Abstract
The article explores a gradual refinement of the notion of reflection in Husserlian phenomenology. In his early period, Husserl takes phenomenological reflection to attain adequate evidence, since its object is self-given in an absolute and complete manner. However, this conception of reflection does not remain unchanged. Husserl later realizes that immanent perception or phenomenological reflection also involves a certain horizonality and naivety that has to do with its temporal nature and must be queried in a further critical, apodictic reflection. Focusing more on the notion of apodicticity than adequacy, Husserl subsequently ascribes a new methodological role to reflection: instead of a mere epistemic warrant that guarantees for us the ultimate truth of our experiential life once and for all, phenomenological reflection ensures the strictness of phenomenology insofar as it entails an ethical-existential dimension as the norm of a life-form where the subject pursues full self-understanding and self-justification.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Unless otherwise noted, quotes from Husserliana are translated from the original German text by the author. I would like to thank Steven Crowell for his suggestions on the translation.
For Husserl, “phenomenology” in the strict sense is a transcendental project. Nevertheless, he also talks about “descriptive” phenomenology or “phenomenological psychology,” which can be seen as an early stage of the full-blown transcendental phenomenology (Hua IX, pp. 277–278; Hua VIII, pp. 128f; Hua I, pp. 70f). Such a descriptive phenomenology aims at a pure description of one’s world-directed intentional life, but it is not yet transcendental, since it does not refrain from the positing of the cogito as a region of being parallel, and connected, to the outside world.
Admittedly, in Ideas I Husserl himself also talks of a “residuum”, which gives the impression that he is somehow advocating a kind of foundationalism. But this is not what Husserl actually means to say. In a later text from 1924 (now published as an appendix to Hua VIII), he criticizes his early use of phrases such as “residuum”: “it easily misleads us into believing that the world henceforth drops out as a phenomenological theme and instead only the ‘subjective’ acts, the modes of appearance that relate themselves to the world, remain the theme” (Hua VIII, p. 432).
In the period of Ideas I, apodictic evidence is not an important concept for Husserl and he defines it as relating to the seeing of an essence, in contrast to which is the assertoric seeing of something individual (Hua III/I, p. 317). However, it seems that from the early 1920s on, Husserl reaches a new understanding of the notion. Apodictic evidence then denotes a type of evidence that is indubitable (Hua VIII, p. 35).
In his article “Apodictic Evidence”, Hans Berhard Schmid looks into five major works (stages) of Husserl from 1900 to 1936, and his result well supports the observation of this article. Schmid discerns that “Husserl’s concern with ‘evidence’ remains more or less on the same level of intensity throughout his work, whereas the motive of ‘adequacy’ continually loses its importance. Apodicticity, on the other hand, becomes more important in the course of the development of Husserl’s thought, its graph peaks on the Cartesian Meditations” (Schmid 2001, p. 223).
“Das immanent Wahrgenommene ist frei von allen Vorbehalten, was da wahrgenommen, ist wirklich Selbsterfasstes; es ist in eins mit dem Erfassen das Original selbst da. So lautet wenigstens der erste Ansatz.”
“Originale Selbsterfassung eine notwendige Struktur hat und in sich wieder Gradualität hat, ohne die es gar nicht denkbar ist, und gerade hier in der Kritik der immanenten Wahrnehmung ist die Stelle, es ursprünglich zu lernen.”
According to Husserl, evidence can have various degrees, depending on how much a given intention is fulfilled. However, it is not correct to conclude from this that this necessarily correlates with degrees of certainty. A thing perception, for instance, presents its object in full certainty in spite of the fact that it is not adequate; that is to say, one yields to the presence of a real being without the slightest inkling that it may turn out to be questionable later.
Merleau-Ponty calls such an immediate evidence “perceptual faith”. See Merleau-Ponty 1968/1992, p. 28.
“Eine evidente Gewissheit ist apodiktisch, wenn es unmöglich ist, sie in der Einheit eines Bewusstseins so fortgesetzt zu phantasieren oder so umgebildet, dass, während sie selbst bleibt, wie sie als aktuelle Gewissheit ist oder war, zugleich die Möglichkeit des Zweifelhaft- oder Nichtseiend zur Gegebenheit kommt.”
In Husserl’s view, apodicticity is something that the phenomenologist can reach, whereas adequacy is more of an ideal goal. In a text written in 1925, Husserl explores the relation between apodicticity and adequacy. There he distinguishes between “apodictic conviction of being” (apodiktische Überzeugung vom Sein) and “that of being-so” (und solche vom Sosein) and argues that one can be apodictically certain about the being of the object without at the same time having apodictic evidence of its content. “The object can be apprehended in ‘absolute’ indubitability, apodictic, and yet the content of this being can be dubitable: it is not given as completely determined, it is perhaps given presumptively in a broad scale, without disrupting the apodicticity.” Accordingly, the transcendental subjectivity given in phenomenological reflection is apodictic in the sense that it is “the ‘style’ of life”, the “subject of a life with endlessly open horizon” (Hua XXXV, pp. 410–411).
“Ich übe nun naiv transzendentales Erfahren und Denken, und werde ich dessen selbst inne, so geschieht es, wie ich durch Reflexion sehe, in einer Reflexion höherer Stufe, in der ich die Anonymität des transzendentalen Zuschauers erfasse.”
In Cartesian Meditations, after stating the “principle of evidence”, Husserl adds the following: “Indeed, even then I must also always reflect upon the pertinent evidence; I must examine its range and make evident to myself, how far that evidence, how far its perfection, the actual giving of the affairs themselves, extends. Where this is still wanting, I must not claim any final validity, but must account my judgment as, at best, a possible intermediate stage on the way to final validity” (Hua I, p. 54/13). Apparently, Husserl now realizes that a single (piece of) evidence can never suffice for a phenomenological project; rather, it must be justified in yet a further evidence. This finally makes evidence a methodological norm.
“Ich muss also meinen Weg selbst, oder deutlicher: mein meditierendes Tun selbst, sofern es erkennendes Tun ist, einer Kritik und einer Rechtfertigung unterziehen.” “So ist notwendig die Methode des Zickzack: Ich finde absolute gerechtfertigte Prinzipien in einem naiv evidenten Verfahren und gehe dann zurück und rechtfertige durch sie die vorangegangene Meditation.”
“Der Mensch—das sage jetzt immer der Einzelmensch oder auch der ‘Mensch im Großen’, die vergemeinschaftete Menschheit—der Mensch, sage ich, darf nicht dabei bleiben, sozusagen naiv in den Tag hineinleben. Er muss einmal ethisch erwachen, sich besinnen und jenen radikalen Entschluss fassen, durch den er sich selbst erst zum wahren, dem ethischen Menschen macht. Der Entschluss geht dahin, mit allen Kräften nach einem neuartigen Leben zu streben, einem Leben aus einem absolut klaren, sich vor sich selbst absolut rechtfertigenden Gewissen.”
In his article “Die Wissenschaft von der Lebenswelt”, Gadamer writes of Husserl: “Der tiefe Ernst seiner im Grunde schlichten und arglosen Persönlichkeit ließ ihn damals und fortan von einer einzigen Frage beherrscht bleiben: wie werde ich ein ehrlicher Philosoph? Ein Philosoph, das hieß für ihn: ein Selbstdenker, ein Mann der sich für alle seine Gedanken und Überzeugungen—über das Feld der Wissenschaft hinaus (Husserl war Mathematiker gewesen)—letzte Rechenschaft zu geben suchte und dem jede unkontrollierte und unbeweisbare Überzeugung wie ein Verlust seiner inneren Glaubwürdigkeit vor sich selber erschien” (Gadamer 1999, p. 152).
“Eine Wunsch und Wille […] zu einem Leben aus einem vollkommen guten Gewissen oder einem Leben, das sein Subjekt vor sich selbst jederzeit und vollkommen zu rechtfertigen vermöchte”. See also Hua VI, p. 17.
As Zahavi (2003, pp. 67–68) points out, Husserl’s ethical motivation for doing philosophy reflects a Socratic-Platonic idea of philosophy.
References
Descartes, R. (1993). Discourse on method and Meditations on first philosophy. D. A. Cress (Trans.). Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1999). Neuere Philosophie I, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Heffernan, G. (2009). On Husserl’s remark that ‘[s]elbst eine sich als apodiktisch ausgebende Evidenz kann sich als Täuschung enthüllen …’ (XVII 164:32–33): Does the phenomenological method yield any epistemic infallibility? Husserl Studies, 25(1), 15–43.
Hua I. Husserl, E. Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973; Cartesian meditations: An introduction to phenomenology. D. Cairns (Trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.
Hua III/I. Husserl, E. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971.
Hua VI. Husserl, E. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976.
Hua VIII. Husserl, E. Erste Philosophie (1923/4). Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959.
Hua IX. Husserl, E. Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968.
Hua XXVII. Husserl, E. Aufsätze und Vorträge. 1922–1937. The Hague: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988.
Hua XXXIV. Husserl, E. Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1926–1935). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002.
Hua XXXV. Husserl, E. Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1922/23. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945/2008). Phenomenology of perception. C. Smith (Trans.). London and New York: Routledge.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968/1992). The visible and the invisible. C. Lefort (Ed.), A. Lingis (Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Ricœur, P. (1996). A key to Husserl’s Ideas I. B. Harris and J. Spurlock (Trans.). Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
Schmid, H. B. (2001). Apodictic evidence. Husserl Studies, 17(3), 217–237.
Zahavi, D. (2003). Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Acknowledgments
Most of this article was written while I was a PhD student at the Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen. I am grateful to Dan Zahavi and Hanne Jacobs for their insightful comments on some of the issues in it. I would also like to thank Steven Crowell and an anonymous referee for a number of helpful comments on the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cai, W. From Adequacy to Apodicticity. Development of the Notion of Reflection in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Husserl Stud 29, 13–27 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-012-9119-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-012-9119-0