An Interpretation of Heidegger’s Criticism of the Starting Point and the Matter of Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology

In the lecture History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena Heidegger levels an immanent phenomenological criticism at Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. In the lecture, Heidegger accuses Husserl that he neglects to raise two fundamental questions for the phenomenology: the question concerning the specific manner of being of the intentional acts in particular and the manner of being as such in general. By his criticism, Heidegger returns to the starting point of Husserl‘s phenomenology, i.e. the shift from natural attitude to transcendental attitude, and thereby reaching his own understanding of the matter of phenomenology. As is well known, Heidegger substitutes the Dasein for the transcendental consciousness and refuses the Husserl’s epoché and his transcendental reduction. In the following paper, on the contrary, we attempt to interpret Heidegger’s criticism in another way, which is that Heidegger adopts not only the transcendental reduction but also the absolute transcendental subjectivity. To put it more precisely, Heidegger radicalizes the absoluteness of the absolute transcendental subjectivity in Husserl’s Philosophy so much that he will be able to eliminate the Husserl’s natural attitude as a non-phenomenological and dogmatic starting point for the phenomenology. Accordingly, we claim that Heidegger’s Dasein is substituted for the absoluteness of subjectivity and the finitude of human existence simultaneously.