Abstract
As early as 1913, Husserl in Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie designated a descriptive and analytical study of the world of common experience or — as it has come to be denoted in the terminology of his later writings — the life-world (Lebenswelt) as an urgent desideratum. What is meant is the world as encountered in everyday life and given in direct and immediate experience, especially perceptual experience and its derivatives like memory, expectation, and the like, independently of and prior to scientific interpretation. At every moment of our life, we find ourselves in the world of common everyday experience; with this world we have a certain familiarity not derived from what science might teach us; within that world we pursue all our goals and carry on all our activities, including scientific ones. As the universal scene of our life, the soil, so to speak, upon which all human activities, productions, and creations take place, the world of common experience proves the foundation of the latter as well as of whatever might result from them. As far as the construction of the scientific universe as well as the elaboration of a science in the specific modern, “Galilean”, style is concerned, the perceptual world underlies it and is presupposed by it in a still further sense, in that it serves as a point both of departure and of reference for that construction which is to provide an explanation in mathematical terms of events and occurrences in the world of perceptual experience.
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References
E. Husserl,Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie(republished inHusserlianaIII, 1950), p. 52. We refer to the pagination of the original edition which is indicated on the margin of theHusserlianaedition. Hereafter the work is referred to as Ideen I.
Husserl,Die Krisis der Europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Husserliana VI, 1954 (hereafter referred to as Krisis). Cf. our report “The last Work of Edmund Husserl,”Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchXVI, 1956 and XVII, 1957 (reprinted in our Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, 1966).
Husserl,Phänomenologische Psychologie, Husserliana IX, 1962; cf. our report “Edmund Husserl’s Conception of Phenomenological Psychology”The Review of Metaphysics XIX, 1966.
M. Heidegger,Sein und Zeit, 1927 (trans, by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson:Being and Time, 1962 ).
J. P. Sartre,L’Être et le néant, 1943 (trans, by H. E. Barnes:Being and Nothingness, 1956 ).
M. Merleau-Ponty,Phénoménologie de la Perception, 1945 (trans, by C. Smith:Phenomenology of Perception, 1962 ).
A. Schutz,Collected Papers, especially vols. I and III,Phaenomenologica11, 1962 and 22, 1966. See also his earlier bookDer sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt, 1932 and 1960 (trans, by G. Walsh and F. Lehnert:The Phenomenology of the Social World, 1967 ).
Cf., e.g., Husserl,Cartesianische Meditationen(HusserlianaI, 1963) p. 169 (trans, by D. Cairns:Cartesian Meditations, 1960, p. 142 ).
Sartre, L’Être et le néant, Part III, chap. II; Merleau-Ponty, La Structure du comportement, 1942 (trans, by A. L. Fisher: The Structure of Behavior 1963 ). Cf. also the exposition of their views by R. M. Zaner, The Problem of Embodiment (Phaenomenologica 17, 1964), Part II, chap. II and Part III, chap. I I.
Sartre,Critique de la raison dialectique, 1960.
A. Gurwitsch, “Husserl’s Theory of Intentionality of Consciousness in Historical Perspective” II, inPhenomenology and Existentialism(ed. by E. N. Lee and M. Mandelbaum ), 1967.
G. Funke,Phänomenologie - Metaphysik oder Methode?, 1966, p. 44 maintains that already for Descartes consciousness is always consciousness of objects (Objekt-bewusstsein) such that there is no gulf separating and isolating man as a self-sufficient subject from a world of equally self-sufficient objects. In our article (quoted in the preceding footnote) I b, we have dealt with that Cartesian problem, but have come to a somewhat different interpretation.
H. L. Dreyfus, “Why Computers Must Have Bodies in Order to be Intelligent,”The Review of MetaphysicsXXI, 1967, p. 15 f maintains that transcendental phenomenology is based on the “assumption” that “everything can be understood from the point of view of a detached objective thinker”. Against this “assumption” he emphasizes “the crucial role of human involvement” which - as following Merleau-Ponty he points out (p. 19 f) - can only be understood in terms of “the body which confers the meanings discovered by Husserl”. At this point we ask whether involvement as experienced does not refer to consciousness experiencing it. Presently we shall raise the same question with respect to somatic experience.
Cf. A. Gurwitsch,The Field of Consciousness(1964) p. 303 ff and R. M. Zaner,The Problem of Embodiment, Part III, chap. Ill 2 a.
Husserl, “Phänomenologie und Anthropologie”,Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchII, 1941 p. 8: “Sich als Mensch nehmen, das ist schon die Weltgeltung voraussetzen”; cf. also p. 9 f. This article, which reproduces a lecture given in Berlin, June 10, 1931, is Husserl’s reply to the anthropological tendencies of Heidegger, whose name, however, is not mentioned. See also “Nachwort”, Ideen III (HusserlianaV, 1952), p. 138 ff.
G. Funke,Phänomenologie - Metaphysik oder Methode? pp. 99, 139 ff, 168 ff.
Cf. Schutz’ programmatic statement in “Husserl’s Importance for the Social Sciences”, Collected Papers I, p. 149; see also M. Natanson’s Introduction to that volume, p. XLVI f.
Schutz, “On Multiple Realities”,Collected PapersI, p. 249 f.
Schutz, “Some Structures of the Life-World”,Collected PapersIII, p. 120 f.
Schutz, “The Stranger” and “The Well-informed Citizen”,Collected PapersII (Phaenomenologica 15, 1964) p. 95 f. and 133.
Cf. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 71 (Being and Timep. 101).
Husserl,Phänomenologische Psychologie, § 16.
J. Piaget,La Naissance de l’intelligence chez l’enfant, 1936, p. 143 (trans, by M. Cook:The Origins of Intelligence in Children, 1952, p. 136 ).
Funke, “Phänomenologie - Metaphysik oder Methode?” p. 48 f.
Husserl. “Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft”, Logos 1,1911, pp. 323 ff. (trans, by Q. Lauer:Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, 1965, pp. 122 ff.).
Husserl,Phänomenologische Psychologie, p. 121.
Husserl, Krisis, § 51;Phänomenologische Psychologie, § 8; concerning the term “natürlicher Weltbegriff” cf. ibid., pp. 62 and 93 f.
Husserl,Formale und transzendentale Logik, 1929, p. 256 f.
Husserl,Phänomenologische Psychologie, p. 63 f.
Husserl,Phänomenologische Psychologie, p. 63 f.
Husserl,Formale und tranzendentale Logik, § 86.
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© 1970 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Gurwitsch, A. (1970). Problems of the Life-World. In: Natanson, M. (eds) Phenomenology and Social Reality. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-7523-4_3
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