Agent Intellect and Primal Sensibility In Husserl

Abstract

This paper is in many ways a conversation with Iso Kern about his profound meditations and monumental research on Husserl’s theory of intellect. For the purpose of this conference it centers on several references to the Aristotelian-Scholastic term, agent intellect, which we find in Ideas II. These rich texts, however, have parallels elsewhere in other working papers of Husserl, both published and unpublished.¹ In this particular case we have the special problem of deciding why Husserl “out of the blue, ” as it were, employs this Aristotelian term in a context which resonates with issues which are specifically Kantian and Husserlian. I will propose that whereas the Kantian problematic is central there are indeed aspects of the Aristotelian theory in Husserl’s thought and the use of the Aristotelian terms in these contexts is quite appropriate. Whereas Husserl would seem to share in the nineteenth century critique of a“faculty psychology” and thus of certain versions of “intellect, ” “agent and passive intellect, ” etc. in favor of an empiricist and associationist account of the genesis of the various functions and achievements of mind, the wondrous achievements of passive synthesis as well as the relatively distinctive achievements of the I or center of acts occasion meditations which are reminiscent of ancient themes in the Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic tradition.