Key Arguments

• Husserl suggests that the initial solipsistic appearance may be merely apparent and temporary: “Perhaps reduction to the transcendental ego only seems to entail a permanently solipsistic science; whereas the consequential elaboration of this science, in accordance with its own sense, leads over to a phenomenology of transcendental intersubjectivity and, by means of this, to a universal transcendental philosophy.”
• He explicitly relegates transcendental solipsism to a subordinate methodological place: “As a matter of fact, we shall see that, in a certain manner, a transcendental solipsism is only a subordinate stage philosophically; though, as such, it must first be delimited for purposes of method, in order that the problems of transcendental intersubjectivity, as problems belonging to a higher level, may be correctly stated and attacked.1”
• By saying solipsism must be ‘delimited for purposes of method’, he indicates that carefully circumscribing the sphere of ownness and solitary ego‑life is a necessary preparation for raising and solving intersubjectivity problems at the right level.
• He notes that at the present point “we can make no definite decision about this matter; nor can the advance indications given here reveal their full significance before we have carried our meditations further,” which shows that the movement beyond solipsism is a result of a future systematic development, not an assumption.
• Thus, Husserl positions transcendental solipsism as a necessary methodological phase within a broader project whose telos is a universal transcendental philosophy grounded in intersubjective phenomenology.

Source Quotes

As beginning philosophers we must not let ourselves be frightened by such considerations. Perhaps reduction to the transcendental ego only seems to entail a permanently solipsistic science; whereas the consequential elaboration of this science, in accordance with its own sense, leads over to a phenomenology of transcendental intersubjectivity and, by means of this, to a universal transcendental philosophy. As a matter of fact, we shall see that, in a certain manner, a transcendental solipsism is only a subordinate stage philosophically; though, as such, it must first be delimited for purposes of method, in order that the problems of transcendental intersubjectivity, as problems belonging to a higher level, may be correctly stated and attacked.1 But, at this point in our meditations, we can make no definite decision about this matter; nor can the advance indications given here reveal their full significance before we have carried our meditations further.

Perhaps reduction to the transcendental ego only seems to entail a permanently solipsistic science; whereas the consequential elaboration of this science, in accordance with its own sense, leads over to a phenomenology of transcendental intersubjectivity and, by means of this, to a universal transcendental philosophy. As a matter of fact, we shall see that, in a certain manner, a transcendental solipsism is only a subordinate stage philosophically; though, as such, it must first be delimited for purposes of method, in order that the problems of transcendental intersubjectivity, as problems belonging to a higher level, may be correctly stated and attacked.1 But, at this point in our meditations, we can make no definite decision about this matter; nor can the advance indications given here reveal their full significance before we have carried our meditations further. At all events, a fundamentally essential deviation from the Cartesian course has been definitely indicated and will henceforth be decisive for all our meditating.

Key Concepts

• Perhaps reduction to the transcendental ego only seems to entail a permanently solipsistic science; whereas the consequential elaboration of this science, in accordance with its own sense, leads over to a phenomenology of transcendental intersubjectivity and, by means of this, to a universal transcendental philosophy.
• As a matter of fact, we shall see that, in a certain manner, a transcendental solipsism is only a subordinate stage philosophically; though, as such, it must first be delimited for purposes of method, in order that the problems of transcendental intersubjectivity, as problems belonging to a higher level, may be correctly stated and attacked.1
• But, at this point in our meditations, we can make no definite decision about this matter; nor can the advance indications given here reveal their full significance before we have carried our meditations further.

Context

Later in § 13, Husserl anticipates the development from an initially solipsistic pure egology to a phenomenology of transcendental intersubjectivity and clarifies that solipsism is a lower‑level, methodologically delimited stage within a larger universal transcendental philosophy.