World-experience, World-representation, and the World as an Idea

Husserl Studies 14: 1–20, 1997. 1c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

World-experience, World-representation, and the World as anIdea

ROBERTO J. WALTONCentro de Estudios Filosoficos, Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Buenos Aires, Avda.Alvear 1711, 3 er. Piso, 1014 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Husserl proceeds to show how a world-representation emerges from ourworld-experience, and how an idea of the world plays a role in the expansionof world-representations. He also draws our attention to the appropriationof other world-representations in a process of adjustment and compensationleading to intersubjective world-representations, and offers an analysis ofthe status of world-representations within transcendental phenomenology. Inthis article I will underline the relevance of Husserl’s concept of horizoned-ness to the characterization of the three levels of world-experience, world-representation, and the world as an idea. In getting clear on this relevanceseveral points must be emphasized. Firstly, horizon-intentionality outlines anempty and latent world-horizon which allows Husserl to speak of an expe-rience of the world. Secondly, it can be brought to distinctness by meansof an articulation and subsequently to clarity by means of presentations andpresentifications, and so turned into a world-representation (Weltvorstellung).Thirdly, it can be conceived as adequately fulfilled by virtue of an ideal polewhich anticipates the whole process leading to this completion. As we attemptto make clear the relation in which the three levels stand to one another, whatwill hold our attention then is the manner in which horizonedness involvesa dynamism which supports the three levels of empty, partially fulfilled andtotally fulfilled intentions. I will finally stress that as a distinctive trait ofthe Husserlian stance, horizon-intentionality enables transcendental phenom-enology to stand up to criticism advanced against the form of compossibilitypertaining to world-representations.1

1. The Objectivation of the World

When we direct ourselves to something as object of a thematizing regard wehave at once an experience of the world because the apprehension of thistheme cannot be separated from a non-thematic horizon-consciousness, theunfolding of which amounts to an explication of the world as a universal

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horizon. In order to make clear our experience of the world, attention must begiven to the restriction Husserl indicates by using expressions like “in a certainway,” or “a certain consciousness,” when he states that “we have in a certainway an experience of the world each time we are specially engaged withsomething real,”2 and goes on to say that “whatever I experience, I also havea certain consciousness of the world, that is, a horizon-consciousness of anexaminable ‘beyond’.”3 For the world-experience is not the experience of anobject which appears surrounded by other objects nor an experience groundedon the synthesis of diverse objects which are apprehended as a whole. Thecontrast between the consciousness of objects and the consciousness of theworld is reflected in the opposition between the mode of being of objectswhich can be considered as singular unities gathered together in multiplicities,and the mode of being of the world which exhibits a peculiar uniqueness byvirtue of which it is completely alien to what is given as singular or to aplurality encompassing comparable and countable unities: “. . . the world isnot an object (Gegenstand) as something real or a collection of real things. . . .”4

But side by side with this denial we find in Husserl the assertion that theworld is an object of experience, and the force of this assertion seems clearlyto be that it is involved in the experience of every singular object as a universalobject. While he disclaims that the world is the object of a simple experiencein the sense of a singular object within a plurality, Husserl points out that itis the object of a complex experience which is grounded on the successiveexperiences of singular objects. Even if the world does not affect us in thesame manner as a thing, the experience of the world is given “at once” (ineins)with the experience of things so that “both are inseparable from one another.”5

Thus Husserl can write: “The world is, even if only partially, in a fragmentarymanner, always experienced directly – with infinite, undetermined horizonsgiven in experience as ‘immediately there’ ” (Hua VIII, 321). The world isexperienced insofar as it is mediated by things and, as things in turn stand outon the background of the world, a reciprocal mediation of world and thingsturns out to be what is given as “immediately there” in the inseparability ofone experience. Here is reflected the fact that, on the one hand, the horizonsare posited by an intentional act, and that, on the other hand, horizonednessis presupposed by act-intentionality. From this point of view, the world canbe considered as an object of experience: “. . . Kant teaches emphatically thatthe world is no object of possible experience whereas we constantly and in allseriousness speak of the world precisely as the universal object (Gegenstand)of a universally extended and extendible experience” (Hua IX, 95).6

In yet another sense of world-objectivation the emphasis is not so much onthe world as horizonedness but rather on identification. This third approach

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to the problem of the givenness of the world appears in connection with theemergence of the theme ‘world’ from the world as horizon. Husserl contendsthat “in a broad sense the world is experienced by me partly thematically,partly unthematically . . .” (Hua XV, 493). He observes that the universalsense ‘world’ is both the most known of all (das Allerbekannteste) and theleast known (das Unbekannteste) of all senses. For as something alwaysmeant or intended to (ein Gemeintes), the world is a “fundamental mean-ing” (Grundmeinung) that combines all our singular meanings (Meinungen)before our attempts to explicate it or lay it out. All such meanings refer tothe world as given in experience: “. . . I experience the world, I have ‘the’world, that is, the one and same world in constant experiential-validity, and Ican direct myself thematically to it as the world.”7 In other words, the sheerhorizon-consciousness of the world, implicit in our living and flowing expe-rience, can be made distinct by means of an explicit world-representation andeventually made clear through intuition. To have the world as a theme is theexception, for what we usually have is the non-thematic world-consciousnesswhich goes together with what is thematic. As Husserl puts it: “The world ashorizon of the experience of things . . . is not yet world-experience, to whichprecisely proper objectivation, identification, recognition belong . . . .”8 Anexperience of this kind entails the construction, on the basis of the experienceof singular objects and their horizons – experience in which the world is notyet thematized – of a world-representation (Weltvorstellung) which is not anadditional representation among other representations but rather “a universalmotion and synthesis in the motion of all my representations” (Hua XXIX,268). The world is known only by virtue of these representations and theensuing identifications. No explicit sense can be attained about the worldwithout a passage through them. Husserl emphasizes that we construct suchrepresentations when we feel the need to get clear about what we are saying:“The word ‘world’ has its meaning as a word only because it expresses whatthis representation intuitively shows.”9

The world-representation is grounded on the world-horizon. Husserl statesthat “the world is represented for me and for each co-subject through what isapperceived in horizonedness out of the primordial actual perceptual experi-ence . . . .”10 The salient point would seem to be that the representation is “the‘picturing’ itself of the world”11 in the sense of bringing out an articulatedstructure of well-defined and far-reaching modes of experience. Correlative tothis is the anticipation of a world whose range and scope are no longer limitedto the most immediate surrounding conditions: “. . . I can construct as a projecta ‘world-representation,’ a world represented ‘in advance’ in its possibilities. . . .”12 Such a project can be outlined beforehand insofar as these potentialitiesare constructed and reconstructed according to our own surrounding world

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following what is predelineated or marked out in present experience. Differentworld-representations can be worked out and then identified because the life-world that conditions them offers various courses leading to them accordingto its manifold interests and goals. In spite of the differences in the construc-tion and reconstruction, a synthetic identification is achieved in the transitionfrom one to another and in the recollection of previous representations. Anexplicit representation of the world comes forth through identification in aninterconnected construction of representations. Husserl explains this in thefollowing terms:

. . . we construct a general representation of what is necessary, pertainingto the proper essence of the world and more generally of a world as such.By this means the world, or rather a world which becomes all-roundevident in its generical peculiarities, is the theme.13

This apprehension of the world through a representation is connected withthe explication (Auslegung) which affords us a representation or adumbra-tion (Abschattung) of a singular thing. For it has the character of a world-aspect (Weltaspekt) and also presupposes a horizon-consciousness which itexplicates. Along with the adumbrations of things, we have these modes ofappearance of the world, the succession of which provides us with a higher-order appearance of the world. Just as the explication of things precipitates as apossession of the ego, the world-representations are not mere actual consciousprocesses but rather deposit themselves also as a permanent acquisition. Thismeans that the world is given in different levels of acquaintedness.14

Husserl maintains that the world-representation is the primal structure(Urgestalt) in the knowledge of the world, and examines its genesis anddevelopment. The points which are worth noting are the following. A world-representation always implies a universe of being-validity (Seinsgeltung) withsense-content (Sinngehalt) which is furnished by the familiar surrounding-world. It is a synthetic unity of diverse representations, i.e. the representationof a unitary multiplicity of spatio-temporal real objects of pure and sim-ple experience along with animals, men and cultural objects. It comprises astratum of things given in themselves and strata of recollected and expectedthings, and exhibits an appearance-structure according to nearness and dis-tance as well as relevance and irrelevance. Whereas the sky belongs to thedistant horizon, the earth is the kernel of the near world and is depicted as“the experiential basis for all physical bodies in the experiential genesis of ourworld-representation.”15 The antithesis world-sky brings out clearly a generalarticulation of the world in an absolute beneath and an absolute overhead,between which the surrounding world appears as an intermediate realm. Such,in broad outline, are the central component parts of a world-representation.

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The development of a world-representation is part of the life of each individ-ual subject: “Everyone has his ‘world-representation’” (Hua XXIX, 201).16 Inthis development the subject can take upon himself two tasks. First, the emptyhorizons can attain distinctness (Deutlichkeit) by means of explication (Ausle-gung) and then clarity (Klarheit) by means of intuition. This amounts to theintuitional illustration of the horizons of a ready-made world-representation.Secondly, advances can be made in the direction of a more universal represen-tation by taking into account the reports of other subjects. This amounts to theexpansion or enlargement (Erweiterung) and refashioning (Neugestaltung) ofthe world-representation.

The intuitive representation provides the groundwork for the developmentof a world-concept (Weltbegriff) as a higher-level formation: “. . . when wethink about the world, the ‘representation-world’ guides us not as the unityof a mere experience but rather as the ‘long-known,’ ‘in vagueness emerging’world-concept. We make it distinct, we make it clear . . . .”17 Furthermore, theprescientific world-representations and concepts are the basis without which ascientific representation of the world cannot be constructed. All sciences referto them and bring forth higher-order world-representations characterized byprocedures of idealization and homogenization.18 Finally, as we shall haveoccasion to see, the world-representation is also the ground on which to basethe possibility of an ontology.

2. The Totalization of the World

Whereas a world-representation is unfolded as an explication of the world-horizon, the idea world is “an idea motivated in the belief-structure of theharmonious perception, motivated as an identical ideal pole of a belief”(Hua VIII, 392). When horizons are explicated, there is likewise disclosed“a boundlessness in the continuation of possible harmoniously connectedexperiences” (Hua XV, 493).19 Husserl observes that “a perception whichcontemplates in a unique vision the whole world, the inexhaustible infinitudeof bodies . . . would be an endless continuum of vision; unitarily conceived, itwould be a Kantian idea” (Hua XVIII, 188). The idea is to be understood notonly as a totalization of the world-horizon but also as a goal for the correctionand expansion of world-representations. The world-representations that aresubsequently produced occur in a direction to a regulative pole so that wehave “with all the world-representations and their corrections in infinitum theidea world (Idee Welt) itself as well” (Hua VI, 501).

The relationship holding between horizonedness and the world as an ideais an example of the foundational relationship by means of which phenom-enology refers cognitional formations back to a founding phenomenon in the

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sphere of intuition. This is clearly indicated by Husserl in his statement thatthe world is to be conceived as “an idea which is constituted in the imma-nent structure of grounded validity” (Hua VII, 276), that is to say, as “theinfinite idea which has its sense-origin (Sinnesursprung) in the horizoned-ness of the life-world . . .” (Hua VI, 499). In other words, we explicate theworld as horizon by means of world-representations, we repeat this processonce and again, and, as we reflect on it, we discover a teleological direction.This enables us to disclose the idea in the Kantian sense of a pole to whichthe process of explication aims. It must be observed that the idea, thoughtranscending singular sensuous intuitions, does not go beyond the limits ofthis domain. And it becomes clear that not only the world as an idea but alsothe adequate givenness of an object leads towards and derives its significancefrom horizonedness. Husserl maintains that the world is a system or universeof objects which are nothing but unity or identity-poles for their appearances.Consequently, there are infinite ideas which refer back to the inner horizonsof objects as their sense-origin and predelineate their adequate givenness. Inshort, ideas obtain a justification by means of an inquiry into the manner inwhich they originate from horizonedness, and this genetic analysis revealsas necessary steps the uncovering of horizons, an awareness of the endlessreiteration of this unfolding along with a goal pertaining to the process, andthe ideation of the process, i.e. the extrapolation of the idea.

Since it is grounded on the world-horizon, the idea of the world is a cog-nitional formation with the same legitimizing basis as each single world-representation that approximates to it and achieves a “preliminary stage(Vorstufe) of its infinite sense” (Hua VII, 278). If we were not in the pos-session of the idea of the world, world-representations would not aim at aprogressive synthesis of fulfillment of empty intentions but rather to a synthe-sis of identification with no increase in knowledge. What we are told here isthat ideas serve as a motive for reaching out beyond the limitations imposedon experience and give unity of direction to this transcending of finite pointsof view. Husserl also stresses that the disclosure of horizons is not restrictedto a regressive movement along unidimensional series of conditions whichhave been settled once for all, but rather opens up to an endless variety ofintentionally implicated references. It is by means of these transitions fromthe near horizons to more remote ones that we are finally led to the “pluridi-mensional continuum of the total horizon” (Hua XI, 428). The important pointis that the possibility of an on-going course of harmonious experiencing isthe ground for the extrapolation of an ideal totality which cannot be reachedin its endless depth and extension. Only as this ideal totality can the worldhave a full cognitional sense for us. This sense arises in consciousness whenour experiences merge into a unitary structure which is continually confirmed

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because conflicts and deceptions presuppose a deeper harmony prevailingover the unfulfillment of empty intentions. As we unfold what is inherentto horizons according to every conceivable possibility in the “over and overagain” of explication, the world becomes known as an idea which “in thecourse of the never ceasing changes of the finite comes within our view as aninfinitely distant pole . . .” (Hua VI, 500–501).

According to Kant, ideas as concepts of reason are justified because theyallow the greatest possible continuation and extension of experience, and thisregulative function must be adopted as a subjective maxim because only thencan there be a coherent employment of understanding and hence a criterionof empirical truth (see KrV A651 = B679). This relationship holding betweenideas and empirical truths is restated in phenomenology. Husserl emphasizesthat acts of knowledge are not isolated from each other but rather exhibitessential teleological connections of fulfillment, confirmation and so forth.This is the reason why our experience “remains essentially in relativities,normatively referable to ‘regulative ideas’ so that we must differentiate therelative truth and “the infinite, ideal, absolute truth placed over it” (HuaXVII, 284). Because they contribute to the opening out of horizons, ideas arenecessarily involved in cognition. They must be conceived as the complementof partial truths because only from the standpoint of the ideal goal of anadequate experience, with its regulative function as regards the process ofintuitive fulfillment, can we ascertain the contribution to cognition of aninadequate experience that allows a gradually increased but always limitedrepresentation of the world.

The uncovering of the horizons as prescribed by ideas also entails a strivingafter intensification and concreteness. As H. Kuhn remarked, the centrifugaldrive implied therein is supplemented by a reflux or centripetal nisus allowinga more definite apprehension of the starting point of the explication.20 Theidea of the world legitimates itself not only because it is grounded on horizonsbut also because in a reverse role it points back to them in order to foreshadowthe uncovering, i.e. to further an explication according to the goals outlined init as “the regulative idea of the ultimate validity” (Hua VIII, 371). So intensityis added to extension as a reason for the justification of the idea of the world.

The phenomenological validation of ideas by retracing the steps of theirgenesis takes into consideration the way in which cognition develops in con-nection with time. It is worth dwelling for a moment on this matter. WhenKant notes that some sort of transcendental deduction must be possible forideas, even if it is not strictly speaking a deduction (see KrV A336 = B393,A671 = B699), he must be concerned only with the objective side (accordingto the terminology of the Analytic of Concepts) and dismiss a subjective sidebecause he cannot exhibit the correlative temporal aspects of our experience

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and therefore connect the ideas with a sensibility subject to the form of time.But a subjective justification of the world-idea is developed on the basis of thephenomenological attempt to show how ideas operate in relation to the sub-jective conditions of cognition, particularly the passive synthesis which takesplace in time and accounts for the overlapping both of adumbrations of objectsand representations of the world. Husserl observes that in the process of mak-ing the experiencing world-meaning (erfahrende Weltmeinung) distinct andclear I am led to “my whole conscious life, which throughout all its immanenttemporal phases is already world-life, world-experiencing life.”21 In Kantianterms, a phenomenological subjective deduction shows how the regulativefunction of the ideas is accomplished in the synthesis of the manifold ofintuition given under the form of time. Husserl stresses the inseparability ofsubjective and objective moments in the justification of ideas – a necessaryconsequence of the noetic-noematic parallelism – in the following statement:

. . . a world itself, is an infinite idea, related to infinities of harmoniouslycombinable experiences – an idea that is the correlate of the idea of a per-fect experiential evidence, a complete synthesis of possible experiences(Hua I, 97).22

This passage brings to light two strictly complementary ideas related to theunitary synthesis in the noematic side of consciousness and the teleologicalanticipation of the goal in the subject. We can see on the one hand the ideaof an infinitely harmonious overlapping of world-representations, and on theother hand the correlative ideal pole of a complete synthesis or adequateevidence. Husserl seems to suggest this subjective side of the transcendentaldeduction of ideas when, as a counterpart of his statement referring to asense-origin in horizonedness, he contends that an idea “draws its goal-sensefrom the actuality of conscious life” (Hua VII, 274).

3. The Diversity of World-representations

Let us now try to characterize the way in which the expansion or refash-ioning of a world-representation occurs. It implies an appropriation of otherworld-representations through the reports or descriptions of other men whenwe become acquainted with them as subjects of representations of the sameworld: “Born within the community, I owe the content of my particular world-representation to the constant communication with other subjects” (HuaXXIX, 117). In the same way as the diverse fields of experience are blendedinto the unity of a unique field of experience in the continuous and connectedflow of experience of each individual subject, a world-representation can be

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expanded with reports from other subjects. Husserl claims that diverse world-representations can be identified in an interchange and correction process byvirtue of which an adjustment and compensation (Ausgleichung) bridges theoriginary separation. When there is a difference or conflict between them, anexchange of ideas brings about a “complicated intermingling (Ineinander)”of the representations, which in turn discloses a “common representation”(Hua XXIX, 70–71, 261) or “average world-representation” (durchschnit-tliche Weltvorstellung) (Hua XV, 231).

Husserl has spent much time detailing the status of the “communicationcommunity”23 as a personality of higher order implying an intentional unitywhich rests on the operations of a multiplicity of egos. Each subject belongsto the horizon of empathy of the others, and it is because they reach one intoanother that social acts can be performed giving rise to social habitualitiesand common representations in which they all participate. Hence the repre-sentations of each ego are not juxtaposed with the representations of othersbut rather are brought together with them into a whole. When he is awareof himself as member of this communication community, each subject hasas a field of his representations as well as of his accomplishments not onlyhis individual surrounding world but also the alien surrounding worlds. Butto this it should be added that the acts of each single subject bring about, asHusserl notes, “particular horizonalities (besondere Horizonthaftigkeiten) forpersons and associations, singular subjective modes (einzelsubjektive Weisen)of setting forth the existence of the community . . .” (Hua XV, 479).

It is only as regards strangers that we can refer to different world-represent-ations as contradistinguished to ours. When differences with previous orcoexistent worlds are disclosed, and a peculiar identity in the differencesis also discovered, our actual world can be considered as a representationof the world. As Husserl pointed out in his letter to Levy-Bruhl, primitivemankind has a world which is not experienced as a world-representation butrather as the actual world insofar as it is not brought face to face with otherrepresentations belonging to other communities.24 When this occurs we havethe home-world (Heimwelt) representation and the alien or foreign world(Fremdwelt) representation.

In the first level of the expanding process we find the formation of a familyrepresentation or a home-world (Heimwelt) representation as regards whicheach member “has at the same time an individual manner (individuelle Weise)of actualizing the world-representation of the family” (Hua XXIX, 202).Husserl also draws a distinction between the particular home-world repre-sentation (sonderheimatliche Vorstellung) and the all-inclusive home-worldrepresentation (allheimatliche Vorstellung). In further steps we have nationalrepresentations and supranational representations corresponding to higher-

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order unities as Europe or China. Husserl examines the “influence of thenational cultures one over the other” leading to the formation of a common setof types and to the “historicity of the supranation.”25 So a manifold of relative-ly closed upon themselves humanities are bearers of world-representations,and here the view is maintained that this finally leads, in a process by whichthe earth becomes a unitary territory for all nations, to “an international world-representation, overlapping all earthly nations, the totality of nations that liveimmediately and mediately together in a community . . .” (Hua XXIX, 269).In this proceeding, Husserl attempts “to clarify the constitution of an identicalworld, correlative with the constitution (in korrelativer Konstitution) of a weof higher level . . .” (Hua XV, 436).26 And he underscores the elements whichare common to the diverse representations:

. . . the different national world-representations, in each of these worldsa common core: besides the being of men, the being of animals, of skyand earth, of things, and nevertheless all this with a national distinctsense, in spite of a core-component (Kernbestand) which has not beenmade conspicuous, though it has been identified in a certain manner (HuaXXIX, 270).

We shall now try to present a few distinctions which may help us to under-stand Husserl’s view of “the total-community, into which I am brought up,which – as generatively grown and continuing to grow – lives in the unityof a common-spirit, of a universal world-representation or world-validity.”27

It is important to note that empathy makes possible each such totality com-prising the representations of others. Hence it seems advisable, without hereattempting a full discussion of the subject, to point out how Husserl’s attemptto describe the expansion of world-representations is associated with the dif-ferentiation of forms of empathy. An initial distinction can be drawn betweeninauthentic and authentic empathy depending on whether the apperceptionof the other ego is intuitively fulfilled or not.28 Along with this objectivatingempathy which may give us intuitive knowledge there is a non-objectivatingempathy in which the empathizing ego seeks to take upon himself in a prac-tical and sympathetic attitude the situation peculiar of the other ego.29 Inaddition to this, as contradistinguished to direct empathy, reflexive empathyarises with an active participation in the analysis of the appresented ego.30 Itis clear that our knowledge of alien world-representations must be groundedon an authentic, objectivating and reflexive empathy. But two additional con-trasts are particularly important in the course of outlining an identical corebetween world-representations.

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A difference can be traced out between originary and reconstructive empa-thy. The latter consists in a drastic intentional modification of the former inorder to explain extreme variant formations. Abnormal persons, children orprimitive men can only be experienced “in the secondary form of variationsof men like me.”31 Empathy always entails a modification of experiences ofthe empathizing ego, but Husserl has in mind here a strong sense of imaginaryvariation. Finally, there is the difference between immediate or mediate empa-thy. Whereas the former is based on the present and perceptive coexistenceof the other ego within the same community, indirect or mediate empathyis orientated towards past or simultaneous alien communities and requiresan appropriation of the formations produced therein by which other subjectsexpress themselves and achieve their goals. Here Husserl is concerned withthe “mediations of comprehension”32 and the “formation of a new additionaltradition which originates in this manner in the unification of their traditionsand our traditions.”33

A tradition is an intersubjective or social habituality of a habitual “we” inwhich the retentional horizon of each ego points to “the generative develop-ment of his ‘world-representation’.”34 There is a “growing into” (Hineinwach-sen) and “taking over” (Ubernahme) of traditions along with their world-representations: “I grow into the traditional communities,” writes Husserl,“into those of my family in the historical sense (my ‘lineage’); into those ofmy nation with its customs, its language and so forth” (Hua XV, 511; seeHua XXIX, 373). It is Husserl’s purpose to show how characteristic mannersof experiencing the world and acting within it have been developed in thissedimented life. The articulation of history in different traditions raises in turnthe problem of a fusion of horizons, and this central theme of contemporaryhermeneutics is discussed by Husserl as the enlargement of the home-worldso as to encompass it together with the alien world in a higher-order world-representation. The full transparency of the contents handed down is notpresupposed, and we might interpret as an allusion to a hidden surplus ofmeaning the Husserlian assertion that “this horizon remains in general con-cealed for other transcendental subjects . . .” (Hua XV, 390).

The description of traditions would not be adequate unless mention is madeof the ideas they entail. Husserl refers to the “world-representations (withtheir respective particular teleological directions).”35 He also differentiatesbetween mere “traditionality” (Traditionalitat) and “spiritual generativity”(geistige Generativitat) as “a new cultural configuration” (eine neue Kul-turgestalt) (Hua VI, 444), and contends that this second type of traditionalitycan be interpreted in a narrow or broad sense. In a narrow sense, spiritualgenerativity rests upon the ideal objectivities of science and philosophy andinvolves infinite tasks guided by ideal poles. In a broad sense, Husserl con-


siders that traditions can be “formed anew” (Hua VI, 335)36 in the spirit ofphilosophy and science. This implies their retroactive action on the shifts ofmeaning of previous traditions. Husserl holds that there are two possibilitiesfor traditions in their relationship to philosophy. While he states that tradi-tions may be completely discarded, he also stresses their transformation byadherence to the theoretical attitude.37 From this it may be inferred that a dif-ferentiation must be traced out between kinds of ideas. There are proper ideasof infinitude in science and philosophy, ideas of finitude in the naive traditionsof everyday life, and ideas of infinitude by analogy in those traditions whichcome under the influence of theory. That all world-representation are subjectto ideas is stated forcibly by Husserl when he examines the world-history asthe history of our world-representations:

The history of the world itself, in itself, is the world-history in the sense ofthe infinite idea: the idea of the world projected, so to say, in the infinite,conceived of as continually corrected through the infinity of the factuallyvalid world-representations (Hua VI, 501).

4. World-representation and Transcendental Philosophy

One point of great importance must be dwelt upon now. In the natural atti-tude we distinguish an immanent world-representation from the represent-ed actuality, and correspondingly consider the representation as a depiction(symbolische Abbildung) or a symbolical indication (Anzeige).38 But from atranscendental standpoint, so Husserl argues, it makes no sense to considerthe world in itself as something different from the world as meant, i.e. theworld-representation. Any other possible world is nothing but a variation ormodification (Abwandlung) of the world we actually have: “. . . as soon asthe world-representation, in the sense of the represented as such, is separatedfrom the world itself, we face the enigma of how knowledge of the worldas a whole, how so much as knowledge of the being of a world should bepossible” (Hua XV, 553). This enigma is called by Husserl the motivationfor the transcendental attitude. For it forces us to step outside our naturalconvictions about the separation between world-representations immanent inour psychic life, which lies within the world as a component-part, and therepresented world conceived naively as existing in itself and so external torepresentation and consciousness. We then consider it nonsensical to supposea world other than the world which is constituted as a unity-pole and as theall-inclusive pole of poles of unity through the performances of transcen-dental subjectivity. Once we become aware that the true being of the world

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is no more than “the intentional confirmation-unity,” we shall find nothingstrange in understanding “that in the transcendental Within (Innen) the worldof externality becomes constituted, that it is inherent already to the universalessence of transcendental intentionality that Within and Without (Außen) donot exclude but rather require one another” (Ibid., 554).39

Hence it is absurd to demand that world-representations must accord witha reality to which they refer: “We have no other world than the world of this‘representation,’ the representation, namely the representation verified in us,is not representation of a transcendent world, and so forth.”40 There are dif-ferent modes of representation of the world, and these modes must be broughtto a common core through a process of exchange between the subjects andof intermingling of their constructions of the world. This unitary nucleus ofthe world is correlated with transcendental intersubjectivity, and insofar aswe do not consider the community of monads in all its extent, discrepan-cies between the world representations will point to a discordancy betweenrepresentation and the world as such. On the other hand, the adjustment andcompensation between world-representations will point to an elimination ofthis inconsistency:

Only when I have chosen the final transcendental point of view, andembraced from this point of view the infinity of the transcendental univer-sal subjectivity (Allsubjektivitat) . . . in its totality, . . . does the differencebetween representation and actuality (Wirklichkeit) disappear (Hua VIII,480; see Hua VI, 258).41

The world as the universal horizon lies in the background behind and abideswithin each world-representation. As a non-thematic consciousness of theworld, horizon-consciousness sustains the thematic consciousness and appearsagain and again in every explicit world-representation with a twofold role. Onthe one hand, it affords the ground for the possibility of the intersubjectiveprocess of expansion or enlargement. For each world-representation has alongwith its content “an horizon whose correlate is the ‘infinite’ humanity whichis always already co-valid for me” (Hua XXIX, 200). On the other hand,horizonedness renders possible the immanent legitimation of its objects andhence undermines the difference between representation and world as such.For the world-representation gains sense and acceptance in the horizonalworld-experience alone. The open reference to further experiences achievinga congruent fulfillment of empty intentions provides the basis for a legiti-mation (Rechtgebung) of the world as a correlate of self-confirming acts ina step that goes beyond the sense-bestowing (Sinngebung) performed by actintentionality. Since it takes place only within the horizonal structure of expe-


rience, this rational appraisal carries with it a releasing from preconceptionsabout the nature of the given and hence underlies the transcendental attitude.

5. The World as a Form of Compossibility

We may now examine the relevance of world-representations for ontology.On Husserl’s account, a world-representation is a presupposition for the dis-closure of the essence of the world, but it “is still not the intuition that groundsan ontology.”42 The reason is that this new level of analysis highlights theinvariant structure which as a universal form goes into all variations of theworld both in actuality and in phantasy. As already noted above, higher-orderworld-representations involve a common set of types as a core-component.But the development of an ontology requires a further step beyond and againstthe average typicality with its changing anticipation, i.e. a “transition fromthe universal type to an essential form.”43 So all factual worlds and world-representations become now appearances of an essential core-formation. It isby reason of this universal invariant form that all actual and possible thingsare compossible in one and the same world:

The world as the universe of realities is not a sheer gathering of real things,of which each singular one receives its essential form, but rather the worlditself has the form of a ‘whole’; the singular real things can only be realactualities, if they are compossible beyond their individual concrete formof being, i.e. if they keep to a certain form of real connectedness.44

According to Husserl, then, all world-representations must be constructed inagreement with this “form of compossibility” which turns out to be a “form-horizon for every natural existent.”45 What Husserl is emphasizing when heobserves that all things are referred back to an absolute now and here as well asarticulated in fields of nearness and distance, is that they keep being gatheredinto a unitary world-view because they are placed under a perspective thatrenders possible their coexistence. Furthermore, material things participatein an all-embracing causal interconnection. The implication here is that thereis, to use Merleau-Ponty’s telling way of putting the point, a simultaneity ofcompossible things.

As contradistinguished to this kind of simultaneity, Merleau-Ponty advancesthe notion of a simultaneity of incompossible things in order to take intoaccount a “baroque world” which overflows everywhere and is characterizedby the fact that things “lay claim to an absolute presence which is incompossi-ble with the presence of other things and which nonetheless they all have as a

WORLD-EXPERIENCE 15

whole.”46 He argues that the representation of the world according to horizonsarticulated in perspectives is no more than a device designed to deceive uswith the illusion of a peaceful compossibility which brings the living turmoilof things to a rest. Consequently, the true simultaneity of things consists notin this compossibility but rather in a rivalry by which they address themselvesto me and dispute the direction of my regard attracting me and demandingthat I turn towards them while they thrust each other aside and exclude eachother. There is a tota simul of things because our regard cannot do away withtheir depth and must be contented with a detour around them. It is by virtueof this depth that “the world is around me, not in front of me.”47

With this conception Merleau-Ponty attempts to “restore the world as senseof Being absolutely different from ‘what is represented,’ that is to say, as thevertical Being which none of the ‘representations’ exhausts and which all‘reach,’ the wild Being.”48 As he turns to Husserl’s conception of the unique-ness of the world, he considers that the world is “at the roots of all thoughton possibilities” and goes on to say that we must come to accept “a structuralinvariant, a Being of intrastructure.”49 But this does not mean that we muststrive to discover a deep-lying ground in the sense of a “form of compossibil-ity.” The world can be structured by the agency of representations accordingto different orders, and hence Merleau-Ponty speaks of a “polimorphism ofBeing.”50 But none of these various forms can develop all the possibilities ofthe world, and so unilateral incompleteness of each order cannot be avoided.Furthermore, there is no identical core to be singled out.

It must be stressed that Husserl foreshadows Merleau-Ponty’s positionwith the contrast between the world as universal horizon and a world-representation. Whereas for Husserl there is a “rest” (Uberschuß) (HuaI, 151)51 or surplus of the world-horizon over every world-representation,Merleau-Ponty looks upon this transcendence as that of a wild Being overany possibility of a world-order. In this respect we can ask ourselves whetherHusserl himself made advances in the acknowledgement of simultaneity asMerleau-Ponty suggests in the final passages of “The Philosopher and HisShadow.” The answer is yes and no. Yes, in the sense that he sought to laybare the sense-giving source for this notion when he showed that the bodyis endowed with the power of bringing objects in the surrounding world toa nucleus of privileged presence through motions that can take place in anydirection and be repeated at any moment. No, in the sense that the body mustactualize its possible motions in a temporal succession. So it is, then, that wecan consider the matter from two distinct but complementary points of view:according to the nature of the horizon of possible motions, and according tothe unfolding of this horizon by the motions performed by the ego. In drawingthis distinction, Husserl does not loose sight of the fact that the control of


kinaesthetic functions produces an irreducible depresentation in things whoseappearing is not motivated by them at least as regards the liveliness of theirperceptual presence. It is not that things refer reciprocally one to another andso bring forth a metaintentional simultaneity but rather that simultaneity is arelation which obtains among the multiple strata of the total system of kinaes-theses. From this it becomes clear that there is a serious difficulty faced bythe rejection of the Husserlian “form of compossibility” and the subsequentassertion of a wild world or a vertical Being.

The primal meaning of a simultaneity of incompossible things is given bya twofold situation. On the one hand, our impossibility to actualize all ourkinaesthetic potentialities at the same time. This affords us the primary senseof incompossibility. On the other hand, our having all these potentialities assheer potentialities at the same time. This affords us the primary sense ofsimultaneity. In short, the succession of motions is cancelled, but it is alsopreserved insofar as they are held together in a simultaneity of function whichdoes not abolish their temporal order. Thus one could turn the claim to anabsolute presence of things another way and suggest that it is nothing otherthan the assertion of their right to presentation within the nucleus of privi-leged presence as they stand in correlation to the appropriate bodily motionsmotivating their appearing as themselves present in person. This would bethe ultimate ground of the so-called simultaneity of incompossible things: thepossibility of continually and repeatedly rendering an object originally presentwithin the kinaesthetic horizon. So we can speak about the simultaneity ofthe incompossible basically as a consequence of the nature of the kinaesthetichorizon which is at the basis of the world as universal horizon and everyparticular representation of the world. We must remember that bodily motionis “a praxis of the ego in the world, as a primal praxis (Urpraxis) which co-functions for every other praxis and has always functioned beforehand” . . . .52

The conditions that make possible a practical kinaesthetic horizon, i.e. bodilymotions make up an identical core that is central to all our spatio-temporalworld-representations. From this conclusion it is only a short step to say thatthere is a form of compossibility.

Furthermore, Merleau-Ponty does not consider the relationship holdingbetween world-representations and the world as idea. It could be argued thatthe latter is a counterbalance to the world as horizon, or the wild Being inMerleau-Ponty’s terms, insofar as it furthers its unfolding by means of world-representations. A world-representation is not only grounded on the world-horizon but has teleological implications which must be brought to lightin a reflective self-explication. These implications bring forth a continuousprocess of presentation and depresentation which again calls into questionthe claim to an absolute presence.

WORLD-EXPERIENCE 17

Notes

1. In translating Husserl into English one commonly renders Weltvorstellung as “idea of theworld” or “(mental) objectivation of the world”. See Dorion Cairns, Conversations withHusserl and Fink, Phaenomenologica 66 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976), pp. 66–67.But it is important to distinguish between Weltvorstellung and Idee Welt, and bear in mindthat the Weltvorstellung is not the only objectivation of the world.

2. “. . . Welterfahrung haben wir in gewisser Weise immerzu, wo wir mit einem Realenspezialiter beschaftigt sind” (Ms. A VII 1, 11b). I wish to thank Professor Dr. RudolfBernet, Director of the Husserl Archives in Louvain, for the permission to quote fromHusserl’s unpublished writings. My gratitude also extends to Dr. Dieter Lohmar for hiskind assistance at the Husserl Archive in Koln.

3. “. . . was immer ich erfahre, ich habe auch ein gewisses Bewußtsein von der Welt, namlichein Horizontbewußtsein von einem befragbaren ‘daruber hinaus’ ” (Ms. A VII 1, 12).

4. “. . . Welt [ist] nicht ein Gegenstand . . . wie ein Reales oder auch eine Kollektion vonRealen . . .” (Ms. K III 2, 60b). See Hua VI, 146.

5. “. . . beide sind voneinander untrennbar” (Ms. B I 13 II, transcription p. 27).6. “The being of the world is exclusively grounded for us through our universal experience,

which is the unique primal source of the sense in which the world is for us”: “Das Seinder Welt ist fur uns ausschließlich begrundet durch unsere universale Erfahrung, und sieist die einzige Urquelle des Sinnes, in dem Welt fur uns ist” (Ms. B I 12 IV, tr. p. 53).

7. “. . . ich erfahre die Welt, ich habe ‘die’ Welt, das ist die eine und selbe in steter Erfahrungs-geltung, und ich kann mich thematisch auf sie richten als Welt” (Ms. B I 5 IX, tr. p. 6).

8. “Welt als Horizont der dinglichen Erfahrung . . . ist noch nicht Welterfahrung, wozu ebeneigene Objektivation, Identifikation, Wiedererkennen gehort . . .” (Ms. A VII 1, 12).

9. “Das Wort Welt hat seine Wortbedeutung nur dadurch, daß zum Ausdruck gebracht wird,was diese Vorstellung anschaulich beibringt” (Ms. A VII 1, 11a). The world-representationis further characterized as “the representation or, in more concrete terms, the universalworld-meaning that men in the course of experience and motivated in it have formed aboutthe world and have expressed in their linguistic fixations, among them their mythicaljudgments or their philosophical judgments”: “. . . diejenige Vorstellung oder, konkretergesprochen, diejenige allgemeine Weltmeinung . . ., die die Menschen sich im Lauf derErfahrung und in ihr motiviert, von der Welt gebildet und in ihren sprachlichen Fixierungen,darunter in ihren mythischen Urteilen oder in ihren philosophischen . . .” (Ms. A VII 14,33a).

10. “. . . fur mich und fur jedes Mitsubjekt [ist] Welt reprasentiert durch das von der primor-dialen aktuellen Wahrnehmungserfahrung aus in Horizonthaftigkeit Apperzipierte . . .”(Ms. K III 6, 143b).

11. “Das sich ‘Ausmalen’ der Welt als ‘Weltvorstellung’ . . .” (Ms. A VII 12, 77a).12. “. . . ich kann als Entwurf eine ‘Weltvorstellung’ konstruieren, Welt ‘im voraus’ vorgestellt

in ihren Moglichkeiten” (Ms. A VII 1, 8). The use of the term Vorentwurf in this Manuscript(see tr. pp. 7–8) stresses the anticipatory character of the project, that is, its condition ofbeing “thrown forward” in order to afford a “guidance” (Leitung) for the onward courseof experience. In another Manuscript of the same period (winter of 1933–34), Husserlremarks: “. . . I am in the world-validity, I have the horizon as a casting-before of thepossibilities . . .”: “. . . ich bin in der Weltgeltung, ich habe den Horizont als Vor-Wurf derMoglichkeiten . . .” (Ms. C 13 I, tr. p. 23). This is the way in which Husserl addresses himselfto Heidegger’s characterization of the world-project as Vorwurf. See Martin Heidegger,Gesamtausgabe, volume 9 (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976), p. 163 ff. Whatdistinguishes this present analysis from the earlier one is the primacy of the latent world-horizon over the world-project (or world-representation). On the projective predelineationof possibilities as a horizonal framework, see John D. Caputo, “Husserl, Heidegger and thequestion of a ‘hermeneutic phenomenology’,” Husserl Studies (1984): 157–178. Caputo


maintains that the issue between Husserl and Heidegger has to do with the question ofontological presuppositions. For there is no “serious difference” (p. 176) as regards thequestion of projectiveness. But this contention seems to overlook the primacy of the world-horizon, that is, our experience of the world before the projection of a world-representation.

13. “. . . wir konstruieren eine allgemeine Vorstellung von dem, was der Welt und allgemeinereiner Welt als solcher notwendig, eigenwesentlich ist. Hierbei ist die Welt, bzw. eineallseitig evident werdende Welt in ihren generellen Eigenheiten das Thema” (Ms. B I 13II, tr. p. 28).

14. See Ms. A VII 12, 7a–8a.15. Edmund Husserl, “Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum phanomenologischen Ursprung

der Raumlichkeit der Natur,” in Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, ed.Marvin Farber (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940), p. 308. This text istranslated in Husserl. Shorter Works, eds. Peter McCormick and Frederick A. Elliston,(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). See also Hua XXIX, 250, 258,262.

16. “. . . every subject of consciousness for the same world, each one in his subjective manner,each one developing his world-representations, which are all precisely representations ofthe world, of the world posited beforehand, presupposed (im voraus gesetzten, voraus-gesetzten)” (Hua XV, 571). See Hua VI, 416; Ms. K III 4, 51b; Ms. K III 6, 109a/b.

17. “. . . wenn wir uber Welt nachdenken, so leitet uns die ‘Vorstellung Welt’ nicht als Einheitbloßer Erfahrung, sondern der ‘altbekannte,’ ‘in Vagheit auftauchende’ Begriff Welt. Wirverdeutlichen ihn, machen ihn klar . . .” (Ms. D I, tr. p. 23).

18. See Ms. A VII 14, 49b.19. For a treatment of the boundlessness of experience, see Antonio Aguirre, “Die Idee und

die Grenzenlosigkeit der Erfahrung,” in Philosophie der Endlichkeit. Festschrift fur ErichChristian Schroder zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Beate Niemeyer and Dirk Schutze (Wurzburg:Konighausen & Neumann, 1989), pp. 101–129.

20. See Helmut Kuhn, “The Phenomenological Concept of ‘Horizon’,” in Philosophical Essaysin Memory of Edmund Husserl, pp. 106–123.

21. “. . . mein ganzes Bewußtseinsleben, das durchaus und in allen seinen immanent zeitlichenPhasen schon Weltleben, Welt erfahrendes Leben ist” (Ms. B I 5 IX, tr. p. 7).

22. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans.Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), p. 62.

23. See, e.g., Hua XIV, 194, 299; Hua XV, 208, 475.24. See HuaDok III/7, 3; Hua VI, 332.25. “Die Historizitat der Ubernation, die Einwirkung der nationalen Kulturen aufeinander”

(Ms. K III 7, tr. p. 3).26. “. . . the world-representation consists in each particular case in an actual outstanding

representational field, and therein in every case the core of a perceptual field. A task forus is to study the structure of the world-representation, that is, the actual life-world of theparticular occasion, which is the momentary field of the activity directed to the world. Wealways have such a field, which to be sure does not represent the whole world actually;however the world is conscious in its ultimately universal horizon (which as relative to itis ‘unconscious’ and yet determinant of meaning and validity). In the flowing movementof world-life there are no isolated representations of worldly things, . . . through all thatpasses the universal synthesis, the unity of the represented world”: “. . . die Welt-vorstellungbesteht jeweils in einem ausgezeichneten aktuellen Vorstellungsfeld, darin jedenfalls einKern Wahrnehmungsfeld [ist]. Es ist eine Aufgabe, die Struktur der Welt-vorstellung zustudieren, das ist der jeweils aktuellen Lebenswelt, die das jeweilige Feld der auf Weltgerichteten Aktivitat ist. Immerzu haben wir ein solches Feld, das freilich nicht die ganzeWelt aktuell vorstellt, aber das Feld ist bewußt in seinem letztlich universalen Horizont (derrelativ zu ihm ‘unbewußt’ und doch Sinn und Geltung bestimmend ist). In der stromendenBewegung des Weltlebens gibt es keine isolierten Vorstellungen von weltlichen Dingen

WORLD-EXPERIENCE 19

. . . durch all das geht die universale Synthesis, die Einheit der vorstelligen Welt . . .” (Ms.K III 6, 70a).

27. “Das Allgemeinschaft, in die ich hineinerzogen bin, die als generativ erwachsene undfortwachsende in der Einheit eines Gemeingeistes lebt, einer allgemeinen Weltvorstellungoder Weltgeltung” (Ms. B II 13, 6a).

28. See Hua XIII, 224–226, 455, 478–479.29. See Ms. E III 9, 35ab.30. See Ms. A V 10, 122.31. “. . . in der sekundaren Form von Abwandlungen von Menschen wie ich [. . .]” (Ms. B III

3 I, tr. p. 43).32. “Mittelbarkeiten des Verstehens” (Ms. K III 9, 36b).33. “. . . Ausbildung einer dadurch in der Vereinheitlichung ihrer und unserer Traditionen

erwachsenden neuen weiteren Tradition” (Ms. C 16 VII, tr. p. 9).34. “. . . generative Entwicklung seiner ‘Weltvorstellung’ ” (Ms. K III 21, 37a). See Hua XV,

208, 479.35. “. . . Weltvorstellungen (mit je ihren eigenen teleologischen Auflagen) . . .” (Ms. K III 6,

211a).36. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenol-

ogy: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. David Carr (Evanston, Ill.:Northwestern University Press, 1970), p. 288.

37. See Hua XXIX, 15, 41.38. See Ms. B I 5 IX, tr. p. 19.39. James G. Hart draws attention to the distinction between the Within and Without in The

Person and the Common Life, Phaenomenologica 126 (Dordrecht/Boston/London: KluwerAcademic Publishers, 1992), pp. 11–12.

40. “Wir haben keine andere Welt als die dieser ‘Vorstellung;’ die Vorstellung, und zwar diein uns bewahrte, ist nicht Vorstellung von einer transzendenten Welt etc.” (Ms. B I 32 III,tr. pp. 11–12).

41. Javier San Martin, in his La fenomenologia de Husserl como utopia de la razon (Barcelona:Anthropos, 1987), pp. 63–67, 91–94, argues that the transcendental reduction is not accom-plished insofar as subjectivity is not disclosed as intersubjectivity.

In this connection one might recall J. N. Mohanty’s assertion that the idea of a pluralismof worlds has come to stay along with his rejection of the thesis that there are mutuallyincommensurable worlds. From a transcendental standpoint, each different world – withits world-representation – should be considered as a world-noema so that one and thesame world is being constituted through a system of noemata just as one and the sameobject is presented by a system of noemata. Mohanty contends that the different worldsare not totally disconnected from each other because they overlap in part, and arguesthat this intersection constitutes a common domain and makes transition from one worldto another possible. Futhermore, each world-noema is constituted by noetic acts so thatthis noesis-noema correlation is a foundation that underlies the possibility of any worldwhatever. Such an invariant correlation structure implies the world as a universal horizon,and this means that the pluralism and relativism of worlds is overcome from within throughthe world-horizon within which the different standpoints are possible. The same and oneworld is constituted through the noemata and must be considered not only as the world-horizon implied in each world-noema but also as a regulative idea which furthers thediscovery of connections between the different world-representations on the basis of thecommon horizon for all standpoints. See J.N. Mohanty, Transcendental Phenomenology.An Analytic Account (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 130–143.

42. “. . . ist noch nicht die Anschauung, die eine Ontologie begrundet” (Ms. A VII 20, 23a).43. “. . . Uberfuhrung des universalen Typus in eine Wesensform . . .” (Ms. A VII 3, 6a).44. “Die Welt als Universum der Realitaten ist aber nicht ein bloßes Zusammen von Realen,

deren jedes einzelne seine Wesensform erhalt, sondern die Welt selbst hat die Form eines‘Ganzen;’ die einzelnen Realen konnen nur reale Wirklichkeiten sein, wenn sie uber ihre


individuelle konkrete Seinsform hinaus kompossibel sind, d.i. eine gewisse Form derrealen Verbundenheit innehalten” (Ms. K III 12, 15a). A differentiation must be tracedbetween the world as an “essential form” for every conceivable man and the world as an“individual form” (Individualform) for each factual man as well as for each community. Itis this individual form that is connected with the notion of world-representation. Husserlcontends that the life-world is constituted in each particular occasion as a world which,along with the typical character of its structures, has its own individual form which persistsin the midst of changes and builds up a vital space. It is “the familiar horizon-structureinto which all particular activities fit” (Hua XV, 147).

45. “. . . Form der Kompossibilitat . . . Formhorizont fur alles naturlich Seiende” (Ms. K III12, 16a).

46. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signes (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), p. 228.47. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, L’oeil et l’esprit (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 59.48. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 306. Hereafter:

VI.49. VI, p. 282.50. VI, p. 307. See p. 304. This point has been carefully developed and strongly emphasized by

Bernhard Waldenfels. See his Ordnung im Zwielicht (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1987).51. Eng. trans.: p. 122.52. Hua XV, 328.

Documents

World-experience, World-representation, and the World as an Idea