The Question of Being in Husserl’s Logical Investigations

211 Pages·1981·5.759 MB·English

by  James R. Mensch (auth.)

The Question of Being in Husserl's Logical Investigations
PHAENOMENOLOGICA
COLLECTION FONDEE PAR H.L. V AN BREDA ET PUBLIEE
SOUS LE PATRONAGE DES CENTRES D'ARCHIVES-HUSSERL
81
JAMES R. MENSCH
The Question of Being in Husserl's Logical Investigations
Comite de redaction de la collection:
President: S. IJsseling (Leuven);
Membres: M. Farber (Buffalo), E. Finkt (Freiburg i. Br.),
L. Landgrebe (Kaln), W. Marx (Freiburg i. Br.),
J.N. Mohanty (New Yark), P. Ricoeur (Paris), E. Straker (Kaln),
1. Taminiaux (Louvain), K.H. Volkmann-Schluck (Kaln);
Secretaire: J. Taminiaux.
JAMES R. MENSCH
The Question of Being in
Husserl's Logical Investigations
1981
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
This volume is listed in the Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
ISBN 978-90-481-8264-0 ISBN 978-94-017-3446-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-3446-2
Copyright © 1981 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Martinus NijhoffPublishers bY, The Hague in 1981
Sottcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1981
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, Springer-Science+Business Media, B. V.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Jacob Klein
"Denn der Geist allein ist unsterblich"
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to Professor James Morrison
of the University of Toronto for his encouragement and aid in the
preparation of this work. His generosity is an example of the
genuine philosophic spirit. I should also like to thank Ernie and
Frauke Hankamer as well as Hugo and Ruth Jakusch whose kind
ness sustained us in Munich and Dief~en. Finally, mention must be
made of the Canada Council without whose financial aid this book
would not have been possible.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. THE REFUTATION OF PSYCHOLOGISM 9
Remark 24
II. ESTABLISHING THE GUIDING MOTIVATION: THE
REFUTATION OF SCEPTICISM AND RELATIVISM 27
III. THE CATEGORY OF THE IDEAL 35
1. The Category in the Context of Ideen I 35
2. The Category in its own Context 42
IV. THE BEING OF THE IDEAL 53
V. SUBJECTIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT: INTENTION-
ALITY AS ONTOLOGICAL TRANSCENDENCE 73
VI. THE SUBJECT -OBJECT CORRELATION 95
VII. CATEGORIAL REPRESENT A TION 133
VIII. ONTOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES AND
MOTIV A TING CONNECTIONS 149
NOTES 193
BIBLIOGRAPHY 207
NAME INDEX 209
SUBJECT INDEX 210
INTRODUCTION
This study proposes a double thesis. The first concerns the Logische
Untersuchungen itself. We will attempt to show that its statements
about the nature of being are inconsistent and that this inconsis
tency is responsible for the failure of this work. The second con
cerns the Logische Untersuchungen's relation to the Ideen. The
latter, we propose, is a response to the failure of the Logische
Untersuchungen's ontology. It can thus be understood in terms of
a shift in the ontology of the Logische Untersuchungen, a shift
motivated by the attempt to overcome the contradictory assertions
of the Logische Untersuchungen. In this sense our thesis is that, in
the technical meaning that Husserl gives the term, the Logische
Untersuchungen and the Ideen can be linked via a "motivated
path."
We can, by way of an introduction, clarify our theses by regard
ing three elements. The first is the relation of epistemology to
ontology. The second is the notion of motivation as Husserl
conceives the term. The third is the fundamental distinctions that
are to be explained via the notion of motivation.
1. We should begin by remarking that the goal of the Logische
Untersuchungen is explicitly epistemological; it is that of answer
ing "the cardinal question of epistemology, the question concerning
the objectivity of knowledge" (LU, Tub. ed., I, 8; F., p. 56V For
Husserl, his other questions - i.e., that of the theoretical bases of
logic and that of the relation of logic to psychology - "essentially
coincide" with this "cardinal question" (Ibid.). An important
point here is that as Husserl conceives this question it has a certain
regressive character. The inquiry is not just whether such know
ledge can exist, but how it can. The inquiry is thus formulated in
terms of the "conditions of the possibility of science in general"
and "knowledge in general" - both being understood in the strong,
objective sense of the terms (LU, "Prolegomena," §65, §66).
2 INTRODUCTION
The relation of epistemology to ontology is set by HusserI's
repeated assertion that metaphysics - a science of being qua
being - is posterior to epistemology and in some sense can be
thought of as growing out of the latter. 2 Given this formulation
and given the Logische Untersuchungen's explicit goal of securing
the objectivity of knowledge, it is obvious that the ontology
Husserl puts forward must be shaped by this goal. The relation,
however, is more intimate than this suggests. It is such that HusserI's
ontology and epistemology must be considered a related, organic
whole. If we follow Husserl when he divides the conditions for
knowledge into subjective and objective conditions, we find that
they are ultimately ontological conditions. The question faced by
HusserI is, what must the being of both subjects and objects be if
objective knowledge is to be at all possible? The conditions for
the possibility of objective knowledge are, as we shall see, ulti
mately understood as ontological conditions. In this regressive
procedure in which we proceed from the assumption of objective
knowledge to its essential ontological conditions, the intimacy of
the relation is hereby expressed. In our view, it is such that onto
logical conditions so laid down serve as a consistency test for the
Logische Untersuchungen's conception of what it means to know.
Granting this, we can clarify our first thesis which sees the
failure of the Logische Untersuchungen as a failure of its ontology.
If the ontological conditions for knowledge are contradictory,
then, according to the above, the whole project of the Logische
Untersuchungen, its fundamental motivation of providing an
answer to the problem of the objectivity of knowledge, is not
satisfied.
2. The relationship of the Logische Untersuchungen and the
Ideen has been subject to a number of interpretations without any
clear consensus of opinion.3 In HusserI's view, the works are dif
ferent. There is a conceptual shift that takes place in the original
interpretation of the Logische Untersuchungen. After the Logische
Untersuchungen was written, " ... there occurred not just additions
but transvaluations (nicht blo{3 Ergiinzungen, sondern Umwer
tungen) in the original sphere of research" (LU, Tub. ed., I, viii-ix;
F., p. 44). The reference of these remarks is the Ideen's doctrine
of transcendental idealism. The move to this latter position,
according to HusserI, is to be understood in terms of a "motivated
INTRODUCTION 3
path" that begins with the problem of the objectivity of know
ledge ("Nachwort," Ideen III; ed. W. Biemel, Husserliana V,
The Hague, 1971, p. 150).
To grasp Husserl's conception of this move, it is first necessary
to understand the way in which he uses the terms "motivation"
and "motivated path." In his developed phenomenology, the
terms bear a certain technical sense. In constitutive phenomenology,
for example, he speaks of the motivations that allow us to posit
entities on the basis of evidence (See Ideen J, §52; ed. W. Biemel,
Husserliana III, The Hague, 1950, p. 124). The source of the
evidence is the interconnections of our perceptual experience.
To make sense of our experience, to view it as the experience of
relatively stable objects is, on the one hand, to be sensitive to the
motivations arising from experience. On the other hand, it is to
engage in what Husserl calls the thesis of rationality; the thesis is
that the world is rational, that it presents itself as a collection of
relatively stable objects which are there to be experienced, objects
allowing of certain definite predicates. At its basis, the thesis is
that our perceptual experience allows of inference, that we can
infer objects, predicates and relations from it and thus come up
with a world about which we can reason or infer (See Ibid.,
§§136-37, §139, §142; Biemel ed., pp. 335-36, 341, 348-39).
More importantly for our own theme, the notion of motivation
also plays a role in the explanation of the genesis of intellectual
constructions: theories, sciences, ideologies, and so forth. It is in
the context of this notion that Husserl's rather celebrated remark
must be understood:
The reigning dogma of a separation in principle between
epistemological explanation and historical, even humanistic
psychological explanation, between epistemological and
genetic origin is basically mistaken - at least insofar as we
do not in the usual way inadmissibly limit the notions of
"history," "historical explanation," and "genesis" ("Beilage
III," Krisis; ed. W. Biemel, 2nd ed., Husserliana VI, The
Hague, 1962, p. 379).
The inadmissible limitation referred to is the leaving out of
account the notion of teleology. Thus, Husserl distinguishes his
own account of philosophy from "that of a historical explanation