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worked on all along his later philosophical period (i.e., following the Logical Investigations),and which found its most famous expression in the fifth of the Cartesian Meditations. 4Referring to the latter text, Ricoeur writes: “this eruption toward the ‘foreign’ in thevery core of the ‘proper’ is indeed the problem to be taken on.” 5 Ricoeur goes no further,he leaves the questions to be answered by subsequent readers. It is my intention here,precisely, to take on this problem and to trace a few more steps in the direction of itsclarification. In following this path, we have an opportunity to reflect on what it meansfor Husserl and orthodox phenomenology to widen its scope toward a hermeneuticphilosophy, but also what constitutes the interior limits for such an expansion. 6In 1935, Husserl gave his famous lecture to the Vienna Cultural Society, with the title“Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity.” 7 It is written in direct relation to themanuscripts that make up The Crisis, and in many ways it catches the spirit of this workin a condensed and slightly popularized way. I will use it here as a sort of introduction tothe problem I wish to discuss.The principal idea of Husserl’s lecture is to present Europe as a unitary spiritual formin imminent danger of losing its own direction. The notion of “spiritual form,” which iselaborated to some extent, is said to denote a historical community bound together by acommon goal. In the case of Europe, this community must be seen as more than just anyother spiritual constellation which has inhabited the earth. What is significant about thisparticular form, is that it is bound together by the idea of what Husserl calls an “infinitetask.” The ultimate expression of this task is science and the corresponding “theoreticalattitude” to the world. This project has its historical origin -- viz., the Greek culture as ittook shape in the sixth and fifth century B.C. -- but from then on its status is that of a universalitywhich inevitably transgresses every national and cultural border. It distinguishesitself from any other cultural expression or praxis, precisely in this autonomy with respectto time and place. It represents a certain maturity of mankind, which in the decision toknow itself and its world takes on the responsibility for its own cultivation. The goal of thisscientific attitude is “absolute responsibility,” but as an infinite task of internal critique ofits own life. In other words, it is the original establishment of a community of truth andrationality progressing towards its own self-understanding through history.The danger facing this attitude, Husserl detects primarily in a wide-spread “objectivism”or “naturalism,” in which all psychological phenomena are treated on a par with naturalevents. The task of philosophy, in this situation, is to articulate a true understanding of thespirit in which it is understood as existing in and for itself in self-sufficiency. And this is4Cf. also, for example, Husserl, Ideen, Part 2, Husserliana, vol. IV, §§ 43-53, about the constitutionof the other and the notion of “empathy,” and the three volumes of published manuscripts concerning intersubjectivity:Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Husserliana, vols. XIII-XV. The amount of workwhich Husserl devoted to this subject is quite remarkable, and thus it is no coincidence that the last andlongest of the meditations in the Cartesian Meditations (which was meant to serve as an introduction tohis work in general) is devoted precisely to this topic.5“Cet éclatement vers l’‘étranger’ au sein même du ‘propre’ est bien le problème à assumer.”Ricoeur, “Husserl et le sens de l’histoire,” 314.6Following Ricoeur’s essay, there appeared a number of studies devoted to Husserl’s historical reflectionsand the problem of history within phenomenology in general; e.g, David Carr’s Phenomenologyand the Problem of History (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press 1974), Ludwig Landgrebe’sPhänomenologie und Geschichte (Güterloh: Güterloh Verlagshaus, 1967), and also Jacques Derrida’s introductionin L’origine de la géometrie (Paris: P.U.F., 1962). In more recent years, the topic has been raisedagain by, among others, Renato Cristin, in his Fenomeno storia: fenomenologia e storicità in Husserl eDilthey (Napoli: Guida, 1999). However, to my knowledge no one has yet further developed the particularpoint of comparison raised by Ricoeur.7Included as an appendix to: Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences, 269-299.237