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cosmic world, and Nietzschean nihilism, which also makes man lose his rootedness in atranscendent sphere.Without denying the fundamental pertinence of Jonas’s analysis, as far as the existentialontology of Being and time is concerned, 4 we would like to call into question theexhaustiveness of his approach with regard to the historical context. In reading Jonas’sbook, one could come to consider Heidegger as the only philosopher of his time whodeveloped a radically dualistic vision of human subjectivity, the idea of a metanoia froman inauthentic form of existence, or a more or less gnostic concept of temporality. Noallusion is made, either to the neo-Kantian school, or to Husserl’s phenomenology, thoughboth have much in common with these Heideggerian topics and could be ranked asbelonging to modern “Gnosticism,” according to the criteria established by Jonashimself. 5 In the following, we will limit ourselves to the phenomenological aspects of theproblem and will point out in what sense Husserl’s transcendental approach -- crystallizedin the notion of epoché -- could be considered an even more radical example of modern“Gnosticism” than Heidegger’s existential ontology. In the second part of this paper, wewill try to show how -- by assigning to transcendental phenomenology a leading functionin the teleological (but inner-worldly) achievements of humanity -- Husserl avoids thedisastrous practical consequences of a crypto-gnostic dualism.The Gnostic Dimension of Transcendental PhenomenologyPhenomenology, Science, and the “World”Husserl’s approach, unlike that of classical Gnosticism, displays its dualistic tendenciesessentially in the context of a theory of scientific thought. At least in its primary sense, therift between “naive belief” and “true knowledge,” between “fallen-ness” and “conversion”or “awakening,” does not divide into two forms of existence -- concerning all humanbeings alike -- but rather, into two fundamentally different ways of realizing the scientificideal of theoretical knowledge.4Of course, one should not forget that in other writings of roughly the same period (1928-1929),the “gnostic” dimension of Heidegger’s thought is far less clear or easy to recognize. Although hecontinues to insist on Dasein’s particular mode of being, the philosophical concept of “world,” conceivedas a synonym of Dasein’s original transcendence, is subsequently purged of all negative connotations,especially of those related to the Christian-dualistic use of this notion, like, for instance, in the Gospel ofSt John or in St Augustine. See Martin Heidegger, “Vom Wesen des Grundes,” in Wegmarken, GA9(Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1976), 144-145.5Concerning the gnostic structure of temporality, that is essentially based on the devaluation of thepresent in favor of the future and the past, one is astounded to read in Hermann Cohen’s Logik der reinenErkenntnis a passage that could almost have been taken for an ante litteram quotation from Being andtime: “It is the future which contains and reveals the characteristics of time. The anticipated future isclosely followed and trailed by the past. What comes first, is not the past but the future, against whichthe past stands out. … But then, where do we find the present, which we are used to think of as a fixedpoint? It is anything but that; it hovers between points in a row, a row formed from such fixed points, andconsists in the hovering between an anticipated future and a catching up with it, its resonance, the past.”“Die Zukunft enthält und enthüllt den Charakter der Zeit. An die antizipierte Zukunft reiht sich, rankt sichdie Vergangenheit. Sie war nicht zuerst; sondern zuerst ist die Zukunft, von der sich die Vergangenheitabhebt. …Wo bleibt denn aber die Gegenwart, die man als den festen Punkt anzusehen pflegt? Sie istnichts weniger als dieses; sie schwebt in der Reihe, welche von jenen Punkten lediglich gebildet wird, siebesteht in dem Schweben zwischen der antizipierten Zukunft und deren Nachholung, deren Abklang, derVergangenheit.” Hermann Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, 2d ed. (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1914), 154-155; the translation is ours, the italics are Cohen’s.222