The world-horizon as the wherein of experience

pp. 195-208

in: Saulius Geniusas, The origins of the horizon in Husserl's phenomenology, Berlin, Springer, 2012

Abstract

The world-horizon can be understood in three different ways: as the wherefrom, wherein, and the whereto of experience. This chapter thematizes the world-horizon as the wherein of experience. The characterization of any entity as in-etwas calls for a correlative qualification of the world as All-etwas, and such a characterization of the world constitutes the basis of the world-horizon as the wherein of experience. Moreover, such a thematization reveals the world as the horizon of all horizons, conceived in terms of its formal determination. The chapter subjects such a notion of the world-horizon to Jean Wahl's critique, according to which phenomenology lacks the conceptual means to assert that totality and possibility constitute two aspects of the world-horizon. I answer this objection by turning to the distinction Husserl draws between open and problematic possibilities. In the final analysis, the world-horizon as the wherein of experience is to be conceived on the basis of open possibility.