Abstract
This essay considers the problem of historicity together with the paradoxes of foundation. The concept of lifeworld has been studied mainly in order to clarify two orders of problems, the first concerning the relationship between history and the lifeworld, the second concerning the paradoxes contained in the Krisis regarding the possibility to attain a new foundation of transcendental phenomenology. Both issues must be taken into consideration before we question the possibility of a science of the lifeworld.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Ströker (1987), 160–186.
- 3.
- 4.
Ströker (1987), 115–138.
- 5.
Zahavi (2003), 79–140, stresses the importance of the connection between time, corporeality, and intersubjectivity in order to understand the meaning of the life-world.
- 6.
Even if with different aims, a similar solution has been suggested in Dodd (2004).
- 7.
- 8.
Grathoff (1989), 91–121.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Blumenberg (2010).
- 12.
Held (1991).
- 13.
Ströker (1987, p. 87f).
- 14.
- 15.
What follows is an oversimplification, in the sense that I won’t account for the steps necessary to pass from the epoché of the natural attitude to the reduction of the scientific one to the evidences we can seize in the life-world. For a more detailed account, see Dodd (2004), 175–206. As far as the peculiarity of the reduction of the scientific attitude is concerned, see also Kisiel (1970).
- 16.
Held (1991) has made the point very clear by defining the scientific attitude as a second-level natural attitude.
- 17.
As stated by several passages from his work, Husserl nor put in doubt the achievements of scientific knowledge, neither was willing to disrupt the idea that scientific knowledge is the only one giving us the possibility to access the ‘true’ world. Whether the Husserlian conception of the relationship between scientific knowledge and truth can still be maintained, is an issue we cannot address here. On the subject, see Hacking (1992).
- 18.
Fleck (1979) and Bourdieu (2001) not only move in the same direction as Husserl, but also show how productive a phenomenologically oriented sociology of knowledge could be; nevertheless, these contributions still find scarce recognition within Anglo-Saxon sociology of knowledge (even if Fleck’s work was issued in 1935).
- 19.
Blumenberg (2006).
- 20.
The problems concerning the plurivocity of Husserl’s notion of life-world are discussed in Claesges (1972).
- 21.
Heidegger (1999).
- 22.
Derrida (1991).
- 23.
It is worth taking notice that historicity, according to Husserl, constitutes even the ultimate horizon of animal life in general. If the way a subject can experience historicity depends on its rootedness in a territory, then an experience of the world that can be defined as historical cannot be denied with respect to animals. However, animals are not able to generate a tradition, which remains a peculiarity of human beings. On the other hand, the source of the human capability to generate a tradition, that is, to make sense of the experience of the world we all share as human beings, is deeply rooted in a biologically based characteristic, namely in the fact that we can produce signs by using the expressive potential of our corporeality (Hua XXXIX 2008, 344–346). Even if confined to a footnote, this clue of how complex Husserl’s analysis of historicity is seems to me no less important than the main objective I want to pursue within the present essay.
- 24.
A good example of what could be understood as a sound and convincing accomplishment of a critical epistemology can be found in Foucault’s work (especially in Foucault 1972, where the interweaving of empirical and transcendental within the production of scientific discursivity has been made explicit as an object of investigation). It is also worth mentioning the relationship between Foucault’s philosophy and the way in which Cavaillès took up and modified Husserlian phenomenology: in doing so, Cavaillès prepared the ground necessary to every further development along the path we are suggesting here (see Cavaillès 1947).
- 25.
Ströker (1993), 165–205.
- 26.
In Leghissa (2007), there is a more detailed account of the epistemic structure of the Humanities with special reference to classical philology, which has been the first discipline among the Humanities to develop the methodological awareness we are dealing with here.
References
References to Husserl’s works are enclosed in parentheses (round brackets) and embedded in the text. First comes “Hua,” which is the abbreviation of the German Complete Edition (Husserliana—Gesammelte Werke), and then the volume number followed by the page number.
Hua VI. 1954. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänome-nologie. Herausgegeben vonW. Biemel. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Hua VII. 1959a. Erste Philosophie (1923–1924). 1. Kritische Ideengeschichte. Herausgegeben von R. Boehm. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Hua VIII. 1959b. Erste Philosophie (1923–1924). 2. Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion. Herausgegeben von R. Boehm. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Hua XI. 1966. Analysen zur passiven Synthesis: Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten, 1918–1926. Herausgegeben von M. Fleischer. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Hua XVII. 1974. Formale und transzendentale Logik: Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft. Herausgegeben von P. Janssen. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Hua XXIX. 1993. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934–1937. Herausgegeben von R.N. Smid. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer.
Hua XXXIX. 2008. Die Lebenswelt. Auslegungen der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitution. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1916–1937). Herausgegeben von R. Howa. Dordrecht: Springer.
Further Literature
Bloor, D. 1976. Knowledge and social imagery. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Blumenberg, H. 2006. Beschreibung des Menschen. Aus dem Nachlaß herausgegeben von M. Sommer. Frankfurt am Main: Suhkamp.
Blumenberg, H. 2010. Theorie der Lebenswelt. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. 2001. Science de la science et reflexivité. Paris: Editions Raison d’agir.
Carr, D. 1974. Phenomenology and the problem of history: A study of Husserl’s transcendental philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Cavaillès, J. 1947. Sur la logique et la théorie de la science. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France.
Claesges, U. 1972. Zweideutigkeiten in Husserls Lebenswelt-Begriff. In Perspektiven transzendentalphänomenologischer Forschung, eds. U. Claesges and K. Held, 85–101. Den Haag: Nijhoff.
Derrida, J. 1991. L’autre cap, suivi de la démocratie ajournée. Paris: Minuit.
Dodd, J. 2004. Crisis and reflection. An essay on Husserl’s crisis of the European sciences. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Drummond, J.J. 1990. Husserlian intentionality and non-foundational realism. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Fleck, L. 1979. In Genesis and development of a scientific fact, eds. Trenn, T.J. and R.K. Merton. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. 1972. The Archeology of Knowledge. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books.
Grathoff, R. 1989. Milieu und Lebenswelt. Einführung in die phänomenologische Soziologie und die sozial-phänomenologische Forschung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Hacking, I. 1992. The self-vindication of the laboratory sciences. In Science as practice and culture, ed. A. Pickering, 29–64. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
Heidegger, M. 1999. In Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein” (Wintersemester 1934/35), ed. S. Ziegler, (GA Bd. 39). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
Held, K. 1991. Husserls neue Einführung in die Philosophie: der Begriff der Lebenswelt. In Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft. Studien zum Verhältnis von Phänomenologie und Wissenschaftstheorie, ed. C.F. Gethmann, 79–113. Bonn: Bouvier.
Kisiel, T.J. 1970. Phenomenology as the science of science. In Phenomenology and the natural sciences, eds. J.J. Kockelmans and T.J. Kisiel, 5–44. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Landgrebe, L. 1963. Der Weg der Phänomenologie. Gütersloh: Mohn.
Landgrebe, L. 1968. Phänomenologie und Geschichte. Gütersloh: Mohn.
Landgrebe, L. 1982. Faktizität und Individuation. Studien zu den Grundfragen der Phänomenologie. Hamburg: Meiner.
Leghissa, L. 2007. Incorporare l’antico. Filologia classica e invenzione della modernità. Milan: Mimesis.
Luhmann, N. 1995. Social systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mensch, J.R. 2001. Postfoundational phenomenology: Husserlian reflection on presence and embodiment. University Park: Pennsilvania State University Press.
Mohanty, J.N. 1982. Husserl and Frege. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ricoeur, P. 1949. Husserl et le sens de l’histoire. In Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 54: 280–316. Now in Ricoeur. 2004. A l’école de la phénoménologie, 19–64. Paris: Vrin.
Ströker, E. 1987. Phänomenologische Studien. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
Ströker, E. 1993. Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Willard, D. 1984. Logic and the objectivity of knowledge. A study in Husserl’s early philosophy. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Winch, P. 1958. The idea of a social science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Zahavi, D. 2003. Husserl’s phenomenology, 79–140. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Leghissa, G. (2014). The Infinite Science of the Lifeworld: Steps Toward a Postfoundational Phenomenology. In: Babich, B., Ginev, D. (eds) The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 70. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01707-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01707-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-01706-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01707-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)