Originally published in Recherches Husserliennes 2, 1994, 3-18.

Please only quote from

published version.

The Self-Pluralisation of the Primal Life.

A Problem in Fink's Husserl-Interpretation

by Dan Zahavi

University of Copenhagen

That Eugen Fink knew Husserl's thought exceptionally well is indisputable. This

is not only manifest in his own writings on Husserl, which are generally characterized

by profound insights, but also by several manuscripts that Fink wrote on Husserl's

behalf during the period when Fink worked as his assistant.1

Despite this praise however, I do believe, that one important aspect of Fink's

Husserl-interpretation is seriously flawed, namely his account of Husserl's final

position vis-à-vis the problem of intersubjectivity, and that Fink consequently failed

to perceive the true extent of the transformation that Husserl's thinking underwent in

the last period of his life.2 By disclosing this misinterpretation it will be possible to

1
The most prominent examples are FINK's VI. Cartesianische Meditation, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht, 1988, and his article Die phänomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der
gegenwärtigen Kritik, in Kantstudien 38,1933, pp. 319-383, with the famous preface where Husserl writes
that »in derselben kein Satz ist, den ich mir nicht vollkommen zueigne, den ich nicht ausdrücklich als meine
eigene Überzeugung anerkennen könnte«(p.320). Among FINK's own writings on Husserl the most
important are collected in Studien zur Phänomenologie. 1930-1939, Martinus Nijhoff, Den Haag, 1966. A
noticeable exception, however, is the influential article Operative Begriffe in Husserls Phänomenologie
which can be found in Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 11 , 1957, pp.321-337.
This study is based on research undertaken at the Husserl-Archives in Louvain. I am grateful to
Prof. S. IJsseling for the permission to consult and quote from Husserl's unpublished manuscripts.

2
Consequently my interpretation will run counter to one ardently proposed by R. Bruzina in the last years.
The thesis namely, »that the essential Husserlian philosophy of the thirties might have to be thought of in a
profound way as having been actually a joint product, and that therefore it might have to be interpreted in
terms of a dialectical interplay between two philosophical thinkers...« Cf. R. BRUZINA, Solitude and
community in the work of philosophy: Husserl and Fink, 1928-1938, in Man and World 22, 1989, p.294.
expose elements in Husserl's phenomenology that have not, to my mind, received

the kind of attention they deserve.

I.

On several occasions, Fink has claimed that Husserl in his very late manuscripts

abandoned the notion of a transcendental intersubjectivity. Thus, according to Fink,

Husserl tried to replace the category of transcendental plurality with the notion of a

primal life (Ur-Leben) that is prior to the difference between ego and alter-ego, and

which constitutes this plurality by a subsequent self-pluralisation.3 In Fink's view,

Husserl consequently held that the ultimate transcendental ground is pre-egological,

that it precedes every individuation and thus also every plurality.

It is exactly this thesis, which has received a fair amount of attention in the

Husserl-literature, that I will attempt to refute in the following. Mainly for two

reasons: First of all, I believe that it lacks textual support, and secondly - and more

importantly - I find it to be in striking contradiction with a very central notion in

Husserl's thinking, namely his emphasis on the constitutive importance of the

transcendence of the Other. This transcendence could not be maintained if the

difference between the subjects were grounded in the self-pluralisation of a

pre-individuated absolute.

As far as I have been able to determine, Fink has never substantiated his

interpretation with textual references, but it is possible to find passages in Husserl's

reflections on time-constitution, the intentionality of the drives (Triebintentionalität)

3
Cf. FINK, Nähe und Distanz, Karl Alber, München, 1976, p. 223 and FINK's comments to A. Schütz' article
The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl, in A. SCHÜTZ, Collected Papers III - Studies in
Phenomenological Philosophy, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1975, p.86.
and the process of monadisation that prima facie seem to support Fink's view.4 Let

me consider three of the most likely candidates.

A. In Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität III one finds a passage that

apparently substantiates Fink's interpretation expressis verbis:

Die Strukturanalyse der urtümlichen Gegenwart (das stehend lebendige Strömen) führt

uns auf die Ichstruktur und die sie fundierende ständige Unterschichte des ichlosen

Strömens, das durch eine konsequente Rückfrage auf das, was auch die sedimentierte
Aktivität möglich macht und voraussetzt, auf das radikal Vor-ichliche zurückleitet (Hua XV

598. My emphasis).

A closer examination of Husserl's analysis of the structure of

time-consciousness reveals, however, a recurrent emphasis on the fact that the

ego-pole is present everywhere in the primal temporalisation (Ms. C 16 7b, C 16 69b).

Thus even the pre-egological anonymous stream of consciousness is unthinkable

without an ego-pole as the center of affection and action (Hua XV 350, Ms. C 16

68b). Husserl's simultaneous reference to the egoless and egological character of the

stream of consciousness makes it evident, that a conceptual equivocation is at play.

When Husserl speaks about an egoless flowing, the term 'egoless' does not refer to

the missing presence of the ego, but to the passivity of the flow, which is beyond the

influence of the ego (Ms. C 10 16a). Further, when he speaks about a pre-egological

level, he is not speaking about an absolute, pre-individuated ground, but about a

level that is prior to the constitution of the ego as a thematic object of reflection.

4
Fink's interpretation has been adopted by J.R. MENSCH (cf. his Intersubjectivity and Transcendental
Idealism, SUNY Press, Albany, 1988, pp.1, 394, 405) who has attempted to substantiate it textually by a
number of quotations from Husserl's unpublished manuscripts. Although I disagree with Mensch's
interpretation, my confrontation with Fink will be partially led by his textual selections.

3
 Let me try to substantiate this interpretation with some additional references.

Husserl often remarks that it is necessary to distinguish the 'I, that I am' as the ego in

function, and the 'I, that I am' as the object of reflection (Hua IV 253):

Somit haben wir immerfort die Scheidung zwischen dem Ich und cogito als fungierendem,

aber nicht erfasstem (fungierende Subjektivität), und dem evtl. thematisierten, direkt oder

selbsterfassten Ich und seinem cogito, oder kurzweg, fungierende Subjektivität und

objektive Subjektivität (vergegenständlichte, thematisch erfahrene, vorgestellte, gedachte,

prädizierte) sind zu unterscheiden, und, wenn immer ich mich und was immer sonst als

Objekt habe, bin ich zugleich notwendig als fungierendes Ich ausserthematisch dabei, mir

zugänglich als das durch Reflexion als einer neuen, nun wieder nicht thematischen

Aktivität des fungierenden Ich (Hua XIV 431. Compare Hua XXIX 183-84).

In every reflection the ego is present, objectified as an intentional object. Yet, as

Husserl says, it characterises reflection: that which is grasped is grasped as something

which does not simply exist in the very act of reflection, but as something that

already existed in advance (Hua III 95, VIII 412):

Sage ich 'ich', so erfasse ich mich in schlichter Reflexion; aber diese Selbsterfahrung ist wie

jede Erfahrung, und zunächst jede Wahrnehmung, bloss Hin-mich-richten auf etwas, das

schon für mich da ist, schon bewusst ist und nur nicht thematisch erfahren ist, nicht

Aufgemerktes (Hua XV 492-93).

Thus, according to Husserl, the being of the ego is characterized by a permanent

self-appearance and self-affection, and it is precisely for this reason that it can always

thematize itself in a subsequent reflection (Hua XV 483-84, VIII 412, XVII 279-80, IV

318, Ms. C 10 3b, 4b, 10a, C 16 82a). Although the ego is always present as a

functioning ego (as the ego-pole of affection and action (Hua XIV 171)) and although

I am permanently self-aware as an anonymously constituting-functioning ego, it

must, in other words, be stressed that this self-awareness is pre-reflexive, since the I

4
at this stage is neither thematic in an ordinary sense, nor an intentional object in a

natural sense (Ms. C 16 68b, C 16 49a, C 10 2a). Thus, prior to the reflection, prior to

the constitution of the ego as an object, there is an unthematic and unobjectified

self-awareness.5

That Husserl takes the ego-objectivation to be a secondary process is also

substantiated by his claim that it is the retention that makes it possible to turn

consciousness into an object (Hua X 119). Thus the condition of possibility for

reflection is to be found in the self-fission characterising the temporal ekstasis.

Viewed temporally the reflection is a subsequent grasping of something that has

already passed; it presupposes a distance to the living functioning ego, which is then

bridged.6

Although I am unthematised (and consequently to a certain degree

anonymous as a functioning ego), I am still self-aware in a rudimentary sense.

Moreover, since Husserl also writes that every ego, considered merely as an ego, has

its absolute individuality, its absolute singularity (Hua IV 299, 301, Ms. C 17 15b), it

becomes increasingly unlikely that he should have advocated the view that the ego

5
These considerations can be taken as an implicit refutation of the critique levelled at Husserl by M. Frank
and E. Tugendhat. Both have argued that Husserl never escaped the object model of self-reflection. Cf. M.
FRANK, Die Unhintergehbarkeit von Individualität, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M., 1986, pp.43-45, and E.
TUGENDHAT, Selbstbewußtsein und Selbstbestimmung, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M., 1979, pp. 52-53. For
more extended discussions of Husserl's theory of self-awareness cf. R. BERNET, La vie du sujet, Épiméthée,
PUF, 1994, pp. 297-327, and I. KERN, Selbstbewußtsein und Ich bei Husserl, in Akademie der Wissenschaften
und der Litteratur: Abhandlungen der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, 1989/3, pp. 51-63.

6
It is interesting to note that Husserl does not merely differentiate between the ego-pole as the unity in
the stream of consciousness and the ego as an object of reflection; occasionally he also makes a distinction
between the subject as the pole of affection and action and the ego as personal subject. Cf. the following
quotation from Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität II: »Der im solipsistisch fingierten Subjekt
notwendig vorhandene Pol aller Affektionen und Aktionen, das durch den Erlebnisstrom hindurchgehende
Motivationssubjekt, das als solches beständiges Subjekt eines Strebens in mannigfaltigen Modalitäten ist,
wird zum Ich und damit zum personalen Subjekt, gewinnt darin personales 'Selbstbewußtsein', in der
Ich-Du-Beziehung, in der durch Mitteilung ermöglichten Strebensgemeinschaft und Willensgemeinschaft«
(Hua XIV 170-71).

5
and the plurality of egos could be accounted for through a subsequent

self-pluralisation of a pre-individuated absolute.

B. Let me now turn to the area of the intentionality of the drives, where

Husserl mentions the awakening of instincts taking place in the flow of the passive

and egoless temporalisation (Ms. E III 9 4a). It is here, that he speaks about a

pre-theoretical and pre-active instinctual intersubjectivity:

Wie die Einzelsubjekte ihre Aktivität auf dem Grund einer dunklen, blinden Passivität

entfalten, so gilt dasselbe auch von der sozialen Aktivität. Aber schon die Passivität, das

instinktive Triebleben kann intersubjektiven Zusammenhang herstellen. So ist eine

Geschlechtsgemeinschaft in unterstem Grund schon hergestellt durch das geschlechtliche

Instinktleben, mag es auch erst in der Erfüllung seine wesentliche Intersubjektivität

enthüllen (Hua IX 514. Compare IX 486).

Thus Husserl claims that the relation to the Other is manifest on a primal level in the

sexual drive (Hua XV 593-94. Ms. E III 9 28b), and that the disclosure of this kind of

intersubjectivity reveals that the individual monad is instinctually dependent upon

Others (Hua XIV 257, 295, 374).7 Thus, in the community of monads one finds an

absolute being-together, an interpenetrating transcendental co-existence, an

intentional includedness (Hua XV 367-68, 370, IX 485). What appears in the naive

objectivity as a mutual externality (Außereinander) is in reality an inseparable

being-for-one-another (Hua VI 259, XV 191, 194).

These remarks have caused Strasser to conclude both that the strict

separation between the streams of consciousness must be abandoned, since it is

incompatible with the intermonadic fusion indicated by the intentionality of the

7
A detailed account of these aspects can be found in NAM-IN LEE, Husserls Phänomenologie der Instinkte,
Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1993.

6
drives, and that Husserl himself ultimately accepted a primal flowing-stagnant stream

which is prior to the separate streams of the singular monads.8

This interpretation must, however, be rejected. When Husserl speaks about an

intersubjective unity and an intentional interpenetration, he is never operating with a

fusion that is somehow prior to and more fundamental than the inter-subjective

difference, since he very well knows, that this would lead directly to the destruction

of the very notion of plurality involved in and presupposed by the concept of

intersubjectivity (Hua XV 576-77):

Die Individualität der Seelen besagt in gewissem Sinn unüberbrückbare Trennung, also ein

Anders-sein und Aussereinander-sein (im logischen und nicht räumlichen Sinn), das nie zu

einer kontinuierlichen Verbindung werden kann, einer Verbindung, die kontinuierliches

Ineinanderfliessen der monadisch eigenen Zeiten wäre. Andererseits hindert diese

Trennung nicht, ja sie ist die Bedingung der Ermöglichung dafür, daß Monaden sich
'decken' können, dass sie, mit anderem Worte, in Gemeinschaft sein können (Hua XV 335.
My emphasis. Compare XV 339 and XV 577).9

8
Cf. S. STRASSER, Grundgedanken der Sozialontologie Edmund Husserls, in Zeitschrift für philosophische
Forschung 29, 1975, pp.16-17.

9
One finds a comparable argumentation in both Merleau-Ponty and Scheler. In Merleau-Ponty à la
Sorbonne. Résumé de cours 1949-1952, Cynara, 1988, p.44, MERLEAU-PONTY argues that the problem of
inter-subjectivity cannot be solved by postulating a panpsychisme that abolishes the difference between
ego and alter-ego. Correspondingly in Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, Francke Verlag, Bern, 1973,
SCHELER writes that an analysis of the emotions corroborates the existence of a plurality of subjects. If one
examines love or sympathy one is dealing with a true grasping of someone beyond oneself. A real
intentional transcending is manifest, and our experience of sympathy can therefore, according to Scheler,
serve as a direct argument against solipsism (p. 57, 69, 81). Insofar as several kinds of emotions indicate a
plurality of subjects, Scheler criticizes every theory arguing for the existence of a supra-individual unity of
consciousness. From a phenomenological point of view, we are dealing with intentions whose structure is
incompatible with the elimination of a real difference between the subjects (p.75): »Nicht also auf
Wesensidentität der Personen weist das Mitgefühl hin, wie Schopenhauer und Hartmann lehren, sondern
gerade die pure Wesensverschiedenheit (als letzten Grund auch ihrer realen Daseinsverschiedenheit) setzt
das echte Mitgefühl sogar voraus. Das Dasein eines Gefühls - etwa als Inhalt eines überindividuellen Geistes
oder Universalbewußtseins, an dem nur zwei Personen gemeinsam teilhätten, in ihm sozusagen
zusammengewachsen wären, wäre kein Mitgefühl. Und wenn es - wie wir sahen - gerade die Leistung des
echten Mitgefühls ist, in der Aufhebung der solipsistischen Täuschung die Erfassung der gleichwertigen
Realität des 'alter' als 'alter' zu erfassen, so kann es nicht gleichzeitig die dunkle Erkenntnis sein, daß weder
das ego, noch das alter real existiere, sondern nur ein Drittes, dessen Funktionen sie seien«(p.76).

7
 C. The final candidate that I want to consider, is Husserl's occasional remark

that the constitution of the monadic totality is to be regarded as a monadisation, that

is, as a self-explication of the ego into a monadic plurality (Hua VI 416-17, XV 589,

635). At first glance, Husserl's terminology seems to confirm Fink's interpretation, but

a closer analysis reveals that Husserl is in reality describing something quite different,

namely the process which Theunissen has dubbed 'alter-ation' (Veranderung).10 Thus

an important aspect of Husserl's investigation of intersubjectivity is the analysis of the

process taking place when an ego experiences that it is being experienced by another

ego. The result of this 'original reciprocal co-existence', where I realize that I can be

an alter-ego for the Other just as she can be it for me, is the establishing of a kind of

ontological equality:

Es verschwindet der Unterschied zwischen Selbst und fremdem Ich, der Andere fasst mich

als Fremden auf, wie ich ihn als für mich Fremden auffasse, er ist sich selbst ein 'Selbst'

usw. So erfolgt Gleichordnung: eine Mannigfaltigkeit gleichartiger, in gleichem Sinn

selbständiger, sich fühlender, wollender Ich (Hua XIII 243-44).

It is exactly the constitution of this equality that Husserl is describing, when he

speaks about the monadisation of the ego. As he unambiguously points out in Zur

Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität III, the monadisation is the process where the
ego constitutes itself as a member of a socialized totality of equal monads (Hua XV

636-37, VI 417). It is not a process where the ego (or a non-egological primal life)

constitutes the Others by pluralising itself.

10
M. THEUNISSEN, Der Andere, De Gruyter, Berlin, 1977, p.84.

8
 As I mentioned in the beginning, Fink never substantiated his interpretation

with direct references to Husserl's manuscripts. Yet it is remarkably easy to find

remarks concerning the derivative status of intersubjectivity in Fink's own writings

from the thirties! In his article Die phänomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls

in der gegenwärtigen Kritik he explicitly denies, that the transcendental

intersubjectivity is the ultimate ground (Fink 1933, p.371) and claims that the

transcendental totality of monads far from being the adequate articulation of

transcendental subjectivity merely composes the first level of its clarification (Fink

1933, p.368).11 In Dorion Cairns' Conversations with Husserl and Fink, Cairns reports

a conversation with Fink from September 23, 1932 where Fink not only questions the

transcendentality of intersubjectivity, but also contemplates whether the primal ego,

instead of being the absolute, might not rather be its first emanation. 12 Finally one

finds the following passage in Fink's VI. Cartesianische Meditation:

Es zeigt sich vielleicht dann, dass die Monadengemeinschaft selbst noch eine konstituierte

Schicht im konstitutiven Weltwerden darstellt. Damit ist in Frage gestellt, ob die trans-

zendentale Individuation der pluralen Monaden eine letztliche und reduktiv unaufhebbare

Determination des konstituierenden Lebens ist. Es mag sich dann erweisen, ob das

Absolute selbst pluralistisch gegliedert und einer Individuation unterworfen ist - oder ob

alle Gliederungen nur in ihm liegende Selbstartikulationen sind, es selbst nur unter der

Idee des 'Einen' endgültig gedacht werden kann (Fink 1988a, p.160).

11
Although, strictly speaking, this statement does not introduce the notion of the self-pluralising primal
life, one could still claim that it constitutes an indirect proof of Fink's thesis, since Husserl as already
mentioned authorised the article from which it is taken. Considering the incompatibility between Fink's
position and Husserl's emphasis on the transcendence of the Other (which will be spelled out in a moment)
a different interpretation is however more likely. It is well known that Husserl often complained about being
misunderstood by his contemporaries, and it is certainly not unthinkable that, exactly for this reason, he
was more likely to give (uncritical) public praise to the few exceptions.

12
D. CAIRNS, Conversations with Husserl and Fink, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1976, p.95.

9
 As I will show in a moment, Fink's position is ultimately incompatible with and

fundamentally foreign to Husserl's approach, and although it is at this time

impossible to exclude that there might be passages in Husserl's unpublished

manuscripts that could confirm Fink's interpretation, such passages might very well

originate from Fink's influence (rather than the other way around).13

II.

Granting that my argumentation is valid and that Fink actually misinterpreted

Husserl, one might still ask if this flaw in his interpretation is not after all of somewhat

secondary importance. As I mentioned in the beginning, I do believe that it is vital,

since it necessarily implies a disregard of the constitutive importance that Husserl

attributed to the transcendence of the Other and to transcendental intersubjectivity

in general, and consequently a disregard of the radical transformation that Husserl's

thinking - exactly due to his preoccupation with intersubjectivity - underwent in the

last period of his life.

In this second part, I will try to outline a few of the more decisive aspects of

this transformation.

It is well known that Husserl claimed that objectivity is constituted

intersubjectively and that a clarification of this constitution consequently demanded

an analysis of transcendental intersubjectivity. Why is it, however, that a subject can

only constitute objectivity after having experienced an Other? Why is the Other a

necessary condition of possibility for my experience of an objective world; why is my

13
It is interesting to notice that MARLY BIEMEL concludes her remarks to the transcription of the pages
47-63 from the manuscript E III 4 with a similar observation: „Es scheint ein Einfluß von Fink darin zu
sein”(Ms. E III 4,XVIII). Although it is not quite clear if his considerations in fact support Fink, Husserl in this
manuscript speaks about an absolut logos (Gott) in a new übertranszendentalsubjektiven sense, which is
characterized by ontological singularity and which gives all transcendental-monadological being its true
meaning (Ms. E III 4 36b-37a).

10
experience of objects changed radically the moment I experience foreign

subjectivity? Husserl's thesis is that my experience of objective validity is made

possible by my experience of the transcendence (and inaccessibility) of foreign

subjectivity, and that this transcendence, which Husserl characterizes as the first real

alterity and as the source of all kinds of real transcendence, endows the world with

objective validity (Hua XIV 277, XV 560, I 173):

Hier ist die allein eigentlich so zu nennende Transzendenz, und alles, was sonst noch

Transzendenz heißt, wie die objektive Welt, beruht auf der Transzendenz fremder Subjekti-

vität (Hua VIII 495).

Die Transzendenz, in der die Welt konstituiert <ist>, besteht darin, daß sie sich mittels der

Anderen und der generativ konstituierten Mitsubjektivität konstituiert (Ms. C 17 32a).

Why is foreign subjectivity so central a condition of possibility for the

constitution of transcendent validity? The explanation is that the objects cannot be

reduced to being merely my intentional correlates if they can be experienced by

Others. The intersubjective experiencability of the object guaranties its real

transcendence,14 and my experience (constitution) of it is consequently mediated by

my experience of its givenness for another transcendent subject, that is, by my

experience of a foreign world-directed subject. (It is exactly for that reason, that the

Other's transcendence is so vital. If the Other were only an intentional modification

or an eidetic variation of myself, the fact that he experienced the same as me would

be just as conclusive as if one found the same report in several copies of the same

14
Wheras the guaranty in every single case is fallible - what I took to be a valid experience of an Other
could turn out to be a hallucination - this is not the case when it comes to the fundamental connection
between intersubjective experiencability and transcendence. Such an experiencability is of course not to be
interpreted as a mere epistemic criterion for the assumption of a mind-independent reality, since this would
be a relapse into the objectivism that were suspended by the effectuation of the epoché.

11
newspaper). Only insofar as I experience that Others experience the same objects as

myself do I experience these objects as objective and real, that is as intersubjectively

valid.

Even if one is willing to concede that there is a connection between

intersubjectivity and reality - which can be stated negatively in the following way:

That which in principle is incapable of being experienced by Others cannot be

ascribed transcendence and objectivity - there is an unsolved problem, however.

Under normal circumstances I still experience that which I accidentally experience

alone (for instance the IBM, that I am writing on now) as transcendent, objective and

real, although I am not simultanously experiencing that it is being experienced by

Others. And this is even implicitly admitted by Husserl, who writes that, even if I knew

with absolute certainty that a universal plague had destroyed all life but my own, my

worldly experience would still be dependent upon co-functioning transcendental

intersubjectivity (Hua I 125, XV 6, IV 81). The problem can be solved, however, if one

simply differentiates between our first primal experience of Others, which once and

for all makes the constitution of objectivity, reality, and transcendence possible, and

thus permanently transforms our categories of experience, and all subsequent. This

does not mean that all subsequent experiences of Others are insignificant, but their

contribution is different. They no longer make the constitution of the categories

objectivity and transcendence possible, they fulfill them. To phrase it differently:

although my solitary experience of the IBM is an experience of it as real and

objective, these components of validity is at first only given signitively. Only the

moment I experience that Others are also experiencing it is the validity-claim of my

experience fulfilled intuitively, that is, in evidence.

An exhaustive account of this aspect of Husserl's thought would exceed this

article, but enough has been said to make it evident that the transcendence of the

Other is of central importance for Husserl in his clarification of the constitution of

12
objectivity. A transcendence which could not be maintained if, as Fink claimed, the

difference between the subjects were grounded in the self-pluralisation of a

pre-individuated absolute.

It is obvious that Husserl believed the notion of a plurality of transcendental

subjects to be coherent, that is, possible. Ultimately, he would even strengthen this

assertion, and claim that it is necessary, insofar as »Subjektivität nur in der

Intersubjektivität ist, was sie ist: konstitutiv fungierendes Ich« (Hua VI 175). The claim

that subjectivity only becomes fully constitutive, that is, transcendental, through its

relation with Others, is in striking contrast with any traditional Kantian understanding

of transcendental subjectivity. Curiously enough, it is exactly this traditional

understanding which A. Schütz tacitly accepts in his critique of Husserl's theory of

intersubjectivity. Thus Schütz writes:

...it must be earnestly asked whether the transcendental Ego in Husserl's concept is not

essentially what Latin grammarians call a 'singular tantum,' that is, a term incapable of

being put into the plural. Even more, it is in no way established whether the existence of

Others is a problem of the transcendental sphere at all, i.e. whether the problem of

intersubjectivity does exist between transcendental egos [...]; or whether intersubjectivity

and therefore sociality does not rather belong exclusively to the mundane sphere of our

life-world.15

Husserl, however, takes issue with this position in a manuscript now published

in the supplementary volume to Krisis, where he writes:

Freilich, so wie man die transzendentale Subjektivität als das isolierte Ego interpretiert und nach

Kantischer Tradition die ganze Aufgabe der Begründung der transzendentalen Subjekt-

gemeinschaft übersieht, ist alle Aussicht auf eine transzendentale Selbst- und Welterkenntnis

verloren (Hua XXIX 120).

15
A. SCHÜTZ, Collected Papers I, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1962, p.167.

13
 Such a remark could easily be ascribed to K.-O. Apel. This similarity with Apel's

position is not purely coincidental. As I have argued elsewhere in detail, Husserl's late

phenomenology can ultimately be interpreted as an intersubjective transformation of

transcendental philosophy.16 Thus Husserl's conviction that reality is intersubjectively

valid and that my reality-positing acts are dependent upon my experience of Others,

has far reaching consequences, which ultimately shift the very foundation of

transcendental philosophy. Let me point to one of the more surprising:

As Husserl explicitly states in Cartesianische Meditationen, intersubjectivity is

unthinkable unless it is an

explicite oder implicite vergemeinschaftete; darin liegt: eine objektive Welt in sich

konstituierende und in ihr sich selbst - als animalische und im besonderen menschliche

Wesen - verräumlichende, verzeitlichende, realisierende (Hua I 166).

Thus, the moment Husserl became convinced of the transcendental importance of

intersubjectivity, he was bound to account for the mundanisation of transcendental

subjectivity, and consequently to consider the transcendental significance of

generativity, tradition, historicity, and normality.

Furthermore, if one accepts Husserl's standpoint, one is bound to take not

only the consensus but also the dissent of the subjects seriously. Husserl's extended

analyses of these aspects eventually made him enter fields, that have traditionally

been reserved psychopathology, sociology, anthropology and ethnology. Whereas a

strict Kantian transcendental philosophy would have considered such empirical and

mundane domains as without any transcendental relevance, due to his interest in

16
D. ZAHAVI, Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität, forthcomming.

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transcendental intersubjectivity, Husserl was forced to consider these from a

transcendental point of view (cf. Hua XV 391).

In other words, Husserl's late thinking is not only characterized by a decisive

expansion of the transcendental sphere but also by his interpretation of

transcendental subjectivity as being transcendental intersubjectivity (Hua XV 74-75,

XIII 480, VIII 480, 505), that is, identical with the community of finite transcendental

subjects. It is exactly this dimension in his thought that I do not find taken sufficiently

into consideration by Fink. Thus I believe that Fink's decisive mistake was to

underestimate the implications of Husserl's theory of transcendental intersubjectivity,

despite the fact that these implications ultimately transformed and modified (but also

clarified) the entire framework of Husserl's philosophy.

One philosopher who did grasp these implications, although he himself

probably went even further than Husserl, was Merleau-Ponty. As he eloquently

formulates it in Signes:

Or, comment éviter que les frontières du transcendantal et de l'empirique se brouillent si

le transcendantal est intersubjectivité? Car, avec autrui, c'est tout ce qu'autrui voit de moi,

c'est tout ma facticité qui se trouve réintégrée à la subjectivité, ou du moins posée comme

un élément indispensable de sa définition. Ainsi le transcendantal descend dans l'histoire,

ou, comme on voudra dire, l'historique n'est plus rapport extérieur de deux ou plusieurs

sujets absolument autonomes, il a un intérieur, il adhère à leur définition propre, ce n'est

plus seulement chacun pour soi, c'est aussi l'un pour l'autre qu'ils se savent sujets. 17

17
MERLEAU-PONTY, Signes, Éditions Gallimard, 1960, p.134.

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