ABSTRACT
By appeal to Husserl’s writings on intersubjectivity, this chapter examines Husserl’s account of social groups. I approach this topic in terms of ontological and phenomenological contributions made by Husserl. I begin by highlighting the ways Husserl writes about social groups and communities as existing along a spectrum from loosely associated to tightly knit groups. This amounts to a distinctly Husserlian ontology of social groups, that is, what Husserl takes any social group to be. I then argue how Husserl bases his account of social life on his formal theory of parts and wholes. This mereological account of social groups, furthermore, informs Husserl’s phenomenological descriptions regarding the experiences that members of a group have by virtue of their membership. While there has been debate in recent decades on the appropriateness of using mereology in discussions of social groups, I show that Husserl appeals directly to mereology to describe social groups. This leads into my concluding section, where I point to the applicability of Husserl’s writings to contemporary philosophical issues in social and political philosophy and make suggestions for future research in this domain.
