The doctrine of the pregivenness of the world features prominently in Husserl’s numerous phenomenological analyses and descriptions of the role the world plays in our experience. Properly evaluating its function within the overall system of transcendental phenomenology is, however, by no means a straightforward task, as evidenced by many manuscripts from the 1930s. These detail various epistemological and metaphysical difficulties and potential paradoxes encumbering the notion of the pre-given world. This paper contends that some of these difficulties can be alleviated (...) by revisiting Husserl’s late concept of the earth and, more specifically, disclosing its transcendental function in the constitution of pregivenness. To test this claim, I turn to Husserl’s 1931 manuscript describing the paradox of “the originary acquisition of the world.” I argue that the paradox is dissolved by introducing the transcendental-phenomenological concept of the earth. (shrink)

The paths or ways to the transcendental reduction are a pivotal phenomenological notion in Husserl’s philosophy. The metaphor of path, in fact, alludes to the demonstrative proofs of transcendental phenomenology. Nonetheless, Husserlian scholarship has not yet been able to end the disputes surrounding this topic, and as a result, competing interpretations continue to prevail. Since existing theories about the paths have not yet been cataloged or analyzed in their global context, I intend to classify the main existing theories about the (...) paths and evaluate the trend established by Iso Kern. Thus, this paper answers the following questions: how many kinds of theories about the paths are there? And, how plausible is the trend and approach initiated by Kern? In order to evaluate each theory, I will compare the interpretation with its exemplary cases. The key contribution of this investigation is therefore twofold: to distinguish with unequivocal concepts the two main trends of hermeneutical theories in play and to evaluate the plausibility of the aforementioned Kernian one. The paper also attempts to show that the hermeneutical approach initiated by Kern has no contextual examples for its conceptual scheme and should consequently be abandoned in favor of an alternative solution. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the issue of how our personal life is given to us in experience as a whole to be actively shaped and determined. I examine in detail Husserl’s analysis of the kind of experience responsible for this achievement, which he terms Überschau and which thus far has never been addressed by scholars of phenomenology. First, I locate Überschau in the context of self-determination and highlight the difference between the unthematic pre-givenness of life in the phenomenon of (...) self-awareness and the actual, i.e. thematic givenness of life in acts of Überschau. Second, I contextualize Husserl’s discovery of Überschau in his analyses of ethical life and the possibility of a universal epoché. I argue that for Husserl the very possibility of ethical life and of phenomenology itself rest on the totalizing apprehension of one’s life rendered possible by Überschau. In the third section I spell out the essential characteristics of Überschau by contrasting this peculiar kind of consciousness with reproductive forms of consciousness such as recollection and expectation, which otherwise might be easily conflated with Überschau. In section four I reply to a possible objection to the very possibility of Überschau based on the consideration of the infinitely open stream of time-consciousness. I argue that the possibility of Überschau is tightly connected with the egological nature of consciousness as understood by Husserl. The ego does not coincide with its own conscious acts and thus enjoys a special vantage point on the totality of its own life. To conclude, I advance a speculative suggestion about the phenomenological origin of Überschau in the structure of self-awareness. This opens up a variety of possible lines of research that would connect Husserl with philosophers such as Augustine or Heidegger who are more immediately associated with the issue of personal life and its unity or lack thereof. (shrink)

Presenting the first step-by-step commentary on Husserl’s Ideas I, Marcus Brainard’s Belief and Its Neutralization provides an introduction not only to this central work, but also to the whole of transcendental phenomenology. Brainard offers a clear and lively account of each key element in Ideas I, along with a novel reading of Husserl, one which may well cause scholars to reconsider many long-standing views on his thought, especially on the role of belief, the effect and scope of the epoché, and (...) the significance of the universal neutrality modification. (shrink)

Interpreters generally agree that the Fifth Cartesian Meditation fails to achieve its task, but they do not agree on what that task is. In my essay, I attempt to formulate the question to which the Fifth Cartesian Meditation gives the answer. While it is usually assumed that the text poses a rather ambitious question, I suggest that the text asks, How is the Other given to me on the most basic level? The answer would be that the Other is given (...) as accessible in the mode of inaccessibility. Husserl’s failure to convey this question clearly seems rooted in ambiguities concerning the concepts of solipsism and the sphere of ownness. (shrink)

Nesse artigo analiso aspectos fundamentais da noção de intersubjetividade, desenvolvida no pensamento tardio de Edmund Husserl. Primeiramente, apresento o conceito de empatia, demonstrando sua relação com o estabelecimento da esfera intersubjetiva. A seguir, investigo o papel desempenhado pela “comunidade de mônadas” e como ela remete à ideia de mundo objetivo. Tais noções são cruciais, conforme pretendo indicar, para afastar leituras bastante comuns, porém equivocadas, sobre o suposto caráter solipsista da fenomenologia husserliana.