Abstract
This essay is motivated by the contention that an incomplete picture of Edmund Husserl’s philosophy of feelings persists. While his standard account of feelings, as it is presented in his major works, has been extensively studied, there is another branch of his theory of feelings, which has received little attention. This other branch is Husserl’s rigorous and distinct investigations of the feeling of approval. Simply stated, the goal of this essay is to outline the evolution of this secondary branch of Husserl’s philosophy of feelings from 1896 to 1911. I highlight how Husserl’s examinations of approval – as an intention that performs both an axiological and a seemingly cognitive function – lead him to extraordinary observations about the execution of feelings and the truth of judgments.
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Notes
While all translations are mine, I provide references to the corresponding English translations where available, following a slash after the German pagination. Quotes from the Logical Investigations always come from the First Edition.
As a study of intentionality, Husserl’s analysis of an approving intention is accordingly also a study of its referent, the first-level experience as being correct. That is, Husserl also seeks to uncover how to understand the quasi-cognitive and quasi-axiological nature of the correctness of the first-level experience. While Husserl’s definition of correctness will thus be drawn out through this study of his phenomenological analyses, I can state – here at the start – that Husserl initially understands correctness as distinct from truth, because the former is not a purely intellectual achievement like the latter (see sections two and three). As is well known, the early Husserl states that truth can be realized where an intellectual categorial intuition fulfills an intellectual signitive categorial act (See Byrne 2019, 2022).
When discussing acts in a complex whole, I will often employ the terms “first” and “second” or – in line with Husserl – “primary” and “secondary”. The reader should note that this terminology does not refer to the chronological order of intentions. Instead, it is descriptive of the transcendental structures of consciousness.
For clarity, throughout this essay, I elucidate Husserl’s observations by normally using the example of approval, instead of both approval and disapproval. This is in line with Husserl’s own analysis, as he too most often discusses just approval, rather than examining both experiences. Naturally, all of Husserl’s insights about approval can be easily translated into the negative register to account for disapproval.
Approval receives its full justification, Husserl claims in 1896/97, when an evident approval ‘fulfills’ a non-evident approval. He writes that there is an “authentic and fulfilling approval [that is] opposed to a vague feeling, which arises, for instance, in the ‘thought’ of the noble and is sometimes directed this way, at other times in another way” (Husserl 2020, p. 263).
This second theory seems to be at least partially inspired by Franz Brentano’s insights concerning the correctness of an emotion. To explain this in an elementary manner; at certain points in his career, Brentano believes that an emotion (or a judgment) can be recognized as correct not because it accurately corresponds to some object. Brentano instead places priority on the experience itself; An emotion is correct when it is experienced as correct (Brentano 1922, p. 22–24/2009, p. 15–16). Wilhelm Baumgartner and Lynn Pasquerella elucidate this point well by writing, “With the standard for beauty and goodness becoming the evident judger, there is no property inhering in these objects which causes the emotion and in virtue of which our acts of love or hatred become correct or incorrect. The concepts of the good and the beautiful can be derived from emotions experienced as correct” (Baumgartner & Pasquerella 2004, p. 229). And at another point, they write that for Brentano, “When a good desire, love, or will is ‘correctly characterized’ it becomes evident that its intention is worthy of desire, love, or will” (Baumgartner & Pasquerella 2004, p. 227. See, Chisholm 1966, 1982, p. 50–51). Husserl’s second theory of the justified approval of a judgment appears to directly draw from Brentano’s ideas. Husserl claims that there is no property of the judgment, which justifies my approval of it. Rather, the justification for the approval is to be found in the experience of the feeling – the approval – itself. The feeling of approval is correct when it is experienced as correct. To be further noted is that Husserl’s study of approval is engaged with Brentano’s theory of emotions. As I cannot discuss the complex and significant influence that Brentano had on the development of this secondary branch of feelings, I refer the reader to Chisholm 1966; Geniusas 2014, p. 9–13; Rollinger 1999, p. 40–43.
For this and the following quotes, I provide the original German text in the footnotes. Here, Husserl writes: “Am einfachsten ist also die Sache, wenn wir die Evidenz in die Billigung ausschließlich verlegten. Ein Urteil ist wahr, wenn es billigenswert ist. Die Erfahrung davon machen wir in der evidenten Billigung“.
“Wir stellen dann das Urteil objektiv gegenüber, und daran knüpft sich ein wohl geschiedener und auf es bezogener Akt der Billigung, der einen eigentümlichen Charakter hat und dem Urteil selbst den entsprechend relativen Charakter verleiht, eben den der evidenten Wahrheit“.
"Diese evidente Billigung ist das, was wir innere Klarheit, Einsicht und dgl. nennen“.
Husserl is not entirely consistent regarding these descriptive definitions. At a later point in the text, without any further clarification, he simply writes that “[a]pproval is an emotional act, and really a liking of the correctness of the act” (Husserl 2020, p. 315. Emphasis in the original).
Because Husserl here correctly distinguishes between value and truth, his overall theory of approval from BSG does not contravene his standard account of feelings as (non-)objectifying intentions. In other words, in 1911, the primary and secondary branches of Husserl’s phenomenology of feelings – while remaining distinct – are not directly at odds.
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Byrne, T. Husserl’s Other Phenomenology of Feelings: Approval, Value, and Correctness. Husserl Stud 39, 285–299 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-023-09333-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-023-09333-9