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Phenomenology and Phenomenalism: Ernst Mach and the Genesis of Husserl’s phenomenology

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Abstract

How do we reconcile Husserl’s repeated criticism of Mach’s phenomenalism almost everywhere in his work with the leading role that Husserl seems to attribute to Mach in the genesis of his own phenomenology? To answer this question, we shall examine, first, the narrow relation that Husserl establishes between his phenomenological method and Mach’s descriptivism. Second, we shall examine two aspects of Husserl’s criticism of Mach: the first concerns phenomenalism and Mach’s doctrine of elements, while the second concerns the principle of economy of thought, which Husserl closely associates with a form of psychologism in his Logical Investigations. Our working hypothesis is that the apparent contradictory comments of Husserl regarding Mach’s positivism can be partially explained by the double status he confers to his own phenomenology—as a philosophical program radically opposed to positivism, and as a method akin to Mach’s descriptivism.

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Notes

  1. Husserl, Hua IX, p. 302 (Amsterdam Lectures, p. 213).

  2. Husserl, Hua XIII, p. 180 (Basic Problems of Phenomenology, p. 76). These two passages are not the only ones in which Husserl establishes a link between the phenomenological method and Mach’s descriptivism, as we will see below. In the winter semester of 1903–1904, Husserl gave a lecture on the new writings in natural science, and Mach’s book, The Analysis of Sensations, was on the program (see Schuhmann 1977, p. 76). Mach’s book was also an important topic in Husserl’s lectures entitled “Philosophische Übungen mit einigem Anschluß an E. Machs Analyse der Empfindungen” in the summer semester of 1911 (cf. Husserl’s letter to Vaihinger dated May 24, 1911, in Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd 5, pp 211–212).

  3. Worth mentioning here is Lübbe’s (1960) pioneering paper, “Positivismus und Phänomenologie: Husserl und Mach,” pp 161–184. According to Lübbe, Mach belongs more to the phenomenological tradition than to logical positivism, in that, well before Husserl, Mach “reached the level of phenomenological inquiry” (p. 181). Another important contribution to that topic is Sommer’s (1985) book, Husserl und der frühe Positivismus (Frankfurt a. Main, Klostermann), in which he develops Husserl’s relation to Avenarius’s conception of the natural world more specifically.

  4. Kirchhoff (1877).

  5. Mach (1901).

  6. E. Mach, “Über das Prinzip der Vergleichung in der Physik,” already published in 1894 (Leipzig, Vogel), and reprinted in Mach (1903, p. 266–289).

  7. G. R. Kirchhoff, op. cit. p. 1.

  8. Carl Stumpf seems to have been approached to occupy Brentano’s chair, but he rather opted for the prestigious chair in Berlin, which he occupied from 1894 until the end of his career. F. Hillebrand, another student of Brentano who studied with Marty, Mach, and Hering in Prague between 1886 and 1892, was probably also a candidate for this chair. According to Wieser (1950, pp. 38–39), R. Zimmermann, who was the only professor of the Faculty to hold a chair, strongly supported Mach’s candidature; like that of F. Jodl, who succeeded him in 1896 and who made the promise to eradicate all the so-called Brentanoten.

  9. In the correspondence between Mach and Brentano in May 1895 (in Brentano 1988), Brentano welcomed the announcement of Mach’s appointment in Vienna. We know that Brentano had a keen interest in Mach’s doctrine of the elements as well as in Mach’s Erkenntnis und Irrtum as evidenced by his notes dictated in Florence during the winter of 1905–1906. On Brentano’s remarks on Mach’s doctrine of elements, cf. Brentano’s paper (1979, pp. 93–103) “Von der Analyse der psychologischen Tonqualitäten in ihre eigentlich ersten Elemente,” which he prepared for the Fifth International Congress of Psychology in Rome in 1905 and in which he discusses the doctrines of Stumpf and Mach. Note also that in 1896, one year after his arrival in Vienna, Mach was invited to attend the 3rd International Congress of Psychology held at Munich and presided by Stumpf and T. Lipps. He refused the invitation because of his health, and Brentano (1897, pp. 110–133) replaced him and addressed the theme of sensations. Stumpf pronounced the opening discourse entitled “Leib und Seele,” in which he sharply criticizes Mach’s phenomenalism. Mach (2001, pp. 118–126) responded to Stumpf’s objections in a paper entitled “Sensory Elements and Scientific Concepts,”). Finally, it is worth mentioning the dissertation of Stumpf’s student Musil published in 1908 under the title Beitrag zur Beurteilung der Lehren Machs.

  10. Husserl and Schuhmann (1994, pp. 23–24).

  11. Riehl, letter to Mach from May 26, 1901 published in J. Thiel (ed.), op. cit., p. 292.

  12. Mach wrote: “Unter den von Ihnen Genannten möchte ich mir von Husserl das meiste versprechen,” quoted in Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd. IX, p. 24.

  13. On Boltzmann’s close relationship to Brentano, cf. Blackmore (1995).

  14. Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd. I, p. 107.

  15. Husserl, Review of Mach's (1897, pp. 241–244).

  16. Ibid., p. 243.

  17. Husserl (1897, p. 242).

  18. Mach, Vorlesungen, p. 269.

  19. Ibid., p. 269.

  20. Mach, The Analysis of Sensations, p. 369.

  21. Mach, The Analysis of Sensations, pp. 17–18.

  22. Husserl, Hua IX, p. 350.

  23. Husserl, Amsterdam Lectures, p. 211.

  24. Notice what he wrote about Avenarius, which applies to phenomenalism in general: “The beginning [in description] in Avenarius is good, but he got stuck,” Basic Problems of Phenomenology, p. 111.

  25. Ibid., p. 191.

  26. On the origin of the phenomenological method in Mach and Hering, cf. Stumpf (1917), Bühler (1927) and many of Husserl’s students during the period of Göttingen such as Hofmann (1913), Jaensch (1927), Katz (1911), and Linke (1929).

  27. Cf. Turner, R. S. In the Eye’s Mind: Vision and the Helmholtz-Hering Controversy.

  28. Cf. Gerlach and Sepp (1994, p. 184).

  29. Husserl (1983).

  30. C. von Ehrenfels “On Gestalt Qualities;” on Ehrenfels debt to Mach, cf. Mulligan and Smith (1988, pp. 124–157).

  31. In his «Vorlesung über den Begriff der Zahl (WS 1889/90)», Husserl (2004, p. 298) wrote: “Now, how does such a symbolic presentation come together? Let us make a random composition of dots on the blackboard or think a number of dots on a die and the like. What is the primarily given? Well, a certain configuration of the dots”. A unitary intuition is present in which we can notice this Gestalt moment that gives the characteristic impression to the whole phenomenon. This forms the unitary frame for the apprehending activity: we apprehend one element, then proceed to another, then to another again. The outer frame now, the Gestalt, the unitariness of the intuition is what spares us the effort to undertake the real collection and which makes possible a symbolic presentation of a multiplicity that is defined by this intuition ».

  32. Husserl, Philosophy of Arithmetic, p. 211.

  33. Stumpf (1886, pp. 947–948).

  34. H. Lübbe, op. cit., p. 169.

  35. Mach, The Analysis of Sensations, p. XII.

  36. Husserl, Hua XIX/1, p. 7 (LI/1, p. 166).

  37. Husserl (LI/2, p. 89).

  38. Cf. Fisette, “Descriptive Psychology and Natural Sciences: Husserl’s early Criticism of Brentano.”.

  39. Husserl, Hua XIX/1, p. 401 (LI/2, p. 106).

  40. Husserl, Hua XIX/1, p. 401 (LI/2, p. 106).

  41. Husserl (2004, p. 24).

  42. Husserl, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, p. 111.

  43. Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, p. 166.

  44. Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, p. 166.

  45. Husserl, Hua XIX/1, p. 370 (LI/2, pp. 90–91).

  46. Husserl, LI/2, p. 91.

  47. Husserl, Prolegomena, LI/1, p. 101.

  48. Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd. VI, pp. 255–256.

  49. Husserl, LI/1 , p. 123.

  50. Mach, “The Economical Nature of Physical Inquiry,” pp. 194–195.

  51. Husserl, LI/1, p. 126.

  52. Husserl, LI/1, p. 126.

  53. Husserl, LI/1, p. 126.

  54. Husserl, “On the Logic of Signs (Semiotics),” in Hua XII, pp. 340–400.

  55. Husserl, Hua XII, p. 373.

  56. Husserl, Hua XII, p. 350.

  57. Husserl, Philosophy of Arithmetic, pp. 229–230.

  58. Husserl, Hua XII, p. 364.

  59. Husserl, Hua XII, p. 371.

  60. Husserl, Hua XII, p. 359.

  61. Husserl, Hua XII, p. 370. Husserl refers to Hume on this “very interesting metaphysical fact,” namely, that it is “the general wisdom of nature to ensure an activity of the soul, so essential for the preservation of mankind, by a mechanical instinct (…) which appears from the beginning of life and thought, and which is independent of the motivations of reason (…) possible only when the development has reached its maturity. Moderns may prefer to explain this teleological feature of our nature by Darwinian principles.” Husserl, Hua XII, pp. 358–359.

  62. Husserl, LI/1, p. 133.

  63. Husserl, LI/1, p. 131.

  64. In the introduction to the second Investigation, Husserl clearly indiçates that his theory of knowledge differs from that of classical empiricism in that it “recognizes” the 'ideal' as a condition for the possibility of objective knowledge in general, and does not ‘interpret it away' in psychologistic fashion.” LI/1, p. 238.

  65. Husserl, LI/1, p. 319.

  66. Mach, Mechanics, p. 582.

  67. Mach, Mechanics, p. 582.

  68. Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd. VI, p. 255.

  69. Cornelius (1897, p. 7).

  70. Husserl, LI/1, p. 303.

  71. Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd. 6, p. 256.

  72. Mit Rücksicht darauf, daß die rein-logische und practisch-logische, daß die erkenntniskritische und methodologische Betrachtungsweise sich gar nicht stören, darf ich nun mal sagen, daß zwischen unseren beiderseitigen Untersuchungen im Wesen gar kein Widerstreit besteht”. Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd. 6, p. 257.

  73. Mach, in Husserl, Briefwechsel, Bd. 6 p. 258. However, in a letter to Jerusalem from June 8, 1913, Mach wrote: “I became acquainted with Husserl through his Logische Untersuchungen. I cannot discover in it anything other than psychological investigations. Nor can I understand how it could be regarded as anything else” (Blackmore et al. 2001, p. 222); cf. also chapter X (pp. 211–235) on the dispute between Jerusalem and Husserl.

  74. Husserl, Formal and Trancendental Logic, p. 166.

  75. Husserl, Ideas I, p. 39.

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Correspondence to Denis Fisette.

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Two different versions of this paper have been read, one at L’École normale supérieure in Paris and the other at the University of Liege. A longer version was published in Portuguese under the title “Fenomenologia e fenomenismo em Husserl e Mach” in Studia Scientiae (São Paulo, v. 7, n. 4, 2009, pp. 535–576). My thanks to J. Benoist, R. Brisart, G. R. Haddock and M. Sacrini, and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its financial support.

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Fisette, D. Phenomenology and Phenomenalism: Ernst Mach and the Genesis of Husserl’s phenomenology. Axiomathes 22, 53–74 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-011-9159-7

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