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to pure consciousness, then the transcendental subject cannot neglect or abuse the “world”without prejudice to the ultimate finality of its own “unworldly,” autonomous life.Whereas Gnosticism opens up an abyss between a static-extensional notion of “world” anda static-ontological notion of pneuma, in Husserl we have a still perfectly transcendent egowhich nevertheless recognizes in a dynamic-horizontal “world” a genuine, if limited,offspring of its own finality whose infinite openness exceeds the limits of individualthough transcendentally modified phenomena.On Overcoming Transcendental Dualism: the Rational Generativity of HistoryWithout giving up, at any time, the radicalism of the transcendental epoché, Husserlsubsequently develops his phenomenological approach in a way that can no longer beconsidered a modern version of ancient Gnosticism. His approach to the question of intersubjectivity,as well as his concept of historical time and the role of the divine in thecontext of human history, give much scope to showing up the differences which, in theend, actually do separate Husserl from the traditional forms of philosophical dualism. Inthis context, one of the basic concepts of phenomenology undergoes an important semanticshift: the initially purely theoretic meaning of “world” as synonymous with the totality ofnatural beings no longer occupies the position of the analogatum primarium for everypossible kind of phenomenality. While Ideas I considered natural objectivity as the mostfundamental and essential form of the givenness of phenomena to the subject, 32 the laterHusserl inverts the order of dependence by reinterpreting the notion of “natural world”from within the context of inter-subjective, social, cultural and ethical life. 33 This stepproves to be decisive for the further development of transcendental phenomenology.Having ceased to consider “nature” as the dominating mode of Being (in the sense of“Seinsweise”) in the sphere of transcendent phenomena, 34 Husserl is then free to developthe idea of an original relation between transcendental subjectivity and the “world”without having to deny to the pure ego its non-empirical, non-natural essence.Organisms and Personalities of a Higher OrderThe crucial step in Husserl’s overcoming of his own dualistic tendencies consists inconferring upon the notion of “organism” a meaning that goes clearly beyond the purelynatural dimension of this term. Indeed, Husserl’s analyses of the different forms of humaninter-subjectivity largely make use of the organic paradigm in order to express both theparticular interplay between the parts and the whole and the teleological character of theirchronological development.According to the gnostic schema, the common tripartite distinction between body, souland spirit is meant to indicate the complete strangeness of the pneuma to the rest of theindividual. Husserl, on the contrary, insists more and more on a necessary embodiment32See (for instance in: Husserl, Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie, 116, § 52) the necessary“foundation” of axiological and esthetic objectivity in the phenomenality of natural objects.33See Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlaß, DritterTeil (1929-1935), Hua XV (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), 300, and Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischenWissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Ergänzungsband. Texte aus dem Nachlaß, 304.34“The ‘I’ is inconceivable without a ‘non-I,’ which, however, does not at all need to be a real,spatiotemporal-causal world.” “Das Ich ist nicht denkbar ohne ein Nicht-Ich, das aber keineswegs einereale, raumzeitlich-kausale Welt, zu sein braucht.” Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität.Texte aus dem Nachlaß. Zweiter Teil, 244; the translation is ours.227