Husserl Ideas I §48

by Corry Shores
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There is no logical contradiction in saying: it is possible for something real to exist outside this world. But in order for such a transcendent world to be demonstrated, there must be an actual Ego who experiences that demonstration (§48 108a).

But if such an Ego may experience the exterior world, then it is possible for any Ego whatsoever to have this capacity (108b). These Ego’s may come to mutual understandings about the world, and may join their chains of experiences together to form one common intersubjective world (108c).

So if all Egos’ experiences can be interlinked into one intersubjective world, then there cannot be any realities outside our one intersubjectively-shared spatiotemporal world (108-109). For, if there some other exterior reality, again, there need potentially be Egos to experience it, and hence those experiences would be joined all together again into one interlinked world without some reality outside it.

Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book. General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Transl. Fred Kersten.The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982.