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References
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I am, in effect, endorsing a position that Harrison Hall has recently defended. “The conclusions I will be aiming for are that the ‘Fifth Meditation’ adds nothing to Husserl's phenomenology which requires either a shift in method or a re-evaluation of foundations, and that, in the relevant respects at least, theCrisis is perfectly continuous with theCartesian Meditations.” Harrison Hall. Intersubjective phenomenology and Husserl's Cartesianism.Man and World 1979,12, (1), p. 14. Yet Hall is willing to speak of solipsistic and intersubjective phenomenology. Hall does not trace the problem in Carr's article to an attempt to make something of the distinction between solipsistic and intersubjective phenomenology which, if I am right, cannot be done. Rightly or wrongly, I think that the terms in question strongly suggest, misleadingly, that there are two phenomenological methods.
I have in mind those commentators I mentioned in footnote 4, among others. Since Ricoeur is correct in observing that solipsism has always been an objection to idealistic philosophies, I also have in mind those commentators who interpret Husserl's philosophy as a kind of idealism that is opposed to realism. Roman Ingarden is probably the leading proponent of the idealistic interpretation. Cf. Roman Ingarden,On the motives which led Husserl to transcendental idealism. (A. Hannibalsson, Trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975. There are some philosophers who have adopted Ingarden's interpretation. Others take Husserl to be an idealist, although I have no reason to believe that they adopted it from Ingarden. These include Peter Koestenbaum (Husserl, 1967, pp. LX–LXI), William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian (introduction to their translation of Husserl'sThe idea of phenomenology, pp. xvii–xx). Richard Holmes has noted that there are other commentators who think that Husserl is an idealist in Is transcendental phenomenology committed to idealism?.Monist (January, 1975,59 (1), pp. 98–114. Proponents of the idealistic readings of Husserl are inclined to take Husserl to be a solipsist and to take his writings on intersubjectivity as an attempt to solve the problem of other minds.
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I read an earlier version of this paper at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy on November 1, 1979.
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Hutcheson, P. Solipsistic and intersubjective phenomenology. Hum Stud 4, 165–178 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02127455
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02127455