(a) Present a critical exposition of Husserl's criticism of 'natural attitude'. How does Husserl propose to address the problems…

Husserl on the Natural Attitude and Phenomenological Method

Husserl critiques the ‘natural attitude’—the unexamined, common-sense presumption that an objective world exists independently of consciousness and is directly accessible to perception. In The Crisis of European Sciences, Husserl argues that this dogmatic realism led modern sciences into naturalism and psychologism, precipitating a foundational crisis by detaching scientific constructs from their origins in subjective experience.

To overcome this relativism and establish philosophy as a rigorous science (strenge Wissenschaft), Husserl formulates the phenomenological method. It begins with the epoché (phenomenological bracketing), which suspends all metaphysical judgments regarding the external existence of objects. Through subsequent reductions—eidetic reduction (distilling essential structures from empirical particulars) and transcendental reduction (tracing phenomena back to the meaning-constituting acts of the transcendental ego)—the world is analyzed purely as intended by consciousness (intentionality).

Critically, while Husserl claims this yields apodictic certainty by grounding knowledge in pure subjectivity, it risks collapsing into solipsism. In Cartesian Meditations, he attempts to resolve this through an account of intersubjectivity and the ‘Lifeworld’ (Lebenswelt). However, Husserl's method struggles to fully bridge the chasm between the detached, transcendental ego and concrete, historical human existence.

Sartre on Choice and Radical Responsibility

Sartre’s assertion that "if I do not choose, I am still choosing" stems from his foundational ontology: "existence precedes essence." Human consciousness (pour-soi), defined by nothingness and radical freedom, lacks any predetermined essence or external moral anchor. Consciousness is dynamic intentionality; hence, human beings are "condemned to be free." Inaction, silence, or submission to convention are not evasions of choice, but deliberate choices to abstain, which implicitly endorse existing circumstances.

Refusing this ontological freedom results in bad faith (mauvaise foi)—the self-deception of pretending one is a determined object (en-soi) without agency. Consequently, freedom entails an agonizing, inescapable responsibility. In choosing for oneself, one creates an image of human value and assumes responsibility for the world.

Critically, Sartre’s early existentialism posits an unconditioned, absolute freedom that borders on ethical voluntarism. By treating all choices as self-justifying acts of authentic will, his framework lacks criteria for moral deliberation. As Simone de Beauvoir argues in The Ethics of Ambiguity, Sartre overlooks situated constraints; genuine freedom is not merely an abstract ontological absolute, but a concrete capacity conditioned by material, political, and social realities.

Wittgenstein on the Limits of Language

In Proposition 7 of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein concludes: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Working through the Picture Theory of meaning, the early Wittgenstein holds that meaningful propositions must share a logical form with empirical states of affairs. Thus, the sayable is strictly coextensive with the propositions of natural science.

Matters of value—ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and the meaning of life—do not represent empirical facts within the world; they transcend it. Therefore, these domains are strictly unsayable. They belong to the "mystical" (das Mystische), which cannot be stated in descriptive propositions but only shows itself. Silence is not an act of skepticism, but a protective boundary against metaphysical pseudo-problems.

Critically, this demarcative strategy is self-undermining: the propositions of the Tractatus itself are non-empirical and, by its own criteria, strictly nonsensical. Wittgenstein acknowledges this through the metaphor of the ladder, which one must throw away after climbing. Recognizing the inadequacy of this rigid atomism, Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations abandons this formal boundary for a therapeutic conception of philosophy, analyzing how meaning is generated within dynamic, contextual "language-games" embedded in lived forms of life.

Conclusion

Husserl, Sartre, and Wittgenstein represent three distinct modern responses to the limitations of naive realism. Husserl seeks foundational certainty through transcendental grounding; Sartre confronts existential groundlessness through authentic moral commitment; and Wittgenstein diagnoses linguistic confusions through logical and therapeutic critique. Together, they demonstrate that meaning and value are not pre-given empirical facts, but are actively constituted through consciousness, existential choice, and linguistic practice.