Zahavi’s Interpretation of Edmund Husserl’s Theory of Intersubjectivity and Its Limits

Abstract

This article offers a critical examination of Dan Zahavi’s interpretation of Edmund Husserl’s theory of intersubjectivity. It argues that Zahavi’s influential claim regarding the “intersubjective transformation” of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology remains constrained by an insufficiently radical understanding of reduction. More specifically, Zahavi reads Husserl’s distinction between egoic and pre– egoic levels as an internal differentiation within the ego itself, thereby neglecting Husserl’s late analyses of a primordial, non– egological streaming that grounds both transcendental subjectivity and transcendental intersubjectivity. Against this reading, the article shows that Zahavi’s account cannot fully overcome the charge of transcendental solipsism, since it preserves an ego– centered model at the very point where Husserl’s later manuscripts aim to move beyond it. It further argues that the constitution of unified objectivity can be explained through Husserl’s genetic analyses of temporality, especially the relation between primal impression and retention.

Keywords: Husserl, Zahavi, transcendental intersubjectivity, primordial streaming, reduction, solipsism, genetic phenomenology