Abstract

The pivotal thesis of Cunningham’s critical discussion is that Husserl failed to realize that consciousness is essentially "language-using consciousness." The spread of argumentation throughout her analysis is designed to show that this failure on Husserl’s part resulted in a number of unhappy consequences. It occluded the primacy of the social context; it misconstrued what is at issue in the phenomenological transcendental and eidetic reductions; and it led to unwarranted claims for an apodictic foundation of science and metaphysics. The launching-pad for Cunningham’s critique is Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, of which she offers, in her own words, "a somewhat oblique commentary." This work by Husserl is selected because it illustrates most clearly the conflict between linguistic performance and the quest for certainty. Cunningham works out from this conflict, from time to time calling upon the later Wittgenstein to help her demonstrate the untenability of Husserl’s separation of language from intentional consciousness. After correcting this mistake by Husserl she then goes on to show how attentiveness to the language-using posture of consciousness is able to bridge the chasms between essence and existence, the transcendental and the transcendent, the ideal and the real—chasms which remained unbridged throughout Husserl’s intellectual development.