Trascendental subjectivity and social world

Abstract

The issue of intersubjectivity exposes that the social sciences stand in need of philosophy, explains the origin of social relations and provides a basis for any conception of subjectivity. Phenomenology has posed this question from its very roots and the Solipsism usually attributed to it, is incompatible with Husserl's attempt at explaining the constitution of the world by means of transcendental intersubjectivity. Husserl understood transcendental intersubjectivity as essential to any possible human comunity, that is, he granted the transcendental more importance than the intersubjective. In the present article we consider the so considered Husserlian egology and affirm that the latter can only be avoided if dialectics is applied to the relation I-Other, if phenomenology becomes dialectic. In his later writings, Husserl speak of a monadologic community and sets forth to develop a social ontology in which intersubjectivity -like constituent reason- is an infinite endeavor. His new interest in history renders his theory of intersubjectivity more realistic and makes it a central part of a racional-utopic society whose horizon is the “Lebenswelt”. Merleau-Ponty developed these points unthought of by Husserl and, by dissolving any questions regarding intersubjectivity, he revalued the social world that existentialism had neglected. A. Schütz applied these ideas and inaugurated the sociophenomenology thought at the cost of a quasi-complete abandonment of transcendentality, which he only analized from the point of view of its effects. Thus, he deprived the “Lebenswelt” of a fundamental dimension and made of intersubjectivity the basis of commonsense reality as well as of the social sciences. Husserl's followers helped to develop intersubjectivity in an interpersonal and worldly guise. He affirms that, in addition to it all, it is necessary to recover its transcendental dimension as an a priori structure of society and all the categories that help to apprehend the human being.