Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology

166 Pages·1960·3.982 MB·English

by  Edmund Husserl (auth.)

CARTESIAN MEDITATIONS
EDMUND HUSSERL
CARTESIAN MEDITATIONS
AN INTRODUCTION TO PHENOMENOLOGY
Translated by
DORION CAIRNS
1960
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
ISBN 978-94-017-4662-5 ISBN 978-94-017-4952-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-4952-7
Copyright Ig6o by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands in 1960
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
NOTE
This translation is based primarily on the printed text,
edited by Professor S. Strasser and published in the first volume
of Husserliana (Haag, Martinus Nijhoff, 1950). Most of Husserl's
emendations, as given in the Appendix to that volume, have
been treated as if they were part of the text. The others have
been translated in footnotes.
Secondary consideratiori has been given to a typescript (cited
as "Typescript C") on which Husserl wrote in 1933: "Cartes.
Meditationen / Originaltext 1929 I E. Husserl I für Dorion
Cairns". Its use of emphasis and quotation marks conforms
more closely to Husserl's practice, as exemplified in works
published during his lifetime. In this respect the translation
usually follows Typescript C. Moreover, some of the variant
readings in this typescript are preferable and have been used
as the basis for the translation. Where that is the case, the
published text is given or translated in a foornote.
The published text and Typescript C have been compared
with the French translation by Gabrielle Peiffer and Emmanuel
Levinas (Paris, Armand Collin, 1931). The use of emphasis and
quotation marks in the French translation corresponds more
closely to that in Typescript C than to that in the published
text. Often, where the wording of the published text and that
.of Typescript C differ, the French translation indicates that it
was based on a text that corresponded more closely to one or
the other - usually to Typescript C. In such cases the French
translation has been quoted or cited in a foornote.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
§ 1. Deseartes' Meditations as the prototype of philosophi
eal refleetion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
§ 2. The neeessity of a radieal new beginning of philosophy 4
FIRST MEDITATION. THE WAY TO THE TRANSCENDENTAL EGO
§ 3. The Cartesian overthrow and the guiding final idea
of an absolute grounding of scienee . . . . . . . . 7
§ 4. Uneavering the final sense of scienee by beeoming
immersed in scienee qua noematic phenomenon . . . 9
§ 5. Evidenee and the idea of genuine scienee . . . . . . 11
§ 6. Differentiations of evidenee. The philosophieal de
mand for an evidenee that is apodietic and first in
itself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
§ 7. The evidenee for the factual existenee of the world
not apodictic; its inclusion in the Cartesian overthrow 17
§ 8. The ego cogito as transeendental subjeetivity . . . . 18
§ 9. The range eovered by apodictic evidenee of the"Iam" 22
§ 10. Digression: Deseartes' failure to make the transeen-
dental turn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
§ 11. The psyehologieal and the transeendental Ego. The
transeendeney of the world . . . . . . . . . . . 25
SECOND MEDITATION. THE FIELD OF TRANSGENDENTAL EX
PERIENCE LAID OPEN IN RESPECT OF ITS UNIVERSAL
STRUCTURES
§ 12. The idea of a transeendental grounding of knowledge 27
§ 13. Neeessity of at first excluding problems relating to
the range eovered by transeendental knowledge . 29
§ 14. The stream of cogitationes. Cogito and cogitatum . . . 31
§ 15. Natural and transeendental reflection . . . . . . . 33
§ 16. Digression: Neeessary beginning of both transeen-
dental "purely psyehological" refleetion with the
ego cogito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
X CONTENTS
§ 17. The two-sidedness of inquiry into eonseiousness as
an investigation of eorrelatives. Lines of deseription.
Synthesis as the prima! form belonging to eonscious-
ness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
§ 18. ldentifieation as the fundamental form of synthesis.
The all-embraeing synthesis of transeendental time 41
§ 19. Aetuality and potentiality of intentionallife . . 44
§ 20. The peeuliar nature of intentional analysis . . . . . 46
§ 21. The intentional objeet as "transeendental clue" . . . 50
§ 22. The idea of the universal unity eomprising all
objeets, and the task of clarifying it eonstitutionally 53
THIRD MEDITATION. CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS. TRUTH
AND ACTUALITY
§ 23. A more pregnant eoneept of eonstitution, under the
titles "reason" and "unreason" . . . . . . . . . . 56
§ 24. Evidenee as itself-givenness and the modifications of
evidenee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
§ 25. Aetuality and quasi-aetuality . . . . . . . . . . 58
§ 26. Aetuality as the eorrelate of evident varifieation . . 59
§ 27. Habitual and potential evidenee as funetioning eonsti-
tutively for the sense "existing object" . . . . . . 60
§ 28. Presumptive evidenee of world-experienee. World
as an idea eorrelative to a perfect experiential evi-
denee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
§ 29. Material and formal ontological regions as indexes
pointing to transeendental systems of evidenee . . . 62
FOURTH MEDITATION. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION
AL PROBLEMS PERTAINING TO THE TRANSGENDENTAL EGO
HIMSELF
§ 30. The transeendental ego inseparable from the proeesses
making up his life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
§ 31. The Ego as identical pole of the subjective proeesses 66
§ 32. The Ego as substrate of habitualities . . . 66
§ 33. The full eoneretion of the Ego as monad and the
problern of his self-eonstitution . . . . . . . . . . 67
§ 34. A fundamental development of phenomenologieal
method. Transeendental analysis as eidetic . . . . . 69
CONTENTS XI
§ 35. Exeursus into eidetie internal psyehology . . . . . 72
§ 36. The transeendental ego as the universe of possible
forms of subjeetive proeess. The eompossibility of
subjeetive proeesses in eoexistenee or sueeession as
subject to eidetie laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
§ 37. Time as the universal form of all egologieal genesis 75
§ 38. Aetive and passive genesis . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
§ 39. Association as a principle of passive genesis . . . . 80
§ 40. Transition to the question of transeendental idealism 81
§ 41. Genuine phenomenologieal explieation of one's own
"ego eogito" as transeendantal idealism . . . . 83
FIFTH MEDITATION. UNCOVERING OF THE SPHERE OF
TRANSGENDENTAL BEING AS MONADOLOGICAL INTER
SUBJECTIVITY
§ 42. Exposition of the problern of experiencing someone
eise, in rejoinder to the objeetion that phenomenology
entails solipsism . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . 89
§ 43. The noematic-ontie mode of givenness of the Other,
as transeendental clue for the eonstitutional theory
of the experienee of someone eise . . . . . . . . . 90
§ 44. Reduetion of transeendental experienee to the sphere
of ownness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92'
§ 45. The transeendental ego, and self-appereeption as a
psyehophysical man redueed to what is included in
my ownness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
§ 46. Ownness as the sphere of the aetualities and potenti
alities of the stream of subjeetive proeesses . . . . . 100
§ 47. The intentional objeet also belongs to the full
monadie eoneretion of ownness. Immanent transeen
denee and primordial world . . . . . . . . . . . 103
§ 48. The transeendeney of the Objeetive world as be-
longing to a Ievel higher than that of primordial
transeendeney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
§ 49. Predelineation of the eourse to be followed by in
tentional explieation of experiencing what is other 106
§ 50. The mediate intentionality of experiencing someone
eise, as "appresentation" (analogieal appereeption) . 108
XII CONTENTS
§51. "Pairing" as an assoeiatively eonstitutive eomponent
of my experienee of someone eise . 112
§52. Appresentation as a kind of experienee with its own
style of verification . 113
§ 53. Potentialities of the primordial sphere and their
eonstitutive funetion m the appereeption of the
Other. 116
§ 54. Explieating the sense of the appresentation wherein
I experienee someone eise . 117
§ 55. Establishment of the eommunity of monads. The
firstform of Objectivity: intersubjeetive Nature . 120
§ 56. Constitution of higher Ievels of intermonadie eom-
munity . 128
§57. Clarifieation of the parallel between explieation of
what is internal to the psyehe and egologieal transeen-
dental explieation 131
§58. Differentiation of problems in the intentional analysis
of higher intersubjective eommunities. I and my sur-
rounding world 131
§59. Ontologieal explieation and its plaee within eonsti
tutional transeendental phenomenology as a whole . 136
§ 60. Metaphysical results of our explieation of experi-
encing someone eise 139
§ 61. The traditional problems of "psyehologieal origins"
and their phenomenologieal clarification . 141
§ 62. Survey of our intentional explieation of experiencing
someone eise 148
CONCLUSION
§ 63. The task of eriticizing transeendental experienee and
knowledge 151
§ 64. Concluding word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
INTRODUCTION
§ 1. Descartes' Meditations as the prototype
of philosophical reflection.
I have partieular reason for being glad that I may talk about
transeendental phenomenology in this, the most venerable abode
of Freneh seienee.l Franee's greatest thinker, Rene Deseartes,
gave transeendental phenomenology new impulses through his
Meditations; their study aeted quite direetly on the transfor
mation of an already developing phenomenology into a new
kind of transeendental philosophy. Aeeordingly one might almost
eall transeendental phenomenology a neo-Cartesianism, even
though it is obliged- and preeisely by its radieal development
of Cartesian motifs - to rejeet nearly all the well-known doe
trinal eontent of the Cartesian philosophy.
That being the situation, I ean already be assured of your
interest if I start with those motifs in the M editationes de prima
philosophia that have, so I believe, an eternal signifieanee and
go on to eharaeterize the transformations, and the novel for
mations, in whieh the method and problems of transeendental
phenomenology originate.
Every beginner in philosophy knows the remarkable train of
thoughts eontained in the Meditations. Let us reeall its guiding
idea. The aim of the Meditations is a eomplete reforming of
philosophy into a scienee grounded on an absolute foundation.
That implies for Deseartes a eorresponding reformation of all
the scienees, beeause in his opinion they are only non-selfsuf
fieient members of the one all-inclusive seienee, and this is phi
losophy. Only within the systematic unity of philosophy ean
they develop into genuine seienees. As they have developed
1 Translator's note: The Meditations are an elaboration of two lectures, entitled
"Einleitung in die transzendentale Phänomenologie" (Introduction to Transeendental
Phenomenology), that Husserl delivered at the Sorbonne on the twenty-third and
twenty-fifth of February, 1929. See Strasser's introduction, Husserliana, Vol. I,
p. XXIII.