On Impossibility Of Complete Reduction

It is considered as important difference between Husserl and Heidegger whether transcendental reduction is applied. It seems that being-in-the-world must be the negation of transcendental reduction. But in Merleau-Ponty’s point, being-in-the-world appears only against the background of transcendental reduction; because of being-in-the-world, transcendental reduction will never be accomplished. If transcendental reduction were motivated by pursuit of certainty of cognition, it would be mutually exclusive with being-in-the-world because certainty of cognition appears only in the domain of absolute consciousness. But it is problematic whether there is certainty of cognition in the domain of absolute consciousness, whether transcendental reduction is motivated by pursuit of the certainty. In Husserl’s discussion of immanent temporal objects, evidence, and immanence defined by it, acquires the new meanings both. It means the originality of perception, not certainty of cognition. So immanent transcendence gain the new possibility of interpretation, and it means the original transcendence constituting objects. Transcendental reduction is reductive operation towards immanent transcendence. Merleau-Ponty developed the point in all the sphere of phenomenology, specially the description of body and outer-perception. It benefits from that he overcame the content-apprehension schema via taking advantage of gestalt psychology. In his early descriptive phenomenology, Husserl insisted the content-apprehension schema. The body is constituted as an object like things according to the schema and outer-objects aren’t evident because the intentions in them can never be fulfilled by sensory data. To Merleau-Ponty, the body, which is self-conscious, not as the object of consciousness, is a part of horizon of perception. Outer-objects are motivated in the horizon and the motivation is operation of immanent transcendence. So transcendental reduction is reduction of the transcendence as being-in-itself towards the immanent transcendence as perception and being-in-itself becomes a Kantian idea. The world as totality of objects is reduced towards the world as horizon of perception. But Merleau-Ponty didn’t give up the point that the world is constitutive accomplishment, and he questioned the origin of the world in the transcendental subjectivity. The questioning is retrospect in the time and wants to grasp the past which passed. The past always had its past in the horizon, the original acquire in the sedimentation always took place in the horizon where sediments had been. Transcendental subjectivity constitutes the world in the world. It is impossible to complete transcendental reduction which is the retrospect the origin of the world in transcendental subjectivity. Merleau-Ponty radicalized Husserl’s point in the discussion on inner-time consciousness and opposed it against the part upholding atemporal principle in Husserl’philosophy. No point detached from them both can be attained to criticize temporal or atemporal principle.