Structures, Dynamisms and Contents of Our Belief System: Husserl and Wittgenstein

Abstract

The philosophical project of providing appropriate conceptual resources to sketch concrete aspects of human life may have a twofold dimension. On the one hand, it might be considered as a descriptive enterprise. In such a case, the philosopher thinks of himself or herself as someone who does not try to change anything as if it were in need of some kind of refinement or improvement. Perhaps it might need some kind of clarification (phenomenological, linguistic, anthropological, historical, etc.), but clarification is always something relative to us. It is an act of changing the way we look at things but not of changing how things actually are. It is also a question of showing, not in Wittgenstein’s technical terms, but in the sense in which a radiograph shows the non-visible yet always present and solid, inner bone structure of a body. To some extent, both Husserl and Wittgenstein share this descriptive approach to the relationship between philosophy and human life. Husserl’s motto “Back to the things themselves”1 and Wittgenstein’s remark “everything lies open to view”2 could be interpreted in this non-disruptive and somehow humble, descriptive conception of philosophy. In this sense, they share a kind of polemical “radiographic” conception of philosophy that might be regarded as a very peculiar cultural enterprise. However the descriptive approach to philosophical problems should not be considered in all cases as an antagonising partner of the normative approach unless one takes as valid a strong transcendental Kantian viewpoint. The skeleton of a particular body can be described and, at the same time, be considered as an a priori, non-transcendental structure for the normal functioning not only of the living body to which it belongs but also as an a priori structure for the normal, average functioning of all the bodies of the same kind. Bodies that lack this kind of skeleton might suffer from various anomalies or diseases. Thus, such a radiograph might be regarded as a representative of the norm with which all average human bodies actually comply. Normativity, in this sense, is compatible with a descriptive approach. Husserl and Wittgenstein’s philosophies also provide, in different ways, valuable transcultural structures, dynamisms and abstract contents of human life. Making explicit these structures, dynamisms and contents requires one proceeding in a piecemeal way by distinguishing three different levels of analysis. The content of these different levels will be provided by some central statements of Husserl and Wittgenstein. More particularly, I shall consider some implications of the notions of Lebenswelt and Lebensform that are attached to their names, respectively.