The everyday and the transcendental

Despite a great amount of differences and difficulties that come with a comparison between Wittgenstein and Husserl, I believe that something can be gained on both sides by studying them together. Mutual misconceptions have historically frustrated attempts to do so, and I will very briefly outline a possible alternative path of investigation. I will argue that Wittgenstein and Husserl share a deep concern for the ‘everyday’, from which both their philosophies depart. I will use this shared concern as the ground for an interaction between the two philosophers. I will show that, on the one hand, interpretations of the later Wittgenstein would be enriched by taking phenomenological notions such as ‘lifeworld’ or ‘background horizon’ into consideration. In particular Wittgenstein’s remarks about ‘forms of life’ and ‘certainties’ can be interpreted in an interesting manner using these phenomenological concepts. At the same time, phenomenology would gain an important methodological tool when linguistic analysis in a Wittgensteinian fashion would become part of its toolkit. ​