The Role of Interpretation in the Phenomenological Approach to the Other

Abstract

In his phenomenology of intersubjectivity, Husserl tries to grasp the Other as “a ‘modification’ of myself”. He describes him or her as an “analogue” of the ego, even though he notes that the word ‘analogue’ is not to be understood here in its usual sense. In the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, it is expressly asserted that “[a]lter signifies alter ego”. In accordance with this conception of an analogical alterity, Husserl bases the phenomenological approach to the Other on the idea of a constitution of an alter ego by the ego. Not surprisingly, this approach to the Other soon gave rise to the objection that the phenomenology of intersubjectivity fails to account for the radical alterity of the Other.