Intersubjectivity

Intersubjectivity (Intersubjektivitàt) See also solipsism, transcendental intersubjectivity The term 'intersubjectivity' has its origins in German Idealism, especially Fichte, Husserl employs the term already in his Gôttingen lectures of 1910-11 (Basic Problems of Phenomenology) and discusses it in depth in his Cartesian Meditations, He links the issue to overcoming the problem of 'transcendental solipsism', Husserl's research manuscripts, especially those now published as the volumes on intersubjectivity, contain a rich amount of material on this topic. In the Crisis, the phenomenon of cooperating intersubjectivity is read back from the experience of a common world 'for all': Constantly functioning in wakeful life, we also function together, in the manifold ways of considering, together, valuing, plaing, acting together, (Crisis § 28, 109; VI 111) This is the domain of what Husserl calls 'we-subjectivity' (Wir-Subjektivitat, Crisis, 109, VI 111) and which he regards as inaccessible to traditional psychological reflection since it is always presumed by the psychological approach (Crisis § 59). Husserl had already addressed the problematic of the communicative function of speech in his First Logical Investigation The experience of the 'other ego' is a problem he encountered already in the work of Theodor Lipps