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Phenomenology: Vigorous or moribund?

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Notes

  1. James M.Edie, “Phenomenology in America, 1984,” Research in Phenomenology XIV (1984), 322–246. Cf. also Gary Madison, “Contemporary Status of Continental Philosophy in Canada: A Narrative,” presented to the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, 23rd Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 18–20 October 1984; Hugh Silverman, “The Continental Face of Philosophy in America,” Philosophy Today XXVII (1983), 275–280; Don Ihde, “Phenomenology in America,” in his Consequences of Phenomenology (Albany: State University of New York, 1986), 1–26.

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  2. EdmundHusserl, Logical Investigations (hereafter cited as L.I.), trans. J.N. Findlay (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), 256 (Hua XIX/1, 16–17).

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  3. There is of course a tradition of such efforts, which will doubtless be carried on on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Husserl's death to be commemorated in sessions at the 1988 World Congress of Philosophy in Bristol. Cf., e.g., Mauric Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), i, and Pierre Thévenaz, What is Phenomenology?, ed. James M. Edie (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1962).

  4. Cf. HubertDreyfus, ed., Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982).

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  5. Cf. L.Koŀakowski, Husserl and the search for Certitude (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975).

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  6. Cf. RichardSchmitt, “Phenomenology,” in P.A.Edwards, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1967) Vol. VI, 135–151.

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  7. Cf. MoritzSchlick, “Is There A Factual A Priori?” in H.Feigl and W.Sellars, Readings in Philosophical Analysis (New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1949), 277–285.

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  8. Cf. RobertSokolowski, Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974).

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  9. Cf. Henry Pietersma, “Husserl's Views on the Evident and the True,” in Frederick Elliston and Peter McCormick, eds., Husserl: Expositions and Appraisals (University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 38–53.

  10. Cf. Richard Schmitt, op.cit.

  11. Husserl occasionally inveighs against his superficial critics, among whom he numbered MoritzSchlick. Cf., e.g., Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book (here-after cited as Ideas), trans. F. Kersten (The Hague, Boston, Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers; 1983), 40–41 (Hua III/1, 48f.).

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  12. It is most fully described in Ideas I, para. 27–30 (Hua III/1, 56–61).

  13. Cf. L.I., 42 (Hua XVIII, 7).

  14. Edmund Husserl, “Author's Preface to the English Edition of Ideas,” in F. Elliston and P. McCormick, Husserl: Shorter Works (University of Notre Dame/Harvester Press, 1981), 43–53, 48.

  15. Ideas I, 63 (Hua III/1, 67). The italics here and in subsequent quotations are Husserl's.

  16. Ibid., 64 (Hua III/1, 67).

  17. Ibid., 65 (Hua III/1, 68).

  18. Cf. RobertSokolowski, Presence and Absence: A Philosophical Investigation of Language and Being (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 138.

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  19. Cf. L.I., 207 (Hua XVIII, 208–209).

  20. Ibid., 193 (Hua XVIII, 191).

  21. Ibid., 217 (Hua XVIII, 220).

  22. E.g., that it is a “pseudo-problem bred by unclarity” (L.I., 218 [Hua XVIII, 221]); that the distinction between the ideal (truth) and the real is not a genuine distinction (cf. L.I., 225 [Hua XVIII, 230]).

  23. Cf. A.deWaelhens, Phénoménologie et vérité (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953), 55–57.

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  24. Cf. AlfredSchutz, “Type and Eidos in Husserl's Late Phenomenology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XX (1959–60), 147–165.

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  25. This was first urged by D.M. Levin in “Induction and Husserl's Theory of Eidetic Variation,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XXIX (1968), 1–15. Cf. also his Reason and Evidence in Husserl's Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970).

  26. Cf. JamesPalermo, “Apodictic Truth: Husserl's Eidetic Reduction versus Induction,” Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic XIX (1978), 69–80.

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  27. Cf., e.g., T.W.Adorno, Against Epistemology: A Meta-critique. Studies in Husserl and the Phenomenological Antinomies, trans. Willis Domingo (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1983).

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  28. L.I., 254 (Hua XIX/1, 14).

  29. Ibid., 255 (Hua XIX/1, 14).

  30. Cf. EugenFink, “The Phenomenological Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Contemporary Criticism,” in R.O.Elveton, ed., The Phenomenology of Husserl: Selected Critical Readings (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), 73–147.

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  31. Cf. NathanRotenstreich, “Variations of Transcendentalism,” in Kah KyungCho, ed., Philosophy and Science in Phenomenological Perspective (Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1984), 171–181.

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  32. L.I., 251 (Hua XIX/1, 9).

  33. Cf. ibid., 207 (Hua XVIII, 208–209).

  34. J.N.Mohanty favours this sense. Cf. his The Possibility of Transcendental Philosophy (Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985), 244.

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  35. Cf., e.g., Schlick, op.cit.

  36. Cf. GilbertRyle, “Review of Marvin Farber, The Foundation of Phenomenology,” Philosophy XXI (1946), 263–69.

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  37. Cf. introduction to E.Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, trans. W.P. Alston and G. Nakhnikian (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1964), xxi.

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  38. Cf. David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre, “Intentionality via Intension,” The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971), 541f.

  39. This is not to deny altogether that Husserl is not used at times to serve “transcendental” interests. For example, our contemporaries are much exercized with intentionality and one might take a concern with intentionality to be eo ipso a transcendental interest. Secondly, although we Anglophones seem genetically determined to dismiss the second sense of transcendental, the sense having to do with the notion of “pure” consciousness, the use to which Husserl is being put as a progenitor of cognitive science suggests that something of that very traditional and controversial sense of “transcendental” is still with us. Perhaps Fodor's model of mind, given his clear sense of its limitations, does in the end come down to being an “as if” transcendentalism of a decidedly Husserlian stamp. Cf. Dreyfus, op.cit., 15–17 and, in that same collection, Jerry Fodor, “Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy in Cognitive Psychology,” 277–303.

  40. Cf. L.I., 232 (Hua XVIII, 238–239).

  41. Cf. Mohanty, op.cit., particularly the introduction and the thirteenth essay.

  42. Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, 18 (Hua II, 23).

  43. Cf. e.g., WolfeMays, “Genetic Analysis and Experience: Husserl and Piaget,” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology VIII (1977), 51–55. For the counter-position cf. Christopher McCann, “Genetic Production and Transcendental Reduction,” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology II (1971), 28–34.

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  44. Cf. EdmundHusserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1960), 76–77 (Hua I, 110–111).

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  45. Cf., e.g., Ideas I, 22 (Hua III/1, 27–28).

  46. Cf., e.g., J.D.Caputo, “Husserl, Heidegger and the Question of a ‘Hermeneutic’ Phenomenology,” Husserl Studies 1 (1984), 157–178; and H.P. Reeder, “A Phenomenological Account of the Linguistic Mediation of the Public and the Private,” ibid., 263–280.

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  47. Cf. L.I., 246 (Hua XVIII, 257).

  48. It is clear though that he recognized and was concerned about this possibility. Cf. L.I., 255 (Hua XIX/1, 15).

  49. L.I., 46 (Hua XVIII, 11).

  50. Cf. ibid., 262 (Hua XIX/1, 22–23).

  51. Op.cit.

  52. Cf. my “Schlick's Critique of Phenomenological Propositions,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XLV (1984) 195–225.

  53. Cf. L.I. 466–467 (Hua XIX/1, 270–272).

  54. Cf. Koŀakowski, op.cit., 69 and 81.

  55. Cf. L.I., 528 (Hua XIX/1, 350).

  56. Cf. ibid., 263 (Hua XIX/1, 24–25).

  57. Ibid., 322 (Hua XIX/1, 97).

  58. Ideas I, 179 (Hua III/1, 167).

  59. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, 111 (Hua I, 141).

  60. EdmundHusserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1969) 215 (Hua XVII, 223). (Hereafter cited as FTL.)

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  61. EdmundHusserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970) 245 (Hua VI, 248).

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  62. Cf., e.g., L.I., 463 (Hua XIX/1, 267) where Husserl gives deductive proofs of propositions “familiar to us in another guise.” We have to allow for the possibility that both — a) a proposition is what it is (i.e., phenomenological) in part because of the method which produced it and, b) identical propositions might be produced by different methods — are true.

  63. Cf., e.g., the sentence beginning with “Vague expressions have no single meaning content ...” and the following sentence from L.I., 320 (Hua XIX/1, 93).

  64. FTL, 159–160 (Hua XVII, 158).

  65. Cf. L.I., 263 (Hua XIX/1, 25).

  66. Ibid., 481 (Hua XIX/1, 290–291).

  67. Ibid., 263 (Hua XIX/1, 25).

  68. Cf. L.I., 472–476 (Hua XIX/1, 279–283).

  69. 161 (Hua XVII, 169).

  70. Cf. Pietersma, op.cit.

  71. Cf. Schmitt, op.cit.

  72. Ideas I, 188 (Hua III/1, 176). Cf. also L.I., 262 (Hua XIX/1, 23).

  73. Cf. MoritzSchlick, “Is There Intuitive Knowledge?,” Philosophical Papers, I, ed. H.L.Mulder and B.F.B.Van deVelde-Schlick, trans. Peter Heath (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), 141–152.

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  74. L.I., 388 (Hua XIX/1, 172–173).

  75. Cf. Ideas I, Author's Footnote 18, 188 (Hua III/1, 176, Footnote 1).

  76. Cf. David Michael Levin, Reason and Evidence in Husserl's Phenomenology.

  77. Cf. J.N. Mohanty, “Towards a Phenomenology of Self-Evidence,” in op.cit., 83–100.

  78. Cf. L.I., 120 (Hua XVIII, 99).

  79. L.I., 139 (Hua XVIII, 123).

  80. (This occurs also in the Prolegomena, but I have been unable to relocate the passage.)

  81. Ibid., 329, 330 (Hua XIX/1, 105).

  82. Ibid., 233 (Hua XVIII, 210).

  83. Cf. ibid., 192 (Hua XVIII, 190).

  84. Cf. ibid., 340 (Hua XIX/1, 114–115).

  85. Cf., e.g., ibid., 338 (Hua XIX/1, 112).

  86. In this he resembles some of the proponents of the “justified true belief” notion.

  87. Cf. L.I., 523 (Hua XIX/1, 344). Cf. my “Schlick's Critique of Phenomenological Propositions.”

  88. Cf. op.cit., 242–243.

  89. FTL, 156 (Hua 140).

  90. Op.cit.

  91. Cf. Eugen Fink, op.cit. (Husserl fully endorsed Fink's article).

  92. Cf. his “The Three Ways to Phenomenological Reduction in the Philosophy of Edmund Husserl,” in F. Elliston and P. McCormick, Husserl: Expositions and Appraisals, 126–149.

  93. Cf. KarlSchuhmann, Die Fundamentalbetrachtung der Phänomenologie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1971), xxviii-xxxvii.

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  94. Cf. my “Husserl and the Need for Other Persons,” in Man and Value: Essays in Honour of William H. Werkmeister, ed. E.F. Kaelin et al. (Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1951), 84–96.

  95. Cf. Mohanty, op.cit., xiii-xxxii. He opposes D.Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 17 (1973–74), 5–20.

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  96. Cf. Mohanty, op.cit., 161ff., and J.C.EvansJr., The Metaphysics of Transcendental Subjectivity: Descartes, Kant and W. Sellars (Amsterdam: Verlag B.R. Gruener, 1984).

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  97. L.I., 765 (Hua XIX/2, 651–652).

  98. Ibid., 766 (Hua XIX/2, 652).

  99. Cf. op.cit.

  100. Cf. Schlick, “Is There a Factual A Priori?”.

  101. Cf. Ideas I, 142 (Hua III/1, 133).

  102. “Preface to the English Edition of Ideas,” 49.

  103. This was Russell's opinion. Cf. HerbertSpiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1965), 93 n. 1.

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  104. Some of his critics' vices are catalogued in “Preface to the English Edition of Ideas.” The insinuation of intellectual dishonesty infuses the polemic with Schlick.

  105. Cf. L.I., 166–168 (Hua XVIII, 156).

  106. Cf. Husserl, “Phenomenology” (Encyclopedia Britannica article) in Husserl: Shorter Works, 21–35, 35.

  107. Cf., e.g., MauritaHarney, Intentionality, Sense and the Mind (The Hague, Boston, Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1984) and J.N. Mohanty, Husserl and Frege (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1982). (It is not meant, by citing these books as cases of “typical” Husserl scholarship, to in any way suggest that they are not of considerable interest and merit.)

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  108. Cf. Dreyfus, op.cit.

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    M. M. Van De Pitte

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Van De Pitte, M.M. Phenomenology: Vigorous or moribund?. Husserl Studies 5, 3–39 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00347547

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