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Abstract
When Husserl speaks of the so-called ‘transcendental reduction’ or ‘phenomenological epochē’ many believe that he is eschewing the question of truth or existence. Two reasons are given for this: First, Husserl explicitly states that when we perform the reduction, we should no longer naively ‘accept [the world] as it presents itself to me as factually existing’ (Id I §30, p. 53) and should suspend our judgement with regard to ‘the positing of its actual being’ (Id I §88, p. 182). Second, Husserl seems to have no problem in referring to an ‘object’ of thought even when we refer to non-existent, hallucinatory or indeed impossible objects. This seems to suggest that he is not interested in the question whether or not there is a corresponding ‘ordinary’ object. The paper seeks to question this and will show that his inquiry never loses sight of the questions of truth and existence but rather brings them into the foreground.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the editor of this journal, Rasmus Thybo Jensen, for his helpful comments on this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a research seminar at the University of Sussex.
Notes
1 Notably Michael Dummet, David Bell and readers in general who were influenced by Dagfinn Føllesdal’s interpretation of the ‘noema’ (cf. Føllesdal (Citation1982), Dummet (1994) and Bell (Citation1990)). Although the term reduction and epochē are often used interchangeably strictly speaking the transcendental epochē stands for the actual bracketing of the question of existence whereas the transcendental reduction refers to what remains once the epochē has been performed.
2 Cf. Dummett (Citation1994). Føllesdal, for example, contrasts the noema with the actual (transcendent) object and argues that ‘there is associated with each act a noema, in virtue of which the act is directed toward its object, if it has any’ (Føllesdal, Citation1982, p. 74).
3 The translator of Ideas I, F. Kersten, uses the term ‘positing’ instead of ‘thesis’. However, Husserl refers to a general thesis (Generalthesis) to emphasise that it is a theoretical construct and thus not natural at all. Martin Heidegger’s later criticism that Husserl’s description of the natural attitude is ‘totally unnatural’ (GA 20, §12, p. 156) is thus misplaced. It should not surprise us that Heidegger himself refers to ‘Generalherrschaft des Theoretischen’ (GA56/7 1–117, p. 87) or an ‘ent-leben’ (ibid., p. 91) which distorts the true nature of experience.
4 As Heidegger will later say, we ‘live’ with an understanding of being, even when our attention is not drawn to it. What the reduction seeks to achieve is to make us look exactly at what we tend to overlook but always assume, namely the very understanding of existence.
5 Hume (1978): Book I, Part IV, Section II, p. 187.
6 Hume (1978): Book I, Part IV, Section II, p. 193.
7 Hume (1978) Book I, p. 187.
8 To say ‘[a] transcendent object is not present to consciousness merely because a content rather similar to it simply somehow is in consciousness – [is] a supposition which, fully thought out, reduces to utter nonsense’ (LU II/1 V, Appendix to §§11&20: 423; LI/2, p. 126). Or as Husserl states: ‘I perceive the physical thing, the Object belonging to Nature, the tree there in the garden; and nothing else is the actual Object of the perceptual “intention.” A second immanental tree, or even an “internal image” of the actual tree standing out there before me, is in no way given, and to suppose that hypothetically leads to an absurdity. The image as a really inherent component in the psychologically real perception would be again something real – something real which would function as a depicturing of another something real. But that can only be by virtue of a depicturing consciousness in which something first appears – with which we would have first intentionality – and this would function again in consciousness as a “picture Object” representing another “picture Object” – for which a second intentionality founded in the first intentionality would be necessary’ (Ideas I: §90, p. 186). Cf., for example, LU II/1 V, §21, p. 425; LI/2, p. 127, Husserl (1939), Ergänzende Texte, p. 314 and Husserl (1913): §§43 & 90.
9 As Klaus Held observes: ‘for this negation had the task of supporting abstention from all positions but it could not do so because it was itself an assertion and thus a position’ (Held, Citation2000, p. 43).
10 Husserl emphasises: ‘Naturally one must not identify this consciousness with the consciousness called “mere phantasying”, let us say, that nymphs are performing a round dance. In the latter consciousness, after all, no excluding of a living conviction, which remains alive, takes place. The consciousness of which we are speaking is even further from being a matter of just thinking of something in the sense of “assuming” or presupposing, which in ordinary equivocal language, can also be expressed by “It seems to me (I make the assumption) that such and such is the case”’ (Id I §31, pp. 55–6, emphasis in the original).
11 The concern is similar to the one Barry Stroud raised some 40 years ago in his article on Transcendental Arguments. Stroud attacks the Kantian view that we need to appeal to certain necessary conceptual structures to make knowledge of the world possible on two grounds: The first is the issue of inference to reality. We cannot infer from the fact that we necessarily think in a certain way that this is how things actually are. The second is the issue of universality of inference. All that can be shown is that we happen to think in a certain way; however, this does not allow us to universalise the claim and argue that we all necessarily think in that way. Both problems are interrelated as both arise only as long as we are insensitive to the results of inquiry and are no longer concerned with the question of how things actually are. If we are only concerned with how things inevitably appear to us, we face the problem of universality. We only resolve both problems if we can show how transcendental arguments delineate the order of the world, and not merely of our thinking. It is then that the conclusions would have authority for all thinking and the problem of universality would be solved (cf. Stroud (Citation1982); Alweiss (Citation2005)).
12 The reduction does not turn our attention to the mind as opposed to objects. This conception rests on uncritical ontological claims. Once we have set those aside we recognise our experience of the world for what it is, namely, a correlate of the intentional structure of consciousness just as it is intended without seeking further explanations.
13 Only what is presented to intuition has a right to existence. ‘Every originary giving intuition is a legitimising source [Rechtsquelle] for cognition’ (Id I, §24, trans. slightly altered).
14 ‘Strictly speaking, we have not lost anything’ (Id I: § 50, p. 94).
15 It ‘can be exhibited rather than argumentatively constructed’ (Crisis, p. 181).
16 This leads Husserl to conclude: ‘Had his [Hume’s] sensualism not blinded him to the whole sphere of intentionality of “consciousness of,” … he would not have become the great sceptic, but instead the founder of a truly “positive” theory of reason [i.e. phenomenology LA]’ (Husserl, 1910/11, p. 113).
17 Husserl has thereby shown – to quote Valberg out of context – that if we follow a certain line of reasoning about our experience (which Husserl calls naive or uncritical), we are led to the conclusion that the object of experience is not part of the world…. However, if we are open to our experience, all we find is the world (Valberg, Citation1992, p. 18).
18 There are, however, cases in which a real contestation (Widerstreit) can take place and yet remain unresolved. We only need to recall the essentially ambiguous figures such as the duck-rabbit or the countless examples provided by Escher and L. S. and R. Penrose.
19 In Husserl’s words: the ‘new noematic effect is the “cancellation” of the corresponding posited characteristic, its specific correlate is the cancellation-characteristic, the characteristic of “not” (Id I §105, p. 254 [218], emphasis in the original).
20 Richard Routley (1980) Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond, Departmental Monograph no. 3, Philosophy Department, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, pp. 667–8. Cited by Smith (Citation2002, p. 238).
21 ‘Looking into the stereoscope, we say: this appearing pyramid is “nothing,” is mere “semblance”; What is appearing as appearing is obviously the subject of predication and we ascribe to it (which is a physical thing-noema but not a physical thing) what we find present in itself as characteristic – precisely nullity. Here, as throughout phenomenology, one must have the courage to accept what is really to be seen in the phenomenon precisely as it presents itself rather than interpreting it away’ (Id. §108, p. 257 [221]).
22 Evans (1985, p. 311).
23 This is clearly contrary to a Russellian take. According to Russell’s theory of description it is not possible to make a genuine reference to what does not exist (cf. Russell, Citation1905). However, Husserl shows that in the case of illusions, and for that matter hallucinations, we do refer to an individual particular object. Husserl was seeing a particular lady waving at him until he came to realise that this particular lady did not actually exist. Even though she did not exist, there is a demonstrative reference. For a more detailed analysis see Alweiss (Citation2009).
24 The strength of Husserl’s position is that he is able to provide an account of hallucinations and illusions without endorsing a representational conception of perception or advocating an ontology of non-existence. More importantly, by making room for non-existent objects he provides a dynamic view of reference. He is able to account for how we experience truth. How experience can appear to go beyond itself and reach an object, yet actually fail to do so, either because the object appears different to the way it actually is or because the object does not actually exist. To use Husserl’s terminology: it allows us to account for how some intentional objects find fulfilment or can be authenticated in thought, whereas others cannot.
25 ‘For all intentional variants [are, LA] grounded in the essence of protodoxa’ (Id I, §104, p. 252 [217]).
26 In this paper I have not discussed how phenomenology accounts for phantasised or impossible objects. However, Husserl will maintain the same stance in so far as he will equally assert that they need to be understood as a modality of existence. For a detailed discussion see Alweiss (Citation2010).