The idea of receptivity toward alterity in transcendental-phenomenological tradition: from negation to reconsideration
The claim that human understanding is grounded in receptivity of mind- independent reality despite its historical anteriority and accordance with intuition of ordinary consciousness becomes invalid in the process of development of phenomenological thought. The reason for denying receptivity is a lack of conformity between separate sense data and concepts as involving unifying functions. An assumption that the results of the receptivity initially have connections does not solve the problem of knowledge of “the things themselves”, because these connections are different from connections of the things.Denying receptivity to otherness phenomenology explains the manifold and originality of contents of consciousness in two alternative ways. The first way is that the things ofthe world with their horizons are formed as a result of passive synthesis (E. Husserl); the second way is the assertion that the condition of knowledge is original openness of being (M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre, M. Merleau-Ponty). Husserl denies the receptivity because for him phenomenology is egology, and subjectivity is the ultimate basis of explanation of the world. According to Husserl, the results of passive synthesis are the products of subjectivity, on the one hand, and the objects that are pre-given to egoic synthetic activity and make it possible, on the other hand. The author shows that Husserl’s presentation of the problem is true: it is in subjectivity that the basis of our consciousness of the world is to be found. The concepts claiming the original openness of consciousness to alterity overlook this important issue and consequently face fundamental difficulties. Concerning Husserl's solution to the problem, it is not acceptable. The given study proves the need for a new consideration and further rethinking the concept of receptivity in such a way that it could become a working concept of a transcendental-phenomenological theory of knowledge.