In its original design of Logical Investigations (LI), phenomenology was conceived as a descriptive science meant to elucidate (aufklären) fundamental concepts by retracing them to their primary source in intuition. However, intersubjective phenomena like alien-experience (Fremderfahrung) or the complex meaning-constitution of an alien-world (Fremdwelt) raise considerable problems for a science based on immanent descriptions of subjectivity: how are we to account starting from what is directly given in intuition for that which constantly eludes us? Is phenomenology as a science obliged to narrow its domain?
By investigating Husserl’s first attempts to elaborate a theory of alien-experience in his early texts on intersubjectivity (1905–1910), I trace and highlight the main changes this endeavor brings to the original method of LI. Specifically, analyzing the development of concepts like empathy (Lipps) and motivation (Dilthey) in these texts, and their implied methodological claims, I flesh out the core characteristics of phenomenology as a science able to account for the constitution of the other in our primordial sphere as well as of higher cultural objects like alien-worlds.