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how they complicate certain other key findings of phenomenological analysis in the theoryof intersubjectivity.The historical account of the evolution of modern philosophy, as provided by Husserl,begins with Galileo. The latter is a key figure in Husserl’s historical drama, for he notonly marks the beginning of the modern philosophy of nature, but he also enacts the veryblindness which is immediately present in this development. Galileo, in Husserl view, wasnot aware of the full implications of his work. Therefore he must, in a sense, be deconstructed.Or, as Husserl himself puts it:In order to clarify the formation of Galileo’s thought we must accordingly reconstructnot only what consciously motivated him. It will also be instructive to bring to lightwhat was implicitly included in his guiding model of mathematics, even though, becauseof the direction of his interest, it was kept from his view: as a hidden presupposedmeaning it naturally had to enter into his physics along with everything else. 23There is no need to deal, in this context, with the specific content of Husserl’sassessment and criticism of Galileo and the ensuing philosophy of nature. Husserl’s grandover-all interpretation is so convincing, in many ways, that it tends to ward off a criticalexamination of its presuppositions. Among these presuppositions we find the convictionthat it is indeed possible, by means of a special type of reflection, to restore and rearticulatean original meaning within Galileo’s thinking, which was not even fulfilled byGalileo himself. This is nothing but a very radical hermeneutic claim, to have reached anarticulation of sense beyond -- and yet operating within -- the constituting subjectivity ofan historical agent.Underlying this claim is the idea of a certain “task” which is articulated -- during thecourse of history, in a dialectical manner -- through internal critique, until it reaches alevel of “perfect insight.” It is something that the spiritual forefathers have all sought toexpress, but in an incomplete manner, and which now has to be adopted in full responsibility.Whoever is able to articulate it, does not receive it as something alien, but as theinnermost articulation of his own self:A historical, backward reflection of the sort under discussion is thus actually thedeepest kind of self-reflection aimed at a self-understanding in terms of what we aretruly seeking as the historical beings we are. 24This passage only repeats again what has already been stated, in different version, viz.,that for Husserl the historical reflection on the destination of philosophical thinking is inthe end equivalent with the self-understanding of the reflecting ego itself.The reflecting ego must not only give itself a history in order to perceive its own unity;it must (moreover) perform a critique of inherited history, to make sure that no hiddenpresuppositions are operating from within it, as eventually was the case with both Galileoand Descartes. Thus, in the historical reflection envisioned by Husserl, the transcendentalego -- or spirit -- must somehow be able to interiorize its other. This is brought out quite23Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 25. In a similar manner, Husserl further on (p. 75) introduces hisinvestigation of Descartes, of whom he says: “It is with good reasons that I now devote considerable spaceto my attempt at a careful exposition, not repeating what Descartes said, but extracting what was reallyinvolved in his thinking and then separating what he became conscious of from what was concealed fromhim, or rather what was smuggled into his ideas, because of certain things -- of course very natural things --taken for granted.”24Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences, 72.243