Dasein - Monoskop

116 PART III
This turns out to be a mistaken model for transcendental phenomenology
once we remember that the transcendental phenomenologist
studies essential relations between meanings and the respective
fulfillings and self-evidences. The phenomenologist investigates—
among other things—why the assumption of a transcendent world is
inevitable in the light of our experience; "increasingly complete ...
percetual continua harmoniously developed" 437 support this assumption.
Now whether or not these evidences are given or not is indeed
a contingent matter. Furthermore, transcendental phenomenology
is able to show that the evidences pertaining to the assumption of
a transcendent world are not apodictic—unquestionable—as are evidences
pertaining to a priori truths. However, given that these
evidences pertaining to an existential claim concerning the world
are instantiated, then this existential claim is not only understandable
but also justified: "We ask now, presupposing all this, is it still
conceivable, is it not on the contrary absurd, that the corresponding
transcendent world should not ¿e?" 438 After all—as we heard
earlier—these essential links would bind even a divine intellect.
In the light of these considerations there seems to be a strong
case in favour of the thesis that Husserl adopts not only semantical
and perceptual realism but also metaphysical realism.
4-5. Life-worlds and the Opposition to Relativism
As is to be expected from his general conception concerning the accessibility
of meaning and reality, the transcendental Husserl can
also be found to oppose cultural and—less explicitly—linguistic relativism.
His stand on these issues is most clearly presented in his
late work The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology
439 , in his paper "The Origin of Geometry" 440 as well as
in several shorter manuscripts published in the third volume of The
Phenomenology of Intersubjeetivity 441 Opposition to these forms of
relativism is, to be sure, no new element in Husserl, for in Logical Investigations
we already saw him attack psychologism precisely on the
ground that it leads to relativism and scepticism; furthermore, we
encountered in his ideal grammar an attempt to identify a common
'deep structure' for all languages. Earlier in this chapter we heard
Husserl stress that the laws of constitution are essential, and not