Some questions about idealism and realism in the structure of husserlian phenomenology

Dario Sacchi

pp. 79-86

in: William S. Smith, Jadwiga Smith, Daniela Verducci (eds), Eco-Phenomenology, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

The emphasis laid by Husserl on an abyss of sense between consciousness and reality, between an immanent being and a transcendent being, flows into the assertion of a necessary dependence of the world on consciousness and, consequently, of a constitution of reality within consciousness. But, if he passes in such a way from the undeniable difference in ontological status between world and subject to the assertion of the absolute existence of the subject out of the world, this happens because he presupposes that the ontological status of worldly beings is univocal so that the only way of differentiating from worldly beings would be to go out of the world; after all, there is a secret complicity between objective realism and transcendental idealism. But how is it possible to think of a subject that from the same point of view can make the world appear and be part of it? His mode of being must be understood in the form of negativity and becoming: only thus are we able to conceive a consciousness at once included in the world and including it.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund