Finding the Noema

Abstract

Edmund Husserl was notable for his insistence that the primary work of the philosopher was finding things. Most importantly, the philosopher has the task of finding the “things” that philosophers themselves talk about, in order to see if they really are as represented in philosophical discussions. The recommended flight to the “things themselves,” for which Husserl became famous, is precisely a flight originating from how those things had come to be represented. Once this flight is accomplished, we then have the task of clearing up terminology to fit things as they are. Only so can the intersubjectivity that characterizes scientific work be achieved. As we do our philosophical work we cannot be forever staring at essences. We want to think as well, and to interact with each other about our subject matter. Thus:

In phenomenology, which aims to be nothing else than essence theory confined to pure intuition, we accordingly carry out direct intuitions of the essences given within samples of transcendentally pure consciousness, and we fix those intuitions conceptually, that is, terminologically. Science is possible only where results of thought are retainable in the form of knowledge and are available to further thinking in the form of a system of assertions: assertions which are intelligible as to logical sense, but can be actualized without the clarity of underlying presentations, and thus without insight and in the manner of the [mere] judgment.... To this end it is necessary that words and sentences which are identical be univocally tied to certain intuitively graspable essences that make up their ‘fulfilling sense.’¹