Husserl Studies 12:1-17, 1995.

1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Phenomenological reduction and the political

NATALIE DEPRAZ
Paris, F r a n c e

1. From "reaction" to "revolution"

In the Vienna Lecture of 7 and 10 May 1935, Husserl replies to being called
a "reactionary" (Reaktioniir) as follows: "I would like to think that I, the
supposed reactionary (der vermeintliche Reaktioniir), am far more radical
(radikal) and far more revolutionary (revolutioniir) than those who in their
words proclaim themselves so radical today" (Hua VI, 337). The epithet he
was given in the thirties, to which he refers here without accepting it, is
likely to be interpreted in two different ways, which are neither to be disso-
ciated from each other nor meant to separate the man Husserl from the
phenomenological attitude he embodies as the founder of phenomenology.
First, it is necessary to recall what has been called Husserl's "'ideological'
destitution, ''~ his being outside politics, that is, his absolute lack of political
involvement, which went hand in hand with a persistent "a'- or "anti-histori-
cism." This fact is well-known. It is not useful to insist on it. It is, however,
worth noticing that he did not become aware of his political dearth for the
first time, as is usually asserted, 2 during the rise of Nazism. Rather, this
awareness was felt much earlier, at the time of the First World War, which
moved him deeply. His younger son Wolfgang died then, and his elder son
Gerhart was severely wounded? Nevertheless, it seemed to many contempo-
raries that phenomenology and its founder developed in isolation from any
historical or political questioning. They paid no attention to Husserl's Lec-
tures on "Fichtes Menschheitsideal" (Hua XXV, 267-293) in the midst of the
turmoil of the war, or to the articles about culture he wrote between 1922 and
1924 for the Japanese review Kaizo. 4 As a result, Husserl could only appear
to them as "reactionary," insofar as he was defending, even in these texts
from the twenties and still in the Vienna Lecture, the return to or the restora-
tion of an ideal of culture and politics ("And yet, ideas are stronger than any
empirical powers," he claimed in 1935) which was very easily identified
with idealism, frequently associated with an "obsolete ''5 Platonism. We would
 like to suggest another reading of the sentence including the epithet "reac-
tionary." This occurrence has to be put back in context, that is, within Husserl's
critical meditation upon the sense of reason and the ambiguity of rational-
ism. Calling Husserl a reactionary then, amounts to regarding him as the last
guardian of the great rationalist tradition going back to Descartes, but also to
the AuJkldrung. Husserl would be a reactionary because he wouldgo back to
this outdated idea of a possible control of reality through rationality, in other
words, to a responsibility, to an ethic of reason, which seems to be powerless
in view of the contingency of history and the necessity of political action. He
would be said to plead for rationality and values, an attitude which has been
recently called "theoretical paranoia. ''6
Now, Husserl firmly replies to his detractors by defining himself as "more
radical" and "more revolutionary" than those very ones who claim a political
(but too rhetorical) radicalism. The question is then: what are the Husserlian
revolution and radicality? A careful reading of his lecture Die Krisis der
europdischen Menschheit is. sufficient to convince us of the fact that Husserl
does not invite the plain criticism of abstract hair-splitting and Platonic ide-
alism. The author indicts here all rationalism as soon as it becomes "an intel-
lectualism which loses itself in theories alienated from the world" (Hua VI,
337). Instead, he puts forward an extended sense of "reason" based on
Wesensschau, the ground of which is sensory. He should not therefore be ac-
cused of narrow Platonism. But what is, again, Husserl's radical revolution?
We can first notice that "revolution" is not absolutely opposed to "reac-
tion," inasmuch as both words mean a return to a previous state. But still,
this return has a distinctive meaning: reaction is a return to a previous state
just as it was, without any transformation at all; on the contrary, although
revolution literally also implies a return to a previous state, it intensifies its
sense. Secondly, the meaning of"radicality" is in both cases different, since
the radicalism Husserl criticizes is an equivalent to extremism, involving
excess and exaggeration and generating a "bombastic verbiage about Germa-
ny's spiritual mission," which is representative of the "ideological lameness
of academic philosophy" guided by a "despicable nationalism.'" Husserl's
radicality is called "rigorous science" and is a tireless search for sense. If he
is revolutionary, it is on account of his endeavoring to observe history and
the political phenomena he meets with as deeply and rigorously as possible.
Such an attitude requires a complete transformation of the way phenomena
are looked at. It is necessary to focus upon their original meaning. Husserl
indeed stands "apart from the political scene" (op.cit., 10-12). Only this
attitude makes it possible for him not to fall into the belief in the "obscure
forces of war-spirit, ''s as Scheler did, or prevents him from participating in
the plan o f a German Centerfor Philosophical Culture in 1920, ledby Count
Hermann Keyserling and sponsored by some great personalities of the Ger-
man high aristocracy. He could thereby avoid any nationalist takeover of
phenomenology. 9
The radical revolution which underlies phenomenology is in no way - it
should be obvious now - a political revolution that deals with events and
remains caught in them. Neither is it a political radicalism, whose perverse
effects reverse reason. It rather means an utter conversion of the way phe-
nomena are looked at, so that our view of the world may be revolutionized
and may come "in<to> a wholly new dimension" (Hua II, 24). Should the
political be understood as a "phenomenon," there would need to be a
phenomenological reduction to the political.

2. T h e status o f a r e d u c t i o n o f / t o the political

What is here at stake involves first of all a reflexion upon the political: the
point is not to limit or to eliminate it by reducing it, but to enable us to
understand its meaning in a new way by freeing it from the usual misinter-
pretation of it as economically or ideologically based. The matter is, there-
fore, a reduction of the political and not of politics, through which a properly
political dimension only may stand out. The political level does not appear
as such, but makes it possible for politics to appear. Yet, this does not mean
inventing the enigma of an "elusive essence, too much reified in a sheer
grammatical fiction. ''1 It should rather suggest the importance of keeping
distance through reflexion from specific and often partial politics, in order to
be able to assess their scope and meaning. A reduction to the political should
therefore be exercised rather than a reduction of it. This phenomenological
level of the political should free its content frompower in the sense of domi-
nation, a result of the desire for ruling, and link it closely to authority. We
thus can point out what a "phenomenological politics" could be, which would
not be a "political phenomenology" at all, at least if we understand the latter
as a potential "politicization" of phenomenology. Husserl takes up this ex-
pression only to dismiss it. H Such a conception of phenomenology would
mean using it as a means to serving political or even "politicking" external
ends. It would in that way destroy its deep aim at non-participant rigor and
eventually lay it open to irrationalism.
Secondly, what underlies such a reduction has aphenomenological impli-
cation: how is the political to be situated within a phenomenological plan? Is
it nothing else than a sheer regional ontology, the ultimate sense of which
phenomenology would give, as a radically founding science? Is it right to
speak of a "phenomenology of politics"T2? Let us answer these questions in
two different ways, both negative: a) The political is not considered as an
ontology by phenomenology because it is not even defined as an independent
region. It is, in fact, subsumed within a wider ontology, a social one or, more
exactly, an ontology of community (Gemeinschaft). If we agree to define the
political as an instituted "life together," a certain achievement of which the
State embodies, it is obvious that regulated life in common is for Husserl a
social phenomenon. Its political implications are not thought as such, not
even at the State level. If the political is quite clearly not autonomized, it is
because Husserl is more interested in sociality and, more accurately, in
intersubjective community, as a phenomenon which includes the political as
epiphenomenon.13 Besides, his definition of the State in the few manuscripts
where this theme is dealt with as gSllensgemeinschafi (every non-instinc-
tive, willing and reasoned community being defined likewise) accounts for
it? 4 "Civil society" is "anti-Hegelianly" but phenomenologically ~5 raised
above the State, without being opposed "to the State" or the latter being
absorbed into the former. 16Anyway, it will be necessary to go into that pri-
macy of community sociability and to ask whether or not it involves a re-
understanding of the political, b) It is not an ontology that would be derived
from phenomenology as scientia princeps, because life in common as insti-
tuted makes it necessary to re-evaluate the scope of the phenomenological
process itself in its eminent operation, reduction. Taking into account politi-
cal sociality has a feedback-effect on reduction, which needs to be exactly
determined. If reduction has the power of transmuting political factuality
into its essential sense, it is compelled to modify itself, due to the specific
object affecting it. Not only the scope, but also the deep meaning of reduc-
tion is to be transformed by such an object as instituted common life with the
others.
By adopting the Cartesian way, the first step of the following study will
consist in showing how problematic it is to reach through it a right view of
the political. The other two steps will then develop both non-Cartesian ways,
the ways through life-world and through psychology, in order to investigate
what understanding of the political they yield. The point we eventually would
like to make is to prove that the way through psychology alone brings out the
most eminent phenomenological sense of the political, that is, authority.

3. Is a transcendental political politics possible?

The Cartesian way is determined by the ideal of the radical, apodictic foun-
dation of every datum. In that context of apodicticity, the State is appre-
hended as an intentional transcendence among others. 17The Cartesian
transcendental reduction indeed prescribes an absolute methodological soli-
tude, so that it is forbidden to use plural expressions. ~8The question there-
fore is: can the political field be considered as such in an apperception? It
seems to be necessarily subsumed in the broader field of intersubjectivity,
which directly brings about a phenomenology of sociality. T9Are we then to
give up the idea of a specific "transcendentalization" of the political? And
yet, Husserl asserts in the Crisis, following the previous quotation, that "there
is no conceivable (erdenklich) meaningful (sinnvoll) problem in previous
philosophy, and no conceivable problem of being at all, that could not be
arrived at by transcendental phenomenology at some point along its way"
(Hua VI, 192). One is thus entitled to consider that "the political" belongs to
such problems. What kind of transcendental sense will this field admit? Should
the "transcendental" itself be differentiated?
The methodological disconnection of the political does not deprive this
"problem" of its specific relevance. But the fact that we are compelled to
take into account a plurality of egoic consciousness, a pre-requisite of any
exposition of the political, implies that transcendental egology be extended
to monadology. This extended use of "transcendental" raises the question
whether plurality - and what kind of it - can be reached in that way.
Monadology came up in the years 1914-1915 (Hua XIII), but was systemati-
cally set out only in the twenties,2 and finally drafted in the Cartesian Medi-
tations (Hua I, 55-56). If a transcendental political level is to be made
possible by the Cartesian way, it would only be as "political monadology."
The transcendentalization of the political requires a "monadologization,"
which rests upon an "intersubjective constitution." This intersubjective con-
stitution nevertheless remains egological, even as monadologically extended
or, more exactly, as "politologically" broadened. The political (politische
Gemeinschaft) or state-community (Staatsgemeinschafi) (Hua XV, Beil. XXgV,
409) is at any rate analogically apprehended as a super-ego. As is the case for
the ego, it is ruled by a unitary principle of"centration" (Zentrierung), which
refers here to one state-will (Staatswille): "Der Staat ist gewissermaflen
Staatsich."zT The analogical shifting of transcendental egology to a level above
the ego raises a methodological problem, insofar as it presupposes that the
constitutive pluralization is achieved whereas, as we will prove, it is not
sufficiently performed within the Cartesian way alone.
The telos of the "Cartesian" intersubjective constitution is indeed objec-
tivity as founded upon intersubjectivity. The constituted state-level refers in
that case to a certain degree of objectivation, that is of rationalization. As
Karl Schuhmann points out, the state-level is not, according to Husserl, the
end-stratum ofobjectivation, but a step within it, as a negative warrant inside
a juridical system, which rules inter-individual conflicts. 22
As the political state-level appears to be a worldly objectivated stratum in
the static constitution, one is entitled to ask whether or not the transcendental
sense of the reduction is still at work. No doubt, the objectivation itself was
transcendentally converted. But one may question an intersubjectivity whose
only role is to found objectivity. Does its weakness not lie exactly here?
Another question is: is the worldly objectivation consistent with a pure tran-
scendental meaning? Don't we run the risk of eventually coming up with a
construction, in which the political in general, and the State in particular, in
fact belong to givenness, to factuality and can in no way be identified with a
transcendental reductive and descriptive phenomenon? Husserl is aware of
the risk of losing the transcendental level while considering objects not
apodictically given. He notices this about Ideen I in the famous 43 of Cri-
sis. The few manuscripts dealing with the State in theA-group entitled "mun-
dane Phdnomenologie'" still enhance the risk. As a result, the point seems to
be aporetic: the transcendental level of the political is still too worldly be-
cause too thetic. The political affects so much transcendental reduction that
it weakens it. Searching for its original genetic sense may help us to avoid
this risk and reveal a "purer" phenomenological dimension of the political.

4. An "original political" life-world

The last paragraph of the way through the life-world in the Crisis deals with
"the problems of genesis (Generativitiit), of transcendental historicity
(Geschichtlichkeit), of transcendental inquiry (Riickfragen), which starts from
the essential forms of human existence in society (Gesellschaftlichkeit), in
personalities of a higher order <communities, states etc.>, and proceeds back
to their transcendental and thus absolute signification" (Hua VI, 55, 191).
Moreover, it introduces a "Korrektur" (ibid.) in comparison with "the first
application of the epoch6 by reducing to the absolutely unique, ultimately
functioning ego." With borderline-problems such as political society, his-
tory, but also, as is said further on, birth, death, unconsciousness, sexuality
or language, it is necessary to proceed back from their being as data to their
original transcendental meaning. The political is a problem that affects re-
duction in such a way that it makes it necessary to correct its previous sense.
In the already mentioned 43 of Crisis, Husserl firmly insists on the risk -
peculiar to the "Cartesian" reduction - to "fall back into the naive-natural
attitude", that is, to surreptitiouslybring in worldly validities. The way through
life-world starts inside natural wordly life, remains a long time in it, inquires
retrogressively (riickfragend)from this given world to its transcendental mean-
ing, methodologically distinguishes epoch6 from reduction. It, thus, offers
the opportunity to get a genetic view of transcendental reduction and an un-
derstanding of the non-worldly, absolute originality of political society. Origi-
nality ensures here transcendentality. But a question comes up immediately:
how the egological meaning and the original worldly sense of"transcenden-
tal" can be brought together? Their common point is the conversion of data
into their sense, through static constitution on the one hand, through regres-
sive inquiry to an original sense on the other hand. Whereas the egological
constitution of the political only conveys a derived, because worldly, mean-
ing of it, it seems that going back to originality is a way to conquer its tran-
scendental meaning without limiting it to regionality: factual datum becomes
facticity. 23
What is the original meaning of political sociality? Is it possible that due
to it a "transcendental sociology ''24 or, in a broader way, a "transcendental
anthropology" can be reached? Transcendental has obviously here a differ-
ent meaning from its "Cartesian" meaning. It refers to a world-conscious-
ness or subjectivity, not to an ego any longer. Life-world is made thematic
through a "consistently reflective attitude" (Hua VI, 38, title), which brings
about a transformation of our consciousness of world and of"human beings,
with all their human action concerns, works and suffering, living in common
in the world-horizon in their particular social interrelations (soziale
Verbundenheiten) and knowing themselves to be such" (op. cit., 38, 149) as
well. We get to an original sociality, i.e. to an original political, if we perform
a reflection from data to the how of their "subjective manner of givenness":
so we go back to the "origin" o f society itself. The Origin of Geometry un-
folds such a genesis about geometry. But the genetic problematic emerged as
early as 191820: Husserl thinks out the original institution (Urstiftung) (Hua
XIV, Beil. XXVIII, 222-225) of generative community. A political phenom-
enology is not then a phenomenology of a regional object described aspoliti-
cal, but an originally political because an originally communal one. Let us
depict now this original political space. Though not in a teleological way as
in the thirties (Hua XV, no. 22, no. 23 and Beil. XXII1) Gemeingeist I and 1/25
trace back a kind of genesis of sociality: it starts from the impulsive pre-
empathic relationship (op.cit., no.9, 164-165), goes through a personal sense
of community, albeit it only inter-personal (Ich-Du Beziehung) or extended
to the whole community, and ends with the creation o f a "vergemeinschafiete
Menschheit als iiberpersonale Ganzheit" (op. cit., Beil. XXV). In Gemeingeist
/, sociality is originally grounded on a Ich-Du Beziehung as "urspriinglicher
Konnex zwischen Ich und Du '" (op. cit., 166-167), as "urspriingliches Erlebnis
des Einander-gegeniiberstehens "' (op. cit., 167), or else as an "ursoziale Ich-
Du Beziehung" (op. cit., 171). Every personal subject belongs straightfor-
ward - originally - to an inter-personal relationship (Beriihrung), in an
"Einsverstiindnis" manner: the egological starting-point has nothing to do
here (op. cit., 170). That "understanding" relationship is ultimately recipro-
cal (wechselseitig) 26 as it is rooted in a striving will (Willens- und
Strebensgemeinschafi). 27 As for Gemeingeist H and its Appendices, they
emphasize the idea of a historical generative and teleologized community, in
which relationships are "einseitige Kommunikationsverhiiltnisse" (Hua XIV,
no.10, 198). The relationship between me and an author belonging to the
past cannot be reciprocal indeed, but remains asymmetric, even though the
transmission of values implies a "Gemeingeist. ''28 The problem is stated in
the same terms in the third Part of ldeen 11, except for the generative aspect.
This community is still struc~tred by the unity of a common subject, but is
generated and activated by the common world itself. It is no longer called an
egological "centration," though as constitutively extended to a plural egoical
monadology as it might be. The "kommunikative I~elheit'" is an entirely dy-
namic and non-resolved unity. It is open to the others' space and time, gener-
ated as unity at the very moment when it goes through the others: it "fungiert
wie ein Subjekt. ''29 According to the generative transmission of sense, the
social nucleus, this primitive community made of me andyou is not properly
instituted (gestiftet), contrary to the association (Verein) which is ruled by a
contract (op. cit., 169). It refers to an original non-instituted political space,
an original space for the political, which becomes deprived of all meaning as
soon as it gets instituted. 3The few occurrences of the State-community should
not mislead us: the difference between this community and the others is but
"speziell. ''31 The political should not, therefore, be sought for at the (relative)
end of a worldly constitutive process, in the transition from a personale
Verbindung to apersonale Ganzheit (op. cit., no. 9, 182), but at its origin, in
a kind of status nascendi of sociality itself.
Considering this generative description ofsociality, one may ask: is sociality
apprehended in a transcendental way? Is that genesis of the political tran-
scendental? In other words, is the only way to reach a transcendental reduc-
tion a teleological original one? Besides, is it the only relevant way? Is a
merely "natural epochb" enough, as Schutz thinks it is in his Collected Pa-
pers, if it leads up to a "mundane phenomenology"32? Must a social (politi-
cal) p h e n o m e n o l o g y be m u n d a n e and, in that case, w h a t is still
phenomenological about it? What is actually original in all that? Besides,
can the political only be thought at the expense of an extreme limitation of
the transcendental to originality? Does the political and generally, social plu-
rality, force us to exercise such a methodological restriction? Anyway, the
way through life-world remains ambiguous because of its double meaning:
"the two possible fundamental ways of making life-world thematic: the na-
ive and natural straightforward attitude and the idea of a consistently reflec-
tive attitude [...]" (Hua VI, 38, title). Its reflexivity offers a way to the
transcendental while teleologically going back from the factual datum to its
original facticial givenness. Life-world and worldly naturality are, at worst,
assimilated. In that case, even originality gets lost, and the natural descrip-
tion of society is paradoxically claimed as being phenomenological? 3
Gemeingeist land Gemeingeist H actually waver between original-transcen-
dental and natural-mundane life-world, between facticity and factuality. In-
 9

deed, a definition of intersubjectivity as pre-given common structure under-

lies the depicted political sociality: inter-human relationships are ruled by
communication (Mitteilung, Kommunikation) and Einverstiindnis, and rest
upon mundanity. Is this pre-given life-world not in un-questioned collusion
with the worldly constituted "Cartesian" political? In other words: the con-
stitutive static analysis and the teleological view could well conceal a common
understanding of the political, which ultimately degenerates into a given factu-
ality. What would then be an actual transcendental genesis of the political?

5. The way through psychology as a way to access of political

transcendentality

First, let us acknowledge how paradoxical it may seem to look for a tran-
scendental genesis of the political by relying on a way that emphasizes the
purity o f the psyche. How can we expect to reach the plurality required by
every statement about political community through the psychism of an iso-
lated and solitary individual? Did we not come up against the same difficulty
with the egological Cartesian way? Are we going to go back, with the way
through psychology, to the same aporetic result of a regional and merely
constituted meaning of the political? We shall try to prove, on the contrary,
how this way, more and better than the o t h e r s - the negation of which it is not
at all, but their "improvement" - enables us to think out an actual transcen-
dental political, without giving up its grounding plurality, i.e., how a consistant
"reduction to the political" can be reached through it alone.
Although phenomenological psychology remains equivocal, in its most
positive meaning, it offers an unprecedented access to the transcendental
attitude.34To what extent can a transcendentally reduced psychology provide
us with the best access to transcendental plurality? In the Crisis, psychology
is introduced in such a manner that it does not allow us to answer such a
question, because reduction is not properly genetically brought to light. Thus
it is necessary to read Erste Philosophie carefully again, which for the first
time in 1923-24 systematically laid out this way in its genetic senseY This
text alone reveals the deep meaning of a transcendental reduction to the po-
litical. Even if the latter is not made thematic at all, the accurate analysis of
the reflexivity proper to consciousness (41 st lecture), as supported by time
(39th-40th lectures) and phantasy reflexive structures (44th lecture), 36 are
the methodological steps in the emergence of an original schema of the
pluralization of the ego, as a result from its primitive reflective division not
subjected to the transcendental illusion of a sheer splitting (Verdoppelung).
These reflective steps alone pave the way for a rigorous phenomenological
transcendental genesis of plurality: because I am able to observe myself as
10

originally plural, so that this inner plurality is not actually egoical but rather
"ipseical" and implies an originality that has nothing to do with the tran-
scendental illusion of a mythical origin, the reduction achieving reflexion
provides us with a proper genesis of plurality, i.e., a genetic transcendental
pluralization.
It is possible, by means of this genetic root of transcendental reduction in
a primitive pluralizing reflexion of consciousness, to understand the actual
scope of an "inter-subjective reduction" as an essential prerequisite for a
"reduction to the political." But the meaning of this intersubjectivity of re-
duction must now be questioned. Though it is made thematic in Erste
Philosophie as a stage beyond the "egological reduction" (53rd lecture, b),
the intersubjective reduction is not a mere extension from the immanent sphere
o f absolute givenness to the experience of alter ego, but implies a re-under-
standing of the very meaning of"reduction," which has to transform i t s e l f -
and not only to be extended - into an intersubjective reduction (Hua VIII,
175, n. 1). The inter-subjectivity of reduction means that every ego ceases to
be a locked ego but becomes a "transcendental life," a living subjectivity,
open to other transcendental lives (op. cit., 181). The universal psychologi-
cal epoch6 through which every thematic act (interest-horizon, including
worldly intersubjectivity) is reduced (op. cit., 317), gives as a result a new
concept of intersubjectivity: "der Andere lebt doch sein Leben, kann in sich
selbst so gut transzendentale Reduktion iiben wie ich, sich selbst als abso-
lute Subjektivitdt finden und mich als alter ego so gut erfassen, wie ich in
meinem Leben ihn erfasse" (op. cit., 185). 37Every ego is de-centered, so that
everyone exercizes the reduction like everyone else: apodicticity is applied
here to every ego, who becomes itself pluralized. A passage from the Crisis
mentioned earlier on stresses as a concession that kind of pluralization: "I am
the one who performs the epoch6, even if<the others>practice the epoch~ in
direct community with me [ . . . ] " (op. cit., 54, b, our emphasis). Reduction
is not only the performance of a solipsistic ego, it is als0 plurally performed
- co-performed: it is a kind of co-reduction. The resulting community is a
community made of the transcendental acts: it is brought about by an "inter-
reductivity."
This new kind of reduction does not start from the pre-given common
world, but from the psychic life of a subject. However, this psychic life is not
solipsistically shut up, even if everyone possesses his or her own psychic life
through which he or she exercises a reduction that becomes plural due to the
universal community of its transcendental act-character. The plurality is thus
not that of an "object," the world, but of a lived act. What kind of transcen-
dental political level is likely to be reached? Not the one of a common world,
but of a common reductive act. The political is neither a constituted stratum
within society, nor a straightforward common world, but a community o f
 11

transcendental phenomenological "monads" (HuaVIII, 54th lecture; Hua XIII,

no. 66, 39, 188). A "transcendental" political being then refers to somebody
who practices reflexion at the very moment when he is acting: Husserl con-
veys this meaning o f "a political being" through the non-participant
(unbeteiligt) onlooker. 38This onlooking political being is not Merleau-Ponty's
abstract and dis-embodied cosmotheoros. If it is non-participant in the worldly
actions, it is because o f its deep interest in the sense of the world. Radicalized
by Fink as a "phenomenologizing onlooker," it appears in the world without
constituting it. Looking at the world as a "phenomenological political being"
does not mean being outside politics. Not participating is the only way to
observe a political event without prejudice - to act without expecting any
result. 39 0nly such an "action-without-doing" can be said to be purely tran-
scendental. The phenomenological political being does not give up acting
but practices a "discipline of action," due to which it acts without bustling
about: it remains free with regards to any effect. This transcendental "detach-
ment" has nothing to do with disregard or indifference: acting without doing
is opposed to any idleness. 4
Husserl calls this o n l o o k e r - all the more acting that he is interested in no
r e s u l t - an archonte. 41He is not a theoretician as opposed to a "practician": 4~
through his ethical attitude, he encompasses the still naive opposition be-
tween theory and praxis. In a note to Erste Philosophie, Husserl speaks of a
"universale ethische 'enozr ] (Hua VIII, 319), which is a reduction to the acts
themselves. The archonte thus exercises an epoch6 in relation to his ethos as
a discipline of action. This kind of "ethics" peculiar to a phenomenological
political is neither a mere neutral theoretical attitude, nor an activist one.
Such phenomenological ethics paves the way for a realistic way of acting
deprived of any ideological implications. 43In the Kaizo articles (1917-1924)
the ethical viewpoint came forward again. Because of the so-called idealistic
turn o f 1913, one may wonder, however, whether ethics is not there de-
phenomenologized because ideologized. Before this turn, ethics is on the
contrary a reine Ethik, i.e., a phenomenological one. 44
As a result, the ethical community is, owing to its great reflexivity, a
learned one. It is made of scholars, of "knowers," according to the idea of a
"gnostische Gemeinde," as Husserl liked to say in some o f his last letters to
close friends. He also spoke of an "archontische Gemeinschafi. ''45 Is such a
community still political? Is it not far from any political action? In fact, a
phenomenological Ethisierung (F 1 24/154) aims at revealing a meaning of
the political able to deprive it o f power as domination and to endow it alone
with authority, whose great force is powerlessness. 46The guardian o f author-
ity is, thus, originally passive, but his passivity is not opposed to activity any
longer, it rather leads to the only true action, which is a spiritual one. The
spirituality characterizing authority does not have to be religious, even if it is
12

well known that authority very often appeared in a religious context, at least
in the West. For this reason, one will not be astonished to c o m e across occur-
rences - though u n u s u a l - mentioning Christ as a guardian o f that powerless
authority ruled by Passion. F r o m a phenomenological point o f view, he ap-
pears to have a mind that is eminently critical o f each unquestioned matter
(mostly religious at the time, embodied by the Pharisees): he is here a kind o f
protophenomenologist. But he is also depicted as the paragon o f " e t h i s c h e
L i e b e . ''47 As a consequence, the community o f phenomenologizing onlook-
ers should also be a L i e b e s g e m e i n s c h a f i . At first glance, these two communi-
ties are contradictory. However, only a positivist like A. Diemer m a y consider
it paradoxical to link them. I f one stresses the continuity o f H u s s e r l ' s
phenomenological e v o l u t i o n - at once scientific and in quest o f t h e A b s o l u t e
- the strong unity relating charity and knowledge through ethics is striking. 48
To ask whether charity is to be reached through knowledge or vice-versa
m a y be not a question any longer at this point.
What results from this "reduction to the political" is an urgent distinction
between a cratos politics and an archd one. Should a phenomenological poli-
tics c o m e into light, it could only be an archontic one, its most eminent
efficiency being its passivity. 49 Since it will immediately be classified as
being part o f a theologico-political context (how else could it be in the West!),
it would be better to conceive it at a non-religious level, at a properly meta-
physical one (not at all "onto-theological" though), not opposed as such to
phenomenology. The main feature o f such "phenomenological metaphysics"
would be then its ethical reflexivity.

Notes

1. These words are from A. L. Kelkel in his Introduction to Philosophie premiere (Paris:
P.U.F., 1972), p. XI. In a letter to his son Gerhart from June, 1935 (quoted by K.
Schuhmann in his book Husserls Staatsphilosophie [Freiburg/Mtinchen: Alber, 1988],
p. 19), Husserl characterizes his philosophy as "an sich vOllig unpolitisch." Schuhmann
points out that the word "Politik" occurs less than 10 times in the first twenty volumes
of the Complete Works Husserliana (op. cir., p. 18). I would like to thank here Prof.
Courtine for giving me the opportunity to read this paper on November 1992 in the
"Srminaire de Phrnom~nologie et d'Hermrneutique" which he directs at the Ecole
Normale Suprrieure. The present article is a shorter and re-thought version of the origi-
nal text, published meanwhile in Cahiers de Philosophie, no. 18.
2. A. L. Kelkel early on questioned this current opinion about Husserl's a-historicism (op.
cit., p. XII).
3. See the book by A. L. Kelkel and R. Schrrer, Husserl, sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris: P.U.F.,
1964), pp. 9--10, which contains a synthetic biography grounded on Husserl's Corre-
spondence, to which the authors have been allowed access at the Husserl Archive in
Leuven. We also refer to the indispensable book by K. Schuhmann, Husserl-Chronik:
Denk- und Lebensweg Edmund Husserls (Den Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1977). Last but not
 13

least, see Schumann's Introduction to his Husserls Staatsphilosophie.

4. These five articles are to be found in Hua XXVII Aufsiitze und Vortriige (1922-1937),
pp. 3-94. Three of them, "Erneuerung: lhr Problem und ihre Methode" (1923), "die
Methode der Wesensforschung" (1924) and " Erneuerung als individualethisches Prob-
lem" (1924) were published by Husserl in Kaizo in 1923-24. Only the first one was
also published in German, while the other two were only in Japanese (Hua XXVII,
Editor's Introduction, p. XI). It is therefore unlikely that they had any influence at the
time. The last two were not even published (op.cit., pp. XIV-XV).
5. G. Granel, the French translator of the Crisis, still uses such words in his Foreword
(op. cit., Paris: Gallimard, 1976, p. VII).
6. Ibid.
7. A. L. Kelkel and R. Sch6rer, op.cit., pp. 10-12. The patriotic fervor which led the
individual Husserl to identify with Germany's destiny during World War I - here is
what he said in 1933 in a letter to Albrecht (Husserl-Chronik, p. 428): "lch denke, ich
war nicht der schlechteste Deutsche (alten Stiles und Umfang) und mein Haus eine
Stiitte wirklich nationaler Gesinnung..." - means not at all as K. Schuhmann points
out (op. cit., p. 24, n. 26), that Husserl was lured into the trap of nationalist ideology.
The cosmopolitanism which emerges from his meditation upon Europe is not at all in
keeping with any nationalism.
8. Op. cit., p. 9; see also the letter to Arnold Metzger from 4 September 1919.
9. Husserl confessed that risk to his son Gerhart in the quoted letter from 5 June 1935: he
expressed there "how possible it is to misinterpret phenomenology, which would bring
about its politizisation". See again K. Schuhmann, op. cit., p. 46.
10. See J. Ladri~re's article, "L'invention politique," in Phknom~nologie et politique:
Mblanges offerts a d. Taminiaux (Bruxelles: Ousia, 1989), pp. 363-365 and 378-380,
p. 363 for the quotation, our translation.
11. See Husserl, Sa vie, son oeuvre, op. cit., p. 17.
12. K. Schuhmann, op. cit., p. 9: "Phiinomenologie der Politik".
13. Quite a lot of Husserl's commentators, even if they do not share the same point of
view, attest to it: R. Toulemont in L'essence de la societb (Paris: P.U.F., 1962); K.
Schuhmann in the already quoted book; or M. Richir following C. Lefort (Essais sur le
politique, X I X e - X X e si~cles, Paris: Seuil, 1986) in "Du sublime en politique",
Phknomknologie et politique, op. cit., pp. 445--478 (p. 446 above all) and, more ex-
haustively, in his book Du sublime en politique (Paris: Payot, 1991).
14. The manuscripts are the following: A V 10 ( 1931 )/5 0-55; A V 12 (1933-1934?)/14-16;
A IV 12 (1934)/6-9; about the definition of the State as Willensgemeinschafi, see A V
23/19. According to Husserl, the family refers to an instinctive community because it
appears naturally (see Hua XIV, no. 9, 9, 180).
15. This adverb can be understood in a static sense as an equivalent of"constitutively" or
in a teleological or psychological way as an equivalent of "genetically." Anyway, soci-
ety, at least in its broadest meaning, encompasses State. We will use this adverb in
both meanings throughout this study.
16. K. Schuhmann precisely situates (op. cit., pp. 29-39) the Husserlian conception of the
State within the historical context of political philosophy: Husserl rejects the primacy
of the State (and o f the Whole), which characterizes the Aristotelian and Hegelian
conceptions, and rather inherits a Hobbesian and Schopenhauerian one: the meaning
of the State is for them only of a juridical nature, therefore transitory, not ultimate at
all. As this historical situation within political philosophy, although since it is of a
high interest, is only thematized by Husserl (Schuhmann notices it, op. cit., p. 34)
before the birth of phenomenologieal reduction in 1904-1905 and hardly appears again
14

afterwards, we won't insist on it. We do not aim at sketching a "phenomenology of

politics" again, the Husserlian view on the political being one doctrine among many
others offered by history; rather, we aim at examining what is granted to the political
within a phenomenological (that is reductive) process.
17. See Ideen 1, Hua III, 136-137: " . . . works of the technical and of the fine arts, of the
sciences also . . . , aesthetic and practical values of every shape and form. Natural in
the same sense are also realities of such kinds as state, moral custom, law, religion.
Therewith all the sciences natural and mental, with the entire knowledge they have
accumulated, undergo disconnexion as sciences which require for their development a
natural standpoint." See Hua ili, "Phiinomenologische Grundbetrachtungen", 31-32
and 41-43; Hua II, "Gedankengang der Vorlesungen", 5 and 9.
18. Hua II!, 33 and 46, 85-86; Cartesianische Meditationen, Hua I, 8, 14 and 34;
Hua VI, 54, b).
19. R. Toulemont analyzes this point (op. cit., ch. III, "La soci6t6 humaine", but above all
in the chapter V, "Les soci6t~s finies", "De la famille b. la supra-nation", pp. 178--184),
although without j u s t i f i y n g the precise connexion between the State and
intersubjectivity. K. Schuhmann brings it into light (op. cit., 40-42, 44---46 and 48--87).
20. Hua XIII, Beil. LIV (summer 1920), pp. 470-475; see Hua XIV, no. 13 (January/
February1922), entitled as follows: "Die Transzendenz des alter ego gegenfiber der
Transzendenz des Dinges. Absolute Monadologie als Erweiterung der transzendentalen
Egologie. Absolute Weltinterpretation", pp. 244-270.
21. F ! 33/142, quoted by R. Toulemont, op. cit., p. 118, n.3; this third part of the Lecture
(103 et seq.) from 1926-27 about psychology is not inserted into Hua XIV, nor into
Hua IX, nor into Hua XXVll (1922-1937). It has anyway nothing to do with the way
through psychology, which was taken before.
22. Hua XV, Beil. XXIV(13 and 14 Nov. 1931), 409 above all. The State should indeed be
taken over (auggehoben), or at least die out (sich aufl6sen). Husserl's conception is
here close to Kant's in the Metaphysik der Sitten or to Engels' dialectic of nature.
Schuhmann's standpoint is critical: he questions the illimitable power of rationality,
whereby the juridical level is replaced by the moral one (op. cit., ch. III and IV).
23. Transfiguring factuality into facticity implies that the data are reduced to their eidetic
teleologized meaning. K. Schuhmann clears up the meaning of this original facticity
of the State (up. cit., pp. 88-131). See no. 22 in Hua XV about a facticial teleologized
eidetic. About the teleological historical facticity, see L. Landgrebe's shrewd analysis
in Faktizitiit und Individuation (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1982).
24. C 8 1/19, which deals with generativity in the life-world. The E III sub-group is enti-
tled "transzendentale Anthropologie."
25. Hua XIV, no. 9 "Gemeingeist 1. -Person, personale Ganze, persona& Wirkungsgemein-
scha.ften. Gemeinschafi- Gesellschaft" (Freiburg, 1921), pp. 165-184; no. 10
"Gemeingeist H. Personale Einheiten hOherer Ordnung und ihre Wirkungskorrelate"
(Bernau 1918 or St. M~trgen, 1921), pp. 192-204. See also Beilagen XXV to XXIX,
205--232, which already studied society from a historical viewpoint.
26. "nicht jede Gemeinschafi ist wechselseitige Gemeinschafl'" (Hua XIV, no. 9, 172).
27. In Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs (Den Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1971 ), B. Waldenfels stresses
this originally dialogical side at work in any relationship with others.
28. Hua XIV, no. 9, 169: "/4,~'rnotieren hier zugleich, daft sich auch ein Verstorbener, und
als das erkannter, und ein Lebendiger geistig die Hand reichen, daft von jenem zu
diesem eine Mitteilung kommen kann, verstanden als von dem dereinst Lebenden an
diesem jetzt Lebenden gerichtet und empfangen"; and above all no. 10, 198 et seq:
"Mein Leben und das Platons ist eins. Ich setze seine Lebensarbeit fort, die Einheit
 15

seiner Leistungen ist Glied in der Einheit meiner Leistungen; sein Streben, sein Wollen,
sein Gestalten setzt sich in dem meinen fort."
29. Hua XIV, no. 10, 197 (our emphasis). See also 200-201: "Die gemeinsame, die
verbundene Personalitiit als 'Subjekt' der gemeinsamen Leistung ist einerseits A nalogon
eines individuellen Subjekts, andererseits aber nieht blofi Analogon, sie ist eine
verbundene Personenvielheit, die in ihrer Verbindung eine Einheit des BewuJ3tseins
(eine kommunikative Einhei 0 hat. Innerhalb der ~elheit der auf die Einzelpersonen
verteilten Willen hat sie einen .fur sie alle identisch konstituierten Willen, der keinen
anderen Ort, kein anderes; Substrat hat als die kommunikative Personenvielheit . . . . "'
See the already quoted Beil. XXV, which extends this social subjectivity to the whole
of humanity, and Beil. XXVII, 218, which deals with the "Gemeinsehaftsubjektivitgit"
as "eine vielk6pfige Subjektivitiit, Form des ego-alteri."
30. Here is the ambiguity of the State-institution (K. Schuhmann, op. eit., pp. 90-95), and
of every institution in general.
31. Hua XIV, no. 9, 165: "/) Soziale Akte und wie dureh soziale Akte Gemeinschaften
gestiftet werden; speziell: Personalitdten h6herer Ordnung.. ." (our ,emphasis); 182:
" . . . Staat: eine Willensgemeischaft hinsichtlich aller Vollbiirger." (idem); 183: "Ist
das Volk ein Staatsvolk, so scheidet sich doch die staatliche Einheit und die Einheit
der Gemeinschafi konstituierenden Formen der Sitte etc." This common spirit is also a
"Pers6nliehkeit h6herer Ordnung / Stufe": the State or association embodies a pecu-
liar step in the institutionalization (op. tit., 199 and 201). This difference between
instituted and non-instituted (Wirkungsgemeinschafien) refers exactly to M. Richir's
original separation (PhOnomOnologie et institution symbolique, Grenoble: Millon, 1988
and again Du sublime en politique, op. cit.) between what he calls the "symbolical"
and "phenomenological sides." As soon as the political is instituted by the "instituant
symbolique" embodied by God, it identifies via the theologico-political with the State,
and lays open the way to ideology. It is therefore necessary to take into account the
dynamics (the life) of the institution, which protects it against all ideologization and
lets its own phenomenality emerge. But M. Richir's realistic question is: are we not
always caught, "stricken" in the rigid symbolism of the instituted? The point is to
achieve the idea of an always starting up and never symbolically coded community,
what Husserl already was in quest of in the early twenties. This original and un-insti-
tuted dimension in the phenomenological meeting of the phenomenological and the
symbolical sides is called by M. Richir a political "Sublime."
32. A. Schutz, Collected Papers l: The Problem o f Social Reality (The Hague: M. Nijhoff,
1962), p. 257.
33. That is Schutz's viewpoint upon phenomenology, but also Gurwitsch's in Die
mitmenschliehen Begegnungen in der Milieuwelt (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976), and fi-
nally R. Toulemont's.
34. As we cannot develop this point here, we merely refer to the main passages relating to
it: Hua I, 11, 15, 16, 34-35, 45, 57, 61; Nachwortzu meinen ldeen..., Hua IV, 155;
Hua VI, third Part, B, 56-73 (and above all, 57 entitled "The fateful separation of
transcendental philosophy and psychology," 58, p. 209: "Verschwisterung";
"verschwistert", 66, 70, 71, 72 entitled "The relation of transcendental psychol-
ogy to transcendental phenomenology as the proper access to pure self-knowledge
(zur reinen Selbsterkenntnis)": " . . . pure psychology is in itself identical with tran-
scendental philosophy as the science of transcendental subjectivity. This is unassail-
able" [p. 261 ], Beil. XXIX, "Finks Outline for the Continuation of the Crisis", 51 4-516;
Phdnomenologisehe Psychologie, Hua IX, "Encyclopaedia Britannica Artikel",
237-247, 264-277, 295-296; "Amsterdamer Vortrfige: Ph/inomenologische
16

Psychologic", 9 14-15.
35. Hua VIII, "Theorie der phanomenologischen Reduktion". As soon as 1917, Husserl
wrote a text for a future book, "Phiinomenologie und Psychologic", published in Hua
XXV (82-125; cf. F IV 1). Some fragments from this text are to be found as Appendi-
ces in Hua XXIII. In 1917, the presentation of the relationship between psychology
and phenomenology was still incomplete, but the idea of an access to transcendental
reduction through psychology already established. (Much earlier besides, in the
Grundprobleme der Phginomenologie (1910--1911) (Hua XIII), such an access was also
mentioned.) See 9 15 of the text from 1917, entitled "Die Entwieklung v o n d e r
deseriptiven Psychologic zur Ph~inomenologie".
36. Another text from 1917, also published in Hua XXV and entitled "Phiinomenologie
und Erkenntnistheorie" (125-206; el. B I 3) is more specific about psychology, insofar
as reflexivity is thematic and linked to phantasy ( 22 "Das reine Bewul3tsein und die
ph~inomenologische Reflexion"; 24 "Reflexion in der Phantasie: Ausdehnung des
ph~nomenologischen Feldes auf das mOgliche BewuBtsein").
37. See also Grundprobleme der Phiinomenologie (Hua XIII, no. 6, 111-235, ch. II above
all, 99 31, 33, 34, 36, 39). Besides, we can notice that texts no. 15 and 16 from Hua
XIII (1918-1920), deal with an "oblique, reflektive EinJ~hlung" (401 et seq.), with a
"reine Reflexion" as "eigentliehe EinJ~hlung" (439 et seq.). For a closer discussion of
the relationships between Hua XIll, no. 66 and Hua VIii, see ch. IV of our Thesis
entitled "L'alt6rit6 entre transcendance et incarnation: Le statut de l'intersubjectivit6
chez E. Husserl" (Paris-X Nanterre, June 1993).
38. See F ! 33 (1926-1927)/29-30, 97-98, 123, brought together in Hua XIV; Hua VI, 9
69-72, Beil. XVI, 456-458, passim, and Hua I, 72-75.
39. See Ober den Humanismus (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1951) by M. Heidegger: " . . .
das Denken <ist> ein Tun. Aber ein Tun, das zugleieh alle Praxis iibertrifft. Das Denken
durehragt das Handeln und Herstellen nieht durch die Gr6sse eines Leistens und nicht
durch die Folgen eines Wirkens, sondern dureh das Geringe seines erfolglosen
Vollbringens." (quoted from Lettre sur l'humanisme, bilingual ed., Paris, Aubier, 1964,
pp. 164-165.)
40. Baghavad Gita develops very similarly such a discipline of action (Karma-yoga). See
also Meister Eckhart's Treatise "Von der Abgeschiedenheit" (Sehriften, Stuttgart-Ber-
lin: Kohlhammer, 1936).
41. See Hua VI, 336 and 371; Hua VII, 14; Hua VIII, 209; Hua XV, no. 38, Bell. XLVI. See
again R. Toulemont's book (op. cit., pp. 162-168 "La eommunautk des savants et des
philosophes"). An equivalent of "archonte" is for Husserl the "Funktioniir der
Menschheit".
42. R. Toulemont (op. tit., p. 34 and p. 162) thinks so.
43. K. Schuhmann registers in his Husserl-Chronik the many Lectures Husserl very early
gave about ethics, as early as 1891 till 1897 (op. cit., pp. 30, 35, 41, 45, 51). See also
Hua XXVllI (Ed.'s Introd., XV). About the extent to which the Kantian opposition
theory/praxis is actually reflected in phenomenological ethics, see Hua XXVIII,
Ergiinzende Texte, no. 3, "Kritik der kantisehen Ethik" (1902), 402-418. Concerning
Husserl's critic of"ethischer Skeptizismus", see op. tit., no. 1 (1897), 381-384, and
his quest for a "transzendentale Axiologie", op. cit., 1908-1909 Lecture (cf. F I 24).
44. See A . Roth, Edmund Husserls ethisehe Untersuehungen (Den Haag: M. Nijhoff,
1960), 9, pp. 26-29; 26, pp. 61-65. We can observe that no. 16 from Hua XIil (June
1920) that we have already quoted because it mentions a "pure refiexion" as a first step
toward a re-understanding of intersubjectivity, should initially (a note from Husserl
attests to it) have been found in a Lecture about ethics from 1920 (Hua XIII, 438, n. 1).
 17

The way through psychology therefore seems to be the most relevant so as to reach the
properly Husserlian phenomenological political - i.e., ethics.
45. About a "gnostische Gemeinde", see A. Diemer, "Die Ph~inomenologie und die Idee
der Philosophic als strenge Wissenschaft", Zeitschrift f~r philosophische Forschung,
2 (1959): 247-251; andA. L. Kelkel, "R6flexions husserliennes", Etudesphilosophiques,
no. 4; 437. As for "archontische Gememschaft", see C I/5 (1934).
46. Many studies from quite different viewpoints mention this distinction between power
and authority: P. Clastres in La soci~t6 contre l'Etat (Paris: Minuit, 1974); L. Dumont
in Homo hierarchicus, le systkme des castes et ses implications (Paris: Gallimard,
1966); Ananda Coomaraswamy in his article "Spiritual authority and temporal power";
or R. Gu6non in a book bearing the same title (Paris: Ed. V6ga, 1984), pp. 27-28 above
all. Supposing their religious content is left aside, more classical works such as
Augustin's De civitate Dei or Dante's De Monarchia also made this distinction the-
matic.
47. Hua XXVII, 59-72; Hua XIV, no. 9, 6. Christ has exactly the same meaning here as
the mentioned Buddha of the 1925 text "Ober die Reden Gotamo Buddhos" (Hua XXVII,
125-126), or as Socrates who is besides connected to Buddha in B ! 2/88 et seq.
48. So Liebesgemeinschaft might be found not only at the pre-State level of social sponta-
neity but at its post-level. Cf. K. Schumann, op. clt., pp. 7 7 4 7 ; and A. Roth, op. cit.,
54, pp. 160 et seq. If this community is double-oriented, it is necessary to conceive
two different kinds of ethics, one being a prejuridical social one, close to the Hegelian
Sittlichkeit, the other being, as reine Ethik, determined by transcendental intelligence.
See Hua XXVIII, Vorlesungen iiber Ethik und Wertlehre (1908--1914), above all F I
24, and A. Roth, op. cit., 54, "Die Vollendung des ethischen Subjekts als Glied einer
ethischen Socialitdt," pp. 160-164.
49. Here phenomenology does not have any anarchic implications (K. Schuhmann on the
contrary underlines this idea of an anarchic phenomenology, op. cit., p. 150), neither
in a strict political meaning, nor in Levinasian one: otherwise there would be a confu-
sion between archk and cratos.