Sense, Subject and Horizon

Abstract

Presumably, most analytical philosophers, if they are at all familiar with Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology, regard it as a piece of antiquated Cartesianism. Certainly, the Cartesian elements in Husserl's thought are undeniable, for example, his concern for foundational epistemology, his claim that such foundational first philosophy must begin with the subject and his conviction that there is a sense in which our access to our own subjectivity is indubitable, or at least quite different from our access to the world. Yet equally there are also nonor even anti-Cartesian elements latent within it. This paper seeks to isolate some of these elements, in particular, the non-Cartesian implications of what is arguably Husserl's most original and innovative notion, his concept of horizon. Specifically, it first interprets this concept as containing an intriguing conception of how concepts, abilities to act and capacities of imagination mesh with one another in percepts. It then utilises this conception to paint a rather non-Cartesian picture of the subject, object and act of perceptual experience. But we cannot proceed directly to the task of interpreting Husserl's concept of horizon. We must first gather a number of conceptual resources both for interpreting the concept itself and for dealing with two powerful objections to this interpretation. In particular, because this interpretation utilises several central notions from Husserl's theory of intentionality, we need to look at this theory. And because replying to the two objections to it presupposes a certain understanding of both transcendental phenomenology and its method of transcendental reduction or epoche', we will also have to sketch just what Husserl's overall project is and what transcendental reduction is meant to be and achieve. In any case, by sketching Husserl's project, method and theory of intentionality we can indicate something of how the theory and method fit, into the project. This is something useful in its own right. The paper is thus structured as follows: In ? 1 I first indicate just what transcendental phenomenology is supposed to be and explain why Husserl sees an investigation of intentionality as having first philosophical potential and as being essentially descriptive. This identifies the underlying motivation of Husserl's method of transcendental reduction or epoche', and with