The present study attempts to reconstruct Husserl’s account of empirical illusion and hallucination and disclose the significance of sense-deception in Husserl’s phenomenology. By clarifying the relation between the “leibhaftige presence” and “existence” of perceived objects, I shall be able to contend that illusion and hallucination are nullified, invalid perceptions. Non-existence or in-actuality is a form of invalidity: the Ungültigkeit of what demands its insertion in the totality of actual existence. Husserl elaborates an ex-negativo account of in-actuality, in which sensory deception (...) refers to a modal modification, which is always relative and contextual in relation to the total nexus of experience in its intersubjectively validated and harmonious unfolding. (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to explore the contribution of the phenomenological reduction to a distinct form of empathy, which has been identified and called by Ratcliffe :473–495, 2012) radical empathy. This form of empathy brings to light the sense of reality experienced by the subject rather than a mere mental state. However, I shall consider whether and how the phenomenological reduction allows different interpretations of the same experience, thereby impacting on our understanding of another’s sense of reality. Far from (...) dismissing the role of the reduction, I propose a reconsideration of its relevance for radical empathy. In order to spell out my argument, I propose a case ex negativo that looks at Sartre’s and Merleau-Ponty’s different analyses of the sense of reality experienced by obsessive patients. I argue that this interpretative difference ultimately depends on two opposite uses of the reduction itself, and that Merleau-Ponty’s account offers a promising perspective to reintegrate and contextualize the phenomenological reduction into radical empathy. (shrink)