Is there really something outside? : Outline of a realist phenomenology

Abstract

The following article offers an outline of a realist phenomenology that focuses on space understood as that which makes phenomena possible. Drawing on Meillassoux's critique of phenomenological correlationism, we will try to show, on the contrary, that reality is better understood if we consider the correlation between the appearing and that which appears. However, in order to do justice to reality, one cannot simply follow Husserl's conception of this correlation. Reality must not be understood as immanent; it is necessary instead to consider its exteriority, i.e., its spatiality. Space, however, does not appear, but is rather inapparent. Consequently, a phenomenology of exteriority, i.e., a realist phenomenology, is necessarily a phenomenology of the unapparent.