The Telos of Consciousness and the Telos of World History

Abstract

This article explores the way in which Husserl’s transcendental idealism reverses the thesis stemming from the naturalistic worldview, according to which the existence of humanity in the universe is a contingent fact. It will appear that the resulting teleological account of the world history does not interfere with the traditional explanations provided by the empirical sciences and that it is a consequence of the teleology inbuilt in the correlation between transcendental subjectivity and the world. The conclusion is reached by analyzing some of Husserl’s text concerning the transcendental role of embodiment and normality.