Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
In Husserl’s later work the magic word Lebenswelt (lifeworld) appears – one of those rare and wonderful artificial words (it does not appear before Husserl) that have found their way into the general linguistic consciousness, thus attesting to the fact that they bring an unrecognized or forgotten truth to language. So the word ‘Lebenswelt’ has reminded us of all the presuppositions that underlie all scientific knowledge.
(Hans-Georg Gadamer)The Life-World as Universal Problem
In this chapter I shall attempt to draw together Husserl’s diffuse remarks about the life-world (primarily in Crisis §§ 33–8, 43 and 51) into a coherent exposition of this influential but ultimately problematic concept. The life-world, in Husserl’s hands, is a rich, multi-faceted notion with some apparently paradoxical or even contradictory features that have puzzled even sympathetic commentators.
Husserl’s Crisis became famous for its extensive yet somewhat formal treatment of the concept of the ‘life-world’ or ‘world of life’ (Lebenswelt) – at least in his main published works – life-world is mentioned briefly in Cartesian Meditations § 58. It is in the Crisisthat Husserl claims to have discovered the life-world as a fundamental and novel phenomenon previously invisible to the sciences and to have identified it for the first time as a ‘universal problem’ (Crisis § 34). Indeed, there is – as Husserl himself insists – a specific and entirely new science of the life-world itself (Crisis § 51) that would, among other things, offer a new basis for grounding the natural and human sciences. There has never been such an investigation of the ‘life-world’ as ‘subsoil’ (Untergrund) for all forms of theoretical truth (C 124; K 127).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.