On Husserl’s so-called Reduction to the Real Component (Reduktion auf den reellen Bestand)

ABSTRACT

As Dieter Lohmar (2002; 2012) has shown, in the Logical Investigation Husserl sketches a peculiar type of reduction, the so-called “Reduktion auf den reellen Bestand.” Husserl does not explicitly put this kind of reduction forward, though, and he does definitely not clarify how it works, and what its elements properly are. Lohmar proposes to understand it as a kind of empiricist reduction to mere sense-data. On the contrary, I believe that it should be considered as entailing also the apprehensional forms of sense-data, though not the so-called apprehensional senses. In this article, I will offer some arguments and textual evidence in favour of this claim, and I will conclude by proposing that, despite Husserl’s unclarity on the issue, the reduction to the real components of experience, rather than being simply an ancestor of the transcendental-phenomenological reduction, should be seen as the regulative model of all later forms of reduction.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For the German word “Bestand”, especially in the meaning it assumes within the context of the present investigation, seems to have no appropriate direct translation into English. In Husserl 2001b (p. 99), it has been translated as “make-up”. I find this translation problematic, in as much as it suggests that it has something to do with “making.” This nuance is fully absent in the German “Bestand.” “Stock” may be a much better translation, because it gives a better sense of the (non-countable) presence of a quantity. However, although its connections to ‘supplying’ could render it an acceptable translation, its association with finance and the idea of something which can be exchanged would be misleading. Another good option would be “constituent”, but I surmise the full expression “real constituents” would incline one to understand this phrase to refer to the only pieces of intentional states that are actually responsible for the constitution of intentional states and objectual reference. This view could even be considered as correct, but I believe the matter should be left unprejudiced as far as the mere translation of the term “Bestand” is concerned. Therefore, I opt for the expression “component”: it seems to refer to a piece of something, besides other pieces, and is quite naturally connected with the idea of “elements.” This latter term would also be quite appropriate, and I will sometimes use it over the course of this article. However, I prefer to use “component” as the translation term for “Bestand” because it emphasises that which is referred to is normally a piece of a larger whole, and that it somehow “works” with them. I thus follow Ricoeur’s translation of the same term in the Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy. With respect to the word 'reell', used both as an adjective and as an adverb, the translation is also problematic. In the Logical Investigations, Husserl uses two terms that, at least prima facie, would both have to be translated as 'real/really'. However, "reell" is used by Husserl to denote the part of the intentional experiences that is actually, concretely, within experiences themselves, that is situated in and properly immanent to the experience in which something is intended or meant, or, as we could also say, in which something manifests itself. "Real", on the other hand, indicates that which is understood in an intentional experience and possibly also presented or represented, but which is not exhausted in the very experience in which it manifests itself, and remains a kind of transcendence in the manifestation itself. For “reell,”, a possible translation could be "actual", but this term has an immediate connection with the idea of potentiality as its opposite, and this connection seems absent in the German “reell” - at least as used by Husserl. I have, therefore, chosen to follow the translation suggested by Cairns 1973, p. 94. Moreover, within this article the term “real” will never be used in the sense of the German (Husserlian) “real”. I thank the editors of JBSP for inviting me to add these terminological explanations, and I express my gratitude to Richard Stone's aid in both linguistically revising this paper and in discussing these and other terminological options with me.

2 All translations of Lohmar’s texts are mine.

3 The English translation of the Logical Investigations has mostly translated Auffassung and auffassen as interpretation and interpreting. The translation, though not incorrect, can be at times misleading, because it seems mainly to hint at acts that refer to some sphere of “linguistic” or, more broadly, “symbolic” meanings. For this reason, I prefer to use the term “apprehension” and cognates.

4 The clarification of the difference between apprehension and apprehensional sense is one of the tasks I will try to carry out during the following paragraphs. Tentatively, we can point out that Auffassungssinn is just another expression for what Husserl calls Aktmaterie, i.e., the way that an object is given in an intentional experience, while the Auffassung is the moment of an intentional experience which articulates sensory contents so that they are “seen” as pertaining to an object. Correspondingly, Auffassungsform should be understood as the pattern or order a way of apprehending sensory data or contents follows.

5 It goes without saying that Husserl’s later works (especially Husserl 1966a, Husserl 1966b, Husserl 1973, Husserl 1980, Husserl 2001) offer quite a bit more material for appropriately detailed analyses of the pre-predicative, and even pre-intentional, articulation of sensory material. I also consider the works of later phenomenologists, such as Gurwitsch 1957 and Merleau-Ponty 1945, not to mention the abundant works carried out in psychology and cognitive sciences during the past decades, to be much more appropriate sources for detailed and itemised analyses of the diverse “cognitive” operations carried out by subjects to get the world into view. In this regard, Husserl’s reflections in the Logical Investigations should not so much be considered for the contribution they offer to the description of such operations, but rather for the way they frame them within an overall epistemological framework. Indeed, I believe that the Logical Investigations play a pivotal role for understanding the proper meaning and role of all following analyses of this dimension of experience within the overall task of phenomenology as Erkenntnislehre. It is specifically in the Logical Investigations that the purpose of a possible reduction to the “real components” of experience can more clearly emerge as a kind of verificationist gist of all Husserl’s inexhaustible workings with the issue of reduction. In this regard, for a confrontation between Husserl’s and Carnap’s “verificationisms”, see Stone 2006, Vrahimis 2011, and Farges, Fournier, Pradelle 2022. In order to dispel the worries of an anonymous reviewer, I would also like to add that the present article does not stem from any personal desire to correct Lohmar’s understanding of the Reduktion zum reellen Bestand for the mere sake of correcting it. Rather, I believe that correcting Lohmar’s view is essential to fully appreciate, and in the future hopefully develop, an underestimated potentiality of Husserl’s reductions for well-refined full-fledged versions of “phenomenological” verificationism. Obviously enough, this development can reasonably not be expected to be achieved within the limits of this article, by which I would only like to free and to pave the ground for it. I sincerely thank said anonymous reviewer for allowing me to make this point explicit and clear.

6 One could, for instance, think of the Weltvernichtung addressed in the Ideas, and understand it as corresponding to some kind of meditative state, or to an experience of vertigo. We will come back to this possibility in a moment: see footnote 8.

7 What I mean here is that we should reduce our analyses of “purely” perceptual contents to a layer that excludes their classification from belonging to not only artificial kinds, but also to natural kinds which stretch beyond “purely” gestaltic or geometrico-morphological features.

8 For more information on this passage and the “empiriocritical” origins of such ideas, see Sommer 1985, particularly pp. 239ff. See also Summa 2009, especially Section I, Chapter II. It should be noted that, if conceived in its strictest form, by denying the apriority of the spatial form, the hypothesis of the nullification of the world corresponds with an absolute lack of orientation, because it should no longer be possible even to differentiate, or at least order, places and positions. One would be in a situation quite similar to the whirlpool Descartes asserts to find himself in at the beginning of the second meditation: see Descartes 1996, p. 16.

9 And, according to Lohmar, also to an object instead of another: see Lohmar 2012, pp. 10-11, 14.

10 “Wenn man nun die reellen Bestände in so enger Weise als “buchstabliches Kriterium” des Rechtes einer Gegenstandssetzung (Materie) nimmt, dann wird kaum ein gegenstand vor diesem Kriterium bestehen können”. (Lohmar 2002, p. 758)

11 “[M]an [muss] sagen […], daß der ausschließliche Ansatz bei den reellen Beständen zu radikal ist, d.h. daß nach der Ausklammerung der Materie eine vergleichende Analyse des Rechtes der inhaltlichen Gegenstandssetzung nicht mehr möglich ist. Eine ausschließliche Beschränkung auf die reellen Bestände klammert sozusagen die Materie und die Qualität ein. Die Ausklammerung der Materie wäre aber aus den genannten Gründen unsinnig.” (Lohmar 2002, p. 761)

12 “Für die reell phänomenologische Betrachtung ist die Gegenständlichkeit selbst nichts.‘‘ (Hua XIX, 427). This passage is quoted also by Lohmar (2012, p. 13), and he points out that it is equally present in the first and in the second edition of the work. However, Lohmar then adds: “Auch in dieser Hinsicht ist die 1. Auflage, einseitig noetisch‘ (vgl. Hua III/1, 217, 298).” As I will argue in the following paragraphs, I do not think we should consider this kind of self-criticism by Husserl as a decision to enlarge the field of the real components, but rather as a suggestion to consider more carefully the noematic side of acts, both by paying attention to its spatio-temporal horizon, and by distinguishing its inner articulation around a noematic core. As a matter of fact, since in the Logical Investigation this articulation is basically absent, and we only have the act-matter as a kind of monolithic whole, it is difficult to have a Rechtsprüfung that is really able to account for its internal complexity. Still, even in the Logical Investigations the brief discussion of sensuous perceptual acts as monothetic, but with an internal sequence of partial acts, allows for a less rigid and monolithic account.

13 Also in this regard, the switch from act-matter to noema and noematic core is in the first place of fundamental importance to adequately account for the fact that the givenness of the object occurs through a plurality of adumbrations.

14 This is clearly a very rough way to portray perceptual episodes and their relationships with perceptual beliefs. A much finer analysis of each state, and of their relationships cannot be provided here. For our aims, it is enough to understand which components of one’s doxastic state are asked to legitimate their intentional contents.

15 We should consider that the distinction between real and intentional components is still present in Ideas I and it still plays a crucial role to understand the legitimacy of our knowledge claims: see Husserl 2014, §§36, 88ff.

16 Cf. Rizzoli 2008, p.42. Melle also recognises that the Auffassungsleistungen are reelle parts of the experiences: cf. Melle 1983, p.43.

17 Hopp (2008) and Williford 2013 have both paid close attention to the difference between sensations and interpretation, and my view is largely in agreement with them. However, my proposal is slightly different from theirs, in as much as I would try to consider, within the phenomenological sphere we obtain through the phenomenological reduction, sensations as something objective and interpretations as the subjective part that the given sensations can effectively sustain or not. As a matter of fact, the risk to fall into a kind of “Berkleyanism”, according to which the transcendent would be built on the basis of something immanent, namely sensations, has poignantly been pointed out by Asemissen 1957. Partially following Asemissen’s warning, Vittorio De Palma has repeatedly argued against an idealistic understanding of Husserl, and plead for a more empiricist understanding of his work, according to which, however, sensations should not be understood as something immanent: see De Palma 2005, 2012, 2015. In this regard, I believe that the view I am proposing here is quite in agreement with Seron’s understanding of a phenomenological reellism: see Seron 2003. To be true, Seron asserts that the Logical Investigations, contrary to the general view, are more idealistic than later works, because a fundamental importance is given to the noetico-hyletic side of experience, while not recognizing the “reality” of immanent description (cf. Seron 2003, pp. 269-274). However, if my proposal is correct, one could claim that the acknowledgment of sensory data as one of our verificationist bedrocks, and the consideration of them as the objective part of it, can support the kind of reellism advocated by Seron himself.