Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Towards an Intercultural Phenomenology? – Objectivity, Subjectivity and … - Eva Schwarz
whenever I am in pain, I am crying; whenever I am happy
to see my friend, I am smiling) on the one side and the
bodily presence of the Other on the other side (Gordon
1986; Heal 1986). As we can see, the relation between me
and the Other is asymmetric: “Mental states” and
“behaviour” on the one side, but only “behaviour” on the
other. Therefore, why not infer that if there is behaviour
then there have to be mental states too? Correspondingly,
one could state, that whenever the Other is crying, it is
possible to infer that the Other has to be in pain as well.
However, this “argument from analogy” is highly
problematic: First of all, we should critically ask whether
this argument is a valid argument at all. If it were true that I
had knowledge about the relation between my own mental
states and my behaviour, what would that mean for the
relation between me and the Other? Strictly speaking, if I
could make a direct inference between my own mental
states and my own bodily behaviour – which would seem
to require already a third-person-perspective on my body –
all I could infer is a relation between my mental states, my
behaviour and the behaviour of the Other. I cannot see
why this argument should provide us with an account of
someone else’s mental states or – to say it differently –
why the Other should not be a marionette of my own
mental states (Zahavi 2005, 148 ff).
Apart from these absurd formal consequences, from
a phenomenological viewpoint one has to ask whether the
fact of recognising an Other is a matter of inference at all:
Is it really the case that there is a sharp distinction
between my mental states and my bodily behaviour? After
the phenomenological reduction was performed, certainly
not. What is given in direct intuition are not “mental states”
and “bodily behaviour”, but meaningful situations, actions
and smiling friends. The distinction between “mental
states” and “behaviour” is a theoretical one which has to
be bracketed in order to gain the phenomenological
attitude. Even more than that: Within the
phenomenological attitude, the Other is not given to us as
a “bodily mantle” which makes us wonder whether there
are mental states “in it”. First and foremost, the Other is
given to us as the intentional content “Other”, i.e. as my
neighbour, my friend, the stranger from a foreign culture. In
order to recognise an Other, the differentiation between
“mental states” and “behaviour“ is misleading. It makes it
impossible to recognize an Other as an “other Self”, by
paving the way to the Other as an object. In encountering
an Other we do not apply any knowledge about analogies
and inferences. Otherwise, we could not explain for
instance, why babies recognise their mother even at an
age where one would not expect them to be in possession
of theoretical concepts of that kind (Fuchs 2000, 275 ff).
However, what is the scope of these
phenomenological insights? One could critically ask
whether phenomenology gives us better explanations than
for instance the “argument from analogy”. Against such
objections, one has to bear in mind that phenomenology
does not aim at explanations of this kind at all. Rather,
phenomenological analysis critically reflects upon the
convictions, other theories already presuppose in
formulating their questions and answers. To put it
differently: Phenomenology helps us to limit the scope of
meaningful scientific inquiry without transgressing the
boundaries to positive science.
III
Consequently, a phenomenologist is concerned with an
investigation of the intentional content “otherness”, in
reflectively detaching herself from the involvement in
concrete situations in which “otherness” appears (Husserl
1959, 106-108). Thus, as a phenomenologist one is
interested in the essential structures of intersubjective
encounters: concrete encounters with Others may differ
with respect to various aspects (e.g. the degree of cultural
foreignness, the aspect of language etc.) but there have to
be certain meaning-structures which allow us to recognise
an Other as an Other. Maybe the most important insight of
a phenomenological analysis is that the intentional content
“Other” cannot be reduced to the constitutional abilities of
the Ego, i.e. to my constitutional acts. First and foremost,
the Other is constituted as constituting, i.e. as an acting,
perceiving etc. alter Ego. Referring to the “argument from
analogy”, the relation between Ego and alter Ego is indeed
asymmetric, but in a very special sense. On the most basic
level, it is no relation of knowledge versus inaccessibility,
but rather of mutual constitution. In recognising the Other
as an Other, I have to recognise myself as an Other for the
Other.
However, at first sight this may seem trivial. One
could argue that the acceptance of this reciprocity does
not help us in solving the urgent question of how to gain
access to an Other. But from a phenomenological point of
view this question is not only inadequate, it disguises the
very phenomenon of otherness. To recognise the Other as
an Other, i.e., to constitute the Other as constituting means
to accept that I cannot have the experiences of the Other.
Having the experiences of the Other would mean to be the
Other. Seen from this viewpoint, the search for an access
to something which is supposed to be behind the façade of
otherness is to miss the genuine phenomenon of
otherness.
It is needless to say that this entails some important
consequences for the question of interculturality: First of
all, on this most basic level every Other is a “radical
Other”, i.e., there are no “shades of otherness”. On the
level of phenomenological investigation my neighbour is by
no means less foreign than a tribesman I have never seen
before. Certainly, this does not hold true for our every-day
encounters: By birth we are embedded in an all-embracing
horizon of language, of social, historical, personal and
cultural structures. This horizon regulates the encounter
with our neighbour much more effectively than the
encounter with a tribesman. However, the scientific
description of this horizon, the question of translatability
etc. are empirical questions which do not lie within the
scope of transcendental-phenomenological inquiry.
Phenomenological investigation is concerned with the
conditions of the possibility of such horizons; it is
concerned with the relation between self, Other and world,
i.e., with those structures which are always presupposed
when we recognise someone as an Other within certain
horizons and contexts.
In following these methodological decisions,
phenomenology takes up a position which can account for
the fact of cultural relativity but escapes relativism. To
account for the otherness of the Other means to accept
the fact the no Other will ever be fully transparent to us. On
the empirical level of description, translation and
understanding there is always the possibility of error and
refutation. But this does not lead us to a relativist position.
In dealing with errors, refutations and misunderstandings
we already presuppose a tacit level of transcendental
structures which make it possible to even recognise
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