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This chapter provides a systematic account of horizon-intentionality in Ideen I—the work that marks the emergence of the horizon-problematic in phenomenology. I show that the horizon is a distinctly transcendental notion, which qualifies intentional consciousness and which can be described phenomenologically on the basis of the epochē and the reductions. By linking the problematic of the horizon to the consciousness of the "I can" and the different figures of givenness in Husserl's phenomenology, I argue that the horizons are not to be thought of as characteristics of nature and natural things, but as indispensable components of lived-experiences and objects constituted in these experiences. I further show how the horizon-problematic entails three different forms of self-consciousness. I also argue that Husserl's early analysis of the horizon remains deficient, and for two reasons: it fails to inquire into the horizons of transcendental subjectivity just as it fails to uncover the world-horizon. By identifying the "Cartesian way to the reduction" as the methodological reason that underlies this twofold limitation, I finally suggest that the transition from static to genetic phenomenology is up to a large degree motivated by the need to broaden the horizon-problematic.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-4644-2_5

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