Husserl and the Problem of Dualism

Abstract

I have chosen as a theme for this paper Husserl’s struggle against dualism, discernible in all of his works. This struggle was, finally, in vain, but it nevertheless remained exemplary for those thinkers who elected to follow Husserl, for example, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I have, therefore, adopted as my title “Husserl and the problem of dualism”¹ because, even if transcendental phenomenology remains dualistic in spite of Husserl’s efforts toward monism, its purpose is not to assert dualism dogmatically, but rather to demonstrate, in line with the phenomenological way of thinking, that unity can only be given pretheoretically (vortheoretisch): the awakening of thought splits this unity irrevocably into pieces. That is why, for Husserl, dualism never ceases to be a problem — a problem which pointed to itself as the most thought deserving. But Husserl’s greatness as a thinker resides also in his acceptance of the limited validity of dualism, and even of its “truth” not only for reflexive thought but also for life itself, as Merleau-Ponty did later in his own way.²

… il fallait pousser jusqu’au bout le portrait d’un monde sage que la philosophie classique nous a laissé, — pour révéler tout le reste … . Bon gré mal gré, contre ses plans et selon son audace essentielle, Husserl réveille un monde sauvage et un esprit sauvage. Merleau-Ponty, ‘Le philosophe et son ombre’.