Husserl, Rahner, and Their Transcendental(S): Transcendentality, Intersubjectivity, and Original Sin

Karl Rahner's philosophical and theological project is often read either in light of Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy, via Joseph Maréchal, or Martin Heidegger's phenomenology. These approaches are useful, but do not tell the whole story. It is true that Rahner draws on these two authors. He even declares that ‘Martin Heidegger was the only teacher for whom [he] developed the respect that a disciple has for a great master’.1 However, despite the unmistakable influences of these two philosophers, Rahner always insisted that he was his own man. He was an independent thinker. In fact, when later in life he was asked what his philosophy was, he replied: ‘I do not have a philosophy’.2 This does not mean that he was not influenced by the philosophies of his time. What Rahner is saying, however, is that he took in this philosophical Zeitgeist without subscribing to one particular philosophy. In light of Rahner's own comments, it would be reductive to read his philosophical thinking exclusively in light of Kant and Heidegger. Connections can be made between Rahner and other important philosophers of his time. One philosopher often neglected in evaluations of Rahner's thinking is Edmund Husserl. When Rahner went to Freiburg to study philosophy in 1934, phenomenology was still very much influenced by the thought of its founder, and when he was there, Rahner took a seminar on Husserl. Moreover, the respective projects of Rahner and Husserl share much in common. Both try to develop a transcendental project—understood, in the Kantian sense, as the study of the conditions of possibility of knowledge and experience—and both build their project on the centrality of the ego or the subject.3 Because of an exclusive emphasis on Kant and Heidegger, these possible connections between Rahner and Husserl have remained unstudied. Having similar approaches, the projects of Rahner and Husserl also face similar difficulties. Both thinkers are aware that it is difficult for a transcendental project that starts and ends with the question of the subject to avoid being solipsistic. Transcendental projects—whether philosophical or theological—are doomed to fall into some form of solipsism. This is the reason why intersubjectivity becomes an important question for both Husserl and Rahner. Both try to address this question: Husserl in his fifth Cartesian Meditation and Rahner in his Foundations of Christian Faith. Both seek a way to reconcile transcendentality with intersubjectivity. However, as we shall see, although their questions are similar, their answers are completely different. While Husserl remains stuck in a transcendental solipsism, Rahner overturns the meaning of the transcendental. He develops it in a new direction. This comes out with particular clarity in his theology of sin and original sin, expressed in the section of Foundations of Christian Faith which we will be considering in this article. Rahner's understanding of sin and original sin is important for our discussion about the transcendental, and this is for two reasons. First, Rahner uses his understanding of the transcendental to make a direct contribution to the theology of sin and original sin. He situates both at the level of the transcendental—rather than the contingent—decision, without, however, neglecting the role of historical circumstances and interpersonal relationships. Through this, he also solves a possible philosophical conundrum, and this is his second contribution. Rahner indicates that there is a way in which the transcendental and the intersubjective can be reconciled. It does not have to be an either-or decision between the two. This is something that Husserl tried but failed to achieve. But Rahner, precisely because he was primarily trying to solve a theological question rather than a strictly philosophical one, comes up with answers that are beneficial not only for theology, but also for philosophy. Indeed, this is a case not only of philosophy as ancilla theologiae, but also of theology as ancilla philosophiae. This article will better explain what we have just sketched out. In the following we will first consider Husserl's transcendental project and his unsatisfactory answers, then we will move to Rahner and consider what he seeks to achieve through his transcendental project. We will then consider the particular case of sin and original sin, and explore the way in which Rahner applies his transcendental model to this theological question. Finally, we will consider the contribution that Rahner's transcendental approach to sin and original sin makes, not only to theology but also to philosophy in general. This is Rahner's own Copernican revolution, both within theology, and beyond it in philosophy.4 Husserl's phenomenology is a transcendental philosophy. It is the ‘inquiring back to the ultimate source of all the formations of knowledge’, and for him, it is the ego that constitutes this ultimate source and ground.5 Such an ego-centric approach does not come without its problems. One critique that has been levelled regularly at Husserl's phenomenology, particularly after the publication of Ideas (1913), is that of its being solipsistic and lacking an intersubjective aspect.6 As Paul Ricoeur puts it, the problem of intersubjectivity ‘is the touchstone of transcendental phenomenology. It is a question of knowing how a philosophy whose principle and foundation is the ego of the ego cogito cogitatum accounts for what is other than me and all that depends on this fundamental otherness’.7 Husserl was aware of this critique, and this is what he tries to address in the fifth meditation of his Cartesian Meditations, given at the Sorbonne in 1929. Husserl starts this meditation with the question of whether, when employing the phenomenological reduction, one ends up with a solus ipse, stuck in a transcendental solipsism.8 For him, the answer is ‘no’, for transcendental self-consciousness also includes intersubjective consciousness. This negative assertion presupposes the transcendental reduction, which is the sine qua non of the phenomenological method. The ‘phenomenological philosophy only begins with the “reduction”’—according to Eugen Fink, one of Husserl's closest disciples—and to understand Husserl's understanding of intersubjectivity, one has to start from the way in which he understands this reduction.9 What is important for the purposes of our argument is the residuum of the phenomenological reduction. What is left after the reduction is the ego cogito cogitatum: the thinking ego, directed, or intentioned, towards his object of thinking. This is essentially a monad, purely in himself and for himself. The world has been bracketed out and no external transcendence is contemplated.10 Only one form of transcendence or movement is present: the ‘internal transcendence’ of the ego towards the object of thinking, the cogitatum, situated within the ego himself.11 One struggles to understand how such an understanding of the subject can escape the accusation of solipsism.12 But, it is in the reduced features of this monad that Husserl finds the elements to argue for a transcendental intersubjectivity. He does this by turning his attention to one particular property of the ego cogitans: the body (Leib). Through the reduction, whatever has nothing to do with the ego and his thinking has been bracketed out. The ego cogitans that remains after the reduction is an ego that has been stripped of everything that does not necessarily belong to him. Yet, even after the most radical reduction, the ego cogitans still knows himself as having a body. He is not simply a thinking ego, but also an enfleshed ego. There is no ego cogitans without a body, or flesh. This is a fundamental building block in Husserl's argument for intersubjectivity, for through this bodily dimension—which no one can deny, and which cannot be bracketed out—Husserl is giving spatial extension to the ego. Because he has flesh, the ego inhabits a world as Leib. ‘The world is my own, but I have worldified myself by means of this body’, to use Ricoeur's words.13 More importantly, the particular enfleshed ego does not exhaust the possibilities of the world, including the possibility of there being other bodies, and, a fortiori, other egos. The possibility exists that there might be other egos existing alongside the enfleshed ego cogitans. The argument that Husserl is making here is not an a posteriori argument drawn from empirical and individual experience—and this cannot be emphasised enough. It is an a priori argument which unravels within my it not be for an argument about the of the no has the transcendental that of the transcendental been the transcendental argument for the possibility of other egos in the world is when we move from the transcendental to the empirical In our life in the world, we other bodies, and this is something that Husserl ‘I a body through its to as a ego, that as an ego me the ego is as an of However, even this as a possibility in the transcendental and in the empirical only a The other ego is and there are other egos in the world, can be but only Indeed, even Husserl often of a true and does not As he in an ‘I cannot myself in the other I can only how I would I the other it is an This is when of he at the other ego is only an of my own the other can only be through The of is essentially the first and it is the only completely original Only when I have my body can I other body as and this has in principle an has a to my The other body, and the are of the of the This is why in the Cartesian Meditations, Husserl means ego, and the ego which is here is within my This is Husserl's of intersubjectivity. The transcendental ego is not simply an ego but an ego cogitans out of the very that he and knows himself as having flesh, the possibility of other egos. But, because Husserl's project is transcendental and exclusively in the transcendental ego, the other is a other with respect to the ego, but a extension of the ego cogitans. As puts it, meaning of is from the meaning of because first have to make of the and the can make of the and the on this, one understands that because Husserl's project is transcendental and a he it to most that he can argue for is the possibility of other egos. argument by the the of a is only an possibility of In other the that Husserl can in his transcendental project is to argue for these possibilities as and these possibilities to be then this only be by extension of the ego cogitans. In light of what has been it is as that in Husserl there is an of transcendental when to Kant's about is Husserl to the accusation of As he himself have an intersubjective which in is for as For this one has to that Husserl's understanding of intersubjectivity remains very It and no There can be no intersubjectivity, one Husserl's one to develop intersubjectivity then it is the transcendental that has to be and this is what Rahner to Rahner's theological project is also He himself in the Kantian and from the very of his philosophical and theological the transcendental which he to mean the study of the conditions of possibility of knowing and These conditions are the subject and are to empirical transcendental of the subject in which it is when and as the question about the conditions of possibility of knowledge of a object in the knowing subject himself is this transcendental of Rahner to the intersubjective and in this his approach is similar to that of Husserl. the Rahner to to the intersubjective without, however, the fundamental transcendental of his project. Rahner develops a of transcendental intersubjectivity, as we shall see, the between the two will have The between Rahner and Husserl is not a Rahner was with Husserl's phenomenology. As in the of 1934, in Rahner took a seminar with on Husserl and the of one of the seminar by Rahner still exists and has been in the It with the to of Husserl's These by the Rahner, are but it is that Rahner what the project the ego, and In Rahner's it is a in with the life of the ego and its towards the Indeed, ego to the whole of as an ego, as a of the of to which the of and to which everything about it of is Husserl's project is transcendental other transcendental projects in philosophy. It is for this reason that Rahner that in there of all philosophy from to In with this transcendental from through to Rahner his own project on a similar understanding of the transcendental and the In his to the of in he that on the Kantian of the we can that a question is asked on the transcendental level when it the a priori conditions that make knowledge of an object It is this understanding of the transcendental, which has its in Kant but which has most including that of that becomes the of Rahner's own understanding of the transcendental. even his use of the is not always he does in the way he understands For Rahner, the transcendental a of possibility of some It to the and of the knowing subject This understanding of the transcendental not be as For Rahner, the is to the only does the transcendental a of possibility that but it is a of possibility that the of the One that the transcendental is the a priori of possibility of knowing and Such an understanding was in Rahner's in the but it is to his later Foundations of Christian Faith that we will be Rahner's understanding of the transcendental comes out in the second he the of the For him, the of the subject as in to the of his This cannot be from empirical of the and its this is in individual as its a priori is to be it is an a priori of This transcendental as by Rahner, the of It means to be ‘I as as it Rahner is not simply for his understanding of the subject would simply be a of the Cartesian ego, which is not the Rahner of which means something The subject is not only aware of himself but of his I not simply but this is my and I to be this Rahner is also something When employing this transcendental understanding of he does not have in to make for the that he will or the that he will Rahner understands in a way that is much much than the of as the to do this or that as it For him, the to make which Rahner to be with Kant's use of the on a fundamental understanding of the transcendental which we have just Indeed, to be means to be aware of and to own and this is an a priori decision which conditions all to be a to as a an a priori and of This is an fundamental or to own and Rahner it It is through without, however, being with one in time. importantly, this between the transcendental and the not be read in of a and but in of the of the and the there is the transcendental and the decision that is by that this fundamental would be of meaning and Through this transcendental understanding of Rahner is the a priori of the transcendental and, importantly, something new to the understanding of the transcendental to his the transcendental is not simply an and but a The transcendental, as a of is not just a of but a or an about these The ego is not simply a thinking ego, an ego but a ego. This is the of This transcendentality of not the that Rahner the of While transcendental the the to and transcendental transcendental for that is a possibility that a that that does not the of the just a In other transcendental features the would lacking This also applies to Rahner's understanding of as a transcendental He between the of and its with the being the of the Because of Rahner of this in and the world which and in and through the that we and What this to is a and between and an between a in its and a as it in its This is and as as Rahner's transcendental understanding of might one object from what we have Rahner to the intersubjective even he is in this But one also in that Foundations of Christian Faith is not a on theological philosophy. It is a of Rahner does not develop his transcendental approach but by through of It is in one of these that the intersubjective of the transcendental comes out with particularly the section on sin and original sin. It is to this that we to understand in what Rahner's of transcendental also includes transcendental intersubjectivity. In Foundations of Christian when it comes to sin, Rahner is not in and the to do something rather than He sin in light of his understanding of as a transcendental decision which the of the In Rahner's in the transcendental decision about he has to he to be essentially within or to a that transcendental also includes a decision about the one to be to the possibility of to be in in a radical While the is a transcendental the would be a one, and both conditions of possibility for or This means within the of this transcendental the ego is not simply an but a is not the only other that features in Rahner's transcendental understanding of and sin, Rahner an important to the of the Rahner that the transcendental subject is always and by the in which he These two the subject and the the is always an it includes other be from one for I as a I always in an I always move from my as it into the of this there I and I do this as the subject of Rahner even He that the subject finds himself a which he finds there, which is on him, which is the of his he himself as a subject of in a which is always and Rahner is trying to reconcile two and in this he is not to Husserl the does not with the question of Both try to transcendentality and the questions of and intersubjectivity. But one to to a the two This is why Husserl is to the of the ego a intersubjectivity. Rahner, however, a He a way out of this by employing the only does the transcendental a as we have but this transcendental decision is by something While the transcendental the and this is what we have the is also the transcendental decision of the subject is also by the that have the of the subject in by the of all the the own world This means that transcendental does not simply and in the but both and of my transcendental This is why Rahner of a that is regularly in his There is a between transcendental and the of and of This comes out with particular clarity in Rahner's understanding of own of is in an way by the of It is not just sin, however, that this of sin it out even For Rahner, in with his understanding of sin, original sin is not a sin and he is in the of sin. He even that this has nothing to do with the Christian of original other sin, original sin has to do with the transcendental, and not with the When a he does not the that its is to the of which in is by or a This himself in this of to his own does this in of such a by and does it These are difficult and This is often Rahner is not in the decision to a He is the transcendental that is in the of a and, importantly, the that this transcendental is influenced by the of sin in which the the finds himself. is a transcendental finds himself in a of this case the of to the is influenced by this transcendental is by the of and in this transcendental is in the of the This the of the transcendental then the of sin the of that The Rahner's understanding of original sin. on this one influenced as he is by the of sin, the subject is from rather than towards him. This but this is the of Rahner's understanding of original sin. and the in which I and my a that the of the conditions of possibility that what I what I and the way I This a priori from the which on the transcendental then becomes in my own The in the other transcendental in my What the a of Rahner's theology of original sin, is the of the transcendental. The through the theology of sin and original but is influenced by the of the subject and of other Indeed, the is much than a it, Rahner the of original sin and, through this, of the transcendental This is something that be Through his transcendental Rahner to the theology of original sin. He is that sin and original the two always both and in and of In other he to avoid both a purely historical understanding of sin to a historical and a understanding of sin in no to the historical and Rahner does this by original sin at the transcendental but also by that the historical and the intersubjective both a role in this as there is an and sin, there is also an and and there is a between the two. Transcendental when it is a decision to sin, rather than This sin, in becomes the sin which the transcendental It is important to the of that Rahner about original sin. He is not in when this how it and there one or original For Rahner, these are questions which cannot be this in the and of a historical also in the of the of is a question that we cannot with The original between non and a cannot be in although it have in even this is the What Rahner to is that one is the but are the historical circumstances that and have to this and still and because sin has an that beyond the and other the one, or original the transcendental of other The historical of sin in which the subject is and and develops his transcendental in such a way that there is only a non non This is still through the of sin and and this can only be by In his theology of transcendental and original sin, Rahner does something He is not simply making a theological but through this theology, he is making an important philosophical He is the meaning of the transcendental As we in a transcendental that is a and cannot for the possibility of a intersubjectivity. of his to the transcendental for the role of the other to an object of not even but only by or to develop a transcendental intersubjectivity a and has remained Rahner, however, the transcendental to the The first of his argument is that transcendental in which the This is not something to which a transcendental philosopher would But Rahner a both and of the transcendental. This as puts it with to Rahner, that transcendental is not simply a to the but precisely a to the this at for Rahner, both The is by the and the subject is by the which always includes an intersubjective In light of this, one that Rahner's project remains himself that philosophy, that of the in a or it is not at all a his is a It is to being by historical conditions and intersubjective In the of a and of the transcendental is not to the project of the most important philosopher of He of the of that the role of the of Indeed, the principle of a has also unmistakable It conditions the of the of But what at at in becomes and in Rahner. In the transcendental the ego cogito has been a priori is a a This does not mean that the transcendental is no but rather that it is for a of historical and of In other the of original sin as a transcendental decision is and fundamental transcendental, and it in and have Rahner's use of the transcendental to be a in Rahner's understanding of the transcendental, and that it would be better not to understand in Rahner's theology as a philosophical whether, the historical of the transcendental is to be with whole will not radical such as Rahner has not in to These are to a of and, philosophical in Rahner's understanding of the transcendental. This is a of the of Rahner's project on and its of It is a in Rahner is still trying to transcendentality in a direction. But the of this project does not its fundamental Moreover, the of the by Rahner depends on what one to as the of For whose understanding of transcendentality that of Kant or Rahner's understanding of the transcendental remains But such a would still be stuck in a transcendental with no for the one however, to consider the possibility of a transcendental to that of Kant and then the and of the that Rahner himself becomes He is trying to move beyond one of the of by it but by its the conditions of transcendental not only but one to Rahner, it is for other that one do One for the of a between transcendental and or for considering original sin as something that we are doomed to rather than something that is which is a that does not within the that Rahner to These would be of his project. his use of the transcendental, however, to to the and of what Rahner is trying to In Rahner's theological on sin and original sin that theology can be an ancilla philosophiae. Rahner does not simply a new to the theological understanding of sin and original sin by it at the level of the transcendental. But, by understanding the transcendental as and he also beyond the of He the problem of intersubjectivity in transcendental philosophy, a way out of a philosophical This is a case which that the is with a that or even in that are strictly their This is precisely what Rahner does through his theology of sin and original sin, he the independent philosophy of the transcendental. In this the and develops the Copernican by Kant and by Husserl.