The Experience of Others: A Phenomenological Approach

Phenomenology places the experience of otherness at the core of its philosophical perspective. However, the meaning of this form of experience is complex and varies according to each thinker. Husserl started an investigation that led to many other different approaches, all related to that of the founding father, but also entertaining mutual connections between them. In this paper the outline of Husserl’s position is offered with some discussions, and then a sketch of Sartre’s, Merleau-Ponty’s and Levinas’s is provided in order to show some of the main issues involved in this question. Husserl outlines his position in an apparently paradoxical way, as he poses the problem of solipsism not so much to refute it, but to deepen it, radicalize it, and thus also identify an unexpected and fruitful solution. Faithful to the principle according to which the phenomenological science of experience must be “in the first person”, he thus assumes the paradox of solipsism, that is, the problem of how I can understand and experience the experience of another I, of an alter ego, to show that in fact this is not only plausible but also perfectly understandable. Otherness is thus seen to be not only a major problem of phenomenology, but the question concerning the foundation itself of this particular approach. The debate issued from Husserl’s original outline allowed other thinkers to deepen the question and bring the investigation further, toward a direction that directly involves other disciplines and is still debated among phenomenologists today.