Subjectivism and Phenomenology

Abstract

According to Edmund Husserl’s “Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man”, absorption in objectivism caused the crisis of the Western existence.¹ But the post-Husserlian era has vacillated between the death and the return of subjectivism with no apparent end. Ironically, phenomenology, the philosophical school Husserl founded, itself betrays contradictory theories on subjectivism and these conflicts are reflected in the very meaning of the philosophical school. On the one hand, phenomenology in its rigor is rather objectivist. In Pierre Thevenaz’s definition, phenomenology “thus installed itself in a metaphysical neutral zone, where ‘the things themselves’ show themselves and give themselves before any intervention of the mind.”² On the other hand, for critics like Wolfgang Iser it involves whatever is subjective: “The phenome-nological theory of art lays full stress on the idea that, in considering a literary work, one must take into account not only the actual text but also, and in equal measure, the actions involved in responding to that text.”³ But critics have rightly been sensitive to the complex tension such subjective and objective objectives can lead to. For example, James Edie while introducing Thevenaz’s essays on phenomenology says: “Perhaps this ideal of a ‘rigorous science’ of philosophy is one of our chief embarrassments”.