Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 8, 2025

Historical Facts and the Historical A Priori—With a Discussion on the Possibility of a Phenomenological Anthropology

(Abstract)

Zhang Renzhi

Based on a letter from Husserl to Lévy-Bruhl, Merleau-Ponty argued that in his later years, Husserl abandoned eidetic philosophy and returned to the realm of historical facts as phenomena. However, a close analysis of that letter and related texts from the same period reveals this to be a misunderstanding. While Husserl did acknowledge Lévy-Bruhl’s contribution to establishing anthropology as a rigorous science—grasping certain “historical facts” of primitive humanity through the method of empathy—he consistently regarded it as a form of phenomenological anthropology rooted in a personalistic attitude, and thus a pure Geisteswissenschaft in the phenomenological sense. This corresponds to an empirical phenomenological anthropology in the sense of “Second Philosophy.” For Husserl, however, phenomenological anthropology that accesses the “historical a priori” through the method of eidetic variation belongs to “First Philosophy” and serves as a path to transcendental phenomenology. By distinguishing between these two meanings of phenomenological anthropology, we can both preserve eidetic philosophy and construct a general science of factual phenomena through phenomenological anthropology.