Transcendental illusion

pp. 184-220

in: William R. McKenna, Husserl's "Introductions to phenomenology", Berlin, Springer, 1982

Abstract

"This world, which I now experience as the present world with a perceptual belief that is continually and doubtlessly being confirmed, and which, on the basis of harmonious past experience, I experience as the past world with the indubitable empirical belief of memory — this world need not be more than a transcendental illusion."¹ "In truth, there could be nothing real, no world, none ever having been or being now, while I nonetheless experience this [world] with certainty, and completely without doubt."² What is the meaning of this claim? How does Husserl establish the possibility that the world could be a transcendental illusion? We will consider the question of meaning first.³