Soggettività e mondo della vita. L’appello all’impegno tra Husserl e Patočka

The paper discusses the concept of the life-world presented by Husserl in the late 30ies. The first step explores the specific meaning of the idea of a constitution when applied to the life-world. The constitution of the life-world refers to a specific kind of intentionality, which implies the interconnection of plural individual intentionalities (Vergemeinschaftung). The characteristic totality of the world, however, requires a second step: the individuation of a specific practical and theoretical attitude (Einstellung) that Husserl refers to, in a late manuscript, with the term “Angehen” (concern). My claim is that only a practical and ethical approach can actually make sense of the world as a life-world. Since such a claim does only find a limited development in Husserl’s work, I turn to Waldenfel’s idea of responsivity and Patocka’s further elaboration of the phenomenological ideas of subjectivity and life-world as presented in his Habilitationsschrift and in the late manuscripts on Erscheinen.