Husserl Stud (2008) 24:65–71

DOI 10.1007/s10743-007-9023-1

BOOK REVIEW

Søren Overgaard, Husserl and Heidegger on Being

in the World
Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2004
(Phaenomenologica 173), ISBN 1-4020-2043 (HB) 1-4020-2239-5
(e-book)

Lilian Alweiss

Published online: 16 August 2007

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

1 Introduction

Comparisons between Husserl and Heidegger can tend to be rather biased.

Heideggerians writing on Husserl are inclined to accept the critical remarks Heidegger
launched against Husserl and believe that “Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenol-
ogy are radically different, and have virtually nothing to do with each other” (1).
Husserl adheres to the tradition of philosophy insofar as he ignores the question of
being and returns to a worldless subject. Husserlians, on the other hand prefer to
emphasise the continuity of Husserl’s thinking and argue that “the whole of Sein und
Zeit springs from an indication given by Husserl” (1). Heidegger adds nothing new
to phenomenology, he simply makes explicit what is already implicit in Husserl. Just
as it is difficult to disentangle their personal relationship which moved from friend-
ship and total admiration to animosity, it seems difficult to discern whether we should
be referring to a continuity or departure when we assess their phenomenological ap-
proaches. Anyone writing on Husserl and Heidegger knows of the danger of taking
sides too quickly or of accepting at face value the derogatory comments each thinker
made about the other.
Søren Overgaard’s book Husserl and Heidegger on Being in the World, can be
lauded for not falling into either trap. He manages to sustain a healthy distance from
both thinkers. Although Overgaard will come to side with Heidegger’s critique of
Husserl, his assessment remains nuanced. He does not take Heidegger’s critique at
face value because he is only too keenly aware of the instances in which Heideg-
ger points at differences where there are none. Contrary to Heidegger’s polemic, he
shows that “there are important similarities between the two accounts when it comes

L. Alweiss (B)
Department of Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
e-mail: alweissl@tcd.ie

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to characterise the world and subjectivity” (2). In this sense he aligns himself with
the Husserlian camp by showing how commentators in the past have sided too hastily
with Heidegger. Overgaard is in no doubt that in many ways Sein und Zeit continues
Husserl’s phenomenological project. Husserl’s account of the world as a horizon is
similar to Heidegger’s account of the world as a referential totality. Both Husserl and
Heidegger are engaged in a transcendental inquiry by treating the transcendental sub-
ject or Dasein respectively as the place where the world and entities of being manifest
themselves and both Husserl and Heidegger are concerned with the question of being.
“Being somehow sums up what phenomenology is about” (2). There is thus a “unitary
phenomenology” (2) underlying both thinkers.
Were this the full story, then Overgaard’s book would not be contributing much to
the debate. It would just be commended for presenting his position in a subtle way.
The significance of Overgaard’s book is that he believes this not to be the full story.
Although there is a “unitary phenomenology underlying both thinkers,” we should not
lose sight of the important distinctions between them. Whereas “being sums up what
phenomenology is about” Overgaard argues that there are nonetheless different ways
in which the question of being can be raised. There is “a transcendental and a more
distinctively ontological ‘question’ of being” (205). Both Husserl and Heidegger share
the transcendental question which concerns the conditions of possibility for the man-
ifestation of appearances: Husserl, insofar as he asks how can intra-mundane entities
constitute themselves with respect to subjectivity and Heidegger, insofar as he asks
how being manifests itself with respect to Dasein. Their approach to phenomenol-
ogy however differs when it comes to the ontological mode of raising the question.
Husserl is only interested in how beings constitute themselves with respect to sub-
jectivity, whereas Heidegger additionally asks about “the modes of being of those
entities” (206). Overgaard believes that by raising the ontological question Heidegger
opens the way to a “different” phenomenology which is not only interested in the ques-
tion of constitution but also in the being of life-worldly beings. “Neither task should
be neglected, because neither can, on its own, provide the ultimate intelligibility that
phenomenology aims at” (206).
When Overgaard refers to the second task, his interest is in the manner in which
Heidegger depicts the everyday, or what Husserl would call the concrete life world.
Although Husserl maintains that “there is nothing wrong with investigating the con-
crete life-world” he will argue that, “it is only the constitutive analysis that grants us a
true philosophical understanding of the life-world” (206). Overgaard believes this not
to be so. A constitutive analysis can only be adequate when we have properly under-
stood the manner of the being of these life-worldly entities. It is clear to Overgaard
that Heidegger’s depiction of these entities is phenomenologically more accurate than
Husserl’s.
The problem for Overgaard is that Husserl still operates with a layer-ontology when
he describes the intra-mundane entities and the mundane subject. According to Hus-
serl, in the natural attitude we experience objects and other subjects first as material
things and only subsequently other layers are added which lead us to regard objects
as useful or other subjects as animate beings. Overgaard shows, in quite some detail,
how Husserl is aware that we do not only encounter objects as present-at-hand but
that they manifest themselves additionally as entities which can be used: Heidegger

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calls this ready-to-hand. However, unlike Heidegger, he will always insist that these
layers of practical significance “do not lose their ‘style’ as objects of nature (Hua XV,
323)” (175). In a word, ultimately he remains committed to the idea that on the most
fundamental level they are encountered as present-at-hand. The same holds when Hus-
serl refers to the mundane subject. The human being for Husserl is both “an object in
the world and at the same time a subject for the world”: As an object in the world, the
subject is the intra-mundane being, which can be encountered by other subjects. As the
subject for the world, the human being is the place where beings manifest themselves.
As a mundane subject I am therefore first a thing in the world. This leads Overgaard
to concur with Heidegger that “Husserl displays a strong commitment to the ontology
of presence-at-hand” (187). Husserl reifies the mundane subject (and intra-mundane
object) insofar as he treats the human being (and entities) as present-at-hand “inside”
the world.
Overgaard thinks that Heidegger’s critique of Husserl is ultimately correct. Husserl’s
account of the natural attitude is fundamentally unnatural or naturalistic. His stratifi-
cation or layer ontology is phenomenologically inaccurate. In view of this Overgaard
sides with Heidegger and argues that we need to “reject the idea of a ‘layer ontology’
altogether” (175). Objects are not first present-at-hand and then ready-to-hand in the
same way as the subject is not first experienced as an objective entity (Körper) plus
something else. There is “no phenomenological basis for Husserl’s layer ontology at
all” (182). We do not first experience the object as a dark cubic something before
we recognise it as a lantern, rather we always see it as equipment even if we do not
actually know its purpose. Similarly I do not see another person’s eye as a purely
physical thing plus something else. I see it as the eye of another person looking at
me. When we describe the way we actually live in the world it becomes clear that
Husserl’s description is not natural at all, we do not primarily experience ourselves or
others as objects or material things in the world.
Yet the question remains: what significance should we attribute to Heidegger’s
critique? Although Overgaard believes that “Heidegger’s characterisation of the being
of the tool is phenomenologically more convincing than Husserl’s theory of stratifi-
cation”(182), he realises that this is not the point at which to locate the significant
departure from Husserl. At least it is “not one Heidegger seems to attribute fundamen-
tal importance to” (183). Overgaard is aware that Heidegger softens “his critique of
the ontology of Vorhandensein as applied to intra-mundane entities” (183) in his later
writings. Moreover, he realises that although Heidegger’s critique of the ontology of
Vorhandensein remains consistent throughout his work, when applied to the kind of
entities we ourselves are, this critique affects only Husserl’s depiction of the mundane
subject. However Overgaard knows that for Husserl the mundane subject does not
belong to an authentic description. “Husserl’s notion of the mundane subject is in fact
something we hardly ever experience (although it might be quite a natural way to
interpret oneself). We are thus left with …. Husserl’s characterisation of the being of
the transcendental subject” (190). Yet if the mundane subject “does not really belong
to an authentic phenomenological description” then we need to ask whether Husserl’s
description of the transcendental subject is vulnerable to Heidegger’s critique of an
ontology of present-at-hand at all.

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Overgaard realises that in many ways it is not. Husserl does not, as Heidegger
frequently maintains, ignore the question of the being of subjectivity. Rather the reduc-
tion “unveils what it means for entities to ‘be’ ‘for’ the transcendental subject. The
transcendental subject in this sense is not posited as a kind of object but is defined
(similar to Dasein) as the ‘dative of manifestation’ of each and every object, as well as
the world-horizon in which objects are manifest” (191). The subject cannot be defined
as a bearer of properties, it is not present-at-hand but the place which allows beings
to be. Moreover, as noted above, Husserl’s depiction of the transcendental subject in
many ways resembles that of Dasein. Although Husserl may never say it in so many
words, he regards “the body as an essential structure of the transcendental subject”
(157). Similar to Heidegger, he thereby treats the transcendental subject not as some-
thing extra mundane but as inhabiting the world. When Heidegger says that the notion
of the “subject” remains committed to the ontology of presence-at-hand (Heidegger
1927, 46f), Overgaard realises that his critique is misguided when applied to Husserl.
Yet nonetheless Overgaard holds fast to the view that there is something true about
Heidegger’s critique. Although Husserl “successfully redefines subjectivity in a revo-
lutionary way” (193 emphasis added), he falls foul of Heidegger’s critique because he
“continues to move around in the dichotomies of the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’, ‘lived body’
and ‘physical body’, and even the ‘subject’ and ‘object”’(193). The problem is that
Husserl “cannot view the perceptual subject’s bodily ‘being-in-the-world’ in any term
other than that of a ‘double sided’ bodily being”’ (158). This leads Overgaard to argue
that Husserl inevitably remains committed to, or at least entangled in an ontology of
present-at-hand. Here Overgaard presents a curious argument. He says that Husserl
is not successful in discarding the Cartesian terminology even though he “success-
fully redefines subjectivity.” Heidegger’s approach is superior to Husserl’s because he
tries to “capture in one single word [namely, Dasein, L.A] ‘all’ that we are” (201).
Dasein as being-in-the-world and being-with-others precedes all the distinctions with
which Husserl still operates. In other words, Overgaard claims that while Husserl and
Heidegger do not disagree on substantive issues, Heidegger’s approach is nonetheless
superior on terminological grounds.
I do not quite understand how Overgaard can arrive at such a substantive claim and
at the same time maintain that he is only concerned with a terminological quibble.
Surely there must also be a conceptual disagreement. Contrary to Overgaard, I believe
that the quibble is not merely a terminological one. There is a clear phenomenolog-
ical reason why Husserl does not opt for a unitary term such as Dasein. Overgaard
fails to see this. He maintains that Husserl’s terminology remains Cartesian, despite
the fact that when Husserl refers to the distinction between the lived body (Leib) and
the physical body (Körper), this has nothing in common with a Cartesian mind-body
dualism: “Bodily existence is attributed to the subject as subject” (198). Yet if it has
nothing in common with the mind-body dualism, indeed if Husserl successfully rede-
fines subjectivity, why does Overgaard nonetheless believe that Husserl is committed
to an ontology of present-at-hand or a Cartesian terminology? Overgaard provides
the following explanation: “To be sure, the way Heidegger presents his objection –
with reference to ‘soul-things’ and their connection with ‘body-things’ – Husserl goes
scot-free. However, Heidegger’s deeper concern seems to be that the notion of ‘body’,
even if it has been used to radically conquer the Cartesian conception of the subject,

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is a Trojan horse that carries, if not exactly a Cartesian dualism, then at least some
type of composition view in its belly, just waiting to leap out” (198-9 emphasis added).
Overgaard fails to explain why such a return is inevitable apart from the fact that Hus-
serl still operates with distinctions. Granted that the distinction is attributed “to the
subject as subject” (198) and that it has nothing to do with the Cartesian Mind-Body
dualism, I do not understand why Overgaard believes that such distinctions nonethe-
less vindicate some kind of Cartesian dualism? May this not indicate a projection of
Overgaard’s fears from the spectre of Cartesianism that has little to do with Husserl’s
actual use of the terms?
Overgaard believes his fears to be substantiated by the fact that Husserl merely
assumes that the transcendental subject is composed of two separate parts: the lived
body (Leib) and the body as a material physical thing (Körper), even though his analy-
sis proves the impossibility of drawing such a distinction. The problem for Overgaard
is that Husserl simply fails to draw the consequences of such an insight. Instead of rid-
ding himself of such distinctions and opting for a more neutral and all encompassing
term such as Dasein, he still insists that we are referring to a double mode of existence
or double-sided being although he cannot account for it. “For example, Husserl seems
to reach the conclusion that the ‘transcendental body’ is at the same time neither a
present-at-hand external entity nor something completely ‘immanent’ or ‘internal’ to
the subject – and yet he continues to speak of this body as double-sided” (199). In other
words, Overgaard claims that Husserl tries to see distinctions where there are none.
In this sense Husserl’s phenomenological description is inadequate since he operates
with a vocabulary, which no longer fits the manifestation.
Nonetheless Overgaard insists that the quibble is on terminological grounds alone.
“The question is whether Husserl’s vocabulary can do justice to the phenomenological
discoveries he makes” (201). As Overgaard repeatedly emphasises: “none of this is
intended to mean that Husserl’s phenomenology of embodiment is ‘wrong’. On the
contrary, Husserl is absolutely ‘right’. The problem is just that the terms with which
Husserl attempts to describe his findings are not adequate” (201). Yet how can Hus-
serl’s account of embodiment be right and its terminology be wrong? Surely there is a
reason why Husserl draws these distinctions even though he realises that they are never
clear cut. That it may be difficult to draw such distinctions does not necessarily mean
that the distinctions are “wrong” or that they do not manifest themselves. If at all, I
believe that Husserl draws our awareness to the fact that there are certain phenomena
which are neither entirely one nor the other, but always hover between distinctions.
Let us look at Husserl’s famous example of two hands touching each other which
he describes as follows:

Touching my left hand, I have touch-appearances, that is to say, I do not just

sense, but I perceive and have appearances of a soft, smooth hand, with such a
form. The indicational sensations of movement and the representational sensa-
tions of touch, which are Objectified as features of the thing, “left hand,” belong
in fact to my right hand. But when I touch the left hand I also find in it, too, series
of touch sensations, which are “localized” in it, though these are not constitutive
of properties (such as roughness or smoothness of the hand, of this physical
thing) (Husserl 1989, 152; Hua IV, 144–145).

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I do experience my left hand as a thing present-at-hand when I touch it with my

right hand. It has a certain extension, shape and texture. Yet instantaneously I also
experience my left hand as having certain tactile sensations which are not qualities of
its body but are in principle different from all material determinations of a res. Surely
Overgaard cannot question that these distinctions do manifest themselves! When we
touch our right hand with the left one, we do experience both the hand as extended
and as being touched. If you were to ask me where does the experience of my hand
touching another hand end, and my experience of being touched by the left hand begin,
I could not provide you with a clear answer. However, this is not because I do not expe-
rience the difference but because the distinctions run into each other. The problem is
that the hand is not only active (constituting) but in the very instant that it is touching
it is being touched (passive and constituted) and experienced as a bodily thing. The
touching hand touches and is instantaneously touched by the other hand. We can only
refer to a double touching. It is impossible to say which hand touches the other. The
division between constituting and being constituted is blurred.
Yet that it is blurred neither means that there are no distinctions to be drawn nor that
the distinctions are necessarily Cartesian in nature. Overgaard assumes that because
Husserl admits that it is impossible to draw clear demarcations, these distinctions do
not exist. Is Overgaard himself not committed to what John McDowell once called “the
misguidedness of an objectifying conception of the human” (McDowell 1982, 479)
insofar as he believes that our experience necessarily needs to be one or the other? The
example does not show that no distinctions are at play but merely that our experience
is indeterminate precisely because it is as Maurice Merleau-Ponty puts it ambiguous.
Overgaard assumes that if it is neither purely a Leib nor purely a Körper then it needs
to be something else. This leads him to endorse Heidegger’s more neutral term Dasein.
Yet in my view precisely its neutrality loses sight of what makes up our experience,
namely, the tension between these two modes of givenness. This may lend weight
to my contention that it is the projection of Overgaard’s fear of Cartesianism which
make him retreat from this terminology despite the fact that we phenomenologically
experience the body both as Leib and Körper. In other words, because he believes
that experience needs to be transparent and unitary, he fails to describe how the body
manifests itself.
This leads me to the final and most important point. For some readers, myself
included, it is troublesome that Heidegger does not provide an adequate account of
embodiment and spatiality in Being and Time. Overgaard sweeps aside such concerns
by saying that although Husserl’s phenomenology of the lived body “reaches a level of
concretion that Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein does not” (163), it is not surprising that
Heidegger’s discussion of the body and embodiment is sparse and on the whole nega-
tive (cf 163).1 He intentionally avoids the issue of the body in Sein und Zeit realising

1 However Overgaard notes that in volume 18 of the Gesamtausgabe Heidegger does provide a detailed
treatment of corporality and embodiment. He notes: “In the recently published volume 18 of the Gesamt-
ausgabe, we find what must be the early Heidegger’s most extensive treatment of embodiment. The context
is an account of Aristotle’s concept of pathos, and the terms Leib and Leiblichkeit appear frequently in the
course of approximately 10 pages. Heidegger is trying to make it clear that a mood or emotion such as fear
cannot be equated with a state of the soul or the mind, but must be conceived as something that affects the
whole Dasein, including its body” (159).

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“that the notion of the body furthers all kinds of divisions of the kind of entities that we
ourselves are, notably the divisions of subjectivity into its ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ aspects
or sides, into ‘spirit’ and ‘body’ etc” (Heidegger 1927, 56).2 .
Yet does this not prove that it is the fear of fragmentation that makes Overgaard
and Heidegger lose sight of what actually manifests itself? Rather than describing
what manifests itself they refer to what must be there if our experience is unitary and
thus not ambiguous or fragmented. Yet if Overgaard really believes that Husserl’s
position is right, indeed, that he successfully redefines subjectivity, then he needs to
bite the bullet and also accept his terminology. For it is only by upholding the distinc-
tions between inner and outer or Leib and Körper that existence can manifest itself as
essentially ambiguous. That we are neither entirely a lived body nor a body, cannot
mean that we must be something else, but that this either/or defines who we are. The
neutral term Dasein glosses over this ambiguity which defines our existence. If it is
the fear of fragmentation that Overgaard shares with Heidegger, believing that any
distinction inevitably returns us to a Cartesianism, then it is Overgaard and Heidegger
and not Husserl who are still haunted by “an objectifying conception of the human”
and therefore fail to see what shows itself.
By raising these criticisms, I by no means wish to diminish the achievements of
Overgaard’s book. Overgaard’s reading and assessment of Husserl and Heidegger is
quite breathtaking. He has clearly dealt with both thinkers in depth and his interpre-
tation always remains subtle and to the point. Most impressive is his account and
defence of the everyday where he not only draws on Heidegger but moreover on texts
by Husserl which are rarely discussed. Overgaard’s stimulating and illuminating book
is a necessary acquisition for anyone who is interested in phenomenology.

References

Alweiss, L. (2003). The world unclaimed. Ohio: Ohio University Press

Heidegger, M. (1927). Sein und Zeit Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, fifteenth revised and extended edition 1979,
or GA 2, ed. Friedrich – Wilhelm von Herrmann, 1977. [Translation – based on the seventh edition – by
John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson: Being and Time. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962]
Heidegger, M. (1962–1964). Zur Sache des Denkens. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1969. or GA 14. [Joan
Stambaugh, Trans. On Time and Being. New York: Harper and Row, 1972]
Husserl, E. (1989). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy;
second book: Studies in the phenomenology of constitution (Richard Rojcewicz & André Schuwer,
Trans.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers
McDowell, J. (1982). ‘Criteria, defeasibility, and knowledge’. In Proceedings of the British Academy,
Vol. 68 (369–394)

2 Overgaard thinks that the critique, namely, that Heidegger fails to give an adequate account of spatiality
and embodiment in Sein und Zeit is misplaced since Heidegger understands Being-there as “being-embod-
ied” (197). This may well be how Heidegger wishes to understand the fact that we are thrown into the
world, but it does not in any way lead him to attribute a centrality to embodiment or spatiality precisely
because it would threaten the unitary structure of Being-in-the-World. In view of this, he will always argue
that Dasein’s spatiality and embodiedness is possible only by virtue of its existential structure of Being-in-
the-world (e.g., Heidegger 1927, 23, 104–105) which Heidegger understands temporally and not spatially.
There must be a reason why Heidegger himself later acknowledges that “the attempt in Being and Time,
section 70, to derive human spatiality from temporality is untenable” (Heidegger 1962–64, 24; 23 (E)). All
this is discussed in detail in my book (Alweiss 2003, Chapters 3 and 4 in particular)

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