Husserl's Phenomenology of the Life-World

Andrina Tonkli-Komel


The one-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, which helped phenomenology pass on into the 20th century philosophy, was a new opportunity for reconsidering the basic elements and goals of phenomenological investigations as well as its future perspectives. In his letter to Levy-Bruhl from 11 March 1935, Husserl promised that, by applying the phenomenological method, he would succeed in “grounding some sort of transrationalism that would overcome the old and insufficient rationalism, and at the same time justify its innermost intentions.”
      The limited condition of the old, i.e. modern rationalism, which Husserl mentions there, does not refer to the reason’s capability of self-restriction but rather to its incapability of encountering at its outer limits anything else than sheer irrationalism. To oppose such leveling is the true meaning of any genuine transcendentalism. “Transrationalism” could be conceived of as the new transcendentality without any absolutist pretensions of absolving all transcendent being of the world; as transcendentality, which cannot be adverse to the transcendence as absolute relativity. Just as transcendentality cannot simply abolish transcendence, transcendence cannot abolish transcendentality. A special movement is set free in-between the two, a course of history, the life-world.
      We should take into account two absolute qualities; the absolute validity of being as evidenced by reason, and relative being in the world of the revealing life. The correlation between the flowing life and the becoming world is not identical with that of reason and the permanent being of the world. This identification is possible only on the ground of life in full critical responsibility, i.e. life’s attitude to the ultimate truth. Insofar as this ultimate validity of truth in its absolutistic pretension is in constant opposition to the only absolute relative flux, the rational critical responsibility finds as its correlate the permanent crisis of the life-world. It is but the insight into the crisis intruding between the reason and life and correlatively, between being and the world, that can radically change the character of phenomenological criticism or the transcendental criterion of this criticism. It does not suffice to persist in the name of strict science in the correlation between reason and being, and in the directedness of life as a whole toward the unconditioned truth secured by science as an infinite task of life fulfillment, or unification of life and science. What is needed is a critical distinction between the transcendental in terms of permanent transcendence of life striving for ontic fulfillment in the world, and the transcendental in terms of reflective grasping of the identity of life and the being of the world evidenced as the life of reason. Insofar as the reflective critical bearing – as witnessed in Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy – is attainable and has already been attained on the basis of reductionist and corresponding constitutional methodical procedures, this distinction needs a methodical indication, especially if phenomenology is to be understood primarily as a method. This opens up the possibility of distinguishing between the transcendental reductive-constitutive methodical procedure and the movement of phenomenological epochē, which don’t exclude each other but rather set each other free. In other words, the initial and final moment of living in critical responsibility (of the method) is freedom. In what way does this become evident from the phenomenological viewpoint?
     The rudimentary crisis of the unity of life and science compelled Husserl to seek a renewal of rationality, which as transrationality, bridges and overcomes the oblivion of the life-world in the ultimate validity of the scientific criticism of being as evidenced by reason. However, exactly in this respect it becomes evident that the phenomenologically concealed and thus forgotten unity of the life-world is even more genuine than the constructed unity of life and science, inasmuch it includes a distinction between the world and life, which in turn enables the aforementioned separation of life and science as well as all others. Getting a word in edgeways, the “unity of difference” of the life-world also grounds critical responsibility, which is perhaps even freer than the historically inherited freedom of critical responsibility. It is a momentous freedom as the most important achievement of phenomenology in general.
     The momentous starting point of phenomenology also establishes the historical distance between us and the origin of Greek philosophy and science, which can be compared to both Heidegger’s destruction and Derrida’s deconstruction; moreover, destruction and deconstruction are even made possible by epochē; Derrida explicitly states that without the “time of epochē” “deconstruction is impossible.” (1) Epochē simply gives evidence of the movement of the structure. The advantage of Husserl’s momentous structuring (phenomenological analytics) lies in excluding neither corporality, as is true of Heidegger, nor spirituality, as is true of Derrida. The momentous beginning and the transition are marked by the fulfillment of a life freed in itself, displaying its views as the unity in diversity.
     Despite all this, it seems that already at the starting point such momentous phenomenological transition “overtakes” the leap to strict science. The life fulfillment in critical self-responsibility is thus felt as some sort of “overbearing” of the rational mind bridging the void between life and science. At the same time, however, it cannot be denied that in Husserl we are likely to encounter a certain structuring which genuinely makes possible “filling” and “emptying”. A radically different outlook on his philosophy might open up if we, from the very beginning, distinguish between the scientific reduction to the transcendental consciousness with its rationally constituted ontic correlate, and the movement of phenomenological epochē, which is not reductive but, according to Husserl, re-pro-ductive, revealing to life the unity of the world; and it is also pro-re-ductive, giving evidence of the heterogeneity of life in the world. In the “intermediate being” of the life-world, which is not the being in the objective transcendent or in the subjective transcendental sense, there opens up a dis-tinction of life and the world which cannot be unified by way of transition to strict science, and homogenized by way of rationally evidenced being. As the evidencing of phenomena, it could be understood as a dis-play, which both opens the world for life to provide it with meaning, and empties life so that it can find fulfillment in the world. This “game” of the life-world is perceivable in any moment of our everyday life. However, there is a possibility that, for a short moment, it can be momentously displayed. Such momentous reconstruction is in itself productive in terms of what we may justifiably call the phenomenology of the life-world.
     Undoubtedly, such phenomenology of the world has important ethical and cultural implications. Is there something like an ethos of phenomenology, or even a phenomenological culture? Husserl’s ethical and cultural considerations seem to sum up in an alternative: “Either a collapse into spiritual hatred and barbarism or a spiritual rebirth arising out of the heroism of reason that will ultimately overcome naturalism.” If we reproach Husserl for his farsightedness, we can, retrospectively, reproach numerous contemporary ethical stands for their short-sightedness. The fear of heroism of reason is all too often an evidence of turning the blind eye to numerous forms of barbarism we are faced with today – as Europeans!
     Moreover, we need to ask ourselves whether barbarism as a threat perhaps takes its main source from where it should be successfully overcome – from the power of science, which comprises political, artistic and religious fields. In Husserl’s criticism of the modern science movement, a particular emphasis is laid on two instances of oblivion: at the beginning, it’s the human being standing behind science and in the end the world extant before science. Science forgets itself both over its background and foreground, and revolves only in itself. It has thrown out both the excellence of the human being and the excellence of the world. The modern identification of the world with the mathematically calculable nature has moulded the calculable nature of man.
      The ethos of phenomenology cannot be reduced to man’s taking part in this world as a disinterested spectator, or to letting ourselves be led by some special interest after its change, either out of rational heroism or servile revolt. What can be expected, however, is some sort of momentous intra-esse reaching also into the inter-esse of what Husserl thinks as intersubjectivity. This ethos of phenomenology, which acts “from within”, can be joined “from without” by a certain culture of the life-world. Of course, at this point there also opens up, in a largely modified form, a certain momentous possibility of excellence and extraordinariness joined by manifoldness and multi-layeredness.
      The experience of the (everyday, scientific, artistic etc.) actuality is formed in interpretative capabilities, which can be historically concealed or yet unconcealed, overcome, unattained or even unattainable. This dynamic openness of possibilities characterizes the life-world as such. The phenomenology of the life-world cannot principally stick only to (fundamentally-ontological) speaking in favor of possibility rather than actuality, but has to first of all carry out a transformation of critical reason into creative one. This transformation is necessary primarily because it is impossible to limit reason to critical evaluation of life practices. The criteria of reality making possible such an evaluation are directly formed in life practices themselves. The main task of phenomenological rationality is thus an explicit unfolding of basic tendencies of human life in order to be able to form the world through a network of meaningful identities and differences.


Notes

(1) Derrida J.: Gesetzskraft. Der »mystische Grund der Autorität«, Frankfurt/M. 1991, p. 42 (“Force of Law: The Mystical Foundations of Authority,” Cardozo Law Review: Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice. 11:5-6 (1990): p. 920-1045).