Can the Life‑World be an Illusion?

The relation between, on the one hand, the life-world in which both pre-scientific life and the work of scientists take place, and, on the other, the mathematized nature of modern physics raises a number of questions that Harald Wiltsche jointly characterizes as the problem of coordination. One of such questions concerns the possibility to reconcile optimism about the ontological value of physical theories with the recognition that their evidential basis is inevitably confined to the life-world. Wiltsche suggests that this problem becomes especially acute in the case of a theory such as Quantum Field Theory, which seems to reduce the life-world to a mere illusion. Based on a reconsideration of the necessary founding role of the life-world for any conceivable physical theory, I suggest a way in which transcendental phenomenology can answer this question. I conclude by arguing that such solution implies a radical revision of Husserl’s conception of natura formaliter spectata.