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From the Natural Attitude to the Life-World

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Husserl’s Ideen

Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 66))

Abstract

This chapter explores Edmund Husserl’s ground-breaking discussion of the “natural attitude” (die natürliche Einstellung) in Ideen I (1913) in relation to his conception of the “life-world” (Lebenswelt), a term that emerges in his writings around 1917 and becomes perhaps the most prominent theme of Krisis (1936 and 1954). I contend that the parallels between the “natural surrounding world” (natürliche Umwelt) of Ideen I and the “life-world” of Krisis have not been sufficiently explored by commentators. It also examines the relation between Husserl’s critique of the scientific world-view and the Vienna Circle’s advocacy of the scientific world-view in the late 1920s.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie 1, ed. K. Schuhmann, Hua III/1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977); trans. F. Kersten, Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book. (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1983). Hereafter “IdeasI” followed by the page number of the English translation and the Husserliana (abbreviated to “Hua”) volume and page number. Schuhmann’s edition includes comments and corrections added by Husserl in his four different personal copies of the text.

  2. 2.

    See Rudiger Welter, Der Begriff der Lebenswelt: Theorien vortheoretischer Erfahrungswelt (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1986).

  3. 3.

    See E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, ed. Marly Biemel, Hua IV (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1952); trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer as Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book, Husserl Collected Works III (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989). Hereafter “Ideas II” followed by the page number of the English translation and the Husserliana volume and page number.

  4. 4.

    The German edition is E. Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, ed. Walter Biemel, Husserliana (hereafter “Hua”) Volume VI (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1954). This edition includes the published parts of the Krisis as well as a selection of associated documents. It is substantially translated by David Carr as The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (Evanston, IL: Northwestern U. P., 1970), although some supplements have been left out of the Carr edition. Hereafter the Crisis of European Sciences will be cited as “Krisis” followed by the page number of the English translation (where available) and the Husserliana volume and page number.

  5. 5.

    On the complex history of the Vienna Circle, logical positivism and logical empiricism, see Thomas Uebel, “On the Austrian Roots of Logical Empiricism: The Case of the First Vienna Circle,” Logical Empiricism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, eds. Paulo Parrini et al. (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003) and Alan Richardson and Thomas Uebel, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). See also Friedrich Stadler, ed., The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism: Re-evaluation and Future Perspectives (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004) and idem, The Vienna Circle—Studies in the Origins, Development, and Influence of Logical Empiricism (Vienna: Springer, 2001). For Husserl’s relationship with positivism, see Manfred Summer, Husserl und der frühe Positivismus (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985).

  6. 6.

    See Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis (1929); trans. “The Scientific Conception of the World. The Vienna Circle,” The Emergence of Logical Empiricism: from 1900 to the Vienna Circle, ed. Sahotra Sarkar (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 321–40.

  7. 7.

    Between 1928 and 1937, the very period in which Husserl was developing his views on the Lebenswelt, the Vienna Circle published ten books in a collection named Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), eds. Moritz Schlick and Philipp Frank. These works have now been translated in the series Unified Science: The Vienna Circle Monograph Series Originally Edited by Otto Neurath (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1987).

  8. 8.

    E. Husserl, “Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,” Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911–1921), Hua XXV 3–62, trans. Marcus Brainard, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy Vol. II (2002): 249–95.

  9. 9.

    E. Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlaß 1934–1937, ed. Reinhold N. Smid, Husserliana Vol. XXIX (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992).

  10. 10.

    I am grateful to LAU Kwok-Ying for his article “History and the Phenomenological Reduction in the Last Husserl,” presented at the Fourth OPO meeting, Razón y vida, Segovia, Spain, 19–23 Sept 2011.

  11. 11.

    See for instance Iso Kern, “Die drei Wege zur transzendental-phänomenologischen Reduktion in derPhilosophie Edmund Husserls,” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, XXV (1962): 303–49; trans. as “The Three Ways to the Transcendental Phenomenological Reduction in the Philosophy of Edmund Husserl,” Husserl. Expositions and Appraisals, eds. F. Elliston and P. McCormick (South Bend, IN: U. of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 126–49; and Iso Kern, “The Phenomenological or Transcendental epochē and Reduction,” An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology, eds. R. Bernet, R. Kern, and E. Marbach (Evanston, IL: Northwestern U. P., 1993), 58–77. See also John Drummond, “Husserl on the Ways to the Phenomenological Reduction,”Man and World 8 No. 1 (February 1975): 47–69. Both Kern and Drummond agree in seeing IdeasI as primarily promoting the Cartesian way.

  12. 12.

    See, for instance, L. Landgrebe, “The World as a Phenomenological Problem,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1/1 (Sept. 1940): 38–58; and Ludwig Landgrebe, “Husserls Phänomenologie und die Motive zu ihrer Umbildung,” Revue internationale de Philosophie I/2, (Brussels, 1939).

  13. 13.

    E. Husserl, Méditations cartésiennes: Introduction à la phénoménologie, trans. G. Peiffer and E. Levinas (Paris: Almand Colin, 1931). The German text was not published until 1950 as Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ed. Stephan Strasser, Husserliana I (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1950); trans. D. Cairns as Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960). Hereafter “CM” followed by page number of English translation, and Husserliana volume and page number.

  14. 14.

    Husserl’s “Author’s Preface” was written in 1930 and was published in English translation in Boyce-Gibson’s translation of Ideas I published in 1931, see E. Husserl, “Author’s Preface to the English Edition,” Ideas. General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Collier Books, 1962), 5–22. Husserl’s German text is somewhat different, and was originally published in the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, vol. XI (1930). It is reprinted as “Nachwort,” Hua V 138–62, and translated as “Epilogue” in Ideas II, 405–30. Husserl had originally planned both a Foreword and an Afterword to the volume to explain the significance of Ideen I.

  15. 15.

    Edmund Husserl,“Umsturz der kopernikanischen Lehre in der gewöhnlichen weltanschaulichen Interpretation. Die Ur-ArcheErde bewegt sich nicht. Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen Ursprung der Körperlichkeit der Räumlichkeit der Natur im ersten naturwissenschaftlichen Sinne. Alles notwendige Anfangsuntersuchungen,” Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, ed. Marvin Farber (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940), 307–25; trans. as “Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature,” Husserl. Shorter Works, trans. and eds. Frederick Elliston and Peter McCormick (Notre Dame: U. of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 222–33; revised by Len Lawlor in M. Merleau-Ponty, Husserl at the Limits of Phenomenology, eds. L. Lawlor and B. Bergo (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2002), 117–31.

  16. 16.

    L. Landgrebe, “The World as a Phenomenological Problem,” trans. D. Cairns, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1/1 (Sept. 1940): 46.

  17. 17.

    E. Husserl, “Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie,” Zur Phänomenologieder Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass Erster Teil: 1905–1920, Husserliana XIII,ed. Iso Kern (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973); trans. Ingo Farin and James G. Hart, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Husserl Collected Works XII (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006). Hereafter “BPP” followed by English pagination and Husserliana volume and page number.

  18. 18.

    See E. Husserl, Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen. Nachdruck der 2. ed. Auflage. Hrsg. W. Biemel, Husserliana II (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), trans. Lee Hardy as The Idea of Phenomenology. Husserl Collected Works VIII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999). Hereafter “IP” followed by page number of the English translation and the Husserliana volume and page number.

  19. 19.

    E. Husserl, Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster Teil: Kritische Ideengeschichte, ed. R. Boehm, Hua VII (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965) and Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. R. Boehm, Hua VIII (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965). An English translation is currently in preparation for the Husserl Collected Works series (Springer).

  20. 20.

    See E. Husserl, “Kant and the Idea of Transcendental Philosophy,” trans. Ted E. Klein and William E. Pohl, Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 5 (Fall 1974): 9–56; original collected in Erste Philosophie, Hua VII, 230–87.

  21. 21.

    The term “world of experience” (Erfahrungswelt) is frequently used by Husserl, see, for instance, Ideen I, §46, Hua III/1, 96 and §48; III/1, 102.

  22. 22.

    Edmund Husserl, “Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,” Logos. Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Kultur 1 (1910–1911), 289–341; reprinted in Edmund Husserl, Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911–1921), mit ergänzendenTexten, eds. Thomas Nenon and Hans Reiner Sepp, Husserliana XXV (The Hague: Martinues Nijhoff, 1987); trans. M. Brainard, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy II (2002): 249–95. Hereafter “PRS” followed by page number of English translation and Husserliana volume and page number.

  23. 23.

    Husserl’s concept of the natural attitude (die natürliche Einstellung) includes the “pre-scientific” (Krisis, Hua VI 121, 152, 156) or “extra-scientific attitude,” the “natural theoretical attitude” (Ideas I, §50, 113; Hua III/1 94), the “natural-naïve attitude” (“Nachwort,” Hua V 148), the attitude in which I live my “natural worldly life” (natürliches Weltleben, Krisis, Hua VI 121, 152, 156), the “pregiven world of experience” (die vorgebegene Erfahrungswelt, Krisis Hua VI 120).

  24. 24.

    In Krisis Husserl employs both the adjectives “weltlich” (Hua VI 178,VI 180) and “mundane” (VI 208) to characterize life in the natural attitude.

  25. 25.

    A Key to Edmund Husserl’s Ideas I, trans. Bond Harris and J. Boucharfd Spurlock, ed. Pol Vandevelde (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1996).

  26. 26.

    Rudolf Bernet has denied that the life-world is to be understood as the correlate of the natural attitude but acknowledges that Husserl must have given rise to this impression since it is so widely believed. I can, however, document many places where Husserl identifies the natural world of naïve experience with the life-world. See also Sebastian Luft, “Husserl’s Phenomenological Discovery of the Natural Attitude,” Continental Philosophy Review (formerly Man and World) 31 (1998): 153–70.

  27. 27.

    The term “natural attitude” does not occur in Husserl’s 1906/07 lectures, see Edmund Husserl, Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesungen 1906/07, ed. Ullrich Melle, Hua XXIV (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1985).

  28. 28.

    Surprisingly only Umgebung and not Umwelt is listed in the index made by Gerda Walther to accompany Ideen I. Umgebung appears in IdeasI, §27 with the sense of immediate surroundings. But it is invoked relative to the “intersubjective” world we share with other “I-subjects” (Ichsubjekte) in Ideen I, §29 (die intersubjektive natürliche Umwelt, III/1 60). Avenarius speaks of humans belonging to an Umgebung that includes other humans. Husserl often uses the word “Umgebung” to refer to the habitats of humans and animals (cf. Krisis, Hua VI, 354).

  29. 29.

    It would be interesting to compare Husserl’s and Heidegger’s conception of “worldliness” or “worldhood” (Weltlichkeit). See Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993); trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), §14.

  30. 30.

    Georg Simmel, Die Religion (Frankfurt, 1912), 13. See Andreas Brenner, “Gibt es eine Ethik der Lebenswelt,” Phenomenology of Life from the Animal Soul to the Human Mind, Analecta Husserliana XCIII, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymienecka (2007), 253–67. See also Christian Bermes,Welt als Thema der Philosophie: vom metaphysischen zum natürlichen Weltbegriff (Meiner Verlag, 2004).

  31. 31.

    Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, and Alexander Ulfig, eds., Protosoziologie im Kontext  »  Lebenswelt  «  und  »  System  «  in Philosophie und Soziologie (Frankfurt: Humanities, 2000), 29: Der früheste bekannte Beleg findet sich meines Wissens 1907/08 bei Hugo von Hofmannsthal in seiner Einleitung zur Insel-Ausgabe von “Tausendundeine Nacht.” Fellmann (1983, 120) zitiert die Stelle (vgl. Hofmannsthal: Gesammelte Werke, Prosa II 1959, 276). Hofmannsthal spricht von Gedichten, die uns ansprechen, weil sie aus einer “Lebenswelt hervorstiegen,” die “unvergleichlich” ist. Georg Simmel (Goethe, Leipzig 1913, 152) charakterisiert Goethes Menschengestaltung im Meister mit der Fähigkeit, “durch ihre [der Menschen] Wechselwirkung eine Lebenswelt erwachsen zu lassen” (vgl. Fellmann 1983, 120). In fact earlier references can be found. The theologian Ernest Troelsch uses it to describe the “Christian Lebenswelt.”

  32. 32.

    See, for instance, Theodor Arldt, Die Entwicklung Der Kontinente und ihrer Lebewelt: Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Erdgeschichte, Volume 1 (Leipzig, 1907).

  33. 33.

    Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, and Alexander Ulfig, eds., Protosoziologie im Kontext  »  Lebenswelt  «  und  »  System  «  in Philosophie und Soziologie, 29; 1910 wird der Terminus “Lebewelt” von Karl Diener (Paläontologie und Abstammungslehre, Leipzig 1910, S. 70) für vergangene und rezente Systeme von Floren und Faunen verwendet; er findet in diesem Sinne – auch als “Landlebewelt” – Eingang in Hörbigers‚“Glacial-Kosmogonie” mit der berühmten Welteiszeitlehre (bearbeitet von Ph. Fauth, Kaiserslautern 1913, 382, 508).

  34. 34.

    Jakob von Uexküll, Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere (Berlin: Springer, 1909) and Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen. Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten. (Berlin: J. Springer, 1934); trans. Joseph D. O’Neil, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans. with A Theory of Meaning (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). I am grateful to Jean-Claude Gens for bringing von Uexküll to my attention.

  35. 35.

    The German reads: “Die Lebenswelt ist die natürliche Welt—in der Einstellung des natürlichen Dahinlebens sind wir lebendig fungierende Subjekte in eins mit dem offenen Kreis anderer fungierender Subjekte. Alles Objektive der Lebenswelt ist subjektive Gegebenheit, unsere Habe…” (Ideen II, Hua IV, 375).

  36. 36.

    The German verb “hineinleben” means literally “to live into,” “to immerse oneself into,” but it is used in colloquial German expressions to mean “to take each day as it comes” (in der Tag hineinleben). Similarly “dahinleben” has the colloquial sense of “to vegetate” or “to waste one’s life,” to while away one’s time in a less than fully committed manner. I am grateful to Julia Jansen for pointing out this somewhat negative inflection to the term “dahinleben.” The verb “hineinhandeln” (literally “acting into”) is used by Husserl with regard to natural acting in the world at Hua VIII, 122.

  37. 37.

    See Sebastian Luft, “A New Look at Husserl’s Theory of the Phenomenological Reduction,” in Anuario Filosófico (Madrid), No. 36/1 (2004), Intencionalidady Juicio en Husserl y en Heidegger, 65–104, see 75.

  38. 38.

    E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Drittes Buch: Die Phänomenologie und die Fundamente der Wissenschaften, ed. Marly Biemel, Hua V (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952); trans. Ted E. Klein and W.E. Pohl, Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Third Book. Husserl Collected Works I (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1980). Hereafter “Ideas III” followed by the page number of the English and the Husserliana volume and page number.

  39. 39.

    Husserl in this period speaks of the phenomenological reduction in religious terms as turning us into children in a new sense. He sometimes quotes Christian scripture—“unless we become as little children we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” cf. Hua VIII, 413–18.

  40. 40.

    In Cartesianische Meditationen, §11, Husserl says that the concept of the “transcendent” has to be explored exclusively on its own terms.

  41. 41.

    Edmund Husserl, Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft. Mit ergänzenden Texten, hrsg. Paul Janssen, Husserliana XVII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974); trans. Dorion Cairns, Formal and Transcendental Logic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969). Hereafter “FTL” followed by English page number and Husserliana volume and page number.

  42. 42.

    M. Heidegger, Vom Wesen des Grundes; trans. Terrence Malick, The Essence of Reasons (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969).

  43. 43.

    Hermann Weyl, Raum Zeit Materie Vorlesungen über allgemeinene Relativitätstheorie, 1. Auflage (Berlin, 1918); trans. H. L. Brose, Space Time Matter (London: Methuen, 1922).

  44. 44.

    See Weyl’s letter to Husserl of 26/27 March 1921 in Dirk van Dalen, “Four Letters from Edmund Husserl to Hermann Weyl,” Husserl Studies 1 (1984): 1–12.

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  1. School of Philosophy, University College, Dublin, Ireland

    Dermot Moran

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  1. , Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton, 33431, Florida, USA

    Lester Embree

  2. Dept. Philosophy, University of Memphis, Clement Hall 316, Memphis, 38152, Indiana, USA

    Thomas Nenon

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Moran, D. (2013). From the Natural Attitude to the Life-World. In: Embree, L., Nenon, T. (eds) Husserl’s Ideen. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5213-9_7

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