Abstract

One of Husserl's abiding concerns was the nature of categoriality. Broadly speaking, categorial forms are those ideal structures which give shape to judgments. Since these judgment-forms are usually considered in abstraction from "matter," they have traditionally been thought the preserve of logic. Husserl's analysis of form moves beyond logic and into ontology. ;Aspects of Husserl's teaching on categoriality have been discussed in the literature, although not always adequately. There has, however, been little attempt to view it as a whole. The failure to do so is understandable. Husserl approaches form in a variety of ways; he does not propose a "system." Yet his teaching does constitute a unity, and therein lies its importance. This dissertation, drawing on works early and late, gathers into one Husserl's various approaches to form. ;The first chapter discusses the ideality of form by examining Husserl's early refutation of psychologism. Husserl employs a retortive argument, the only sort possible because the forms are "self-evident." We "see" them. The chapter also introduces the breadth of his form-concept. ;The second chapter considers the availability of formal structures in language. Through "formalization" a "pure logical grammar" is developed. Formalization shows that the meaning of form is inseparable from what it informs: Husserl both is and is not a Platonist. ;The argument against psychologism, in mentioning "insight," points to, but does not carry out, an overcoming of the Kantian view of logical principles as derivative from the mind alone. In the third chapter, we present Husserl's doctrine of "categorial intuition." This approach to the forms advances beyond language. It displays their role in the presencing of categorially structured objects. ;In the final chapter we draw together the two main accounts of form . The distinction between these two arises through a shift in "attitude" in the knowing subject. The appeal to differences in attitudes implies a teleological understanding of form. The teleology of form is best seen in those analyses which set forth categoriality as genetically constituted. Genetic phenomenology advances beyond Husserl's earlier, static doctrine of categorial intuition by putting the forms "in motion."