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Abstract
Phenomenology has recently come under attack from proponents of speculative realism. In this paper, I present and assess the criticism, and argue that it is either superficial and simplistic or lacks novelty.
Notes
1 One of Rockmore’s (Citation2011, 8) claims is that one should reject the often repeated ‘myth’ that Husserl is the inventor of phenomenology and instead credit Kant as the first true phenomenologist. In fact, Rockmore (Citation2011, 210) even questions whether Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty deserve being classified as phenomenologists. For a critical review of Rockmore’s book, see Zahavi Citation2012a.
2 On previous occasions, I have defended the coherency of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology (see Zahavi Citation1996, Citation2003, Citation2010b), just as I have also argued that there are a number of overarching concerns and common themes that unifies the major figures of classical phenomenology (Zahavi Citation2007, Citation2008). I will not rehearse these arguments here. When discussing the question of whether a philosophical tradition is sufficiently unified to count as a tradition, it might, however, be unwise to adopt such rigid criteria that one ultimately risks proving just about any philosophical tradition out of existence. Were one to accept Sparrow’s approach, it is hard to see how critical theory, hermeneutics, pragmatism or analytic philosophy could survive. Indeed, if consensus concerning a fixed set of methodological tools is a necessary condition for the existence of a research program, hardly any would exist. A somewhat similar remark holds true in the case of individual figures. It is hard to point to any influential thinker in the history of philosophy whose work has not given rise to scholarly disagreements and conflicting interpretations. A purist might insist that such disagreement simply reveals that the thoughts of the philosopher under examination are fundamentally confused and unclear, and that they therefore ought to be rejected. A contrasting and more sensible view would be that any philosophical work worth discussing decades and centuries later has a scope and depth to it that allows for conflicting interpretations and that the continuing critical engagement with the tradition is part of what philosophy is all about. Should one be so unwise as to choose the first option, however, it should be obvious that one cannot then single out a few figures for condemnation, one should at the very least be consistent, and then reject the whole lot: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, etc.
3 Although Meillassoux (Citation2008, 5) is often credited with the coinage of the term, ‘correlationism’ was in fact used and defined much earlier. Here is Beck in Citation1928: ‘“Korrelativismus” soll hier als Terminus dienen zur Bezeichnung eines von Husserl und Dilthey erarbeiteten Standpunktes, der die alten Disjunktionen Idealismus oder Realismus, Subjektivismus oder Objektivismus, Immanenzphilosophie und Phänomenalismus oder Realphilosophie überwunden hat zugunsten der These: Weder existiert eine Welt an sich, unabhängig von einem Bewußtsein von ihr, noch existiert bloß ein Bewußtsein, resp. Bewußtseinssubjekt und nur als des Bewußtseins, resp. Subjekts bloßer Modus (Erlebnis, Funktion oder Inhalt) die Welt. Und: weder erkennen wir die Welt, wie sie an sich, d. i. unabhängig von unserem Bewußtsein ist, noch erkennen wir bloß eine Scheinwelt, jenseits derer die eigentliche, wahre Welt an sich existierte. Die korrelativistische Gegenthese lautet positiv: Bewußtsein und Welt, Subjekt und Objekt, Ich und Welt stehen selbst in einem derartigen korrelativen, d. i. sich gegenseitig bedingenden Seinszusammenhang, daß obige Disjunktionen überhaupt keinen Sinn haben’ (Beck Citation1928, 611). I am indebted to Genki Uemura for this reference.
4 The fact that Kant kept on to the idea of the thing-in-itself was of course an affront to the German Idealists, who saw it as an expression of Kant’s inability to carry through his own revolutionary project. Whereas Kant would claim that things outside of the correlation are nothing to us, Hegel would downgrade the ‘nothing to us’ to a ‘nothing at all’ (Braver Citation2007, 81). Whether Kant’s view commits him to a two-world theory is debated, however. For a recent rejection of this idea, see Allais Citation2004.
5 Some of Harman’s ideas are reminiscent of ideas found elsewhere, namely in phenomenology. Consider, for instance, Merleau-Ponty’s claim that idealism and constructivism deprive the world of its transcendence. Had the former positions been true, had the world really been a mere product of our constitution, the world would have appeared in full transparency, it would only have possessed the meaning we ascribe to it, and would have had no hidden aspects. In truth however, the world is an infinite source of richness, it is mystery and a gift (Merleau-Ponty Citation2012, lxxv, lxxxv). Consider also Levinas’ claim that object-intentionality cannot provide us with an encounter with true otherness. When I study or utilize objects, I am constantly transforming the foreign and different into the familiar and same, thereby making them lose their strangeness. This is also why, according to Levinas, Husserlian phenomenology cannot accommodate and do justice to the transcendence of the other. The other is exactly that which cannot be conceptualized or categorized. Any attempt to grasp or know the other necessarily domesticates and distorts what is ultimately an ineffable and untotalizable exteriority (Levinas Citation1972). It is debatable whether Merleau-Ponty’s criticism of idealism is a criticism of Husserlian idealism, or whether it is rather targeting Kant and French neo-Kantians like Brunschvicg. It is also a matter of dispute whether Levinas’ criticism of Husserl is justified (see Overgaard Citation2003). In either case, however, it is important to realize that the criticism in question is an internal criticism, it is a criticism pre-empted by and developed within phenomenology.
6 Despite being sympathetic to Meillassoux’s criticism of correlationism, Brassier has argued that the former’s focus on ancestrality and on arch-fossils (materials indicating the existence of events anterior to terrestrial life) is unfortunate. To ‘insist that it is only the ancestral dimension that transcends correlational constitution, is to imply that the emergence of consciousness marks some sort of fundamental ontological rupture, shattering the autonomy and consistency of reality, such that once consciousness has emerged on the scene, nothing can pursue an independent existence any more. The danger is that in privileging the arche-fossil as sole paradigm of a mind-independent reality, Meillassoux is ceding too much ground to the correlationism he wishes to destroy’ (Brassier Citation2007, 60).
7 For an in-depth engagement with and criticism of Harman’s Heidegger-interpretation, see Wolfendale Citation2014. For a more well-informed, though in my view still too uncharitable, critical reading of Husserl, see Sebold Citation2014.
8 For a more extensive discussion of the relation between Putnam and Husserl, see Zahavi Citation2004b.
9 For more on the relation between Davidson and Husserl, see Zahavi and Satne Citation2016.
10 In 1922, Moritz Schlick gave a talk where he argued that the general theory of relativity had disconfirmed transcendental philosophy and vindicated empiricist philosophy. This view has found much resonance, but as Ryckman observes in The Reign of Relativity: Philosophy in Physics 1915–1925, it happens to be quite incorrect. The outstanding mathematician Hermann Weyl, who was one of Einstein’s colleagues in Zürich, and who contributed decisively to the interpretation and further development of both the general theory of relativity and the field of quantum mechanics, did not only draw quite extensively on Husserl’s criticism of naturalism, but was also deeply influenced by Husserl’s transcendental idealism (Ryckman Citation2005, 6, 110). Another distinguished physicist heavily influenced by Husserl was the quantum theorist Fritz London (see French Citation2002). Ultimately, one might wonder whether the decisive advances in theoretical physics at the beginning of the twentieth century really leave our standard conception of subjectivity, objectivity and knowledge untouched.
11 Brassier’s assessment points to an important aspect of speculative realism that I have not been able to address: the specific sociological context of its emergence and diffusion. What institutional establishment was it a reaction against, and why did it gain popularity at the time and in the way it did?