An Intersubjective World: A Link between Nishida and Husserl

Abstract

In this article I intend to establish a link between Nishida and Husserl in regard to their ideas about intersubjectivity. Although there are significant differences concerning these philosophers’ ideas, I think that they agree on conceiving the world as intersubjectively expressed, that is, as apprehended by a multiplicity of individuals. To demonstrate this, I will focus on those aspects that make any attempt to link these philosophers close to impossible, namely, the fact that Nishida and Husserl seem to follow two different directions because of the concepts ‘pure experience,’ ‘phenomenological reduction,’ and époché. However, I argue that these differences should be examined under the observations of “The Logic of Topos”—Nishida—and Cartesian Meditations— Husserl. In my opinion, it is in these two texts that any coincidence is to be found since they provide the idea of a world that’s expressed through the individual’s apprehension of the world. My conclusions will try to expand the scope of this article by suggesting some connections between Nishida and the phenomenological work of Jacques Derrida, whose philosophy attempted to place the question of alterity at the core of phenomenology.