Phenomenological Exploration of Cultural Difference

How phenomenology deals with the problematic of cultural difference? The present paper explores this question in the frameworks of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Alfred Schutz (1899-1959). Husserl dealt with the problem of cultural difference and cultivated the position of cultural universalism in his phenomenological thinking. He insisted on the idea of universalism that originates in ancient Greek and he demonstrated this idea of universalism through the discourse of the life-world. Even though Husserl does not focus on the issue of cultural difference, yet his notion of appresentation is useful to explicate this issue. Schutz also handled the problematic of cultural difference with help of appresentation, though in implicit manner. Aiming at an exploration of cultural difference on the track of both Husserl and Schutz, the present paper concludes that the concept of appresentation proves to be crucially relevant in this respect.