275 eight steps, 268 f., 275, 278 element, 205, 211 empathy, 12 f., 48, 50 ff., 82 ff., 86 ff., 96, 99 f., 119, 123 f., 126, 129, 131 f., 137 ff., 147 f., 191 f. empirical psychology, 135 enjoyment, 17, 179, 199, 201 f., 204 ff., 211, 213, 234

epochē, 12 f., 53 ff., 59, 63 f., 66 ff., 94, 156, 158, 160 equipment/implement/Zeug, 17, 179, 199 f., 204 f. Erdmann, Benno, 83 f., 148 eros, 17, 179, 187 establishment, 62 ethical renewal, 8, 20 f., 261 ff., 269 ff., 273 ff. ethics, 20, 199 ff., 215, 234, 261 f., 265 ff., 280 ff., 286, 293, 297 f. event, 20, 240, 256 f. evidence, 19, 57, 115, 119, 218 ff., 223 ff., 235 ff., 265, 297 experience, 218, 220 ff. explanation, 31 f. explanatory phenomenology, 31, 33 exteriority, 19, 183, 187,189, 203, 212 f., 215 f., 218 ff., 240 ff., 248 ff., 255 f., 258 face, 16 ff., 179 f., 183 f., 186 f., 189 f., 196 ff., 212 ff., 220, 232 ff., 240 f., 252 feeling, 21 f., 45 f., 91, 98, 106, 111 f., 132, 201, 203, 210 f., 218, 233, 281 ff., 302 ff. Ferencz-Flatz, Christian, 115, 136 f. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 295, 298 Finegan, Thomas, 17 Fink, Eugen, 59, 101, 173 formal ontology, 271 ff. foundation, 10  f., 13 ff., 35 ff., 48 f., 51 f., 57 f., 60 f., 63, 68 ff., 72, 74, 89 ff., 94 ff., 103, 112 ff., 116 ff., 129 f., 132, 134 f., 140 ff., 146 f., 157, 159 ff., 170, 173 f., 207 ff., 213 ff., 224 f., 236, 272, 282, 298 f., 301, 308 f., 311, 313 f. four sprouts, 290 Frankena, William, 304 Frings, Manfred, 128 ff., 135 f., 151 fundamental ontology, 137, 182, 246 Fung, Yu-Lan, 261 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 118 Gehlen, Arnold, 300

Index general thesis of the natural attitude, 12, 54, 222 generativity, 62 genesis of empathy, 13, 15, 60, 63 f., 67 ff., 96, 99 genetic phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 10, 14 ff., 26, 49, 52, 62 f., 70 ff., 95 f., 98, 100, 103 ff., 108 ff., 117, 119 f., 123 ff., 127 f., 131 ff., 140 f., 146 f., 149 ff., 156, 158, 165, 169, 171 ff., 192 genetic psychology, 135 Geniusas, Salius, 27 f. givenness, 36, 38, 40, 43, 81, 85, 118, 158, 227 f., 230 God, 20, 80 f., 102, 106 f., 253 f., 273 f., 280, 303, 309 good ability, 298, 309 ff. Gurwitsch, Aron, 175 Habermas, Jürgen, 8, 15 f., 108 ff., 152, 161 ff. habituality, 30 f., 123, 126, 263 habitual system, 15, 34, 43, 110, 120 ff. Haney, Kathleen M., 9, 49 Hart, James G., 9, 12 heart of compassion, 21, 288 ff., 295 f., 308, 313, 317 heart of courtesy and modesty, 21, 289 f., 296, 308, 313, 317 heart of right and wrong, 21, 289 f., 296, 308, 313, 317 heart of shame, 21, 289 f., 295 f., 308 f., 313, 317 Heffernan, George, 224, 261 Heidegger, Martin, 8, 15 f., 18, 108, 110, 136 ff., 174, 181 ff., 185 f., 194, 199 ff., 204 f., 212, 234, 240 ff., 248, 254, 256 Heinämaa, Sara, 75, 116, 151, 261 Held, Klaus, 9, 109, 234, 262 historical experience of the other, 15, 119 historicity, 102, 116 history, 11, 30, 43, 75, 101, 115, 119, 124 Holenstein, Elmar, 28 f.

337

horizon, 43, 67, 71, 75, 104, 123, 169, 182, 204 f., 228, 232, 242 ff. Hughes, Peter, 196, 252 human nature, 21, 135, 287, 289 f., 299, 305 f., 310 Hume, David, 282 Hutcheson, Francis, 8, 20 ff., 299, 301 ff., 309 ff., 318 Hutt, Curtis, 17 I-It relation/I-Thou relation, 79, 182, 186 ineffability, 253 infinity, 179, 186 f., 197, 201 instinct, 104, 111 f., 121 ff., 125 ff., 149, 298 ff., 304 ff., 308 ff. instinct-intention, 112 intellectualism, 207, 233 intelligence, 267, 279 intentional psychology, 51 intercorporeal world, 143 interest, 126 interpretive sociology, 152 f., 161, 165 intersubjective instinct/social instinct, 91, 125, 132 intersubjective relation, 18, 20, 149, 164, 169, 180, 184 ff., 189, 194 f., 257 intersubjective world, 74 f., 94, 115, 142, 144 f., 163 intuition, 40, 44, 55, 58, 150, 221 ff., 229, 233 ff., 237 f. Iribarne, Julia V., 9 justification, 42, 44, 104 Kant, Immanuel, 157, 281 ff., 286, 291, 294 Kao Tzu, 290 Kenaan, Hagi, 17 Kern, Iso, 28, 49, 51, 75, 81 kiho/kiho as enjoying/kiho as instinct, 305 ff., 318 kinaesthesis, 122 f., 314 language, 19, 116, 240 ff., 245, 250 f., 253 f.

338

Index

Laozi, 254 f. Larrabee, Mary Jeanne, 28 leading clue, 33, 35 f., 38 f., 47, 85, 189, 195 Lee, Han-Woo, 266 Leithold, Wolfgang, 301 Lerner, Rosemary R. P., 109 f. life of consciousness, 207 life-world, 27, 54, 104, 116, 156, 207 f., 244 linguistic idealism, 8, 19 f., 240 ff., 250 f., 253, 255, 258 Lipps, Theodor, 83 f., 139, 192 Lohmar, Dieter, 242 f. love, 125 f., 132, 187 f., 266 f., 273 f., 276, 279, 285, 301, 303 ff. Lu, Yinghua, 295 Madison, Gary Brent, 151 Mancilla, Alejandra, 304 Mandeville, Bernard, 301 Marbach, Eduard, 28, 51, 109 Marcel, Gabriel, 79 Marx, Karl, 109 material ontology, 271 f. Matilal, Bimal Krishna, 254 Mead, George Herbert, 109, 175 memory, 41, 121, 202, 223, 227, 231, 238 Mencius, 8, 20 f., 281, 287 ff., 295 ff., 306, 308 ff. Mensch, James, 9 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 8, 15 f., 108 ff., 113, 142 ff. metaphysical phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 7, 10, 14, 184 metaphysical relation, 183 metaphysics, 101, 106 f., 199, 216 methodological phenomenology, 44, 90, 94 f. methodology, 44 Miettinen, Timo, 54 Mintken, Tammo Elija, 297 monad, 31 ff., 54, 62, 73, 101 f., 107, 158, 162, 208, 296 monadization, 74

moral action, 294, 296 f., 302 ff., 308, 311 f., 316 moral feeling, 8, 21 f., 281, 283, 285 f., 288 ff., 292 f., 295 f., 298 f., 308 ff. moral good/the morally good, 301 f., 309 f. moral instinct, 8, 21 f., 298 ff., 304 ff., 308 ff. moral phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 8, 20, 145, 258, 295 moral sense, 21, 299, 301 ff., 309, 311 Moran, Dermot, 197, 261 motivation, 84, 86, 88, 92, 96, 106, 111 f., 114, 121, 138, 207, 302 ff., 308, 310 ff. Murakami, Yasuhiro, 17, 200 natural attitude, 12, 46 f., 51 f., 54, 58, 61, 64, 68 ff., 81, 95, 99, 105, 146, 153 ff., 157 ff., 164 f., 222 f., 228, 241 natural experience, 222 f., 232 natural phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 155 ff., 165, 170 Ni, Liangkang, 298 norm, 43, 61, 93, 95 normative phenomenology, 43 f., 60, 93, 95 Norton, David Fate, 302 O’Brien, Mahon, 136 O’Meara, William M., 108 f. ontological phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 10, 14, 18, 133, 180, 184 ff., 188 f., 195 f. origin, 26, 46, 76, 122 f., 125, 129, 133 ff., 138, 145, 160, 170, 215 f., 256, 267, 281 ff., 287 ff., 292, 294 ff., 301, 315 original experience, 221, 223 ff., 233 Overgaard, Søren, 10, 17, 59, 189, 200, 228 pairing, 62, 99 parallelism, 47, 95, 147, 159, 256 passivity, 31 f., 34, 214, 263 Peperzak, Adriaan, 199

Index perception, 41 ff., 46, 82, 93, 95, 142 ff., 146 ff., 209, 223 ff., 238, 302 Peters, Meindert E., 137 phenomenological psychology, 146 f., 154, 159 phenomenological sociology, 152 ff., 156 phenomenology of justification, 42 ff., 89, 134 phenomenology of the face, 16, 18 ff., 179 f., 183 f., 186 f., 189 f., 197 ff., 212 ff., 219 f., 232 ff., 240 f. philosophical solitude, 13, 58 f., 61, 65, 68 f., 71, 94, 97, 141, 164, 169 philosophy of dialogue, 14 f., 76 ff., 81, 107 philosophy of life, 118, 208, 216 Pinker, Steven, 298 positivism, 100 f., 241, 258, 261 Powell, Jeffrey, 17, 180 pre-I, 211 presentiation/presentification, 84, 192 presenting, 84, 192 f. primordiality, 11 ff., 48 ff., 57, 62 f., 68, 70 ff., 121, 123 f., 149, 160 primordial nature, 53, 87 f., 92 primordial reduction, 12 f., 48 ff., 58 ff., 66 f., 69, 72, 92 ff., 150, 154 f., 158 ff., 168, 194 primordial sphere, 11 ff., 48 ff., 56, 58 ff., 87 f., 90, 92 f., 97 f., 103 f., 108, 114 ff., 123, 140 f., 150, 154, 158, 160, 166 ff., 173, 181 principle of all principles, 44, 234 f., 237 propriety, 20, 126, 266 f., 274, 276, 279 rationalism, 21, 144, 236 f., 281 f. rationality, 235 f. realism, 128 ff., 132, 135 reality, 20, 129, 131, 201, 202, 254 reason, 21, 33, 37, 126, 235 f., 262, 264 ff., 269 f., 274, 280 ff. reduction, 20, 47, 54, 67 f., 73, 85, 95, 135, 154 f., 157, 159, 165, 181, 194, 223, 230, 258 reference/genetic reference/intentional reference, 40 f., 43, 158

339

reflection, 44, 53, 56, 65, 69 repetition, 121, 262, 264, 271, 279 representation, 17 ff., 179 ff., 183 ff., 188, 191 f., 196 f., 199, 211 ff., 218 f., 228 f., 243 resemblance, 92 responsibility/responsible, 13, 58, 61, 64 f., 68 f., 71, 92, 97, 103 f., 126, 168 f., 187, 197, 214, 318 Ricoeur, Paul, 49, 175 Rodemeyer, Lanei M., 9 f. Römpp, Georg, 9 Russell, Matheson, 162 Sakakibara, Tetsuya, 35, 71, 109 Sallis, John, 49 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 16, 108, 175 Scheler, Max, 8, 15 f., 20 f., 76 f., 95 f., 108 ff., 128 ff., 174, 234, 281 ff., 290 ff., 297 f. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 129 Schnell, Alexander, 109 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 129 Schutz, Alfred, 8, 15 f., 46, 48, 54, 56, 108, 110, 151 ff., 163 ff., 171, 173 Scotus, Duns, 129 sediment, 66, 73 sensation, 87, 112, 208 ff. sensible life, 19, 200 ff., 216 sentimentalism, 21, 281 ff., 303 f., 311 sexual union, 125 ff. Shaftesbury, 301 silhak, 21, 299 similarity, 88 ff., 97, 111, 167 f., 252 Smith, Arthur David, 28 social act, 100, 170 social experience, 15, 117 ff. social intention/social intentionalities, 68, 70, 104 socialization, 62, 124 social ontology, 81 ff. social world, 153 f. society, 15, 43, 100, 117, 125 ff., 129 f., 132, 154 f., 160 ff., 170, 172 ff., 186, 278 f., 296

340

Index

Soffer, Gail, 109 solipsism, 14, 78 f., 92, 101, 103 ff., 145, 181, 191, 241 sphere of my ownness, 50 f., 174 Staehler, Tanja, 28, 45, 51, 78, 83, 111 static phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 7, 14 f., 51, 57 f., 60, 64, 72, 89, 94 ff., 103 f., 108, 131, 133 f., 136 f., 140 ff., 146, 149, 151 f., 156, 165, 168 f., 171, 173 f. Stein, Edith, 175 Steinbock, Anthony J., 9, 28, 261 subjectivity/transcendental subjectivity, 12 ff., 53 ff., 58 ff., 64 ff., 71 ff., 78, 85 f., 88 ff., 97 f., 104, 107, 111, 115, 122, 124 f., 140, 145 f., 155, 157, 168 f., 181, 185, 194, 231 f., 272 f. surrounding world, 50, 60, 114 f., 137, 140 ff., 153, 156, 160 f., 170, 245 symmetry/asymmetry, 31, 164, 168 f., 171, 183 Tao, 20, 254 f., 273 teleology, 63, 101 f. temporality, 40 f., 60, 74, 91, 158, 210 temporalization, 74, 121 the Good/the highest good, 187, 262, 264, 267 ff., 273 f., 276, 280, 286 theology, 81, 107 theory of communicative action, 108, 161 f., 164 f., 169 ff. theory of knowledge, 44 the other in an absolute sense/the other in a relative sense, 17, 19, 179, 181 ff., 187, 189, 190, 195 ff., 199, 202, 214, 241 f. Theunissen, Michael, 78, 102 f., 106 Thou, 14 f., 79 ff., 105 f., 129, 143, 145, 182 f., 186 three items, 268 f., 275 f. togetherness, 129, 132 totality, 17 f., 54, 61, 67 ff., 102, 106 f., 179 f., 182 f., 186, 190, 199 ff., 203, 241 tradition, 98, 124

transcendence, 179, 181, 187 f., 190, 193 f., 199, 201, 228, 236, 258 transcendental attitude, 46 f., 51 f., 54, 58, 61, 64, 71 ff., 87, 95, 158 f. transcendental clue, 39, 47, 85 f., 106 transcendental experience, 54 f., 222 f., 230 ff. transcendental genesis, 60, 64, 66, 75, 101, 115, 131, 149, 173, 207, 212 ff., 246, 249, 257 transcendental idealism, 101, 130 transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity, 10 ff., 14, 18, 48 f., 84, 103, 107, 145 f., 155 ff., 159 f., 165, 170, 180, 184, 189 ff. transcendental psychology, 135 f. truth, 26, 37, 57, 63 f., 93 f., 168, 212, 219, 224 f., 229 f., 233, 237, 245 f. typology, 82 f. universal transcendental sphere, 12, 53 ff., 66 ff. urge, 129 f., 132 vague feeling (Ahnung), 46, 106, 313 validity, 11, 13 f., 36 ff., 51 f., 57 ff., 72, 74, 89 ff., 132, 142, 146, 157, 168, 207, 215 value, 21, 76, 81, 133, 281 ff., 297 ff. Vergani, Mario, 196 verification, 57, 194 voluntarism, 130, 207 f. Waldenfels, Bernhard, 49, 78, 192 f. Wang, Yang-Ming, 290 Weber, Max, 153 Welton, Donn, 28 willing, 91, 98, 111, 206 f., 218, 233, 263, 286, 293 f. wisdom, 20, 274, 289 f., 296 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 240 f. world-consciousness, 43, 106 worldview, 50, 60 Wright, Tamra, 196, 252

Index Yamaguchi, Ichiro, 9, 78, 109 Zahavi, Dan, 9, 77 f., 98, 119, 136 f., 151 f., 157, 162

Zaner, Richard M., 152 Zeltner, Hermann, 48, 73 Zhu, Xi, 261, 268

341