Human Studies 27: 221239, 2004. C 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Husserl and the Penetrability of the Transcendental and Mundane Spheres

ROBERT ARP
Department of Philosophy, Saint Louis University, 3800 Lindell Blvd., St.Louis, MO 63156-0907, U.S.A. (E-mail: arpr@slu.ed) Essentially phenomenology is a product of the transcendental subject, whereas science in the ordinary sense is a product of the mundane subject. Eugen Fink

Abstract. There is a two-fold problem the phenomenologist must face: the rst has to do with thinking like a phenomenologist given that one is always already steeped in the mundane sphere; the second has to do with the phenomenologist entering into dialogue with those scientists, psychologists, sociologists and other laypersons who still remain in the mundane sphere. I address the rst problem by giving an Husserlian-inspired account of the movement from the mundane to the transcendental, and show that there are decent prospects for getting life-world folks to start thinking like phenomenologists. I address the second problem by showing that Husserl has himself caught in a dilemma: either the reduction takes place and no communication is possible between phenomenologist and non-phenomenologist, or the reduction does not take place and the phenomenological method remains a psychological makeshift, supposedly accessible to Husserl and his esoteric followers.

Introduction There is a two-fold problem the phenomenologist must face. The rst has to do with the possibility of thinking like a phenomenologist given that one is always already steeped in the mundaneness of the natural attitude. This is to pose a question that is Platonic in tone: How does one break free from the epistemic fetters that keep us thinking like life-world folks and penetrate the transcendental sphere? To put the question in another way, how does one reverse the natural tendency of thinking?1 Essentially, this is a problem that any person who goes about philosophizing must face, as Husserl makes clear in The Crisis (1970, pp. 131132, 175), Maurice Natanson suggests in his Phenomenology and the Social Sciences (1973a, p. 42), and Richard Zaner indicates in On the Sense of Method in Phenomenology (1975, pp. 125127, 139). I will call this the Way-Out Problem (WOP). The second problem has to do with the possibility of a phenomenologist, having achieved epistemic transcendence, entering into dialogue with those scientists, psychologists, sociologists and other laypersons who still remain

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in the mundane sphere. Eugen Fink calls this the problem of communicating and announcing transcendental knowledge in the world, in the natural attitude (1995, p. 101). Natanson puts it another way: Part of the philosophers problem is to communicate with those who are not philosophers, but an equally notable task is for the philosopher to live in the world he has conceptually upended (1973b, p. 199). Again, Plato comes to mind. The phenomenologist, having performed the transcendental epoch , is in a position not unlike e that of the freed person in the allegory of the cave who has bathed in the sunlight, and now must communicate this enlightenment to the enslaved individuals deep down in the recesses of the cavern. The question remains: Is it possible for the enlightened phenomenologist to communicate with the unenlightened scientist, psychologist, sociologist or other layperson? How does the phenomenologist re-penetrate the mundane sphere? This problem I will call the Way-In Problem (WIP). This paper is divided into two main sections. In the rst section I address the WOP by giving an Husserlian-inspired account of the movement from the mundane to the transcendental that begins in a cognitive interruption, continues through scientic reection, transcendent self-reection, phenomenological self-reection, and ends in the universal performance of intersubjective phenomenological self-reection. The end result of this section of the paper is positive, as I show that there are decent prospects for getting life-world folks to break free from nave natural attitude bonds and start thinking like phenomenologists. The second section is not so positive, as I address the WIP and try to show that Husserl has himself caught in a dilemma: either the reduction takes place and no communication is possible between phenomenologist and non-phenomenologist, or the reduction does not take place and the phenomenological method remains a psychological makeshift, supposedly accessible to Husserl and his esoteric followers. The WOP and Demergentism We all begin like cattle, as Nietzsche intimates (1980, p. 8), or at least we are close to cattle in terms of our reection concerning our daily life-world routines; such is the reality of the natural attitude (Husserl, 1970, pp. 121, 144). Richard Zaner rightly notes that the natural attitude is mainly characterized by being attentive to, or being concerned and busied with, the things in the environs associated with that attitude (1970a, p. 49). It is prison (Fink, 1970, p. 107), a life full of unquestioned validities and nave ontological presuppositions (Buckley, 1992, p. 199). So, how does one get from this naivety to a transcendental phenomenology that seeks to clarify and disclose the conditions of the possibility of our knowledge of ourselves and of reality itself? Zaner also notes that phenomenological philosophy is the science of pre-suppositions: of beginnings, of origins, of foundations including its

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own (1970b, p. 34). How do we begin the process of turning our heads from the wall of shadows, breaking our chains, and journeying out of the cave to get a glimpse of these beginnings/origins/foundations? How does one start to philosophize when it never seems to occur to one that one can or should philosophize in the rst place? At the outset it is important to emphasize that it is not inappropriate to be thinking of the phenomenological relationship between the transcendental and mundane spheres as analogous to the Platonic relationship between the out-ofcave and in-the-cave spheres. Thinkers like Zaner (1970a, p. 206), Heidegger (1971), Natanson (1973a, p. 40), McGaughey (1976) and Hopkins (1991) approach Husserl in this way, and Finks comments on Husserls methodology have this Platonic air (1970, p. 107; 1972, pp. 610). Insofar as Husserl thought phenomenology to be the true methodology of the philosopher (cf. Husserl, 1970, pp. 172, 175; Husserl, 1995, pp. 108109; Fink, 1995, pp. 114115), and insofar as Western philosophy owes its genesis in many ways to Plato and the methodology expressed in the Republics cave allegory, there is a philosophical continuum that links Husserl to Plato. Thus, in their work concerning phenomenology Stewart and Mickunas (1974) can maintain that as long as the sense of wonder of which Plato spoke does not arise, that is, as long as men refrain from questioning the basis of this world of experience, there is no philosophy (p. 25). Let me start with an illustration of what I think comprises the psychoepistemological process spanning from naivety to the transcendental wecommunity, or Wir-Gemeinschaft as Husserl calls it (cf. King, 1982). Visualize the entire process as layers (or levels) of something like an onion (or the earth), whereby each layer that is peeled back reveals another layer under it until a core is reached. Below is a listing of what would be revealed at each layer/level, as well as at the core: Outer Layer 1: The unreective, nave, natural attitude, mundane, everyday life-world perceptions of the typical person Layer 2: The third-person, reective, nave, theoretical attitude, mundane experience of the scientist Layer 3: The rst-person, reective, world-bracketed, transcendent experience of the philosopher Layer 4: The third-person, reective, ego-and-world-bracketed, transcendental consciousness of the phenomenologist Inner Core 5: The third-person plural, reective, ego(s)-and-world(s)bracketed, intersubjective, universal, transcendental consciousness of the phenomenological we-community This illustration suggests a few things about the life-world in relation to the phenomenological experience.

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First, even though the life-world is transcended in the epoch , it is not e discarded altogether. As Husserl tells us, for the phenomenologist the world is valid and remains in its actual validity for us, no matter what interests we may pursue; like all interests, those involving eidetic cognition are also related to it (1970, p. 47). Fink comments further: The transcending of the world which takes place in performing the phenomenological reduction does not lead outside of or away from the world to an origin which is separate from the world . . . as if leading to some other world; the phenomenological transcending of the world, as the disclosure of transcendental subjectivity, is at the same time the retention of the world within the universe of absolute being that has been exposed (1970, p. 99). Farber (1962, p. 531), Zaner (1975, p. 126), Str ker (1987, p. 75), Buckley o (1992, pp. 199200) and Carr (1999, p. 97) make similar claims about the bracketing of the life-world. Referring again to the illustration, one may think of peeling off a layer of the onion and disposing of it; however, this is the wrong way to think of the process. Better yet, think of the onion as being split open and its insides exposed. This way, one can see outer layer(s) in relation to inner layer(s). In the same way that the outer layer in relation to inner layer is retained in ones visual eld, so too, one retains knowledge of the life-world as one comes to know scientically. Likewise, one retains scientic knowledge as one comes to self-knowledge; and life-world, science and self-knowledge are retained in the phenomenological reduction. After all, knowledge gained from the life-world, the sciences, and philosophical disciplines supplements our phenomenological knowledge (cf. Farber, 1962, p. 535). Second, this illustration suggests that at the core of the entire experience is phenomenological we-consciousness. Such an idea is not foreign to phenomenology, as the pre-conditions for our experience of the life-world are imbedded in our experience of that world. One and the same experience contains a concrete life-world appearance that conceals an inner transcendental essence (Fink, 1995, p. 114; Husserl, 1970, p. 133; cf. Mouillie, 1997). The life-world is the matrix from which all abstractive activity is generated (Natanson, 1973a, p. 40). We recall that, for Husserl, it is transcendental we-consciousness that makes transcendent consciousness possible. In turn, transcendent consciousness makes experience possible. Finally, this experience is the pre-condition for life-world perceptions. So, one need only begin the process of exposing the core of that experience to see that there is a continuum leading from life-world to we-consciousness. Helmut Wagner and George Psathas hint at this seamlessness in ones cognitive life. Although the various reections originate in different states of our consciousness, in different attentional attitudes toward life, it is the one and same consciousness

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which shows different tensions and it is the one and same life, the mundane life unbroken from birth to death, which is attended to in different modications (1962, p. 191). Finally, I have chosen to refer to the process of moving from life-world to we-consciousness as demergentism. This is a play on the word emergentism as understood by philosophers of mind and biology. For example, the mind is said to emerge as a result of the complex processes of the brain (cf. Hagan and Hirafuji, 2001; Silberstein, 2001), or biological processes in general are said to emerge from physical and chemical processes (cf. Mayr, 1996). Whereas emergentism refers to the metaphysical notion of more complex entities arising from less complex entities, I am stipulating the term demergentism to refer to the epistemological process of uncovering the imbedded we-consciousness that ultimately underlies all of our knowledge concerning ourselves and reality (cf. Wagner and Psathas, p. 191). As Zaner notes, in doing phenomenology we are not engaged in a kind of metaphysical easter-egg hunt (1970a, p. 50). In the Husserlian phenomenological methodology, the ego demerges from epistemological level to level until nally achieving universal consciousness. Having given a general overview of this illustration, we can now speak about the specic steps in this demergent process, and how it is possible for someone in the life-world to demerge from that cave-like perspective to universal consciousness. Early on in our lives we are taught what to believe, how to act, how to dress, what goals we should have for ourselves; for all intents and purposes, we are programmed by parents and role-models. This is not meant to be a critique, and it is probably good to guide children (and other unreective folk) in this manner. However, the end result of such programming is a kind of routineness; life becomes customary, procedural, humdrum, and truly mundane in the Husserlian sense. Such routine perpetuates what I will refer to as cognitive ow. Cognitive ow is the uninterrupted psycho-epistemological state of ones mind as one goes about ones business in the natural attitude, whatever that business may be. Think of those appetite-driven folk in Platos Republic who farm, mine, stitch, live, laugh, lie, and love as would be commonplace given their particular lifestyle. Alternatively, think of a machine or a computer simply going through the unimpeded algorithmic motions of some procedure. At some point, there is bound to be a break in this cognitive ow. I will refer to this break as cognitive interruption. Cognitive interruption can result from any number of different possible events affecting a rational being, from fairly minor events such as moments of doubt and uncertainty (cf. Zaner 1970a, p. 48), being thrust into a new environment, or having ones plans foiled, to major events such as being present at a birth, going through intense suffering or witnessing a death. One possible result of a cognitive interruption is reection. I am suggesting that the demergent process of reection begins with cognitive interruption, and a pass is made from Outer Layer 1 to Layer 2.

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For example, it was commonplace for folks living in Miletus circa 700 BCE to appeal to the shaman class of Greek mythologists when concerned about the weather and its relation to a crop yield for a particular season. Farmers would consult shamans, who would consult their oracles, and then the shamans would make weather predictions. Imagine what happened to this commonplace routine when, time and time again, the predictions went unfullled. The farmers livelihood, as well as the livelihood of the community (because they relied on that farming for food), would be put into disorder. This disorder, in turn, would cause a cognitive interruption, which would cause reection to occur. Something like this must have been a source of the move from mythology to the crude science of the early Milesian philosophers/phusiscists as Barnes (1987, pp. 1617) and Irwin (1989, pp. 2021) suggest. Thales did not just accept the standard party-line explanation for natural events that was routine and commonplace for his Greek mythological world; he reected, observed, hypothesized, reected again, and thus, demerged from Outer Layer 1 to Layer 2. Consider another type of example. Colleagues of mine have used Tolstoys The Death of Ivan Illich or Frankls Mans Search For Meaning as the rst work students read in their Introduction to Philosophy courses in order to jump-start philosophical discussion. Also, I have told the story of my friend who denounced gods existence in the hospital emergency room to wife, inlaws and parish priest while holding the body of his infant son who had died suddenly of SIDS as a way to get my students to start thinking of the Problem of Evil. Being privy to death and suffering create cognitive interruption, which in turn causes reection to occur as well. Tools are put down, televisions are muted, daydreams cease, and questions begin to arise: What am I really? Is this all there is to life? Do I have an origin? Do we have an origin? Does reality have an origin? Is there a master plan? Again, the move is made from Outer Layer 1 to Layer 2. There is more to this onion schema. I want to suggest that this kind of ow/interruption activity occurs at every layer in the demergent process. At each cognitive level a kind of routineness is achieved, some dissonance occurs, and reection takes place. Zaner hints at something like this occurring when he talks about shifts of focal attention and consequent reective orientations associated with the phenomenological reduction (1975, pp. 125, 139140). I want to extend and expand this idea as the fundamental epistemic mechanism at work in our cognitive lives in general. For example, in the theoretical attitude of science cognitive regularity is achieved, and a cognitive interruption occurs in order to begin the process of reecting on the value of science in relation to the ego doing that scientic work. There must be something that science leaves unanswered, or there must be some paradoxical implication that results from holding to a particular scientic view. In Kants time, empiricism and rationalism each had their seemingly sound arguments that generated antinomies (cf. Kant, 1929,

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A409-B436A567-595). These antinomies caused a cognitive rift, Kant was awakened from his dogmatic slumber, and science was reected upon as well as re-worked as an activity of a transcendent ego (cf. Carr, 1977; Robinson, 2000). Thus, Kant demerged from Layer 2 to Layer 3. Likewise, a cognitive stasis had been achieved with Kantian-induced German idealism. Of course Hegel and others like Schopenhauer had spoken the truth about reality; the world is as I or we envision it. It is constructivized, relativized, psychologized, and as Frege tells us, the end result of such idealism is that everything is shunted off into the subjective (1905, pp. 324325; also Frege, 1960, p. 4). This kind of idealism became the philosophical party-line for a time-period (cf. Solomon and Higgins, 1993). Once again, however, a cognitive interruption occurred. Is the solus ipse or solus communis all there is? Is there a world outside of me or we? If so, how do I/we know it or have access to it? And again, a further reection takes place. I know my own thoughts most intimately, so let me reect on myself as well as the world I have made my own. Now, rather than simply living naively in the life-world as I did before, I reect on it, as well as the transcendent consciousness that makes it up, and on the meaning of the objects in the life-world. Consciousness becomes consciousness of myself and the world, not mere pictures, perceptions, and images of them (cf. Kockelmans, 1994, pp. 174205; Welton, 1999, pp. 321). Thus, Husserl demerged from Layer 3 to Layer 4. In the words of Str ker: o Insofar as I, as an onlooker, speak of the validity of an existential belief, or, more precisely, insofar as I establish myself as a phenomenological onlooker in the thematization of this validity, a kind of reection is put into effect which brings to light the phenomenological contents of the nave performance of acts which were completely hidden in natural reection (1987, p. 72). Finally, there was a phenomenological self-reection that arose from the jolting possibility that I am alone with this world, and there are no other Is but me. There may be myself (viz., the solus I) and the world, but are there other Is? If so, how do I come to know them intimately as other Is, if all I apperceive is jaws moving up and down, sounds coming from their mouths, bodily length, width, depth, motion, etc.? And if these apperceptions are other Is, how do I communicate with them? I must assume an inter-subjective connection with these Is. They must see, hear, feel, think and reason as I do: My own world, and the very conditions of my meaningful experience, presuppose other selves and an objective world (Farber, 1962, p. 531). I must attribute to them the same kind of achievements that make up my own genuine being, and I must think that together we can get at some kind of essential knowledge and absolute justication regarding the world. It is the recognition of the transcendental wecommunity that comprises phenomenological activity in the complete sense (cf. Fink, 1995, 103104). Thus, folks like Husserl, Fink, Scheler, Schutz

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and Heidegger demerged from Layer 4 to Layer 5. As Str ker observes: If o the epoch is to be a philosophical method, Husserl demands that it must be e radically conceived and universally performed (1987, p. 73, her emphasis). I have painted a somewhat crude and broad-sweeping historical picture of this cognitive ow/interruption schema that moves from pre-pre-Socratic to post-Husserlian philosophy; however, such a continuum is not inappropriate given Husserls inuences and prot g s (cf. Mohanty, 1996; Rollinger, 1999; e e Crowell, 2001). At the same time, the question arises as to whether this activity can take place in the here-and-now of ones epistemology. In principle, it would seem that someone could be brought from naivety to universal consciousness by an expert trained in phenomenology, and that it is not just the great geniuses of the philosophical world who are privy to such enlightenment. Something like this occurs (we philosophers hope!) within the context of philosophy classrooms all over the world at any given time, as the examples of my colleagues use of the Tolstoy and Frankl texts suggest. If this is true, then the WOP seems not to be an insurmountable problem. I have suggested that philosophizing begins with some kind of cognitive interruption of cognitive ow in the mundane life-world, and that one continues to philosophize by a ow/interruption-ow/interruption-ow/interruption activity demerging from level to level in an epistemological schema not unlike that of exposing the layers and core of an onion. The Platonic problem of breaking free from ones epistemic fetters is not really a problem if some folks already have broken free and are coaxing those who stare at the wall to turn around and begin the journey out of the cavern. It could be said, then, that there really is no WOP because there always exist thinkers who already are free from their fetters. However, my account of cognitive interruption works even if all of us are always already staring at the wall. If someone asked how we begin the process of turning away from the wall in the rst place, my account helps explain this. The answer has to do with an interruption in the cognitive ow associated with ones humdrum life that causes one to reect on that humdrum life. Also, my account explains how folks can demerge further from science to philosophy to phenomenological philosophy until reaching the core of our epistemic life, universal phenomenological self-consciousness. This occurs because there is some kind of ow/interruption-ow/interruption at each layer of the cognitive schema. The next section of this paper explores the possibility of the enlightened phenomenologist, having performed such a reduction, communicating with the unenlightened scientist or layperson. The WIP and Husserls Response While responding to the criticisms of phenomenology made by Rickert and his school (cf. Zocher, 1932 and Kreis, 1930) Eugen Fink points out that, because of its transcendental nature, phenomenology is its own source of paradoxes

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with respect to communication, the possibility of language, and logic. Fink entertains the possibility that these unavoidable difculties lead to a kind of philosophical aporia, ultimately neutralizing the phenomenological position as inadequate because all modes of communication and logic must take place within the context of the natural attitude (1970, pp. 142, 144, 145n1). Given that the phenomenologist purports to transcend, or even escape the natural attitude, all relatedness to the scientist who is steeped in the natural attitude is understood by critics of phenomenology to be doomed. Therefore, the end result would seem to be that the spheres of the transcendental and the mundane remain impenetrable, thereby making communication between the phenomenologist and the scientist, psychologist, sociologist, or any other life-world thinker, impossible (pp. 142145). Another way of posing the paradox runs something like this: Either (a) the transcendental is communicable or (b) the transcendental is not communicable. If (a), then the problem is that the transcendental is communicable to other monadic phenomenologists only and, in the words of Alfred Schutz, the transcendental ego is mute (1962a, p. 190) with respect to the mundane ego. However, if (b), then the problem is that science does not have anything to benet from phenomenological philosophy, and Die Krisis der Wissenschaften in general wins the day. Natanson asks a specically practical question that encapsulates this dilemma: Is there a philosophical problem of intersubjectivity for the sociologist who submits his paper to a professional journal? (1973a, p. 39). And this philosophical problem is really a phenomenological philosophical problem. How is the chemist metaphysically, epistemically, or otherwise beneted by the horizon? the biologist by a presentation? the physician by the eidetic? Jon Doe on the street by the reduction? What phenomenology needs to do is show that communication of the transcendental is possible to the scientist or other non-phenomenologist steeped in mundaneity and that, therefore, science as well as other disciplines can be in a position to understand itself as grounded in phenomenology. Husserl was well aware of the various criticisms leveled against phenomenology, as can be evidenced by his close working relationship with Fink and endorsement of Finks interpretations of the phenomenological method (Fink, 1970, pp. 7273; Fink, 1995, p. 201; Cairns, 1976, pp. 9395). Husserl thinks that, given the paradoxes and apparent aporia that are generated by the transcendental method, it is still possible for the phenomenologist to communicate effectively with the scientist steeped in the natural attitude. He sees the purpose of the phenomenological endeavor as one that takes scientists who exist in the navely already-given world (1970, p. 132; 1995, p. 152; Cairns, 1976, p. 93) and helps move them into a state whereby they can reect upon such a world and, to use the words of Fink, see the world as transparent with respect to its transcendental meaning (1970, p. 143). This can only be possible if lines of communication, language and logic are set up between the

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phenomenologist and the scientist. If science needs the comprehensive embrace (Husserl, 1995, p. 7) of phenomenology, then science must understand what is entailed in this embrace. Husserl felt that the formulation of his phenomenology could indeed be actualized by a building up through theoretical steps from a nave origin (1970, pp. 132133; 1995, p. 153). This nave origin is the sphere of the mun dane. Although the performance and the fruits of the transcendental reduction are tasks that exist as extremely complicated and always lead to extensive disciplines when we penetrate more deeply (Husserl, 1995, p. 55), Husserl still envisioned such tasks as possible to be undertaken. He clearly states that his transcendental phenomenology exists as a beginning philosophy that grows and branches out into the sciences of the nave mundane world (1995, p. 152), and so he envisions a vital and life-giving connection between the transcendental and the mundane. The attacks on Husserl take the form of the paradox of communication, the paradox of language, and the paradox of logic. In opposition to the phenomenologist of the transcendental world, Fink uses the term dogmatist to refer to the scientist of the mundane world; but dogmatist can refer to any other nonphenomenologist in the world. The common element that runs through each specic paradox is the idea that the dogmatist, in relating to the phenomenologist, is left in the dark because the dogmatist either has no understanding of the phenomenologists perspective, or can nd no common footing from which to respond to the phenomenologists epistemic claims. With respect to the paradox of communication, the question is posed as to whether any relatedness is possible between the dogmatist and the phenomenologist because the phenomenologist has broken out of the natural attitude, thereby stripping the interaction of any common basis. Fink continues: While all men, no matter how different their manner of thinking, share the common basis of the natural attitude, the phenomenologist has broken out of this basis in performing the reduction . . . His communication with the dogmatist is now burdened by the difculty that, for the speaker, the position from which statements concerning phenomenological knowledge are made is transparent with respect to its transcendental meaning, whereas it is not so for the listener. Is it therefore possible for them to speak about the same things? (1970, p. 143) I think that Husserls answer to Finks nal question here is Yes. Here are the reasons why: Fink states in this quotation that the phenomenologist is burdened by the difculty that what is communicated will not be understood by the listener. This is only the case if the phenomenologist remains in the transcendental sphere. Husserl makes it very clear in the Cartesian Meditations that daily practical living is nave. It is immersion in the already-given world, whether it be experiencing, or thinking, or valuing, or acting (1995, p. 152).

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Further, he states that the positive sciences are navet s of a higher level e (1995, p. 153). Husserls intention is to offer a grounding for the positive empirical sciences in genuine concepts that are fundamental to all sciences (1995, p. 154). But how is Husserl going to be able to accomplish this without approaching the sciences from a standpoint to and from which they can relate? The phenomenologist must be immersed in the mundane world in order to communicate such a methodology; however, this is not to say that the phenomenologist cannot at the same time remain true to the phenomenological attitude. Plato comes to mind once again. The analogy can be drawn to the freed and enlightened individual who goes down into the cave to communicate with those in darkness. The enlightened one stays enlightened, but must work within the context of the darkened cave employing whatever means necessary to help free those who are enslaved. What further counts against the communication aporia is the fact that Husserl was able to introduce the concept of phenomenology to a whole generation of thinkers, and some of those thinkers were able to communicate with him about his terms and methodology. In short, they were able to break free from their epistemic fetters. For example, Alfred Schutz (a dogmatist steeped in the natural attitude according to Finks interpretation) was able to communicate with Husserlian phenomenology and developed his own advance upon Husserls epoch with the introduction of the Epoch of the e e Natural Attitude, which consists in the bracketing of daily acts of working life experiences so as to solve the problem of inter-monadic communication (Schutz, 1962b, pp. 191192, 233). How was he able to do this if it were not for Husserl, as it were, coming to meet him at his level? Also, several other thinkers like Heidegger (1962; 1966), Scheler (1960; 1970) and Cairns (1976) were able to communicate with Husserl and his phenomenology to either accept, reject or improve upon this manner of approach; Fink himself is included on the list. They all had to be introduced to this new kind of thinking in some way. How was this able to happen? Finally, we note that in the Meditations Husserl communicates his phenomenological methodology to a group of scientists by rst appealing to the methodology of Descartes, a methodology to which these scientists can relate (cf. MacDonald, 2000, pp. 151186). Husserl employs terms such as genuine and science that are familiar to the scientist as a way that ultimately will aid in clarifying something quite unfamiliar to the scientist, viz., the transcendental method of discerning the Objective world (1995, p. 9). In his revised version of the reduction in The Crisis, Husserl shows that he is mindful of the difculties entailed in returning to the life-world. However, he still views the nave life-world as a point of departure, and maintains that the scientist can relate to concepts such as component and stratum which have been necessarily transformed in the reduction (Husserl, 1970, pp. 173174). So, the claim that the critic of phenomenology makes concerning non-communicability

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appears suspect. It seems that one can have ones phenomenological cake and eat it with the non-phenomenologist, too. The second paradox Fink speaks of deals with the way in which language will be presented and utilized by the phenomenologist within the context of the mundane sphere. The criticism is that the phenomenologist uses an invented technical language which is devoid of meaning for the non-phenomenologist (1970, pp. 143144). However, Husserl would think that this criticism is misguided in assessing that an invented technical phenomenological language would be devoid of meaning. It seems that the language associated with a new conception or idea must necessarily change, and the language itself points to something meaningful, viz., the conception or idea itself. True, just simply to use phenomenological language without any reference to the language of the natural attitude would be devoid of meaning from the standpoint of the natural attitude. But when any new concept which does not t the language of the natural attitude is at rst introduced, no one really fully understands what the concept means. Do we think that the Platonic eidos was meaningful or even discernible at rst by the Pre-socratic, the Cartesian ego cogito by the Scholastic, or the Transcendental Unity of Apperception by the rationalist? No. The idea here is that the epistemological or metaphysical entrepreneur of every age must draw the listener from a state of darkness into a state of light by utilizing concepts familiar to the listeners dark environment. Yes, the phenomenological speaker uses language that is not at rst discernible by the listener, and this is understandable given the transcendental arena from which the phenomenologist is working. But the phenomenologist must couch terminology within the framework and context of the natural scheme with the goal of bringing the other to the transcendendal. This is what Husserl means when he maintains in the Meditations that the formulation of his phenomenology could indeed be built up through theoretical steps from a nave origin (1995, p. 153). Also, Husserl would argue that the vocabulary of phenomenology uses the mundane as a sign-post pointing to something wholly other than the mundane, viz., the phenomenological. With the help of mundane terminology, the language of phenomenology can be delineated. In other words, terms that are unlike those in the phenomenological realm can serve to specify the phenomenological realm. An analogy may serve to illuminate the point: In trying to communicate to freshmen in my introductory-level Philosophy course the nature of the Platonic Form of the intelligible world and its relation to its counterparts in the visible world I say, The Form is like a perfect 81/2 by 11 original, and from this original many blemished and imperfect copies are made. I may even utilize the image of a Xerox machine printing out the imperfect copies and speak about how these copies participate in the original. I use the

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language of simile, analogy, allegory and metaphor, and by speaking about the familiar concepts (original, copies, Xerox machine, etc.) I am able to help the students see the transcendent concepts (Form, participation, intelligible and visible worlds, etc.). My students, who previously had no knowledge of such transcendent concepts, begin to grasp what is beyond their familiar conceptions; they become enlightened. So too, Husserls phenomenological language utilizes familiar mundane concepts (e.g., as he lists them in the Meditations: world, nature, space, time, psychological being, man, psyche, animate organism, social community, culture) and purports to move beyond these to a genuine universal ontology (1995, pp. 154155). Further than this, the phenomenological terms themselves can be related in some way to the mundane. Terms like transcendent, bracket, horizon, or even apperception strike the listener of the mundane world with some general meaning; albeit, from the standpoint of the phenomenologist these terms take on wholly new meanings. Finks concern points to the fact that the transcendental epoch , as it is e performed by the scientist in the mundane world, is no easy task. Husserl is mindful that his entire endeavor is an endless program consisting of enormous tasks which have goals that are difcult to arrive at (1995, pp. 54, 152). Natanson, in titling his book, Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Innite Tasks, obviously questions whether Husserl can achieve such goals (1973, pp. 199203). However, (despite such an idealistic tenor) Husserl still thought it feasible to bridge the worlds of the transcendental and the mundane (Husserl, 1970, pp. 173174; Husserl, 1995, pp. 152157). Finks third paradox concerns the inadequacy of mundane logic as it attempts to grapple with the phenomenological experience, and he refers to it as the logical paradox of transcendental determinations (1970, p. 144). From the mundane perspective there are certain aporias the dogmatist experiences that make it such that few or no answers are made evident to the dogmatist in the quest to understand matters pertaining to the transcendental sphere. One example that Fink utilizes of this philosophical block is the relationship that exists between the empirical and transcendental Ego (1970, p. 144). The phenomenologist utilizes a transcendental set of logical relations to explain the relationship that exists between the empirical and phenomenological Ego. But according to Fink, the dogmatist has no cognition of such a relationship given the fact that merely mundane logical constructions are made available. Fink tells us that this third paradox is closely connected with the rst two, and he is correct. Therefore, Husserl most likely would argue that the arguments used to effectively dispatch Finks rst two criticisms can be utilized here as well. In the same sense that language can be utilized in the mundane sphere as a way to point to the transcendental sphere, so too, the logical constructions

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of the mundane sphere can perform the same task. Taking Finks example of the aporia that exists for the dogmatist in attempting to understand the relationship between the empirical and transcendental Ego, we see Husserl in the Meditations and The Crisis speaking to a mundane audience trying to explain and establish the parameters of the discussion surrounding psychology and the reduction. Husserl establishes that consciousness is always consciousness of something (1995, p. 33). This something is the object or what Husserl refers to as the cogitatum. Now, one can perceive the cogitatum and this perceiving process is known as the cogito. The perceiving process is a relationship between cogito and cogitatum manifesting what Husserl terms a noetic/noematic movement. I, as the ego who perceives, have a part in this process. Husserl terms the ego who merely perceives an empirical ego (1970, 72, pp. 257265; 1995, pp. 3334). But I also have the capacity to reect upon my own perceiving process. I am the only type of thing in the natural world that can, as it were, look upon, reect upon, or be aware of my own cognitive processes. This kind of activity is different form merely participating in the event of cognition. This reective capacity is still a part of me, but because I can stand above or look upon my own cognition, there is a sense in which this activity is transcendental. Thus, Husserl splits the ego and terms this reective part of the ego transcendental (1970, p. 258; 1995, pp. 26, 52, 65). I am now envisioned as an Ego (as reecting or transcendental) engaged in a cogito (perceiving or cognitive processes) of some cogitatum (an object like my own bodily self, other bodily selves, or the world). In a very mundane and down to earth fashion Husserl attempts to explain to the reader the conception Ego cogito cogitatum by using the example of perceiving a house. There is the house (cogitatum), there is my empirical egos perception of the house (cogito) as an experiencing of the house, and there is an experiencing experiencing of the house-perception with all its moments of the perceiving itself, as the owing subjective process, and the moments of the perceived house, purely as perceived (1995, p. 34; cf. Husserl, 1970, pp. 261262). In the process of explaining these phenomenological logical constructions, Husserl, a phenomenologist himself, utilizes a logical framework that purports to be understandable by those in the mundane attitude. Husserl would not see the insurmountable aporia that Fink would categorize as the relationship between the empirical and transcendental ego. The WIP and Solipsism The Natanson quotation near the beginning of this paper emphasizes that there exist problems when philosophers try to communicate with non-philosophers. There is no denying that this is the case with all types of philosophizing, phenomenology notwithstanding. In fact, Husserl understood full well what those problems entailed. Finks point (in relaying the criticisms of Rickert

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and his school) is that there are seemingly insurmountable aporias generated by phenomenology that set up the transcendental as a sphere impenetrable from within or without. I have tried to construct what I think to be a possible Husserlian response to these criticisms. Unfortunately, such a response still remains problematic. From the outset we can note that there is an ambiguity associated with the term mundane. On one hand, mundane can mean a particular stance, take, or interpretive perspective taken that is nave either because it is not even recognized as a particular stance, or it can and should yield critically to more perceptive insight in this case, by phenomenology. On the other hand, and this is Finks point in his article (as well as in the Sixth Meditation), mundane can mean the station of human being in reality that is intrinsic and constitutive (i.e., it is in principle irremovable because it makes human being what it is), and this station is existence-in-the-world. Mundaneity, in other words, is the natural ontological constitution of human being, and there is no way to get out of it without ceasing to be human. So, when phenomenology proposes a radical reduction the question is, What is being attempted for phenomenology itself? What phenomenology seems to say is being done may in fact be impossible. And here is the ultimate rub: reconciling the Ego who is disinterested spectator (Husserl, 1970, pp. 157, 256) with the same ego who is also existence-in-the-world (Existenz) (Husserl, 1995, pp. 152153; Fink, 1995, pp. 101, 107, 113; Cairns, 1976, p. 93). For the human being un-humanizes himself in the reduction (Fink, 1995, p. 120). Husserl has set up the spheres of the transcendental and the mundane, and may have doomed any communication between the realms because of what is entailed theoretically in the transcendental epoch (cf. Keller, 1999, e pp. 3958; Overgaard, 2002). Such a methodology seems to be involved in a solipsism because all that exists for the Ego is the subjective given appearance of the external world, including other Egos, as is understood solely from the standpoint of that Ego. Fink tries to point out that if you begin with such a starting point, then both access to what is external from the Egos perspective and access to what is entailed in the transcendental epoch from e the worlds perspective is not possible. This is not, however, the solipsism of subjective idealism. To be sure, this brand of idealism Husserl never ceased rejecting (e.g., Husserl, 1970, p. 135; Husserl, 1995, pp. 148, 150). In this sense, the problem of communicability is not that of overcoming incarceration within ones own self, but within the idiosyncratic language of the reduction itself. Thereby, the very nature and possibility of the project of transcendental phenomenology in the rst place becomes suspect. Yet, Husserls endeavor is to show that the phenomenologist and the scientist actually communicate with one another. The mere fact of communication does not prove that the transcendental epoch works as Husserl would e

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have us believe when he tries to establish the links between science and phenomenology. Now, if Fink is wrong and the two spheres can communicate, then there must be the possibility of getting out of the solipsism that Husserl has set up in the transcendental epoch . But then if this is true, then the e fullness of the epoch never really takes place, and Husserls theory becomes e shoddy. It seems to me that we do communicate with one another in the natural realm, and this then points to the fact that the kind of activity involved in the transcendental epoch does not and cannot take place. Fink has hit upon an e aporia in Husserl that seems unable to be overcome. Either the transcendental epoch takes place and no communication is possible, or the epoch doesnt e e take place and Husserls phenomenology is just a ction or, at most, an ideal that never can be realized. The solipsistic part of Husserls phenomenology was soon abandoned by the likes of Heidegger, Schutz and Scheler in favor of a description of the givenness of the world, not in the solitary experience of the Ego, but in Dasein, social interaction and the religious act (Heidegger, 1962; cf. Moran, 2000, 192221; Schutz, 1962b; Scheler, 1960). In contradistinction to Husserl, who tried to bracket everything of the world in the pursuit of the reduction (as is apparently evinced in this last quotation), later phenomenologists tried to describe the natural attitude or the givenness of mundane world taken in itself. I think that this advance beyond Husserl necessarily had to take place because it became apparent that the demand of the transcendental epoch was too ambitious and really an e inadequate way of viewing the Ego in relation to the world. A small case in point is that we do assume more than merely the appearance of other Egos in the very act of communication. The Other exists precisely as Other, not as simply apperceived lip-moving, hand-waving and/or brow-furrowing phenomena (cf. Natanson, 1973a, p. 43). It is clear that in an ideal world, Husserl would want scientists rst to be phenomenologists who have a keen sense of a genuine universal ontology grounded on an absolute foundation (Husserl, 1995, p. 155). But alas, not every scientist exists as a phenomenologist (in the same way that, for instance, not every citizen in Platos Republic exists as a lover of wisdom). So, according to Husserl, there must be some sort of established communication between the phenomenologist and the scientist specically, for the benet of the scientist and the rest of us who navely go about our business in the natural attitude of the mundane world. Such established communication keeps the scientist on solid phenomenological ground, and ultimately benets humankind in ethical and religious realms as well (Husserl, 1995, p. 156). However, the question will remain as to whether that the transcendental realm exists as a sphere, impenetrable from within or without, and whether such aspirations for science (or any other kind of theoretical discipline) to base itself on phenomenological grounds will remain frustrated.

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Acknowledgements In a special way, I thank Professor Richard Zaner for his comments and words of support. Also, I thank Fr. Mike Barber, Brian Cameron, Randy Colton and Eleonore Stump for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. Note
1. This way of putting the question comes from Henri Bergson, and I thank Professor Richard Zaner for bringing this to my attention.

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