Husserl: Realism

Although Husserlian phenomenology appears to require that practitioners bracket all metaphysical questions and claims, this requirement runs against the evidence of experience in which objects themselves are presented as constituents of experience. Moreover, to completely bracket metaphysical considerations would suggest that phenomenology is compatible with metaphysical views it should in principle deny. Nonetheless, permitting metaphysical claims threatens to contravene the critical limits of phenomenology, to invite claims that would require a perspective different in kind than our own to verify. These (...) tensions raise an important question, namely, what are the metaphysical implications of the phenomenologically intuitive claim that objects themselves are constituents of experience? To answer this question, I draw on a broad swath of thought on transcendental idealism and phenomenology. I argue that a modest metaphysics of appearance is warranted within the critical limits of Husserlian phenomenology. Through discussing and addressing the problems that typically plague transcendental arguments, I show that Husserlian phenomenology permits stronger claims about objects of experience than deflationary accounts allow but does not permit claims about intrinsic properties allowed by some forms of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Husserlian phenomenology develops around Husserl’s theory of the complex structure of intentionality, featuring key notions of noesis, noema, horizon, and the constitution of objects of consciousness. By virtue of the structures of noema and horizon found in our experience, things in the world around us are said to be “constituted” in consciousness (along with self and other). The present essay explores intentionality and constitution as modeled in lines of interpretation that extend classical Husserlian phenomenology. The resulting “semantic” approach to intentionality (...) draws on the ontology of consciousness, meaning, and horizon, unfolding a “constitutive” realism whereby our consciousness takes its place in the world beyond our consciousness, yet we experience things in the world around us by virtue of noema and horizon. The “logical” and the “transcendental” aspects of phenomenal intentionality appear in due course, within a formal model of intentionality, a model taking shape within a meta-phenomenological and meta-metaphysical framework. (shrink)

Whether Edmund Husserl is a realist or idealist or metaphysically neutral is still often debated among his commentators. Instead of making an over-generalized claim about Husserl’s thought, this study only focuses on intentionality theory to know toward which Husserl is metaphysically committed in that theory. This study, therefore, aims to metaphysically reconstruct Husserl’s theory of intentionality and then prove that the theory is realist, not idealist nor metaphysically neutral. By using the textual analysis method, this study finds four important points (...) in Husserl’s works regarding intentionality theory. Firstly, in the Husserlian framework of intentionality, consciousness always intends its objects through the mediation of a certain meaning. Secondly, objects toward which consciousness is directed are transcendent and independent from consciousness. Thirdly, a single object can be intended by consciousness through different meanings according to the perspective that determines the intention. Therefore, fourthly, Husserl’s theory of intentionality can be categorized as one version of perspectival realism. (shrink)

Husserl's departure for the rejecting of the duality (subject and object) inherent in the nature of the Western metaphysical tradition is the transcendental structure of consciousness. Hence the innate foundation of consciousness is intention. The intention is the act of consciousness and practical objectification; That is, by resorting to methodological and Noesis steps, objects from the type of perception can emerge and are included in the consciousness of the mind. Therefore, in addition to sensory intuition, consciousness has the power of (...) intuition of essences. Therefore, consciousness is always associated with its object. In this way, Husserl's methodological axis in phenomenology is the return to objects, and this return is provided by the power of human comprehension and makes the world its intention's object. This article seeks to explain how the phenomenon of the world is made in the realm of consciousness, as well as how the pure subject and advanced mind in the face of the objective world as the only method of understanding and receiving the universe can be an objectifying action. (shrink)

Neste artigo pretendo evidenciar como a relação entre sujeito anímico e sujeito espiritual é fundamental para a compreensão da intersubjetividade e do mundo da vida (Lebenswelt). Em Ideias II, Husserl explica como, a partir do eu, sujeito e objeto são constituídos no mundo: natureza, alma e espírito. Estes três estratos do sendo são conhecidos a partir da atitude teorética e da atitude espiritual e, no processo, se dá a explicitação do eu. Numa atitude teorética, temos constituição da natureza, para o (...) que o corpo (Körper/Leib) é fundamental. Em seguida, a constituição de objetos de natureza anímica, humana ou animal, incluindo a autopercepção. Assumindo a atitude espiritual, o outro é percebido (Urpräsenz), inicialmente, como corpo junto às coisas e, ao lado desta percepção, há uma apercepção (Appräsenz) dos horizontes co-dados. Há uma identidade entre o corpo alheio e o meu, é o momento da empatia (Einfühlung). O mundo constituído a partir de uma atitude naturalista ou teórica é uma redução do mundo circundante (Umwelt), mas o mundo cotidiano da atitude personalista ou espiritual lhe antecede, o mundo vital (Lebenswelt). É, portanto, através da atitude personalista ou espiritual, que se constitui uma comunidade de sujeitos espirituais. (shrink)

Scheler had always emphasized that he had developed his phenomenological method independently from Husserl. Even though references to Husserl in works such as Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik are surprisingly sparse, the critical remarks are balanced with ones that remain largely appreciative of Husserl’s philosophical project. This, however, seems to have changed significantly in Scheler’s later works. The following paper investigates Scheler’s position with respect to Husserl in the posthumously published work Idealismus - Realismus from the (...) year 1928. In critiquing the binary opposing positions of “Bewusstseinsidealismus” on the one hand and “kritischer Realismus” on the other, Scheler explicitly includes Husserl among those who are not able to solve the so-called problem of reality. He argues that Husserl, rather than investigating what we mean by this moment of reality and the acts through which reality is given to us, is content with the vague and erroneous statement that being real means “to have a place in time.” Husserl, according to Scheler, loses reality completely. Reconstructing Scheler’s position on reality not only gives insight into Scheler’s interpretation of Husserl but also sheds light on Scheler’s central philosophical concerns in his later work. (shrink)

Sesemann’s philosophy is similar to Hartmann’s in many respects. They were both influenced by the Marburg Neo-Kantians and they both discovered phenomenology as an alternative to Neo-Kantian idealism. However, the reception of phenomenology in their works is critical. Observing from a realist standpoint, they understood phenomenology as a method for describing objects of experience and their a priori structures. Hartmann described his philosophical position as a “critical ontology,” whereas Sesemann called himself a “critical realist.” Hartmannn and Sesemann understand Husserl’s phenomenology (...) as the practice of intuitive knowledge, which can be contrasted to conceptual construction. Both authors seek to join intuition and conceptual knowledge using the concept of dialectics or the genesis of knowing. However, their positions differ concerning the relationship between intuition and construction. Hartmann emphasizes the perspective of the natural sciences as a necessary element of knowledge, and Sesemann criticizes naturalistic scientific knowledge as objectifying and therefore insufficient to understand consciousness and values. I first discuss how Hartmann understands the dialectical tension between givenness and conceptual construction. Then, I analyze how Sesemann criticizes phenomenological idealism. Finally, I discuss the genesis of knowledge and the realist interpretation of phenomenological intuition in Sesemann’s Philosophy. (shrink)

Quentin Meillassoux first book, After Finitude, argues that most of the post-Kantian philosophies, including phenomenology, are guilty of inconsistency, since none of them is able to give account of the ancestral phenomena. The incorrigible phenomenologist is accused to make it impossible to understand scientific statements about some ancient past, that would be prior to the emergence of life, and thus escaping from any kind of givenness. However, we think that this critic does not achieve its purpose, for four main reasons (...) : the fact that signitive intentions can remain meaningful without being fulfilled by intuitions ; the gifts of the imaginative intentions which, through the example of fiction, open up possibilities, for ancestral statements, of some quasi-fulfillment ; the « thematization », by most of Husserl’s disciples, of the diachronic nature of some events, the temporality of which differs tremendously with that of the inner perception’s one, the latter sustaining the intentional correlation ; its interest for an entirely different scientific field, to which phenomenology borrows some notions, and more generally its procedures : quantum physics. (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)

Husserlova fenomenologie je široce považována za filosofii idealistickou, tento text si klade za cíl prostřednictvím analýzy klíčového epistemologického pojmu, tj. objektu, představit empirickou stránku Husserlovy filosofie. Výzkumem především prvních a posledních Husserlových spisů (které jsou věnovány problematice založení logiky) představí nutnou součást fenomenologického pojetí předmětu – jeho vnější aspekt. Tento aspekt je sice začleněn do obecného fenomenologického pojetí poznání, které prima facie vykazuje znaky idealismu, avšak prostřednictvím zkoumání níže uvedených konceptů by měla být objasněna pevnost vazby, kterou je toto pojetí (...) propojeno s vnějškem. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe guiding question of this comparative study is the relation between transcendental theory and common-sense realism: how to understand their compatibility, but also possible tensions between the two. This question concerns, in a broader sense, the relation between philosophy and natural life, or more precisely, what philosophy possibly can and cannot do for natural life. In the following discussion, I first introduce the idealism-realism controversy in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. I then move on to McDowell’s theory and look into a significant (...) convergence between the two philosophies, namely, their insistence on the “unboundedness” of subjectivity, and I clarify how this shared viewpoint makes their proposals compatible with common-sense realism. In a third section, I elaborate the relation between a transcendental and a natural stance by turning to Husserl’s method of phenomenological reduction. In the end, by attending to the anti-naturalism of Husserl and McDowell, I wish to shed s... (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)

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.

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)

It is a curious paradox that most of the original philosophers who were inspired by Husserl were realists, whereas Husserl himself was, or became, an idealist; an idealist, moreover, of a particularly extreme kind, closer, it would seem, to Fichte than to Kant. Such philosophers were not just phenomenologists who happened also to be realists; they found inspiration for their realism in Husserl’s phenomenology. Their realism, it is true, is closely bound up with their rejection of psychologism, a rejection inspired (...) by Husserl’s critique of psychologistic accounts of logic in his Prolegomena to Pure Logic. But there is nothing particularly phenomenological about this critique. It consists mainly of arguments designed to show the absurdities and contradictions to which psychologism leads, arguments whose acceptance involves no particular commitment to phenomenology. The parts of Logical Investigations which are most significant in the development of a specifically phenomenological conception of philosophy are Investigations V and VI. These contain ideas which are likely to be congenial to a realist. These are the intentionality of consciousness; the rejection of representationalist accounts of perception; an account of the validity of the objective reference of modes of consciousness in terms of the notion of evidence. (shrink)

ACCORDING TO HUSSERL, THE REVOLUTION brought about by the new mathematical science of the seventeenth century was primarily an ontological one: a shift in the conception of the real. That Husserl opposes the new Galilean-Cartesian ontology is clear. This much is evident from the potent rhetoric of the Crisis declaiming Galileo as an "entdeckender und verdeckender Genius", forgetful of the lifeworld, failing to grasp what the mathematical-empirical method he brought to such a degree of perfection actually achieves. Indeed, even without (...) the ringing Crisis passages, one could already expect that Husserl, the phenomenologist, would oppose the Platonizing scientific realism of a Galileo or a Descartes. However, Husserl's critique of Galileo poses many puzzling questions, questions which are not directly addressed in the Crisis, and which can be answered only in terms of the broader position outlined by Husserl elsewhere. To whit: what is the more precise content of Husserl's objections against Galileo, and how are these justified? Further, if scientific realism is to be rejected on phenomenological grounds, does this imply that a phenomenological approach is necessarily instrumentalist? Finally, what solution does Husserl's thought offer to the realism/instrumentalism debate? (shrink)

In an article which appeared in The Philosophical Review Karl Ameriks argues in favour of the rather surprising thesis that Husserl, his own statements and a host of commentators and critics notwithstanding, was a realist, i.e., a philosopher who held that “there are physical objects which exist outside consciousness and are not wholly dependent on it”. More recently, Harrison Hall, in his contribution to the volume Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science, has argued that in Husserl's view there is no legitimate (...) philosophical issue between realism and idealism, because philosophy is concerned exclusively with meanings. Both interpretations are careful, documenting each point with texts, and contain several elements that are illuminating. Yet they are fundamentally mistaken as regards their main thesis, as I shall argue in this paper. (shrink)

Tragesser intends to show that Husserl in his phenomenological investigation of the foundations of logic and mathematics undercuts the basis on which the problem of realism and antirealism in epistemology and the philosophy of logic is traditionally conceived. Husserl does this, Tragesser contends, by attempting "to purge logical thinking of [the] assumption [of the law of the excluded middle] while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of psychologism". Central to this investigation is Husserl's disclosure of the noema, the intentional (...) correlate of an act of consciousness, as the thought-component of acts of thinking. Thus, phenomenology, on Tragesser's account, is the descriptive theory of "the domain of all possible thoughts and thus also all possible entities which can be thought". (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to show and document the husserlian concern to validate a position of ontological realism, and the inappropriateness of his method to this task. It is precisley the scientific charachter of his philosophy that drew Husserl to idealism and solipsism, despite his original intentions and motivations.

This paper begins by tracing the Hobbesian roots of `representationalism:' the thesis that reality is accessible to mind only through representations, images, signs or appearances that indicate a reality lying `behind' them (e.g. as unperceived causes of perceptions). This is linked to two kinds of absolute realism: the `naive' scientific realism of British empiricism, which provoked Berkeley's idealist reaction, and the noumenal realism of Kant. I argue that Husserl defined his position against both Berkeleyian idealism and these forms of absolute (...) realism by way of two arguments: a pragmatic argument against skepticism about the external world (as described by Karl Ameriks) and a distinctively phenomenological argument against the representationalism implied by absolute realism. (shrink)