Husserl on Cartesian Evidence: A Textual and Phenomenological Reappraisal

Abstract Following Descartes, Husserl assigns a pivotal epistemological, methodological, and ethical role to evidence within the framework of his radical rationalism. At the same time, however, he repeatedly criticizes Descartes’ theory of evidence, on two principal counts. First, he rejects what he takes to be Descartes’ circular attempt to justify the epistemic value of evidence by recourse to metaphysical considerations, namely the existence of a veracious God; second, he maintains that Descartes fails to provide a precise phenomenological characterization of evidence, reducing it to a mysterious feeling. The aim of this paper is to reassess these two criticisms. On the one hand, by returning to Descartes’ texts, I argue that he does not ground the validity of evidence in God’s veracity; on the other hand, I suggest that Husserl’s second objection can be turned back against his own position, insofar as his concept of apodictic evidence remains phenomenologically underdetermined.