Abstract
The author deals with philosophical ethos in its practical function. After the First World War Husserl not only considers the structure but also the function of phenomenology. A meditation on this function, with regard to the history of philosophy, is his primal task in the Freiburg years. Thus the possibility of developing a rigorous phenomenology of practical reason becomes the basis of phenomenology. The importance of Husserl’s characterization of life in terms of striving is stressed as a key motive in the turn from static to genetic phenomenology. It is argued that instinctive life is inserted in a cultural development that shapes a theoretical side providing content to our primal tendencies as well as the identity of individuals. A decisive point in genetic phenomenology is the passage from instinctive animality to human life. This development rests on a pretheoretic affectivity that colors life as a sort of subconsciousness underlying all our activities. It is the originary stratum through which we approach the world. The article goes on to high-light the importance of Husserl’s concept of culture and specifically of his practical concept of culture which is made up of life-regulations and without which an ideal and a technical culture are devoid of a ground. Finally, the author considers life-regulations as a key problem to be dealt with by phenomenology first in the emotional and then in the practical level.