Abstract

This contribution deals with the quasi-oxymoron of a historical a priori, as it was originally conceived by Edmund Husserl and, later, by Michel Foucault. It wants to discover the relevance of this historical a priori by setting up two series of opposites: namely, one in which the concept is contrasted with the objective a priori as in Husserl and the other in which it is contrasted with the formal a priori as in Foucault. Now some interpretations identify Husserl’s concept of the historical a priori with Foucault’s concept of the formal a priori. In criticism of such a simplifying identification, this contribution makes a distinction between a critical and a therapeutic aspect of the historical a priori. The plurality and historicity of this concept in Foucault does certainly prevent a return to its original evidence. Nevertheless, Foucault fully endorses with Husserl the critical aspect by which this historical a priori is freed from the subreptitious substitution by epistemological constructs. Only when it is recognized that the concept of the historical a priori is defined in Husserl as well as in Foucault in contradistinction to a subreptitiously substituted concept of the a priori, will the program of a critique of such a subreption, which is enclosed in the concept of the historical a priori, be disclosed. This program constitutes the philosophical relevance of the historical a priori as a guiding concept of historical epistemology