| The concern of this essay is the epistemological concept of intersubjectivity in Husserl's Ideas I, Ideas II, Phenomenological Psychology (PP), Cartesian Meditations (CM), and Crisis. Our thesis is that the analysis of intersubjectivity involves Husserl in an account of the stages present in the education of the philosopher, bringing him or her from the naivete of Ideas I, back again, after the progression through Ideas II and PP, CM, and Crisis, to a full, less naive standpoint, largely the same as that of Ideas I.; That is, the standpoint of Husserl in Ideas I--that the philosopher should bracket mundane intersubjectivity in his philosophizing, even as he proceeds after a full day of phenomenologizing to discuss his or her findings with others--remains the focal point for Husserl's work. To maintain that two-sided standpoint, we have to "get beyond" the one-sided, if critical, problematics of person and surrounding world (Ideas II), phenomenological psychology (the "pure" version of PP), transcendental idealism (CM), and phenomenological psychology (the "impure" version of Crisis)--we have to "distance" ourselves from them, to tame them, to encompass them.; In his reflective transcendental standpoint, Husserl brings the past forward--i.e., Husserl assumes the standpoint of Ideas I as present in the other, later texts in the person of the philosopher who writes the text--in order to work through the mediation of mundane science and the transcendental. E.g., in Ideas II Husserl has the mediation of transcendental phenomenology and human science via a personalistic, critical science. In CM we have the mediation of transcendental phenomenology and Cartesianism in a new, full-blown critical transcendental idealism. By reinstating the standpoint of transcendental phenomenology in each of our texts, Husserl demonstrates that Ideas I is not being left behind but is, in fact, consistently challenged anew by mundane sciences in order to establish and re-establish its own integrity.; The point of this dissertation, then, is this: only by working our way through Ideas II, PP, CM, and Crisis can we return to the standpoint of solitary thinking--and to what is a distinct pursuit from that--to the activity of conversation with our peers. Neither of these last two is prior. Such is the "account" of intersubjectivity in Ideas I. |
