Abstract
This paper outlines an approach for comparing Edmund Husserl’s late historical-teleological reflections in the Crisis of the European Sciences with Michel Foucault’s archaeology of discursive formations in his Archaeology of Knowledge, with a particular emphasis on the notion of an “historical apriori.” The argument is that each conception of historical reflection complements the other by opening up a depth dimension that moves beyond the traditional limits of the philosophy of history. In Husserl, the concept of the lifeworld fixes the parameters of a “deep history” as the horizon of anonymous subjective comportment, while in Foucault the concept of the archive delimits an alternative deep history of the anonymous production of discursive formations. Together, Husserl and Foucault represent two important moments of the radicalization of the theme of history in twentieth century philosophy, one seeking to extend the limits of transcendental philosophy, the other contesting the domain of the transcendental altogether.
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Notes
See C, Appendix VI.
For a more detailed—and critical—discussion of Husserl’s line of reflection in the “Origin of Geometry,” see §§2, 6 of Steven Crowell, “Husserl’s Existentialism,” in this volume.
This contrast between the two thinkers turning on the axis of the theme of anonymity raises of course a wealth of questions that fall outside of the scope of this paper. Perhaps the most important is the question of the nature of the subject of historical reflection as such. For whom, and from what kind of perspective or point of view (necessary? universal?) is either an analysis of the lifeworld or the archive even possible? And what does it say about those (us?) who find in historical reflections that emphasize ever more radically the discontinuous, the anonymous, the a subjective, the non-human, even the alien, something compelling, as if the sign of truth can only be born by an experience of utter incomprehensibility?
Reference
Shryock, Andrew, and Daniel Lord Smail (eds.). 2011. Deep history: The architecture of past and present. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Husserl abbreviations
C The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. David Carr (Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970.
Appendix 2: Foucault abbreviations
AK The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon, 1972.
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Dodd, J. Deep history: reflections on the archive and the lifeworld. Cont Philos Rev 49, 29–39 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-015-9355-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-015-9355-z