Abstract

This article presents some of the main topics in Husserl's descriptive analyses of volitional consciousness which Husserl worked out in research manuscripts between 1910 and 1914. Husserl was well acquainted with the psychologies of will of W. James and Chr. von Ehrenfels. But in opposition to James and von Ehrenfels, Husserl defended a strictly nonreductionist conception of willing. According to Husserl, the acts of willing are necessarily founded on intellectual and emotional acts but they can never be reduced to these acts. The article deals with four topics in Husserl's phenomenology of will : 1. The founding of the acts of willing. For Husserl, willing always implies the emotive act of valuing a future event that is represented as practically possible. The willing itself is the practical positing. Husserl devoted special attention to the relation between wishing and willing. 2. The types of willing. Husserl distinguishes three essentially different types or forms of volitional positing: the fiat, the volitional action and the plan or resolution. 3. The objectivities of the will. This is the difficult question of the constitution of the volitional-practical determinations. In his research manuscripts, Husserl for the most part limits himself to the analysis of the constitution of action. 4. The relation between will and inclination. Husserl here deals with the phenomena of volitional passivity. The question arises whether inclination and striving are not general characteristics of all acts of consciousness. The problem of the relationship between the will and inclination leads to the problem of the demarcation of the sphere of the will