Abstract

The dissertation examines Hegel's and Husserl's notions of truth, knowledge and subjectivity. Both philosophers are read as advocates of absolute truth, reached through phenomenological analyses in which subject and object putatively coincide. After reviewing Husserl's thought, the dissertation criticizes the concepts of subject and object, and transcendence and immanence, in three different examples: the perceptual object, the experience of the body, and the connection of individual subjects to time and other subjects. The dissertation concludes that Husserl's philosophical project is fundamentally misguided; it results in information that is true, but not absolutely true. ;The dissertation then takes up Hegel, situating his philosophical project historically, and describing how the dialectic is supposed to unify the subject and object and disclose Absolute knowledge. Hegel's attempt to unify subject and object, as described in the Phenomenology of Spirit, fails, for he assumes the transparency of the body in sensation and perception. Moreover, the hypothesis of Absolute knowledge is as flawed as its practice. The supposedly universal knowledge is restricted to men, according to Hegel, and even particular men must abandon their particularity to grasp the Absolute. Even if Hegel's Absolute were attainable, it would not result in knowledge that is useful. ;The dissertation concludes with a alternative proposal for the concept of truth and knowledge. It outlines a dynamic conception of truth and knowledge based upon the most important philosophical contributions of Husserl and Hegel. while rejecting the prejudices that truth need be absolute, necessary, or certain. An accurate phenomenological description of the experience of truth reveals that the truths in which we believe change over time; they are not necessarily or certainly true; they are as contingent as the experiences from which they are derived. They are all based upon and mediated by intersubjectivity---the existence and concurrence of other subjects is implied in all claims to truth. Thus, they are subject to challenge and revision on the basis of contingent, empirical facts, themselves established, challenged, and revised by the intersubjective community and not judged by the individual alone