Husserl: Idealism

In this paper I draw on Husserl's early analysis of the frustration of an intentional act to argue against orthodox transcendental idealism, the claim that our acts of cognition can be mistaken with regard to a "matter," and are therefore objective, but this matter only has conceptual structure by virtue of human activity. For example, the proposition "My coffee cup is red" can be true or false depending on the sensations I receive (the matter of the act of cognition), which (...) are independent of my will, but it is only by virtue of my own conceptualizing activity (the form or "structure" of the act of cognition) that there exists an object which is my coffee cup and is red, as opposed to this bare sensation of redness. I will argue against this view; Objects have both matter and conceptual structure independent of the actual fact of human cognition. Our acts of cognition can be mistaken with regard to matter insofar as subsequent intentional acts give the same object as having a different, contradictory matter, in which case our earlier act is "frustrated." This contradictory matter, in order to contradict the earlier matter, which was itself a property predicated to the object insofar as it has a certain conceptual structure, must itself belong to the object insofar as it has the same conceptual structure. (shrink)

This essay critically assesses Roman Ingarden’s 1915 review of the second edition of Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations. I elucidate and critique Ingarden’s analysis of the differences between the 1901 first edition and the 1913 second edition. I specifically examine three tenets of Ingarden’s interpretation. First, I demonstrate that Ingarden correctly denounces Husserl’s claim that he only engages in an eidetic study of consciousness in 1913, as Husserl was already performing eidetic analyses in 1901. Second, I show that Ingarden is misguided, (...) when he asserts that Husserl had fully transformed his philosophy into a transcendental idealism in the second edition. While Husserl does appear to adopt a transcendental phenomenology by asserting–in his programmatic claims–that the intentional content and object are now included in his domain of research, he does not alter his actual descriptions of the intentional relationship in any pertinent manner. Third, I show Ingarden correctly predicts many of the insights Husserl would arrive at about logic in his late philosophy. This analysis augments current readings of the evolution of Ingarden’s philosophy, by more closely examining the development of his largely neglected early thought. I execute this critical assessment by drawing both from Husserl’s later writings and from recent literature on the Investigations. By doing so, I hope to additionally demonstrate how research on the Investigations has matured in the one hundred years since the release of that text, while also presenting my own views concerning these difficult interpretative issues. (shrink)

As the title – Husserl’s Legacy – and subtitle – Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy – make clear, Dan Zahavi’s new book is centrally concerned with developing and defending a particular account of Husserl’s legacy. Rather than tracing lines of influence or measuring the impact of various of Husserl’s ideas, Zahavi is interested in Husserl’s legacy in a different and more demanding sense that pertains to what he refers to as ‘the overarching aims and ambitions of Husserlian phenomenology’. He is (...) interested in the continued significance and relevance of Husserl’s philosophy as a comprehensive philosophical system that accordingly stakes out a position on fundamental questions concerning the mind, experience, and the nature of reality; hence the subtitle’s trio of phenomenology, metaphysics, and transcendental philosophy. The legacy that concerns Zahavi lies here, with how the first two notions find their completion in the third: properly understood, Husserl’s transcendental philosophy, which offers a phenomenological form of transcendental idealism, offers a powerful philosophical vision that is directly relevant to contemporary philosophical concerns.1 1 Thus Zahavi is interested in Husserl as a systematic philosopher, whose system is not just of historical interest, a relic from our philosophical past; in keeping with the notion of a legacy, Husserl’s philosophy is something whose inheritance might profit us here and now. (shrink)

The present paper looks at the relationship between Edmund Husserl and Theodor Celms, and Celms’ criticisms of Husserl’s transcendental-phenomenological idealism. Celms argues that despite his account of intersubjectivity, Husserl cannot escape the threat of solipsism. First, I argue that there is evidence which supports the hypothesis that Husserl’s Fifth Meditation is a response to Celms. If this is the case, then reading Celms puts us in a better position for interpreting the Fifth Meditation and evaluating the success of Husserl’s argument (...) therein. Second, in defense of Husserl, I suggest that the transcendental theory of intersubjectivity presented in the Fifth Meditation is an attempt to neutralize the threat of transcendental solipsism, but it does not necessarily preclude some form of pluralistic-epistemic solipsism. However, this is not necessarily a problematic result. (shrink)

In this paper I draw attention to a little-known confrontation between Sidney Hook and Dorion Cairns that unfolded on the pages of The Journal of Philosophy in 1930. Hook published “A Personal Impression of Contemporary German Philosophy” following a brief stint studying in Germany. Hook initially identifies the phenomenological movement as one of the few high points of early 20th century German philosophy. However, Cairns found fault with almost every characterization that Hook gave of Husserl’s phenomenology. My aim here is (...) to discuss the claims about the aims and method of phenomenology we find in Hook’s original appraisal and which are amplified and developed into criticisms of Husserl in his subsequent reviews of Formal and Transcendental Logic and Ideas I. Unfortunately, many of these criticisms, which Cairns considered to be based on misconceptions and misunderstandings, persist among Anglo-American philosophers today. Despite Cairns’ attempt to defend Husserl, Hook maintained that Cairns did not adequately address the argument that Husserl’s logical realism and transcendental idealism are incompatible. Moreover, Hook argues that Husserl’s idealism leads to solipsism. (shrink)

It was in his research manuscripts from 1905, also known as the Seefelder Blätter, where Edmund Husserl for the first time introduced the idea of the phenomenological reduction. The introduction of this idea, which he developed and refined years to come, marked the beginning not only of an important turn in Husserl’s philosophy toward transcendental phenomenology, but also the advent of a growing frustration and critique even among Husserl’s own students. The discussion about the ontological status of reality is otherwise (...) known as the realism–idealism controversy. One of the first critiques in a published form came from the Latvian philosopher and Husserl’s student in Freiburg, Theodor Celms, in his book Der phänomenologische Idealismus Husserls (1928). The current chapter will present a historically contextualized account of Celms’ contribution to the realism–idealism controversy, including his relationship with the phenomenological movement, main points of his critical interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental idealism, and the following reception of his work. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger closes his Winter Semester 1927–28 lectures by claiming that Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, read through the lens of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, confirmed the accuracy of his philosophical path culminating in Being and Time. A notable interpretation of Heidegger’s debt to Kant, advanced by William Blattner, presents Heidegger as a temporal idealist. I argue that attention to Husserl’s adaptation of Kant’s critical philosophy shows that both Husserl and Heidegger are realists. I make my case by tracing a unified (...) philosophical problematic through three puzzling passages: the Schematism chapter of the first Critique, Husserl’s thought experiment of the destruction of the world in Ideas, and the passage in Being and Time that motivates Blattner’s idealist reading. Husserl and Heidegger give accounts, derived from Kant, of how the consciousness of time makes it possible for objects to be perceived as enduring unities, as well as ‘genealogies of logic’ that show how a priori knowledge, including ontology, is possible. These accounts are idealistic only in the sense that they concern the ideal or essential features of intentionality in virtue of which it puts us in touch with things as they are independently of the contributions of any mind of any type. -/- . (shrink)

According to Husserl’s so-called Exhibition Principle, the propositions “x exists” and “The exhibition of x’s existence is possible” are equivalent. The overall aim of this paper is to debate EP. First, I raise the question whether EP can properly be said to be a principle. Second, I give a general formulation of EP. Third, I examine specific formulations of EP, namely those regarding eidetic and individual objects. Fourth, I identify the readings of EP I hold to be exegetically plausible, that (...) is the transcendental reading, the metaphysical reading, and the hybrid reading. Fifth, I present Husserl’s refutation of Berkeleyan idealism developed in 1902/03 lectures, and I argue that under certain assumptions, both esse est percipi and the metaphysical EP engender an infinite regress. In this regard, I claim there are two options for avoiding such a regress: either to commit oneself to reflexive exhibition of the ego’s actuality or to deny the universality of EP. I show that Husserl has a good argument for rejecting the first option, and I conclude that if the Husserlian idealist chooses the second option while affirming the ego’s actuality, he turns out to be as “dogmatic” as the realist. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on a number of respects in which Husserl’s, Heidegger’s, and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts of the world differ, despite other significant commonalities. Specifically, I discuss how both Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts of our experience of the world challenge Husserl’s assertion of the possibility of a worldless consciousness; how Heidegger’s discussion of the world entails a rejection of Husserl’s claim that the world is at bottom nature; and how Merleau-Ponty puts pressure on Husserl’s account of the necessary structure of the (...) world. In concluding, and as a propaedeutic to adjudicating these disputes, I aim to show why Husserl makes these contested claims. Specifically, I suggest that it is Husserl’s phenomenological conception of reason and his commitment to (this conception of) reason that motivate him to make the claims about our experience and world with which the later phenomenologists take issue. (shrink)

The issue of whether the phenomenology presented in Ideen I was a metaphysical realism or an idealism came to the fore almost immediately upon its publication. The present essay is an examination of the relation of Gustav Shpet, one of Husserl’s students from the Göttingen years, to this issue via his understanding of phenomenology and, particularly, of the phenomenological reduction, as shown principally in his early published writings. For Shpet, phenomenology employs essential intuition without regard to experiential intuition. If we (...) look on transcendental idealism as the label for this methodology, which disregards but does not deny either the empirical or its correlative species of intuition, then Shpet was such an idealist, all the while adhering to a metaphysical realism. In this way, Shpet could proclaim phenomenology to be the fundamental philosophical discipline without precluding the possibility of other philosophical disciplines insofar as they were conducted in relation to consciousness taken not as the “possession” of a human individual, but eidetically and thus not a “possession.”. (shrink)

Jan Patočka’s early phenomenology, as presented in The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem, does not merely adopt Husserl’s concept of the lifeworld. The paper demonstrates the originality of Patočka’s appropriation of this concept, but also its internal tensions and difficulties. Seeking to elaborate a concept of a phenomenology allowing for a theory of the lifeworld stricto sensu, i.e. of the life of the world, Patočka’s book effectively shows that there is no ahistorical, absolute or “natural” starting point for phenomenology. (...) Truth, as approachable through phenomenology, is not given, but must rather be developed. Elaborating on the concept of transcendental idealism, Patočka’s early phenomenology thus suggests a vivid idea of “intermeshing” monads ontologically grounding the world. (shrink)

The emphasis laid by Husserl on an abyss of sense between consciousness and reality, between an immanent being and a transcendent being, flows into the assertion of a necessary dependence of the world on consciousness and, consequently, of a constitution of reality within consciousness. But, if he passes in such a way from the undeniable difference in ontological status between world and subject to the assertion of the absolute existence of the subject out of the world, this happens because he (...) presupposes that the ontological status of worldly beings is univocal so that the only way of differentiating from worldly beings would be to go out of the world; after all, there is a secret complicity between objective realism and transcendental idealism. But how is it possible to think of a subject that from the same point of view can make the world appear and be part of it? His mode of being must be understood in the form of negativity and becoming: only thus are we able to conceive a consciousness at once included in the world and including it. (shrink)

Recently, a number of neuroscientists and philosophers have taken the so-called predictive coding approach to support a form of radical neuro-representationalism, according to which the content of our conscious experiences is a neural construct, a brain-generated simulation. There is remarkable similarity between this account and ideas found in and developed by German neo-Kantians in the mid-nineteenth century. Some of the neo-Kantians eventually came to have doubts about the cogency and internal consistency of the representationalist framework they were operating within. In (...) this paper, I will first argue that some of these concerns ought to be taken seriously by contemporary proponents of predictive coding. After having done so, I will turn to phenomenology. As we shall see, Husserl’s endorsement of transcendental idealism was partially motivated by his rejection of representationalism and phenomenalism and by his attempt to safeguard the objectivity of the world of experience. This confronts us with an intriguing question. Which position is best able to accommodate our natural inclination for realism: Contemporary neuro-representationalism or Husserl’s transcendental idealism? (shrink)

In spite of making explicit their phenomenological influence, Ricœur and Patočka have been very critical with husserlian idealism. In that sense, although we can consider those remarks as “heresies” to Husserl’s thought, they evidence their belonging to the phenomenological tradition. Following this trail, in this article, we ask the question: How to characterize the phenomenological conceptions of Ricœur and Patočka despite of their common critique of husserlian idealism? To answer this question, we analyze their respective commentaries to Husserl’s Cartesians Meditations. (...) In this “sacred” book of the phenomenology of intersubjectivity, both of them find a reconstruction of phenomenological idealism in the concept of methodical solipsism, and they find the introduction of the concept of alter ego in the last Meditation as an insufficient escape. We will show that the meaning of their critiques has to be understood in relation with their own trajectories where they converge in defending a particular conception of phenomenology. This conception implies a critical reflection of its own task and the renewal of its autonomous care for the phenomena. (shrink)

The aim of this investigation is to discuss the concept of realism and idealism applied to Husserlian phenomenology, distinguishing the ontological and the epistemological dimensions. Therefore, I propose questions that will help to mark this distinction. The answers will be given with reference to Husserl’s texts and commentators.

The paper develops the argument presented in my earlier article, Intentional Reference and Its Object in Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism. It contains further considerations on the proper understanding of Husserl’s notion of noema. My aim is not only to present an interpretation of Husserl’s text, but primarily to understand what constitutes an intentional reference of an act of consciousness. I agree with some of Husserl’s claims in Ideas, Book I, that noema, sense and intentional object are basically the same. This standpoint (...) implies, however, a drastic reinterpretation of the notion of an object. I refer to Ingarden’s conception of a purely intentional object to show the difficulties connected with regarding noema as an object separate from consciousness but still existentially dependent on it. Analyzing Husserlian notion of a noematic core I emphasize the relevance of universals for Husserl’s theory of consciousness. (shrink)

The various ways whereby spatial conditions afford to monumentalize culture and to appropriate geographically demarcated places in terms of individual and collective meaning structures has been amply documented in urban cultural studies. However, considerably less attention has been paid to how cultural identity is produced against the background of musical temporality. By way of a phenomenological inquiry into the staged spectacle of James Corden’s (the host of CBS Network’s Late Late Show) Carpool Karaoke, this paper addresses the issues of directly (...) lived experience and authenticity as facets of cultural identity. By critically discussing the assumptions of self-presence and auto-affectivity while singing and listening to one’s sung voice against the background of pre-recorded songs, the notion of directly lived musical experience is put to the test. Furthermore, by examining the dramaturgical scaffolding of Carpool Karaoke, the analysis points to wider implications for post-modern cultural studies in terms of an identified ironic reversal of modernist universal criteria of legitimacy in favor of a celebration of postmodern being-with inauthentically. The analysis of the selected Carpool Karaoke corpus utilizes a resourceful blend of phenomenological method, semiotics and interpretive videography while challenging embedded orthodoxies in the extant literature. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the transcendental idealism of Husserl’s phenomenology is compatible with a metaphysical realism. I not only develop an argument regarding the consistency between both philosophical stances, but I argue that this was Husserl’s own thesis. As a consequence, I support my interpretation on a hermeneutic of some of the most important texts by Husserl himself, where he deals directly with the issue.

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 2, pp 221 - 256 In the following paper we will seek to understand what Edmund Husserl, in his second _Logical Investigation_, refers to as “idealism”, against the backdrop of Rudolf Hermann Lotze’s interpretation of Plato’s doctrine of Ideas in the third book of his _Logic_. This will raise not only the question of Husserl’s indebtedness to Lotze with respect to the _Ideenhlehre_ in terms of _Geltung_, but first and foremost that of the “Platonism” of (...) the idealism defended in his first masterpiece. (shrink)

The history of the early phenomenological movement involves a tale of two schisms. The Great Phenomenological Schism originated between 1905 and 1913, as many of his contemporaries, for example, Pfänder, Scheler, Reinach, Stein, and Ingarden, rejected Husserl’s transformation of phenomenology from the descriptive psychology of his Logical Investigations into the transcendental idealism of his Ideas I. The Phenomenological-Existential Schism started between 1927 and 1933, as with Being and Time Heidegger moved away from Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of consciousness toward an ontological (...) analytic of existence. Yet these schisms were not unrelated developments. Closely following the documentary evidence to determine the exemplary nature of Heidegger’s critique of Husserl’s move into transcendental idealism, this essay establishes the inextricable linkage between the Great Phenomenological Schism and the Phenomenological-Existential Schism. (shrink)

In a present paper I argue that there is metaphysical dimension of the husserlian Idealism, for it implicates a reflection upon a Being. It is presented the relation between the thinking and the Being in Husserl’s Philosophy and the meaning of the Being that results from it; the two regions of Being are the Consciousness, held for the original dimension of Being, from which the worldly or real Being derives as the meaning constituted by the Consciousness. The transcendental Idealism is (...) the unique philosophy capable of explaining the original sense of Being, as response to epistemological and practical demands. Finally I present the sense of Being as act of being, the sense stemming from thomistic Metaphysics, as a possibility to think the sense of Being above the phenomenological Idealism. (shrink)

The idea that subjectivity makes up the foundation or source of all objectivity applies to all transcendental idealists. Nevertheless, Husserl conceives of this relationship between subjectivity and objectivity in a radically different fashion than Kant. Husserl’s conception leads to a primacy of the noetic dimension of sense at the expense of the noematic dimension. In order to render this explicit, not only a closer look at Kant’s transcendental deduction is illuminating but also taking into account neo-Kantianism. In contrast to Husserl, (...) Kant and the neo-Kantians grant primacy to the objective or noematic within the correlation between subject and object or noesis and noema. (shrink)

This paper addresses the meaning of Husserl’s idealism between the Ideas of 1913 and the Cartesian Meditations of 1931. In the work of 1913, the idealism stems from a distinction between consciousness and world based in a difference in the corresponding modes of giveness: consciousness gives itself absolutely and without profiles, and the world is given as an identity pole of a multiplicity of profiles. The fact that Husserl offered a second definition of his idealism in the same work proves (...) that he thought the first one was not sufficient to ground the kind of idealism he was committed to. According to this second definition, consciousness is an absolute being that nulla res indigent ad existendum, while the world has a relative and contingent being. In 1931 the Cartesian Meditations give the final clue to the understanding of these earlier definitions. Husserls sharply distinguishes his phenomenological idealism from the Berkeleyan and Kantian ones and defines it as a thorough explicitation of the Ego as a constitutive agency, so that the «world that really is» is «the world constituted by consciousness». (shrink)

The following issues are considered in the paper: The proper understanding of the ‘attempt to doubt’ recommended by Husserl in Ideas, Book I, as a point of departure on a way to the transcendental reduction. How intentional reference of an act of consciousness is possible and what it consists in, according to Husserl. A logical dependence between the characteristics of intentional reference and the standpoint of transcendental idealism in Husserl’s Ideas, Book I. How to understand Husserl’s claim that the intentional (...) object is equivalent to sense. I arrive at the conclusion that a fully consistent interpretation of Husserl’s declarations regarding the aforementioned issues does not seem to be possible; for one needs to modify Husserl’s standpoint in certain respects. These considerations will be carried on in an article titled ‘The Noema as Sense. The Problem of the Object of Consciousness in Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism’, forthcoming in Diametros. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the phenomenological epoché and the phenomenological problem of the relationship between the consciousness and the world. Initially, the article examines the first implication of the exercise of epoché : the idea of "loss of the world." Then examines the second implication of this exercise: the idea of "recovery of the world" in the transcendental consciousness. Finally, the article elucidates the specificity of phenomenological idealism of Husserl. The widespread exercise of the epoché does (...) not imply a denial of the existence of the world. The task of this idealism is elucidate the phenomenological sense of this world that is formed intentionally in the transcendental subjectivity. (shrink)

Hans Lipps’s originality lies in a tension between his hermeneutical and existential philosophy on the one hand, and his analysis of themes belonging to classical logic, on the other. To understand this tension, it must be examined at its point of origin – when Lipps discusses Husserl’s philosophy. The purpose of this text is to explain the opposition between Lipps and his first Master. Lipps’s critique of Husserl concerns transcendental idealism, the transcendental reduction, and the concept of intentionality, which appear (...) to Lipps as an escape from the realm of facticity. Husserlian idealism is then similar to Kant’s critical philosophy. Pursuing his inquiry from the perspective of facticity, Lipps refutes Kant’s and Husserl’s transcendentalism and their focus on the realm of representation. He tries nevertheless to analyse the classic problems of phenomenology and Kantian logic from the point of view of facticity. (shrink)

There is a paradox in Husserl’s writing in that he strives for insight into conscious experience and that he seems to a require a methodical approach, which might seem to have been imported from without, namely the phenomenological reduction. As Husserl notes in a passage cited from Ideas, first book, the precondition for the adequate insight into what is reflectively seized upon and the method, the epoche and reduction, the refraining from altering in any way what is given to reflection, (...) are reached at the same time. Thereby the paradox is resolved. Th is analysis helps resolve the paradox of idealism, namely that phenomenology creates an idealistic realm detached from the objective world, since the method of reduction converges with the self-reflection emerging within the pre-phenomenological world that is never “left behind” but that is now seen as included within the reflective-phenomenological context, as can be shown with regard to the ontology of the world and our epistemological grasp of it. (shrink)

This study focuses on the essential difference between Kant’s and Husserl’s transcendental Idealism. In fact, Husserl describes in the «Cartesian Meditations» his own ontological thesis as a «transcendental idealism», in which all sorts of entities have to be constituted by an activity of the transcendental subjectivity, so that we have to regard pure consciousness as the ontological origin of all entities in the world. But this study is interested in the two opposite signications of the Kantian copernican inversion. On the (...) one hand, the Copernican inversion has the same sense as the phenomenological reduction, which implies that Husserl can’t agree with Kant’s presupposition of absolute things in themselves; on the second hand, it involves a relativistic and anthropologistic orientation, so that the aprioristic structures of given objects are founded on the universal structures of finite subjectivity, on pure forms and faculties of human consciousness. At the opposite, Husserl enounces a methodological prescription for any phenomenological elucidation: it is not allowed to presuppose in phenomenology any given faculty or given nature of transcendental subjectivity. This prescription has important consequences on which this study focuses. First the ontological difference between intuitus originarius and intuitus derivatus, in nite and nite type of intuition, doesn’t have any validity: the difference between factual and rational truths only depends on the essence of the truth itself, and doesn’t have its foundation on the ontological difference between creative and receptive sort of intuition. Secondly, this first thesis admits an immediate application on the level of subjective constitution of objects: the modality in which an object appears to the subjectivity doesn’t depend on the universal structure of finite subject, but is exclusively founded on the essence of the object itself, so that it is impossible to consider the aprioristic constitutive structure as a merely subjective structure. Thirdly, in this transcendental phenomenology everything has to be constituted by subjectivity: the aprioristic character of the pure forms of sensibility is not founded on the structure of finite subjectivity, but rather on the essential connection between sensual material and form; so that it is not allowed to presuppose any facticity of time and space; the pure forms of sensibility have to be constituted by a special type of synthesis that we have to elucidate in opposition to other types of higher levels. The profound signication of Husserl’s anticopernican inversion is that the field of transcendental phenomenology consists of the essential form of an eidos ego, which is «more objective than any objectivity», as Levinas said; and that transcendental phenomenology is completely dominated by the principium reddendae rationis. (shrink)

This paper argues that through the conceptual distinctions between ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’ in The Idea of Phenomenology and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, a proper understanding of transcendental idealism and ‘transcendence in immanence’ can avoid any metaphysical commitments of internalism or externalism, and reconfigure the debate on internalism and externalism by providing an alternative option. There are two interpretations towards whether Husserl is an internalist. The first one is that Husserl is an internalist as he employs the reduction method in (...) order to ‘returns to the inner mind’. The second interpretation, which is most welcomed by Husserlians, refutes the internalistic interpretation of Husserl and argues that neither internalism nor externalism can faithfully understand Husserl’s phenomenology because Husserl’s phenomenology does not tie to any tradition metaphysical commitment. Although I share this view, but an important text, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology is neglected by the previous debates. In the text, it does not only reexamine the two levels of ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’ in The Idea of Phenomenology, but also introduces one more level of ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’. I shall argue that by the reconsideration of the three levels of immanence and transcendence, Husserl does not disconnect ‘transcendence’, so he cannot simply be employed into internalism, on the one hand; his phenomenology provides an alternative option rather than internalism or externalism. (shrink)

In my paper I discuss Husserl’s standpoint on the existence of world. Addressing this issue the philosopher thinks of the kind of being, outer of consciousness, which is realized in the general thesis of natural attitude. The aim of phenomenological research is to reveal correlation of consciousness and the world, which according to Husserl, becomes transcendental constitution. In the course of explaining this correlation Husserl reveals that the existence of world might be recognized as a correlate of the general thesis (...) of natural attitude, which after phenomenological reduction becomes recognised as the constitutive achievement of consciousness. Transcendental idealism is interpreted in the paper as transcendental monism. Husserl not only questions the possibility of non-cognizable things-in-themselves, but also he uses some broad concept of transcendental subjectivity. The transcendental subjectivity is not opposed to the world, but it includes the world as the subjectivity’s correlate. Strictly speaking, the world is conceived as structure transcendental subjectivity, and the natural attitude might be taken as anonymous modus of transcendental life. (shrink)

The legacy of Husserlian phenomenology in France, as Paul Ricœur observes, has inspired a series of “ Husserlian heresies.” This paper seeks to shedlight on the Husserl heretics through a study of two influential thinkers who introduced Husserl’s to French readers: Levinas and Ricoeur. Their introductionsgave rise to the “standard picture” of Husserl as an Idealist. Their criticism of Husserl’s Idealism then provides the springboard into their own originalthought. What ultimately emerges from this, however, are two different visions of how (...) phenomenology should relate to its own limits. (shrink)

A pervasive interpretation among Husserl scholars is that his transcendental idealism inevitably leads to some form of solipsism. The aim of this dissertation is to defend Husserl against this charge. First, I argue that Husserl’s transcendental idealism is not a metaphysical theory. Transcendental phenomenology brackets all metaphysical presuppositions and argues from experience to the conditions of the possibility of experience. Husserl’s transcendental idealism should therefore be interpreted as a transcendental theory of knowledge. Second, it follows from the above characterization of (...) Husserl’s transcendental idealism that the responses Husserl gives to the problem of solipsism are in no way meant to prove the existence in-itself of an external world or the existence in-themselves of other transcendental egos. The purpose of Husserl’s engagement with the problem of solipsism is to explain how it is that transcendental phenomenology can account for the constitution of both the Objectivity of the world of experience and other psycho-physical subjects. The result is a set of transcendental arguments that explain the necessary conditions of the cognition of a shared external world and of other persons. I conclude with Husserl that the solipsism is a transcendental illusion, and that Husserl’s transcendental idealism does not lead to a problematic solipsism. Through a careful study of Husserl’s Nachlass, with particular attention paid to Ideas I, Formal and Transcendental Logic, and Cartesian Meditations, I lay the framework for a transcendental-epistemological interpretation of Husserl’s idealism. Applying this interpretive strategy to Husserl’s discussions of the problem of solipsism and intersubjective monadology, I argue that, for Husserl, empathy is the condition of the experience of other subjects, but that it does not allow us to experience the mental-lives of other transcendental egos. (shrink)

The present paper inquires into the dialogue between Zubiri and phenomenology through the analysis of the particular problem of intentionality. The early writings of the Spanish philosopher show that Zubiri believes that the overcoming of idealism is possible if Husserlian phenomenology is understood as objectivistic. However, in the mature writings, due to the influence of philosophy of Ortega and Heidegger, he undertakes the analysis of a great field unexplored by his masters, that is, of the reality understood as the actuality. (...) It’s not a flight to a shelter of classical realism, but rather an attempt to radicalize the phenomenological analysis, so that the intentionality could be ultimately founded on the basis of actuality. In this way, although the intentionality plays no role in the most radical field of the sentient intelligence, it is nevertheless required to act in the sphere of logos. (shrink)

Roman Ingarden’s account of the controversy realism-idealism consists in taking both Husserl’s transcendental idealism and a realistic standpoint as examples of the so-called creationism. The difference between them is that idealistic creation produces a purely intentional object, while realistic creation produces a real object endowed with an autonomous mode of existence. Such an approach toward the controversy assumes some sort of affinity between the creation of real and purely intentional objects. It has some historical background in the Judeo-Christian idea of (...) creatio ex nihilo. But in examining the ontological structure of a real object and in trying to grasp how does it come into existence, it becomes evident that in the case of creation of purely intentional objects the analogy with creatio ex nihilo is misplaced. On the other hand, the idea of creatio ex nihilo of a real object seems to transcend our understanding. Key words CREATIONISM, REALISM, IDEALISM. (shrink)

Este artículo intenta mostrar que una teoría de la constitución de los objetos del conocimiento no conlleva necesariamente una teoría idealista del conocimiento. El punto de partida es, por un lado, la reconstrucción de los principales elementos de la teoría husserliana de la constitución y, por otro, el análisis de un argumento usado por Husserl en las Investigaciones lógicas a fi n de probar la existencia de objetos ideales. En este orden de cosas, Antonio Millán-Puelles ha mostrado la posibilidad de (...) una "génesis intencional" de los objetos en el sentido del surgimiento de éstos ante la conciencia. This paper tries to show that there is at least a sense in which one can defend the idea that the constitution of objectivity is compatible with metaphysical realism. The point of departure is, on the one hand, the reconstruction of the main elements of Husserl's theory of constitution and, on the other hand, the analysis of an argument used by this philosopher in Logical Investigations to prove the existence of ideal objects. As Antonio Millán-Puelles has showed, one can talk of an "intentional genesis" of objects in the sense of their arising before consciousness. (shrink)

Le premier volume des Idées directrices pour une phénoménologie pure et une philosophie phénoménologique est le traité fondamental de la phénoménologie de Husserl. Il s’y propose d’introduire le lecteur à la nouvelle attitude méthodique de la phénoménologie – la réduction transcendantale – pour révéler la subjectivité comme vie intentionnelle constituant en soi toute réalité objective sans exception : comme subjectivité transcendantale.La réduction apparaît ainsi liée d’emblée à une thèse métaphysique, l’idéalisme transcendantal, que Husserl revendiquera dans les Méditations cartésiennes comme l’« (...) unique interprétation possible » du sens du monde.Fonder la phénoménologie sur cet idéalisme de la subjectivité absolue implique un passage continu de l’attitude d’esprit naturelle à l’attitude transcendantale. Mais comment valider l’idéalisme transcendantal à partir de l’attitude naturelle sans la reconduire au cœur même de l’attitude phénoménologique?Et si, à l’inverse, la réduction se présuppose elle-même, que vaut l’idée d’un « accès » au transcendantal? Qu’est-ce alors que ce « transcendantal », auquel on prétend ainsi accéder? (shrink)

Un des enjeux les plus importants pour la compréhension des Recherches Logiques et pour l’unité de la pensée d’Edmund Husserl réside dans la question du caractère idéaliste ou réaliste du projet philosophique de l’ouvrage. Dans cet article, je me penche sur cette question et établis, à partir d’un commentaire de passages clefs du texte, que la philosophie du jeune Husserl est bel et bien réaliste, à la fois en ce qui concerne le réal et l’idéal. Je montre aussi ce qu’il (...) y a d’erroné dans deux autres lectures de Husserl sur cette question, à savoir la lecture idéaliste et celle voulant qu’il adhère à une forme de neutralité métaphysique.One of the most important issues for the understanding of the Logical Investigations and for the unity of Edmund Husserl’s thought consists in the question of the realistic or idealistic character of its philosophical project. In this paper, I address this issue and establish on the basis of a close commentary of the text that the philosophy of the young Husserl is realistic both regarding the realm of the real and the one of the ideal. I also show what is wrong with two other readings of Husserl on this question : the idealistic and the neutral point of view readings. (shrink)

Le but de l'article est de cerner le sens précis du concept de constitution, central dans la pensée de Husserl, et ce afin de comprendre la portée ontologique de son idéalisme transcendantal: en quel sens s'agit-il d'un idéalisme? Le sujet constituant produit-il le sens et l'être des objets? On s'interroge d'abord sur le champ d'objets qui sert à Husserl de fil conducteur pour l'élaboration de ce concept: est-ce celui des objets immanents, des choses spatio-temporelles, ou des idéalités? Ayant montré que (...) la constitution de la res extensa possède une fonction paradigmatique, on met en question la possibilité de transposer ses traits essentiels à celle des idéalités formelles ou mathématiques: celles-ci ont-elles une subsistance et un caractère d'Idée kantienne analogues à ceux de la res extensa? Comment concilier leur validité omnitemporelle, qui accrédite une thèse réaliste, et le fait qu'elles apparaissent à un moment précis de l'histoire, qui semble justifier la thèse idéaliste? The aim of this article is to tackle and define the concept of constitution, which is central in Husserl's thought, in order to understand the ontological significance of its transcendental idealism: what kind of idealism is it? Does the constituting subject produce the sense and the being of objects? The first question will be to know what field of objects Husserl uses as paradigm in the construction of this concept: is it the field od immanent temporal objects, of spatiotemporal things or of idealities? Having proved that the constitution of the res extensa has a paradigmatic fonction, is it possible to transfer its main characteristics to the constitution of formal or mathematical idealities? Do the latter have the same subsistence and the same statut of Kantian ideas as the res extensa? How is possible to reconcile their omnitemporal validity with the fact that they appear at a particular time in history? (shrink)

The analyses of the mind–world relation offered by transcendental idealists such as Husserl have often been dismissed with the argument that they remain committed to an outdated form of internalism. The first move in this paper will be to argue that there is a tight link between Husserl’s transcendental idealism and what has been called phenomenological externalism, and that Husserl’s endorsement of the former commits him to a version of the latter. Secondly, it will be shown that key elements in (...) Husserl’s transcendental idealism, including his rejection of representationalism and metaphysical realism, is shared with a number of prominent contemporary defenders of an externalist view on the mind. Ultimately, however, it will be suggested that the very alternative between internalism and externalism—an alternative based on the division between inner and outer—might be inapplicable when it comes to phenomenological conceptions of the mind–world relation. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to reconstruct Patočka’s effort to give a faithful account of the phenomena, without betraying these phenomena with an objectivistic theory of perception. Only by remaining close to the things themselves will we be able to understand them as an appeal, as a call, while understanding ourselves as a response to this call. On the basis of this “ontological rehabilitation of the sensible”, which reveals Patočka’s affinity with Merleau-Ponty as much as his departure from Husserl, (...) I will criticize the idealism of Husserlian phenomenology and reconsider the a priori of correlation in a different fashion. World and subject will then find a different articulation, grounded in the ontological couple of movement and feeling. The analysis will consist of three parts: in the first part I will introduce the problematic of the opposition between phenomenological and physical space; the second part will deal with the notion of movement; the third part will concentrate on Patočka’s new account of subjectivity, the a-subjective cogito, arising precisely from the fundamental coupling of κίνησις and πάθος. Embodiment, qua original phenomenon, will be constantly present in the background of this analysis. (shrink)

This paper takes a fresh look at a classical theme in philosophical scholarship, the meaning of transcendental idealism, by contrasting Kant's and Husserl's versions thereof. I present Kant's transcendental idealism as a theory distinguishing between the world as in-itself and as given to the experiencing human being. This reconstruction provides the backdrop for Husserl's transcendental phenomenology as a brand of transcendental idealism expanding on Kant: Through the phenomenological reduction Husserl universalizes Kant's transcendental philosophy to an eidetic science of subjectivity. He (...) thereby furnishes a new sense of transcendental philosophy, rephrases the 'quid iuris?,' and provides a new conception of the thing-in-itself. What needs to be clarified is not exclusively the possibility of a priori cognition, but instead, starting much lower, the validity of objects that give themselves in experience. The thing-in-itself is not an unknowable object, but the idea of the object in all possible appearances experienced at once. In all these innovations Husserl remains committed to the basic sense of Kant’s Copernican Turn. I end with some comments on how both Kant and Husserl view the relation between theoretical and moral philosophy. (shrink)

This paper takes a fresh look at a classical theme in philosophical scholarship, the meaning of transcendental idealism, by contrasting Kant's and Husserl's versions of it. I present Kant's transcendental idealism as a theory distinguishing between the world as in-itself and as given to the experiencing human being. This reconstruction provides the backdrop for Husserl's transcendental phenomenology as a brand of transcendental idealism expanding on Kant: through the phenomenological reduction Husserl universalizes Kant's transcendental philosophy to an eidetic science of subjectivity. (...) He thereby furnishes a new sense of transcendental philosophy, rephrases the quid iuris-question, and provides a new conception of the thing-in-itself. What needs to be clarified is not exclusively the possibility of a priori cognition but, to start at a much lower level, the validity of objects that give themselves in experience. The thing-in-itself is not an unknowable object, but the idea of the object in all possible appearances experienced at once. In spite of these changes Husserl remains committed to the basic sense of Kant's Copernican Turn. I end with some comments on how both Kant and Husserl view the relation between theoretical and moral philosophy. (shrink)