Méditations Hégéliennes vs. Méditations Cartésiennes. Edmund Husserl and Wilfrid Sellars on the Given

Abstract

The goal of the present text is to analyze some aspects of Husserl’s own phenomenology against the backdrop of the quite famous or infamous critique of the “Myth of the Given” proposed by the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars in his Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Indeed, whereas Sellars’ volume is usually deemed the (“textual” and “theoretical”) source of what has been recently referred to as the “Hegelian Renaissance” characterizing analytic philosophy, Husserl and his transcendental phenomenology are on the contrary seen as the very expression of a new “form” of “Cartesianism.” Now, after a quick discussion of Sellars’ “diagnosis” of the Myth of the Given, the present essay elaborates on the general “Hegelian” character of his argumentations (as they are understood by Robert Brandom); finally, an analysis of Husserl’s alleged Cartesianism in the late text known as Cartesian Meditations will be provided bearing upon the notions of “evidence” and “synthesis.” As we firmly believe, our remarks will show not only that Husserl does not at all fall prey to the “Myth,” but also that his understanding of the concept of reason can help us avoid some of the implications directly flowing from Sellars’ position.