North American Philosophical Publications

Husserl's Problematic Concept of the Life-World

Author(s): David Carr
Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Oct., 1970), pp. 331-339
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the North American Philosophical
Publications
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American
Volume

Philosophical

Quarterly
4, October
1970

7, Number

VI. HUSSERL'S
PROBLEMATIC
CONCEPT
OF THE LIFE-WORLD
CARR

DAVID

even the suspicion provides warrant

enough for
the case, especially
in this instance,
reopening
since some have come to see the investigation of the
as either
life-world
with phenom
synonymous
as
or
itself
its
most
enology
forming
profound
stratum. Husserl
scholars point out, quite rightly,
that the master himself did not see it this way, that
he regarded
this investigation
of the Lebenswelt
as merely a necessary preliminary
stage on the way
to transcendental
subjectivity. "Original" phenom
that being
enologists
reply, also quite
rightly,
true to Husserl is less important than being true to
the "Sachen selbst," and it is precisely his move to
transcendental
idealism they object to. Neverthe
do
Husserl with the discovery of the
credit
less, they
life-world and see themselves as continuing
in the
exploration of the terrain to which he led the way.
Husserl would have rejoiced in seeing himself
as a sort ofMoses
thus characterized
to the children
of Tha es, for he claimed the role for himself often
enough. And he lived up to it all too well in one

notes in his historical

AS Herbert
Spiegelberg
JLjl study of the phenomenological
movement,
"the most influential and suggestive idea that has
come out of the study and edition of Husserl's
thus far is that of the
unpublished
manuscripts
Lebenswelt or world of lived experience."1
Because
this fertile idea has inspired so many original and
to phenomenology
contributions
since
insightful
in the work of Maurice
Husserl's
death, notably
and Alfred Schutz, and since the
Merleau-Ponty
of
the life-world seems firmly estab
investigation
lished as an important
subject for philosophical
it may seem a matter
of only historical
concern,
interest

to

return

to

Husserl's

writings

for

critical analysis of his own thoughts on the subject.

as Husserl recognized and insisted
But philosophy,
at the end of his life, is like any other cultural acti
tradition; that is, it is
vity in existing as a cumulative
able to proceed by being able to take its origins and
its fundamental
task for granted;
it owes its on
to
of
its
mode
going
capacity to move away
being
from and in a certain sense forget its origins. But in
exchange for this very capacity tomove forward, it
always runs the risk of not only forgetting but also
being

unable

to

reactivate

and

critically

past.

working on a translation of The Crisis of

at
European Sciences,2 in which Husserl
developed
am
his
of
notion
I
the
convinced
Lebenswelt,
length
that there are many
faults and confusions
in his
to be sorted out and
which
need
exposition
examined.
This
task seems especially
important
since I suspect that some of Husserl's
confusions
have been handed down to his successors along
with his profoundest
insights. This latter point is
I shall not try to establish here. But
something

as

his

readers

know,

at

least

in

those

works

or meant
for publication.
either published
He
to
has a maddening
in rough
describe
tendency
outline, as if discerned from the heights of Mount

examine

its origins. And if the origins are faulty, the heirs to

the tradition may inherit such faults through too
little critical awareness of what
they owe to the
After

sense,

Nebo,

the

salient

features

of

a new

domain,

con

fident that this will provide his successors with a

to venture forth and fill
reliable map with which
in the details. More
than any of his other books, the
a pro
this character of outlining
Crisis exhibits
and
And
directives.
this
gram
issuing anticipatory
is true especially of the 90-page section devoted to
the life-world. There is evidence,
in fact, that this
section was the very last thing to be inserted in the
plan of the Crisis, forming an innovation even over
the Prague lecture on which
the work is based. It
was apparently written during the very last year of
Husserl's active life, a year of feverish activity inter
rupted again and again, and finally interrupted for

1
Herbert
A Historical
The Phenomenological Movement:
Introduction (The Hague,
Speigelberg,
Nijhoff,
i960) vol. I, p. 159.
2
soon to be published
The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction toPhenomenological Philosophy,
to the pages of the German
Press. In the following
from my
I shall quote
translation,
by Northwestern
University
referring
und die transzendentale Ph nemenologie, etc. [Husserliana,
vol. 6], ed. by Walter
(Die Krisis der europ ischen Wissenschaften
original
Biemel
second printing,
(The Hague,
Nijhoff,
1962).

331

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AMERICAN

332

never

by illness. Husserl

good,
more

than

outline,
rough
re-examined.

of

claimed
course,

PHILOSOPHICAL

that it was
but

as

such

QUARTERLY

a decisive

of the notion

elaboration

program.

phenomenological

position
a

After

brief

in the
intro

section on "The Crisis of the Sciences as

know,
ductory
explorers
cause
can
to
terrain
of
the
be
of the Radical
Life-Crisis
of European
map
explored
Expression
faulty
to the exploration
section
grave difficulties
itself, setting it Humanity"
(Part I) and a longer historical
it from the
off on wrong paths and disorienting
devoted to "The Clarification
of the Origin of the
start.
Modern
between Physicalistic
Opposition
Objec
I wish to argue in the following
is that
tivism and Transcendental
What
Subjectivism"
(Part
turns to the lengthy third part, "The
Husserl has assembled under one title a number of
II), Husserl
senses
even
in some
and
of the Transcendental
Clarification
and
Problem,
incompatible
disparate
Each
of
these
the Related Function of Psychology,"
which was to
concepts.
concepts has some validity
but Husserl does not seem to be
and importance,
be the central
section of the projected
but un
aware
not
half
of
their
and
thus
does
finished
The
first
work.5
of
this
third
separateness
fully
five-part
concern himself with
"The Way
into Pheno
part bears the sub-heading
showing that or how they
Transcendental
then, is whether
together. The question,
menological
belong
Philosophy by Inquir
these notions can legitimately be combined under
and it
ing Back from the Pre-given Life-world,"
the re
and if so, whether
the title "life-world,"
constitutes the longest single division of the book as
can play the role in
it stands.
sulting clarified conception
it
But by the time Husserl begins this section he has
that
should
Husserl
thought
phenomenology
the way for the concept of the
already prepared
play.
life-world; in fact the notion is introduced gradually
in the framework
of the historical
I
discussions
of
Part II, beginning with the long section devoted to
It is not actually in the Crisis that the term Lebens
If we look closely at the conception
Galileo.
that
we
to see
one
in Husserl's vocab
its first appearance
shall
able
be
welt makes
there,
emerges
clearly
a
are
as
meant
in
in
themes
it
the
several
of
which
I
fact,
interwoven,
appears
manuscript
ulary;
as a supplementary
text to Ideas, vol. II, dated by
into the notion of the life
claim rather confusedly,
on.
archivists at 1917.3 It appears there world
later
the Louvain
toHusserl, Galileo's great accomplish
According
closely related to a term that is familiar to readers
owes
: nat rlicher Welt
was
to which
modern
its success,
and Merleau-Ponty
science
of Heidegger
ment,
to
nature.
is
it
of
natural
and
linked
mathematization
Husserl
the
asks:
world-concept,4
begriff,
of this mathematization
of
the investigations of part III of Ideen II concerning
"What is the meaning
it needs

the

to be

of

construction

the

For

as

personal,

spiritual,

or

cultural world as opposed to the scientific or natural

world. A comparison would reveal that many of the
of Ideen II and the Crisis
themes and descriptions
are

similar

on

this

point,

and

that

Husserl's

later

writings on the subject were thus able to draw on

reflections initiated at a much earlier date. Never
theless, it is only in the Crisis (1936) that Husserl
uses
the term Lebenswelt with
self-consciously
it in the title of a major
employing
emphasis,
to the
section of the projected book and according

and

nature?"

he

the

re-phrases

as:

question

"How

the train of thought which moti

do we reconstruct
vated it?"6 This question sets the tone for the long,
follows, and Hus
inquiry which
quasi-historical
answer

in the
is pre-figured
in
every-day
"Prescientifically,

serl's

next

paragraph.

sense

experience,

is given in a subjectively
relative way.
the world
Husserl
Each of us has his own appearances,"
says,
and points out that these may be at variance with
one another, a fact with which we are all familiar.
"But

we

do

not

think,"

he

goes

on,

"that,

because

8 Ideen zu einer reinen Ph

Biemel
(The
nomenologie und ph nornenologischen Philosophie, ^weites Buch (Husserliana vol. 4) ed. by Marly
p. 423.
Anmerkungen,"
Hague,
Nijhoff,
1952), p. 375. See the "textkritische
4This term
in 1891 ; third edition:
derives from Richard
Avenarius'
book Der menschliche Weltbegriff
(first published
apparently
eit (1927) provides
the
it is the title of the first section. Heidegger
O. R. Reisland,
implies that his Sein und
Leipzig,
1912) where
in detail
of this concept
elaboration
first adequate
1957, p. 52), but it was also discussed
(eighth edition, T bingen, Niemeyer,
not only in the manuscript
in the Ph nomenologische Psychologie
lectures of 1925
but also, for example,
mentioned
by Husserl,
that the Crisis (1936) was
in
the Hague,
Biemel;
Nijhoff,
1962, p. 87). It is often claimed
(Husserliana vol. 9, ed. by Walter
concern with
the nat rlicher
this is true. But it seems clear that Husserl's
fluenced
book, and in some respects
by Heidegger's
is at least as old as Heidegger's.
See Merleau-Ponty,
Ph nom nologie de la Perception
(Paris, Gallimard,
1945), p. i.
Weltbegriff
5 See Fink's "Outline
for the Continuation
of the Crisis," Die Krisis, pp. 514 ff.
6Die
Krisis, p. 20.

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problematic

husserl's

of

are

there

this,

worlds.

many

we

Necessarily,

in theworld whose things only appear to us

but are the same. [Now] have we
differently
than the empty, necessary
idea of
nothing more
in themselves?
Is
exist objectively
things which
believe

there

in

not,

the

a content

themselves,

appearances

we must

ascribe to true nature ? Surely this includes

and in general
everything which pure geometry,
of the pure form of space-time,
the mathematics
teaches

the

with

us,

"without

notes,

of

self-evidence

uni

absolute

about the pure shapes it can con

and here I am describing," Husserl

versal validity,
struct idealiter

taking

was

what

position,

his thinking."7
'obvious5 to Galileo and motivated
in a few words both
Here Husserl has described
science
the brilliant
insight upon which modern
rests and the fateful mistake which has consistently
at its philosophical
the various attempts
misled
inherits "pure geometry"
Galileo
interpretation.
from the Greeks as a science which affords exact,
valid knowledge for its domain of
inter-subjectively
our
encounters
with the real world we
In
objects.
of the subjective
have the problem
relativity of
what appears, and it is the task of a science of the
to overcome

world

this

Now

relativity.

pure

geom

to the world;
in fact, as a
etry is not unrelated
science it can be seen as originally arising out of the
practical needs of accurately surveying land and the
formulation
has always
like, and its theoretical
back to the real world. Galileo
found application
sees that this is because the real world as it presents
to

itself

us

in

em

somehow

contains,

experience

in it, examples of what is dealt with so suc

in geometry. Galileo's
is that
cessfully
proposal
exact and intersubjectively
valid knowledge
of the
real world can be attained by treating everything
about thisworld as an example of a geometrical object
or relationship.
If every physical shape, trajectory,

bedded

etc.,
as

vibration,
accurately
metrical

of

course,

directly
warmth,

however,
correspond

metrical
7

Ibid.,

which

tone,

that changes
exactly

properties

exactness

smell,

and

uni

leaves untouched,

which

in geometrical

measurable
weight,

This

properties

geo
the

these pure
information

among
us with

in the

shares

of pure geometry.
certain

a pure
about

of

statements

geometrical

and relationships
turn out to provide

nature

versality

being
a version

as

as

measured

after

seen,

possible,

shape,

properties
shapes will
about

is

etc.

do

not

terms:
Galileo

seem

color,
notes,

changes

in geo

even the Greeks had known

the

life-world

333

the relationship
the pitch
of a tone
between
emitted by a vibrating
its
and
length, thick
string
In his boldest move
of all,
ness, and tension.
Galileo proposes to treat all such "secondary quali
ties," as they were later called, exclusively in terms
of their measurable
correlates with the
geometrical
idea that all will be accounted
for thereby.
to Husserl,
Thus is accomplished,
the
according
mathematization
of nature, and such is the origin
of mathematical
physics. It can be broken down
into two steps, actually: Galileo's geometrization of
the

and

nature,

of

arithmetization

ac

geometry

and Leibniz.
Nature
by Descartes
complished
a mathematical
becomes
manifold
and mathe
matical
the key to its inner
techniques provide
we

In mathematics

workings.

access

have

to

an

infinite domain, and if nature is identified with that

domain we have access not only to what lies beyond
the scope of our immediate
but to
experience,
that could ever be experienced
in nature,
everything
as

to nature

i.e.,

an

infinite

domain.

It is by contrast to the Galilean

of
conception
nature that Husserl's
first characterization
of the
life-world emerges. The philosophical
interpreta
tion of Galileo's mathematization
becomes involved
in

series

science

of

To

equivocations.

and

vagueness

set

overcome

of ordinary

relativity

performs

of

the

experience,

abstractions

and

inter

pretations upon the world as it originally presents

itself. First it focuses upon the shape-aspect
of the
to
the
of
exclusion
so-called
world,
secondary quali
ties; then it interprets these shapes as pure geo
metrical
them in
shapes in order to deal with
terms. But it forgets that its first move
geometrical
is an

abstraction

from

interpretation
abstraction

no

second

Its first move

of something.
because,

its

and

something
matter

how

successful

an

is an
we

be in correlating
may
secondary with primary
we
are
world
the
qualities,
trying to explain still
presents itself to us as having both kinds of proper
ties, one of which we
ignore or
systematically
declare

move
Its second
is an
subjective."
to
treat
the
relation
because,
spatial

"merely

interpretation

it
exactness,
ships of the world with geometrical
must consider these relationships
as the ideal ones
with which pure geometry deals, whereas
the real
shape-aspect
curately

in some of these properties

to measurable

of

concept

of

the

measured,

world,
can never

thing but approximations

no

matter

present

how
us with

ac
any

to these ideal relation

ships.

of

Having

forgotten

the abstractive

p. 20 f.

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and

idealizing

role of scientific

thought,

comes

pretation

up

with

PHILOSOPHICAL

AMERICAN

334

the philosophical
an

inter

be is to bemeasurable in ideal terms as a geometrically

Thus
it happens,
determined
says
configuration.
Husserl, "that we take for true being what is actually
a method."* Mathematical
science is a method which
considers the world as if it were exclusively a mani
the ontological
fold of idealized shape-occurrences;
states
it
that
is
such a mani
interpretation
simply
fold. The ontological
claim then gives rise and
to a
such is the course of modern
philosophy
of
the
mathe
absurdities,
sequence
epistemological
and the sub
matical
realism of the rationalists
the
of the
and
scepticism
jectivism
ultimately
treats the scientific method
empiricists. Rationalism
as if it were a kind of instrument,
like the micro
scope, which allows us to see the world as it actually
and
is, which pulls back the curtain of appearances
us
contact
into
with
puts
reality. Empiricism
recognizes that all we ever see is the causal effects of
the real world upon the mind,
and it raises the
of
what we
whether
insoluble
ultimately
question
see accurately
informs us of what is. The curtain of
is thus lowered again for good.
appearance
Husserl's critique is directed not somuch against
as against those
innovations
Galileo's methodical
and
consequences
epistemological
ontological
is not an
scientific method
drawn from it. The
our sight, something
for improving
instrument
which enables us
invented during the Renaissance
once
ances.

and

for

It was

interpretation
remains

ever

all
and

to put
aside
an
remains

of what
the

same

the world

of

abstraction

is seen, and what

whether

or

not

appear
from
and

is seen
we

the life-world

important,
to

claim:

ontological

QUARTERLY

are

scientists who operate with the method. This is the

the "intuitively
"world of sense experience,"9
given
as Husserl
first
[Umwelt],"10
surrounding world
life-world."11
calls it, or finally, the "prescientific
It is that from which science abstracts and of which
the world of objects pos
it is the interpretation,
the
and
both
secondary qualities,
primary
sessing
to vague and
world of spatial aspects belonging
types and not a world of geometrical
approximate
idealities. On the other hand it is a world and not a
It is "sub
of the world.
mental
representation
to
the inter
relative"
comparison
by
jectively
the scientific interpretation
agreement
subjective
in the
affords, but it is not "merely
subjective"
to the mind.12 And most
sense that it belongs

ment,"13

as

natural

science

Husserl

is correctly

abstraction-interpretation,
no
make
meaning,

of which

is the "meaning

says,

sense,

of

natural

understood;
science
would
without

funda

science,
for as

if
an

have

no

to

that

reference

it is the abstraction-interpretation.
II

When
to
he begins the section devoted directly
the notion of the life-world, Husserl picks up many
of the themes that emerged from his critique of
modern
science and philosophy.
Science operates
with abstractions,
the life-world
is the concrete
fullness from which
this abstraction
is derived;
the life-world
science
the
constructs,
provides
out of which the construction
materials
arises; the
ideal character of scientific entities precludes
their
sense
to
while
the
life-world
intuition,
availability
is the field of intuition itself, the "universe of what
is intuitable
in principle,"
the "realm of original
to which
self-evidence"14
the scientist must return
to verify his theories.
Science
and
interprets
explains what is given, the life-world is the locus of
all givenness. The
emphasis here is on the im
of
in contrast to the
life-world
mediacy
experience
mediated
character of scientific entities. The life
world is prior to science, prior to theory, not only
even after
but also epistemologically,
historically
the advent and rich development
of the scientific
tradition

in

the West.

be said that in the context we have been

the Crisis offers us little that is new.
describing,
Much
of Husserl's
actual description
of the life
of the
world at this point is simply a recapitulation
of
with
readers
which
perception
phenomenology
are famil
of the Ideas and the Cartesian Meditations
iar. The life-world is primarily a world of perceived
"bodies." He speaks of the perspectival
"things,"
character of perception,
of outer and inner hori
zons, placing more emphasis than before, perhaps,
on the role of the living body and its kinesthetic
functions and on the oriented character of the field
of perception
the body. His descriptions
around
to
around the concept of
centered
those
correspond
in the Phenom
the "world of pure experience"
of passive
the analyses
enological Psychology,15
found in
and
experience
synthesis
pre-predicative
of
The
the
distinc
und
Urteil.16
Erfahrung
critique
It must

u
12
10
9
8
Ibid.,
Ibid., p. 42.
Ibid., p. 22.
p.
52. Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid.,
15Ph
u
13
pp. 55 ff.
Ibid., p. 130.
nomenologisclie Psychologie,
Ibid., p.
48.
16
third edition
zur Genealogie der Logik, ed. by Ludwig
und Urteil. Untersuchungen
Landgrebe,
Erfahrung
1964), PP- 73 ff.

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p.
(Hamburg,

127 f.
Ciaassen,

PROBLEMATIC

HUSSERL'S

in
tion between primary and secondary qualities,
is of course not
follows Berkeley,
which Husserl
new, nor is his insistence on the ideal character of
to the
structures in opposition
pure geometrical
of the experienced
world.
Husserl's
realities
greatest

of
is seen

matization

in fact,

context,

status

the
not

of
as

merely

concerns

as

of the life-world

his characterization

assessment

his

in this

innovation

not somuch

science.
one

Mathe

interpretative

way of dealing with the world, but as a historical

which involves an original establish
phenomenon
in
ment
tradition. Galileo
and a handed-down
and com
herits the tradition of Greek geometry
bines it in a fruitful way with the need for a science
in turn, take for
of the world. His
successors,
world
the
which
his
of
way
interpreting
granted
a
as
of
kind
Husserl
pro
methodological
regards
and go on tomake great dis
posal or hypothesis17
coveries and theoretical refinements. Philosophers,
abso
also taking for granted Galileo's
proposal,
lutize it into an ontological claim which then makes
It is
incomprehensible.
experience and knowledge
to this historically
modern
scientific
determined,
view of the world that Husserl wishes to oppose the
world as it really presents itself, the pre-scientific
life-world in which we always live but to which our
reflection has been blinded
theoretical
by our
characteriza
scientific prejudices. This historical
tion of scientific thought does reflect, by contrast,
on the concept of the life-world, for it implies that
relative phenom
the life-world is not historically
enon but the constant underlying
ground of all
the world from which the scienti
such phenomena,
it con
takes its start and which
fic interpretation
stantly

OF

CONCEPT

our

as cultural

theories."18

and

of Husserl's

remarks

appear

puzzling

and
that

and,

in

my view, point to a second notion of the life-world

which differs radically from the first. Very early in
for taking
the life-world section, attacking Kant
the world as the scientific world and ignoring the
in scientific
role of the life-world
experience,
from the very start in
Husserl writes: "Naturally,
the every
the Kantian manner of posing questions,
as
day surrounding world of life is presupposed
the surrounding world in which all of us
existing
17Die
Krisis,

p.

The

"add

world,

37
22
21 Ibid.
7M.,

f.
p.

18
132.

Ibid.,

p.

106 f.
23

p.

to

themselves

to

discipline

the

sciences,

their scientists

as

theories,

its own

the

then,

composition,"20

cular

at any

paradox,

so

all-encompassing,

doxically demanding manner

seems
world?"21 But Husserl
as

rate,

para

of being of the life

to regard this parti
resolved.

easily

being

For it is not quite true that the scientific world and

the life-world, previously distinguished
with great
are

care,

now

being

merged.

is adding to the life-world is not

What Husserl
as described by scientific
the world
theories but
rather the scientific theories themselves; and when
he

to

refers

houses,

them

he

. . .But

this

this

he

way

always

adds:

or: "as spiritual (intellectual)

[geistige Leistungen]."22 "[Science's]
"the

writes,

not
or

in

facts"

things

trees.

They

logical parts made

. . .

constructs,

logical

in the life-world
are

ideality

does

wholes

logical

up of ultimate
not

are

like stones,
and

logical elements.
change

in the

least

the fact that they are human formations, essentially

related to human actualities and potentialities,
and
thus belong to this concrete unity of the life-world,
whose concreteness
thus extends further than that
of'things'."23 There is a difference between engag
ing in science, i.e., interpreting the world according
to its methods,
and living in a cultural world of
which
science is a part. "If we cease being im
in our scientific thinking," Husserl writes,
mersed
19

Ibid.,

with

sciences

consciously

also

and enrich its content.

seem to be involved in a
At first Husserl might
flat contradiction
dis
here, since he previously
the
of
life-world
from
the
world
science
tinguished
and now seems to be putting them back together.
Husserl is aware of this seeming contradiction when
he writes:
"the concrete
life-world,
then, is the
soil [der gr ndende Boden] of the 'scienti
grounding
fically true' world and at the same time encompas
ses it in its own universal concreteness. How is this
to be understood?
are we
to do justice
How
that is, with appropriate
scientific
systematically

theories,"

this background
of explicit
is against
of the life-world
characterizations
implied

are

here

the scientists as creators of the

together with
theories, are part of the life-world. Again and again,
but almost always in passing, Husserl refers to the
sciences as cultural facts which belong, presumably
along with other cultural facts, to the life-world.
As they arise, he says, they "flow into"19 the life

of course
It

335

facts in this world,

accomplishments

Ill

many

and

existence;

"as cultural

presupposes.

LIFE-WORLD

am now philosophizing)

I who

(even
have

THE

Ibid., p.

115.

20

Ibid.,

132 f.

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p.

134.

"we

aware

become

human

and

beings

PHILOSOPHICAL

AMERICAN

336
that

we

as

such

scientists
are

after

are,

the

among

all,
com

ponents of the life-world which always exists for us,

ever pre-given;
and thus all of science is pulled,
into
with
the merely
us,
along
'subjective
relative'

life

Husserl

Here

world."24

ac

has

a brilliant
reversal. The scientist sees
complished
the relativity of our "merely
himself as overcoming
the
subjective" pictures of the world by finding
as
is.
it
Husserl
world
the
world,
really
objective
shows that the scientist can just as easily be seen, by
as a man who himself has a
a shift in perspective,
sort
of
picture of the world, and that as
particular
such both he and his picture belong within the
"real" world, which Husserl calls the life-world.
Now with this Husserl may have resolved one
about the life-world, but he has left us
paradox
the life-world as a
with another. For in describing
can
contain
scientific
which
world
cultural
as

as well

theories

stones,

and

houses,

says,

theories

scientific

are

not

what

and,

things,

strictly

speaking,

even

And

spatio-temporal.

the same thing is obviously true of other elements of

such as the state,
the cultural world:
institutions,
the

university,
do
Revenue,

be perceived;
movements,
many-leveled

the

church,
before
stand

not

nor do works
the

generation
constitutive

the
us

Bureau
simply

of
as

to

of literature,

protest

Elaborate

and

gap.
analyses

must

be

de

if this world
to these phenomena
is to be
as
in
insisted
himself
Husserl
Ideas,
understood,
vol. II; and above all the role of language in struc
and its world must be
turing both the community
How
is this to be squared with the
appreciated.
This cultural
"world of immediate
experience?"
world may indeed be described as pre-theoretical,
in the sense that it does not need to number among
voted

the

theory of the
sort

particular

But

as

terms

such

of

mathe

in the modern

theory developed

"pre-predicative,"

"immediate,"
"intuitively
given" are clearly out of
place. Least of all can the cultural world be de
as historically
non
scribed
and
sociologically
as
not
that
which
does
relative,
is,
something
can
with
the
times
and
circumstances.
How
change
the term "life-world"
be used for such disparate
concepts ?25
unaware

is not

Husserl

of one

the

of

aspect

para

dox just described and seems to think he has taken

it into account:
this is the historical and possibly
sociological relativity of the life-world considered as
In spite of the "subjective
cultural world.
rela
tivity" of the life-world by contrast to the objective
scientific world, Husserl writes, "normally,
in our
us
the
and
in
united
social
with
group
experience
the

facts

of
community
a certain
;within

that

accord,
alien

. . . But

social

occurs

of

are

noticeable

thrown

we

an

into

the Negroes

etc.,

peasants,

'secure'
its own

of

any

by
we

that

at

arrive

this

when

sphere,

Chinese

Congo,

we

life,
range

is, undisturbed

in the

discover

that

truths, the facts that for them are fixed,

generally verified or verifiable, are by no means the
their

same

as ours."26

often

uses

ings
come

have

world

connection
in

"life-world"

historical

different

life-worlds.

One

relativity,"

of

of objective

science

to

behind

reach

that Husserl
the

and

periods

"cultural

this

the way

It is in this
term

the

that different

Internal
objects

less

matical-scientific
West.

a scientific

elements

much

disagreement.

counts most for the phenomenologist,

they are not
as
are
not
of percep
are;
objects
they
things
given
tion, they are not given in perspective,
they are
not,

its constitutive
world,

in

Husserl

trees,

into what by his own account is a very

has moved
domain. As Husserl
different
phenomenological

QUARTERLY

way
course,

itself, leaving
i.e.,

objective,

such

plural,

social group
to

over

is to go

the life
mathe

then asks ifwe

truth. Husserl
determined
matically
are left with nothing
else to say about the life
world other than that it is culturally relative. "But
this embarassment
he
immediately,"
disappears
writes, "when we consider that the life-world does
have,

in

all

its

relative

features,

general

structure.

that
This general structure, to which
everything
exists relatively is bound, is not itself relative. We

21
Ibid., p.
25 I cannot

133.
the "life-world"
of the Crisis
between
claim that there is "a perfect
correspondence"
agree with Kockelmans'
is simply "more
and that the Crisis formulation
in Ph nomenologische Psychologie,
of immediate
and the "world
experience"
A Historico-Critical
and desirable"
Study, [Pittsburgh,
Duquesne
Psychology.
Phenomenological
(Edmund Husserl's
comprehensive
of das Geistige in the world
of ex
"The appearance
It is true that the 1925 lectures deal with
Press,
University
1967, p. 288]).
at one point
even refer to "die Erfahrungswelt
als
Kulturwelt"
and
p.
113).
(p.
no)
Psychologie,
(Ph nomenologische
perience"
sense (p. 115), are not
in a broad
is quite clear that cultural objects and even persons,
But Husserl
they are "perceived"
though
a reduction
to the world
of (strictly) perceived
in sense experience
"things":
strictly speaking. Thus he finally proposes
given
setzt Menschen
und Tiere
das an sich Fr here. Kultur
ber der Kulturwelt
ist diese Dingwelt
"Offenbar
voraus, wie
gegen
since it contains many
ismore
"desirable"
of the
the Psychologie
voraussetzen"
diese ihrerseits K rperlichkeit
(p. 119). Actually
so badly needed
in the Crisis.
distinctions
26Die
Krisis, p. 141.

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problematic

husserl's

concept

can regard it in its generality and, with sufficient

care, fix it once and for all in a way equally acces
sible to all."27 This structure is what Husserl calls
the a priori of the life-world, the essence shared by
all particular
their content,
life-worlds, whatever
which makes them what they are.
I maintain,
Now these considerations,
important
as they are, do not dispel the discrepancy described
earlier between
life-world as cultural world and
It is
life-world as world of immediate experience.
quite correct to speak of the different "worlds" of
different peoples and historical periods, and it is
also quite correct, inmy opinion, to seek the general
or a priori structures belonging
to any such world
as
we
But
should
be
clear on the fact
such.
purely
the latter task, we are seeking
that, in undertaking
the general structures of the cultural world and not
of the world of immediate
necessarily
experience.
Several
differences
between
the two types of
First,
suggest themselves
immediately.
inquiries
analysis of the cultural world
phenomenological
will have to deal, and in fact must deal primarily,
the constitution
of precisely
with
those cultural
entities

mode

whose

of

was

givenness

contrasted

earlier with that of the perceptual world.

Its first
status of
subject of concern must be the ontological
as such and the conditions of the
the community
as institutions,
of
such
possibility
phenomena
and
literature,
political
organizations,
religion,
whatever

mores,

forms

particular

they

may

take.

of
thing from a phenomenology
in this
Second, since the "life-world"
perception.
cultural sense can change historically,
its phenom
must
with
structures
deal
the
eidetic
of
enology
such change, the essential conditions of any and all

This

is the farthest

cultural

transformations.

perception,
concern
not

at

least
itself

The

phenomenology
own
account,

on Husserl's
with

such

of
need
since

transformations,

the

structuring

role

of

language

and

the

com

munication
based on it, while
the world of im
to Husserl,
mediate
is dis
experience,
according
or pre-predica
tinguished by being pre-linguistic
tive

in character.

Now this is not to say that the phenomenology

of
the cultural world is totally unrelated to the phenom
or immediately
ex
of the perceived
enology
In
world.
it
utmost
is
of
the
im
fact,
perienced
27
Ibid., p. 142.
28
T bingen,
vol. 2 (fifth printing,
Logische Untersuchungen,
29
und Pariser Vortr ge (Husserliana
Cartesianische Meditationen
pp.
149 ff.

life-world

337

to show the dependence

of the cultural
portance
world upon the perceived world for its constitution,
to Husserl himself. The
and this again according
cultural community
is not something perceived,
like a thing or a body, but neither is it given to us
of perceived
bodies; we know the
independently
members,

representatives,
and
because

community

as

such

objects

we

because

community

as

monuments,

perceive
or
we

and

tools

its artifacts

other

perceive

books,

and

as

persons
of

authorities

the

physical

factories

and

But

documents.

the

cultural world is precisely dependent for its sense upon

the perceived world and is not identical with it. It
represents a higher and distinct level of constitu
tion, just as, to go back to the first of the Logical
a sentence
Investigations, reading and understanding
the
represents a higher level than simply perceiving
on the page.28 The
words as physical configurations
former isfounded upon the latter, as Husserl would
reducible to it. What
is
say, but is by no means
needed is a stratified constitutive
analysis like the
one in the fifth Cartesian Meditation
leading from
to the experience
of
straightforward
perception
persons
cated

and,

from

constitution

there,
of the

to

the much

more

compli

community.29

But notice that we have now placed the cultural

world in the same position, relative to the so-called
world of immediate experience, as the scientifically
constructed world of mathematical
physics. That
is a domain of entities and
is, the cultural world
structures whose
is mediated
by and
givenness
founded on the spatio-temporal
world of percep
tion. No less than the scientific world, the cultural
in the world of
world has its meaning-fundament
as the domain through which its struc
perception
tures

are

mediated,

always

always directly

"verified"

the

of

sure,

structures do not change. Finally,

the
perceptual
of the cultural world must appreciate
investigation

the

of

character

in which

its

truths

in our experience.

the mediation

and

are

To be

the mode

of being of the entities

that make
up the two
"worlds" are quite different.
It could be said that
the two types of "mediated"
focus on
experience
different aspects of the concrete world. Both are
in that a coherent
historical
and
development
transformation of truths about the world is essential
to both. But the character of the historical develop
ment
is different; as Husserl points out, especially
in these later writings,
the historical development
at least ideally; our con
of science is culmulative,
cept of what is true does not simply change from

Niemeyer,
1968) pp.
vol. 1), ed. by Stephen

61 ff.
Strasser

(The Hague,

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Nijhoff,

2nd ed.

1963),

one

to

time

the

gression, with
ones before it.
the parallels
removal from

next

is

from

the

as

electron,

two sorts of entities

case

but

in a

grows

constant

necessitating

is in many
simple

as

great
and

our

our

access

ways

degree
to

similar,
at

perception

some

modern

term

turn

"life-world"

as we

out,

of
these

in any
stage.

then,

have

seen, to fall into two distinct strata, one of which is

indeed prior to the scientific domain (the "world of
but the other of which
immediate
experience")
seems to be on the same phenomenological
level as
in spite of its differences
the scientific domain,
or mediated
that is, in respect to its derivative
it is confusing at
character. From this perspective
best

to use

single

name

for

the

two

different

con

something

of which

Husserl

was

aware

paper

appears

as one

of the Beilagen

to Die Krisis,

mathematical

science,

pp.

whatever

their

the

sharing

we

must

in general,

and,

are

differences,

designation

sense that together

the

in

alike

con

second

point

in Husserl's

a term that is used

the

in

"pre-scientific"

the

for the

they form the foundation

world.

mathematized

The

in placing
them together under one term? This
can
in a way
be answered affirmatively
question
use of the term
which
partly justifies Husserl's
even though
it does not exonerate
"life-world"
him from the error of using it in a confusing way.
But it complicates matters
further, supporting my
term
statement earlier in this paper that Husserl's
"life-world"
involves not just two but several dif
of how
ferent concepts at once. A brief examination
of interests
this is so reveals the great multiplicity
in
and directions of inquiry which motivate Husserl
The Crisis of European Sciences.
Three considerations
point to elements that are
common
to the two types of world we found in
30This

First,

the preconditions
for the existence
of
stituting
science. This means
that the phenomenological
stratification
earlier must be somewhat
developed
revised. It is not as if the world
of immediate
level supporting a
experience made up a primary
can take the form either of
level which
secondary
culture or of the scientific domain. Rather,
the
scientific level constitutes a tertiary stratum built on
the second or cultural level. This does not invali
date our point about
the important
differences
the first two levels, but it does justify
between
their

cepts I have been discussing.

But we might ask how Husserl was able to fall
prey to this confusion. Or, to put the question in a
more flattering way :Do the world of immediate
experience and the cultural world have something
in common,

"life-world."

science of nature. Now

problem of the theoretical
which
from the
emerges, not so much
something
Crisis as from the important
short paper on the
is Husserl's
claim that
"Origin of Geometry,"30
not
theoretical
science depends
for its possibility
on
the
world
of
immediate
the
only
experience,
on
but
also
the
cultural
and
world,
perceived
and its world. To exist and
linguistic community
construct
its mathematically
determined
world,
science must have at its disposal not only a whole
system of language but also a system of culture in
which certain truths can be shared and taken for
granted as a basis for continued work. The cultural
and the world
world
of immediate
experience,

I have developed
The argument
thus far points
to a serious ambiguity
in Husserl's
notion of the
life-world
and to a resulting
structural mistake
on the phenomenological
its position
regarding
the world of post
map. He begins by distinguishing
Galilean mathematical
science from the world of
life or life-world. He tries to show the
everyday
the life-world,
the way in which
of
the
priority
on the life-world for
scientific world is dependent
its sense. But the phenomena
ranged by Husserl
the

in Husserl's

remember that the touchstone of the Crisis, and the

to which
it returns again and again,
is
point

IV

under

QUARTERLY

volved

pro

each new stage building

upon the
In spite of these differences, however,
are obvious:
surely our degree of
the gold crisis, for example, or the

"Establishment,"
removal

PHILOSOPHICAL

AMERICAN

33^

life-world,
pre-given

favor

repeatedly

namely
is what

centers

around

with

in connection

"pre-given"
is there
in

(vorgegeben).
that
advance,

is taken for granted, which

is passively
which
received by consciousness
and forms the back
ground for its activity in relation to the world and
itself. In keeping with his growing emphasis on the
in the
cultural world in his later writings, Husserl
to
Crisis and other late texts sees it as contributing
what

is always
It

sciousness.

and
is not

necessarily
only

the

pre-given
world
of

to
pure

con
ex

the a priori of the life-world in this sense,

perience,
that consciousness
takes for granted in its dealings
it is also the cultural world and
with the world;
whatever prejudices and interpretations may derive
from it. In conscious
life, man may be without
scientific upbringing
and thus lack the scientific
365 ff.

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interpretation
means

to

say,

of the world.
without

But he is never, Husserl

and

culture,

thus

never

some view of the world which goes beyond

without
to perception.
Thus
the
its immediate
givenness
like the world of pure experience,
cultural world,
is a necessary ground (Boden) of conscious life ; it is
pre-given not only for the theoretical activity of the
scientist but for any activity whatever.
Finally, cultural world and perceived world are
united in the very important conception of the pre
theoretical. This is a slightly different point from
the first in this series, which pointed to the priority
of the life-world over the scientific world;
for in
the term "pre-theoretical"
Husserl
refers
using
to
sorts
of
consciousness
and
the
different
primarily
attitudes it can assume. He had come to stress much
more than in his earlier writings
that conscious life
a quest for
not even primarily,
is not exclusively,
truths about the world which
could be
objective
into a coherent world
combined
theory. The
in this later period
is rather
"natural"
attitude
of the Ideas
different from the "natural attitude"
turns out to be
which, when
closely examined,
the philosophical
theory of naive realism. "Original
natural
calls it in the Vienna
life," as Husserl
not
for
is
theoretical at all, but
Lecture,31
example,
rather

practical.

For

at

consciousness

this

level,

the

world is the domain of ends to be attained, projects

to be carried out, materials
to be used in carrying
them out. It is not a mathematical
manifold
of
entities to be known with theoretical exactness, but
a pre-given horizon of the useful and the useless, the
the relevant and
significant and the insignificant,
the irrelevant. There
is no denying
the Heideg
in
later
of
flavor
these
considerations
gerian
and the question of influence is properly
Husserl,
raised. But in any case we can see that both the
its instruments
and socially
cultural world, with
immediate
and
of
determined
the
world
projects,
experience must be seen as the milieu in which the
pre-theoretical,

practical

life

of

OF

CONCEPT

PROBLEMATIC

HUSSERL'S

consciousness

runs

THE

LIFE-WORLD

339

its course.

In much of what Husserl says about the

world
here, one is reminded of Merleau
perceived
not be
must
that perception
Ponty's warning
an
as
were
it
if
science." The
analyzed
"incipient
of the perceived world around the lived
orientation
and
of movement
body is a practical orientation
a

not

accomplishment,

relative"

munity,
only
truth,

i.e.,

to

relative

the

truth-in-itself

("Die Krisis

or

the

com

about

the world-in-itself.

cultural and the perceived worlds combined,

the horizon of "natural" or primordial
form
then,
attitude. And
conscious life with its pre-theoretical
as such they form the pre-given ground from which
the theoretical
attitude
arises, the pre-scientific
world underlying
the scientific. As I have said,
these considerations
toward
go some distance
into
the
the
built
celebrated
confusions
clearing up
concept of the life-world and offer some justification
for Husserl's rather broad use of the term. But at the
same

time

they

indicate

that

much

more

work

to be done. Moreover,
I think that if taken
for the
seriously
they raise profound
problems
whole phenomenological
enterprise, at least as its
it. In any case we
founder originally
conceived
should be warned
that Husserl's concept of the life
can
world is not something that phenomenologists
simply take for granted.
needs

Received

Lecture

subject

relative to the project under consideration

by contrast to the notion of "objective"

The

Tale University

81Die
Krisis, p. 327. The Vienna
the Beilagen,
pp. 314 ff.
32Die
Krisis, p. 135.

orientation.

theoretical

culture does not essentially present us

Similarly,
with a "theory" of the world, but envelopes us in
a domain
to spheres of
articulated
according
action, providing norms and directives for getting
around. The cultural world may contain a scientific
but is not exhausted
theory among its elements,
in the stock of objective truths the theory provides.
Not that the concept of truth has no relevance here,
for hand in hand with Husserl's new descriptions of
consciousness and the world goes a new concept of
or "practical"
truth. Here he refers to "situational"
as "merely
truth,32 which is properly characterized

des europ

ischen Menschentums

September 3, ig6g

und

die Philosophie")

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in another

of