In this paper I examine the notion of normative reason in history with a special focus on the phenomenological approaches of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. The setting of the present study is the relationship between Husserl’s final presentation of phenomenology with ethico-normative questions about renewal, norms of reason, and absolute values. In this context, central to Husserl’s phenomenological thinking is the idea of “person” as spontaneous and autonomous agency. As part of the argument, I contend that self-critical and methodological considerations within Husserl’s phenomenological theory of reason point to the possibility of a philosophy of history. In the second part of the paper, I turn to Merleau-Ponty’s recasting of the problematic of constitution. I show that this recasting makes explicit the problem of feasibility for the method of phenomenology to bring the ultimate transcendental origins of experience to evident demonstration. I contend that this self-critical consideration of method in phenomenology is displayed by Merleau-Ponty rereading of constitution as institution. There results a conception of rational normativity and of humanity in search of rational norms in history that integrates Husserl’s rather Kantian regulative conception of reason.
